An Intifada (CF and Britannians Open)

[lloyd]

Religion. It is a benevolent influence of religion that it made men out of savages, order out of chaos through the God or Gods. It was religion, the fear of hell, that gave humanity a moral code and a willingness to work together, against all evolutionary suggestions otherwise. Where Religion no longer existed, such as in Britannia, there was nothing binding humanity’s raw ambitions—in a way, their deification of Charles Darwin and his idea of Social Darwinism was an explanation for their own attempts to be the fittest, the top of the pack. Yet, Religion, Kayeri realized, could also be a tool for violence. The Crusades of Kayeri’s Christianity or the Holy Struggles of Islam were proof of the way Religion could channel both the peaceful and warlike desires of mankind. And, like all sharpened weapons, they could be wielded. Kayeri pulled his cloak closer to him in the hot sunlight. Knightmares were not for him—his experiences with them had been far too humiliating for his liking. But, on the other hand, most of his army in this case would be sharing his discomfort—for this was a battle not for land, but for minds. Next to him, an Arabic man dressed completely in a white robe and turban watched the fighting breaking out in Area 18’s Regional Capital, Baghdad. Once the capital of all Islam, it was a fitting place to begin an Intifada.

This battle was not simply for support, though—there was strategic purpose. At the moment, General Huu Nyguyen, who had been sent to reinforce the Ottoman Empire’s ailing nation, had been trapped by the retaking of Area 18. Strategically, it was vital that he rescue general Nyguyen’s troops. Most of them were from Southeast Asia, and being trapped in the arid area around Turkey had sapped morale to desertion point. Not only that, but the Chinese High Command had made the mistake of openly suggesting it did not care for the troops there. This had set off an outcry, and it was now Kayeri’s job to clean up that mess. A dashing commando rescue would have made a lot of headlines, but it made more sense to keep communications open simply by taking Area 18. the Chinese Federation had originally entered India on the pretext of defending the Muslim Minority, and had then created the Special Autonomous Region of Pakistan, to the joy of many Muslims. As the defender of the Ottoman Empire and the Holy Lands of Judaism, Islam and Christianity in Palestine, it was considered the champion of Islam to many, just as the EU was the Champion of Christianity. Area 18 had been actively resisting through an insurgency for some time now—and it was now time to make use of that insurgency.

Imam Ramesh Al-Sadr looked a little wistful as one of the mosques exploded. “I grew up there,” he explained to Kayeri. Sadr City, a sector in Baghdad, had been dominated by the fiercely Partisan Sadr Clan for centuries and its Private Army, the Mahdi Army, and thus most Area 18 Occupation forces had been concentrated there. Unfortunately for them, Sadr City had become their prison as other Jihadists, Taliban and Muhjadeen now hemmed in the Britannian Forces. The Britannian Headquarters, where Kayeri and Al-Sadr now stood, had been one of the first to fall, taken down by a group of Gurkhas and Pakistani Special Forces, and now it played host to several Bamides Knightmare Frames. Initially deployed by the Middle Eastern Federation in its last days against Britannia, its massive armor and firepower had allowed it to hold off the enemy until enemy Gloucesters, under Princess Cornelia, had managed to get close enough to exploit the Bamides’ immobility and bulkiness. Kayeri did not especially like these weapons—but to the members of Area 18, it represented their old independence, and that was a symbol in itself. At the moment, they now attempted to assist the Chinese Air Force against the Britannian Airfleet above the city. Not that either side could affect the battle on the ground—both the Britannian forces and the Mahdi Intifada forces were fighting house-to-house, and any group that fired into a civilian dwelling was sure to take flak from the International Media. A Chinese officer looked up from one of the mobile readouts. “Mahdi Army 2nd Division has broken through the Green Zone, Urumqi 3rd infantry moving to assist. Requiring Knightmare Support.” Kayeri nodded. “Shift the Manchu Keshik Gun-ru and Gangfengs to assist. The Manchu Mobile Units should be fine.” The Chinese officer nodded. An Uighur, he too was a Muslim—for this battle, most of the soldiers brought along were Muslims. While they might be somewhat less than reliable in the eyes of the Chinese Federation High Command, the fact that most of these were volunteers did help the cause somewhat.

