[X] Plan: our war games
-[X] Bond with a copilot
--[X] Nina
--[X] Yukari
--[X] Lucia
-[X] Controlled encouragement
-[X] Rakshata Chawla and the Black Knights Engineering Corps
--[X] Knight Robot
-[X] The Gundam Scientists (Dr. J, Professor G, Dr. S, Instructor H, and Master O)
--[X] Fish bowl mech
-[X] Celestial Being mechanics (Ian Vashti and co)
--[X] Graffiti robots
-[X] Mithril Black Technology Research and Development Division
--[X] CQC Specialist
-[X] Queen of the Pacifist World
-[X] Discount Zeon family revelations
-[X] Non-Singular Truth
--[X] M9 Squad
--[X] Aries Squad
-[X] Message from the Frontier Fleet Captain
--[X] Leo Battalion
--[X] GN-X Platoon
Mandatory Event: Return from Cephiro
September UE 0083
Royal Palace of Azadistan
You are Marina Ismail, and you're sitting in on this meeting of the more scientifically and technically minded members of the Solar Vanguard along with Shirin for posterity. No one had been in the mood to object, you are the host after all, and your involvement with Celestial Being has given a degree of credibility.
"Shall we call this meeting to order, then?" You say as you survey the people attending.
You're all sitting at a rectangular table facing a projector screen. You're in the center seat, with Shirin standing alongside your chair. To your immediate left is Teletha Testarossa, a commander of Mithril and a Whispered. To your immediate right is Ian Vashti and his wife Linda, leading Engineers in GN particle technology for Celestial Being. Sitting next to Tessa is Rakshata Chawla, head engineer and researcher for the Black Knights, accompanied by a member of the Black Knights' Engineering Corps. On the opposite end of the table, sitting next to the Vashti couple, are the Gundam Scientists, consisting of Dr. J, Professor G, Dr. S, Instructor H, and Master O. They've insisted on being called by this shorthand.
"Who do we start with?" Ian Vashti asks.
"Let's start with the machine the Gundam Scientists analyzed, that was the most intact wreck recovered from Cephiro, yes?" Shirin says.
"Fair enough." You say as you gesture to the Gundam Scientists. "Dr. J, the floor is yours."
Dr. J smirks before catching the remote that Ian slides across the table to him. Dr. J stands up and brings up relevant diagrams related to their analysis of the enemy wreck that they'd been sent, that of a Council machine dubbed a 'Fishbowl' due to its distinct head shape resembling old-fashioned space suit helmets in the pre-Space War One era.
"Well, for starters, the designers of this machine had no sense of aesthetics-everything about this looks like what someone from the pre-UE era would think a mobile suit would look like if they thought of a mobile weapon that wasn't a Variable Fighter. That might not seem relevant, but that actually informs quite a few bits of the technical aspect of this machine." Dr. J clicks the remote to bring up a general view of the Fishbowl. An area around what you assume the cockpit is highlighted in red.
"Unfortunately, the cockpit was almost a complete loss. The magical icicle that our friend Alcyone skewered the wreck with also took most of the main computers with it, and also ruined the controls. We found what looks like a pair of control sticks, and there are pedals, so we assume it's controlled in a similar manner to a modern mobile suit. We won't know for sure until we get our hands on a Fishbowl with an intact cockpit." Dr. J clicks the remote and changes the image on screen to a detailed technical diagram of the Fishbowl's head before handing it over to Professor G. You immediately spot something even a non-technically inclined person such as yourself would notice.
"Why does the head consist mostly of empty space?" You ask with a raised eyebrow.
"That's the thousand credit question, isn't it? I was expecting us to find an armored shell crammed with sensor equipment, but instead found, well...this. We looked over the machine from head to toe, and the head contains the only visual sensors on the entire machine. Now, most of you know that a modern mobile suit doesn't only have the main camera in the head, it also has secondary cameras on the torso. Not as good as the main camera, but enough to get the job done, as Char Aznable can attest to. What's more unusual is that the main camera isn't even very good by our standards, it's about on par with the one the Gundam Mk-II had. We were also confused about the sheer amount of empty space in the head, but we found a gas pipe that leads into a reserve tank on the torso. Our best guess is that the gas serves as a heat sink for the electronics in the head." Dr. G explains before he hands the remote over to Master O. He clicks the remote, and brings up a diagram of the Fishbowl's main reactor.
"Now, one of the most interesting aspects of the Fishbowl that we found is its power supply. It doesn't have traditional fuel storage per se, where you would find a fuel tank in a typical mobile suit or Variable Fighter, there is instead a spherical cavity with a pathway leading directly to the main power supply." A click of the remote highlights the relevant section.
"What does the Fishbowl use for fuel?" Ian Vashti asks with a raised eyebrow.
