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raycyel · 6 months

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What were the Border Wars (headcannons)

Oooo boy headcannon time. This is some background lore for my NSR fic, The Comeback from the Fall. This post is gonna center around the Border Wars, Neon J's involvement in them, and how cyborgs came to be. Considering Neon J is a main character, that stuff matters at least somewhat.

Probably mild spoilers for my fic below the cut.

Alright, so the border wars. We don't know much about them outside of what Neon J mentions in his speech after being defeated, and the creators said they're purposefully leaving it vague to let people fill in the blanks. So that's what I shall do.

Name alone, I'm under the assumption that the "Border Wars" are about one country trying to take over other countries, expanding their borders. Maybe it started as a fight over where the border should be between two countries, but as more allies and other countries got involved, it turned into one country trying to take over others.

Now, which country went and started taking over all the others? Hard to say because we know next to nothing of this games geography, but based on what Neon J says in his speech, I would say Azkar.

Neon J said he was in the Azkar faction in the ridges of Kewan. I took that to mean the part of Kewan that Azkar had taken over.

This next part is where I start getting a bit cannon divergent. Its hinted at in the game's lore that before the war, Neon J had a toy shop in Vinyl City. I agree that he was 100% a toy maker, but I would like to argue for the sake of my headcannon that he wasn't a toy maker in Vinyl City, because he wasn't in Vinyl City.

I think that Neon J is a refugee from one of the countries that Azkar took over in the Border Wars. Vinyl City opened its arms to soldiers from countries that had been lost, as long as they fought in the war for Vinyl City. With nowhere else to go, Neon J joined Vinyl City's military and continued fighting in the border wars. Maybe his deployment to the Azkar faction in Kewan was his first as a soldier for Vinyl City, which is why he brought it up after talking about defending the city.

Despite how well off Vinyl City seems to be, blackouts aside, he still talks about his home in the past tense. What it was like, how he wants kids to be able to run around freely without worry, even though they can 100% do that in Vinyl City. Before B2J start rebelling for sure, but honestly also during because B2J were not causing that much harm. People were doing graffiti, and in the finale they were actually fighting, but Neon J said this before the real fighting had started. I feel like Tatiana's announcements made it seem a lot more worse than it actually was.

Either way, Neon J's words feel a lot bigger than just the revolution, because it wasn't causing that much chaos until the finale. Almost like he's talking about a home that he lost entirely, which is what would happen if his home country was consumed by Azkar. It's a home he can't get back, which is why he is so dedicated to NSR and Vinyl City. When he lost so much before, dude is probably constantly on edge about things going bad and losing everything again. Any threat to what he knows could send everything he has back to nothing, so he needs to protect his new home with everything he has from even the smallest disruption.

Also this line in particular makes it feel like he's not talking about Vinyl City to me. It comes right after the "A promise to bring peace back to my people" line. Until the day comes where peace is brought back to his people, he will serve this city. Seems like very extreme wording for a rebellion that has been around for like, 5 days max at the time Neon J fights B2J. He could be blowing things out of proportion (which is very in character), or he could be saying that until he gets his first home back (which might never happen), he will protect his new one the best he can. Also saying "this" city instead of "my" city, but that is very nitpicky so its only a side note.

Well, if Neon J is a refugee soldier from another country, how is he a charter and basically the head of military in Vinyl City? There are two major military based robotics developments in Vinyl City, cyborgs and warbots. In my fic, there will be more cyborgs than just Neon J. 2 major movements, perhaps 2 different people leading the Vinyl City military? Major headcannon territory below, but here is what I think could have happened.

When Neon J arrived to Vinyl City, he was still fully human, no robotics. Given that his home country was being consumed by Azkar when he was still there, they would not be able to make advancements in robotics to make cyborgs happen. The Vinyl City military at the time were the people developing cyborg technology. Injured soldiers were given robotic parts whether they wanted them or not, and dying soldiers got the worst of it all.

