Small Settings Vol 2: Danryo Defense Force - Pokemon Battle Fortress Rampage!

Small Settings Vol 2: Danryo Defense Force - Pokemon Battle Fortress Rampage!

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Danryo is one of many advanced nations in the all-pokemon modern fantasy ungrounded heroplay setting known as Eyrth. (A pokemon is a cheerful, colourful critter who self-actualizes through battle. Friendly sparring is a common pastime that's a positive sum game for all players, and Pokemon believe in combat sports as art, just as much as they do in maintaining pleasant appearances and dispositions and infusing everything they create and display with love, art and quality.)

While the setting is peaceful and prosperous, it is also the case that villains, warmongers, cataclysmic forces of nature and outsider visitors could disrupt this peace. Besides, it's the duty and privilege of a collection of rival nations in a setting to keep up with each other, to ensure the greatest possible collective techbase and defense, isn't it? No one wants to be caught slacking off should a great war or invasion ever break out! Every nation should be ready to fight for its interests, for the stability and union of Eyrth, and through this fighting they will better understand themselves and each other.

Danryo, a nation of tens of millions of pokemon, has a problem - it is lagging behind on its defensive capabilities, not currently having a single superweapon to its name since its last fleet got decommissioned. Its engineers have come up with a solution, but its military wants to develop the project under the cover of secrecy, so less scrupulous elements don't interfere before it's ready.
Luckily, due to the narrative metaphysics of the setting, only a thin veneer of plausible deniability will be necessary.

As a result, the Danryo Defense Force (DDF) is officially engaged in the project of building a vast, sprawling Adventure Park, where lucky guests will be able to explore the wonders of a fully automated city devoted to the needs and interests of its visitors!
But in reality, this megaproject is just a proving grounds set up in the vast Tile World Wilderness of the nation's territory - a seemingly boundless space contained within its borders and coastlands full of undeveloped, uncivilized land as far as the eye can see, broken up into 'map tiles' that can be regenerated by leaving them 'unobserved' for a long enough period of time, perfect for ensuring there won't be any civilians in danger for thousands of kilometers in every direction, only automated city and military officials, and also ensuring there'll be an unending abundance of resources and that the project isn't on any sort of budget crunch (though prices are still standardized in gold pieces (GP) despite the complete lack of worry supply will be run out of, ever).

And what are the superweapons they're prototyping and putting through their paces? Pokemon Battle Fortresses (BFs). 1000ft tall and manufactured from Durasteel and electronics, these pokemon shaped and resembling war machines are being fitted with enough reactor output, weaponry firepower mounted internally and externally and all the building sized Battle Computers needed for millions+ simultaneous targeting and battlefield analysis.
Just one is intended to be able to stand up to the entire PokeDroid army of an entire nation, either an Eyrthian one or an outside invading one. And by 'stand up' we mean by standing and taking enemy fire - there's no chance such a slow, sluggish, cumbersome mechanical beast could hope to dodge the incoming 'rain', and there's no forcefield/shielding technology in this setting. Even point defense technology lags behind in efficacy.
Cold, stoic and without emotional processing capacity, they unflinchingly and mechanically perform their duties, never hesitating no matter the odds or mission goals given, inputting and outputting information to HUDs and text logs in the Cockpit stationed securely deep inside of the 'between the hips/hind haunches' region, full of mechanical controls and dashboards and screens, not a neural uplink in sight.

The DDF is interested in putting BFs through their paces - serious paces, not the careful and restrained testing a cautious and well thought out training regiment might put one through. It is also interested in making it look to the outside world like some kind of experiment has gone horribly wrong and there's nothing to actually worry about, they're not going to catch up any time soon. Therefore it has concocted the following plan:

Among the military personnel assigned to the project are a number of bratty, cocky, young, up and coming ace pilots, their mechanical skill piloting a PokeWalker outstripped only by their vanity, pride and ego. While they may seem villainous, rather than having grand ideals about how the world should be shaped according to their ideals, they really just want to power trip, leave their mark on the world and be showered in validation and attention and will jump at any chance they get to kick off the process.

As such, the DDF will arrange things such that security protocols 'accidentally' have a flaw in them, and these ace pilots, when they each individually realize this, will be able to commandeer a Battle Fortress for a joyride and demonstrate to the thousands of kilometers of endless automated city in all direction that there's a new unstoppable pilot and mecha in town and you're all going to have to deal with that now!

