A/N: Given how in the map "The Scar" which is supposed to be a land formation surrounded by lava, you can build naval factories and units ON THE SURROUNDING LAVA, you'd think UEF firebombs would have no effect on Coalition units whatsoever… well, I'll figure out an explanation for this, I suppose, or just forbid non-aerial units from crossing lava so easily/quickly. Then again if your means of resource gathering include drawing mass from deep within a planet's mantle, and recycling it after a battle by reinjection of the mass… Your tech level is going to be pretty solid.
I am astonished that no one commented on the implications of the last chapter, in the sense that Naruto is going to be VERY popular among the ladies as he grows up, assuming Sakura and Tsunade don't punch him into orbit before Hinata can react…
Chapter 3: Of Midgets and Colossi
Roanoke Abyss, October 31, 3849 AD, same general timeframe as previous scene.
"Would you care to explain to us why the doctors found evidence that your joints have been put under great stress, worse than that of a practicing young martial artist?" Hannah asked gently, while the indigo-haired girl in front of her stood still. "And could you tell us your name now that you are hopefully assured that you are not hallucinating?"
Then a drop of saliva began making its way down her jaw, and Ariel sighed, before pulling out a small towel and wiping it away. The girl flinched away, before blushing in embarrassment. Given the girl's lack of modifications other than her unusual eyes, the bodily stress marks of a child soldier, the Psionics, and the primitive weapons in the girl's thigh holster, it was laughably certain that the Japanese cultural enthusiasts were in Medieval Stasis, if not worse. But of course, noting that would be rude without proper build-up… after which it would simply be blunt observations, since rudeness could not exist between such disparate entities in terms of power. On the other hand Hannah doubted it would be any ruder than the girl's first introduction to the Coalition's military being from the roof of a hundred-meter-tall research center, seeing a 200-meter-tall Galactic Colossus standing next to the center, completely within the estimated maximum radius of her special eyes.
Fortunately, the strange eyes were NOT noted as being able to pierce structural integrity fields, hence they could put on this show. Even Omni sensors were incapable of that, despite piercing stealth they were still unable to even tell unit type until the target came close enough for identification sensors able to pierce active camouflage… though those could be defeated by cloaking, which meant Omni only really defeated stealth and jamming.
The Galactic Colossus was the only unit parked close enough for the girl to see, but it was very much enough to make the point. "Xav, you can move the GC away now, I think we've managed to shock her badly enough. Park it in formation with the other units we arranged to welcome our guest." Hannah transmitted to her husband, then turned to Hinata, trying again with "What is your name, young one?"
"Hyuuga, Hinata." She said, suddenly feeling extremely small and insignificant. It did not take much observational skill to recognize that Ariel had the same personal colouring scheme and aesthetic as the gigantic machine she'd just been shown, indicating they were on the same side. Said gigantic machine strode off at quite an incredible pace—it took stately steps, but given the length of its legs, that was quite fast—until within a few seconds of walking away it blurred and faded into the background, even with her bloodline… wait…
"Uh… Hinata-chan, I believe is the correct honorific… bah, may I just call you Hinata? I am not good with all these Japanese honorifics." Hannah said, noticing she was distracted even after the Colossus left her vision radius. "What are you looking at?"
"As you wish, Hannah-sama. May I ask why there are almost no footprints?" With how huge the thing was it should have shook the ground as it walked… and it was unlikely to be an illusion as her Byakugan told her.
"Our sensors are good enough to see prints and seismic tremors from a long, long distance off. That is why the prints and tremors are remarkably light for all of our machines thanks to our technology, despite their often great mass." Ariel explained. "From what we could tell from your Psionics, combined with child soldier training, and the weapons in your thigh holster, we are almost completely sure that your world is currently in and most likely stuck in what we call a medieval era. We won't be able to do anything really if it turns out you were displaced in time as well as space, because messing with time doesn't seem to work for us for some reason, but if it was only space then we will be able to take you home."
Hannah explained their plan further "If we are able, we will probably spend a nice vacation there while making contact with the locals, probably introducing them to the galactic community at large, namely the Coalition factions. Because they seem to be able to send things and people out by teleportation we'd probably establish a protective perimeter around your planet in case of contact with more hostile factions in the galaxy. The Coalition does not approve of suffocating children's potential by making them learn how to destroy before learning to create, so we'll probably nudge them away from that. How old are you? Eleven years old? The colonists left when we were already able to engineer planetary orbits and rotations over the long term, so most likely your years will be comparable to ours."
