I'd say this was more of a way to say that B-ko and I were still around
than anything else, but enjoy it anyhow.
-- Listar MIME Decryption --------------
-- Name : Dark Future.txt
NeoTokyo, Ginza District.
19 July 2040, 22:16 local time.
Major Motoko Kusanagi of the United Earth Government's Special
Section Nine watched with detached interest as a column of veritech
hovertanks glided noisily down the wide NeoTokyo boulevard in search
of the same renegade boomer she was after. The competition didn't
concern her -far from it, considering how incompetant Brittan and his
bunch were. Her only concern was that they might spook it before the
rest of her unit was in position, and have it escape in the ensuing
chaos and mass destruction.
That would not do. Aramaki wanted this thing back. Yesterday.
Eight kinds of hell were coming down from above about this boomer's
sudden walkout, and she and her entire unit found themselves on a
semi-ballistic out of Macross City and bound for NeoTokyo before they
even knew what they had been scrambled for.
The Boomer wasn't even a combat model, it was an intelligence
collection type. The fact that it was one of the new Nexus-6 designs,
and therefore remarkably intelligent, must have had something to do with
the decision to roll the Tank Police, but how in the hell had a bunch of
testosterone sponges like the Colonel (and his private army better known
as the NeoTokyo Police) gotten wind of the boomer's design specs? There
was a leak somewhere to plug, but that wasn't her concern for the time
being.
~Hey, Major. What's shaking on your end?~
The disembodied voice in her head belonged to Batou, her partner for
lack of a better term. Rumors that they were romantically involved were
amusing, but inaccurate. The intense bond they shared went far beyond
anything generated purely as the result of sex (which they had never
actually had together) and yet was wholly alien from the kind of bond that
would suddenly make her wonder about what kind of drapes would look good
in a nursery. Esprit de corps? she wondered absently. No, much stronger
than that. Far more personal.
~Major?~
She smiled at her inner ramblings, put on her game face, and then
keyed her cellular link.
~I'm here,~ she thought curtly.
~I've got hovertanks rolling into my zone. What's up?~
She watched Brittan's column turn a corner with shrill screams of
fusion turbines, scattering hapless evening motorists and clots of drunken
salarymen in their wake. Their searchlight beams probed the upper storey
windows of this mostly commercial district near the Ginza. They were
definitely not getting points for subtlety. Or public relations. Business
as usual for the Tank Police.
~Someone tipped the Tank Police,~ she replied.
~Any ideas on who?~
~A few, but that's not important right now. What does Togasa have
on the tracker?~
~Unit is stationary and within one-hundred meters. Bearing is
indeterminate but tending towards east,~ Togasa replied, breaking in.
~That's the best you can do?~
~In a dense urban zone like this, unless he moves, it's going to
be hard getting pinpoint accuracy. Whoever insisted on an FM signal
transponder should have his head examined.~
Batou smirked, a sensation whose abstract impressions carried through
his thought-based cellular transmission link to Kusanagi.
~Then maybe the Tank Police will do us some good after all.~
~I doubt it.~
Kusanagi decided to shift her position. If it was east of her, she
needed to get up above the buildings that restricted her view. As she
moved, her form blurred against the brightly lit orange side of the
office block she had perched upon -courtesy of the thermoptic camouflage
she wore. The garish colors of NeoTokyo were a bit overwhelming after the
sterile greys and chrome of Macross, but Kusanagi found the excess
appealing.
She was on the roof now, ears straining against the noise of a large
air conditioning cooling tower set to her right. The flex of her jaw
muscles where they hinged with her ears initialized audio signal processing
routines which began running, sampling, and then filtering out the white
noise of the tower fans and the dripping condensing water. The effect was
disturbingly immediate, leaving her only with the sound of the hovertanks,
a loud blast from a personal stereo of Sharon Apple's latest single
"Information High," and the muted honk of an irate taxpayer below.
Where are you, you little bastard?
Her thoughts were interrupted by the engine noises of a dozen
motorcycles. Her keen ears picked up on them one by one as they
approached from the west, headed towards her position. They were mostly
mid-range displacement around 750 cc's, a throaty V-Twin with some custom
pipes and carb work, and, curiously enough, the nearly ultrasonic shrill
of a gas-turbine electric.
She peered down from the roof to see what was obviously one of
NeoTokyo's growing number of motorcycle gangs. She'd read the briefs for
this area before, and these fellas weren't your typical Japanese kids
playing James Dean tough guys in the year or so before they went to college
and then sold their souls to one Zaibatsu or another. These were real hard
cases, thugs with nowhere to go and nothing really to lose. The sleek red
gas-turbine bike was an engima. It was not a low-rent bike. The kid was
either really lucky or else well connected to someone with money.
