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Phantasm Arm Ballad - Not a suspicious advertisement for a shady PMC
- Thread starter Ford Prefect
- Start date
- Storybuilding
Equipment: M1 Garland
- Location
- The Hague
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I, Garland, will shoot you all down
The M1 Garland is a semi-automatic rifle chambered in 7.62x68mm Summervale that came into general use in December 1933. While not the first autoloading rifle of its kind, it was the most capable of its time and served as the standard-issue infantry weapon of several states that would go on to form the SEU. Due to this the M1 has acquired a storied reputation, so much so that it has been called the sword of the union.
One of the many '30 cals from the 30s,' the M1 is a gas-operated semi-automatic rifle loading 8-rounds in an en bloc clip. At a time when most service rifles had 5-round magazines fed by stripper clips and operated by bolt action the Garland was both novel and highly advantaged: even skilled users of the panjagan technique or equivalent, capable of reaching or exceeding 30 rounds per minute without magic, could not match the Garland, which could comfortably achieve 40-50 rounds per minute.
7.62x68mm was an exceptionally capable round for the period and at least in terms of raw power still compares well with contemporary, non-HV full power cartridges. Developed at a time when long range shooting was the norm for infantry and steel armoured mages were a real threat, 7.62 Summervale combined good accuracy out to nearly 1000m, with some loadings achieving muzzle velocities of 890m/s.
While not without its disadvantages--the Garland was heavier than most of its contemporaries, more expensive, more complicated to convert to sniping duties--it was touted as the most advanced rifle of its time for good reason. The exceptional stopping power of 7.62 Summervale and the Garland's relatively high rate of fire, including its much lower shot-to-shot recovery time, combined to result in a rifle that put out far more effective firepower than any prior rifle in any known world-line. Once it was introduced it changed the direction of weapons design forever, with Velka developing an equivalent, though without many of the Garland's unique quirks, in early 1935.
While most M1s were produced by Summervale or other licenced armouries, the original design was produced by Nuada Ballad, husband to then family head Solveig Ballad, apocryphally as part of his hobby. In reality it was a collaboration with Summervale as part of a goodwill exchange, and Nuada, the descendent of a workshop that produced hunting rifles, was contracted to participate in the process of designing a new weapon. This connection is not widely known in the modern day, though there is evidence from the period that at least in Magnastreo the rifle was sometimes called the 'M1 Ballad.'
Two million Garland rifles were produced each year from 1932 to 1955, and derivations saw further use in SEU member states through to at least the late 60s. The proliferation of the original pattern means that 7.62 Summervale is still in normal production, and the Garland is popular among civilian shooting enthusiasts. They are so common that military surplus programs will sell a refurbished M1, fully integrated into the CCS, for as little as 300 SEU dollars (equivalent to roughly 70,000 yen).
Due to its historical association with the Ballad family, the M1 is in-use by Pantheon House and is the source of their particular model numbering scheme. For the most part there are just for ceremonial purposes, in case the company is called upon for parade purposes. However COO Delphine Ballad favours the weapon and has one that has been hand-tooled for a HVAP conversion of 7.62 Summervale that is so overpressured that it rivals the 8.6mm rounds loaded in Pantheon's M3 GPMG, even before accounting for custom charms.
As might be expected the Garland makes a rather satisfying ping when the clip is emptied. It celebrates its 90th anniversary today.
The M1 Garland is a semi-automatic rifle chambered in 7.62x68mm Summervale that came into general use in December 1933. While not the first autoloading rifle of its kind, it was the most capable of its time and served as the standard-issue infantry weapon of several states that would go on to form the SEU. Due to this the M1 has acquired a storied reputation, so much so that it has been called the sword of the union.
One of the many '30 cals from the 30s,' the M1 is a gas-operated semi-automatic rifle loading 8-rounds in an en bloc clip. At a time when most service rifles had 5-round magazines fed by stripper clips and operated by bolt action the Garland was both novel and highly advantaged: even skilled users of the panjagan technique or equivalent, capable of reaching or exceeding 30 rounds per minute without magic, could not match the Garland, which could comfortably achieve 40-50 rounds per minute.
