![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skonen_bladesMost post-biological units go for something anatomically reminiscent of a human. Two arms, two legs, and a head. It helps them hold on to their identity so they don’t go crazy after they make the switch. Sure, their consciousness has been transferred into a super-strong and enhanced military robot body but it’s still a BODY, they think. A body with free will and a strong self-image ego.
We called them leftovers.
It’s their delusional behavior that earned them the nickname. Sometimes in battle, a new unit will get its arm cut off and it’ll scream through the squad coms even though there’s technically no pain and the arm is easily replaceable. The veterans among us sigh in disgust. It’s embarrassing. New recruits don’t even know what they’ve become. What they are.
Leftover humanity. Leftover fear. Leftover morality. Leftover nostalgia for muscle and bone.
They think like sausages, like there’s still meat inside.
The rest of us have gotten used to bodies tailored to whatever mission we’re sent on. Our ‘brains’ are backed up at mission control so with a solid wifi connection, we are not limited by size. We can be gnats if that’s what’s called for.
If it’s a mission with radio silence or no access to the airwaves and we need to be encased, our only size limit is the fist-sized resin-polymer ‘brain’ that holds our consciousness.
I have been the size of a university, a titan of weapons bristling with death, rolling and jetting through cities, mini-nuking footsteps of destruction through a terrified populace, thrusting up to paint the sky black and then needling down below the crust, creating volcanoes. A swordfish of Armageddon swimming through the ground like it’s an ocean.
We are not defined by our bodies. We are not corporeal beings anymore. We are sleeved into construct after construct to further our missions and our military’s goals. Even death is no longer death as long as our backups are safe.
I can no longer hesitate when I slaughter. I can no longer pause when I kill. I can no longer feel anything when I genocide a habitat.
In my old meat body, I remember that damage would heal imperfectly and form a scar. It would be a reminder of a battle.
I remember that in the vehicles that meat body drove, there were brakes. That body could use them make the machine stop.
Now I am the machine.
I used to miss those scars. I used to wish I had brakes.
tags
We called them leftovers.
It’s their delusional behavior that earned them the nickname. Sometimes in battle, a new unit will get its arm cut off and it’ll scream through the squad coms even though there’s technically no pain and the arm is easily replaceable. The veterans among us sigh in disgust. It’s embarrassing. New recruits don’t even know what they’ve become. What they are.
Leftover humanity. Leftover fear. Leftover morality. Leftover nostalgia for muscle and bone.
They think like sausages, like there’s still meat inside.
The rest of us have gotten used to bodies tailored to whatever mission we’re sent on. Our ‘brains’ are backed up at mission control so with a solid wifi connection, we are not limited by size. We can be gnats if that’s what’s called for.
If it’s a mission with radio silence or no access to the airwaves and we need to be encased, our only size limit is the fist-sized resin-polymer ‘brain’ that holds our consciousness.
I have been the size of a university, a titan of weapons bristling with death, rolling and jetting through cities, mini-nuking footsteps of destruction through a terrified populace, thrusting up to paint the sky black and then needling down below the crust, creating volcanoes. A swordfish of Armageddon swimming through the ground like it’s an ocean.
We are not defined by our bodies. We are not corporeal beings anymore. We are sleeved into construct after construct to further our missions and our military’s goals. Even death is no longer death as long as our backups are safe.
I can no longer hesitate when I slaughter. I can no longer pause when I kill. I can no longer feel anything when I genocide a habitat.
In my old meat body, I remember that damage would heal imperfectly and form a scar. It would be a reminder of a battle.
I remember that in the vehicles that meat body drove, there were brakes. That body could use them make the machine stop.
Now I am the machine.
I used to miss those scars. I used to wish I had brakes.
tags