Aaron Herres

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“	By giving them something to fight for. Zero Dawn. The top-secret super-weapons program that will save us - so long as humanity holds off the swarm long enough for Dr. Sobeck and her team to finish it. The file I’m sending contains the war plan for Operation: Enduring Victory.	„
	~ Herres spearheading Operation: Enduring Victory.

Aaron Herres is a posthumous character in the 2017 video game Horizon Zero Dawn.

He was the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, and being the final member in the U.S. Military to attain the rank, long before the Faro Plague struck in Q4 2064. He was famous for spearheading Operation: Enduring Victory, a last-resort military counteroffensive where men and women from around the world would fight to the last man in order to allow the completion of Zero Dawn by the Alphas of the project.

He was voiced by Toby Longworth.

Appearance[]

Herres, as seen in the hologram, was an elderly man who has a short hair. He was seen wearing the U.S.R.C. military uniform.

Background[]

U.S. Military[]

In 2060, Herres was appointed Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. He was a clever senior military commander who was familiar with the connection between senior administrative military status and American politics. He was in charge of several initiatives, including the creation of the UltraWeave Armor, a suit of body armour that used an energy shield for protection.

He sensed the shift away from human troops toward mechanised, autonomous robotic forces that was about to overtake the American military, but instead of resisting it, he embraced and promoted it. He became the leader of the greatest mechanised army in history upon being named Chairman of the U.S.J.C.S. and President of the U.S. Robot Command.

Operation: Enduring Victory[]

Despite embracing the idea of the U.S. military's automation, Herres ultimately came to regret his support from it. He realised that the might of the by-then fully automated U.S. military was completely ineffective against them and that Zero Dawn was the only chance that life on Earth had to survive being wiped out for all time when he learned about the Faro Plague and the robots' ability to instantly hack and commandeer any enemy automaton.

Elisabet Sobeck's icy logic and required plan to give Zero Dawn enough time to be finished and put into action was strongly overruled by him in a meeting with the other joint chiefs. In order to impede the swarm's march, the plan called for the doomed human race to kill itself in a vain attempt to stop it. Herres took it upon himself to launch and spread a deception campaign against the human armed forces and citizens assembling throughout the world to fight the Faro Plague. This campaign spread the myth that Operation Enduring Victory was a superweapon called Zero Dawn that could ultimately kill robots if their development could only be held down long enough for it to be finished.

In addition, he gave Sobeck a place to stage Zero Dawn and oversaw the recruitment—or in some cases, abduction—of the world's top scientists from their home nations in accordance with a list that Sobeck had created. These individuals were then brought to the facility, informed about Zero Dawn's true nature, and given the chance to work on the project. He created a hologram presentation for the potential applicants and played it for them when they arrived.

Just barely, Enduring Victory was a triumph. Herres created an audio message that he wanted to be heard by anybody who came across it in the new world he believed Zero Dawn would establish as the Faro Plague started to encroach on U.S.R.C. Headquarters. He accepted full responsibility in this letter for the millions of civilians and military men who died as part of Enduring Victory purely as a result of the false information he had spread about Zero Dawn.

He was distraught over his role in it and, moreover, for being one of the supporters of the culture of military automation that encouraged technological advancements like what would later become the Faro Plague, even though the world's population had undoubtedly been doomed and its sacrifice at least served a necessary purpose.

Finally, he offered a sincere apology to the inhabitants of the new planet and expressed a sincere wish that they would never again require men like him. He requested that Dr. Sobeck add the message to APOLLO, Zero Dawn's worldwide knowledge repository. The data stacks for APOLLO had already been closed when it was received, making it impossible to archive. The Nora huntress Aloy discovered it on a datapoint and heard it about a thousand years later in the Zero Dawn project facility's ruins.

Legacy[]

Although Herres' ultimate fate is unknown, it is most probable that he perished during the Faro Plague's attack on U.S.R.C. Headquarters.

Trivia[]

Herres' first name, Aaron, is based on the biblical figure of the same name. His surname is based on the real-life General Robert Tralles Herres, who served as the Vice-Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and was also born in Denver.