#operation enduring victory

[planet-crait]

For any of you that have played Horizon Zero Dawn, what are your thoughts regarding Operation Enduring Victory and General Aaron Herres? I am asking for science.

[mehoymolloy]

HorizonBaseJams 2/16: NPC - The Soldiers of Operation Enduring Victory

Music inspired by soldiers who fought in a doomed war to the bitter end.

Y'all probably thought it'd be Silga, but NOPE. I grew to care a lot for these soldiers while writing my Big Bang piece, more than I ever expected to. This is a pared down version of a larger fic playlist I used when writing, with a focus on songs that especially inspired the black box vignettes found in the fic.

It follows a certain flow, meant to start as an idealistic fantasy of soldiers taking on impossible odds together, then slowly dissolves as those same soldiers lose hope and grow disillusioned, before finally falling into despair when their end is in sight.

What a Wonderful World

Heroes

Mighty Wings

The Rumbling

Reaper

Soldier

Don't Fear the Reaper

Cruel

Casualty

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

[vithebean]

Meet my Horizon Forbidden West OC and her Squad!

Daniella Sobeck, niece to Elizabeth Sobeck, age 24, former engineer gone Civilian Guard Commander. Cryo ice-pop deluxe. Brazilian/American.

She lost her leg in the first few months of the war, rehabilitated with a prostethic leg and went back into the field, to hold off the Faro plague.

Read From a world of Ash and dust for more!

Her Squad, who fought with her and slept with her through time.

[longleglens]

The Grave-Hoard

[briarfox13]

Horizon Zero Dawn Photomode 51/?

[mehoymolloy]

HORUS; Isle of Spires

Continuing with the black box shorts that are a small part of my  Horizon Big Bang 2022 piece, When the Darkness Comes, because I think these soldiers’ stories deserve to be heard (even if I made them up).

Isle of Spires Black Box Transcript:

RECON PILOT: No, no! They just cut the Harris in two. The remaining ships are concentrating their fire on the lead Horus, but there must be six more coming in behind it. And there are several ashore and moving inland further up the coast.

Copy that. We'll keep eyes on. But whatever this Zero Dawn super weapon is… you'd better use it soon or there'll be nothing left.

Listen to the audio log on my photomode Twitter account here.

Jacob peered down at the remains of the Harris, torn in two and slowly sinking into the bay. From this high up, he couldn't quite make out the crew, who were no doubt pouring into the water for fear of being trapped in the ship's flooding halls.

However, he had no difficulty identifying the machine responsible for the damage. Even though it was almost halfway across the bridge, its long arm reached all the way to the shore, where it had slammed down on the ship's deck, every bit as terrifying as the mythical Kraken. But this machine—this monster—was far too real, and it was not a solitary creature hidden in the murky depths.

The Horus was already manufacturing Scars and Khos, which raced ahead or marched along the bridge—just one more wave of many. In the distance, hulking titans emerged from the water one after another, steadily advancing.

On the island, the city was already overrun. With eight on land and seven not far behind, it admittedly felt hopeless. Jacob had always tried to keep a positive outlook, even at the worst of times. But this…what could possibly stop this?

Project Zero Dawn could—would, he corrected himself.

Soon.

Any week. Any day. Any moment now, he reassured himself.

It had to.

Black Box 12/12

Thanks for checking these out! And just for funsies, here’s an excerpt from When the Darkness Comes, specifically Silga and Untalla being treated to the exact view Jacob got a millennium ago.

Silga slowly pushed herself to her feet and looked around. Her gaze immediately snapped to an enormous machine, just like the ones they had seen around Jagged Deep and scattered across No Man's Land. The hulking thing emerged from the sea, its limbs encircling the overgrown remains of a great bridge, while even more tentacles extended forward onto the island.

But looking further, she could see more. What would easily be mistaken as islands dotting the horizon from the shore was, in reality, the long curling spines of these ancient machines. She counted six in the distance. As her eyes trailed back to the shore, she started to catch the subtle pattern of linked plating buried beneath years of plant growth, barely visible but everywhere. The more her eyes roved across the landscape, fear of heights forgotten in the wake of what she was seeing, the more she counted. All those limbs—draped across vast rusted ships, curled around the base of towers, sprawled across crumbling ruins, and almost completely buried in sand and soil.

Although she couldn't fully separate the tangle of all those tentacles peeking from beneath the surface, she counted each she found, turning a slow circle as she searched as far as she could see. First in the single digits, then the doubles: 20, 30, 40. Doing the math, there were at least ten in view, half buried under the island, with more spread across the sea.

"I think that's a horus," Silga said, raising her voice to be heard over the wind as she pointed toward the machine splayed across the bridge.

Glancing at Untalla, she saw that the action was unnecessary. Eyes wide, Untalla's gaze darted from the bridge to the sea to the shore to the ruins, clearly coming to the same conclusion Silga had. "They're everywhere," Untalla said, a quaver to her voice Silga had never heard before.

