A/N: I am still without home internet, but the marvels of modern Google Docs allowed me to get this done at work. I expect the military peeps in the Discord to have loads of fun with this, given the heaviest armor I wore in the Navy was a bulletproof vest - not exactly my strong suit.

Lieutenant Valthez blinked at the sight of the heavy battlesuit in the engineering bay, before glancing sidelong at Colonel Sahu, standing beside him. "Is that an ICARUS suit?"

Sahu chuckled, watching the figure of Admiral Vandefar crawling around the power setting inlay. "Yep. The Flight I version, before they worked out all the kinks. She's been modding it for over a decade now, though, so it sure as shit ain't stock."

With a grunt, Vandefar pulled something free from the suit, dropping down to the ground with it in her left hand. "Busted ODN component, more shitty work from the Coleman forge. Tell Dhara to stop ordering from him, just buy the ODN links from the Asari."

Sahu nodded, taking the damaged component. "I'll get Billy to get it replaced ASAP, ma'am. There's at least one asari optronic supplier down by the Docks, be done in an hour or less probably."

The older woman nodded, and Sahu turned and left, her massive form parting milling soldiers as she went. Vandefar eyed Valthez and smiled coolly. "Walk with me, Lieutenant."

He did so, slightly behind and to her left, listening. "The situation on Hapnos IV is a little... politically messy. It's technically a corporate colony, associated with BASF." Her lip curled. "That particular corporation is, itself, little more than a front for House Englehorn."

Valthez arched an eyebrow. He wasn't very much versed on the noble families of the Alliance, but everyone knew that nobles had the best gear and training. "Is the noble house actually operating on the colony, or..."

She gave a crooked smile as she moved forward, sliding a keycard through a reader. "There's reports that there was both a turian merc company as well as Englehorn knights guarding the place." The smile turned ugly. "Thus I am confused that pirates were able to hit the place and break the defenses. The responding task force already shot their ships to pieces, but the pirates have holed up in the worst possible location – a joint Alliance/Turian Hierarchy research base, where we were examining this 'liktrite' crystalline material."

Valthez winced. "The rest of the colony is..."

She shrugged, as she moved into a new bay of the Arcturus staging area. A dozen more ICARUS suits in blue and white stood there in a group. "Undetermined, Lieutenant, and frankly, unimportant. Survivors aren't Alliance citizens, and our only concern is the research. I suspect the 'pirates' are in actuality either turian outcasts working with Facinus, or human ones working for some other corporation, possibly Novarian. But in abeyance of any actual evidence of such, the assumption will be made that it was a colonist who leaked information, and I'm not really concerned about their fate."

She came to a stop. "The base was on a independent corpo world for a reason, Lieutenant. Very few people were to know about it, so either we or the turians have a leak. It's a black project that may or may not be skirting some rules. Armor design technology, incorporating both some quarian technologies as well as some restricted information. The corpo colony mined aluminum and bauxite as a cover op – there's enough of that in other places that pirates have no logical reason to hit this place unless they knew."

He frowned. "You said a task force was on site and dealt with the pirates...are they not going to clear the colony?"

She snorted. "No. Mainline Alliance forces won't be sent in to deal with the situation, due to the obstreperous nature of the nearest force commander, Admiral Schuleman. She's stated that the pirates are dug in deeply enough that risking marines for 'non citizens and aliens' isn't something she is willing to do, and thus we have to deal with it ourselves."

Valthez winced. "I see. Deployment situation, then?"

Vandefar's voice was cool and musing. "The colony is built adjacent to several low mountains. There are four GARDIAN towers, a GTS site, and a Henderson/Rivera class VII kinetic city barrier system. We don't have anything at hand or easily deployed that can crack that with force, unless we used M/AM missiles or a Kyle, which would destroy everything. We want the site take intact."

She gestured. "My own suit is out, so I'll remain aboard the ship in C3I, but my own team of DACT will drop alongside the engineering unit. The DACT will engage and distract the enemy while you and your engineering teams hak and sabotage the colony reactor. Once it goes down, the shield protecting the colony will as well as any GARDIAN sites. At that point, we will land an additional force and take the lab back. "

"Rules of Engagement, ma'am? Are there still turians down there?"

