"The Museum of Heroes"
By kpmh2001
City of Vale
The prospect of having shore leave was admittedly a bit foreign to Ben, as he had not had a single day off since he enlisted in the Spartan Program seven years ago. That's not to say he had an issue with that, as in any normal circumstances, he would just opt to not take his leave at all and return to duty, but as he should have expected, Curie insisted otherwise. She wanted to visit the city of Vale to see some of the sights, and she wanted him to join her.
Needless to say, he was hesitant. His visits to Beacon Academy had already made him uncomfortable, but being in public, surrounded by civilians on all sides, was not his idea of a good time. It wasn't that he had any kind of dislike for civilians, after all, it was his duty to protect them; his issue was that they were far too unpredictable. Worse still, most of them had a habit of staring at things that didn't fit in, and that usually meant him.
Of course, from the very moment that Curie had pitched the idea, he had already known that they were going. Whenever he and Curie had any kind of debate, she would always win, mostly because he found it incredibly hard to say "no" to her. Of course, she also wasn't the type of person to simply drag him along like a dog on a leash, and she would always take the time to win him over to her side of the argument, which she was also very good at.
In the current circumstances, she had won him over by suggesting that they visit the Museum of Heroes. It was a massive marble building in downtown Vale that supposedly held more history within its walls than some defunct Kingdoms had experienced throughout their entire lifespan. It was rather clever of her, appealing not just to his desire to know more about Remnant, but of military history in general. She also didn't insist that he take off his armor, which gave him a bit more confidence.
They hitched a ride on one of the Darters that was ferrying supplies from Vale to the UNSC Headquarters, and Curie took the lead as soon as they left the airport. The streets weren't nearly as crowded as Ben expected them to be, but there were still plenty of people, almost all of whom gave him a strange look as they passed.
"Why do civilians always have to stare at things?" Ben complained as quietly as he could, not eager to draw any more attention to himself.
Curie rolled her eyes at him. "Ben, you're a giant wearing power armor from outer space, of course you're going to attract some attention. There's no reason to be afraid of curiosity… most of the time."
He tried to take her advice, focusing instead on all of the things that caught her attention, and there was certainly no shortage of those.
"Ruby spoke at great lengths about all of the wonderful things to find here, perhaps there will be time to go shopping later." Curie said, before squealing with uncontained delight at something else that she had spotted. "Oh Ben, look! This store has a model train set in the window! Look how cute it is!"
Despite being a little frustrated at the constant distractions, he couldn't help but smile at her joy and enthusiasm. It's good to see her with a smile again.
After what must've been a full hour spent purely on distractions, the two of them finally found themselves standing before the Museum of Heroes. It was just as Curie had said, a grandiose, marble structure standing some four stories tall. Its roof was held aloft by a row of gigantic engraved columns, which upon closer examination, actually seemed to depict various battles and heroic deeds.
"Magnificent, is it not?" Curie rhetorically asked. "I was reminded of the Greek Parthenon when I saw the pictures, but seeing it in person, I believe that it bears a stronger resemblance to the United States Capitol Building."
"It's certainly impressive." Ben honestly replied. Architecture was hardly his forte, but it didn't take an expert to appreciate a structure like this. "Surprisingly sturdy-looking too, this would make a better strongpoint than Beacon."
"Hmm, perhaps that was intentional." Curie said. "Come on, let us go inside!"
Curie led the way up the grand marble stairs and into the main foyer, which was just as large and grand as the exterior. Ben had never actually been to a museum before, but what he saw was about what he expected. There were stone statues, wax figures, and even a few holograms depicting some of Remnant's finest souls all propped up on pedestals, with plaques standing before each of them, presumably telling all about who they were and what they did.
Of course, before they could go see any of those, they had to get past the front desk. Thankfully, Curie was prepared to deploy an asset that Ben had actually never seen in action before to get through.
"That will be twenty-four lien for the two of you." The receptionist said, accepting the small plastic money card that Curie handed her, and slotting it into a small computer, before handing it back. "Thank you, enjoy your visit."
Now free to explore to their heart's content, Curie immediately headed straight over to an exhibit depicting something that caught Ben's attention as well. Hanging from the ceiling via an array of high-strength cables was what looked like a satellite, although it's design made it immediately clear that it was an Atlesian Design. Beneath the satellite was a hologram depicting a man in a flight suit, and beside him, a model rocket standing about as high as Ben, presumably meant to represent the satellite's delivery vessel.
"Fascinating. Penny mentioned that Atlas operated a space program in the past, but I did not know that satellites were ever built." Curie remarked.