At the point in time when the hijacking isn't finished, the Battle Fortress has not yet had its exterior hull installed... or, perhaps, there was never any intention for external cladding to be implemented. After all, the same setting metaphysics that violates the square cube law so flagrantly and allows for sufficient investment in scaling up to lead to something that gets more impervious the bigger and grander it is may make it so putting armour on the exterior would just be something that would get blown off in the first hour of fighting and just look unsightly for the remainder of the months of skirmishes to follow.

In any case, this means that the rampaging Battle Fortress has all of its skyscraper-dwarfing internals on display as it's taken for a rampage.
Open air Battle Computers the size of buildings, with circuit boards and computer components so big you could parkour or have a fire fight in between them.
External and internal weaponry that in practice can't damage the Battle Fortress itself beyond aesthetic marking and scorching and heat shimmer and thus can flagrantly defend its internals as easily as carpeting the rest of the battlefield.
Multiple redundant power reactors that can individually be shut down and brought back online.
Building-spanning coolant and ventilation systems. Battery, heat sink and ammo manufactories and salvage systems. Sprawling internal logistics. High energy capacitors with different ratings for high and low discharge speeds/high and low capacities.
Exposed sensors, eyes, ears, nostrils, whiskers, antennae, towering/bristling internal and external communication and sensor systems.
An exposed mouth and throat housing a Hyper Beam Mawcannon spinal mount system, vast enough to do an Ace Combat 'tunnel run' down.
Skeletal, but in an awesome unstoppable battle mecha way. Everything with visible technical and identifying markings, stat sheets giving a clear overview of the capability of every module and system. Serial numbers, model IDs, emblems, logos and more.
Heavily and highly redundant and durable. Built to withstand multiple layers of faults and malfunctions, even up to losing entire reactors/limbs/decks of weapons platforms, route around it and keep on fighting.

Blinkenlights, segmented energy conduits lighting up charging for a firing sequence, mechanical whirring and clanking and rumbling and shuddering, moving and shifting and sparking and scraping components, a roaring triumphant cacophony, a beautiful mechanical symphony of the nation's most expensive battle machine ever commissioned, fully peacocking for the battlefield, so every ally and enemy knows how beautiful, awe inspiring and thrilling it is to behold such an immaculate, immense, complicated and yet fully introspectable and knowable battle machine.

And the ace pilot knows the BF inside and out. They've been studying it from its privileged position for the months it's been commissioned over. Learning every little beautiful detail. It gets them *squirmy*, excited, thrilled, passionate to gush about not just themselves but the BF they rightfully deserve to be the one and only pilot for, to demonstrate its unstoppable power like no one else ever could, to give displays of power, exterion, durability, longevity, to be able to withstand any stress test, battle of attrition or hardship and remain unassailable over months or even years of combat and missions!

So, the DDF military officials were expecting an ace pilot to go rogue and take a BF on a rampage, and today's the day it started. No one seems to be worried - just excited to see if this BF prototype is going to live up to all of their expectations under the handling of someone utterly invested in their success, willing to do every trick it takes to keep them operational and defiant.

The DDF has prepared for this by simultaneous commissioning a standing army of PokeDroids billions strong, manufactured at factories throughout the Endless City to be able to remax to control cap quickly after each skirmish.
PokeDroids are manufactured in a far cheaper fashion, made of Tinsteel and electronics, 4 to 8ft in height depending on model, and are clearly marked and identified with big serial numbers and model identifiers and logos on their flanks so the Battlefield Commander in charge of city defense for each skirmish can identify what assets they have available in this tile at a glance. Their marked panels fold out, lower jaws drop and eyes iris open to reveal hidden internal weaponry. There is a small chance that they'll have a limb damaged or blown off or a major or minor system malfunction before being completely destroyed.
They are similarly stoic and emotionless as BFs, and will obey any commands from their superior, fully well calculating that their odds of becoming scrap during the mission are practically guaranteed, with only the tiniest chance of being missed during the battle and hiding out among the ruins or retreating to regroup in the next tile.

