[Shadow Tech Industries] Developing the Mirage (Active Camo Suit)

[Ice]

Ice walked into his companies R & D lab one morning, with an idea to create a new stealth suit to be worn by the Shadow Empires elite forces. He entered the room, and his staff began to take there seats. He gave them all a welcoming smile and said, "Good morning everyone. I don't mean to rush, but please. Let's have everyone take a seat and get ready. I have a particularly interesting challenge for you all."

He too, took a seat and waited till he noticed everyone was ready and listening. "Ok. What I want to do today is come up with a concept for an active camo suit. Something our elite forces can use to get in and around places unnoticed. Standard camo is not good enough. However, I want to eliminate the use of stealth technology. Those things are expensive, and we have already created numerous items which unfortunately have a hefty price tag."

He nodded his head a bit. "They work great mind you, and are impressive. But this I want to rely more on standard items. I'm looking for something no heavier than standard medium armor. Active cammo, good defense against blasters, and flexible."

The looks around the room he got, weren't very encouraging. This was a tall order true, but he felt they could do it. "So come on. Start throwing ideas out there."

 

[Ice]

His scientists began to look at one another, trying to come up with ideas. One man quickly raised his hand and asked, "Sir, what materials do we have to work with? Just standard stuff, or can we look into more exotic items?"

Another man soon added, "This also brings in cost. What do we have to work with there?"

Ice smiled. "There we go." He thought to himself. "Those are the right questions." Clearing his throat, Ice answered. "Don't worry about the cost for now. I just want to see something on a datapad. As for materials. Be creative. Use whatever you like. We did just aquire some exotic animals which have been sent to our small cloning facilities. Some of them have some amazing properties. I might suggest looking into them as well."

Some scientists minds had instantly gone toward standard armors made of durasteel, or even titanium. Others were a bit more out of the box and began suggesting certain composite materials. The problem was, most of these materials became heavy once they were all put together to form the level of protection, the group was after. One of his scientists however, had already anticipated Ice, and began looking through what they had. "Sir." The woman piped up. "What about the Greater Calama? It seems to have a lot of the desired requirements we are looking for." The room went quiet, as her collegues, with confused looks began pulling up information on that animal.

​Ice raised an eyebrow at the suggestion. His original intent for that particular creature, leaned more toward ship design rather than personal armor. Nevertheless he was intrigued. He held his hand out out as a gesture for her to proceed. "Please continue. What are you thinking?"

 

[Ice]

"Well", the woman said clearing her own throat, before continuing. "The Greater Calama has a hide that is impervious to fire and even lava. Considering it's habitat, it would have to be. Why can't we use the hide as a leather for this suit? It would offer fantastic flexibility. We can even make it flexible enough to slide of other pieces of our technology to give those items added protection. The hide is said to be as effective against blasters as durasteel. Technically speaking, we could have a leather suit as effective against blasters as a top notch piece of custom heavy armor. But it would have the weight of light armor!" The excitement in her voice began to grow with every point she brought out. It was in fact contageous as the whispered discussions between the other scientists grew as well.

Ice shook his head lightly. "An interesting idea to be sure. One major problem I see right off the bat though. It's essentially still just leather. If our troopers come up against someone still toting an archaic slugthrower, which for some random reason have begun to gain in popularity again, they would be shot to pieces."

She smiled and immediately went back on the offensive with her debate. "We can use the shell for hardened plates. These plates can go over vital areas of the body for basic protection, but be left off other areas of the body that would not be life threatening if hit. Thus, although extra weight is added on....possibly turning it into more of a medium armor. It would at least provide decent protection, in the unlikely event, the soldier meets up with someone carrying a slugthrower."

Ice leaned back in his seat and thought the concept over. When he couldn't think of any real objections, he turned back to her with a smirk. "Very well, let's go with those materials for now. I want to see some concepts drawn up by the end of the day. Great idea!" He said encouragingly, before turning back to the group as a whole.

