=== BABW: A New Conflict ===
=== Chapter 33: Colors and Contrasts ===
[ December 16, 2081 – Near the Durham Domed Community, North Carolina, USA ]
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It was a quiet day above-ground in the Durham Domes, as a few birds flew through the climate-controlled (at least to the best of their ability) air underneath the hyper-carbonate glass that formed much of the Dome’s (in)visible structure. All and all, it was a mundane day, as the inhabitants scurried hither and fro, as the days were marked off the calendar in anticipation of Christmas, especially on the part of the little children.
In contrast, underneath the Domes, deep in the clandestine research and manufacturing facility known to the proprietor and many of its employees as the Toybox, said proprietor was busy entertaining one of his most consistent and consistently entertaining clients.
“What brings you to Durham today, Mr. Egret?” Ken asked, as he looked at the unmasked Leader-3 from his seat on his recently built Earth-mana driven power scooter.
“Frankly I thought you’d be the type with a true racing motorbike. Seem like the ‘live fast die young’ type by how you look, anyway,” Nathan replied, more taken with said scooter than Ken’s greeting; looking like a moped from eighty years previous, but with an added faint green glow from the Earth-aligned thaumatic engine.
“Now what kind of self-respecting motorbike rider would waste such a fine-sounding machine on scooting back and forth inside an underground laboratory? Honestly, Mr. Egret, what kind of frivolous soul do you take me for?” Ken replied with a faux-wounded tone.
“You just don’t have a way to do it yet in a way you’d like, don’t you?” Nathan chuckled, as the young-ish proprietor no older than 35 scooted up and down the hallway next to him.
“I could barely hit 30 on that thing without putting my head and torso through one of these walls, the way these hallways bank,” Ken said with a tone of faux-regret.
“In any case, I’m doing well, and I came to see how our project was proceeding along,” Nathan said, as the two of them walked at a brisk pace toward the relevant test complex.
“And you are in luck, because Christmas is coming a couple of weeks early for you, Nate,” Ken said, as he handed the scooter to an aide, and they both rode the tram the rest of the way.
=== -- ===
“You know, they are adorable in a war-machine-y kind of way,” Nathan mused, as he looked at the hall full of prototypes with various aides and engineers giving them all the once, twice, and thrice-over.
“We wanted to fight the right balance between ‘combat effective’, ‘energy efficient’ in all respects, and ‘aesthetically pleasing and/or intimidating’. Eventually, I and the designers settled on this general framework,” Ken said, as he pointed at a dyna-screen[1] with some rough blueprints on it.
Nathan looked at the blueprints, noting how each prototype was no taller than a child, five feet tall at most. They all had blank ‘faces’, a multi-camera system for a single ‘eye’ that seemed to be forever rotating, and other sensors along the ‘head’ of the machine.
“They do look vaguely human, and at the same time, somewhat alien…” Nathan thought aloud, as he stood at a semi-crouch, letting one of the active prototypes analyze his face, the prototype recognizing the roughly 40 year old man as one of his owners.
“Good Afternoon, Mr. Egret…” the drone stated in a dry monotone, reminding him of the existing battle drones on the proverbial market.
“So let me ask this before you get into your explanation: are these machines just retrofitted battle drones that I could get from anyone else, or is this a custom job?” Nathan asked of Ken, who did appear to be legitimately hurt by the question.
“Everything made here in the Toybox is crafted with love and care, and is purpose built and designed from the ground up with our client’s specifications and intent in mind. Frankly I take it as a bit of an insult to my creativity to suggest that…” Ken responded curtly.
“Alright, just the voice reminded me of some of the other drones and droids out there…” Nathan responded.
“I will admit to using an off-the-shelf, if you will, solution for the AI and communications per drone; but I have a very particular reason for that…” Ken said, as the two of them walked into one of the many conference rooms that dotted the complex where the drones were being developed.
“Mind sharing the reason?” Nathan asked inquisitively, as he and Ken sat at a chair at a projection table.
“It came during some of our experiments on mixing an AI on a CPC[2]. When we would run thaumatic energy through the alpha-prototype drones, we were noticing lack of control on our part. As well as massive deviations from established protocol, regardless of what AI we had loaded at any particular time. So we had to ensure that any magic these drones use were being used in shielded ‘batteries’ if you will. And then build devices that would act as an intermediary, so that the AI weren’t directly invoking the spellcraft in each tool and device we would have installed.” Ken said; grumbling as he did.
