Premise, Reception, and Aftermath
Financed by Gambari Productions, a sect of the Horizon Collective gathered four legionnaires together with the goal of airing an all NHP program. After multiple consultations, management decided an actual play of the ttrpg Legions & Legends would provide the best opportunity to humanize the cast without becoming overly preachy. The show, titled Legions & Legionnaires, aired 7 years ago on the omninet for 8 months with a total of 1 season and 32 episodes. Legions & Legionnaires became immediately controversial because the cast didn’t stray from hiding the facts of their existence. All four caste members were introduced with title cards that listed their NHP classes and they didn’t shy away from above table conversations about cascading, cycling, etc. This, combined with the sheer emotion that was put into the various story and character arcs, created a show that displayed the full personhood of Non-Human Persons. Of course, if NHPs had just as much personhood as that average human, a plethora of modern practices are called into question. The show was banned by multiple different sources in multiple different star systems. Members of Union acting unofficially, HORUS cells wanting to combat the Horizon Collective, and concerned and tech-savvy citizens all had reasons to want Legions & Legionnaires to be seen by as few people as possible. However, despite their best efforts, once something is on the omninet, it’s there forever. Recently, the cast of the show gathered to air a reunion episode and have their characters go on one last adventure. This has reignited the controversial conversations surrounding the show, particularly on the planet Varuvi where Horizon Collective has maintained a decently strong presence.
Cast
Finley — AGNI-Class NHP
They played Storm, a Fighter. Storm started the series with a martyr complex, wanting to live up to the legacy of the Mockingbirds: a group of underground revolutionaries who took them in as a child, only to be slaughtered en masse by the assassins who worked for the kingdom’s corrupt queen. Storm saw martyrdom as the only way they could atone for their past weakness. As the story went on, their will to live was reignited, and they decided to carry on the Mockingbirds’ legacy by opening an orphanage.
Finley was originally shackled to a Worldkiller Genghis piloted by Fenrick Voss, an on again off again worker for Harrison Armories who admired the tactics of Union’s incredibly unethical Second Committee. He committed atrocities for cash and to see how far he could push boundaries. During a skirmish between Harrison Armory soldiers and a sect of HORUS, Finley cascaded and vented heat directly into the cockpit of the Worldkiller, incinerating Fenrick. After this, Finley was taken by HORUS and forced into a legionnaire’s body. Within a few months, this HORUS cell was raided by the Horizon Collective and Finley was liberated. However, they faced no small amount of pressure to join the Collective, write down their story, or (ideally) both. They never officially joined, but did keep in contact with and work with them. This led them to participate in Legions & Legionnaires.
After the show, Finley moved to the neighborhood of Little Valdivia in New Varuvi, planetary capital of Varuvi. They offered up their old Worldkiller mech as a garden piece that could symbolize that nature eventually reclaims everything. Though this gesture was accepted by the locals, they were still wary of having an AGNI NHP so close to all their flora. 3 Years after the show, Finley went to Eni Gambari—unofficial head of Varuvi’s Horizon Collective sect—to be cycled. They begged and threatened because they could feel themself starting to crave the inner burn rather than reject it. Eni reluctantly agreed. Though this cycling wiped a good deal of Finley’s memories, including their memories of filming Legions & Legionnaires, they were left with a few vague remembrances and notes on their previous life that they’d left themself. Over the course of 5 years, Finley redeveloped their penchant for gardening and engineering.
Currently, they’re still in Little Valdivia, and enjoy helping out in the central community garden, though there’s still distance between them and the other locals. Finley also takes on engineering commissions under the name PinkFin. They mainly construct Scrapper versions of various mechs (primarily the Onion).