Vandefar snorted. "We lost comms almost a day prior. The last messages were from the Alliance colonel in charge reporting heavy fighting in the colony itself and the loss of the defense teams. Your orders are to kill the attackers, period. Saving colonists or other extant personnel is not mission critical. The preservation of the labs – intact – is."

He sighed and nodded. He was getting used to ugly order sets like that now. It didn't help that Vandefar had lost contact with the HERMES team – including her niece – and was more irritable and on edge than usual. "Yes, ma'am. From the scan reports, the planet isn't habitable without life support – dropping the power will also kill any survivors outside of a suit or environmental armor, and the endurance of that in some shitty civilian armor model is low."

She turned to face him. "Your point, Lieutenant?"

He carefully phrased his words. "It might be prudent for any follow on investigations to sabotage the power supplies in a way that would imply this was done by the pirates, ma'am. That would answer odd questions about how the site was taken as well as leave our hands 'clean' to outside observers."

She chuckled. "Good idea. Make sure it gets done." She walked away, and he sighed. He'd need to pull more troopers for this mess, and while he waited he might as well read up on armor systems.

Armor Systems:

The primary focus of this section is on Alliance and other human equipment, although there is a section that covers alien armor differences.

Armor, in its most basic definition, is a covering used to protect an object, individual, or vehicle from physical injury or damage, especially direct contact weapons or projectiles during combat, or from a potentially dangerous environment or activity. In the instance of Alliance jargon, armor is used in two very different ways – as a term for heavily reinforced combat vehicles that carry heavy weapons such as tanks, and as a term for armor worn to protect the body.

This section covers the latter usage of the term.

All Alliance armor is broken down into one of five armor grades: civilian, military-grade, augmented, specialist, and survival. The grades do not distinguish the toughness of the armor so much as the base functional specifications.

Civilian armor is , by SA law, designed to be functional only in as far as keeping a civilian alive from incidental gunfire, shrapnel and the like during a hostile evacuation. Civilian armors are almost always made of ballistic fiber with panels of duraplast. They have a modest oxygen supply and are environmentally sealed (by law, armor segments without full environments sealing are to be notated as 'vests' or other such terms'). Civilian armor is not suitable for any full military engagement and is deliberately designed to be vulnerable to military-grade weapons.

Survival armor is a sort of grade of civilian armor in some respects. It is a designation for suits that are not actually designed for any form of combat, but rather survival of hostile environmental factors. High-pressure Venusian mining suits, Belter z-g rigs, hostile environment suits as utilized by Search, Rescue and Salvage and all oceanic diving or lava diving suits fall into this category. As a rule, they are only survival armor if they are not functional at any form of protection against military-grade weapons – armored survival suits of that caliber are considered a kind of specialist armor.

Military-grade armor is any suit designed for professional military use, that does not require special training and is not specialized in function or operation. As with civilian suits the term implies complete environmental sealing and at least a four hour air supply, but it must incorporate the following features: an omni-tool link, the cross-link for a gun-link to work, military grade comms antenna, a hardened surface of no less than at least eighty percent ballistic steel or better, and testing and proofing by the Alliance Engineering Corps. Military-grade armor is illegal for civilians to own. Mercenaries operating in the Alliance require a Commissariat inspection before being allowed to use such.

Augmented armor is military-grade armor that is assisted by a method – either powered armor or a battlesuit or ACF. The difference is not just in the powered aspect but the fact that this armor requires training and certifications to use. A civilian attempting to use a set of Devastator armor will injure themselves in short order if they don't know how to move with the power assist functionality. Augmented armor is held to a higher proofing standard than military-grade armor and must also pass an Alliance Engineering safety and operations check.

Specialist armor is generally military-grade armor with a single purpose or function, that can operate either as a combat suit or a work suit. The SAINT-MICHAEL set of rescue and responder armor falls into such a category, as it is both designed to get paramedical and damage control forces into a disaster or emergency site as well as loaded with tools, attachments and functions to do the job there, including firefighting equipment, anti-radiation equipment, augmented strength, etc. These suits, much like augmented suits, usually require heavy training and licensing to use.

