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Relic Technology

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"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.

Interior of the Antarctic Relic, connected to the Nirvana Domain.

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.[1]

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.[2]

At an unspecified period, Arthur Hume and Mikhail Tsvigun became the only survivors of a relic incident. Their bodies stopped aging as a result, and Hume received a revelation on the nature of the human brain. Hume designated this vision "the Spring" or "GRCh38" and sought to apply it to create artificial human brains.[3][4]

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.[2] In 1950, the Soviets started experiments at the Tabasar-B Proving Grounds, the “Starfish” structure.[2] Eleven years later, the Starfish yielded its first results with controllable Pikes producible at a rate of 4 to 6 units per year.[5] Khrushchev paraded the Pikes during the October Revolution Parade in November 1961, the first public display of relics technology.[6]

On 12 May, 1973, the Soviet OKb-10 relics site was lost because of an unidentified hostile force and a devastating anti-organic component.[5] 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.[7]

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),[6] 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.[5] 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.[7]

American reports on relics experiments had codenames referencing the expanded Cthulu mythos, such as Baoht Z'uqqa-mogg, Basatan[5] Ammutseba, Shoggoth,[6] Byatis and Chaugnar Faugn.[7]

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 Relic Arms Limitation Treaty 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 international collaboration on relics technology.[7]

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.[8] 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.[9]

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 2050.[10] After the war concluded, some factions in the Neo-Soviet military pushed to resume Relic-based weapons research in violation of the Relic Arms Limitation Treaty, but the Central People's Committee strictly forbid the project and executed 16 people who had started working on it anyway.[11]

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 Reverse Collapse reactor was completed in 2047 and the first applications of Collapse Technology to supercomputers in 2049.[9]

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.[12] 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.[13]

Holy Grail and Hela projects

At some point before 2051, the Relics Agency launched the Holy Grail Project, which aimed to produce a replica of the esoteric plane of existence called Nirvana. It was also described as “human connectome project”,[14] “explor[ing] the influence of the Relics civilization on humanity itself”,[15] and investigating a possible collective unconscious and means to reconstruct consciousness.[16] Holy Grail was led by applied physics professor Martha Meitner and produced two systems able to simulate human-like logic, emotions and instinct: the Virtual Cognition Image (VCI) and the Lake of Cognition. The Lake of Cognition, made of three “layers” of successive “depths”, is described as the common “deepest part” of all individual VCIs.[14]

The Holy Grail Project was in fact inspired to Meitner by a scientific paper bought from the black market, "Human Intelligence Research", 17th edition,, by Arthur Hume.[17] Hume had been working on his own project to replicate the human brain, Project Pilot Whale, for several generations under various sponsors like the Fox Sisterhood, but he had come to the conclusion that he couldn't complete it himself, and had instead entrusted it to others by selling his paper.[18][17][3] Hume considered that the Holy Grail Project had achieved the framework needed to create artificial human brains, but that the correct data input was still undiscovered.[19]

The Evangel Axis as seen in Girls' Frontline.

The project was eventually deactivated while Meitner was expelled from the Relics Agency for academic misconduct and fled to the Neo-Soviet Union. However, she decided to reactivate it under the name Hela Project in 2051 after the death of her daughter Sana.[20][21] Meitner and her student Gray Blackwell, working from Berlin, explored the possibility of using the Nirvana replica to anchor a human consciousness into a new physical body to reach immortality.[14] Blackwell created a surgical procedure[22] and a device called the Evangel Axis[Note 1] to “anchor Sana’s consciousness” to the Lake of Cognition, extract her memories to preserve them without mixing them with a VCI, and allow the remote control of a physical body. Sana's memories were deposited into the Lake of Consciousness as the basis of its human consciousness simulation functions. Blackwell also extracted her own memories and added them in the Lake as a sort of “architect's signature”.

However, as more consciousnesses where added to the Lake, they formed an “iceberg” preventing the transition between its layers. It also became apparent that Sana's generated personality was incomplete and unstable. The “puppets” tapping into the Evangel Axis were incapable of genuine creativity or growth, their personality was a mixture of selected and random traits. The possibility of creating multiple bodies using the memories of the same person at different points in their life also added a moral burden to the project. Finally, powering the Evangel Axis required the constant sacrifice of human bioenergy, since animal bioenergy was not enough for the subject to move their bodies, while this bioenergy was also the source of the “iceberg”.[14] The design of the energy system of the Lake, which consumed others to feed one, was influenced by Meitner's previous work on the Dog Tag System for Tactical Dolls in the United States military.[23] The Holy Grail's quest for immortality would require harvesting the consciousnesses of countless humans as material to synthesize new consciousnesses and as raw energy to support the Evangel Axis.

The same year the Hela Project launched, Blackwell considered it a failure.[14] Accounting for the energy consumption of the Evangel Axis and failure to replicate Sana's personality, Blackwell refused to participate in sacrificing the living to revive the dead and asked Meitner to accept Sana's death.[24] In another letter from 2051, Blackwell accused Meitner of running the Hela Project not for Sana's sake but for other purposes.[25] In other, undated letters, an unidentified group (possibly the Prometheans) hoped to recruit Meitner and support the Hela Project, but later deemed the project a disappointment and Meitner a lunatic.[15]

In 2058, the Hela Project still progressed slowly with a high rate of failure.[26] After joining Paradeus, Meitner continued the project from Avernus, where she created the Nytos, whose minds are VCIs.[14] Lesser Nytos were kept obedient under the influence of the Evangel Axis.[27] She maintained a powerful Nyto version of Sana, who was designated “Gatekeeper of Hell” and Avernus' final guardian[28] because she couldn't exist away from the Evangel Axis.[23] Blackwell herself was at some point assassinated by Paradeus and replaced by a Nyto double[29] after she refused to join Galatea Corporation, a Paradeus shell corporation.[30]

