[Comartemis]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

Edit:Wait, wait, wait, Comartemis. SAFA-like unit? Tactics and gear testing? DURANDAL?! TESTING?!

...there had BETTER be a hardsuit model called "Zenith". And you had better have a Belkan member named Hans Bosch! Maybe not Bosche, but you NEED the Zenith!

*Coma assumes the Gendo Position, smirking evilly*

I was wondering if you’d catch that, Goose. While I wasn’t originally planning on using more than just the name and the general purpose, there’s absolutely no reason why I can’t port Elsa and company to serve as squadmates to Subaru and Teana.

But let’s back up a ways and see how I came to this point.

Spoiler for Backstory Breaker:

Comacanon actually begins a long time before the series begins, back when Jail is still a kid. I don’t know who posited the idea of the Scaglietti Brood being created using Ancient Belkan tech and the brains happening to find Jail by chance, but I’m going to use it as the baseline of Jail’s existence. When the bureau initially approaches Jail in his childhood, instead of being co-opted into serving the master plans of the TSA High Council, Jail refuses to have anything to do with them. However the revelation that he is an artificial mage throws him for a loop, and as he gravitates towards the field of archaelogy (associating himself with the Scrya clan at the same time) it begins to wear at his self-image and general mental stability.

On a dig one day, Jail accidently uncovers an ancient ruin containing an immensely powerful sentient Lost Logia known as Exodus. Mortally injured in the fall, he is healed when Exodus merges with his body, using him as a human host. Exodus offers Jail the power to justify his own existence by destroying those who would take it from him, or something to that effect. Jail accepts that power, and completes his descent into total insanity. With the merest fragment of his own power, Jail destroys the ruin and fakes his own death, teleporting out of the ruins as they collapse around him.

Using Exodus’s knowledge of Forerunner science and his own vast intellect, Jail sets about setting up a colossal Xanatos Roulette based on the outcomes of precognative visions Exodus occasionally provides him with, as well as his newfound fondness for manipulating the lives of those around him; he’s acquired that God Complex we see hints of in StrikerS.

This begins with Jail establishing the basis of the Combat Cyborg project as the brains originally intended him to do, but he also begins the basic development of his Gadgets far earlier than he did in canon. Before long, Jail acquires a reputation as a notorious dealer of mass-based weapons, and is offered a place in the Carpatha Syndicate, the single largest crime syndicate in the entire multiverse.

Jail works his way up through the ranks over the course of about ten years or so, and by the end of A’s, Jail is one of the top members of the Carpatha Syndicate, and in total control over the development and production of illegal weapons tech, including the first six designs for his Gadget Drones.

With Jail pulling the strings of the Carpatha Syndicate, mass-based weapons begin flooding the black market in mass numbers, and the TSAB is ill-prepared to deal with this. This is made blatantly clear about six months after A’s, when the Aces and the Wolkenritter are dispatched to the planet Carpatha along with several squads of combat mages from multiple units. The mages are supposed to converge on a suspected Gadget factory and shut it down, but Jail’s Gadgets meet them at the front door equipped with AMF fields, which the grunts are totally unprepared for.

In the ensuing slaughter, the Aces are forced to retreat, and run headlong into members of a local resistance movement. It turns out that the government of Carpatha is pretty much completely in the Syndicate’s pocket, and the resistance has been trying to do something about this for a long time, so they have a great deal of experience in fighting against mass-based weapons. Among their numbers are twin Aces-in-training, Alexander and Iris. Neither has a last name, as both are orphans by unusal circumstances.

To make a long story short, the resistance helps the Aces strike a major blow against the Carpathan Syndicate by not only destroying the factory but also killing the head of the Syndicate. This only serves Jail’s plans, however, as one of his primary political supporters in the Syndicate’s upper echelons takes over the spot as head of the Syndicate.

Jail is now all set to pull a mechanized coup any time he likes; the only reason he’s putting it off is because he’s not interested in leading anything until he destroys the bureau and creates his perfect world atop the smoking ruins of the TSA. Exodus serves as a background character for most of this period, and only reveals exactly what he is when the Aces confront Jail face-to-face at some point in the future, whereupon he will mop the floor with them.

Jail may have been an epic threat in StrikerS, but he was not an epic villain; he was a cookie cutter mad scientist whose only interest as a character was his dynamic with Fate and the other subjects of Project F. Under my guidance and Exodus's influence, he's going to turn into goddamn Kefka, god complex and all.

End backstory. Begin analysis of Durandal.

Spoiler for Durandal Information:

Durandal was begun by Alex and Iris (who both take the name “Yagami” after being inducted into the Ground Forces) with approval from Regius Gaiz about two years after A’s, in recognition of the disaster that was the Carpathan Incident and the need for such a unit. This unit serves as a replacement Riot Force Six, since I don't think Regius would have as much of a problem with the Aces operating temporarily in one of his units and answering to his command structure, rather than being a navy unit operating on his turf. Subaru and Teana will join up near the beginning of the story as new recruits, but Caro and Erio will probably only get cameo appearances unless Fate somehow gets her own unit within Durandal, which strikes me as an unlikely occurrence.

Zest and his team, incidentally, were killed during an investigation of one of Carpatha’s factories, slain by the Cyborgs as per usual; the only difference is that Regius wasn’t trying to cover for Jail, who isn’t "in bed" with the high council.

Durandal’s purpose is to research mass-based weapons and develop weapons and tactics intended to counter those weapons, as well as enhance the firepower available to the typical ground forces mage. The pride and joy of Durandal, is of course the Hardsuit, an armor-type device intended to be the ultimate weapon of a GF mage, particularly when facing adversaries using mass-based weapons.

The core of the device is centered around a heavily-armed suit of battle armor, one specifically designed to maximize protection against both physical and magical attacks. This suit is made out of the same transformable material that most devices are constructed of, and most if not all of them possess their own onboard AI system.

In addition to the armor, each Hardsuit contains a number of hardpoints, spots on the armor intended to serve as mounting points for Weapon Devices, special devices that amplify the power of spells fired from them by a considerable degree, but sacrifice flexibility in exchange for that power; for instance, a single device may only be able to fire unguided shooting spells, and must be reconfigured by a Meister to be able to fire homing spells, but it will boost the power of those spells by a full rank at the same time.

This lack of flexibility is made up for by the variety of Weapon Devices mounted on the Hardsuit, with each device being monitored and controlled by the Hardsuit’s own AI program. Further, since the average ground mage does not possess a veritable library of spells, the loss of flexibility is not as noticable as it would be if this system were to be utilized by, say, Air Force mages.

The end result is a heavily-armored and heavily armed mage able to routinely and safely use spells with power outputs a rank higher than his/her usual safe limit; B-ranks, for instance, can casually boost the power of their spells to A-rank without stressing themselves or their weapons. Further, certain weapon devices are capable of utilizing the CVK-72 Cartridge System, boosting the power of a mage’s spells even higher than the weapon devices would allow. Subaru Nakajima, for instance, has a pair of Cartridge Systems installed in her twin Revolver Knuckles (which are modified into weapon devices after she joins up) and another pair serving as fuel for what amounts to a magical afterburner installed in her armor’s propulsion systems.