Aile actually isn't a reploid. She's a human cyborg. It's questionable if her cybernetics are this extensive, but I always assumed she was mostly humanoid. I feel like ZX went for the cyborg lore, to explain how the reploid armor properly interacted with Vent and Aile's bodies.
I believe the theme for ZX was that the differences between humans and reploids had reached the point it was very difficult to tell them apart. A precursor to Dash/Legends where even though it's outright stated that humans have gone extinct, it's arbitrary since who is and who is not a human is decided by "the System" which governs the planet and has itself been corrupted.
I believe the theme for ZX was that the differences between humans and reploids had reached the point it was very difficult to tell them apart. A precursor to Dash/Legends where even though it's outright stated that humans have gone extinct, it's arbitrary since who is and who is not a human is decided by "the System" which governs the planet and has itself been corrupted.
I always assumed that the "carbons" as the administrators called them, were one of 2 things. One idea is that they might be so heavily enhanced with cybernetics, perhaps even down to like the molecular level (which can be achieved with nanomachines) that every inch of them is both machine and organic at the same time. The other idea might be that they're genetically engineered organisms, and were built in labs, but are otherwise "human". Since the implication is that the carbons are machine-like in some way, I like to assume the former is the truth.
As for ZX, it is mentioned that reploids have gotten so life like that most people can't tell the difference between a human and a machine at a glance.
I believe Sara referred to the Master as the last "true" human. That is one of the most powerful and highly ranked "machines" left in the world considered him to be such. We're also told that some kind of ecological disaster occurred that caused the planet to be uninhabitable and that humans had to be shelter on and off planet...but get this; what if the "disaster' was that the system simply lost track of people's ancestry?
Yeah, some carbons might be artificially created humans, but some of them might be simply humans the system could no longer with certainty regard as such. That living and working together in such close proximity over such a long period of time inevitably lead to humans and reploids falling in love? And those produced by such a union, logically, could not be regarded as being humans by the system created to serve them?
Keep in mind The Master isn't exactly a normal human being. He'd lived for thousands of years sustained by the system, and recreating him with his genetic code i.e. cloning him didn't void that designation. His status as a "true human" is again arbitrary, designated and defined by the System. Ultimately Reploids are machines, they have to serve humans,
The other thing is that tech might be so advance that tools and prosthetics might be less invasive and damaging than the modern piercing of one's ear? There's less cell and scar damage involved, almost plug and play? There's less risk of harming yourself by melding your entire arm with a cannon than operating a bandsaw?