A capsule motif was prominent on their rides.
~Cycle gang approaching from the west,~ Kusanagi informed the rest
of her team. ~Maybe they'll draw Brittan away and let us go to work. You
know how he hates juvenile delinquents.~
~We could always sneak something in on the NeoTokyo police-band about
it,~ Batou suggested.
Kusanagi didn't answer, because she was watching the Capsule Gang,
and because she realized that they weren't just out raising hell. They
were running from something.
An explosion rocked the humid Ginza night air. A white sphere of
water vapor, crushed by the force of the concussion, rolled out down
the block. The chatter of a light autocannon joined it, followed by the
shriek of jets.
The Capsules scattered as it touched down in the middle of their pack,
turning and unleashing bolts of charged particles that cracked like
thunderclaps echoing between the tall buildings on either flank. It was a
Genom Boomer, one of their new heavy combat models, and patently illegal
outside the wastelands caused by Dolza's Rain of Death. It wasn't shooting
at the cycle gang, Kusanagi noted.
It was shooting at four suits of powered armor that dropped down from
the sky to the high points on nearby buildings.
The shooting of course drew the attention of Brittan's Tank Police,
who pulled an about face and came shrieking back around the corner.
Kusanagi watched as the lead tanks transformed into the squat two-legged
artillery platform of Guardian Mode.
~What's going on, Major?~ Batou demanded. ~Togasa says our boy is
starting to move.~
A stray bolt of particle beam fury from one of Brittan's yahoos
blasted through the building facade, spilling Kusanagi onto her duff
before she could answer. She rolled clear as one of the vigilante suits of
powered armor settled down close by. There was no inidication that the
operator had seen her, as her thermoptic camouflage was still functioning,
and she took cover behind the cooling tower as the person she now confirmed
in her mind to be one of the Knight Sabers went to work on the boomer with
a man-portable railgun.
Kusanagi swore to herself.
Of all the nights to get caught in the path of a rampaging NeoTokyo
Boomer!
The Following Has Been A
Mildly Entertaining Piece Of Fan-Fluff
From Fission Park Press
I call it:
DARK FUTURE
This is mostly the result of boredom, but also an observation that many of
my favorite works of manga and anime take place within a roughly identical
time-frame in the early twenty-first century. What if all these worlds were
in the same place? The result is merely my interpretation. My DARK FUTURE.
The time-line that follows obviously shreds some the canon of the respective
anime and manga series, but was necessary in part to make everything fit.
Comments are welcome!
____________________________________________________________________________
STORY TIMELINE FROM 1995 TO 2040 A.D.
1995 - The Second Korean War begins, ending with a UN victory after six
months of conflict, and only after the destruction of North Korea's
strategic rocket forces by massed commando attack.
1996 - The Russian Federation suffers a critical breach of military
accountability following an unauthorized expedition to Antarctica that
results in the loss of hundreds of Naval Infantry lives. Their intended
purpose is never revealed, and a further destabilization of world peace
efforts results.
1997 - A series of mysterious explosions rocks the Middle East and Asia,
ending in a massive explosion that destroys 80% of Metropolitan Tokyo.
Nuclear weapons are blamed, though it is in fact the last manifestation
of Special Project #31, AKIRA. AKIRA is subdued, terminated, and dissected
to prevent disclosure of the Japanese Home Ministry's advanced espionage
project. War breaks out in the Middle East as various local powers vie to
control the dwindling oil reserves. A world-wide depression ensues.
1998 - The Global Civil War begins with existing regional conflicts in
Afghanistan, Pakistan/India, China/Taiwan, Brazil and Argentina, the
Balkans, and Africa blossoming into a worldwide conflict. The United
States splits into three factions, Mexico falls apart in civil war, and
Quebecois declare their independence from Canada in an unexpectedly bloody
revolution.
1999 - A massive alien spacecraft crashes on Macross Island. A cease-fire
is called in the Global Civil War to investigate the wreck and its portents
for mankind.
2000 - The Global Civil War ends with the formation and recognition of a
United Earth Government. The spacecraft, renamed Macross, is to be rebuilt.
The UN Spacy is founded.
2002 - A base on Mars is established to determine the viability of a
colony. The expenditure is denounced by members of the Anti-Unification
movement, who feel that the money should go to fund social spending
projects on Earth.
2007 - UEG Mars Sara Base is destroyed in an attack by Anti-Unification
rebels. Karl Riber, fiance of the Macross' young first officer Misa
Hayase, is among the dead.
2009 - Zentraedi spacecraft enter the solar system and attack the Macross
on Launch Day. The Macross accidentally spacefolds to the orbit of Pluto
while attempting to escape the aliens. Macross City is drawn up into the
fold effect.
