To be a Tool
Chapter 1: Sirin
[NOTE: Spoilers for Vol. 5-6 present in both the text below and the author's note that follows.]
Lerche opened her eyes.
Humans had still not yet arrived at a firm scientific consensus of why exactly dreams existed. Some found that dreaming aided the processing of memories. There was also research to suggest that dreaming was had a positive correlation with creativity. It was therefore unsurprising that dreams had become—and still were—a preoccupation of the Prince.
Her husband, a voice within her corrected.
Eventually, her husband had come up with a means to enable machines—artificial sapient beings, that same voice insisted—such as herself to "dream." It was an odd experience at first. Sirin were not designed to sleep; the intent of such a design was to enable a fighting tool that could defend humanity day and night. Sirin did not also eat or drink, and nor did they copulate. They were essentially walking corpses of steel; disposable robots piloted by the brains of deceased soldiers who volunteered their cranial matter for the defense of the nation.
Dead.
Sirin were the United Kingdom of Roa Garcia's last line of defense against the Legion. What was it that her Prince—her husband—had said? So if we can't lower the numbers of those who have already passed away. Send wolves to hunt wolves. Vampires to hunt vampires.[1]
But the Great Anti-Legion War had ended. Humanity survived. Sirin such as herself remained. Dead. Vampires left with no enemy to purge. Even the 86—who were treated by the Republic of San Magnolia as disposable drones just as the Sirin were, even though they were fully human—were frightened by their inhuman presence. With the exception of their handlers, the people of the United Kingdom they served nonetheless saw them as monsters much like the genius-prince that crafted them.
Sir Reaper—that peculiar man went by "His Majesty" now—was an esper who could hear the voices of the dead; to the Reaper, the voices of the dead that involuntarily lingered in the Legion and the voices of those that chose in death to become Sirin—these voices all called for the same desire: to die.
Some of the Sirin leapt from the crags and cliffs of their mountainous kingdom. They left behind notes requesting for their copies in the central database of the royal military to be deleted. Every such request was heeded. Handlers, besides themselves in grief, would hold scantily-attended "funerals" of a sort. These affairs were only attended by their few fellow handlers—and occasionally a veteran from the 86th Strike Package.
Even if they had given their afterlives to the nation, the Sirin were not human. They were inhuman monsters. Few wept for them.
Perhaps, there would be no Sirin left if it were not for her noble husband and Lady Bloody Reina—or rather, Her Majesty Bloody Reina. While her noble husband was an aloof eccentric by human standards who did not exactly grasp human emotions as other humans did—the sight of Sirin dying moved her husband in a way that few concerns did. Was it out of a sympathy that one who was considered inhuman had for those that were inhuman—a solidarity of the inhuman? Maybe. Or was it because she was also beginning to suffer a similar fate? Her presence was precious to her Prince, for whom few things were truly precious.
Regardless of the reason, her noble husband had toiled tirelessly to enable Sirins such as herself to dream. Even now, her genius husband did not fully grasp the mechanics of it—but it had worked. Sirin stopped ending their afterlives. Their second lives, amended that voice again. Research suggested that dreaming for Sirin served to process memories and emotions—including trauma—much like what was hypothesized and found for human dreaming.
His Majesty Reaper once quite bluntly pointed out that the voice within her became much more pleasant, after she had gained the ability to dream.
Meanwhile, Her Majesty had risen after the war to become the Queen of the Repentant Kingdom of San Magnolia. Lena Milize was now not only a Queen in reputation, but in fact as well. One of her first proclamations was to extend rights to all sapient beings—in short, to inhuman beings such as herself. It was a controversial matter from the very start. Pro-Alban supremacists that were critical of her rule from the start, transformed themselves into "Pro-Human" supremacists once they grasped the implications of her proclamation. Some nations condemned the new-born kingdom; the Holy Theocracy of Noiryanaruse called the Bloodstained Queen a "Servant of the Devil."
