And this time, it's personal

Assimilation is a recurring motif in Arknights, central to all in the Seaborn side: from our favorite sea critters to the Collapsals, from Originium to Dorothy, all do it in some way - but it's somewhat overlooked how much these same lens are used to describe human empires. The "empire" as a collective entity is often presented as a kind of mockery of We Many, lacking the same sincere level of selflessness, with its agents acting as if they're carriers of some level of righteousness while treating individual existences as weightless and expendable in favor of the continued expansion of the greater entity; something that Arknights chooses to present with the same gravity and monstrous atmosphere it instills into its fantasy monsters.

A favorite example of mine is the confrontation between the Nachzehrer King and the Duke of Wellington in Absolved Will Be the Seekers.

Compared to the gritty politics that made up much of the Victoria Arc, the last few chapters of part 2 grew more and more in scope, going as far as constructing a war that has nothing to envy of the climaxes of even the highest scale epics: Amnannam the first Catastrophe ravaging the land and turning the sky red; armies of Sarkaz marching relentlessly on the scorched battlefield; undying Sudarim warriors showing up everywhere; the King of the Withered Court overseeing the conflict from atop his throne. In this scenario Nezzsalem is indistinguishable from the dark lord trying to take over the world in the grand finale of a stereotypical high fantasy novel.

Even more than the vampires (whose horror element was mostly relegated to Duq'arael) the Nachzehrers are hyped up as the big, bad "monsters" on the side of the Royal Court, and are in general some of the people most reminiscent of the Seaborn in the whole story (how they accepted the never-ending struggle as their way of life; how they grow and improve by feeding off war and death, assimilating the strength of those they defeat; their spreading of decay). Just like the Sanguinarch's obsession with blood purity and how it's made very literal by his being a vampire making it about actual blood works as an exaggerated caricature of the Victorian nobility, the Nachzehrers obsessing over war and death in their "purest" state do the same for the Victorian army,

But when they're confronted by the forces of Dublinn and the Duke of Wellington, the other side seems hellbent on proving how the "originals" are no less than their fantastical counterparts (ignore Eblana performing necromancy for a moment, even if it also works very well as a direct comparison to the Nachzehrers), the ship that conquered so many battlefields almost being described as alive.

The Duke, showing up with a normal old warship and leading normal soldiers, is presented with no less horror and fanfare than Nezzsalem himself - almost as if to tell him that no matter how much cool fantasy terminology he might be shrouded in, ultimately there's nothing so special about feeding off war: Victoria is just as much of a monster that expands on the land and assimilates all it tramples on.

This is something Nezzsalem himself recognizes by making a direct comparison between the way both of them "consumed" their opponents.

(it's also interesting how the Duke of Wellington is technically not even a Victorian anymore but stands on the Taran side; he himself can be said to be someone who was assimilated and turned into the empire's strength, looking at the way Victoria "devoured" Tara by annexing its territory while making sure to erase any trace of its cultural identity).

This isn't even the first time Victoria's war machine has been described in such monstrous terms - the climax of The Rides to Lake Silberneherze remains poignant, the army being presented as an entity in constant need of fresh lives to use as nourishment so that it can keep existing.

With the way Degenbrecher guards Kjerag from the endless influx of exchangeable soldiers, you can almost make a comparison to Dario's last stand against the ever-growing horde of Seaborn in Stultifera Navis. Just like Dario carried the light of civilization to resist the expansion of We Many over the land, Degenbrecher carries the spirit of Kjerag on her back while resisting Victoria.

(she's sort of a hero of the people - people we got to know intimately and care about during the course of her event. she's not fighting for an abstract idea of the country but a concrete one, made up of all those who inhabit it)

Now let's look at a case where the empire is literally shown as a monster assimilating everything it touches.

