Background: The ACAA

Introduction

The Armoured Combat Arena Association (ACAA) is the organisation created with the purpose of managing and regulating the sport of Armoured Combat worldwide.

At its inception, the ACAA managed a handful of APs and a single official tournament. It didn’t stay that way for long; The Arena battles soon proved to be a massive hit, forcing the ACAA to expand aggressively to keep up with the demand for more matches and a larger roster of combatants.

The organisation currently numbers 4,000 staff, with more potential for growth in the near future.

Organisational Structure

The ACAA is divided into four main sectors: Games Regulation, Armoured Persona Administration, Arena Management and Public Relations.

• The Games Regulation Council is responsible for crafting the rules and regulations surrounding Armoured Combat battles and tournament processes, and is generally considered to be the core of the ACAA. As their decisions have the potential to affect the sport drastically, all proposed changes are fiercely debated internally before any official announcements are made.
• The Armoured Persona Administrative Office primarily maintains a database of all registered Armoured Personas and ACA teams in the world, which includes information such as their professional history and conduct. The Administrative Office also acts as a disciplinary council when Armoured Personas are found to have transgressed rules imposed by the ACAA, be it match offenses or other undesirable actions concerning the sport outside of the Arena battles.
• The Arena Management Committee is in charge of the design, construction and upkeep of all Armoured Combat Arenas in the world. Because each Arena is a massive superstructure that houses many amenities within its compound, the ACAA routinely spends vast resources to ensure that the Arenas remain in an adequate state throughout the year.
• Due to the extraordinary logistical and technological requirements involved in the sport, the ACAA finds itself rubbing shoulders with many other industries on a daily basis. The Public Relations Department is therefore an essential part of its daily functions, as it acts as a conduit between the ACAA and everyone else. These people are also responsible for outreach programmes that serve to bring the sport to would-be audiences and fans.

The Arenas

Some say that the Armoured Combat Arenas are little more than modern-day equivalents of the gladiatorial fights in the Roman Colosseum. Others proclaim that the sheer magnitude of the structures more closely resemble arcologies instead.

No matter what your view is, one thing is certain: The Arenas are big. Very big.

Harnessing all manner of power generation techniques, be it from wind, solar, water or nuclear fusion, each Arena comes furnished with enough amenities to offer every single creature comfort possible, for anyone rich (or willing) enough to do so.

The very first Arenas were about the size of three soccer fields and built with only the essentials in mind: stands for the spectators, several food and beverage stalls, restrooms and a tiny garage to hold the Armoured Personas and their tanks before each battle.

With the increasing demand for even larger battlegrounds for the Armoured Personas, it was soon clear that bigger and better Arenas had to be built. As the ACAA expanded, the amount of resources invested into Arena construction grew exponentially.

There are 21 Arenas in total at the time of writing, with twenty of them hosted by countries across the continents of Europe, Africa, the Americas and Asia.

Icarus, The Twenty-First Arena

The last and latest and most impressive Arena of them all was borne out of necessity and human ingenuity. When the ACAA first began looking for a suitable site to place the twenty-first Arena, it approached the leading countries to negotiate enough land to do so. As popular as Armoured Combat was proving to be however, none were interested in parcelling out large swaths of land for its proposed intent.

Rather than staying content with the twenty Arenas it already had, the ACAA decided to embark on an impossible project. By bringing the world's most advanced scientific minds and a seemingly endless supply of capital to bear, the Association began the secret task of building a self-levitating Arena, the size of which would dwarf all others.

The existence of the most advanced Arena to date would be kept a secret for the next decade. By the time it was ready to be revealed, the phrase ‘Project Icarus’ was already an openly-discussed topic amongst the community at large.

On the day of its maiden flight, the world watched as its massive thrusters lifted the Icarus into the air, ready to host its first tournament.

Recent Controversies

Like the Armoured Personas themselves, the ACAA has no shortage of critics and conspiracy theorists. Apart from the standard accusations of match fixing, corruption and bribery commonly found in other sports, it has also invited other more outrageous allegations, such as the creation of a private army (comprised of brainwashed Armoured Personas), plans for acts of terrorism or secret collaborations with private military contractors to test experimental hardware.

While the ACAA takes these matters seriously, no illegal activities have ever been uncovered by its own staff, nor by any external security agency.