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Rokusabe Koujirou is a Valkyrie, a human compatible with a device known as a Valkyrie Core and able to materialize a suit of Powered Armour known as a Valkyrie Frame. Training as a member of the United Nations Air Force to combat the growing Antagonist forces, Koujirou is one of less than 100 males out of the 20,000 Valkyries in service. Surrounded by women, can Koujirou find a way to fight the Antagonists, save the world and maybe even find love?

It doesn't really matter, cause that's not who this quest is about.

Battle Action Harem Highschool Side Character Quest (No SV, you are the Waifu) is a quest run on Sufficient Velocity.com by Avalanche. Set in a fictional anime (named ‘Project: Valkyrie Core' by the players) the quest's premise is that rather than control the main character mentioned above, the players control one of the side characters. The quest's ultimate goal is to take the side character and make her into a main character, whether through winning the heart of the protagonist, saving the world, or getting a Spin-Off.

The players were allowed to choose a number of archetypes for their character, including the older sister, the younger sister, The Ojou, the Designer Baby, The Ace, the Broken Ace, the awkward shy girl, and the monster.

In their infinite wisdom, the playerbase chose the monster: Anna Sanchez, a traumatized Child Soldier attempting to fit in to a ‘normal’ life after everyone in her home village was killed. Even though the word "harem" is in the title, the focus on Anna makes the quest more Real Robot Genre than Harem Genre as most of the usual harem hijinks end up offscreen.

The quest is also notable for the amount of thought Avalanche has put into the world and backstory.


Battle Action Harem Highschool Side Character Quest contains examples of:

  • The Ace: Anna is literally the number One Rank Valkyrie, the strongest Valkyrie in the world.
  • Ace Pilot: Skilled Valkyries are this. Extremely skilled Valkyries can go 3v1 without taking a hit.
  • Action Girl: Most Valkyries are female and so fall under this trope.
  • After the End: The quest is set 58 years after the Antagonists invaded Earth.
  • All for Nothing: After everything Anna does, from risking her life fighting the Antagonist, fighting Sekhmet, even launching a suicidal attack against the Saskatoon Breach and managing to succeed, she still fails to defend her town.
  • Ambiguous Situation: After a training exercise, in which Koujirou is seriously injured, Anna is told to ‘fix her eyes’. It is unclear whether this means her eyes were visibly damaged or if she was crying for Koujirou. Or both. In any case, she does indeed ‘repair’ her eyes.
  • And Now for Someone Completely Different: During a training exercise, players briefly take control of Koujirou to form a battle plan against Anna.
  • Benevolent A.I.: Valkyrie Cores are implied to have some form of sentience and it's suspected that Durga is behind Anna's Notes To Self.
  • Berserk Button: Do not threaten, harm, attempt to harm or even suggest that humans are collateral damage in front of Anna. She will turn her guns on you faster than she can think.
  • Breakout Character: The "Goal" of the game is for Anna to become popular enough to become one of these and possibly get her own spinoff.
  • Blood Knight: Anna seems to relish in killing the Antagonist, she almost smiled at the thought of fighting another Sekhmet, and is disappointed about how fake the simulated Antagonist feels.
  • Child Soldier: Shuri was in the Pakistani military before they were annexed by the UN and Anna was defending her small village alone since the age of eight.
  • Crapsack World: Most of the surface of Earth is under Antagonist control (with large portions underwater), Earth orbit is under relative human control and most of humanity have retreated to underground arcologies. As Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism shows, it could be worse however. Humanity is on the offensive, slowly but steadily beating the Antagonists back, the arcologies are a borderline Post-Scarcity Economy, the UN treats it's Valkyries and Valkyries-in-training fairly well including rotating them out of combat so they don't get ground down, and non-Valkyrie forces are actually capable of fighting back.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: Anna's spar against the rest of her flight plus Yukari ends with them not even laying a single scratch on her Impeller shielding. And this is after they've thrown ten thousand bullets, missiles, and mines at Anna.
  • Dangerous Forbidden Technique:
    • Wave Force Manipulation. Its use completely drains the Impeller Field and Higgs particle, leaving the user defenseless and has a high chance of blowing up the user and anyone near them. Anna is able to use this with minimal risk.
      • Anna ends up working with researchers to develop a version of Wave Force Manipulation that doesn't require Higgs particles and succeeds. It still damages the user, though.
    • Koujirou overriding the safeties on his Valkyrie Frame functions like this, letting him very nearly tag Anna once but putting him in the hospital when he's done.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Any of selected unhappy backgrounds imply this. Shuri's involved being a Child Soldier for the Pakistani military and Anna defended her village for eight years amid growing animosity from the villagers only to return after finally defeating the threat to find everyone dead. While not particularly dark (or atleast, not elaborated on yet), Yukari is considered one of the "Dark" options that influenced the setting towards the grimmer end of the Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism.
  • Decoy Protagonist: Koujirou is the main character of the fictional anime but not the player character of the quest.
  • Deflector Shields: The Impeller field acts as an invisible force field and also allows telekinetic control over anything within its radius. It can also be consumed to power more advanced abilities.
  • Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male:
    • Setsuna's normal reaction to Koujirou being his usual self.
    • Defied whenever Anna is present.
  • Despair Event Horizon: Anna crosses it off-screen after her failure to defend her town, and almost attacks the UN force that discovers her in blind rage.
  • The Dreaded: All Type-Zero are this, they are all one man armies that can and will destroy armies. The appearances of B-Class and above call for a general retreat of the entire army in the area.
  • Elite Mooks: The Type 0’s, the Antagonist’s anti-Valkyrie forces, ranked strongest to weakest: Class A-E. The first rule of fighting one is that you cannot beat one solo. The second is that you cannot beat it with your flight and the third is you cannot beat one with your squadron. Standard tactics are to run away and request backup, regardless of the class. Anna was able to defeat a Class C solo.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The Antagonists are, well...
  • Everything Sensor: All Valkyries have this to some extent, however Anna specializes in this and hers is sensitive enough to register that the simulated Antagonists are fakes and can be safely ignored. She also manages to detect several additional targets during a lesson on how to use the sensor. Not even the instructors appeared to pick up on this.
  • Finger Poke of Doom: Anna manages to break Koujirou's sword and deflect his Desperation Attack with a thumbs up gesture.
  • Fun with Acronyms:
    • The title for the fictional anime the quest takes place in is "Project Valkyrie Core", which is shortened to PVC. As a meta example, the quest's title is shortened to BAHHSCQ, pronounced as Basque.