Kayeri glanced at the Cleric next to him. “Your men are quite skilled.” Al-Sadr nodded slowly. “Of Course. The hand of Allah steadies their aim.” “…You do not grudge a Christian Infidel to enter this mosque?” Al-Sadr shrugged. “You Christians always believe that Allah is the name of our God. What you do not understand is that Allah simply means ‘God’ in Arabic.” Al-Sadr pointed at a nearby Mural depicting the battles of the Crusades. “Both those Crusaders and the Holy Warriors fighting there are actually fighting for the same God. The God of Isaac and the God of Ishmael are one and the same—which shows the barbarity and pointlessness of the struggle, doesn’t it?” Kayeri pointed outside. “What about that?” Al-Sadr glanced at the smoke outside. “Sir Thomas More, one of last great Catholics in England before his death by King Henry VIII once wrote a book called Utopia. What he said was this: A man should be allowed any religion—but what I fear is a man who chooses no religion, for there is nothing to hinder his emotions and desires. That is why Britannia, as long as it is to survive, must always consume more. Perhaps Britannia is the great Leviathan that is preached in Revelation and that whom in the Quran will be the Great Satan that precedes the end of the world.” “…if we both worship the same god, will we see each other in the same heaven?” Al-Sadr laughed. “The Quran says that every man will be judged by the book of his religion, based on whether he has done as his religion decrees. Many roads lead to heaven.” Kayeri nodded. “Fair enough. But before we meet each other again, let us at least make our first meeting more…productive,” he said as he pointed at the battle outside. “If that suits you, boy.”

[kelan]

Ke-Lan stared at the desert through her dark tinted goggles as she rode in the cockpit of a large transport vehicle. She was part of a caravan of five of these large carriers. She had already been instructed where to go, and the Lieutenant next to her was leading the caravan there... the mosque where Kayeri and Al-Sadr were currently at.

The caravan stopped close to the supply line, parking in a perfect straight line. Ke-Lan hopped off the vehicle, her long steel-blue coat waving in the desert wind. The Lieutenant and his men quickly began to mobilize. Ke-Lan left them to their job, walking into the mosque. Kayeri will notice something that could very well be a sign of the apocalypse... there was a smirk on Ke-Lan's face.

"Gentlemen! I do hope I'm not too late." she chuckled darkly. The transport vehicles outside hissed as their hatches opened, revealing twenty Guai-Mus. Ke-Lan raised her goggles to rest over her forehead, revealing her cold brown eyes. She looked at the Muslim men staring at her with disapproval, her smile fading. The men flinched in reaction to her stare.

Ke-Lan cleared her throat, walking closer to Al-Sadr and Kayeri. She gave a nod to Al-Sadr, "I beg your pardon, I should introduce myself. Doctor Ling Shio, Chief of Science of the Chinese Kingdom. I am here to field test a new toy of the Kingdom. It should prove quite a valuable tool in the victory against the enemies of China."

[shenying]

Li Xiulan had been ordered to the frontlines, and deployed as part of a small armed escort for the small caravan of enormous carriers.
She initially wondered what it was - she had been told nothing beyond the fact they carried new equipment for the frontline forces fighting in what, as she saw it, was a ridiculous conflict - She was not a religious scholar by any nature, having no interest in the subject, but even she knew enough to understand that the Islamic "Allah" and the Christian God were, basically, one and the same.

"Is there anything in this world more moronic than Religious war?" She mused, checking her Knightmare to make sure it worked and its weapons were loaded. All four cannons were loaded and ready, and the machine's two 4-tube launchers were secure and functional, each one carrying its full complement of twelve missiles. The additional weight slowed the already ungainly Gun-Ru somewhat, and they were dumb-fire projectiles that lacked any guidance system whatsoever, but they were decently powerful. Xiulan sighed, wishing she had a Gangfeng at her disposal - but there was nothing for it. The Gun-Ru would do - at least she had a Knightmare. Satisfied, she settled into her seat and took a look around.