While she was talking, Ben noticed a small placard standing before the hologram of the man in the flight suit, and started to read it aloud. "It says; In memory of Yuri Gagarin, the finest pilot-"
"W-What?!" Curie cut him off almost immediately, her voice peaking perhaps a bit louder than she had intended it too. "You must be mistaken, let me see that!"
After only a moment of reading, her eyes widened dramatically. "That… how?! This makes no sense!"
"What's wrong?" Ben asked, not sure as to what had made her so upset.
She looked up the hologram, and then back at him, sputtering as she spoke. "Yuri Gagarin was born on Earth! He was the very first human to ever venture into outer space! He died hundreds of years ago, he was-"
"Curie, breathe." Ben interrupted her.
Curie hadn't noticed it, but she was beginning to attract the attention of some of the other museum guests with her rambling. Thankfully, nobody actually seemed bothered enough to confront them, but he still figured that it probably wasn't a good idea to make a scene in such a public place.
Curie took several deep breaths at his encouragement, but was clearly undeterred, as she grew a determined scowl and fished out her datapad. "Just a moment, I will show you… Aha, here, read this!"
The file that she had handed him was some kind of ancient waypoint article for a man who was, sure enough, named Yuri Gagarin. After a few moments reading through the article, and reading down the rest of the placard detailing the life of the Yuri Gagarin from Atlas, Ben was ready to admit that Curie's reaction was somewhat justified. The men were unusually similar, even down to their appearances.
"Both of them played a major role in the development of space travel. Both served as pilots in their countries' militaries, and both were killed during training accidents." Curie relayed a number of the similarities between the two men as she continued to put the pieces together in her head.
"There are some differences." Ben pointed out, hoping to perhaps calm her excitement just a little bit. "The Yuri Gagarin on Earth never saw combat; but on Remnant, he scored over four-hundred aerial victories against the Grimm."
"That is true." Curie admitted. "There is also the crucial difference that Atlas's space program failed to break out of Remnant's atmosphere, and they never once established a stable orbit for any of their spacecraft. On Earth, Yuri Gagarin was the first man to ever visit space, so he was obviously more successful."
"So they aren't exactly alike, even if they do share a lot of similarities." Ben said.
Curie took a long deep breath, looked up at the hologram once more, and shook her head. "I… I just do not know what to make of this, surely this cannot just be a coincidence? What else could it be?"
Well now, that's a very loaded question. Ben thought. The very existence of a human civilization on Remnant already defied basically everything about known Human History, so the odds of the similarities between the two men being mere coincidence was basically zero. Then again, there wasn't really any reasonable alternative to propose.
"I can't say for sure." Ben admitted. "Let's call it a coincidence for now. If we find anybody else here with a connection to Earth's history, then maybe that would help figure this out."
Curie nodded. "Fine thinking. Any good experiment requires ample evidence to back it up."
It didn't take long for Curie to find two more heroes of Remnant who bore rather striking similarities to people from Earth's history. The first was a man from Vale named Willis Augustus Lee, an expert Marksman who served as an Admiral during the Great War, and who was credited for many of Vale and Vacuo's victories on the seas.
His Earth-born counterpart was an Admiral who had served in the United States Navy during the Second World War. Ben vaguely recalled hearing his name somewhere before, possibly from one of his lessons during training, but he couldn't remember exactly where from. Both men had died only days after the end of their respective conflicts due to heart attacks. At least they got to know that they won, and that their homelands were safe.
The second man was Alan Turing, whose placard explained was born in Atlas and largely responsible for the creation of the Cross Continental Transmit System, as well as the Dumb A.I that managed it. Earth's Alan Turing had a few more accomplishments under his belt, being highly influential in the creation of advanced computers for the time, as well as one of the most important figures in the history of artificial intelligence.
The biggest difference that Alan Turing had from his Remnant doppelganger was his contributions to cryptology, once again during the Second World War. Tragically, both men commited suicide after they were wrongfully convicted and tortured by the governments that they had served so diligently.
Curie already knew about Alan Turing, and a swift search of old Earth data archives brought up all of the information they could need about Admiral Lee. "Well, I suppose we can rule out coincidence as the cause for this. If it were just one man, I could believe it was some matter of astronomical chance, but three? What if there are more like them?"
"Maybe we should just drop it for now, and check out some of the other exhibits while we're here. We're here on leave, not for work, remember?" Ben suggested. He knew that she would happily tear the museum down to its very foundations to get to the bottom of the mystery, and he figured that the building's owners probably wouldn't appreciate that.
Curie shot him a cheeky smirk. "Ben? Are you feeling alright? I could have sworn that you just suggested that we do less work."
He shrugged. "Hey, you're always telling me not to push myself, I figured that I would return the favor."
She looked back at the hologram of Alan Turing one more time, and let out a quiet sigh. "Very well, another day then. Lead on, Ben."
