War Plate

To all things, there is art. The mason sculpts the stone to restore it the beauty it lost in the quarrying. So spoke Lakhept.

There is no beauty in a soaring arch fallen to earth, a scorched doorway, a broken body. Yet: To all things, there is art. So spoke Lakhept. The art of the warrior is in the doing, not in the product. War-Plate is the ultimate expression of this belief. The grace and smooth lines of Honiani design are actively eschewed, its design an ode to brutalism. It leaves no doubt in the mind of any who see it that it is designed only for war.

It is said that first suit of War-Plate was crafted for He Who Gave His Name, who swore that their life before Lakhept's service was as dust and the only identity they would bear would be their deeds in Lakhept's name. The truth, so ancient that all records are lost, all evidence destroyed, may never be known for a certainty. To the Honiani, it matters not. The story survives, and nothing else does. It is true by default. The tradition of War-Plate has been passed down, through ages, with the oldest existent examples being primitive suits of metal armor. The first "modern" suit of War-Plate, with armored plates over a powered exoskeleton and a cybernetic interface system, dates to roughly the same time similar suits were being employed by the armies of Khan Noonien Singh on Earth. It is a testament to the value the Honiani place on tradition that they have always found a way to keep War-Plate relevant, even in those periods where attack has clearly outpaced defense, even if this required radically revising its role from armor to sensor platform for some of its existence. When it became possible to treat it as armor again, the change back was quick in coming.

Modern Honiani War-Plate is the best protective gear in the galaxy, combining the personal shielding technology of the Yan-Ros with a powered exoskeleton covered in heavy plating that is able to withstand sustained phaser or disruptor fire from rifle-grade weapons. Standing roughly 2.5 meters tall and massing approximately 260 kilograms, each individual suit requires more rare materials and sentient-hours to construct than the average combat-capable runabout. Their speed and agility belie their size, as the suits are capable of breaking 100kph in a run or leaping several meters high and move with extreme fluidity thanks to their cybernetic interfaces. Each bears a hereditary name, passed down as lineage from previous suits of War-Plate, in a practice not dissimilar from how many cultures name ships. Honiani history records approximately twenty-five thousand War-Plate names, but in the modern era there are believed to be no more than a thousand battle-ready suits and quite possibly less.

In combat, their use is distinctly unsubtle. War-Plate is a pure shock weapon, designed to break lines and carry positions by durability, speed, and firepower. They are rarely used defensively. Few in number but immensely powerful, they are treated as an operational-level or strategic-level weapon, deployed by shuttle or transporter against fortresses, enemy command elements, and key logistics targets; "they are for winning the battle that wins the campaign that wins the war" is a common saying about how a commander should use War-Plate. They are compatible with a variety of weapons, which would usually count as crew-served weaponry, and also typically have a built-in melee weapon on each arm with blades encased in phased disruption fields and plasma cutters being most common; these are not a traditional extravagance but serious weapons on something that is durable and fast enough to regularly close to melee range even on the modern battlefield.

War-Plate is traditionally the reserve of several monastic orders, who style themselves after He Who Gave His Name. Members of the orders ceremonially renounce their names and pasts before donning their War-Plate for the first time, instead taking on the hereditary name of the War-Plate they will be wearing and its history as their own; they might refer to a battle from a millennia ago as though they experienced it themselves, and will speak of damage to their suit as though they themselves have been injured. Though traditional, the suit's modern cybernetic interfaces strongly reinforce the tendency of the wearer to see the suit as a part of themselves, if not their true self. Most members of the orders eventually retire, with a ceremony that casts off the name of their armor and reclaims their own name. Though they are highly respected on return to civilian life, it is considered a major faux pas to directly refer to their previous profession unless it would have immediate bearing for the fitness to cope with some emergency. Most War-Plate wearers keep a diary or personal memoir that will be displayed prominently in their residence or place of work, lovingly illuminated with images of their armor, as means of signalling what they once were to others. There are however fundamentalist strains of thought that hold any reference or admission to be too much.

The orders that provide wearers for War-Plate are conservative and deeply religious groups and rarely allow outsiders, even civilian Honiani, to view their training. (The suits themselves are well-known, as maintenance is through the Honiani government.) They are not, however, generally xenophobic: in addition to incorporating Yan-Ros technology readily, they appear to recognize something of a kindred spirit in the Yan-Ros Hunter traditions, and it is rumored that they have allowed some Hunter teams to train with them. At least one such order has declared public support for Federation membership, though several others have expressed reservations.