World of Remnant - Aesir Project is a video created by Lightning-in-my-Hand.
I do not claim ownership.
I have more tests to worry about. Terrific.
Planning to do Saving Private Ryan someday. Too amazing to pass up.
Pardon my grammar, there might be some mess up along the writing.
World of Remnant - Aesir Project
By Lightning-in-my-Hand
"What do you mean 'byproduct' of our Great War?" Jaune quizzically asks.
Ozpin calmly lowered his mug, "The Great War resulted in the loss of many territories and lives, Mr. Arc. Till this day, the scars from the war remain." His mind drifted back to one of his previous incarnations. "The scars are still fresh to some."
"It is, by far, one of the most devastating wars recorded in our history." History is Oobleck's forte, after all. He didn't earn his Ph.D. for fun. "Vacuo, for example, didn't always have a desolate wasteland… Bah. I could go on and on about that subject. You all will have to hear about it in our next lecture."
"Before we begin. Understand that the content might unsettle some. As such, the artistic style of this presentation will be different than what many are used to."
Winter made a face, "That's not a good sign."
The theater darkened.
The words 'LUNA' and 'WORLD OF REMNANT' appeared in the pitch blackness, illuminated by the color of bright red. It was eerie silent until the voice of a young woman could be heard.
"Should I be talking about this?" She sounded nervous. Scared. "Ah, it doesn't matter." Her tone changed from fearful to steely and accepting. "It's the past, and we've gotta learn from the past if we don't want to repeat it."
Oobleck grimly nodded, "Words spoken any truer."
THE AESIR PROJECT
"Aesir Project?" Glynda eyed Ozpin, wondering if he knew anything about the Aesir Project.
Ozpin shook his head. They glanced at Ironwood.
The general also shook his head. "I had never heard of such projects. Winter, Penny."
"We're on it, sir." They took out their notebooks to take notes.
Cinder and her two underlings also had the same idea as the Atlesian. Whatever this Aesir Project is, Salem might find some usage out of it.
"This will be interesting." Cinder quietly purred.
"Where to start…? A-a little background on the protocols back then should suffice. Alright…" The darkness lit up to the global map of Remnant, ravaged by flames. Every single major landmass was burning with bright embers, and the map itself… Was blotched with splatters of brown and reddish drop splats.
Ruby jolted from her seat. "What happened to Remnant?"
Her partner gently pulled her down to her seat. "Sit down. This map must be representing be effects of the Great War."
A bright blue Dust crystal appeared in the center of the burning Remnant map, followed by the four basic forms of Dust.
"Many, many years ago, Dust and its nature was still very much unknown." She shakily continued on, firmly trying to keep her tone consistent. "We were aware that it was possible to fuse Dust directly into one's own body," The scene switches to a minimalist art style of Hazel, raising his arm that's embedded with a sizable, yellow Dust crystal. "but it wasn't efficient enough to fully replace weaponry, a-and over long periods of time it became taxing to the user."
"Hazel Rainart…" Ozpin grimaced upon seeing Hazel, or an artistic, minimalistic rendition of the large man. The man swore vengeance against the headmaster after the death of his sister, blaming him for her demise.
Jaune scratched his head. "Where is this going?"
Electricity blazed brightly as it coursed through Hazel's vein. "The human and faunus body automatically shuts down when someone fuses with too much Dust."
Hazel faded out and the map of a burning Remnant came back into view, along with the Dust crystal and its four basic elements. "There were mandates from the kingdoms on this practice and pretty much the government was the only entity allowed to do extensive research into this field."
"That's true. In the past, the council and any governing body were the only ones allowed to experiment with Dust." Weiss explained, mainly to Oscar who didn't know much about the subject. "Only certain associations, who received permission from the governing bodies, are allowed to experiment extensively with Dust."
"But that didn't stop people…" The camera slowly zooms to Vacuo. A grayish structure could be seen, blatantly standing out in the empty, yellow sand dunes. "Deep in the deserts of Vacuo, a group of private scientists separate and unknown to the government began conducting an illegal human-modification project called the 'Aesir Project'."
The majority of the audience paused upon hearing that.
Port winced, "Oh, dear."
"Illegal human-modification?" Winter scowled, "How barbaric. Don't tell me this is…" Whatever she was about to say was cut off by the next sentence.
"The woman who headed this project was a former Atlas politician."
The scene switches over to a purple colored minimalistic woman with lilac hair, standing on a podium presenting her ideas to unseen people.
Ironwood's eyes widen. "What? Why wasn't I aware of this? When was this project proposed?"
"Jim." Qrow glanced at his colleague. "Are you sure you never heard of this? Maybe under a different name?"
"I'll look into it." Ironwood's face was thunderous. "You have my word."
