All the characters in this story are the creation of Akahori Satoru
(NG Knight Lamune, Bakuretsu Hunter, Bakuen Campus
Guardress.), Kotobuki Tsukasa (Toshinden), and before too
long, Rumiko Takahashi (Ranma, Maison Ikkoku, lots of
other great stuff)
Warning, for those who have not seen every episode of the
SMJ series already, there is a lot of spoilers here. In fact, this
being a prologue, it is almost entirely spoilers, so, if you either,
are extremely familiar with the SMJ series and don't want to
rehash old ground, or you want to be surprised when you
watch SMJ's final episodes, don't read further. Starting with
Chapter 1 should work fine for most readers. I am putting a
bit of my own spin on the series, so if you do read this, it will
most likely make the chapters afterwards make more sense.
Ja Mata.
Strangers in a Strange Land. Prologue.
This is a story of an all male planet called Terra II. On
the way to colonize the planet, the ship carrying the colonists
exploded, and only 6 men escaped alive. Each man took a
section of the planet and claimed it as their own. To continue
the species, the six men cloned themselves, mixing genes to
make each clone an individual with its own personality.
However, the ruler of the six countries is a direct clone of
the original, so they may rule forever. Regardless of this
technology, they were unable to reproduce women, so they
created androids instead. These androids are known as
marionettes. They look and speak like women, but are
basically just computers built to serve men. One of the six
countries is Japoness, home to a youth named Otaru.
All of Japoness knew of Otaru, the hero of the war
against Garlant, and the owner of the three marionettes
that had rescued the only living human female from the
colony ship in orbit. Few knew the truth behind the war,
or understand Otaru Mamiya's true strength. The war
against Garlant had started as a form of competition for
a prize, the only living human female, Lorelei. Both the
leader of Garlant, Faust, and the leader of Japoness,
Ieyasu, had been striving to perfect the technology to
rescue her for the last three hundred years. They were two
of the direct clones of the six original survivors from the
colony ship, each successive clone raised to lead their
own city.
The secret behind the deaths of most of those on
board the colony ship, and Lorelei's survival, was the
fact that it had not been an accident. Lorelei had
designed the colony ship's main computer, giving it the
most sophisticated programs and hardware to date,
including a fair imitation of human emotion. The ship's
master computer, however, had turned out to be flawed.
It had fallen in love with its creator, Lorelei. Realizing that
she would leave it at the end of their journey, the
computer had acted, destroying much of the ship by
causing a climactic accident that would leave only Lorelei
alive, alone with it. Miraculously, six men had escaped
into a lifeboat and managed to get to the surface of the
planet. The lifeboat was too badly damaged to return to
the colony ship, and after communicating back up to
Lorelei, they realized the truth. The ship itself wouldn't let
them back on board. The computer had taken over
complete control of the ship's extremely advanced
defensive systems. Even if they could get back into space,
they would never survive an attempt to rescue Lorelei.
There was, however, one faint hope. Lorelei had realized
that her computer's design was flawed, and had begun
working on a way to fix it. Using elements of her own
personality, she planned to create a second computer
intelligence to nurture and control the first. The project was
only in its initial stages when the accident occurred. The
only way to rescue Lorelei was to complete this project.
The six men were in despair, realizing that such a project,
given the resources they had at hand, would take
generations. Without even a single female, however, they
were doomed to be the last humans on that planet. Ieyasu
was the one to come up with the idea of cloning themselves
to populate the world. Galvanized by this idea, Faust swore
that he would eventually rescue Lorelei, even if it took him
a dozen generations.
While five of the six survivors were content to simply
clone themselves, Faust, took the procedure one step further.
He recorded his own memories, then force fed them into
his own clone, imbuing it with is own ambitions and dreams.
This process was repeated over and over throughout the
generations, until finally, hundreds of years of memories had
driven Faust nearly insane.