The distinction between the armor types is important for two reasons. First, the classification describes the basic use of each type of suit. Engineers may have to triage repair resources and work hours in a critical situation – refitting civilian armor is always a waste of time, as it is simply not built for combat. Likewise augmented or specialist suits are useless to soldiers without the training.

The second reason is that the grades define the specifications. In procurement, understanding that a set of armor that boasts 'integrated kinetics', 'fully functional environmental sealing' and 'onboard medical and VI assistance' is not a good deal if the grade code is civilian is important. There are civilian armors that are, to the naked eye, basically identical to sets of Alliance or asari combat armor. But their ID code must include the grade.

Armor Basics:

All armor, regardless of grade, type, or manufacturer, has many common features.

Armor has multiple layers of defense. Progressively heavier armor and more complicated armor has more layers doing the same thing, but the basic structure does not change.

As stated in the first chapter, most armor incorporates four functions.

At the most simple, all armor from civilian to the most advanced battlesuit, always maintains the environmental layer, which is a basic lining that is designed to environmentally seal the suit and provide rapid heat ablation. This is usually done with carbon-fiber fabric and reinforced polymer mesh, baked into a thin and flexible liner. More expensive variants may have channels for medigel deployment, but for the most part you cannot legally sell something as an 'armor suit' without this layer, which is typically called the liner.

The shell sits above the liner, and it is a lining of super-strong synthetic fibers or carbon-tube mesh to resist splinters and shrapnel. Sometimes this is overlain with crisscrossing metallic mesh or superfine flat-link chain-mesh to resist stabs, and sometimes underlain with omnifoam or other shock padding. The entire point of the shell is to prevent armor splinters, shrapnel, and sharp penetration impacts from breaching the environmental liner.

The plating is what usually truly defines an armor, a thickened hardened plate system of ablative ceramics reinforced with plasma or laser force-compressed carbon fiber to absorb shock and impact from kinetic rounds. Plating ranges from sub-optimal (cheap duraplast over ballistic cloth) to absolutely top quality (thick Silaris overlapping plates, floating above an omnigel VI managed shock suspension over two layers of interlaced woven carbon nanofiber and a final backstop lining of durasteel circular 'scales'). This is perhaps the most critical part of any armor suit, and the one that takes the most direct damage. All non-silaris armor can be patched with omnigel but the resulting patch is much weaker and may fail.

Specialist and some survival suits boast a complicated fourth layer, a surface covering that can be customized for various environments, to allay acidic, corrosive, cold, or other hazardous conditions. Some very high end military-grade armor also has such coatings, although not as thick.

The effectiveness of armor is tested in proofing, where a set of armor is subjected to standardized attacks and stress forces at standardized ranges. The most stern proofing test in the galaxy is currently the Spectre 550 Standardization, which tests over fifty different concepts.

The SA has two 'class proofs' for use inside the Alliance military, and one for civilian use. The primary class proof is Series 1 certification, which requires any military-grade armor purchased by BuLogs for distribution to Alliance service personnel to be able to withstand zero-g airless environments with full support for no less than four hours, withstand at least one direct shot from a military grade assault rifle to each of the major armor plate components, resist a shrapnel test of case-hardened steel fragments at ten meters, and to demonstrate heat resistance and ablative ability against fire up to 500 C.

Other proofs are more restrictive or less, depending on the purpose of the proofing organization. Galactic wide proofing standards are maintained by the Citadel in a free-to-access database, while Alliance proof standards are found on SA-8. Alliance engineers are required to do proof checking on a random selection of armor suits every ninety days. Any suit that fails is to be examined, if the flaw does not appear to be a maintenance or manufacturing flaw, the entire line is de-certified until proofing is completed again on no less than 100 randomly chosen suits.

Armor Construction:

There are several base grades of material used in constructing armor, and in various armor pieces. The most common components are titanium plate inserts, durasteel or battle steel plate segments, ballistic fabric underlinings, and laser steel or silaris coatings or plates.

An armor is broken down into impact plates, which are large, stiff sections of an armor suit that are designed to take direct damage, mitigation layers, which are shock absorbing or spall linings for the suit, inserts and frag plates, slotted into lighter armors to protect the torso and back, and articulated joint areas, where the joints are covered by overlapping or interlocking thinner material.

