Interrogator One: How came you to be re-made into a zinn soldat, ahem, Tin Soldier?
Subject Seven: That is a sad, sad story. I was in love with a beautiful Munchkin girl...
Interrogator Two: Munchkin? We have no such classification. What is 'Munchkin' please?
Subject Seven: Little people who live behind the Brickyard--
Interrogator One: Ah. Todtenhilzig, or Thumblings!
Subject Seven: No. They are bigger than Thumblings. And much nicer. Or at least they were until they were gassed.
Interrogator Two: So they were part of the local resistance?
Subject Seven: They aren't local--
Interrogator Two: Aha! More foreign agitators!
Political Officer: What can you tell us about these foreign agitators?
Subject Seven: I think they're all dead--
Political Officer: We shall send one of the canine units to this Brickyard to verify your claim. It will go badly for you if you are trying to mislead us!
Interrogator One: Please continue.
Subject Seven: This girl lived with a Wicked Witch. The Witch did not wish me to marry the girl, so she enchanted my sword...I'm sorry...this is painful to have to go through all over again--
Interrogator Two: Your weakness sickens me--
Interrogator One: You no longer feel anything. Our scientists have confirmed that you have no sense of touch. You are only experiencing a form of emotional feedback. Reject it.
Political Officer: Get on with it.
Subject Seven: The Witch enchanted my sword. Made it attack me. It began hacking me to pieces.
Interrogator Two: We must locate this hag!
Political Officer: That is a decision for the High Kommandery. There are negotiations underway with some of the local factions, mostly Midwives and Seamstresses. I will flag this transcript so that it comes to the attention of the negotiation team's senior internal administrative liaison.
Observer-Overseer: Get on with it!
Interrogator One: Continue. Please.
Subject Seven: When I lost my legs I went to the tinsmith, Ku-Klip, and he made me some tin legs. When I lost my arms, Ku-Klip made me tin arms, and when I lost my head he made me this fine one out of tin. It was the same way with my body, and finally I was all tin.
Interrogator Two: How was the transference of your consciousness achieved?
Subject Seven: I don't know. Ku-Klip mentioned something about an extraction, but I didn't understand. Maybe the opal in my--
Interrogator Two: No! Do not attempt to open that panel!
Political Officer: Do you now claim that you were forcibly converted at the end? That this 'Ku-Klip' having gained your trust by replacing your limbs with these zinn-plated prosthetics then betrayed your trust and transferred your mind and your soul--
Interrogator One: We already have his confession--
Subject Seven: But I was not unhappy, for Ku-Klip made a good job of me, having had experience in making another tin man before me.
Interrogator Two: We have confirmation. There was a functional manufacturing site in operation in this place--
Observer-Overseer: Obviously! We will track it down. Subject Seven has been brainwashed. But he has proven useful. So far. Continue the interrogation.
Political Officer: Make note in the official record--there must be an investigation into these so-called 'Ku-Klips.' They are obviously untrustworthy foreign agitators. Or worse. There is something about this foul, filthy place.
Subject Seven: That is a sad, sad story. I was in love with a beautiful Munchkin girl...
Interrogator Two: Munchkin? We have no such classification. What is 'Munchkin' please?
Subject Seven: Little people who live behind the Brickyard--
Interrogator One: Ah. Todtenhilzig, or Thumblings!
Subject Seven: No. They are bigger than Thumblings. And much nicer. Or at least they were until they were gassed.
Interrogator Two: So they were part of the local resistance?
Subject Seven: They aren't local--
Interrogator Two: Aha! More foreign agitators!
Political Officer: What can you tell us about these foreign agitators?
Subject Seven: I think they're all dead--
Political Officer: We shall send one of the canine units to this Brickyard to verify your claim. It will go badly for you if you are trying to mislead us!
Interrogator One: Please continue.
Subject Seven: This girl lived with a Wicked Witch. The Witch did not wish me to marry the girl, so she enchanted my sword...I'm sorry...this is painful to have to go through all over again--
Interrogator Two: Your weakness sickens me--
Interrogator One: You no longer feel anything. Our scientists have confirmed that you have no sense of touch. You are only experiencing a form of emotional feedback. Reject it.