"Former as in, she proposed this project to the Atlas High Council and was exiled for it." The Atlesian politician was interrupted partway through her presentation and was pointed out to the door.
"Exiled." Glynda quietly adjusted her glasses, "Surely, they didn't think she'll just give up on her inhumane project, did they?"
"It would seem that they didn't consider it a possibility," Ozpin said darkly. If such a project exists in Remnant, then it would be in their best interest to uncover, dismantle it and bring those responsible to justice. "Resources for conducting Dust experiments are rather expensive."
"At least Atlas Council knew better than to go along with the project." Qrow pondered whether he should drink or stay sober for this presentation. "Not the best move on their end, but I suppose they couldn't arrest her just for proposing an idea."
The scene fades away to a bronze minimalistic hand raised in the air as if they were volunteering to be part of the project. "People selected for the Aesir Project to become Aesir are chosen because of a specific type of semblance: Absorption." The bronze hand started glowing brightly. "That means the user can absorb an energy source, whether it's kinetic energy,"
A minimalistic Yang was shown absorbing a punch with her arm.
Tai, Qrow, and even Raven frowned upon seeing Yang in a presentation about illegal human experiments. It meant that the bombastic blondie is a potential target for whatever horrific experiment the Aesir Project is made out to be.
"Hey! That's me!" Yang looked smug, before remembering what the viewing is about. "Okay, maybe that's not a good thing."
"electric energy,"
The next one showed Nora taking in electricity into her body.
Ren gripped Nora's hand, startling and causing her to internally squeal.
"or another person's aura, whatever." And lastly, Adam absorbing an attack with his blade, suddenly illuminating a bright crimson red as his semblance was charged up.
"Wait! Adam Taurus semblance –"
"Does not absorb aura." The Hosts confirmed, "The people represented here are merely there for visual presentation and don't necessarily line up to what the narrator says. Pay attention to what comes next. Be warned, the viewing is minimalistic for a reason."
"Which is saying something." Neo's sign ironically read.
"The Aesir project used people with absorption semblances." Adam slowly faded away and was replaced with someone with their arm and hand being strapped down to a metal table. "In the beginning months, they had conducted experiments on these people; horrible things like injecting their bodies with inhibitor drugs to bypass their automatic shutdown reflexes," The narrator's voice started to waver, shakily continuing. On-screen, a mechanic arm needle began injecting the person's arm with electricity Dust. "and then fusing them with as much Dust as possible."
The arm began spazzing due to an excessive amount of Dust injected into the body.
The crackling sound of composite metal could be heard as Ironwood fiercely gripped his armrest. If it were just any armrest, it would had long been obliterated by Ironwood's iron grip. The rest of Ozpin's circle made an ugly face, looking outraged by the second.
"Oh, man." Sun looked a bit distressed. "That's not pretty."
"Sometimes, they injected Dust powder into subjects' bodies to see what would happen." Faint screaming could be heard in the background. Electricity violently coursing through the subject's body, causing it to begin smoking. "The results were…"
A blinding light flashed, and the robotic injector withdrew, leaving a bloodied and charred corpse.
The narrator choked a bit. "I hope your imagination isn't very vivid, because I don't want to say what happened… And I'm sure you wouldn't be able to stomach it either."
Glynda hissed, "Monsters. Savages. What kind of sick people would do such a thing?"
"There will always be those whose curiosity will get the better of their morals." Such as that of Dr. Merlot. "If they had any, to begin with." Ozpin calmly said, looking over at Winter and Penny taking notes. Their expression could be described as horrified. "Perhaps I should assist you all in documenting this as well."
"Well, I'm glad we don't have to see that." Qrow decided to take a quick sig out of his flask. "Care to tell us if these sickos are still active, Hosts?"
"We cannot answer that. Remain watching. There are clues for you to piece together."
They didn't look very happy about that.
Winter looked frosty, "We don't have much of a choice either way. Pay close attention, Penny."
"Understood."
Another subject was strapped down to the metal table. Again, the only part of them that were visible are their arm and hand. The robotic needle hovered overhead.
"Anyway… They eventually got to the point that their subjects could actually survive the following experiments." The robotic needle plunged itself into the subject's arm. "They began… Merging Dust directly with the subjects' bones. This was because Dust would not bond with mature blood cells, but would bond with blood cells still in formation inside bone marrow…"
"Ugh. That sounds very painful." Coco shivered.
Velvet rubbed her arm instinctively. "I can't imagine."
The subject's arm begins shaking violently, but this time the subject wasn't electrocuted. Instead, the subject's bone started glowing a golden hue, successfully fusing Dust into their body, emitting crackling waves of electricity within their skin.
