Benediction Hymn
by Presley H. Cannady and Lou Barnes
Bubblegum Chaos, Bubblegum Casualty
concept by Lou Barnes
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Copyright 1997 Presley H. Cannady
Copyright 1997 Anime/Manga Development Group
This story is not to be bought or sold, in whole or in part. The
electronic publication of this novel is in-tended for free access, and
does not intend to infringe on the rights of Harmony Gold USA. The
author has not accepted and will not accept any remuneration for this
work. This book embodies a plethora of writing philosophies and events
derived from the original series and mutually "sanctioned" source
mate-rial, the Robotech RPG, and the McKinney Novels. The author
expresses no interest in the canonical value of this work.
Fourth Edition 1997
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Prologue One
An Essay on the Decline of Genom as a Power in the Multi-National
Corporate World
Twenty years before the Boomer technological revolution, the idea that
Genom, Co. Ltd., would have ever risen to the stature it had achieved at
its peak ten years ago. Today, the tables are reversed as the 2046
fourth quarter Genom�s production reports continue to display a drastic
loss of initiative by the 2030s jug-gernaut. Within the last eight
consecutive annual financial review intervals, the Nikkei Dow showed a
steady drop to just above the precarious zone; 738 point drop from the
all time high within the Nikkei volume. Needless to say, the
unexplained destruction of several of Genom�s key production facilities
in fiscal year 2033-34 explains the massive, short-term drop in the
corporations stock between 2033 and 2035. Nevertheless, despite the
occassional vigilent rebounds Genom enjoys during nominally "peaceful"
intervals, the trend definitely shows a steady decline in the
corporation�s ability to compete and dominate the Asian and American
cybernetic markets.
2036 passed in a near panic, as Genom was still attempting to
reconsolidate after the corporation�s 2033 massacre at the hands of an
act of orbital laser terrorism (an incident which destroyed numerous
Genom Towers, production sites, offices, and other facilities
worldwide). The natural depreciation fol-lowing the loss of enormous
amounts of overseas capitals forced the megaconglomerate to remove the
focus of its foreign operations and concentrate on revitalizing assets
on the Home Islands. This move would have disasterous effects
worldwide�effects that did not go unpredicted. Chairman Quincy
ap-pointed several commissions to analyse the opportunity costs of
bringing down foreign operations to a virtual halt, and more than
sixty-percent of the recommendations which returned to his desk and the
trus-tee board recommended against the drastic maneuver. However, a
significant number of financial upsets overseas, particularly the
California pull-out incident which not only terminated Genom�s primary
hold on America�s economic artery but resulted in litigation�Genom
actually took a loss in suspending its Pacific Coast business before
completely terminating it. Ultimately, Genom had repatriated
eighty-three percent of its outlying capital within Japan.
At the onset of Genom�s decline, a number of factors�political,
economic, and martial�had entered already into the equation;
particularly in the months following June 2035. After suffering the
worst bout of shareholder scare (both in the primary company, as well as
autonomous, incorporated constituents and allied financial dealings)
since the Second Kanto Earthquake (from which Genom recovered in what is
still considered one of the most brilliant demonstrations of
entrepreneurship in the history of business en-terprise), the
megacorporation that seemingly dominated the 2030-40 decade was strong
armed into reas-sessing its corporate goals. Additionally, Genom
endured a twenty-two percent drop in capital during the reappraisal its
five-hundred trillion yen volume. Chairman Hendrick Quincy, the
director of Genom�s Board of Trustees since the late 2010s and a
founding trustee of Genom, Co. Ltd. Earlier in the century, made an
important observation while salvaging his beleaugered operation. First,
the corporation�s pro-ductive goals had overly focused on cybernetic
technologies, while poorly assessing its potential value in light of the
technology�s demand. The difficulty with selling this observation to
the shareholders� repre-sentative resulted mainly in the wide diversity
in Genom�s activities in industry, extending from partial brokerage of
resource exploitation companies to an in-house legal and financial
consul office. These ex-pensive trappings, as Chairman Quincy noted in
the "Genom Annual Financial Review, Comments, and Open Questions�2036"
emphasized the long-standing relationship between the goals of Genom�s
sub-sidiaries, and the primary mission to establish the corporation as a
dominant figure in a world slowly adapting to a cybernetic lifestyle.
