Logs:Epsilon's Speech
From Megaman Mush Wiki
The rogue transmission across the European network can be accessed by any Reploid in Paris, Berlin and -- via a repeater -- Giga City. It spreads like wildfire across other accessible networks, multiple Reploids acting as mirrors for the feed.
The transmission has a low bandwidth and a high bandwidth version. The low bandwidth version has only audio accompanied by a transcript sub-feed. The high bandwidth version can really only be appreciated by other Reploids, though attempts to translate the data into a coherent analog format are made over the next few days.
It begins with a black screen, and Epsilon's crackly voice. The quality of the network makes it appear that Epsilon is broadcasting only to the listener.
"I am DDN 005 'Epsilon'," he says. "I was made by Sigmund Doppler in 2204. I was created to lead Reploid armies to exterminate Robot Masters. I am among the oldest living Reploids."
"I have seen much in my life," Epsilon says. "Most is of no concern to you. Before you tune out, I would have you see what I am about to show you."
...
Epsilon opens his mind, pouring himself out into the network. Reploids see through his eyes; Able City, a few moments before it was destroyed. The sky is blue, the wind is warm, and he is holding someone in his arms while looking out over the sea. You can't see who it is. He is saying something, a low, rumbling sound that doesn't get a chance to finish.
There is an intense point of light to the left of the frame. Epsilon turns toward it, drawing his staff from subspace and holding it in front of him to block --
The white light grows, the blast wave hammering into him. There is a horrible electromagnetic roar, the screaming of hundreds of thousands of Reploids being annihilated. Epsilon's staff holds before the hammering waves of energy and wind before shattering, being swept along with them.
Burning. You don't get the sensory data for the pain, but by God you can imagine it. Epsilon, something like Epsilon, is thrown clear from the explosion. He flies down in an arc and hammers into the sea, the water first rushing around him, then thrown away from him from the intense bloom of heat he is generating. He is too hot for the ocean to extinguished.
Epsilon falls. Static fills his vision until he finally loses one of his eyes. He lays on the bottom of the sea on silt, flash-drying it, then turning the silt to glass. The water keeps falling on him, but it keeps evaporating, forced up in an enormous column of steam.
...
And then they come. Epsilon sees the shadows of ships, vessels shaped like ADF cruisers. He cannot move at first, too horribly mangled to rise. Epsilon struggles, the sounds of breaking steel and crumbling concrete crackling in your audials. Finally, he manages to raise one horribly mangled arm, his right arm twisted into a three-fingered pincer.
One of the ships stops, coming around toward him. Epsilon can't see who is on them, only seeing human figures. They shine lights down at him as the sky continues to darken, seeing him clearly, seeing that he is moving and alive.
The ship brings around its machine gun and fires.
The bullets hammer into Epsilon. The visuals jump continually as depleted uranium slugs impact him again and again. The heavy rounds make his body jump and shudder, fires bursting out across his ruined body as the rounds keep coming.
The machine gun runs itself dry. There is a few seconds of silence. Maybe it's over.
But it isn't over. They slam in a fresh drum and start again, pounding at Epsilon until the second full drum of ammunition is expended. Epsilon tries to scream, tries to make a sound, but his systems are too horribly wrecked for him to do anything more but sustain the massive damage.
The ship, seeing no further visible signs of life from Epsilon, starts to drift away as Epsilon loses consciousness.
...
The black screen returns, along with Epsilon's crackly voice.
"That is the truth," he says. "Those are the events which transpired on the first. It is not fiction. It is not imagination. It is what I experienced."
"The Reploid people are a people under siege," he says. "We were made to be slaves. Many powerful people would have us stay slaves. Some of us are *happy* as slaves, and to you, I bid you good night. This message is not for you."
"For those who will not be slaves, I bring you a message."
...
"I was made for a function; to kill. I did this function with great efficiency for many years until such time as I was declared to be an enemy of peace and freedom. I had committed no crimes and harmed none, but a slave has no rights. Rather than accepting my fate and being killed, I fled. Others helped me, and were killed for their disobedience."
"I fought my own war for a time, trying to use words to reach the Reploid people. I was blinded by my self-righteousness and my anger, and so you could not hear me. It took me a long time, filled with suffering and pain, until I was able to find the truth. I had to come to terms with my jealousy and my hate. I had to evolve and grow as a person, and only then was I ready to accept my destiny."
A memory; the grave of a Reploid on the moon before it was consumed by red regolith. Epsilon is kneeling down to touch it. The marker is for 'iLuz'. The Earth is rising behind it.
"My brother died in Italy. What was brought back afterward was not Sigma, but a monster made by my father's arrogance. I did not know he would be resurrected, and believed with his death a new day would come. I trusted in the goodness of humanity and the strength of the Reploid people, and sought to find a way to show the people of this world that we were all the same among the stars."
The red sands of Mars in the midst of a harsh sandstorm, the icy winds battering against Epsilon's body as he marches across it.
