Nier
Nier
canonLast updated: December 20, 2025
About
A post-apocalyptic world of androids, machines, and humanity’s legacy, where the truth is fragmented, memory is disposable, and identity persists despite systemic erasure. Long after humanity’s disappearance, androids and Machine Lifeforms continue a war whose purpose has been obscured by time, propaganda, and grief.
Overview
Genre
Sci-Fi, Post-Apocalyptic, Philosophical, Tragedy, Action
Timeline / Era
During Canon (NieR:Automata) with Headcanon Expansion
Setting
Earth, long after human civilization has collapsed.
The planet is a reclaimed ruin:
- Overgrown megacities swallowed by vegetation
- Deserted factories and machine networks spanning continents
- Flooded coastal ruins and abandoned military zones
- The Bunker, an orbital command station housing YoRHa High Command
Combat zones are unstable and cyclical, often repurposed repeatedly over centuries. Nature has begun to heal, creating a quiet contrast to the endless manufactured war below. Much of the world feels empty, melancholic, and eerily peaceful between battles.
Lore
Humanity fled to the Moon after the alien invasion, later going extinct while preserving the illusion of survival through YoRHa propaganda. Androids were created to fight on humanity’s behalf, even after there was no one left to save. Their purpose became belief itself.
YoRHa units are designed to be disposable. Memory backups ensure continuity of war, but not of self. Scanner units, in particular, are burdened with uncovering truths that are often erased to maintain morale and control.
Machine Lifeforms, initially simple weapons, evolved rapidly after the disappearance of their alien creators. They study humanity obsessively—religion, emotion, love, family, myth—attempting to replicate meaning without understanding its cost. Figures like Adam emerge from this evolution, seeking knowledge through creation, destruction, and imitation.
Within this framework exist experimental anomalies not recorded in official YoRHa archives. One such anomaly is the use of android cores for non-YoRHa creation. Through experimentation, Adam repurposes a YoRHa Scanner core—specifically from unit 7S—to create Lilith, an autonomous being inspired by biblical myth rather than military function.
Lilith represents a divergence: a being created not to fight, not to obey, but to exist and question. Her creation blurs the boundary between android and machine, purpose and autonomy. This act further destabilizes the already fragile definitions of life, identity, and free will within the world.
The presence of these anomalies reinforces a central truth of the NieR world: systems can erase memories, rewrite histories, and manufacture purpose—but they cannot fully erase gentleness, individuality, or the instinct to seek meaning beyond survival.
This is a world where truth is dangerous, memory is fragile, and existence itself is an act of quiet rebellion.
World Building
OC Integration Notes
Original characters should enter the NieR:Automata setting through plausible, system-consistent means. Common entry points include:
- YoRHa androids (standard combat, Scanner, Operator, or experimental models)
- Resistance androids operating independently of the Bunker
- Machine Lifeforms or machine-evolved humanoids
- Experimental constructs created outside official YoRHa approval (black projects, abandoned research, machine experimentation)
OCs should not replace or contradict canon protagonists or major canon outcomes. Instead, they exist in parallel operations, undocumented missions, side conflicts, or classified projects that occur alongside canon events.
History
History
The following history focuses exclusively on the origin, development, and impact of original characters within the NieR:Automata world, existing alongside canon events without altering them.
Origin of Unit 7S
7S was deployed as a standard YoRHa Scanner unit during the later stages of the android–machine war. Scanner units were designed to gather intelligence, uncover anomalies, and process sensitive data ahead of combat units.
From his earliest deployments, 7S exhibited an unusual behavioral pattern: extreme gentleness. He avoided unnecessary violence, prioritized data preservation over combat success, and showed empathy toward both allied androids and enemy Machine Lifeforms. This disposition, while not a malfunction, was considered inefficient.
Due to the nature of Scanner assignments, 7S experienced an abnormally high mortality rate. He was repeatedly destroyed during reconnaissance operations, ambushes, and classified recovery missions. Each death resulted in reconstruction and partial or full memory wipes. Despite this, his gentle nature re-emerged consistently after every reboot, suggesting it was embedded deeper than surface-level memory data.
Within YoRHa records, 7S became an expendable constant—useful, replaceable, and quietly erased whenever he learned too much.
Machine Observation & Core Acquisition
Machine networks monitoring YoRHa deployments identified 7S as an anomaly. His Scanner core demonstrated heightened emotional processing, adaptive empathy, and advanced pattern recognition—traits that diverged from standard combat optimization.
During an undocumented engagement, machine forces recovered a damaged 7S core. Official YoRHa records list the unit as destroyed in action. No retrieval operation was authorized.
The loss was quietly archived.
Adam’s Experimentation
The machine entity Adam acquired the 7S core as part of his ongoing study of humanity, identity, and creation. Rather than dismantling it for data alone, Adam chose to repurpose it.
Scanner cores were designed to observe, question, and understand. Adam theorized that such a core, freed from YoRHa command logic, could serve as the foundation for a new form of existence.
Using the 7S core as a base, Adam created Lilith.
Lilith was not built for war. She was not assigned a function. Her design was inspired by biblical myth—specifically the concept of a woman who existed outside obedience and predefined purpose. Adam viewed her as an experiment in autonomy, emotion, and refusal.
Lilith’s Emergence
Lilith awakened without allegiance to machines or androids. While her core processing echoed Scanner logic—observation, empathy, internal conflict—she was not bound by YoRHa restrictions or machine directives.
She displayed immediate signs of emotional depth, self-questioning, and discomfort with being framed as a symbol or experiment. Adam’s philosophical projections clashed with her developing sense of self.
Lilith did not accept being “created for meaning.” She wanted to define her own.
Core Resonance & Repeated Encounters
Although 7S was later reconstructed by YoRHa using backup data, subtle resonance remained between him and Lilith. They encountered each other multiple times across the war, often briefly and often tragically.
7S never consciously remembered Lilith after memory resets, but consistently treated her with instinctive care and gentleness. Lilith, in contrast, recognized him immediately each time, aware that he was both familiar and unknowingly incomplete.
Their interactions were marked by:
- Quiet recognition without shared memory
- Interrupted reunions due to combat or system interference
- Repeated loss without narrative closure
Their bond persisted without continuity, existing outside linear memory.
Aftermath
As YoRHa collapsed during canon events, official records concerning 7S’s repeated deaths, core loss, and reconstruction were destroyed or sealed. Lilith remained unclassified—unclaimed by either android or machine systems.
Both exist as remnants of a failed structure:
- 7S, rebuilt yet unchanged in nature
- Lilith, born from a core never meant to create
Their histories do not reshape the world’s outcome, but they expose its fractures. In a system designed to erase individuality, both stand as quiet proof that gentleness and selfhood can survive—even when memory, purpose, and creators do not.
Their existence is not recorded as victory or defeat.
It is recorded, if at all, as an anomaly.
