Interview with the Energy Vampire

Maybe it's because I've been watching Hellsing a bit too much lately, but thinking about Alucard's motivations as a monster have been making me wonder about our favorite energy vampire, NOS-4-A2.

What do we know about him? Well, he was created by Zurg, a fine upstanding role modal for the forces of evil. His original purpose was to destroy Star Command and eliminate Buzz Lightyear. In fact, NOS mentioned that Zurg programmed him with everything he needed to know about our fearless hero in order to overpower him and kill him. With that boast, Buzz notes that NOS-4-A2 is possibly even more arrogant than Zurg. Despite this critical flaw, he has also proven to be highly intelligent and resourceful to the point where he had seized control of the two greatest military powers in the galaxy, Star Command and Planet Z, nearly single-handed. Given these factors, let's go through NOS's appearances and see where he's messed up.

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NOS-4-A2's reactions at the end of these encounters when he's defeated often have the tone of a child who doesn't understand why he didn't win or where he went wrong. Future encounters up until his demise further illustrate that he doesn't seem to learn to keep an eye on unexpected factors like his control over robots with higher degrees of sapience faltering, or vengeful street punks, or the possibility of plant-based technology that he can't interface with and infect. I think this has something to do with Zurg's programming him to know how to defeat Buzz Lightyear. When Buzz is in the area, he tends to focus his attacks on him, the opponent he knows he can defeat. That's usually the moment when he's distracted from other things and when his plans fall to pieces. That focus, combined with his arrogance, is what ultimately screws him in the end.

NOS-4-A2 embodies pride. He's convinced he's the top of the food-chain and, to be honest, his design, intelligence, and resources all good reasons to reinforce his thinking. The problem is that his pride interferes with any hope he has for significant growth, because he's convinced he's the perfect king of the technological mountain. Take that with his abysmal lack of life experience to give him any wisdom (he's technically younger than XR when you think about it), and you can see he's really just an evil sociopathic child who wants things to go his way and doesn't think it's his own fault in any way when they don't. He's also impatient, lacks subtlety, and definitely feels the need to show off and rub his enemies faces in his triumphs.

Due to the fact he was programmed by Zurg, one can't help but see where all the bad influences come from and how they come to bite his creator in his purple-skirted behind. It leaves me to wonder what would become of NOS-4-A2 if the evil programming was suppressed. He'd still need to feed, that's probably still a part of his core functioning, but he'd probably be less sadistic about it, indifferent to the Galactic Alliance, Zurg, and all associated parties, and he'd be less likely to indulge in megalomaniac schemes. As a character in the series he'd end up being villain of opportunity or perhaps even have mercenary potential.

Despite his ridiculous short comings, NOS-4-A2 is one of my favorite characters in the show. He's a great villain: an intelligent, terrifying, witty, egotistical creature of the night who's a delightful threat to everyone he comes across. I'm a little sad to see he's gone because with a little fine-tuning on his part he could have owned everyone in the galaxy. Heck, I would have loved to see him attack the Galactic Alliance's computer that we saw in Downloaded. One bite, and it's practically over for them.

P. S.: I've also found it interesting the Buzz is never the one who defeats NOS-4-A2 on his own. XR, Savy SL2, and Ty Parsec the Wirewolf, all victims of the energy vampire, all have that honor. Buzz only succeeds when he leaves his comfort zone and accepts help from Professor Triffid. And then they never think to call him in when they have problems with NOS again after that. >_< Sure, Triffid's a hippie professor, but he came up with a winning strategy against NOS-4-A2 in a world where he's king of the technological mountain.