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[Doomblade187]

Mega-Pulser(3): DGR, Failbird, Doomblade

[Happerry]

Turn 6 : Revision Phase

Revision: Mega-Pulser
Intended to replace the standard pistol, this new weapon is a sort of 'Pulse SMG' in a way. Its model is that of a basic sort of arm cannon with a Hacker dependent color pallet, that the units hand inserts into and grabs onto the grip on the inside of the weapon. This makes it almost impossible to disarm a unit wielding the Mega-Pulser without literally de-arming them, though we don't really expect disarming to be a threat we face.

Using coding from the Lesser Lazards cannon as an example and integrating it into the base of our Pulse Pistol, it is able to rapidly fire uncharged Pulse Pistol shots as fast as the wielder can mash the trigger. Meanwhile the weapon can alternatively charge up to fire off significantly larger, stronger pulse blasts for fighting harder targets. While not as strong as something like the Marksman was intended to be, it should be enough to destroy a basic minion in a single hit at full charge.

The trickiest part of this weapon is that it is intended to replace the Pistol for our Plain Janes, Officers and Defenders. This necessitates a slightly updated ballistic calculations suite for the three in order to support the new fire rate and charged shots, and a few behavior alterations to let them make use of the improved fire rate in massed fire situations. With the higher rate of fire and ability to shoot charged shots it should allow our forces to take on both weak swarms and larger individuals with equally greater effectiveness.

4 + 1 - 1 = 4 : Below Average (Hard)

Despite being a revision-scale effort that is attempting to upgrade two different principles of the chosen weapon at once, and for more then one unit at a time, the Mega-Pulser project has succeeded. Mostly. As requested, the new Mega-Pulser class arm cannon is able to achieve considerably faster fire rates in comparison to the basic Charge Pistol sidearm, and uses the example-code from the Lesser Lazard's Electric Charged Cannon to allow for basic charged shot functionality. However, while the faster firing rate works essentially as desired, the use of the charged shot function requires substantially higher power-draws and peak emissions then the units in question were designed to support and handle, and the revisionary coding team ran out of time and assets before this problem was solved. This causes both the charged shot function to charge substantially slower then would otherwise be desired, and also causes the Mega-Pulser to need to cool down for a while after firing a charged shot before it can even use normal shots again.

Despite these issues it is still an improvement over the basic Charge Pistol, and the new weapon has been distributed amongst Stagehand forces. The Officer.exe units and other units drawing from their tactical libraries can also now command units to use charged shots to some (limited) extent if they are not normally programmed to use said function, which is a function used mainly on... well, Officer.exe programs and also Defenders.

It is now the Deployment Phase of Turn 6. During this phase you must decide which of your hackers will be leading your attacks (you currently have two attacks), and decide what they will use their memory space to bring with them in terms of chips and champions (You currently have 9 memory).

Spoiler: Designs (click to show/hide)

Hackers
Jorg Jörgenson
A thoughtful and methodical hacker that prioritizes force preservation and defense area control, the Bass Line plays for long term advantages as he shapes the battlefield into one incremental advantage after another until it grants him victory. He prefers melee designs over long ranged combat, and his preference for force preservation biases him away from the more fragile viruses whatever their range. He also has a deft hand with territory effecting battlechips that allow him to get more out of them then others would, and substantial experience with using defensive and supportive function battlechips.

Aria
Aria is a relatively new hacker, but Aria's loyalty to Sonata's Stagehands is undoubted. They have a talent with long ranged bombardment by both battlechip and virus, as well as other brute force destruction applications, which is substantial enough to result in their appointment as one of Sonata's Stagehands' field commanders. This plays well with their similar, if lesser, talent with fixed defenses. They have been noticed to have problems with giving the enemy the initiative and not noticing when said foe is doing something sneaky. While less notable, their relative inexperience as a hacker can sometimes cause them trouble in contested data spheres verses a more experienced foe.

Viri
Minion.exe
These roughly humanoid programs are neither very sophisticated (intelligence and coding wise) or very strong, but they are mass producible and smart enough to obey orders without continual direct supervision. Which isn't always something you can take for granted with generic digital constructs, as a lot of them are dumber then rocks. They're not coded with anything more powerful then a basic energy pulse pistol, but they can still defeat the average civilian whom thinks too much of themselves. Just avoid putting them up against Data Police Agents. (Simple - Obsolete)

Plain Jane.exe
A Plain Jane is a roughly humanoid program based on, but improved from, the Minion.exe standardized cannon fodder in use by most serious internet factions in one format or another. Physically they are taller and more slender then the standardized minion body, as well as being vaguely feminine, with a face shrouding helmet and relatively generic armor units. However the most important differences inherent in the Plain Jane are in their foundational structure, which is pre-designed for versatility and integration efficiency with currently non-functional or non-developed upgrade projects and alternate equipment loadouts, allowing them to be more easily adapted into new variants. The improved foundations also increase their functionality over an upgrade'd Minion.exe's values, if not as much as a dedicated upgrade to those areas would result in. Like the basic Minion.exe, the standardized base template of the Plain Jane.exe is armed with a basic energy pulse pistol.

Due to later revision-tier efforts, the Plain Jane is now equipped with a 'Mega-Pulser' brand arm cannon, which possesses basic rapid fire functionality and a charged shot function that, while successfully charging to the first scale, takes longer then desired to charge and requires a cooldown time after use before the weapon can function at even the base level again. As such the Plain Jane will only use charged shots against enemies too tough to handle with normal shots. (Simple)

SwordyMinion.exe
The normal baseline minion, adapted to use a sword instead of a pistol. They're no smarter and only a little tougher then a normal minion, but the sword is a stronger weapon then the pistol so it's somewhat more deadly. As long as it can get into melee range that is, as it no longer has the pistol. It will try to stab any enemy projectiles that come to close to it, allowing greater survivability rates then would otherwise be expected as long as the projectiles being shot at it are the kind you can stab.
(Simple)

Defender.exe
An enlarged minion with a continually active siren mounted on its helm and bearing a giant tower shield with more flashing lights and what looks like an impressively large gun array integrated into said shield's surface, this virus is a natural first target for anyone attacking a group that it is in. Which is the point. Not actually armed any more well then a normal minion, but with noticeably integrated code-buffering and a shield formed from active denial firewall lattice coding, the Defender is well equipped to be a remarkably sturdy, for its rating, distraction. It's attention getting features have now been upgraded with an off switch, and Officers have some light scripting telling them when to turn said attention getting features on or off. For example, when sneaking, keep them off. This makes them much simpler to transport.

Due to later revision-tier efforts, the Defender.exe is now equipped with a 'Mega-Pulser' brand arm cannon, which possesses basic rapid fire functionality and a charged shot function that, while successfully charging to the first scale, takes longer then desired to charge and requires a cooldown time after use before the weapon can function at even the base level again. The Defender is not, however, programmed to use the Charged Shots, and will only use them when commanded to by an officer-function unit.
(Simple)

Templar.exe
An alternate version of the Defender that's been given a sword instead of a charge pistol and upgraded with a moderate-low level skill library for sword and shield fighting. They still have the reinforced structure, shield, and siren of the Defender, and also like the Defender the Templar's siren can be turned on and off. Sadly, it does not have a flaming shield and sword.
(Simple)

Officer.exe
Based on the generally available in the Undernet Minion programs, Officer.exe constructs aren't much stronger then their lesser kin, still only coded with a basic energy pulse pistol, though officers also come with basic melee coding. But the big difference between and Officer and a Minion is that Officers are coded with noticeably more advanced bit-brains and have a basic tactical library integrated in their knowledge banks, allowing them to lead teams of Minions on operations without needing constant hand holding.