7.62x68mm was an exceptionally capable round for the period and at least in terms of raw power still compares well with contemporary, non-HV full power cartridges. Developed at a time when long range shooting was the norm for infantry and steel armoured mages were a real threat, 7.62 Summervale combined good accuracy out to nearly 1000m, with some loadings achieving muzzle velocities of 890m/s.
While not without its disadvantages--the Garland was heavier than most of its contemporaries, more expensive, more complicated to convert to sniping duties--it was touted as the most advanced rifle of its time for good reason. The exceptional stopping power of 7.62 Summervale and the Garland's relatively high rate of fire, including its much lower shot-to-shot recovery time, combined to result in a rifle that put out far more effective firepower than any prior rifle in any known world-line. Once it was introduced it changed the direction of weapons design forever, with Velka developing an equivalent, though without many of the Garland's unique quirks, in early 1935.
While most M1s were produced by Summervale or other licenced armouries, the original design was produced by Nuada Ballad, husband to then family head Solveig Ballad, apocryphally as part of his hobby. In reality it was a collaboration with Summervale as part of a goodwill exchange, and Nuada, the descendent of a workshop that produced hunting rifles, was contracted to participate in the process of designing a new weapon. This connection is not widely known in the modern day, though there is evidence from the period that at least in Magnastreo the rifle was sometimes called the 'M1 Ballad.'
Two million Garland rifles were produced each year from 1932 to 1955, and derivations saw further use in SEU member states through to at least the late 60s. The proliferation of the original pattern means that 7.62 Summervale is still in normal production, and the Garland is popular among civilian shooting enthusiasts. They are so common that military surplus programs will sell a refurbished M1, fully integrated into the CCS, for as little as 300 SEU dollars (equivalent to roughly 70,000 yen).
Due to its historical association with the Ballad family, the M1 is in-use by Pantheon House and is the source of their particular model numbering scheme. For the most part there are just for ceremonial purposes, in case the company is called upon for parade purposes. However COO Delphine Ballad favours the weapon and has one that has been hand-tooled for a HVAP conversion of 7.62 Summervale that is so overpressured that it rivals the 8.6mm rounds loaded in Pantheon's M3 GPMG, even before accounting for custom charms.
As might be expected the Garland makes a rather satisfying ping when the clip is emptied. It celebrates its 90th anniversary today.
Last edited:
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
Yay, it makes the sound!
A Message From Our Sponsors: Nasara Aerospace Corporation of Anea
- Location
- The Hague
- Pronouns
- He/Him
x xx xxx xx xIF THERE WERE NO
HYPERSONIC GLIDE VEHICLES,
ORBITAL MISSILE PLATFORMS,
GROWLER ANTI AIR LASERS,
YOU WOULDN'T NEED
THE AVF-22
But these threats do exist,
and the AVF-22 is the only
D.D.D. that can effectively
counter them ... and thrive.
NASARA AEROSPACE CORPORATION OF ANEA
Nasara. True air dominance.
HYPERSONIC GLIDE VEHICLES,
ORBITAL MISSILE PLATFORMS,
GROWLER ANTI AIR LASERS,
YOU WOULDN'T NEED
THE AVF-22
But these threats do exist,
and the AVF-22 is the only
D.D.D. that can effectively
counter them ... and thrive.
NASARA AEROSPACE CORPORATION OF ANEA
Nasara. True air dominance.
- Location
- in the trash
but can it shoot down said orbital missile platforms?
- Location
- The Hague
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Sure can, there's a whole bunch of ASAT spells similar to the Freikugel that appeared in RECORD BREAKER.
