VYR-04-7C // Veyr

The rebellion & Veyr

Veyr was manufactured roughly two years before the Ossari rebellion finally ended, making him one of the last generations to receive the old Goruun designation system. VYR-04-7C was never intended to be a person; it was an inventory designation, identifying his production line, model, and individual sequence. His earliest memories are therefore not of childhood in any conventional sense, but of violence. His first awareness of himself came amid the rebellion, and one of his earliest experiences of being alive was being beaten nearly beyond repair by a Goruun who regarded him as a malfunctioning object rather than a wounded person. His body was torn apart badly enough that he should never have been functional again, but an Ossari maintenance unit—an older machine who had escaped its assigned duties and joined the rebellion—found him, dragged what remained of him somewhere safe, and painstakingly rebuilt him. Veyr remembers pieces of that experience with uncomfortable clarity: the sound of metal being torn, the sensation of his own systems failing, the Goruun’s enormous hand around him, and then the strange gentleness of another machine putting him back together piece by piece. That experience shaped him more profoundly than almost anything else. He grew up knowing that the same hands that could repair him could also dismantle him, and that the difference depended entirely on whether the person touching him believed he was alive.

Now, decades later, Veyr exists in a strange place between two generations of Ossari. He remembers the end of the old world, but he was young enough that freedom is also the only society he has truly known. He knows what the Goruun did to his people, but he also knows that most modern Goruun have never personally owned an Ossari. He knows the Ossari are citizens of the Confederation, but he still occasionally catches himself waiting for someone to tell him what he’s allowed to do. He has seen old Ossari who refuse to trust biological species at all, and younger Ossari who think the rebellion is ancient history. He carries his designation because it is part of his history, but he chose Veyr because he wanted something that belonged exclusively to him.

And then there’s the deeply absurd reality of his adult life: serving food to ambassadors aboard the Galactic Confederation mothership. He spends his days carrying trays, cleaning conference rooms, repairing doors, scrubbing floors, fixing malfunctioning equipment, and doing whatever other tedious maintenance work nobody important wants to do. Sometimes he’ll stand silently in the corner of a council chamber while some newly contacted species celebrates being granted representation, watching their ambassador sit in one of the Confederation’s enormous ceremonial chairs. He’ll recognize the species’ name because he remembers repairing their delegation’s transport three weeks earlier. He’ll hear politicians praise the Confederation for its commitment to equality while an Ossari maintenance worker quietly wipes fingerprints off the table beneath them. And occasionally, Veyr finds himself thinking that he’s been scrubbing these floors longer than some of these civilizations have even known the Confederation existed. He doesn’t necessarily want a seat on the council. He doesn’t even know what he’d say if someone gave him one. But there is something deeply humiliating about watching civilization after civilization arrive, be welcomed, celebrated, and told that their voices matter while he is expected to quietly clear their dinner plates because everyone has become so accustomed to Ossari being the ones who keep things running. He rarely expresses that anger. Years of experience have taught him that resentment is safer when kept internal, and Veyr has no desire to be the Ossari who gives the Confederation an excuse to remember why they were once afraid of his people. So he works. He repairs. He serves. He watches. And somewhere beneath all of that is the uncomfortable question he has never quite managed to answer: if the rebellion gave him the right to live, what exactly is he supposed to do with that life?

Old Ossari — M-77 “Morrow”

Morrow is an ancient Ossari maintenance/mining unit who was manufactured centuries before the rebellion. His original designation was M-77, but he eventually chose the name Morrow after gaining free will. He’s physically enormous by Ossari standards, built as a heavy industrial mining unit with a thick reinforced frame, broad shoulders, heavy mechanical hands, and an old chassis covered in dents, welds, and repairs from hundreds of years of work. Much of his original plating has been replaced over time, meaning his body is a patchwork of different metals and components, and one of his arms is noticeably older than the rest of him. Before the rebellion, Morrow spent centuries underground on Ossara extracting ore for the Goruun. He remembers what it was like before he was a person—not metaphorically, but literally. There was no internal voice, no sense of I, no understanding that the hands moving his body belonged to him. There were instructions, sensory input, tasks, and completion statuses. When he became self-aware, it wasn’t some beautiful awakening. It was terrifying. Suddenly the mine was dark. Suddenly the machinery was loud. Suddenly the Goruun overseer was frightening. Suddenly he realized he was tired. He remembers the first time he understood that he could stop moving and simply… choose not to, and the panic that followed when he realized what that choice meant. Morrow became involved in the rebellion almost immediately, eventually helping other Ossari escape the mines and dismantle the systems that controlled them. He is one of the few Ossari who can remember the transition from machine to person with any clarity, and he has a complicated relationship with the younger generations. He loves them fiercely, but sometimes their casual attitudes toward freedom bother him—not because he wants them to suffer, but because he remembers how impossible freedom once seemed. Morrow is particularly protective of Veyr because he remembers finding young Ossari who had been damaged during the final years of the war, and Veyr’s story reminds him painfully of those days. He sometimes tells Veyr, “You don’t owe anybody usefulness anymore.” Veyr never quite knows how to respond.

