Inspection
The sun beat down from high above, causing the humans to wince from brightness. Their skin glistened with sweat. Since they had a job to do, they adjusted by putting on sunglasses and using their papers to occasionally fan the air around them into moving. The two reploids in the group weren't bothered by the unusual June heat wave, at least externally. Internally, they did have to run their cooling systems harder and longer than usual, in order to avoid overheating.
All around the path they were walking on were black metal pillars, about four feet high and seemingly innocent lighting features. One of the reploids of the group, a male human-like model with armor made into a long black military overcoat and an officer's hat, patted one despite the heat it had built up sitting in the sun. "These units are capable of turning into small plasma cannons and force field generators. If we have a thief or the like infiltrate our base, we can trap him or her on the path with them. And if we get more skilled infiltrators, there are many more weapons disguised as ordinary objects around. Like that tree." He smiled, but didn't explain the realistic looking fake ginkgo tree.
"You do seem to have one of the most well-defended bases of the current reploid military organizations, Colonel," one of the humans said in an unreadable neutral tone. They were on an inspection tour of such groups.
"We're determined to not get caught unprepared at our own base," Colonel said. Yes, one would have to be quite stupid to attack the Repliforce home base. They were ready for such idiots, with at least six Ride Armors ready to operate at a moment's notice, all-Reploid troops that were trained and retrained daily on a strict regiment, hidden weapons such as the pathway lights and blasters in the rain gutters, and buildings reinforced to take impacts as severe as three of the largest missiles in the world striking at once. That is, if those missiles got past their anti-air and anti-missile technologies.
"That is a good thing to keep in mind," one of the other humans said.
Colonel smiled. That was true. One of the worst outbursts of war in recent times had been when Sigma's Mavericks stormed the Maverick Hunters Headquarters, which had been woefully defended at the time. Of course, they had also been woefully underfunded and trying to cope with the first Maverick war just a few months before that. These days, the Maverick Hunters were doing better. But not good enough, leading to the development of Repliforce and other military defense organizations. Colonel was determined to prove his group the best of them all.
As they walked by the training area again, one of the women looked thoughtfully over a squad of close combat fighters who were practicing. "If a large scale war broke out," she asked, "how long would Repliforce need to mobilize every unit available? Theoretically speaking, of course."
"76 minutes for nearly everything and everyone," Colonel answered. "We've had drills to reduce it that far under two hours. There are a few weapons that we wouldn't be able to activate that quickly, as they require government authorization to bring out. But I'm sure, in a theoretical case of an emergency, that those could be brought out and up to readiness within a day."
"Hmm." She wrote something down (as did a few others) but didn't reveal what she was thinking. "There have been many attacks and riots by Mavericks in the past few months, though."
That was troublesome. But he and his leader General had come up with an answer to that way before this inspection date had been announced. "We are aware of that. However, those malfunctioning reploids have turned to a guerrilla warfare style instead of their past mass attacks. It is much harder for a large army like Repliforce to battle it out with such small evasive groups. We've been working on small response squads to counter such tactics and they've been starting to get results. We even have a specialist who works on counter-cyberterrorism. He can catch a hacker in its tracks, stop the invasion, and counterhack to give us a location to arrest the cyberterrorist."
"Useful," one man said, but in the same neutral voice as earlier. This group was good at hiding their evaluations.
And that made Colonel worry from time to time. This was an important inspection, one that would grant them higher authority in law enforcement matters if he did his best. It could also get them disbanded if they failed miserably, but Colonel highly doubted that would happen. Within Repliforce, everyone took their jobs seriously and with honor. That had to be plain and obvious to even the most oblivious of civilians.
He was proud of his men, though. Repliforce had many great and powerful reploids in it. For their sake, he would not falter to some judgmental mind games played by inspectors.
The one woman decided to continue with her theoretical questions. "We know that Sigma's Mavericks are the most unpredictable and chaotic group out there. But if a large scale war broke out and they were not responsible, what group would you think most likely to instigate such a thing?"
"That's a tough question to answer," he replied, stopping near the middle of the fence blocking off the outdoor practice area. That would be good thing, Colonel felt. They could see how good the fighters were while he tried to get this one right. "We've checked into a lot of those groups and made contingency plans, just in case. We feel that no one really has any grievances severe enough to start a war over," there were problems, just not ones to battle about yet, "so we're not too worried about it. I feel we can trust the Maverick Hunters the most; they work with us a lot and their members are honest, reliable, just, and loyal. Some of the other groups are not quite satisfactory."
"Explain that, please," the woman said, taking notes.
"The Tamar group is too undisciplined. When we've worked with them, its members are often disrespectful. They'll either fall apart or individual members will turn violent. And the Oceania Marine Group is terrible about not being responsive or efficient. If there's trouble from them, it'll be because they do not act when they are needed. But I would think the Red Spears group would be most likely to stir up trouble. They're very eager to respond to multigroup challenges and they're not the most graceful of losers." Such as claiming Colonel and his sparring partner Jet Stingray had cheated in one battle competition. Cheating was beneath him, or anyone from Repliforce. But the Red Spears would not let that go.
"That has been so," she replied, but her tone wasn't too supportive.
Colonel focused on keeping a straight face like them. They were government workers, so why were they pulling all these mind games on him, trying to make him worry? He believed in Repliforce and so he was going to present his group in the best light possible.
Government Inspection Agency Report: Repliforce
Repliforce is a well-trained, well-organized, and highly capable reploid military force in their sixth month of service. However, they are overeager for a war to break out. They have more weapons, especially higher-grade models and ammunitions, than is necessary or prudent for a peace-keeping force to hold on to. In the name of being prepared, they have become overly paranoid and will almost certainly act rashly and too quickly in the event of large-scale violence breaking out. Their members say they work in the name of world peace, but they plainly idealize war and train themselves excessively. They have also been overly forceful in current Maverick breakouts and admit that they cannot keep up with the criminal's guerrilla tactics as they are.
After a discussion between the inspection group members, we recommend that Repliforce be dismantled for being ineffective at their stated goals of fighting Mavericks and for being a dangerous force looking for an excuse to wage war. –June 1, 21XX
I feel Colonel is a pretty decent guy: he's very loyal, with honor and respect for those who have earned it. He'd be a good friend to have at your side in a time of trouble. However, his stubbornness for sticking to honor makes him do dumb things. Like refusing to disarm and cooperate with government investigators when a giant floating city that Repliforce happened to be patrolling at the time was sabotaged and sent crashing into a ground city. I mean, seriously? The whole X4 conflict could have been avoided if Colonel just went with X/Zero, gave a statement, and acted humble for a bit. We wouldn't have a game out of that event either, but looking at the story from within the world… yeah, dumb move Colonel.
I still like him, though.
Yeah, Repliforce had only been around six months before the X4 conflict. I checked my instruction manual for the game. Cruel thing to happen to those kids, huh?