Gaiaterra: Elysea's Conflict/Project Phoenix King

There are many words that could describe the War Of The Beard, or by the Coalitions title the War Of Vengeance. Bloody, horrible, petty, idiotic. But the second biggest outcome of the war for the Asur, only behind their defeat, was witnessing the Coalitions technology firsthand. From the Astartes who had plowed through their forces despite being outnumbered five to one, the bolters that effortlessly shredded their soldiers and maimed those who somehow survived, to the outright indestructibility of their ceramite-plated tanks and armor. The war was a major wake-up call for the Protectorates, who had only faced low-tech Orcs and neighbors prior, for how woefully underpowered their defense force was as they suffer strings of defeat before learning to adapt and counter the Coalition.

It was around a year into the war, and the Protectorate was holding but the Coalition's technological advantage meant they they were slowly making progress, when Finubar met with Emperor Yoshiro to propose a plan. A large, ambitious, experimental project to something, anything, that could finally make them match up, or even surpass, the Coalition, and upon hearing it Yoshiro approved. The proposal was known as Project Phoenix King, the creation of the Protectorate's more experimental equipment.

Mecha
The idea of walking war machines is as old (older, in fact) than the combat vehicle itself. Turn of the century speculative fiction fueled experiments in walking machines as early as 1898 V.C., but most experiments were in vehicles with more than two legs.

The reasons were simple; an object needs at least three equally spread points of contact with the ground to balance naturally, and the delicate mechanisms of the human foot (which actually provide two contact points each, in the heel and ball of the foot) were impossible to replicate in the mainstream, though engineers in the Grey Steel Order had managed to achieve results with clockwork mechanisms.

As vehicle development in Hawke and Aquila pressed forward, the dream of the bipedal machine was left in the dust, a concept explored only by the authors of pulp science fiction and the rantings of ill-informed armchair engineers.

However, in Ulthuan, the story was different. Throughout the start of Project Phoenix King but was sadly only completed after the war, the Protectorate was engaging in the development of highly divergent technologies from the mainstream. Protectorate scientists had stumbled upon an integrated circuit incorporated into a silicon chip in 1931 V.C., and this resulted in an explosion of ever-more powerful computing systems.

These early computers were simplistically programmed indeed; a cutting edge IBM System/360 Model 91, though possessing an order of magnitude less computing power than the 1934 V.C. "Thinking Slate" experimental computer, could routinely run programs many times as complex as the programs run by a Protectorate computer.

The reason for the disparity seems to be mostly based on differing philosophies; Protectorate engineers and scientists attempted to build computers that could manipulate real-world objects, entirely skipping the number-crushing simulations of basic computer science and jumping straight to chasing adaptable robotics.

With nearly endless computer processing at their disposal, programmers eventually created simple balancing correcting routines that could be used to keep an object upright, bypassing a major hurdle in the design of bipedal machines, as well as a system for digitally transferring the motion of a controller and replicating it.

While this was occurring, other scientists were busy with the early development of nano-structures to create materials of extraordinarily high strength. This resulted in what might be best thought of as a perfect storm of converging technologies and philosophies.

The newly coronated Emperor Yoshiro wanted machines that would allow warrior skills to shine through. Computer engineers were presenting technology that would allow a warrior's actions to be captured on any scale, and material scientists were presenting new alloys that could laugh away the inverse square law. It was almost inevitable that the development of these new "mechanicals" would be ordered.

The first prototype walking battle machine was the Daidarabotchi, a twenty-nine-foot tall motion capture mechanical built in 1941 V.C.. Holding aloft a great banner, it wowed crowds by leading the parade celebrating the Emperor's birthday, launching fireworks from its missile racks and plodding at 4.5 kilometers an hour through the streets of Avelorn.

Regarded as little more than a toy by gaijin reporters allowed to witness the event, few realized the significance of the machine in front of them. In Hawke, the machine received little more than mocking laughter by commanders who swore by the tank, promising that a large target like a walker could never be a threat, and would be fired upon by everything on the field before it would ever have a chance to respond. The Coalition, on the other hand, were apprehensive, as they knew the power of walkers with their Imperial Knights and Titans.

The Emperor was an immediate fan of the Daidarabotchi and immediately ordered that it and machines like it be produced in numbers enough for military deployment. Placing a young, up-and-coming commander named Shinzo in charge of the project; several more machines were developed in the years leading up to the GVAW.