Ursus' Emperor's Blades are created through a ritual that powers them up by merging them with Collapsals. If you've played IS4 or watched U Takes Terra you'll know just how scary the Collapsals are - they're definitely one of the most unsettling existences in the game. If the Royal Guard is so fearsome it's not only because of their strength but because they're carrying the aura of demons within themselves.

In Here a People Sows, a single body 'infected' by Collapsals being buried in the soil was enough to corrupt the rice fields of Dahuang - big enough to be one of the main sources of food for Yan - for over a thousand years, only held back by a Sui using her Feranmut powers to stop its advance. This is the kind of power that was weaponized by Ursus to create its greatest military force, turning that all-corrupting effect into a very literal manifestation of its expansionism.

From the in-game boss' description:

Every Royal Guard is as a dominion; the land beneath their feet is all the territory of Ursus.

No matter where they go, wherever an Emperor's Blade stands becomes Ursus - it's almost reminiscent of the Seaborn's Nethersea Brand forcefully turning any habitat into their own territory.

Bringing the discussion back to the ocean for a bit, the three main elements making up the children of the sea in their basic state are: a main directive to do anything for the survival of the collective, individual Seaborn readily sacrificing themselves to feed their kin; endless expansion of their habitat, as they're always in need of further nourishment to further their growth; evolution through facing new threats, often assimilating whatever they overcome back into them.

This is a way of life that prompts them to actively seek out new challenges so they can grow and expand, with no clear end goal in sight until they transcend to the next level even after the entire world becomes their domain, something they lament despite it being the main directive of the Many and individual Seaborn being seen as acting on instinct and not caring about their own struggle.

From the Sublimation encounter in Mizuki and the Caerula Arbor:

The collective seeks survival, and survival is suffering. Therefore, we continue to evolve, overcoming flaws, facing nature, fighting external foes. Extinction is cunning and hungry, and it will tear us apart at the slightest sign of weakness. Therefore, we have adapted and addressed our shortcomings. From emerging out of the seas, from contacting Originium, we have expanded our territory and come into contact with deadly threats, until we fully understand, until they become food. Now, the land and sea are our paradise, but we continue to grow. Life remains suffering. We need a bigger home. Before we welcome the evolutionary singularity, He who leads our future must give Himself an answer: Who am I?

Nachzehrers aside, this is fundamentally how the empires operate, seeking out suffering and prioritizing the growth of (their idea of) the nation as a concept over the lives used as a fuel for their continued existence. This is something that both the Trilby Asher in All Quiet Under the Thunder and the Emperor's Blade in Roaring Flare spell out quite clearly, glorifying and mythologizing war because they believe it will make their respective nation stronger, justifying the losses as necessary sacrifices. Both of these chapters focused very intimately on the suffering war and oppression were bringing to the common people, only for agents of the state to show up to reveal how all of it was by design.

The Royal Guard even uses "nutrients" as a metaphor to make the Seaborn comparison as on the nose as possible.

These scenes mirror each other enough, these two even get similar answers from Ines and Patriot respectively, both denying there being any meaning in war - and even if there was, nothing gives them the power and authority to decide in which direction history should go.

The Trilby Asher gives priority to this ideology even over his own desire and wishes, the role as an agent of the empire getting precedence over his dream to be a poet and retire somewhere peaceful - in a way resembling Harold, someone who also prioritized the conquest of Kjerag in the name of Victoria over his own desire and appreciation for the peaceful, happy life he was experiencing there, and in fact it was the Trilby Asher who urged him to take action.

We know the way for humans to resist being fully assimilated into the Seaborn collective is to have a strong sense of self and individuality, attachment to your own humanity (like with Alfonso and Garcia), or some kind of emotion or personal desire they just can't afford to lose - we see this in Deepcolor's operator record, where she explains how she kept her sense of self despite her appreciation for the Seaborn because she refused to lose her love for art, while similarly the priest couldn't let go of his curiosity.

