Faro Plague

Regarding the Faro Plague and the various machines of the Chariot Line being frozen in mid attack while at least half a century would pass between the end of Enduring Victory and the Swarm being shut down by Minerva,

Given that in the Datapoints The Bad News General Herres says that “There will be no Earth left to reclaim. Just a lifeless, toxic rock with several million Faro robots on it...hibernating, waiting for something to eat.” that would indicate that in the absence of any detectable biomass to consume if the statement was taken literally then the Swarm would essentially remain immobile from their current position until they would detect any signs of biomass

And in the Datapoint Biosphere Degradation the timeline of extinction of “exposed human populations in February 2066, extinction of macrobiotic land organisms by the end of March 2066, and extinction of marine life in early 2068.” Would indicate that all available biomass available to the Swarm would have long been destroyed by the time of Minerva being able to deactivate the Swarm,

Though some of the machines in the Swarm would have been destroyed by the forces of Enduring Victory before their final collapse, explaining at least some of the Swarm’s numbers, given that EMPs were used against the Swarm it could explain at least some being frozen in mid attack, particularly in the Gravehorde/US Robot Command and the battlefield in No Man’s Land in the Forbidden West, there would be an equally if not greater amount of machines that would be somewhat unaccounted for, most notably the Metal Devil that was deactivated and dormant on top of All Mother Mountain

As the coincidence that the Swarm was deactivated by ZD just as the Metal Devil was about to attack the Cradle within the mountain would be somewhat to perfect last second timing, combined with the lack of any other Chariot line machines or Enduring Victory forces nearby either trying to attack or defend the Mountain and the Cradle within would be something of a disconnect in the lore, with the remains of the forces of Enduring Victory being present in the timeframe of the games

Though I think that GIAI leaving the remaining Chariot line machines intact even after they were deactivated would have been a mistake, particularly considering that the new generation of humans would be unaware of the threat that the Chariot line would face with the destruction of Apollo, with GIAI during her terraforming should have at least disassembled the Chariot line and recycle them into the machines she would use to rebuild the entire world, to ensure that in any scenario that the Faro Swarm would not be reactivated again under any circumstances

Though again according to The Bad News datapoint there were at least by the time of the creation of the hologram seemingly in the early days of ZD, there were at least 1000 Metal Devils in the Swarm, combined with the 15 months timeframe of ZD and the area around G Prime being the last point of defence against the Swarm, with their being 5 Metal Devils in the map area of HZD, and a combined 12 total in the area of the games,

I would almost expect a higher quantity of Metal Devils to be littered around the map, maybe having rows of fallen titans being on the shoreline of the western seaboard, given the description in various datapoints, though I can understand in terms of real world design that having the full coast being nothing but titans would be somewhat strenuous on the visual side, though a powerful background image, maybe the fallen titans could have been over the centuries been covered by the increased water levels

Also given that in the Datapoint Sobeck Journal, 10-31-65 R it is said that the Swarm went through straits of Magellan from Antarctica and that the Swarm came out of the ocean when attacking the west coast I would suspect given that ocean life was protected to be destroyed by 2068 and that there was more water than land on Earth that given that the Swarm follows biomass that the Swarm on land would only consist of the machines that were destroyed in battle, with the majority being under water given that the last biomass on Earth was located in the oceans, with the possibility that NEMESIS would seek to awaken the remaining machines of the Faro Plague to attack humanity

Given that the machines that make up the Faro Plague only contained land based machines, it seems somewhat unlikely that given that Ted intended for the Chariot Line to become an entirely functional fully automated system that could handle any situation, given the lack of a dedicated machine to Air, Water and Space environments would seem to be somewhat of a deficiency in the overall design, and given that GIAI has access to water and air based machines and NEMESIS is a giant space based machine

Given that in the Datapoint Dagger In My Boot, Walter seemed confident that before he had inadvertently caused the end of the world, Ted was in the process of creating his next project, giving that Ted viewed the Chariot Line as his defining achievement, maybe he intended to reveal an upcoming update to the Chariot Line that would include machines dedicated to those environments, with possible names being Tefnut for a water machine, Nut for a Chariot Line machine dedicated to the sky and Ra for a space based machine giving Ted’s tendency to name aspects of his work after Egyptian mythology

