Preparations

Riana Maren

Preparations

Some time after the encounter in Minstrel...

Now that the first round of chaos and madness was over, Riana could take five minutes just to sit down, think, and prepare herself for the next things that were to come. The scientist knew that war was not something that simply switched off; she was in fact rather hoping to prove that she was a powerful enough fighter in her own right that she could continue to engage in the war on her terms and be strong enough to vanquish every foe that the Luminous Covenant decided to throw at the Pergrandian battle lines. The fact that Riana had acquitted herself so well in the first round of combat was no fluke for sure; she had managed all of that with the power of her creations as an intentional show of force that she wanted to employ simply so that she could ensure the total and complete annihilation of the enemies in front of her. Now that she had achieved that objective, it was entirely likely that the motherland Pergrande would hire her back for future operations. Which, given that in the last instance her sister had in fact been her commanding officer– and realistically she’d sort of made it such that she’d almost ignored instructions– was probably going to reflect well on the way she fought. Such was life, as far as Riana was concerned. This was the way of the future and there would be no such argument from the red-haired scientist in going off to fight even more enemies in the future.

It was enough to make her pause and reflect, though. What could Riana do in order to improve the combat operations of her units? After all, she had the ability to control a wide variety of battlesuits all on her own, including the ability to have SOFI assist and take control of some of them. Needless to say, she was going to need to do something drastic, in order for her combat ability to keep up with the demands of a changing battlefield. After all, Riana destroyed plenty of weak enemies. Those were nothing short of trash, of course. But could she kill something stronger?

Needless to say, work was going to need to be done in order to ensure that Riana’s combat capability kept up with those changing demands. Conjuring the helmet of her battlesuit - and a cup of coffee - Riana plugged in the helmet to the datalink, comparing it with the telemetry she’d picked up from the Minstrel battlefield plus all the new data she’d plucked from the depths of her lacrima recently. The scar from that particular operation still stung every now and then, if truth was told. But no matter what - no matter how hard she pushed - she was going to be ready for whatever came her way. The improvements would need to be swift, drastic and sufficient enough that Riana could keep up with anything that came her way. Especially if, as her plan was beginning to unfold before her very eyes, she was about to begin to make preparations for deep space travel. Who knew what she was going to find out there?

Whatever it was, she was going to need to be ready, and Riana prided herself on thorough preparation. The first sip of coffee hit her throat and, with fingers poised over keys, she prepared to dissect a thousand thousand pieces of information that would bring her to her lifelong dream.

Riana Maren

Preparations, Part Two

Having spent sufficient time analysing the data that she’d gathered in Minstrel– to be precise, spending three hours running the data through her artificial intelligence to pick up other alternate scenarios that were effectively a long series of ‘what if’ questions– Riana was getting tired of watching numbers scroll by on three screens before her eyes. The point of this exercise was so that she was able to glean additional ideas, improved combat tactics and potential improvements to her combat ability; this way she was able to better serve in combat when the time inevitably came that she was required to do so. This was generally speaking her methodology when it came to after action reviews; have an AI service the data and learn what she could from its depths. In this case, she’d done particularly well. The element of surprise was an important battle strategy that many tacticians employed over the years. Being able to actually hide from full visual range was something that Riana simply couldn’t have ever passed up the opportunity to use; mirage colloid particles were such a handy technology that she’d deployed. Bending light was such a wonderful strategy, and she was going to inevitably replicate that idea time and time again in the future. Continuation of this would be key to her survival.

And, realistically, her survival was the absolute key here. Sure, the chances of her being beaten by that unruly pack of enemies was rather low to begin with, but even the most untrained fool could get lucky once. And all it took to receive a knife through the heart was a poor decision or even just some bad luck. Riana knew this. She knew this in her heart and soul, and she was going to have to know this for a long time to come. This was one of the reasons she wrapped herself inside a strong cocoon of a metal shell - it stopped idiots from getting lucky most of the time.

Besides, there was something satisfying about watching the battlesuits she’d created unleash a stupendous world of hurt against her; to see so many people simply be erased? That was a rush of a feeling. After all, she’d created weapons, and if those weapons did not perform then they were not fit for purpose. Riana knew that she’d done particularly well on this occasion, and she was going to have to continue that trend if she was going to survive. More things would need to come, of course. Increased power output and higher-capacity power relays so that the theoretically infinite power that she could access had sufficient ability to be used, and not just stay unused. She’d have to make her mecha tougher, so that they could withstand fire. She’d not expected to be fighting a war when she created them, but now that she was here she could avail herself of the opportunity to improve. After all, who knew what deep space would hold for her? That was it, really - she was going to need to be faster, stronger, better, for whatever mysteries the great beyond had for her.

These humans would have to suffice as testing dummies.