Whereas 29% of Genom�s human resource was devoted to productive elements
(resource exploitation, aeronautical technologies, electrical
engineering, software research and development, etc.), the total
productivity of these constituents amounted to barely seven percent of
Genom�s annual net commercial output. Instead, 84% of Genom
constituents worked as separate, semi-automous components of the
cybernetic research and development groups.
Realizing their grave error in the late 2020s, Genom had drastically
cut its in-house manpower, making use of the attractiveness of the new
cybernetic market to exert influence within Japanese keiretsu�s; by
2029, Genom had successfully forged well over thirteen hundred mergers
with small, outside companies and corporations while concentrating on
diversifying its own goals. Nevertheless, Quincy and Genom�s trustees
failed to understand the raw tentativeness of the cybernetic market, a
fatal mistake made by hun-dreds of software giants during the 1990s and
the first years of the new millenia when what was then called the
"Internet" supposedly represented a new, viable marketplace. Quincy
succeeded in establishing several spin-off projects on which Genom
theoretically could have reinforced its product foundation.
Nevertheless, the raw appeal of the "coming age of cyberneticism,"
combined with the almost "cyberpunkish" euphoria embraced by the
economic intellectuals (A. Chrysler, Edgar Simmons, etc.) on Genom�s
board of directors triumped over practical, economic sense. Naturally,
the spin-off operations were either�for the most part�canceled, or
simply restricted to developing new technologies for Genom�s latest
magical wonder.
The Cyberdroid, known more commonly as "Boomers," probably best
represents Genom�s ironic situa-tion. Leading edge cybernetics and
artificial intelligence with relatively high cost efficiency drew the
at-tention of national industries around the world�particularly from
Third World countries with a particular wealth in raw resources and a
lack of technology with which to exploit it. Still, the workforce
potential for the Cyberdroid incited mixed feelings in the
sociopolitical situations in which the boomers were in-serted. Labor
unions throughout Asia and Africa protested the introduction of
commericial Cyberdroids ever since Project Blue Collar went into
effect, and four major European Economic Community nations actively
banned the cybernetic market within their borders. The Cyberdroid�s
bubble success from Mega-tokyo�s viewpoint suffered a gruesome first
year defeat abroad. However, Chairman Quincy and the trus-tees could
not be blamed for allowing this trend to escape them. Markets for
Cyberdroids did exist, and in numbers that effectively granted an
intense wave of initiative into the Genom capital machine. By 2031, the
EEC had finally convinced its opposition members to ease their
restrictions; although Germany and Denmark would continue to finance and
develop their own cybernetic and mechanical advances (without Genom
influence or bankrolling). However, between 2028 and 2033, the world
would witness an incredi-ble inflation of Genom�s value, and combined
with the flash burgeoning of demand in the cybernetic mar-ket amongst
American and British corporations, Genom�s robotic capital good suddenly
went from the enigmatic Cyberdroid witnessed in mere tests and
demonstrations to potential political investors to the individual firms
within the microeconomic scope. Thus, the "Boomer Age" was born.
Unfortunately for Genom, in 2033 the corporation�s wholly
superlative success began to exhibit the poor integrity of its
foundation. As a series of political and economic crises in Japan and
abroad threat-ened Genom�s foreign interests, the world came to realize
the social plight of those living in the sixty-four percent slum-like
conditions of the super-industrialized Megatokyo. Largely responsible
for the city�s political, economic, and social structuring, Genom
suddenly became anathema to social activists and lob-byists worldwide,
and by 2036, a number of public interest groups in Megatokyo had
successfully per-suaded a significant enough number of parlimentary
representatives to sway voting behavior in the Diet. Of Hendrick
Quincy�s even greater concern, the United States was quickly regaining
its status as an eco-nomic power. Generally considered to being well on
its way to a lower end of the productivity spectrum at the onset of the
2040s, the United States of America suddenly underwent a protectionist
revolution. Balking at the Japanese corporate strangle hold and
attacking Genom�s American interests in particular, Congress enacted
numerous trade bills that actively banned hundreds of items from Genom�s
vital export list to the Americas, while opening their markets to hungry
European industries that have long lobbied the American government
against Genom�s undue influence. Furthermore, formidable US federal and
mili-tary agencies began a nationwide crackdown on possible underhanded
dealings that Genom has allegedly participated in. Finally, in 2035,
the largest American software development corporation, TXI Encom,
announced its intentions to move ahead with an advanced mechanical
engineering program; leaving Genom with the splattered paint ball of the
cybernetic decade smeared over the corporation�s hands.