Then she happened to glance at the trailers, and as they opened she understood what "new equipment" meant as she saw strange-looking, black-and-purple Knightmares unlike any she'd ever seen before. Each had a cannon on its back and only one arm, with a peculiar-looking weapon mounted where the other arm ought to've been.
"New-model Knightmare Frames...so that's it."

[lloyd]

Kayeri turned around as the doctor entered. There was something that struck him as immediately discordant--the representative of logic and the representative of morality facing each other. A human needed equal measures of both, but at many times these two values were direct enemies. Britannia had not cared about morals--thus the number's general rebelliousnessness. The Eu was too much a moralistic, idealistic country, even allowing its own countries to leave and join Britannia because it was their 'liberty'. Kayeri, though, chose to take it in stride. "How nice of you to join us." He took a glance at the new knightmares rolling out. They weren't exactly lookers, unlike the relatively graceful Gangfeng or even the Gun-ru (pretty in its ugliness), but they were fearsome. "Hm. And it seems like High Command has decided that Christmas will come early." Immediately, a question seized him and he couldn't help asking. "Imam, don't you celebrate the Prophet's Birthday by giving Gifts?" The imam didn't look especially enthusiastic. "Well, the Prophet was born and died on the same day." Whoops. "Oh, I see, i guess it'd be a little morbid..." by the Imam's expression, it was time they changed the subject.

"It's good to see some humanoid knightmares deployed...our Gun-ru are too heavy and overbearing for the desert, and the mast majority have broken down, and we've had to resort to hand-to-hand fighting...I assume that you are going to test out these...knightmares' capabilities?" Al-Sadr stepped forwards, slightly incensed. "Is the Middle Eastern Federation just a place to test your weapons?" Kayeri winced. Scientists weren't politicians, so they couldn't be blamed for these kinds of things. "If this weapon is useful, Imam, then far less of your flock will have to die. After all, isn't the way of least bloodshed the way we are hoping for?" Kayeri turned to the doctor. "I'll make a corridor for your knightmares towards the old Fortress of Ninevah where most of the Britannian Knightmares are holding out."

[kelan]

"The desert will be no problem for the Guai-Mu." Ke-Lan assured, still delighted to see her creation in true action rather than simulation.
Her attention then turned to Al-Sadr, her cold emotionless mannerisms returning, "What I call a test is what the world calls military action. China has offered to help her allies. Believe me, sir, you won't be disappointed..." she reassured, with a hint of pride on her work.
Ke-Lan nodded to Kayeri, taking out a communicator, "Head to the Fortress of Ninevah."
Ke-Lan opened a small laptop she was carrying, smiling as she saw the data streaming, along with an overview of the battlefield based on the advanced sensors of the Guai-Mu's. They began to mobilize, their legs allowing them unrivaled speed in the shifting sand. It wasn't long before the sounds of thunder boomed in the battlefield as the LGCs began to fire. Ke-Lan smiled again. It was hard to contain this emotion, as much as she tried. This was the first time a full design of hers came into the field... and pride, well, that is something someone as Ke-Lan cannot contain. It almost made her want to turn her attention entirely on Knightmare technology. And what harm could such an action do, anyway? Her plague and augment serums were almost complete... and China required more powerful machines in the field.

[shenying]

The bizarre-looking Knightmares moved far faster than Xiulan had expected from what she had seen as a rather ungainly design. As they sped across the desert, Xiulan berated herself for not having expected as much, as these were, of course, brand-new machines, and their performance as such should be expected to exceed in particular those of an antiquated machine like the Gun-Ru.

She looked a little enviously across at the odd-looking and, she now reflected, somewhat sinister machines, whose paint jobs were all black and purple, with some dark-gold trimming. She looked at them again and realized that they had no heads, but a frontal sensor like the Gun-Ru. In fact, now that she thought about it these new models looked a lot like smallerm sleeker versions of Gun-Rus.
As she watched, the ten machines suddenly discharged what looked to Xiulan fron her slightly-distant vantage point like lightning bolts. Not long afterwards, the repeated, rolling boom of thunder.