"Liquid butane, but not quite in the way you think." Master O replies. At the sight of Tessa and the Vashti couple's raised eyebrows, he continues.
"I know what you're thinking, 'butane is a terrible fuel source for a mobile weapon, the storage tank would have to be enormous!'. Well, apparently the Council figured out a workaround to that issue. As you can see, that spherical cavity isn't pressurized. That's because it serves as a storage vessel for a sphere of liquid butane far bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. We couldn't study the sphere itself due to how easy it is to 'break', but a sphere of that size can store enough liquid butane to fill the one of the hangars of the Ra Cailum once it vaporizes. Now, as for how it powers the machine, there's a conventional combustion mechanism that ignites the butane and uses it to generate a small amount of power to fuel the rest of the process."
"The waste gases from igniting the butane are funneled into this chamber, where all of the hydrogen is filtered and siphoned into a non-Minovsky type fusion reactor. We're not sure how the hydrogen is singled out, but there's a crystal that serves as some kind of catalyst for both filtration and the fusion reaction itself." A click of the remote highlights the crystal in question. Master O hands the remote to Instructor H.
"As for armor and armaments, it's not really anything special. The most obvious armament is a particle beam rifle that's somewhat similar to the beam weapons ZAFT uses in that they're not reliant on Minovsky Particles. There's also a folding sword that it has for close combat, but it's only really as good as a Zaku II's heat hawk, so we're guessing it's meant to be used as a weapon of last resort. The machine's armor, meanwhile, is a mix of titanium and some kind of carbon fiber, which explains why they fold so easily to beam weapons." Instructor H hands the remote back to Dr. J.
"There's not much else to talk about with respect to the Fishbowl, but it does give us some insights into the basic design principles of the Council." Dr. J concludes.
No one has any questions, so the remote is handed over to Tessa, who brings up her own presentation.
"The Black Technology Research and Development Division took a look at what was left of one of the Council's CQC Specialist machines. Although there weren't enough pieces to fully reconstruct one, our knowledge of Black Technology and spontaneous insights was able to give us a mostly complete understanding of what we do have." Tessa clicks the remote and brings up three separate diagrams; one's an analysis of the spike weapon on a CQC robot's right hand, the other is of the knuckle duster on its left, and the third is of the machine's armor plating.
"The armor plating is composed of, as the Gundam Scientists have said, a mix of titanium alloys and carbon fiber, so there is nothing new on that front. The knuckle duster, meanwhile, has some resemblance to those utilized by a mobile weapon type known as 'SPTs' that one of the research team kept having visions of. However, these are much larger than those found on a typical SPT due to the fact that a CQC robot has at least three times the mass of even the largest SPT theoretically buildable. The most interesting aspect, however, is the spike weapon. While the spikes appear to be made of metal that extends out from the device as seen from video footage, they are not actually metal. The spikes are, instead, made of crystal, similar to the Crystal Sword that the Blühende Rose uses. However, there is a notable difference. The Crystal Sword appears to have a reservoir of what can only be described as liquid crystal in its hilt, which is shaped into a blade via nanomachines and the sword's own mechanisms. These spikes, on the other hand, appear to be flash grown on the spot based on our findings, as there is a storage area in the device filled with mineral dust, and a separate storage area filled with saline liquid. Both of them feed into the holes that the spikes emerge from." Tessa concludes.
"And there is nothing else you could find?" Rakshata asks.
"Not with what little we were sent." Tessa shakes her head.
"Unfortunate." Rakshata says.
After a short break for refreshments, you're all back in the meeting room. The Vashti couple step forward to present their findings on what's left of the Graffiti Robot.
"We couldn't get the wrist blade to ignite, so we think that whatever the blade is composed of, it's dependent on whatever it uses for a power source. The armor was too badly damaged to reliably analyze, but the inner layer around the circuitry has some disturbing similarities to E-Carbon. The beam cannon in its palm has the same problem as the wrist blade. Not much else to say." Ian shrugs as he hands the remote over to Rakshata.
Rakshata gives the Vashtis a polite smile as she accepts the remote. She brings up a comprehensive analysis of what could be salvaged from the Knight Robot.
"We'll start with the armor. It was badly damaged due to being subjected to the crushing forces of a Gravity Blast and what is essentially a beam of antimatter, but there was a section intact enough to take apart for analysis. The main armor plating seems to consist of three layers. The first layer is a metallic paint that appears to be refined and arranged on the molecular level, and is laminated across the entirety of the outer layers of the machine. It's incredibly strong, and also remarkably effective at deflecting beam weapons. The only parts that don't have this paint applied to it are the joints. The second layer consists of a layer of metal. It appears to be inert, but according the systems we were able to salvage from the cockpit computers, it appears to operate on a similar principle to Phase Shift Armor. It's not entirely the same though, as while Phase Shift Armor doesn't appear to have an upper limit to the amount of solid mass it can protect from so long as you have power, there's something the cockpit systems refer to as the 'shock limit'. Based on context, I'm assuming that refers to an upper limit to the amount of sudden force this pseudo-Phase Shift Armor can sustain before something undesirable happens." Rakshata takes a moment to take a sip of water before moving on.
