*Author’s Note
These are notes and concepts about the FMP! world that most people won’t care about. I’ve actually got a pack of setting notes about ten times this long, which could probably fill a volume all their own... but since I feel bad about not providing a proper extra story for this volume, I’m instead presenting a selection of not-too-spoilery entries from those notes. If you don’t care about military and mecha stuff, you probably won’t find any of this interesting, so I humbly ask forgiveness for my indulgence.
▼Arm Slave
AKA “AS,” “assault soldier,” “armored mobile master/slave system.”
[History and Uses]
The AS didn’t originate from the idea of making giant, piloted robots. Instead, it’s an extension of the concept of powered suits and exoskeletons; the initial design was as a piece of squad support equipment, under one ton in mass, designed to enhance a soldier’s lifting power and defenses. All such designs, right up to the US military’s initial XM3, were conceived with this ‘large powered suit’ concept in mind, but issues with power generation, electrical output, armoring and firepower kept them out of the realm of practicality, which caused development to stall.
The XM3 itself was a humanoid weapon about three meters tall. It lacked an internal generator, instead relying on a battery-based drive system that limited its operation time. Its armor plating was just strong enough to stop a 12.7mm bullet, and its best armament was a 20mm machine gun. These combined factors made it both logistically infeasible for accompanying an infantry unit and too vulnerable to accompany an armored unit. It also lacked the mobility required to serve in an anti-tank capacity, so its only purpose in the end was as a glorified mule.
It was the Geotron prototype, the XM4, that completely overhauled this neither-fish-nor-fowl idea. Common wisdom in weapons development is “the smaller the better,” but Geotron’s development team decided to go in the completely opposite direction. They submitted a plan to drastically increase the machine’s size, therefore increasing its defensive prowess, mobility, and power generation, as well as carrying capacity for fixed armaments and electronic warfare equipment. The contemporary explosion in material and control system technology is what made the concept feasible.
While this made the XM4 far too large to function as part of an infantry unit, these modifications gave it the attack power, mobility, and scanning power to oppose enemy AFVs (armored fighting vehicles) and armed helicopters. In addition, the flexible limbs of the XM4 allowed it to maintain high speeds on any terrain, and even camouflage itself with appropriate preparation time. In other words, this new AS concept could plausibly serve as an AFV under any battlefield conditions. Having the potential to show up anywhere at any time meant the AS would create massive headaches for any opposing force, representing a similar threat on land that submarines posed on the sea.
The XM4 subsequently proved its usefulness in a variety of exercises, and it was officially adopted in a limited capacity as the “Armored Unit Support Weapon,” the M4. It remained an irregular presence within armored units, primarily reserved for ambushes and urban warfare—but its successor, the M6 Bushnell, would have a far more aggressive personality.
Labeled “the second generation of AS,” the M6 boasted maneuverability and versatility far exceeding that of the M4. While the M4 had slower reaction times that required advanced notice in order to to move and change position, the M6 could move even faster than a trained infantryman, allowing its use in far more high-level and coordinated operations. The optional armaments and electronic warfare devices available to it also increased dramatically, further expanding the operations it could undertake and limiting the countermeasures available to any opposing force.
A further refinement of the M6, the M6A1, was pioneering for its integration of the revolutionary stealth device, the ECS. Inclusion of this device made the AS extremely difficult to detect remotely with radar and infrared sensors. The battlefield conditions this led to—one in which close combat engagements became far more frequent—put the humanoid ASes at an even greater advantage. By the early 1990s, the only places in which tanks and attack helicopters could be said to have a true advantage against ASes were flat terrain, such as fields and deserts. Meanwhile, the new arm slaves boasted an overwhelming advantage on any terrain with lots of ups and downs—in other words, most land with strategic value.
It was during this period that not just the US and the USSR, but all developed nations with sufficient industrial power, began to work on integrating ASes into their militaries, as England, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, and China each developed their own AS models. Meanwhile, OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) also raced each other into this brand-new weapons field, resulting in an explosion of variety in optional armaments and equipment. Many excellent pieces of equipment were made during this time period, as were some hopelessly inferior ones.