Lynn Minmei, a refugee from Macross City, becomes a popular singing
sensation aboard ship.
2010 - Efforts to revive AKIRA as a defensive weapon against the aliens
fail catastrophically. The project is shelved indefinitely, and funding
shifted to an enormous reflex weapon known as "The Grand Cannon."
2011 - The Zentraedi Grand Fleet, under the command of Supreme Commander
Dolza, bombards the Earth, killing 98% of humanity in what becomes known
as "The Rain of Death." The Macross and the Zentraedi forces of Commander
Breetai and his mutinous Imperial Fleet destroy Dolza and his fleet. Six
million warships, as well as the Grand Cannon, are destroyed in the
holocaust.
2012 - Reconstruction begins under a joint Human-Zentraedi Alliance.
Macross City becomes the new capitol of the planet.
The Macross is nearly destroyed in a suicidal attack by Botoru Battalion
Commander Khyron, the last of the influential Zentraedi guerrilla leaders
still on Earth.
2014 - The United Earth Government is reestablished after several years
of martial law. The UN Spacy is separated into two branches, the United
Earth Defense Force, and the Earth Alliance Space Force (Spacy). The Spacy
is to protect future extrasolar colonies while the UEDF protects the Solar
System.
2015 - Reconstruction of the Macross begins following years of radioactive
decontamination.
The VF-2 Valkyrie II fighter enters service as the primary combat mecha of
the UEDF and Spacy.
2018 - Due to the vast amounts of sterilized land from the Rain of Death,
UEG sponsored offworld colonization efforts begin. Eden is one of the first
extrasolar planets settled.
2020 - The Human-Zentraedi Alliance slowly weakens as the Zentraedi begin
to desert and become marauders of the new human spaceways.
The full-sized Zentraedi heavy metal band "Grand Cannon" blow themselves up
on stage in Macross City during their Perfect Clarity tour to protest the
treatment of micronized Zentraedi in society.
Katsuhito Stengovitch, a brilliant scientist working for the UEG and the
Macross Development Consortium, dies in a disasterous lab fire started
by rivals within the MDC. The MDC later splinters into daughter companies
following investigations of corruption and theft of restricted UEG
technologies.
Hikaru Ichijo and Misa Hayase are married aboard the Macross. Both resign
from UEDF service and retire to one of the Outer Veil colony worlds.
2021 - Genom, a robotics and artificial intelligence company formed in the
splintering of the Macross Development Consortium, releases the first in a
series of androids known as "Boomers" to serve as a labor force for the
critically depleted human population. The Boomers are based on work
conducted by Doctor Stengovitch's research group.
2022 - The Macross is restored to full function, although this is kept
a secret from all but the highest levels of the military and government.
A utopian state known as Olympus is founded in the Carribean. Its true
motives and agenda are unclear, however it becomes a respected and
law-abiding subject of the United Earth Government under a program of
reclaiming the Earth's wastelands for future habitation. Rumors of Olympian
agents culling select refugees from the wastelands are unconfirmed but
believed accurate, as are rumors concerning the acquisition of Zentraedi
cloning technology.
2024 - The Hypernet, a vast third generation Internet, is completed on
Earth. Foldcomm links are begun to connect Earth with its colonies in
deep space.
The VF-11 Thunderbolt veritech fighter becomes the new front line combat
mecha of the UEDF and the Spacy.
2025 - The Great Kanto Earthquake, believed to be a residual effect of
the tectonic upheaval caused by Dolza's Rain of Death, strikes the
rebuilt city of Tokyo, nearly destroying it. The quake is in fact the
work of Genom.
Olympus begins offering sophisticated cybernetic implants/augmentation
for sale. The utopian state becomes a haven for maverick technologists,
and draws the attention and business of the various security and
intelligence agencies of the Human-Zentraedi Alliance.
2026 - Genom wins the contract to begin rebuilding Tokyo into NeoTokyo,
one of the most modern and luxurious cities in the reconstruction world.
Like Olympus, the city is granted a semi-autonomous status within the UEG,
with a separate police/defense force under the authority of the city's
Executive Committee.
2027 - Her popularity as an idol singer fading, and unable to make the
successful transition to mainstream entertainment, Lynn Minmei announces
her retirement, and goes into seclusion.
2029 - Genom creates Boomers with true Artificial Intelligence. Using
Zentraedi cloning technology, they begin engineering the Nexus-6 class
of Boomer, which is almost completely undetectable as a synthetic.
