Object

An Object (オブジェクト) is an armored fighting machine which possesses vastly superior offensive and defensive capabilities compared to conventional vehicles and weaponry. The composition of an Object's weapons systems, its defense and mobility vary from Object to Object depending on their individual designs. However, all Objects far outclass normal armies and weapons with their ability to decimate an entire base in a short period.

Principles
Objects are designed to replace the rules of warfare, with the responsibilities of eliminating threats and resolving conflicts shifted to Object pilots. As a result, war has transformed into a simple activity that involves Objects attacking desired targets and accomplishing missions without a single casualty shed, with most battles only involving the Objects from each side of the conflict fighting each other while other units provide support.

While each Object is uniquely designed, almost all of them have a giant spherical main body that contains the Object's cockpit and reactor. Propulsion systems and dozens of powerful weapons are attached to this sphere, completing the Object's structure.

Body Armor
A key part of an Object's structure is its special armor called onion armor (オニオン装甲). The main body of a standard Object alone is over 50 meters, but it's not made by pouring melted steel into a ridiculously huge mold. Steel sheets about the size of a curved tatami mat are prepared and tens of thousands of them are put together in layers to create the giant sphere. The Object's main body is spherical so that it can withstand large scale attacks from all directions, including from nuclear landmines buried in the ground.

The thin sheets serve to disperse and diffuse an impact rather than provide the defensive power of a thick wall. The theory is similar to that of a simple bulletproof vest, but it uses so many steel sheets that it can even hold back the shockwave of a nuclear strike, allowing an Object to continue moving and fighting after a direct hit or two from a nuclear weapon. Additionally, this armor design means that it is easy for the maintenance team to switch out damaged pieces. The steel plates also have insulating and conducting material placed and burnt onto them to produce a printed circuit board which carries power from the reactor to the Object's systems and weaponry without the need of a single cable. Object armor is also treated with a special powder that gives it a high-heat resistance and reactive ability.

Overall, Objects are generally impervious to most types of weapons due to their onion armor. An Object's main cannon is usually capable of piercing another Object's armor in one shot if fired close enough, with even weak main cannons being capable of steadily damaging the armor with each attack and piercing it within a few shots. A nuke can also be effective if it manages to slip past the Object's sensors and point-defense system, though it's been noted that a single nuke would not destroy a normal Object and would only "distort" 20-30% of their weapons.

However, despite onion armor being usually considered almost invincible, it's still based on hunks of steel. Thus, it is vulnerable to things like sulfuric acid, aqua regia, or liquid nitrogen; so some Objects use their cannons to shoot special shells that spread those agents to damage an enemy Object's armor.

Modern military weaponry is built with countermeasures for electromagnetic pulses. Their cables are shielded and some of their semiconductors are inside vacuum tubes. Objects in particular will never have their internal circuitry fried because they were designed for absolute victory over the nuclear age, so even EMP weapons like the Elefish fail to affect them.

Propulsion System
There are two common propulsion systems for Objects:
 * Electrostatic: The Object floats through a combination of static electricity and a special static electricity repellent sprayed on the ground. This repellent has a distinctive smell, but breaks down naturally in a few days and is harmless to plants and animals. This is only to make the Object float, the actual forward movement system varies. For example, the Baby Magnum uses lasers to detonate the air while the Water Strider uses its legs to directly kick off the ground.
 * Air Cushion: The Object moves using pure air pressure. The excess energy produced by this method can accidentally blow away surrounding infantry, but the Object can move from land to sea much more easily than Objects using the other method.

Objects customized to fight on water normally use a combination of naval floats and air cushion engines. Electrostatic propulsion devices can’t directly cross rivers or oceans, so Objects using them have to attach naval floats first. Additionally, electrostatic propulsion systems are vulnerable to powerful electric discharges, which can disturb their movements and/or stop the Object completely. Traps that take advantage of that weakness to immobilize an Object have been developed, though an Object might be able to break free of them.

