Kage Yaichiro's team had 41 members in its ranks, excluding Yaichiro himself. Not all have been named or explored, and they were generally an NPC force used by Yaichiro or the GM of the plot in which they are in. They were stationed at Hotaru Star Fortress as the main force of its Starship Improvement Project, though 21 members of the team were originally placed under Yaichiro's command as an Engineering team at Pisces Station. They were stationed at the closely guarded and very secure Production Bay Sixteen. Members of the team also tend to control the YSS Asuka's systems and act is her crew when needed. Some reassumed a similar role when Yaichiro returned to Hotaru in YE 33 and was granted control of Production Bay Seven.
Minako is a Star Army officer who was the very first of Yaichiro's subordinates at Pisces Station, and has a great and well rounded education in the sciences and mathematics. Beyond that as well is her dedication and intelligence, which give her a great deal of potential and reliability. Her abilities to manage multiple personnel made her a fine choice for Yaichiro's second, leaving her in charge of the development team when shifts change or some other matter removes Yaichiro from his team during its operation.
Minako was a Santo Juni in rank, now a Chui, and holds a great deal of respect for her former CO and his opinions. She believes it is because of his actions that the original Engineering team was able to survive Pisces with their careers undamaged.. Furthermore, her dedication to the Army itself is great, previously tested by the once-insane and anarchistic XO of Pisces Station.
While sometimes shy in public matters, she can be quite aggressive when speaking of her ideas, or speaking to subordinates, especially involving safety issues. Minako is a well endowed NH-29, with medium-length light brown hair and aqua green eyes. She sometimes wears thin-frame glasses for fashion's sake rather than for any optical need. These glasses, however, can give readouts and replace volumetric displays in the absence of a nodal system.
Minako went back to the Empire when the UOC split, her sense of duty still quite strong. She runs simulations on Yaichiro's inventions, and evaluates their designs. In the post-5th XF era, she also became a participant in Project THOUGHT and reassumed her previous role at Production Bay 7 in YE 33.
Grapefruit is an NH-29 Nekovalkrjya sprite generated by Hotaru Star Fortress for Yaichiro to command during his tenure as the Starship Improvement Program's Director. This sprite is versed in matter/antimatter reactions and the resultant energy discharges. She is capable of analyzing and designing various antimatter power systems as well as the magnetic shielding necessary for such reactors. She is also the default safety expert on the issue of antimatter containment. Of course, given the nature of positron weaponry, her expertise is sought in designs intended to counteract those of the positron weapon, or to optimize existing antimatter offensive and defensive systems. As such, she has begun to explore the different effects of anti-particles on commonly found armors in an effort to optimize ship defenses against these attacks.
Grapefruit, in spite of the destructive and dangerous power that she routinely controls, is cheerful and upbeat, looking at the universe with wide-eyed wonder. She serves Yaichiro because, quite simply, helping him is the reason she was created. Because of this, she seems to show confusion when Yaichiro tries to make her think in an independent and creative manner, but once she gets going, she excels. She often calls Takeru “Take-chan” and tries to dress him in childish clothing.
A very shapely and attractive woman, Grapefruit has long orange hair and gold eyes, and a preference for purring when praised.
Now that she has been freed, she's followed Yaichiro to Yamatai and has become his maid, as well as an assistant with his inventions, running simulations for Project THOUGHT and occasionally passing along messages from Office 8412. She is unaware of Office 8412's mission, however, and is content just to design and clean for the man she was originally born to assist…to her, freewill just means wearing a maid outfit in spite of her employer's objections.
Takeru is trained in Metallurgy, specifically in starship alloys, and to a lesser degree Ceramics. He also has skills in engineering and structural analysis, which make him extremely valuable as a designer and stress tester for designs using different alloys and structures. He can be seen often working with various weapons engineers and designers to test the strength of designs versus specific types and angles of attack, from torpedoes to energy weaponry. As such, he is often seen working with Grapefruit and Pomegranate.
Takeru is a NH-22C Yamataian that is exceedingly short in stature, in spite of being nineteen. He is the only member of the team, save any NH-12, who is shorter than Pomegranate. In spite of his young age and appearance, he has already become a Shoi in rank, and seems to have some leadership potential. His shyness, however, is near legendary. This is quite understandable with girls like Grapefruit running around…
His hair is unkept and jet black, his eyes a light grey. He stands at only 4'7“. He became a civilian, and wound up keeping his old body, much to his ire…and the delight of all girls taller than the hapless “chibi”. He dried to get into the CSEIA, but is a bit too cute to make the cut as a mad scientist. He still provided input on Yaichiro's civilian projects until rejoining the Star Army and finding himself back at Hotaru Star Fortress.
He has occassional involvement in Office 8412 as well.
Raspberry is an NH-29 who contributed all of her general knowledge to Grapefruit when she was created. As such, the two are roughly equal in potential, but Raspberry is more advanced in her practice, and is capable of more focus than her taller counterpart. Her professionalism and skill make her a valuable part of any project that requires matter/antimatter/energy conversion. She is familiar with the Striker Array, and can make elaborate designs utilizing energy/matter exchange. Due to her skills, her other hobby is sometimes of use in other scientific studies, specifically interpreting scanned data of stars and predicting dangerous solar flares for YSA and Civilian ship routes or nearby planets.
