Gundam Seed Celestial Forge

---A/N This is a Gundam Celestial forge story. Basically, the premise is that the protagonist gets perks and they don't recognize it. Sai is one of Kira's dumbass friends, so he is a canon character. This is the second forge fic i have written, and if i ever post Hammering Nails here, you'll definitely see it.

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Chapter 1: Gundam Seed CF

AGH shit, my head it feels like I was hungover. I think this is what a hangover feels like. Damn, I don’t drink after all I’m too young, but this is painful. Did the guys spike the group waters or something? My head is swirling with ideas right now. Is that what happens when the boys spike the drinks?

I have all these ideas for mobile suits like the Ginn those damn ZAFT members are using, but infinitely better. Comparing the Ginn to even my worst idea, the ZANNY is like comparing a fluorescent light to the sun. I have a near perfect blueprint of so many great machines in my mind. Things that would help the war effort. My parents are working on something so top secret they can’t talk to me anymore. I know they run a multinational corporation and also are nobles of orb, but I didn’t ask to be sent to Heliopolis! I would rather be at home on orb’s mainland.

I got lost. I know the war is going to swing to orb fighting ZAFT. It’s inevitable. Orb is a part of earth and ZAFT is going to eventually do something stupid like a colony drop and get everyone killed. After all I know we are looking into something called the Astray. Morgenroete is building five of them and my parents are trying to make one themselves, but they are not doing that great. Apparently the OS is shit or something. We could just be reasonable and ask about it, but that’s more a result of politics between orb nobles than anything. They should basically be done by now. I don’t know what the astrays are per say, but they are definitely some sort of weapon. Possibly mobile suits, but that would be ridiculous. MS are hard to manufacture on earth without using something like the earth federation’s Jaburo home base.

Wait what is a Jaburo base? The earth alliance isn’t doing anything in jaburo last I checked. What is with me today?

Anyway, I have great designs I have to show everyone. Yes, it’s gonna be the hobby Hizack, because who in their right mind would show weapon specs to a group of teenagers. Especially Kira, Kira hates war and violence. There is no way I could show him a weapon of war without him flipping his lid.
What time is it? 8:00 standard earth time…….

Crap I’m gonna be late!

We are still working on the power armor prototype. Well, technically its an exosuit for eva action, but it is power armor in all but name. Hell, we even call it power armor half the time. But junior mobile suits would be one hell of a worker unit, and I can use my pull to get a factory for them up and running in no time. After all Heliopolis has a couple of my families factories, so I shouldn’t have much issue with getting one.

This does severely dampen the work we are doing on the current prototype, given a fully fleshed out model is just in my head now.

Where in the hell did I put my bread? I need toast.

Ahh there it is. 30 seconds to make toast. Where is my design book?

There. Get the toast, find a ride and then start drawing my new plans for a worker. A mobile pod to surpass even God. I call it the RB-70 Ball SAI. Put some minituraized beam weapons on it, and we have an effective successor to the dinky mobile pods we are stuck using because of the whole not being apart of the earth federation thing. It gives us advantages to not be a part of them like skipping this war, but it also means we can’t get mobius’. I want one because it clearly is an advanced spaceplane, but god forbid someone use it as a weapon.

I have a bit to wait at the automatic car station, so time to analyze it. So we take the basic ball, it by specs is 1000% better than the current Earth Alliance moebius units, and is 100000% better than the shitty mobile pods we are using. Its maintenance is easy, as is construction. I could make one today and still be able to sleep at a reasonable time. I could swap out the Minovsky reactor…

Wait. Hold on. This is a fusion reactor design.

What in Scots name.

No one has this. No one. N jammers were so destructive because everyone has fission tech. No one has fusion. Mother of God. I have some small enough to power mobile pods. This could revolutionize our economy. Orb would be extremely dominant in terms of technology. I could skyrocket my family’s prominence to the level of the Shaku’s if not greater.

I didn’t invent the theory though, but I never heard the name of Minovsky anywhere. I should check when I get to the professor. He should know about this Doctor of Physics.

I need to really do work on the mobile pods though. Our current ones are dogshit.

“Please Swipe your identification card.”

“Got lost in my head designing the new pods. Here.”

I’m a bit embarrassed I took so long that I had someone talk to me about it, but whatever.

“New pods? We really need an upgrade, but you’re just a kid. We are gonna need someone to check your work.”

“Just ask the professor to do it. He has all the time in the world to work on this stuff. Lord knows we never get assigned any work in his class.”

The car started driving me to campus before I could say any more.

So the best design to improve the ball would be to improve the manipulators. Then the thrusters. Then I can start really refitting it. The 137 ball is the best basis for a unit in combat. They are easy to produce, and I could probably refit the current pods to work on them as intended.

GAH

Why is my pocket hot?

Is this a key? Why is it fell like it’s on fire?

Why do I know that through this key is the keys to genetically engineering not just humans, but every lifeform complex enough to have organs? Why is a mobile suit in a hanger in my mind? What is today?

Jeez Louise my brain hurts. I need to think. Really hard.

If I suddenly have the designs for mobile suits and nuclear fusion reactors in my head, a key suddenly appeared in my pocket, and now I have the unsettling feeling that this key leads into some pocket dimension like this is an anime, than…

Oh, we are here.

Just gotta get to the workshop to finally finish properly making the blueprints for the new mobile pods. The Ball ver. SAI will be the greatest worker ever produced!

----Perks obtained this chapter
Perks reference
Anaheim Degree (200 CP- Nondiscounted): You have the knowledge (and the paper to prove it to people and shove in their faces to establish superiority) of how to build MS. It’s trickier than it looks, honestly. Weight balances, servo designs, energy reserves- it’s all down to a science and you know how to build the basics. Who knows what you can learn from a bit of hands-on training...

EXO-WOMB (100) Freefall
The first generation of Bowman's Wolves were gestated in dogs with genetically modified red wolf DNA. Now you can have your future generations be developed in a more controlled environment. Simply insert one or more viable biological samples that are no smaller than a single drop of blood into the receptacle and this will provide a perfect and indestructible environment for the child. If you are one of the donors, any perks relating to children and inheritance may apply. It takes the typical amount of time and only works with organisms of the same species unless you have perks to alter that.

 

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Chapter 2: Design

The workshop was the same as I left it. The powered exoskeleton prototype is still there, being as unstable as always. We really need to work on the OS. I bet that’s a thing for every system. I wonder how messed up the GINN OS is. We have a supply closet with a turn lock, and my brain keeps going haywire telling me to use it on that door.

Oh, what the hell, if it doesn’t work all I lose is a key.

It fits in the door very well, and when I open the door…

There is a room that doesn’t exist. Huh.

The only thing in here is the EXO-WOMB. This technology is by and large ahead of everything we know of. True offspring made with only a tissue sample. There are countless extinct animal species we could bring back with this.
There is also a door leading to what could only be a hanger. It was too large for a mobile pod, so maybe its multiple? Or it’s a mobile suit.

It’s a mobile suit. I didn’t realize it was this big. That’s gotta be at least 16 meters tall. No that should be 19 meters.
It’s the RGM-89R Jegan A-type. A mobile suit that has been developed over a thirty-year service history. It is relegated to low security sectors of the earth sphere, but it served admirably in the face of mass miniaturization of mobile suits. With a reactor output of 2730 kw this things generator is horrifically above what was needed for its long service. Its beam rifle while better designed than the original models admittedly good one, is still underpowered compared to the reactors output. It’s a problem with a bunch of mobile suits. They don’t really use all their generators output.

The thing even has a bunch of random equipment strewn about. There’s some firefighting equipment over there for an earlier Jegan model barely retrofitted for this one, I think that’s some EWAC stuff over there, or at least parts of some anyway. I think those are stark equipment parts a bit further away from the I think that’s an old model beam rifle and saber, but it’s cramped in here. And its hanging like 18 meters away from me. That’s hecking far dude. Especially in the bad lighting in here. At least, I have the parts to make the equipment that I’m describing. Except the firefighting stuff, that’s all complete hanging off to the side ready to be equipped.

Why is anyone using a mobile suit for firefighting? I don’t know, but it is by the specifications a good firefighter. I have questions about how we got here on design. It’s like how confusing the Hobby Hi-zack is. You take a perfectly good combat mobile suit, and then sell it to people as a civilian product. Except it was done badly. I think it was because people associated the suit with something really bad that they just sold it off, but I don’t really have enough context to say what the bad thing was. It wasn’t a product issue unless they didn’t tell people not to use multiple simultaneous beam weapons. The reactor isn’t good enough for that.

This raises so many questions. Especially given I have memorized multiple product reviews for mobile suits that can’t have ever been used in combat.

Sure, I have no idea how it’s possible for product reviews to exist given the only mobile suits ever used in space combat are GINN types, but okay. I hear they are working on other stuff, but it’s not like ZAFT has expos over their new prototype mobile suits in the middle of a war. They didn’t even reveal they were making the GINN until the war started.

… And I guess the CGUE, but that machine hasn’t really been produced much. It has what, barely enough difference to be considered a new suit by a layman. It has different armor and a few extra thrusters which does change its profile in the eyes of non-engineers, but the general design aesthetic is so similar you might miss what makes them different. It’s more of a Zaku II and the Goof scenario where one new machine is technically not of the design lineage but looks similar enough instead of a GM to GM II scenario where the two shouldn’t really be considered different models. The only real improvements were a slightly better reactor and a 360-degree panoramic cockpit when comparing the GM to the GM II. The difference between the GM and the GM II beyond those changes are negligible compared to the improvements in the equipment for the GM II as it had a standard issue beam rifle unlike the GM. There are so few differences between the two mobile suits that it is possible for you to refit a GM into a GM II without issue. It’s why there were two model numbers for the suit: RGM-79R for the upgraded units and RMS-179 for the newly produced ones.

That was a tangent.

Umm. Where was I again? Oh I know, the hangar has just enough stuff to allow for swapping out specific Jegan variant parts without a crew of 30 people. Sure the Jegan frame has undergone significant variation between each variant, but most of those changes can be counteracted with all the other stuff around here.

I should probably shift the design for colony protection. That means CQC and anti-ship stuff. So, a fusion of stark parts and high mobility equipment should work.

Enough searching the weird pocket dimension, I need to actually work on classwork.

I left the pocket land to actually do what I said I would. Create a new mobile pod design.

The RB-133 is a good base line design for a weaponized pod. The multi shot long range nature of the 133 makes it a perfect anti-ship weapon. Its high caliber rounds would make it extremely deadly along with its far higher maneuverability compared to our current mistrals. I can keep using the old fuel cell instead of reactors for fuel economy purposes. They aren’t hard to make, so we can make them without issue.

I still need to redesign the manipulators though. It might be best to let them fully reenter the pod to prevent them from getting in the way of the pod during combat operations. Yeah, that seems best. I can’t really think of how to make the manipulator also a beam weapon with how little helium-3 we have.

Balls aren’t the greatest anti mobile suit weapon though. They may have maneuverability enough to fight things like the GINN, but that won’t help once someone makes an actually good mobile suit. I could start with a basis of the Ball K types. The K type machine gun is good at suppressing mobile suits at close range and would be the perfect complement to the 133’s long range artillery support. We still need mobile suits but without sufficient helium-3 we can only field maybe 5.

Unless we use multiple capacitors and sacrifice operational time for mass production. It’s not like a turned off mobile suits would have worse armor or anything. No, the low operational time is too much of a risk to consider using those as anything more than ship defenders.

I just need to draft the ball blueprints and then I am done until Kira and the others show up. I was going to be late for my required hour over everyone else, but now I have the time to finish the new pod schematics. Thank God I memorized the plans of the modernized ball and am just copying it down onto some blueprints. The two weapon layouts are going to just be swappable instead of different ball designs. Both use 180 mm rounds so it shouldn’t stress out supplies should it come to that.

I just need to finish up the design on the blueprints and be done with this necessary upgrade. Seriously, Orb prides itself on having technological advantages and we use the mistral, the worst mobile pod in history. The moebius is better, and if the moebius is better, you royally fucked up the design.

…And done. I should get this to someone. I don’t know who I should get this to though. Hindsight is 20/20 unlike my own eyes.

Now I could just wait for the professor, but he is notoriously lazy. He won’t get here until Kira and the others get here. I might as well look for someone to give this to.

 

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Chapter 3: Proposal
I never really thought about who I was supposed to give the new mobile pod design to. I told some guy I was going to make us a better one, but I have no idea where to go. There has to be some department for this somewhere. I don’t really know where, but it has to be somewhere. This building is both a college and Morgenroete’s HQ. I probably should be sending this to my parents, but nah. The ball may be a decent mobile weapon, but we have to update with the times. I can’t let us lose the technological edge.

The Den’an Zon is a good basis for a non-beam carrying high tech mobile suit. I say this because the Den’an Zon had advancements in colony conquest that weren’t beam based. Lacking a lot of helium-3 means I have to go to low tech solutions. Shot lance is a good thing. Sure, the reactor explosions aren’t going to be a problem for at least a while, but most colonies aren’t designed for surviving beam weapons. I probably have to strip out the beam shield and mounted beam guns, but that’s a sacrifice for economical production. Should probably change the head though. It looks weird.

Seriously, where is a map of campus?

My designs are for a situation that does not exist. Multiple different units have inflatable decoys as a standard piece of equipment. This isn’t very useful in the actual climate of the world. We have sensors and the like that prevent the decoys from being useful, but in a M-particle laden battlefield this is very different. Long range communication is severely limited in these fields, and that means visual confirmation of the target is the only valid tracking method. However, one singular ms is not enough to cause the needed density for those to work. I should probably just cut it out of the prototype design if we are still having issues getting the fuel.
Oh, there is a map. I have to go to the fourth floor for the mobile pod department.

I don’t really have to worry that I’m going to be late. The professor always shows up an hour late and I show up an hour early. I have plenty of time to make this proposal and get it done before he gets back and makes Kira do whatever it is he does to the operating system of the “secret project.” I bet it’s a next gen power loader or something. No way they trust developing something super experimental like a mobile suit operating system to a teenager. You only do that if that teenager is responsible for the mobile suit design in the first place.

And here it is, the mobile pod department.

“Hey, I said I had a design for an improved mobile pod? This is the department for that right?”

“Yep.”

The voice came from behind the one desk in the room. From what I know which is not exactly public knowledge, the mobile pod department’s funding is being moved somewhere. This would be a hinderance if the ball wasn’t so gosh darn cheap to produce. It’s like a fourth the cost of a mistral and has far higher combat capability. However, we may need to keep a few for resource transportation. Balls are hyper specialized for colony upkeep and stuff, not mining.

The person I was speaking to was an older man, not elderly or anything, but definitely older than 37. He was the only person here which makes this process very smooth.

“Do I have to do a long-winded proposal for the new pod?”

“When we take this up to the people in charge of production yes, but not to me. Mistral has always been not great. It is aging already, and we need something to defend the colony, so it probably will go through regardless of how little of an improvement you have made in the design.”

“Trust me, comparing the Ball to a Mistral is like comparing the GINN to the moebius.”

“You called it the Ball? …Just follow me, we had to set up a meeting over this.”

I should follow him. I don’t know where the budget people are, so this is going to be helpful.

“Yes, because it’s a combat machine. Mobility is the best defense and small profiles lower mass.”

“Can you make it out of our current pods?”

“Theoretically you could, but I would have to completely change out most of the frame and take the bottom off. Also, we need to start making 180mm ammunition.”

“what?”

“30mm is incapable of damaging a GINN. Or a moebius for that matter. We need big guns, or a much higher muzzle velocity. Big gun is easier. The current 40mm ammo needs to be reformatted into either 180mm or 30mm. Or I could mess around with the Vulcans and make them 40mm. Whichever is preferable for manufacturing.”

“What, are you trying to make a mobile naval cannon?”

“No, this is long range support for theoretical mobile suits.”

“Hold on, mobile suits? This is support for mobile suits?”

“It could function in that role, however we don’t have any so I made modifications to the weapons for a more frontline mobile pod.”

“So, there are two designs?”

“I guess? The difference between the two is the gun at the top. The frontline units have a double barreled cannon with higher rate of fire along with these claws here for cqc action. I took a design meant for underwater combat I had and then added thrusters to the back of them to offset the weight change. The support units have a tri cannon setup for heavy damage instead of rate of fire and as such aren’t equipped with the best manipulators. The mobility sacrifice to also include the large claws isn’t justifiable when this is a long-range unit.”

“Didn’t you add thrusters to offset the mobility loss?”

“Yeah, but the issue is that its easier to hit with the claws. It also makes every other thruster cause less acceleration. This thing should be used in hit and run operations if its solo, shoot and get the hell out, not shoot and when they get close claw them.”

“Here we are.”

“I was expecting something… more.”

“Well, there isn’t anything more. Get ready to explain everything again.”

“Mr. Argyle, you have a new design? Your club is working on an improved power loader design, and you suddenly have a better mobile pod idea. That’s suspicious.”

This was the guy at the head of the table. He is presumably the one I’m going to deal with. No way the CEO would directly intervene in this. It’s just a mobile pod.

“Well, mobile pods aren’t as complicated as a mobile suit or power loader. It’s a brick that has some thrusters and some manipulators.”

“That’s the second time you have mentioned mobile suits. Are you under the impression that orb is developing them?”

“Why wouldn’t we be? The Izumo class has hangers that can handle mobile suits. We have seen how effective the GINN is. Why wouldn’t we be working on keeping the technological advantage we are known for?”
“Regardless, you have designs.”

“Yes.”

“The mistral is an aging machine. The moebius outclasses it in every way, and the moebius is outclassed by the GINN. We need a new space weapon to handle the defense of Heliopolis, so I introduce the Ball.”

“It’s a ball with arms and a cannon strapped to the top.”

“It has better acceleration, armaments, and maneuverability than the Mistral. I can’t say for sure that its better than a moebius due to lacking performance data, but I am reasonably confident that it could beat them in a seven on one engagement.”

“Seven balls for a moebius?”

“No, seven Moebiuses for a single ball. The balls performance is leagues better than what we currently have, and we would have minimal issues building them. I would have proposed a mobile suit if we had justifiable power generation, but we don’t right now.”

“What do these run on?”

“While we reasonably could keep the batteries common to the Mistral and have negligeable performance drops, they are designed with fuel cells in mind that last longer than our current batteries. The fuel cells are also rather cheap to produce as well.”

“The weapons are unique to say the least about them. What made you design them this way?”

“The main thought I had was what makes the GINN so great in combat. I thought maneuverability first, and corrected that with the thruster layout on the current models. I then though about how the GINN has armor that our 40mm machine guns couldn’t penetrate even if we hit a weak spot. We could at most damage sensors, so I sought to upgrade weaponry next. The frontline ball configuration is based both in our weapons being too small to be threatening thus the dual cannon in 90mm, as well as the probability that the GINN pilots could try using the sword and render the ball dead thus the claws with mounted thrusters. The 30mm Vulcans are what I think to be the most economical caliber of anti-sensor weapons that can be mounted on the ball without losing mobility.”

“And the other type?”

“Long range support. It shouldn’t have to worry about enemies getting close, so no claws. Also its less expensive to have the claws on only the frontline balls.”

“And this is less expensive than the Mistral?”

“In the long run most definitely, mistrals have a 20% chance at most of coming back alive which means we have to replace them from scratch. Balls have a much higher life expectancy based on their specs, so we won’t have to pay more. In the short term, no. we would need to start producing 180mm and 30mm rounds which would take money. The ball itself though would be much cheaper than the Mistral.”

“Why is that?”

“Mistrals are nearly twice as large as the long-range ball. The frontline variant clocks in at about the same mass and thus same material cost as a Mistral. Balls are also just balls. They are not very hard to manufacture.”
It’s getting quiet. Very quiet.

Someone’s behind me aren’t they.

“We have the ability to make the ammo. Put the design through.”

Oh, its one of the Sahakus. I can’t tell them apart. Am I going to have to deal with nobility stuff? I hate doing that.

“You are free to go. I have much to discuss with Mr. Argyle here.”

Yep, that’s noble stuff. This is probably one of the few times that anyone trying to speak with the Argyle’s will succeed this year. We are notorious for not being around at the nobility meetings or whatever they call it. My parents just kind of forget about them. I don’t, I just skip them whenever possible. Nobility is work I can just not do.

I still have no idea how we are part of the big six families. We are more likable than the Seiran at least, but that doesn’t count. No one likes them.

“This mobile pod is revolutionary. You were underselling it during the presentation. Why? The design is clearly better than the GINN which you didn’t directly compare it to.”

“It isn’t my best work. Balls are a stop gap measure until I can solve some issues with mobile suit design.”

“What issues?”

“The battery being the main energy source issue. That significantly lowers operational time and makes beam weapons inherently worse than conventional projectiles as conventional weapons don’t require power to fire. Even if high energy capacitors are used in beam weapons, at some point it will have to start pulling from the battery which leaves the suit floating in space when it runs out. There is also an issue with recharging batteries on ships. I have no idea what is powering our ships and recharging a squad of mobile suits repeatedly would be hell on the power source.”

“… You seem to have thought about this a lot.”

“Mobile suits are the future of warfare; it would be shortsighted to not care about how we enter the field.”

“How long have you been working on this project?”

“A few hours, why do you ask?”

The Sahaku looked astonished at my proclamation. I know why because a couple of hours working on a mobile pod design is pretty bad for an aspiring engineer. This is the sort of timeframe you would expect for upgrading a one-off prototype into a kai variant. At least on the conceptual front. The actual construction usually takes a day or two.

“I have a proposition for you. We do have a mobile suit development program, but we have run into a brick wall on it. Think you can help with that?”

----Perks Obtained.
-The Right Tools For The Job (-100, free Service Industries)
Every job requires tools, be they a socket wrench, measuring tape, a hand saw, or mop. So long as it is either mundanely accessible without background checks or you already have it, you can summon a copy of any tool you need. This only applies to when you're cleaning, fixing, building, or other material-based preparation. You can't directly use it in combat and you can't use the material of the tool itself

 

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Chapter 4: Conversations

“Yes. In order to get the best performance out of my Balls, we must complete mobile suits.”

I have been holding in a balls joke for what feels like weeks. He had to know I would make this joke. I’m a teenager, and I made a ball variant. What else could you expect?

“…”

“In all seriousness, I do have a lot of knowledge of mobile suits. I need resources to put them to production. This solves both of our problems. What is the error we have right now?”

“The operating system, we can’t make it work for naturals.”

“How? No really, how? What is the problem? Is the sensitivity too low, is it bad button mapping or are you not automating stuff correctly?”

“I am not making it myself.”

I should check when class is going to start. I have maybe ten minutes left to get there before Kira and the others would be at class. So that’s like an hour before class will actually start.

That was fast. Is this the power of being well connected, or is it that we wanted literally anything to replace the mistral? Food for thought.

“So, do I skip the club to work on this, or what?”

“No, we don’t this project to seem out of place. Go to class and work on this after. I’ll send someone to get you after classes are over. You are dismissed.”

“It’s not a class.”

“You are getting hours for your degree for this aren’t you? It’s a class.”

“That’s fair.”

I should go before they decide that now is the time for nobility talk.

Just have to go back to class and work on the power loader suit thing. It’s conceptually rather dull, it has built hands when it's an exo suit for some reason. Could I just make a junior ms instead? That is both more effective than our F tier power loader and can with the right design equip beam emitters. That can occasionally be useful when you need to perform a rescue from rubble even if a heated blade is safer. It would need to be significantly throttled though if I wanted to do that though. No one deserves to be melted by superheated plasma when they aren’t an enemy.

I still need to get people on getting helium 3. I think the moon battles of the war are over now. No more bases are on the moon last I checked, so it's probably not a bad idea to get someone higher up to start mining it out. Infinite nuclear power immune to N jammers is something we should be using. Even if I have no idea how to broach the topic. I still need to look into this Minovsky guy.

That’s for later, how do I mine the helium out efficiently, space mining technology isn’t my expertise.

I should make a variant ms for mining helium 3! It’s genius. No problems whatsoever. Modified GINNs with mining equipment. Like the junk guild’s works GINN. I like the junk guild. They make quality products, and they aren’t involved in this stupid war. Even if I am annoyed that they never have revealed the stock GINN’s actual performance to the general public. Makes it really hard to determine if the GINN is good against the ball or not. It probably is going to be good enough to give even ground if my estimates are right, but then again, I only really read ZAFT propaganda. I get enough of the alliance point of view when talking to Flay.

Sometimes she makes me wonder why we are even engaged. If something gets to her about the war everything goes wrong. It's safest just to leave than listen to her. I still remember her GINN rant. That was like three hours of my life wasted.

“Hmm.”

Note to self: never mention mobile suits near Flay. I may have deep passion for the ultimate combat machine, but she will start spouting stuff about them being for the evil members of ZAFT or whatever. It took her an entire year to get used to Kira being a coordinator and not be racist about it. Hopefully nothing happens in the next few weeks which could change that.

She really needs to break free from the gravity.

“Sai, where were you?”

“Hey guys. I was doing some proposals for a better mobile pod. Sorry I’m late.”

“Sure you did. And to think, you made it here before the professor. He still isn’t here yet.”

Are they just going to ignore that I designed a whole new mobile pod?

“I hold myself to higher standards than the professor. What are you guys doing right now?”

“Modifying the operating system of the power loader again.”

Mirallia once again is the only other person who has any idea what they are doing. She has a brain cell unlike everyone else here.

“Why is it always modifying operating systems?”

And there goes Kira whining. It’s nice to know nothing changes. Though now that I think about it, Kira is making a very good point. It feels like the past month has been exclusively operating system issues. The power loader worked better with the original version of the operating system as well. Kira keeps getting extra work on some sort of OS, and the mobile suit project is stalling because of the operating system.

Is everyone who works for Morgenroete bad at programming? That must be why its being drilled into us right now. They need competent programmers for the future because everyone else is absolute trash. Or is our professor bad, and is working on the mobile suits? Also, could be true, and Kira’s extra credit is just the work for class he is supposed to do. Or he is being so incredibly lazy that he is making his college student write a mobile suit operating system. That only should happen if said college student is the next Kamille Bidan.

“Kira, which terminal has the current version of the extra credit OS? Something is up with it.”

“Second one to the left.”

“Thanks.”

Let me see, this os always had me confused. It’s not the normal power loader one as a base, or at least when I was first told to look it over, the code stopped looking like it was for a normal power loader. I just assumed at the time some of the changes were due to the new stuff we had added to it. It was always weird that the power loader used by this class was experimental, but we all were working on it from its inception. Not that weird if you think about it like that, but the OS is not ours. It’s rushed or based on something that isn’t a power loader.

