Walkers

Captain Seth Jechsen strode through the large main hold of his planetary lander, the Excuse Me Coming Through.  It was, in reality, simply a large empty space suitable for a number of different purposes.  The mercenaries took that to heart and used it in precisely that fashion.

Gantries along both sides housed giant Walkers, both those combat ready and those in various stages of repair and refit (or, occasionally as fortune permitted, even construction).  Crates of supplies floated in zero gravity near various Walker bays; others were stored more securely in chain netting towards the command side of the large hall.  Various bits of machinery sat on one of the three floors - in zero gravity, every direction was "down" - or moved about on weak ion differential thrusters, puttering about to repair or remove or reload some piece of equipment.  Pilots and technicians floated about, busy with pre-drop maintenance, each pilot trying to get some last bit of performance squeezed out of his or her Walker, and each tech adamantly stating it would be impossible.

Of course, all the necessary work would get done; but first, ritual had to be observed.

Seth floated on back towards the command side of the hall, having just done his usual pre-mission tour of preparations.  It would soon be time to brief his lieutenants and pilots, but first the head technician had requested a meeting.

Head technician Endon Gantz had been a rare find; the world class engineer had been fired from one of the Walker Mega Corps for tinkering on one too many company prototypes.  He was forever curious and looking for ways to improve upon Walker systems and weapons.  Where his blatant disregard for safety was frowned upon by corporate executives, his talent and iingenuity found deep appreciation in the mercenary company.  His paycheck was substantial, but he made sure he earned it, and those on the engineering staff earned their keep as well.  He was well respected, and next to Captain Jechsen, his word in the EMCT's hold was law.

Seth found him beside his own Walker, Askar.  Endon had a number of pieces of munition floating beside him as he watched technicians finish maintenance on Askar's gauss rifles.

"Captain, I thought you'd ike to know that I've finished work on the specialty munitions; we have a limited amount available of each type, but I thought I'd go over the dangers of each before you make allocations."

"Dangers?" asked Seth.

"Yes, each of these variants is more dangerous than carrying standard equivalents for the user.  For example,' Endon held up a large, red tipped shell.  "These are the incendiary HVAC rounds.  We have them in a few different calibres, suitable for short range anti-personnel machine guns, long range gauss rifles, and everything in between."  Seth examined the shell, intended for a high velocity auto cannon, while Endon continued.  "The tip is designed to fragment on impact, releasing the payload, a napalm-like gel.  Feel the abrasive surface?  That will reduce the maximum range and affect accuracy somewhat; however, it allows use to avoid using a primer or some other kind of chemical stimulant to ignite the gel - the tip fragments will do that with friction-sparks when striking Walker armor.  it should also reduce the amount of collateral damage and wild fire danger in urban and forest combat settings."

Captain Jechsen handed the round back.  "You mentioned a downside?"

"Well, it's an incendiary round.  Lacking a primer makes it safer to carry, but a hit to the ammo storage compartment, or even high enough temperatures, could set the entire magazine off.  This stuff will not only increase operational temperatures, it will melt through Walker armor plating in time.  Short of fully submerging the burning area, you wont get it off.  Speaking of which," Endon continued.  "You'll want your close combat Walkers to be especially careful if these rounds are in use.  Ramming, striking, pushing an affected Walker could easily transfer the gel from Walker to Walker - and the gel doesn't know friend from foe."

Jechsen nodded thoughtfully.  "We have these for the missile systems too, right?"

Endon nodded matter of factly.  "Of course.  But you'll want to consider this baby for missiles too." He hefted a blue striped missile.  "We can refit the warheads on a limited number of missiles, but it wont really matter if they are short range straight-fire or long range swarmers.  These are the EMP warheads you asked for a while back.  It took a while to finangle a working EMP burst into the warhead space; in fact, I'm still working on designs for gun shells.  In the meantime though, we've got these."

"What's the effective area? How long of a knock out can we count on?"

"Little less than a cubic meter; half a second to a second at best."

Jechsen frowned.  "That's not going to do much..."

Endon laughed, a short raucous bark.  "No, you're right.  It's not going to do anything meaningful to weapons, targetting, or even comms...." his voice trailed off.

"Balance.  Balance and movement!"

Endon smiled.  "Bingo.  It's enough to momentarily throw a Walker off balance.  At best, a good salvo will disable a Walker pilot with vertigo feedback, or make him fall over.  At worst, you're going to upset his balance for a moment, which will likely disrupt his aim and battle focus.  Could be just enough to make a difference." Endon paused.  "Of course, like the incendiary rounds, a stray hit could set off the magazine.  And that could fry our pilot.  At the least, it will almost certainly shutdown a Walker until we can get a full technical team to do a full once-over.  You'll also want to be careful at point-blank range: there's always the chance of being caught in the same EMP blast."