“Hrm, a truly thinking machine, could be a boon to us all; computational theoreticians have been trying to develop a truly thinking machine since we had programming languages to formalize machine logic,” Nathan surmised, as the idea intrigued.
Ken slammed his hands on the table at that kind of talk, a look of genuine anger on his face as he heard the musings of his current customer. “Do you understand how dangerous a thinking machine is? ANY minor hiccup in its initialization could cause it careen out of control. And that might not be a problem for a clothes washer, but a war-drone that goes out of control like that could be a hundred times the threat Princess Celestia is to all of us! That is why we have so many parameters on what any machine can be allowed to control without the direct input or other authorization of a human minder.”
“Talk like that makes you sound like a Cyber-Luddite, you know. In any case, it’s your workshop, your rules…” Nathan replied, clearly displeased with Kenneth’s thoughts on sapient machines but decided against pressing the issue.
“So with that settled, for now at least, let’s discuss the initial run of drones in development,” Ken said, as he resumed his usual tone of an excitable 30 year old inventor and salesman.
After a few moments of loading plans, Ken began to briefly go over the different plans for the drones he already had for his production lines.
“So, what we have right here is the N-Model,” Ken started, as he showed the base humanoid model of the Thauma-Drone. “As you can see from the video, the drone is fully capable of using all human-designed small and medium arms.”
Nathan nodded in acknowledgement as the watched the video of the five foot tall, charcoal black robot handling the rifles, pistols, and launchers that any normal human soldier would be expected to wield, and then wielding them to incredible efficiency.
“Looks like top of the line AI controlling these things. How much did you have to shell out for the licensing?” Nathan asked with a bit of joking tone.
“I paid enough for it, and that’s all that needs to be said…” Ken noted tersely. “The Machines can run at 30 mph at top speed at normal load, certainly faster than any human can, but at the same time, a pace slow enough to where normal mechanics can achieve it. In addition, though, we have special transportation equipment. The F-Equipment is a special chest armor that uses Wind-Magic to achieve flight, and the A-Equipment is a single-drone capsule that goes over the legs and waist, that allows travel in most waters up to 200 meters in depth.”
“I would assume you have more ideas in mind, but are keeping them to yourself until you can see how these things do in the field?” Nathan asked, noting the package was a little barebones to start with.
“If there is a design flaw I could not see that would only show itself in live ‘testing’, then I would be a fool to commit resources to said flawed product, wouldn’t I?” Ken asked in response.
“True enough, this should be enough to make due though until you are ready to expand the product line,” Nathan concluded for himself.
“Though there is one other thing, though it is not directly related to this particular product line of drones,” Ken said, as he showed another object on the projector.
“And this helmet is for what?” Nathan asked, as he couldn’t decipher the language in the projection next to the helmet’s image.
“For controlling smaller versions of these drones. But we are still working on the programming, both thaumatic and otherwise, that will allow the correct person to actually to use it. The problem right now is that the amount of mental feedback caused by the magic and the helmet’s visors, in order to control the mini-drones gives people absolutely vicious migraines,” Ken replied.
“Must be quite bad for you not to move forward with a real production model,” Nathan thought, as he wondered about potential applications once Ken did solve the migraine-inducing magical conundrum.
[ December 31, 2081 – Safe Haven ]
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“And you’re sure that’s how a shield spell is supposed to work?” Vague said nervously as he looked at the mulberry Unicorn across from him in one of the practice rooms.
“One of them anyway, but I’m going to show you the other one in a bit, so just perform the spell like I showed you,” Twilight Sparkle responded, as she gave a reassuring smile.
Vague cast a half-dome around himself and a small part of the room around him. After he did, Twilight took a deep breath, and began to dip into the New Rainbow Bridge in order to cast what was to be a fairly mundane, but effective, offensive magical beam.
“Here it comes Vague!” Twilight shouted, as her sharp magenta beam of magic began to collide with the electric blue dome of Vague’s shield.
Damn, it’s like trying to stand in front of a fire hydrant… Vague thought, as he did his best to avoid using his Terran Elemental magic to enhance the shield.
