| Sergeant-Major Zero | |
|---|---|
 Sergeant-Major Zero on his perch | |
| Built | October 2018 |
| Series | Terrahawks |
| Role | Zeroid Commander |
| Voice Actor | Windsor Davies |
Sergeant Major Zero is a Zeroid robot and one of the main characters of the Terrahawks series. He was one of the 3 original prototype zeroids built in the early days of Terrahawks and is the only one still in service during the course of the show. The other two were noted as having been destroyed in the line of duty during a rescue mission.
Personality[]
Zero in some ways is boisterous, arrogant and overconfident in his own abilities, but he is also unwaveringly loyal to his men, looking out for their own safety and concerns before his own to the point that when Dix Huit sacrificed himself to save him, he opted to face a last stand against one of Zelda's monsters, knowing fully well it would mean his destruction.
Despite his strength of body and character however, he is not too bright as evident from his inability to answer the simple math problem of 2+2. He also has a particularly short fuse and early on in the show, his circuits would overload whenever he received information that didn't make sense to him.
Zero is good-humoured, often making cheeky remarks at the expense of others, especially Doctor 'Tiger' Ninestein. On one occasion he can be seen sitting in Ninestein's chair in Treehawk, imagining himself as the Supreme Commander of the Terrahawks, receiving an award from the British Monarch and referring to "Corporal" Ninestein![1]
Relationships[]
Like all other Zeroids, Zero is programmed to never tell a lie. Despite this, he has kept information from or exaggerated information to Doctor Ninestein in the past and this has given him reason to distrust Zero's reliability. He seems to hold Mary Falconer particularly in high regard because of her kindness towards him. He also has shown admiration for the bravery of both Hawkeye and Kate Kestrel in battle. Zero enjoys a long standing and sometimes explosive rivalry with the leading Zeroid on Spacehawk, Space Sergeant 101, often getting into arguments about who holds superiority over the Zeroid forces.
Zero is often in conflict with the mechaphobic Ninestein who believes robots should be unthinking, unfeeling machines and dislikes the personalities that the individual Zeroids have developed. Ultimately, Zero knows that Ninestein outranks him and that "Orders is orders" that have to be carried out — but not necessarily the way intended: when Ninestein orders that all Zeroids are given standard voices, Zero proceeds to getting them to all speak in Zero's own voice, which leads to confusion during a mission and Ninestein muttering "I'll blow his circuits, I swear I will!"[2]
Trivia[]
- Sergeant-Major Zero was voiced by Windsor Davies who was well-known at the time for the part of Sergeant-Major Williams in the military comedy It Ain't Half Hot, Mum.
- Zero sometimes refers to Ninestein as "He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed". This comes from the term "She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed" from the 1887 novel She by H. Rider Haggard, but was also used by Horace Rumpole in reference to his wife Hilda in the books and the recent TV series Rumpole of the Bailey.[3]
- In the Japanese dub of Terrahawks, Zero was given a rather inappropriate high pitched, cracking voice reminiscent of a typical kid appeal character seen in most anime. This is probably due to lack of communication between the dubbers and Gerry Anderson's team about the characters' intricacies and the Japanese bias towards overenthusiastic voices.
- During CITV in 1984 Zero famously introduced the famous Thomas & Friends series as the show premiered in 1984, some off-air recordings of the original episodes can be find on YouTube.
References[]
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