| General Characteristics | |
|---|---|
| Model Number | Type-01A |
| Codename | Guren Isshiki |
| Unit type | Limited Production Seventh Generation Knightmare Frame |
| Manufacturer | Kyoto House |
| Operator | Order of the Black Knights |
| Dimensions | Overall Height: 4.51 meters |
| Weight | Combat Weight: 7.37 metric tons |
| Powerplant | Yggdrasil Drive (Mark V) |
| Equipment and Design Features | |
| |
| Fixed Armament | |
| |
| Pilot(s) | |
| |
The Type-01A Guren Isshiki (Japanese for "Crimson Lotus Type One") is a knightmare frame utilized by the Order of the Black Knights in Code Geass Megiddo. It is the knightmare type used exclusively by Zero Squadron.
Appearance
Looks like the Guren Flight-Enabled Version (minus the air glide system), but with grey instead of orange and orange camera eyes instead of blue. Likewise, its radiant wave surger is also based on that of the Flight-Enabled Version, but with a three prong configuration like that of the Gekka Pre-Production Test Type.
Design
The original Guren design produced by Rakshata Chawla. Radically different from its Britannian counterparts, its technology is on par with most seventh generation Knightmare Frames, a fact that is a source of pride for its manufacturers. For armaments, the model possessed a small fork knife, a grenade launcher within its left arm, and a single slash harken. The Guren Isshiki's speed and strength was also well above that of earlier fourth and fifth generation knightmare types, but otherwise it was a fairly unremarkable design. Ironically due to this fact, Rakshata was able to produce not one but twelve prototypes of this machine, though much like the later Type-02A Guren Nishiki and the Z-01 Lancelot, they proved too advanced for mass production.
After being brought out of storage around 2018, Rakshata would upgrade these machines with features from the Nishiki. Among these upgrades was a radiant wave surger like that of the Nishiki, only with a three clawed configuration instead of the original's more humanoid design. This unit in turn is somewhat less powerful, but possesses most of its standard features, only missing the rocket harken and spray fire capabilities. It does, however, possess its own unique capability: it can fire microwave radiation bursts in a machine gun-like rapid fire configuration, allowing it to rain fire down on multiple targets at once. Besides the surger, the Isshikis were also given the same round of upgrades as their cousin.
Armaments
- Type 200 Radiant Wave Surge System
- The Guren's trademark weapon. Originally the Isshikis were equipped with standard right arms, but were later upgraded with surgers. This surger type is more or less a precursor to the Nishiki unit, and as such is somewhat less powerful, but otherwise has the same functions, i.e. injecting target objects in its hold with radiation, generating energy shields that can deflect most projectiles and firing out radiation beams that may strike or overwhelm a target at long-range. On the latter, Rakshata has added a unique machine gun-like fire setting to this unit, allowing the Isshikis to literally spray their targets with singular radiation bolts.
- Type 98 "Ryogo Otsugata Tozantou" Fork Knife
- The Guren's only hand-held weapon type. Though otherwise a simple melee weapon, the fork knife's blade is made out of special composite materials that make it far denser and sharper than normal. Because of this, it can easily repel more extravagant blades, such as MVS, Spatha Luminous and chain swords. As well, due to its shape, it may intersect targets and break them apart between its prongs, making it an ideal sword breaker type weapon.
- Type 41 "Hien Souga" Slash Harken
- The Slash Harken is the signature weapon of the Knightmare Frame, and is used by almost all KMF models. Slash Harkens are wire-guided projectiles with some form of anchor-like blunt object at its tip. They can be used in multiple ways varying from offensive to defensive, or as a means of transportation via anchoring them in an object, and retracting the cable. The "Hien Souga"-type Slash Harken, the standard type of most Black Knight units, is stored in a red-painted compartment on the left side of the Guren's chest, and has a two-pronged claw at its tip.
- Type 56 43mm Grenade Launcher
- Initially the Isshiki's only gunnery weapon type, before the model was upgraded with a surger. The grenade launcher, mounted on the left arm, functions as a medium range weapon that, as its name suggests, fires specialized shells (normally high explosive) over a distance. Because the Guren was initially designed as a close-range unit, the grenade launcher was actually meant to force enemy knightmares into melee range. And yet, even though the Guren has since gained an expanded arsenal of medium to long-range weapons, the grenade launcher is still effective, only now it is utilized as a shot weapon for taking out enemy knightmares in one blow.
System Features
- Type E1A Dual-Eye Sensor Camera
- Following along Britannia's theme for its sixth and seventh generation prototypes, the Guren was equipped with a dual-eye sensor camera system, which as the name suggests took the form of human-like amber tinted "eyes" upon its faceplate. These cameras were decidedly more advanced than standard camera types, and were capable of visualizing the Gawain's surrounding to the best amount of detail and focus. Despite this however, the Guren's cameras had certain difficulty focusing at higher levels, which was a defect in the initial Britannian design that Rakshata inadvertently reverse engineered; it would not be until the Black Knights' capture of the IFX-V3D1 Gawain that she would be able to fix this defect. Because of this, Rakshata would turn to a European influenced mono-eye camera system for later designs.
- Type S1A Multispectral Sensor System
- The Guren carries a standard sensor package, though one decidedly more powerful than preceding types. A special note is that the Guren's sensor system has been modified to accumulate any excessive heat and radiation generated from the surger.
- Type K1A Landspinner Propulsion System
- Designed initially as a high mobility close combat knightmare, the Guren is equipped with specialized landspinners, which are designed to produce much greater revolutions than standard units as well as holding reinforced tires for increased durability, especially against rougher terrain.
History
The first incarnation of the Guren series, the Guren Isshiki (Mk-I) was produced by Kyoto House some time in the 2010s, at about the same time as Britannia had developed the Lancelot. Originally it had been intended for the Japanese Liberation Front, in which the unit would have supplanted the organization's aging Type-10R Burais (themselves only upgraded Britannian models) as the JLF's mainline knightmare; had that purpose been followed upon, the JLF would have been the first army in the world to wield newer generation knightmares en masse. Unfortunately however, the Isshiki held its generation's "curse": it was so advanced for its time that it was nearly impossible to produce in large numbers, at least to the extent the JLF needed. As such, production of the Guren Isshiki was cancelled and the initial twelve were stored in one of Kyoto House's secret caches in Okinawa. Even so, Rakshata herself had not given up on the design (even though she herself found the Isshikis to be "imperfect"), which led her to eventually create the Guren Nishiki (Mk-II).
Following the Devastation and the restructuring of the Black Knights in 2018, the Isshikis would be rediscovered by Rakshata and her compatriots. Easily seeing their worth, Major Kallen Kouzuki, the legendary "Red Dragoness" and pilot of the Guren Nishiki, would request Rakshata to modernize these machines and turn eleven of them over to her unit, 0 Knightmare Squadron "Rei" (Zero Squadron). Rakshata would more than follow up that request, upgrading the units with the same list of innovations she had made to the Nishiki and then turning them over to Kallen, who would spend the next year or so instructing her pilots in their usage. As such, by the time the Black Knights entered the Great World War, Zero Squadron was widely recognized for their exclusive use of the Guren, as well as the ability to bring out the very best of their machines.
With Zero Squadron taking the initial eleven, Major Rai Sumeragi, known by his monicker the "Blue Thunder God" and his being a former Zero Squadron pilot himself, would take the twelfth and final unit. So that it would stand out from Zero Squadron's machines as well as be identifiable as his own, Rai would have his Guren repainted in his trademark cobalt blue. This in turn earned his machine the nickname Aoren (Japanese for "Blue Lotus").