WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Episode 6 of Mars Red, now streaming on Funimation.
Episode 6 of Mars Red, "The Last Blue Sky," reveals General Nakajima's real plan: to manufacture vampires, instead of recruiting them. Code Zero was just a cover-up he used to develop Ascra, a potent fluid that turns healthy humans into vampires almost immediately (with some side effects) and which he had forced the entire Squadron 16 to drink so they could become super soldiers.
Ascra was provided by Rufus Glenn, the triple-crossing Scottish vampire who arrived in Japan under the guise of introducing a new perfume to the Tokyo market. He (and maybe Nakajima) had also begun moving Ascra into Yokohama and the Red Light District. This version, however, turned all humans into mindless zombie vampires who attacked anyone and drank from anything, even their own kind.
Rufus Glenn's motivation, judging by the company he keeps, might have been to provoke enough chaos in Japan that it would allow high-ranking vampires to rule over the entire country -- he even poisoned his direct vampire superiors so he could be the only one to profit from the situation. However, Nakajima's motivation is rooted in his fanatical love of war and human life.
Nakajima, who had lost many of his men in a failed Siberian campaign, was very vocal about his belief that future wars would be decided not by technological advances, but by the skills of men that stayed alive in the field. Nakajima first tried recruiting vampires traditionally to create Code Zero -- and by recruiting, he meant conscripting bloodsuckers -- but after 20 years and only four recruits, he gave up and moved on to plan B: use Code Zero as a distraction and funnel the government funds to develop a drug that would turn healthy soldiers into immortal, invincible vampires.
These lucky men were none other than the entirety of Squadron 16, Maeda's men, who Nakajima turned into vampires by making them drink tainted pre-battle ceremonial sake. They didn't even get to see their last blue sky before their transformation. These soldiers don't even get the relative freedom and comfort of the Code Zero misfits. Instead, they are locked down during daylight hours into vertical metal containers that look like militarized filing cabinets. Nakajima, for all his claims of turning them into heroes, doesn't even allow them an inch of humanity after they fight his battles.
That's not even the worst part. To Nakajima, the last piece of the puzzle is Maeda himself, his subordinate and last ally, using his sense of duty -- the only thing connecting Maeda to the world at this point -- to rope him into drinking Ascra and becoming the vampire commander of Squadron 16. Maeda, who saw his Squadron decimated, saw his best friend and his fiancé turn into vampires, who lost his arm and is having regular heart attacks from sheer exhaustion.
Nakajima has the gall to unveil his plan in front of Yamagami and Kurusu, the two youngest and most human Code Zero vampires, who immediately tell Maeda that it's a terrible idea. All vampires, unless they are completely zombified from Ascra, constantly fight to retain their humanity; most feed only on willingly-given blood distributed in unsafe vials.
In the case of Code Zero, their families have been notified of their deaths, because nobody believes that vampires exist. Maeda would be sacrificing his life and his future for the glory of a warmonger who won't even consider him a person, never mind human.
