Project KSHATRIYA

Project KSHATRIYA, also shortened to KSHATRIYA was a experimental bioaugmentation and powered armor program operating under its division. Officially greenlit in the year 2554, the program saw xeno-materials and xenotechnology extracted from multiple sources such as , , and many more, including battle armors that were believed to belong to Ancient Humanity's special warrior caste.
Candidates were secretly recruited by ONI agents, and many were former ORION operatives or just normal soldiers, who had given up on their fighting lives after the end of the . They were given additional minor augmentations and were given specialized battle armors, codenamed "RAPTOR". The RAPTORs were reverse-engineered from the extracted xenotechnology and included systems such as a seamless interface between the armor and the user's neural interface: a bond further strengthened by a human "dumb" AI residing within the suit. The armor was also designed to augment the user's abilities to more than the basic ODST's capabilities, although an inexperienced user may be lower in regard.
Simulated trials and initial combat deployments showed success for the Project: the KSHATRIYAs had enhanced physical and biological functions such as speed, strength, vision, metabolism, etc. The KSHATRIYAs also felt discomfort while outside their RAPTORs and longed to be strapped back in. While originally this was put aside as a basic human feeling, similar to a SPARTAN's feeling while outside their MJOLNIR armor, more research was devoted towards this and the suit's activities as a whole after an incident when a RAPTOR behaved erratically in response to alien technology.
The research revealed that the suits were partially-symbiotic in nature, with the suits giving their "hosts" heightened abilities while the hosts themselves felt naturally elevated. This information was kept a secret within the top staff along with other records, when an unknown hacker released it to all the members of the Program, including the KSHATRIYAs. This event caused a crisis with it, eventually ending in its shutdown and the KSHATRIYAs now gaining freedom as they continued to live away from the UNSC.
==History==
===Origins===
With the agreed upon by both the and and the being completely shattered, the Great War officially came to an end. With the end of the war, humanity faced a lot of challenges and opportunities rise up as per their alliance, and their military and technology grew substantially. The wealth of knowledge about the Forerunners and their actions that the UNSC gained boosted 's importance, and soon enough various specialists and technicians, mostly employed by ONI hopped onto the field. They revisited such precursor artifacts and shrines in order to procure technology that could be reverse-engineered to make them more formidable than their allies, as ONI didn't trust that the alliance could stay strong for long.
Around the same time, the was initialized and although it suffered initial setbacks: most notably the raid on the UNSC Infinity, it turned out to be a huge success and proved humanity's evolution in the Post-War era. However, considerable criticism was drawn to how the SPARTAN-IVs relied on their powerful armor too much to be on par with the previous iterations. There were arguments on how a SPARTAN and an AI pairing could make the SPARTAN-IVs more effective, but the program heads and simply chose to ignore these debates and go ahead with their own plans given the project's relevancy around the time.
With the increasing importance of the in the post-war era, the potential for reverse-engineered technology used in armor systems was realized. ONI's used ancient tech supplied to them by XEG in making a GEN2 variant, resulting in the creation of the . This piqued the interest of then-CINCONI , who found that the concept of supersoldiers bonded with experimental armor systems derived from ancient tech could be helpful for the UNSC as well as humanity as a whole. She then commissioned the development of a new program based on this concept, working under ONI Section Three while being attached to XEG: the two halves would work co-operatively boosting each other's growth.
===Recruitment and Testing===
The new program came to be codenamed as "Project KSHATRIYA" and it was greenlit by Section Three's officials around January 2554. Work immediately started as members of the were sent to various locations known to have desolate ruins of extinct space-faring empires. Of all the known locations, some of the major search zones were the planet Deston and the artificial world it held a portal to, known as "The Repository". The mission was dubbed Operation: WHISTLEBLOWER, considered as a successor to Operation: GUARDIAN LANCE.
Meanwhile, the list of possible candidates was being prepared by Section Three. Senior Incharge Dr. Yuri Akira debated that effectiveness could be amplified if they used augmented trainees, proposing a rudimentary augmentation event within the program.
===Combat Deployments===
===Revelations===
===Shutdown and legacy===
==Personnel==
==Equipment==
==Creator's Notes and References==
Category:Office of Naval Intelligence