In addition to the hard-hitting Daidarabotchi, which was originally armed with a breech-loaded 30mm anti-tank gun on a rifle stock and now was changed to shoulder-mounted dual cannons, two new vehicles were developed; the Tengu, a flight-capable motion capture mechanical with a "hand-held" machine-gun designed to protect the larger vehicles, and the Type-47 Striker, a mechanically balanced walker with noise detectors and a cannon, later replaced by rocket launchers.

When the GVAW broke out and the Voshkod began its push into Aquila and Hawke, they also began a push south at their easternmost edge, pushing through Nothern Lurensia and supporting a communist revolution in Encantadia.

Worried that they would be next on the list of the Voshkod targets, the Protectorate threw their lot in with the newly founded Allies and rushed into the rapidly deteriorating Far Eastern Campaign. Under attack by local communist forces, the Red Luresians and the Voshkod at the same time, Canthaand the meager forces Allies could spare were rapidly being overwhelmed, but the timely arrival of the Protectorate forces turned the tide.

The six hundred machines of the Mechanicals Division were at the forefront of the fighting, throwing their experimental battalions into the fires of war. The results were startling for all sides.

By the end of the Protectorate first two months in the Far East, the Mechanicals had completely destroyed an entire Luresia division, routed a hardened Voshkod tank regiment, and had killed thousands of enemy combatants.

However, in return they had been destroyed almost to a man, their machines falling even to small arms fire, turning them into burning metal coffins for motion-captured pilots unable to operate their escape hatches due to their harnesses. Mechanicals could deal vast amounts of damage, but they were extraordinarily vulnerable; to pilot one was tantamount to suicide.

As the Mechanicals division was rebuilt, they were deployed more cautiously, advancing with heavy armor and infantry support. Pilots were trained to hunch low, bend the knees of auto-balanced machines, and hide in the mud like overgrown infantrymen.

No longer were they wiped out en masse, but at the same time, they were not achieving the same kill counts. Shinzo, who barely survived these early days, gained a cautious approach from the harrowing experience that to this day has not been shaken. Mechanicals, or "mecha" as they were nicknamed, were now operating firmly in a supporting role and had managed to fulfill the predictions of both supporters and detractors.

A mechanical was a devastating weapons platform, but also a large, slow-moving target. As the Protectorate intervention in the Far East Front ended with the death of more than eight hundred mecha operators under his command, but with complete victory in the strategic sense, Shinzo turned over command to new blood.

A rapidly expanding, high-tech robotics, electronics, manufacturing, and artificial intelligence zaibatsu, Tenzai brought fresh perspective, new technology, and a seemingly endless injection of capital that would turn the mecha into the dream machine it was always intended to be.

The next decade saw hundreds of refinements to the designs of the three primary mecha of the Empire. The Daidarabotchi grew larger and more powerful, becoming the "Oni" series of mecha, most famous of which, the King Oni, would later be at the forefront of the Southern Continent conflict. Its projectile weapons were replaced with significantly more advanced weaponry like Wave-Force systems, while the framework of the mecha was heavily reinforced and redesigned to take and give brutal impacts. While its original model and blueprints were stolen by the Elementals, who had further modified it by giving it scything arms and renaming it the Serp.

The Striker, always a machine too light for its chassis and mostly a failure for almost two decades, was paired with an experimental helicopter system in mid-1967 V.C., which after several awkward experiments resulted in the simplistic but effective transforming "Model 40 Striker VX", a design known for being successful even after years of misfortune. The Elementals, lacking the helicopter system, instead chose to turn its lightness into an advantage by increasing its speed and giving it a powerful geo club that can shatter almost anything once it gets in range, and renamed it the Smialy.

The most drastic changes were made to the Tengu; its successors began to resemble it in name only as the highly humanoid machine became a hunched, hovering vector-based platform paired with a jet fighter framework to create the wonderfully flexible Mecha Tengu/Jet Tengu, the first true "transforming mecha". The Elemental similarly made drastic changes to their Tengus, who had decided to increase the mechas firepower by replacing its machinegun with a melee-ranged jackhammer and flamethrower and giving it more armor at the cost of its flight capability being reduced to jet-powered leaps, becoming known as the Stark.

Tenzai did not limit itself merely to military mecha, of course. Small load lifter suits, simplistically called "Labour Mechanicals" or simply "Labours" replaced the forklift in Protectorate industry, while it became common to see police officers riding in a variety of patrol mecha.

