This is a Xenogears/20th century military crossover fic. I'm planning to post this to http://guardian.leamonde.net. they have a good fanfiction section there, and if you don't know much abot Xenogears, it's a good site for info too. Howver, I doubt they've discussed the military practicality of mecha,so I've included some notes at the end.
I still can't decide on a title. I'll give a role to anyone who wants in, or can comeup with a good title. Tell me how my writing is! ::crosses fingers::
PROLOGUE
THE SALVAGER VESSEL THAMES, IN THE AQUAVY ISLANDS
About the time Margie was rescued.
It was a clear day at sea. The sun was shining overhead, and the sea was calm as a sedated hospital patient.
All in all, days like these meant easy going for the crew of the _Thames_.
But the crew of the ship were looking over their readouts from the sonar, rather than enjoying the weather. Their client was not paying them to sightsee. The aforementioned client was a tall, thin, man, with brown hair and eyes. His shirt was red, with a name written in unknown characters. He also wore a gray overcoat with foreign insignia on the chest and shoulder straps. At his waist hung a gun belt holding a very deadly looking pistol. When taken together with the scowl on his face, one got the idea that this was not a man you would want to see angry. When he spoke, it was with the air of one who was tired of waiting.
"Go over this area again."
The myriad sighs of frustration going up from various crewmembers betrayed their boredom with this job. The ship's captain, a walrus-lik demihuman addressed only by his rank, replied, "we've been over this area 3 times. Are you sure this cave exists?” The man, whose name was Tyler, replied, " I gave you the metal samples. You ought to be able to match them to your instrument readouts. Go over the area again." The captain turned to a series of pipes, and shouted into the farthest left one. "Oy, Hans, tell the salvager team to go down another 300 Karn."
"Aye, aye, sir." The Ship's XO relayed the orders to the salvager gears.
Rathien Wolz, the pilot of one of the salvager gears, was understandably nervous. "300 Karn? Can this thing go that deep?" He tried to ignore the pressure warning on his gear, instead watching his MAD readout. On the screen was being displayed the current magnetic field, and below it was a sample of the magnetic field of the metal they were looking for. Suddenly, a tone from the speakers signaled the end of the search.
"Huh? Finally!" He radioed back to the ship. "Sir, I've found it!"
Tyler heard the report on the bridge. "Excellent." He turned to the captain. "I want a submersible ready immediately. As soon as I can confirm it, one of my men will deliver the money."
"500,000G in gold."
"Of course, Captain. That was the agreed amount. But I must get to a submersible first."
30 minutes later, Tyler's wish was granted. He had donned a high pressure diving suit, and was up against the chunk of metal. Only this close to it could you see that it was part of a large metal door. He swam to the left, and brushed off a patch of seaweed. Now clusters of colored lights were visible, coming from a keypad. Tyler entered a series of numbers, and the doors swung open. He swam right inside, and the doors closed shut behind him.
The area inside the doors was a round room with a ladder in the wall that extended upwards several meters. Such a shape was needed to contain the water that flowed through when Tyler opened the doors. He swam to the water's surface, and grabbed the ladder. At the top was another door and a keypad. Tyler put in a different code, and the keypad slid up into the wall. Out of the open spot came 2 instruments. One scanned Tyler's eyes, the other pricked his finger, drawing blood. It beeped twice, then, in an ancient language known only to one of Tyler's nationality, stated plainly "Retina and DNA patterns recognized. You are clear to enter. Welcome back, sir."
Tyler stepped through the door, and the lights in the room all turned on. The entrance closed behind Tyler, leaving him alone in the dark room. He blundered through the dark, memory only slightly aiding his task. He brushed a switch on the wall, and the hum of electric generators filled the room as the lights came on. One could now see that the room Tyler was in extended far in all directions. The pale yellow light bathing the room revealed row upon row of ancient weapons. Tyler walked over to a wall closet, and brought out several bags. They were heavy, and it took him several trips to move them all. He dropped them into the water, and then used his suit's radio to contact the salvager gear outside. "The money's coming down. I'm opening the doors again." The storage room he was in closed its doors, and the sea doors opened, letting more water in. Rathien's salvager gear grabbed the bags, then he radioed to Tyler "Sir, won't you need transport back to the ship?"
