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dappered2013-07-14 06:53 pm
wouldbeking) wrote in dappered2013-07-14 06:53 pm
SUPERSHINGEKI NO KAIJU
In the year 2000, the first Category 1 kaiju appeared off the coast of San Francisco. It was a small Leviathan type, only 20 feet in length, but it ravaged the coastline for two weeks before the armed forces were able to trap and kill it. Within the year large groups of Cat 1s were attacking coastlines all around the world, and people began speaking of the end of the world. In five years construction had begun on the great Walls of Life, built a few miles back from every coastline in the world in order to keep the kaiju out. The territory between the Wall and the sea became no man's land, where only the crazy and the desperate ventured to live or work, and it was every man for himself when the sirens went off, indicating a kaiju making landfall, and all citizens were to evacuate to the gates of the Wall before they slammed shut. Anyone caught outside would be left to the mercy of the beasts.
Eventually the Category scale expanded as follows:
Category 1: 1-25 feet in length
Category 2: 25-50 feet in length
Category 3: 50-100 feet in length
Category 4: 100+ feet
Kaiju were also ordered in classes or types, depending on their body structure and behavior. Leviathan types were aquatic, although they could be capable of moving on land, and were at their most lethal in the water. Behemoth types were four legged and were most deadly on land. Ziz types were aerial predators, posing a great danger with their ability to fly over the Walls. The final type was Titan class, vaguely humanoid or primate-like creatures that preferred to maneuver on two legs. Certain specimens even proved capable of climbing the walls.
As the rare but devastating Category 3 kaiju began appearing they were given names of demons, because of reasons. Unlike the smaller kaiju that simply attacked until they were killed, Category 3s exhibited unusual intelligence and would sometimes retreat from battles to recover from their wounds, disappearing for months or even years before attacking again.
Although the Pan Pacific Defense Corps (PPDC) that patrolled and defended the Walls had proven themselves effective against Category 1 and 2 kaiju, using their Maneuver Gear and AKUs (Anti-Kaiju Units), the slowly increasing rate of kaiju size had led to the birth of the Jaeger program. By the time the first Category 3 kaiju appeared off the Japanese coastline the first few Mark I Jaegers were in service, being driven by the most talented of the AKU pilots. The Jaegers were an entire different class of machine, utilizing a synchronization system between the pilot and the onboard computer. Mark 2 Jaegers implemented the Drift system, using two synchronized pilots to control the machine. Mark 3 Jaegers further perfected the Drift system and were built to rival Cat 3 kaiju in size, and in learning from the mistakes of the Mark 2 generation, pilots that were related or otherwise extremely closely linked were now almost exclusively used. Jaegers were 'inherited' from fathers to sons, brothers to sisters, grandparents to grandchildren.
Mark 3 Jaegers proved extremely effective at handling kaiju attacks, but the concerns of using a nuclear reactor to power the machine led to the eventual creation of the Mark 4. Many of the early generation Jaegers were scrapped for parts by the time of the Mark 4s, as it was more cost effective to rebuild existing machines than to allow the older models to remain in service while new Mark 4 and 5s were built, and only a handful of Mark 3s remained untouched as analog relics.
Although the PPDC was an international organization drawing funding and personnel from all over the world, Jaeger crews tended to follow family lines and so became national heroes for the countries they hailed from. The United States fielded several crews from their Los Angeles and Anchorage Shatterdomes, the most famous being the Winchester and Harvelle families, piloting the Gipsy Danger and the Hellmouth Jaegers respectively. Mary Winchester was a genius ace who had piloted AKUs from the age of sixteen and served on her father's Jaeger crew before taking it for herself, and her husband had been a Marine before he joined the PPDC and led ground crews against Cat 1s and 2s. Their first son Dean was rumored to have been conceived in the Gipsy and their second son Sam was actually born inside the cockpit out in the field, holding a blockade against a Category 3 kaiju. Both boys grew up in the life of the Corps and excelled at the simulators, although Dean had difficulty synchronizing with anyone other than Sam. Sam proved a natural genius like his mother and was being groomed by the R&D department to work on their brand new Mark 4s when he came of age.