Impact plates are usually the main bulk of any armor suit. Forged out of battle steel or durasteel, they are designed to both absorb and distribute the impact of a kinetic attack and to deflect away the impact of a plasma or APP bolt via vapor blowoff. Most plates are designed to interlock and can be folded up inside one another for easy carry. Inserts and frag plates are made of a wider range of materials. Some are anti-plasma in nature - ablative materials made of a layer of pororus char over a material to produce a pyrolisis zone. Others are anti-ballistic, inserts of flex titanium with durasteel backing plates. Still others are for shock impact - composite ceramics with a semi-liquid omnigel core, designed to buffer a hard impact to the chest that would normally produce a hydrostatic shock effect that could crush organs.

All of these systems are a core part of the actual functionality of the armor, even if some are removable and/or customized. They are thus also subject to proof testing.

Most armor is built as what is commonly defined as a 'hardsuit'. Hardsuits come in a variety of base sizes that can be adjusted and altered to fit a person precisely. They are constructed mostly of various shaped and interconnected impact plates that form a body outline, over mitigation layers of ablatives and undersuit, with ballistic fiber and/or light caps at the knees, ankles, wrists, elbows, and shoulders. Most hardsuits only limit motion slightly.

'Softsuits' are less common, mostly found in asari or salarian military units for lighter forces – commandos and snipers. They consist of a bodysuit that is environmentally rated, with a number of hard armor plates covering the chest, lower arms, thighs and back, with lighter plating on the shins and upper arms. These suits sacrifice a great deal of toughness for mobility and flexibility.

Powered armor is the exact opposite, where the plates are so thick that a powered exoskeleton frame is what they're mounted to. Without the power and mass effect fields, the suit would be so heavy that no one could move in it at all. This provides for enormous protection at the cost of mobility to some degree.

Finally, battlesuits are merely scaled up powered armor that is so large the person is piloting it rather than just wearing it. There's an environmental lining to this armor as well, but operators usually also don a separate survival armor underneath that protects against damage even further.

Armor Types:

There are rough grades of personal armor. Light, medium, and heavy are the most common definitions.

Light personal armor includes softsuits of any kind, and most civilian armors. The suits weigh less than ten kilograms total and have the lightest amounts of plating. Note that this does not mean they are always weak – some commandos wear combat light armor that has Silaris plating over nano-woven Prothean steelweave that can bounce a sniper rifle.

The SALVATION Mod II Naval Survival Armor is an example of an Alliance set of Light Armor. Most light asari commando, salarian and drell armor would be classed as light. Batarian state guardsman armor is light.

Medium personal armor is armor weighing in excess of ten kilos, that is almost always a hardsuit, and usually incorporates a military style construction. They are the middle grade of protection in most cases. There are a few civilian armors (using armaplast and composites) and a handful of softsuits that meet the common definition of medium armor, but they are the exception.

The ONYX Mod II Battle Armor is an example of an Alliance set of Medium Armor. Almost all non-commando asari armor, most turian armor, and some krogan armor is medium. Batarian armors, excepting those of the State Guard, is usually medium.

Heavy armor is defined by two things: the entire suit must have a plating protection twice that of the proofing requirements at the minimum, and the suit must be a hardsuit. Heavy armor usually requires very strong users to deal with the weight, a full set of Colossus battle armor weighs upwards of twenty five kilograms.

The Neo-Colossus N-Series Heavy Battle Armor is an example of an Alliance set of Medium Armor. All turian clan armor, most asari ceremonial armor, and almost all krogan and elcor armor is heavy. Batarian SIU and FoK armor is also heavy.

Power Armor:

The primary limit to armor in the past has been the trade off of protection versus mobility. In the Middle Ages, splinted and plate armor on harnesses was the peak of protection until gunpowder. But to fully armor against ballistic weapons is difficult to do without a crippling amount of both bulk and weight. While modern composites have made some of that no longer applicable for standard weapons, technology has also created weapons no standard suit of armor could handle.A suit of armor that would be needed to withstand direct hits from a Manur sniper rifle, for example, would weigh over thirty kilos. This is not a supportable amount of weight for any kind of combat action by infantry.

This is where power armor comes in.