Since the start of the war, they've been revised with slightly enlarged tactical libraries and an improved ability to both identify enemy officers and commanders and figure out which officers on their own side are doing the best, and therefor should be listened to more. They have also been equipped with a 'Mega-Pulser' brand arm cannon, which possesses basic rapid fire functionality and a charged shot function that, while successfully charging to the first scale, takes longer then desired to charge and requires a cooldown time after use before the weapon can function at even the base level again. As well, their tactical libraries have been upgraded to allow them to command other units to use charged shots if the unit in question is not normally programmed to, which they can apply to themselves to get themselves to use charged shots. (Complicated)

Idoloid MDL 01 - Sakura.ISQ
A combination of crude and sophisticated coding, the Idoloid MDL 01 - Sakura.ISQ is attuned to the Music Element, and uses said element to both release regular (close ranged) bursts of healing for friendly units and as the energy type her attacks count as. They are armed with an immensely large syringe they use (crudely) as a spear and as a launching point for slightly weaker then normal pistol shot projectiles. They are also coded to act as officers, and are about equal to existing officers in command skill but make the decisions faster, giving them an advantage in tempo and reaction speed. Defensively they are neither tougher nor weaker then a normal officer, baring elemental interactions.

As Stagehand Hackers currently find their currently minimal healing ability more useful then their command ability, they have not yet made officers obsolete.
(Complicated)

Lesser Lasard.Mon
The Lesser Lasard.Mon is a cyborg theropod with join locking legs and a counterweight tail to provide a stable firing position for the heavy repeating charge gun that makes up the Lasard's upper jaw. This cannon fires shots somewhat stronger then a potential charged shot from the charge pistols basic minions use, and can also charge up itself to fire a very powerful splash damage shot of ball lightning through use of the Thunder Element, though this drains the Lasard's power such that it needs a few minutes to recharge. The Lasard can also unleash a melee ranged lightning shockwave, though this is far weaker and still drains the Lasard, but its only other decent melee option is hitting things with its tail. The Lasard 'sees' with two strips of electrically sensitive materials mounted on its flanks, and can therefor blind itself when it uses its shockwave. Despite the Lasard's use of electricity, the unit as a whole is not elementally attuned. (Complex)

Mobile Assault Stage v2
A large flying stage with two of the speaker arrays replaced with missile launchers and handrails around the edges to keep passengers from falling off. It's piloted by a minion who's been fused directly with the singer's podium, but still controls the stage with hand controls. Like the missile battlechip, if the Stage's missiles are deflected they'll often lock onto a friendly unit, usually the stage that fired them. The Mobile Assault Stage is capable of carrying a little over twenty minions at a time, or thirty if you pack them on really tightly, enough to interfere with their ability to do anything until they get off the stage. (Complex)

Mobile Assault Stage - Sensory & Manipulation Model - Passion
A redesign of the Mobile Assault Stage that replaces the majority of the deck space with sensory equipment to allow for sniper ranged sensor scans, removes the missile launchers, and replaces the pilot with a Passion model Idoloid which has exceedingly enlarged hands and a somewhat enlarged upper abdomen to go with its overall size increase, and replaces said pilot's long ranged communication gear with dedicated sensor control coding. While this leaves the 'Passion' Model of the Mobile Assault Stage completely useless in direct combat it can now provide valuable informational support and still has the 'floor space' to carry around seven minions on what open floor space it retains. Given the lack of long ranged com gear, normally there's an Officer.exe permanently stationed on the S&M Model to allow for relaying the sensor intake to the command network.
(Complex -> Effectively Exceedingly Complex)

Marksman.exe
A buggy mess of a minion variant with a non-functional charged shot sniper rifle with no normal shot mode and who's charged shot only works one in three times, is intensely fragile, and has a non-working advanced ballistic calculator and target value calculator. All this would be bad enough even if the virus didn't only shoot at targets they're directly ordered to shoot without having the Officers programmed to order them to shoot. (Exceedingly Complex)

Autonomous Digital Intelligence
BlueFiend.mon
An upside down floating pyramid surrounded by an oozelike substance that is manipulated into varied body parts and coverings, born of an experiment into self adapting programs. BlueFiend uses this material as armor, tools, and weapons alike, as well as a large degree of personal strength. It tends to prefer melee combat, but is not limited to it, and prefers to communicate in sign language and/or charades. Interestingly, BlueFiend has once or twice shown the ability to entirely liquefy itself, but the rarity of when and hesitance with which it employs this ability suggests some sort of major limiting factor to it. (Memory 4)

Battle Chips
Recovery 10
This tactical battle chip is designed to mend damaged and corrupted code, healing the individual it is applied to by a minor amount. (Simple, Memory 1)

Atk+10
This tactical battle chip pre-allocates resources to empower the next program used, improving the targets ability to deal damage for a short while. (Simple, Memory 1)

MinionCall A
This strategic battle chip creates temporary replicas of the commonly known ‘Minion.exe’ program, causing a short term burst of reinforcements in the targeted zone. (Simple, Memory 1)

Stunbolt
A tactical battle chip that releases a bolt of electricity into the target, which then paralyzes the target until the excess electricity dissipates. This chip is elementally attuned to the element of Thunder. (Simple, Memory 1)

Missile I
The Missile I is a strategic battlechip that effectively fires a decently powerful cruise missile at a chosen target. The missile plays an annoying MeTube speech the entire flight and will not explode before it hits something that's not the ground or a wall, resulting in it almost always hitting the target when it doesn't loose control over itself by bouncing off the ground nosecone over tail, which tends to make it go flying off into the void. Has an annoying issue where, if deflected, it will often lock onto a friendly target instead of going back after the original target. (Complicated, Memory 1)

DramaticSpotlight
This chip combines an environmental influence effect with a protective barrier, it... well, look, it lets you summon a dramatic spotlight to spotlight your avatar or an ADI and includes enough defensive shielding to let you do a (short) dramatic speech or pithy comment without anyone being able to do anything about it. The defenses fail if you move or attack however, and only last a short moment, but it's quite good for making a memorable introduction. (Simple, Memory 0)

InvokeSoundtrack
A battlechip that invokes a soundtrack, using advanced environmental sensors to analyze the zone that the Hacker or the Hacker's Proxies are in and play appropriate music for where they are and what the current events are. Some would swear it has a better detection rate for hidden surprises then anything else in Sonata's Arsenal, but it also has a deeply encoded priority for dramatic timing, and therefor the dramatic chords only begin to play when the surprise is about to be sprung on you anyway. (Simple, Memory 0)

[Failbird105]

Deployment Plan: Undernet Overture

Jorg 'Bass Line' Jorgenson
Deployment Zone: Viral Jungle
Chip Folder,
- Stunbolt [1]
- Stunbolt [1]
- Stunbolt [1]
- Recovery 10 [1]
- MinionCall A [1]
- BlueFiend.mon [4]
- DramaticSpotlight [ 0 ]
- InvokeSoundtrack [ 0 ]

Aria
Deployment Zone: Sea of Recycling
Chip Folder,
- Missile I [1]
- Missile I [1]
- Missile I [1]
- Missile I [1]
- Missile I [1]
- Missile I [1]
- Missile I [1]
- MinionCall A [1]
- MinionCall A [1]
- DramaticSpotlight [ 0 ]
- InvokeSoundtrack [ 0 ]

Undernet Overture (1): Failbird

With this move, we aim to consolidate our hold on the Undernet, with the intent to fully take the Sea and reclaim control over the Jungle.