Equipment: LCVA-X1 Morning Star
- Location
- The Hague
- Pronouns
- He/Him
A killing light
The mobile assault carrier Morning Star (LCVA-X1) is a prototype nuclear powered interdimensional-capable stealth amphibious assault airship in service with the PMC Pantheon House. It serves as the flagship of Carrier Strike Group Solar Wind, Pantheon House's small fleet of airships and acts as a theatre-level mobile command post and primary base of fire during large scale deployments. It is widely considered one of the most advanced privately owned combat airships in Layered.
Like all Pantheon House airships the Morning Star was named based on a prophecy generated by the company's oracle, and was commissioned in June of 2016. It is the PMC's second flagship, replacing the aerial supercarrier CVA-01 Arsenal Theatre which was destroyed during the Beautiful Erasure Incident. Originally its hull was laid down in 2010 as an advanced hull demonstrator intended for submission to the SEU's Joint Next Generation Air Warfare Deterrence Program. As this project sought to develop a new model of ballistic missile platform it was conducted under high levels of information cleanliness and was required to be built in isolation, in this case at then experimental FOB Last Garden.
Because of this secrecy the hull was untouched, however the events of Beautiful Erasure meant it was unsubmitted and remained in Pantheon's hands. It was later repurposed as the foundation for Arsenal Theatre's replacement: designed to carry ballistic missiles it was sufficiently large to act as a carrier, along with valuable characteristics such as being submersible and having a small radar cross-section. When Delphine Ballad was installed as COO she changed the project's direction to better reflect her vision for the business. It would supplement the force projection of the aging assault ship Lunar Phase (LHDA-04) while also having direct combat firepower equivalent to the cruiser Twilight Crown (CAA-02), which would be difficult to crew given Pantheon's depleted state. These goals would be achieved at a cost of over 14 billion dollars.
Over 350m in length and massing 108,000 tons at full load, the Morning Star is powered by two Alice Electric AE1-2000C palladium reactors with a peak output of 2100MW each. It is levitated by 18 West Meridian FR-GGC-8000 Super-Heavy Gravity Cancellers, and can be lofted to as much as 5.6km. Primary propulsion is provided by two licenced reproductions of the NASCA AN/AGN-1200 MPD arcjet, highly customised and drawing 750,000 horsepower each. The Morning Star's observed aerial flank speed is above 120 knots.
To facilitate travel between world lines the Morning Star uses an entirely proprietary dimensional engine designed as part of Pantheon House's 'Vanisher series.' Its performance is within expected norms, though it is known to be capable of manipulating cross-dimension temporal decompression, seemingly hanging in the beyond until an opportune moment to appear. This is a characteristic mostly associated with first tier state militaries and rarely available as a commercial product.
As the Morning Star was originally developed as a ballistic missile airship it is submersible and capable of operating underwater. As Pantheon House does not publish or advertise the vessel's undersea performance observers have been left to speculate: based on its visual appearance and the performance of its main arcjets it is thought to be a fairly capable submarine with a submerged speed of 40-50 knots. Given past SEU requirements for ballistic missile airships its test depth is likely to be around 500m. It is thought to possess several novel technologies developed by its designer Sanne Juutilainen.
Command and control is facilitated by an extensive suite of advanced electronic systems, including a mirror of the Predictive State Collapsing Near-Future Recorder PANTHEON. Its clairvoyance systems were produced entirely in-house and include the extremely powerful PH/SVX Omniscience volume search array, which is believed to have similar performance to the new AESA clairvoyance arrays being installed on current BMD capable airships in Anea. Other systems include the PH/SVA-4 Prescience for air search clairvoyance, the PH/SRR-9 Collimation fire direction system, and the PH/SVM-1180 Ground Search Clairvoyance, though the latter system's anti-clutter pattern recognition is currently the subject of a lawsuit by Fantoma Instrumentality. With augmentation from its complement of UAVs and its air wing, the Morning Star has sufficient sensor processing capability to achieve the total battlespace awareness concept and on its own can establish complete air-sea control over a small country.