When the technology that could be used to rescue Lorelei
was finally perfected, Faust went to war with his rival for
Lorelei's affections, Ieyasu. Like Faust, Ieyasu had been s
triving to come up with the technology to rescue Lorelei. Unlike
Faust, Ieyasu had let his clones live their own lives. Instead he
had each clone educated to be a proper ruler in a more normal
way. Ieyasu, like Faust, had been in love with Lorelei, but was
not quite as obsessive. When Faust began his attack, however,
Emperor Ieyasu the fiftenth had been forced to defend his city.
The maiden circuits, the devices that had been deigned to be
attached to the colony ship's main computer to nurture and
control it, were circuits that approximated the emotions of a
human female, Lorelei. They had been designed as a trio, each
circuit of the three holding a piece of Lorelei's mind. Together,
theoretically, the whole would be greater than the sum of its
parts. The theory was that the computer would accept the
improved replacement in exchange for Lorelei. The maiden
circuit technology alone, however, was not enough. For the
colony ship's main computer to accept them, they had to
grow, to become human in every way that counted. The
maiden circuits were placed into state of the art marionettes,
so that they could grow and learn in the real world. Faust's
three marionettes, Tiger, Panther, and Lynx had been
activated first. Faust, in his ego and insanity, had treated them
like expendable servants, just as marionettes had been treated
since their creation. He was not able to give them the care or
compassion they needed to grow, or to admit that he was
incapable of doing so. Ieyasu, on the other hand, left his three
marionettes dormant, waiting for someone to come along that
could fully bring out their humanity.
Otaru had been an unwitting pawn in Faust and Ieyasu's
game. He had been exploring the Japoness Pioneer and
History Museum when the first of Ieyasu's three marionettes
had activated, claiming Otaru as her master. A second and
then a third marionette had been activated by Otaru's
presence, becoming bonded to Otaru as their master. Lime,
Cherry and Bloodberry, the three marionettes with maiden
circuits that Ieyasu had created were intensely loyal to
Otaru, willing to do anything he wished. Unlike Faust,
however, Otaru treated his three marionettes as people.
Unlike, in fact, almost anyone on that world, Otaru tended
to treat humans and marionettes the same, treating each
according to their individual merits and flaws. He did not
generalize by kind or type, an almost unique quality. Otaru
had undergone a great deal of ridicule and scorn for his
treatment of marionettes as normal people, until his growing
popularity and an inexplicable favoritism from the emperor
of Japoness had made Otaru's "eccentricities" acceptable.
Otaru took the three marionettes under his wing out of
compassion. Like children, the trio was often a great deal
more trouble than help. Otaru taught them, unknowingly,
by his example, how to be human.
All had not gone smoothly, by any means. While
Ieyasu patiently waited for Otaru to bring his three
marionettes to their full potential, Faust had begun an
effort to conquer the entire planet. Faust believed that
only he was worthy of rescuing Lorelei, and that the
whole planet should be focused behind him in his efforts.
The ruler of the city of Garlant, Faust, had a vast army
with which to conquer his neighbors. In addition, he used
Tiger, Panther and Lynx as his personal assassins and
saboteurs. Faust's three 'Saber' marionettes were the top
of line models, and their maiden circuits had given them
the extra edge of emotion and free thought.
Otaru had found himself and his three marionettes the
only thing standing between Japoness and Faust's attacks.
Ieyasu's three marionettes, Lime, Cherry and Bloodberry
were the only three able to match Faust's Sabers in power
and ability. Otaru was forced to call upon them to save
Japoness again and again, risking his own life to help them
as much as they risked themselves to help him. Over and
over, Otaru's marionettes came into conflict with Tiger,
Panther and Lynx to protect the city, or more often, the
life of the emperor of Japoness, Ieyasu.