"What the hell...are those things?" She asked herself, wondering who could have developed such weapons...

[lloyd]

The Cleric nodded, slightly grudgingly, as he watched the knightmares. Personally, Kayeri didn't especially like attacking the old fortress--it had been around since before Alexander the Great, after all. But there was no point letting it stand--and the new Guai-Mus seemed to be distinguishing themselves fairly well in their slightly Alien fashion, jagged beams of blue light leaving black burn marks into the sides of the fortress. A gangfeng commander came online, looking somewhat apprehensive. "Milord, should we stay out of the way of those...things?" Al-Sadr suddenly yelped in a slightly undignified yelp as a crackle sounded. Turning sharply, Kayeri was confronted by a slightly embarassed-looking Imam. "Sorry. Static Electricity." In the desert, due to the inherent lack of moisture and the inability to ground an electric charge, static shocks were often--and dangerous, sometimes killing people. "Wait a minute," Kayeri muttered as he watched outside at the Guai-Mu. "Those weapons are Electric Cannon, correct...?" "The inside of the pincer is lined with focusing nodes that allow the LGC to shoot a focused bolt of electricity forward rather than arbitrarily spread it." That was what the information provided had said. High Voltages of Electricity cause the oxygen in the air to spontaneously change into Ozone. Ozone is a combustible, and its derivatives, Ozonides, are used as explosives--"Doctor, have you tested your Knightmare in an environment such as a desert...?" Static Electricity in an electric circuit is generally dangerous enough for a normal knightmare--in a high-intensity Electric knightmare such as the Guai-Mu, the effects could combine with Ozone and Hydrogen to immediately combust. However, kayeri was probably overthinking things--after all, this was the Doctor that was known for repeating something fourteen times, since thirteen was an odd number. The Guai-mu had broken through the gates already, though the LGCs could not be used when knightmares were fighting at close-range.

Kayeri took one last look outside the balcony. This battle was pretty much over, with the white crescent-on-red of the Muhjadeen flag waving on most of the former Britannian buildings. "I assume its time for us to move on to Constantinople..." he turned again to the Cleric. "Imam, I assume you are ready to give the declaration?" The Imam nodded. "Well, I suppose it's time to announce this war's over." Kayeri turned to the assembled officers. "Doctor Shio and Major Xiulan, thank you for escorting these Knightmares here...they seem to be performing well...as always. Perhaps there will be some good, Non-halal food in Constantinople--no offense, Imam. Your wife cooks great. I just miss pork."

[kelan]

"The nodes prevent the creation of ozone. I won't bore you with the technical jargon... but I assure you, the only danger here is for the enemy, not for our forces." Ke-Lan replied with a firm nod.
She couldn't help but smile as Kayeri declared this battle over. She let out a light chuckle, closing her laptop, and giving Kayeri a formal traditional Chinese bow.
The Guai-Mu returned to the carriers with a few new battle scars, but no substantial damage. Ke-Lan returned to the transports, offering a faint smile to Li Xiulan, "Did you enjoy the demonstration, Major?" she asked with curiosity.

[shenying]

"Did you enjoy the demonstration, Major?" The question came from the pale, dark-haired scientist who had developed the new machines. Xiulan opened the Gun-Ru's cockpit to look at Dr. Ling-Shio face-to-face before answering.
Though Xiulan found the person's usual coldness somewhat unsettling, she saw that the scientist was evidently proud of her creations.

"Yes, ma'am." Xiulan answered. "These new models' performance is incredible - orders of magnitude beyond the Gun-Ru's." Xiulan knew that the odds were she'd never pilot one of those things. But still, she appreciated how advanced they were, and said so.

[lloyd]

(xd the knowledge that territories cannot be gained or lost unless in a plot event kind of renders this thread pointless, but oh well. btw I left already, so if you two want to finish your conversation, please do so.)

[kelan]

"New things will keep coming from my department. Many improvements to come for China." she let out another chuckle, truly an odd sight to behold.