As the Morning Star was intended to make up for the operational loss of the guided missile cruiser Twilight Crown and is heavily armed with a Pallas capable integrated weapons system, and can carry out anti-airship direct fire, anti-ship, anti-satellite, ballistic missile defence, land attack and fire support missions. Its main armament consists of 256 VLS cells in the 550mm class, supplemented by 18 heavy launchers capable of firing ship-based ballistic missiles or hypersonic glide vehicles. Direct fire armament consists of 4000mm coherent plasma beam projectors and two 120mm linear mortar indirect fire arrays. Defensive armament includes eight coordinated quartz crystal lens anti-air lasers, 36 air defence missile launchers and four CIWS emplacements positioned around the sail superstructure as a last line of defence. The Morning Star possesses a Reflecga Active Protection Spell which produces a temporary barrier. It is also considered nuclear sharing ready, though Pantheon House is not part of any such programs currently.
As a carrier the Morning Star has a dedicated air wing consisting of conventional air craft and raisers. Its conventional aircraft includes the 18 Super Sylphid multi-role fighters of Tactical Fighter Squadron 11 ('the Sundowners') and Electromagnetic Attack Squadron 44 ('the White Wolves'), the carrier borne AWACS Skyline and AWACS Stratosphere, and at least six rotary wing aircraft of various types. Its native raiser complement consists of Tactical Raiser Squadron II 'Immanent', Tactical Raiser Squadron VI 'Flawless' and Strike Raiser Squadron I 'Relentless', though as the footprint of a raiser is essentially the same as a normal person it typically carries twice this number drawn from other Pantheon House units and can essentially every raiser in the company. Typically when Delphine Ballad's Air Dominance Squadron 'Limitless' deploys it does so from the Morning Star. Like all modern carriers the Morning Star utilises inertial catapults.
As an assault ship the Morning Star is capable of deploying and supporting ground forces, able to deliver an expeditionary unit and its vehicles to the battlefield. This makes it capable of carrying nearly two thirds of Pantheon House's combat division depending on the configuration, a more than 50% improvement over the Lunar Phase. It has facilities to support these missions including a field hospital sufficient for disaster relief missions and onboard manufacturing including alchemical printers. In many respects it replicates the capabilities of Last Garden on a smaller scale (and reportedly not as comfortably).
As a rule the Morning Star is commanded by Solar Wind division chief and long time Ballad family friend Sadri Mehr. A veteran aerial warfare commander, he is the only person in the company currently capable of bringing out the full potential of the Morning Star, though he is personally mentoring Sanne Juutilainen with a view to having her command the ship in future. As he was a relatively recent hire by Delphine his abilities are not well known by other employees, but for airship commanders in state militaries, hearing that Sadri works for Pantheon House usually involves choking on their coffee followed by saying the Grand Master!?
The Morning Star was the first military airship to visit our world line, participating in RIMPAC 2018 alongside its full strike group as goodwill outreach from the SEU. It variously participated in live fire exercises, engaged in Aegis-Pallas interaction experiments, and acted as an aggressor force. Reportedly the short notice inclusion of a flying battleship from another dimension caused considerable stress for Chilean Navy officers, who were leading the exercise, though in practice they managed the event with what SEU observers called exemplary professionalism and flexibility. For essentially every country in the world outside of Japan this made the Morning Star their first look of Layered's military power.
Morning Star's advanced capabilities come at at a high price, literally: deployments of the airship can cost the company millions of dollars per day, while the cost of rearming the vessel following combat against a peer opponent would exceed 2 billion dollars. Commentators believe that it would also be irreplaceable in the event of its destruction, as its highly advanced hull was produced with financial assistance from the SEU and its later acquisition by Pantheon House was largely due to chance. Regardless it is well reputed as the impenetrable castle of the Demon Lord. Its SINCS codename is Fortress.