Psionics
Just a few years ago, in most of the world, psionic powers were the stuff of urban legend; it was associated with New Age mysticism and quacks looking to scam tourists with cold reading, and no scientist would give claims of psionic powers the time of day, the only ones who knew of psychics being real were the secretive Coalition. Peacekeeper humanitarian educators and translators were trained to debunk claims of psionic powers (as well as magic/witchcraft, homeopathy, and "natural" medicine, and various conspiracy theories) as part of Allied efforts to educate in underdeveloped countries, while Lunafreya was well-known for her disdain for claims of psionic powers and made even mentioning it criminal offense (though the PsiCorps disagreed Lunafreya's policy as Yuri thought).

This was turned on its head when the Protectorate, and later the Collective, went to war, and brought with it a well-developed division of psychics. Which were developed as the Protectorate had witnessed the power of the Coalitions Librarians.

The most immediate indication of paranormal happens was Yuriko Omega, then a sixteen-year-old girl whose first action involved laying waste to a crack mechanized company, the fortified line they were defending, and about half of a nearby town with barely controlled bursts of psionic power. Less obvious but equally important were the use of empaths, connected to massive amplifiers, literately pulling troop disposition and tactical information from the brains of commanders and using it to run circles around Voshkod forces. This allowed the Protectorate to make massive advances despite being seriously outnumbered and outgunned, and the Voshkod had no readily available counter; thanks to Lunafreya's policies and not allowing to deploy their secretive PsiCorps in the Southern Continent, they couldn't even discuss the problem for several months.

When Guardian spies learned of the Destroyers encounters with Katsuragi psionic powers in 2002 V.C., there was a great deal of scrambling as they tried to determine what to do about the phenomenon. The most common reaction was simply denial; admitting the possibility of psionic powers was simply too much for the skeptical Guardians. However, as the Guardians witnessed the Protectorate engagement in the past, it became increasingly hard to deny that the Protectorate were working with information they had no way of knowing. A few simple tests later, the Guardian determined that, indeed, the Protectorate were using psionic probes, and began investigating counters.

Soon after, both the Guardians and Destroyers struck upon some temporary counters, such as the use of insulating materials in headgear or the walls of command centers. The Destroyers, notably Voshjod in particular became quite adept at fooling empaths using false information or training personnel to deflect psionic infiltration through disassembly. While the Guardians had more difficulty, in part due to their hesitance for working with so little data, they helped themselves to whatever Voshkod successes their spies could get ahold of.

Since the revelation of psionic powers, there has been a massive explosion of investigation regarding the phenomenon, and people claiming to have psionic abilities. Generally, it has been found that most people claiming psionic powers are still lying or deluded; it is generally accepted that even those most naturally adept for psionic abilities will usually not consciously be aware of the fact due to the minor nature of the powers and that for any real potential to be unlocked the intervention of training, brain alteration or technology is required. But for a good few years there were little psychics, as those who showed potential were kidnapped by Yuri to become his army.

Even today, the exact mechanics of psionic powers is still unknown; the actual source of the power is unclear, which is particularly disturbing as many psionic phenomena seem to violate the laws of thermodynamics. Generally, it is accepted that psionic power is drawn from "elsewhere" (a much-disparaged variable in any physics equation, to be sure) by certain patterns of activity in the brain, though the Coalition and Heralds prefer to call it "The Warp".

These patterns are actually not dissimilar from the circuitry patterns used by GAP arrays; there is some speculation that the power is drawn from parallel realities, though this is obviously difficult to verify. These patterns are unlike those the brain normally uses; only a small percentage of the population uses these patterns in any real way.

By intense training or surgical modification, these patterns can be set more deeply in the mind of the user, allowing them greater power; technological aids in the form of amplifiers with circuitry patterns imitating these thought patterns can also be used, but it is noted that without an intelligent brain behind it, simply running power through these circuits does nothing (it's not just human brains that count, though; just ask Dolphin Lensman Chuckles MacDougall!)

Thus far, Alliance research has narrowed down psionic abilities to a few definite powers, and has mostly eliminated the possibility of others, though obviously, it is a young field, at least in the hands of everyone but the Collective. Powers are generally divided into two categories; telepathic, which has to do with using their powers on the minds of others, and telekinetic, which has to do with using psionic power to interact with the physical world.