"Now that still doesn't solve our stealth issue. We seem to have a good concept for a high quality medium armor. But they will be seen just as easily as anyone else. So what ideas do we have to solve that?"

 

[RC 212]

[member="Ice"]

TK had received word that he was required at the lab and so he appeared. The Junior Battle commander of the Marines strode into the lab, helmet tucked under his arm and snapped a quick salute to Ice.

"Reporting as ordered Shadow hand. What's the pleasure?"

 

[Ice]

He returned the crisp salute with one of his own. "Ah Commander, welcome. Please have a seat." Ice said, gesturing to an empty chair. "I asked you to come here, because I wanted a professional's opinion. My team and I are designing a new medium armor, I think you would appreciate." He turned to a few of his scientist who had been working on sketches the entire time. "Show him what you have so far."

The scientists slid over a few scetches (OOC: I had no way to make these look like sketches...not easily anyway. Don't judge me! lol), and Ice went on to explain how the leather material was fire proof and extremely energy weapon resistant. The hardened plates would protect moreso against slugthrowers.

​

"What I am looking for now is a way to make this suit with active cammo. But not require tech. Or if it does have tech, I need something cheap, yet effective. Do you have any ideas? Have you seen of anything in your time in the service?" Ice sat back down in his chair and gave the man some time to ponder the question and item being worked on.

[member="TK-4261 Strain"]

 

[RC 212]

[member="Ice"]

"I have seen multiple sets of stealth armor in my time. some were powered by generators and made distortion fields and others simply reflected light."

TK took the datapad and read through the contents, looking especially at the fire proof leather. While leather was good it did not stop slughtrowers as was noted in the file. In addition having armor plates would change the classification from the medium armor to heavy armor.

At last TK looked up from the datapad.

"You are aware that there is a such thing as flexible armor already in place. Well enough to stop most rounds."

TK took a pause and continued reading the data pad. Then he set it on the table.

"Call your scientists I have an idea. Especially the one's that have engineering backgrounds."

 

[Ice]

Ice turned toward a few scientists in particular, and gestured for them to come forward around Strain to see what he had in mind. "Well I am certainly interested in any and all ideas you might have. Just fyi though. This is actually classified as a medium armor. The whole piece is rather light with most of it being leather. The plates do increase the weight. But only to the point of making it medium armor. So you have the protection of almost power armor, against energy weapons at least, with the weight of medium armor. But anyway. Let us focus on your idea. Please. Continue." He said both politely, and curiously. What was he up to, Ice wondered.

He certainly wasn't opposed to changing the design a bit if it made sense. But right now, the possibility of having such a light weight and effective defense against energy weapons including things like plasma grenades, was going to be a hard sell in his mind. Especially considering most weapons their troops would face would be energy based. His other toys should be more than enough to compensate for the lack of slugthrower protection.

[member="TK-4261 Strain"]

 

[RC 212]

[member="Ice"]

"Too easy."

TK pulled up a file from the scientists network after some searching and laid the plan out.

"Chief scientist here shuld be familiar with a very old technology, actually two of them that have been around since the Dawn of the Old Republic. The two pieces are Armorweave and Nano bots.

There is a semi complicated aspect of this. The Armor weave can provide the base layer of the suit, with the animal leather being added on top of that. Armor weave will intercept both ballistics and blaster fire. Here's the tricky part. When you add nano fibers to something you need nano bots, which primarily are programmed for military operations. Do you follow?"

 

[Ice]

Ice nodded as did the other scientists. It was so far, an intriguing concept. They might have to lower some weight by ditching some plates. But it could be worth it, depending on the design. One of them spoke up, though. "Keep in mind we are trying to keep this lightweight. Wouldn't the armorweave add a substantial amount of weight to the suit? The goal is to keep it in the medium armor weight range. Also with your nano bots. Our original specs was set to try and avoid tech for an active camo feature. Wouldn't your nano bot idea be susceptible to emp grenades, not to mention be easier to pick up on sensors due to the technological aspect behind it?" He sat back down in his seat semi pleased with what he considered obvious objections. It was obvious the man somewhat fancied himself better than the military man, at least in intelligence.

