Magic Council (Sun Trilogy)

The Magic Council (魔法評議院, Mahō Hyōgīn) is the ruling body of the world of Magic; or at least, that's what they're supposed to do. While they normally have a strict grip on magic and don't even let guilds go on jobs without asking the "boss lady", often taking money from legal guilds and other banks so their boss could splurge it all on all sorts of knick-knacks.

Generally, the Magic Council is largely staffed with petty and lazy workers who focus more on their hedonistic lives during the work day than on actual work, and is in constant financial hardship due to their self-absorbed moron of a boss's shameless embezzling of government money.

The mass reach of the Magic Council sees its presence as a mega-corporation with significant underhanded influence into societal, infrastructural, and political spheres; of course, when the boss is a lunatic, this perfectly explains the crappy state of Earth Land in the Sun Trilogy. The Magic Council projects its power through a military that includes the elite Ten Wizard Saints and the Rune Knights.

Overview
As the main ruling body of the entire world, the Magic Council is shown to possess almost utmost control over it; it's supposed to serve as a leading government of sort; with several major figures in the world backing its existence. The Council rules all of the legal "magic places" scattered throughout Earth Land, overseeing them and making sure they don't break any rules. In addition to being responsible for the actions of every magician under their supervision, they have the power to punish those who break the law and confiscate magical artifacts.

This is what they're supposed to do.

Ever since Alexis Tenjouin became "Jeep Grand Cherokee" from "goddamn nepotism", as her grandfather, Mosag Tenjouin, was the previous chairman of the council, the Council had hit a bad stage in its life, with corruption becoming more and more apparent. Alexis' own already big ego bloated to truly immense proportions, and her selfish ways began to affect not only the council, but everything under its watch as well. Because of this, Magic Council, frankly, is a safety nightmare. Just in the Daybreak era, there are repeated scenes of Alexis doing things to try and circumvent getting shut down, from running for the new king to bribing officials.

The Magic Council has, aside from literally hundreds of safety violations, a staff of incredibly stupid and incompetent employees, with only two members being competent, and the building is falling apart, to the point where it would cost ten billion dollars just to bring it up to code. The security is also alarmingly lax; this is best demonstrated in the chapter Closer of the Esper Excellen arc of Daybreak, Excellen Kilekion was capable of getting a look at the council's facilities simply by asking Deen Lhant, one of the earlier mentioned competent workers as a favour during a tour, as the latter stated he could show her the depths of the council by "pulling some strings with the guys in security."

In addition, despite being supposedly a benevolent organization, the Magic Council is known to conduct highly dangerous experiments, such as the ploy to create artificial dragons, numerous weapons of mass destruction –with the Etherion and Highlander cannons as examples-, mass-production of Soul Armours, and worst of all, the homunculi project, an example of genetic engineering that was born from attempts to harness the DNA of the Primordial Demons, Origin and Varian; for which, they are known to kidnap people and subject them to these experiments. The boss herself spends the funds granted to the council by their backers on selfish desires, such as new cars, clothes, several world-famous monuments, plane flights, five-star restaurants, and death rays, even taking gains by guilds to fund her own lavish lifestyle.

The boss keeps the employees of the council in line by threatening them with bodily harm, deportation, and the prospect of being buried alive. She also approves and participates in the physical abuse heaped on the interns. Also known for fostering newsworthy crisis instead of preventing them, the Magic Council has expanded from simply "governing magic" to many other functions, as per the boss's whims. The Magic Council is known for not practicing what it preaches; though to be fair, this is because of the boss- an arc in Daybreak shows the council becoming a drug cartel due to lack of funding, and the boss frequently orders workers to assassinate people who slight her- to stop government officials from making a fuss, the boss set up a system that allows them to actually choose their bribes in a similar manner to Let's Make A Deal.

It is shown that Deen Lhant holds the entire organization together- as the other employees pester him to fix their mistakes and Alexis herself often sends him to do most jobs, even ones he wouldn't be qualified for; Deen admitted that one of his twenty five thousand duties is lying to the government.

Safety Violations
The Magic Council's safety policies are, for a lack of a better phrase, a goddamn mess. The council's headquarters is known for terribly weak catwalks, room designs that make no sense whatsoever, such as having a death course on the way to the boss's office, and a room that seems to have no other purpose other than to smash boxes, "like something out of a fucking video game". The organization has had numerous visits from safety inspectors who do point out the dangers and flaws of the council, diligent enough to demand Alexis fix the hazards and don't take cheap bribes from her- though she usually has these people assassinated soon after.

