Alternative IV

With the BETA War continuing to escalate and the human toll rising, it becomes clear that organic dialogue with the BETA is not possible. Starting in 1995, and relying heavily on the quantum causality research and theories of @Yuuko Kouzuki, @Alternative IV is enacted, with Yuuko in an executive position. Its official purpose was finding a way to understand or communicate with the BETA through the use of the @00 Unit, a fully synthetic being. Yuuko designates the 00 Unit's name based on: zero biological basis, zero human lifesigns. In other words, it is a completely artificial being emulating a human. Alternative IV also has the secret objective of setting up an anti-BETA intelligence network, gathering data on the layout of each Hive and the deployment and distribution of BETA within them.

This plan involved finding a way to digitize a human mind and personality, and uploading it to this synthetic body, posessing a quantum computer and sharing abilities of @Human ESPers, on the hopes that a non-carbon entity would be recognized on some level by the BETA. The communication attempt would be enhanced and facilitated by an additional ESPer, effectively bridging the gap as an intermediary. The 207th Training School is established to discreetly screen potential candidates on their levels of causality, kept under the guise of a regular academy, but under the umbrella of Alternative IV. High causality individuals would be transfered into Special Task Force A-01, Alternative IV's personal TSF squadron. These candidates would be potential volunteers for the @00 Unit when it could be completed.

A Massive Discovery, and a Minor Change of Plan

After the tumultuous sequence of events following the BETA Invasion of Japan in 1998, @Yuuko Kouzuki prioritized a retaliatory strike to capture the Yokohama Hive, both for valuable G-Elements and for study of an intact Hive, proposing the plan to the @United Nations. The recapture operation, Operation Lucifer, concludes with the detonations of two G-Bombs by American forces. During the cleanup operation, A-01 discovers multiple spires in the main hall of the Hive. These spires ran from the ground, near the still-intact Hive Reactor, to the ceiling of the hall, and had glowing translucent ampules high in there construction. These were discovered to be preservation pods, containing the brains and nerve stems of @Humans. The bombshell discovery meant that for the first time in recorded history, the BETA had taken prisoners, though to a grisly end. The discovery was heavily redacted, and kept only at the highest clearance, to prevent mass panic.

The G-Bomb detonations caused most of the brain containing ampules to go "offline", killing the brains within. Efforts were prioritized during the construction of @Yokohama Base to preserve as many as possible, but only a single brain survived by the time construction was finished, that of @Sumika Kagami. This brain, sheltered in the sublevels of Yokohama (@Yokohama Base, Sublevel B13) became a precious resource and focus of studies towards Alternative IV's goals. Plans shifted to utilize the brain, which had been connected to the BETA's Hive network, as the primary candidate for pairing with the @00 Unit. G-Elements recovered from the Yokohama Hive would be used towards this end, and later towards finishing the two @XG-70 Susanoos (the XG-70b Susanoo II and XG-70d Susanoo IV respectively) and their incomplete Moorcock-Lechte Drives and Rutherford Field Generators.

Where does this go in the story?

At the time of October 22, 2001, when @Takeru Shirogane arrives in the BETAverse, much of the theories and materiel for Alternative IV are already proven or in hand. @Yuuko Kouzuki's greatest hurdle, is the miniaturization of technologies for the @00 Unit. She needs to be able to fit the processing power of "15 billion semiconductors in the palm of a hand". This is to enable emulation of ESP abilities and for the proper imprinting of a personality matrix based on @Sumika Kagami's brain, experimented on by the BETA. Without a way to correct the equations within her own theories, @Yuuko Kouzuki is stuck in a circular thought trap, continually revising and abandoning formulae to the point of depression and fatigue.

If this problem is successfully navigated, the @00 Unit can be completed before the @United Nations' good graces expire. Though, upon successful integration, the brain of @Sumika Kagami ceases function and life, and the 00 Unit needs "maintainence and psychological reconditioning" by continued proximity to @Takeru Shirogane. Both prototypes from the American HI-MAERF project are acquired by the @United Nations in exchange for the new XM3 TSF Operating System (assuming it is complete), designed by @Yuuko Kouzuki and @Takeru Shirogane. The @XG-70 Susanoo would be the vehicle used to carry and protect the @00 Unit in its later missions into BETA Hives.