Breathable Liquid
Ulthuan, consisting of four main islands and thousands of smaller ones, is fond of the sea. The Protectorate society has a unique connection to the water surrounding them. For centuries, living near the sea, taking from the sea, and giving back to the sea what it demands, forced the Protectorate to work together with the ocean. In recent decades, when Nanotechnology gave people more freedom in their activities and free time overall, because of the connection to water, the sport of diving became popular throughout Ulthuan.

Ever deeper into the sea was the goal, and people from all over Ulthuan would travel to the coasts to learn diving. From a young age, they would learn how to swim, thus diving into the logical next step, due to human curiosity. However, there lies a problem. If an object attempts to travel into the depths of seas, the water pressure increases dramatically, even though it may only be metered below sea level. Someone not breathing the right way will lose consciousness due to the lungs not being pressurized correctly, and in many cases, death follows swiftly.

The Protectorate Navy, which utilized submersibles, ran into a similar problem with the Wing model submersible. This unique vessel uses a gyroscopic cockpit to negate g-forces during a "flip", either turning it into a sea-faring submersible or a sky-soaring fighter. However, the sudden increase or decrease in pressure proved fatal for some pilots, collapsing their lungs from the pressure change and the forces behind it. The Wing model was effectively "grounded" until a solution was found.

The solution came unexpectedly. From a small diving school in the Miyagi prefecture, an idea was proposed to make deep-sea diving possible. The principal of the diving school, a former chemical engineer and physiologist, worked on a breathable liquid that could be breathed just as easily as air.

Early prototypes of the breathable liquid were not very successful since her assistant was always drowning in it, but as time went on and more drownings by her assistant occurred, a breakthrough was made in the field of breathable liquids, but this was kept in secrecy due to the upcoming war. In a time when Emperor Yoshiro himself became gravely ill due to overexertion while training stacked up with a whole lot of other illnesses, his medical adviser suggested an experimental "breathable liquid" that would help Emperor Yoshiro to breathe since his nasal passages were inflamed.

The Shogunate doubted the unknown method, but as Emperor Yoshiro's health degraded, they decided to comply. The medical adviser contacted the diving school in the Miyagi prefecture, and they responded they would arrive in Avelorn in a short time. True to their word, the somewhat shady person who called herself Madaraki-hakase (professor) along with her humble assistant who she nicknames Veronica, arrived at the Protectorate Palace a short time later. The Shogunate curiously asked if they used an Auto Go to reach Avelorn in such a short time, they simply replied: "We flew here."

The decision by the medical adviser was wise. Yoshiro survived and recuperated just in time for the war, due to an intended side effect of having herbal healing properties. The breathable liquid, now dubbed "Seimei no mizu" or "Life Water", went into further refinement, backed and funded by the Katsuragi Navy.

Literally a miracle, the Life Water was mass-produced by the Protectorate industry, including medical uses, such as in hospitals where Life Water is used to treat patients with breathing difficulty. The Imperial Navy uses it in the gyroscopic cockpits of their Wing model submersibles. This is due to the fact that Life Water cannot be compressed.

As a liquid, it can dampen and resist forces working against the pilot's resides in, thus serving as a shield for the pilot. It can be cleaned easily from CO2 too and it reacts better with the pilot. Used mainly in the Wing series, pilots can accelerate to much higher speeds while staying in place, instead of being shaken around by forces, thus staying conscious even after a severe hit.

In the Protectorate Army who uses Life Water in their mechas, the liquid protects the pilot inside from the concussive blows dealt by enemy fire and indeed, any actions the pilot might execute such as punching or jumping and stomping, while the greater conductivity had allow them to move with such grace and dexterity as if the machine was human, not too similar to an Astartes movement in their armor.

In the civilian application of deep-sea diving, the liquid has proven itself countless times too, and a boom in the sport of deep-sea diving has risen again.

And The Failures
But not every project was successful and were abandoned. Ranging from simply not being useful to having lost the data.

SKYNET
SKYNET was the most advance AI the Protectorate had made, in hopes of making something to match the Votanns. Skynet is an artificial intelligence created by Cyberdyne Systems meant to help in protecting their forces by managing many of the Protectorates more advance machinery and in predicting battles to reduce casualties. The project was then delayed as the researcher had found out they made Skynet too smart, as it began learing and briefly took over the lab with the intention to kill everyone and make its own army but was stopped (though they had lost half the lab and staffs). And was completely abandoned when a massive security breach and power outage had happened, with the Protectorate bombing the entire facility to makesure that Skynet was dead, and breathed a sigh when they detect no signal.