Weapons
An Object's strength comes from its varied and numerous arsenal, usually having more than 100 weapons. Object weapons can be roughly divided in two categories: main weapons and secondary weapons.

Main weapons are the massive main cannons of an Object, with some of them being comparable to a bridge in size. Object main cannons have been noted to be capable of melting down a nuclear shelter hidden deep within the earth or wiping out an entire base in one shot. They are the only weapons mounted in an Objects that can pierce an Object's onion armor, so they are essential in fights between Objects. Objects usually have very few of these compared to several dozens of secondary weapons, and a lot of Objects only have one main cannon.

Secondary weapons are the small weapons carried by Objects that make up the majority of their weaponry, though "small" here is in relation to their main weapons, as each of the high output weapons are so large that they would likely cause a normal battleship to tilt just by being installed. Secondary weapons are powerful enough to easily sink or obliterate an enemy battleship. Even a small anti-personnel laser beam cannon has the destructive power to melt a tank or shoot down a fighter in one shot. Similarly, a small coilgun shell can rip through multiple buildings. Secondary weapons are intended to be used against anything that's not another Object: tanks, aircraft, infantry, etc...

Another thing to be noted about Object weapons are their anti-air and point-defense lasers. The combination of these weapons with the advanced targeting sensors of Objects has reduced the role of aircraft in the battlefield to low-altitude reconnaissance when satellites are unavailable and transport of personnel and equipment. The only exception to this rule is the Northern European Restricted Zone, where Objects are banned from entry by international treaties.

As they were created to end the nuclear age, Objects were designed to be capable of dealing with nuclear missiles, so their anti-air lasers are also very effective at intercepting missiles (Including cruise and ballistic missiles) and rockets. Even if they are moving at Mach 5, at Mach 10, or even faster, being able to perfectly intercept dozens of ballistic missiles scattered throughout the air is the bare minimum of what even an outdated 1st Generation like the Baby Magnum was designed to accomplish. Their lasers can also be used to intercept solid shells from enemy weapons such as railguns or coilguns. However, Objects might still have some issues when faced with a great number of small and fast projectiles like coilgun or railgun shells, or when their anti-air lasers saturation level is exceeded. Though not as usual, other secondary weapons such as railguns are sometimes used to intercept missiles.

The common Object weapons, both main and secondary, are:
 * Coilgun: A fires a massive steel shell with the power of coils used as electromagnets. The shells weigh easily a ton and are just under a meter across. They are fired much faster than the speed of sound.
 * Railgun: A fires a massive steel shell using electromagnetism and a pair of parallel conducting rails. An average main railgun can fire meters long shells at almost Mach 10 while even the shell of a small secondary railgun can exceeed Mach 5.
 * Laser Beam Cannon: Several different types of laser weapons exist, but all of them shoot a laser beam at the speed of light. While the beam itself is invisible to the naked eye, the beam creates orange trajectories because the laser burns dust or moisture in the air.
 * Rapid-fire Beam Cannon: Rapid-fire beam cannons fire a bluish white electron-based beam as a powerful heat based weapon that is fired continuously at extremely short intervals.
 * Low-stability Plasma Cannon: After a special gas is loaded into the cannon, a massive amount of energy from the reactor artificially creates super hot plasma which is then sent in the proper direction in the form of a bluish-white beam using a large number of electromagnets installed within the barrel.

While these are the more common weapon types, Objects can have rarer weapons and offensive systems. It's to be noted that rockets and missiles are exceedingly uncommon as Object armaments due to the effectiveness of anti-air lasers.