[mehoymolloy]

SOLDIERS; Salt Bite

Continuing with the black box shorts that are a small part of my  Horizon Big Bang 2022 piece, When the Darkness Comes, because I think these soldiers’ stories deserve to be heard (even if I made them up).  

Salt Bite Black Box Transcript:

CAPTAIN MARTINEZ: And shutdown engines one and two. You gonna pass me that bottle?

SECOND OFFICER STUART: You really think these soldiers can hold back those combat machines?

CAPTAIN MARTINEZ: Well, this was always gonna be a one-way trip. So I guess they're gonna have to. To Enduring Victory?

SECOND OFFICER STUART: To Zero Dawn. Whatever the hell it is.

CAPTAIN MARTINEZ: Gah! Any chance it's an ice machine? This drink's warm.

Listen to the audio log on my photomode Twitter account here.

Captain Martinez and Second Officer Stuart slouched in their seats, backs strained and aching from a long day. They sipped their drinks, passively observing as a regiment of fresh soldiers went through a training drill.

"Those aren't soldiers," Stuart muttered. "They're just civilians. See that guy?" He tilted the neck of his bottle toward a tall beanpole of a man, holding a gun in the perfect position to dislocate his shoulder. "He's probably an accountant."

"Well," Martinez grunted as he stretched out his legs, "somebody's got to be cannon fodder while we're up there doing the real work."

"Come on, man," Stuart snapped, "don't say it like that."

"Well it's true," Martinez said, deadpan. "That accountant is here for one reason and it's not to shoot a gun. He's just one more body to throw at the Swarm."

Stuart shoved Martinez's arm, causing a bit of beer to slosh onto his lap. "Yeah, you're right, asshole. And it's fucking sad."

Martinez leveled a hard stare at Stuart, expression unreadable, eyes shuttered behind practiced apathy. He took another swig of his drink, then wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

Finally, he turned his gaze back to Beanpole Accountant, frowning at the man's poor stance. He sighed. "I never said it wasn't sad."

Second Officer Stuart shot his captain a surprised look, then followed his gaze, watching the newest batch of civilian soldiers with plain-faced sadness, a stark contrast to his co-pilot's clinical stare—though, he now knew it was no less sad than his own.

Black Box 8/12

[mehoymolloy]

PERSONNEL; Stand of the Sentinels

Continuing with the black box shorts that are a small part of my  Horizon Big Bang 2022 piece, When the Darkness Comes, because I think these soldiers’ stories deserve to be heard (even if I made them up).

Stand of the Sentinels Black Box Transcript:

AIR CONTROL ROMEO: Negative, negative. You can't make the primary drop. So we're re-routing you to collect some personnel.

CAPTAIN RICHARDSON: Have you got a definite position on those machines?

AIR CONTROL ROMEO: Nothing's definite. But projections give you a safe window of 36 minutes.

CAPTAIN RICHARDSON: To load 200 people on to this plane?

AIR CONTROL ROMEO: 250. You're their only way out of there before the Swarm hits.

CAPTAIN RICHARDSON: Then you'd better tell them to be ready. And you'd better be right about that 36 minutes.

Listen to the audio log on my photomode Twitter account here.

"You said they're coming down from the mountains up north?"

"Affirmative. Personnel are currently en route to the Marina Inn."

"Acknowledged."

Abby veered left, adjusting her course to fly directly south rather than west toward the Greenhouse, where she was originally meant to drop off emergency supplies. The Swarm had to be close if they felt the need to evacuate entirely.

 35 minutes.

She couldn't deny the view. With distant redwoods to the east and the Bay to the west, she followed the coastline south, eyes occasionally skirting to the gleaming skyline of San Francisco across the water.

 28 minutes.

She could see the hotel. Long rows of hundreds of cars were backed up—way more than the 250 personnel she was set to retrieve. No doubt nearby stragglers would be looking to hitch a ride.

 26 minutes.

A quick burst of static in her ear, then: "Richardson, I've just gotten a report; the Swarm is larger than anticipated and advancing rapidly on your location."

"How many? How rapidly?"

"I only know that the timeframe has changed. You're looking at 14 minutes."

"Fourteen minutes? I'll be lucky if I've landed by then, let alone–"

Before Richardson could finish her sentence, a projectile from a FAS-BOR7 Horus hit the underside of her plane, severing the cockpit from the cabin entirely.

Far below, only a few miles away, hundreds of people watched as their last source of hope crashed into a regional park. In the distance, an army of machines could barely be seen, scuttling like ants down the northern mountain range and along the coast.

There was only a moment of silence. Wide eyes and bated breath as people took in the scene. Then, slowly, like a trickle into a stream into a flood, people turned...and ran.

Black Box 10/12