Unfortunately, Mary was eventually killed in combat against the kaiju codenamed Azazel when her sons were ten and fourteen. Despite the misgivings of his superiors, John insisted that teenage Dean was ready to become his copilot and soon after had him regularly in the field. Sam refused to Drift with his father and serve as copilot with him and remained committed to joining the R&D team, hoping to improve the Drift system so that Jaeger pilots could be drawn from a wider pool of candidates and not just blood relatives, who were often unprepared rookies like Dean.
After John's death, also at Azazel's claws, Sam was forced to become a pilot anyway as Dean proved disastrously incapable of Drifting with anyone else, even his cousins. Dean and Sam became celebrated pilots and Dean lived the life of a rockstar, pretending it made up for the deaths of his parents and his brother's discontent. Sam devoted his downtime to improving the Drift system and the siblings had dozens of arguments over whether Sam was doing it to escape being Dean's copilot and the family 'curse.' Mary's surviving relatives in the Campbell family were eager to get their hands on the Gipsy in addition to their own Jaeger if Dean ever retired or proved capable of synching with one of his cousins, but as circumstances stood Dean and Sam were still a more effective team than any other crew combination. Having synced with each other consistently from such a young age, they became subject to the Echo Effect, simultaneous behaviors and an almost supernatural awareness of each other, a condition normally reserved for twins or veteran Jaeger pilots.
Everything changed during a mission off the coast of Alaska against their old enemy Azazel. Sam was ripped from the Gipsy's cockpit while still in the Drift and the trauma fractured his consciousness, leaving fragments of himself trapped inside the onboard computer system and also in Dean's mind. The Gipsy was torn nearly to pieces but managed to make it to the shoreline, although reports from people who intercepted the machine claimed that Dean was out cold inside the cockpit and had been for hours, and therefore could not have been driving the Gipsy. Sam washed up on shore a day later, barely alive. Over the next several months Dean recovered in an PPDC hospital. Sam did not, remaining comatose, and according to his doctors was likely to stay that way for the rest of his life. Dean refused to leave his brother's side even after the Gipsy was rebuilt and gave his grudging permission for the Campbell cousins to try piloting it in his absence. For some reason, however, the computer systems on the Gipsy had become prone to inexplicable glitches and malfunctions, and the entire machine would sometimes move against its pilots' commands. The Campbells chose to stick to their primary Jaeger and keep the Gipsy in reserve for desperate circumstances.
Sick of PPDC Command's continuous attempts to tempt him back into service with another copilot or another Jaeger entirely, Dean elected to become a civilian and joined the construction crews for the Walls in high risk areas. For a year he worked on the Walls until he was contacted by a PPDC scientist named Charlie, a Drift expert who claimed that she might have 1.) a way to wake Sam up and 2.) a way for Dean to pilot the Gipsy by himself. Having extensively studied the Drift system for personal reasons (her mother being in a coma) Charlie claimed that she could set up a neural link between Dean and Sam that might allow them to communicate. She also claimed to have expanded on the failsafe system for Jaegers where if one or both pilots were suddenly knocked out of contact the computer would attempt to drive the Jaeger. In theory, the same concept could be used to have the computer act as a second pilot, reading the moves of the primary pilot and reacting accordingly. The system would never be as efficient as two pilots working in tandem and would essentially make any given Jaeger right or left-handed, always leading off with attacks on the primary pilot's side, but it would be better than nothing.
Dean cautiously agreed to come back and become the pet project for the R&D Department stationed at the Hong Kong Shatterdome, aka Charlie and Chuck and Ash. The rest of the Jaeger crews looked on his return with mixed feelings. The Campbells believed that he should try to get over his inability to Drift and sync with one of their unpartnered pilots or otherwise join their ranks. The Harvelle team resented his intrusion, Ellen blaming him for inspiring her daughter and Jo blaming him for giving up. Many of the other crews only knew him by reputation and found him and his machine and his Drift issues outdated, as the newest Mark 5 models were almost exclusively piloted by candidates from specialized academies. Children would be sent there at a young age to join the PPDC and specially train to become Jaeger pilots and excel at Drifting. The most cult-like of these training camps was Himmel Academy, where all candidates were stripped of their former identities and given the names of angels to contrast the Cat 3 kaiju with demonic names.