Then there is kira’s extra credit operating system. That is definitely not a good power loader programming structure. It’s not even good as a bare bones exoskeleton control system. There is all this extra stuff there that is somewhat there in the power loader operating system given to us by the professor, but it has way more unneeded parts. I wasn’t really thinking about what it could be until, shoot I forgot to ask if it was Mina or Gina, mentioned the issue with the prototype is the operating system. This isn’t for a power loader. It almost looks like a poor man's attempt at a psycommu system except they left out most of the important coding.

Why would you install this on a power loader? This has random similarities with the remote control of a funnel or something. This needs either a strong brain, or direct connection between the control unit and the brain. Kira’s notation is him trying to reconcile the needless complexity of the operating system and the frame of the power loader. I don’t know why he assumes this is for a power loader, but I can’t think of anything else the professor would give him to work on. I don’t get how the professor decided to give Kira this. It’s too complex for a college student to work on without context. I remember more than enough of Kira’s whining to know what exactly he knows about it, which is nothing but the code itself. Is the professor just giving Kira work that can’t be done to spite him for being a coordinator?

No, that can’t be it. The professor isn’t like that to the coordinators that were in my class last year. It has to be something else. Not that it matters right now. I should either do a generic mobile suit operating system, or I should do some work for the remaining courses I have. Not that I have many, regular classes haven’t started back up from winter break. I still have like a week until then.

I don’t know why this club still meets when classes aren’t in session, but I have stopped questioning the professor because nothing makes sense involving him.

I should actually do what I am supposed to be doing, making sure no one has died testing an experimental piece of technology.

“Tolle the machine isn’t a toy, don't push it beyond what it's capable of. Don’t try jumping yet, we still haven’t programmed that yet.”

“Sorry.”

“Kira, what are the current problems with the OS again?”

“It’s not responsive enough.”

“Still? We have had this issue for weeks, let me see it.”

OH, it’s under sensitive. It’s expecting newtype level brain waves. This was one of the stock parts of the OS as it was given. It’s only obvious because of my knowledge of psycommu systems. Oldtypes don’t register on the psycommu system if it’s not been jailbroken due to weak brainwaves. Jailbroken ones can detect normal people, but they will kill you. Not good at all.

Wait, this doesn’t even go anywhere. It connects to none of the motors, it just exists here. Doing nothing. I have to be missing something or, it’s just bloated coding. Starting to think it's bloated coding. Bah, I should check anyway for posterity. Never know when something that shouldn’t work works.

“Kira, you want to test the machine?”

“Why?”

“I’m making sure that we didn’t make a coordinator only operating system.”

“Fine.”

Let me just activate the diagnostic program and check its responsiveness.

“Kira, I need you to perform the normal check procedures we make Tolle do. I need you to act to the best of your ability, so we get good data.”

No, it’s still not working right. It’s lagging for some reason.

“Was the time for completion 57.4 seconds when Tolle was in it?”

“It was 57.7 seconds give or take.”

“Kira, you can stop if you want. We are doing something wrong that isn’t related to genetic type. The difference isn’t enough for it to be coordinator stuff.”

Coordinators generally have higher reaction time than naturals so they normally do stuff faster. Faster input for checking is expected considering that Kira has those changes. We already have a consistent basis for a difference anywhere between.1 and .3 seconds maximum in what he can do compared to Tolle. This isn’t racist programming.

I have no idea what the issue is then. If it can’t work for a coordinator or a natural, did we just mess up somewhere obvious? Or is this neural net stuff just not in the suit?

Wait, we put in nothing that can even connect neurally. There is nothing here to pick up the brainwaves at all! This is an exoskeleton. Why is that even in the code? I don’t understand. Why are we even replacing a power loader with an exo suit anyway? It is harder to pick stuff up with the weirdly scaled normal hands than a wedge. UGH, my head hurts from the dumb.

“I hate our code so much. No offense Kira, but something is wrong with what we were given. I need some fresh air. No one is allowed to hurt themselves until I get back.”

How do I get my mind off bad exosuits? Of course, think about some technology. Newtype stuff is my happy place. You have the simple nature of the first incoms and funnels, just remote weapons controlled by the brain. You have powerful things like angel halo and the foundry are massive structures that use newtype power for feats of power beyond your imagination.

I have some ideas for that. Like kyber powered stuff. That’s a good battery. I just don’t have any equipment to make synthetic Kyber. That sucks. Kyber is an incredible energy generating material.
I wonder what really is beyond the time…

I should go back. I sense something will go wrong soon if I don’t return to them soon.

“Did anyone die without my permission?”

“No.”

“Thank you Mirallia for making sure no one did something stupid. I trust only you and Kira to not do something stupid, and Kira doesn’t have the ability to reign people in.”

“Hey!”

“Kira, you are my friend, but admit it, you are a doormat when it comes to what people want. Has the professor shown up yet?”

“No.”

“That’s unusual, he normally is only an hour late. It’s been… two hours? How? Where did the time go?”

“We are only supposed to be here for three.”

“Kira, if you want to go do something else you can. Club doesn’t have to meet full time today.”

“I need to be here so I can work on the extra work the professor gave me.”

“I know you guys are still taking his class, but we could just study hall instead of pushing ourselves so hard. We can take an early break. I’ll cover for it. We did good work today anyway. How much has the lag been lowered by?”

“.2 seconds.”

“That’s about as much improvement as last week and we now know whatever we are doing wrong is not racist.”

“We never thought that.”

“Look, the OS looked like something someone would make for something that isn’t anything we have an example of. I had to double check if the program was operating on GINN rules. I’m serious we can leave. The professor clearly couldn’t show up today, so you guys are free to leave.”

“Wait the GINN is coordinator exclusive? That's a bummer. I wanted to pilot one.”

“Kuzzey, you don’t want to pilot a GINN. If you make a weapon exclusive to a certain class of people you failed. Wait until the Junk Guild has their own mass production unit. That would be worth your time to pilot.”
“He keeps taking sick days recently. I’m worried.”

“He’s probably selling us out to ZAFT or something, it's fine.”

“Don’t joke about that.”

With that, everyone else started to turn to leave.

Thank God, I want to work on MS operating systems in peace. Somehow these losers messed up the simplest part of the mobile suit. Why is it so hard to build a learning computer?
…
Oh, they don’t have a decent test pilot for it. That must be it. The mobile suit development is heavily influenced by the piloting data of the original pilots. I might need to just copy the Jegan OS for now, so I have something to compare it to when I look at it. That has pre-accessible piloting data for a learning computer to use as a basis. Then again, the mobile suit I will be looking at could be artillery focused.

“Hmm, Might as well.”

I put the key back into that supply closet, and entered the hangar of what was likely newtype magic. The key probably is some psychoframe alloy that causes a break in localized spacetime that allows for a space insulated from causality. I have no evidence for this, but it tracks with weird newtype technology. I think this has been done before in some aspect…

I just can’t remember specific instances of this. Weird. Add that to the list of things newtypes can do.

Anyway, my laptop can contain the Jegan OS for my copy pasting purposes. Is this unsafe? I guess, but it takes like a week for people not on heliopolis to hack nowadays. It’s not much of a threat. Especially when I have custom cybersecurity software on the laptop. Just have to make it to the port that I can connect the computer to.

How do I get up to something like 16 meters high without any help? Why did I misplace the maneuvering equipment? Fuck. I can at least open up the hatch from here thanks to the controls on the maintenance terminal. Now, I can see just how screwed I am if I jump it

“Here goes. Please don’t hurt me.”

I feel something in my legs. I think it's energy? Something is off about it though, its too natural…

“Oww, I made it? What? I don’t think a normal person can jump this high. Must be more weird newtype shit. Wait, am I a newtype? At least I have the computer and …

I forgot the cable. I wish I had it in my hand…

It;s in my hand. It wasn’t a second ago.

Okay, I have to be a newtype. This is some weird psychokinetic expression. I need to test that later.

This should only take a second.

I might have to consider newtype equipment. I wasn’t really thinking any newtypes were in our military, but i'm a newtype. That opens a lot of doors I wasn't considering. Mainly because i am one, so that has to mean other newtypes exist. Even if I have never heard newtype theory to my memory.

So psycommu weapons only. Maybe the biosensor, but that can have reverse feedback. I would consider using some sort of crystalline based processor, but that road leads to psychoframe. That stuff is too dangerous to ever be used in a mobile suit. Not after last time. The only safe use of psychoframe technology is holocrons, and even then holocrons are more a similar concept to psychoframe than the stuff itself. It would be closer to the weird crystallization that occurs when a full frame mobile suit does a miracle. That stuff is anomalous.

“And done, that's the full operating system of the Jegan downloaded. I thought the file would be bigger…

How do I get down?”
----Perks Obtained.
-Forceful Engineer 200 Darth Bane Trilogy
Force sensitive individuals and species have created wondrous unions of engineering genius and Force energies. Prisons to hold eldritch nightmares, holocrons and seemingly infinite factories that strip entire stars for the resources needed for your unending fleets. You are inspired when it comes to the design of such marvels, even being able to use the Light Side for unseen effects. This brilliance extends beyond the Force into the wider realm of 'Magitek'. The potential trichotomy of Machine, 'Magic' and The Force could give birth to near unimaginable wonders for the inventive mind.
Force Sensitive
(Free for all Origins, but varied per Origin) - The Force is what gives a Jedi, or a Sith, his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together. You are a member of a small percentage of the galactic population that can tap into and utilise the Force to effect the world around you.

 

---A/N the tag is a lie. This fic a modified V3 which has access to any perk from a Gundam jump. I didn't ever bring it up before because it wasn't relevant before now. You guys better start theorizing insane Gundam tech fusions, or I will be sorely disappointed.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 5: Preproduction
I should have brought rope. Rope is simple and still the most useful thing ever made by mankind. Except the wheel I guess, but I just really need a rope right now.

Wait, I'm in a mobile suit. I know more than enough to move it into a kneeling position. Why am I dumb?

Okay, this is the first time in a while I have used a mobile suit. It always feels natural whenever I use one. Like it's a limb that I never knew I was missing in a sense. All i need to do is hold down a button and push forward a control stick and boom, it's kneeling. I still need the rope though; this is still kind of a long fall.

And now there is rope in my hand. Okay. I really need to do the standard newtype tests. It's gotta be serious if I can summon the rope with my mind. The rope can loop into a section of the cockpit because low tech solutions are Anaheim's specialty, and rope is always going to be a common resource. It’s just common sense to have multiple ways to get down, not including maneuvering gear.

This will just be like climbing a rock wall back on earth, but not rocky or on earth. Man, I miss my home back in the mainland. That makes me wonder, should I force myself to make a ground type MS? They are this amazing thing where the designers put so much effort into modifying a machine to work in the atmosphere of earth and then converting them to space types is just, “Hey let’s add rocket thrusters!” I’m looking at you Dom. That was a lazy conversion. I don’t deny its effectiveness, but it was still lazy.

“High ho, high ho, I miss my jetpack yo.”

Sliding down this rope almost reminds me of back home. I remember back when my parents took me to that mountain. I loved it when we hiked up it together. Then there was basic training. Ugh, I never really liked going through basic, but I was obligated to do it. “Can’t have a noble incapable of fighting,'' they said, and yet they let the Seiran guy not do it. This is why no one likes them. They are a bunch of hypocrites.

“And, that's the ground. I like the ground. I can’t fall to my death when on the ground.”

I have my basic Operating system, I have my computer, and I have my brain. This is all I need for my new and improved ability to make mobile suits. I should actually draft an Mp design, maybe that will make my coworkers not hate me.

Shit, everything's quaking. This is bad. It’s an earthquake! Inside my pocket dimension... Which is on a space colony...

I'm sorry, What?

There’s just a door now. A door from the hanger to elsewhere. Can the pocket dimension expand? Why does it do that? New plan, look at whatever the hell just came up.

I’m just going to leave the computer here. No point lugging it around.

It’s another hanger. No multiple hangers. One has the RMS-006 Jenice, a mobile suit originally designed by the space revolutionary army for direct combat. It has only physical armaments which are not very cost effective, but it is theoretically capable of equipping beam weapons. And over there is the Daughtress, a machine made by united earth nations forces for the seventh space war that clearly didn’t happen. There is no group called the united earth nations. There is the United Nations, but this is something different. At least, they haven’t existed for long enough for me to know about them. The Daughtress is however exactly the same as a Jenice combat wise, it just has a standard beam saber instead of a heat weapon, but its saber is just as useful as that heat blade.

But at the end of what is basically a museum built by newtype powers is the crowning jewel, the Gundam X. Hallowed be the name Gundam, for it is used by the chosen few. Just like the old stories…

Anyway, The X is a walking war crime. That satellite cannon should never be used ever, in any conflict. The rest of it is useful, but there is a crowning jewel to it. The ULTRA COMPACT FUSION REACTOR. You want to know something about it, it is beam capable, and it doesn’t make M particles. That's awesome by itself, but the best thing about it is that I could start manufacturing them right now. No helium 3 required. That's amazing. I still need M particle reactors to get the massive speeds of machines like the Victory 2’s Minovsky drive system, but it's something. I have to actually work on the new mass produced unit. I can work these in, power issues can’t exist when you are a trained mechanic.

I am merely doing field modifications of old designs. I am not great at making purely new designs. That's a challenging task that requires a team. I'm one guy. I would make something like the Zanny but more technologically advanced in the time I have before the person arrives if I had no one to bounce off of.

I really do need to look at the current mobile suits we have made though. I don’t have high expectations for them given no one understands the simple fusion reactor. Seriously, they have to be idiots to not understand the simple ancient technology of reactors. This stuff is taught by normal mechanics let alone professionals with degrees.

I am disappointed in the people who made the GINN. How do you fuck up a mobile suit so badly? It’s almost as bad as the EMS-10 Zudah, no wait, scratch that. The EMS-04 Zudah, while it would blow itself up when pushed, was still a reactor based mobile suit. The EMS-10 was better than the EMS-04 as well, and yet it is still superior to the GINN in multiple aspects. It had an operational time that wasn’t terrible. The GINN has no excuse. The fucking Daughtap had a reactor, and that’s barely an upgraded mobile pod. Sure, it's better than a ball, but their performance is near comparable. The ball has a bigger gun, but the Daughtap has a reactor. There is a tradeoff where each has a purpose on the battlefield. The GINN by comparison shouldn’t ever have been allowed on the field. I heard rumors the planet side ones have fucking GAS TURBINES in them. That’s pathetic.

I didn’t invent these reactors. How do people not know about them? I could be stupid though. Maybe the GINN does have a reactor and Flay has been lying to me. Earlier today I thought fusion reactors didn’t exist, but clearly, I was misinformed. Why is everyone worried about N jammers if we have nuclear fusion technology? Is this another newtype shenanigans moment where I just flashed out designs, or has everyone in the earthsphere been hit by angel halo? That isn’t important. What is important is that I have a way to not require a battery powered ms now. God, I hate the idea of battery powered mobile suits. It’s just … wrong.

I can't forget my laptop. I need that Jegan OS for whatever we are working on. I hope it isn’t as bad as the GINN. I can maybe forgive batteries because clearly, I am in possession of special knowledge if I am not just an idiot. If I am an idiot, I can just transfer over an OS and contribute that way. Either way I have helped the defense of Orb which is great. It makes the required military training all of the nobles, except Yuna, went through worth it. I freaking hate that guy.

I might as well remove the key, I don’t think whatever causes this standing war museum is entirely connected to whatever that key is, but the back of my mind is constantly going that’s connected to it. It is definitely some form of psychic enhancer if it's making a war museum out of a supply closet. Now I just have to wait for a while until whoever is supposed to take me to the mobile suits gets here.

I am suddenly regretting letting Kuzzey and the others leave. I have no idea what I can do for 10 minutes. UGGH. I need to do something, but what? I can’t redesign the ball, I just got that through for production. Changing the design now would make me look bad. I could try calling Flay, see how her day has been. We are dating after all.

No, never think of love. I am an Anaheim trained engineer. We were trained with a single thought in mind, “Never let love get in the way of the creation of new weapons of war, and also military objectives, can’t forget that as well.” This was in response to one of the engineers being in love with a terrorist and her decision to take him alive causing the deaths of at minimum hundreds of millions of people during Operation Stardust.

I feel like my brain is just justifying my genius with false histories or something. What even is an Anaheim anyway? My family is known for writing stories as well as the creation of the Haro robotic pet series. This might just be the latent skill for storytelling finally making itself known.

What am I even thinking about this for? Flay is a person, she has flaws, but nothing she can say could cause a genocide. That genocide already happened last year. I remember her being horrified about it. The senseless death of people got to her. She wasn’t ever really afraid of coordinators until after ZAFT responded by taking out almost every nuclear reactor on earth. She used to live where that happened. Some of her friends almost died in the riots that took place afterwards. It's not even like she really hates coordinators for existing. It would take something like ZAFT attacking and destroying Heliopolis, and then her dad dying to make her go that far.
That was an oddly specific thought. Why was that my first thought? I might need help. I’m paranoid about Heliopolis being attacked.

*Knock Knock*

A person came in. She was definitely not someone I recognized and was not Professor Kato. This was probably who was meant to pick me up for that mobile suit project. I can’t wait to see what the people of Morgenroete created.

Oh hey, finally I can work on the mobile suit. I bet it's going to be something awesome! Stay calm, I don’t want to look weird to my coworkers.

“Are you the person who is supposed to get me to the prototype?”

“Yes. Sir Shahaku sent me to bring you to it.”

“So, it was Gina. I can never tell them apart.”

“You know them?”

Ummm, shit. I need to deflect.

“I hear it's an issue from other people.”

“Sure, you have. I don’t know why we are bringing a teenager in on this, but whatever. Sir Sahaku is never wrong about things like this.”

I didn’t recognize this person, and this person didn’t really recognize me. I’m kinda happy about that. I think it's better that I was raised in an environment where the public either realized I am a boring person or doesn’t know I exist. I want to keep it that way.

“So, what exactly is the problem with the thing anyway? I haven’t gotten clear answers on that. I know it's bad programming, but like everything here has bad programming.”

“I am a mechanical engineer, not a software engineer. I don’t know where they went wrong, but whatever it is has made naturals incapable of using the machines effectively.”

“How does that work?”

“I don’t know. Stop talking about it. We need to get to the prototypes first.”

“Is it at least at this facility?”

“It's on the other side of campus. Don’t talk about it until we get to the cars.”

“Ok. What do we talk about then?”

“Nothing.”

“Alrighty then.”

Seriously though, how do you make something not usable by normal people? Is the control sensitivity too high? That can’t make it unusable though. Most coordinators cap out at upper end human potential to slightly above what people can do. There is not enough of a difference for it to be unusable. Newtype use machines that were nearly unusable like the RX-78NT-1 Alex were still usable by normal people. Sure, the Alex didn’t have any specific newtype weapons, but it was made specifically for some guy named Amuro who was a strong newtype. The test pilot was incapable of using its full potential, but at least she could use it to defeat a high spec enemy unit. They are acting like somehow the machine just doesn’t operate at all for naturals which does not make sense.

If it was a newtype weapon it theoretically could make sense, however, that would mean the mobile suit is acting like a large bit, so why even include a cockpit at all? Maybe the system isn’t even controlled by physical technology, but that again doesn’t make sense. You would have to specifically have a thought detection system that is tuned specifically to coordinator thought speed which still isn’t enough to be significantly harder for a natural. It would take a bit more effort, but the RX-0 series are modeled after people for a reason. It’s easier to control something that is basically a bigger human with your brain than a mobile armor like the Dendrobium.
I can’t seem to find a logical answer as to what is wrong if it's just the operating system. Maybe there is something wrong with the frame itself? No, I have to trust these people are professionals who would have noticed an error like that.

“Get in.”

I didn’t even notice we got to the station already. How intensely was I thinking about the conundrum of the failed mobile suit?

“Can I talk about the suit now?”

“Yes. I however can’t answer what is wrong with it beyond it being a coding issue.”

“Have you done any actual tests with the machine? Figure out what specifically is wrong with the actual unit? Simulations are only going to give you so much good data after all. Unless you're getting extreme frame warping from a transformation mechanism or there is an experimental system which has a chance of causing berserk states in the pilot, always make an actual prototype and get a test pilot for data gathering. That’s mobile suit development 101.”

“Why are you an expert in this? Mobile suits are brand new tech. You can’t say there is a 101 when the tech is so new that there aren’t any conventions to how it works. Also, an experimental system that can cause insanity? What does that even mean?

But to answer your question, no we have not tested the machine. It’s not bad on a technical level in simulations. The machine is just not functioning to its capability due to the programming.”

“Then what in the hell are you people doing!?! You aren’t getting real data unless you actually use it! It’s supposed to not exactly be user friendly until you get the piloting data in the learning computer. How did you mess this up? Mobile suit engineering is an ancient field. It's older than my parents for crying out loud. This shit has a million different designs to base your work on. How are you the only ones who make it literally unusable by normies. Even fucking psycommu machines can be used by oldtypes. Sure they can’t use the psycommu weapons, but at least they can fucking pilot the machine in most cases.”

“The hell is a learning computer? Or psycommu? And you still haven’t answered the whole system question.”

“Oh God. I’m surrounded by idiots. How can you not comprehend learning computers? I have to build one now and replace your entire coding situation as well. Wonderful, simply wonderful. I copied a functional operating system for almost nothing because you people literally decided to have a one size fits all solution to machines known for ace customization.”

“Are you going to answer my questions or not?”

“Give me a second. I’m just realizing how much of a failure this team is. Whoever designed the computers in this thing is a disgrace to Orb.”

Breathe in, breathe out. This is Orb’s first mobile suit. They don’t have the experience to realize how powerful a learning computer is. That still doesn’t excuse not knowing what one is. The technology was invented like a century ago. So was psycom, but at least I know Orb is ignorant of newtype phenomenon. It’s kinda fucked up that Orb is pretending a whole genetic type doesn’t exist, or they just somehow didn’t get the memo about newtypes which is also weird. I literally never heard the word until this morning when I just knew what one was.

“We are here. Stop having an aneurysm over what you call bad design philosophy or whatever.”

I can tell this guy is angry that a teenager is calling what must be his magnum opus a horrible thing, but he hasn’t demonstrated that the machine is okay.

“Great, we made it. I had so much faith in the design team when I got the offer, but somehow you killed it. I’m expecting the GINN equivalent of a Zanny right now. If I'm lucky I won't have to redesign the thing too much for its mass produced variant.”

“This isn’t a mass production team, that's in the homeland.”

“What? You are simultaneously making a mass production and a prototype, yet you haven't actually tested the prototype mobile suit which is our FIRST one. Are you crazy? Have you at least tested the actual mass produced one?”

“I don’t know. I’m not on the team who decided how this works.”

“Is this prototype at least not for the same purpose as the one back in the homeland?”

“They are intended as commander units.”

“Ok, that's fine I guess. A bit dumb to not make the variants after you had a finalized original prototype, but whatever. It’s at least a decent idea in theory.”

I never answered what psycommu was or anything. I should probably wait until I meet the full team. I only want to explain advanced mobile suit theory once. If I have to start giving mobile suit engineering classes, I might as well just give only one. It is more time efficient this way.

“So how many people are involved in the design work? It has to be small given no one knows about the project.”

“About 5 people including myself. One is at the homeland working on the mass production variant. She was our programmer.”

“You let the programmer leave the place where the prototype with the bad OS are?”

“We have communication to get the updates she has been making.”

“Quantum right? Otherwise you get minor lag time which would be annoying.”

“I don’t know. It could be laser based communications or something. Who cares? It works.”

“Can I at least meet the people here? I have to give a presentation on how to create mobile suits.”

“Umm, what?”

“You heard me. No one here has any idea of what they are doing, so I will be taking matters into my own hands. As proof of my skills I will be installing the operating system on this computer onto the prototype. When it works, I will then lecture on what exactly went wrong.
Where is it?”
“It’s right over there in that building. I doubt you can make it work though.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Oh, security to check our credentials. Cool, they are at least trying to prevent people from Gundam jacking. Good on them.

Anti-theft measures! I forgot to include anti-theft measures in the ball. Note to self, include this in the next generation mobile suit.

“Come on, I just authenticated us.”

“Ok.”

I need to not insult these engineers when I meet them. That would be mean, it would be like bullying a lawyer for not being a doctor. It doesn’t help.

“And these are the Astrays. Orb’s first mobile suits.”

We were above where they were stored. They were on their backs which is an interesting decision. You only really do that during storage of machines, or transport. It makes sense in the context of storage, but this is a prototype that is going to be tested soon, or at least see active deployment at some point. Why set it up that way?

The machines however…

“Well, just looking at it tells me it isn’t the worst mobile suit I have seen. It’s a Gundam type, good choice there. Clearly designed to make use of high mobility. I can tell based on thruster placement. Is that a backpack hardpoint underneath the current backpack? Competent choice although making that on a first run through adds some complexity when constructing the machine. You have to design extra backpacks for it, which is hard enough, but why skimp out on other hardpoints? The backpack isn’t the only thing that should be swapped out for missions. There should at least be a few on the arms and legs. Also means the beam sabers are equipped only to that backpack. That's a design flaw given that beam sabers should be standard equipment. What's it made of? Gundarium Gamma or what?”

“How did you figure out they were beam sabers? That's brand-new technology. No unit has publicly used them yet.”

“What do you mean new tech? Mobile suit sized beam weapons are older than dirt. Really what is this made of? Titanium ceramic composite? Luna titanium? Gundarium beta? This is what decides if it's a good machine or not.”

“It’s made of a new foam metal alloy. It’s super light for high maneuverability. Can’t say it's great defensively though.”

“My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined. You made a gundam type mobile suit and somehow messed up on its alloy construction. I’m speechless.

Wait, nevermind. We did that with the mark II and it wasn’t the worst thing ever created. The mobility can overcome the terrible frame materials. Then again the mark II was made out of titanium ceramic. It could still shrug off a 90mm machine gun. I need specifics on its mobility before deeming it inadequate.

Where is the terminal to upload my current OS? It’s basic Jegan so it will need a bit of tuning to the specifics of this machine. I could just build a learning computer, but it would take a bit of time to create one myself, and I would need to figure out how to install it into the machine without the schematics on hand at the moment.”

“What?”

“Where do I upload the operating system? This is what I am here to fix, so I am going to fix it.”

“Oh. There is a terminal connected to the machine near the cockpit. How do you already have a prototype system? You literally just learned about this project today and weren’t given the old one.”

“I just copied a different operating system.”

“What operating system?”

“A Jegan’s.”

“What are you even talking about? What is a Jegan? Why is that relevant?”

“To save time, write down all your questions. I will be explaining after we get the astray Gundam running.”
“The hell is Gundam?”

“Write it down.”

