---A/N This one is called Phase 0 because the gundam seed episode titles were Phase#. The battle you are all waiting for is in a couple chapters, so expect me to post it here sometime after I post the next chapter on A03
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There aren't many people on the ground near the machine. There are however two people still there on the ground in the area I want to start moving around in. Good news is the machine can pick up its own torso under its own power, so that is something at least.
"Could you please move? We are doing important tests, and you haven't gotten out of the way."Shows you, finally moving after the giant robot tells you to. No dignity.
"I'm clear for basic joint and movement tests, right? Don't want to step on anyone's toes right now. OR a person for that matter. Being crushed by a mobile suit isn't a way you want to die."
It's painful. Like how an ancient execution method was being stepped on by an elephant but imagine the elephant's foot can instantly control how much force is put on the person being crushed and can also rocket jump. That's the situation that occurs when you crush people to death via mobile suits.
Morbid thought.
"You're cleared."
"Test one: Arm movement."
The controls are functional. The arms are moving. It isn't lagging or anything either, so this isn't going horribly wrong. It's responding about as effectively as any RGM series unit's arms so it can't be horrible. These people described the situation as far more dire than Early type GM mistakes.
"How's the reaction time looking? Is it to your standards?"
It better be. This is above what I consider to be the baseline for combat applicable machinery.
I could try for better, but this machine isn't worth it. The astray is not that great. Above average for a society which has no reactors and just realized what a mobile suit is, but I have standards. The astray is what you expect from one of the really terrible ghetto colonies that's literally falling apart, notapart not one of the largest neutral nations in the earth sphere. We have a war satellite for god's sake! How can we not have already invented fusion yet?! Or just bought it!?
I haven't even explained fusion, have I? oh god. That's going to mindfuck these people isn't it?
This random child woke up and just told them, "Hey, so umm, you guys are grossly incompetent at your jobs and are also garbage scientists. I can write multiple dissertations on why you're bad that don't know anything about physics. I also have at least 50 mass production designs that completely outclass your greatest achievement in every way and I'm not trying."
I must have actually destroyed everyone's psyches at this point. I should probably be gentler whenever they ask about the things that are going on in my brain. I never even got around to the mobile trace system, or the flash system or anything like that.
I really am a weird guy.
"I just zoned out. Is this working to a fair battle standard?"
"YES!! I told you like four times. This is incredibly far beyond expectation!"
"Great. I don't see anyone on the floor. Basic walking test is a go."
The real issue plaguing giant robots is the machine's stability. The square cube law suggests that this should not be okay. However, whoever invented that concept never met the legend known as Dr. Minovsky. The particle he discovered is so utterly bullshit that you can get away with basically whatever you want using them. Truly he was a genius beyond compare. The point being that the first time you make one, legs are your big enemy. It's why tanks are more common early into warfare. Treads are simple and do the job decently. Then you get like spider tanks, but it eventually settles onto bipedal machines. Human form is what we know, and it simplifies a lot of tactics. You can use infantry tactics again with bipedal robots. Sure, cover is harder to find, but at the same time the basics of trench warfare and whatnot can be recreated via mobile suit sized shovels or something. I don't know, I'm not a tactical genius. The point is that there are clear benefits to the bipedal robot design.
I keep over contemplating random thoughts while testing walking. The fact I haven't noticed balance issues yet indicates I have succeeded so that's nice. Orb has issues doing things that are mind numbingly simple for some reason. I would want to test the thruster output, but I am not in a position to test them or anything. We can schedule that for later, I guess. Same with a weapons test. Beam weapons are not ever supposed to be used in a colony if you aren't trying to kill everyone. This is why the shot lancer was invented and why the Jegan had grenades, so you could defeat enemies in a colony without killing a ton of people, or causing oxygen deprivation syndrome in a truly enormous population.
We can stop testing now that I think about it. There isn't anywhere to test the Vulcans on this bad boy in any useful manner, so I have basically nothing left to do.
"So clearly this works. I'm going to end it. I think someone else can make the rest of the testing happen. I am tired. I have been up for like 7 hours straight and used 100% of my brainpower. I really need to sleep."
"You have only been here for like 4 hours. That's barely any time where you were doing things with us, but the machine is far beyond what we originally expected."