Lynn Minmei dies of an apparent suicide at the age of 35. Ironically this
spurs a wave of nostalgia that catapults her work back to the top of the
charts for years. Zentraedi Commander Breetai becomes concerned that the
loss of Minmei will affect the UEDF's preparedness against future Zentraedi
attack. Plans for a computer generated Minmei-like personality construct
are drafted, but languish due to a lack of artificial intelligence
adequately sophisticated to generate an emotive quality genuine enough to
be effective as a psychological weapon.
2030 - The AKIRA Project is rediscovered by Section 6 in the ruins of
old Tokyo. Section 6 is a unit of the UEG's intelligence apparatus.
Section 6 allocates funding to continue the experiments put on hold by
the chaos of the Global Civil War. No one outside of Section 6's aegis
is informed of the AKIRA Project, not even their own superiors within
the government.
2031 - Genom Boomers begin running amok on Earth, particularly in NeoTokyo.
No explanation can be found for the malfunctions, but Boomers are deemed
too important to the reconstruction economy to ban.
2033 - A group of vigilantes known as the Knight Sabers begin attacking
renegade boomers when it becomes clear that the ill-equipped NeoTokyo
Police are unable to handle the problem. The Knight Sabers are led by
Sylia Stingray, daughter of the deceased Katsuhito Stengovitch. Start-up
financing for the Knight Sabers comes from Olympus, in exchange for the
powered armor technology that is Doctor Stengovitch's legacy.
Isamu Dyson, Myung Fang Lone, and Guld Goa Bowman graduate from Dalmatia
High School on planet Eden. Dyson joins the Spacy with the intention of
becoming a pilot.
Priscilla Asagiri becomes an underground musical hit on Earth with her
band, "Priss and the Replicants."
2034 - Isamu Dyson completes Advanced Mecha Combat Training at the UEDF
Fokker Base in Wyoming. He is sent to the EASF (Spacy), and joins a patrol
carrier in deep space searching for Zentraedi survivors of the Rain of
Death still loyal to Dolza.
Olympus requests and is granted authority to police the wastelands of
Earth, freeing the UEDF to concentrate on its orbital defense network.
ESWAT is founded by Olympus as its paramilitary arm.
2035 - The NeoTokyo Police receive a squadron of VF-11 Thunderbolts and
VHT-1 Centaur Veritech Hovertanks to deal with the destructive Boomer
renegades and well-armed Zentraedi malcontents. The Tank Police is formed
from these combat units. Captain Brittan is made the field level commander
of the Tank Police.
2037 - Deunan Knute and her cyborg companion Briareos Hecatonchires are
recruited by Olympus for the ESWAT peacekeeping units.
The UEDF's Minmei Project is cancelled following a deadly psychotic
episode involving the construct. A radical new neuron-logic architecture
processor is blamed for the incident, and the technology is banned.
Genom, through its puppet Macross Development Consortium, begins
development of the Ghost Fighter, an autonomous combat mecha using a
tailored Nexus-6 brain grafted to cybernetic components similar to those
utilized in the Minmei Project as its primary control system. The Ghost
project is backed by General Chavez of the UEDF, who wishes to do away
with human mecha pilots in the UEDF and the Spacy altogether.
A cyber-terrorist known as the Puppet Master begins attacking government
and corporate organizations through "ghost-hacked" victims via their
cybernetic hypernet links. The Puppet Master is in fact a rogue Section 6
artificial intelligence known to them by its designation Project 2501.
2038 - Pop Music superstar Sharon Apple is created in a Genom computer
lab. Her personality construct is not yet complete, due to the failure of
the UEDF's Minmei Project and subsequent technology ban, and an elaborate
hoax is perpetuated using Myung Fang Lone for her emotions. Sharon's first
album goes platinum within three days.
Major Motoko Kusanagi, an agent of the UEG's Internal Security Section 9
uncovers information regarding an illegal collusion between Genom and the
increasingly independent Section 6, that is related to Sharon Apple. A
covert investigation into Genom and Section 6's involvement is ordered.
2039 - Project Supernova begins at the New Edwards Test Range on planet
Eden. The next generation veritech fighter competition is the purpose of
the project. The YF-19 and Genom's YF-21 are the lead contenders. Genom
augmented Zentraedi half-breed Guld Goa Bowman is the test pilot for the
YF-21.
The AKIRA Project is augmented with covert funding coming from the NeoTokyo
Executive Committee. Concrete results begin to appear with the project,
generating tension between one faction of Section 6 and the faction that
created (and lost) the Puppet Master.
2040 - Isamu Dyson is made the test pilot for the YF-19 after numerous
flight mishaps disable other pilots. Section 6 manipulated the selection
process as a personal favor to their Genom allies, hoping the maverick
Dyson would ruin the YF-19 Team's chances of success.
DARK FUTURE begins.