The Guai-Mu came back, docking in the transport vehicles, "I suppose we are done here. A shame this was such a short skirmish... but at least I got all the data I required."]/color]
Ke-Lan got on the transport's passenger seat, opening her laptop and reviewing the information collected. The specs were nearly too good. She stared at the numbers for a few minutes... this victory had inspired her. She'd be sure to concentrate on knightmare improvement and engineering from now on. The new technology of the Shio-rod had quite a few uses... but first, she'd have to manufacture a new energy source.

[shenying]

"New things will keep coming from my department. Many improvements to come for China." Dr. Ling-Ship replied, chuckling - which was really unusual for the pale, normally ever-serious scientist. Xiulan wondered a little what could possibly be the cause of the wellnigh emotionless developer's evident glee - it went, she thought, beyond mere pride at her own achievement.
It bothered her a bit. But as she watched the new machines approach, she was awestruck at the dark, sinister sleekness of them, and found herself hoping against hope that she could one day get a chance to pilot one - nearly impossible as that was.

"That's good. The more the better, for the Dynasty's sake." She saluted, then as the scientist headed back towards the transport's cabin, she sat down and closed the cockpit of her Gun-Ru, grateful for its limited but adequate climate-control system - after even a few minutes of the scorching heat of the desert, even the cabin's lukewarm, recycled airflow felt good.

"Major Xiulan here. Ready to move out." She broadcast to the convoy as the Gun-Ru's arm-mounted cannons, folded upwards once they arrived, deployed. She figured that, with the test concluded and the new prototypes safely stowed back in their place, they would be on their way back soon. Her job was to escort the convoy - she had to make sure nobody came near it. All the more now that she knew precisely what the convoy carried and how important that equipment was to the Imperial war effort.

[lloyd]

(nvm about me leaving, now's a good time for me to jump in again.)

"Oy, Doctor Ke, Major Li!" Kayeri was a little out of breath when he returned, but the information did deserve the urgency. "When you return to Luoyang, I'd like both of you to immediately report to the Internal Affairs Office. There is a matter of some...importance." Kayeri's sikh bodyguard leaned close to Kayeri and whispered something in his ear. Stopping for a moment, Kayeri glanced up at the doctor. "It appears the Getter Reactor may be involved." Getter--that project had been kept on hold after its original architect, Dr. Aizen Hinimari, had been killed attempting to sabotage the system, since after his death flowers and two squirrels were rumored by the Chinese Special Forces to have grown out of the body. Nobody was especially willing to get near a power source that could transform an insulated room into a scene from Bambi. Yet the name would definitely appeal to the Doctor in her neverending search for more powerful power sources--and weapons.

Internal Affairs. The name was mundane, and that was how it was meant to be--outwardly, Internal Affairs made sure all the toilets were stocked with toilet paper and the janitor's closets weren't the home to rats. Yet Internal Affairs, to anyone who knew what it did well, was always a bad sign. Unknown to most of the civilian and military government, even Kayeri's prodigious wallet had not been able to pry apart the clamshell security of the Empire's secret police. Yet now it appears that something had gone seriously wrong in Luoyang. "I will see you there--after the prostitutes in Constantinople." Kayeri sighed as he glanced at the scandalized Al-Sadr. "...I was joking, Imam." You could say a lot about religion, but one thing it wasn't was funny.

[kelan]

Internal Affairs... if Ke-Lan was a normal person she would have cringed, but being who she was, she didn't even flinch. She nodded to Kayeri, "Getter Reactor... I've been looking forward to seeing schematics of such a thing, if it is indeed possible to make such a far-fetched device." there was Ke-Lan's objectivity showing it's ugly head again.
She had read a few reports about the Getter Reactor, but never really paid much attention. However, now that her focus was in new technologies, she was aching to test this technology for use in weaponry and knightmare parts.

[Aloysius Drebbel]

-Topic finished-

Ke-Lan Ling-Shio: (805 Words, Normal RP) 81 Exp, 81 Credits

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