"INCOMING CONTACT, UNKNOWN CLASSIFICATION!"
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"I sometimes wonder what a difference magic might have made."
—Chao Lingshen
"I fear we may never know. ... Nevermind the nightmare of integrating militarily, the sudden revelation that magic has been real the entire time may well spark societal unrest. Not something we need while we’re fighting for our very survival against the Covenant."
— Akira Miyazaki, discussing the affect of magic on the Human-Covenant War
She initially appears as merely the genius of Mahora Academy, known for her brains, her athletic skills and the boss of a food stand specializing in Chinese delicacies. Later it is revealed that in actuality, Chao is a time traveler, arriving from the future and attempting to use her genius to change history by using the power of the World Tree during the Mahora Festival to reveal the existence of magic to the world, where she clashed with her ancestor Negi Springfield during the Mahora Festival.
The character 音 in her name is never pronounced as shen in any Chinese language. Since the other two characters in her name seem to be pronounced in Mandarin, her name would have been correctly rendered as Chāo Líng-Yīn in the said Chinese language. But the name "Lingshen" stuck and was never corrected. In some instances, her name is equally romanized as Chao Rinshen, sometimes due to the discrepancies in pronouncing Chinese names in the Japanese language.
Within the Kuro Arashi canon, Chao reprises her role as the commander of the droid army that besieges Mahora Academy on the final day of Mahorafest in the event known as Mages vs. Mars. Her history is greatly expanded on within the universe, tying her into the events of the Halo universe. Plot developments in some of the side stories indicate that Chao may return from the future at some point within the main Kuro Arashi storyline and play a larger role, but to what extent is not yet confirmed.[1][2][3]
Chao was born December 1, 2163 in an unknown outpost in Argyre Planitia. Her parents were descendants of the original survivors from the collapse of Mundus Magicus and the resultant century-long war with Earth. Chao has stated that she was not the product of a loving union, rather a carefully-calculated retribution plot against the mage societies of Earth, which fought against the survivors of the magic world. It can be inferred from dialogue that a number of genetic or scientific modifications were performed on her in utero before she was born, for the purposes of enhancing her intelligence, magical capacity, and even her ambition. She has described her genetic parents as hate-filled, and has no compassion for them whatsoever.
As part of their revenge plot, her father used the original Cassiopeia device to send her forward in time to a point beyond which any would remember the war between the two groups of mages, where she would then take revenge for the mages by destroying human society. At only two days old, she was sent forward, ending up in the city of New Legaspi, Mars, and coming into a galaxy torn by war, caught in a titanic struggle between the United Nations Space Command and the unstoppable alien juggernaut known as the Covenant. By chance, she was discovered by the Lingshen family, who owned a large share of stocks in the Misriah Armory located on Mars. The aging couple, with no children of their own, decided to adopt the girl, showering her with the love and affection she would not have received from her birth parents. Thus, unwittingly, her new parents pulled her from the path that she had been set upon, ultimately setting her onto a far more noble goal.
During her childhood, Chao swiftly demonstrated her genius-level intelligence, and a fierce desire to learn and protect led her to the discovery of magic and her own familial lineage, through her original blood parents, tracing back to the famous magister magi, Negi Springfield. Her desire to protect drew her attention to the work of her adoptive parents, both shipbuilders and weapon designers for the UNSC. Though she received no official credit, it was actually Chao who came up with the technology that micro-miniaturized the Magnetic Accelerator Cannon design used on the Halcyon-class cruiser Pillar of Autumn, as well as the UNSC's only directed-energy non-projectile weapon, later known as the Spartan Laser. She also learned of the SPARTAN-II program, and befriended one of the chosen members of the second generation of SPARTAN-IIs, a girl from the same hometown who would later come to be known as Nicole-458.
Between the years of six and seven, she repurposed the original Cassiopeia she had been sent to the future with, generating a new series of devices of varying power constructed with a mixture of science and magic, reasoning that she could use them to go back in time in order to do something to help humanity in its losing struggle against the Covenant. The Office of Naval Intelligence did not take her efforts lightly, and accused her of being no better than the Insurrectionists, an accusation which greatly angered her. Realizing that ONI thought of magic as only a distraction, Chao determined that she would "bear the burden of evil done in the name of greater good" herself.
