Combat Frame Data: XCD-100

While the HLO’s resistance to the Coalition was still in its infancy, combat frame magnate Tesla Browning devised the first new XSeed in 18 years. His goal was twofold: 1) to test theoretical Project S concepts, 2) as a fail-safe should a later product of Project S fall into the wrong hands. This second aim would plant the seed of a bitter irony.

A staunch proponent of the “Use what you have,” school of engineering, Browning started with the venerable first XSeed, the XCD-001-1. He added a nominally more powerful propulsion system and a frankly overpowered One Series generator planned for later Project S XSeeds. Despite its added weight, the XCD-100 featured only slightly reduced performance compared to the Prometheus.

Like all XSeeds, the XCD-100 was equipped with “1D” laminar carbyne armor. These layered sheets of monofilament carbon could shrug off most ballistic attacks and channel one-third of an energy attack into the CF’s onboard capacitor. In an improvement borrowed from Zane Dellister’s XSeed Dead Drop, the XCD-100 could power its weapons directly from its reactor or its capacitor, drastically increasing its staying power on the battlefield.

The XCD-100 retained the XCD-001-1’s standard pair of plasma swords. Instead of a plasma rifle, Browning continued his habit of modifying legacy equipment with new weapons. In this case, he designed an energy “shotgun” which fired a variable proton discharge capable of destabilizing the molecular structures of carbon allotropes. Affected carbon molecules would fly apart with explosive force, and the effect could cascade to carbon-bearing structures in contact with or close proximity to the initial target.

Other XSeeds, with their carbyne and graphene components, were the XCD-100’s natural prey. Browning intended the shotgun-toting CF as a predator from the start, kept it in his arsenal as a last resort in case the Coalition should steal a later XSeed or manufacture one of their own.

As a One Series XSeed, the XCD-100 also carried the advanced Vercingetorix laser targeting system. It was never considered as the main targeting module for the Roter März, but it could communicate with other XSeeds of its series via laser “opticomm”.

In contrast to later One Series XSeeds, the XCD-100 did not have an A.I. operating system, since a workable alternative to Max Darving’s Prometheus strong A.I. wouldn’t be developed until CY 40. The 100 did boast a special feature that its later brethren lacked: a nuclear self-detonation device meant to annihilate the XSeed rather than allow the nightmare scenario of the SOC acquiring it.

That nightmare scenario almost came to pass due to a series of mishaps in CY 20. An unmarked BEC transport returning the XCD-100 from Browning’s black testing site in the Metis debris field met with a freak accident and crashed in China’s Taklamakan Desert. A crew of former EGE soldiers-turned-scavengers led by Captain Spencer Sheridan found the crashed transport with all aboard killed. They eagerly took the XSeed as salvage, unaware that they’d opened Pandora’s box.

Upon learning that his wife Dorothy had been aboard the missing transport, Project S designer Zane Dellister returned to Earth in the prototype fighter from which the XCD-102 Emancipator would descend. He hoped to use his fighter’s Vercingetorix system to track the radar-invisible shuttle but instead found the XCD-100 with Sheridan and his men. An altercation between Dellister and Sheridan was preempted by the arrival of a Coalition recon squad supported by a sizable CF force.

Aided by another BEC team led by Jean-Claude du Lione and a small detachment of Wehrbund Bavaria, Zane and the EGE remnants wiped out the Soc forces. But word of a second, even stronger Coalition force soon reached the uneasy allies. Arrangements were made to evac allied personnel to Browning’s satellite, but it was deemed necessary to destroy both XSeed test types with their nuclear detonators. Sheridan’s right hand man volunteered to pilot the XCD-100 into the desert and set its nuclear self-detonator while the others escaped. Meanwhile, Zane unilaterally decided to sortie in his fighter against the larger Soc force and cover his friends’ retreat.

The second Soc force was wiped out in a conflagration consisting of at least one and probably two nuclear blasts. Jean-Claude, Sheridan, and his men safely reached the BEC satellite. Neither Sheridan’s first mate nor Zane Dellister were ever heard from again.