Current Jaeger crews are:
Hellmouth Shotgun - Jo and Ellen Harvelle (America)
Hunter Black - various Campbell assholes (EU)
Kalika Shakti - Kali and Gabriel (India)
Archangel Ascent - Lucifer and Michael (Russia)
Arsenal Theomeny - Raphael and Virgil (Italy)
Kronos Devour - Eren Jaeger, Mikasa Ackerman and Armin Arlert (Japan)
i can't remember the other names
AND OUR CHARACTERS THUS FAR:
Dean Winchester - retired pilot of the Gipsy Danger, known affectionately to him as "Baby." A pilot from his teenage years, Dean found sudden retirement stifling but refused to leave his brother behind. Currently suffering from PTSD and the extreme consequences of the Echo Effect, 'ghosting,' a condition where pieces of one parter's mind remains inside the other's after the neural bridge is broken. Dean believes firmly that Sam's mind is intact and that he just needs to be woken up, and tries his best to dismiss the moments when he thinks he sees Sam out of the corner of his eye or hears his voice or feels someone standing just at his shoulder. Despite his irritation with the PPDC and the Campbells, he reluctantly decides to accept Charlie Bradbury's offer in hopes that she can cure his brother and get Gipsy back in the field again, even if Dean has to pilot alone.
Sam Winchester - the brains of the Winchester operation, Sam was never interested in becoming a rockstar Jaeger pilot as much as he wanted to unravel the mysteries behind the kaiju and Drifting, looking for a more permanent solution than just building and rebuilding giant robots. As a child he exhibited exceptional Drift capabilities, able to maintain his focus no matter what his partner brought into the link, and the research done on his early simulation runs provided the foundation for the Drift systems in the Mark 4 and 5s. He was even capable on occasion of piloting a Jaeger alone. Currently a coma patient after a disastrous mission. While theories about ghosting are all still purely hypothetical, the Gipsy's strange behavior often seems to coincide with Sam's violent nightmares...
Michael (formerly Mikael Alighieri) - General in charge of the PPDC and ostensible leader of all Jaeger teams. Stationed in the Hong Kong Shatterdome, largest of the Jaeger stations. Pilot of the Archangel and partner to Lucifer, although he occasionally takes Raphael with him instead. Graduate of Himmel Academy and a hands on leader, preferring to always be on the front lines. It's rumored that he's looking for a new pilot to become his secondary and has his eye on a certain returning war hero...
Lucifer (formerly Luca Alighieri) - Pilot of the Archangel and partner to Michael. They sort of hate each other and both are not-so-secretly looking to replace the other, with Lucifer even going so far as to commission a brand new Jaeger, the Morningstar, for his own use. Lucifer is considered a combat genius on the same level as Mary and Sam Winchester, excelling at Drifting, and will only consider candidates of a certain rating as worthy of being his secondary.
Castiel (formerly James Novak) - one of Himmel Academy's most promising graduates, now a Lieutenant in the PPDC. Despite hailing from the interior and living a safe, comfortable life with his wife and daughter, he decided that even someone like him had a responsibility to fight against the kaiju and chose to join the Academy. His wife Amelia, unable to understand this choice and viewing it as abandonment, divorced him and took custody of their daughter. Michael believes that Castiel's emotional attachments keep him from dedicating himself fully to life as a soldier, and so has kept him from being promoted to Jaeger pilot despite his impressive ratings in the simulators.
Gabriel (formerly Warren Muck) - a Himmel Academy deserter who ran off rather than become Lucifer's abused partner. He came back with a new primary partner and a new will to fight, although his 'brothers' still give him shit about his cowardice. The Kalika has a ridiculously high victory rating, however, and Lucifer can't touch Gabriel while Kali prefers him as a partner.
Bobby Singer - head of the Gipsy's maintenance crew. Served in the PPDC with John Winchester and thinks of the boys as family. He opposed John's decision to have Dean pilot so young but was overruled, and while he's cautiously pleased that Dean seems to be back in the fight, he also wonders if Dean is simply carrying on his father's deathwish with this nonsense about trying to pilot the Gipsy alone.
