PS-001 "Freehander" Militarized Exoskeleton

The PS-001 Freehander colloquially known as “The Walking Technical”, or “The Handyman”  is an exoskeletal suit of heavy armor derived from the SinoViet hazardous environment suit of the same name. The SinoViet suit was intended for work in areas too dangerous for normal human activity, and is already more heavily armored compared to other work exoskeletons of similar sizes and designs. This ruggedness had the unintentional side effect of making the Freehander remarkably survivable in combat situations, even with minimal uparmoring, as discovered by several Insurrectionist groups on several frontier worlds. Many Insurrectionist militants found it exceptionally easy to militarize, with the Freehander being capable of carrying support or anti-armor weapons. By the end of these uprisings, the concept of militarizing work exoskeletons had spread throughout the human sphere, with both UNSC aligned militia groups and various other Insurrectionist groups catching onto the concept. While many other heavy industry exosuits have also been militarized for use on either side of the ongoing Insurrectionist crisis, none are used as prolifically as the PS-001 Freehander. 
== Early History ==
Prior to its extended military career, the PS-001 Freehander was designed for use in extremely hazardous environments, such as asteroid mining operations, deep core excavation, vacuum construction, and so on. A highly robust integrated life support system and honeycomb layer of ceramic plating and a Titanium-A shell enables the Freehander to endure conditions that would quickly disable most similar work suits. The Freehander had also made a name for itself during post-glassing terraforming efforts, able to survive in the heavily irradiated regions on these ravaged planets. PS-001s had also proven to be quite cost effective, being cheaper to produce than other similar hazardous environment suits while requiring no additional training or preparation for safe operation. When combined with ports for a wide variety of both powered and unpowered tools, it quickly becomes clear why the Freehander quickly took the industrial market by storm. 
The Freehander would spread throughout the stars, becoming a near ubiquitous sight on dozens upon dozens of worlds and stations. Almost everyone working in an industrial field had extensive knowledge of the Freehander’s innards and its usage. Throughout the years of the Freehanders service, the worksuit had become increasingly customized to better suit the situations and the workers present and is commonly believed that not a single uncustomized Freehander existed as of 2558.
== Military History ==
==== Durham's Rest ====
The first recorded instance of Freehanders being used in a military capacity was during the Durham’s Rest Uprising in 2558, where a nascent Neo-Friedenist secessionist movement had used Freehanders with additional carbide armor plating and 84mm recoilless rifles smuggled in from contacts in the United Rebel Front. This suddenly heavily armed group had taken control of the station’s environmental controls, and threatened to shut down access to parts of the station if their authority wasn’t respected. Durham’s Rest had an exceptionally limited security force, trained and equipped to deal with rowdy drunks and not a serious military opponent, and they quickly capitulated in the face of the Neo-Friedenists. The situation persisted for nearly a month before the UNSC had gotten word of the situation on the remote space habitat, and had dispatched a Marine task force to resolve it. 
The Marines were only aware that the Insurrectionists had repurposed industrial equipment for military use, and had gone in relatively blind. They had made their insertion into the environmental control module and engaged the Freehander equipped Neo-Friedenists in close quarters. The Freehanders had proven remarkably durable against small arms fire, and the Marines had suffered several casualties before squad support weapons could be called in to remove the worksuits. The close-in environment worked to the Marines’ advantage, as the Neo-Friedenists were unwilling to use their recoilless rifles, lest they be caught in their own explosions. 
With the situation relatively stabilized after regaining control of Durham’s Rest’s environmental controls, the Marine task force had a much more relaxed timetable to defeat the Neo-Friedenists. However, the open-air streets and markets of the station had enabled the Neo-Friedenists Freehanders to operate with more freedom as well. The 84mm recoilless rifles had proven exceptionally dangerous in direct fire and counter-defilade roles, and the sight of a pair of Freehanders usually forced Marine squads to reconsider their options. Typically, only fire from SRS99-AM sniper rifles or M247H machine guns were able to penetrate the heavy armor plating of the Freehanders. 
While the Freehander proved a formidable threat to the forces of the UNSC, the Neo-Friedenists lacked the manpower to wage a serious guerrilla war against the Marines, and by the middle of 2559, the Insurrectionists on Durham’s Rest were defeated in detail. 
=== Fortis ===
The first recorded instance of Freehanders being employed against Covenant forces was against the Sangheili extremist militia known as the First Sons of Glory during their raid against the burgeoning colony world of Fortis. Aware that Fortis was nominally a lightly defended world, with a garrison primarily consisting of colonial militia and defense contractors, the leader of the security force had ordered the colony’s stock of M655 Heavy Machine Guns to be integrated into the Freehanders. The resultant kitbash had made for a plodding and somewhat clumsy combatant with the Freehander clearly ill equipped to support the weight of both an autocannon and its load of ammunition; but agility wasn’t a necessity in the coming battle. The Freehanders had become an incredibly formidable anti-infantry weapons platform as they kept pace with infantry squads, shredding the lightly equipped First Sons in storms of autocannon fire, oftentimes demoralizing even the otherwise well disciplined and motivated officers of the First Sons into sloppy retreats.