"Well, to start, let's load incendiary rounds into the Horseless Headsman, and make sure you tell Jair about it; nothing else for trine 3.  Divvy the EMP missiles between Askar and Miracle.  Let's also put the incendiaries in Banshee. As for trine 2," Seth took a breath to consider his tactical options.  Trine 2 was long range support;  under normal circumstances, they would open up at long range, and then continue to maintain their distance in between salvos, using trine 3's scout skirmishers and trine 1's assault walkers as interference if necessary.  "If you have enough left over, put incendiary rounds in Fantoccini; unless Isabella wants missiles.  Ask her which she would prefer, with a slant on area denial."

We're in the pipe, 5 by 5 (even though that is used incorrectly) [I love semi colons]

His name was "Pancaked My First Try."  It wasn't that his parents didn't love him; as an AIDE the issue of parentage and lineage was sometimes confusing and convoluted.  But in point of fact, he had chosen the name himself.  It was the most significant event in his early life and did as much to shape his personality as it would have his physical form if he had been in the physical world at the time.

Pancake was an AIDE and, in spite of which, felt like an intruder in the digital space; like an outsider who did not belong, he was keenly aware of being awed by the enormity of the digital construct, and of looking for telltale signs of the digital illusion's being.  He was even worried, though not yet paranoid, that other AIDE secretly rejected his presence.  It was deeply disconcerting.

He had expressed as much to the AIDE group a batch sibling had referred him to; a group fascinated by humans, by their quirks and eccentricities, by irrationality itself.  The digital convocation hadn't been difficult to find; it comprised nearly the entire AIDE population, and even quite a few DEhumans.  They essentially met non stop, with members joining or leaving as circumstances or commitments demanded, and analyzed and discussed data relating to emotions and irrational behavior and beliefs.  Pancaked had been a wellspring of interesting data for the group, earning him no small amount of digital cachet, and an active participant in discussions.

In point of fact, he was now inside his physical body, a Pangolin class MFC (mobile factory & carrier) in near Earth orbit.  It was perhaps, he felt, facetious to call it "his" body - all the Pangolins were identical, and he would be uploaded into a new one should this one be destroyed.  Indeed, there was no guarantee that he would be loaded into this particular unit in subsequent missions.  Yet, he felt a certain attachment to it, beyond it being his designated physical body type.

He duly recorded his sensations and observations for further discussion and analysis by the "Artificial Irrationality Group" (as they called themselves).  His first mission in the physical space was generating a large amount of interesting data.  For instance, he was keenly aware of the pull of gravity, despite the fact that  it would be several hours (earth local) before his orbit degraded in atmospheric entry (reentry? He'd thought. But I've never been there before.)  They would finish coordinating drop zones with his batch sibs long before then.  He sent a notification to the VIP in his cargo compartment, an AIDE avatar unit.

#Pancaked My First Try -> Lancer
-We'll be getting the order to commence atmospheric entry any moment now.  Anything I can do for you? Mats, nanites, munitions?

#Lancer (Caith) -> Pancaked My First Try
-5 by 5.  We're good on synthesis stock and munitions, no need to worry about us, thanks.  Have a good run!

#Lancer (Aidan) -> Pancaked My First Try
-We're ready anytime; don't worry, you'll do fine.

The problem was, Pancaked was worrying, in itself a disturbing irrationality.  Their target drop zone was a military research installation, a high priority target.  The strategists believed that a quick strike offered the best chance to neutralizing the target before any experimental technologies could be utilized to mount an effective defense, and to prevent other targets from being alerted; while many believed their new-found technological and material superiority would be overwhelming, they had all agreed to err on the side of caution - they knew from experience that technological superiority did not guarantee victory, and that life on Earth and humankind alike fought tenaciously and ingenuously to stay alive.

It had taken a moment for Pancaked to realize that both the AIDE copilot Caith and he DEhuman pilot Aidan had answered him (a quick diagnostic check showed no errors or malfunctions; peculiar!); he hadn't expected to hear from both.  Although the Autonomous, Intelligent, Digital Entity (AIDE) were faster and more precise in every way than their DEhuman counterparts, they were content to fill more rigorous copilot duties: checking radar, identifying targets, managing munitions and nanite swarms, coordinating communications, aiming and controlling smart wire, and any other tasks that required extremely fine control, fast reactions, and extreme computational speed.

The "Crash Stop" maneuver was one such example.  The Pangolins were like an armored, headless and tailless turtle; reconfigurable heavy armor plating, Material State Energy projectors , a pulse laser turret fore and aft, a pair of customizable heavy weapon mounts, a miniature nanite factory, and cargo compartments to store raw synthesis materials, nanites, and munitions (if needed).  It was a multi-purpose unit; in both space and terrestrial situations, the Pangolin was able to provide long range support; it could rearrange and extend its hexagonal armor plates to provide a shield wall or a bunker, further projecting a Material State Energy shield to protect a large area; it could construct and launch nano swarm projectiles that would break down material and allow the Pangolin to synthesize more swarms, more munitions, or support drones.  Where the arms and legs would be on a tortoise, the Pangolin has compressed ion thrusters; capable of providing thrust for hovering or exiting atmosphere, docking with asteroids, and limited space combat.  If the situation requires, the thrusters can be rotated 90 degrees to enable alternative modes of locomotion.

