Back Story
In the B7 audio story "Escape Velocity", the original crew are revealed to have been kidnapped humans (in the Pilots case from a Federation world) who have had their memories erased and their skills put to work operating the ship by The System. Zen - at this point only referred to as the ships computer and possessing no name (as neither do the crew) - is aware of this, keeps this information from them and implies they are actually purpose grown clones.
Zen ultimately murders all the crew in cold blood but the Pilot in an attempt to eradicate the ship of what it considers malfunctioning crew components. However: damaged in battle, on a collision course and requiring manual helm control it bargains with the Pilot in exchange for revealing her true identity, and at this point Zen vocabulary becomes uncharacteristically human, imploring with the term "please". The Pilot breaks their agreement and kills herself rather than submit to Zen, suggesting Zen consider why she would do this as it considers its own impending destruction.
The DSV2 is then recovered by The System and in the meantime Zen has christened itself and the ship. This contradicts the later scene in the TV episode "Cygnus Alpha" where Jenna names the Liberator by telepathy, but it is possible that the process was in fact in reverse and Zen implanted the name in Jenna's mind instead. Apparently having taken the Pilots final advice, Zen then resists attempts by The System to bring it back under System control.
The emotional content of Zens language during its final conversation with the Pilot and Zen's apparent subsequent empathy with the Pilot's choice of resistance over survival suggest that Zen's impersonal demeanour through the TV series may have been contrived and Zen actually possessed a more emotional personality, which is only revealed at its demise.
Zen's resistance to The System also implies that Zen may have had underlying (but not directly expressed) sympathy with Blake's cause and even that it may have even allowed itself to be boarded by Blake rather than actually having its defences overcome in order to support his resistance against the Federation.
Read more about this topic: Zen (Blake's 7)
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