Barjack

The nihongo|Barjack|バージャック|Bājakku|also written as 馬借 is a fictional, conventional military force depicted in the "Battle Angel Alita" manga. Founded and led by the charismatic Den, their objective is to destroy Tiphares and with it, the Factory and the Scrapyard. They are regarded as bandits by residents of the Scrapyard who remain unaware of their motives.

War against Tiphares

By ES 590, the Barjack have for five years been conducting operations against the Tipharean ground forces, including ambushing caravans, attacking the Factory Railroad, and even taking over Factory Farms, such as Factory Farm 21, which has been under their control for two years. The extent of their control includes 14 out of 29 Factory Farms in the Western Region as they draw closer to Tiphares. The Barjack also control remote areas of ruins that serve as bases for their units, such as the Boiling Metal Battalion, and demarcate their territory boundaries with gruesome markers. Despite the length of their war with Tiphares, not much is known about the Barjack in the Scrapyard. After Vector fails to negotiate a deal with Den to protect his interests and is released on the condition that he warn the Scrapyard so that its citizens can evacuate before Tiphares falls, he is pressured by the Factory into keeping quiet about the Barjack, leaving the Scrapyard unaware that the Barjack are closing in.

The prime means of destroying Tiphares for the Barjack lies in the construction of the giant 80 cm railway gun Heng, and the climax of five years’ of fighting arrives when the Heng is brought to bear against Tiphares. After it fails to destroy Tiphares and is demolished by the Tipharean superweapon Abaddon, Den orders his generals to disband their units and switch over to guerilla warfare in order to attack the Factory from inside the Scrapyard. Den then charges the Scrapyard alone in a last ditch attempt to bring down Tiphares, managing to bring his sword down on one of the Factory tubes before dying. While having proved effective against the Tipharean ground forces, the deployment of 11 TUNED AR units against them leaves the fate of the remaining Barjack forces uncertain. Years later, the Barjack story is told in a book of B.B. Buick’s photographs compiled by Koyomi when she is 15 titled "Barjack War Chronicle", which becomes the Scrapyard’s greatest bestseller on record.

The Barjack in "Last Order"

In "Last Order" it is revealed that two of Alita's TUNED replicas, Elf and Zwölf, were singers in Barjack City before being recruited by Desty Nova to briefly serve as his bodyguards. The side story reveals that substantial numbers of Barjack survived and are still willing to take up the cause. They converge on Farm 3 in response to a summons put out to revive the Barjack, where they witness a duel between two Dens, the false Den operated by Eakins' cronies and that operated by Geriperi. The latter emerges triumphant, and orders the surviving Barjack to assist in the construction of the Tower of Tiphares.

Notable members

Den

Koyomi K.

Koyomi joined the Barjack for a brief, two week period following Alita's duel with Den, befriending B.B. Buick and participating in the battles to gain ground closer to the Scrapyard and Tiphares. She survived the destruction of the Heng and received Buick's camera before he died. After Den disbands the Barjack, Koyomi volunteers to accompany him on his charge on the Scrapyard.

The side story reveals that Koyomi is something of a celebrity among the Barjack because of a picture that Buick took of her and Fury which he then sold.

Knucklehead

A former bandit, Knucklehead joined the Barjack not because he believed in its cause, but for the opportunities it would give him to fire his gun and ride his motorcycle, all he claims he needs in life. His face serves as a protective covering for his brain, and can be detached when damaged. Becoming a squad commander, Knucklehead ambushes Factory Train 12, on which Alita is aboard as a Tuned agent along with Figure Four and Yolg, who are serving as rail mercenaries. The only member of his squad to survive Alita’s counterattack, his head is taken by her for interrogation, but gets lost in a desert tornado that Alita and her companions get caught in. Knucklehead is recovered by the Barjack’s Boiling Metal battalion and restored to a cyborg body. Begging Col. Bozzle for the chance to avenge his decimated squad, he is given a platoon of socket soldiers, but is unaware that he is being used as decoy. Once again, Alita wipes out Knucklehead’s party, but the timely intervention of the rest of the battalion saves his life. However, he is humiliated and demoted, seething with resentment at his treatment and hatred for Alita.