Good news, I have some faith in this machine. It’s a gundam type. Those usually aren’t trash unless someone does something super impulsive.

Bad news. They are storing the machine length wise. And it's almost 18 meters long. Getting this thing up for testing is going to be annoying. Not impossible, just annoying. I can’t even tell if the holding stuff is going to be able to move out of the way for proper testing.

Good thing there is an elevator. I would hate having to use stairs for this.

This facility feels more like a storage site than a development area. Where would you even test a mobile suit here? Oh yeah, these people think simulators are good at accurately predicting performance. That's a naive view on what simulations are capable of. Some things can’t be controlled for, like pilot skill.

I still don’t get why these identical machines have different inner frame colorations. I was only really looking at the red one, and then saw the blue was identical technologically, but is there a reason for that? Some sort of visual squad indicator?

I am just going to back up the old code in case it has something important. I doubt it does, but just in case.

Now to upload a new operating system. This is going to take only a couple minutes. That gives me time to study the cockpit and make sure that every button has an analogue. If it doesn’t, I will have to redesign the cockpit which would be a bit annoying, but probably won’t be too hard to do.

The cockpit design here isn’t great. Way too many buttons on a control panel. Zero labels for what anything does. A LED setup for a button which does literally nothing. I feel like this is a machine reverse engineered from something else, but I have no idea what they engineered it from. I can jury rig up mobility, but eighty percent of these buttons are unneeded and honestly make the situation worse.

All you need is like two sticks and some buttons on the sticks for basic movement, and a thumb button for weapons. Where even is the 360-degree panoramic monitor? Why is this thing using a one-year war style cockpit? Why is there all this extra space, but no seat for rescue operations or anything? Who designed this?

I should stay fair, this is Orb’s first MS. Didn’t I already say I wouldn't get super angry at it? It’s not per say bad, it's just substandard and that annoys me. Orb doesn’t have enough people to afford using substandard equipment. It’s not really bad given what we have, it's honestly fine, but I expected way more from this project.

Should I just take out the old Jegan to give an example of a decent standard size mobile suit? Maybe, but a lecture would help. They ask for an example. I pull the Jegan out.

“Could you have waited for me at least? I have questions. So many questions.”

“Did you get everyone?”

“Yes? I was going to introduce you to who we were working with, but you just ran off.”

“Thanks. I think this is the first time someone has every listened to me. Thank you … I actually don’t know your name. Wow. I have been rude today. What is wrong with me?”

I need to calm down. I know that this is not like the best mobile suit or anything, but that isn’t a reason to be angry at the designers. They didn’t sit through anaheim lectures like I have. It’s novel technology to them, but to me it's something I have had years of experience with. Even though I only ever thought about mobile suit design today… Newtype bullshit is weird.

“Let me start again, Hi. What is your name? I know you already know mine, so I won't reintroduce myself.”

“It’s Dr. Rossana.”

“Well Dr. Rossana, your cockpit design it isn’t standard. It lacks the 360-degree panoramic monitor setup, and its not even a core fighter either. There is no purpose to this inefficiency, but its fine you have me now. I am the expert. I have the training to help you do better than this. It’s a good first run don’t get me wrong, but we could do so much better.”

“What is wrong?”

“Well, I could start the lecture now, but I should probably run it by you first. I don’t want to be a dick. I will admit that this is a decent machine. I am just comparing it to legends like the RX-78-2 or the RX-178 or the RGM-89. I remember that you had questions. I'm in a state of mind where I don’t feel like banging my head against a wall and am hopefully going to be less of an ass going forward. Which one do you want me to explain first?”
“Learning computers, they sound relevant to the issues we are having.”

“It’s a computer which takes pilot data and then rewrites itself to be better. I’m not going into details because I don't trust myself to explain the complexities of this technology in an easily palatable format. I also don’t feel like I can trust that you will be able to make this work on the Astray Gundam platform without hard redesigns. You people didn’t even include a reactor for some god forsaken reason. It’s not hard. The Bugu had one last I checked. THE BUGU, the prototype for the Zaku I! The battery system is impressive don’t get me wrong, but it’s just the dumbest design decision ever.

Damn, I did it again. I told myself I wouldn’t go and compare this thing with other machines. Sorry. Moral of the story, we need to redesign the cockpit to add a learning computer. I mean maybe we could do a simple modification to make the cockpit for this, but there is just better ways to get a good cockpit.”

“Hold on back it up. You said reactor, as in a nuclear reactor? Those get canceled by N-Jammers. Why would we include dead weight?”

“I meant fusion.”

“What? Those don’t exist.”

“There are like two separate nuclear reactor designs I can name right now, and I have a computer which probably has a third design…”

Wait, I have a computer which has a bunch of designs of stuff. I don’t remember that being there. Is the psychofield or whatever is causing the history museum that powerful?

“What? How? Nuclear fusion reactors are purely theoretical”

“That’s it. I am going to pull one out right now.”

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know honestly. I need a door with a lock.”

“Why?”

“NEWTYPE SPACEMAGIC!”

“What is that?”

“Oh yeah, Orb just doesn’t recognize newtype theory. I have to explain that don’t I?”

Nevermind me using it. Newtype stuff can’t be done on command unless its like funnels or something which I would have to build. It’s easier to use my words in this situation. Talking can lead to understanding.
“YES, you have been saying a bunch of things that don’t make sense. Help me understand what you are talking about.”

“I need a second to figure out how to explain this.”

Ok, how is the best way to explain this? Do I go with the Deikun version, or the Anaheim one? The Anaheim one is more scientific with data and stuff, but it leaves out all the understanding… I got it!
“Understanding. That is the basis of a newtype.”

“I don’t get it.”

“You are weighed down by gravity.”

“I don’t get what that means.”

“Dang, it’s almost like I just made a joke only seven people would understand. Oh wait, I did.
In all seriousness, it’s basically a theory on how as humans enter the space age and begin living in space mankind will evolve. I know this to be a correct assessment and can name what exactly occurs on average for newtypes, but the original theory by Zeon Zum Deikun didn’t really know what would occur. He just said, “Heightened spatial awareness.” with no context. Like he just didn’t mention how it also had heightened mental awareness, telepathy, empathic powers, and some other stuff that scares me.”

“Wait, heightened spatial awareness? There is an entire theory about what causes that?”

“Yeah, I don’t know why we don’t teach it. It’s empirically provable. It might be some of the more horrific stuff that is a natural extension of newtype stuff.”

“Is this the insanity stuff? I was going to ask about that.”

“Sort of? Like I can think of five examples of insanity inducing systems off the top of my head, and like two are systems designed to make an oldtype be on level with a newtype. One specifically changes your genes to achieve that. Others are just like capable of backfiring into causing mental instability or insanity, but that isn’t an inherent flaw of the system itself.”

“HOW? How are there five? I had no idea what the newtype thing was, but you are telling me there are in fact at minimum five systems reliant on that. What even are they?”

“Well, Nitro directly modifies your genome and brain chemistry for a bit which causes instability and aggression. Hades overclocks people’s brains and floods the pilot with drugs so they can survive a performance boost caused by deactivating all limiters in the machine and can cause memory impairment. The biosensor is technically safe by itself, but a sufficiently powerful enemy newtype can damage your mind through it. This isn’t even getting into the basic psycommu or NT-D stuff.”

“Okay, I get it. This is a real thing, but like who even uses this? Where are you getting this information? What units even equip this stuff?”

“The AMX-018 [HADES] Todesritter, RX-80PR Pale Rider, MSN-001X Gundam Delta Kai, MSZ-006 Zeta Gundam, MSZ-010 Double Zeta Gundam for starters. I can keep going if you want, weird extra systems are in a lot of mobile suit designs now that I think about it. They never get mass produced though. Half the time that's because something is too expensive, but other times it's because whatever system is either a technological singularity, has a possibility of being used against the machine or inhumane.”

“I have never heard of these things. There are like two active mobile suits at the moment, the GINN and CGUE. Also, the BuCue I guess, but that doesn’t really have the same thing going on.”

“You aren’t a professional mobile weapon expert like I am. You don’t have access to the specific designs I'm talking about.”

“What makes you an expert?”

“I have a degree in this field…”

Hold the phone, I have a degree in this field, but I’m in college right now. Weird.

“As I was saying, I’m a trained professional mobile weapon developer scientist engineer person. The degree track was weird, but I am an expert on everything mobile weapon.”

“No, you don’t. You're still a student, and even if you weren’t there isn’t a degree plan for mobile weapons.”

“Look, I can prove it. The upload for the OS is done. I just need to reconfigure for the control setup, and when you see this thing moving, you will believe me. Maybe not the specific machines, but at least that I know what I’m doing. Just set up the test for the machine. I’m about to pilot it.”

“Okay, I guess. This facility isn’t exactly designed for testing a machine.”

“It’s just a basic walking and joint test. I won’t touch the thrusters I promise.

Oh, and just a quick question before that, was the explanations I gave at least understandable. I have some physical examples of stuff as well, but I wanted to know if you got it from just my words. I want to teach this stuff as a class at some point, so any pointers would help.”

“You sounded fine, but this is the gold frame. It’s supposed to be used by nobles only.”

“Oh, Yeah. It would be a real shame if someone who wasn’t a noble would pilot it wouldn’t it?”

“It’s illegal.”

“Yeah. Real shame for anyone who isn’t me. House of Argyle my colleague.”

I hate using privilege like this, but I just didn’t notice this was a gold machine. I don’t know why we have the whole nobility only use gold, because gold is just not a good color most of the time. Unless its anti-beam coating. Wait, it might have anti-beam coating! Awesome.

Cockpit might be ass, but it does have a built-in computer for some reason. It has a keyboard and everything. Why isn’t it just a touch screen like the jegan or something, that is way more efficient and not as space using as a retractable computer module. Weird stylistic choice but okay. I just have to go in and edit some of the software, so it doesn’t mess up. There are a few less things, but I had to wait because uploading it in its current state would have been a good test for the actual controls. I also started the upload before I knew there were some things that shouldn’t be on the machine. Rebinding everything is a bit annoying, but I have the old code for reference as to what the names of the actual buttons are.

I have no idea what any of these other knobs are supposed to do, so I will just ignore them. I think this is supposed to be manual controls for stuff, but why would we need that? Automation is where its at. I have the code running multiple automatic things that were manual on this machine. Why was balancing a manual thing. That’s just stupid as fuck. Why is cooling also have manual stuff as well? It’s not even emergency cooling or anything, its just regular cooling.

Whatever. Enough lambasting this dogshit OS that is somehow both too sensitive, and not sensitive enough.

Where the heck is the comms button? God label shit so I at least know how to recode this nightmare. I think its this one.

“Checking communications. Can you read me?”

“Yes.”

“Cool, radio works. Can you open up the holding equipment? I don’t want to break anything.”

“Ok.”

The holders were kinda slow, but like only a little bit. It was this weird area between normal speed and just barely too slow.

Hurry up!!!!

“Alright, it’s time to test just how well I could modify the OS for this cockpit.”
----Perks Obtained.
Perks showcased (note others were rolled, but I will reveal them when they appear in story)
Mobile Suit Mechanic (200cp)
Where did you pick up this skill? Were you an engineer during the war, or taught by a kindly family member in its aftermath? Whatever your situation, you know everything there is to know about the building, maintenance, and repair of Mobile Suits. From the alloys in their armor, to the generators powering them, to the intricate joints in every limb, the entirety of the pre-war Mobile Suit engineering has been revealed to you. With this knowledge, you could even potentially build your own Gundam X, Satellite Cannon included. Just, please, be careful with this information. This world has been hurt enough by weapons like the ones you can create.
After War (Free All)
The war has ended. Millions are dead, and just as many are irreparably harmed in both body and mind. But people are resilient, and survive even in the face of adversity and hardship. People like you. You have several years of experience surviving alone in this post-apocalyptic world. You know how to setup a camp with only the forest around you, how to forage, hunt, and scavenge for food, and how to find a place to sleep where you won’t be disturbed by wild animals or the odd Mobile Suit stomping around.
Mobile Suit Piloting Basics (Free All)
Combat in this world is ruled by the massive machines known as Mobile Suits. And with this perk, you know your way around these iron giants. How to make them move, mostly, but also how to make them fight. You can hold your own against some thug in Daughteress or Jenice, but a Gundam or a veteran pilot is going to give you trouble. Still, this will make sure your presence is felt on the battlefield. That’s more than most here can say.
Standard Issue Mobile Suits (One Free, 50cp)
These are the bog standard mobile suits used on the eve of the Seventh Space War. The United Nations Earth employed the Daughtress while the Space Revolutionary Army used the Jenice. Both suits’ ruggedness has served them well, and they are the go-to models for Vultures nowadays. Given their commonness (or at least as common as a sixteen-meter humanoid war machine can be), you can pick one of these up for free. Don’t underestimate them, however. The hands of a skilled pilot can do a lot with these machines.
Hangar (free/50cp)
I can’t expect you to simply throw your machine into your Warehouse, can I? It most likely wouldn’t fit. Instead, each mech you import or purchase here will have its own separate hangar attached to the Warehouse, allowing it to be deployed from there at your leisure. Should the machine be destroyed or lost, it will reappear in its hangar a week later. If you have a mech that you haven’t imported here but still desire a hangar to store it, or simply want some storage space for some mechs you may eventually get, you may purchase as many empty hangars as you wish for 50cp each.
Wrench Wench (200 CP- Discount Groupie): Alright, maybe you aren’t of the female personage, but this still applies to you dude. You’re pretty handy with a toolbox, and thankfully you are of the class to actually repair Mobile Fighter without accidentally switching off an important subsystem while you’re at it. You also have a talent for making things work without every single one of their parts- a car still won’t run without its engine, but it could be missing a cylinder or two and still run just as good. In addition, say goodbye to getting nipped by metal and catching your hair and nails/fingers in things while working!

 

---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.

 

---A/N This one is called Phase 0.5 because this is a weird half chapter meant to show what is happening with everyone else in the universe and the effects of Sai's incredible technology. This chapter was split into two chapters on A03, and it still will be here.
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Introduction: Rondo Gina Sahaku
“Sir, Why did you let the child in on state secrets? You aren’t this open with people usually.”

“It’s an Argyle. They have a history of upending everything whenever they decide to actually do something instead of just going under the radar.”

“Like what? I checked and they are nobility, but I can't figure out what they actually do. It's mostly just stories and civilian products like those HARO things.”

“There is a reason that ORB was, and still is, independent from every major nation on the planet beyond just our massive military. The Argyles just know things and act accordingly. Whenever someone planned to take over our nation, the Argyle family would “convince” them that it was a bad idea. No one knows how they do it, but the common assumption is blackmail.
The only reason they are not considered a great house is by their own choice. They could be here, but they don’t see the point of doing that. They have the resources, but they never use them until some random thing happens. It’s infuriating to deal with them as they come off so genuine, but they have to have plans within plans to do what we know they are capable of. It’s literally impossible to figure out their endgame until they let you in on it.”

“That sounds personal.”

“Our Father told me about it back in the day. I’m just repeating the story exactly as he said it.”

“The child is only what,16? I don’t think he has a greater agenda.”

“His parents might. Whatever this is might have more layers than we think, but it’s possible they are acting purely in orbs best interest. That’s normally their primary goal.
But at the same time this isn’t their usual modus operandi. It’s usually this subtle word play and weird actions that don’t seem out of place until later. their normal style is usually giving cryptic advice about the mistakes of the past. This event was blatant. This was a single child calling out our entire engineering staff as not qualified for their positions. And he was right. Every part of his designs are revolutionary. Mobile suit grade beam shields, advanced materials science, Multiple FUSION REACTORS! This puts orb so far ahead of the curve it’s insane. We are going to be the top nation in the (solar system?) with this technology.”
“He is insane. He assumed we had already developed most of this technology like it was common. He went out of his way to call the Izumo class as clearly carriers meant for mobile suits when the izumo predates their invention by years.”

“Do you know who designed the izumo?”

“No, why would I know that exactly?”

“It was the Argyles. They had significant design input for the warship’s deck layout and they left in a massive hanger that the rest of the team questioned, but they never explained what it was for. Our father was in charge of Morgenrote at the time, so he let it through. He told me this wisdom when he gave me the company: 'You don’t go against what the Argyle family has to say. It’s almost always correct. It’s like that old adage about the flaga and the stock market. Don’t bet against the Flaga.' At least that is how our father described it. ”

“You're implying they knew mobile suits would be developed years in advance and hadn’t made their own yet. That doesn’t add up.”

“They probably have, but haven’t found the need to use them. Orb hasn’t actually been in a conflict requiring their usage in almost a century. And they are presumably a recent idea around the invention of the izumo. They weren’t needed yet, so we didn’t know about them. They at least knew the concept was coming, or were planning some new mobile armor variant.
The child made both, so I can't tell what the original plan was. I want to assume the ball was the first plan, but he kept calling it a stopgap measure, acting as though it wasn’t an effective weapon compared to the “other” designs.”

“So do we have any indication of what they are?”

“He mentioned something called a Den'an Zon or something, and I can only guess it has beam shields. Beyond that we have no idea what it could be capable of. He mentioned other designs he was unwilling to create, but we have no idea what they are beyond being effectively war crimes. There was a sense of urgency in his tone when mentioning them. That scares me.”

“Why?”

“Because they never show fear like that. It's always either calm or anger. Not fear. We shouldn’t push on it for now. He knows more than we do about those designs.”

“That doesn’t discount insanity. He got lucky on the OS refinement and also had a design from his parents as a stopgap. Nothing proves he is the source of the technology. It doesn’t explain how surprised he was at our lack of fusion and esoteric theories.”

“It doesn’t, but the Argyles have never been wrong before. They have to know something we don’t, and that's why they just unveiled new weapons for us.”

“But why now? We aren’t at war, and they did nothing to help with the mobile suit development we were working on.”

“It’s only a matter of time until we go to war. We are making weapons for the alliance, that is more than enough to void our neutrality in the eyes of the PLANTS. As for why they never helped us, I never asked for their advice. It took the child inventing a new mobile armor for me to ask them about mobile suits.”

“Didn’t you tell me he called it a mobile pod?”

“Yes, he did. I don’t know why, as it is clearly a mobile armor. It’s nothing like that Worker Pod the Plants are using. That thing is a mistral with extra arms on it, and an inability to properly mount weapons. The ball is clearly a combat vehicle. It eliminates the tray for worker operations entirely, and keeps everything directly focused on combat. There are no similarities that aren’t superficial between the two, but that's beside the point. I didn’t go to the Argyles for the Astray series, and we kept everything in house. They probably knew about the project, but didn’t care enough to intervene.”
“So what are we going to do now?”

“I’m calling his parents.”



____________________________________________________________________________


January 13th CE 71
“Welcome to the mobile suit engineering seminar.” Said their lecturer, a kid. Someone who they only found out knew anything about their field two days ago. He clearly did know what he was talking about. The new viability of the Astrays saw to that. It proved he knew what was up, the Den’an which was the new model he designed was so far ahead of everything we knew that it was insane.

This lecture took a day to plan out. Apparently he needed time to figure out what was required for this lecture.

“We will be going over the basics first. You only have half of them, so this is required.

We’ll start with Active Mass Balance Auto Control. This is the thing that was missing from your Operating system. What AMBAC does is automatically balance the mobile suit via conserving momentum. It is an effective method of minor maneuvering in space when used with thrusters. The problems you had with your mobility are due to the machine not adequately automating movement on both the ground and in space. This philosophy or reorientation without thruster usage is why you have limbs on these machines at all.

This is the main fundamental part of mobile suits you were missing when originally designing the Astray gundams.”

The child was special, he made the mistakes an entire department had been making for nearly a year seem like such an obvious thing. The coding team knew the issue was in the mobility, but they never found what the issue was exactly.

“This is naturally one of the hardest parts of the mobile suit, so its not as though your struggle was caused by an idiotic mistake. The issue was one of the main limiting factors of early ground ms, they were clunky and slow due to an excess of data on space maneuvering, but limited ground mobility knowledge. I luckily have that knowledge, so this will no longer be an issue for us, but enough about the Astray. Let's look to the future.”
Everything about him screamed that he was dumbing things down for us, that he knew so much more than he was letting on. From the midlife crisis flame jacket that made him seem older than he was, to the calm candor of his speech, and even just the way he presented himself, it all spoke to someone who knew what they were doing.

“The Astray has a few issues that are somewhat problematic, but not impossible to refit out like its cockpit. The cockpit is overcomplicated and would make learning the machine infinitely harder for pilots. All it needs is a fold out touchscreen and Hud on the monitor. There is no point to this big ass console of 88 buttons. Simplicity is beauty in its own right. The monitor layout also needs an overhaul. It's not a panoramic monitor which isn’t great, but it also could better handle G forces in a linear seat set up. These refits have been done before when old RGM-79’s were converted to the RGM-79R specifications which included cockpit swap outs on occasion. We can make them better.”

He spoke of machines that we had never heard of. What was an RGM-79 and why was it upgraded? We didn’t know, but it was a mere illustration of his talent for mobile suit development. He made so many designs that he made them outdated before even proposing them.

“The second main thing our next machine will need is a better armor material than Foam metal. Foam metal is not bad by any means, but it's not enough. Our machines still take damage from 76mm rifles. This is pathetic by my standards. Gundarium alloys are better defense wise and would result in a decrease in mass per cubic meter of armor. It’s a flat improvement to what we are doing right now. It is also somewhat hard for us to mass produce, though we don’t really have a large military anyway. We can spare the expense for increased pilot survivability. It's far harder to replace a trained pilot than a machine.”

“The third major upgrade is replacing the battery with a reactor. I don’t think it's required for me to explain why this is an upgrade we need. Massive improvement to operational time, more power for beam weapons, you can power a town if you feel like it by plugging the power grid into your suit. Just way more useful than anything else. Don’t worry if you are in one. The thing won’t blow up.”

His knowledge was spread out among so many topics, from materials science to construction to the economics of these machines. He saw the totality of what was being made, and not just the small pieces that each person worked on themselves. The minor notes he made over the past few days were earth shattering in their implications, and he didn’t notice at all. Like it was something small.

“We have to keep ourselves neutral, and we can’t do that without a strong military. We live in a new era, one of mobile suits and beam weapons. One of fantastical power right before your fingertips just barely escaping you. People will feel it soon, I guarantee it. But thats beside the point. We may be ahead of everyone at this second, but we must go even further.”

He spoke of reinventing the world. The very nature of warfare had begun to change, yet he wanted to change it again.

This is why we have introduced the orb rearmament plan. We need new machines to keep our current military powerful enough to protect ourselves. The first stage of this has been completed. The Ball is a support unit not meant for mainline combat. It currently is our mainline unit because we just got the kinks out of our first mobile suit. We need to reinvent our entire military for this new era of warfare. Look at ZAFT. They have multiple radical ideas like the BuCUE, a quadrupedal mobile suit, or the ZuOOT, a “transforming” tank mobile suit hybrid. That idea has been done better, but it shows how they innovate off the basic mobile suit concepts. They aren’t going to stay like the GINN for long. They are already testing beam weapons. Sure they are unwieldy to the point of only being usable on stationary targets and ships, but it will get refined sooner rather than later.
We have to keep up with their development of machines. Which is where the second stage units come into play. The new refined Den’an Zon is the flagship of this series, but we are reinventing every part of our military including the astrays. We can improve on them. The hardpoints make this viable. We are planning amphibious units, aerial machines, artillery support. Everything we have will be either refitted or entirely replaced. We have a terrible military right now beyond the izumo, and the izumo is only usable in space. It can’t fly in orbit. A travesty that is.”

To call this new direction the child was proposing anything other than revolutionary is a falsehood.

“Beam shielding. It's in my mind something we can easily standardize. It was done on the original Den’an Zon and we are making a far better version of it. Let's see just how far we can take the concept. Current models leave the emitter exposed, so that will have to be corrected. I am unsure how to do that, but I’m 90% sure that is a feasible objective. Improvement in the defense of our machines and pilots is vital. Not getting hit is the best defense, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a defense. Everything else is still being thought up, so I have no specifics to give yet, so start designing. Go insane, the only limit is whatever you want. Want to make a big ring for land transport? Go ahead, we need ideas right now. Fresh ideas, and not just remixes of old ones.

There is some other stuff we need to look into, but we need those of us with some very specific traits for this to work. I know of ways to test for it, so it can be added to like physicals and stuff. Its not as important as general refits and whatnot. We need time for that, but we can start on the rest now.”
----Perks Obtained.
Aerospace Engineering Makes Things Go Fast (-100)(Free for Engineer) You have an intuitive grasp on the mechanics of wind-flow, material sciences, atmospheric drag, tensile strengths, rocketry, so on and so forth, and how it applies to the art of designing vehicles that traverse the sky and space.
A/n: that third POV was just a random morgenrote employee. Not a canon character. I did this because the reality of life is that nameless people matter, so I might as well show them.

 

A/N we return to Sai next chapter.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
January 25 CE 71
POV Murrue Ramius
Murrue had been having a rough week. The crew of the new ship, the Archangel, had finally been given orders. The top brass had decided the pilots of the G-Weapons would be assigned to the ship soonest, and they’d be here in less than a week. That had left the engineers scrambling to get the G-Weapons functional in the first place.

It wasn’t going well.

For all the advancements made in manufacturing the machines, the operating system was actively crippling the chances the machines would ever see service. At least, it should have prevented the machines from being sent into combat, but the leadership hadn’t cared about that problem. They never cared about the lives of the people fighting in the war. It was always about if it could take out the enemy.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t her job to work on the OS, as she wasn't a software engineer. She was hardware, and the machine itself was capable of what Alliance Command wanted. She didn’t have the skills to work on it if she tried, anyway.

Ever since the G Project had been started, the timetable for the pilots being brought to the Archangel had been repeatedly delayed as the G Weapons faced technical issue after technical issue. When her team was told they would be receiving help from Morgenrote, she thought all the issues would be solved. Morgenrote had some of the most advanced battery and computational technology in the known universe.

She had been right to some extent. They were a help, but even they had issues making a functional operating system for naturals. Progress had been made, but on the whole no solution was found. It had been like this for months.

Things had changed a few weeks ago when the Morgenrote workers just didn’t show up for a couple days. They gave an excuse of routine job training when they returned, but something had changed with the staff. They were far more sure of this technology, and stopped being deferential to the Alliance scientists and engineers who had pioneered this technology.

This alone wouldn’t have been that strange. There had been tension early in the joint project, but it had cooled as the teams had begun working together. The strange part was how almost everyone just stopped caring about what the Alliance group thought. There was this feeling that if the Morgenrote employees didn’t play nice, Orb would suffer. Murrue hadn’t tried to give this implication off when working together, but the Captain had more or less threatened the small nation if this project failed. Because of this miscommunication by her superior, they were less willing to speak out of turn, argue any point of contention, or sass her compatriots.