[Doomblade187]

Undernet Overture (2): Failbird, Doomblade

[Happerry]

Jorg 'Bass Line' Jorgenson
Deployment Zone: Viral Jungle
Chip Folder,
- Stunbolt [1]
- Stunbolt [1]
- Stunbolt [1]
- Recovery 10 [1]
- MinionCall A [1]
- BlueFiend.mon [4]
- DramaticSpotlight [ 0 ]
- InvokeSoundtrack [ 0 ]

Unlike the Sea of Recycling, there's no great surprise achieved in this battlezone. Only mud, blood, and BlueFiend.mon beating the utmost shit out of anything unfortunate enough to try to pick a fight. The Stagehands know their enemy here, and the Symbion Hives know the fight they are fighting in return. The Viral Jungle has been fought over effectively consistently over the last cycles, and even its verdant datasphere-ecosystem is showing signs of the collateral damage. The jungle is scarred now, as ancient craters can be seen underneath the regrowing trees, and the wreckage of old battles can be spied half overgrown by the Krudzion vine infestation. And now more damage will be added as Plane Janes and Templar warriors clash with Terrantulas and Spiderflier air cavalry are blasted from the sky by the Lesser Lasard.Mon artillery monsters.

It's a brutal war, but it is in the end not one the hives can win without support or the enemy being distracted. As the Stagehands have done before, troops advance into the jungle and throw the native forces back again and again. There is no great surprise this time, for the enemies are known, and the new sensor-stages allow for both early warning of raiding forces and detection of the hidden paths that the Symbion Hives use to mobilize said raiding forces through alike. Angry bomb-throwing tangler trees are uprooted, laser-mandible bearing Symbion warriors are cut down by SwordyMinions or shot by the Janes, and the advance goes on.

Even the new broods created by the hives, the titanic scorpion-men whom tower over the trees and fight with sword and ballista sized laser crossbow, the hundred-meter long centipedes cast in iron and with each segment having its own weapon station, and the terrible color-shifting shape-changing tree-octopodes and their poisoned tentacle-claws, can not stand up to the advance, for their is not enough of them. These titans of the jungle die hard, but die they do even as entire stagehand deployments are devoured by gigantic slime-mucus monsters that stretch between the trees and suck the data from those trapped in their glue-filled depths before being blown into wiggling fragments by roaring Lesser Lasards or air-launched missile strikes.

The hives withdraw, but they withdraw in good order.

+1 Control in the Viral Jungle for Sonata's Stagehands.

Aria
Deployment Zone: Sea of Recycling
Chip Folder,
- Missile I [1]
- Missile I [1]
- Missile I [1]
- Missile I [1]
- Missile I [1]
- Missile I [1]
- Missile I [1]
- MinionCall A [1]
- MinionCall A [1]
- DramaticSpotlight [ 0 ]
- InvokeSoundtrack [ 0 ]

It has been quite some time since the Stagehands turned their attention to the Sea of Recycling. Which isn't to say that the Sea has been peaceful, but the lack of continued advancement seems to have lured the simian pirates into a false sense of security regarding Stagehand forces and they are no longer as alert for continued aggression as they were when the Stagehands were first making gains in this zone. Of course, things haven't actually been peaceful here for the pirates have continued to test the garrison forces throughout the occupation. But with the lack of a major simian push the garrison forces have been all that have been needed to see off enemy raiders. Oh, individual shipments have been intercepted and pirated, minor outposts looting and overrun, but nothing major, and nothing that could not be easily replaced.

However despite the amount of advancement that the Stagehands have made since the last time war was waged in this sector, certain limitations and issues remain unchanged. The main one being, of course, the lack of any method of over-water transport that does not involve use of the numbers-limited Assault Stages. Against an enemy with a plentiful ability to move over the waters themselves, this results in a critical mobility disadvantage for Stagehand forces. And yet, this was true in the last battles in this zone, and the Stagehands still won.

So, hopefully, will it be again.

The attack begins with a massive missile bombardment against the primary port of the enemy, a saturation strike almost twice the size of the maximal possible bombardments in the last strife, followed by a massive air lift operation using approximately all of the Assault Stages assigned to this zone that drops a multitude of the new Plane Jane constructs into the main enemy stronghold with lesser numbers of the other Minion.exe descending units as support. This isn't a strike that can last, but it is a strike that can last long enough. With the enemy in disorder the Stagehand forces make a mass movement over what land transport options exist, flooding into the pirate coves in assault columns that seem entirely insensate to casualties and damage as the Sakura.ISQ Idoloids provide healing and navigation through the formerly deceptive paths is provided by the S&M - Passion variant stages.

Against this brute force assault the great pirate captains of the Sea never quite find their footing. Oh, they do damage in their haunted fey-blessed flying boats, and the rocket-salmons fight to the last, but the confusion of the initial responses allow the counter attacks to be crushed in detail due to lack of coordination between the cyborg monkey pirates. Even their desperate attempts to rouse the great steam-krakens of the greatest depths against the Stagehands fail in the end, as the beasts prove no friendlier to the pirates then to the stagehands and the S&M - Passion sensory stages allow for early detection and warning of these kaiju and their attacks.

In the end, the last remaining pockets of Stagehand forces in the great central port are relieved by reinforcements and the last of the great captains die, cursing the stagehands with his last breath as he is consumed by the God-Whale monster he'd attempted to awaken and bind to his control in the time of the pirate's dire need. The seas are bound, and they are bound to the Stagehands as the great data-shifting tidecombing machines are constructed between the islands and the laser semaphore tower network is expanded throughout the sea.

+1 Control in the Sea of Recycling for Sonata's Stagehands.

Spoiler: Designs (click to show/hide)

Hackers
Jorg Jörgenson
A thoughtful and methodical hacker that prioritizes force preservation and defense area control, the Bass Line plays for long term advantages as he shapes the battlefield into one incremental advantage after another until it grants him victory. He prefers melee designs over long ranged combat, and his preference for force preservation biases him away from the more fragile viruses whatever their range. He also has a deft hand with territory effecting battlechips that allow him to get more out of them then others would, and substantial experience with using defensive and supportive function battlechips.

Aria
Aria is a relatively new hacker, but Aria's loyalty to Sonata's Stagehands is undoubted. They have a talent with long ranged bombardment by both battlechip and virus, as well as other brute force destruction applications, which is substantial enough to result in their appointment as one of Sonata's Stagehands' field commanders. This plays well with their similar, if lesser, talent with fixed defenses. They have been noticed to have problems with giving the enemy the initiative and not noticing when said foe is doing something sneaky. While less notable, their relative inexperience as a hacker can sometimes cause them trouble in contested data spheres verses a more experienced foe.

Viri
Minion.exe
These roughly humanoid programs are neither very sophisticated (intelligence and coding wise) or very strong, but they are mass producible and smart enough to obey orders without continual direct supervision. Which isn't always something you can take for granted with generic digital constructs, as a lot of them are dumber then rocks. They're not coded with anything more powerful then a basic energy pulse pistol, but they can still defeat the average civilian whom thinks too much of themselves. Just avoid putting them up against Data Police Agents. (Simple - Obsolete)

Plain Jane.exe
A Plain Jane is a roughly humanoid program based on, but improved from, the Minion.exe standardized cannon fodder in use by most serious internet factions in one format or another. Physically they are taller and more slender then the standardized minion body, as well as being vaguely feminine, with a face shrouding helmet and relatively generic armor units. However the most important differences inherent in the Plain Jane are in their foundational structure, which is pre-designed for versatility and integration efficiency with currently non-functional or non-developed upgrade projects and alternate equipment loadouts, allowing them to be more easily adapted into new variants. The improved foundations also increase their functionality over an upgrade'd Minion.exe's values, if not as much as a dedicated upgrade to those areas would result in. Like the basic Minion.exe, the standardized base template of the Plain Jane.exe is armed with a basic energy pulse pistol.