"Twelve and three months." Hinata answered, wondering if these people would seek to just destroy all the traditions she'd come from. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad, in the case of the Hyuuga Clan…
"You're only 147 centimeters, at twelve and a quarter years a healthy Coalition girl would almost certainly, with three standard deviations, be between 155 and 170 centimeters. It is probably something to do with the soldier training stunting your growth or maybe your lack of Empire-era modifications… it cannot be good for your future size and strength regardless." Ariel noted. "Does your world still have frequent cases of death from childbirth?" Hinata nodded "That means you almost certainly started off at about 50 centimeters, five to ten centimeters bigger than post-Empire human babies. Because we have larger mothers and smaller newborns, birthing is considerably less risky for us, and our medical technology makes it basically a risk-free business, though still painful and stressful."
Hannah gave a grunt of agreement, adding "If not for that then the Cybran Nation would all be born from artificial wombs, considering we were losing an average of four million civilians a day fighting the United Earth Federation and Aeon Illuminate for twelve hundred goddamned years."
Hinata blinked, looking between the two, before picking at her ears as she'd seen her grandfather do once when one of the Elders had said something completely off the wall. The man had been found to have accidentally mixed sake and a sleeping pill earlier that day, as opposed to his medication for a chronic injury, which was to be taken with alcohol. That explained why he had said something so completely nuts… and started an investigation as to who might want to assassinate the elder in question.
However, Ariel's sigh and comments made her think Hannah was actually serious "We've been over this a number of times, but it's hard to forget for good reasons. The four trillion deaths of the Infinite War average out to over nine mega-deaths per day, for twelve hundred years. The distribution over time was about four-three-two for the Cybran Nation, United Earth Federation, and Aeon Illuminate respectively. Fortunately, Cybrans mature faster and breed more, hence they did not get wiped out despite starting with much less population than the Earth Empire and later UEF or, once we really got rolling, the Aeon Illuminate. We lost another trillion humans in only three years with the Seraphim War, before we managed to grind the Imperium's offensive to a halt and push back. Encountering the Separatists fighting their way out from the Quantum Rift was a great surprise, but they helped seal the Rift and seek only to live in peace while trying out various forms of government, so we tolerated them. The current combined human population of the Coalition is three trillion and growing, while the Seraphim Separatists have about a quarter billion, but are experiencing a baby boom now that their future is secure. Without as much stress from war, policies encouraging people to have children have been reduced greatly or repealed altogether, so the birth rate is dropping off precipitously, particularly within the Cybran Nation, who actually fared the best in the Seraphim War." Ariel explained to Hinata.
Hannah spoke now "I'm one of five survivors of thirteen siblings, five died by the hands of the Aeon Illuminate, three by the United Earth Federation. It is no surprise that everyone else in my family except my littlest sister Jane no longer wish to associate with me for marrying an Aeon ACU pilot. They understand the political need to appear conciliatory and unified, but they are still completely repulsed by the fact that Xavier Fran—call him Fran, he prefers his family name despite technically having been disowned for marrying me—is my choice of husband." Hannah grimaced toward the end of her exposition. Most of her dead siblings had died before she was even born, but the few that had died after were what drove her to choose the career of ACU pilot. Then the Seraphim War resulted in her meeting one of the Aeon commanders with the greatest reputation for tolerance and she found him a bit more likable and nice than she'd have preferred.
Hinata was still mentally partly stuck on the "twelve hundred years" part, mouthing it silently.
Ariel was the only one among the two who could read lips in Japanese "Hinata, we called it the Infinite War for good reason. Very few people who were alive at the beginning are still alive now. The leader of the Cybran Nation, Doctor Brackman, is one such person, though right now he's a brain and spinal cord in a life-support tank, who interacts with people by hologram. Elite Commander Dostya, corresponding to General in the UEF rank system and Avatar of War in the Aeon one, is working on persuading him to get a body again, but it's been slow going. How about we show you some of the units in up close and personal fashion?"
"You would show such a thing to a stranger? What about your military secrets?"
"Your eyes cannot pierce the structural integrity fields of our units, and even if you did many of the things you see would be impossible to replicate without enough scientific capacity. Since you have a good chance of being our liaison while we make contact with your world, we think it would be good to be up front and honest. We will make sure that you aren't forced to give any information to anyone, your government, your leaders, whatever, that you do not want to." Hannah said gently. It would be interesting to meet, and study, primitives who had such interesting genetic abilities.
