Talk:Panzer Kunst Gruppe
The Kunstlers of the Panzer Kunst Gruppe are, individually, probably some of the strongest fighter's in Fenspace. The problem is, there's less than 30-40 or so active Kunstler, with the rest of the faction 'strength' being made of Cyber's who are merely coming to terms with their bodies and Grunthal.
And some stuff I cut from God know's where, which is supposed to be said by Jet Jaguar. Dropping it here because it shows a few things I'm thinking of... albeit not very eloquently.
Everybody think's Panzer Kunst is what they see in the exhibitions we do. That Panzer Kunst is smashing an engine block with a single punch or Panzer Kunst is flipping over a radio-controlled android and stabbing it twice through the back with a pair of damascus blades or doing other 'Really Cool Things'. Most of that is just a demonstration, an exhibition of power and skill, a little like Board breaking in other martial arts.
But that's not Panzer Kunst. It's the end result.
So, what is Panzer Kunst then?
When I first got cyber'd about five years ago, I had this terribly annoying problem. I used to pull the handles clean off of locked doors when I tried to open them. I used to crush styrofoam cups when I tried to pick them up... I gripped, and then squish. Hot tea has this wonderful ability to find the tight spots inbetween armour plates. I did the same when I got chased to orbit... I had no gauge of my own strength.
That's a pretty dangerous thing when I'm strong enough to rip a person's arm off. I'm a walking weapon with no safety. I'm always live. I'm always loaded. And if I'm not careful, I can seriously injure someone just giving them a handshake.
It was AC Peters who first told me about the Panzer Kunst Gruppe, when she was fitting the engines in my legs... after I broke more than a few things, some of which weren't cheap. We had to do a lot of tests to see how the wavium had integrated the suit with my body, how all my systems interacted with each other and just plain how I worked and what I could do. When that was all done and my engines were fitted and tested...and the damage I'd done repaired, AC gave me Alita's contact details. Now, I didn't want to be a fighter at first... but that's not all Panzer Kunst is. It's as much about just plain 'living' as it is about fighting.
The first stage in Panzer Kunst is coming to terms with yourself. That's not just a case of getting over the initial shock of suddenly finding yourself in a steel body with power to make the JLI jealous... it's everything that follows. It's understanding your self as a being seperate from a mutable body with changing abilities. It's understanding your new abilities, your limitations. It's being aware of your body's altered senses, and making them one with yourself, integrating them into your being. It's being aware of your power and how dangerous it is to ordinary people. It's about understanding that you are now a dangerous weapon. When you shake someone's hand, you're pointing the barrel of a loaded gun at them and the only safety is your mind. It's about having that awareness imprinted on your psyche so that it becomes instinctive, and how to re-imprint that awareness again for every change in your body.
And once you've managed that, the next is learning how to live with that knowledge. How not to rip doors apart, or squish sandwiches, or break someone's arm. You learn how to modulate that strength you've just come to understand. You learn how to make that modulation and control instinctive, so you can pick up a fresh egg between your fingers, then ramp up as you have to in order to say... lift a car. You learn how to feel and recognise when that's done, how to use your senses to throttle yourself automatically to meet your needs. It becomes an unconscious thing, filtered through your body's senses, and at your direct command. And when that's done, you're still a gun... but at least you're a gun with a safety catch on it. You're aware of your power, how dangerous you are... and you're able to control it enough for day to day life. You learn to adjust your controls and limits based on changes to your body.
That's the point where most people leave Grunthal. They're stable and self-aware enough that they're not as big a danger to anyone anymore. That's all they want. Not to be breaking doors. This is the stuff that's public. That's a sort of Panzer Kunst for Daily Life. And it applies as much to brand-new biomods, as it does to Kunstlers... it's become quite popular in that regard, helping people cope with unexpected modifications and teaching them how to live with their altered bodies.
The next stage is self-defence, it's available to anyone who's completed the first two. You learn how to fight back against an attacker in a controlled and measured way, so you don't accidentally rip someone's arm off when you just want to push them. Again, the emphasis is on awareness of yourself and your abilities, and how to apply them in a non-lethal manner. The emphasis is keeping you calm and in control of yourself, being as fully aware as possible of the world around you. Rather than lashing out in panic and breaking someone, or yourself. Specifically, you're taught how to fight without killing (unless absolutely necessary), and you're taught how to do all of this by instinct. Your actions flow naturally... you don't think about how you're fighting, you're actions and your senses are blending bypassing the slower parts of the mind. What you see, what you hear it feeds back and generates a controlled.reaction as natural as breathing. You keep calm, you maintain control and work within your limits. You're taught how to use the bare minimum of force and... most importantly, you're taught to do it with your body under control, and with yourself aware of just how much force you're using. Self defence styles are intended for use against ordinary meat people without breaking them too badly.
A few go on to that. We also train some faction forces to that standard, if they request it... and can handle the martian atmosphere. It's a good standard and'll usually see you right. For one thing, you won't end up before a court facing manslaughter charges and a trip to Azkhaban because you used 'excessive force.' There're some special requirements for power armoured troopers, though with neural induction stuff comming online, we can work around that. Most people are done at that point. Very few are offered the chance to continue training. Before we actually start combat training, before we start learning how to actively fight to kill and do all those 'Really cool things', we've already done so much work. All of that to lay the foundations.
Then. We learn how to really fight. All those controls, all those brakes and safeties we've had built in... we learn to turn those off, switching into a sort of battle mode. That's when we really learn how to use our bodies at our maximum fighting potential. When we're fighting, we fight to kill. Actual combat Panzer Kunst is designed to kill, and to kill in a very controlled and very effective manner. It's a brutal thing to do to a human being, but that's war. A Kunstler fighting is a master of their own body, of their own senses, and their own mind. What do I feel when I slash the arms off a Boskone armoured trooper?
It's exciting. It's a terrible thing to say I suppose, but with body, mind and all my senses melded together, all that cybernetic power is flowing through me, and it's under my control. I'm running on instinct, but a strangely conscious instinct. I don't have to consider the merits of a Hertza Haon over a Geschoss Schlag or a Hinter Sense, I just do it. And when it's done, and my blades are covered in blood with my pistol's magazine empty, I switch all those mental limits back on. Take a deep breath, switch back to normal mode, clean my blades and body, then carry on.
At Grunthal, we train as much as possible, we have to maintain bodies, maintain our limits, and maintain our controls and skills. Then we develop our own techniques, our own ‘personal wisdom’, to fit the particulars of our own body's abilities.
The point is, cracking engine blocks isn't Panzer Kunst. All that work and training we do, all the mental preparations, ingrained safety mechanisms and self controls, all the techniques we learn before we receive our elbow blades and actually join a Gruppe... that's Panzer Kunst.
That's what makes the average Kunstler among the most powerful individual fighters in Fenspace. The problem with that is... there's about forty of us on active duty. Compared to how many of Boskonians?
It's like a King Tiger tank against a squadron of Shermans. The Tiger could crack them easy... but there was always one more Sherman than the Tiger could pop.