Due to later revision-tier efforts, the Plain Jane is now equipped with a 'Mega-Pulser' brand arm cannon, which possesses basic rapid fire functionality and a charged shot function that, while successfully charging to the first scale, takes longer then desired to charge and requires a cooldown time after use before the weapon can function at even the base level again. As such the Plain Jane will only use charged shots against enemies too tough to handle with normal shots. (Simple)

SwordyMinion.exe
The normal baseline minion, adapted to use a sword instead of a pistol. They're no smarter and only a little tougher then a normal minion, but the sword is a stronger weapon then the pistol so it's somewhat more deadly. As long as it can get into melee range that is, as it no longer has the pistol. It will try to stab any enemy projectiles that come to close to it, allowing greater survivability rates then would otherwise be expected as long as the projectiles being shot at it are the kind you can stab.
(Simple)

Defender.exe
An enlarged minion with a continually active siren mounted on its helm and bearing a giant tower shield with more flashing lights and what looks like an impressively large gun array integrated into said shield's surface, this virus is a natural first target for anyone attacking a group that it is in. Which is the point. Not actually armed any more well then a normal minion, but with noticeably integrated code-buffering and a shield formed from active denial firewall lattice coding, the Defender is well equipped to be a remarkably sturdy, for its rating, distraction. It's attention getting features have now been upgraded with an off switch, and Officers have some light scripting telling them when to turn said attention getting features on or off. For example, when sneaking, keep them off. This makes them much simpler to transport.

Due to later revision-tier efforts, the Defender.exe is now equipped with a 'Mega-Pulser' brand arm cannon, which possesses basic rapid fire functionality and a charged shot function that, while successfully charging to the first scale, takes longer then desired to charge and requires a cooldown time after use before the weapon can function at even the base level again. The Defender is not, however, programmed to use the Charged Shots, and will only use them when commanded to by an officer-function unit.
(Simple)

Templar.exe
An alternate version of the Defender that's been given a sword instead of a charge pistol and upgraded with a moderate-low level skill library for sword and shield fighting. They still have the reinforced structure, shield, and siren of the Defender, and also like the Defender the Templar's siren can be turned on and off. Sadly, it does not have a flaming shield and sword.
(Simple)

Officer.exe
Based on the generally available in the Undernet Minion programs, Officer.exe constructs aren't much stronger then their lesser kin, still only coded with a basic energy pulse pistol, though officers also come with basic melee coding. But the big difference between and Officer and a Minion is that Officers are coded with noticeably more advanced bit-brains and have a basic tactical library integrated in their knowledge banks, allowing them to lead teams of Minions on operations without needing constant hand holding.

Since the start of the war, they've been revised with slightly enlarged tactical libraries and an improved ability to both identify enemy officers and commanders and figure out which officers on their own side are doing the best, and therefor should be listened to more. They have also been equipped with a 'Mega-Pulser' brand arm cannon, which possesses basic rapid fire functionality and a charged shot function that, while successfully charging to the first scale, takes longer then desired to charge and requires a cooldown time after use before the weapon can function at even the base level again. As well, their tactical libraries have been upgraded to allow them to command other units to use charged shots if the unit in question is not normally programmed to, which they can apply to themselves to get themselves to use charged shots. (Complicated)

Idoloid MDL 01 - Sakura.ISQ
A combination of crude and sophisticated coding, the Idoloid MDL 01 - Sakura.ISQ is attuned to the Music Element, and uses said element to both release regular (close ranged) bursts of healing for friendly units and as the energy type her attacks count as. They are armed with an immensely large syringe they use (crudely) as a spear and as a launching point for slightly weaker then normal pistol shot projectiles. They are also coded to act as officers, and are about equal to existing officers in command skill but make the decisions faster, giving them an advantage in tempo and reaction speed. Defensively they are neither tougher nor weaker then a normal officer, baring elemental interactions.

As Stagehand Hackers currently find their currently minimal healing ability more useful then their command ability, they have not yet made officers obsolete.
(Complicated)

Lesser Lasard.Mon
The Lesser Lasard.Mon is a cyborg theropod with join locking legs and a counterweight tail to provide a stable firing position for the heavy repeating charge gun that makes up the Lasard's upper jaw. This cannon fires shots somewhat stronger then a potential charged shot from the charge pistols basic minions use, and can also charge up itself to fire a very powerful splash damage shot of ball lightning through use of the Thunder Element, though this drains the Lasard's power such that it needs a few minutes to recharge. The Lasard can also unleash a melee ranged lightning shockwave, though this is far weaker and still drains the Lasard, but its only other decent melee option is hitting things with its tail. The Lasard 'sees' with two strips of electrically sensitive materials mounted on its flanks, and can therefor blind itself when it uses its shockwave. Despite the Lasard's use of electricity, the unit as a whole is not elementally attuned. (Complex)

Mobile Assault Stage v2
A large flying stage with two of the speaker arrays replaced with missile launchers and handrails around the edges to keep passengers from falling off. It's piloted by a minion who's been fused directly with the singer's podium, but still controls the stage with hand controls. Like the missile battlechip, if the Stage's missiles are deflected they'll often lock onto a friendly unit, usually the stage that fired them. The Mobile Assault Stage is capable of carrying a little over twenty minions at a time, or thirty if you pack them on really tightly, enough to interfere with their ability to do anything until they get off the stage. (Complex)

Mobile Assault Stage - Sensory & Manipulation Model - Passion
A redesign of the Mobile Assault Stage that replaces the majority of the deck space with sensory equipment to allow for sniper ranged sensor scans, removes the missile launchers, and replaces the pilot with a Passion model Idoloid which has exceedingly enlarged hands and a somewhat enlarged upper abdomen to go with its overall size increase, and replaces said pilot's long ranged communication gear with dedicated sensor control coding. While this leaves the 'Passion' Model of the Mobile Assault Stage completely useless in direct combat it can now provide valuable informational support and still has the 'floor space' to carry around seven minions on what open floor space it retains. Given the lack of long ranged com gear, normally there's an Officer.exe permanently stationed on the S&M Model to allow for relaying the sensor intake to the command network.
(Complex -> Effectively Exceedingly Complex)

Marksman.exe
A buggy mess of a minion variant with a non-functional charged shot sniper rifle with no normal shot mode and who's charged shot only works one in three times, is intensely fragile, and has a non-working advanced ballistic calculator and target value calculator. All this would be bad enough even if the virus didn't only shoot at targets they're directly ordered to shoot without having the Officers programmed to order them to shoot. (Exceedingly Complex)

Autonomous Digital Intelligence
BlueFiend.mon
An upside down floating pyramid surrounded by an oozelike substance that is manipulated into varied body parts and coverings, born of an experiment into self adapting programs. BlueFiend uses this material as armor, tools, and weapons alike, as well as a large degree of personal strength. It tends to prefer melee combat, but is not limited to it, and prefers to communicate in sign language and/or charades. Interestingly, BlueFiend has once or twice shown the ability to entirely liquefy itself, but the rarity of when and hesitance with which it employs this ability suggests some sort of major limiting factor to it. (Memory 4)

Battle Chips
Recovery 10
This tactical battle chip is designed to mend damaged and corrupted code, healing the individual it is applied to by a minor amount. (Simple, Memory 1)

Atk+10
This tactical battle chip pre-allocates resources to empower the next program used, improving the targets ability to deal damage for a short while. (Simple, Memory 1)

MinionCall A
This strategic battle chip creates temporary replicas of the commonly known ‘Minion.exe’ program, causing a short term burst of reinforcements in the targeted zone. (Simple, Memory 1)

Stunbolt
A tactical battle chip that releases a bolt of electricity into the target, which then paralyzes the target until the excess electricity dissipates. This chip is elementally attuned to the element of Thunder. (Simple, Memory 1)

Missile I
The Missile I is a strategic battlechip that effectively fires a decently powerful cruise missile at a chosen target. The missile plays an annoying MeTube speech the entire flight and will not explode before it hits something that's not the ground or a wall, resulting in it almost always hitting the target when it doesn't loose control over itself by bouncing off the ground nosecone over tail, which tends to make it go flying off into the void. Has an annoying issue where, if deflected, it will often lock onto a friendly target instead of going back after the original target. (Complicated, Memory 1)

DramaticSpotlight
This chip combines an environmental influence effect with a protective barrier, it... well, look, it lets you summon a dramatic spotlight to spotlight your avatar or an ADI and includes enough defensive shielding to let you do a (short) dramatic speech or pithy comment without anyone being able to do anything about it. The defenses fail if you move or attack however, and only last a short moment, but it's quite good for making a memorable introduction. (Simple, Memory 0)

InvokeSoundtrack
A battlechip that invokes a soundtrack, using advanced environmental sensors to analyze the zone that the Hacker or the Hacker's Proxies are in and play appropriate music for where they are and what the current events are. Some would swear it has a better detection rate for hidden surprises then anything else in Sonata's Arsenal, but it also has a deeply encoded priority for dramatic timing, and therefor the dramatic chords only begin to play when the surprise is about to be sprung on you anyway. (Simple, Memory 0)

[Failbird105]

ADI Design: Dutchman.mon
The great beasts roused from the depths of the Sea by the pirates in our final confrontation managed to catch Sonata's attention. And while we can all agree that the individual she pointed out was worth pursuing the reasons... weren't as widely agreed on.