When the people assigned to her division returned, they relentlessly sassed her team. Before, the Morgenrote people were spending time learning how all their plans worked and saw her team as peers and teachers, but now it was like they were looking at pitiable children playing with sticks they thought were swords. This sudden change happened overnight. It had been a few weeks since then, and it still didn’t make any sense to her.

That change alone wasn't that bad, but this was just the beginning of her problems. The following weeks hadn’t gotten any better, as Morgenrote had been pulling back support from her team. It wasn’t immediately noticeable, but the people they assigned were working on projects that weren’t helping the operating system finally work. Instead, they kept testing things like the phase shift armor and mirage colloid systems and their controls instead of the glaring problem that kept the machines from being even remotely functional, citing pilot safety as the reasons they kept going over them.

“You’re clearly never going to have mobility on these machines, so make them stealthy or tough. Sure, you lose what makes a mobile suit better than any other weapon, but it’s at least a doable objective.” they said.

“Yeah, these Gundams aren’t even that good. We aren’t going to see massive performance changes unless someone completely revises their cockpit layout. Seriously, they have a programing terminal inside the suit for some reason. Who even does that?”

What is a Gundam? She had heard the word thrown around a couple of times, and she wasn’t sure what it meant. It may have been the acronym for the operating system the G weapons ran on, but she wasn’t sure. The way these people talked about “Gundams” indicated there was something more to the word.

She didn’t have an answer for the programming terminal though. There was no realistic situation where a natural pilot could reprogram the operating system during combat, and the pilots that had been chosen weren’t coordinators. The Atlantic Federation didn’t use coordinators.

“Beam weapons are the future of warfare, why do they even need this phase shift stuff anyway?”

Why did they think beams would proliferate so much? Did they not get that the G weapons would end the war before ZAFT had a chance to design a functional mobile suit sized beam weapon? And why were they just now complaining about the issues? They had just as many issues making things work as her people had.

“Batteries? So uncivilized.”

Did these people live in their own world? The only way to power anything in this day and age was batteries. The N-Jammers had stopped any possibility that mobile suits could have reactors.

“Why are we even hosting these people anymore? It’s a liability, and we have gained nothing from this partnership.”

This conversation had never really come up before, but she knew that they had probably thought about it before. She understood the perspective of these people. They are part of a neutral nation, and as such shouldn’t be involved in the war. However, She also understood that Orb was most likely taking the technology they worked on and making their own design. This was not part of the agreement on paper, but everyone understood that was what was happening. At least, that was the prevailing wisdom.

Had they independently developed a new mobile suit program? If so how did they fix all these issues in a couple days when her team had estimated it would take months to figure out all the kinks?

“They are supposed to be leaving soon anyway, no point in kicking them out now.”

The leader of the Morgenrote employees finally spoke up.

“Guys, shut it. They’re leaving after their pilots get here anyway. Stop insulting them until they leave here. It's not like we didn’t make these mistakes when we were working on our own.
Just keep calm, and we never have to see these disgraces to the Gundam name again.”

And why did they keep saying that the G weapons were a disgrace to the Gundam lineage?



_________________________________________________________
POV Rau Le Creusent

Rau was a man with goals. Terrible goals but they were goals.

He does, however, have to keep the war going. Without nukes, his plans for the destruction of the human race would take decades. Decades Rau did not have. He needed the war to escalate now .

His sources within the Atlantic Federation had found out the Alliance had started working on their own mobile suits. The revelation of these weapons would be the perfect impetus for ZAFT to push the offensive. The war had stalled due to the political machinations of Siegel Clyne. He wanted to wait out the Alliance by taking strategic points of trade to starve out the population. The fool thought that the Alliance would be forced to end this war. He thought starving those people was better than just killing them outright. Rau saw the chairman as a fool who was working against everything he had been working toward.

But that didn’t matter now. The advancement of Alliance military equipment would move the PLANTS to the side of the War Hawks thus escalating the scale of the war. Especially if the rumors that they were carrying advanced offensive equipment were true. He only had confirmed from his source that they had an advanced power-based armor system, but he was certain they would be mounting stronger weapons than the GINN.

The Ginn isn’t that great at doing big damage with its primary loadout, but if the G weapons prove to be dangerous enough, capturing or witnessing them in combat would break the deadlock in the council.

The G-Weapons being in Heliopolis posed no threat. Orb wasn’t capable of a war right now. They had no mobile suits. They had no space superiority fighters. They didn’t even have proper mobile armors. They had decent ships, but those ships are nowhere near Heliopolis. There was nothing the people of Heliopolis have which could possibly…

*Brrirring*

This feeling was like what Rau felt whenever he was near his fellow clones, or that pest Mu La Flaga, but stronger. Far stronger. It was like staring at the sun after only ever being near candles. “Was this another of the Flaga clones?” he wondered. “Could this be a group of us, or was this something new?” And if it was something new, was this some new weapon?

Rau knew there was something greater about himself. Something fundamentally different from the rest of mankind. Not even the Coordinators, the people touting themselves as the Master race, were as capable as he was. Rau was, contrary to popular belief, a Natural. He was a near perfect clone of a person who hated the coordinators, of course he wouldn’t spring for coordinator changes if he hated them. His gene donor thought himself above the coordinators, and for all his faults, Rau agreed with him. Rau thought himself better in every conceivable way to the coordinators he commanded. He felt no difference between the Naturals he fought, and the Coordinators he served with.

He could feel people who were like him. It’s how he found Rey Ze Burrel. The only non clone he had ever felt was Mu La Flaga and he felt distinctly different from the rest of the clones, but Rau had also never felt a group of his fellow clones either. Rau knew that Mu had a squad once which would suggest that whatever made them special was not just within the family, but he hadn’t really felt anyone else during Endymion.

There was no telling what exactly was making him react this way, but he was sure of one thing.
Whatever was causing this feeling should either be obtained to help him destroy humanity, or it should be destroyed so it couldn't be used against him.
----Perks Obtained.
Everything (Elder Scrolls Online)
Before the development of the Arcane Enchanter in the 4th Era which streamlined enchanting to the point that any novice without even the barest hint of magicka could bind an enchantment, and even before the Guild-standardized enchanting techniques of the 3rd Era which drastically eased the process to a simple matter of shoving stored magicka into an item, the tool of choice for infusing an item with a magical effect was the humble Glyph. A Glyph is a combination of three runes, one inscribed with the potency which determines the base strength and whether it adds or removes, one with the desired attribute to effect such as health or a specific element , and a third designating its aspect, ranging from Common to Legendary. You know enough to be able to use and translate up to Rank Five runes(Pora, Denara, Hade and Idode) , with even more becoming available to you as you research and translate more.
Transmogrification (World of Warcraft)
Have a set of armor that you like? Yet you like another set of armor's stats? Well don't fret! Transmog machine is here! What is it? It looks like a giant washing machine, you can feed any two sets of armor(Head, Chest, Legs, Boots, & Gloves)and choose which one is spit out. The new armor will be the best of both worlds. It'll have the superior stats of the one item, and looks of the other. However the downside is that the other item is destroyed. However both items are in a database so you can always transmog the look. Don't bother taking it apart and trying to figure out how it works, because there's no answer. It just works.

 

---A/N this fic has been building up to this moment. The most random Ball joke of all time. Also the battle of Heliopolis I guess.
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My day starts the same as any other for the past couple of weeks. Wake up thinking about how weird mobile suit design theory was before I started working, go TA for Professor Kato’s advanced class, and then work on making sure our pre-production type Den’an Zon’s were usable given what we were dealing with.

I call it a pre-production type because these are going to be made using standard foam metal like the Astray’s were given. We don’t exactly have the facilities to make gundarium or titanium ceramic composite armor. That was the only real compromise beyond us obviously not having enough helium-3 on Heliopolis to try making a Minovsky ultracompact fusion reactor. We had to use one of the other types available to us.

Said other type of reactor also meant we could change some of the plans the Balls were going to be using. Mainly because the other type of reactor was able to fit inside a Ball, so we could suddenly have a higher reactor output to put to use on our thrusters and whatnot. Only half the lot we made had them because they wanted to at least confirm that my reactor designs worked. They aren’t directly available for our defense team as the design was made just to test the reactor's work in the first place. Why they didn’t believe me when I pulled out the Gundam X I don’t know, but they wanted to confirm it anyway.

I had considered making an integrated beam weapon for the design to be made right now, but making an assembly line for that would take more time and be harder than just going ahead with ballistic weapons derived from the Ball’s cannon ala the Zanny. For now I both designed that gun and modified the hand plugs to use the current beam rifle design. We already have the infrastructure to make a ton of those rifles, so it's easier than waiting for the new beam rifles to finally be made.

The MAW-02a and MAW-02b Balls are being made right now to get rid of our aging Mistral line of worker pods with guns. I can’t call them mobile armors with a straight face. We now have a contingent of Balls large enough to protect the colony. This was a massive improvement given the Mistral was never good enough to protect Heliopolis. I’ve heard that pirates and mercenaries have access to the GINN now, so why weren’t there any here to protect us? Or even a single Izumo?

Orb has always been a big advocate of armed neutrality. It’s what we practice near the homeland with our fleet. Why not do the same for our only civilian colony? We could have been attacked and have to wait days for support to arrive from Ame-no-Mihashira. Heck, that could still happen now, but at least we have 3 “functional” mobile suits and Balls to fight against enemies with. This doesn’t include the couple of somewhat completed pre-production Den’an Zons we have here for frame verification. We haven’t had time to fit in the beam shields and whatnot yet, but they have the beam sabers and can use the Astray series beam rifle, so they aren’t exactly unarmed. The mainland even shipped us some of the Astray test pilots to have them test the units.

I feel bad for those test pilots. They weren’t ready for a machine that could keep up with what they wanted. One of them crashed into a wall when testing the updated Astray OS from what I heard from the guys who keep in contact with the mass production team back in the homeland. Supposedly, the people back home have quite a few of those mass production Astrays which are going to be relegated to training machines for their entire service life if the Den’an doesn’t have sudden problems in production.

If that happens, I can just use the early type Jamesgun. It’s mechanically simpler, and is similar to the Astray in concept. It’s only revolutionary size wise in comparison to having integrated beam weapons, having a beam shield, and being smaller than normal units. At least for the first models, the ones that were actually used in combat were changed to include beam shields and stronger reactors to compensate for the strain on the shields but on the original reactor design. I’m not counting the nuclear reactor as an advantage for the sake of argument, because otherwise you have the Zaku I be far ahead of everything here which is kind of wrong.

I guess I shouldn’t be saying the Astrays are that terrible. They really aren’t as bad as I make them out to be. Being fair to them, they have good performance for a first production machine. They skipped the machines which didn’t have miniaturized beam weapons, and went straight to something that with a properly coded OS would be comparable to a GM Ground type. The Battery technology is impressive, and considering the amount of shock nuclear fusion caused people, a requirement following the N-Jammers. This was likely the best powerplant they could use which is honestly more impressive given the machine can run a beam weapon from its own internal battery. That’s like running the RX-78-02 Gundam from just the beam rifles E-cap. It just doesn’t seem that impressive considering I know how to make multiple different nuclear fusion reactors.

I was under the impression that fusion reactors were commonplace, but they clearly weren't and still aren’t that common. Why they didn’t figure out nuclear fusion is beyond me, but it's a thing for some reason. I wasn’t even the one to discover it. I literally remembered the theory behind the Minovsky reactor right after I woke up one morning. I even remembered the full derivations of how Minovsky discovered his particle and how it was proven all the way to when the first reactors were made. I don’t know how this is possible, but it’s probably newtype space magic mumbo jumbo like all the other weird things in my life.

My life feels like it's ruled by newtype fuckery at this point. A couple days ago, I had to go out and buy stuff for dinner, and when I came home, time hadn’t passed. Time hadn’t passed when I was making the food either, but the minute I had finished cooking, time resumed. I only noticed because the market is an hour from my home, and I had to go and come back during the time right before the colony simulates night. It didn’t change to night until I started eating. Time exists most of the time, except apparently cooking based on my testing.

I know from Anaheim's teachings that this isn’t normal newtype behavior. We confirmed Newtypes under psychoframe boosting can manipulate time, but that mostly was reversal of time, and also possibly time travel based on some of the reports we received regarding the original RX-0’s pilot. We assume psychoframe is speeding up whatever is supposed to come from newtypes, but I haven't been under any in my life. I own possibly one single piece of psychoframe, the key, but that shouldn’t be powerful enough to cause this. Time distortion only occurred with full frame psycho machines like the RX-0 line, not small fragments. I’m not even sure the key is psychoframe either. I haven’t had time to test what it’s made of with all my work on our next generation defense technology. My existence raises so many questions that I am not prepared to answer.

The key forces me to ask other questions as well. I found an advanced processor fabricator in the space the key is connected to as well as a terminal which when I looked at it had data on a lot of random science by actual aliens. We knew that there was life on other worlds, but we hadn’t confirmed that it was intelligent. Popular consensus regarding Evidence 01 was that the fossil was of some form of naturally occurring space creature similar to cows or whales. The database here was about an intergalactic empire which consisted of multiple species based on how there were multiple differing space suit designs, as well as an honest to god caste system based on some of the documentation on usage.

The database had a lot of technology as well, like ship designs, plasma weapons, infantry level railguns, some advanced cryogenics research and basically everything else you could ever really want. There were also some new mecha designs and an honest to god experimental antimatter reactor. Freaking insane stuff was in here. If we were having issues even producing beam shields, think about how long it would take to build the tools behind the tools behind the tools for the antimatter stuff. It just wasn’t worth it at this juncture. Our production could only really take like less than one percent of the stuff here in a realistic timeframe. The current things being introduced were enough for now.

The weirdest part of the information in the database is that there is some stuff specifically designed for humans. As in, an intergalactic civilization had enough humans to design specific spacesuits for them. It’s not even one of the previous members of the homo genus either. The data makes it explicitly homo sapiens. It includes a literal anatomic diagram of a run-of-the-mill human. The data doesn’t label it as homo sapiens, but it is labeled human.

To add on to the mystery, humans are labeled as being primarily from a different galactic empire called the Imperium of Man. Of course the database didn’t include much on them beyond the name being listed in some therapy documents as having traumatized people to run away from the empire made entirely of humans, and some notes about certain technologies being more effective on certain imperial weapons. There was also stuff relating to mind control to make the population compliant, so that is concerning and makes a lot of the therapy stuff suspect. I have to point out how the existence of this Imperium of Man is impossible. This planet is our homeworld, and we haven’t even gotten past Jupiter yet. I’m terrified of the implications of this.

It gets even weirder though because there is a random shrine to the Machine God, and a quantum prayerbook. Said prayer book includes mentions of the planet Mars as holy. I’m also a qualified priest of this religion. I have cybernetics now. Kind of. It’s complicated. It’s like they are there, but they aren’t apparent unless I think about it enough. Passively recognizing that I have bionic implants isn’t enough to have them show up. It takes some significant conscious focus on them to force them to materialize. I’ve instinctually used one of the mechadendrites to get me a coffee without thinking about it, but when I tried to make my servo-arm pick up a large crate later it was apparent. I haven’t tested if others can see them, but I’m willing to assume yes.

I only noticed them because the prayer book said stuff about replacing the flesh with mighty steel, and that all magi had implants which led me to realize I had cybernetics. I had to spend an hour calming down and reading some of the stories my family wrote in order to calm down. I realized I couldn't really feel the implants after that, so I thought they no longer existed. I had to be completely cognizant of how I had the cybernetics for them to be physical again. Most of the time they aren’t there because you don’t really think about how you have limbs that often.

I did have to upgrade my servo arm though. It had very little in the delicate handling department before I modified it. It was hard to do it because it was made of some stupidly strong material, but there were weaker parts made of steel so I managed. The upgrades boiled down to basically adding pressure sensors and modifying the way the arm changed the grip strength. The original intervals were, let's say excessively large. I also just added a third section when I realized that I could just add a finer arm instead. It came out less bulky and more refined than the other ones, but that also makes it somewhat against scripture. I painted it Rust Red to appease my religious leanings.

This is all mostly irrelevant to how today was going. Today, my students are still working on Kato’s weird exoskeleton thing and trying to work on it.

I got here before everyone like usual. Then Professor Kato got here. He finally had come back a day or two ago. I was informed he had been working on the mobile suit technology, but he wasn’t really that helpful from what I had heard. Probably because he taught classes instead of just being on the project. He hadn’t yet shown up to any of my informal seminars either. He said something about some of his midterms requiring him to do extra research to determine if they were right. That complaint was common among professors who had a lot of coordinator students according to the other TA’s i was acquainted with. I could agree with the statement, but it honestly felt the same as dealing with a really driven natural. Most of the coordinator students in the class I TA’d for were doing the bare minimum to have good grades like their natural counterparts. The only difference was how much effort constituted the bare minimum.

The Professor was happy with the progress our students had made on the exoskeleton, but he hadn’t really discussed with me anything about the Astrays. He probably was just tired from all the proofs he had to grade and whatnot. I know I was whenever I had to grade stuff for his class.

Now we were stuck here waiting for the kids to show up.

Oh sweet, the door opened. Finally I can do something instead of just sitting here thinking about how strange my life is.

“Hey Kuzzey, you’re the first one here.” I said a little befuddled. Kuzzey is usually the last one to show up. He’s the slacker of the group. “Go check in with Professor Kato and get to work.”

I uhh, don’t really know how to make this work with just him. Miriallia and Kira have most of the code on their laptops, and Tolle is the guy who pilots it. Kuzzey is a hardware specialist, and he has been done with his part of the project for a while. Kuzzey has been stuck doing maintenance for like a week. It’s a shame he drew the short stick for who gets to be the guy in the suit.

“Professor what am I supposed to do?” Kuzzey said aimlessly looking around the room.

“I don’t really know,” I responded, scratching my head a little. “Go email Miriallia about if she can send you the code so you can do something. Or just mess around until she gets here. It doesn’t really matter,”

“Thanks teach!” The shit eating Grin on Kuzzey’s face told me all I needed to know about how much work he’d be getting done.

“Yo Kuzz, what’s big in the gaming sphere recently? I’ve been swamped with work, so I haven’t really had time to check on what's going on.” I asked awkwardly trying to make small talk, he’s not doing much else so we both might as well do something useful with our time.

“Nothing really new has dropped since Christmas to be honest.”

“Damn, that sucks. Has anything really interesting happened since classes started up again?”
“It's the same as usual. People gossiping about who is dating who and all that jazz. The most interesting thing was a damaged pipe on the second floor of the chemistry building.”

“Hey, that's something. Was it to the bathrooms?”

“No, one of the sinks just didn’t work until they fixed it. Class ended early because of it.” I said as I was interrupted by the door opening. Thank god, talking to Kuzzey is hard.

I turned around to go check who came in. As expected it was Toelle and Mirallia. The two were still in that cute honeymoon period where they did their best to be together as much as possible. I wish I had a relationship like that with Flay, but our majors are just too different to have that be feasible. She also doesn’t wake up early enough for that to work either. I swear she sleeps like a cat or something.

“Miralia, you have the code right? I need you to pass it around so everyone else can work on it.” She nodded, which was nice. Tolle and Kuzzey however both groaned simultaneously. “Guys, this project needs to be finished by March. We need it for that big engineering event. You are almost done, just suck it up for a bit.”

The room had a bunch of extra disks to make hard copies of where we were now so it would be easier for us to hold onto. I thought it was a weird thing because emails existed, but who am I to judge the practices of the school? Copying the code took very little time, so we were mostly fine. Kira likely hadn’t actually changed it since he left yesterday, so he was going to be behind on what it actually said. Miriallia actually works outside of class instead of watching the news all the time like some of the people in this project.

The codehad only slightly changed since I had gotten my abilities, but they had almost gotten it working fully, but they didn’t need to know that. The sooner we are done the sooner I have free time. I was done with my version of a working code, but this was their project. I couldn’t take away their achievements like that. Mine was only useful as something that could help me guide people to the correct version.

“Mirallia, how’s it been?” I trusted her to have more information about stuff. She was social enough to not exclusively know about the people in this room. Mirallia also was close enough with Flay to know if she was doing fine or not. I honestly don’t need to know about how Flay is doing, I could always ask her myself, but it's always awkward when we talk to each other. I think the whole being engaged thing is really messing with our ability to communicate.

“It’s been going fine. One of my friends finally got asked out by her crush. It was agonizing watching the two of them dance around the question, but it's finally over!” She chattered enthusiastically. “There isn’t any major homework yet either so this semester is going to be great!”

“That's good. It’s the start of the semester though, so keep an eye out for when it does get harder. I know you’ll do fine though. Tolle might be in for a beating though. Mechanical operations has a horrid spring semester for Freshmen.” I said, causing Tolle to look over at me. “I think it has something to do with moving from simulators to actually using a Mistral. One of my friends had his unit break midtest last year. He still gets mad about it to this day.”

“Relax. I did practice last semester. I made the whole squad do it and everything. You were there!” Tolle said butting into the conversation.

“I know. You almost hit like 4 separate asteroids. We weren’t even that far from the colony.” I said poking a hole in his confidence, to which he at least had the decency to look embarrassed about.
“That was because a ship had a cargo door malfunction. It wasn’t my fault.” He tried to bluster.

“I know, I'm just messin with you. You’ll do better than most of your classmates. Now get back to work.” I said putting the conversation to rest, of course I didn’t want to mention the Ball because Tolle wasn’t going into the military. I don’t think we're going to be seeing civilian Ball designs for a while.

I got back to watching them do work. There wasn’t going to be that much done compared to when Kira was here, but at this point I was fine with him being a little late. They were close enough to being done, I can spend a second working on my own project list. Mainly some aquatic units. I blanked out on those and just didn’t make any. A simplified aqua-javelin would work. Converting the tech to work with the Den’an’s design would be a challenge, but it's as good as I can do for now. Any other design would just not fit the MS doctrine I have advocated for.

“Mirallia, can you go get Kira? I need to talk to him about some work I gave him.” Professor Kato said tiredly as he was grading the homework he assigned last week. I don’t know why is asking the only person who’s doing work to leave instead of Kuzzy and actually have him do something.

“Sure thing.” Miriallia said as she walked back out of the room, to which Tolle left soon after that.

Which just left Kuzzey still working, which was a change of pace for the slacker but at least something was getting done.

“I’m going to a staff meeting in a minute. Sai, you're in charge. Before I forget about it, I need you to give this disc to Kira when he gets here. It’s important.”

I don’t know what's on this and I don't need to know, it’s between Kira and Kato so there’s no need to be nosey.

“Man Kuzzey, why is everyone having to leave for a bit today?”

“I dunno, but it lets me slack off more.”

“I’m going to ignore what you just said.”

Someone else is coming in. Wait, this isn’t anyone who should be in the room. This girl was clearly trying to look like the shadiest person in the world with that getup. Like really, a trench coat in brown and a newsboy hat? It’s like looking at the world's worst spy.

I swear I know her from somewhere.

“Hey, why are you here?”

“I’m looking for Professor Kato.”

“He’s in a staff meeting. What are you here for?”'

She’s shifting uncomfortably

“Uhh, class stuff.”

“I’m a TA for most of his classes. You could ask me about it if it isn’t about your grades.” I had already moved closer to her, so that Kuzzey would be further away.

“Uhhh” she stuttered nervously, I could tell that wasn’t why she was here. It’s one of those newtype things. You could kinda feel people are lying even if they weren’t newtypes. She also looked incredibly shady, so even basic intuition could see something was wrong. A student wouldn’t be wearing this getup if they actually wanted to speak with him. For all I know, this is a spy probing for military secrets. “I know you're lying, why are you really looking for him.?” I am still moving closer and she was still fidgeting like this wasn’t something she expected.

Wait, I DO recognize this person!

“Cagalli? What are you doing here? I thought you weren’t going to technical college.”

“I wanted to talk with the professor.”

“Why? Is he involved in the drug trade? What business could you possibly have with him that couldn’t be done via a conference call?”

“It’s important, just tell me where he is. Wait, do I know you?”

“Cagalli we've known each other for 10 years and No I can’t tell you. He's busy. and you look ridiculous. If you didn't want anyone to recognize you, you should have gone with an oversized hoodie and headphones instead of this mess. You stand out too much. Anyone who actually pays attention to the news or actually remembers that ORB has a nobility system would recognize you. You are incredibly lucky most people that would be going to this college don’t care about that stuff, and that the majority of the people in ORB just forget we aren’t their homeland half the time.”’

“Wait, Sai? What are you doing here?” Cagalli asked, realization spreading across her face.

“I’m getting a degree in engineering. That and working here but I only started a couple weeks ago. I’m the one who is supposed to be asking questions here. I’m in charge, maybe I can help.”
“I’m here looking into mobile weapons development…”

“You’re here to talk about my Balls?!?!” As I said that, Mirallia, Toelle and Kira entered the room. “Wait, that came out wrong.”

That sounded vaguely like an innuendo. I’m going to get my shit rocked and I can feel Kuzzey stare into the back of my head. There is no way I am getting out of this situation without either pissing someone off, or looking like I am in a relationship with someone. I’ve spent over a year carefully cultivating the image of someone who is single and unimportant. If Kira, the guy who spends time actually watching the news, notices who she is, I'm done for. Screw it, I can sacrifice the single angle to keep national security intact. My image is worth less than what is probably a military problem.

“So is this your girlfriend Sai?”

“Toelle, shut it.”

That's about as evasive as I can be without explaining military stuff. I also am denying it which hopefully pacifies Cagalli, but will definitely confirm it from their point of view.

“Wait, she’s a girl?”

Damn, Kira made the biggest mistake when dealing with Cagalli. Mistaking her for a guy. I swear I’ve seen her beat the shit out of people over it. Rest in peace. You will be missed. Well at least I don’t have to worry about Kira recognizing her.

“Of course I am. What did you think I was?” Cagalli shouted indignantly, shooting him a scathing glare.

Luckily I have just the life line to save him from the mess he got into. “Kira, here is the stuff Kato wanted you to work on. I expect everyone to be working when I come back.”

“Even more work? I barely finished everything yesterday.”

“Kira, you are studying at a technical institute run by Morgenrote. This could be important.”

“Like they would let teenagers do anything of value.”

Oh, how wrong you are my friend. How wrong you are.

“I know, but take this seriously. You're probably going to get hired by Morgenrote post graduation, and this extra work is going to help your career. Do you have any idea what it is?”

“It’s probably just a program analysis or something.”

“Kira, I’m just going to warn you not to piss off that girl. I’ve known her for years, and she could very easily kick your ass.” I whispered that to not attract too much attention.