That’s great, the base strength of his shield is strong enough to block a basic magi-beam spell… Twilight thought as she began to increase the strength from ‘average trained Unicorn’ to ‘Twilight Sparkle giving some mild effort’.
Vague felt the pressure from the beam increase to what felt like an industrial-grade pressure washer, as he began to be pushed back on his hooves, despite the shield not having failed yet.
“Ugh!” Vague grunted, as he tried to fight directly against the increased strength of the beam by funneling more power to his shield, something that only gave him enough resistive strength to avoid being pushed backward – the shield starting bend inward due to the excessive pressure applied by the magi-beam.
It was that time, that Twilight recognized the move that Vague had pulled, and decided that it was time to teach an object lesson in technique versus power, and when to use either or both – as her eyes flashed magenta, and a power surge shattered Vague’s shield, and knocked him all the way back to the safety padding of the 2m deep depressed ring they were standing in.
“Owww…” Vague moaned as he gingerly returned to his vertical base. “Care to explain what that was all about?!”
“Just a bit of an object lesson, Mr. Blue; if you are faced with a shield breach, just increasing the tensile strength by adding more raw magic only works so far as the power you are adding is more than the output of the aggressor,” Twilight started, as she waved a hoof, creating a diagram in mid-air, taking advantage of the slight reality warping qualities of the practice room, being a constantly active-but-smaller scale version of Luna’s Training Room spell.
“As you can see, all I had to do to break your shield was a one-time burst to overwhelm its tensile strength, making the whole thing shatter and leaving you, as the caster, briefly stunned. After that, the beam just kept going and knocked you all the way back to the rim. However, as my brother would say, there is a way around this flaw in the basic magi-shield.”
“And that’d be?” Vague said, not quite seeing what it was.
“Well there are several ways, but I believe the best way for you, in particular, is to use that Water Magic of yours as an ablative substance.”
Vague sat on haunches for a few moments in thinking repose, before an idea popped into his head. “Alright then, I think I got something, so hit me with that magi-beam again.”
A couple of moments later, they resumed their positions, Vague creating another forward-facing half-dome, this time swirling in the true blue colored Water Mana along with his electric blue aura. “Alright, whenever you’re ready Twilight!”
Twilight took another deep breath, as she started things off with the basic magi-beam again. Vague’s shield held up perfectly fine, as it did before.
Ok, here comes the moment of truth. Let’s see just how his instincts are for spellcraft… Twilight thought, as she cranked up the spell back to her personal normal.
Twilight smirked a bit as she saw water apparently starting to boil off the surface of the shield, and Vague smirked as he saw far less buckling of the shield under the strain of Twilight’s beam.
“That’s perfect Vague… as you make your natural Explicit Magic stronger, that means the less Water Magic should ablate,” Twilight said, as she stopped her beam, and Vague dispelled the shield.
“True enough, I figure there are other ways it can be mixed though, but there’ll be time enough for that later,” Vague said as the two of them made to exit the practice room.
---
“So... what were the two of you up to?” Hana asked as she saw the blue and purple Unicorns exiting one of the practice rooms.
“To try and sum and up, I wanted to learn some of the basics of shield Explicit magic, and since Shining Armor is indisposed with the Royal Guard and being Prince of the Crystal Empire, I figured I go to the next nearest source,” Vague said pointing at Twilight.
“I’d like to think that Shining refined a lot of his shield spellcraft because I was a precious little filly and tried to sneak attack him at every possible opportunity,” Twilight said, with a bit of a devious smile.
“Oh really now, you have to tell me sometime about it…” Hana requested, as the three of them walked back to where the rest of the Bearers and the Conduits were.
[ December 29, 2081 – Midnight Estate[4], Somewhere on Northern Honshu Island, Japan ]
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< Note: all conversations for this section should be read as being spoken in Japanese, or the Equaan Equivalent of Neighponese, in-Universe unless otherwise noted >
“So how are things going in Sector 12 of New Kyoto?” a tall, somewhat lean middle aged man asked of apparently no one, as he looked at maps being projected by the tablet computers scattered across the conference table. He appeared to be alone in the room, though his ‘sixth’ sense as it were, told him otherwise.