In the late 1990s, as the M6 shock first began to wear off, the US army began work on an even more advanced AS concept: the third generation AS, known as the M9 Gernsback. Integration of a palladium reactor and brand-new muscle package system would give the M9 a fully electrified drive train, reducing the machine’s base weight. This both vastly increased its stealth abilities and granted it a level of mobility that far eclipsed that of both traditional ASes and combat helicopters. The reduced weight also made the M9 easier to carry on helicopters and transport planes, increasing their deployability.
The elimination of the hydraulic system used in second generation and previous models also opened up the M9’s payload, granting it even more options for increased specs (this is why Mithril’s M9s have internally mounted weapons racks, ECS, and an embarrassment of riches in terms of sensors and vetronics.) The new muscle packages were themselves also relatively bulletproof, which increased the defensive capabilities of the third generation ASes, while the integration of next-generation ECS also further increased their stealth capabilities. Other major improvements included a highly developed datalink and AI support, which significantly lightened the load on the operator system. (In other words, speed is not the only advantage our protagonists’ M9s have over machines like the Savage and the M6.)
The AS began as a powered suit for infantry, but by the time our story starts, it’s a far more advanced and promising armored system. Since they’re treasured in the third world where guerrilla fighting is rampant, ASes from major arms exporters like the USA, the USSR, China, and France have proliferated worldwide. As ASes become more and more common, the chances increase of older models falling into the hands of guerrillas and terrorists who don’t necessarily have a lot of money to spend. Sousuke, during his Afghani days, was an early forerunner of such guerrillas (having stolen theirs from their enemy, the USSR). The terrorists from “Engage” in the short story collection, and A21 in ONS, are further examples of this phenomenon.
Even older models of ASes are a terrifying threat to infantry units and police forces who don’t have any of their own. Of course, M9-class cutting-edge machines will only be seen in militaries with significant budgets.
▼Argyros
One of Mithril’s front companies, an international security agency that offers advisors and consultants to aid in companies’ crisis management, as well as actual security services. They’re known for composing their work force and executive levels primarily with retired military personnel. Most of Mithril’s ground forces are employees of Argyros on paper, including Sousuke, Kurz, and Mao. They have their own employee IDs and are enrolled on the company health insurance, and use these identities when they’re on vacation in the city.
Incidentally, naval personnel like Mardukas are frequently employed not by Argyros, but by a shipping company called Umatac, or one of Geotron’s shipmakers.
▼NATO Phonetic Alphabet
Amateur radio operators may know this already, but words that appear in the text such as “Alpha” and “November” are used to make sure similar-sounding letters of the alphabet (such as B, D, and G) are conveyed clearly via radio, even under static. So, in the story, when a character on the radio says something like “Alpha-1,” what they actually mean is “A-1.”
Here’s the list of code words:
A = Alpha, B = Bravo, C = Charlie, D = Delta, E = Echo, F = Foxtrot, G = Golf, H = Hotel, I = India, J = Juliet, K = Kilo, L = Lima, M = Mike, N = November, O = Oscar, P = Papa, Q = Quebec, R = Romeo, S = Sierra, T = Tango, U = Uniform, V = Victor, W = Whisky, X = X-Ray, Y = Yankee, Z = Zulu.
▼Gas Turbine Engine
These are the engines that power most second-generation ASes. They work by pumping in air, compressing it via turbines, then injecting fuel to combust it. This internal combustion mechanism is similar to that of a jet’s turbofan or a helicopter’s turboshaft engine, with the only difference being the method of power extraction. Its pros? A lightweight system with excellent output and great reliability owing to a simple structure. Its cons? Bad gas mileage.
That said, the gas turbine engines of the FMP! world reap the benefits of black technology, which allows them to integrate new materials with increased heat resistance and makes them far more resilient than our own engines. (This idea came from Fujimi Shobo’s Takuzo Suganuma, so let me use this opportunity to say thanks.) Since this reduces overheating issues, the fuel economy of a gas turbine engine is, in practice, about the same as our diesel engines. Of course, if diesel engines are incorporating the same heat-resistant materials, they’ll also have better fuel economy, but... well, this reduction in the efficiency gap at least makes it easier to put more stock in the aforementioned pros.