He looked confused about why I was warning him, but that’s fine. I have gotten the information across. “So anyway, I need to go finish my very important conversation in private. You people need to keep working while I’m gone.”

Just move through the door and toward the weapons development stuff. I’m not entirely sure how she found out, but she could be working on behalf of her father, so I should be taking it seriously. The hallway, while not exactly secure, is practically deserted most of the time.

“If we are going to talk, can we at least use the other language and not Japanese? It’s safer.”

Back in the olden days, Orb was a thing that was separate from the rest of the world. It was never conquered, and no one really ever thought much of it. We had a unique culture and everything back then which included a language. You can generally track where and how the nobles of Orb came from in that era. Except for my family. We were always the Argyles, and just kinda showed up one day. It’s weird.

This all changed a bit after World War 3. We had such a large influx of migrants from Japan we had to change the official language to it. A lot of that original culture got lost after that, but simultaneously Japan lost out on its culture to other things at the same time. The only people I know who still remember the old culture are the nobility.

“Fine. What the heck was with you going on about your Balls?” Cagalli snapped as she swapped to Orbian.

“You were asking about mobile weapons. I just designed one called the Ball a few weeks ago. I thought that’s what you were talking about.”

“No! I’m looking into ORB working on mobile suits for the Earth Alliance.” Cagalli said, much to my bafflement.

Like, What? No really, What? Why on earth would we do that? The Alliance has no major technological advantage to offer besides the lightwave barrier stuff Artemis has, and that technology is somewhat considered a dead end. It’s also the exclusive stuff of the Eurasians, and if they won’t share that with their allies, why would they share it with us?

“That’s fucking ridiculous. I’m working on our mobile suit development project, and nothing about it suggests we ever worked with the Alliance.”

“So we do have a mobile suit development project?”

“Yeah, we technically already have a completed design. It’s already being phased out for a better one called the Den’an Zon, but it's still in testing. It honestly shouldn’t be, but for some reason no one ever trusts me when I say the design works and has been used before.” Great, and now she is just staring blankly at me like I grew a second head. “Is it something I said?”

“Yes. Everything you just said sounds like a lie. There is no way you are working on top secret military projects.”

“But I am. It’s equally ridiculous that the equivalent of a princess made her way to a space colony just to check if her government was working with an alliance of nations and yet here we are.”

“That’s different.”

“In what way is it different?” I responded indignantly.

“Weapons development is way harder.”
\
“Yeah, but it's not like we are really developing anything new.” I conceded. Hmm industrial constructor bits would be something new. Hmm “We are just kinda cranking out old designs with modernization.”

“There aren't any old mobile suits. The earliest ones are like 5 years old.”

That’s both wrong and stupid, but whatever.

“Seriously, why didn’t you just talk to one of the Sahaku’s or something? They would know if this was happening or not. Morgenrote is the national arms manufacturing company. It would have taken like 5 minutes.”
“I was literally told about the Alliance connection by the test pilots of the Astrays.”

“You mean Juri and her weird friends? I literally worked with them on mobile suits, and asked them about the development of the Astrays. Why did they tell you and not me?”

“Because they are my friends, and they thought I knew about it already?”

“I’m literally their boss now. You don’t leave your boss in the dark about important information like this. Unless they already expected me to know that stuff already…”

“So are we going to look for the Alliance Machines?”

“Wait, they are building their units here?!!?”

“As far as i know, yes that is what is happening.”

“The fact we haven’t been attacked yet is a miracle. Also no, we aren’t. Alliance forces are trigger-happy, and we would be basically giving them high value political prisoners if we aren’t shot on sight.”

“So what should we do?”

“Take it up with Gina I guess? I’m going to push up some pilot training I’m supposed to be giving on mixed unit tactics. I have a feeling we are going to be attacked in the next couple of days.”

*KABOOM*

“Or right now. Sure that might as well happen. We need to get outside.”

“Wouldn’t a building be safer?”

“If you want to get crushed by debris, stay here. That hallway should lead to the shelters in the factory district. I’m going to go get my machine to fight whoever is attacking us.”

It’s always annoyed me that the hallways leading outside the college don’t have doors. I mean sure, it's convenient for students who are late to an applied engineering class, but there is always the chance someone would put a classified project there. Oh, that's where the alliance put their machines. Fun. How did I not know about this if their information security is so shit? So we reverse engineered the Astray from those units. I can see where we went wrong. We focused on stealing the one which looks under armed, but probably has optional equipment instead of what looks to be a transformable unit.

Why would they even design one right now? They aren’t even fielding their own units, and they decided to make a transformable machine? Was it to easily transfer pilots from the mobile armor division to mobile suits? Heck that one over there has a bunch of nozzles all over the body to disperse something. Possibly beam chaff? Or maybe it's for that colloid stuff people have been passing off as a miracle technology. There could be potential in the Collid technologies. Whatever, just move away as fast as possible. Get somewhere else, and unleash one of my mobile suits, and defeat the enemy. Simple.

Oh great, and Cagalli decides now is the time to have a breakdown about us not being neutral.

“Cagalli, we need to move before they spot us. You’ll have time to rue your father or whatever once we are away from here.”

“Fine.”

And so we moved away from the people packing up their equipment and went toward a more secure location. Said location was just a railing closer to one of the shelters built into the superstructure of Heliopolis which wasn’t that far away from the open area that held the alliance mobile suits, but that’s the Alliance's fault for having the shittest operational security i have ever seen.

“I’m so pissed I didn't know we were working with the Alliance. I could have better prepared us for a battle for an attack. I’m sure the Ball teams can hold the entrances to the Colony, but we don’t know how many enemy forces have arrived.”

“Can I have my breakdown now?”

“Yes. I’m going to summon my mobile suit”

“Your what?” I snapped my fingers as I focused on the image of the mobile suit as I Summoned the Jegan. It’s not my most powerful Unit, and if we are about to fight a fleet or something I would prefer the Gundam X. It is too bad the Moon is on the other side of the planet, and I need a direct line for the Satellite Cannon to turn on. The Jegan however is meant for fighting around colonies, and has enough optional parts to overcome the enemy if i have to go resupply.

The snap wasn’t required for the summon, but it looked cool.

The machine appeared with its cockpit open, and lucky for us the railing was the correct height to get onto the rope without any issues..

Was I entirely sure of how this ability worked given I just figured out this was possible? No, but this isn’t the time for questions. It’s the time for action.

Cagalli however, had plenty of questions.

“I… What… How?”

“Newtype bullshit.”

“That explains nothing!”

“Ask me later when we aren’t under attack. Go to a shelter or something. I don’t remember you being qualified for vehicle combat.”

“Neither are you.”

“Actually, I am a qualified Mobile Suit Pilot and engineer.”

I jumped to the rope and got inside my Mobile Suit. The best use of my time is going outside to take on the enemy trying to breach our defenses, but I can't be sure no one has infiltrated the colony and is trying to destroy the Alliance prototypes. However, these people brought war to my country. I’m not going to help them as much as they like.

Saving their asses might get us enough leverage to get the designs for the other prototypes. I want to know just how badly these people messed up the transformable unit. It can’t be good given how my very casual look at some of the other prototypes tells me we corrected some of their flaws like the lack of beam sabers.
Now I just need to close the cockpit and get on with the battle.

“Wait your ass up.”

“Why the fuck are you trying to get into my mobile suit???”

“I’m not fucking doing nothing while we are being attacked.”

“Fine, get in the backseat. I don’t have time to deal with this.”

“This is Sai Argyle, Jegan, Launching!”

I’ve always wanted to say that.

“What do you mean Jegan? I thought the new model was called the Den’an Zon?”

“Yeah, this is a different machine. Much older.”

“When did we build this? This isn’t an Astray.”

“No, it's the RGM-89R Jegan A type. Built by Anaheim Electronics way back in the day.”

“Anaheim Electronics?”

“Yeah, the people who trained me in mobile suit design. They are based out of the moon.”

She looked down like she was contemplating what I was talking about. Good for me as well so I can actively plan what I need to do.

I’m just going to go out there and disable the enemy ships. Getting prisoners is better than us just killing everyone. We get leverage out of the PLANTS for prisoner exchange, and if they ignore us… Well, Orb accepts coordinators as part of its population. Effectively flying around using the Jegan without really having to care if someone notices me is nice. My training of our current defense team has been going somewhat well, but I keep having to care if civilian traffic sees us. Sure, I’ve been using the Daughtress for the training, but it's nice to finally cut myself loose. I’m lucky that the colony doesn’t really have large buildings or anything. Makes it very easy to maneuver myself through the sky toward the outside of the colony.

“Is this what being in a mobile suit is like?”

“Oh I would say the experience of a Jegan is like a six out of ten. It’s no Gundam, but it's pretty ok. Especially for a sixty year old machine.”
“A Gundam? Sixty years old?”

“The thing the Astray units were trying to copy, you uncultured swine. Read a history book sometime Also, i’m just talking about the design. This unit is a RGM-89R, so it's probably closer to thirty if this one isn’t a refit variant.”

“That doesn’t inspire much confidence.”

Great, she just had to start insulting my pride and joy. I mean I had time to paint the family crest on the shield and everything. That takes work.

“Zaku II’s can last literal centuries with minimal maintenance, and this machine is much more economical than that. I also do vigorous maintenance with a giant water hose. Trust me, we aren’t going to die in this thing unless I drop the ball and we die in the battle.”

Ok, take stock of the current battle area. The Balls seem to be holding the GINNs off very well. It’s nothing decisive, but it's clear we are holding ground. Must be the experience the GINN pilots have. A full year of combat does make you a competent pilot no matter how bad your machine is.

We are facing two ships, one Laurasia and one Nazca. I think that maps out to like twelve mobile suits total that our enemy can field. I’m only seeing three right now. Could they be trying to steal the prototypes? If so that knocks down the total number of enemies right now to four if they are trying to steal the Astrays as well, seven if we pretend they don’t know about them.

Enemy mobile suits count up to three GINN and a CGUE that just got launched from that Nazca. That leaves the enemy either out of mobile suits or there are three enemy units that haven’t been launched yet.
I guess if we want to consider anyone else as allies, we have a single Alliance Supply ship of a class I don't recognize, and 2 moebius’s. Oh shit, there’s also a Moebius Zero. Damn, that's wild. You don’t see those that often.
The CGUE and Moebius Zero are busy dueling each other. I can safely ignore them. That supply ship is being focused on more than our people which is good I guess. No idea why it launched out of the Hangar, but whatever. Best course of action is to take out the Catapults. Make it harder for them to launch new units.

Damn, Comms are jammed. That's going to make things harder.

“Are you insane you're going to fight two warships with a machine gun?!”

“No. We’ve got a beam rifle, a grenade launcher, beam sabers, and missiles. Actually, you could look at it on the little screen next to your seat. It has labels for what we have on this suit. The screen is in training mode, so you won’t be able to use the weapons or anything.”

Just move with the flow of the Battle. Use the big beam saber, really mess them up. Ginn moving to intercept me. Okay, go for the head and arms. Keep as much of the enemy around as possible for interrogation or diplomatic favors. He’s moving in with his sword. Good. Dodge the telegraphed swing, and use the upside down U slash to take out the arms and head in one motion.

One down.

I need to move on to the ships. You take out the motherships, you end the battle. The Crossbone Vanguard proved that decades ago. Take out the Nazca First, it's faster and could more easily run from this battle. It’s where the commander of this operation probably is, and I need to take him down now. Force a cease fire before civilians get taken out. I don’t have a bazooka or anything, but I do have a beam rifle. That’s more than enough to take out the primary beam cannons. I can’t leave those intact without risking some sort of suicide attack if the commander is salty.

*PCHEW*

*PCHEW*

Cannons down, now for the catapult. Removing the catapult gives more time to react to enemy machines which is very helpful given how green everyone around me is.

*BZTZ*

Shit, railguns. That was close. They almost hit me with that… Fine, I’ll just go from underneath and take out the catapult that way.

*PCHEW. *

And that’s a two for one special.

Next is the engines. I can’t let these people get away. Funny thing about the Nazca class, two thirds of its primary engines are parallel to each other. Beam rifles are known to be extremely good at penetrating enemy vessels. Quick blasts here, here, and here. And now its thrust is crippled.

On to the Laurasia class vessel.

Laurasia’s are just big gunboats that happen to have an MS catapult and storage location. I can tell the Ball team took great offense to the Laurasia attacking their home. It looks like shit. Multiple of its weapons are clearly no longer operable, the catapult is damaged, and I think part of the ship is venting atmosphere. I guess I can leave it to the Ball guys.

Ball team has finally cleared out the GINNs as well. I’m not seeing much on our side for losses which is nice. There’s still a single CGUE out. Is it still distracted with that Moebius Zero?? God that is horrible. They’ve been fighting this entire battle and haven’t done anything clearly relevant to this battle. Like how are they still around? Are these two newtypes? I can sorta feel them a bit, but it's faint. Yeah, I guess that explains how the CGUE guy is still alive. Newtypes are almost always good at piloting. And the fact he seems to just be dueling the Moebius guy which leaves the rest of the ZAFT force more or less undefended, and we clearly took advantage of that fact.

Honestly, it looks like the ZAFT forces were more occupied with fighting the Alliance forces than us. I don’t know why, We are the bigger threat, but I guess they didn’t know that. Rest in peace random Alliance Transport ship. You will be missed. Same as that one Moebius pilot. They could have waited and let us handle it, but clearly they didn’t trust our top tier security.

We are still launching new Balls as well, so it's clear we are winning rather decisively at the moment. Some of the Balls are moving to take out the rest of the Nazca’s weapons. I don’t see the Astrays yet, but it could just be the communications jamming messing with our ability to organize.

Shit, the CGUE guy is breaking off from the duel. I think he’s just realized his entire unit is either dead or about to be captured. And, of course he is coming for me. Great.

At least this one is trying to use a ranged weapon on me. Sure it’s not apparent that my machine is a close combat specialist, but you would think these people would save fixing bayonets for when they run out of ammo. That’s a lot of ammo he has. He keeps spamming it at me like that's going to significantly affect his probability of hitting me. He’s clearly not thinking straight enough to properly lead shots on me or anything. Must be super angry his people got taken down by what must look like weird mobile armors.

I should probably start counter attacking or something. Letting him run out of ammo is fine and all, but I need to end this as fast as possible. I’m pretty sure they had people infiltrate the colony to cause those explosions, and we need to take care of them as soon as possible.

“Eat vulcan pod rounds.” Are they good for taking out enemies? No. They are, however, good zoning weapons. I just need this guy to stay still long enough to stab him in his stupid face.

*Brrirring*

Oh sweet a newtype connection, I’ve never experienced one of these. I wonder what will happen

…

And he just got hit by one of the Ball cannons. It was only the close combat type, but it still fucked up the machine. This is the perfect time to swoop in and disable the enemy. Damn, Ball team is crushing it today. I shouldn’t underestimate them as much as I have been recently.

“I’m going to try comms for their surrender.”

“You should have done that earlier. You absolutely destroyed them. And you said this was an old machine?!? Since when have you been this good at fighting?”

“Are you going to surrender now? Your ships have been disabled, your mobile suits are trashed, and whoever is inside the colony will be found and captured shortly.”

“This is Black Coat Fredrik Ades of the Vesalius. We surrender.”

“Is the coat thing supposed to mean something? Are you the captain or something?”

“I am the second in command. The actual captain just got taken out while in his CGUE.”

“That’s good enough for me. The Orb Union accepts your surrender. You will answer for your crimes of breaking the neutrality agreement at some point to be determined later. You are to get your crewmembers to disarm and wait for us to board your vessels. If you try anything we will destroy your ships.” I opened up a line directly to the people in charge of the colony. “Orb command, The enemy has surrendered. Someone go call up the space forces and bring them here. We don’t have the facilities to hold all these people last I checked.”

“This is going to get complicated isn’t it?”

“Yeah think?!”
----Perks Obtained.
Workshop/3D Fabricator GUNNM
Powered tools for cyborg disassembly and repair. Bulky diagnostic computer, ten kilograms of miscellaneous spare parts, very rare compact 3D fabricator capable of milling custom components and printing or repairing circuitry.
The Dark Crystal (azeroth) 200
Draenei use crystals that are, possibly, native to their homeworld for almost all aspects of their daily lives. Even their technology, magic, and homes are made of these crystals. Certain Artificers are capable of 'Programming' these crystals to do certain things ranging from protecting an entire city in a shield or powering magitek spaceships that can travel the void of space. You now have their knowledge of these ancient arts and are capable of incorporating this magitek into your own technology or magic.
What's this Do? [200cp] (Discount Engineer)
The technology used in the frontier can be so complex and advanced it takes years for even the most<br />
brilliant minds to understand. Really now? That's good, you needed something to do after lunch today.<br />
Now, even if your in a dropship in the middle of a fire fight, you can decipher the inner workings of<br />
technology so long as you have the controls to scre- I mean analyze.<br />
Titan Hangar [Free]
A sophisticated auto-factory, this attachment to the warehouse will manufacture any Titan you have the plans for. The designator now causes one of these Titans to be deployed to the point you designate in a drop pod when used. Once deployed, another Titan won't be produced until you return it to the warehouse or it is destroyed.<br />
Additionally, a Titan is now constructed once a day for free, but if you want more than one Titan per day, it will still construct you more if you can feed it the necessary raw materials.
Constructor Drone and AI Kernel
This drone is an automated constructor unit, capable of building simple machines and buildings on its own and more complicated structures and technologies under your direct supervision, so long as it has materials to work with. Its tools can be easily customized or replaced with new or different technologies. Moreover, its software includes a kernel that can be used to grow specialized AI and VI systems optimized for various computational substrates and tasks that are always loyal to you.

 

---A/N We are officially caught up with A03. The next chapter should probably be done in a few days if my writers block clears up. I expect that to happen.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
“Hey Athrun.”

“Yeah, what is it Yzak?”

“You ever wonder why we’re still here?”

“It's one of life's great mysteries isn't it? Why are we here? I mean, are we the product of some cosmic coincidence, or is there really a God watching everything? You know, with a plan for us and stuff. I don't know, man, but it keeps me up at night.”

Both stare at each other in silence.

“...What?! I mean why are we out here, on this hill and not taking the alliance's G weapons?”

“We don’t have the support required to take down the enemy. We have like ten people with submachine guns. The Alliance has missile trucks, artillery and like five times as many people as us. We’d get slaughtered.”

“Where's our support anyway? They should have mopped up the defenses easily.”
—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, dealing with all the prisoners is gonna be problematic. We uhhh, don’t have places to keep thousands of war criminals in this civilian factory colony. We have a jail I guess, but it is not designed to hold more than 100 people. We usually have maybe 2 people in there for things like public indecency or something. I’m guessing maybe 400 people are going to be suddenly interred in jail now.

I don’t know how many people to be honest. I have no goddamn clue what the crew sizes of ZAFT military vessels would be. I’m not an all knowing god or anything. I know how many MS they can carry because it’s relevant to the defense of Heliopolis, but I didn’t feel it necessary to know estimated crew capacity. Really feel dumb for not thinking that was important

I uhh, need to figure out how this is going to work. I’m just going to fly back to the colony so I can stop worrying about my oxygen levels. I know I am nowhere near the amount necessary to run out, but I’m not in a pilot suit or anything, and it's making me feel anxious. I also have a passenger, so that also matters. They had finally stopped jamming us, so it's not like I couldn't talk to anyone anymore.

“Guys, how are we going to deal with all the prisoners?”

“I don’t know. We can’t kill them now though. That’d be a war crime. I’ve already contacted Ame to send us more ships to maybe hold them on the mainland or something.”

“Maybe seal up their ships or something?”

“That’s actually a good idea, Cagalli. Except for the part where they could repair their ships, but we have a garrison that could stop them from repairing the weapons or thrusters.”

The inside of the colony didn’t look that different beyond people running around like headless chickens around the Factory district.

The Alliance Gundams were just kinda in transport trucks trying to get through a tunnel that seemed to have collapsed in on itself. Why did we let them build those on our colony? They weren’t in testing, and they are clearly being transported elsewhere. Why build them here? What possible advantage does that serve? You just create an unnecessary logistics issue where the prototypes aren’t easily sent to any major front of the war. God one of these seems to be some kind of oversized F90 knockoff.

I hadn’t had time to take in the designs of the machines with my frantic movement toward the battle at the port, but I can do that now. They have literally the most basic gundam ever, but in black and gray, basically the same machine but with a bazooka in black and gray, the weird nozzle one that looks like a not V2, a transformer that looks like it would snap in half, and the not F90.

It’s hard to tell, but to my trained eye, I can tell the nozzle one and transformer are both built on completely different frames compared to the other three. For what possible reason do they need to have a transformable mobile suit at all? It certainly doesn't look flight capable. Or that separate frame for a machine that is using some form of possible smoke discharge, why make that exist when you had a serviceable unit already? You could just put them on the shield like the Geara Doga! There is no logic to having three things with no common parts.

The V project got away with it because they were attempts to perfect the idea of a mobile suit. They didn’t succeed with the Guntank, so they made the Guncannon which still had mobility issues which lead to the Gundam.
They clearly got the mechanical idea down with the first one, so why go through the effort of designing two new frames at all? I mean you clearly know you can put more than one thing on the same frame. There are three of the basic ones, and you can tell one has a big gun attached. I’m assuming they have the same issue with the OS that the Orb team had because I don't see why else these units wouldn’t have been put into service earlier.

“Ugggghhhhh, I’m gonna have an aneurysm.”

Especially when one of the mobile suits is a transformable unit which likely shares no parts with any of its sister units. The complexity of transformation systems makes it very hard to make something usable by new pilots, or easily mass produced. The Alliance barely even uses captured GINN’s based on the news and what Flay tells me, so why have one of the new ones use something that took valuable time instead of shitting out something like a GM based on the super basic one?

“Honestly, I have no idea what they’re even going to do with these ugly pieces of shit. I bet they also use batteries like a ghetto build.”

“Ghetto build? What are you talking about?”

“Look at those units down there. Those are probably shit based on what I’m looking at. Wait a fuck, that’s the same fucking frame as the Astrays! That means either we stole them, or they stole our design? Either way, that's not great for them. There is not that much merit to the Astray plans because well they’re kinda shit. The only compliment I can give is the theoretical possibility of Kamehameha attacks due to the specific handplug used. Even then, the battery life makes that a terrible idea, but in a reactor powered mobile suit, that’s not as much of an issue.”

“Ok, I don’t understand most of what you said.”

“Tl:dr, They built trash not worth the cost of development.”

It’s charming when a small island nation does it, but you’re the Earth Alliance. You have control of the entire Western Hemisphere and most of Eurasia. You have the resources to actually build and develop reactors. No fucking excuse exists for them!

And now these guys are shooting at me with their stupid missile truck things. I can’t even take these clowns seriously anymore. That thing looks positively ancient.

I’m lucky I still have a lot of ammo in my vulcan pod otherwise these could hit civilians or something.

“Holy shit, these are possibly the worst targeted missiles of all time.”

I can like move an inch and make them lose the lock on. I know Minovsky Particles fuck with targeting, but I was at least assuming there was going to be an attempt to hit me.

I have speakers on this thing somewhere.

I am officially done with this.

“Can you please FUCK OFF. I’m a member of Orb’s military. Any further hostile action will begin hostilities between us. You do not want me to start firing upon you.”

Ahh, good they stopped.

Fuck what do I do now? Look for the ZAFT personnel who bombed us I guess? They would have to be idiots to come out without air support

Wait, aren’t my parents coming here today?

Shit. Were they hurt during the attack? I need to check on that…

BOOOOMMMMMM

“What?! Who the fuck thinks they can blow a hole through the WALL of a FUCKING COLONY. I’m gonna fucking end them!”

Okay this thing is just a goddamn parody of a Pegasus class designed by a brain dead third grader. I finally have proof the universe is a comedy! The legs are too long and appear to have some form of giant beam cannon inside of them. They weren’t connected that well to the main part of the ship that well either. Then there’s all the engines like what phenomenal retard thought that was a good idea like what the fuck?!

Seriously, why is the vessel not continuous? Why is there so much fucking empty space everywhere?

“Wait, those were fucking Positron Cannons! We FUCKING GAVE THESE ASSHOLES OUR ANTI-MATTER weapons, and this is how they repay us? Fuck you Gina, you dumb ass motherfucker. You gave them one of our biggest technological advantages, you fucking son of a bitch.”

“Sai, are you telling me Rondo Gina Sahaku is the one responsible for this?”

“He must be he’s the one incharge around here and I've never seen those suits or this god awful ship before. The clear usage of Orb technology means those suits from the factory district have to be for this abomination.”
I pulled up my beam rifle to start shooting the ship. I hate using beam weapons in colonies, but this is a fucking ship. I need to use my full firepower on the enemy.

“Shit, this fucker has Laminate Armor this will take awhile.”

“It has what?”

“It’s covered in shit that dissipates the energy of beam weapons; it's what Orb uses on its ships. All I have left is my beam rifle and the shield grenades. We may have to disembark…

Wait, could I…”

I can summon my gundam, that is a thing I know is possible. Can I summon a different one, like maybe my Jenice with its machine gun and heat hawk.

I still have energy in the rifle though. I might as well just find somewhere and spam shoot at it until the fucker breaks.

Like the overexposed structure connecting the thruster assembly to the rest of this parody of a warship.

Could I probably cut through it with the beam saber?

Yes.

Will I?

No, because it's just come off with a few repeated shots. The secret to beating laminate armor is never giving it time to cool down.

“Seriously, who designed this thing? It’s CWIS placement is pretty fucking bad, and i can just constantly turn with this thing to kill it. How the hell is it supposed to turn in combat anyway? Where is the force supposed to come from? Invisible thrusters? Does something fold out?”

“Sai, can you pay attention to all the bullets and missiles they are shooting at us?”

“I am.”

I have no idea why my vulcan pod has so much ammo. It’s not even necessary either. It’s very easy to maneuver the missiles into the path of the CWIS emplacements. This crew has no idea how these weapons work if they are constantly crossing these streams.

Also, I have a beam rifle next to a giant target. It’s not rocket science to maneuver myself where the excess beam energy still hits the enemy.

“Hey, can I get support from the Astray team? We’re fighting in the colony, and I think this would be good practice for anti-ship combat.”

“You’re calling this training!?! The thing where we are fighting for our life inside the colony against a ship that resists your primary weapon.”

“Yeah, and when else will the Astray team get to train in anti-ship combat? I haven’t been able to teach that effectively due to lacking an example ship. We were going to order the remains of one from the Junk Guild, but this is the perfect opportunity to do it live.”

“Will they even be able to handle this?”

“Probably. I have confidence in them. Hopefully one brings the preproduction Den’an. I want to see how good it performs.”