Political Officer: Get on with it.
Subject Seven: The Witch enchanted my sword. Made it attack me. It began hacking me to pieces.
Interrogator Two: We must locate this hag!
Political Officer: That is a decision for the High Kommandery. There are negotiations underway with some of the local factions, mostly Midwives and Seamstresses. I will flag this transcript so that it comes to the attention of the negotiation team's senior internal administrative liaison.
Observer-Overseer: Get on with it!
Interrogator One: Continue. Please.
Subject Seven: When I lost my legs I went to the tinsmith, Ku-Klip, and he made me some tin legs. When I lost my arms, Ku-Klip made me tin arms, and when I lost my head he made me this fine one out of tin. It was the same way with my body, and finally I was all tin.
Interrogator Two: How was the transference of your consciousness achieved?
Subject Seven: I don't know. Ku-Klip mentioned something about an extraction, but I didn't understand. Maybe the opal in my--
Interrogator Two: No! Do not attempt to open that panel!
Political Officer: Do you now claim that you were forcibly converted at the end? That this 'Ku-Klip' having gained your trust by replacing your limbs with these zinn-plated prosthetics then betrayed your trust and transferred your mind and your soul--
Interrogator One: We already have his confession--
Subject Seven: But I was not unhappy, for Ku-Klip made a good job of me, having had experience in making another tin man before me.
Interrogator Two: We have confirmation. There was a functional manufacturing site in operation in this place--
Observer-Overseer: Obviously! We will track it down. Subject Seven has been brainwashed. But he has proven useful. So far. Continue the interrogation.
Political Officer: Make note in the official record--there must be an investigation into these so-called 'Ku-Klips.' They are obviously untrustworthy foreign agitators. Or worse. There is something about this foul, filthy place.
Portion of Transcript (Interrogation 1176-D: Subject 7)
Released under the Suppression of Pernicious Gossip Act
Bad translations of the surviving interrogation transcripts leaked by Yellow Journalists during the collapse of the First Pruztian Occupation have led to much speculation regarding the origination and derivation of the so-called 'Zinn Soldiers,' as well as the mass-produced battalions of Fyters and other forms of military automata.
Zinn Soldiers originally gained their vulgar designation because of their special Zinn alloy-plating that made them highly resistant to many jellies, slimes and miasmas. Unlike Fyters, the original Zinn Soldiers were built-up from the shattered remains of badly wounded and dismembered soldiers recovered from the battlefield. Originally the process was something of a progressive and aggressive systematic replacement of lost body-parts with cheap zinn-plated prosthetic limbs.
Despite their best efforts, the Imperial Pruztian Labs found themselves unable to efficiently and cleanly transfer a subject's mind and soul into a functional automata-body, hence the intense effort by the Occupation Forces to track down the secret of soul transference through interrogation, torture, surgical dis-assembly, and any other means at their disposal. Many old-model zinn soldiers were destroyed in the fruitless pursuit of a secret known only to a very few others. It is interesting that there is no mention of the Soulless in any of these transcripts, despite the very active involvement of the Soulless in the Resistance.
New Model Zinn Soldier | Old Model Zinn Soldier | Fyters | Brass Heads | Military Automata
Zinndustrial Workers | Zinn Prosthetics
Ku-Klips
Inspiration: The Tin Woodman of Oz by L. Frank Baum which is available at Project Gutenberg, Wikisource or at Open Library.
Love the interrogation session notes up above. So this is local tech, that the Prutzian (but my no means Proustian) occupiers never figured out?
ReplyDeleteThe zinn soldiers arrived in Wermspittle prior to the Pruztians, but aren't exactly indigenous. The Pruztians never did quite get the hang of this sort of thing, so far, their New Model soldiers are less durable, more prone to corrosion and corruption. There are agents of the empire actively looking for the secret behind the Old Model process...most of them seem to disappear under curious circumstances. We'll have more details eventually.
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