The mobile assault carrier Morning Star (LCVA-X1) is a prototype nuclear powered interdimensional-capable stealth amphibious assault airship in service with the PMC Pantheon House. It serves as the flagship of Carrier Strike Group Solar Wind, Pantheon House's small fleet of airships and acts as a theatre-level mobile command post and primary base of fire during large scale deployments. It is widely considered one of the most advanced privately owned combat airships in Layered.
Like all Pantheon House airships the Morning Star was named based on a prophecy generated by the company's oracle, and was commissioned in June of 2016. It is the PMC's second flagship, replacing the aerial supercarrier CVA-01 Arsenal Theatre which was destroyed during the Beautiful Erasure Incident. Originally its hull was laid down in 2010 as an advanced hull demonstrator intended for submission to the SEU's Joint Next Generation Air Warfare Deterrence Program. As this project sought to develop a new model of ballistic missile platform it was conducted under high levels of information cleanliness and was required to be built in isolation, in this case at then experimental FOB Last Garden.
Because of this secrecy the hull was untouched, however the events of Beautiful Erasure meant it was unsubmitted and remained in Pantheon's hands. It was later repurposed as the foundation for Arsenal Theatre's replacement: designed to carry ballistic missiles it was sufficiently large to act as a carrier, along with valuable characteristics such as being submersible and having a small radar cross-section. When Delphine Ballad was installed as COO she changed the project's direction to better reflect her vision for the business. It would supplement the force projection of the aging assault ship Lunar Phase (LHDA-04) while also having direct combat firepower equivalent to the cruiser Twilight Crown (CAA-02), which would be difficult to crew given Pantheon's depleted state. These goals would be achieved at a cost of over 14 billion dollars.
Over 350m in length and massing 108,000 tons at full load, the Morning Star is powered by two Alice Electric AE1-2000C palladium reactors with a peak output of 2100MW each. It is levitated by 18 West Meridian FR-GGC-8000 Super-Heavy Gravity Cancellers, and can be lofted to as much as 5.6km. Primary propulsion is provided by two licenced reproductions of the NASCA AN/AGN-1200 MPD arcjet, highly customised and drawing 750,000 horsepower each. The Morning Star's observed aerial flank speed is above 120 knots.
To facilitate travel between world lines the Morning Star uses an entirely proprietary dimensional engine designed as part of Pantheon House's 'Vanisher series.' Its performance is within expected norms, though it is known to be capable of manipulating cross-dimension temporal decompression, seemingly hanging in the beyond until an opportune moment to appear. This is a characteristic mostly associated with first tier state militaries and rarely available as a commercial product.
As the Morning Star was originally developed as a ballistic missile airship it is submersible and capable of operating underwater. As Pantheon House does not publish or advertise the vessel's undersea performance observers have been left to speculate: based on its visual appearance and the performance of its main arcjets it is thought to be a fairly capable submarine with a submerged speed of 40-50 knots. Given past SEU requirements for ballistic missile airships its test depth is likely to be around 500m. It is thought to possess several novel technologies developed by its designer Sanne Juutilainen.
Command and control is facilitated by an extensive suite of advanced electronic systems, including a mirror of the Predictive State Collapsing Near-Future Recorder PANTHEON. Its clairvoyance systems were produced entirely in-house and include the extremely powerful PH/SVX Omniscience volume search array, which is believed to have similar performance to the new AESA clairvoyance arrays being installed on current BMD capable airships in Anea. Other systems include the PH/SVA-4 Prescience for air search clairvoyance, the PH/SRR-9 Collimation fire direction system, and the PH/SVM-1180 Ground Search Clairvoyance, though the latter system's anti-clutter pattern recognition is currently the subject of a lawsuit by Fantoma Instrumentality. With augmentation from its complement of UAVs and its air wing, the Morning Star has sufficient sensor processing capability to achieve the total battlespace awareness concept and on its own can establish complete air-sea control over a small country.