Playing with my food is bad, but here’s the thing. I’m just stalling for reinforcements. They’ve had time to suit up, get over here goddammit.

I’m just gonna start shooting at their CWIS until help arrives.

“Sai, sir, let me show you what I can do. “

“This again? Juri, stop trying to get laid while we're fighting!”

“Shut it Asagi.”

I don’t know what she is talking about. It’s always the same shit with these three…

“Can we actually focus for once? Where is the Gold Frame?”

“I dunno, Gina said he had to secure the perimeter or something.”

At least I finally have some goddamn support from mobile suits. That took like 7 minutes since the fight started.

“Thank you Pilot Labatt.

Ok, here’s the plan. Shoot the connection between the Engine block and the main hull. I’ll take point and harass their weapons so they can’t get a lock on you. Caldwell, you should focus on defending your teammates. You have higher agility with that prototype. Don’t make me regret assigning you as its pilot.”

She wasn’t even my first pick. Gina didn’t want it yet because of the testing. Said the Astray was proven enough for him. He did however send me some notes for his custom unit. He had some ideas for a variation on the shot lancer which would be retractable so as to keep it a consistent weapon throughout combat. The other major idea was to have energy absorbers so it can disable enemy units and power up its Ecaps.

It’s uhh an interesting idea. He had a mockup of the planned stuff on an Astray. I’m still thinking of what to do to make the idea more awesome. Possibly the advanced sensor systems of the Dahgi Iris? He wants to be a commander, so that would fit the idea. Enhancing the capacity of the troops and whatnot.

Shit, more missiles.

“Why are we fighting them? Weren’t we building weapons for them yesterday?”

“Look at that hole in the colony. If they were smart, they would have used communications after the jamming ended, but they didn’t. I see that as an act of bad faith. Disable the ship.”

The biggest issues are all the forward facing weapons. My teammates are going to move from that area, so getting as much damage on the beam turret and linear gun would be the best bet.

I’m not risking an antimatter containment breach inside a colony, and I don't think these people are callous enough to shoot those when they should be able to see their allies in the colony proper. Then again, my faith in others has been very shaken today.

“Remember the first rule of Ship Combat. Don’t get boxed in by the guns.”

I’m using the saber again, but I can’t really take the risk on the beam cannons. A big enough explosion could be catastrophic. Stab mode is a go.

“Wait, they didn’t armor the weapons? Oh my god. How do you fuck that up? Those are the most obvious points to attack.”

Screw it Slash that thing off, I’m done playing with prey below my level.

“And that’s number 2 of the beam cannons. Don’t be in the primary vector of the Linear cannons. That’s a bad idea. Ship combat Rule number 2: You have more mobility, make use of that.”

The linear cannons also lack the armor that would help in anti-ship combat. Did they think beam weapons wouldn’t advance to mobile suit size or something? If the Astray and their MS are as similar as their frames suggest, they should know it's possible.

“And now it is time for Rule 3 of ship combat, Focus on one spot against hard targets. Repeated attacks will weaken armor.”

And here go the grenades from the top. My squad split evenly to hit above and below on the connector to make this go faster. My rifle was clearly doing more damage as well, but there’s weren’t doing too terribly.
“And that’s pylon number 2. Goodbye, you will not be missed.”

It also made the ship start sinking toward a convenient patch of forest no one really liked to go toward. That was intentional. Maneuvering a ship in a specific direction with a mobile suit team is easy.
“Honestly, I expected more fight out of this. I feel like I just stole candy from a baby or something.”

“Why? I was scared for my life back there.”

“MS combat against ships has basic expectations. Mainly that the enemy won’t shoot down their own missiles. They did that repeatedly along with not adequately controlling the airspace. They missed a lot of shots that could have been averted with basic leading of a target. They wasted a ton of CIWS ammo taking hail mary shots instead of boxing me in for a missile. They had no clear strategy with their combat. It was just using the weapons and hoping the situation would work itself out.

I think this was a bunch of newbies. Or they had no crew or something. Perfect training fodder”

“We could have talked this out…”

We really couldn’t have. No one respects neutrality anymore. How do I express that to someone who believes wholeheartedly in the idea?

“Cagalli, We tried with the other alliance group, and look at where that got us. A hole in the colony wall, and who knows how many fatalities from it. Focus on the fact it's over.”
“Turn on your Comms.”

“Why?”

“Do it.”

“Fine.”

The comms were a bit funky sounding, but that’s minor M particle interference. It’s going to still be legible enough based on earlier tests done with the Jegan.

“Attention ZAFT forces this is Ensign Natarle Badgiruel acting Captain of the Archangel we surrender”.

“Maam, this is the orb defense team. We accept the surrender. Besides, your ship is totalled anyway. What are you gonna do, spacewalk to Alliance territory?”

“What?”

“Yeah, that’s a bit of a dick response I know. I’m just having a fucking day with everyone attacking my home. You understand, right? And they all do it using the ugliest crappiest equipment anyone has ever designed, the Ginn makes Jurick look like the Jegan.
Nevermind, you don’t get the reference. Just get that out to everyone else. I swear to god if I have to fight any more I’m gonna start committing to not minimizing enemy casualties for political gain.”

Sensors are picking something up.

“Gina you piece of shit. Where the fuck have you been?”

“Dealing with the enemy mobile suits.”

“But they never deployed them.”

“They tried while you went to deal with the ship. Honestly, it wasn’t worth the time I invested in fighting them. To describe them as bad, would be an insult to the concept of describing something as ineffective or unappealing. They have armor and nothing else. The technology would be better used in our hands.”

I turned to look at the enemy mobile suits.

They apparently tried to be used, but clearly didn’t do well. That’s not saying they were heavily damaged or anything. It’s just clear the pilots were pretty fucking shit. They were disarmed and left lying there with the container trucks kinda haphazardly flipped onto them. They were struggling, but couldn’t do anything about it except for the weird transforming one that just appears to be stuck in its mobile armor mode flopping around like a fish.

“Nevermind then. Good job. I’m assuming you dealt with the other Alliance vessel.”

“The Balls did. Apparently taking out two ZAFT vessels near single handedly makes people not mess with us.”

“Well, these chucklefucks didn’t get the memo.”

“I can still hear you.”

“I know that's the point. You guys had a whole five minutes to realize that the battle was over.”

“That’s an absurd ask. We assumed they would have steamrolled through everything.”

“Why did you think we were that incompetent? If anyone is that incompetent, it would be the Alliance. Imagine not being able to make something capable of beating a GINN, the most ghetto mobile suit ever made.”
“You seem to be the one making assumptions! Once the OS is completed those G weapons will turn the tide of the war."

“Right…… Well you know what they say about assumptions, They make an ass out of you and me. Besides, you people clearly wanted to leave today. What, were you hoping to land on a good OS in the middle of combat? Perhaps while the ship and everyone on it is getting blown up by machines made of burnt out cars and made by people who think that an OS is some kind of equatorial cuisine.”

“...”

“Good talk.”

“Cagalli, I’m gonna switch to the private Orb Commline. I need to coordinate whatever the fuck we are gonna do. It’s probably gonna boil down to having MS guarding that wreck and the ships, but its better safe than sorry.
This would also be the perfect time to air grievances with Gina. Just saying…”

“Gina, I’m going to have words with you over this travesty.”

“Why hello Cagalli Yula Athha, what are you doing in Heliopolis?”

“Waiting for a reason to not cause you a world of pain!”

“Does your father know you’re here?”

I need to step in before this gets out of hand. That’s one of Cagali’s three triggers besides being called a boy and mayonnaise.

“Does your father know you sold our military secrets to another nation?”

“...”

Yeah that was bad, at least the Earth Alliance doesn't seem to know how to make a cooling system or a warship or even what the term ‘structurally sound’ means.

“Damn it." I just remembered.

“What?”

We still need to find the people who bombed the colony! I knew I forgot something important.”

I still need to search for those ZAFT soldiers who infiltrated the colony. Bombs went off inside the colony, so there has to be a few around here somewhere.

Come on sensors, give me what I want to see.

There, on the outlook over there.

“Fuck me, we'll continue this in 10 minutes if that's fine with you Mina.”

Yeeting myself over there isn’t hard, but it's annoying.

“Your superior officers have surrendered. If you don’t end hostilities, I will deal with you myself.”

And they of course try using their handheld weapons on a mobile suit. This isn’t even going to scratch the paint job. Is this how Zeon pilots felt during the beginning of the One Year War? This is just sad.

“That’s it, eat Birdlime.”

Birdlime is a very odd piece of technology. It’s useful for both patching colony walls and incapacitating enemy infantry forces. It’s very useful, as sticking your enemies in goop allows you to interrogate them about what was going on. It’s also very subtle compared to 60mm guns and beam weapons.

“Are they going to die from that? Also that was Gina not Mina.”

“No, they are just going to be stuck doing nothing until someone picks them up. And I can't tell them apart anyway. Besides, They deserved to be jested for their misdirection.”

“Command, I found some ZAFT personnel inside the colony. Marking the location as Maintenance Entrance 27. Get someone to pick these people up soon. You’re gonna need a hose. And a lot of guns. These guys are probably special forces.”

That should be the end of it. I’m not sure if that is all of them, but in theory I’ve dealt with the best of the best. I’ll just leave the rest to the colony defense force.

“Ok, now we can talk.”
----Perks Obtained.
Scavenger (Ravenwood) (100cp)
Sometimes, you do not have the luxury of top of the line equipment and need to rely on what scraps you can salvage. You, however, have an advantage, being able to cobble together scavenged bits into functional equipment that work as well as the real deal. This talent will also inherently improve the durability of such improvised equipment to function even when such materials should not feasible hold up under the strains of use.
Survey (Green Worldz) (100cp)
A simple little survey that, when filled out, reveals the ideal weapon parameters for any given individual. The default length is 239 questions, but the survey becomes longer and more comprehensive as your crafting skills and resources become more diverse. As long as a person fills out the survey truthfully(and they are compelled to do so when faced with this version) , the resulting weapon will be a truly one-of-a-kind tool perfectly matched to their personality and fighting style.
ELDER TECHNOLOGY (The Culture Minds) (200)
Some civs just build to last, and it is not unusual for Sublimed civs to leave considerable artifacts behind. Any technological device, structure or vehicle that you create has an effectively unlimited usable lifespan. Not even organic matter that is a part of the device will decay, or even undergo effects like proton decay over the aeons. They will still need expendable reserves a gun still needs bullets, a laser still needs its power pack replaced or recharged but that gun's moving parts never wear out, and that rechargeable power pack can be reused for aeons and more without loss of performance.
-0-D for Dummies (Megas XLR) (200CP)
A set of textbooks that explains the basics of Hyper-dimensional structure, most potent in making spaces with overlapping existences in layman terms, use tech in making spaces and parts that don't exist in real space. Warning! Extremely energy intensive.

 

PLANT Council POV

“Now the Supreme Council shall commence. For a special session on the disaster at the space colony Heliopolis, a territory of the ORB Union.”

“So Patrick can you please explain why we’re now at war with another nation.”

“I didn’t order it. Rau acted on his own.”

“Bullshit Patrick, Rau is practically your wife. There is no way he didn’t tell you about this shitshow in advance.”

“Councilor Canaver, that is out of turn.”

“No fuck you Zala, My son, no OUR sons, were captured in a raid against a neutral nation we had no quarrel with, and we lost two of our ace pilots against people who’ve likely never seen combat in their lives in machines which can’t have been out for longer than a month. I’m sick and tired of this fucking war Patrick.”

“Councilor Elsman, I understand that you’re stressed Canaver, but we could just send more troops to rescue them.”

“Yeah great plan Patrick why didn’t I think of that? It's not like that will result in Orb handing the plans for their new ‘Jegan’ mobile suit over to the Earth Alliance or anything like that. No, that could never happen.”

“They're clearly already working for them, the Jegan and these Alliance G weapons are clearly related”.

“Yeah, and I'm the king of the pirates. Patrick, they are as much alike as any two mobile suit designs in that they all have four limbs and a head. What other amazing engineering knowledge are you gonna share with us? That we actually developed the Jegan and Orb stole it from us with their psychic space magic? OR what about the one that's seven and a half meters smaller than a GINN, the Den’an? That totally looks derived from the machines which could barely even fucking move.”

“Regardless Councilor Amalfi, these Alliance-Orb machines are a threat to our forces. We must do everything to defend the PLANTS! Or else we shall know another Bloody Valentine.”

“We haven’t defended shit in this war Patrick, you limp dicked sausage. From Day 1 we have been on the assault. We haven’t been attacked since Junius seven. We invaded Earth, We invaded the moon. We’ve destroyed neutral colonies. We’ve killed far more people than died at Junius Severn. Would your wife want that blood on her hands, you bloodthirsty piece of shit?”

“Patrick is right. Letting this go unanswered would be detrimental from keeping the PLANTS safe.”

“Councilor Amalfi, with all due respect. Orb is still neutral in this conflict. Pissing them off means we have to fight the people with the antimatter cannons. I’m not taking those odds. I’m a particle physicist, trust me when I say antimatter is extremely dangerous, especially if they hand the technology over to the Alliance.”

“While I agree with Councilors Zala and Amalfi that in an ideal world we shouldn't let such a thing go unanswered we simply aren’t ready right now. The ZGMF-600 GuAIZ hasn't entered mass production yet and has even been delayed slightly for last minute design revisions in order to ensure this doesn't happen again. Add to that the upcoming second battle of Victoria…”

“Councilors White and Joule, can I suggest a different idea? Why don’t we try diplomacy? That probably won't get us attacked.”

“Of course you would say the Siegel.”

“Yes, because I’m not insane enough to give commanders enough freedom to where they will attack neutral nations without orders. Get the military in line, Patrick.

Besides, we were gonna have that memorial at Junius Seven where my Daughter was supposed to sing her new song. We can make a quick trip to Heliopolis, and then double back for the ceremony. It’s quick, barely messes with anything we were planning to do, and lets my daughter go to Orb. She’s been begging for that for literally years.”

“Isn’t she like a massive weeb or something?”

“Yeah, it's super annoying. I swear she keeps watching that anime crap whenever I come home. Only the Orb stuff though, She hasn’t watched any of the actual classics like Kaguya Sama Love is War. God, she’s an elitist, except she's never watched anything good.“

“Why is she the only actual entertainment we have again?”

“She isn’t she’s just the best we have.”

“With all due respect, FUCKING HOW?!”
____________________________________________________________________________
POV: Admiral Duane Lewis C. Harverton Halburton.

We were watching the Orb New Network for all the information about the so-called Battle of Heliopolis.

“That wasn’t a battle, Daune. It was a god-damn massacre”.

Hoffman was right, there was no way to call that a battle.

The ZAFT forces who started the battle were annihilated in such a methodical manner that could never be replicated by even the best soldiers and tacticians the Alliance could offer.

“The sheer efficiency of this Jegan as it weaved through the battlefield, dismantling the ships and mobile suits with contemptuous ease, was beyond even the most ambitious expectations of the G project. To think it was done by a single unit piloted by a 16 year old natural.”

“How the hell didn’t we find the designers of it? We looked everywhere for the best of the best. How did we miss the designers and engineers? Why would Orb even take us up on the collaboration if we clearly weren’t helpful to them?”

“It was the Sahakus that were helping us but remember they have five major noble families and a few smaller ones over in Orb. This could be a work of the Kious, the Mashimas or even those weirdos the Tokinos. The Ball definitely sounds like something they would come up with, at least based on what I've heard about them.”

“Ah yes the Balls, they were already interesting without the on the nose name, but they were clearly held back by the pilot’s inexperience. We've seen it countless times throughout the war with Moebius pilots who were fresh out of training.”

I left out how they got slaughtered by the dozen on the regular. We both already knew how shit the Moebius was. That was the hardest part of this job. Sending people on missions that had a survival rate of 25% or less. Sending letters to their families of the fallen soldiers was tough. It’s worse when you have to lie about their deaths mattering to the war effort.

Fucking Alaska and their nonsense orders. None of them understand how terribly the war is going. All cushy in their impossible to attack Fortress of Solitude. Not doing anything beyond letting them continue the G weapon project.

“No word had been given on mass production before this travesty, and this would probably be the death nail to the project, given the effectiveness of the Ball mobile armor.”

“Yeah I’d assume they are thinking about that right now Hoffman, but they know natural use mobile suits are possible now. They will at least consider ground units, hopefully. Even if I have to drag them kicking and screaming toward the reality of modern warfare.”
“You certainly have more faith in them than me, old friend.”
“That’s besides the point of this analysis of the Heliopolis freak show. You could tell the Ball pilots had some training, but the specs of the Ball as it is called by the news clearly were carrying the fight before the Jegan arrived. The Jegan was instrumental to the breakthrough in the space battle. It broke the stalemate between the GINNs and the Balls by taking a GINN out with a beam saber in one simple move. Then it moved on to fight and disable a Nazca by itself. It then took out Rau le Creuset, a notable enemy ace pilot. He might have been officially killed by a Ball, but that wouldn’t have happened without the Jegan holding the machine still for long enough to get them the shot.”

“The pilot reminds me of Mu La Flaga but more if that makes any sense, Hal. The way people who are blessed with enhanced spatial awareness as they call it, those pilots moved in a different way than the coordinators. Their piloting always feels more natural, like the machine is a part of them, you get me? Something no one has ever really researched beyond the people yapping about SEED factor or whatever the fuck that pseudoscientific bullshit was called, and even they didn’t claim to have an explanation for it.”

“Interesting point, Hoffman, but that’s something we can theorize about later. We need to get back to the Heliopolis debacle.

It only got worse once the battle shifted to inside the colony. The chain of command had been knocked down to just a technical officer he had high hopes for, and some ensign he forgot the name of. This led to them attacking the ORB forces and getting the only dedicated MS carrier taken out by two enemy mobile suits, one of which isn’t even finished yet. As well as all 5 G weapons captured by a nation we originally had as allies, but had thrown away due to no one in the Atlantic Federation besides us knowing how to use a fucking radio.”

This could only be summarized in one single line.

“This is a disaster.”

“No fucking shit Hal. We lost the so-called ‘top guns’ Alaska gave us, we lost the Archangel, and we lost the G weapons. What the hell are we gonna tell the top brass?”

“Maybe we won’t have to go through them.”

“You don’t mean…”

“Yeah, I’m calling that short sighted idiot Garcia. God, we are desperate, and I can't see any reason we would be able to get someone from our side to go pick up our guys. That’s never been the way the Atlantic Federation works, and you know that. Why else would we have standard procedure to activate the Cyclops whenever we feel vaguely threatened?”

I hate that guy so much.

“Ahh, Admiral Halburton. What can I and the Eurasian Federation do for you today?” God, he’s smug, well I guess he’s heard about Heliopolis, not surprising.

“You know what I need, Garcia.”

“I do, but tell me why should I give it to you?”

“Because I have people trapped there, jackasses. For fucks sake, aren’t you Eurasians supposed to be the nice member of the Alliance.”

“We are, but only because of the Atlantic Federations zealous need to be comically evil. I’m not committing any Eurasian forces to a rescue operation that will lead to everyone either getting captured or dying horribly.”

“Can you at least send someone qualified to negotiate over it? I’m up to my neck in ZAFT units, so I can't get there myself anytime soon.”

“The best I can do is ask some guys to patrol a corridor, so you can get to Artemis. I’m not an admiral, or high command. You should honestly look for someone to negotiate ground side. That would be faster than whatever you're trying to do with me.”

“Yeah, who in the Alliance could actually negotiate with Orb?”
____________________________________________________________________________
POV Cagalli
“I’m here without permission, my dad will kill me, no scratch that, Merna will kill me.”

“Think about it this way, we are actual war heroes. Your dad legally can’t be angry at you.”

“Mayura I don’t think you get it. My father is the Chief Representative of Orb, and I might have just helped start a war. He will not let me get away with adding this disaster to his work load, I am so fucked.”

“Well, They started it. No one can blame you. Besides, you did jack shit combat wise. Just blame Sai. It’s what I told my mother.”

“Don’t insult him like that, He is a great benefit to this nation. I want his number.”

“Juri, You’ve been thirsting after him since we got here. You need to chill out.”

“So have you. Besides, He’s my exact type. Competent engineer, cute, great piloting skills. He fits that to a tee.” Dear god, I need help, and my friends won’t stop fighting over that lunatic.

“I haven’t been.”

“Then why have you cared so much about getting better after meeting him? You weren’t nearly as motivated earlier back in the homeland.”

“Shut up, I just wanted the rights to use the prototype!” The stupid tiny one?

“Sure… that’s totally what you were thinking. It wasn’t because of Orb’s most wanted bachelor.”

“I don’t understand what you see in that wannabe middle-aged techbro.”

“Techbros don’t come up with actual innovative technology, Cagalli. They scam you of your money on a bunch of buzzwords that sound cool to investors, but which actually means jack shit. Fusion reactors fundamentally change human society. Fucking Mark DeWolfe and his stupid Multi level marketing bullshit didn’t.”

“I’m surrounded by horny idiots.” The worst part is, I will have to deal with this for weeks, or possibly longer than that. For some reason, being in a state-of-the-art combat machine with another person while defending the colony makes people talk. Especially when the media gets involved when you get out of the giant robot.

Tabloids fucking suck.

“That is how it's been the last two weeks. I heard Sai had to like to use a disguise to get to work the past couple of days.”

“Was it a trenchcoat and big hat?”

“Is everyone going to keep giving me shit about that disguise? God, it was one fucking time!”

“Well, Maybe next time you could use a disguise befitting my daughter.”

“Fa-Father? You’re here already?” Does this mean Merna’s here too?!

“Yes and no respectfully, the PLANTS asked for Heliopolis to be the site of the negotiations. Probably so they could get their prisoners back as fast as possible. I’ve heard rumors of a major offensive taking place soon.”

“Are you so sure? I’ve heard morale for the war is at an all-time low in the PLANTS.”

“Military operations planning is done on a longer basis than a couple of days. If something is going to make them change their minds, it would have to be serious. For all we care about Heliopolis. This isn’t that major of a defeat for them in a strategic sense. They lost 2 ships and a couple aces. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to their entire war machine.” Who?

“Ahh yes, Lord Argyle, thank you for meeting up with me. You, Gina, and I have much to discuss. I would like a couple of minutes to talk with my daughter.”

“Of course. I understand. I’ll meet up with him first. Set the mood for what we will be talking about.”

“Wonderful thank you”

The man turned and left toward what was probably one of those boring meetings about military strategy her father always complained about.

“Now that that's over with Cagalli it's good to see you Merna, your uncle Homura and I have been worried sick”. Oh god no.

He’s gonna guilt trip me…

“That was highly dangerous. All of it. Coming to the colony without informing me. Letting yourself be in an unregistered military weapon.
…
But besides that. I’m proud of you”

“What?”

“I said I’m proud of you. Merna wants to ground you for the next five million years or so, but I’m proud. You stood up for Orb.”

“I did literally nothing in that fight. I was only here to find out if you broke neutrality.”

“I know. I read the after action report. But, you did start taking pilot training. I know you loved the aircraft training I required of you, but suddenly taking up mobile suit piloting is very interesting for someone who says they did nothing.

Oh, and one other thing. Even if I knew about the Astray project, It wouldn’t have been against the neutrality agreement.”

____________________________________________________________________________
POV Argyle

My son is Vlad, Voivode of Wallachia. Or at least a Newtype equivalent to the legend. Or King Arthur also fits. The once and future king who remembers all things.

He wasn’t being subtle about it, either. An ancient Jegan was used, that’s the exact opposite of subtle. I really should have taught him better than that.

But I clearly didn’t.

Whatever, I can work with this. The ship's sensors detected irregularities consistent with the M particles of ancient myth in the area when we got there, so that’s probably a good thing. Bad for sensors and Radio, good for the development of Newtypes.

There hasn’t really been any since…

Since whatever ended the mythical Universal Century.

No one in the family had written down what actually went down. Only that a great power ended that age. Whatever it was had to have been destructive enough to end the newtype phenomenon for years as far as the records could tell.

The closest that anyone had come to those abilities had been the Moebius Zero Corps, and the Flaga family. One group was so weak they could only use incoms badly, which wasn’t saying a lot. The others were only good at gambling, besides the Hawk of Endymion. Mu La Flaga was, to our intelligence network's best understanding, the only newtype that still existed.

I had wanted to look into them back in the day, but then the fire occurred, and we found out about the ultimate coordinator project, and we had to clean that whole mess up for Uzumi. I don’t know why he wanted us to cover up a project our government wasn’t involved with, but I wanted him to owe me a favor.

I just never expected the phenomenon to appear in my own son.

And it's weirder, too, he pulls up design after design from the forgotten era out from the metaphorical air. As far as the records go, that isn’t normal. Then again, most of those records were theoretical technologies that aren't easily replicated in this day and age.

The designs we did have were from the Anaheim City excavation, and even then most of them are practically inscrutable half-complete gibberish.

Fusion reactors miniaturized enough to be used in something as small as a truck are hard to understand, who would have known?

We know so little about the past, but what little we know for certain has guided the family for generations.

But that’s irrelevant to the discussion I’ll soon be having with the young Sahaku.

“Lord Argyle, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Your operational security is shit. I’ve had my people working overtime to prevent the release of the fusion reactor design to any of the secret cabals running the world.”

“I’m sorry, the secret cabals running the world?”

“Yeah, it's a Matryoshka doll of them. You have Blue Cosmos which is secretly run by the arms manufacturing industry, which is run by this clan thing run by a single family. Honestly, figuring this out wasn‘t that hard. Their main defense is being so convoluted, no one would believe they exist. However, Our people are smart enough to see through the ruse.”

More like, They were off balance following the nightmare my son has made, but we had suspected for a long time anyway.

“What did you do to the leakers?”

“They have been forced to work in the refugee camps in South Africa.”

“...
Ok, so what is the actual purpose of the meeting? I doubt it's just informing me of conspiracies.”

“Well, My son has fundamentally shifted the balance of power in our favor. Multiple neutral nations are angling to create a defensive pact with us, neutral colonies are looking for our protection, and multiple rebel groups have been looking into acquiring our technology to free themselves from oppression. We are looking at a sudden Balkanization of the Earth and its colonies, and everyone is trying to curry favor with us.”

“And why does that matter?”

“The old world order has every reason to keep their hold. We need pilots and weapons. We need to look as uninterested in war as possible, otherwise we will have a never-ending attack on the homeland from the Alliance, and a never-ending battle for Heliopolis and Ame from the Plants. Not only that, but we have to make sure the war ends within the next couple of months, or we are going to have problems. The good news is that we killed the guy manipulating everyone into putting their all into the war.”

“Why are there so many manipulators in this?”