He did as she suggested, and found himself gravitating toward what was clearly the biggest exhibit in the museum. Depicted by a truly giant sandstone sculpture was a man on horseback, wearing a simple crown and wielding a sword and scepter.
"Ah, I have heard of this man, the Warrior King of Vale." Curie said. "If memory serves, he led Vale to victory during the Great War, replaced the Monarchies with the Councils, and outlawed slavery."
"That's a lot of accomplishments for just one man." Ben noted. "Do you think it's all true?"
"I have not seen any evidence to contradict his story, although I understand your skepticism, it does seem like an awful lot for a single person to do." Curie replied. "Then again, some of the older Spartans have done some equally outrageous things, so perhaps we're not in any position to be making judgements."
"...Point taken." Ben replied.
The next exhibit to catch Ben's eye was that of a man named Doctor Jeckle, whose clearly-weathered statue depicted a man clad in a lab coat, clutching some kind of sci-fi raygun in one hand. What stood out to Ben the most however, was that his head was completely blank, represented only by a smooth round sphere.
Curie softly chuckled at the rather unusual sight. "Somehow I doubt that he actually looked like that."
Like with the other exhibits, there was a placard at the feet of the statue, which read:
"In memory of Doctor Jeckle, the ancient genius. Born somewhere between 2000-3000 years ago, Doctor Jeckle was native to what is now considered the Kingdom of Mistral during turbulent times. The many Kingdoms of the time suffered greatly due to constant attacks from the legendary Grimm known as "The Hyde", which remains to this day the deadliest Grimm ever seen in recorded history."
He paused to see if Curie was listening, and she gestured for him to continue.
"Doctor Jeckle constructed numerous inventions to try and defeat the Hyde, all of which failed to destroy the monster. Finally, after a grand scientific breakthrough, he lured the beast far from civilization, and deployed his final weapon. Sources are inconclusive as to exactly what Doctor Jeckle had built, but it is known that he was able to slay the Hyde with a massive explosion so great that it created the body of water we know today as Lake Matsu. Any sign of Doctor Jeckle or his inventions were lost following his final battle with the Hyde."
"Really?" Curie asked, looking at the small map of Remnant that was included with the placard, which depicted what Anima had looked like before he had destroyed the Hyde.
"Really. At least, that's what the thing says." Ben answered. "He would have needed a good-sized WMD to blow a hole in a continent like that."
Curie hummed aloud. "I am not so confident that this story is true. When we arrived in-system, one of the things that we scanned for on Remnant was radioactive fallout, and we found no traces of it.
"Well, maybe it wasn't a nuke." Ben proposed. "It says here that his inventions were lost during the battle, it's possible that he created something entirely different."
Curie physically shivered at what he had said. "I… admit, I had not considered that. It would certainly explain how he was able to create such a weapon while most of Remnant's population was still made up of bickering tribes of cavemen. Perhaps it is for the best that particular research was lost, at least, for now."
"Agreed." Ben said. While he was admittedly a bit disappointed that such a powerful weapon had been lost to time, he also recognized that if Remnant had developed WMD's in the past, it was entirely probable that the planet would've been a ball of glass by the time that the Dominion arrived.
The last exhibit that he and Curie stopped at was that of a knight from the Kingdom of Mistral, whose armor and sword had been immaculately maintained and preserved, and now rested within a glass case.
"In memory of Sir Alonso Quixote, a legendary warrior from the Kingdom of Mistral. While most of his countrymen went off to fight in the Great War, he stayed behind to protect the common people under his protection in a remarkable display of chivalry. Even as the age of the noble was coming to an end, he felt a strong duty to protect the weak that made him very popular among commoners and slaves, if not his fellow nobles. His gallant service in defending the people of Mistral from the hordes of Grimm that sought to destroy them was a common point of discussion at the time, although he retained a humble attitude until his peaceful death following the Great War, stating "I have done no more for this Kingdom than any other man? Why do you insist upon lauding me with such praises?"."
Curie giggled at the knight's quote. "It sounds like he wasn't ready for the fame that he earned in battle."
"It doesn't sound like he was fighting for fame." Ben pointed out. "It seems to me like he was just a soldier doing his duty to his people, and that was enough for him."
"Hmm, humble indeed." Curie said. "I wonder how he'd feel about his armor being in a museum for great heroes?"
He gave a soft chuckle at that. "Well, I hope he wouldn't be too upset. Now, wasn't there anything else you wanted to do while we're in Vale?"
Curie beamed. "Certainly! Follow me!"
Authors note: Three Fairy Tales/Legends, and three historical heroes, and personal heroes of mine at that. I hope you all enjoyed this little interlude.