As the Morning Star was intended to make up for the operational loss of the guided missile cruiser Twilight Crown and is heavily armed with a Pallas capable integrated weapons system, and can carry out anti-airship direct fire, anti-ship, anti-satellite, ballistic missile defence, land attack and fire support missions. Its main armament consists of 256 VLS cells in the 550mm class, supplemented by 18 heavy launchers capable of firing ship-based ballistic missiles or hypersonic glide vehicles. Direct fire armament consists of 4000mm coherent plasma beam projectors and two 120mm linear mortar indirect fire arrays. Defensive armament includes eight coordinated quartz crystal lens anti-air lasers, 36 air defence missile launchers and four CIWS emplacements positioned around the sail superstructure as a last line of defence. The Morning Star possesses a Reflecga Active Protection Spell which produces a temporary barrier. It is also considered nuclear sharing ready, though Pantheon House is not part of any such programs currently.
As a carrier the Morning Star has a dedicated air wing consisting of conventional air craft and raisers. Its conventional aircraft includes the 18 Super Sylphid multi-role fighters of Tactical Fighter Squadron 11 ('the Sundowners') and Electromagnetic Attack Squadron 44 ('the White Wolves'), the carrier borne AWACS Skyline and AWACS Stratosphere, and at least six rotary wing aircraft of various types. Its native raiser complement consists of Tactical Raiser Squadron II 'Immanent', Tactical Raiser Squadron VI 'Flawless' and Strike Raiser Squadron I 'Relentless', though as the footprint of a raiser is essentially the same as a normal person it typically carries twice this number drawn from other Pantheon House units and can essentially every raiser in the company. Typically when Delphine Ballad's Air Dominance Squadron 'Limitless' deploys it does so from the Morning Star. Like all modern carriers the Morning Star utilises inertial catapults.
As an assault ship the Morning Star is capable of deploying and supporting ground forces, able to deliver an expeditionary unit and its vehicles to the battlefield. This makes it capable of carrying nearly two thirds of Pantheon House's combat division depending on the configuration, a more than 50% improvement over the Lunar Phase. It has facilities to support these missions including a field hospital sufficient for disaster relief missions and onboard manufacturing including alchemical printers. In many respects it replicates the capabilities of Last Garden on a smaller scale (and reportedly not as comfortably).
As a rule the Morning Star is commanded by Solar Wind division chief and long time Ballad family friend Sadri Mehr. A veteran aerial warfare commander, he is the only person in the company currently capable of bringing out the full potential of the Morning Star, though he is personally mentoring Sanne Juutilainen with a view to having her command the ship in future. As he was a relatively recent hire by Delphine his abilities are not well known by other employees, but for airship commanders in state militaries, hearing that Sadri works for Pantheon House usually involves choking on their coffee followed by saying the Grand Master!?
The Morning Star was the first military airship to visit our world line, participating in RIMPAC 2018 alongside its full strike group as goodwill outreach from the SEU. It variously participated in live fire exercises, engaged in Aegis-Pallas interaction experiments, and acted as an aggressor force. Reportedly the short notice inclusion of a flying battleship from another dimension caused considerable stress for Chilean Navy officers, who were leading the exercise, though in practice they managed the event with what SEU observers called exemplary professionalism and flexibility. For essentially every country in the world outside of Japan this made the Morning Star their first look of Layered's military power.
Morning Star's advanced capabilities come at at a high price, literally: deployments of the airship can cost the company millions of dollars per day, while the cost of rearming the vessel following combat against a peer opponent would exceed 2 billion dollars. Commentators believe that it would also be irreplaceable in the event of its destruction, as its highly advanced hull was produced with financial assistance from the SEU and its later acquisition by Pantheon House was largely due to chance. Regardless it is well reputed as the impenetrable castle of the Demon Lord. Its SINCS codename is Fortress.
- Location
- Wörms, the half continent
Missing word I feel.
Huh, is this the first "major" indication of integration between the Layered and our worldline? I honestly wonder what the timeline - and the diplomacy necessary - was for that, as well as general geopolitical reaction to the Layered... well, existence.