And so this very long, GP expensive and intensive playwar begins, pitting the budgets and techological prowess and military capabilities of BF and bratty ace pilot vs battlefiled commander and a seemingly endless logistical system supplying billions of PokeDroids to the defense of each tile's Endless City.
DDF is hoping that the rigorous testing and combat data generated will be enough to validate that the Pokemon BF is everything the prototype claimed it'd be capable of achieving, and to inform how the remaining BFs being commissioned should be deisgned an improved. But with months to years of high quality premium skirmishes to come, the odds are very much in their favour... and to boot, it'll make for excellent promotional/propaganda film and posters.

Of course, when the BF and its ace pilot inevitably meet their demise, it'll be slow and drawn out. Damage, malfunction and faults from a series of skirmishes in a row piling up, causing additional bratty humiliation and complaining from the once invincible ace pilot who, at least, excitedly comes to terms with the fact that they've been utterly and completely humiliated and overwhelmed, that their BF is going down, and that they did in the end leave a mark on the world, a reputation to leave behind for being the best BF pilot the world has seen, creating a work of art through their connection to their BF, as slowly over the course of hours the BF makes its last stand and is finally, successfully marked as decommissioned, the pilot popping the hatch and surrendering, realizing they aren't actually in trouble, liable to become a military (perhaps even civilian!) celebrity for their duty~

And no doubt, not long after it's over, as soon as DDF needs more combat data... another ace pilot will just so happen to, in a freak security breach, commandeer the next prototype, and the cycle will begin anew, to ensure that Danryo will get the standing Battle Fortress defenders of its dreams and to encourage the rest of the world to keep up with such lumbering beautiful monuments~.

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Battle Fortresses commissioned in the first group of prototypes:

one of Galarian Ponyta/Zebstrika
Dragonite (flightless)
Silvally
one of Shaymin (Sky Forme)/Shaymin (Land Forme)
one of Articuno (flightless)/Galarian Zapdos (flightless)
Sylveon
one of Emolga (flightless)/Pikachu/Pachirisu
one of Fennekin/Braixen/Delphox

If the first stage is successful, they will be recommissioned along with the remainder not chosen in the second group of prototypes.

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Setting modifiers:

* The BFs can, of course, be with hull. They can still peacock plenty well with external markings, emblems, logos, warnings, stat tables on their shiny painted durasteel hulls, or have lots of internal weapons/modules that fold out, and show wear and tear by their hulls slowly being worn down, discoloured, attritioned, roughed up and misshapen. Or perhaps they look like unfinished prototypes, with lots of details that weren't left finished or cleaned up at the time they were hijacked, giving a look of being an escaped industrial or R&D prototype.
* Different techbases can be used. Magical clay/ceramic golems lined with runes, neon alchemicalpunk, dieselpunk or steampunk industrial smog and ash fume belching stiff sluggish stompers with shoddy and crude uneven construction that nevertheless functions, adventurer fantasy medieval plate armour with decorative metalwork and cloth banner/barding heraldry, transparent glass (decorated with stained glass motifs and markings) solar powered light operated clockwork contraptions, vastly oversized plastic toy motorized/battery powered gunpla models, wheeled wood and rope 'lumberpunk' siege engine walkers, toony cel shaded/3D model CGI robots, vastly overpowered animatronic theme park mascots, synthskined 'faux organic mimetic' Gigantamax Pokemon that are still very much automata (with or without danger jaggies kaiju aesthetic)...
* The BFs might get hijacked in overlapping periods of time or strictly one at a time. Would two ace pilots co-operate enthusiastically, begrudgingly put their rivalry aside, or banterfully become each others' recurring enemy (and recurring source of combat data for DDF)?
* The ace pilots might also be in on the kayfabe, rather than unwitting participants. It changes the flavour of their enthusiastic self-aggrandizing to be a more playful play-your-part co-operation.
* Alternatively, a different vibe of 'malfunctioning rogue Battle Fortress with sparking exposed electronics, yet still remains unstoppable through a very large amount of attrition' can be very exciting. (Especially if it happens far in the future, after a whole stage of Battle Fortresses have long since been decommissioned and consigned to the scrapheap, yet when one mysteriously powers back on and goes on heavily malfunctioning rampages, rusted and full of holes and seemingly derelict, it still takes months to years of prolonged effort to contain and slowly weather down until it finally ceases functioning or surrenders...)
* The Battle Fortresses might have some faux history as a 'disguise'. Supposedly manufactured by a civilian company with more GP than common sense for some civilian, scientific or industrial purpose, while 'secretly' being an unstoppable war machine.
* One can explore, of course, what events take place before or after Danryo's project, as well as what other nations are up to in the mean time.
* The PokeDroids might be distinguished by 'hero' higher quality units at a 1:1 million ratio or something similarly extreme. The chaff act as distractions, bait and overwhelming spam while the hero units make expeditions, deep dives inside of the Battle Fortress to try to inflict targeted damage.
* Pokemon optional, of course. Could go with furry species, domesticated animals, wild animals, mythical animals, Digimon, Zoids, Final Fantasy, Monster Hunter, insert your characters/setting here...
* We can go bigger or smaller, of course. 1k ft is just a suggestion. Maybe you'd find an unstoppable 6ft tall Pokemon Battle Fortress thrilling... or we should go all the way to planetary, cosmic, universal, post-reality... While still being just as eventually stoppable no matter the chosen scale...