Catching wind of her intentions, ONI employed its own secret branch of mages to inscribe a pattern of spell sigils over her body that would inhibit her use of magic and cause great pain whenever she attempted to use it. After several hospital visits and one near-death experience, she "calmed down enough" for ONI to assign her to redesign weapons and starships. She used her position to quietly and discreetly reverse the effects of the spell sigils, turning them into pain-inducing magic amplifiers.[4] She and her family participated in the project that allowed the Orbital Super-MAC Defense Grid to go from being theory and politics to the Earth's formidable defense line.[5]
On October 20, 2552, a Covenant exploration fleet arrived in the Sol System, unaware that the system was, in fact, the home system of the human race. Led by the High Prophet of Regret, the outnumbered Covenant fleet decided to press the attack rather than summon other Covenant reinforcements. The Covenant fleet deployed numerous boarding parties to attack the Super-MAC stations in order to prevent the catastrophic damage the stations could cause to the fleet.
At the time of the Covenant fleet's arrival, Chao had been aboard the Orbital Defense Platform Athens on a performance review of the station. Marine forces, known as Squad Six, attached to ONI were immediately charged with evacuating Chao from the station and to a secure ONI facility on Earth. The squad was ambushed by a Covenant boarding party in Hangar A-01 and killed to the last man, forcing Chao to utilize her prototype Cassiopeia Mark I time traveling device in order to escape the same fate.[6]
Arrival to 21st Century[]
The prototype Cassiopeia sent Chao back in time to the year 1997, the temporal ripples drawing the attention of the Yochi no Kouken, who saved her from drowning in the Pacific Ocean and bringing her to an upwelling of the Lifestream where the majority of the damage caused by the Covenant boarders' plasma weapons was healed. The Yochi no Kouken also used the powers of the Lifestream to read Chao's knowledge of the Human-Covenant war, and in keeping with her task of dispersing the knowledge of Existence (this including the future) in a manner that is at once obvious and subtle so that it may be discovered by Those Chosen by the Planet, in turn gave the knowledge of the War over to a little-known gaming company by the name of Bungie, thus giving rise to the Halo series in a predestination paradox.
After being told that a great destiny awaits her, the Yochi no Kouken used the power of the Cassiopeia to transport Chao forward in time to the year 2005.[7]
Recovery on MolMol[]
Chao ended up on the island of Pararakelse in the central Pacific, where royal bodyguards of the Island Republic of MolMol discovered her and brought her back to their island to continue her treatment and physical therapy from her injuries. In gratitude for their kind actions, and with awareness of the fact that she had come back nearly 600 years into the past, she gave the nation all the design schematics for every weapon, vehicle, and other equipment in use by the UNSC. It was her hope that, with UNSC technology entering circulation in 2005, that humanity would have designed far superior equipment by 2525, the date of first contact with the Covenant.
Chao in Mahora Academy uniform, as president/owner of Chao Bao Zi.
Arrival at Mahora Academy[]
"This is why Fate brought me so far back in time. This is my destiny. History will remember me as a murderer, but I will know that my actions will save human beings from extinction."
—Chao Lingshen, determining a course that would dictate her every action for the next two years
After the completion of her physical therapy, Chao departed MolMol to enroll at Mahora Academy in Japan, entering class 1-A on October 20, 2005, precisely 547 years before the Covenant's first invasion of Earth. This fact, coupled with the realization that each of the Marines that had died in the failed attempt to get her safely away from the Athens had an ancestor within the class, caused an emotional breakdown in the girl.
At the end of this breakdown, she came to an epiphany: only through the integration of magic into the war chest of the UNSC could humanity hope to survive the Covenant's genocidal campaign. At that very moment, remembering the words of Nodoka Miyazaki's descendant that revealing magic would cause civil war, she swore that she would force that war in the 21st century, in order to allow a united, magically-inclined human race to stand against the Covenant in the 26th century.[8]
In order to succeed, Chao began to research ways in which she could cause the entire world's population to believe in magic, and soon discovered the Forced Recognition spell. For this spell to be used, she would need to take advantage of the peak of the 22-year magic cycle of the World Tree when it resonated with the twelve major holy locations of the world, which would occur during the scheduled Mahora festival of 2007, which gave her two years to construct her plan.
