#got thinking bc I see lots of people portraying v2 as prickly and egotistical and I think it is very caring+creative+SCARED inside

[pangolin-404]

V2 is such a tragic character and I don't see enough people talking about it

It was built for peace (and to recuperate the cost poured into V1). It was built to be kind. It was built in the aftermath of great despair and is the representation of New Peace.

And then humanity dies. Maybe there was another war, maybe the New Peace wasn't as peaceful as it seemed (V2 was potentially used as security), but in the end it doesn't matter because humanity got wiped out and V2 was left alone.

Imagine having your purpose ripped from you, left stranded and alone (divine light ripped away, even). V2 was forced to go against its very nature of peacekeeping, forced to descend into hell along its far more bloodthirsty brethren. It ran on blood just like them, but it had to kill for it, to slaughter the already-dead and its fellow machines alike to stay alive. Without humans to maintain peace with, it is living for itself, which is a fantastic motive to live, but I cannot fathom what entropy splits its mind when initially facing this fact. Humanity is dead and it must kill its dwindling remains to continue existing.

The perseverance V2 displays is astounding. It's smart enough to know when it's losing and to run. It fixes itself with all the creativity of a swordsmachine rebuilding itself, taking scrap to make something new. Built for kindness and a new era, how much was creativity and self-determination drilled into it, encouraged?

It displays so much personality in its quirks and mind, displaying respect wits its bow before combat and intimidation with it cracking its knuckles. It is trying to live, because that's all it has, in this new world so foreign to what it once knew.

surely it's scared. yes it may believe itself a truly incredible machine, the superior magnum opus. maybe it is egotistical in how it views itself, proud of itself, but what else does it have to cling to when everything else about its life has been ravaged beyond recognition? does it view the world around it and feel alone? Such an incredible self-preservation, enough to maim what once tore it apart in an attempt to steal back what was once rightfully its.

did it reside in limbo because it was the most familiar, even if it is fake? how deeply must it miss humanity. never used, scrapped just like its predecessor (its lesser). never got to truly experience that desired peace, now forever out of reach. all it can do is persevere and continue existing clinging to what little of itself it has left, and that is what it does, what it tries to do, and what it fails to do.

#thoughts #ultrakill #v2 #ultrakill posting #got thinking bc I see lots of people portraying v2 as prickly and egotistical and I think it is very caring+creative+SCARED inside #like I think it would take 1 heartfelt peace offering + hug to make that thang break down #I think it misses humanity. I think it misses it a lot