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Here's an example remix:

* Instead of pokemon, anthro furries.
* The Battle Fortress project was retired over a century ago alongside a change in strategic doctrine, consigning dozens of 1000ft to the shoulder quadrupedal dragons (known as WYRMs) to a scrapheap in the fantasy town stylised Endless City.
* The WYRM BFs have an exterior synthskin layer with markings embossed on detailing and peacocking a non-military purpose and the faux company that was made up as part of its false history to be the pretend manufacturer and owner. (Danryo is still unclear on whether everyone legitimately believed the kayfabe or if they were just politely going along with it.) While they have majestic wings, they cannot fly or even walk faster than a trot.
* Additionally, the source of 'outscaling setting metaphysics' is an actual physical system- the Integrity Field Computer, which each WYRM has two of installed. They are size, power and data hungry, meaning that they only made sense to install in huge units that could afford to run them and were worth the GP cost to keep intact. It works by wrapping a nanoscopically tight invisible field over all the BF's internal and external components, which has to be filled with power when an attack is made on it, repelling the attack at the cost of power, compute and heat.
* The scenario begins like this: One of the WYRMs, long since forgotten about, has malfunctioned, arose from its slumber and is rampaging through the Endless City. (black scales with gold embossed markings) The Battlefield Commander's (BC) mission is to do whatever is necessary to keep the WYRM from leaving the Tile World and reaching Danryo civilian territory.
* The BC has at their disposal billions of WHELP units (taking the role PokeDroids) (group noun: flight or dragonflight) did. The skirmishes will be mostly aerial.

The strategic goals of the skirmishes are in order:
* Evenly and unevenly bombard with a variety of damage types. This will stress test the Integrity Field Computers. They will either malfunction by brute force or by identifying specific weaknesses that can be exploited. The IFCs are highly redundant and can recover and compensate for each other, so even this process will take a long time. Expect random aesthetic damage to accumulate - torn wingsails/earfins/tailfins/headfins, chipped claws/spikes/horns/tailspades/fangs, scuffed eyes/scales. A once majestic WYRM will be made to look more and more like a shambling, neglected dracolich or necromancer abused experiment as the weeks go on.
* Finally the synthskin Integrity will start failing more readily, either due to being too out of training data in its condition or because the IFCs are writing it off. After this, the synthskin can be more systemically targeted and removed, revealing the hull-less chassis with its true military markings, emblems, logos, murals and identification.
* Now the real work begins - the IFCs need to be brought below 50% capacity. Their rows upon rows of building sized circuit boards, fans, heat sinks, server towers, data and power and cooling lines, etc. Like city blocks full of buildings that despite their flimsy appearance won't go down without a fight. Start fires, electrical shorts and tear steam and coolant pipes with elegant weaving dive bombing runs of WHELPs.

Finally the BC, after expending billions of WHELPs of GP on this secret mission, has a choice to make:
1) Damage the reactors. Depending on precision and luck this may lead to guttering blackouts and a rough shut-down, a graceful power down, or start a raging fire that'll consign the WYRM to being walking wreckage.
2) Sneak a WHELP into the control computer and initiate a reprogramming override to retake control over the WYRM.
3) Overwhelm the Battle Computers by flooding them with the data and processing demands of an overstimulating hopeless last stand, then talk to the WYRM, trying to re-activate the simulated personality inside of the control computer.