Girls' Frontline Setting Exploration: Lycoris & Persicaria

Introduction

The story of Lycoris and Persicaria of 90wish is one with a long history between two geniuses crossing paths. Both Lycoris of Sangvis Ferri and Persica of 16LAB were involved in one of the most significant innovations in the history of Doll robots.

Lycoris' Early Life

Born in Northern Europe, little is known about Lycoris’ early life before the crisis in 2035. During that year, the Scandinavian region was devastated by a Relic disaster known as the Northern Lights Incident. Lycoris’ father had become terrified by the situation, fleeing with Lyco to Moscow as refugees while abandoning his mother. For the next five years, Lyco was raised in the Neo-Soviet Union, always feeling like an outsider. He would later enroll at the National University of Moscow, studying mathematics and automation. While in Moscow, he already proved himself by receiving full marks in assembly language. In 2040, he transferred from Moscow to the Leipzig University of Karl Marx. Despite being in Germany, he felt Saxony was the place for him to be. And by September 10th, 2040, he was enrolled and ready to begin his semester.

University of Leipzig - 2040

Lyco quickly became acquainted with the university, getting involved in a small research group in the automation department by December. According to him, Leipzig University had the best automation department in Europe. The team was composed of graduate and postgraduate students, with Lyco being the odd one out. The head of the team was a postgraduate student named Persicaria, who immediately took notice of Lyco’s accomplishments and expertise despite being an undergraduate.

According to Lyco’s journals, Persica was an interesting individual. To call her a hard worker would be an understatement. She was a genius who survived solely on biscuits, coffee, and sugar. The only thing that truly mattered to her was research and academics, with no need for entertainment, leisure time, or even sleep in some instances. There was no need for notes, manuscripts, or calculators as those would only lengthen her work. Unfortunately for her fellow researchers, her exceptional work ethic took its toll on them. If she was dedicated to a project, she’d completely ignore time off for the holidays to continue her team’s work. This led to some members of her team, Lyco included, becoming workhorses.

When Lyco joined Persicaria’s team, he remained mostly uninvolved in the team’s more advanced projects. Around Christmas, the two grew to understand each other better. Persica had been noting Lyco’s previous accomplishments at Moscow University and had offered him an opportunity. A new project involving Doll robots and their frameworks that she had begun recently. Lyco did not know the purpose of the project until January, but he nevertheless joined the project group.

  During New Year’s Eve, Lyco left the institute for the night, heading to a nearby local bar to pass into the new year. When he entered, he found an Englishman sitting down at the bar. They spoke for some time, and the man introduced himself as Griffin.

Doll Engineering Project - 2041-2044

With the dawn of a new year, Lyco returned to the automation department, now onboard Persica’s project team. On January 7th, Lyco had determined the subject of their project was the optimization of Doll robot frameworks. This project had been offered to the automation department by an unknown group. The requirements and conditions of the Doll project were unusually strict and seemed to have been written by someone who had lacked any experience with engineering and design.

After the Soviets unveiled the ALR-52P Doll in 2036, many countries around the world tried to replicate Dolls, but the majority lacked the capabilities of Important Operations Prototype’s 52P. Unlike the institutes throughout the world, the project that lay before the Leipzig team was most certainly not an industrial robot. To Lyco, the team’s project could not be completed within the time allotted, and they were likely working on a government project.

Persica’s research group had a momentous task before them, and the requirements were far too stringent. The team needed to meet a list of demands, each more complicated than the last. The requirements included: the ability to share communications and data between machines, the automation of the man-machine command interface, a complex decision making tree for the artificial neural network, terrain adaptation technology, the universality of parts, and lastly, a command nexus capable of relaying commands to other Doll robots. The design requirements for the project were exceptional, and the chances of their team meeting all of them were nil. Though the task was improbable, Lyco understood why he of all people was chosen by Persica: his field of study was artificial intelligence and algorithms. To better understand their project, the team requested several reports and dissertations about AI and control theory from the university’s archives.