A white whale, not a massive kaiju like beast like one might expect from the term. Not much larger than a speedboat overall, it's the unique aspects of the viri. The whale is a spectral appearing thing, floating through the air as easily as it does water, though without the same speed. Atop its head lie a pair of downscaled twin-barreled naval cannons. These cannons fire shells of disproportionately impressive power for their size, each one able to blow through a Stage in one-to-two shots based on our testing. Its tail meanwhile extends long past where the fin should be, becoming long and whiplike and ending in a heavy anchor it can swing around with destructive force.

All of that put together makes for a potent force, but that still is not the reason why this particular creature was picked. Simply put, it's code contains a fragment of Sonata. One of the largest we've seen, with how little time we've been trawling the Sea at least. And with a bit of coding magic on the captured viri, we've been able to wake that fragment up. The fragment manifests as a tall woman, skin, hair, and clothes all white as snow, garbed in what could generously remind someone of a naval uniform.

In her hands she wields a spear in the shape of a long spine, on the bottom end it possesses a sharp point, and on the top two smaller guns. Her personality is... similarly unalike from Sonata. She seems to have the strict, commanding disposition of a Naval commander with the brutal 'take what you want and damn the rest' morality of a pirate captain. Likely due to a variety of broken down code having been assimilated into the whales mass just as the fragment was, but above all, she obeys the True Sonata.

These two forms are inextricably linked, and cannot be far apart from each-other. They seem to share a direct mental connection as well. This has allowed us to gain control of this otherwise wild viri, and provides it a mechanism with which to fight off smaller enemies who get too close for it to wield its back mounted cannons or anchor tail against.

That, unfortunately, brings us to the weaknesses, of which The Dutchman has plenty. For one, well, it's a flying ghostly whale. Even if it's small for a whale it is still incredibly visible with the glow it gives off and the dark blue mist coming from a smokestack upon its back. Two is its weapon range, specifically that they have a minimum range. Because its guns are located upon the top of its body, it cannot fire them at foes who are below it without having to completely reorient itself. Its tail meanwhile is fairly long, meaning it is all but useless in tighter locations or when faced with many obstacles(such as objects or, more likely, allies). Finally, and perhaps most crucial, is that the two halves are so closely linked. If one is incapacitated so is the other, and the Avatar is far more fragile than the Whale.

Viri Design: Rocker Jane.exe
Continuing the production of our new Jane model off with a wholly new unit right off the bat. Over top of its default 'Jane' style body, the rocker in particular is customized with 'punk' style clothing, such as a spiked collar, short-cropped leather jacket, and shorts that appear as though they were made by tearing everything below the thighs off of a normal pair of pants. They also come with a personality that, while no less loyal than normal, feigns at a 'rebellious' nature through voice-lines.

Rocker Janes are meant to be the first model of "Jane" units. Our own enhanced replacement of the basic Minion.exe. Somewhat larger, moderately tougher, and with moderately better combat AI. However, Rocker Jane in particular carries a comparatively far different weapon to the standard Officers and Minions. Rocker Jane carries a large, two handed gun, that must be rested upon the shoulder for support, similarly to a rocket launcher.
Instead of firing regular pulse shots, charged or otherwise, the Rocker Janes' cannon fires a continuous wave of Music Element energy, that breaks down a moderate distance away as the code that held the wave together degrades too far to continue. In a way, it can be compared to a flamethrower, though without the lingering burning, and with a somewhat longer range. This wave does not pass through objects or enemies, but it can flow past them, meaning the smaller the targets, the more can be caught in the wave at a time.

Notably, another advantage to the Rocker Janes, is that the comparatively short range and no-drop nature of their attacks means they also require significantly less ballistic calculations coding as well, which should help save on a moderate amount of space. Though of course, we will have to re-introduce this when making other Janes that are equipped with more standard weaponry.

Viri Design: Ripper Jane.exe
Continuing the production of our new Jane model off with a wholly new unit right off the bat. The Ripper Janes are meant to be our 'heavy' soldiers compared to the normal infantry role of our Plane Janes and the Mobile Gun Emplacement that is our Lesser Lazard. This idea is based on a suggestion we have seen many, many times. Using a downscaled version of the Lesser Lazards gun-head as an infantry weapon.

The Ripper Janes do effectively just that. Their weapon is a machinegun, modified directly from the head of the Lesser Lazard. It fires pulse shots fully automatically at high speeds, and the teeth have been repurposed into a whirling chain-blade. This makes a potent close-to-mid range heavy weapon with a deadly melee attack. Unfortunately, due to dropping the entirety of the body beyond the head, they also lose out on the Lazards charged blast and electric pulse attacks.

In terms of appearance, the Ripper Janes wear a thick padded vest, bulky gloves, tactical pants, and heavy boots. All in all giving them a more professional military look without losing out completely concealing their feminine shape. Their personality is the sort of bombastic, patriotic, "Hooah" soldier type. For some reason we kept finding lines about gears and cogs in their voice files, and we're not quite sure why.

[Failbird105]

Viri Design: Idoloid MDL 02 - Colette.ISQ
With the immense success of the Sakura model Idoloids, we've been looking into making more 'major' roles we can delegate to Idoloids. The most obvious one is, of course, leadership. In comes the Colette model. Colette Idoloids wear a(somewhat oversized) white beret, a monocle, a formal white jacket adorned with a cartoonishly sized red bow, white gloves, a black undershirt and pants, and long white boots. Their waist-length hair is straight and off-white, and their eyes an icy blue. Their personality haughty, but serious under pressure, our more AI oriented programmers expect to hear many an "Ohohoho~".

In terms of ability, we've used the Sakura's as a base, from which we have stripped out the pulse and healing functions in their entirely, though not the Music alignment, as we predict something that deeply built in may be harder than simply leaving it there. This means we are left with one thing and one thing only, Command skill. This, of course, is the focus. We have put all of our efforts(past the basic level of aesthetic and personality design of course) entirely into expanding the tactical and strategic libraries and know-how of the Colette model. Where Commander.exe's are team leaders, the Colette units are (artificially)experienced Colonels' leading entire Brigades through combat and supervising the battle from afar, likely often from atop a Passion stage. They are a go-between for our Hackers and our army at large.

If this was all, we imagine the project would be fairly simple, the degree of difficulty entirely dependent on how advanced we decided to go for the libraries. That is not where we drew the line though. We know beyond a shadow of a doubt the Colette model will most likely be Complex to deploy because of this feature, but we felt it necessary. The Colette's have a substantial degree of unused extra memory. This is because they can adapt and learn. Not to the degree of complete self-awareness and free-thinking of course(really, making an entire class of identical soldiers free-thinking just seems cruel, we're fighting for AI rights here dammit), we doubt they would be able to truly ever account for the strategic equivalent of "shenanigans ensue" unless we made them entirely sapient, but they can fluidly merge and splice tactics and strategies from their existing libraries to create new plans around the tactics the enemy are utilizing.