"The third layer of armor is composed almost entirely of carbon fiber, likely to reduce weight and mass. Under the main armor, there is, like what the Vashtis found in the Graffiti Robot, an inner layer around the circuitry composed of a substance similar to E-Carbon."
"What about the weapons?" Dr. J asks.
"Those were a complete loss. Between the Gravity Blast, the Lohengrin's positron beams, and the Zeta Gundam's Waverider Crash, no weapon system aboard the Knight Robot was left intact. What we were able to study somewhat in depth, however, was the energy shield it utilized. It has remarkable similarities to both the Radiant Wave Shielding Technology that I developed for the Guren, in addition to the Blaze Luminous system the Earl of Pudding developed for the Lancelot." Rakshata explains.
"How is that possible? Radiant Wave Shielding and Blaze Luminous Systems operate on completely different principles of physics!" Tessa exclaims in surprise.
"I was just as puzzled as you are until I took a look at the shield generator itself." Rakshata brings up a diagram of the device in question. "Look familiar?"
Tessa narrows her eyes.
"That looks like...a Lamda Driver?!" She realizes in shock.
"That's what we thought too. However, although there are some similarities to what the Arbalest uses, it doesn't appear to operate on the same principles. As far as we can tell, its purpose is twofold: the first is to aid the machine in not collapsing under its own weight, and the other is to 'combine' the physics of both Radiant Wave Shielding and the Blaze Luminous system with what a device similar to a Lambda Driver can do defensively to make a stronger barrier." Rakshata says.
"Well, at least we know it has limits." Linda Vashti muses.
"What about the power source?" Dr. S asks.
"That is its own can of worms." Rakshata brings up a diagram and points to a particular section with her pipe. "As you can see, there is nothing resembling the system that the Fishbowl uses beyond the use of exotic crystals as catalysts. It's not even similar to the power source of the Rose, which derives power from a dimensional anomaly that it creates within its own reactor. The main reactor of the Knight Robot superficially resembles a Minovsky reactor, but supersized to accommodate the requirements a machine as large as it requires." Rakshata says.
"Superficially?" Tessa asks with a raised eyebrow.
"Rather than use Helium-3 to fuel the reaction, it uses the crystals to efficiently generate pockets of vacuum within the main chamber, and use elements that spontaneously appear in those pockets as fuel." Rakshata elaborates.
Tessa groans while massaging her temples. Shirin goes over to her side in concern.
"Are you alright?" She asks Tessa.
"Sorry, it's just that I had a Whisper after I heard Rakshata's explanation. It sounds like the Knight Robot runs on something similar to an Ahab reactor, but there are so many differences from what the Whispers are telling me and what Rakshata described that I'm positive the Council bastardized the technology from another dimension." Tessa explains.
"Is there anything else of note about the Knight Robot?" You ask Rakshata. She shakes her head before taking a drag of her pipe.
"Well if there's nothing else, let us conclude this meeting. We will compile the minutes and findings presented here and share them among our group. Hopefully we can derive something useful from this."
Results
Rakshata has gained insight into energy shield technology from studying the Knight Robot
-Will grant massively premature access to further iterations of the Guren and Knightmare Frames derived from it. Furthermore, all Black Knight Knightmare Frames derived from the Guren will have Radiant Wave Shielding.
-You now know of additional strengths and weaknesses of the Blaze Luminous system. Enemy Blaze Luminous systems will be less effective when faced in the field, and if/when the relationship with Neo-Britannia improves enough to grant access to the Camelot institute, friendly Blaze Luminous systems will provide more protection.
Based on Tessa's Whispers, much of the Council's technology appears to be bastardized from what they stole from other dimensions.
A common design element of Council technology appears to be crystals that serve as catalysts that either enable certain technologies or make them more efficient.
The group believes improvements can be made based on the results of everyone's research. However, resource and time constraints mean that only one avenue can be pursued. What do you go with? (Pick ONE)
[ ] Breaking the laws of physics
-Will accelerate Mithril's research into Lambda Drivers, will eventually grant premature access to the Laevetain in a form with more longevity
[ ] Incorporating things from the knockoff E-Carbon
-Will improve performance of all of Celestial Being's existing Gundams and eventually grant premature access to GN Gundam and mobile suits from 00 S2
A/N: And here is the research update. I hope there wasn't too much techno-babble. Also, spot the technologies from other anime! Please vote, discuss, and critique.