The young woman he was speaking to, without seeing, revealed herself quickly, seeing there was no sense in keeping up the feint. “Master Kagemaru, how is it that you found out these secret arts so fast? I thought I for sure I would have been able to slip past your notice this time.”
“You can say I was divinely inspired. Well I could say that but I’d be lying in small part,” Kagemaru responded, as he pointed up at the rafters of the conference building, which had a Meiji-era Japanese aesthetic to it, despite the modern amenities.
Suddenly, and to the great surprise of the nineteen-year-old Yume, a young-looking male Unicorn of pale blue coat and icy-blue mane appeared almost out of nowhere – having swooped down from his hiding place in the rafters of the conference room.
“Greetings, my name is Ryuusei’nen. I am the liaison from Neighpon, here to assist Master Kagemaru in the development of teachable Ninjutsu,” the twenty-year old Unicorn stallion said with great formality and deference to two humans before him.
“I should have figured you had a ringer…” Yume grumbled, as she looked sternly at the man a little more than thirty years her senior, and less harshly at the pale blue Stallion with the meteor-striking-a-brain Cutie Mark.
Kagemaru just laughed as the kunoichi-in-training before him continued the fume mildly at the master of the Estate. “Oh my dear, come now. As much as I have a mind for the great hidden arts, I have no clue what I am doing when it comes to mana. Thankfully, young Ryuu here is a very good teacher.”
“I try to assist as best I can, in any case…” Ryuusei’chi added, nodding in agreement.
As the three began to drift off into their own conversation, a ‘phone ringing’ tone began to sound throughout the conference room.
“Ah that tone must mean it’s coming from you know who,” Kagemaru mused aloud as he activated the holo-phone.
“So what are you up to today, Kage?” a gregarious voice said, as the image of the one-and-only Dr. Hayato Isegawa appeared in mid-air, projected by the tablet that served as the main display for the holo-phone. “Hopefully not making your first class of kunoichi unduly uncomfortable.”
“Oh no no, Hayato. This whole operation is purely on the up and up,” Kagemaru replied, chuckling as he metaphorically waved off the accusation. “No, my Neighponese liaison and one of said kunoichi were just getting acquainted, as we were about to go over some intelligence we gathered from our forward agents.”
“Ah I see, well keep yourself out of trouble in that regard,” Dr. Hayato replied, before his tone turned more grounded. “You know exactly who is running that S.P.H. branch in your neck of the woods.”
“The New Imperial Dawn, a bunch of ultra-nationalists trying to re-establish a Japanese Empire across the East Pacific, at the very least,” Kagemaru concluded. “I wouldn’t have thought them to make common cause with the people who run the SPH in the Americas.”
“They probably see each other as useful idiots. The New Imperial Dawn was in the best position to depose the Diet and Prime Minister, and the S.P.H. proper had the funding the New Imperial Dawn needed to properly arm themselves for whatever they believe their mission to be. It would not surprise me personally if both harbored thoughts of betraying the other once their rule became more entrenched,” Hayato continued to muse aloud, as it was evident he had been talking about the problem for some time with others in the H.E.A proper as well as the myriad allied forces trying to take back their nations from the S.P.H. conglomerate that ruled the world at the moment.
Ryuu noticed Yume clenching her fists as the two older men continued to talk amongst themselves (for the most part) about how to tackle the SPH-Japan problem, so he motioned for the two of them to go to a corner to talk more privately.
“I can sense the mental tension and anguish when the Society and the New Imperial Dawn are brought up. Forgive me for not understanding the source of this already, but I wish to know so that I might assist in any way that I can,” Ryuusei’chi asked of the woman almost twice his height, as she sat on a cushion so she could look him in the eyes evenly.
“It was a couple of months ago, before I had even heard of the Midnight Blossom. We were trying to get food from an aid station some of the HEA benefactors had set up. An unrelated protest had started up a block or so away, and the SPH of course came to put it down. Before the HEA could intervene, the SPH began firing live rounds into the crowd. Twenty-five people died that day… including my mother, who threw me to the ground and tried to shield me, and was struck in the back of the head by a stray bullet,” Yume answered morosely, her head resting on her knees.
“May I ask of your father?” Ryuu continued.