"Negative" Tyler replied. I found what I came for. I won't need transport back."
"Whatever," Rathien thought to himself, and headed back to the Thames.
Finally alone, Tyler turned back to the storage room's contents. The weapons and military equipment were appeared to be in excellent condition. But Tyler knew they hadn't had any maintenance since the Zeboim era. Only a fool would think they were 100% combat ready. And Tyler would accept no less than 100%. The men, however, were his main concern. Fortunately, the cryogenic chambers were all intact. All 140,000 of them, each chamber containing 1,000 people. A mighty effort to prepare for a task greater still...
He went into the wall closet he drew the gold from. He felt around for one last switch. He flicked it, and a console embedded in the wall turned on. He started typing on the console's keyboard, unable to repress a smile as machines in the room hummed to life. Finally, after 4,000 years, the Murond people were returning, to claim the world as their own.
Authors Notes:
OK, people go easy on me. This is my first Xenogears fanfic, first fanfic of any sort really, and I hope you'll like it. It's essentially going to be a war story, depicting what would happen if 21st century military equipment (from the fictitious nation of Murond) fought the armies of Xenogears. Now, when you all start reading the next chapter, I want you to keep in mind a few things.
1. Gears have a bigger target profile than tanks. This should be a given, we see in Lahan that gears are bigger than some houses. This makes them easier targets for air strikes, artillery bombardments, and men with anti-tank missiles.
2. Gears don't weigh very much. This means that they carry less armor than tanks. To paraphrase Monty Python "it's a simple matter of weigh ratios. A 10 ton gear CAN NOT mount more armor than a 70 ton tank." Especially when you take into account that gears need moving parts for the ankle joints, knee joints, hand joints, arm joints, and the head, or wings, depending on the type. This means they have to devote far more internal space to moving parts.
3. Gear weapons have low muzzle velocities. This mean the bullets fired by gears are moving relatively slow. This can't be any other way, unfortunately. Gears carry their weapons very high compared to a tank. If they fired 120mm shells on full auto, with a tank's muzzle velocity, they'd very soon knock themselves over from their gun's recoil.. Watch the anime sequence when Timothy gets killed. He has an orange-sized hole in his chest, I'd say about 7.62-12.7mm. That's the size of several machine gun rounds. However, if a tank shoots a person, he's going to have far worse injuries than a hole in the chest. If I can find some pictures of the battle of Kursk, I'll show you the kind of damage tanks can do to metal. As for gears, the ones salvaged in Aveh and Kislev had bullet wounds on them, and still worked. Kinda shows it's hard to kill anything in a gear. Although it explains why the game's battles can take so long.
4. Xenogears armies are not combined arms forces. Only twice in the game do we see gears deployed with supporting forces: During the battle with the Aveh fleet, and the raid on Shevat. The remaining battles we see are all gear-on-gear. That means that they have no air support, no artillery, and very often, no infantry. This means that if gears were under fire from artillery or being pounded by bombers, they'd have no way to respond. The fact that they can't counter Bart's Yggdrasil depth charge technique is proof of this.
5. The average flight capable gear can't be very heavy. Look at Vierge or Weltall. Those are lightly built things, so it's no wonder their jets can keep them in the sky. As for heavily armored, flight capable gears, just look at Calamity, Siebzhen, and Achtzhen. They all have huge rockets on their backs. A gear can't be heavily armored and still be flight capable with tiny bottle rockets on them.
6. One-sided fics are very boring. Hence, Tyler's forces are not always going to be equipped with unstoppable weapons. Eventually, the other groups will catch on, and build the weapons they lack.
Also, the Murond army will not use Ether.
Setzer's asyet unnamed fic
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