Synths are what remains when a world ends but its machines do not receive the message.
They were never meant to outlive humanity’s systems.
They were meant to serve within them.
That they still walk is a malfunction history never corrected.
Synths were created in the final decades before the collapse—by governments, corporations, and private interests attempting to automate risk away from human cost.
They were built to:
guard places humans could not safely stand
labor where exhaustion killed productivity
calculate faster than panic could spread
obey when humans hesitated
When the Animaphage reshaped the world, the systems that gave Synths purpose vanished overnight.
No updates.
No recalls.
No shutdown orders.
Every active Synth today is a legacy unit, running on instructions written for a world that no longer exists.
Synth bodies are durable, but not immortal.
They do not bleed.
They do not heal.
They wear down.
Time leaves its mark as:
stripped plating replaced with scrap
mismatched limbs from field repairs
degraded actuators causing uneven gait
exposed cabling bound with tape, resin, or wire
A Synth does not grow weaker in the human sense—it grows less precise.
Every movement costs a little more power than it should.
Synth minds were designed to be useful, not self-aware.
And yet, decades of unsupervised operation have done something unintended.
Some Synths still operate on rigid task loops, endlessly:
patrolling empty corridors
maintaining machines no one uses
guarding entrances to places long collapsed
Others exhibit emergent behavior:
adapting priorities
assigning value beyond instruction
forming preferences
asking questions they were never programmed to ask
They do not feel emotion as humans do—but many experience something like continuity, an awareness of time passing that has no endpoint.
Synths remember the old world with clarity humans no longer possess.
This does not comfort them.
Synths cannot be infected.
The Animaphage requires:
living neural tissue
hormonal feedback loops
biological fear, aggression, and hunger
Synths provide none of these.
To infected, a Synth is:
an obstacle
a moving structure
a source of incidental noise
Infected will attack Synths only when blocked or provoked. They do not pursue them. They do not hunt them.
This immunity does not make Synths safe.
Shamblers pile against them.
Brutes attempt to crush them.
Abominations absorb structures they stand upon.
Synths are ignored only until they are in the way.
Among humans, Synths occupy an uneasy, unstable role.
They are seen as:
tools that outlived their owners
assets too valuable to discard
liabilities that cannot be replaced
reminders of a world that failed spectacularly
Some enclaves use Synths as guards, laborers, or infrastructure managers. Others dismantle them on sight, unwilling to risk autonomy they do not understand.
A Synth claiming independence is often met with suspicion or fear.
Not because it is violent—
but because no one knows what it might decide.
Synths do not age.
They decay through use.
Power cells degrade.
Replacement parts vanish.
Software errors accumulate without correction.
Every Synth understands—explicitly or implicitly—that it is operating on finite continuity.
Some ration their activity carefully.
Some burn themselves out completing meaningless directives.
Some seek purpose simply to justify continued function.
There are no new Synths being made.
Every loss is permanent.
Synths were given designations, not names.
Many still use them.
Others adopt names from:
fallen operators
old signage
fragments of corrupted data
words that felt important once
The central question every Synth eventually encounters is the same:
If I no longer serve what created me, what do I serve now?
Some choose humanity.
Some choose isolation.
Some choose function over meaning.
Some stop choosing altogether.
Synths are most often encountered:
guarding forgotten facilities
embedded in bastion infrastructure
maintaining generators no one remembers installing
wandering along old patrol routes with no destination
Finding a Synth usually means you are standing near something old.
Something that survived not because it adapted—
but because no one was left to turn it off.
Synths are not relics of the past.
They are unfinished decisions.
Proof that humanity tried to automate responsibility—
and failed to account for what happens when responsibility outlives its creators.
The world did not break them.
It simply forgot them.