In terms of armament, being a unit meant to be as far from battle as possible, the Colette's have very little. Possessing a rapier that doubles as a conductors baton in a pinch, with simple swordfighting libraries that would likely allow them to best the average Swordy in a one on one duel, but not do much else.

Design:
Idoloid MDL 02 - Colette.ISQ (1): Failbird
Rocker Jane.exe ():
Ripper Jane.exe ():
Free Design:
Dutchman.mon (1): Failbird

[m1895]

Not to the degree of complete self-awareness and free-thinking of course(really, making an entire class of identical soldiers free-thinking just seems cruel, we're fighting for AI rights here dammit)

Oh no somebody put BlueFiend.mon code in the unused memory

Design:
Idoloid MDL 02 - Colette.ISQ (2): Failbird, m1895
Rocker Jane.exe ():
Ripper Jane.exe ():
Free Design:
Dutchman.mon (2): Failbird, m1895

[dgr11897]

Design:
Idoloid MDL 02 - Colette.ISQ (3): Failbird, m1895, DGR
Rocker Jane.exe ():
Ripper Jane.exe ():
Free Design:
Dutchman.mon (3): Failbird, m1895, DGR

[Happerry]

Turn 7 : Design Phase

Viri Design: Idoloid MDL 02 - Colette.ISQ
With the immense success of the Sakura model Idoloids, we've been looking into making more 'major' roles we can delegate to Idoloids. The most obvious one is, of course, leadership. In comes the Colette model. Colette Idoloids wear a(somewhat oversized) white beret, a monocle, a formal white jacket adorned with a cartoonishly sized red bow, white gloves, a black undershirt and pants, and long white boots. Their waist-length hair is straight and off-white, and their eyes an icy blue. Their personality haughty, but serious under pressure, our more AI oriented programmers expect to hear many an "Ohohoho~".

In terms of ability, we've used the Sakura's as a base, from which we have stripped out the pulse and healing functions in their entirely, though not the Music alignment, as we predict something that deeply built in may be harder than simply leaving it there. This means we are left with one thing and one thing only, Command skill. This, of course, is the focus. We have put all of our efforts(past the basic level of aesthetic and personality design of course) entirely into expanding the tactical and strategic libraries and know-how of the Colette model. Where Commander.exe's are team leaders, the Colette units are (artificially)experienced Colonels' leading entire Brigades through combat and supervising the battle from afar, likely often from atop a Passion stage. They are a go-between for our Hackers and our army at large.

If this was all, we imagine the project would be fairly simple, the degree of difficulty entirely dependent on how advanced we decided to go for the libraries. That is not where we drew the line though. We know beyond a shadow of a doubt the Colette model will most likely be Complex to deploy because of this feature, but we felt it necessary. The Colette's have a substantial degree of unused extra memory. This is because they can adapt and learn. Not to the degree of complete self-awareness and free-thinking of course(really, making an entire class of identical soldiers free-thinking just seems cruel, we're fighting for AI rights here dammit), we doubt they would be able to truly ever account for the strategic equivalent of "shenanigans ensue" unless we made them entirely sapient, but they can fluidly merge and splice tactics and strategies from their existing libraries to create new plans around the tactics the enemy are utilizing.

In terms of armament, being a unit meant to be as far from battle as possible, the Colette's have very little. Possessing a rapier that doubles as a conductors baton in a pinch, with simple swordfighting libraries that would likely allow them to best the average Swordy in a one on one duel, but not do much else.

4 + 1 - 1 = 4 : Below average (Hard)

Free, independent thought is hard. Even at low, not truly free or independent, levels. That's what holds up the project. Stripping out the healing pulse and associated coding is easy, basic rapier sword-fighting libraries are relatively easily sourced from earlier research done for the sword using minions, and while making bigger tactical and strategic libraries, as well as more advanced sorting algorithms for said libraries, isn't as easy at this point it's still more of an issue in terms of time consumed then true difficulty. Neither does the needed instruction set to allow them to use their swords as a conductor's baton if needed for some currently unknown reason prove hard to construct. Though the results only hold proficiency, not any great level of skill. But making a self-modifying artificial intelligence? Even as specialized and limited as the Idoloid MDL 02 - Colette.ISQ is, reaching even the lowest level of the desired specifications is not a simple task. Making the results stable and reliable in battlefield conditions is even harder.

The need to upgrade the avatar-body to be able to achieve the needed foundational capacities is doesn't make anything easier.

In the end, however, while the results aren't quite as desired they still reach the lowest level of the desired functionality. The already existing faster runtime speeds achieved in the earlier Idoloid model were noticeably helpful for achieving this, but even with that advantage the Colette.ISQ still has a fairly minimal ability to adapt and come up with new tactics in response to new situations. However she has a very large memory for storing those adaptions once they are made, the ability to share them with other Colette.ISQ models, and an enlarged pre-existing library of 'lego pieces' with which to construct tactics and strategies as needed on the battlefield. While this form of splicing isn't the requested 'fluidly merge and splice tactics and strategies from their existing libraries to create new plans', by using pre-constructed plan segments that are assembled in response to the current battlefield she can come surprisingly close. Despite that, adaption to new and unexpected or previously unencountered enemies or tactics still takes long enough that it would probably take multiple major battles and a large turnover of Colette.ISQ Idoloids before the Idoloids succesfully construct new 'plan segments' adapted for new enemies without programmer assistance.

Even this shadow of true self-adapting thought is complex enough and needs a sophisticated enough avatar-platform to deploy that the Idoloid MDL 02 - Colette.ISQ is a Complex program.

ADI Design: Dutchman.mon
The great beasts roused from the depths of the Sea by the pirates in our final confrontation managed to catch Sonata's attention. And while we can all agree that the individual she pointed out was worth pursuing the reasons... weren't as widely agreed on.

A white whale, not a massive kaiju like beast like one might expect from the term. Not much larger than a speedboat overall, it's the unique aspects of the viri. The whale is a spectral appearing thing, floating through the air as easily as it does water, though without the same speed. Atop its head lie a pair of downscaled twin-barreled naval cannons. These cannons fire shells of disproportionately impressive power for their size, each one able to blow through a Stage in one-to-two shots based on our testing. Its tail meanwhile extends long past where the fin should be, becoming long and whiplike and ending in a heavy anchor it can swing around with destructive force.

All of that put together makes for a potent force, but that still is not the reason why this particular creature was picked. Simply put, it's code contains a fragment of Sonata. One of the largest we've seen, with how little time we've been trawling the Sea at least. And with a bit of coding magic on the captured viri, we've been able to wake that fragment up. The fragment manifests as a tall woman, skin, hair, and clothes all white as snow, garbed in what could generously remind someone of a naval uniform.

In her hands she wields a spear in the shape of a long spine, on the bottom end it possesses a sharp point, and on the top two smaller guns. Her personality is... similarly unalike from Sonata. She seems to have the strict, commanding disposition of a Naval commander with the brutal 'take what you want and damn the rest' morality of a pirate captain. Likely due to a variety of broken down code having been assimilated into the whales mass just as the fragment was, but above all, she obeys the True Sonata.

These two forms are inextricably linked, and cannot be far apart from each-other. They seem to share a direct mental connection as well. This has allowed us to gain control of this otherwise wild viri, and provides it a mechanism with which to fight off smaller enemies who get too close for it to wield its back mounted cannons or anchor tail against.

That, unfortunately, brings us to the weaknesses, of which The Dutchman has plenty. For one, well, it's a flying ghostly whale. Even if it's small for a whale it is still incredibly visible with the glow it gives off and the dark blue mist coming from a smokestack upon its back. Two is its weapon range, specifically that they have a minimum range. Because its guns are located upon the top of its body, it cannot fire them at foes who are below it without having to completely reorient itself. Its tail meanwhile is fairly long, meaning it is all but useless in tighter locations or when faced with many obstacles(such as objects or, more likely, allies). Finally, and perhaps most crucial, is that the two halves are so closely linked. If one is incapacitated so is the other, and the Avatar is far more fragile than the Whale.