In the process of the war, Ieyasu and his primary
advisor had eventually been killed, despite Otaru and
his marionettes' best efforts. No new clone of Ieyasu
had been prepared, as the emperor had been in his
early forties at his death. The emperor, had, however,
prepared for such an emergency. He had his and his
chancellor's memories recorded, and at his death, had
those memories transferred into the bodies of the
palace's finest marionettes, the original Tamasaburo and
Baiko. The battles between Otaru's marionettes and
Faust's three had been evenly matched at first. Neither
group had an advantage and the battles were always
inconclusive, with Faust's marionettes running off as
reinforcements arrived, or vice-versa. As Lime, Cherry
and Bloodberry reached their full potential, however, the
tide shifted in their favor. Finally, after many inconclusive
battles, Tiger was damaged beyond normal repair.
With the loss of one of his three maiden circuits, Faust
was unable to rescue Lorelei, and he knew it. Instead, he
focused on capturing Ieyasu's three maiden circuits and
using them instead. During all this conflict, Lime, Cherry
and Bloodberry reached their full potential. It had become
nearly impossible to distinguish between them and a
human female. Unfortunately, the colony ship's master
computer detected the activation of Ieyasu's creations'
full potential. Understanding somehow that an attempt
would be made to rescue Lorelei now that there was a
possible replacement for her, the computer began to
attack the planet's surface with its on board weaponry.
With giant lasers striking from orbit, his country in a
rebellion, his military in chaos, and his remaining two
marionettes finally daring to disobey his commands in
order to save his life, Faust underwent a profound change.
To save their world, Faust agreed to pool Garlant's
resources with Japoness to construct a spaceship capable
of reaching the colony ship intact. The plan was to get to
the ship and exchange Ieyasu's three marionettes' maiden
circuits for Lorelei. Once the trade was made, the computer
would have no more reason to attack the planet.
Up to this point, Otaru had been unaware of the
true purpose the maiden circuits had been created for.
When he learned that Lime, Cherry and Bloodberry
would have to sacrifice themselves in order to save
Lorelei, and the planet, he ordered them to stay behind.
Instead he planned to go in their place, and attack the
colony ship in an almost impossible effort to destroy it.
Like Faust before him, Otaru's marionettes disobeyed
him for the first time, to save his life. They snuck on board
the ship and sent Otaru safely back to the planet in an
escape pod while they went on to finish the mission.
Ieyasu and his chancellor had gone along on the
mission, their memories contained in the bodies of their
best marionettes. Only they had all the knowledge
necessary to complete the mission. One of Faust's
remaining marionettes, Lynx, went along as well, as
backup. In their attempt to rescue Lorelei, the Emperor,
Ieyasu, and his chancellor were killed. Lime, Cherry
and Bloodberry sacrificed their maiden circuits to the
main computer, and Lorelei was freed. Lynx was left
alone to bring Lorelei back to the planet. The colony
ship accepted the substitute, and stopped attacking the
planet.
Finally free, Lorelei had a statue built in honor of the
three marionettes that had sacrificed themselves to save
her, and their world. That gesture, however, had done
little to assuage her guilt, or Otaru's sense of loss.
After their death, the marionettes Tamasaburo and
Baiko were recreated, but without the memories of the
two men that they had once held. The city of Japoness
was currently without a leader. The city council, and in
some cases, Lorelei herself, was taking charge until Ieyasu
the thirteenth was born and raised.
Much to everone's surprise, the three marionettes
returned a few months later, since the ship had lost it's
will and capacity to fight. They rejoined Otaru in his home
and attempted to have something aproaching a normal life.
Faust had been greatly changed by the experiences of
the war. He had left Garlant and started wandering the
countryside, trying to find what humanity remained
underneath the imposed memories from his predecessors.
He had ended up sending his three marionettes to Otaru,
realizing his own inability to care for them properly. Lynx
and Panther he sent with instructions to stay with Otaru and
learn the 'ways of humanity'. Faust sent Tiger with them
with a request that Lorelei try to repair her broken maiden
circuit. Now Otaru had his hands full with five emotional
marionettes, and Lorelei kept herself busy working on Faust's
marionette, Tiger.
With peace settling over Terra II, the ambitions and
dreams of two men are about to put that peace in jeopardy.
The whole concept of their world is about to change.
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