Operation: VALID[]
Adhering to standard UNSC naming conventions for military operations, Chao gave her plan the codename Operation: VALID. She was well aware of the standing policy within mage society to keep mundanes from learning the truth of magic, and therefore knew that she would need to have a standing army in order to take and hold the six critical magic resonance locations centered around the World Tree. She immediately determined that she would construct an army of her own, taking the opportunity to build and field-test the anti-Covenant units that she had designed prior to the First Battle of Earth.
In order to build this army, she knew she would need both resources and funding. In order to secure funding, she devised the creation of the Chao Bao Zi mobile food cart, a successful business venture that had made her an immensely-popular figure to the entire city. For resources, she outsourced the design and production of her army to various student organizations in Mahora University, among them the Robotics Club, the Biotechnology Club, and the Quantum Mechanics Club. She compartmentalized her efforts in a similar structure to a resistance cell, for example having the Robotics Club work on the chassis of her robots, the Quantum Mechanics Club devise the advanced technology such as shield generators and active camouflage, and the Biotechnology Club the synthflesh artificial coverings. In order to further avoid suspicion, she publicized the Chachamaru Program as the pilot program for the Future Force Warrior project, citing the Halo games as her reference with the motto "Why just a game?"
Even as she constructed her army in secret, she knew that she must, at all costs, keep Operation: VALID a secret from the Kanto Magic Association, and so she put on the outward appearance of being little more than another of 3-A's eccentric students, concocting and performing various unassociated science experiments in order to avoid suspicion. This act successfully fooled the mages of Mahora Academy, who remained blissfully unaware of her dark motives as the 78th Annual Mahorafest drew near.
Though the card is not Kuro Arashi canon, it displays Chao Lingshen's Mark-II battle suit and funnel weapons.
In the two years she had worked on Operation: VALID, Chao had managed to amass an army of combat androids numbering more than 15,000. As the set date of June 24, 2007 arrived, Chao set a trap against her main adversaries, Negi Springfield and his group of ministra magi. Utilizing one of the handheld Casseiopeia units keyed to the resort that Negi and his group used to train, Chao forced them forward one week in time, into a future in which Operation: VALID has succeeded, and magic has become common knowledge in the world.
Unfortunately, Negi managed to find a way to use the Cassiopeia that she had given him in order to return from the future with full knowledge of Operation: VALID. In order to counteract her strategy, and armed with the foreknowledge that her army was programmed to not cause civilian casualties, Negi devised a plan to equip a student defense force, the Mahora Mage Knights Defense Brigade, with outdated magic casters designed to disrupt and destroy constructs. Between 2,500 and 3,000 students answered the call, supplemented by another 1,500 armed members of Fireteam Charlie, a cooperative club between the Mahora Military Enthusiasts' Club and the Electronic Gaming Club.
Chao did not anticipate such a strategy, and in response, she launched her attack an hour ahead of schedule, deploying the recorded force of 2,500 general infantry units with light armored support. Simultaneous battles took place across all six of the points defended by the Mahorans, initially fighting against the droid forces without support, and then joined by the mages of the Academy, portraying themselves as "Hero Units" in order to allow them to fight at their full strength without fear of mundanes learning the truth of magic.
Unbeknownst to the defenders fighting on the beaches and in the streets, a second battlefront was being waged in cyberspace, as Chachamaru Karakuri attacked and brought down the academy barrier that normally prevented large demonic incursions. As soon as this occurred, Chao launched the second phase of Operation: VALID, summoning five technologically-dominated greater demons to begin the process of capturing the defense points and beginning the necessary resonance.
The defense forces fought with skill and determination, soon defeating the force of 2,500 units in just over an hour after the initial incursion, leaving the five demons as the only remaining obstacle standing in the way of allied victory, and the defeat of Operation: VALID. However, Chao had foreseen the possibility of requiring more than a token force of droids for her army, and had secretly positioned an additional 15,000 units to launch an all-out attack following the defeat of the first wave.
