ÆSIR Trooper

The Confederation's Super-Soldier augmentation and weapons program that was developed in 2934 as a predictive response to growing Kromus hostilities since the mid 2910s. ÆSIR are considered a successor in spirit to the ORION and Spartan Programs of the 2500s, and though of lesser brute force results, the ÆSIRs are nonetheless an incredible feat of science and human perseverance.

## History

There have been multiple super-soldier class projects over the course of a thousand years of human history. The earliest known success was Project Rebirth in the 1940s, but only one subject ever was successfully produced from those experiments. In the 2250s, an attempt was made with cybernetics and an approximation of the Erskine Formula under the codename Aperion, but the results were abandoned after the process drove the subjects insane. It wasn’t until Doctor Catherine Halsey's Spartan-II process in the early 2500s that aims of recreating the legendary Project Rebirth were not only met, but exceeded. By 2560, the Spartan augmentation process was almost in mass production with the Spartan-IV generation. However, as each new generation of Spartans was processed, the augmentations were continuously simplified and streamlined for faster turnarounds on ready troops, which resulted in less effective enhancements, and more and more of the original process being lost. By the end of the second Machine War, the remaining Spartan-IVs had been killed in action, and the Strategic Readiness Agency databases was corrupted in a cyber-warfare attack by Machine Empire agents. Following the war, the SRA was dismantled after evidence of ethical and unacceptable compromises had been uncovered, and replaced over the following ten years by the Department of Advanced Warfare.

ÆSIR was developed after analysis of encounters with the as yet unknown Kromus Pirates revealed a similarity to the probe raids of the Kilrathi Empire during the early 2630s. A conflict was predicted to be on a scale exceeding the Covenant War if given the time, due to the sheer numbers of the Kromus combined with technology and weapons that were at least on par with the Covenant of the 2500s. To address these concerns, in 2934, CAFCIC Delinda Spenceman secretly tasked an R&D project through DAW to decipher what records they had in order to gain as much information on Spartan capabilities as possible, and commissioned Advanced Mechanics and Defense Concepts to develop a new augmentation process as well as an accompanying Powered Combat Armor. With most of their information consisting of medical data and combat records from the Machine War, as well as a pair of barely-functioning late generation Mjolnir suits that had been sitting on display in museum archives, AMDC worked with DAW to coordinate the birth of what was their best attempt to create a modern day super-soldier.

### Development of the ÆSIR

It was quickly recognized that without the augmentation processes and data of the actual Spartans, most of which had been lost in the near-decimation of the Confederation during the Machine War during the 2700s, the new augmentation process would have to start from formula. Fortunately, bioengineering technologies had advanced considerably since the days when Catherine Halsey first developed the Spartan Process, and medical technology had advanced to allow for nanotech reinforcement of skeletal structure without the invasive surgeries of the past. What DAW didn’t know was that the original augmenting process required pre-pubescent subjects to allow for the biological changes to be better accepted in order to reach the levels of the Spartan-II and III generations, nor did what data they had recovered reveal that the processes they were familiar with used in the Spartan-IVs had become less effective with each new generation as more and more of the process was streamlined. Even with these reduced capabilities as the mark DAW thought was their aim, it was none-the-less a highly ambitious undertaking.

Under the expertise of bio-mechanical and cybernetic engineering expert Doctor Theodora Stark, what was developed over the next decade and a half was a process that, using bioengineering for muscular, circulatory, and nervous system enhancement, compressed titanium nano-bonding for reinforcement of bone structure, and cybernetic implants for boosting the neuro-interface with the Powered Combat Armors these soldiers would be wearing and aiding in reaction speeds, would allow for a new category of battle ready soldier. While a major step above the best un-augmented soldier, close as they were to the Spartan-IVs, the new ÆSIR process was still unable to compare on level with the fully realized Spartan-IIs due to many missing key elements, but the risk of physical and mental damages was greatly reduced in turn. The assistance from a handful of lifemaker Huragok that reside on Trevelyan also helped refine the process once the first successful augmentations tests were accomplished. The increases achieved in optimal enhancement ranged in a one hundred and fifty to two hundred and twenty-five percent increase in physical abilities, cognitive reflexes and reaction speeds, and structural durability. Those that surpassed the two hundred percent threshold were classified as “Category 2" ÆSIR, akin to those of the Spartan-IIIs who displayed exceptional response to their augments.