Raspberry has short violet-red hair and dark red eyes, and stands at 4'10”. Her body, in spite of her mature attitude, is quite young in appearance; she is only an A-cup.
She stayed in the UOC and coordinated with Yaichiro on MFY technology. She was also the Commandant of one of the Link Siphon stations in the Jiyuu system, as well as an analyst for Office 8412, until the Tange seized the station and her narrow escape back to the Star Army of Yamatai. Like the others, she found her way back to Hotaru Star Fortress after a time in the Fourth Fleet.
An expert on IES programming, Yumiko is one of the people Yaichiro turns to when he needs devices to talk to each other. Not all hardware Engineers have the ability to make the software work, and she provides both that ability as well as an additional level of insight and advice to the ex-CO. She considers herself an artist of sorts, seeing the world of programming as a canvas in which anything can be created, and any function performed. As such, she takes her work very seriously, and does less actual labor than the other workers. While some are confused that Yaichiro is so tolerant of Yumiko, and some secretly suspect favoritism, most who know Yumiko know that she is ALWAYS working, processing the code with her mind and testing it in MEGAMI's systems. Yaichiro is well aware of this fact, and gives his programmer a great deal of freedom as a result, to cultivate her creativity and a suitable environment for thought and ingenuity. Her mood changes frequently, from isolated to outgoing, from pensive to talkative, even from business like to prankish, depending on her stress level. Since the saying 'Idle hands due the Devil's work' is especially true with Yumiko, Yaichiro tries to always give her something to occupy her time and challenge her mind.
Yumiko is fairly average in build and endowments, though her hair color tends to change with her mood. She is one of the few people who he will make allowances to in regard to present ability and uniformity, permitting her to deviate her hair color at will and granting her the privilege of wearing a single diamond ring on her non-shooting hand. The former is likely because she is most comfortable typing with the ring on.
Yumiko had since joined Kessaku Electronics upon her return to the core Empire, and sometimes helps Yaichiro on designs that use IES software. She constantly complained about how she misses being in the SIP, and the freedom allowed her there. When Project THOUGHT entered its second stage, she started debugging and analyzing Yaichiro's code and aiding in the project. She would eventually follow Yaichiro to the Seventh Fleet, to resume working on those projects and reclaim some creative freedoms.
If Yaichiro's permission of Yumiko's hair and ring is a surprise to some, the custom item Pomegranate wears is downright shocking. Pomegranate's grenade belt was grandfathered in from her previous position as security/riot personnel, and given the added security given to Bay Sixteen by the sprite and her stash of grenades, he was inclined to permit her that luxury…after extensive background and psychological checks.
Pomegranate is a former security/riot sprite, an on-site response position on colonized worlds where attack on the YSE's representatives was still possible. To further her station and make herself more valuable, Pomegranate did the absolute best she could at her position, giving more than expected, all while studying demolitions. She eventually reached into basic collision extrapolation, energy reactions, ballistics, and advanced physics. Once finally gaining notice, she became a member of Yaichiro's team.
Seeing the potential combination of her skills with physical and energy impacts, Grapefruit's skills with antimatter reactions, and Takeru's metallurgy and structural engineering abilities; Pomegranate had begun to consider forming a new science called Macro-Forensics. Her idea is that such a team could investigate a ship or heavenly body and its debris, and determine the line of events which occurred to damage or destroy it. It is essentially Forensic Science applied to a ship, planetary, stellar, or solar scale.
She is often seen working with Kobayashi Takeru, and seems content to finally have someone shorter than her as an associate. Standing at 4'9“, she is as short as Nekovalkrjya come. Her short stature is not the only thing which she has inherited from her name. She is prone to outbursts of anger and frustration if rubbed the wrong way or overlooked. However, she respects her superiors and those she trusts a great deal…though if she thinks one incompetent, they are quickly made aware of her feelings. Her hair is bright red, as are her eyes, and she is extremely flat-chested. The NH-29 sprite is rumored to pad herself on occasion…with grenades, of course.
Holly was created for the express purpose to help on Yaichiro's many projects. She was one of the only NH-12B units (since upgraded to an NH-29M), and thus served a dual role in being an engineer, and also having the capability and know how to build, and repair Aether systems quickly, and efficiently. While she make look cute and innocent, but she is however a feisty little sprite hating to be teased, and somewhat on the temperamental side. Those traits however do not interfere with her duties; and works diligently until the job is done, and done right.
Holly stands at 8 inches tall, with long blonde hair usually done in pigtails. She has ruby red eyes, and smells faintly of plums. She provided a fair amount of piloting data for Project THOUGHT in LAMIA adapted to use the NH-29M's modern interface.
Koyuki is somewhat of an oddball sprite, she is usually quiet, contemplative, and has a love for literature. (Will add more very soon, just a little busy atm.)