The most devastating of tangible blows to the Cyberdroid market
occurred in late-2037. By this time, the Combat-variants of the
Cyberdroids were being deployed by both the the South Korean army and
the Japanese Self Defense Force. On September 2, North Korea initiated
a brief shooting conflict; drawing both American and Japanese troops to
the frontlines. For the first time, combat Cyberdroids had been tested
in combat, and their performance�both on the field and in the
maintenance sheds�fell far below normal. From one point of view, the
Second Korean Conflict (Sep 2, 2037�Nov 4, 2037) was the prov-ing ground
between the Cyberdroid and its conventional alternative, the power
suit. TXI Encom, recently having purchased Mitsubishi�s rights to the
K-series of police armors, reassessed and redeveloped the concept into a
combat vehicle, and the idea of the Enhanced Infantry was effectively
born. When the first ASR-1001s arrived on in Pusan in late September,
the Cyberdroid troops South Korea and Japan had drawn up to the front
were falling horribly short against a far less modernized North Korean
army. The problem unaddressed by Genom in the development of its combat
variant of "Boomer" was that the com-bat cybernetic intelligence was too
damned expensive to waste in a stand-up fight. When Cyberdroids were
deployed, they easily fell victim to far less expensive rockets. In
fact, while Cyberdroids made a sig-nificant impact in enemy casualties,
the loss ratio for the standard combat variant put General Hideyoshi
Takajima�Commander in Chief of the Eastern Army, Japanese Armed Forces,
and theater commander for Japanese operations in Korea�in an utterly
hopeless situation.
Enter the ASR-1001. Within three days of landing, deployed ASR-1001
power suits; assigned to the 79th Special Operations Group and later (in
the form of an air deployable variant) assigned to the XVIII Airborne
Corps� 101st Division. Overseas, TXI Encom received bids from many of
Genom�s previous clients on purchasing the battle suit, whose less
expensive price tag had appealed to the megalomaniac despots looking to
purchase such arms. The operations carried out the the Special
Operations Group were primarily testbed-like in nature, but the
ASR-1001�s production model carried out a massive paratroop campaign
against North Korean headquarters about the overrun Demilitarized Zone
and effectively proved their worth three weeks later, when American and
Australian groundtroops, all employing the new battle suit, seized
Pyongpyong, the capital of the Democratic Republic of (North) Korea.
Genom practically reeled at the economic implications of the combat
Cyberdroids failure in a real war situation. North Korea had proven
that Cyberdroids with combat-level intelligence simply could not
con-duct warfare in a manner that produced viable results.
Unimaginative, maintenance intensive in between operations, and entirely
incapable of autonomous strategic operations, they were only slightly
more effec-tive than the disasterous "drone armor" project of the 2010s,
in which unmanned tanks were unleashed on rough terrain and left to
their own designs. The American venture into the Philipines with the
MDBT-010 failed utterly, resulting in the destruction of the three
testbeds and the accidently razing of an entire armored troop�counting
four destroyed MBT-002 Ingram main battle tanks by friendly fire.
Immedi-ately, an inquiry into the capabilities of mounting "imaginative"
level intelligences into the boomers was convened�the major difficulty
with combat Cyberdroids lay in the potential of unleashing a still
rather shaky ground of cybernetic sciences on a robot armed with the
equivalent firepower of a twentieth century infantry platoon. The
recent Megatokyo experiences with Boomer crime had convinced that the
reciprocal dangers of developing combat boomers with higher
intelligences negated the potential for the machine.
Faced with a rapidly declining situation, Genom�s trusteeship
decided to reincorporate its cybernetic department into Kuridata
Cybernetics, Ltd., in late 2041. Chairman Quincy personally directed
the rein-vestment thirty-trillion yen into the first appraisal. The
cybernetic department was written off a year later as an opportunity
cost, and further Boomer development was placed on the back burner as
another Genom Subsidiary, Robotics Millenial, took off in Aomori. While
their lease on Genaros had run up after de-claring Chapter 11 on the
American home-based GPCC in 2039, Genom had reasserted its financial
clout to a point where the World Bank released a five-year rental of the
facilities�with all previous operations already intact and
compartmentalized. The Genaros Space Station, back on line by 2040, was
already reinitiating its "battle-mover" research program as Genom
decided to focus solely on defense production for the next two years.