While the Freehanders had proven to be flatfooted especially against the exceptionally agile Sangheili lead forces and their Kig’Yar subordinates, the autocannon of the Fortis Freehander would be more than enough to deal with both the First Sons’ infantry and light armor units. Fortis’ Freehanders had proven somewhat more vulnerable during the battle, as the plasma munitions utilized against them had greater penetrative power compared to human weapons, somewhat evening out the playing field on the colony. However, prudent usage of the Freehanders would somewhat mitigate the weaknesses. The militia trooper squads would screen Freehanders, flushing out enemy troops so that the Freehander could destroy them. These colonial Freehanders would also be used to stand guard around critical sites in the colony, preventing the First Sons from acquiring the civilian and military supplies that they assaulted Fortis for. Unable to accomplish their objectives and having sustained a substantial number of casualties, the First Sons retreated from Fortis. 
=== URF Developments ===
Perhaps the most ambitious attempt at militarizing the Freehander worksuit was undertaken by the United Rebel Front, using its robust and substantial logistical base to fund and facilitate further research on developing the Freehander for sustained combat use, with the intent of disseminating it to bolster the forces of other Insurrectionist cells in the URF’s good graces. The URF had replaced the Freehander’s power core with fusion coils, substantially boosting its power to weight ratio and allowed the URF to replace the worksuit’s manipulators with a more robust version capable of carrying heavier loads. The Titanium-A shell was reinforced by additional plates sandwiching ablative material. Smoke grenade launchers and additional sensor packages have also been added, improving the adaptability of the Freehander. defensive upgrade would substantially improve the survivability of the Freehander in heavy combat scenarios. URF engineers would also use the immense energy output of the newly installed fusion coils to power a seven megawatt directed energy weapon, an effective all-rounder weapon with a relatively high rate of fire capable of penetrating light vehicle armor with little issue. Prior to the development of their Freehander variant, URF deployment of these laser weapons would be stymied by the large power draw of the 7 megawatt. 
The URF variant, nicknamed ‘Raptor’ would be as close to a standardized design pattern that armed Freehanders would ever come. Plans for deployment throughout the remains of the UNSC’s colonies were put in motion, drastically improving the combat efficacy of the Insurrectionist cells equipped with them. With few vehicles to their name and even fewer qualified crew for them, the ease with which the Raptor Freehander was to use and maintain was an immense boon to various cells. The UNSC would scramble to react to the appearance of the Raptor Freehander, deploying additional anti-armor weapons to infantry squads when facing Insurrectionists.
=== Hannibal Weapons Systems Developments ===
While the Freehander is notable for being popular among fringe militias and Insurrectionists, more legitimate entities have also taken to using them. Among these includes the arms manufacturer Hannibal Weapons Systems, who’ve acquired a number of militarized Freehanders for analysis and improvement. While the engineers within Hannibal had developed a respect for the ingenuity of their frontier counterparts, they found themselves needing to redesign the Freehander from the ground up to be compatible with standard weapons hardpoints and power connections. The Hannibal Freehander was meant to be a more cost effective version of the Mantis, able to assist infantry with fire support at a fraction of the cost for a single Mantii. To this end, the Hannibal Freehander was intended to focus on weapons load rather than pilot protection, with most of the suit’s power source being funnelled to the hardpoints rather than a shield generator or active defense systems. However, the Hannibal Freehander is also uparmored around critical locations, with additional plates of Titanium-A attached to forearm manipulators and knee actuators. An extensive sensor suite provides the pilot with a crystal clear image of the battlefield before them in addition to allowing them to hook into the local battlenet. The primary weapon of the Hannibal Freehander is an integrated ARC-920 railgun directly linked to the suit’s reactor, greatly reducing the weapon’s charge rate. While the Hannibal variant has performed favorably during combat tests, it has yet to prove itself in a live fire scenario and many Hannibal aligned combatants are just receiving their Freehanders as of 2556.
=== SinoViet Developments ===
SinoViet Heavy Machinery was not ignorant of their products aftermarket usages, and after the Human-Covenant War, the corporation had revisited their worksuit with the goal of producing an updated standardized version for both military and civilian purposes. The initial Freehander was meant for work in extreme environments, and SinoViet had intended to improve its capabilities to survive in such areas, leading to Freehander Mk.2 being the only variant equipped with a medium strength energy shield generator, able to absorb and diffuse most incoming impacts whether they be gamma ray bursts or kinetic weapons fire. However, the energy shield generator and its associated heat dispersion and auxiliary power batteries had left the Freehander Mk.2 relatively bulky and unwieldy for most pilots. With the upper managers insisting on the inclusion of the Freehander Mk.2’s shield generator, it seemed that the project was doomed to fail. However, an enterprising engineer had devised a shunt system that funnelled the shield generator’s waste heat to power a thruster system, removing the need for half of the Mk.2’s heat sinks. While this system wouldn’t provide nearly enough lift to allow the Mk.2 to fly, it had made the Mk.2 remarkably nimble in zero-gee environments, where its bulk was less of a concern. 
The Freehander Mk.2 had become the favored worksuit of extravehicular mechanics throughout the human sphere, with occupants being extremely well protected from the dangers of deep space. SinoViet was substantially less enthusiastic to release the Mk.2 to the military market, however, and it is still currently in field testing with the UNSC and in-house mercenary units.