Who is Zero? (Theory)

For those of you who are interested for what is beyond Zero's mask, if there actually is anything under there.

Introduction

Hey everybody! Thanks for the positive reception on my guide on Krieg and if you haven't read it, here's a link:http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=571892018 Also thanks to @Chubbasaurusrex for telling me to do this! I hope everyone has a great day and I hope you enjoy my theory!

What do we know for sure about Zero?

(Just letting you know I'm going to yank alot of this from Zero's Echo logs.)

A. Zero isn't a human. We know this because he has four fingers. (That isn't normal.) Angel even says it herself: "From the footage we have we can't even tell if Zero's human or not." (Angel, in response to Jack asking about who Zero is.)

B. We can't be sure what's underneath the suit. The "sneaking suit" Zero wears is never taken off anywhere. We're not even sure if there really is anything under it. He could be a robot but we'll leave that for later.

C. Zero isn't even his name. Angel says in Zero's echo:"I found one, his name is Zero, or atleast he's called that. No one knows his real name." We can say that Zero is a nickname because his helmet displays a Zero after he kills someone as shown in the echo.

D. The only reason he wants the Vault is because he wants a challenge. Self explanatory.

Theory #1: Zero is an Eridian

Here's the juicy stuff! This theory has been floating around the internet for a while and the reason it hasn't made it far is because: We have no idea what Eridians look like. Yes, we know the what the Guardians look like, but they are not Eridians Guardians are robots made with organic material (As said by Athena in the Holodome DLC for Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel.), made by the Eridians to protect the Vaults. If you've beaten the Pre-Sequel, you've seen the Watcher. And Yeah, the Watcher is a Guardian, not an Eridian. So we can say that Zero is an Eridian claiming the Vaults for his own, but there's next to no evidence to say that he is because we know next to nothing about Eridians. Also the Eridians are believed to have died out. Let's hypothetically say that Eridians looked like Guardians, well the resemblance of Zero to a Guardian is very off.

Theory #2: Zero is a Robot

If you were wondering about the thumbnail for this guide, it's a head for Zero called:"n0t C4n0n" which we can say is not canon. I prefer this theory over the other because it makes more sense (to me). One clarification, all if not most, robots in borderlands have personalities.This is in case someone comments:"ZERO HAS A PERSONALITY THEORY DEBUNKED CONFIRMED"

Evidence #1

His emotions. He only uses one tone of voice and he uses emojis to display emotions. Sounds a bit robot-y? Speaking of, when you first meet Claptrap in Borderlands 2, he says that Claptrap was given only one tone of voice. Could be a simularity between robots in the Borderlands series. Loaders, Claptrap units, and pretty much every robot has only one tone of voice.





Evidence #2

Many of his heads show light breaking through the head part. We aren't specifically talking about the "n0t c4n0n" head but it can be referenced here. These heads include:I D0 Declare, Infern0, G0ry Gh0ul, D4rk Expl0rer, Raz0r, Unreality, Punk, Hisharm0ny, and 3ng13. All of these heads have lights shining through his eyes or a part of his head. That's an adjective lots of Robots have, Claptrap units, loaders, gortys, and pretty much every robot seen in the Borderlands series.








Evidence #3

Maybe the reason he wants a challenge and when he fullfills a kill a zero pops up over his head, is because he's programmed to. Maybe the programmer is notified when a zero pops up so the developer can see his creation's progress. My guess is that he's a prototype for something that could get rid of anything dangerous and to safen Pandora a bit. It'd make sense since Pandora is pure chaos, and murdering Jack would be perfect to ensure Pandora's safety. It would be the perfect challenge.

Evidence #4

When Zero crashes a car he says:"System Crashed." Also according to @Adamas, I couldn't find this quote on the wikia, but he claims that when Zero was idle he has said:"System shutting down"

Evidence #5

Another small thing for the robot theory, unlike the other vault hunters, Zer0 never starts panting after sprinting for some time, which means he probably doesn't breathe at all. This could be evidence that he is a robot, since machines don't need to breathe, or has a mechanical augmentation of some kind that does the job of breathing more efficiently.

Theory #3: Zero is an Alien

Evidence #1. We really have no clue,this could be a good guess but then again no real evidence, feel free to put some in the comments if you find any. We could just say, "He's got four fingers, ALIEN CONFIRMED"

Theory #4 Zero is/was a Hyperion Sniper

Thanks to @Adamas and @CubanDoge for making this theory possible.

Evidence #1.
Zero can go invisible. As shown from Borderlands the Pre-Sequel, Jack wanted to put stalker glands into Hyperion snipers to grant them the ability to go invisible. Jack did this with two kinds of soldiers, the Hyperion Infiltrators and Hyperion Snipers. Infiltrators usually come in close range invisible and the opposite with Hyperion Snipers. Sounds alot like Zero's skill trees doesn't it? Close range and far range?

Evidence #2
This isn't really evidence but Zero has a class mod called stalker, this of course could be a reference to his ability to vanish, but this could also be a reference to his possible history being a hyperion sniper.

Conclusion

Merry Christmas guys! I hope you guys enjoy this guide! If there's any theories or details I left out, please feel free to put it in the comments down below! Also I hope you're have a great day! If you disagree with the theory or you think I did something wrong I won't be offended, feel free to tell me what you think! Please do because we really have no clue what Zero is.

Please rate and favorite! :)

[₵l¥v€$t-1n_₴w₳g]

zero's my favorite character

[ICECREAM SLIME!]

FL4K wears clothes

[HitPointsHarry]

The robot theory sounds most plausible but it has a slight issue: why does he wear clothes? (correct me if Im wrong but) every other bot in the Borderlands world doesn't wear any kind of clothing. And on top of that, Zer0's movements seem to fluid to be a robot.

[MAXYMUS121]

Nobody who has played any Borderlands game would say Borderlands robots don't have personality; we've all met CLAPTRAP.

[ICECREAM SLIME!]

well i must say that does make a fuck ton of sense however my counter point to that is YOUR MOTHER- i'm just joshin i think you're onto something i'd like to know more some time i hope to meet you online again some time

[frvnk]

yeah lol, there's a lot in bl3
- a lot of shared sounds between just guardians and zero (not ones that get reused anywhere else, it's specifically only for guardians and him) in the game files
- same voice filter as the other talking guardians
- speaking of talking guardians, the one in the takedown in 3 only speaks in poetry too
- guardians can change their appearances (not full-on shapeshifting, but definitely enough to pass as a human at a glance like zero does) (this is a fun one for me because it's literally just said in the game, and they word it in the most foreshadowing way possible) with that in mind, they don't really look that different from him in 3, they even have the right amount of fingers and everything

there's also a lot more that i left out, but i don't want to flood the comments so i could give you my discord or something if you want me to show you

[ICECREAM SLIME!]

any evidence to support this claim?

[frvnk]

i'm a dataminer (and i just got really bored during the lockdowns of 2020) it's practically confirmed that he's a guardian if you really look into it

[ICECREAM SLIME!]

ah smart maybe you're right

[tiso81]

my theory is that hes a terraria player!!!!!!!