In 2064, Angelia was captured in Avernus and Meitner, who used to be her professor back in 2047, subjected her to the Holy Grail surgery as Hela Project Subject No. 10373.[31] With the help of Blackwell's memories from 2051,[14] SMG RO635RO635RO635 and Koleda, Angelia escaped from the Lake of Cognition, but both her body and mind were left exhausted.[32] Aliana also managed to access the Lake of Cognition because of the compatibility conferred by Meitner's Dog tag System in her Neural Cloud,[33][23] and she deactivated the Evangel Axis from the inside. Without the Evangel Axis' influence, the lesser Nytos in Avernus could no longer “hear the gospel”, gained back their ability to think independently and some abandoned their duties.[27]

Rossartrist research and First Antarctic War

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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,[12] but the subject of the Three Goddesses project under their control, Noylu, could not activate the relics. The Coalition then focused their efforts on finding the lost subject Jefuty.[13] The Coalition located and successfully recovered Jefuty in the Caucasus in 2092, foiling the Union's own capture plan, operation Bakery.[34] Two years later, the Union launched operation Tinder 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 Noylu 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.[35] Proactive intelligence work continued nevertheless and both factions were implicated in the Second Beilan Island Incident.[36]

Types of Relic Technology

  • Collapse Technology is the most fundamental relic technology and the most difficult to master by mankind
  • 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
  • “Nirvana Domain” high-dimensional, noospheric plane of existence

Known Relics sites

  • First known relics site (Tungus River)[2]
  • Beilan Island (Shanghai)
  • Hollow City (Antarctic)
  • Bear's Den (Unknown)[35]
  • Urkunde-01 (Nordhausen-Harz Mountains, Germany), replicated at the Tabasar-B Proving Grounds in Soviet Union[2]
  • OKb-37 (Ukraine)[6]
  • OKb-88 (Volga River)[6]
  • OKb-11 (Iturup Island)[6]
  • OKb-456 (Yamsk-1)[6]
  • OKb-10 (Arctic ice cap)[6]
  • OKb-413 (Minsk, discovered in 2032)[37]
  • D1 “Door” (Lake Vostok, Antarctica)[6]
  • D2 (Los Alamos, New Mexico)[6]
  • D51 (Lake Central, California)[6]
  • D9 (Warren, Wyoming)[6]
  • Relic site discovered by Schicksal Valkryja during their expedition into Girls' Frontline world[38]

Notes

  1. Also called “Gospel Axis” in game files.

References

  1. The Art of Girls' Frontline Vol.1, Confidential Files, part. 1
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Codename: Bakery Girl, Secret Document 2
  3. 3.0 3.1 Girls' Frontline, The Summer Garden of Forking Paths, E9
  4. Girls' Frontline, The Summer Garden of Forking Paths, E17
  5. 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Codename: Bakery Girl, Secret Document 3
  6. 6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 6.11 Codename: Bakery Girl, Secret Document 5
  7. 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Codename: Bakery Girl, Secret Document 9
  8. The Art of Girls' Frontline Vol.1, Confidential Files, part. 2
  9. 9.0 9.1 The Art of Girls' Frontline Vol.1, Confidential Files, part. 4
  10. The Art of Girls' Frontline Vol.1, Confidential Files, part. 3
  11. Girls' Frontline, Shattered Connexion, Confidential Information VIII
  12. 12.0 12.1 The Art of Girls' Frontline Vol.1, Confidential Files, part. 5
  13. 13.0 13.1 The Art of Girls' Frontline Vol.1, Confidential Files, part. 6
  14. 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 14.4 14.5 14.6 Girls' Frontline, Slow Shock, Left Turn-Right Turn
  15. 15.0 15.1 Girls' Frontline, Slow Shock, Projection Experiment Area
  16. Girls' Frontline, Slow Shock, Operation Level
  17. 17.0 17.1 Girls' Frontline, The Summer Garden of Forking Paths, E14
  18. Girls' Frontline, The Summer Garden of Forking Paths, E17
  19. Girls' Frontline, The Summer Garden of Forking Paths, E21
  20. Girls' Frontline, Slow Shock, E1-2B
  21. Girls' Frontline, Slow Shock, Tree of Life
  22. Girls' Frontline, Slow Shock, Tree of Life
  23. 23.0 23.1 23.2 Girls' Frontline, Slow Shock, Black Cross
  24. Girls' Frontline, Slow Shock, E1-7B
  25. Girls' Frontline, Slow Shock, E1-8D
  26. Girls' Frontline, Slow Shock, E1-2D
  27. 27.0 27.1 Girls' Frontline, Slow Shock, Altarpiece No. 1
  28. Girls' Frontline, Slow Shock, The Son of Man
  29. Girls' Frontline, Poincaré Recurrence, Reversing Entropy VB
  30. Girls' Frontline, Slow Shock, Eastern Tower, Level 40
  31. Girls' Frontline, Slow Shock, Central Control Room Monitor
  32. Girls' Frontline, Slow Shock, Girl Before a Mirror
  33. Girls' Frontline, Slow Shock, Death and Fire
  34. The Art of Girls' Frontline Vol.1, Confidential Files, part. 7
  35. 35.0 35.1 The Art of Girls' Frontline Vol.1, Confidential Files, part. 8
  36. The Art of Girls' Frontline Vol.1, Confidential Files, part. 9
  37. Girls' Frontline, Singularity, E3-1 part II, dialog with Havier Witkin
  38. Girls' Frontline, Hitoribocchi, E1-3 & E1-4