Then she mentally ordered her communicator to broadcast to her husband and squadron "Please order the units to deactivate all stealth measures, even active surface camouflage, once we are standing in front of a particular unit." Obviously structural fields, which dazzled scans, and internal camouflage systems would remain active, for units self-destructed if the latter approached failure, to deny the other factions sensitive knowledge. None of the Coalition factions trusted each other all that much due to the Infinite War, and there were reasonable—as acknowledged by humans and Seraphim alike—fears about the Seraphim Separatists' authenticity "We want our guest to be able to use her own eyes to see some of the units which we will be deploying during our diplomatic contact with her world." Commodore Perry's opening of Japan would have NOTHING on their contact with this world of Japanese cultural enthusiasts…
That expectation of a cakewalk was why it would count as non-combat duty. Once the Seraphim War ended, some ACU pilots had found themselves working with the unit developer crews. Others joined the exploration crews working slowly through mapping every single object in every single solar system the Coalition currently occupied. Still others, like this particular crew which were the first mixed Coalition-Separatist team, stayed on as official career soldiers and/or diplomatic representatives. The lack of war however meant they more often than not babysat scientists, just like the exploration crews.
Now, however, they had a chance to be diplomatic representatives, though in quite a different sense than they'd originally been formed for, and had sent the proposal up the line. Avatar of War Rhiza and Elite Commander Dostya paused their simulation match—they were similarly idle in peace—and gave preliminary approval, pending confirmation of where or maybe when the girl came from. General Hall, since the UEF had been so devastated by the Seraphim War that it was still running a military government at present and busy reassembling planetary parliaments for resettled planets, had given his assent just now, as it flashed up on Hannah and Ariel's visors while they were waiting for the elevator to the ground floor. Doctor Brackman and Princess Rhianne's approval arrived as they reached the ground floor. The Seraphim Cabinet, which currently ran the Separatists, had entrusted authority to Seth for such contacts, and only rubber-stamped endorsement for the affair as they approached the first row of units. It was remarkably fast by bureaucratic standards, but since relations with the Coalition were vital to the Separatists, they paid high attention to Seth-Thauum's cooperative work.
"Hinata-chan, you should walk between us, we don't want you to walk into any of the units by accident." Ariel stated as she and Hannah put their helmets on.
"Um, is the air difficult to breathe?" Hinata asked, wondering about the completely enclosed helmets.
"…Ah, right, these fully enclosed helmets aren't the best for inspiring confidence, we should just wear visors that let us see where all the units and such are instead, without projecting holograms in front of us as a virtual visor. Don't want to spoil the surprises after all." Hannah grinned at Hinata, who gulped at the prospect of some really big shocks. "Although I do note that the Galactic Colossus you saw earlier, an Aeon Illuminate design, is the second tallest land unit in the Coalition arsenal after the Seraphim-designed Ythotha, so there shouldn't be anything much more shocking until we get to the air units. We'll head out over the water for the naval units, riding on something of your choice."
"Now, before we begin, I need to ask you some questions about technology level and whether or not you can particularly comprehend the machines that you will be shown." Ariel stated in a more businesslike fashion, and Hinata gulped as they stood about in the warm day. She could not particularly tell if it was autumn or spring for this locality, but it was fairly warm. She'd been expecting an interrogation, no matter how polite, and it seemed like it was beginning.
"Is your world familiar with the biological mechanics of inheritance?" Hannah said instead, going through pretty much a checklist.
"Um, DNA? Yes, we know of that…"
"What about gunpowder weapons? Rifling? Electricity?" The weapons in her holster would suggest otherwise…
"Too loud and flashy to be used by us ninja, and not accurate enough. The Land of Iron is the most frequent user of them, because in massed formations their samurai can do quite a bit of damage with hand cannons. I'm not sure what rifling is, but we do have electricity, generators, and batteries."
Ariel frowned and asked next "Satellites? Long-distance radio communications?"
Hinata decided that since these people were clearly unthinkably more advanced, just telling the truth was the best choice "I do not know what you mean by satellites, but we do have long-distance radio using large transmitter dishes to bounce the signals off part of the atmosphere…"
The Aeon woman frowned deeper "Internal combustion engines? Recorded video? Computers?"
"We have those…"
Hannah intervened "Psionic Retardation, Ariel? Especially when it comes to warfare?"
"Definitely…" Ariel said in English, then realized that it could be seen as very rude to use such a term, switching to Japanese "We have long theorized what would happen if a society developed psionic powers before sufficiently advanced technology. It seems your world has confirmed the prevailing theory that psionic dominance would grossly delay technological growth, because why develop a strong material if one can just reinforce it with psionic powers? Why learn the laws of physics if they can simply be bypassed? Why develop a powerful and hazardous chemical explosive if the effect can be replicated by a guy shouting a few incantations? This eventually leads to a slowdown in technological development, since some inventions cannot be reached easily without understanding how reality works. Do you have aircraft which propel themselves through the air, or guided missiles?"