"Cool. I'm going home."
"What? It's like 4 pm standard earth time."
"Why is this day so long? I feel like it's been eighty-seven years. I know why my parents only work once every week. Engineering is taxing."
"You mean hard right?"
"I said what I said."
I need to double check what got left out on the OS. It'll help for the eventual lecture in mobile suit engineering. I need to know where they failed so I can target the lecture toward the deficiencies of my Coworkers? Am I their coworker? I just showed up today.
"Wait, how do you want me to store this machine? DO you want me to lay it down again, or is standing fine?"
"Lay it on the table again. We need to do diagnostics on the machine now that the testing is done."
"Ok."
This is a bit harder given how cluttered the cockpit is, but its not going to be painful, I think. Just need to make it sit down first, and then have the arms push back on the ground enough to move properly or make this thing crab walk. Nah, just use the basic sit-down method. I don't need to show off right now. I have to take extra care seeing as I don't want to damage one of our only prototypes.
And there. The machine is now safely stored.
"I'm checking the old OS to figure out what went wrong.
…
HOLD ON, how in the god damn fuck did you forget AMBAC?!?!?!? That is beyond ridiculous, this is a level of stupid so gosh darn high I can't even explain it properly!
WHY ON EARTH DID YOU MAKE A MOBILE SUIT THEN!! This is the foundation for why you make mobile suits and not like space fighters. Holy shit, I didn't think you people could fuck up this bad. LIKE FOR FUCK's SAKE, Mobile pods have this technology. MOBILE PODS. Those are stopgaps for people who aren't using mobile suits yet. I will not be sleeping until I give a full lecture on what you are supposed to do."
Calm down. When has being angry ever actually solved anything?
"Sorry for the outburst. It's just so fucking simple to make AMBAC. Like I installed it via software, and that's weird. I need to redesign some joints for better AMBAC, but for the most part the joints and thruster placement would allow for good AMBAC. I don't even understand how that's possible given there was no actual attempt at it. AMBAC is like the most basic tech possible. Momentum conservation is like the most logistical reorientation system."
"What is AMBAC exactly?"
"AMBAC means Active Mass Balance Auto-Control. The AMBAC system coordinates movements and micro-movements precisely, allowing a continuous balance and stability without expending reaction mass. This is one of the reasons that you make a machine with limbs instead of just a big blob of stuff like the mobius. This is why the ball has those arms, to conserve fuel. More limbs allows for better turning, so you could say add some wing binders or a stabilizer tail to add to maneuverability. That however adds mass which means you need better or more thrusters.
How do you not understand AMBAC, but understand Anti-beam coating? I swear you people developed technology backwards."
"What even is anti-beam coating?"
"It's the gold stuff on this machine, or do you not know what that is?"
"No."
"Well then why is this thing gold then? That seems a bit silly."
"Because that's the national color."
"Well, before you ask, Anti-beam coating was originally tested on the Hyaku Shiki. It's basically ablative armor which provides protection against beam weapons. It wasn't the greatest protection against beam attacks, but it was pretty good. Beam shields are way better though."
"I'm almost too afraid to ask if there are any other coatings."
"Well, there is anti-laser coating, anti-beam coating as I mentioned previously, magnetic coating, the weaker cheaper non golden anti-beam coating, sealant for aquatic mobile suits, dust sealant for desert environments, and then miscellaneous other coatings I can't remember off the top of my head."
"Wait a second, you mentioned beam shields. Those aren't properly sized for mobile suits. The biggest usage is the Artemis base, and those are larger than the GINN."
"Yes, they are. It's been standard since like 30 years ago. I have been designing a stopgap machine based on the machine which standardized beam shield technology back in the day. There was a problem with including the shield as standard with our current resources which we didn't have the Helium-3 to fuel it. At least I thought that, but then I realized that I could just use a different reactor type to power the beam shield and the mounted beam spray gun."
"Aquatic mobile suits are being worked on, right?"
"We wanted to make a basic design work first. We have some ideas as to what we want out of an aquatic mobile suit, but they were shelved when we realized we couldn't make a natural compatible mobile suit. We still have the data somewhere around here."
That's actually kinda reasonable. I didn't think that was possible given who I am working with.
