Crusade
Crusade was a secret Old World organization situated in France that was responsible for creating several anti-Juno weapons with the express purpose of combating Titano-Machina during World War 3.
History
Goals
Because of a failsafe that prevented more than 53 Juno from being created at any time, Crusade's goals were to use human ingenuity to develop technology comparable or superior to Juno or Titano-Machina through human ingenuity. The goal was to nullify humanity's over-reliance on Juno, ending the global stratification created from it and preventing human civilization from destroying itself.
While it's a wild guess as to whether it would've even been possible for them to succeed, the activation of the "Reset" by the XII Owls ultimately resulted in their plans failing. The unknown author of the final Crusade Archive even takes a moment to snark about this: "I guess humanity finally found equality, just in total annihilation at the hands of Juno."
Facilities
Due to the secretive nature of their projects, 5 underground facilities were created to conduct research and experimentation. This included the main Crusade base and 4 Altar facilities.
Child Soldiers
Synthetic, lab grown Hybrids were tailor-made to pilot weapons of mass destruction created by the organization. They were treated as disposable tools of war created out of desperation, with most of them dying during Crusade's experiments and all others losing their lives on the battlefield.
Despite their goals ultimately being noble for mankind as a whole, the pseudo-hybrid children they created were ultimately used as a means to an end rather than as anything resembling individuals (or even individual soldiers). This is also reflected in the fact that the Taranis has a function to forcefully teleport a crew member into the Soul Cannon to be used as ammunition, as the Soul Cannon itself can only be fueled by the sacrifice of a child. The Belenos also has a hidden program to forcefully assimilate its pilot into becoming a mindless node of its machinery should they begin to hesitate or display orders.
The only survivor of this project, Jihl, was later repurposed as a constant fuel source for the Taranis' Soul Cannon near the end of the war (a fate that ultimately broke him psychologically, turning him bitter and hating all life). He was eventually secretly sealed away inside the Taranis inside a hidden room, and is the only survivor of the organization after the Reset.
Belenos
(work in progress)
After the project was scrapped, the 4 auxillery generators were removed and stored separately in the 4 Altar facilities.
Taranis
(Work in progress)
Robots
4 robots created by the organization appear as enemies in Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2.
Moricos (including a platinum and gold version)
Cingeto (including a platinum and gold version)
Matir
Aragne
Engineers
Female Engineer was the head of the project. The other engineers/researchers within the organization are never shown in game, but the manga depicts them as all wearing the same attire as the Female Engineer (helmets with animal ear headbands, white lab coats, etc).
Creations
- Belenos
- Synthetic Hybrid children (including Jihl)
- Taranis
- Jeanne personal AI (eventually repurposed to serve as the Taranis' central AI)
Trivia
- Both the Taranis and Belenos would ironically become Titano-Machina by the end of Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2, despite being anti Juno weapons. The Vanargand's engine core that is a part of the Tarascus would eventually be merged into the Taranis (becoming the Exo-Taranis), while the Belenos is used by Cayenne to reanimate the Vanargand's body.