Got to imagine that's an expensive deployment, too, given the lack of magic in our world, compensating for that probably means cranking up several dials somewhere, which given this thing's baseline costs is probably a "fun" situation for the accountants.
- Location
- The Hague
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I should say that some of the dates in the above article are liable to change. I've been working on a fair amount of Phanarm short fiction and it's making it clear I have to mess around with the timeline, while sticking to some known factors (specifically the date of the Ashen Sky Incident and Charlotte's birth year). In particular the gap between Beautiful Erasure and the 'current' day is probably too short.
There is. I gotta do an edit pass in the future, perhaps after I refresh Record Breaker. I might add some additional information I missed like the Morning Star's RCOH timeline, its usual missile selection, etc.
There are a couple of factors to consider when it comes to the 'we meet Layered' element which I've alluded to since the beginning of this thread. The first is that Charlotte even being from real world Japan in the first place is because a) the original Charlotte from Gundam Build Fighters FF was someone who went from one country to another to pursue a dream and b) to facilitate the whole thing where she grew up watching Precure and wanted to be a magical girl. You know, for the pathos when she learns it's all Nanoha.
So part of that is that has involved treating the Ballads having a magic shop in Harajuku (just across the road from Togo Shrine) as just a thing that a tourist would find and go 'hey, why is magic real' only for their Japanese friend to reply 'oh yeah, that place, they've got a MSX2 that can tell you your future I think.' Because to some extent the whole thing with magic in Phanarm is that it is so present it has been made completely mundane, there's no magic to the magic. But of course the setting is also supposed to be somewhat geopolitically realistic, so finding out that there's a whole interdimensional society run by competing currency unions who are always selling magic robots to terrorists would be a big deal lol
Anyway, the long and short of it is that the Ballads have been living in Tokyo for quite some time and are pretty well known to the government and have contacts who were former handlers. They supplement their magic shop income doing contract work, which I have generally imagined to be ritual financial predictions. There have also been periodic 'contact events,' the most serious of which was the Omotesando Raid Incident. That's the big turning point, though I presume prior to this the Japanese government was sharing information with its partners, especially the US, and other countries have tried spying on the family. But after the Raid Incident you can assume that the Japanese government made some kind of request to the Ballads around security assurance, and they put it through to their niece, and then it filtered up through Magnastrean channels until it became a matter for the SEU (Charlotte's dad also used to be an intelligence guy who likely knows people in his home country who would relevant here). So at that point you get some of the early exchanges that precipitate joining an economic bloc. To some extent the economic blocs have always known we existed, they just didn't really have that much interest.
As for the Morning Star operating in our world line, generally mechanically based magic is less effected by differences in the ether field. This is one of those really fine distinctions in the magic system like flight magic vs levitation lol, but essentially something like a gravity canceller or a golem is 'a cast spell' rather than 'something that casts spells' so they tend to work as advertised because the phenomenon interference has already happened and the alteration of the information body is basically always the same. It's mainly mages who have to put up with the effects of a thin ether field: generally less holo to power their magic and some kind of physical ailment like headaches. Some of the Pantheon House staff who went to RIMPAC were basically dealing with something like a bad hangover that never went away.
In saying that, it was expensive to do a two week deployment of the whole strike group, but the SEU was footing the bill, and the thing about SEU founding members like Anea, Magnastreo and Gremory is that they have almost literally bottomless bank accounts.
There is. I gotta do an edit pass in the future, perhaps after I refresh Record Breaker. I might add some additional information I missed like the Morning Star's RCOH timeline, its usual missile selection, etc.
There are a couple of factors to consider when it comes to the 'we meet Layered' element which I've alluded to since the beginning of this thread. The first is that Charlotte even being from real world Japan in the first place is because a) the original Charlotte from Gundam Build Fighters FF was someone who went from one country to another to pursue a dream and b) to facilitate the whole thing where she grew up watching Precure and wanted to be a magical girl. You know, for the pathos when she learns it's all Nanoha.