(also reminiscent of how the Sui siblings managed to form their own identity after separating from the greater Sui, each of them focusing on a different cultural aspect and gaining a strong individuality over the years despite their origins as fragments of a whole; or if you let me stretch the Seaborn metaphor a bit, how Tara's first step to regain its own identity and separate from Victoria was to study history and resurrect their culture. It's no coincidence the events about We Many have such a big focus on art).

These two almost seem to mirror the Trilby Asher, whose artistic passion was weaker than his extreme nationalism, as well as the Emperor's Blade in A Walk in the Dust, who despite his curiosity regarding the nature of Kal'tsit's existence was only able to think of it in terms of how much she could've served "her country" by becoming an asset of Ursus.

It's no coincidence that Nachzehrers, Trilby Ashers and Emperor's Blades are all groups made up of masked, faceless members. They exist as an extension of their ideology, discarding their life as people in favor of a "collective" even while remaining very human and emotional underneath. They actively suppress their own individuality to let themselves be "assimilated" by a system.

Mártus, the one who awakened the Seaborn in the first place - even if he did so for much grander and more selfless reasons rather than some lame nationalism, his country and even his species being the first things he abandoned - has a debate with Kal'tsit in Path of Life that's reminiscent of theirs, narrating how he chose to discard everything about humanity (or any other species), every branch that he personally judged to be an impediment to the progression of life, single-handedly deciding to carry the torch in the name of the Predecessors. As Patriot would put it, a form of arrogance.

Once again, Kal'tsit argues in favors of what's been sacrificed for the greater good. The doubts and concerns of humanity are precious, she says; they're not something to discard, because every decision should be properly weighted, rather than mindlessly going forward uncaring about the costs of your actions.

We also have an example of an empire that has some sort of literal will subconsciously acting on its citizens to make them prioritize the greatness of the country over their own morals with the Güldenesgesatz, the Golden Movement of Leithanien, the force uniting the country and imposing an inviolable order upon it - pretty much a concrete manifestation of nationalistic ideas seeding in the mind of people since their youth through propaganda. It even takes form as their national anthem.

These exchanges from Zwillingstürme im Herbst are self-explanatory, showing Gerhard's despair at his inability to see the Witch King, one of the worst dictators in history, as the evil he really should be seen as, because his status as the rightful ruler of Leithanien had a supernatural influence over him. The country had something to gain from his rule of terror - and that somehow weighs more on his mind than all the atrocities he committed.

Fremont takes the role of Ines and Patriot in arguing against Gerhard, especially in regards to the glorification of suffering, remarking that there's nothing special about it.

(it's cool how we keep getting bad guys assigning higher meaning to things and good guys who take a hard stance against it and choose to only see the cold reality as it is; the latter also being Sarkaz who are intimately connected to and aware of the harsh reality of war from the perspective of those who are living it in first person so they have very little to romanticize, at least in Ines and Patriot's case, as Fremont's view is that of a scholar and not a mercenary.)

While sacrificing yourself for the others or for a greater purpose is often seen by humanity as a virtue, Amaia in Stultifera Navis calls it a form of egoism - something considered remarkable by us because it's rare in the first place, one of the reasons she considers the Seaborn, sacrificing themselves so naturally, a superior life-form. In fact the idea that there's some kind of nobility in dying for your country is actively weaponized by the Royal Guard trying to turn the infected into Ursus Soldiers. The selflessness of the Seaborn, whenever applied to humanity, always ends up being bastardized into something crueler and more self-centered, making them vulnerable to being used for the means of people in power.

Even Amaia, just like Deepcolor and the Priest, couldn't escape from humanity. As she lets herself be consumed by the Endspeaker, she asks for it to "remember her" even as she wants to be freed from being human, and the Herald goes on living while carrying the weight of all that she was.

The level of rejection of the self shown by the Seaborn seems to be repeatedly put as inherently at odds with humanity, and it's why all these systems that expect people to let go of their individual self so they can be assimilated into human society keep showing more and more cracks.