The onset of this assault left the defenders reeling, a situation which Chao observed for a length of time before moving to confront a number of mage teachers attempting to seal her greater demons, a true threat to her plans. With assistance from Mana Tatsumiya, who eliminated many of the lesser teachers, she engaged Takamichi Takahata in combat after effortlessly defeating her classmates Setsuna Sakurazaki and Asuna Kagurazaka. Chao remarked to her former teacher that his years of combat experience, which surpassed hers, allowed him to hold his own against her as-yet-unrevealed secret weapon. At Takahata's continuous questioning, she revealed to him the true reasons behind her plan, and asked him to join her. Shocked at the truth he sensed in her words, Takahata hesitated, and in that moment, she struck him with her compulsory time leap bullets, explaining that she could not afford his hesitation, but she would still wish for him to join her following the end of the battle.
Following this incident, Chao moved to the location from which the spell of Forced Recognition would be cast, a dirigible positioned four thousand meters above the World Tree, from which she used a magical accessory to draw energy from the World Tree in order to cast a summoning spell following Satomi Hakase's declaration that their forces had captured and activated the resonance points at Defense Points Charlie and Delta. This spell called forth the sixth and final greater demon, a massive dragon which set to assaulting the defending forces at the World Tree Plaza. It soon became clear that this demon was acting more aggressively than the others, with the potential to cause loss of life, prompting Pheidippides to sarcastically comment that she should not have accepted magic items from unvetted sources. Agreeing with that assessment, she ordered reserve Komodo walkers to be prepared in the event that the demon went out of control, at which point she would destroy it herself.
This eventually proved unnecessary, and the dragon performed the task required of it by activating the resonance point. While that was happening, the location from which she and Hakase were preparing the Forced Recognition spell had been detected, allowing Negi to approach and attempt to talk her down. She refused, forcing her ancestor into battle to determine the fate of the day.
Second Battle of Earth[]
"They wanted war. Let's go give 'em war-yo."
—Chao Lingshen
At some unspecified point after Mages vs. Mars, Chao returned to her own time period. It is suggested that she made others aware of her return to the future, as in 2552, then-Colonel Evangeline A.K. McDowell ordered a squad of ODSTs to the exact location and time at which she would reenter the time stream. In the battle that ensued between the ODST squad, Three-Alpha-Six, and a lance of Covenant troops, Chao first encountered the Jiralhanae species.
Chao returned with the ODST squad to their base of operations, Tama's Nest, which appeared to have suffered a catastrophic enemy attack while they had been out. The squad investigated the base, and as they explored the darkened and ruined base, what they found suggested less that they had been attacked by the Covenant and more that some supernatural force was at work, with such evidence as random interruptions to the power supply of their armor, mysterious voices that came to only one member of the squad at the time, a self-mobile marionette, Chachazero, apparitions, and an ice wall that remained undamaged even following an application of fire and rockets. It was eventually revealed that the supernatural events were caused by Evangeline, in a form of crude psychiatric evaluation to ensure that the members of the squad would be suitable for cross-training as mages.[9]
Along with the other ODSTs, Chao entered into a new version of Evangeline's training resort, this one modeled off of Mahora as it appeared after Mages vs. Mars, and remained with them while they went through their new training, often taking up the role of working at the Chao Bao Zi. It is here that she revealed through conversation that she was directly descended from Negi and Nodoka, as well as Ku Fei, by way of one of Negi and Nodoka's great-grandchildren marrying one of Ku Fei's great-grandchildren, which also makes her cousins with 3/B-6 squad leader Alysia Fei. She then later visited the remake of her old laboratory, from which she had designed the units she had used to launch Operation: VALID. Despite Evangeline's assurances that the mass-production machine would not create any more units for lack of resources, Chao still entered in an order for 'several hundred mixed units' just for old-times' sake.
Following the conclusion of the squad's training, Chao accompanied the squad, along with Evangeline, Naru Urashima, and Fleet Admiral Lord Terrence Hood on a mission to Mundus Magicus in order to facilitate the alliance between the UNSC and the Covenant Separatists, where it is learned that there are now three members of the original Kuro Arashi still alive, aside from Chao herself. With the completion of the formal Human-Sangheili Alliance, Chao and the others prepare to return to Mundus Vetus, where battle against the Covenant Loyalists awaits.