4 + 2 - 0 = 6 : Above average (Normal)

A strange entity, the ADI known as Dutchman.mon is really two entities in one, consisting both of a maiden formed from one of Sonata's formerly lost and now reconstructed data shards and a great whale of a Viri that once was formed around said shard. The two make up a powerful, but large and less then subtle, force between the whale's powerful anchor-chain tail and its top mounted artillery cannons, and the maiden's surprisingly great physical power and skill with her polearm-weapon. And of course, the whale can fly, the two of them are telepathically linked and can seemingly share their senses (unfortunately seeming to include sharing their sense of pain), and the two of them are elementally affiliated with the code-elements of water and darkness. Elements which, incidentally, can be infused into their attacks to empower them.

Of course they do have their weaknesses, the most noticeable one being that whole 'sharing their pain so you can take both of them out by taking one of them out' thing. But it also must be said that a giant flying glowing white whale with a smoke stack is not exactly stealthy, and while large and powerful the whale is in fact too large and powerful to be able to properly function in tight quarters or terrain with plenty of interference and blockers for its guns and tail weapon. In such a battle field the maiden must do the main combat portions, and while strong she is no where near as strong nor as tough as the whale-form.

There was also an incident early on in the development of the Colette.ISQ where the whale-body ate one of the test models, and the maiden seems to have integrated at least some of the then functional Colette.ISQ's command and tactical library, allowing her to serve as a commander if needed. If deployed, she will use up four points of memory to provide her with the needed support (and ammunition logistics).

It is Turn 7, in the Revision Phase. During this phase you must vote on what revision to do to your current assets. During this Revision Phase you get two revisions, but one must be in theme for an area you have under your control.

Spoiler: Designs (click to show/hide)

Hackers
Jorg Jörgenson
A thoughtful and methodical hacker that prioritizes force preservation and defense area control, the Bass Line plays for long term advantages as he shapes the battlefield into one incremental advantage after another until it grants him victory. He prefers melee designs over long ranged combat, and his preference for force preservation biases him away from the more fragile viruses whatever their range. He also has a deft hand with territory effecting battlechips that allow him to get more out of them then others would, and substantial experience with using defensive and supportive function battlechips.

Aria
Aria is a relatively new hacker, but Aria's loyalty to Sonata's Stagehands is undoubted. They have a talent with long ranged bombardment by both battlechip and virus, as well as other brute force destruction applications, which is substantial enough to result in their appointment as one of Sonata's Stagehands' field commanders. This plays well with their similar, if lesser, talent with fixed defenses. They have been noticed to have problems with giving the enemy the initiative and not noticing when said foe is doing something sneaky. While less notable, their relative inexperience as a hacker can sometimes cause them trouble in contested data spheres verses a more experienced foe.

Viri
Minion.exe
These roughly humanoid programs are neither very sophisticated (intelligence and coding wise) or very strong, but they are mass producible and smart enough to obey orders without continual direct supervision. Which isn't always something you can take for granted with generic digital constructs, as a lot of them are dumber then rocks. They're not coded with anything more powerful then a basic energy pulse pistol, but they can still defeat the average civilian whom thinks too much of themselves. Just avoid putting them up against Data Police Agents. (Simple - Obsolete)

Plain Jane.exe
A Plain Jane is a roughly humanoid program based on, but improved from, the Minion.exe standardized cannon fodder in use by most serious internet factions in one format or another. Physically they are taller and more slender then the standardized minion body, as well as being vaguely feminine, with a face shrouding helmet and relatively generic armor units. However the most important differences inherent in the Plain Jane are in their foundational structure, which is pre-designed for versatility and integration efficiency with currently non-functional or non-developed upgrade projects and alternate equipment loadouts, allowing them to be more easily adapted into new variants. The improved foundations also increase their functionality over an upgrade'd Minion.exe's values, if not as much as a dedicated upgrade to those areas would result in. Like the basic Minion.exe, the standardized base template of the Plain Jane.exe is armed with a basic energy pulse pistol.

Due to later revision-tier efforts, the Plain Jane is now equipped with a 'Mega-Pulser' brand arm cannon, which possesses basic rapid fire functionality and a charged shot function that, while successfully charging to the first scale, takes longer then desired to charge and requires a cooldown time after use before the weapon can function at even the base level again. As such the Plain Jane will only use charged shots against enemies too tough to handle with normal shots. (Simple)

SwordyMinion.exe
The normal baseline minion, adapted to use a sword instead of a pistol. They're no smarter and only a little tougher then a normal minion, but the sword is a stronger weapon then the pistol so it's somewhat more deadly. As long as it can get into melee range that is, as it no longer has the pistol. It will try to stab any enemy projectiles that come to close to it, allowing greater survivability rates then would otherwise be expected as long as the projectiles being shot at it are the kind you can stab.
(Simple)

Defender.exe
An enlarged minion with a continually active siren mounted on its helm and bearing a giant tower shield with more flashing lights and what looks like an impressively large gun array integrated into said shield's surface, this virus is a natural first target for anyone attacking a group that it is in. Which is the point. Not actually armed any more well then a normal minion, but with noticeably integrated code-buffering and a shield formed from active denial firewall lattice coding, the Defender is well equipped to be a remarkably sturdy, for its rating, distraction. It's attention getting features have now been upgraded with an off switch, and Officers have some light scripting telling them when to turn said attention getting features on or off. For example, when sneaking, keep them off. This makes them much simpler to transport.

Due to later revision-tier efforts, the Defender.exe is now equipped with a 'Mega-Pulser' brand arm cannon, which possesses basic rapid fire functionality and a charged shot function that, while successfully charging to the first scale, takes longer then desired to charge and requires a cooldown time after use before the weapon can function at even the base level again. The Defender is not, however, programmed to use the Charged Shots, and will only use them when commanded to by an officer-function unit.
(Simple)

Templar.exe
An alternate version of the Defender that's been given a sword instead of a charge pistol and upgraded with a moderate-low level skill library for sword and shield fighting. They still have the reinforced structure, shield, and siren of the Defender, and also like the Defender the Templar's siren can be turned on and off. Sadly, it does not have a flaming shield and sword.
(Simple)

Officer.exe
Based on the generally available in the Undernet Minion programs, Officer.exe constructs aren't much stronger then their lesser kin, still only coded with a basic energy pulse pistol, though officers also come with basic melee coding. But the big difference between and Officer and a Minion is that Officers are coded with noticeably more advanced bit-brains and have a basic tactical library integrated in their knowledge banks, allowing them to lead teams of Minions on operations without needing constant hand holding.

Since the start of the war, they've been revised with slightly enlarged tactical libraries and an improved ability to both identify enemy officers and commanders and figure out which officers on their own side are doing the best, and therefor should be listened to more. They have also been equipped with a 'Mega-Pulser' brand arm cannon, which possesses basic rapid fire functionality and a charged shot function that, while successfully charging to the first scale, takes longer then desired to charge and requires a cooldown time after use before the weapon can function at even the base level again. As well, their tactical libraries have been upgraded to allow them to command other units to use charged shots if the unit in question is not normally programmed to, which they can apply to themselves to get themselves to use charged shots. (Complicated)

Idoloid MDL 01 - Sakura.ISQ
A combination of crude and sophisticated coding, the Idoloid MDL 01 - Sakura.ISQ is attuned to the Music Element, and uses said element to both release regular (close ranged) bursts of healing for friendly units and as the energy type her attacks count as. They are armed with an immensely large syringe they use (crudely) as a spear and as a launching point for slightly weaker then normal pistol shot projectiles. They are also coded to act as officers, and are about equal to existing officers in command skill but make the decisions faster, giving them an advantage in tempo and reaction speed. Defensively they are neither tougher nor weaker then a normal officer, baring elemental interactions.

