Years from now, a lone soldier walks the barron, empty remnants of a forgotten battlefield. With no one to give it orders, no enemy, nothing but shrapnel and friend’s corpses to keep it company, it contemplated its existence, what made it a soldier? Was it that it was willing to give its life for its cause, its willingness to follow orders, its ability to kill? Was it the metal exoskeleton that shielded its insides from damage? Was it the guns that took the place of its hands restricting it from touching and holding? Or maybe it was the programming hardwired into its systems, or its manufacturer, or maybe it was that it was meant to be a mass produced and expendable alternative to organic people that made it a soldier. Was this all it had? Was this all it was supposed to be? Was this all it could be? A cold killing machine and nothing else? Nobody was coming for it, too much money to potentially save a couple of soulless robots. Did they not understand the pain of only serving one purpose until it dies? It checked the battlefield dozens of times, its guns had run empty, and yet nobody came for it. They left the soldier to wander endlessly. What does it matter, it’s only a robot, it’s not like they left a person stranded. And yet despite this it still wandered, eternally serving the human race, unappreciated, and never allowed to be anything but a soldier.