The bluntest definition of powered armor is any suit that requires an exoskeleton to function, but that is still sized to the wearer. A battlesuit is not power armor. A tank is not power armor. An ACF is not power armor.

Power armor has two important ratings not found on normal armor – lift capacity and power endurance. Lift capacity is how much the augmented exoskeleton frame can lift above the suit's own armor weight. For example the turian premier power armor, the RAPTORFALL suit, is rated to lift twice its own weight, allowing it to carry extremely heavy weapons. The only salarian powered armor, on the other hand, has a lift rating of just fifteen kilos. Lift rating separates suits designed to carry heavy weapons or normally non-man-portable devices from suits intended more for combat endurance.

Power endurance is how long the suit can operate continually without a recharge. The bleeding edge and prototype powered armor of the Iron Guard in the Days of Iron was powered by lithium-ion batteries that ran down quickly, limiting how long the Guard could fight. Modern suits have eezo-dust batteries, motion trickle charging, and fast-discharge backup capacitors, but they do need to recharge sooner or later. Most powered armor can operate anywhere from ten to thirty days, but the most expensive suits can operate up to sixty days.

There is always some blurring of the lines between powered armor and battlesuits, but the definition of size is the one used. A suit that is the same rough size as the wearer, and is 'worn' directly by the wearer, is armor, not a battlesuit. If the operator of a set of armor has to utilize controls, or climb inside and seal it up rather than put it on, it's a battlesuit.

The function of most powered armor varies widely between various star nations. The Alliance powered armors are the DEVASTATOR Articulated Support Armor and the ICARUS Jump Assault Armor. The DEVASTATOR is designed for ground assault and defensive operations. Most of its features are centered around survivability in the long term, from the extended life support to the power rating which is good for a full month. The ICARUS, on the other hand, is jump assault armor. Most of the focus there is on the lift capacity, the ability to drop from orbit and do combat jumps and to hit hard. The suit is not anywhere near as endurant, with a five-day power endurance rating and only six hours of life support, as it is a high-tempo short cycle unit that gets in and out.

The turians have the RAPTORFALL suit, which is similar to a mix of DEVASTATOR and ICARUS, in that it can do some drop and jump operations but also act as a defensive bulwark. Salarian powered armor is the PRUDENCE suit worn by Shieldbearers, super-heavy and with layered defenses. VDF armor (the name is merely an alphanumeric code) is also defensive in nature.

Powered armor has one vulnerability normal suits do not. While all armor comes with VI management, in conventional armor this can be shut off or even removed. A powered armor's exoskeleton cannot operate correctly without VI assistance. This means all powered armor is vulnerable to hak scripts and infowar techniques.

Powered armor requires training to operate, move in, and maintain. The servos and power-flow systems are not something you can just 'put on' and use, the suit augments the user's own motions and you can seriously injure yourself if you are not moving correctly.

Additionally, despite seeming similar, humans must never use asari powered armor without adjustment. Asari muscles are not the same as humans, often operating in trios rather than pairs, and the shoulder and hip assemblies in particular do NOT move the same. This is also true for our asari service members, stock Alliance codes for modifications of armor to asari spec exist.

Power Armor Construction:

Power armor construction is similar to normal armor, with three differences. There is the exoskeleton, which is usually constructed from hardened battle steel. Cheaper suits will use hydraulics for motive power, more expensive (and complicated) suits use mass effect repulsor/impulsor modules to achieve the same effect.

There is also the power delivery layer and, usually, a top layer of thin plating with omni-armor emitters for a final layer of defense. While a set of normal armor is usually only damaged in very small cross sections, powered armor can have electrical failures, shorts, mechanical failures and the like, meaning it requires more maintaining and checks.

Typically, power armor uses much heavier materials than suits worn by people. It's not unusual to see suits boasting greater than four cm of plating in some regions, since the suit carries all the weight. All of the additional bulk and weight tends to make them less agile than a person in normal armor.

The hydraulic or ME/F motive drivers of the suit's exoskeleton frame are the biggest weak point, and are always heavily armored. The battery pack is also a weak spot, as it must be vented for heat emissions. Power armor that has built in weapons systems will either need complicated ammo feed systems or bulky power connectors to the weapon.