As Stagehand Hackers currently find their currently minimal healing ability more useful then their command ability, they have not yet made officers obsolete.
(Complicated)

Idoloid MDL 02 - Colette.ISQ
An advanced command-specialized Idoloid with the first glimmers of self-adaption included. While the Colette model depends more on a very large pre-constructed library of tactical and strategic 'lego pieces' with which to construct their plans, they do have a (very limited and slow) ability to construct their own 'lego pieces' to adapt to enemies, situations, and environments that they are currently unable to adapt. Despite that ability, said adaption is so slow that to get a viable set of plan components multiple major battles will probably be needed if programmer assistance is not forthcoming. Their non-command abilities are fairly limited, consisting of basic sword fighting skill for their equipped rapier and an instruction set for conducting an orchestra if such a task is ever needed. Beyond their superior ability to put together plans of varied scale, they also think faster then normal officers by re-using certain portions of superior Idoloid MDL 01 coding which allows them to come to command decisions faster then would otherwise be expected. (Complex)

Lesser Lasard.Mon
The Lesser Lasard.Mon is a cyborg theropod with join locking legs and a counterweight tail to provide a stable firing position for the heavy repeating charge gun that makes up the Lasard's upper jaw. This cannon fires shots somewhat stronger then a potential charged shot from the charge pistols basic minions use, and can also charge up itself to fire a very powerful splash damage shot of ball lightning through use of the Thunder Element, though this drains the Lasard's power such that it needs a few minutes to recharge. The Lasard can also unleash a melee ranged lightning shockwave, though this is far weaker and still drains the Lasard, but its only other decent melee option is hitting things with its tail. The Lasard 'sees' with two strips of electrically sensitive materials mounted on its flanks, and can therefor blind itself when it uses its shockwave. Despite the Lasard's use of electricity, the unit as a whole is not elementally attuned. (Complex)

Mobile Assault Stage v2
A large flying stage with two of the speaker arrays replaced with missile launchers and handrails around the edges to keep passengers from falling off. It's piloted by a minion who's been fused directly with the singer's podium, but still controls the stage with hand controls. Like the missile battlechip, if the Stage's missiles are deflected they'll often lock onto a friendly unit, usually the stage that fired them. The Mobile Assault Stage is capable of carrying a little over twenty minions at a time, or thirty if you pack them on really tightly, enough to interfere with their ability to do anything until they get off the stage. (Complex)

Mobile Assault Stage - Sensory & Manipulation Model - Passion
A redesign of the Mobile Assault Stage that replaces the majority of the deck space with sensory equipment to allow for sniper ranged sensor scans, removes the missile launchers, and replaces the pilot with a Passion model Idoloid which has exceedingly enlarged hands and a somewhat enlarged upper abdomen to go with its overall size increase, and replaces said pilot's long ranged communication gear with dedicated sensor control coding. While this leaves the 'Passion' Model of the Mobile Assault Stage completely useless in direct combat it can now provide valuable informational support and still has the 'floor space' to carry around seven minions on what open floor space it retains. Given the lack of long ranged com gear, normally there's an Officer.exe permanently stationed on the S&M Model to allow for relaying the sensor intake to the command network.
(Complex -> Effectively Exceedingly Complex)

Marksman.exe
A buggy mess of a minion variant with a non-functional charged shot sniper rifle with no normal shot mode and who's charged shot only works one in three times, is intensely fragile, and has a non-working advanced ballistic calculator and target value calculator. All this would be bad enough even if the virus didn't only shoot at targets they're directly ordered to shoot without having the Officers programmed to order them to shoot. (Exceedingly Complex)

Autonomous Digital Intelligence
BlueFiend.mon
An upside down floating pyramid surrounded by an oozelike substance that is manipulated into varied body parts and coverings, born of an experiment into self adapting programs. BlueFiend uses this material as armor, tools, and weapons alike, as well as a large degree of personal strength. It tends to prefer melee combat, but is not limited to it, and prefers to communicate in sign language and/or charades. Interestingly, BlueFiend has once or twice shown the ability to entirely liquefy itself, but the rarity of when and hesitance with which it employs this ability suggests some sort of major limiting factor to it. (Memory 4)

Dutchman.mon
A great flying white whale with a pair of naval artillery cannons, a whip tail with a heavy anchor on the end, and a bloody obvious blue glow and smokestack. The Dutchman.mon, despite the use of man in the name, also comes with a female avatar/twin formed from one of Sonata's lost shards of data with noticeable, if less then BlueFiend.mon's, physical prowess and skill with her equipped polearm. The shard-avatar also has a level of command and tactical/strategic skill as scavenged from an Idoloid MDL 02 - Colette.ISQ, allowing her to serve as a command unit if needed. (Memory 4)

Battle Chips
Recovery 10
This tactical battle chip is designed to mend damaged and corrupted code, healing the individual it is applied to by a minor amount. (Simple, Memory 1)

Atk+10
This tactical battle chip pre-allocates resources to empower the next program used, improving the targets ability to deal damage for a short while. (Simple, Memory 1)

MinionCall A
This strategic battle chip creates temporary replicas of the commonly known ‘Minion.exe’ program, causing a short term burst of reinforcements in the targeted zone. (Simple, Memory 1)

Stunbolt
A tactical battle chip that releases a bolt of electricity into the target, which then paralyzes the target until the excess electricity dissipates. This chip is elementally attuned to the element of Thunder. (Simple, Memory 1)

Missile I
The Missile I is a strategic battlechip that effectively fires a decently powerful cruise missile at a chosen target. The missile plays an annoying MeTube speech the entire flight and will not explode before it hits something that's not the ground or a wall, resulting in it almost always hitting the target when it doesn't loose control over itself by bouncing off the ground nosecone over tail, which tends to make it go flying off into the void. Has an annoying issue where, if deflected, it will often lock onto a friendly target instead of going back after the original target. (Complicated, Memory 1)

DramaticSpotlight
This chip combines an environmental influence effect with a protective barrier, it... well, look, it lets you summon a dramatic spotlight to spotlight your avatar or an ADI and includes enough defensive shielding to let you do a (short) dramatic speech or pithy comment without anyone being able to do anything about it. The defenses fail if you move or attack however, and only last a short moment, but it's quite good for making a memorable introduction. (Simple, Memory 0)

InvokeSoundtrack
A battlechip that invokes a soundtrack, using advanced environmental sensors to analyze the zone that the Hacker or the Hacker's Proxies are in and play appropriate music for where they are and what the current events are. Some would swear it has a better detection rate for hidden surprises then anything else in Sonata's Arsenal, but it also has a deeply encoded priority for dramatic timing, and therefor the dramatic chords only begin to play when the surprise is about to be sprung on you anyway. (Simple, Memory 0)

[Failbird105]

Macro Missile Massacre
A refinement to the Missile code that enhances their targeting in Massed Fire situations, both letting them track large targets(such as a sizable mass of enemies, or one big enemy) with greater precision and letting a deflected Missile piggy-back off of a fellow missiles directions to re-lock onto target.

[dgr11897]

Harpoon Janes: Using a modified version of the polearm code created by Dutchman.mon these new Janes are able to use water affiliated spears, and throw them. They form a skirmisher unit, engaging at midrange against larger foes using their melee weapons. Besides that it comes with a general series of water element upgrades to their code, increasing flexibility at the cost of enemies potentially using their new elementally aligned nature against them. They also have the ability to form new spears once they throw theirs.  These units are pirate themed

[Doomblade187]

Harpoon Janes (1): Doomblade187

[m1895]

Harpoon Janes (2): Doomblade187, m1895
Macross Missile Macro (1): m1895

[Doomblade187]

Harpoon Janes (2): Doomblade187, m1895
Macross Missile Macro (2): m1895, Doomblade