Powers and Abilities[]
Magical Prowess: Despite being twenty-one generations removed from arguably the most potent mages in history, Chao was born gifted with the heritage of her ancestors, Negi Springfield and his father, the Thousand Master. The spell sigils scribed on her body by the Office of Naval Intelligence was intended to inhibit her magical power, suggesting that she possessed a significant magical wellspring. The origin of the release code she must speak in order to unlock her power is unknown, whether placed by ONI or self-inflicted following her modification of the sigils in order to fool ONI. What is known that, without the code activated, her magic is completely sealed, unable to be used or detected by other mages. Chao's elemental affinity is fire, whether due to personal preference or her birthplace of Mars is not known, and Chao has given no clues to suggest which is the case. Her incantation phrase, Ras Teil Mai Magicscir Magister, may have been chosen in homage to her ancestor Negi's phrase, which is Rastel Mascir Magister. Her level of magic power is equivalent to that of Negi's while using her magic-amplifying sigils; it is unknown how powerful she is without them.
Martial Arts: As a member of the "Chinese Martial Arts" club and a sparring partner with fellow classmate Kū Fei, Chao has demonstrated a high skill in martial arts ability and skill. Although initially noted with her stance during the dodgeball game against the Black Lilies, Chao does not particularly use these skills until her two battles against Negi, both at the end of the second day of the Festival and during the final battle at the climax of Mages vs. Mars. However, it is not shown whether her martial arts skills are below, on a par or surpasses Ku Fei, since she was never included in the class' 'Fighting Group', although it is suggested that her skills are slightly lower than Ku Fei, since she lost to Negi, who in turn, has yet to attain the full experience and understanding of the moves taught by Ku Fei. Furthermore, Ku Fei has stated that, even though she spars with Chao frequently, she never had a 'serious fight' prior to her match against Mana, further hinting that Chao's martial arts skill and proficiency are lower than her. Following her return to the future, however, her combat skills are shown to be tremendously improved, making her a far more dangerous foe in unarmed combat than she had been during the Mages vs. Mars event.
Technological Genius: Chao is immensely knowledgeable in the mechanical and technical sciences, particularly in the field of robotics and weapons research, as demonstrated by her ability to beat other leading UNSC weapons researchers into developing the only directed-energy weapon in the Human arsenal before her tenth birthday. Her ability to adapt and improve upon alien technologies has been demonstrated by the numerous Covenant technologies that she has repurposed and used in both her personal equipment and the robot army she constructed. A list of creations can be found below.
Technical Creations[]
Active Camouflage: The second Covenant system that Chao managed to successfully replicate, done using a combination of existing UNSC photo-reactive panels and captured Covenant armor systems. Primarily installed on the special forces robots, the system performs identically to the Covenant system, that being that it projects a three-dimensional hologram of the user's surroundings onto an energy field that completely surrounds the user, effectively bending light around the user. Issues with the energy requirements of her modified system have forced Chao to only be able to install a permanent system on her robots, whose fusion reactors generate the necessary amount of energy to power the system.
Chao Lingshen holding two 'Compulsory Time-Leap' bullets in the standard 7.62x51mm
Ammunition/Small-Arms, Compulsory Time-Leap: Building on the knowledge gained from the creation of the Cassiopeia devices, Chao developed a brand of ammunition that utilized a miniature, 'dumb' version of the vastly-complex Cassiopeia, capable of teleporting a target or object three hours into the future from the time at which the target was struck. The time displacement seems to be selective, as rounds striking walls, ground, and most forms of cover will not trigger the displacement. In order to ensure successful displacement and keep in line with the fact that killing someone in the past could have dire repercussions on the future, a number of spells are enchanted on every bullet: First and foremost a high-level healing spell to undo the damage caused by the bullet striking an organic target, followed by a high-level binding spell to trap the target within the displacement field, which takes the appearance of a swirling black sphere of energy. Due to the large number of powerful spells enchanted on this type of ammunition, it only functions in areas of extremely-high magic concentration, such as near the World Tree during the peak of its 22-year magic cycles. Otherwise, they function as normal 7.62x51mm bullets.
Anti-Gravity Unit, Personnel: Utilizing the technology of captured Sangheili Rangerantigravity packs, Chao has developed two versions of this device, a heavy-duty unit installed on her air-assault robots, and a miniaturized version that she added to her own armor. Like the Covenant system, this unit surrounds its user in an anti-gravity bubble.