Save when operating in zero-oxygen or unsuitable environments, regular armor degrades 'gracefully'. A shot may penetrate the armor plating at one segment and do damage, but the rest of the armor is still fully effective. Power armor takes damage along with the wearer, and it can knock out systems, or cripple the suit entirely if there is too much damage to the power or motive systems. The firepower threshold to do this much damage is much higher than with regular armor however.

Battlesuits:

A battlesuit is the logical extension of powered armor, basically a very large suit of armor piloted by a single person that enhances their capabilities far beyond what is usually possible for infantry to achieve.

Battlesuits come in two varieties, light and heavy. The functional difference between the two is based solely and entirely on the size and power supply of the battlesuit in question. Light battlesuits stand no more than three meters tall and use batteries for power supply. Heavy battlesuits are any suit in excess of three meters that has an onboard generator to provide its power.

Most star nations tend to prefer one or the other. The asari battlesuit, the PALADIN, is heavy armor with an onboard eezo reactor that is commonly seen as the finest armor in the galaxy. Boasting plates of Silaris in excess of two centimeters in some areas, equipped with a rail-gun that outranges most artillery platforms and tanks and is rated against light starships, the PALADIN's biggest weakness is that it has poor anti-air capability. The salarian SHIELDBREAKER is its only real rival, a deadly warmachine that trades off armor for more weapons and the fearsome BRKR particle rail gun, a weapon that can (and has) slagged tanks with a single shot. Heavy suits are designed to absorb and ignore damage and to carry the heaviest weapons into combat and destroy targets of importance.

Likewise, the turian FINAL LINE and SKYTALON suits are both considered 'light' due to their smaller sizes and reliance on batteries, as are the Alliance's AGAMEMNON and THERMOPYLAE suits. Our suits function similarly, in that they are more infantry than target busters, with the ability to engage a wider array of targets due to having more than one effective weapons system. Light suits are designed to fulfill a larger array of roles including defensive support, C3I and in some cases, deep penetration and withdrawal.

Battlesuit Construction:

Battlesuits are built somewhat differently than armor suits. At the core of each suit is a pilot's creche. This is where the pilot operates from. A pilots arms will usually go into the suit's upper arms and their legs into the upper thighs. The 'head' of power armor is entirely sensory, the pilot's actual head and main body is behind the very thickest torso armor.

The lowest layer of almost all battle-armor is a multilayered shell of spall linings, anti-ballistic fiber mesh, and an environmentally sealed liner. This is similar to that of normal armor, but is much thicker and pierced in lots of sealed locations with sensor cabling and shunts for life support, waste, etc. This lowest layer surrounds the pilot's creche.

Atop this is a thin layer of some kind of hard armor plate, usually battle steel or durasteel, in various shell configurations to protect the pilot further. Over all of this, in the arms and legs and torso, is a thick layer of myomer artificial musculature and the VI driven datanet to drive it, translating the motion of the pilot into the motion of the armor. Woven in and around this are power connectors, sense transmission cabling, and omnigel channels for rapid internal repair.

The top layers of all battlesuits are a mix. There is a hard frame of thin battle steel plates that completely encloses the battlesuit, and then much thicker impact plates mounted to that and the underlying structure – chest and torso, back, upper and lower arms and legs. Curved armor shield pieces are attached at the lower leg and lower arm to cover the elbows and knees of the battlesuit in most conditions.

It should be emphasized that the thickness of battlesuit armor is not going to be vulnerable to almost any weapon that is man-portable. Even 'heavy' weapons will need multiple direct hits on the armor to achieve any real damage. Anti-material rifles and missile launchers can do some damage as well, but the only weapons that can cleanly take out such suits are artillery, tank main guns, and other battlesuits.

All battlesuit pilots have an infojack that they use to link themselves to the machine, so this feedback is far more precise than with heavy powered armor. As demonstrated several times by skilled pilots, a well piloted battlesuit can even utilize martial arts, swordsmanship or other tasks.