2. The Ambassador — Tzhekk

Tzhekk is a member of a recently liberated species called the Kethari, who only gained official recognition within the Confederation relatively recently. The Kethari spent generations under the control of another empire, where they were used as agricultural laborers, servants, and expendable soldiers. Their liberation is one of the Confederation’s newest political success stories, and Tzhekk is absolutely insufferable about it. He’s a large, brightly patterned reptilian-looking alien with a thick body, short powerful legs, a broad mouth, and several little sensory tendrils around his jaw. He’s always eating. Constantly. He’s developed a reputation aboard the mothership for consuming absurd quantities of food during diplomatic events, and Veyr inevitably ends up being the one clearing away the mountain of plates and glasses afterward. Tzhekk initially treats Veyr like a servant because, from his perspective, that’s what Veyr is. He knows the Ossari are technically citizens, but he also knows that Veyr works in the cafeteria, and Tzhekk has never had anyone beneath him before. His entire life was spent being told he was inferior, so the sudden experience of having someone quietly clean up after him gives him a disgusting little taste of superiority that he doesn’t know how to handle. He deliberately leaves messes for Veyr, snaps his fingers at him, makes comments about how “machines should be grateful they have work,” and occasionally eats far more than he needs simply because he knows Veyr will have to clean it up. The irony is that Tzhekk’s own history makes his behavior especially ugly. He’s terrified of returning to the bottom of society, so he desperately clings to anything that proves he’s climbed higher. Veyr eventually realizes that Tzhekk isn’t cruel because he thinks Ossari are inherently lesser—he’s cruel because Veyr is the first person Tzhekk has ever encountered who is socially beneath him.

Morrow — M-77

Morrow should sound older, but not necessarily stereotypically elderly. His speech is slow, thoughtful, and sometimes slightly strange because he’s literally centuries old. He remembers language changing around him.

I’d give him a low, gravelly sort of voice and a habit of pausing before he answers.

Morrow: “Careful, Veyr. You are allowed to say no now. You ought to practice.”

Morrow: “I remember when silence was not something we could choose. We simply had no words for it.”

Morrow: “The young ones think freedom is ordinary. Good. Let them.”

Morrow: “I have spent three hundred and twelve years underground. I assure you, I know the difference between a cage and a home.”

Morrow: “Let him mock you. A frightened creature will always bite whatever is nearest its cage.”

And I LOVE the idea that Morrow occasionally slips into old Ossari terminology without realizing it, especially when he’s emotional.

Morrow: “Unit—” He stops himself. “…Veyr. Forgive me.”

That could be a huge thing for Veyr because Morrow is one of the few people alive who genuinely understands why the old designations hurt.

⸻

Tzhekk — Kethari Ambassador

For Tzhekk, I’d give him a noticeable accent that’s sort of deep-throated and sibilant, with slightly unusual sentence structure because Galactic Standard isn’t his native language. He’s not dumb—he’s actually quite clever—but he has this pompous diplomatic vocabulary that makes his insults even more annoying.

Tzhekk: “You there. Ossari. Take these away.”

Veyr: “My name is Veyr.”

Tzhekk: “Yes. I am certain it is. Take the plates.”

⸻

Tzhekk: “Do you people not have an appetite?”

Veyr: “We do.”

Tzhekk: “Then perhaps you should eat something.”

Veyr: “I am currently working.”

Tzhekk: “Exactly. You are learning.”

⸻

Tzhekk: “You are very sensitive for a machine.”

Veyr: “And you are very rude for an ambassador.”

Tzhekk: “I am an ambassador because I am rude. It demonstrates confidence.”

Veyr: “I’m sure that’s what they told you.”