Project:ZERO
History: Project:ZERO arose from the ashes of Project:GILGAMESH, an abandoned project intended to create functional immortality. Instead, ZERO focused on virtual immortality, through being able to store and retrieve a person's personality and memories. Project:ZERO was aided by the assistance of one of our Nathari (see codex entry: Nathari) allies, Captain Zeno Raptgoyle-Nath, Captain of the Nathari Carrier ship, Raptgoyle.
Captain Raptgoyle-Nath had been born with a mutation in her bloodstream, creating a crystalline structure that she called "karak" inside her blood and various organs. While she refused to go into full details, we have since learned that it allowed her brain to function in a similar manner to an organic computer. She agreed to be a DNA donor for the first ZERO prototype, who was named simply "Zero".
Phase I: The first prototype was created in vitro, and matured in an artificial womb, before being allowed to hatch naturally. She was then placed in a foster-care family, connected to the project and raised normally to the age of nine years old (roughly equivalent to an eighteen-year old human) before Phase II of testing was implemented. She received a standard education from Terran educators.
Phase II: Prototype Zero was terminated roughly two months after her ninth birthday, her recorded memory patterns uploaded onto a freshly prepared clone of her and returned to her family. She had no recollection of her death, and recalled nothing after her last nightly backup. She did seem a little concerned about missing three days, but remained calm about it. The prototype was deliberately terminated three more times over the next year, suffering only short term disorientation from the missing days, believing she was having blackouts.
Phase III: Three additional clones of the prototype were prepared simultaneously, and the latest backup was uploaded into them, before they were allowed to wander around the testing facilities and meet. Each of them thought of themselves as the real Zero. Fortunately, they remained quite calm and rational upon meeting themselves and Captain Raptgoyle-Nath, who they naturally physically resembled. These three prototypes were kept for three years, receiving advanced educations, before being terminated, and their collective memory backups compiled into one file.
Phase IV: The compiled memories of all four prototypes were uploaded into a new clone, Zero-Nine. Interestingly, the new clone had no problems reconciling the divergent memories of the last two years, including the conversations that Zeros Six, Seven and Eight had with each other. Captain Zeno chose this time, twelve years into the ongoing project, to reveal that this was a trait of the karak, allowing for the brain to stabilise itself in a way to prevent insanity through conflicting memories, claiming that it was a necessary trait for "chronoportation".
Phase V would have been an attempt to adapt the karak for humanity and start creating a human version of the project, but with the revelation that this procedure would only be able to work on new life, not already living people, the Terran government ceased all funding and ordered the project shut down. With no official backing, Captain Raptgoyle-Nath and several of the project heads gathered what data they could and set up a private company, with the intent of creating a small PMC. Using the data from the Phase IV Zero, a batch of six clones were created, and given full military training. From these six, a small force of two hundred was created and sold to the Nathari government as a proof of concept. As more funds were gathered, more clones were produced and sold out to other armies.
Eventually, with the idea of cheap, rapidly-created forces catching own, other companies showed interest in acquiring the technology to create their own Zeros.
Physical Attributes: A typical Zero is quite a bit large than a human when fully matured, standing between 7'0" and 7'6" tall, depending on genetic variants, and weighing roughly 220-260 lbs, though custom Zeros may lay outside these numbers. While custom fur/hide colours or patterns can be ordered, a standard Zero resembles Captain Raptgoyle-Nath, having smooth white hide, and bands of black fur around her ankles, wrists, shoulders, at the base of their tail and on their head. Their bodies have powerful, lean muscles, and active lifestyles tend to them having strong, slender frames. It's not unusual for them to lift their own weight with ease, and their powerful legs allow them to run at 30mph for long periods of time, or 40-50 mph in short bursts.
Depending on genetic alterations, Zeros can be bred with various abilities, such as gills, intramuscular nano-fiber weave, sonar, chemical resistance or psychic sensitivity. It is theorised that a Zero has the same 60-70 year life span as a normal Nathari, though as the oldest living Zero is currently in her twenties, this is hard to prove.