“To be candid, I have no fucking idea. Rau le Creuset was an individual we have no real information on beyond his double-dealing. His autopsy, if you could even call it that, shed some light on him. He is an imperfect clone of a man you might have heard of named Al Da Flaga. Shortened telomeres indicate he was experiencing advanced aging due to what we can only assume was imperfect methodology. We believe he was an agent of the clans due to their plan being ‘A culling of mankind.’”

“What’s the plan?”

“Simply, make sure the diplomatic visit we have confirmed will be happening from the Plants doesn’t go tits up. And make sure the peace talks go through. Good news is that we think this will actually happen. The PLANTS have shifted towards ending the war due to how demoralizing their attack on Heliopolis was, and well, they were the only real obstacle in the talks. Beyond that, milk my son for as many designs and pieces of technology as possible. We are going to need every advantage in the case of a war.”

“So, nothing I wouldn’t have already tried to do?”

“You and i both know your plan is to put Orb at the forefront of the modern world. I came here because I needed to be sure you wouldn’t fuck something up for your benefit. That’s why you signed off on the Astray project, right?”

“That’s fair enough, but can I ask one question?”

“Yes.”

Please don’t ask about where my son's designs come from.

“Where does your son get his ideas?”

FUCK make up an excuse quick

“Family secret.”

----Perks Obtained.
Secrecy is the Key to Diabolical Success (400cp)<br />
It is critical that top-secret projects remain top secret, even from the people working on it. You are able to ensure that everyone carrying out a secret plan or project you have devised remain completely ignorant of what they are doing/making, without hindering their ability to carry out the plan. For instance, you could have each individual soldier make a single part in his spare time and have your general assemble them together in pitch darkness without peeking, and the secret superweapon will be constructed just as according to plan. That said, it won't work if you need to tell people what the plan is, and sometimes it's a good idea to let your allies know what's up before they reach(wrong)conclusions of their own.
---A/N
So, this is going to be a semi controversial chapter. On the easier side, Lacus being a weeb. There is a ton of evidence for this. Mainly she keeps using japenese cultural touchstones when she is ethnically scandinavian. Honestly, i think she chooses to date kira because he is the closest to dating a japenese guy given there was a massive disporra of japenese people to Orb in the lore.

 

A/N: sorry for the wait. My sources told me the Seed movie was back, and that kinda messed me up. I also got addicted to Halo which is why the Hammering Nails chapter hasn't dropped. Halo stuff shows up in it, so I kinda had to keep rolling with the punches.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The past couple of days have been hectic to say the least. We had to hide the existence of the Astray’s. They were too similar to the G weapons for propaganda purposes. They are going into cold storage until further notice. Not only that, but they played up my kill count in order to justify the defeat of the G weapons. I’m now as far as propaganda is concerned an Ace pilot.
In good news, however, we’ve had a massive uptick in applications for the military. Apparently my ass whooping of two ace pilots, and two ships was enough to make people want to fight for our homeland. They want Jegans through, which is infuriating. The Den’an is by all rights a better unit.

Apparently, being the most obvious mobile suit made me propaganda relevant. Who would have thought?

It’s been trying to get these people to understand how advanced technology works, but it's been a fool’s errand. I’ve been forced to consider modifying the Vigna Zirah or Vigna Ghina style command unit into a more Jegan looking unit, which honestly sucks. There are reasons the Jegan stopped being used, and just aesthetically making it similar would just lead to me being dissatisfied with the final product.

“Sai, are you finished the analysis of that CGUE’s corpse?”

This response came from Deep Samuel Morris. He’s two meters tall and has the largest handlebar mustache I have ever seen, it's thicker and fuller than my hair.

“Why even bother, Morris? The thing is using hydraulics. Fucking hydraulics. Nothing here is special beyond questioning how the made it even stand up. It’s possible that the battle damage messed up our forensics…”

“Doubtful, what we’re seeing seems to match up with the data we've been pulling from the captured vessels and the spare parts within.”

This guy was Angus Takahasi. He didn’t really stand out, he was just sort of there. He is the most average human possible. He was also a half coordinator, so he at least had something interesting on his file. Half coordinators are rare because people for some reason can’t help being racist against each other over an elective medical procedure.

“Thanks again for doing the spare parts check for me, Angus.”

“No problem.”

These two are among my best students in the mobile weapons team. According to their files, both worked on the Astray project, but given what I've learned they must have done very little given how similar some of the designs are. Maybe they worked on the hand plugs and battery tech? I know those were based on preexisting Orb designs.

I still need to do the report, though.

“Anyway, From what I can tell, this thing is too back heavy to stand without thruster assistance. At least based on the leg structure, massive back skirt and the giant backpack and Mohawk. The weapon systems aren’t that different to the actual GINN. The gun had a different ammo type. That’s it. Oh, and it had a shield I guess, but we captured a GINN with a shield, so that's not very impressive. The CGUE can just be filled away as a command GINN and you wouldn’t really notice that as an error in practice.
In actual correctness, though, it's about as different as a Zaku and Goof. So, more or less developed from the same base, but different enough for classification. Except instead of being high performance, it's more of a marginal improvement.”

“Can you stop with your weird references to things which don’t have documentation yet?”

Have I not documented every One Year War design yet?

“Dr. Morris here's the TL;DR, The Zaku is basically the most basic bitch mass production unit possible. The Goof is a high performance close quarters ground unit. That's the fairest comparison, but it misses how minimal the improvement of the CGUE really is. A polite way of summing all of this up would be saying the CGUE is legally distinct from a GINN in the same brand toothpaste and off brand toothpaste are different. Different packaging but all the same crap underneath.”

“Honestly, kid, I’m really starting to wonder if the PLANT sponsor nations put lead in the PLANT drinking water.”

“A legitimate question, Angus. What I’m wondering is why the hell they bothered putting this into production when the orange one you brought up before is a similar upgrade performance wise but shares way more parts with the standard GINN? The factories that would have needed to be completely retooled for the most marginal upgrade in the history of mankind could be doing something actually useful, like outputting more GINN High Maneuver type parts or something.”

“So how long until we’re finished with this? I don’t think there’s a single thing that can be learned from these ghetto machines.”

“Well, we can learn what not to do when designing new machines. There is also some things to be learned about coordinator reflexes compared to natural ones given how they change controls based on the weapon being used. That could give us a leg up on… Nevermind.”

“I get ya kid this crap is taxing, I’ll call Gina and tell him we’re done with the ZAFT equipment. Dear God, I could use a drink.”

“Head over to the other viewing area overlooking the G weapons and see how Mordred and Rossana went with their latest examinations of how the Atlantic Federation failed miserably. We’ll meet you over there once we’ve made our calls and locked everything up.”
“Do I have to? The tech there is just a ghetto Zanny with beam weapons made by the guy who thought the Zakrello was a good idea.”

“Ha ha, oh god, that thing, we all had a good laugh at that fuck up.”

“We sure did.”

“Anyway, Sai yes you have to. Don’t worry, at this point we’re only interested in the Blitz’s stealth system. It MIGHT be useful one day, unlike everything else on those oversized paperweights.”
“Alright, I’ll go and give everything one final look over”. The walk will at least give me a moment to think about all the projects I have to work on.

Making export models sure is tough when everything I know how to make is so much better than military standard. I’ve had to push back so many plans because of the modernization of our military. The first plan we came up with was to make something based on one of the really bad mobile armors except smaller and cheaper, but well, that hasn’t exactly happened. The Zakrello had a beam weapon and was so ugly we didn’t think anyone who wasn't blind would buy it, so that got axed early in planning. It was also deemed too underperforming and a space only unit, which we could only reasonably sell to the Alliance, which is a bad idea considering recent events. I mean, we could try selling to the more unaffiliated space colonies, but most of those were massacred early into the war. The current plan people have been talking about is producing a battery powered RB-79C Ball, since we could probably build it on the same lines as the MAW-02 Ball. I’m just unwilling to let that happen because that would, well, make me look like an idiot. I have professional standards, even if they seem non-existent at times.

It would be smarter to try and guarantee their safety more directly, in order to push ORB into a spot of more political prominence in the greater Earth Sphere, and even the Martian Sphere.
Mars needs help in these trying times. Most of the supplies the different nations and groups are supposed to be sending have been cut off by the war. It’s only the neutral nations which are holding up our end of the bargain right now. International cooperation, my ass.

“Documentation, Start working on creating a Wings of Light system or other advanced propulsion system for a freighter. A year to go toward Mars is unacceptable.”

They gave me a voice memo system to keep my better ideas together. It helps a lot with keeping myself on track. I needed it after the battle, I kept getting distracted by how shit certain operating systems were. Seriously, the GINN would change controls dependent on what weapons it wields. WHO THE FUCK DOES THAT???

I need to calm down, once I’m finished all this I’ll finally be able to hang out with everyone. Think happy thoughts. Think of the Victory 2, think of the Victory Hexa, think of the Gun-EZ.

Oh, it’s Gina again, what does he want now?

“Gina? What do you need?”

“Its Mina”. Oh. “As for what I require from you. It has come to the attention of our fathers that a resource intensive boondoggle could be a very useful tool for ending the war by humiliating the pro war elements of the Alliance, mainly in the Atlantic Federation.”

Do Gina and Mina only own a single outfit between them? Seriously, its gone from funny to plain creepy.

“They seem to be doing plenty of that on their own. I mean, the G Weapons suck on every level imaginable.” Every level.

“I couldn’t agree more, nonetheless, is there anything you can give me that I can pass on to our fathers? I don’t need it right now, just a basic outline within the next few days should keep them satisfied.”

“Has anyone told you about something called a Zakrello? We were considering developing a machine for export”

“HA HA HA HA! HA! HA! Oh yes THAT! That will be perfect Dr Gatsby and Dr Takahashi mentioned it in one of the reports he gave, we all had a laugh at that old thing! Just make a smaller version with Armor Schneider Combat Knifes and a railgun when you have the time.”

“Given the Earth Alliance has beam weapons, I assume the railgun is meant to make them waste even more time redesigning it to use a beam canon? Which given how incompetent they are will cost them a fortune and take months.” She just nods. “Ok, well, have a nice day then.”

What a weird interaction.

I still need to get that report on the stuff in the G weapons. I mean, it's not like we need that much information on them. The basic 3 units share like 70% of their parts with the Astrays, so it's not like we don’t comprehend most of the design already. We are only really interested in the frame mechanisms in the 303, the Mirage Colloid system, and the Phase Shift armor.

Only one of those makes sense for the Alliance to use, and it's the Colloid. That didn’t need power, and it was something genuinely unique to the unit as far as I know. It also doesn’t fuck over the pilot, given how bad the OS was from what I heard.

The Phase Shift armor isn’t helpful if you can’t fight back. Surviving hits would be a decent strategy if the suit didn’t need to power its armor like it's a budget beam shield or something.

I don’t even want to get into how fucking stupid the Aegis is. I’ll commend the Alliance for figuring out how to make a transformable machine on their first try, but they probably forgot you need to train the pilot for both forms if you don’t modify the OS to compensate for the form change.

“Do you have the report on the G weapons ready, Rossana?”

“Yes.”

I believe she worked on the joints of the Astray series or something. I don’t know, I didn’t really pay attention to what these people worked on once I realized most of their work is just a copy and paste of the G weapons. Appearance wise, Dr. Admiraal is vaguely attractive in the same way every coordinator is vaguely attractive. It’s hard to think that though, a lot of coordinators suffer from this same face syndrome because their parents all chose similar DNA modifications and they were all in extremely similar environments.

“Just walk me through the flaws which aren’t the unusable operating system. Unless it has to do with GATX-303, the OS there should be analyzed due to its transformation.”

“Well, the Duel, Buster, and Strike are by themselves just the same machine with different weapon and armor placements on top of the frame. The Duel is the most generic mobile suit with 75 mm CWIS, two beam sabers, a shield and a beam rifle. The Buster has a multiform weapon, but no CWIS or Beam saber. From some simulator tests, we confirmed the CWIS were removed because they would damage the head sensors.”

Mordered Gatsby, the final scientist. I only remember her because she was involved in the hand plug design. While not exactly impressive or novel, in comparison to everything else I know of current mobile suits, it's the most impressive thing we have done.

It also helped that Mordred was the most stereotypical British woman I have ever seen, I have never seen her drink anything exept tea. She isn’t even related to anyone British, She just looks like it and has a super posh nobility sounding name. It’s wild.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“The head sensors would be damaged if the Buster had CWIS in the head.”

“Why? Is it being jostled around by the recoil, or is the sensor made of really weak materials?”

“It has a very fragile construction, why they didn’t move the CWIS to somewhere like the arms, however, is anyone's guess.”

“Continue on with the rest of the units.”

“The Strike only has Knives and CWIS as weapons it has 100% of the time. The Packs we captured, however, did include interesting weapons like a large laser sword, beam boomerangs, and a rocket anchor. That was the sword pack. The other two are one which grants limited gliding on earth and has two beam sabers attached to it which is the one they decided should have the shield and beam rifle and one which is a big Vulcan and two launchers strapped to the shoulder, and one massive beam weapon.”

“Beam boomerang? What a strange choice for a military unit. On a mobile fighter, yeah that would fit alongside stuff like the god finger or rose bits, but on a military unit? Do we have any real information on the Phase Shift from these three?”

“It appears that having phase shift armor requires direct connection to the suit's power supply, and a variation on construction which can’t be easily done while also keeping the laminate armor.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“I’m 70% sure.”

Note to self, prove Mordred and Rossana wrong.

“Ok, lets move to the GATX-207. The mirage colloid, how does it work?”

“Well, there are nozzles which release it, and then it gets powered by the suits battery to create the stealth effect.”

“Wait, the Stealth is powered?”

“Yes, it comes from the same battery which powers the phase shift armor, so it can’t be used at the same time as the phase shift armor.”

“I want to be angry, but at least the stealth isn’t terrible. It’s a lot better than having the armor only work with power. Stealth gives more advantages than surviving attacks.
Anyway, do you know why the stealth and phase shift can’t be active at the same time?”

“Because the designers disabled that ability due to high energy consumption.”

“Did they include extra batteries like on the Buster?”

“No.”

“What were these people smoking when they let that happen?”

“I’ll look into that myself then. Anything else interesting?”

“The blitz’s shield is also a beam rifle, and has phase shift armor.”

“It can drop the shield, right?”

“Yes.”

“So they could make the shields use phase shift then. Why wasn’t it on the others then?”

“Probably because the shields were only meant to block beams. They’re all made of lament armor like the hulls of our ships and coated with a form of anti beam coating. It’s worse than the version you provided us, though.”

“And they didn’t include the laminated armor on the suits themselves because?”

“Cost and the engineering challenges, most likely?”

“Ahh yes, cost, bane of all military designers.

Anyway, GATX-303. The Aegis. What about its frame? Is it made any differently. Specialized material or something?”

“No, it's just constructed very differently. It’s overengineered to do as many transformations as possible.”

“So, is it their version of moveable frame, then? Do you have a simulation of its transformation?”

“Yeah, right here.”

“This thing is closer to a RX-110 Gabthley than a Zeta. Why does it label the folded in claws as a separate mode?”

“I have absolutely no idea. It’s probably not the mode they planned to launch from the Archangel. If it was, the Archangel designers didn’t get the memo. We’ve taken a look at her wreck, nothing indicates the Aegis was meant to launch in mobile armor mode even if that makes more logical sense than launching as a Ms transforming, transforming again to Mode 3, then transforming back to cruise mode to go home. At that point, you could have just made a new mobile armor and saved yourself a ton of time and money.”

“That’s weird though, none of the thrusters really change in placement across its two forms, and it doesn’t hugely affect the center of mass or anything. Just tilt the sideskirts a bit, and its basically doing the exact same thing as attack mode.”

“Gundam, These things are technically speaking Gundams. They would be high spec given the environment they are operating in when not including us.”

“Fine, The Aegis Gundam does have a competent weapon loadout, and has commander level communications capability, so it's not the worst thing in the world.”

“It can only use 50% of its ranged weapons in each form. Cruise mode has no combat ability. This thing has both a massive beam cannon and 4 beam saber claws in attack mode, and the battery isn’t noticeably better. This transforms into 3 forms, and is the only idea of its kind. Both MA forms don’t conform to the standard moebius design or any major spinoff of it. The OS is factually worse than the other G weapon's sorry excuse for an operating system. The side skirts are the main thrusters, which inhibits ground combat. This thing can’t even fly, which is half the fucking reason you would want it to transform.”

“At least it has close combat capabilities.”

“Having an advantage over the buster isn’t a good thing. Buster at least has a unique idea in the multiform weapon, and has extra batteries to deal with the excess load. And the buster does technically have a shotgun.”

“What should they have done?”

“Pull a Sazabi and mount the Scylia in the torso…
Wait, no, these retards couldn’t pull off head vulcans half the time. There is no way that would have worked with their utter lack of any programming skill.
They should have just ditched the MS form, as crazy as that sounds. While eventually it would be less useful once they lucked into a good OS, it would actually have worked with the situation the Alliance is in right now. Just replace most of the MS exclusive parts with extra batteries, and you have a semi competent Mobile Armor.”

“In theory, the X300 frame could be used effectively if you redesigned the whole thing.”
“In theory, the Gaza-C isn’t a piece of shit, but only if you redesign the whole thing which, by that point, isn’t a Gaza-C. The frame in its current state is a dead end unless you want to sell something to an idiot…”

“So you're saying industrial sabotage?”

“More likely corporate sabotage. Do we have a list of Alliance weapons developers and manufacturers currently based out of or with branches in Detroit?”

“No, but Gina might. Is it urgent?”

“It doesn’t matter for now. We just need to keep up security on our designs.”

“Well hello there boys, sorry I’m late.”

Huh? Oh Angus Takahashi, Deep S Morris finally got here, and they brought the smug bitch everyone here has been complaining about since I gave my first lecture. I think her name was… Jessica or something. Or was it Misha?

“Erica Simmons lead engineer of the Astray project, you could even call me th…”

“So you're the idiot that thought the Alliance Gundams were worth copying?”

“Excuse me?”

“What did I say that was so strange?”

“The… Everything?”

“Well, you were the software engineer. The software of your project required my intervention. You were the one holding back the rollout of the Astrays. Hell, even if you had completed the Astray OS before I got involved, this project still wouldn’t have been worth it. I’ve seen the documentation. The only thing we gained from the G Weapon transaction was tacit approval to make cheap knockoffs. We gave them the enhanced batteries, we gave them laminate armor, we gave them the Positron Cannons, for the chance to build objectively worse mobile suits. For fucks sake, we kept the diagnostic systems inside the bottom of the feet! That was the one thing that should have been fixed. Did you not check how we would need to store our brand-new weapons in ships, because guess what? They need to be upright to use our catapults correctly! How did you store the Astrays on earth?”

“Uhh, standing upright?”

“How the fuck are you going to do diagnostics when the floor is covering all the required ports?!?”

Mordred spoke up “Angus, please tell me you recorded that.”

“Yes.”
___________________________________________________________________________________________
POV Kuzzey Buskirk

“Hey Kuzzey good to see ya, I guess that just leaves Sai, and then we’ll all be here.”

Ha, Sai Argyle. The talk of the town. The hero of Heliopolis.

Also known as my best friend.

Miriallia spoke up. “Do you think he’ll show up? He’s been really busy ever since…”

“Ever since our closest brush with death?”

“Kuzzey what the hell?”

“Think about it, Sai basically saved our lives. He saved everyone. Without him, there wouldn’t have been any time for the rest of the defense to muster properly.”

It was a dark thought, but it was true. Heliopolis wasn’t known for having great defenses. At least not until Sai designed those new Ball things. Without those, or Sai’s mobile suit…

“Don’t get hung up on the ‘what ifs,’ Kuzz. Focus on the now. Like all the new games my parents bought me Atomic Master, Celestial Mercenary, Strife of Stipulation, Bombard of Heroics, Chamber and Apocalypse, Resistance and Evil, Bluehunt, Cyberspace, Castlechase and Bodymind.”

“They really named a game Bodymind?”

“Look, all the good franchise names were taken back in the AD.”

“It’s a shame we can’t play with people outside Heliopolis.”

“What are you talking about, Mirallia. Imagine the lag of trying to play against people who are on the opposite side of the Earth. The ping would be atrocious.”

“Sorry I’m late guys. I finally met the woman responsible for all my migraines for the past fortnight.”

“Flay?”

“No. I’m talking about a coworker.”

“Yo, Mr magic science man. Find a way to delete ping, so I can play online gamers with Earth people.”

“Sure? What brought this on, Mirallia?”

“Wait really?”

“If we get really technical, quantum computing and communication tech has been around for a while. It’s just too expensive for commercial use. We could totally rig something up in a bunch of routers to fake being inside the homeland or whatever.”

“Okay, I did not expect such a detailed answer, what about you guys?”

Tolle and I just looked at her and shook our heads.

“Sorry, I tend to get into detail when it comes to tech now. It’s been my new thing ever since they made me teach engineering.”

“You teach? Since when? We knew you did the whole TA thing for the professor, but this is news to me at least.”

“It’s military stuff.”

“Ahhh, well, are there any cool secrets you can tell us?”

“Hmmmm just well let's just say you don’t need to worry about another attack given how incompetent everyone else is, hell one guy could probably defeat half of the Earth Alliance with a big spoon.” They’re that bad, how haven't they lost yet?

“Um Guys? Can we just play the game now?” Huh I kinda forgot Kira was here.

“Is that Celestial Mercenary? Heard it was pretty good, wanna play that?”

“Sure.”

I wasn’t familiar with that game, so I picked up the case. Celestial Mercenary is a 3rd person shooter multiplayer action adventure game in the same vein as ancient titles like GoldenEye 3000X, Narbacular Drop 3 and Half Life 0. So, It’s really only fun with friends.

“Ok then, we’ve all got the game booted up, let's do this!”

We played for about thirty minutes where Tolle and Sai kick our assess. I mean Kira tried but Miriallia was just not doing well at this game at all while Tolle was just unstoppable. Then just after we took a break and Miriallia went to the bathroom, someone knocked on the door.

“I’ll get it guys”

“Hi guys, Sai invited me here, how is everyone?” Oh, it’s Sai’s girlfriend.

“Flay?” Uh, Kira, why are you saying her name like that?

“Was I not supposed to invite her?” Sai whispered to me.

“Hey Kuzzey how’s it been?”

“Alright, you?”

“Great! What about you Tolle?”

“Doing great! Me and Sai have been wiping the floor with these guys in Celestial Mercenary.”

“Cool! And um I don’t remember your name?”

“K-Kira”.

“Yeah, Kyle.”

“And thanks again for inviting me, Sai! Best Boyfriend ever!” And now they’re hugging, and Kira looks like someone told him his robo-bird died.

________________________________________________
Perks

Pushing The Envelope [400CP – Discounted Traveler]
Compared to other professions, Mobile Suit engineering isn’t the hardest thing in the world. That comes from decades of refining technology in a field where progress has been forbidden for hundreds of years and you end up spending your resources simplifying and refining the tech you already have. But when what you have isn’t what you need, people call on you. Breaking the paradigm is your specialty, and you find great success when pushing things in a direction that is unusual. Maybe you’ll be the first to create true transforming suits in this timeline, or maybe you’ll revive some of the ancient nanotechnology that went into creating the Mobile Armors. Whatever it is, it’ll be interesting.

Geirail Frame [Free]
Somewhat of a middle step between the more specialized and high-performance Graze Frame that was derived from it and the powerful Valkyrja Frame it was based upon, the Gierail Frame is the epitome of a general purpose military suit. While the Rodi and Hexa Frames are excellent all-purpose suits for the purpose of salvage and heavy lifting applications that Mobile Workers are simply not suited for in addition to combat, the Geirail was engineered with military purposes in mind. It is somewhat lighter and faster, though not nearly to the extend that the Graze is, and very easy to use.
It also carries a somewhat strange advantage- They are an excellent suit to use if someone wants to remain anonymous. After Gjallarhorn moved on to the Graze platform, only a few Geirail Frames were kept for the purpose of training new pilots, and they were repaired with parts taken from the old prototype test beds that had their registration deleted. Take any Geirail Frame and attempt to match it's Ahab Wave Frequency to the database and you'll get... nothing. No owner, no pilot, no company, no nothing.

Structural Armor and Nanolaminate Armor Coating [200cp] (One Free All Except Imports)
What the average person probably doesn't realize about Mobile Suits is that the thick armor they wear isn't actually what stops the bullets and the thick blows that are delivered to them on a daily basis. No, those armor pieces are more accurately padding. They're ablative armor pieces designed to crumple under blows without compromising the Frame underneath. What actually allows the armor to take multiple heavy impacts, artillery shots and more is actually the paint on the armor. I'm serious.
Nanolaminate is a material that is applied to Mobile Suit armor only millimeters thick, but provides enough structural stability to avoid denting from incredible amounts of force. What's more, it actually grows slightly stronger when it's under pressure, which is why when paired with the gravity-generating Ahab Waves generated by a Mobile Suit's Ahab Reactor, it grows stronger depending on the output. A Gundam Frame – with it's additional reactor – will have perceptively stronger armor than- say, a Graze- despite the fact that the Nanolaminate on both is identical in composition and thickness.

Despite it's prevalence as the coating on Mobile Suits and on ships, that isn't to say that Nanolaminate is CHEAP- plastic crack is still cheaper, with the prices getting jacked up by the manufacturers based on demand. White is the cheapest of them all since the primary buyers – Gjallarhorn and paramilitary groups – don't want to paint their Mobile Suits in highly visible colors and instead go for green, purple and blue.
You can choose any color scheme you want for your Mobile Suit, however.
(Obscenely bright metallic pink)

Basic Thruster Suite [25CP] (Free Geirail-Series Frames)
Part of the Graze's famed ease-of-use comes from leaving this feature behind on it's predecessor the Geirail Frame. Instead of the two (or four with the backpack) basic thrusters the Graze uses, this is a suite of nominally powerful thrusters mounted all over the Frame- back, legs, knee, inner elbow, name a body part and there's a thruster there. While this gives an incredible amount of turning power and boosting in space, the pilot needs to be careful they don't let the thrusters get in the way of normal operation.