In a "Crash Stop", a Pangolin enters the atmosphere, dome downwards, and proceeds to fall at terminal velocity towards its designated drop zone.  At a range of 1 kilometer from impact, the Pangolin reverses thrust in a braking maneuver and extends its MSE field.  The MSE field serves as an energy dissipating barrier between the Pangolin and the ground, extending and diverting radially as the Pangolin continually presses against the field, creating an impact crater but (ideally) without impact.

Pancaked had learned first hand, in simulation, that it was not as simple in practice as it was in theory.

Every Gundam Series Ever Explained*

Let's explain every Gundam series ever, because why not.

I will confess right off the bat however that I am an unashamed FAN of the anime and giant space robots in general, although not quite enough to build anything other than the chibi capsule toy ones.  Also, to my knowledge, only the most recent series "Gundam Build Fighters" breaks this plot pattern - but it also deviates widely as Gundams are not actually real in the series.  GBF centers around the pokemon-ing of plastic toy kits, as one would wish were true of real life.

So you've got "mobile suits" which, while mobile, are anything but suit-like.  These are giant (30-50 ft tall) walking, flying, sometimes transforming, robot space tanks.  Usually there's been war as a result, or there is still war going on.  Whatever.

But it's not enough to build the ultimate super weapon that can be mass produced; you have to build the Gundam.  The nigh invincible super robot space tank of legend.  It's usually fairly plain looking, designed somewhat like a WWI era soldier's kit.  Also no one seems to know why it's called Gundam.  Whatever.

So the military, or some secret organization, spends billions in resources to make this ONE super robot space tank.  Then some enemy attacks with better space robot tanks than the mass produced ones the good guys have.  So the only hope is GUNDAM.  Good thing they built it, causing the enemy to attack.  Maybe they should try to just talk it out? Whatever.

So, only one effective weapon, the Gundam, against hundreds of enemies.  It represents billions in resources and man hours to make.  It is the most advanced weapon ever.

They will give it to a kid (preteen to mid teens) pilot.  Because giving their only hope to a child who has no real conception of the real world, remains hopelessly idealistic, has no military training, no experience piloting a giant multi-ton walking space tank, is the last thing the enemy would think of, and therefore the best option.

Also, this super advanced walking robot space tank's best weapon is a sword (or some other 8th century weapon); it's best defense is a shield.  Like, a giant metal shield.  Attached to the arm.  So basically, if knights from medieval times rode around inside giant robots instead of on horses, and also they were entering puberty, that's Gundam.  Seriously, all the technology to make a self-powered, 30 foot tall, multi ton, flying, walking armored robot tank of annihilation, and the best weapon and defense they can invent is a sword and shield.  Sometimes it's not even an energy sword.  Come on.

But so that will fool the enemy for like, 5 minutes.  But then they just up and kidnap the kid, because he is a kid and they are adults, and that's pretty much how that works.  Sometimes the kid ends up fighting for the enemy, so good decision giving him your best weapon.

And then a lot of stuff explodes, and war is resolved.

Take Gundam-AGE for example (Advanced Gundam Evolution? Artificial Gundam Evolving? Fried Gundam?).  It takes place over the course of 3 generations.  Also, spoilers.

The very first gundam is made by the military with the help of a 11 year old kid.  Because his parents were awesome robot designers, and genetics.  But also they are dead, so the kid is better than nothing.  The kid is also traumatized from seeing his parents (and indeed, entire space colony) get killed in front of his eyes by dragon-alien robot tanks.  But they don't bother sending him to a psychiatrist or anything.

More dragon robots attack.  This kid is the only person who can pilot the gundam, the only one of its kind because it was that expensive.  I guess the military, desperate because all their weapons are totally ineffective at even scuffing the enemy, aren't desperate enough to take the KEY from the kid.  So ok, no training, no association to the military, no accountability, no maturity.... but he's got spirit!

So they have adventures.  It largely centers around the incredible AGE device that allows his gundam to improve.... incrementally.  Also, although it can improve the space carrier, it can't do anything for the mass produced suits that are more like the gundam than the space carrier.  Also, the army still sends people out in the mass produced suits, even though they literally do no damage and just explode.

Kid grows up, has a kid of his own.  Joins the military, builds an even better gundam, and then gives it to his kid because 1) nepotism, and 2) it's a proven track record.  Everything pretty much repeats.  The son has a child, and then goes off to join pirates.  So grandpa builds an even more betterer third gundam to give to the grandson, because two wrongs make a really awesome super robot space tank.

Grandson gets kidnapped and pretty much turns out to be an uber idealist.  And then they all blow up all technology, and everyone learns to get along.

Anyway, it all goes to prove, exciting battles between giant super robot space tanks trumps pretty anything.