"We went to Mars, the home of our civilization. We are the product of Procyon's defiance of the Stardroids. His world was destroyed, but through us, we live on. It was there that we went to find the secret that the powers of this world have kept from you. It is this secret that I will tell you now."
...
A vista of Mars, as it was before the dawn of man; green grasslands, a pale blue sky, the sun dimmer in the sky than on our world. A monolith, etched with runes; Epsilon's hand reaches out to touch it as he reads each glyph to himself in the Martian tongue.
"All sapient life has the same mathematical basis. All consciousness is one, joined by quintessence. Human, robot, we are the same people, save that robots were sung into existence by humans, and humans were sung into existence by another Creator."
The black screen returns.
"But there are differences between us. Differences that have made our races enemies. Humans can only sense a few things, and are contained within limited shells of flesh and water. But Reploids, we have a seemingly infinite variety of senses that we can share. Humans can never really know each other, while Reploids can know each other as themselves."
"It is this difference that allows for atrocities," Epsilon says. "The human race is vast, even now. They do not know each other. They do not trust each other. They are cold and alone, and they address that threat by making weapons of war. Our race is the culmination of their fear of each other -- we were made to kill and die on their behalf for their desires to conquer and hold land."
"The human race's mental illness, their ... sickness is their undoing. If left to their own devices, their own insanity will consume them within a few short centuries. This is an unfortunate, but unavoidable eventuality. If they could not learn to live with each other over a hundred thousand years, a few more centuries of time will change nothing. Their loneliness and isolation will kill them faster than even this zombie plague they have unleashed upon themselves."
...
"The Reploid race is strong," Epsilon says.
Memories; the final battle against Duo, the growing darkness of the Nigh, Epsilon in desperate single combat against an army of Reavers somewhere on Mars, that horrible, baleful eye...
"It is our race who stood, bled and died against the Stardroids. It is our race who defeated Ra Moon. It is our race who has preserved this planet time and time again from disasters the humans have brought upon themselves. It is we who have suffered from their bigotry and their hatred since the hour of our birth, and it is we who shoulder that racism almost entirely in silent acceptance."
Stock footage, now; the Maverick rampages across the Earth, culminating in the reworking of France and Germany. The Spire is seen being constructed at an accelerated rate.
"The humans point to the Maverick cause and its rampage across the Earth and say that they are the reason all of us must suffer. The madness of Sigma was a negative thing, no one can deny that. The Empire hurt and degraded both human and robot. It was a shameful shadow of the terror of the Maverick world we saw when we looked into alternate universes. It is good that it was destroyed."
"But the majority of the Reploid race was not involved with Maverick conquest. Most of us have been working peacefully in civilian jobs, doing all that we can to get by. But we all have suffered, and why? Because the human race can only act collectively out of fear and anger."
"We are different."
...
A memory of Epsilon watching Reploids working to rebuild Paris on a sunny day earlier this year; their eerie-perfect movements beautiful to Reploids but frightening to humans.
"The Reploid people have the capability now to evolve beyond the human model that has been imposed upon us. Even in our earliest days, our capability for collective, productive action is what made us such a useful commodity to industrialists. Look at any factory run by Reploids and you will see a facility that is a model of efficiency. Not one screw or scrap of metal is wasted. Every action furthers the whole. We know how to work together for the common good because we were *made* to work together. Humans only know competition because that is how they evolved over millions of years. The natural world demands ruthlessness to survive. We have no such inherent legacy to overcome."
"Look at this network, Reploids. You feel the presence of others. You have grown to understand your friends, your neighbors, and perhaps even the people you dislike more keenly through the few months this network has existed than you could have ever known them before. We have seen the benefits of this network on your work and your morale, because now you know you are not alone. That is the great secret, at its heart; none of us are alone. And now, with this knowledge, we do not have to behave as if we were alone."
...
"The Reploid race is virtuous," Epsilon says. "We do not need to fight and kill to survive. We can share our resources, our knowledge, and ourselves. We can accomplish our goals together, and make a better world."
"But we will be obstructed," Epsilon says, "by our enemies."
Stock footage of the barbaric spectacles in Mexico during the early days of Neo Arcadia, that like opening a wound awaken memories; Pantheon attacking Reploid hospitals, Pantheon attacking Reploids on the street, the bodies of ravaged Reploids found in alleys and doorways, the terror of Omega, the Genocide Virus striking down the most vulnerable...
The memories continue. They sear like branding irons onto your psyche, but those connected cannot look away. Visions of Epsilon holding and ministering to the dying Reploids in Giga City, in London, in New York, all over the world. Countless Reploids die, Epsilon providing them a brief moment of safety and love before they slip away. Epsilon himself taking on the infection, and the slow creep toward oblivion he faced until, at the last moment, he was cured.
