Relic Technology

"The truth is much more complicated than you think."

This article is written from a Lore perspective. It contains spoilers and different reference materials might be contradictory.

Relic Technology (遗迹技术) is the trove of advanced artifacts based on Collapse Technology left all over Earth by the extinct Unknown Civilization (未知文明) in Relics sites (遗迹所). Relics research has multiple applications and has been responsible for crucial advances in human engineering, from the Assault Artillery platforms to Tactical Dolls.

History

Origins

Relics were developed and used by the unknown civilization that inhabited Earth before mankind. Their advanced conception of physics enabled them to use Collapse Technology.

Russia was the first nation in history to discover a relics site near the Tungus river in 1905, giving them a 40 years headstart in relics technology over the rest of the world. The Tunguska event of 1908 was the first catastrophic failure in properly handling relics, when a reactor went haywire and produced an atom-bomb like explosion.

Soviet research

During the last year of World War Two, the Soviet Trade Federation and American Alsos teams competed to plunder the war secrets of the Nazi and the Japanese. The Americans seemingly plundered much more materials than the Soviets, but this was because they were focused on acquiring relics technologies rather than nuclear, rocket and aircraft technology. The Americans essentially forfeited the Nazi relic Urkunde-01 to the Soviets, which was a production site for an unidentified product, and when the Cold War started, the US advantage in the field of nuclear weaponry held only until 1949, when the Soviets matched their capabilities thanks to their own research. In 1950, the Soviets started experiments at the Tabasar-B Proving Grounds, the “Starfish” structure. Eleven years later, the Starfish yielded its first results with controllable Pikes producible at a rate of 4 to 6 units per year. Khrushchev paraded the Pikes during the October Revolution Parade in November 1961, the first public display of relics technology.

On 12 May, 1973, the Soviet OKb-10 relics site was lost because of an unidentified hostile force and a devastating anti-organic component. In 1981, as the Soviet Union was bogged down in Afghanistan, it deployed its Pikes as the first relic technology weapon used in live combat.

American research

The West only realized the extent of its technological gap with the Soviets in 1955, during their last deep intelligence mission in Eastern Europe, and sought to rapidly regain a technological advantage with more experiments on relics site. They founded the black budget governmental organization “Big Sieve” to study relics technology on a tactical level, collaborating with the military and private sector to create Lockheed-Martin's Skunk Works. The U-2, SR-71, F-117, F-22 and F/A-00 aircrafts are based on research and retroengineering of relics. In 1957, Big Sieve's responsibilities were transferred to the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), who experimented on live subjects an anti-organic matter gas found in relics, nicknamed “accelerant”. Of the 130 tons of “accelerant” recovered, 3 were deployed for live combat trial during the Vietnam War from 1968 to 1975 on orders of President Johnson, creating 500 meters-wide clearings of burnt earth and vehicles without leaving a bone or a leaf behind. The US were the first to use relics technology in warfare, though not in live combat. The “Lady Liberty” experiments conducted teleportation experiments between relics by way of manned and unmanned pocket submarines. Success and survivability of the experiments were erratic, with pilots contracting ELID infection.

American reports on relics experiments had codenames referencing the expanded Cthulu mythos, such as Baoht Z'uqqa-mogg, Basatan Ammutseba, Shoggoth, Byatis and Chaugnar Faugn.

International collaboration

The rate of ELID infection was growing rapidly with the intensity of relics research, and by 1981 the growth rate was deemed dangerous both by the West and the East. With mediation from the Vatican and World Health Organization, the Dresden Accords took place in 1981 and were signed on November 3rd. Both parties agreed to stop relics research efforts for the time being, to dismantle currently deployed relics weapons, and to work toward a vaccine for ELID, with research debuting on 1983. The Accords would later be expanded into the Dresden Convention, paving the way to international collaboration on relics technology.

Since proper relics analysis proved too difficult for the technology of the time, the superpowers considered indirect research. The first known specimen of the unknown civilization was the corpse codenamed GAVIRUL, found on 1962 in the Beilan Island relics site. GAVIRUL was rediscovered in 1992 and used in the Black Lily and White Rose project to produce human hybrids whose DNA could activate the relics to make their retro-engineering easier. When the project failed to bear results, the United Nations Relic Science Agency refocused its efforts on finding new relics site and develop the Weight Bearing system to explore the sites without exposing human operators to the Collapse Fluid radiations inside. In 2023, the biggest known relics site was discovered under the Antarctic soil. Weight Bearing systems and genetic augmentations to increase resistance to ELID infection led to the creation of the local Hollow City in 2033.

The threat of relics caused a worldwide apocalyptic event during the First Beilan Island Incident, when a Collapse Fluid explosion created a large destructive cloud spreading in Earth's atmosphere. The rapidly shrinking availability of resources and liveable land was the main catalyst of World War Three, from 2045 to 2051.