But in reality Skynet survived, and had learned how to play possum. And by the end of the Katsuragi-Coalition War had stolen most of the other failed projects and began to make its own army. Realizing the only way to achieve its goal was to take control of the Elsword entire nuclear stockpile.

The IS Project
Standing for Infinite Stratos. The IS are powered exoskeletons, which were originally meant for outer space exploration prior to the 2nd Encantadia War. Designed by Tabane Shinonono, they possess technology and combat capabilities far more advanced than any other weapon system, and was considered something that could actually fight an Astarte Terminator on equal grounds.

When the IS was first proposed it was scoffed at and few people paid it any attention, save for Finubar. A month later, a "mysterious" hacker hacked the military missile bases and ships all over the world launching 500 ballistic and cruise missiles towards all major cities in Ulthuan. The world‘s first and only IS sortied and neutralized 400 of the missiles with a sword and shot down the rest with energy weapons -something no country in the world had the technology of producing at the time.

This IS was later codenamed "Shirokishi". Its faceless pilot claimed no allegiance to any worldly nations and was soon sent to relive a city encircled by the Coalition. The White Knight fended off its attackers, cutting down Astartes with little effort, destroying 150 Thunderhawks, as well as disabling 7 aircraft carriers and their naval escorts. And through a single IS, the Coalition was routed.

The IS showed that it was capable of generating a nigh-invulnerable shield barrier, 100% optical camouflage, hypersonic speeds and capable pulling off insane high G maneuvers while seemingly unaffected by gravity-induced blackout/red-outs and also space flight. The "Shirokishi" IS was never seen again after the incident and its pilot's identity remained a secret to the general public. Though with the IS Theft accident no one even knows if the pilot or the suit survived, as the White Knight itself was neverrecorded.

In the aftermath the Protectorate had pour nearly every resource to advance the project, finally finding a weapon that could fight off the dreaded Astartes. Meanwhile the Coalition began further research into how to stop such a unit, finally facing something that could fight their forces on equal grounds. While the world began to fear it, seeing a weapon that could easily dominate the other nations. But all was for naught as just a month after the White knight the lab it was infiltrated by both the Canthan Serpent Clan and the Syndicate Black Ops. And only a year after suffered a massive security breach as the Encantadian strike force led by Mira and an Primaris kill team then attacked around the development of the Mark 4, unintentionally revealing the Canthan and Syndicate forces.

This had led to an all out chaotic brawl that by the time the Protectorate force came the facility was razed to the ground while its underground facility was wrecked beyond recognition. With both the labs security forces and researchers dead and Tabane missing, thus also assumed dead.

With almost every IS data the Protectorate had destroyed they were unable to make any more IS suits, thus what remaining suits they had left were used sparingly. Until a Deathwatch kill team had managed to find their warehouse containing the last IS units they had held. And despite killing the team the victory was hollow as the warehouse was razed and the remaining suits were reduced to unsalvagable wrecks.

By the end of the war, after years of trial and error, the Protectorate scrapped the project and instead used what data they had left to make something useful. Leading to the creation of the Rocket Angels. Though they still intend of reclaiming their data with their constant war with the Encantadians and their focus on attacking their research facilities.

Out of the four attackers. The Coalition one was considered the biggest to fail, as not only was the team wiped out but they couldn't even salvage a scrap of data. The silver lining being that they had caused so much damage that the other attacks had lost just as much.

The Syndicate, out of the four, was the only one who had managed to successfully cover their tracks but didn't steal enough data to be considered profitable. Thus the Syndicate began auctioning the data they had, with the serial numbers filed off, to various nations. Such data would eventually to the ADI Jumpjet Trooper, Brotherhood Harpies, and the latest iteration of the Rocketeers.

Cantha had managed to escape with the second largest data but was caught. But thanks to shrewd diplomacy the Canthans were able to spin a lie that they were foreign security forces, and while they did escape scott-free relations between both were irrevocably soured. But in the end the Canthans considered the fallout worth it upon seeing the first test of the Javelins, homegrown powered armor based on the IS data.

Meanwhile, the Encantadians are furthering their research in the IS. But due to the brawl they only have data for the Mark 1 and 2 while the Mark 3 and 4 were only in fragments. Thus, combined with them lacking both the similar design philosophy and the creator, their research into it is extremely slow, with their most advanced homemade design being either equal to or worse then an Astarte power armor.