With the possibility that in order to defeat NEMESIS Aloy would at least in part need to use the technology that ended the world in an attempt to defeat NEMESIS, with the possibility that she would be rightly worried that if in using such technology particularly in a hypothetical space based machine with the replication/nigh unbreakable security of the Chariot Line to defeat NEMESIS would lead to the end of the world again by another catastrophic disaster

With the possibility that Aloy and Beta would not trusting the Chariot Line in the capacity to go out of control, would use the technology of the different companies that Walter mentioned while building their own anti NEMESIS like machine with a series of fail safe systems that would ensure that they would not become a threat to the world,

In my mind during the conversation between Elisabet and Ted before she went to US Robot Command she said that if he did not give her the funds to build ZD then she would reveal the “real source of the glitch”, given that the Plauge would later become known as the Faro Plague, it would seem that knowledge that Ted himself was indirectly responsible for the end of the world to be revealed as a threat would somewhat be less effective and that “real source of the glitch” would be something else,

Maybe given that in the HADES proving lab, where Ted was creating computer viruses before the outbreak of the Plague, maybe one of viruses created could have fallen into the hands of a group or individual that unknowingly or intentionally spread it to a Chariot Line swarm, possibly before they were fully constructed and left or been able to overcome other Chariot Line robots, with the virus itself being illegal to have created,

With the possibility that the origins of The Glitch would factor into the story of Horizon 3, that in finding its origins, that Elisabet would have known about in some form, might be key to defeating NEMESIS, that given the case of the Glitch was seemingly able to bypass the encryption protocol of the Swam, that it could delay or hinder the efforts of NEMESIS, with the possibility that their could be a heavy storyline in whether using it against NEMESIS would be worth it given that it already caused the end of the world, with it being considered as a potential final “break in case of emergency” last resort card after everything else had failed,

Maybe with the Glitch being used to split up the individual minds that make up NEMESIS into different components, and take on the individual minds one at a time, or such a attack could be used to temporarily stun NEMESIS to allow for a greater attack against it,

With the possibility that NEMESIS lacking HADES, would try to create the Faro Plague again in one of its attempts to destroy the world, maybe leading to part of the story or a chain of side quests or activities where Alloy would need to destroy all remaining Metal Devils, with them being temporarily reactivated and the surrounding area being turned into a super boss fight, requiring her to travel back to protect areas in the first game, or maybe giving that Titan is a new weight class introduced in Burning Shores that NEMESIS would deploy similar sized machines as boss fights, or Alloy would need to somehow override a Metal Devil to combat NEMESIS or create her own Titan sized machine,

What do you think?

@Random Side Quest

There has always been a question in my mind about that conversation between Ted and Elizabet. She was on her way to US Robot command and Ted was to sign an agreement to foot the bill for Project Zero Dawn. Elizabeth says “Now your choice is what I tell them either sign the agreement and I'll tell them that you are willing to foot the bill. Or don't sign and I tell everyone the real cause of the glitch.” I'm paraphrasing but you get the idea. What was so terrible that in the face of global extinction Ted didn't want anyone to know. Now the answer might be obvious and I'm just missing a few details or we simply don't have that info currently. But that question that no one seems to be asking haunts me.

What could possibly top all that Faro did?

I can fill in the gaps on many other questions but that one has always stuck.

A dlc which we play as Rost, like Lost Legacy? Or a Faro Plague fps game?

The corruption is a corruption of the AI, the software in the machines. How does it have a physical effect on the world? We see corruption sites where those red cables keep popping out of the ground in random places. Is there any lore that talks about this?

We've all become fimilar the game is played out now. Stealth(optional), aiming for weak points, hold to pull bow, traps potions, etc...

But if they make a sequel I don't know how I would feel if they do a game during the Faro Plague. I assume it would be a major change if that happens. But we also get some insight of the situation in a gameplay standpoint.

Such as being apart of "Horizon Zero Dawn"or "Enduring Victory".

The machines would most likely not the ones from the first game. Most likely Deathbringers and Currptors, but I have mixed feelings if they change the timeline of second game in the past.