Relic Data from 90Wunsch

A week later, Lyco was in charge of collecting and reviewing old dissertations from the archives; however, many of the reports were not meant for public release or review. He became far too curious, choosing to copy the data from the archives for himself. As he read through the reports, it was obvious the data within was intentionally kept under wraps due to the nature of the information. Some of these reports included: outsourced military material, blueprints of East German listening posts during the Cold War, and defense sector technical data and material from 1963. At the time, Lycoris was unaware of the vast trove of classified data he had discovered. These reports were not just old university documents; rather, information gathered from the First Relic Investigation Working Group, also known as 90Wunsch.

By February, Lyco knew he had stumbled across something far larger than himself. While the majority of the data within the document seemed to gibberish or had been redacted, his curiosity had gotten the best of him. Surely, there was something of considerable importance given the classified nature of such material. For the next several months, he continued to try to comprehend the data with little success. Although, the information he thought was corrupted or gibberish, was not. It had logic to it, but he lacked the understanding needed to decipher the data. For his following semester, he enrolled in multiple courses on information, encryption, and electronic signal processing in hopes of better understanding the files. And on October 6th, 2042, he finally decoded the data.

The data was not gibberish. There was a consistent logic to it. The data was recorded from the First Relic at the Urkunde-01 Relic Site underneath the mountains in Thuringia. The 90Wunsch group was recording electronic signal data coming from the First Relic. When electronic signals were inputted into the grooves of the Relic site, the Relic “responded” with a series of electronic communication outputs. This data was recorded by 90Wunsch and later stored away in the university’s archives after the two German states reunified. All Lyco needed to do was find the key needed to decipher the information. Unbeknownst to him, the decoding of this data made him one of the most knowledgeable individuals in the world on Relic technology. It would be both a gift to his genius and a curse that would lead to his death during the Butterfly Incident in 2061.

By August of 2043, Lyco’s findings greatly assisted the project team’s efforts into the Doll robot system. The Doll robot control system optimization project team was awarded for the success of their project dissertation in the university’s Great Report Hall. Due to the nature of Lyco’s discoveries from the data, the true origins of his data were never publicized in any released report. The only people who knew the true origins were Lycoris, Persica, and the project team. No one was aware that Relic data was being used to further develop Doll robots. Following their success, Lycoris suggested to Persica a possible name for their group, 90wish, to commemorate the original 90Wunsch. While becoming commonly known as 90wish, the group’s official name was the Federal Republic of Germany's National Defense Special Technology Development Group.

Max Planck Institute of Computer Science - 2040

In September of 2044, Germany was slipping into an increasingly unstable state. Protests had sprawled up across the nation against the Federal Parliament's actions, and mobs were forming in the streets. On September 18th, Lycoris had received a letter from the Soviet embassy, warning Soviet citizens to return home before a crisis unfolds. For Lyco, this was the time to choose if he would stay in Germany with his research and Persica or return to the NUSSR. He chose to stay, and in 2045, the Leipzig University research personnel were relocated to West Germany.

Four years later, the world was engulfed in another world war. The personnel from the research department of Leipzig University had relocated West due to the deteriorating political situation. Persica and Lycoris, two of the team’s top researchers, both entered West Germany and continued their work at the Max Planck Institute of Computer Science. It would be here that for the next four years the pair would continue their research and development of Dolls.  

Leaving Germany

In January of 2049, the war in Europe was reaching its zenith. The Americans in West Germany continued their fight and were on the lookout for any possible Russian infiltrators. Out of fear of becoming a prisoner of war, Lycoris was planning to leave Germany entirely. Once he crossed the border into the East, he would be free to return home to safety in the NUSSR. Both he and Persica were in the possession of some very lucrative 90wish surveillance data, something any party interested would raise an eyebrow to. To maintain secrecy, the two agreed to not tell anyone about what they were holding. The only other people aware of their stories and research were the Institute's Director and head of 90wish, Rudolf von Oberstein, Lunasia and “William” von Oberstein, and Havier Witkin of IOP. 