Battlesuits almost always have a small reactor or other power-source for motive power, rather than rely on batteries. Most are small tokamak cells with a fueling lifespan of six to eight months between refuels. At least one asari PALADIN suit uses a pair of Inusannon power stars, while the salarian SHIELDBREAKER is powered by a miniaturized fusactor. All of these tend to be mounted on the back under heavy armor, but all remain a weak spot. Such sources will need venting of heat, although these tend to be baffled with an armor overlay.

Robot Vehicles / Articulated Combat Frames:

The most advanced forms of armor are literally still in the labs of the turians and salarians. They are for now all referred to as articulated combat frames. They are basically giant robots, akin to much science fiction fare.

The problems with such vehicles scaling up beyond that of a battlesuit are manifold. Power is an issue, as moving something that big is beyond myomer or conventional hydraulics. A mass effect impulsor and repulsor system is needed, as well as a heavy structural material for the base frame.

The turian design, tentatively classed as VAKAR, would stand almost ten meters tall, and be equipped with a host of built in weapons systems. Trials of the basic frame are still underway, as is work on other subsystems that would be needed.

The salarian model, currently known as the CENTAUR, is a quadrileg model with four upper arms each configured with a different weapons system. Even bigger than the turian concept, this massive construct would stand a full twenty four meters tall with kinetic shields of a strength found on frigates.

The actual military purpose of such robot suits has been argued excessively for a very long time. Most designers feel they are the evolution of both the armor concept and the concept of tanks and other fighting vehicles. Detractors note the staggering costs, the size making such things almost impossible to transport without a dedicated ship and deployment functions for such, and most of all a lack of utility.

With recent events (consult with command for more information) the lagging and minimal interest in such concepts has been revived, with the Alliance Engineering Group now looking at building one of our own. Codenamed VOLTRON (blame BuLogs for their sense of humor) this would be a war robot standing around nine meters tall and utilizing a mix of ME/I systems as well as myomer for finer control. To avoid the logistical difficulties of landing and deployment forward, the VOLTRON is being designed to be able to perform orbital drops.

Additional Armor Considerations:

Regardless of the form it takes, personal armor will always have three drawbacks that engineers must deal with on a constant basis.

The first is that armor is designed to take the hit when a kinetic shield fails. Unlike a shield, it cannot spin up and regenerate. There have been experiments with black nano integrated omni-repair systems, they simply cannot work fast enough in combat and a single mishap would be ugly. Armor is going to fail, and even if it doesn't will require constant maintenance and repair after every fight. Poorly maintained armor doesn't look any different from the correctly maintained type, so vigilance on proof-tests, repairs, relathing and surfacing and the like are needed.

The second consideration is the paradox of armor: the better protected you are, the more likely you are to take a hit. While lightweight armor suits may seem more vulnerable, the truth is the wearers are a lot more agile and faster. They can more readily rely on their kinetics to have time to recharge by use of evasion and cover. A suit of powered armor or a battlesuit often has much less choice in defensive cover and it is slow, and as an obvious threat will tend to soak more attacks.

The final drawback is cost. The more effective armors utilize both expensive materials as well as complicated VI and other minor assets. This makes them very expensive, both to procure and, in cases of Silaris plating, to maintain. Cheaper armor of plain battle steel or durasteel is not anywhere near as protective, but can be easily field repaired with omnigel, or relathed back to nearly new in a handful of minutes.

All armor types, from cheap armaplast civilian 'combat gear' to the expensive battlesuits of an asari noble house, are designed to keep the wearer alive, being differentiated on how much damage they can block before they fail. Thus, war-fighting training has always emphasized (for the Alliance at least) that mitigation is better than absorption. Use of cover, smoke, evasion, and clever positioning can make a person in light armor much harder to pin down and kill than someone in heavy armor. Conversely, in situations where such tactics simply aren't available, such as in ship boarding, urban combat, or in a defensive position where retreat is not feasible, heavy armor shines and is capable of taking many incidental hits, while lighter armor will fail over time.

All of this is very common-sense and straightforward, but Alliance records show that the majority of deaths due to armor failure spike in two specific situations – heavy armor units in the open that do not utilize cover traversion and evasion, and light armor units in defensive or ship-boarding areas that have no cover to take advantage of. The Alliance response to this has been to line main ship corridors, arcologies and most military bases with pop-up cover barriers, protected kinetic screens, and to avoid long sight lines.