Deen Lhant recounts playing chess in the Etherion power core and holding cockfights in the lunch room. The Magic Council's collective work ethic can also be demonstrated by the fact that everyone at work indulges in "sleep time" all at once at regular intervals; and even when they're awake, all of the employees except for Deen are generally slackers and most of the time, there are no repercussions with sneaking out of work. For example, Deen sneaks out of his duties by getting Kinos Sejren to "cover for him", which results in Kinos replacing Deen in lazing around in his chair and eating his pizza. Later on, Deen gets Alexis, the boss herself, to cover for him- and Alexis then ends up lazing around in Deen's chair and eating his pizza. Kinos himself refitted the soda machines to dispense alcohol if one asked for club soda.

Generally, despite being supposedly well-trained and composed, most of the employees of the Council scream and panic whenever there's an emergency, remove emergency procedure posters to make get-well-soon cards, have sword fights with important levers that control the Etherion, and engage in log-rolling contests using the magical batteries that power the Etherion- these batteries are known for being extremely volatile. In regards to somebody accidentally triggering the Etherion's firing in their sleep, the only thing preventing this is a trained dog; so much so that the pre-programmed warning messages are designed to commend the dog. Lastly, the employees are required to visit three separate rooms to get coffee, cream and sugar.

Hiring Policies and Members
The hiring policies of the Magic Council verge between bizarre and outright illegal, since Alexis makes all employment decisions without a second opinion, apparently on a whim. Among other questionable decisions, Alexis has hired animals –Bertie the duck takes over the council after Alexis is imprisoned for an arc- illegal aliens, reanimated historical figures, a suicidal man with a shotgun at his desk, and survivors of a plane crash that happened on her property. To get a promotion, all it really seems one needs is a silly name, as Alexis made a man called Long Wang a Wizard Saint on a whim.

Ten Wizard Saints
The Ten Wizard Saints (聖十大魔導, Seiten Daimadō) are, as their titles indicate, ten of the greatest magicians in the world- they are seen as idols to the general magician populace, acting as a sort of propaganda machine to deflect any accusations of incompetency towards Alexis. Despite essentially being a "shield", the Ten Wizard Saints are, in Alexis' words, a division of the Magic Council that handles justice. And by justice, they mean "kill a boatload of people who piss the boss off and threaten the world". Assuming there's enough left of their victims to bury. If the rumours are to be believed, they always find those who break the law, and execute them in the messiest fashion possible to make an example of them. Obviously, this makes them incredibly unpopular among those away from the council's law, many wondering just what level of minor infraction will get somebody targeted in the first damn place.

Rune Knights
For basic armaments, the Rune Knights are shown to be given an Eternano Saber and an Eternano Rifle- these two are for close-range and long-range combat, respectively, obviously. They are also equipped with a set of combat fatigues coloured to distinguish rank, though the highest ranking members forgo this formality; or when they feel like it. Normally, a Rune Knight wears a sleeveless turtle-neck sweater and baggy pants with leather accents that hold their armour and weapons in place when not using them; however, the main group of Rune Knights in Daybreak just wears whatever they feel like.

Etherion
Satellite Square: Etherion (衛星魔法陣・エーテリオン, Eisei Mahōjin: Ēterion): The Satellite Square: Etherion is an extremely powerful magical device that takes the form of a satellite structure composed of numerous glyphs; it is stored within the Magic Council's main building. The satellite cannon can utilized to target any point of Earth Land from the sky; when charged up and fired, it launches an enormous beam of pure, concentrated magical power from the heavens, the explosion of which can cause an entire country to vanish in the blink of an eye- the power beyond it is beyond "comprehension", with a level of two point seven billion edeas. In order for the cannon to be employed from Era and placed in the atmosphere to strike its targets, a certain amount of time is needed, during which Etherion is charged up and positioned above the target.

While it shouldn't be employed frequently, due to it being likely to cause casualties while fired against its targets, catching others in its radius, normally, Kinos Sejren is on "Etherion Watch"; which puts him in the position of supervising the cannon and making sure nothing goes wrong- but even so, there have been accidental firings that cause several nations to end up looking like the sordid offspring of an orgy between Chernobyl, Three-Mile Island and the Love Canal. To see how good Kinos is at his job, three times he temporarily leaves his spot at Etherion control station. He is replaced by a firstly, a chicken, secondly, a brick hanging from a lever and thirdly, a "drinking bird" plastic toy that presses the "enter" key on the keyboard on every question asked.