In the months leading to the escape, 90wish as an organization faced divisions. Due to their true purpose and identity as an R&D group for the state, hostilities were worsening between members over the topic of publicly releasing their research online. The release of state secrets would put Lyco and Persica in the line of potential danger.

Havier had been involved in dealings with members after learning of the organization’s research. For Havier, these individuals were both intelligent and skilled in their fields. Divisions in 90wish meant Lyco and Persica were caught up in the storm and needed a way out. Upon hearing the news of their predicament, Havier immediately paid a PMC security detail to escort them to safehouses, with Berezovich Kryuger as the head of the detail.

As they prepared to escape, Lycoris had received a fake German ID from a man, possibly Griffin or Kryuger, that would allow him to pass through border security. From there, he and Persica would be escorted to IOP safehouses. During the actual rescue, the plan went off almost without a hitch, but some members of the protection detail had been lost. Upon arriving at the safehouses, the two former 90wish members made contact with Havier; however, it was clear he was not saving them purely out of the kindness of his own heart. Their data was far too valuable, and he requested they work for IOP in private. After some debate, the pair agreed, and soon after, Havier created positions so they could provide the company with various advanced technologies.

Lycoris' Essay

  In May of 2049, Lycoris had returned safely to the NUSSR. While his exact whereabouts at the time are unknown, it can be assumed he was living in the city of Izhevsk in Udmurtia. While in Izhevsk, Lyco submitted a substantial dissertation about upgrading their automated divisions’ command systems to the Ministry of Defense. This essay gained serious attention from those within the Ministries and eventually made its way to the desk of the director of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), Victor Zelinsky. While the field of Doll technology is not something the MVD would typically review, Zelinsky chose to read the essay regardless. When he read the essay, he had started to fret.  

Principles of Automatic Control in a Relic Quantum Gravity System - 2049

  Submitted to the Ministry of Industry in May 2049, Lyco’s “Principles of Automatic Control in a Relic Quantum Gravity System” summarized the Relic system as an unimaginably complex automatic control system. When a ternary signal is inputted into the Relics, the system outputs a corresponding ternary signal. Following activation, the “Collapse Technology Quantized Gravitation Field” is a response from either the Relic itself or some other system. Given the Tabasar-B Starfish was designed through the reverse-engineering of the First Relic, the Starfish functions identically to it.

Reverse Collapse

Tabasar-B Starfish during the fight with Elisa.

During Polarized Light, we see this gravitational anomaly firsthand. Upon the Starfish’s partial activation, the phenomenon known as Reverse Collapse occurs. The blue glow of Reverse Collapse particles emanated from the Relic, causing localized distortions of gravity, resulting in one of the KCCO’s Assault-Artillery mechs being flung into the air. During the fight with Elisa, these distortions cause our Dolls to be suspended in mid-air.

At the time of Lyco’s essay, he believed the duplication of the Relic system to be impossible, but the mathematical principles and theories behind it could be understood. The data within the essay was obviously obtained through research into Relic technology. In the NUSSR, illegal research into Relics is punishable by death without trial. For Zelinsky and Old Misha, whoever wrote this essay needed to be controlled, and the original data needed to be kept in secrecy.

IOP Research Team - 2050-2057

In 2053, Griffin & Kryuger was founded and began signing contracts with IOP for Doll robots. G&K soon became the largest client of IOP, thanks to both Griffin and Kryuger’s relationships with Havier. Because of this, G&K was able to directly work with and provide vast amounts of feedback data to the researchers. Both Persica and Lyco would personally review the feedback given by G&K, allowing for further modification and developments of Tactical-Dolls.

With the data provided by G&K, Persica was able to modify and develop current and ongoing Doll products. Their innovations continued IOP’s series of successes once more in the civilian and government Doll markets. After some time, Persica proposed a new project for T-Dolls, something she described as “second generation T-Dolls”. Havier gave Persica a grant for the project, seeing it as both an inevitable and promising endeavor for the company. The project called for the complete innovation of current T-Dolls with a new networking system, but Lyco was against the idea.

Persica and her greatest Doll creation, M4A1.