    • Also, United Nation Office of Military Intelligence. Shortened as UNOMI.
  • Hammerspace: All Valkyries have this. Stored items can also (after some time) be improved in various ways and integrated into the Valkyrie Frame itself.
  • Hero of Another Story: Anna, the Quest's protagonist since the fictional anime stars Koujirou.
  • Heroic BSoD: Training in the Alaska Scenario causes Anna to flashback to her Dark and Troubled Past. She basically needs to shut down her emotions to keep herself functioning.
  • Instant Armor: Valkyrie Frames can be materialized and dematerialized at will, so long as one is synced to a Valkyrie Core. Experienced users can summon the Frame instantly, while those who haven’t been synced as long take a few seconds.
  • Japanese School Club: Rather inexplicably, this is how extracurricular activities at Perth are handled.
  • Lead the Target: Koujirou attempts to do this during a training scenario against Anna. Due to Anna’s erratic speed and acceleration, it doesn’t work.
  • Literal-Minded: Due to lack of social skills, Anna tend to interpret things literally.
  • Major Injury Underreaction: After a 3v1 training session Anna is told to 'fix her eyes.' Whether this is because she was crying or if her eyes were visibly damaged is left ambiguous. In the case of the latter, it means Anna was fighting while blind and didn't even notice.
  • Macross Missile Massacre: Anna's missile racks can fire a maximum salvo of 60. During a lesson, Anna decides to instead launch her entire store of missiles (260) out of her Hammerspace at once.
  • Major Injury Underreaction: Anna seems to have suffered a brain aneurysm from overloading her brain when trying to research Wave Force. Her only comment on the matter is that she's glad she didn't damage her neurons because she tends to lose memory when she does.
  • Men of Sherwood: Far from being unimportant cannon fodder, non-Valkyrie UN forces are a core part of their battle plan, even in zones that do have an abundance of Valkyries. Ground forces with heavy-duty long-range artillery are decisive tools in aiding Valkyries with taking out larger concentrations of enemy forces and the importance of having infantry to hold ground so the Valkyries can focus on more important battles is noted.
  • Mundane Luxury: Anna considers food, bed, and bath to be a luxury.
  • No OSHA Compliance: The Safety limits are called Safety for a reason. Koujirou turning his Valkyrie Frame safety off in his fight against Anna results in injuries due to his body being unable to handle the strain.
  • Note to Self: Anna has received several messages in her voice reminding her to do 'normal things', seemingly without having recorded them. It is suspected that Durga may be the one behind the messages.
  • One-Man Army: When you can solo a Type 0, Anna definitely qualifies.
    • All Type-Zero's are this, and any sufficiently skilled Valkyrie can also be this.
  • Powered Armour: The Valkyrie Frames are this. Various frame specialize in different areas, such as close quarters or long range. They also allow the user to fly.
  • Power Levels: Type 0's are ranked E through A, in ascending order.note  All Valkyries are tested and given a combat rating and from that a ranking. The ranks, in order are:
    • Junior Valkyrie Third Grade
    • Junior Valkyrie Second Grade
    • Junior Valkyrie First Grade
    • Enlisted Second Grade
    • Enlisted First Grade
    • Elite Enlisted
    • Elite
    • Elite First Grade
    • Ace/300 Level Valkyrie
    • Genius (300 Level) Valkyrie
    • Peerless
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Players were able to influence exactly where the setting fell on a scale of -5 to 5 by choosing whether the various NPC's (and the Player Character) had either happy or tragic backstories. It ended up at a not hopeless -1.
    • For reference, a +5 world would have been a purely comedic show along the lines of Nichijou with the Antagonists not even appearing on-screen, while a -5 world would have been comparable to Hellstar Remina in how dark it would have been, with Anyone Can Die in full effect.
  • Space Master: Mainly Type 18's, though experienced Valkyries can use this to teleport.
  • Supporting Protagonist: Anna is just a side character when the quest starts. It is the players’ goal to change this.
  • Swiss-Army Weapon: All Valkyrie frames are this, what with their ability to absorb and upgrade pretty much any form of technology.
  • There Is No Kill Like Overkill: How the human army deals with antagonistic forces:
    Step 1: Identify AG Force.
    Step 2: Use millions of missiles and nuclear weapons, and deploy a Valkyrie pilot.
    Step 3: Repeat step 2 until the AG cease to exist.
  • Unobtainium: The Higgs particle. Used by Valkyries to power their most powerful abilities, only the Antagonists have any understanding of the technology and are able to generate it. Humanity is unable to even accurately simulate its effects.
  • Upgrade Artifact: Valkyrie Cores improve anything they're attached to.
  • Virtual Training Simulation: Used to train, both against simulated Antagonist forces and real, human Valkyries. They also allow Valkyries to run historical simulations, although since the Higgs Particle cannot be simulated, some of them cannot be successfully completed.
  • War Is Hell: Shuri is a Child Soldier and Anna lost her entire village. War most certainly isn't fun.
  • Zerg Rush: No matter how skilled Anna is at fighting Antagonist, she can't win a fight against an endless tide of Antagonists all while defending her town. Casualties mounted no matter how hard she tried, and in the end the last surviving member of the town was killed not by Antagonist, but by another inhabitant of the town because they couldn't cope with the situation and started killing each other.


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