Because they use gas turbine engines, second-generation ASes are extremely loud when running (exactly like a jet engine, it goes vreeeeeeeeeee! And whooooosh!). This adds to their coolness, in its way, but the new M6A3s (which made up the special forces unit that Gauron took out in ITB) also have an on-board high-capacity capacitor, allowing them to run silently for a brief time as needed.
In second-generation ASes, the driving force of each joint is generated through a combination of the expansion and contraction of the electromagnetic muscles (through electric power sent directly from the generator to the engine) and torque transmission from fluid tentacles. Electromagnetic muscles from the second-generation era had excellent spontaneous power, but their overall output was still lacking, which is why this binary drive system was adopted. (This idea came from Ihara, the mecha designer for the anime. His rough images have some amazing power concept designs for the Savage, so check them out if you get a chance). The insufficient output of electromagnetic muscles has been fixed in recent years, which is what allows for the all-electric drive trains of the third-generation ASes (the M9s).
The recent M6A3 and improved Rk-92 make use of the latest high-output muscle packages, so in terms of continuous maximum output, at least, their binary system puts them on even footing with the M9. In an arm-wrestling match, the M6A3 might even beat an M9, if it came in prepared to receive frame damage in the process.
▼Assault Soldier (Kyoshu Kihei)
The Japanese term for an AS. This word had taken root before the JSDF ever integrated ASes into its forces. In the mid-80s, when the US Armed Forces debuted the M4, a misunderstanding in the media promoted the idea that “AS” was an abbreviation for “Assault Soldier.” This misinformation spread and was translated back into Japanese. In the early 90s, when the Ground Self-Defense Force did begin to incorporate ASes, the use of this “hostile” terminology led to long debates in the Ministry of Defense (the same national character that caused “destroyer” to be translated as “escort ship” and “infantry” as “general enrollment”).
The Minister of Defense at the time thought up the rather sad term “armored mobile master-slave system,” but like the “E-den” term for the Japanese subway, it didn’t stick. The localized Japanese word for “Assault Soldier” (kyoshu kihei) became the default term. The “armored mobile master-slave system” term is still only used in extremely limited public documents.
Incidentally, those in the field just call it an AS.
▼Undersea Supersonic Projectile Fluid Dynamics
The essay Tessa was reading in the “R&R” story. I based the idea on research published on the website of the NUWC (US Naval Undersea Warfare Center) a few years back (between 97 to 99 or so), which proposed the idea of objects traveling at supersonic speeds even underwater. The NUWC collaborated with DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and civilian contractors to experiment with firing small underwater projectiles at 1549 meters per second.
Rationally speaking, it’s probably impossible to build a supersonic submarine (and who would ever need to?) but the concept is out there, at least. In our setting, even the world’s fastest submarine, the TDD, still has a maximum speed far below the speed of sound. The famed Russian superfast torpedo, the Shkval, also only moves five to six times faster than the TDD (and is supposedly useless in the real world).
The field of undersea supersonic projectiles is a largely unexplored one, so even the use cases are only vaguely known. That said, an intercept system for approaching torpedoes—an underwater version of a CIWS (close-in weapons system, like Phalanx or Goalkeeper)—has been raised as one such possibility. I don’t know if they’ll ever be able to make such a thing practical, but it might be handy in various ways if they could (at least for fictional purposes). That said, NUWC recently took down all the information they’d published about it, so maybe someone decided the idea really had potential, gave it some funding, and now they’re working on it in secret.
Convenient though it may be, by the way, the TDD doesn’t have a supersonic intercept system like the one mentioned above. If a torpedo is coming at it, its only option is to fire a decoy and run. But as Tessa is a superweapons nerd, she likes to read essays like this and fantasize about how she could make a system like that lighter, cheaper, and more practical.
