Gundam SEED Fan Fiction / Mobile Suit Gundam Fan Fiction / Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Mobile Suit Gundam: Virtual Battlefield ❯ Prologue ( Prologue )

Prologue

 

“What do you mean they escaped? Didn't I tell you to put the extra encryption protection on to the files?” A greying man in a lab coat scolded one of the younger employees. He wanted to punch the man for his mistake, he really did.

 

“I'm sorry, sir, but I had no idea those things was capable of this type of intelligence.” The younger of the two rubbed his arm in shame.

 

“Damn it all. I can't leave this place alone for two hours…” The elder of the two pulled up a chair and planted himself in front of the young man's computer workstation, “Have you tried the search and destroy protocol?”

 

“Yes, sir. I managed to get 95% of them before they left network 2A.”

 

“What about the last 5%?” The elder man looked like he had been slapped when the younger man shook his head. Rubbing his temples, he ran the search and destroy protocol again. The last 5% were most probably gone, slipped into the vast array of networks inside the company and onto the Internet.

 

The younger man leaned over the elder's shoulder, waiting anxiously for the search program to find something. Alas, it found nothing.

 

“What are we going to do? What are we going to tell management?”

 

The elder man rubbed his temples steadily, putting through different scenarios in his mind of what those things were capable of. If he had only oversaw the protection code's implementation none of this would have happened. He turned to the younger man,

 

“We say nothing.”

 

“What?!”

 

“Both you and I can't lose this job. I have a family to feed and you are at the start of your career. If we have this on our records then we'll never be able to work in the industry again. We're gonna have to change the data logs. Give me a hand will you?”

 

The younger man ran his hands through his hair, frustrated at the perfect logic that the elder man was proposing. Those blighters were dangerous but 5% was nothing when compared to the size of the net. The most damage those things could do is maybe wipe a hard disk clean on a small notebook computer or several PDAs, nothing more. Pulling up a chair at another workstation, the two of them began to alter the data files.

 

Introduction

 

With the advancement of human technology, many aspects of problems faced that faced the world at the turn of the century had been resolved. Poverty had been eliminated around the world, with the standard of living rising everywhere. Cures for AIDS and cancer is now widely available while global warming and fossil fuel crisis have been resolved through the invention of the Vanderson Mechanism that extracted hydrogen from water at a tiny fraction of the original cost and any pollution was in the form of water vapour. Thus the world had become a peaceful place where mankind were now able to live without need for war. However, the instinct to fight was still present in many people's hearts.

 

Video games had advanced to the point of holographic displays and it had been said that 60% of the world's population play on a regular basis. In 2078, the first company to utilise the holographic displays was the Zeonic Electronics. Its creation: MOBILE Avatar and MOBILE Unit portable gaming system. The game allowed players to create their own Avatars, or `super deformed (SD) MOBILE suits' as Zeonic coined nicknamed them, and then fight others on a variety of terrains. The game was launched in Tokyo but within days it had spread around the globe as the new gaming phenomenon. Public holographic displays and battlefields were installed in parks, shopping centres and other public areas to allow people to watch battles as they occur.

 

As the success of Zeonic Corporation spread, other firms began to join the MOBILE Avatar industry. The first was the EFF Corporation. Creating inferior Avatars to Zeonic at first, but the EFF used its vast resources and personnel to finally create the MOBILE Avatar that surpassed even Zeonic's strongest model. EFF named it after its project code: General Utilisation Network Dedicated Abstract Mechanism, or Gundam. Thus with sales of MOBILE Avatars now leaning towards EFF and falling revenue, Zeonic Electronics was finally bought out by EFF Corporation in 2080.

 

After the takeover debacle, fears of EFF Corporation becoming another Microsoft, especially after the divide of the Microsoft Corporation into 10 different companies due to infighting and thus sent world stock markets into their sharpest dive since the Stock Market Crash of the 1920s, the World Monopoly Commission and set up a rule book for the creation of MOBILE Avatars:

 

1. The EFF Corporation must allow other companies to enter and leave the MOBILE Avatar industry.

 

2. The creation of new MOBILE Avatars cannot be restricted.

 

3. All MOBILE Avatars will be classified into 5 Phases. Phase 1 being starter MOBILE Avatars and Phase 5 for the highest grade MOBILE Avatars.

 

4. MOBILE Avatar companies can only sell Phase 1 Avatars on the market.

 

5. To ensure fair play, all MOBILE Avatar data must be made available to all companies through an incorporated database held by the International Gaming Institution.

 

6. Any modification of MOBILE Avatars into higher Phase Avatars will require acquisition of certain parts gained by defeating other MOBILE Avatars. To ensure fairness, the parts required will not be made available to the public and will change randomly.

 

Thus hundreds of computer based gaming companies flocked to enter into the MOBILE Avatar industry and by 2081, seven large firms made up nearly 90% of the market: EFF Corporation, Axis Electronics, Vanguard Games, Alliance Games, ZAFT Incorporated, Guardian and GF Interactive. By late 2081, GF Interactive filed for bankruptcy. Their failing was creating extremely weak Phase 1 MOBILE Avatars but providing high powered Phase 2 and onward units meant that sales fell sharply. When they shut, many of their programmers went private, providing custom made MOBILE Avatars.

 

In February of 2082, the International Gaming Institution began the World MOBILE Avatar Tournament to be held every year in July, with the winners given $3.5 million in prize money and the title of Master of MOBILE Avatars. After preliminaries held in 256 regions around the world designated by the institution, 5 winners from each region were sent to the Finals. The winners of the first World MOBILE Avatar Tournament, Team Ballistic, was comprised of two Nigerians, a Brazilian, a British and a Chinese player from Zone 187 (South African Region). The success of the games, the International Gaming Institution decided to hold the event again the following year.

 

The year is now 2083 and the world is again gearing up for another World MOBILE Avatar Tournament and players began to customise and modify their Avatars unaware of the dangers that lay ahead.