The long-term plan seemed to work up until mid-2042, when the ASR-1003
Mk.II was released from construction on the Lagrange 4 Space Industry
Station. Despite the greater sophistica-tion of the Generos project,
the familiarity with the ASR-1003 Mk.II caught America and Britain�s
atten-tion. Similarly, the European Economic Community, feeling the
necessity to once again assert its influ-ence in Northern Africa,
purchased three armored infantry brigades worth of the new, more compact
bat-tle suit.
The rebirth of the United Nations in the late 2030s also hurt
Genom�s chances of selling to the political competition. While TXI
Encom would sell technology and weapons to compliant member nations,
Genom found their ability to skirt UN sanctions and resolutions
curtailed when the United States flatly warned of the grave consequences
that might arise from any corporations� dealing with "rogue states."
Before 2037, Genom had frequently supplied notorious dictatorships and
juntas with enough firepower to quell insurgency and impose on
neighboring sovereignties; their incredible position in global politics
at the time afforded them a sort of safety net very few could even dream
of. However, the American Federal Bureau of Investigations uncovered
documents detailing a corporate venture into biological and genetic
industries. Carefully leaking the information to the press, the
American government�in one of most notable socio-economic crusades of
the current President Jonathan A. Brutus (Republican)�pushed for greater
UN recriminations against the Japanese economic system. UN
investigators of a non-related com-pany�s activites (at the ironic
behest of Japan�s current government) uncovered nearly thirty to forty
documents (hard-copies and unshredded) abstracting corporate intentions
to initiate some sort of dealings with "black-listed" nations such as
Libya, South Africa, the People�s Republc of the Congo, and Iran.
Baharain actually initiated litigation against the multi-national
corporation in the World Court, although Chairman Quincy succeeded in
proving that Genom was in no way related with the culpable BioSyn
En-terprises (a Taiwanese-based operation).
Still, the resultant damaged hurt Genom severely; quarterly earnings
at the end of fiscal year 2041 indi-cated a drop that doubled the
previous trend, bringing the appraisal vloume down by nearly eight
percent. Kuridata and Robotics Millenial may have saved the
corporation, but the stigma that surrounds the corpo-rations name still
hangs like an albatross about Hendrick Quincy�s neck. Today, six years
after Genom�s last major drop, the corporation has endured its
comeuppance with bitterly remarkable success. Riding the wave of near
catastrophic decline, the board of trustees and Quincy have brought
Genom into an era where the competition is stiffer. Even at this point,
the corporation still plays a major role through its various subsidiary
companies, even though Kuridata represents a shuffled opportunity cost
in favor of Ro-botics, and even though the Boomer Craze died out almost
as immediately as it began. Nevertheless, Genom�s decline and survival
only indicates the corporations inherent drive to survive. While
weakened from both the drop and fighting to recover, Genom has shown a
ferocity that is only to typical of today�s corporate entities. With
the rise of TXI Encom, Samson International, Inc., DalTECH, and various
other megaconglomerates and MNCs, Genom�s level of competition may only
feed that ferocity; the corporate wars are far from over.
-Jacob Schimmel, New York Times financial columnist and Professor of
American Mac-roeconomics at the New York University�s Stern School of
Businees. Essay-speech written for the Jacowitz Annual Dinner and
Financial Review, 2047.
Notes
(1) "Daedalus� Fantastic Folly: Genom and the Megalomaniac, Bursting
Bubble." John Arthur Reeves, Northeastern Graduate Financial Magazine.
Bard University Press. 2039. "Project Blue Collar" refers to the first
introduction of Cyberdroids into the Japanese labor force in 2028.
Primitive by modern stan-dards, the 2027 line of work robots attacked
the very institution of a human, blue-collar workforce in Ja-pan.
Similar, and far more violent, protests came when the Cyberdroid was
first introduced in the United States�where it�s still expensive price
tag fared far less amongst American industries than rising Third World
Nations and the Asian Tigers.
(2)"Padlocked and About to Scream." Simon Tasselberg, Associated Press.
The 101st "Streaking Eagles" Paratrooper Division had arrived in March,
during the initial stages of the crises. Relieving the 35th Marine
Expeditionary Unit, the 101st would suffer severe casualties at the
onset of the fighting.
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/--<Prez, The Reverend of Funk >-+------------------------\
| Presley H. Cannady II | Author of the |
|NROTC Candidate | Robotech New Era Sagas |
|
cannady@magiccarpet.com | and various fanfics |
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+--<"...The mothership has landed...funktacular...">----+
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