To him, T-Dolls did not need physical updates; rather, they needed more efficient AI. Lyco was an expert in AI but lacked the funding needed to continue his AI innovations. Due to Havier siding with Persica, Lyco became demoralized, losing all passion for his work. As time passed, Lyco realized that his efforts were being halted by IOP and Persica. He later secretly contacted Sangvis Ferri Manufacturing during business conferences, hoping they would be more open to his research. The company knew having such a talented former member of 90wish would greatly benefit their department, so they gladly invited him to join them.

A Sangvis Ferri Factory.

When Lyco heard the news, he was elated, but quickly became worried about possible retribution from IOP. After alerting SF to his fears, the company entered communications with Kryuger, hoping he could ensure Lyco’s safety while moving to SF. Kryuger agreed to escort Lyco, but only if G&K was allowed access to his research as payment for the mission. SF agreed to the terms, and G&K formed an armed escort team to move Lyco to an SF underground facility. Once he was safe in SF’s arms, he began his work on a new manufacturing plant along with his research and developments. After three years at SF, their Dolls’ performance was soaring.

Second Generation T-Dolls

  When word of Lyco’s defection to SF reached Havier, he chose to mostly ignore it out of respect for SF’s influence. However, he chose to provide further grants for Persica’s team which later led to the creation of 16LAB, a subsidiary of 42LAB, in 2057. Around this time, Persica learned the necessity of the interplay of various types of software, networks, and Dolls. Better software and networking would allow Dolls to become more efficient, being able to conduct more advanced actions in the field. After this realization, Persica and her team shifted to the creation and optimization of imprint technology, also known as the Advanced Statistics Session Tool (ASST). 90wish was no longer a threat to her by this point, allowing her to become more open about her team’s projects on the open market under her actual identity.  

After forming her institute, 16LAB’s focus was shifted entirely towards the completion of ASST. 16LAB continued to innovate Dolls with ASST, the Zener Protocol for Doll command systems, the dummy network, and the standardization of 2nd Generation T-Dolls for IOP. ASST, the Zener Protocol, and the dummy networks became the standard for all IOP T-Dolls, allowing the Dolls to be “future-proofed”. Furthermore, the dummy network benefited both customers and IOP as it allowed multiple “dummy” Dolls to be commanded by a single mainframe Doll. This meant it was a more affordable option. Buyers only needed a singular, expensive mainframe Doll along with multiple cheaper dummy Dolls. Due to their performance, efficiency, and price, it’s no surprise IOP’s products became a gold standard.

The Neural Cloud Project - 2057-2060

  In 2057, the research institute 42LAB finished its construction of the Magrasea Super Cloud Server. In the same year, 42LAB drafted the Neural Cloud Project. The project was a 2-month collaboration between the International Institute of Quantum Sciences and Important Operations Prototype. During the project in 2060, willing owners across the world donated their dolls to the program, with the goal of the project being the creation of the Neural Cloud system. The desired result was that the system would grant Dolls greater security and protection of their memory data, and minimize the loss of data in the event the Neural Cloud was damaged. In late-2060, the project was declared a success by 42LAB.  

Sangvis Ferri Manufacturing & Lycoris - 2057-2061

As Persica completed the second generation of T-Dolls in the late 2050s, Lycoris continued his research at the labs of Sangvis Ferri. His research mainly consisted of AI algorithms and module design for Dolls, but he had also been working on his own AI with self-adjusting algorithms. This “Elisa” as he called it, had been in its earliest developmental stage during late WWIII but was put on hold while working for Havier. He wanted Elisa to be what he described as the “perfect AI”.

In contrast to Persica’s imprint technology, Lyco chose an alternative to arming Dolls. Rather than perfect the compatibility between a Doll and already-existing firearms, he decided to upgrade the arsenals of Sangvis Dolls with new handheld particle weapons. Due to a lack of ASST software, Sangvis Dolls were made to fulfill various niches. While this made them less proficient with a variety of weapons, it made them perform exceptionally in the niche they were equipped for. Lyco and the rest of SF’s work would come to a sudden end after the Butterfly Incident in late-2061.