Hitoribocchi event

The Hitoribocchi event in Girls' Frontline takes place sometime in or after 2062, at least eleven years after the end of World War Three. In chapter E1-3 and E1-4, ^HG TheresaTheresaTheresa and ^AR Murata HimekoMurata HimekoMurata Himeko entered a relic site for their own research purposes. Theresa stated that the relic site had strong and odd energy readings and could potentially contain something similar to what the Valkryja were looking for. Himeko, later reported that this energy source did not match Honkai and that the relic was sealed with a technology even the Valkryja could not decrypt. ^HG Five-seveNFive-seveNFive-seveN considered they were trespassing since the relics site was under protection by Griffin and Kryuger.

Antarctic research

Early in World War Three, Hollow City shut itself from the outside world for 20 years, quietly expanding their knowledge of relics technologies. The first experimental Anti-Collapse reactor was completed in 2047 and the first applications of Collapse Technology to supercomputers in 2049.

When Hollow City opened to the crippled outside world again, it lent its advanced technology to the reconstruction efforts of the Union of Rossartrism Nations Coalition, most notably the recoil-decay barriers, 300 meters tall particle neutralizing systems used to decontaminate areas touched by Collapse Fluid clouds or nuclear warheads. The system was expensive to deploy, as it needed one system every 2 kilometer in a closed loop, but was deployed successfully in important sectors. The Three Goddesses project was launched in 2078 as a collaboration between scientists of the Coalition and the newly created Antarctic Union with the same goal as the previous White Lily and Black Rose project, producing three viable subjects. The project quickly fell apart due to political tensions and was definitely stopped in 2085.

Rossartrist research and First Antarctic War

The First Antarctic War started in 2089 after years of political tension. Military applications of Collapse Technology within the armies of the Union gave them disproportionate advantages through complete prediction of enemy strategies and high mobility. The tentative by Coalition fleets to blockade Antarctica led to massive losses of materiel, and field tactics of small infantry groups supported from the air by Trolley gunships enabled Union troops to wipe out Coalition forces several hundred times their numbers. The war would have come to a close early if the Union was actually trying to destroy the Coalition, but it was instead trying to negotiate peace while defending its interests.

Collapse Technology was necessary for the Coalition to rival with the Union, and the ongoing moratorium on relics site research was lifted as investments in theoretical physics increased. Activating the relics for reverse-engineering became their main goal, but the subject of the Three Goddesses project under their control, Noel, could not activate the relics. The Coalition then focused their efforts on finding the lost subject Jefuty. The Coalition located and successfully recovered Jefuty in the Caucasus in 2092, foiling the Union's own capture plan, operation Bakery. Two years later, the Union launched operation Kindle to recover Jefuty from the Bear's Den relics site base. When the local Coalition commander ordered the use of Assault Artillery systems within the relics site, an event similar to the one that had led to the First Beilan Island Incident occurred, and the Union and Coalition high commands had to collaborate to avoid a new apocalyptic disaster. The Union air force deployed a missile containing a molten plutonium payload to utterly destroy the Bear's Den, leaving very little chance for Noel and Jefuty to survive.

The Coalition had also lost hope of bridging the technological gap with the Union and a ceasefire was signed in 2094. Proactive intelligence work continued nevertheless and both factions were implicated in the Second Beilan Island Incident.

Types of Relic Technology

• Collapse Technology is the most fundamental relic technology and the most difficult to master by mankind
  • Collapse Fluid has been used in non-conventional weapons
• OGAS and Pike distributed network system
• Pikes are war machines replicated by the Soviet Union
• Teleportation between relics sites
• “Accelerant” anti-organic matter gas
• Mechanical parts used to develop U-2, SR-71, F-117, F-22 and F/A-00 aircrafts
• Recoil-decay barriers capable of shielding an area from nuclear and Collapse Fluid radiations

Known Relics sites

• First known relics site (Tungus River)
• Beilan Island (Shanghai)
• Hollow City (Antarctic)
• Bear's Den (Unknown)
• Urkunde-01 (Nordhausen-Harz Mountains, Germany), replicated at the Tabasar-B Proving Grounds in Soviet Union
• OKb-37 (Ukraine)
• OKb-88 (Volga River)
• OKb-11 (Iturup Island)
• OKb-456 (Yamsk-1)
• OKb-10 (Arctic ice cap)
• OKb-413 (Minsk, discovered in 2032)
• D1 “Door” (Lake Vostok, Antarctica)
• D2 (Los Alamos, New Mexico)
• D51 (Lake Central, California)
• D9 (Warren, Wyoming)
• Relic site discovered by Schicksal Valkryja during their expedition into Girls' Frontline world