Anael (Anna Milton) - PPDC member and an AKU pilot. She often runs support for Jaeger missions.
Charlie Bradbury - PPDC scientist, Drift expert and computer hacker. As Drift burnout is a serious issue for the PPDC, her eccentricities are overlooked by her superiors. Originally assigned to try and bring the Gipsy into service again, she became fascinated by the anomalies in its systems and the story of the Winchester brothers' last mission. She contacted Dean without authorization and coaxed him to return to the Jaeger program and bring Sam, claiming that she might have the ability to wake him from his coma. She follows the Japanese belief that the Jaegers have some level of sentience, their computer systems constantly absorbing information from their pilots.
Raphael - Himmel Academy graduate and primary pilot of the Arsenal. Follows Michael's lead in everything and occasionally copilots for him in the Archangel.
Terms and Places:
Shatterdome - launching station for multiple Jaegers, possessed of a full capacity repair bay. The largest is in Hong Kong and has become the main headquarters for the entire Pan Pacific Defense Corps.
Echo Effect - synchronous behaviors between two Jaeger pilots after having Drifted together for a long time. Pilots sometimes finish each other's sentences or find themselves able to predict what the other is thinking, and in some cases have an almost supernatural ability to recognize where the other is at all times.
Ghosting - leaving pieces of one's consciousness inside another individual's mind or inside a computer system. Often the result of a traumatic experience while Drifting or breaking the link improperly. Since most Jaeger pilots don't have much of a lifespan, this condition has not been widely studied and some dismiss it as pure speculation.
Anti-Kaiju Unit (AKU) - manned military vehicles specifically developed to combat Cat 1 and 2 kaiju. Most of these are all-terrain, capable of flight and submerging. Against Cat 3s their primary focus is on stalling until a Jaeger can arrive on the scene.
no subject
Experiments are the only way we learn. You know regular doctors don't even have the faintest clue why he's still alive.
If we don't figure this out for him, no one will.
no subject
[ Dean clenches his teeth tighter, like he can stop himself from agreeing if he just tries hard enough, and then his head betrays him, nodding. ]
Fine. What do I need to do.
no subject
[ She bites her lip, thinking about Science and forgetting the part where Dean and Cas are fighting like little girls. ]
We should do some more Drifting tests outside of Gipsy, in a controlled environment, so I can try to pinpoint the anomalies in the battle records. You and Cas will have to stand in for the 'normal' neural handshake, and then we'll--
[ blah blah blah do all these tests blah blah cas is going to be heavily involved since Charlie thinks that Gipsy likes him because charlie watched too much evangelion. ]
no subject
[ he lets her finish, voice low. He doesn't know what the fuck he missed, but they can't, and it's not like it's going to be easy to convince Cas any other way. ]
Michael nixed it and Cas refuses. We're both grounded til we figure something out.
no subject
And Michael isn't in charge of the R&D Department. What's the matter with Cas?
[ tell auntie charlie all your woes, dean ]
no subject
Hell if I know, okay? I think - maybe he saw some of the shit in my head. Got freaked. Can't blame him if he's done.
no subject
Oh... I guess he can't help seeing the accident in your head. Your Drift patterns are pretty jagged.
no subject
Yeah.
[ Dean huffs out a laugh, hoarse and a little shaky, maybe ashamed, even though everyone's told him it's not his fault. It is, no one's just good enough to say it to his face. ]
Don't know what to tell you.
no subject
no subject
Doesn't matter.
[ Dean stares her down, willing her to stop. He likes her, okay, he does, but goddamnit. ]
Just drop it. Okay?
no subject
[ UGH BOYS she throws her hands up at his expression. ]
Fine, I'll put together the experiments with other partners so you two won't catch each other's cooties. But I do need Cas, Gipsy likes him. Do I need to go talk to him?
[ Give her an hour and some stats to wave around and she'll crack him ]
no subject
Dean looks absolutely thrilled at the prospect of not having to deal with it, and nods. ]
You talk to him. I'm not gonna.
no subject