Building a Butcher: Power Infantry of the Transhuman War

While the PDT embraced magically-enabled transhumanism during the war, ODI was obviously uninterested in such methods. Instead, they turned to their larger industrial base to produce powered infantry exoskeletons, which played a pivotal role throughout the war. Troops equipped with such devices are today referred to as “power infantry” or “powered infantry,” though during the war they were called a variety of slang terms by both sides. Power infantry can carry heavier firearms, more ammo, and are more able to manipulate the environment thanks to their improved strength. In practice, power infantry are generally just mechanized infantry (or at the very least, motorized), since exoskeletons are dependent on battery packs and electrical supplies to continue functioning. Battery problems were never really solved, but unaugmented cishuman troops faired very poorly against transhuman infantry with combat forms, so a dependence on batteries was considered acceptable.

The variety of forms powered exoskeletons take has resulted in an equal variety of different terms, though these didn’t really coalesce into specific definitions until a year or so after the war began:

• Exo-rig, “rig”: An unarmored and unarmed powered exoskeleton that provides endurance, strength, and carrying capacity. Rigs provide support for the legs, hips, and back at a minimum, though most also support the arms. They rely on force feedback, and generally function slower than the user’s unaided reaction time. While they substantially improve physical strength (even early-war exo-rigs could lift several hundred kilos), they do not improve speed. Certain specialized rigs can improve mobility via augmented jumping, particularly the Optel pneumatic exoskeletons favored by India in the first years of the war. Most exo-rigs do not have motorized hands, just simple angled hooks that can be used to push or pull heavy objects.
• Exo-armor, “jacket”: An armored version of an exo-rig, with the same advantages and drawbacks. These typically used lightweight ceramic plates covered in aramids and rubber to provide an additional layer of protection. Pre-war, these were only used by elite units for close combat, but by the end of the war they were standard issue for almost all ODI infantry. Exo-armor was not fully enclosed/sealed, but generally had enough protection to neutralize imprecise dragonfire.
• Exosuit, “suit”: An armed and armored powered exoskeleton. Notionally, “exosuit” refers to middleweight and lightweight designs, while “power armor” refers to heavies or superheavies, but few people make this distinction. Exosuits didn’t exist at the start of the war, but were rapidly developed following the catastrophic casualties suffered by elite units during the invasions of the “speedbump republics” in 1760. Initial versions used forearm-mounted autocannons, electrospike guns, or HEAT grenade launchers. Later versions recognized the difficulty of aiming arm-mounted guns, and used shoulder-mounted and HUD-aimed weapons instead. While attempts were made to produce a fully-enclosed and sealed exosuit to protect against dragonfire, this didn’t result in a viable product before the PDT began issuing Bladewyrm forms, which made the need for full enclosure obsolete. Despite their fearsome appearance, exosuits suffer the same speed/reaction time drawbacks as other force-feedback exoskeletons, and the larger designs suffer many of the same drawbacks that combat dragon forms do at long range.
• Neurosuit: Late-war (and post-war) exosuit designs that use neural interfaces to eliminate the reaction time issue. ODI designs did not use the wireless direct-brain interface used in modern neural interface designs, but instead linked directly to the motor neurons in the spine using a physical connection. These were a measure of desperation on ODI’s part, and while they were effective, they were deployed too late and in too few numbers to change the war’s outcome. Neurosuit pilots were often mythologized as superhuman dragon-slaying knights by ODI propaganda. In reality, they were more effective than any prior exosuit design, but were inefficient against the late-model Bladewyrms they were intended to defeat.

PDT troops often referred to troops with armored exoskeletons (ie, exo-armor or better) as “canners” or “sardines”. ODI troops referred to armored exoskeletons as “suits”, heavyweight exoskeletons as “knights”, and troops without armored exoskeletons as “dragon food”.

Manufacturers

PDT reporting names provided in quotation marks.

Optel

An Indian defense conglomerate that primarily focused on high-tech, non-aerospace products, Optel invented and popularized the modern combat exoskeleton.

Exo-3 “CALVIN”

The first widely-issued powered exoskeleton (and the only one to be in use by standard infantry before the war), this is a pneumatic, leg/back-only exo-rig designed for helping troops carry heavier combat loads. It also makes climbing easy, and allows the user to jump from a decent height without risking injury. Because it used pneumatic drivers, it hissed and popped as the user moved, but had a very good battery life— 12 hours of combat operations. Widely issued to buffer state militaries (Cambodia, Burma, Korea), often without sufficient logistical backing for replacement batteries or rechargers. Later versions improved battery lifetime (Block II, 1761), carrying capacity (Block III, 1762), and jump strength (Block IV, 1764), allowing short bursts of high-intensity “bounding” movement.