"Or at least, that's how I understand it." The narrator paused very briefly before continuing. "The most noticeable side effect of the experimentation was that a subject's aging process and metabolism was changed significantly. Their bodies grow half as fast as a normal human's. And they became drastically more sensitive to cold temperatures."
"That's one hell of an anti-aging treatment." Coco joked to keep the mood slightly afloat. "Definitely not going seeking that kind of treatment."
"Time moves by quickly." Maria told her, "Trust me on that."
Furious scribbling could be heard from Penny, writing down her observation. "Sensitive to cold temperatures. Aging and metabolism altered significantly around half the normal rate…"
"Not out loud." Winter chastised her.
Oscar fidgeted in his seat, clearly uncomfortable. "Is that what Dust does to your body? If it doesn't… Outright…"
"We still don't know the full effects of what Dust can do to your body," Weiss answered. On some level, Dust related health issues are personal to her with the passing of her grandfather, Nicholas Schnee, due to Dust deteriorating his health. "Most recorded case is from medical records, and those are confidential for ethical reasons."
"How ironic." Qrow softly chuckled to himself. "Schnee. Ethical. Ha."
The scene changes to a subject grabbing a bright blue Dust crystal.
"The result of their more successful tests were the Aesir;" Blue lightning-sparked out of the Dust crystal, being absorbed by the Aesir holding it. "people who could absorb energy straight from Dust crystals. Store that energy in their own bodies, and then project them outwards."
As a demonstration, a female Aesir unleashed ice Dust from her body, creating a large glacial body in front of her.
Winter shook her head sadly. "All that torture for this? Anyone can inject Dust into their body and project it outward."
"… There's more this." Ozpin quietly said, "I can't shake the feeling that this Aesir Project is building up to something."
"I agree." Ironwood nodded, "They wouldn't waste this much resources for something like this."
"If it wasn't released over a long period of time, the Dust energy inside them would react with their aura," The next scene shows the female Aesir kneeling on the floor. Her entire body was lighting up with crackling energy that began to overload her entire body. "burn it away and build up exponentially unit it erupts… Violently."
The scene pans out to scientists behind protective glass, watching the female Aesir explode.
Everyone stilled at that.
"I feel sick." Velvet did look a bit green.
Pyrrha covered her mouth with both hands, shaking in horror at the brutal end of the female Aesir. "H-how many more suffered this?" She felt numb, even to Jaune rubbing her back to calm her quivering. "Why would they do this?"
Nobody had a real answer for that. The Hosts remained silent, letting the presentation answer the Mistralian champion's question.
"No wonder people don't trust scientists and doctors…" Mercury muttered to himself, remembering how his legs were amputated and replaced with prosthetics. "Damn quacks."
"They learned this the hard way." The narrator's voice cracked with raw emotion. "The scientists didn't care how many people they lost, though. They just learned and became more careful when testing out the successful subjects' abilities."
Faint darkness coated the map of Remnant. The trailing blaze of fire that stained the landmasses was all that prevented the map from becoming total darkness.
"That's what the real nature of the Aesir Project was. Its goal was to create a fighter that could gradually amplify the power of Dust that is absorbed in the body." There was hysteria in her voice as she continued explaining. Outlines of humanoid figures with glowing Dust infused skeletons began populating the screen.
"Y-you see, they wanted to create a perfect super-soldier, capable of weaponizing pure Dust without guns or machinery. These soldiers were to be an insurance plan in case another Great War broke out. This was happening just in the wake of the Faunus Rights Revolution, mind you, people were scared shi – Well, paranoid."
"Is she justifying this?" Winter narrowed her eyes, icily glaring at the screen. "Fear doesn't mean you have the right to forcefully experiment on people. And I highly doubt anyone would volunteer to be in this horrid project."
"Possibly." Ozpin tapped on his armrest. "Though, it sounds like this was the general excuse for creating the Aesir Project."
The faunus in the room looked slightly uncomfortable with the mentioning of the Faunus Rights Revolution. The conflict was nothing compared to the Great War, but it was close in some respect.
Ironwood clenched his armrest, "A time of turmoil. There were many things overlooked during that era, and for this to occur during the revolution, it's much more recent than we would like. If anything were to fall through to obscurity, the Faunus Rights Revolution would be the timeframe to look at."
The narrator's voice steadied as she regained her composure. "I mean, the Great War was terrible for the people left undefended in the kingdoms. No one was protecting them from the Grimm. Can you imagine a second one?"
"That was a legitimate fear back then." Oobleck looked sorrowful, maybe even apologetic. "There were talks of another Great War breaking out should things spiral out of control, and the increased attack from the Grimm didn't help either."
"But there's no way a second war can happen today." Weiss said firmly, "Every kingdom has treaties and partnership with other kingdoms to ensure that won't happen."