Yet, Her Majesty did not buckle. Of course, Her Majesty was not the naive girl she once was—her idealism was under-girded by a sort of ruthless pragmatism. One of Her Majesty's favorite quotes was from an old pioneer of International Relations, that study of conduct between nations: "Having demolished the current utopia with the weapons of realism, we still need to build a new utopia of our own, which will one day fall to the same weapons."[2]
Bloody Reina was fully aware of the need to pace the changes she wished to institute. While she had dictatorial powers at the beginning of her reign, she was not abusive of her powers to rule by decree; such a course of action would only generate unneeded resentment. Where change could be sneaked in quietly and beneath the noses of her foes, she did so. Her Majesty did not explicitly decree that Prince Victor and Lerche be allowed to marry each other as Man and Sirin—but a carefully appointed and pruned High Court of San Magnolia did rule that under the Second Article of the Aldrecht Base Proclamation, the Sirin Lerche was fully entitled to the right to marry her beloved as both were fully consenting sapients of age under the laws of San Magnolia.
She remembered every word uttered by the Chief Justice, a once-disillusioned Alban lawyer who chose to join the 86 in their internment camps rather than accept that the Special Wartime Peace Preservation Act was law of the land.
"…Under Article 2 of Her Majesty's Inaugural Proclamation—which this Court has held in previous cases to have the status of basic law—it is held that inalienable rights and fundamental dignity are endowed upon not just humans, but all sapient beings…"
You may not be human, but you nevertheless ought to be treated as one.
"…We have held in a past case, in Holy Magnolian Order of Purity v. Iida, that Article 2 extends the right to marry to couples of the same sex, provided both are consenting adults. This Court has held that anchored to the fundamental dignity of any sapient, is the right to love—to intimately join oneself with another sapient; the fullest expression of this right, the Court has observed in Iida, cannot be attained without also allowing for marriage…"
You may not eat, or drink as a human does. But you love. And isn't that enough?
"…It follows that not just humans, but all sapient beings are entitled to be allowed to love—and are likewise entitled to the fullest allowance, marriage. Sirin are no exception. Lerche Idinarohk has spent years of her second life as a Sirin to fight the Legion alongside her beloved. She has shed metal and oil—just as human soldiers have shed blood—to defend humanity. She—and her metallic sisters—have fought for humanity not out of mere mechanical obedience for orders, but out of their pride!"
The Chief Justice paused, for a brief moment, to stare at Lerche himself. His lips turned upwards, forming a warm grin.
"…It would therefore be the height of hypocritical ingratitude to deny Lerche Idinarohk the right to marry, the right to completely and fully love her beloved…"
You are Lerche Idinarohk. You are alive.
The United Kingdom of Roa Garcia was a despotic kingdom, ruled by the iron-fist of their ruling family which gave birth on occasion to mad kings. However, there was a limit to the absolute rule of the House of Idinarohk. For a Mad Prince to dally with a Sirin—who was in her past life an Emaraud, someone who would have been unfit as a human to serve as a concubine—was too much for the sensibilities of such a conservative kingdom. While the King and Crown Prince were always privately sympathetic to their odd union—amusingly, Lerche surmised, out of gratefulness that their inhuman son and brother was made a little bit more "human" through their peculiar relationship—the politics of such an "unnatural" pairing could not be ignored. The House of Idinarohk's legitimacy and reputation had to be protected. And Crown Prince Zafar had many rivals in the Court akin to piranha, searching for blood.
Hence, their exile in the Repentant Kingdom of San Magnolia—where she and her beloved husband were wed. And their daughter made. It was not such a difficult transition for Vika, who cared little for titles and other such petty concerns and was probably even slightly grateful for being without such annoying shackles. His only regret were the unbearable summers and the warm winters of their new home; a born-and-bred subject of the United Kingdom always longed for the cold as if it were family. Meanwhile, Lerche found that "tool" and "citizen" meant very different things.
That was a truly difficult lesson to learn, for her and quite a number of the Sirin that chose to seek refuge in Bloody Reina's Kingdom.
Her eyes refused to close. Her mind ignored calls to slumber.
It seemed even now—decades after the ending of the Great Anti-Legion War—she was still reminded of that fact: that she was once a tool. Unlike her daughter.
That was why she was so frustrated with that damned fork of herself! That girl's shame knew no bounds! Her daughter was made in a time of peace, the goal of her programming merely to live—just as a human was born to live. And yet! And yet, that ungrateful brat still chose to join the military! Against her wishes!