▼The Old Man From Nantucket
An ID code Tessa uses in ONS to get in touch with the TDD. It’s from a limerick, a kind of comical five-line poem that often ends in a pun.
The “Old Man From Nantucket” poem goes like this:
There was an old man from Nantucket
Who kept all his cash in a bucket
But his daughter named Nan
Ran away with a man
And as for the bucket, Nantucket.
You can really hear the pun; “Nantucket” at the end is a pun on “Nan took it.” I felt like it somewhat reflected the situation in ONS. The old man is A21, the bucket is Takuma, Nan is Tessa, and the man she runs away with is Sousuke.
▼Boxer
A powerful short-barreled 57mm AS shotcannon designed by OTO Melara. It tended to have issues with handling and accuracy in M6-class machines, but packs a real punch when wielded by M9 and ARX-7 class machines, so it’s Sousuke’s preferred weapon. Structurally, it resembles a Mauser. It’s compatible with all kinds of ammunition, from APFSDS to HESH projectiles. As befitting a scaled-up shotgun, there’s no rifling in the barrel. It’s a shorter and structurally different version of the smoothbore guns that Kurz often uses.
Its finicky nature earns it mixed reviews from those in the business—when Kurz first met Sousuke, he was shocked to see him choose the Boxer as his weapon. In terms of human-sized firearms, it’s as strange as someone on a SWAT team using a .44 Magnum revolver. (Of course, snipers like Kurt have a tendency to look down on shotguns regardless. They respect the power, but find the concept of a shotgun itself aesthetically displeasing.)
Of course, as readers know, Sousuke can wield the Boxer just fine. No one on the team complains about his choice anymore, but Sousuke usually urges others not to imitate his behavior.
▼Muscle Package
The muscles of an AS. These packages were first integrated into second-generation machines, allowing them to be swapped in and out easily. With hydraulic cylinders and air pressure out of the question, they became an indispensable part of the AS, bringing together three crucial conditions: fine motor control, spontaneous power, and high output. They boast ten times the power of human muscle relative to cross-sectional area, and are made from a special resin known as shaped memory plastic that expands and contracts when a current is run through it. This material is extremely lightweight, which makes ASes roughly as light as aircraft despite being land weapons. Recent models not only have much higher output than before, but also offer some degree of resistance to bullets.
Though the muscles expand and contract in response to electric current, it’s not merely a matter of more current = better; it’s important to supply the right amount of power at just the right time. All actuator types have a max current, and flooding will just wear out the system without increasing output. In addition, an AS’s muscle package will lose performance with use, gradually lowering efficiency (the FOE, or fiber oxidization effect). Fine breakages in the muscle fibers produce the same symptoms as muscle pain in humans, but because they lack self-regenerative properties, the phenomenon only gets worse with time.
As a benchmark, most ASes used in live combat require muscle package replacements after ten sorties (or combat trainings). After ten uses, FOE results in max current (≠ max output) falling to 70% of new. This can present budget and readiness issues for the squads and armies using them, so there are organizations that don’t replace them even after twenty uses, and organizations (like the JSDF) that replace them after five. Special forces in organizations like Mithril always need to have their ASes running at maximum ability, so they replace all muscle packages after just one battle.
There are also muscle packages that offer limited FOE in exchange for a lower output. These are usually employed for training purposes. The output of these training packages is 70 to 80% of normal, but they last two to three times longer than the live combat ones.
In other words, there are two types of muscle packages: high-quality ones, and training sets. This is similar to what you find in engine oil and ammunition. There are also muscle packages of various thicknesses, similar to what you find in spaghetti and ammunition. An engineer will order muscle packages in a manner like, “Twenty Delta Chemical, 56mm No. 3 MP.”
When regional conflicts are on the horizon, the AS engineers for the armies involved tend to get very busy swapping training MPs for live combat ones. Right after the swap is complete, all of the system’s MPs must be fine-tuned to the system. Israel makes the best software for this, while Japan makes some of the worst—because there’s no competition, the system is completely bloated. The Type-96s that were destroyed by the Behemoth in ONS didn’t have time to run their software and were therefore forced to deploy with their training MPs in play. Had they had their combat MPs installed, they might’ve put up a better fight.