Hinata was thinking of how the Hyuuga Clan traditions had most likely hindered their clan's growth, and wondered if chakra was really a cursed thing. Given the stories passed down in the clan of their distant ancestor eating a cursed fruit to become the first to have chakra, it did not seem implausible… "We do not have controlled flight, except for maybe the best, or secret, wind techniques and various legendary ninja…"
Ariel nodded "Your ancestors left what is now Coalition Space about seventeen hundred years ago. They planned to begin at a technology level eight hundred years before that time in human history, but I can guess that they overshot that target. Without external intervention, as was historically needed for Japan to seriously improve its technology, the Japanese cultural enthusiasts that began your civilization were very lucky to make it this far, particularly with premature development of Psionics. I know this sounds pretty rude, but I get the feeling that you prefer things straightforward and to the point, if the guess that you are from an important bloodline and likely in the core line from your genetic markers are correct. That coupled with your shyness would mean you dislike clan politics, which means that you don't like veiled bullshit too much."
"Hopefully diplomatic contact will bring more progressive tendencies to the fore." Hinata deflected, not answering on how accurate the assessment was. This Coalition was so clearly overwhelming that she could only cooperate and hope they played nice. Curiously, they seemed to want to play nice, which made her hopeful that the Elemental Nations would similarly find peace… without anything like the Infinite War the two women in front of her spoke of. How they could coexist after such a war was mind-boggling for the young Hyuuga.
"As long as you are hopeful, Hinata, that is good. We can work with that hope, and make it come true, by Might Makes Right if need be. We can begin the show and tell whenever you are ready." Hannah stated as she stopped walking, and Ariel did too. Hinata, who'd been trailing a half-step behind the two much larger women, ceased her forward motion as well.
Hannah frowned suddenly, before saying "…What do you mean Seth can't find the switch for his units' active camouflage?" Her translator interpreted this.
"You do realize I went from helping sell used land vehicles to piloting an ACU without much training beyond video games from my youth, right? I'm searching the operator's manual right now!" Seth's translated English came through, and was translated for Hinata's benefit.
"…As you can tell, we don't take ourselves as seriously as we could." Ariel nudged Hinata gently and winked. "That was a Seraphim, one of the Coalition's four factions, though right now they're nowhere close to as significant as the human factions due to their size and population. Being basically a bunch of rebels that escaped the Seraphim Imperium into our universe from another universe doesn't allow for that big of a start… They helped end the Seraphim War, so we were agreeable to letting them stay and settle a few systems, and work on coexisting, unlike what the Earth Empire did to one of their colonies in this universe when humans first encountered them. They taught the settlers The Way before they were attacked though, and the Aeon have sought to follow The Way since our formation to avenge our teachers against the Earth Empire." Ariel explained.
Meanwhile, Hannah was wondering "You've been piloting for almost four years, Seth, you'd think you'd have looked up all the trivial details by now?"
It took quite a few moments of smelling the sea breeze before the show-off session began.
A/N: The numbers in the following "chapter" are obtained from in-game size comparisons, a 5x5 km map accommodates 250 wall sections from end to end, with 3 grids on any side being unbuildable margins. When a 20m wall section is 10cm on my screen the little popgun on the Snoop Tier 1 land scout is about 1mm across. This would have it be a 20cm-caliber weapon, which fires once per 2 seconds for 2 damage per hit. That's a 200mm cannon (7.9 inches) impacting at 400m/s (tested in-game at -10 speed setting) for reasons unknown (probably because any higher than low supersonic speeds generates too big a shockwave to hide easily from sensors?).
It is exactly the same projectile speed (not very fast) as the "Light Laser" of the Spirit Tier 1 Land Scout… which is definitely not staying a laser. In fact the only laser weapons that I won't rebrand to other weapon types (usually particle beam or plasma weapons) are continuous beam weapons, such as the Cerberus, Rhino, Neptune, and so on, which are how lasers SHOULD operate.
Given this is the mid-3800s, I think having the continuous beam weapons measured in kilotons per second suddenly looks very reasonable when a 200mm shell (albeit a low velocity one) does 2 HP of damage on impact… By comparison, even Tier 1 "medium" tanks have almost 300 HP.
REVIEW PLEASE!