Knucklehead makes his move 48 hours after Alita has lost contact with the GIB and the Boiling Metal is camped for the night while on its way to attack Factory Farm 22. Shooting Col. Bozzle, he kidnaps Alita, insuring the battalion’s inability to take action against him by sabotaging their guns, the socket soldiers, and blowing up their vehicles. Taking Alita to a sand dune, he gives her her Damascus Blade and arms himself with a single shot 28 mm pistol for a duel. Before they can carry it out however, Figure intervenes, attacking and killing Knucklehead. Knucklehead was also shown as one of the soldiers interviewed by Buick.

B.B. Buick

A “special prisoner,” Buick has been with the Barjack for three years, recording their story through photographs and interviews. He claimed to be a Scrapyard reporter when captured, but was actually a murderer who targeted women and photographed their mutilated bodies. The sale of some of these photos placed a bounty on his head, forcing him to flee the Scrapyard. Buick’s time with the Barjack makes him start to believe in their cause and hope that he can change, but after witnessing Alita’s duel with Den, he falls in love with her and his innermost desires begin to resurface. These burst forth when the GIB destroys the Heng with Tiphares’ superweapon Abaddon and AR-10 starts to kill the survivors. Glorifying in the death and destruction, Buick records what he can, mistaking AR-10 from Alita. He loses his mind, asking AR-10 for an interview as she is about to shoot Koyomi. Shot with an armor-piercing round, Buick’s intervention gives Fury enough time to grab AR-10 by the neck and throw her into a pool of molten metal. He turns over his camera to Koyomi, which has 200,000 photos of Barjack’s battles and campaigns before dying of his wounds. The photos are later compiled by Koyomi when she is 15 into a book titled Barjack War Chronicle and packaged with an audio recording of an interview with Den, becoming the Scrapyard’s greatest bestseller on record.

Colonel Bozzle

A former member of the Green Beret Tribe and commander of a mercenary squad, Bozzle was defeated in battle by the Barjack two years prior and decided to join them, becoming a convert to Den’s mission to bring down Tiphares. He rose to battalion commander and leads the Boiling Metal, Barjack’s most powerful battalion, based in a former city in the desert near the Western Mountains. Bozzle has two heads, one on top of his body that serves as a platform for long distance optics, and a secondary head in the middle of his torso. His brain however, is located just above this secondary head. If need be, his torso can be detached from the lower half of his body and mobility is provided by hover jets.

Bozzle and his battalion come across Alita, Figure, and Yolg after they wind up in the city following a desert tornado, and Bozzle decides to attack them. Alita destroys his optical head with a pistol shot and nearly kills him with her Damascus Blade, but is stopped by Yolg, a childhood friend of his. Bozzle manages to shoot off both of Alita’s legs below the knees when she tries to attack him after his men attack and appear to have killed Figure. He interrogates her while the battalion is camped for the night, revealing that Ido is still alive and assisting Desty Nova, who is a friend of Den’s. Bozzle is shot in his secondary head by Knucklehead when the latter kidnaps Alita, but appears in his hovercraft torso form with Yolg, whom he had turned into a socket soldier, after Figure has killed Knucklehead. When Yolg turns against him, he detonates Yolg’s body, then is killed by Alita.

Kayna

Kayna is a cyborg nurse working for Daisuke Ido at Farm 21, which has been under Barjack control for two years when Alita visits it in search of him. Kayna first met Ido five years before when she was working at Desty Nova’s lab, and has been instructed by Ido to show anyone from his past who comes looking for him a recording he made explaining how discovering the truth behind Tiphares almost drove him to madness and caused him to erase his memory. Kayna is very protective of Ido and attempts to have some local cyborgs intimidate Alita into leaving when she discovers that she is searching for him. When this fails, Kayna reveals that her capoeira skills are good enough to match Alita blow for blow, but Kayna proves unable to take strong hits and Ido breaks up the fight. During Alita's brief visit, she cautions her not to bring up anything that might make Ido recall his past and appears to develop sympathy for the difficult position Alita is in.

Dorotabo

Dorotabo is a soldier who appears to have been responsible for Koyomi, as he is shown alongside her in a machine gun turret during a Barjack attack as well as in Koyomi's memories of her time in the Barjack. He was killed when the Heng was destroyed. Dorotabo was also shown as one of the soldiers interviewed by Buick.

Composition

The Barjack is predominantly a mobile ground force, given that they largely operate in the desert. They are formally organized, with ranks such as sergeant, squad commander, and colonel being mentioned. The largest unit shown is the battalion, although the mention of generals suggests armies. However, the numbers of troops or vehicles that make up these units is not specified. When Knucklehead’s squad attacked Factory Train 12, their forces included 15 buggies and 18 motorcycles, his entire unit.

