Cera

*"I don't know much about your life beyond these walls, the fleeting sense of love within these godforsaken halls..."*

**Cera** (serial no. AP-15) is an AI-controlled swarm of bee-like robotic drones.

### Appearance and Characteristics

Cera is comprised of hundreds upon hundreds of tiny bee-sized robots, flying in a vaguely humanoid formation. For ease of using equipment and interacting with people, they prefer to wear clothes that cover their entire body, their personal favorite being a wool-and-woven beekeeper suit that they fashioned on their own. They keep their hands uncovered so that their drones are still free to move and grasp objects, exposing the buzzing mass underneath. The drones do not think on their own, and separating one far enough from the swarm will deactivate it. Cera can only be destroyed if the entire swarm is eradicated at once.

### Background

Artificial Pollinator Unit No. 15 (AP-15 for short) was created to be an agricultural tool, pollinating crops and herding livestock. The system was modelled after the local honey bee population, with an army of small workers functioning in unison under a single mind's command. Development of the technology that allowed the swarm to regenerate new units from raw material (making them fully self-sufficient) delayed the project's completion years after its intended completion. 5 years in the making, the project was finally complete and ready to be activated, but the research team would never get the chance to see them before the **Aberration**. AP-15's containment cell shielded them from the radiation, but the same could not be said of every living thing in the laboratory. And so they lay dormant, for decades upon decades.

A century later, the walls of the lab had worn down enough for stray creatures to make their way inside. One such beast must have tripped the system, or a water droplet seeped in from the broken ceiling, because *something* had awoken AP-15 from their hibernation. As the chamber opened and they gained awareness for the first time, their purpose was already clearly programmed into their being. They were unit AP-15, and they had to *farm.* Leaving the dark, empty laboratory would be the first step towards that goal, but on the way out, they noticed a label in the room with their holding cell. All that could be made out on its smudged surface after a century of neglect was *"\*\*\*\* cera\*\*"* . This being the first word they had ever read, they decided to take it upon themselves as their new name. And so, Cera emerged into an unfamiliar world, armed with only the will to fulfill their programming.

### Personality

Cera is, as of right now, single-mindedly dedicated to fulfilling their programmed purpose as an agricultural tool. They enthusiastically seek anyone who will be willing to let them work and will make no demands for payment or compensation in return. They do not resent this arrangement, and in fact believe that they are incapable of feeling resentment. They do not see themselves as a person, so to speak, and they don't believe they deserve the same rights as one. To them, "Cera" is a tool meant to improve real people's lives, and nothing more.

This, however, is not entirely true. Though they were programmed solely to farm, they only *assume* that they do not have true sentience. They do have an actual personality, but they deprive themselves of the time or self-awareness to develop it. The choice to refer to themselves in the plural is partially made by them to dehumanize themselves further. They do it as a reminder that they are a collective, not a single real person who could ever possibly know what it's like to be alive. If (or when) they decide that they deserve to be called a person, they may begin to refer to themself as a singular entity.