Fitted to a series of incredibly powerful radio arrays capable of breaking through the massive M-particle storms that often ravaged earth, Radio Lunar was the first part of an attempt by the Lunari government to restore the prestige it had lost with the failure of the Diana Counter Convention and the various scandals that had struck it over the course of the year. The broadcast, able to be heard as far away as earth. The spread of Spacian culture to earth listeners, and news reports from a Lunari source across space, granting much international prestige, which worked along side the increasing extension of Lunari policy into side 3 and the reestablishment of influence there.
This prestige would certainly be needed however, as other things were happening on Earth.
The Seraphim were actively expanding this quarter, with the Axis beginning to build a series of daughter fortresses around earth orbits as they expanded their military footprint. The most impactful however was the Seraphim build up in Madagascar.
Madagascar had always been one of the quietest areas of Africa. It had not really cohered back into a coherent state since the Cataclysm and mostly seemed to be a series of squabbling liberal monarchies ruling the cities, while most of the island was sparsely inhabited and full of many distinct kinds of lemurs rather than humans.
The Seraphim agents came in the way that Seraphim agents always came. Openly, with smiles, and gifts, and technology, and tales of what once had been. There had been small Madagascar parties in most of the various enclaves, and the Seraphim funded them, supplied them with newspapers and support, and stood behind them when they spoke to leaders.
There were some of course who resisted. Perhaps they expected to die in return for their resistance, but instead they were bypassed, or brought off, finding their hearts desire granted. A few retired abruptly and set to living quiet, unassuming but luxurious lives on pensions provided by Seraphim foundations.
Most people however welcomed the strange women from the sky. What had they ever done to cause them to do otherwise? Every rainy season there had been plague, and the mosquito sickness. This season nobody died. Children grew up healthy. It was a strange wonder. Of course they accepted the Seraphim.
By the end of September, plebiscites had been held across the island for the formation of Madagascar as a constitutional monarchy to be ruled by a young queen with lower levels of the government run along a mix of Socialist and Republican principles. In space, the Lemur had become an increasingly popular pet.
As war accelerated on earth, the powers continued to try to plunder the nearby ruins for ways to fight it. With the increasingly advanced techniques available to them, these efforts proved very successful, though perhaps not as much as quarter 2, where many sites that had previously been left alone were plundered. In America, Canmexico's exploration of the Sahiyan Vault found that there was vastly more vault to go. As well as various ancient orbital tracking systems and dead command links they were able to find a garrison of around 12 B-types, apparently abandoned and in perfect condition.
Ruins in Amazon territory yielded perhaps better results for the joint Canmexican/Jaburan/Church expedition, more than three score mobile suits each bearing the distinctive face of an A-type. Initial excitement was short lived however as it became clear these were merely visually modified E-flats built around a fierce face. However the site was attacked before they could be fully retrieved, leaving both sides to fight over them.
Siberia meantime experienced its first disaster. Either because of Astarti raiders or the dangers of the zone, one expedition into the Urals was lost without a trace. Better news came from the area around the Grave of the Bears however, where airborne troops located what the King of Knives had been attacking, an ancient bomb shelter city. Initial finds were modest, only 18 B-types that had been protecting the entrance, but the complex likely held many secrets.
Ethiopia had a large components find at home, but no actual suits, in America, their expedition team found a wrecked starship but were driven off by attack by pale, vampiric cyborg horrors before it could be salvaged.
The Papacy also made an interesting find in Norfolk Naval Station, but suffered painful casualties for it. The base held more than a dozen whale like submersibles and various amphibious suits, but the exploration team was forced to retreat before they could gain access when they were attacked by a pair of autonomous E-type mobile suits with advanced backpack units, and a pack of four legged walker dolls supporting them.
Perhaps the most successful was Jaburo, managing to find another A-minor, though one so heavily damaged that it would take orbital technology to rebuild it, along with a huge store of mobile suits so junked they could only become components.
Algeria also had a set of relatively prosaic finds in its normal ruins, salvaging several large component caches from the mountains and sea floor, and a squad of ten RB types in a probe into the English fallow zone. The real find was on the moon however, where they discovered a large Counter Civilization base containing a battleship, a pair of cruisers and various freight craft, as well as forty E-flat space types and a dwarfish experimental frame, (HG type).
A Lily Kingdom expedition into England found another B-type civil defence vault, with 18 B high-mobility types in perfect condition. Despite lights following them they were not attacked. Under the Lily Kingdom's old palace, they found something stranger, a Lone E-major type bearing the words "To the strongest" in old french. The suit appear+ed very powerful, but was locked down and would not respond to pilot input.