There do not appear to be any formal requirements for inclusion into the Barjack, and even a desire to share Den's ideals and fight against Tiphares is not necessary. This has allowed former bandits such as Knucklehead to join, although he personally does not believe in the Barjack's cause, while B.B. Buick is captured and used as a "special prisoner" because of his photography skills. Even soldiers who hold themselves in low regard and may not be suitable for combat can volunteer to function as cyborg missiles. Koyomi is shown as one of the few females and the youngest member of the largely male Barjack.

Vehicles

These include motorcycles, buggies, tanks, cars modified and armored in a manner similar to those depicted in , as well as heavy vehicles mounting large caliber guns and resupply vehicles. Specialized vehicles include two massive earth haulers, armed with cannon and connected together to form a mobile throne for Den, and a crane truck modified to transport Den’s giant sword, Zanshato.

Weapons

The Barjack have the capability to manufacture and use small arms and ammunition based on guns found in the ruins. Heavy weapons include heavy caliber machine guns, miniguns, chain guns, and mortars, which can be mounted on vehicles. The Boiling Metal battalion is also shown to possess mobile artillery. A few unique weapons that the Barjack have developed and use are outlined below.

Cyborg missiles

A kamikaze weapon. Volunteers sign up to have their heads placed where the warhead would go at the tip of the missile, suggesting that they themselves function as a guidance system. A soldier interviewed by Buick for this duty sees this as a means for a "lowlife" like him to be useful, even though the assignment is a suicide mission.

ocket soldiers

These are special troops whose heads are mounted on large, lightbulb-like sockets. An adrenalizer is injected into a port on the back of their necks before they are literally screwed into armored cyborg bodies. They are armed with assault rifles, grenades, and combat knives. Appearing anxious and frightened at the prospect of combat while in their socket head form, the adrenalizer and attachment to their cyborg bodies appears to make the socket soldiers more aggressive and eager to fight. To guard against mutiny, an explosive charge in the cyborg body can be remotely detonated, killing the soldier. They are seen being deployed by Colonel Bozzle when he comes up against Alita at his battalion’s base, where she wipes out a platoon of them. Knucklehead later sabotages them by replacing the adrenalizer with cleaning detergent when he kidnaps Alita. Yolg is turned into a socket soldier by Colonel Bozzle and sent to kill Alita and Figure, but turns on Bozzle.

The Heng

A giant, 80 cm railway gun, it takes two nuclear powered trains to pull the Heng, which is 45 m long, 12 m wide, has a height of 15.5 m, and weighs 1,400 tons, excluding its base and the trains pulling it. It is constructed by the Barjack as their ultimate weapon to destroy the shaft supporting Tiphares, with the intent of bringing the city down onto and obliterating the Factory and the Scrapyard. More than just a weapon, the Heng is a potent symbol for the members of the Barjack, who manifest this by writing their last words on the barrel and placing the brains of injured soldiers into the shells, so that their hopes will help bring Tiphares down.

Two weeks after Den duels Alita, the Heng is brought within range of Tiphares. Only one shot is fired, which is blocked by a force field surrounding Tiphares. Before it can be reloaded, the Heng is destroyed by the Tipharean superweapon Abaddon.

References

*cite book | title=Battle Angel Alita: Angel of Death | last=Kishiro | first=Yukito | authorlink=Yukito Kishiro | publisher=Viz Communications | location= San Francisco | edition=1st ed. | date=September 1996 | id=ISBN 1-56931-127-7

*cite book | title=Battle Angel Alita: Angel of Chaos | last=Kishiro | first=Yukito | authorlink=Yukito Kishiro | publisher=Viz Communications | location= San Francisco | edition=5th ed. | date=May 2000 | id=ISBN 1-56931-178-1

*cite book | title=Battle Angel Alita: Fallen Angel | last=Kishiro | first=Yukito | authorlink=Yukito Kishiro | publisher=Viz Communications | location= San Francisco | edition=1st ed. | date=November 1997| id=ISBN 1-56931-243-5

*cite book | title=Battle Angel Alita: Angel’s Ascension | last=Kishiro | first=Yukito | authorlink=Yukito Kishiro | publisher=Viz Communications | location= San Francisco | edition=4th ed. | date=June 2001| id=ISBN 1-56931-293-1