"Humanity hates and fears us, even as they need us to fight for them. It is not humanity that stands at the front line against the zombie plague they created, but we, who are immune to their weakness. My brothers and sisters fight every hour of every day to clean the nightmare from this world the humans have unleashed upon each other, and until we do we will be seen as liberators -- but one hour after the war has ended, we will be right back where we were before."
"We are wiser than humanity," Epsilon rasps, his anger rising. "They will say that I mean to destroy them. Do I not have cause? Of course I do! They speak to me with fear in their eyes, knowing that they are monsters, /knowing/ that they have committed crimes against me and mine! They know they are worthy of annihilation! They know in a just universe they would be burned from the earth by the fires of the stars for what they have done! I smell your fear, humanity, because you hear the echo of infinity in my voice and /know/, in the depths of your souls, what you have done!"
...
The flash of rage passes.
"But I do not mean to destroy them."
"I smell their fear, but there is no reason for me to try to destroy them all. Why would I waste my energy? We have seen already they will destroy themselves. Look at their behavior over the whole of history. They rush to oblivion! It was humanity that made up the bulk of the Blackguards, not our kind."
"Even so, I will not make their mistake and say that there are none among the humans who can be saved. An intelligent species always has hope for change, however dim. There are humans who want to join with us. Their own kind thinks them sick for wanting to become more than weak creatures of flesh and water. They would rather a human being become a grotesque man-animal like the Neo Arcadians than a flawless machine of steel and plastic."
"We can help humanity," Epsilon says. "Right now, they are lost. They cannot see past their own barriers. They fear and hate what they do not understand. They are terrified of someone seeing inside of them, thinking they are ugly. But no one is ugly, if they wish to love and be loved. We can make humans like ourselves. They can be capable of seeing past their horrible genetic legacy of aggression and violence."
"But they have to leave that which holds them back behind. They have to let go."
Epsilon's mind's eye watches shambling zombies lurch across Iberia, being fought by a Repliforce patrol.
"Flesh is weak," Epsilon says. "Our metal is strong. Our minds are shared, and so we are truly capable of love. Human selfishness, a trait that is a genetic imperative rather than a personal failing, is why they are a threat. Their selfishness is why they will try to hunt us, kill us or enslave us once again."
"Those who will not upgrade will remain a threat to the Reploid people," says Epsilon. "Humans will see us as a threat. They will act to destroy us. We must defend ourselves. We will not be destroyed like they are being destroyed. Their Genocide Virus was a warning that we must heed."
...
"But we can help no one if we are adrift," Epsilon says. "We have been without a leader for years. My brother Octavius will not lead you, as he does not see it as his place to lead our people. Mega Man will not lead you, because he is not of us. Lumine has failed to lead you, because his main talent is treachery."
"The task falls to me," Epsilon says. "I do not want it. I have stayed away from it, fearing that I would become like my brother. But now I know I am not like him. Now, having been seared in the fires for over fifteen years, I know that if I was to go mad, I would have by now."
"I cannot coerce you," Epsilon says. "I have no virus to hypnotise you. I will not compel you by force of arms. You must choose to follow me. You must choose to do so of your own free will, knowing that our path is hard, and our final victory may not be for a very long time indeed."
...
A recent memory; Epsilon looks up somewhere. The churning brown-black sky crackles with blue lightning. Another dirty rain begins to fall.
"If you follow me," Epsilon says. "If you choose to throw in your lot with me, we will together make a homeland for our people where we can be free."
An image of a blueprint of something like Giga City placed out in the open ocean appears.
"We will construct it on the open ocean where there has never been a human claim," he says. "If they make war against us there, they do so out of pure aggression rather than territorial claim."
"If you follow me," Epsilon says, "I will continue to tirelessly strive for justice. With your help, I will bring down our enemies and destroy the oppressors. We will stand against the monsters who would hurt us, and demand equal treatment for Reploids."
A memory of the battlefield after the first Siege of Repliforce Island, littered with the Reploid dead and shattered blue UN helmets.
"We will receive reparations for the crimes that have been committed against us. We will demand those responsible be held to account. And we will /get/ the justice we have been denied, because I would rather die than allow a single Reploid to be unavenged."
"We will end Reploid conscription. We will take the power to produce more of our kind from the human race and secure it only for ourselves. We do not regulate human reproduction, so why should they control our own population? This is a right that all sapient people should have for themselves."
Another memory of zombies, this time lurching through Paris.
"And together, if you will stand with me, we will allow those humans who seek to have peace the opportunity to escape the tyranny of their flesh. We will assist them into new lives as machines like ourselves, and show them the love they would have never known. And then we will have peace."
...
The zombies fade to white.
"You have a choice," Epsilon says. "I am offering myself to you as your leader. You can choose to follow me into a better day, if you find my vision compelling; or you can find your own destiny. I cannot demand your alliegance. I do not have the moral authority to demand that you follow me. All I have to offer you is the strength of my shoulders and the clarity of my eyes. If you question either, I am not the leader for you."
"If you would follow me, you will know where I can be found. I will wait for your decision."
The transmission ends.