The Cassiopeia Mk.II
Cassiopeia: Arguably Chao's greatest invention, Cassiopeia refers to a number of devices, most of them handheld, designed to permit the user and a number of individuals in close proximity to travel back and forth in time, with variance on the length of time traveled depending on the available magic reserves of the user, and if there is any latent magic energy in the area where the device is activated. At least three known units have been created. The Mk. I, which Chao gifted to Negi Springfield during Mahorafest, the Mk. II, which was a small pocket watch styled device used for making jumps no more than five days, and the Mk. III which is build into the back of Chao's battle suit and is controlled by her AI Pheidippides. This Cassiopeia unit enables her to circumvent attacks by moving to a different time period or simulate time stopping by continuously jumping to the same time period in a different dimension, thereby giving her the illusion of teleportation.
Chachamaru Karakuri, the prototype unit and pinnacle creation of the Chachamaru Program. Note the similarities between the attached rifle on her right arm and the UNSC assault rifle.
Chachamaru Program: The second of Chao's robotic infantry research programs, the Chachamaru Program was a scaled-back version of the failed Intelligent Target-Silencing Unit Program, initiated in order to create a functional human-replica combat infantry robot. Much of the data for the Chachamaru Program was brought over from the Intelligent Target-Silencing Unit Program, with more of a focus on infiltration and asymmetric battle rather than the overwhelming force of the ITSU Program. The Chachamaru Program proved successful, with prototype unit Chachamaru Karakuri successfully infiltrating Mahora Academy and functioning as a student. Following this success, the Chachamaru Program was used as the basis to mass-produce the Chacha-replica special forces. Because the special forces robots were produced later, it can be inferred that Chachamaru boasts the same active camouflage and energy shielding systems that the lesser models utilize.
Chaobaozi Battle Armor: Chao's personal battle armor, based on the MJOLNIR body suit and designed as part of Operation: VALID in culmination of all her weapons and technology research. Two versions of the armor were built, the Mark I prototype, which was more a test-bed for her technologies than it was a field model, and her actual combat suit, the Mark II. The Chaobaozi battle armor incorporates a number of technologies she has developed over the years, including the miniature anti-gravity unit, tactile motion tracker, limited strength enhancement and energy shield systems, Hammerspace storage unit, AI interface, and the Cassiopeia time-interface device.
The M2TA Komodo walker, Unit One-One-Seven, designed by Chao Lingshen, encountered by Ku Fei.
Force-Multiplier Walker Unit Taskforce: Chao's final project in preparation for Operation: VALID. Following her doctrine of designing units in the present that would also be useful in the Human-Covenant War, this project developed two armored units for use with her force of robots. The first, lighter unit was a redesign of the Covenant's Locust anti-fortification mining walker, designed with an anti-infantry plasma beam and built as a self-contained, non-crewed robot. Though given no official name by Chao, the designers who built the armored robots referred to them by one of two nicknames, the original 'Locust' nickname and 'crab droid' based on its hunched appearance. The second unit was a heavy multipurpose walker designed as a counter-unit to the Covenant's massive Scarab heavy assault platform. Armaments included an anti-vehicular railgun that doubled as a beyond-line-of-sight artillery cannon, a turreted underslung dual-120mm autocannon capable of engaging both aircraft and vehicles, and a rear-turret M134 minigun for anti-infantry purposes. Following UNSC vehicle naming conventions, Chao designated this walker the M2TA Komodo. Unlike the Locust unit, the Komodo was designed as a three-crew vehicle, though it could be used as a remotely-controlled unit.
Hammerspace Storage: Officially designated as "Flat-Space Dimensional Compression Technology" and created using such varying research developments such as the slipspace engine and the multitude of miniaturized technology within the MJOLNIR armor systems. This system allows users to store large numbers of items within a 'pocket dimension' similar to what is encountered in slipspace travel. After successful field-tests of the system in the Intelligent Target-Silencing Unit Program and Chachamaru Program, Chao installed two storage units in her Mark II battle armor, one on her back to store her funnels, and one at her left hip to store small-arms weapons.
Intelligent-Target-Silencing-Unit Program: Chao's original infantry research program, intended to design a heavy-weapons platform capable of devastating a platoon-strength Covenant force with a single unit. This program produced thirteen prototypes, of which twelve were complete failures. The thirteenth unit finally proved successful, but the program was nevertheless canceled as Chao decided to redirect her efforts toward a stealth/infiltrator program. Some aspects of the ITSU Program would later be revisited in the Tanaka Program.