"Fair enough, but we need to make one given the Astrays function now. Orb is an island nation, and there is no real reason to not work on one. ZAFT has one I think, I might be wrong on that, but they give off amphibious mobile suit developer vibes. Anyway, an amphibious mobile suit gives us a viable way to defend the fleet, and still have it be useful when defending the homeland on land."
"They do have a couple of those actually."
"Let me guess, it looks like an oval, has noodle arms, and has shoulders which jut out for a long time. Oh, and really thick armor to help it go deeper underwater. How close am I to what they have made?"
"That's actually really close to correct."
"It's the easiest way to make an amphibious machine.
"Why is ZAFT your first idea of an enemy?"
"Well, a few reasons that are just observations of trends. One, they are spacenoids fighting for independence using mono-eyed mobile suits. Groups of that nature generally commit a few atrocities like nuclear strikes or colony drops. Zeon did it, every Neo Zeon group tried something of that scale, and the Crossbone Vanguard tried to do stuff like that once as well, even if they were using non mono-eyed machines. Usually only one per war at most, but sometimes more happen. Two, they did that N jammer thing and that was nowhere near a reciprocal response to a nuking of a colony. I could understand doing it to the Atlantic Federation or something, but way more than three hundred thousand died to what they did. Heck, it's literally set up in a way that violates landmine rules in warfare under the old Geneva Conventions.
Sidenote: We need a new war rules treaty.
Anyway, number three, the only nation which is threatening is the PLANTS. They have mobile suits. They are complete and utter trash, but they are technically mobile suits. The Alliance is probably developing their own somewhere, but if we are failing this badly… their attempt is probably going way worse than ours."
"Why are you acting like the GINN is a terrible mobile suit?"
"It is terrible. The Ocher type uses GAS TURBINES according to my sources. GAS TURBINES! I can't adequately explain how terrible that is. It's impressive in a "wow. you made this in a ghetto out of burnt out cars and actual garbage?" sense, but the PLANTS aren't a ghetto. I cannot compliment it without wanting to puke. I at best can say they did good with battery tech."
"Is this the reactor stuff? Also, what is a colony drop?"
"It's as the name implies: a colony gets dropped onto earth's surface and causes massive amounts of death. It's a viable tactic for an O'Neil's type colony, but really, it's just advanced orbital bombardment. I think a plant colony would be a lot harder to do this with, but I can't be exactly sure. And yeah, reactors are easy to make. I can show you the designs for one right now actually. I'm basically done with the testing now. This thing can walk and kick without falling over and exploding for no reason. I can't test running in here that well, but I'll just assume it's not trash. Nothing in the operating system really needs tuning for higher performance, so I think we can wrap it up now."
"WHY WOULD ANYONE DROP A COLONY ON EARTH?!?"
"To force a surrender, insanity, to show one's ''might'', it's a horrifying tactic, so I felt I was required to mention it. I have designs to counter one of those, but they are genuinely horrifying on every level. I don't ever want to have to make them."
"Why?"
"I am not talking about it. The things I know could be considered future war crimes. I am not willing to tell people about them for fear of the feats of technology being replicated and being used to cause mass genocide. I'll email the plans for the next generation mass production model to you later. I can lecture at a later date. I need time to cool off from the exhausting slog that has been today."
"Do you even have our emails?"
"No, however I have a student email from the university, so you can just contact that. Put in the email that you requested the Den'an Zon designs or something. That phrase is so specific that no one would put that in my inbox besides you. See you later."
----Perks Obtained.
Time to cook 200
Wonderland's sense of time is kind of screwy, and it's perfectly reasonable for a chef to go out for a midnight quest to a mountain for an egg and get back before the pot boils over. This perk essentially slows down the progression of time from a narrative standpoint as long as you are focusing on making food that includes everything from acquiring ingredients to preparing the food to setting the table. This does not slow or freeze the movements of those around you, but it basically means that as long as you are focused on cooking, you'll finish everything on time and nothing will interrupt you. For instance, if you are cooking a special potion to boost your troops in time to stop an invasion, you'll get the potion ready on time even if the siege was just an hour away. When you stop doing food-related things, time returns to its normal pace; spell preparations technically count as cooking by Wonderland rules, though.