“He died in a construction accident when I was two. He just couldn’t give up the job, even after most of the workers were replaced by drones. Mom always said that he thought every building, no matter how utilitarian it was meant to be, deserved a human touch to it. As he put it: ‘The Human Touch is what gives something that’s inanimate a soul. Since it cannot think for itself, you have to interpret its feelings through the feelings the creator puts into it.’”
“I see. Many Zebras I have conversed with in my short life has said similar things. That which has no life on its own takes on the flavor, as they would put it, of those living around it,” Ryuu added, thinking on what he read of Zebra general philosophy and his talks with some of the special forces from the Zebra republic that had come to Neighpon for special training and assistance with their own issues.
“I ended up finding this place when I ran into another HEA contingent. They did not want to take in just anyone off the street, but they saw the heart I was willing to put into trying to rectify the wrong committed against me. So they put in a good word for me with Master Kagemaru, and here I’ve been since then,” Yume concluded.
“While I think revenge is a good catalyst for joining an organization such as this, I will render this caution: there has to be something that animates you beyond revenge. I formally became a Nin in my clan because I felt that my talent for Ninjutsu development would help raise our standing, and ultimately help the nation of Neighpon itself. Some consider us the second-most powerful Pony nation, only to the motherland of Equestria herself. I… I wish to do whatever I can to help preserve, and ultimately improve that position,” Ryuu concluded.
With that, Ryuu walked back over to where Master Kagemaru was talking to the projection of Dr. Hayato, giving Yume a few moments to contemplate things.
He’s right: if we destroyed Japan’s SPH, and the New Imperial Dawn with it, tomorrow, what exactly would I do with myself afterward? Yume contemplated, as she joined the two males near the holographic third.
[ January 03, 2082 – Somewhere near Seattle, WA, USA ]
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“Have you had any more luck in our pursuits, Sister Astral,” the alabaster white Unicorn in the deep purple and gold-fringed cloak asked of a younger looking Unicorn mare before him, as he sat on the raised seat in a small shack in the forests near Seattle’s slums.
Sister Astral Image looked at her spiritual father above her, both literally and figuratively, as if she were a foal attempting to explain away a bad grade on a report card to her father. “I apologize, Father. I could not find any purchase in the protections erected around the home base for the Human-Equestrian Alliance.”
Father White sighed, as he continued to wonder what exactly was needed for the next phase of his plan to begin. “The H.E.A. moves too slow in re-igniting the Conversion Movement. Too much dalliance on their part will leave too many humans prey to the forces that gather to destroy this world.”
Astral Image nodded, as she could remember the visions Father White reported to her and the other half-dozen Ponies that made up their small family. “Something is holding them back, but what it is I cannot contemplate. There is simply too much that we do not know about their operations.”
“If that is the case, then we need to find a way to have a set of eyes and ears inside whatever facility they are using as their Earth-side base of operations. It is clear from their work in public that something Earth-side is providing material and communications support,” Father White wondered aloud, putting a hoof to his chin, the almost-white blond of his mane disguised from the shade created by the lights in the room, making his entire body look almost as if he were a blue-eyed Unicorn made of living chalk.
Astral’s eyes lit up as she keyed on what Father White was talking about. “Oh, I’m sure if the Ponies at the H.E.A. heard you speak, they’d surely come around to your way of thinking.”
Father White chuckled as the idea crossed his mind once or twice, but waved his front hoof in front of his face dismissively. “That is not what we should be aiming at right now. Our family cannot expand quite so quickly, since the SPH still has the military means to bring us down. We must capitalize on a world where the Black Shield is shattered, and scattered to the four winds. For that, we need to leave the HEA as is. Once they begin Conversions in earnest again, that is our time to begin to assert ourselves. Would you not agree?”
Astral nodded vigorously, agreeing as much as she could without shouting. “Yes, yes Father. I understand. Patience is a virtue that we must hold to, even in these troubling times.”
“Correct, Sister Astral. But do not worry, I believe the way forward will reveal itself to us before long,” Father White concluded.
Given beasts like that monstrous horse-demon that appeared in Charlotte a few weeks ago, I cannot imagine that we have long. If the HEA doesn’t begin soon enough, everyone who has not converted will be caught in the crossfire of the Great Cataclysm… Father White thought, as he could feel the ill winds blowing.
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