Kanmusu

First Impression

INS-0101 Fubuki, Fubuki class Destroyer

The Fubuki is a first of her kind autonomous warship launched by the Imperial Nipponese Navy. The ship is 200 meters long, has a high output fusion reactor power plant, and a hybrid A-pod/Epstein drive engine system. It is capable of high speed atmospheric operations (subsonic, but up to 450 MPH sustained). The ship is armed with a coaxially mounted medium naval grade laser system and a 75mm high veolcity rail gun. It has additional medium grade anti-air laser systems, and guided missile launchers. Its most powerful weapon system is the ability to fire Implosion Torpedoes. These torpedoes are armed with Reissner-Nordstrom grade warheads. The Fubuki has a cybernetic crew consisting of damage control droids, a mixture of utili-pods, military autons, and flight capable service and repair units. These mechanical entities are slaved to the central computer and are just another system inside of the ship.

Double-Take

The Fubuki class, the first design to come from the Kanmusu line of thought, lacks an organic crew. The ship does have internal space and accommodations for such a crew, but doesn't require one. These facilities are typically for observation purposes, or for the purpose of the ship to carry passengers as a protected cargo. The idea of Kanmusu, or the 'Fleet Girl' is to create a counter to the Federation's Battlestar program. Nippon and the rest of the Pacific Rim Coalition cannot hope to match the industrial power of the Federation, so cannot met the massive ships with massive ships of their own, at least for the time being.

The Dream of Yamato - the Imperial Nipponese Navy has an aching desire to launch it's own Battlestars, ships mighty enough to rival the Federation's behemoths. The INS Yamato is a dream of the Nipponese black water navy, and if the ship were built to their specifications, it would be 50% larger than the biggest Federation Battlestar, the 1800 meter long AFS Columbia. The Yamato would be armed with heavy Higgs Particle Cannons (15 megaton yield, exceeding Tycho limits), implosion torpedoes, and would carry at a minimum, 108 mecha.

Getting to Know You

The center of Kanmusu is the Nipponese equivalent of the Caryatid System. This manifestation of the ship's central intelligence serves as the captain of the ship, turning the destroyer into a sentient weapon. Unburdened by human limitations (Fubuki class ships can maneuver at speeds and G-forces that would injure or kill organic crew) or sentimentality (Sentient computers aren't troubled by the deaths they may cause) the ships are much more formidable than their size would indicate. There is also no compunction for a Kanmusa ship to sacrifice itself it that was what it took to complete a mission.

Kanmusa avatars appear as young Nipponese women in either formal fleet uniforms, or sailor scout uniforms, depending on the formality of the occasion. Each ship develops it's own personality, but within a rigid set of imperial, traditional, nationalistic ideals. While there is a degree of variance, they are all almost completely submissive to authority figures, and eager to please the Emperor, and to preserve their honor.

Getting to Know All About You

The Kanmusa have been designed as a stop-gap measure. They are formidable ships, but they have significant limitations. They are still vulnerable to hacking and cyber-ops as almost all artificial intelligences are, and their personalities are generally set, and this can make them potentially predictable. The most disturbing factor of the Kanmusa is that they do have preset conditions for committing suicide. This is the Kamikaze, and should a ship find it cannot complete it's task without serious loss of honor, it will attempt to complete it's mission by ramming whatever it's target was while detonating the power core and magazines.

The Federation is aware of the Kanmusa, and has their own counter-program, the Caspar series. Likewise, the Seibertronians have their own Cosmos class frigate. These ships are all violations of the Tycho convention ban on sentient weapons. The Caspar series ships are smaller than the Fubuki, and has no human accomodations, and is functionally a 70 meter long aerospace fighter with long range. The Cosmos is a light cruiser, but doesn't fall under the Tycho bans as the Seibertronians never signed it, and as they are machines, unmanned applies to all of them.

The Fubuki is a first of it's type ship, and is still in shake down trials and testing phases. The ship has run under it's own command, but not yet without a human crew supervising it's operation. The Nipponese government has not yet signed off on the reliability of the system or it's supporting software. This is fairly common across the board as the Caryatid system is less than a decade old, and the Kanmusa has been in development roughly that long.

What's in the Closet

The feared problem of the Fubuki and future Kanmusa is that of free will. Sentient machines are capable fighters, but they are not automatically loyal as non-sentient machines are. Non-sentient machines are nowhere near as flexible in their combat profiles, and much easier to hack through cyber ops. There is a fear that should it come down to it, there is a chance that a sentient free willed warship could find it's own interests are not those of the Emperor or Nippon.

Putting it all Together

The Kanmusa Fubuki is a capable destroyer, with an ambitious combat profile. It is a sentient warship that manifests as a sailor scout and is deeply loyal to the Emperor and Nippon. The ship knows it is outclassed by it's potential adversaries, and is also willing to sacrifice itself if that means it can destroy it's enemy. It isn't trusted by the government that built it, and knows it, and is likewise puzzled by the organics lack of faith and trust.