As the project progressed, DAW began looking into new advances in AI to supplement the operating systems of the ÆSIR armor, as well as interfacing with the augmented soldiers using the armors to increase performance and tactical combat awareness. The new AIs were classed “Macro Intelligence” as they were an in-between of the traditional “dumb" type AIs and the near human “Smart” types AIs; able to be more creative as an intelligence, but still constrained by limits of their program and hard memory. Definite personality traits also began to emerge in the new AIs, typically due to interaction with their paired ÆSIR trooper. Due to the lower cost of a Macro AI compared to a Smart AI, and the amount of bonding resulting from interactions, many of the first generation Macros were given permanent assignment to their organic partners, even following post-war discharge from service.

### Armor and Armament

Armor development on the ÆSIR PCA was completed in 2749, two years into the Kromus War. It was just in time to compliment the first augmented soldiers after the initial successful volunteer test subject showed no signs of degeneration or rejection. With the process ready, the ÆSIR mk1 armor was prepared for the first ready combat unit, and was designed to success for increasing the physical and reaction abilities of an ÆSIR soldier another two hundred percent. Each armor was outfitted with maneuvering thrusters, fliplock vibrational blade in either left or right gauntlet mount for close quarters combat, mag-lock mountings on the backpack unit for firearms carry and special mission loadouts, and an advanced sensor package including thermal, electro-magnetic and ultraviolet vision modes, as well as a personal shielding unit which tested up to five plasma rifle rounds level of rapid damage before overload. The later mk2, first assigned in action to Captain John Aran's Spartans(named for the legendary soldiers that ÆSIR was trying to emulate), increased energy based damage absorption while cutting down power drain and recharge times, as well as enhanced physical factors an extra twenty-five percent additional to the two hundred percent increase of the mk1, for a total two hundred and twenty-five percent increase of strength, mobility, and reactionary speed.

The ÆSIR armor itself was designed modular for multiple roles, and typically required only specific components to be swapped out depending on mission detail. The base armor is constructed of nanolaminate titanium armor plates over a complex network of myomer musculature structure, reactive force-multiplying circuits, and the hardware suites, with a hydrostatic gel layer sandwiched in between the external powered armor itself and the interior padding of each suit. A neuro-sensor titanium nanocomposite bodysuit is the interface layer every ÆSIR soldier wears in place of the invasive neural implants of the past. The helmet itself serves not only as protection and sensory gear, but also as a direct interface with each ÆSIR soldiers’ paired Macro-AI assistant. As standard neural implants were phased out of use save for specific military intelligence roles, the expanded memory capacities of the combat field helmet became invaluable for operating systems interface and AI occupancy.

## Equipment

### Augmentive Powered Combat Armor

The Veðrbregða Class ÆSIR Powered Combat Armors were not as intensive in their additional enhancements as the Mjolnir class of the Spartans, but are able to protect their user just as effectively, perhaps more so due to the advancements of technology that occurred over the course of over four centuries. As previously noted, the ÆSIR armor consists of layers of nanolaminate titanium plates, with tri-weave Kevlar titanium fiber mesh over myomer artificial musculature and a hydrostatic gel buffer layer between the suits and the user. The Mark 1 armor were capable of enhancing physical strength, force reactive power, and reaction physics at a ratio of two times those of an ÆSIR without the powered suits, and came fitted with a personal shielding system equal in defensive power to those used by earlier model Mjolnir, with faster refreshing times. The drawbacks in comparison is that ÆSIR Powered Combat Armors did not enhance the physical augments of the ÆSIR troopers as much as later models of Mjolnir, but with the wide variation in enhancement ratios as a result of the augmenting process, the reactive force amplifiers had to be gauged as results became more optimal. The lighter weight materials also allowed for higher range of motion and movement in the field.

The Mark 2 armor brought a further twenty-five percent increase of a trooper’s own physical abilities, as well as lower power drain and faster refresh rates of the defensive shielding system. The armor plating offered further protection as well, as following developments during the Kromus War, it was decided that it was better to use heavier grades of titanium in the nanolaminatation process, despite the small percent of additional costs in materials, though only thirty mk2 suits were produced in completion before the push into the Large Magellanic Cloud. Data capacity of a Mark 2 ÆSIR armor is comparable to the central data network of a small frigate, which allows any hosted Macro-AI a sizable boost of processing power.