"Yeah!"
Ozpin's inner circle didn't comment on that, seeing how Salem is making her move.
Cinder's lips twitched upward. Be it that the four kingdoms are allies. In the end, each kingdom has its own agendas that are easily exploited. Their citizens are no different either, easy to manipulate even if their grand scheme doesn't go far. All it takes is a few seeds of doubt and fear to take root in the hearts and minds of people. A slight push and they'll turn on each other.
It's how Salem has always ensured that the world is never truly united.
The map darkened, "They only ever got to a stage of testing where Aesir could project lighting fields, though."
"It doesn't sound like they got very far," Roman noted.
"I wonder why." Read Neo's sign.
In the darkness, a female Aesir with blond hair shimmered into view, clutching her head.
"At some point, one subject went berserk." Dust energy started illuminating from her body, fading in and out. "This wasn't within their calculations. Yeah, she did happen to suffer from manic-depressive disorder, but for some reason, they didn't think that would have an effect of the Dust energy she absorbed."
"The narrator sounds much more distressed compared to her previous narration." Penny's enhanced analytical abilities allowed her to pick up the very small and subtle hints. "Her tone… It sounds like this is quite personal. Almost like she was one of the test subjects."
Ozpin's inner circle frowned, looking quizzically at the secretly android girl while Ironwood and Winter put some trust in the girl's analysis. After all, Dr. Polendina did not hold back in developing state of the art technology. Especially for his 'daughter', Penny.
"Does that mean…?"
The blond female Aesir's skeleton was shown to be pinkish, or violet.
"It did. This subject was earmarked for euthanasia, and unfortunately, she found out." The Aesir's skeleton color turned red. "In her panic, the fallout from her uncontrolled Dust energy destroyed the laboratory," Bright lights began discharging from her body, tearing the air around her. "and killed the researchers who ran the facility and every test subject besides her."
"They got what they deserved." Maria didn't have any sympathy for the researcher, though she did feel sorry for the test subjects. "Maybe not the test subjects with her, but at least they won't suffer anymore."
Glynda hesitantly responded. "I'm reluctantly inclined to agree with you."
Darkness.
When the lights died down, only darkness remained.
Until a flickering light came through. A familiar building completely engulfed in flames was blazing brilliantly in the Vacuo desert.
"Nothing remained of the people involved in the Aesir Project in Vacuo, and since they built their facility in uncharted desert, no one ever found the ruins of the laboratory. Supposedly, nobody survived."
"That doesn't necessarily mean the project is over, right?" Blake hoped that wasn't the case, but her pessimism didn't help.
"Maybe not. Some of their research might still remain there. At best, whatever was there is gone for good." Said Tai.
The camera pans out to a familiar blond-haired girl, cloaked in brown robes. The most striking thing about her is her flaming, violet eyes.
The Aesir's eyes seem to be that of a Maiden's.
"There was a survivor." It dawned on Penny that the narrator could possibly be the Aesir who went berserk and survived. "I presume the one narrating was once part of the Aesir Project."
While the others clamor over Penny's statement, those aware of the existence of the Maidens frowned heavily. The flaming eyes, the ability to seemingly utilized the power of the elements… The Aesir required Dust, but the potency of projecting Dust is possibly superior to any others.
"Artificial Maidens. At least, that's what many would consider the Aesir to be." The Hosts word was directed only to those with knowledge of the Maidens.
"..." Ozpin mumbled something inaudible under his breath.
Cinder quietly took that in and wrote something down in her notebook. She was wondering whether she should present this information to Salem, or not. Artificial Maidens… That opens up too many possibilities that could endanger or render her useless to Salem. Arthur Watts would most definitely love to look more into this Aesir Project, and the Atlesian scientist hates her as much as she hates him.
She'll keep this project to herself for now.
"We're going to have more work on our hands…" Qrow looked down at his hand, gripping his signature flask. "I'm too sober for this."
"Let's continue this discussion later." Ozpin shushed them, "Our Hosts appears ready to move on."
"We will be continuing on with our next viewing. We must warn you that the next one is rather unpleasant."
"Are you sure you're not trying to mentally and emotionally torment us?" Maria snapped at the Hosts. "Because most of our viewings have been rather horrific."
"Our apologies for that. We'll readjust our schedule after several more presentations. For now, we shall warn you. You will be witnessing the second world war. Particularly, the Pacific Theater."
Oobleck raised his hand, not that he needed to. "This is after the first world war, or the alternate world's Great War, correct?"
"Correct. A global conflict that spans for years to come. A conflict that pales many wars yet lacking in many others. This is one of many battles and wars waged in their world. It will be gruesome."
NEXT: Hacksaw Ridge - Siege and Assault scene
Pardon my grammar.