Tanaka Program: The third of Chao's infantry research programs, which produced the general infantry units of Chao's robot army. The Tanaka Program was completed most quickly and with the fewest problems, as it utilized much of the research data provided by the previous Intelligent Target-Silencing Unit and Chachamaru Programs. As the Tanaka units are standard infantry, very few of the advanced systems such as active camouflage and energy shields were added, reducing the cost and production time per unit, allowing them to be mass-produced at a prodigious rate.
One of the "Wasp" lasers charged in preparation to attack.
Weapon/Anti-Vehicle, Self-Propelled Model 6A2 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle: Designed as part of Operation: VALID, Chao combined her miniature anti-gravity unit with the original, magically-powered design of the "Spartan laser" and slaved to her armor's AI for unmanned fire control, and the result was a much smaller, more compact version of the Spartan laser that has been nicknamed the "Wasp" partly due to its designation, and partly due to its small shape and rapid, random motions under AI control. The magic power source and anti-gravity unit prevent the "Wasp" from functioning unless directly powered by Chao's magic reserves, or in a particularly magic-rich area, such as was present during the battle of Mages vs. Mars. However, in such an environment, the "Wasp" has effectively-unlimited fire capacity.
Weapon/Anti-Vehicle Model 6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle: The only directed-energy weapon in the UNSC arsenal, the "Spartan laser" was designed by Chao in the early 2550s. Originally designed to use a magical power source, the weapon was redesigned to accept a battery in accordance with existing ONI regulations against the use of magic in military applications. The most powerful infantry weapon in the UNSC, this man-portable weapon fires a devastating particle beam that can instantly destroy any UNSC and most Covenant vehicles in a direct impact and kill any infantry with a glancing blow. The battery is nonremovable, and drains twenty percent of a charge per shot. A three-second delay necessitates the charging of the laser to critical energy before firing, during which time the weapon projects a harmless targeting laser that the wielder may use to ensure a successful strike.
Chao in Other Media[]
Terminator[]
In a non-canon alternate future in which Chao defeated Negi, the United States military recovered a number of Tanaka infantry units destroyed at Mages vs. Mars and reverse-engineered the technology to advance their own autonomous combat systems, resulting in the creation of Skynet and the initiation of the War Against the Machines. Horrified by what she had wrought, Chao recalled her remaining armies and prepared a guerilla war against the numerically-superior (but not technologically-superior) Skynet forces. In the aftermath of Judgment Day, she centered her campaign out of the ruined Mahora Academy, taking on the mantle of the spiritual successor of the Mage Knights.
Project: MYTHOS[]
A version of Chao following the conclusion of The Unsung War exists in the alternate-universe forum-based Halo role-play Project: MYTHOS. Initially intended as a setting-specific version of Chao, it was later retconned to be the actual Prime Chao, able to enter the dimension via use of the Gateway Device.
↑The Unsung War Chapter 3 - “Our allies from so many hundreds of years ago, they knew that we would live to see this age. This is the world, the future that they have entrusted us to. We've nothing but their memories left now, and we can't let them down by not using every means at our disposal to save the world.” - Accessed 2009-07-18
↑The Unsung War Chapter 3 - Chao reached up her right hand, brushing her fingertips against the small, pentagon-shaped design sewn into her armor just beneath her left shoulder. - Accessed on 2009-07-18
↑Future Perfect: Chao Lingshen's Tale Chapter 2 - “A great destiny awaits you, your stop here being merely a pebble in the pond, setting great events in motion. This wondrous device will play many crucial roles where you must go. Some of these will be caused by your own hand, others will not. Trust your heart to know when and where your destiny will guide your hand. Farewell, Chao Lingshen. Remember always, that you possess the heart of a Hero.” - Accessed 2009-07-18
↑Future Perfect: Chao Lingshen's Tale Chapter 2 - “Magic is the only way to save humanity from the Covenant. If revealing magic will cause a civil war, then I will reveal magic now so that the war will be over and done with when the Covenant rear their ugly heads, and we'll be able to fight them with better technology and magic.” - Accessed 2009-07-18