### Armaments

Several new weapon types were developed for use by the ÆSIR troopers beyond just the powered armor they shared their name with. Directed-energy arms, such as the iconic X-71 Particle Pulse Rifle, and the PB-SA-53 Burst Beam Sniper Rifle, more famously referred to as the “Light Sniper", were the weapons made famous by media reports, but several more traditional kinetic weapons were also devised for use by the ÆSIRs.

**Æ-MR-1 ÆSIR Magnum** - The Æ-MR-1, better known as the ÆSIR Hand Cannon for its size and high-caliber damage power, was seemingly just another iteration of the historically well known M6 handgun, but in actuality a breakthrough in kinetic based infantry weapons. After several years of experimentation with the concept of magnetic rail fire sidearms and assault rifles, AMDC developed a magnetically charged firing system that utilizes simple bullet slugs, removing the chemical firing catalysts, and launches them at supersonic speeds, resulting in a 9x19mm slug hitting with the force of a .50 caliber bullet at a fraction of the ammunition cost and size. At close quarters of ten to twenty yards, a single shot has been observed able to blow a hole no less than 3 inches wide in the head of a Kromus clean through the chitin plating, with further distances doing less brute damage, but still lethal. A standard magnetic clip holds enough 9x19mm metal slugs for twenty-five rounds, with a magnum caliber 12.7x45mm clip carrying a 15 round load. This also allows for multiple clips of varying munition types to be stored in special compartments of an ÆSIR trooper’s armor, and a low cost effective ammunition method. The MR-1 has an effective range of 100 yards, and is able to fire at six rounds a second. Additional ammunition types, such as armor piercing, explosive, and other specialized rounds, had to be specially developed for the Æ-MR-1, making it somewhat more limited in utility outside of ÆSIR use. As the MR-1 is proprietary technology of AMDC and DAW contract, along with all instances of ÆSIR developed technologies, it provided control over development of further models and variations.

**Æ-X-71 ÆSIR Particle Pulse Rifle** – More simply known as the Pulse Rifle or the ÆSIR Rifle, the X-71 was developed for quick burn energy firearms that could be used for primary assault operations on the field. As the name states, the X-71 fires pulses of accelerated particle beams, usually in single shot or semi-automatic bursts of three to four pulses a round, with a damage output of three megawatts, or nearly 1600 celsius per pulse. The X-71 features a recharging primary power cell that can interface with the ÆSIR armor’s own micro-fusion generator for extended combat operations, secondary “mag-feed" junction for power clips that allow for four hundred pulse rounds per “magazine", and a anti-armor micro-grenade launcher as a secondary fire in the underside of the rifle able to load up to six micro-grenades with explosive power equal to 500 grams of tnt. Effective range is 400 yards, with a maximum range of 600 yards, with a holo-sight capable of 3.5x visual enhancement and infrared thermal imaging via the built-in scope or via data junction for direct visual display with the ÆSIR VISR HUD. The Pulse Rifle was also designed for unarmored user operations, hence the built-in visual scope and power clip load features, and can be given variable mission type operation sets based on loadout kits. The primary particle beam can also be modulated for electronic disruption operations, but this has the drawback of requiring a specialized modulation unit to be installed, and must be reverted back in order to resume normal combat capabilities.

**Æ-PB-SA-53 Burst Beam Sniper Rifle** – Commonly known in the ÆSIR Special Forces Unit as the “Light Sniper", the Æ-PB-SA-53 is a dedicated long range sniping rifle using highly charged particle beams in the ten to fifteen megawatt range to do incredible levels of damage at great distances, able to scope and shoot impact at 5000 yards, or just under 3 miles distance. The Burst Beam’s damage output is adjustable and can range from equal to double that of its Sangheili counterpart, the Type-50 SRS Particle Beam Rifle, but also consumes twice the power per shot at the higher power intensities. As such, the intense power in a Burst Beam particle round requires direct interface with the ÆSIR armor generators, or else they can only fire ten rounds before requiring a power clip exchange at normal output, four rounds before exchange for the higher anti-vehicle output. Like the other weapons developed for ÆSIR special forces, the PB-SA-53 can be outfitted for special mission profiles, be it extreme distance targeting(7500 yards maximum range, but only two shots per power clip), visual recon operations, and even urban suppression.

## List of Known Confederation ÆSIRs

Jonathan Rodney Aran(deceased, K2L)

Virginia Stark-Aran(Deceased, K2L)

Alasdair MacUspaig(Active Duty)

Armstrong Houston(KIA, 2nd Battle of Zebes)