▼CH-67 (MH-67)
A twin-engine mid-size transport helicopter developed through a joint venture led by Sikorsky and Martin-Marietta in the early 90s. Its primary purpose is the transportation of weapons systems, ASes in particular. It’s a compact version of the H-53 helicopter, based deliberately on a mainline concept with no eccentricities. But since it integrates 90s era technology, it has similar takeoff capacity, speed, and carrying distance compared to the MH-53, despite its size. It’s also very reliable and easy to maintain. It’s standard to haul a single AS alongside its optional armaments, but for emergencies it is capable of carrying two ASes at once (in this case, optional armaments have to be abandoned.)
The TDD carries eight MH-67s, which are slight upgrades to the CH-67. The MH-67s of the TDD are equipped with an ECS capable of turning invisible. Their fixed armaments consist of one 12.7mm machine gun (the same type as the one mounted to the M9’s head) and two M134 miniguns. They can also fire AGM Hellfires and Stinger missiles if needed.
Incidentally, the common name for the MH-67 is the Pave Mare.
▼EMFC (Electromagnetic Fluid Controller)
The electromagnetic fluid controller is the Tuatha de Danaan’s “smart skin.” The craft’s surface is covered in lines of super-mini superconductive devices, guiding water in the desired direction under Fleming’s left-hand rule (when a current-carrying conductor is placed in an external magnetic field, the conductor experiences a force perpendicular to both the field and the current flow’s direction.) In addition to eliminating water resistance, use of this system limits the generation of turbulence. This, combined with its superconductive propulsion, allows for speed and quietness unthinkable in submarines that came before it.
Even when not in combination with other methods of propulsion, EMFC alone can propel the TDD in any direction underwater (though such movement will be slow—just a little over five knots.) After the near miss with the Pasadena at the start of ITB, the TDD managed to hide itself from detection by using the “sneaking steps” enabled by the EMFC to continue moving just behind or beneath the scanning range of the Pasadena’s short-wave arrays. If Sailor had wanted to find the TDD under these circumstances, he’d have to lift silent running, barrel forward at maximum volume and speed, then do a sudden 180 turn... in other words, he’d have to pull a Crazy Ivan. Of course, Tessa knew this as well, and made sure to keep her submarine underneath the Pasadena... which meant the ability to catch traces of turbulence behind them would have been up to the skill of the Pasadena’s sonar tech.
With all this in mind, the EMFC could be called the TDD’s greatest strength. I was hoping to explain more about how it works in the main story, but it was too far outside the interests of the Fantasia Bunko audience, so I restrained myself.
It’s not quite this advanced, but in real life, a similar project is currently under development at the NUWC.
▼Amphibious Assault Submarine
A submarine designed to carry land units into enemy territory and mount swift and sudden raids. The TDD is the prime example. These submarines don’t exist in real life (though plans for them do). Risk, operational cost, cost-effectiveness, and technological issues make them an extremely unrealistic platform if you think about them seriously (though they’re very fun to have in entertainment). In the case of the TDD, extremely high speeds to prevent pursuit, silent running while either submerged or surfaced, and the ability to use ECS after surfacing make them great cheats in the world of fiction, so they’re useful for the first time.
Incidentally, the following has been written about these submarines in the world of the story:
＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊
〈Excerpt from ‘Annals of Underwater Development’ from British Armed Forces Analyst T. Brooks.〉
Amphibious Assault Submarine
The idea of a submarine as a means to port ground forces into enemy territory to mount guerrilla-style raids is a surprisingly old one. The US Navy had several transport submarines in use at the time of World War II. The old Japanese military also had similar plans, but never brought them to fruition.
The reason the concept of an amphibious submarine never became practical is obvious. Any submarine, by its nature, will have hard limits on its carrying capacity. Securing space for troop transport means that other functionalities must be sacrificed. Even if special production lines were used to build them, troop transport capacity would likely max out at about one company’s worth, and combat results and deterrence capability would likely not be worth the exorbitant expenditures required.