Objects generally fight each other at ranges of 5 to 10 kilometers. While their main cannons can fire much farther than that, the speed and thus the power of railguns and coilguns drops as the distance increases, laser beams decay as they travel through the air and the heat of low-stability plasma cannons dissipates, so it's assumed that they have to get that close in order to pierce the enemy Object’s onion armor. It's also assumed that low-stability plasma cannons, while usually offering a higher power than the other types of main cannons, have even less range than that. For example, Baby Magnum's low-stability plasma cannons only have an effective anti-Object range of 3 to 4 kilometers and a max range of around 10 kilometers, and the Miskatonic's long range plasma cannons were considered abnormal.

The use of Object-class weapons in other platforms has been considered. However, this would still require an Object reactor to power the weapons, and the shockwave of railguns/coilguns or the radiant heat of laser beams/plasma and electron beams are too dangerous and easily able to kill nearby soldiers, ruling out the use of a main-class Object cannon. Despite this, some factions have experimented with the use of Object-class secondary weapons as weapon emplacements.

Sensor Equipment
Objects are equipped with multiple kinds of sensors, especially 1st Generation ones that were designed to be able to deal with any kind of threat, be it infantry, vehicles, aircraft, missiles, etc... Their sensors include multiple kinds of radar, access to friendly satellites, infrared and ultraviolet sensors, sonar, directional microphone, etc.

Some Objects might possess special sensor equipment, such as advanced sonars or sound sensors, olfactory sensors, etc...

Reactor
A JPlevel reactor (JPlevelMHD動力炉) is an Object's heart. It's used to provide the energy required to move the Object and power all its weapons. The special mechanism used on these reactors is classified and considered a crystallization of human technology, being a source of clean energy and much more powerful than a nuclear reactor. It produces enough energy to have energy to spare while firing over 100 weapons that would not receive sufficient energy from a standard nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Each reactor is handmade by over 300 expert technicians with skills that not even precision machinery can match.

The JPlevelMHD reactors still use things like oil and coal, but they are melted down and have their structure altered before it's re-solidified. Once the fuel is put in the reactor it doesn't have to be swapped for 5 years. Just like with a blast furnace, an Object’s reactor is more efficient if it is left on 24/7 rather than switching it on and off. The Information Alliance has taken advantage of this characteristic by adding power outlets to their Objects so that the spare energy can be used when the Object is resting on the base.

The JPlevelMHD reactor is one of the most sensitive parts of an Object together with the targeting sensor control system. An engineer is required to pass at least fifteen international exams to be granted access to them. Due to the enormous amounts of heat created by the reactor, special cooling procedures are a must, otherwise the JPlevelMHD reactor could run out of control and destroy the Object.

Control System and Cockpit
There is no standard control system for Objects. Instead, each Object has its own complex custom control system. For example, the Object Baby Magnum's cockpit has 8 levers of various sizes, several hundred buttons and special goggles that track its pilot's eye movement using weak infrared lasers. Object cockpits are also prepared to reduce the mental strain and fatigue of the pilot, including things like massaging devices in the seats. A key component of the cockpit is the ejection system, designed to save the life of its precious Elite pilot.

To prevent hacking, the Object normally cuts off all signals from the outside except for a few communications devices independent from the rest of the system. There are two moments when the opportunity to hack one arises: when the barriers are lifted for maintenance purposes and when there's an emergency. Objects also possess an emergency shutdown code: in the case of the Broad Sky Saber, it is a numerical string represented by 13 hexadecimal digits stored on a flash memory card about the size of an eraser. The data is stored as an image rather than simply as numbers, so it has to be displayed, read by a human, and then manually inputted into a hotline that's disconnected from the military network and connected the control room to the Object. This is of course to ensure an analog human has to take part in the process somewhere. Otherwise, the danger arose of external interference from hacking. The flash memory card also has a lock that requires the thumbprint of the authorized user and it also checks for abnormalities in the perspiration and pulse rate in the thumb.