This is where Arturia comes in, someone deeply connected to both the Empathy of Laterano and the Golden Movement of Leithanien, who rather than outright rejecting the existence of such systems connecting people as one wants to use that concept as a foundation and expand it. Her utopia is about giving weight to each person's life and ego, including everyone rather than only connecting a single group of people who fit into an arbitrary system and increasing the distance between them and those who fall outside of it.

While she accepted suffering as an inevitable part of life that must be confronted if one wants to grow, she wants to guide people through it so that all can make it to the other side, rather than cutting the branches deemed as "too weak" or "holding back the collective" because "that's how the world works".

This is one of the reasons why the climax of Zwillingstürme more than around a big epic fight with the dark lord revolves around an ideological clash between her and the Witch King, Terra's greatest dictator.

Herkunftshorn is talked about in a way that makes it seem like he's warping history around him, the same way his palace encompasses all of the Leithanien in the Kargereich. He had an individuality so strong it became a form of assimilation, his presence looming over Leithanien not only through the Remnants idolizing him and committing atrocities in his name but even through the very people who opposed and defeated him, whose lives were warped by that fateful day, leaving them unable to get over it, to be truly freed from him.

Arturia explicitly takes a stand against this - against the idea of the Witch King, all he represents. All his strength crumbled on itself, and even when he appeared in the event, he's barely more than a memory. During the entire Leithanien plotline, his followers kept going after a mere ghost.

She tells him the exact nature of his mistake: all that he built fell with him, all his power was wasted on cruelty due to his ideology centered around his own might. There's no need for a soul - an ego - as overpowering as his, because lasting change can be obtained only through collective action, through building a system that allows all people, strong and weak, to work together.

While some of her words and objectives might resembles those shown from earlier antagonists, she stands apart from them due to her belief in the need for weakness to keep existing, rather than seeing it as something that must be eliminated. Like Kal'tsit told Mártus, the "fragility" of humanity he discarded was important.

At the same time, being the pinnacle of individualism, the Witch King could see the fault in Arturia's utopia - because in her grand dream of helping everyone, she forgot to leave space for herself. She let her ideal suffocate her own ego to the point of reaching ultimate selflessness, becoming empty, living only through others. Again, a level of rejection of the self that's at odds with humanity; something that makes it so that she can't pursue her dream of true equality as long as she doesn't learn how to include herself in it.

(a possible parallel to Theresa strongly believing in humanity's potential to overcome fate and realize her ideals while at the same time having no hope for herself, fighting for a world she has no place in. No wonder she's a walking corpse during every story set in the present)

With Arturia but also with the Seaborn the story leans towards the need for connection between "kin", but also how that's imperfect if it's at the cost of your identity (see also: Dorothy's Vision. She and Arturia should really sit down and have a talk). The Endspeaker evolves by assimilating Amaia with all her emotions and beliefs. Mizuki can only lead the Seaborn to their final stage if he can understand who he is, and in general materialized that path for them thanks to his strong individuality. Meanwhile the empires of Terra, uncaring about the worth of single lives, are "tearing this land asunder".

There's a sort of "aggressively centering" the average person that's omnipresent in Arknights. From the Witch King falling because of the intervention of one of his servants, to Damazti (the oldest in the Royal Court, more ancient than even the Nachzehrer King) being bored by the powerful leader with a special lineage who's schemed around an entire war while their life is deeply impacted by a humble teacher, to great heroes like Patriot readily putting their lives deemed as uniquely important by others on the line to help those deemed as irrelevant, to the plethora of normal people making up the immense cast of both NPCs and playable Operators who get a significant role, to Theresa starting out as a tailoress, to Amiya carrying the weight of the world as an outblood child with no grand background.

In this context, the choice of keeping most of Reunion's members masked and turning them into a faceless horde - insisting on keeping up the act even in cases where they're already being thoroughly humanized like with the Yetis - is very poignant: it's almost like they're reversing the way the empires' special orders of faceless agents of the state with no individuality go about dehumanization by hammering down how behind each of these masks there's a real person, not a pawn, not a branch you can simply cut off, but a human being.