Flesh was alive. Metal was dead. Hence, the Sirin were perfect weapons. Sirin were made precisely so that humans could carry on with their lives—and what made human lives so beautiful was exactly what made them so unsuitable for the battlefield. For the Sirin—the presence of humans on the battlefield was ultimately illogical; the ideal military in their iron eyes meant a battleground with no humans—only weapons that did not falter or hesitate.
That was what Sirin such as Lerche believed.
Half of the Sirin that migrated to the Repentant Kingdom of San Magnolia were even now still professional soldiers—albeit in service to a different flag. Those that had left the military altogether such as Lerche were without exception all enthusiastic members of the Royal Military Reserve; they took their monthly weekend training drills with as much seriousness as their preparations against the Legion during the War.
If it were not for the sincere wish of her beloved Prince—her noble husband—she would have joined the San Magnolian military as an active-duty soldier.
She obeyed.
Lerche never quite understood why her husband was so accepting of her daughter's wish to join the military but was so adamant that she do the opposite. Her! But it was her—Lerche—that was born the tool. Not her daughter.
Marianne was fond of planning complicated pranks with her equally mischievous father. She was never watched horribly cliche romantic dramas from the Federacy without artificial tear ducts. Her friends and family called her "Ann." Curry was her favorite when Vika was testing out artificial taste sensors with her. Her favorite skirt was white with red polka dots, a tacky piece bought from a thrift shop in a rough neighborhood in Liberte et Egalite—Ann bought the skirt on impulse, and had somehow fallen in love with it ever since.
Marianne loved to hold parties. Humans were often wary of beings such as Marianne and herself—but never once did her daughter ever feel discouraged. Marianne's gregarious spirit was infectious. Enemies quickly turned to friends under her withering smile. She was always ready with a terrible pun—which made everyone but her father groan.
Marianne had a girlfriend—a childhood friend who was every bit as shy as Ann was loud, a soft-spoken engineer at the Ministry of Research. And yet, it was quiet Victoria who had confessed first. Lerche would always be second. To Lerchenlied. But But Marianne was her love's first.
Her daughter did not have to fight. Marianne did not have to become a weapon.
Nevertheless, she joined. To Lerche, it was incomprehensible.
Knock! Knock!
Lerche's musings were interrupted by the detection of faint knocking on her bedroom door; even in peacetime, the Sirin found it useful to have military-grade auditory sensors on her person. One could never know when an assassination attempt may arise, after all. Her husband—exhausted from an all-nighter—was still fast asleep. Quietly, Lerche rose. If it was an emergency—the knocking would have been more frantic.
Which meant…
"Mom. We need to talk."
[1] 86, Vol. 5
[2] E.H. Carr, "The Twenty Years Crisis 1919-1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations."
A/N: [WARNING: SPOILERS FOR LIGHT NOVELS PRESENT]
Honestly, I had a much better experience writing this fic than with my first fic ("Coronation") because this fic feels much more in tune with the themes in 86 that I found most compelling—such as the emphasis on "human" agency and dignity (or as the LN refers to it, "pride"). How the series manages to allow for the characters in the series to recover and redefine their agency, their dignity, or rather: their pride—is truly what made me fall in love with 86.
I put "human" in quotation marks because I think it is only proper to treat the non-humans in the world of 86 as having their own "agency" or "pride." Note that Shin considered even Fido as a comrade that he would rather not lose. The "inhuman" Sirin are brought up in the series as a way for the 86 to question their "inhuman" treatment, their lack of concern for their own well-being, their self-perception of mere weapons on the battlefield. And yet, I can't help but feel it is unfair that the 86 eventually recover their "humanity" (dignity and agency) but the Sirin aren't allowed to do the same. Because the Sirin aren't mere drones—they can feel, and they fight because they have "pride" in their being Sirin. They may not be human, but they aren't simple tools either—no matter what they themselves think.
Which raises an interesting hypothetical. What if the war ends? What then, is the purpose for a Sirin to exist? One can't just dispose of Sirins, the way one would throw away a broken wrench...
This is the first of two chapters, focusing on Lerche. The second chapter will be focusing on Marianne, her "daughter" with Vika.