In spite of all this, in the late 1980s, the Soviet Union began work on construction of these obviously absurd vessels, with the intention of transporting the new weapon, the arm slave. The submarine, which they labeled Project 985, was a refinement of the transport submarine plans first proposed in the 70s, reborn through the latest technology. With a sturdy three-hull design, its total length came to approximately 180 meters. If completed, it would have become the world’s largest submarine, surpassing the Typhoon-class ballistic missile submarine.
But construction on Project 985 halted in the early 1990s as an effect of the coup d’état and ongoing civil war. Failure to pay wages, material shortages, and a refusal of technicians and laborers to work led to the unfinished vessel gathering dust in the Severodvinsk drydock for fourteen months. The military authorities designated its completion hopeless, and officially canceled production. It was then towed to the Arctic Ocean, where it was detonated and abandoned at a depth of several thousand meters. (Much of this information is unconfirmed. One hears the odd theory that the incomplete hull was hauled away and purchased by the Chinese government, but the credibility on these is low.)
One way or another, the vessel was scrapped. If Project 985 truly had any legitimate strategic worth, it wouldn’t have been. Thus, I believe it can be said that the amphibious assault submarine is nothing but a large toy for childish idealists.
To symbolize the degree to which this is the case, there’s a particular anecdote I like to tell. Several years ago, I attended a conference at the NUWC where I spoke about the tragicomedy of Project 985. Among the listeners was a girl of twelve or thirteen years of age (most likely the daughter of an NUWC official). This charming little lady with ash blonde hair shook my hand and said to me,
“Mr. Brooks. You call the vessel a child’s toy, but I believe you don’t give it enough credit. I will repurpose it into something wonderful—the world’s greatest submarine.”
This wonderfully innocent declaration was met with scornful laughter from all in attendance.
▼Glock19
An automatic pistol made by the Austrian Glock Ges.m.b.H. Its caliber is 9mm, and its capacity is 15 + 1 (if memory serves.) It’s a slightly more compact version of the Glock 17, made by the same company.
The G17 is famous as the first gun to use drastically reinforced plastic parts in its frame and elsewhere. Due to the quantity of plastic used in its makeup, it was originally rumored to not show up on scanners and metal detectors at the airport, but that was untrue (even McClane in Die Hard 2 spread this rumor, which was disappointing). The slide and other crucial parts are still metal, so if you tried to pass it through bag inspection, the inspector would know immediately that you had a gun.
Its main distinguishing features are its trigger-only safety and double-action design that cocks and releases the hammer in one action. In other words, it’s a very inconvenient gun for fiction, since it takes scenes where the awesome veteran tells a beginner ‘You have to remove the safety first’ or the bad guy cocks the hammer to prove he’s just about to shoot off the table. Because of this, I sometimes regret giving this gun to my protagonist.
The G19 has been frequently established as Sousuke’s preferred firearm, but although he uses it all the time in the short stories, around this point in the novels (up to Part 2 of DBD), he hasn’t fired it once. In other words, the G19 has barely gotten any spotlight in the story. In that sense, it’s rather a strange gun for our protagonist to be wielding. In the novels, Sousuke is a very rational person, and the threats he deals with are quite substantial, so he tends to prepare more substantial firepower like shotguns, submachine guns, and assault rifles.
The G19 isn’t the best gun for elite soldiers by any means, but their portability, concealability, reliability, and carrying capacity gives them a passing mark. The trigger safety mentioned before (designed to release just by putting your finger on the trigger) means that sometimes just drawing the gun can trigger an accidental discharge... at least, there are famous stories about that, but maybe it says something about me that I think such things are the result of the incompetence of their wielders. Well, maybe I shouldn’t go quite that far, but given the skill, experience, and coolheadedness of protagonist-class fictional characters, it feels like those sorts of accidents shouldn’t be possible for them (unlike police who don’t draw their guns half as often, right?).
Sousuke himself doesn’t seem to have any particular obsession with anything other than the G19, but Mao does, having bought her expensive high-quality SOCOM.
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