Fundamentally even when taken to its highest scale Arknights is still a story about medicine, about finding the cure to a malignant disease (read: the themes of assimilation and corruption spreading being so important because it's just the highly fantastical counterpart to the concept of transmissible infection), even if the concept was expanded to healing "social ills" because Oripathy in itself is only half of the struggle of the infected. The same way a doctor rejecting a patient because they're not someone important or they personally decided they would be better off dead so they can only keep healing "worthier" patients would be no good as a doctor, the same applies to one who aims to "heal" society. While Amaia criticizes humanity as inferior to the Seaborn because of the extreme attachment to our own individual lives and ego, and she might have a point, her perspective is too much on the other extreme; the idea of life as something so easily discarded is what the Rhodes Island side keeps strongly opposing. A world where as many patients as possible make it is what the main cast believes is worth fighting for, rather than one where you let half of them die to give as "nourishment" to the other half.

The central debate surrounding all this seem to verge on if there's a point where sacrifice becomes not only correct but something to actively pursue, whether it's explored in terms of the growth of the state or the debate is brought to a global scale. Kal'tsit's argument is that even if such a thing was necessary she'd see no meaning in going forward if you need to discard the things that make you want to live in the first place (and the Seaborn are in fact shown as living a life of "eternal torment"); Mártus' argument is that these things will not persist anyway since life will die out if not by doing anything to survive.

(Not too dissimilar to how Originium also makes sure humanity lives on, but in a state so deeply altered and bringing so much suffering it might be the same thing as extinction; and that's the main "enemy" being resisted in the game as a whole.)

(Also cool that it's Kal'tsit who's doing most of the debating here, since she herself is an artificial creation that's been said to be closer to the Seaborn by Carmen who nonetheless managed to find a purpose and an ego on her own, living as a person rather than just AMa-10.)

But in many instances, like with Arturia, or with Guard being the one to change Reunion's direction, or with Amiya, the story seems to put that focus on helping the "weaker branches" as a practical solution and not just a moral one. The great leaders of Terra with their grand aspirations keep dying or failing, while those who refuse to see the world through the lens of strong vs weak, or who would themselves have been discarded by the judgement of the Emperor's Blades and the Trilby Ashers and the Deathless Black Snake, are the ones truly keeping the torch of civilization lit and who are actually progressing and changing Terra.

(see also: the Law of Laterano calculating that the best choices for the new Saints and a concrete hope for survival were two of the Sankta who least conformed to the Empathy and the status quo of the city, instead of any of the properly aligned ones)

Despite Mártus' focus on having life go on no matter the sacrifices and his readiness on discarding every other living being to preserve the Seaborn as the only creatures he saw fit to survive in the end, when the children of the sea reach their ultimate stage in Mizuki and the Caerula Arbor they not only heal the entire planet, making all life bloom on Terra, but also reach a state of understanding and co-existence with humanity rather than finalizing their extinction like what both sides of the debate expected to happen. Even the perfect lifeform he bet everything on ultimately chose to allow the existence of those who were left behind - after all, the children of the sea were a creation made by the predecessors to forward life, not an apocalypse device. Their final state was reached thanks to Mizuki in the first place, someone who started as, and went back to be, a human. While Amaia says that "only the mediocre would presume that the Seaborn becoming closer to humanity is any form of evolution", she still believes in the need for the Seaborn to be more open to multiple perspectives rather than single-mindedly focusing on a single path - something she was proved right about.

Neither mankind nor the Seaborn truly need to discard the other to survive as long as alternatives are viable (even Mártus sees hope in Skadi and the Doctor working together). They need to progress in similar ways for life on Terra to go on. The two narratives remain deeply linked, both to each other and to the core message Arknights has been working towards since the beginning.

As usual, it looks like this will be the punchline.