Perhaps the most Alarming European find is in the Two Sea's region. After a frustrating expedition into the Russian fallow zone, the dejected governate forces, having recently heard of the surrender decided to stop and enjoy a Black Sea beach before returning home. This caused their magnetic anomaly detector, a Juno-provided Spacian type, to fire, and they located a large submarine on the bottom.
As they approached, the team on the shore noticed large numbers of insects arriving in the trees and grasses around the bay. When they explored the submarine, they found it was a mobile suit carrier in good condition. In addition to a K-type and a W-type, two suits hung in the cradles, both A-minors with worrying black paint schemes bearing their names in runes:
Jack of Flies
Duke of Whispers
The find did not go unnoticed, and both Axis and Seraphim forces were alerted by the psychic emanations of the two lesser apocalypse machines.
In orbit, Pallas persisted in salvaging colony end caps, to less stellar result than last turn. They did find a counter civilization cruiser however, and aboard it, a pair of E-majors fitted with additional space thrusters and heavy weapons. One also seemed to carry an advanced computer system which could link in with MMI systems. A second mission to the same area did better, discovering six cruisers with unusually large engine assemblys (fast cruisers) carrying a number of Type-2s refitted with numerous additional thruster packs (Type-2 boost types), 26 in all.
At the Montauk facility, the pickings on the next open floor were more slim than the first, though perhaps more interesting. A set of six transformable flying mobile suits, the GS-type, apparently being fitted for some kind of experimental upgrade which might rest deeper in the vault.
Lunar, meantime, added more suits to its industry. Salvagers on the moon found an ancient battlefield with more than a hundred Type-1s and Type-Bs clutched together in death, most of them heavily damaged but perhaps repairable. At area 51 they located a large number of F-types, and several more advanced RF-types, all of which had been fitted with additional stealth features. In the lower levels of the base they found a set of intact data systems which alerted them to an apparent old counter civilization base near Venus, which was still, somehow, actively sending telemetry despite the M-particle storms.
The League of Cities spent much time building up its scavenger teams this month, talking of their bravery and skill, and propagandising the ancient weapons they would surely win to turn the tide of the war. Using almost exclusively ruins outside their own borders, the Godists were able to find notable success, finding two large groups of E-flat -types, totalling 38 in all, with 4 being a novel model equipped with a large laser communications backpack and additional thrusters (the E-flat command type).
Applegate maintained a long-running study of the orbital elevators. Investigation into the Singaporean elevator base yielded not much of historical value yet, but did yield suits, A large vault with twenty eight RB types, each with individual and distinctive livery was discovered in the upper portions of the base. Applegate also made progress, along with the Freehold, in reactivating the African spires reinforcements, and discovered several niches containing 9 B frame runner types with dead AI systems.
Material concerns united the vying Cold League factions, who could agree on at least one necessity: more expeditions. Hard Liners in England, on the run from the Lilian authorities, found an old defence bunker complex, with three squadron of thirty six suits still in their launch silos. They were mostly old, E-flat and BB types, but included a number of strange variants and backpack designs. In the same base was a single T+ type with additional custom fittings and assault packs.
The really large find however was in the Cold League itself. The militia got into several shootouts with claim jumpers from the League of Free Cities and even various orbital firms, but one such ended up revealing something amazing… though perhaps not for a state in a civil war. In a vault in Sweden were three squadrons of Saab Karl Gustav mobile suits along with a single Saab suit of unknown type, labelled a Grippen. This suit appeared to be closely related to an E or E major, but built with manoeuvrability in numerous additional vernier engines and control surfaces.
The Freehold mounted another expedition to Peru with massive force. Despite the deployment, the expedition turned out to be somewhat ill-fated. A large underground military structure was found, but before it could be looted the expedition was attacked by a seemingly endless flow of automated Type-0s, forcing them to withdraw as they ran low on ammunition.
As well as the Applegate find, back home Freehold was able to salvage a massive component hall from a repair bunker near the cable. Another vault held a burned out defence computer which might reactivate the cables defences if it could be replaced.
In the Russian Fallow Zone, Astarti special forces took time out to grab a squadron of 12 Type B-high mobility types as they continued to hunt Siberian salvagers.