Melee Weapon [25CP] (One Free)
A long handheld melee weapon or a short forearm-mounted melee weapon of some description. Since Nanolaminate Armor makes it difficult to destroy or even disable a Mobile Suit's internal mechanical components, it is considered most effective to just bludgeon the cockpit under the pilot dies or passes out from the shock. For this purpose, blunt smashing weapons are preferred, though a blade can be very effective if aimed at armor gaps and piercing weapons can be effective if aimed at weak points such as the cockpit. While durable, it's not as physically strong as Nanolaminate Armor is, and has a nasty tendency to break if too much force is exerted, although really- if you're just trying to kill the pilot, the sword doesn't really NEED to stay perfectly straight, does it? (Comically large Spoon)

 

Chapter 13 - Phase 4: We don’t know how to number chapters

Authors note there's going to be some formatting and style changes from here on out to make this fic easier to understand for more people and make its characters more memorable and expressive. This is late because of surgery and my ADHD

POV Flay Allster 2nd February CE 71

Kyle was looking at me kinda funny and… Shocked? Sad maybe? “Sorry I’m late, guys, I had to help Misha out after she partied a bit too hard last night.” Seriously, how did they get that much beer and sake? I know for a fact the oldest person there was only 17, and you need to be 20 here.

“Was that the ‘I’m glad we didn’t die party?’” Miriallia asked.

‘No. That was like a few days ago. This one was about how a couple of guys finished their late exams.” I actually went to that one, it's an hour I'll never get back.

“Oh yeah, those guys were involved in a work accident from the aftershocks, right?” Sai asked.

“Yeah. How’d you know about that Sai?” Sai’s best friend Kuzzey asked.

“I’ve been very busy. Do you know how much paperwork I’ve had to do this week? We had a ton of exams for some reason, I've been going over our tactical reports, and had to be involved in the reverse engineering of the enemy units. I’m lucky I have subordinates who could do the vast majority of the work on their own.” Sai responded.

“Why are you involved in weapons development anyway?” Kyle asked.

“Our defense force had completely inadequate weaponry. We had mistrals carrying guns. Those are way worse than the Alliance's stupid Moebius, and those things are so heavily outdated that it’s criminal negligence to still be using them. Pirates have mobile suits and not like 1 or 2 suits some crews have like a dozen GINNs. Heck, I’ve heard some of them have custom units and not basic ones either. We’ve only not been targeted because the Izumo class is severely overgunned, but we don’t always have those to protect us.”

“What about protecting us from ZAFT?”

“The people of the plants were already losing enthusiasm for the war before this. Preliminary reactions to the Heliopolis incident from there indicate that the feeling toward this conflict is even further down. And ZAFT already is a third of the way to the obvious goal of taking control of the mass drivers, with the second one still being under attack as we speak. If the Alliance doesn’t do anything stupid like trying to not get a peace agreement or something, we’ll probably see an armistice by April.” Sai replied.
“Wait, where do pirates get the parts to maintain their suits?”

“I have my suspicions, but I can’t say anything more than that. Can we focus on stuff that isn’t related to work?” That’s Sai-speak for not knowing. “Now who wants to play Bodymind? Hah, we even have enough people for 3 characters!”

“What’s Bodymind?” Seriously, who names a game that?

“It’s this game where 2 players control a single character”. Sai said while pointing at the TV. “One controls movement and the other controls the character's psychic powers. There can be up to 4 characters on one console, so that's 8 players. We don’t really get to play this a lot because we normally only have 5 people.” I just nodded to him.

“Hey, it technically works fine. Kira’s a coordinator.”

“That’s not how it works, Kuzzey.” But wait, huh? Is his name actually Kira?

“Isn’t his name Kyle?” Whoops, did I get his name wrong?

“Ah yeah sorry that's what I meant to say” Oh, thank goodness, I was really worried I had been rude for a second there. Kyle looked like he was going to say something, but didn’t.

______________________________________________________________________________

POV Sai Argyle still 2nd February CE 71

“So that’s a yes for Bodymind?” Honesty I’m pretty conflicted about correcting her about Kira’s name, he’s my friend, but it’s making everyone happy.

“Yeah, sounds like fun, wanna team up again or do you wanna do a couple’s thing now that Flay’s here?” Tolle did you just imply that Kira and Kuzzey are a couple?

“Yeah sure. It wouldn’t be fun to constantly dominate everyone. We have to give at least a little hope that anyone can win.”

The game itself is fine. The controls are about as iffy as you’d expect for a party game like this, which is honestly part of the fun. If it worked perfectly every time you’d get stale matches. Kind of like super tight skill based matchmaking does, but at least this is a fun creating mechanic. It kind of reminds me of that one Proto GINN fighting game they released back in 69 which had all the crazy modified versions the devs cooked up, like the one with the meh-dam hammer. The game decided rocket powered wrecking ball was enough, I guess. That doesn’t even get into the more speculative ideas like that one giant scorpion style ms with it's giant harpoon shooter tail.
Shame it got taken off store shelves after the war properly started. It’s good I got it before then. Maybe I should look into the feasibility of scorpion MS or MA designs…
Thoughts for later.

Bodymind’s design philosophy is similar to the Ratchet All 4 One of ages past. But now with an extra player controlling some psychic powers for each of the player characters and level design that takes everyone screwing each other over into account.

Flay gave me a shake. “Hey Sai do you mind running me through the controls?” Oh right Flays a phone game playing casual. Honestly, the fact those are still around following the Reconstruction War at the end of the Anno Domini is impressive. We still haven’t gotten around to remaking STEAM outside certain locations on Earth proper. Why no one has really fixed communication networking and the internet across the greater Earthsphere is beyond me. I should probably do something about that…

“Yeah sure, so Y opens up the power select wheel, B does the power you chose, and X interacts neutrally with environmental objects.”

Flay nudged up closer to me. “What about A?”

“That won’t be needed for these noobs.” A is for a tech parry thing, but that’s not really going to come up, and Flay is nowhere near good enough to use it. I’d play the psychic, but the actual physical body is a way harder thing to do. I actually have to do all the movement positioning, platforming, and dealing with our friends trying to fuck us over. “If I know Tolle he’s probably going to go after Kira rather than us and Kira and Kuzzey aren't good enough to challenge us” I whispered to her.

We started playing and just as I thought, Tolle cannot resist messing with Kira when he presses the buttons on the controller too quickly for it to recognize them as multiple inputs.

Flay was doing alright for a phone game playing casual that hasn't held a controller for at least half a decade. “Flay use the AOE now!”

“Take that Kyle!

Of cucking course she missed. Oh, looks like Kira and Kuzzey just fell into a bottomless void anyway.

“Damn it Kira how? How?”

“I’M SORRY.” Wow Kira really does sound five year younger when he screams.

“Sai”. Flay whispered to me. “Does he always sound like a crying nine year old when he screams or yells?”
“He hasn't yelled or cried much around me, so I’m not sure”. I whispered back. “The only time I was there when he cried I left the room because he started sounding like a dying hyena after a while.”

Flay just had this confused expression on her face, due to my newtype senses I could tell she has absolutely no idea how to respond to that.

ooooiiiiiiiidewchikdewchikaooooiiiiiiiidewchikdewchika

“Ok I’m pausing the game what the hell is that?!”

oooorriiioooorriii

“Oh sorry Kuzzey that's my ringtone, someone’s just calling me.” It’s a lot louder than I thought it’d be.

“Why is that your ringtone?!” Wow, Miriallia looks really confused.

“Its loud enough to overcome the sound of work. I got it from one of my coworkers.” I did not expect Mordred of all people to make music like this in her spare time. “Hello, who is this?”

“Sai I can't believe I’m resorting to this, but I’m going to have to beg for forgiveness here rather than ask for permission.” Is that Cagalli? Why is she acting so weird?

“Ah Cagalli? What are you talking about?”

“Just open the door now.” She is really done with this, isn't she.

“Do you even know your at the right house?”

“Your at your friend Kuzzey’s house your dad told me.” He just told her? I mean no yeah he’d do that.

“Sai um who is it” Kira spoke up.

I put my hand over the mike and looked Kira right in the eyes. “It’s the girl you thought was a man”.

“I’ll let you in in a sec.”

click

Miriallia looked at me and pointed. “So Sai that was the girl Tolle thought you were dating right?”

“Who, what when?!” No one told Flay shit that checks out.

“Cagalli the Chief Representative’s daughter she showed up to class looking like a paperboy from the early 1900s a bit before the attack happened and Tolle heard something out of context, that's it. Anyway, she's outside the front door and ordering me to let her in.”

“The daughter of the Chief Representative?!” I could tell immediately Kuzzey was the only person here who knew what that meant.

“The who Kuzzey?” Kira was so uniformed about politics for someone who actually watched the news.

“The leader of our country, idiot! And she’s in front of my house. How do you not know what the Chief Representative is? You watch the news!” I literally just thought the same thing, man.

“I’m gonna go let here in, I'll be back in a minute.” I called out before anyone could ask me anymore questions and make her wait longer.

I left the living room and went to the front door.

“Sai.” She walked past me before stopping to look back at me. It took me a moment to process her outfit, I mean wow, those are the biggest headphones I've ever seen, and ok when I said big hoodie I didn’t mean five sizes too big. “Well, come with me, we need to talk now.” I could feel how serious she was.

We entered the living room. “Hey guys this is Cagalli I mentioned her before.”

“I need somewhere to talk with Sai privately.” She looked over at a nearby door. “That’ll do.”

“My bedroom?!”

Now everyone is confused and she’s dragging me into Kuzzey’s room.

Slam

“Huh, he has a lot more death metal band posters in here than the last time I was over.”

“I need to ask you some important questions, Sai. Where did you get that suit? All this tech? I want, no I need to know what’s going on. I tried to look into that Anaheim group you mentioned, I even called Lord Kiou after father arrived and asked him if he knew anything, but he’d never heard of it.” I I….

“Look Cagalli it, it’s nothing I don’t know I.
“No Sai this is important has anything weird been happening to you lately? Don’t lie, don’t leave out any details.”

“Well, I… I woke up with a bad headache a couple of weeks ago and then became a priest last week and I think two of my friends have been in a gay relationship that I didn’t notice.”

“What?” Cagalli just looked baffled.

“Look, if I thought about everything weird that’s happening to me, I’d just get nothing done ever. Imagine that as a biography, it’d be the worst reading experience of all time.”

“You can’t just say that and not follow up on what weird things you’re talking about. This could be serious.”

“I don’t know, It's all been so weird and draining lately. I apparently invented fusion according to everyone else, every bit of research I’ve tried to do on the actual creator just leads to dead ends, and I’ve had no luck with finding the other reactor's actual inventors. I’m 80% sure there were at least 7 Space wars before this current one, but that also has no goddamn evidence to it outside some flight data I have in the museum of mobile suits. I’m a priest in a cult on Mars that doesn’t exist, and I have no idea how or when this happened. I literally have a prayer book about praising some fucking tech god called the Omnissiah. Oh yeah, and half my understanding is based on a theory of psychic evolution that also seems to have no progenitor.

And you know what? I’ve just ignored all those inconsistencies for weeks. You want to know why? Look at what happened with Junius 7, or Graveyard, or that one colony which voted to fuck off to Jupiter yesterday. The Earth Sphere is a godamn mess. And it’s not like weapons technology means anyone in a colony is going to be safe. I can think of like 4 MS types designed to kill colonies. I fucking own one that turns colonies to VAPOR as in heats metal so fast it turns into gas. It doesn’t really matter where it came from when the math checks out. This shit by all metrics is possible, and we both know what will happen the second either of the Alliance or ZAFT figures this crap out. Either we push even further into the unknowns of technology and hope we somehow find the most advanced lightwave barriers ever, or we all die within the decade.”

“I what Sai what?”

I put the magic newtype key into the lock on Kuzzey’s closet. “No before you say anything else follow me”

 

A/N:: i just wanted the chapter out before the new Seed movie comes out.

POV Sai yes its still 2nd February CE 71 no time skip yet


“I said follow me, we don’t have all year.” If we did, I wouldn’t be working four jobs.

“I'm wait… what what is this place?” Cagalli felt noticeably shocked, which is not surprising at this point. The part of the hangar closest to the entrance looks kind of like an Argama-class ship’s hanger. Practically empty besides the MS and all the spare parts and other random shit that's shown up in here. Besides the giant central pillar with the railings that is. Where the power comes from for the lights, I have no idea. The wires don’t lead anywhere accessible, and when I tried cutting them to see what’d happen, the lights stayed on.

“I think my newtype abilities are creating a physical space connected to history when combined with this small piece of key shaped psychoframe.”

“I understood maybe half of that sentence, what the fuck is this place? How the fuck did we get from your friend's bedroom to this place?”

“Basically, I think it’s a psychically manifested museum created by that weird key and my space-psychic powers. At least that's my best guess, I haven’t really had the time to do a clinical study or any real research into this since I work four jobs. How this actually works is very low on my priority list, given half of those are vital to the defense of Orb. I’m going to get some visual aids to help me explain this better.” I have them prepared for when I plan to explain this to Dad, so it's not much of a bother to use them in this dry run.

“So what I am I supposed to do till then, just sit on the floor?!” She ran her hand though her hair and then down her face.

“It’s a museum, look around a bit, have fun or whatever. Oh, and if you need to go to the restroom don’t go through the door with toilet written on it, there aren't any in there, it’s just a room with a book in it. I haven’t gotten around to relabeling anything yet, very low priority. Don’t worry, everything is turned off, it’s safe.”

The cork boards and whiteboards I’d been planning to use were stored next to the Exo-womb because that was the place with the room for like 10–20 whiteboards and red string I’d been using to try and figure out the story behind what the hell is up with everything.

That… hasn’t been going well. I thought it would only take one whiteboard when I started. I’m on whiteboard twenty-three now, corkboard five, and binder twelve. Not including all the miscellaneous pages I left in a pile on top of the Exo-womb that I haven’t put in a binder yet.

“I’m not satisfied with these explanations of yours, Sai and what with all this crap?” Cagallia justured at all of my notes and documents. “Why do you have a doodle of a giant UFO mobile suit attacking Las Vegas?”

“Hey, you were supposed to wait while I got this stuff.”

“Wouldn’t it be faster if I just walked over here?”

“Yeah, but I’m embarrassed about how much of a mess this is.” I vaguely gestured toward all my notes and binders and corkboards. They honestly looked like something a conspiracy theorist would have.

“Yeah no kidding like why is that one pink?” She pointed toward the Geirail.

“I have no idea. That one’s definitely new.” How did I miss the giant metallic pink painted mobile suit sitting next to my stuff? Was I that deep in thought I forgot to observe my surroundings? Dad would kill me if he realized I did that.

I don’t remember that one being here. I don’t remember any of the MS being anywhere near the exo-womb since the battle. I’d remember the hot pink mobile suit with a non-nuclear reactor. I’d have made a note if it was a thing. I have taken stock of everything in here before, so it shouldn’t be hard to find the inventory list.

The inventory list was a practical necessity. I had 4 mobile suits and a bunch of spare parts. Not having inventory of that would probably fuck me over when the Jegan eventually gets outclassed, and I don’t know what I have or don’t have. It’d mess up my special orders for parts. It’d be much worse if I’d have used the Gundam X. We don’t make luna titanium.

I really need to make these notes less messy. Can’t find shit between all the theories on random Tau tech, the O-D textbook, and postulations on Draneri crystal shit. Why do I do my important work in the same place I’m doing less serious work?

Let’s see, Random device inventory, information inventory, ahh yes MS inventory, 1x Daughtress, 1x Jenice, 1x Gundam X, 1x Jegan with spare parts to convert it to most other variants. Yeah, no Geirail listed.

Wait, she asked, why it was pink not if it was new. Why would it be metallic hot pink?

Geirail, single Ahab reactor, armor is mostly functional due to gravitational waves and the paint. Pink’s high visibility, so good as a test coloration. Nanolaminate is priced on usefulness…

“Hello, Orb to Sai? Do you read me? You were looking at bright pink mobile suit that's missing half its armor for like two full minutes.”

“Oh yeah sorry, um nanolaminate is cheaper in high visibility colors! Ahh, it's a budget thing.”

“But why does it have a giant golden spoon?”

“I don’t know. Probably to scrape armor off of other machines or something? I literally just saw this thing for the first time when you pointed it out.”

“How does that work?”

“I wish I knew. It’d make my life so much easier if I could figure out how or why this works. Maybe it’d stop giving me clothes and useless shit like that artificial womb over there.”

“It gave you an artificial womb?”

“Yeah, that's what this thing is. It was the first thing here that wasn’t the Jegan if I remember right. It’s probably the best thing I’ve been given. I could probably end the issue with third generation and later coordinators if I got this thing mass-produced.”

“Seriously? Why haven’t you?”

“Well, I’m spending most of my time training new mobile suit engineers, studying the G weapons and the CGUE and GINN, drafting up our new military designs, being there for the testing of the completed OM-01 Den’an Zon, training our MS pilots, training myself because I frankly am only average at best as a pilot, and theorizing brand-new technology based on information in the various archives and books I’ve found here. The little free time I have is spent trying to figure out how everything connects to each other on a non-tech level.”

“What about the required therapy post combat?”

“Why do you think I have so many notes? They said I needed to do something to keep my mind off the battle, so this was my something.” I gestured towards the board covered in notes that were connected by lines of string. “I've been trying to figure out how all my tech connects and how to rationalise all of my conflicting memories.”

I could have made this with something digital, but our computer tech is quite frankly bad. Sure, it's all quantum computers, but the interfaces and baseline coding is complete shit. Our phones look like something from the Middle Ages.

“Does any of that mean anything? Wait, conflicting memories, what are you talking about?”

“It’s very simple, let me break it down for you. So, there was the One Year War, and they invented MS a bunch more wars happened, then we had space mad max for a while. After that, things get messy. There has to be like something weird given the suits got bigger again, but I don’t really know what that was about. Then maybe the seventh space war goes off and that's the impetus for the X, but that’s a guess. After, that, the colonies set up a fighting tournament on Earth? I think they solve the whole second mad max era first, but I don’t know for sure. I just know that tournament had fighters who could 1v1 mobile suits with their fists, and the MS got super stupid. Like, holy shit, most of those units are so far beyond everything we commonly think about. Then I think an AI revolt happened and people’s phones and tablets, which commonly had AI on them, got giant Titan Mobile Armour bodies and started killing everyone. That’s not labeled on here yet, but I think that's how it connects. Now, Mars is a shithole and there are some people who pray to washing machines and burn incense. Oh, and I’m one of them somehow!

Also, like Aliens. Like honest to god bipedal aliens, they keep attacking New Jersey in the Atlantic Federation. I think I was on vacation in Tokyo when that was going down. They think we have an Imperium where we worship a guy in a golden chair. No idea how or where that connects to the rest of this. And like this other alien group of little green men keeps trying to go to our moon for some reason? Or is it their moon?”

“What the fuck? Sai that makes no sense!”

“I know! I’m not even done yet. There's like one precursor civilization that exists, but it connects to jack fucking shit. Like, most of this is wild speculation based on facts I know for certain, but there’s at least a fucking connection to be drawn most of the time. I for the life of me can’t figure out why the Rakatans exist, or why I know, or why they are even relevant to history. Like, it is practically standalone and utterly disconnected beyond psychic power being a thing I know to be real.”

“Sai, slow the fuck down.”

“There’s also weird shit with apes with coconut guns or something? And there was that time Pokémon was real with those weird bug things. That's probably psychic fuckery we forgot about from all the random apocalypses. That’s probably around when we were more psychically advanced than technologically, given that rune stuff I can do was made for a medieval age.”

“Sai, please slow down.”

“Oh yeah, and the fucking alien demons. Can’t forget those. This completely different species of aliens called the eredar or something had to run from their homeworld because of a demon invasion or whatever. They had a couple demon gods, I think. The Tau mention killing one of them, which was called Slannesh. It’s in the Tau database due to I think theology study? I dunno, the stuff in there is almost exclusively science related, but it includes stuff like sociology, so it can’t really be super stringent. ”

*SLAP*

“Sai, seriously, slow the fuck down. I lost you at Space Mad Max.”

“What about that made me lose you?”

“I don’t know what a ‘Mad Max’ is.”

“Ohhhhhhhhhhh. I was referencing an old 20th century movie series my dad made me watch. He’s obsessed with old entertainment. I mean post apocalypse. Like for the first one, Earth just fucked off to let the colonies do whatever, and then things just massively devolved. Most engineers were dead or old as fuck. Everything was falling apart. It was so bad that Anaheim Electronics went out of business for like a decade or two.”

“What’s Anaheim?”

“Imagine Morgenrote, but like instead of just Orb, it was literally all the Earthsphere. Wait, that's not really accurate. Anaheim Electronics had a practical monopoly on everything except shipbuilding for decades. From consumer electronics like ovens and computers, to vacation plans and credit cards to even such monolithic things as Space colonies and military equipment, you could name any field and they either had a large hand in it, or an outright monopoly. These are the guys who bankrolled the V project. They bought out Zeon’s mobile suit manufacturing firms postwar and created a duopoly with the in-house military manufacturers until their production got gimped when the Titans blew up Jaburo which forced them to outsource production to Anaheim. They got Axis Zeon’s designs from Char before he did the Axis thing. Not only that, but they dominated most mobile suit manufacturing for thirty years until SNRI beat them once in a single mock battle to decide who would get to make the next generation Earth Federation mass production mobile suit. SNRI never delivered the promised F90 mass production type. Anaheim technically did it with the Hardygun, and they didn’t even have the data for all 26 packs or however many there were!”

“What’s SNRI?” Cagalli looked like she had way more questions than that, but she was intentionally slowing this conversation down. She’d done that back when we were kids in the homeland.

“The Earth Federation’s in house mobile suit development team they formed from all the batshit insane people that worked at the Newtype labs, which is a complicated subject I don’t feel like talking about right now, some weirdo from Papua New Guinea, and some other guys. SNRI never really delivered mass production units. Outside the Flint, which went to a terrorist group or something, and like ten toned down F91s. And I guess the Gustav Karl and Loto, but those were spec ops machines for the most part, so they weren’t really mass production models.”

“Don’t you mean the Earth Alliance?”

“No.”

“What do you mean no?!!?”

“It literally can’t be the Alliance. The Earth Federation had Minovsky type nukes, which are pure fusion. The Alliance would have used those by now if they had them.”

“Why don’t we know about this then?”

“I’m going to be honest, this is all me trying to connect stuff as best as I can given the relative lack of shit I know. Like, the Rakatans are something I understand practically nothing about. I’m assuming the Tau are the ones attacking New Jersey, given some of the descriptions of the enemy’s units sounding vaguely like these Tau battle suit things I have data on. I’m assuming that Imperium of Man wasn’t a real thing. I’m doing my best with connecting the UC, AW and PD time periods even though that makes no fucking sense given what actual visible real reality is like. Seriously, I have a collective understanding of four hundredish years of MS development history, which contradicts itself multiple times and doesn't mess at all with what I see when I wake up everyday.

I’m only able to connect maybe like a couple of the big things before something massively fucks up my understanding of the universe. I left out a couple of things because they don’t add up in any way outside of maybe being from the future, which just fucks up my whole thing where all of this has to be in the past, so I threw all my notes on that into a pile over there. This is revision number 10, and I’m still nowhere near satisfied with it.

For fuck's sake, one of the biggest problems is that the moon apparently got annihilated into a permeant new moon size, but that sure as shit isn’t real now. In fact, actually, that might have just been the movie I watched while sleep-deprived at movie night Monday.”

“Sai, you’re stressed out. Calm down and breathe. We’ll get you through this.”

Rumble… Rumble

Out of the ether, a giant red flower shaped machine popped into existence.

Right in front of us.

WOOSH CRASH

“Fuck that hurts, I ow I fell on my face.”

Wait, since when were we in a completely different hangar? This one is the type that would just dump mobile suits out from the bottom, like that one variant of the original salamis. Those are super outdated. And what’s the deal with the RF Z’Gok?

“You o ow, I think I cracked my ass.” That’s gonna hurt for a while.

“What in the hell is that fucking what?!”

“It all makes sense now.”

“How the fuck does any of this make sense?” God, Cagllia looks like someone put her in a drier for an hour.

“It doesn’t. I’m just lying to myself.”

“We should probably stop talking about this until later.”

“Yeah. I’m just going to go insane if I keep going at this any longer. That’s what sleeping four hours a max day for a week does to you, I guess.”



POV Kuzzey Buskirk 2nd February CE 71 we didn’t timetravel while they were in there it’s not Narnia

Hm, those two have been in my room for what 15 minutes now? Seriously, what could they be talking about in there? Actually, I don’t think I want to know the answer to that.

“Focus Kuzzey and stop sucking at Bombard of Heroics.” You're really calling the kettle black Tolle.

“If you weren’t so shit at tanking, maybe I wouldn’t need all this healing!”

“Can you stop pocketing the tank and heal the dps.” Seriously, why does Miriallia have to keep telling Kira that every time we play!

“Why are we shouting!?!?” Flay is the voice of reason. We really need one of those in this group.

“It’s just something people do when they play video games Flay!” Miriallia looked at her and said.

“I don’t get the appeal at all.” Flay spoke slowly.

“Filthy casual.” You suck at every game you've ever played that isn't console Toelle.

“Toelle be nice” *pinch*

“Ok ok I’ll stop!”

“Whipped!”

“Oh shut up, Kuzzey! You could never get a girlfriend yourself.”

“Wanna bet Casual?”

“20 Eards, you got one week.”

“That’s bullshit man.” We know maybe two females between the two of us, and both of them are taken.

“Dude, there’s literally a girl in your room right now.” Toelle, are you stupid!

“There is no way that would work. She’d kick my ass then bite my dick off if what Sai said is true.”

“At least you’d get to third base.” What in the actual fuck Toelle.

“Wait, isn't he already dating Kyle?” Wait what?! What wait she looks honest about this! I thought you were the voice of reason, Flay.

“I’m just going to check on those two. Make sure Sai hasn’t been murdered or something.” Anything to stay away from yaoi fangirls. I get enough shit about that when I’m taking classes with Kira or Sai.

They aren’t here. Oh god, were they kidnapped? Fuck! Who should I call the police?!

*click*

What the… oh they were just in the closet. Wait, they were in my closet?

“Oh, hey Kuzzey um, how have things been while we were busy?.”

Sai and Cagalli’s clothes look really messed up and disheveled. They just came out of the closet together.

“Ohhhhhh” They were having sex. Ok, everything, all of it.
It all makes sense now.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Mobile Armor (400cp) This is...odd. A MA is a non-humanoid Mobile Weapon, such as the (oh hey) Big Zam, Rafflesia or the Psyco Gundam’s MA Mode. Like the last one implied, they sometimes have alternative modes, though those are even rarer. You may purchase only 1 Mobile Armor, and people WILL take notice of you having this engine of destruction.

Mass Production Mobile Suit (One Free All- 100 CP afterwards): The GM. The Jegan. The Zaku II. The Gun-EZ. The Den’an Zon. They are not powerful; they are not the best of the best, for they are designed for the common soldier. Everyone starts out piloting one of these, just gotta work your way up. (Or like the higher-up on the faction ladders, just buy a better one.) RF Z’Gok