MVSF Power Armor

Created through joint Celestial-Nexus research, the MVSF's ***Tarian-Gladio* power armor** builds upon the multiverse's long history of powered exosuits to create a surprisingly simple, yet effective, suit for it's agents.

## Overview

Despite it's colorful, plated appearance on the outside, *Tarian-Gladio* armor is, in fact, the primarily black bodysuit beneath the outside plates. Airtight, bulletproof, and incredibly flexible, this bodysuit hides a high tech gel layer within, hardening in response to impacts, with staying loose and fluid for movement. It can protect a body from a large fall, and, thanks to a neural connection link, increase it's user's speed, agility, and strength several magnitudes beyond normal.

This gel suit and the rest of the armor's systems, are powered by a Solarium power core, designed by Celestial blacksmiths as a method for storing pure celestial solar energy. Though the destruction of forge station destroyed many of these power core foundries, the MVSF is working to continue production on these cores, and working with it's ally universes to create alternatives. A single Solarium Core can last hundreds of years, though failsafes put in place to mitigate explosive detonations in the case of extreme failures cause the cores to rapidly drain energy when the armor is critically damaged.

On top of this "powersuit", as it is sometimes nicknamed, the agents wears armor plates. Made from a variety of composite materials, these armored components provide increased protection for the user's chest, legs, and arms, as well as connect suit weaponry and technology to the helmet suit. The Helmet is fully wired into the power core of the suit, and houses software package of the suit. While the armor works perfectly fine without the helmet, having the HUD and interface can allow for customization and personilization or the armor's workings, where it would normally provide default ability enhancements and support.

The suit also links individual weaponry, such as wristblades, grappling hooks, thrusters, and energy sheilds, to the main power core and reactive software. Much of this equipment works by "training" the user's mental link with armor, so that it can move by predicting the user's movements. New recruits with the armor often struggle to find a feel for their suit, so slight tweaking is often made.

## Armor Series

Though technically all variations of the same suit design, various upgrades have been implemented over the years.

### Mark I

Mark I armor had a drastically de-powered Solarium Cell, as early testing worried UN supervisors of meltdowns in combat situation. In fact, Mark I armor only outputs enough power to lift the gel layer, and does not grant and increased strength or agility. It does, however, protect against gunfire, and help increase survivability from falls and other impacts.

As of 2028, Mark I has been almost completely phased out, with the suit's solarium cores being recycled for other use. However, some Mark I suits have found their ways onto the black market, and can be seen in use by criminal syndicates. On a more positive note, the tech used in Mark I suits has found it's way into the public sector, with heavy lifting jobs, high risk work, and physical therapy all advanced as a result.

### Mark II

After refining the power core situation, Mark II armor was deployed, and became the MVSF's default armor for about a decade or so. Here, the increased strength boost was used to help lift slimmer plates, as speed and agility became the primary goal. Many different variations were developed, and many modern armor abilities, such as color-shift and grappling hooks, began service. To many, Mark II *was* the MVSF's armor.

### Mark III

After the MVSF and United Alliance came into contact, the two began to trade resources and designs. Though the trade was exceedingly slow at first, both groups worked to refine each others power armor design, as the Alliance had been fielding their "Exonaut" armor in combat for years. In the long term, this flow of ideas would improve future armors to a more overt degree, but for Mark III, simple changes were made in the short term. Redundant features were built into the outer plates, the core was better protected, and additionally tactical gear was affixed to the Mark III. For the most part, however, the suit was still the Mark II.

### Mark IV

Starting in 2025, development began on a new iteration of power armor. Designed to be more adaptable than the Mark II in terms of armor abilities and powers. The redesigned power suit is distinct from those before by the brightly colored bodysuit sections, and more gritty texture of the suit itself. Cheaper to produce thanks to innovations in asteroid mining, and with a software package designed by the United Alliance, the Mark IV was also the first suit to integrate energy shields into it's core, rather than relying on external, handheld devices. Here, agents with the correct hardware could summon hard light shields and domes to protect against gunfire.

Mark IV also featured an AI port for Sparks and AI's to interface with the system, and a Bio-Gel suite. While used heavily in medical technology since it's invention in 2019, the new suite could provide bio gel to injured areas of an agent's body, helping seal wounds, regenerate cells, and sterilize infections. This saved the lives of many agents injured in the line of duty, and led to the Mark IV's early nickname of "Doc Armor."

A full success, Mark IV was quickly adopted as the MVSF's main armor. By the time of OPERATION: SENTINEL STORM in 2027, only a handful of agents remained in Mark II and III.

However, behind the scenes, a variety of different projects were underway, as many designers wished the MVSF had switched over to the Exonaut armor of the UA, (despite the almost excessive amount of weaponry and features present in Exonaut suits). On the other hand, several individuals within the MVSF desired *less* powerful armor, as fears increased militarization became more and more substantiated. In the end, another armor program was launched, this time as an upgrade to Mark IV suits already in service.

### Mark V

By 2030, Mark V armor had entered service, supplementing existing Mark IV stock. Individual helmets, armor hardware, and tweaked powersuits can be found scattered throughout the MVSF, with certain agents operating full Mark V suits. Upgraded features from Mark IV include stronger energy shields, more powerful thrusters, and new, Nexus made Arc Energy based cores, as opposed to the Solar Cores of years past. Older suits upgraded with Mark V are capable of shorter flights and suborbital landings, while complete suits are capable of flight to the upper atmosphere. Mark V is also compatible with cutting edge "Neosuit" equipment.

These Arc cores can be used in any MVSF armor, and are functionally identical to the Solarium cores, though currently they do not last nearly as long as their predecessors. Given that many Solarium cores have yet to even expend a fraction of their full energy, this does not seem to be a concern.

### Other Variants

Outside of the mainline suits, there are several suits of armor fielded by the MVSF that do not fit into the aforementioned categories.

#### *Heavy Enforcer Suits*

Developed alongside the Mark II, Heavy Suits boost an agent's strength much higher than in a standard suit, can carry larger weapons into battle, and can even fly when attached to a booster rocket. This armor was too expensive to produce on a large scale, however, and was mostly phased out as of 2027.

#### *Exonaut Armor*

A military powersuit from an alternate reality, Exonaut armor can fly into space under it's own power, provide increased strength, deliver augmented speed and agility to the user, and protect them from high altitude and high velocity impacts. Some varients can even dissamble themselves into parts, and reassemble on command. The MVSF's Alpha squad uses this armor, though the MVSF as a whole has not adopted it, due to both a self sufficiency doctrine among UN/SC and MVSF armor designers, and an 'overkill' factor.

#### *Neo Armor*

Originally in development as a sort of "Ultimate Armor", Neo Armor sought to fuse Exonaut designs with MVSF armor and nanotechnology, to create a suit capable of flight, self defense, and in combat upgrades. The so called "Neosuits" were later rolled into Mark V armor designs, though their upgraded components, such as incredibly powerful energy shields, thrusters capable of sub-orbital flight, defensive plasma flares, and customizable weaponry were all later deployed as equipment a Mark V user could utilize.