Exo-4 “CARLOS”

The primary lightweight exo-armor issued to most Indian infantry until 1765. Similarly to the Exo-3, it used pneumatic drivers, adding armor, bracing for crush resistance, and expanding coverage to the arms. They were often jury-rigged by anyone with a welding torch to mount heavier weapons, with dubious effectiveness. Block II and III (1761) added forearm-mounted weapons of various types. Block IV (1763) settled on shoulder-mounted weapons, but these suffered from stability issues. The Exo-4 set the ODI standard for exoskeleton battery lifetime, which persisted through the entire war: 4 hours of combat maneuvers on a single charge.

Exo-5 “CHARLIE”

A medium-weight exosuit issued to elite infantry units from 1761 to 1764, the Exo-5 is effectively an armed variant of the Block I Exo-4 with improved recoil bracing and strength augmentation, in exchange for a significantly reduced battery lifetime of 2.5 hours. Block II (1763) and III (1764) versions improved weapons control and the force-feedback control system.

Exo-6 “CAROL”

The most common medium-weight exosuit used by standard Indian infantry through the latter half of the war. Unlike the Exo-3 through -5, it used hydraulics, which eliminated the pneumatic noise and jitter issues, but added a serious fire risk. A typical loadout included twin HEAT grenade launchers on the shoulders, but other variations became popular later in the war, as the low-velocity grenades were ineffective against combat forms with augmented reaction speeds. The most dangerous was the Block III (1767), which was equipped with electrospike launchers (effectively, armor-penetrating high-velocity lethal tasers), but at that point in the war India was incapable of manufacturing them in any useful quantity.

Exo-7 “CONSTANCE”

Heavyweight exosuits issued to combat engineers and specialized breaching units starting in 1765, based on the same platform as the Exo-6 but with additional motive power and heavier weaponry. Designed to go toe-to-toe with Shatterscales, it fared very poorly against the far faster and smaller Bladewyrms, and was relegated to being used as a portable artillery or logistics platform. The Block II (1766) variant accepted this fate, making it a dedicated artillery/demolition platform.

Note: There is no Exo-8; they skipped a number. Hasn’t stopped the rumors, though.

Exo-9 “COREY”

A medium-weight neurosuit deployed in the last months of the war that relied on synthetic muscle fibers instead of hydraulics, pneumatics, or servos. While it was heavily armed and entirely solved the reaction time issue, it didn’t augment human reaction time like late-war combat forms could. Despite being one of the best-performing exoskeletons of the war, the Exo-9 came far too late to be useful. However, it really got the neural interface right, and the technology used in its construction would be put to widespread use following the war.

RLS

A joint manufacturing/engineering company formed by Russia and China. RLS is the translated acronym (Robotic Leg Systems); the actual name differs by language. RLS tended to make smaller, iterative improvements to their products (rather than the Block I/II/III/IV that Optel preferred), and designed them to be modified by their end users for mission-specific needs.

X-1 “DAVID”

A lightweight servo-driven exo-rig, issued to two heavy-weapons soldiers per platoon in the first months of the war. It was updated to include light armor for fire protection within a few months, and later issued to practically every infantry soldier within a year. By 1762, X-1s were considered out of date for frontline use, and extras were delivered to Korea, Cambodia, or Burma.

X-17 “DANIEL”

A medium-weight servo-driven exosuit derived from the X-1 and deployed in 1762, incorporating more encompassing armor plating and recoil bracing for wrist-mounted weaponry. They were not issued with weaponry, and were instead designed to accept anything that could be mounted to standard vehicle pintle mounts. In practice, these hardpoints ended up being left empty most of the time, as heavy weapon production didn’t keep up with demand until 1764. X-17s were the most common exoskeletons in the war, with over 25 million produced.

X-31 “DAWSON”

An advanced heavyweight exosuit deployed in 1764 that used a combination of hydraulics and synthetic muscle fibers, X-31s provided near-total armor coverage (though not sealing), making them difficult to disable with fire or claws. Unfortunately, it entered field usage only shortly before Bladewyrms did, which rendered most of its fire resistance moot— the dragons’ EFPs could punch through the suit’s armor with ease.

X-99 “DIANA”

The first neuro-suit deployed during the war, the X-99 was a super-heavy exoskeleton designed to be closer to a walking tank than an infantry exoskeleton. It suffered from poor weapons control interfaces, making its heavy armament difficult to actually aim under pressure, and a very high production cost. Additionally, the impact insulation was insufficient for the fragility of the interface, and sufficiently hard hits could result in severe damage to the spinal column. The interface issues were rectified only months before Russia’s surrender.

X-100 “DEDRA”

A neuro-suit developed in China after Russia’s collapse and surrender, the X-100 was high-speed and lightweight, designed to take advantage of the same traits that made the Bladewyrm so effective. In the hands of skilled users, it was capable of going toe-to-toe with a Bladewyrm in melee combat, but China’s political collapse following the assassination of President Quan resulted in very few X-100s seeing combat against transhumans. Unlike other neuro-suits, it never had any integrated weapons, and was intended to use an unique specialized assault rifle.