Dying soldiers were the primary experimental group for whole body replacements, as we see with Neon J. Some injury (perhaps an explosion on a naval vessel, because Neon J is a navy guy *wink wink*) almost killed Neon J. He was barely alive when he was rescued. Experimental procedures replaced his body with robotic parts that housed all his remaining human organs. I'll discuss this more later in a different post, but long story short, cyborg parts have to function in the same way human parts would in order for the brain to really recognize and use them. This made the procedure highly lethal until way later in development, where Neon J was one of the first successful cyborgs to actually survive. Not a lot of cyborgs exist, and since they were struggling too much to simply exist after the procedure, they were removed from the war force and left to fend for themselves in Vinyl City.

This is when Neon J started his toy shop in Vinyl City, while working to adapt to his new life as a cyborg. Obviously, we can see Neon J works with a radar on his monitor head, I assume that he is blind and uses the radar to "see". Him and other cyborgs who lost their sight can plug in cameras to see, but because its not how the brain wants to see, it gives Neon J a migraine, so he doesn't use it often. So it took him a while to get to the point where he was making coherent toys. That was enough time for like, 13 cyborgs to pile up, most of whom were pissed off about forcibly being turned into cyborgs and basically left for dead to try and figure out how to live.

What do said 13 cyborgs do? They go to complain to the leader of Vinyl City, of course. She must know that this was happening. Except she doesn't, not to the extent of full body replacement. That's no good, the head of military was keeping secrets and has got to be replaced. And who better to do it than the cyborg in front of her with one of the best track records as a naval commander. Neon J. He obviously accepts.

Now in charge, he ends the cyborg program for full body replacement. But that gets rid of Vinyl City's advantage over Azkar, because the robotic enhancements were really giving them an edge. Neon J has to come up with something else. If not robotic enhancements, how about robots in general. And thus, Neon J combined his newfound robotics expertise (thanks to needing to do self maintenance) and his old toy making abilities to start making warbots. Due to what happened to his first home, Neon J plans to do everything in his power to protect his new home. And when he finds out giving the warbots fake memories makes them fight better, he does so without hesitation.

Over time, the war continues going with no real end in sight. At this point, there is no real hope for recovering the countries that were overtaken. When no progress is made in recovering the lost land, Neon J shifts his priorities to defense, making sure Azkar doesn't take over more territory than they already have. Eventually he shifts his priorities further to make Vinyl City open to people who lost their homes. The war continues on at the time the game takes place.

If the war is still happening, then why are all the warbots at home? Simple, Neon J pulled Vinyl City out of the border wars and is now focusing even more on defense. He's defending his new home after having lost the first one to the war. Vinyl City is an island, its a fair distance away from where the war is happening, meaning they can afford to prioritize defense without the worry of constantly being bombarded by attacks. Vinyl City is very diverse because he is focused on helping refugees find a new, safe home. Something he didn't get to have when his home country was lost. It's also why he takes B2J's rebellion so seriously. Not only is it an attack on the home hes trying to protect, but it could be taken as a sign of instability to Azkar, a vulnerability that might cause them to attack. It draws unwanted attention to Vinyl City.

tldr: The border wars are the country of Azkar taking over other countries around it. One of these countries is the one Neon J is from, so he joined Vinyl City's military in order to gain citizenship to it. An injury during his time there resulted in him undergoing cyborg replacement against his will and then being left on his own. Himself and other cyborgs brought it up to Tatiana, who made Neon J the new head of military. As the head of military, Neon J switch to making warbots before eventually pulling out of the border wars all together to protect Vinyl City and allow other people displaced by the war to find a new home. Because he lost his first home, he will protect Vinyl City with his life.

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HAHA! THAT WAS A DOOSEY TO WRITE BUT IT IS HERE! I've been meaning to write this for a while. It's all been rotating around in my brain, but that's all I remember right now. Might edit it again later if i remember anything. Some of this is about to be relevant in a lore dump in the fic, so I figured I'd get my story straight. Hope you like it (:

There is gonna be another lore dump about how I think cyborgs work at some point, and then maybe also some stuff from my outline that isn't gonna be coming to the fic for, like, potentially years depending on how long it takes me to write when I'm out of college.

#NSR #no straight roads #neon j #the comeback from the fall #tcbftf #lore post for my fic #headcannons #this took me hours to compile all my thoughts lol

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