Ice raised an eyebrow and nodded. Interesting objections, and good points all. He still wanted to see what the commander had in mind. But it still wasn't a bad idea to at least have the commander know the hurdles.

[member="TK-4261 Strain"]

 

[RC 212]

[member="Ice"]

"Thats no problem, I never finished my idea. Heres the kicker, you simply use the nano bots to add reflective crystals of metal shards to the Armors fibers at a microscopic level. Theoretically, if the armor is one walking mirror it should simply mirror the environment. Depending on how you arrange the shapes and sizes of the nanoscopic mirror shards, you can reflect back a refracted pattern."

TK paused to rub his temples, letting his helmet fall to the table.

"You see with reflective particles arranged in a predetermined order you can mirror the light conditions, colors and general shapes of the environment without actually making it a sheer reflective panel. In other words it wont look like your standing in front of a mirror. EMP only takes down electronics, and the armorweave is relatively light by the way. It happens to be still in use among most force users as a durable and flexible armor, allowing them to duel."

 

[Ice]

Ice peered back at the man that had cut off the commander with his objections. "Well sir. What have you to say about the design? See anything else that might be a problem?"

There was a rather stunned silence from the man, as he looked almost confused at how simple the design was, yet elegantly effective as well. "Well...I might suggest removing a few of the smaller more redundant plates to maintain the same weight...but otherwise it seems like a pretty solid concept."

Ice turned back toward his commander and offered another quick salute. "Sir, thank you for your time. You have been invaluable. Expect a call from me again soon. I'd like you to test the piece out however you see fit, when it is completed. I want to make sure this piece will actually be a good addition for our boys. Not just on paper but in the field as well."

With that, the scientists got to work actually fine tuning the designing.

After the Commander left, Ice turned back to his team. "So, what do we call this nanobot created active cammo?"

"We could just call it photo-reactive fiber." The man said with a shrug.

Ice shook his head, tossing the idea back and forth. "Sure. Let's go with that. Simple. Easy to remember."

It wasn't more than a few weeks later, when Commander Strain was called back in to test the new set of armor, rigged out to his specs. "Here you are sir. Feel free to have it for a few days. Then get back to me with what you think." Ice said happily, rather pleased with how the suit had turned out. Hopefully it would live up to the Commander's no doubt stringent criteria as well.

[member="TK-4261 Strain"]

 

[RC 212]

[member="Ice"]

"I have a better Idea if you will Shadow hand. Do you have time for a field trip to the woods?"

TK grinned at the man, he had no idea what TK had in store for the test. It would be a fun time for the both of them.

 

[Ice]

[member="TK-4261 Strain"]

Ice raised an eyebrow toward the Commander. Pulling up his datapad, he checked on what he had to do. As luck would have it. Nothing to pressing was on his list of things to do that day. His fingers danced along the screen for a few seconds as he moved a few items around to make some time. Ice had been cooped up in facilities and big time meetings for too long. He missed being able to go out and just relax. He missed field work.

"Ok TK. My schedule is cleared. What do you have in mind?"

 

[RC 212]

[member="Ice"]

They were in the woods an hour later and TK had two sniper rifles with him. He pressed one into Ices hands and set it to stun, then he set his own and pointed towards the woodline.

"Here's the test, I'm going to walk a hundred meters into that woodline, change into the suit and come back to a random point. Try and pick me out of the brush and snipe me. I'll also be trying to snipe you."

TK walked out to the woods, taking care to pick his way through the brambles and brush. At last he reached his spot and changed. The suit was tight, but it fit, and his movement was still relatively unencumbered. As he made his way back he went ever so slowly until he was ten meters from the field again.

At this point he dropped to his belly and began a slow slither towards the unsuspecting ice, trying to get into a good firing position.