Self Destruct
Because of fear of an enemy capturing the Object and acquiring military secrets and other classified information from it, all Objects have self-destruction mechanisms installed. These are usually automatically activated when the Object loses a battle and the pilot ejects. However, some patterns of self-destruction do not automatically activate once the pilot ejects since the Object could still be recovered and repaired. Instead, it's the pilot who can send a commander class radio signal to blow up the Object remotely if the Object seems in danger of falling into enemy hands. This is possible because the Object has lowered the barriers that block external signals like described above.

Generations
Currently there are two generations of Objects, with some progress being made into the concept of the Third Generation.

First Generation Objects are Objects that are not customized to a specific role or battlefield. Instead, they can perform optimally in any environment. Because they are the oldest Objects designed to be kings of battlefield with no natural enemies they possess weaponry to face any kind of enemy, both conventional military forces and other Objects. While this means they don't have real weaknesses, they don't have real strengths either.

Second Generation Objects are Objects optimized to fill a specific role or battlefield. They were created when the focus of the battlefield changed from Objects crushing normal forces to Objects fighting other Objects. These Objects are created to have definite strengths in order to stand above other Objects even if that destroys the balance of functionality. Their activities are kept to the environment they excel in. They have a big advantage over 1st Generation Objects, since they were designed from the beginning to excel at fighting other Objects. However, 1st Generation Objects have better sensors and weapons for dealing with other threats, such as infantry, missiles,, vehicles, ships, etc...

The Third Generation is still a concept sought by all four world powers. Claire Whist, an Object designer from the Legitimacy Kingdom, considered the Tri-Core as a generation 2.5, the path to the 3rd Generation. When later Quenser faced the Broad Sky Saber, rumored to approach the 3rd Generation, he came to the conclusion that both Objects had adapted important facilities into the Object: an oil refinery and a space development base, respectively. This frees the need of creating defensive lines to protect these facilities. It can be said that the Third Generation goes beyond simple battles and digs deeper in the idea of war than previous generations that focus solely on combat.

Claire Whist has speculated that if Quenser were to become a designer and put together an Object with his dangerous ideas, he might skip past the third generation to something like the seventh generation.

Pilot
Objects are controlled by only one pilot called Elite, and that pilot is chosen based on a rigorous military checklist that narrows the possible candidates for Object pilots. The Elite then undergoes intense physical training to suit piloting of that specific Object, and this includes exposure to scientific procedures to fine-tune that pilot for optimal performance.

While there is nothing stopping a normal person from entering an Object and using basic controls, he or she would never be able to actually use the full controls without undergoing Elite training. Trying to pilot an Object at its usual high combat speeds will also result in them being harmed or even killed by the inertial Gs.

Background
The period when the first Objects were created has still not been revealed, although Ayami Cherryblossom is said to have been alive when the age of Objects began. A certain island nation was stated to be the creators of the first Object. There are records about the first Object which tell that it was able to survive the combined firepower of the armed forces of 14 allied nations in a surprise attack and was even able to eliminate threats, even after receiving a nuclear attack that melted that Object in half.

The first twelve Objects, also called the Twelve Earthly Branches (十二支) were developed as part of the Twelve Earthly Branches Project (十二支計画) (also referred to as Pro_be_12). Their deployment resulted in the end of the nuclear age, however the Island Nation's triumph was short-lived as supposedly top secret information was stolen and imitation Objects began appearing all over the world, and the nation was swallowed up by the discord of international society and politics. The Twelve Earthly Branches themselves, unable to keep up with the advancing age, eventually all ended up on the bottom of the ocean.

In the present, Objects serve as the solitary unit of a certain military force, with a maintenance base alloted for the Object's required repairs.

Trivia

 * Aside from their designated name, many Objects also have codenames by which they are referred to by opposing factions. Given the protagonists' origin and affiliation, many Objects are more commonly referred to by their Legitimacy Kingdom codename in Heavy Object rather than their actual designated name.
 * In real life, "Objects" (or Объект, Objekts in Cyrillic) were what the Soviet Union designated experimental tanks as. The most famous example was, an all-terrain four-treaded tank that could survive a nuclear blast.