The only time in the trilogy that it was intentionally deployed was in the Constellation Skirmish at the end of Daybreak S1's Four Great Lands tournament, where Alexis attempted to fire upon Four in order to destroy the Zodiac Knights' base –and a lot of innocents- though Etherion was destroyed by Tsuruko Sejren using her Zero Effect consciously for the first time, reducing the beam fired into nothingness; then, Tsuruko launched herself from the rooftop of La Pucelle, soaring into the sky and smashing right through the barrel of the satellite before tearing the Etherion apart with her bare hands from within.

FACE and Magic Jammer
FACE (フェイス, Feisu): FACE is the second "secret weapon" owned by the Magic Council. Appearing like, well, a face, when activated, FACE launches a powerful "magical EMP" that spreads across the continent, nullifying any and all magical powers; leaving magicians powerless. However, people who don't use Magic, or who use abilities that aren't Magic, aren't affected by its powers. FACE was never used in the Sun Trilogy- as Tsuruko later smashed the controls by accident as she tripped over during a visit after Alexis attempted to arrest her, triggering a chain reaction that destroyed all models of the weapon across the globe.

From the remains of FACE, the Council's R&D department later built a hand-held version called the Magic Jammer (マジック・ジャマー, Majikku Jamā); which is a small black box that releases a special electromagnetic wave to diffusely reflect a magician's magical energy, causing the magician to interfere with their own power; however, while it can weaken the mage a bit, it is not enough to eliminate their power altogether. The sheer amount of energy released by the Magic Jammer means that it is a one use deal- though they are generally mass produced and distributed among the Council's soldiers.

Highlander
Highlander (ハイランダー, Hairandā): Highlander is a powerful illegal superweapon in the Dawn era; developed by Alexis using the blueprints from the destroyed Etherion cannon, reverse-engineered using black technology and refitted to serve as Magitek. It is said to be a weapon far beyond that of Etherion; and quite possibly the most powerful superweapon to ever exist, and it takes the form of a satellite; similar in design to the original Etherion, though far more streamlined in appearance and much more mechanical; possessing an orbital ring stationed around the barrel of the cannon. To get to the point, the Highlander is an enormous gamma ray cannon which uses multiple nuclear devices to produce a massive burst of magic tinged with gamma radiation, which is reflected back by an external alignment mirror and focused by a second mirror to create a giant laser beam that is sufficiently powerful; if it were to hit Earth Land, it could wipe out an entire continent. Once fired down, the beam rapidly heats the water that makes up about seventy percent of the human body; causing the bodies of humans to inflate and explode in a bloody mess while bringing mass destruction.

Unlike other particle weaponry that draws power solely from magical particles, it draws power from solar energy gathered by the orbital ring, which in itself is a staggering amount of energy. The reason for solar energy over magical energy is because the designers took into account the amount of people that have abilities that negate magic, and chose a different form of energy to compensate for magic falling out of effectiveness- though magic is used as a catalyst for the charging. Because of the fearsome and dark appearance of the blast released from the satellite, it is commonly mistaken to be a third ancient demon. However, the satellite weapon itself is stationary, making it a very vulnerable stand-alone weapon without the protection of mages, and although the Highlander is extremely powerful, the weapon itself suffers from a long charge-up time, thus making it unable to fire in rapid succession. The Highlander itself is a prototype- being one-of-a-kind, it has no blueprints or a backup, meaning that if the satellite is destroyed, all for a "fucking movie reference" as the head designer exasperatedly stated; Alexis insisted upon the name and that "there can only be one".

The Veneration
'"Prototype Dragonoid Weapon Android Veneration Unit Zero"' (試作竜ト型人造・ベネラシーオン・零号, "Shikasu Ryūgata Jinzō Benerasīon Zerogōki''): The Veneration is a biotechnological, anti-human war machine created by an ancient civilization ages ago that was placed in stasis; the Veneration itself was reverse-engineered from the Deus Machina known as Signa when the latter was also in hibernation until the time its master woke it. It is the real main objective of the Magic Council- as to use the Highlander on the Sea of Four, digging it up.

Trivia

 * Since Dawn originally portrayed the Magic Council as evil, as in, nearly everyone there, Daybreak decided to simply exaggerate that to make a group of incompetent buffoons with two members who actually do their job.