So part of that is that has involved treating the Ballads having a magic shop in Harajuku (just across the road from Togo Shrine) as just a thing that a tourist would find and go 'hey, why is magic real' only for their Japanese friend to reply 'oh yeah, that place, they've got a MSX2 that can tell you your future I think.' Because to some extent the whole thing with magic in Phanarm is that it is so present it has been made completely mundane, there's no magic to the magic. But of course the setting is also supposed to be somewhat geopolitically realistic, so finding out that there's a whole interdimensional society run by competing currency unions who are always selling magic robots to terrorists would be a big deal lol
Anyway, the long and short of it is that the Ballads have been living in Tokyo for quite some time and are pretty well known to the government and have contacts who were former handlers. They supplement their magic shop income doing contract work, which I have generally imagined to be ritual financial predictions. There have also been periodic 'contact events,' the most serious of which was the Omotesando Raid Incident. That's the big turning point, though I presume prior to this the Japanese government was sharing information with its partners, especially the US, and other countries have tried spying on the family. But after the Raid Incident you can assume that the Japanese government made some kind of request to the Ballads around security assurance, and they put it through to their niece, and then it filtered up through Magnastrean channels until it became a matter for the SEU (Charlotte's dad also used to be an intelligence guy who likely knows people in his home country who would relevant here). So at that point you get some of the early exchanges that precipitate joining an economic bloc. To some extent the economic blocs have always known we existed, they just didn't really have that much interest.
As for the Morning Star operating in our world line, generally mechanically based magic is less effected by differences in the ether field. This is one of those really fine distinctions in the magic system like flight magic vs levitation lol, but essentially something like a gravity canceller or a golem is 'a cast spell' rather than 'something that casts spells' so they tend to work as advertised because the phenomenon interference has already happened and the alteration of the information body is basically always the same. It's mainly mages who have to put up with the effects of a thin ether field: generally less holo to power their magic and some kind of physical ailment like headaches. Some of the Pantheon House staff who went to RIMPAC were basically dealing with something like a bad hangover that never went away.
In saying that, it was expensive to do a two week deployment of the whole strike group, but the SEU was footing the bill, and the thing about SEU founding members like Anea, Magnastreo and Gremory is that they have almost literally bottomless bank accounts.
- Location
- Wörms, the half continent
Relatedly, because it's pretty clear that a lot of the elements of the Layered's weaponspace is analogous to our modern weapons, but how well did the SEU/Pantheon House do in displaying things at RIMPAC. With your clarification, we can expect their fighter craft and the like to still be augmented in their usual methods, but Raisers... probably still suffer from the thin ether field, given they're both an active spell construction to be a raiser and also... they case spells, so Pantheon won't be at full Magical Girl Glory, but how impressed were the observers all the same?
- Location
- The Hague
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I have to admit that I haven't given a lot of thought to what actually happened at RIMPAC, it's been one of those ideas that's been kicking around in the back of my head for a while but I haven't found a good opportunity to include. Originally it was supposed to be RIMPAC 2020 (and after the Ashen Sky Incident specifically) but I don't know how to account for COVID happening in the background of Charlotte's adventures, and I thought the idea of the Chilean Navy's first time as the big boss having this unbelievably strange additional complication was a good bit. Mainly I think that given that Pantheon is a very formidable force in Layered it was likely extremely impressive even if it wasn't operating at 100%.
If nothing else, Charlotte was there and she (along with her little brother) isn't actually put out by the ether field conditions in the real world.
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
Suddenly I'm back at playing Armored Core 6 and going over all the parts with long, complicated names.
Why do I hear Ace Combat music playing?
Right, our universe is here as well.
JennyDracos
Eccentric Hugging Lady
- Location
- Chicago
My favorite part was probably "of course since Raisers are fighter equivalents but still just people, plopping a bunch more of them on a big ship for the short term is mostly a matter of calling the mess hall and telling them to make extra."