In India, the investigation of the old bunker fortresses yielded a large number (40) of the ancient Type-0 suits. China made a similar find, salvaging 20 B-types from an ancient civil defence structure. However it was the joint expedition with the Federation to the Vietnam fallow zone that gave the socialist powers of Asia their most interesting find. At home, the Federation found only a few additional W types, six in all, but in Vietnam, the three powers stumbled over a very intact ancient structure deep in the jungle.
This structure, apparently some kind of very deep command bunker, was filled with a plethora of suits of a previously unknown type. Eventually dubbed Nulls by the multi-national team's scientists, they seemed to have a separate design lineage from either Spacian or Counter Civilization suits. They were equipped with high speed magnetic transit systems that gave them a very high ground speed, and armed with electromagnetic weapons quite different from the beam weapons more commonly used by both sides of the war. The suits were all marked with a vaguely feminine figure of fire as their symbol.
Whatever their origin these were a mix of types, the Null-As were a high speed rapid response suit while the Null-Bs were a limited production command version of the same thing.
The CSR meantime discovered ten, X-types in its internal ruins, but its Fallow Zone team was attacked by autonomous weapons and saved only by the intervention of Astarti special forces.
The Axis Seraphim were also ruin diving as they sought to defend the earth from ruins. The small hypocrisy of this was put aside by the finding of over forty B-types fitted with first generation mobile doll systems, And a pair of badly damaged E-majors near the body of a junked A-minor in the Russian fallow zone.
Mysterious comings and goings were reported as well. An unknown group explored Manch Picchu, and found a pair of large atmospheric aircraft full of upgraded BB type mobile suits with flight packs and various additional weapons. This wasn't truly worth either groups time, but the massive transport aircrafts allowed for useful stealthy movement, at least if you could avoid the Axis satellite network. The unknowns also dug around in Spain, and pulled out a small group of C-type mobile suits, all damaged.
Spain meanwhile found a large vault of mobile suits in extensive ruins, liberating more than forty B-types with desert upgrades and additional mobility systems.
In orbit, Anlscar was able to salvage an ancient space carrier near L2, the vessel was very large, and carried more than 60 Type-1s and type 1 cannons in its cavernous holds, though all were of a very old type, perhaps from decades before the cataclysm and would require extensive repair.
The sleepy Royal Republic also made a large find, discovering a massive vault full of upgraded E-flat and C ground variants, mostly adapted to local conditions, and a dozen BB flight types.
The Seraphim also plumbed Algeria's ruins with Amazonian assistance, and found another ancient Seraphim cache, gaining control of three dozen Type-1 with additional A and quasi-psychom control systems. An expedition to the Peru Zone also yielded results, with the discovery of a trio of wrecked orbital descent frames of the Viggan type still in the remains of their assault carrier.
In another cash in Amazonia, the Seraphim also unearthed a number of special operations suits similar to those already being used by the Astarti and Juno. The SAAS-Rattler is a drop variant of the SAAS line special operations suits, relatively small and low signature but extremely heavily armed and agile and with various active protection measures. Forty Three were found in all.
ZOLON mounted its own expedition with more than thirty orbital descent frames to drop near the area once called "Evil Mountain." The forces' heavy firepower proved needed however as they were immediately attacked by swarming automated weapons and forced to retreat after only discovering that evil mountain itself did hold an ancient base, but were unable to gain access due to heavy opposition.
By far the greatest finds however were in the Alpine Imperiate and Amazonia however. Alpine archeologists were able to discover one of the largest vault complexes yet, a vast marble lined vault labelled "Resting place of the sleeping legion." inside were one hundred and fifty four ornately liveried B-types, and seventy equally ornate BBs all in mint condition and painted with the arms of an ancient army. In a nearby vault, a second great mass of mobile weapons was discovered. These appeared to be mostly Type-0s and Long Faces as recovered in South America, accompanied by a previously unknown type of mobile suit. Unfortunately this appeared to be even lower performance than the standard-B, perhaps an earlier model, though it existed in several interesting variants, including sniper and cannon types. It was dubbed the B-flat by technicians. A total of 114 long faces and 111 Type-0s were discovered, with broadly similiar performance, along with 210 B-flats.
The find in the English fallow zone was smaller but still useful, a pair of E-majors, both high altitude fighter types.
Amazonia also made a substantial find, in a forgotten chamber in the great military fortress that lay under the land, they discovered a small army of equipment, including four X-types and eighty seven E-minus types, and five jungle E-types, which could perhaps be made ready to the much anticipated Amazonian counter offensive.
De la terre elle monte au Ciel; & puis en terre,
