"When humanity tried to find solutions for any problems in their body, they created many drugs and cosmetics. Well... You can say we made a lot of things; even our military armour only protects us only to a certain degree. But now, we can even destroy the entire world's population using a single armour." -Fermus-Lieutenant Ecastus.
-Overview-
Nanosuits have become a ubiquitous technology within the vast expanse of the Imperium, permeating all levels of society. They range from the most rudimentary civilian models to the formidable battle armor wielded by the Adeptus Logos, each serving a specific purpose.
These suits exist in a staggering variety of forms, each tailored to different needs and functions. Some don them simply to shield against harm—protecting against burns, injuries, or even as a remedy for diseases. Others embrace them for cosmetic enhancements or practical uses, with innumerable customizations available to suit the wearer's desires.
Within the Imperial military, nanosuits have undergone a vast array of innovations. Each is meticulously designed to adapt to every conceivable battlefield condition, resulting in specialized and elite variations of combat armor. From tactical infantry units to elite shock troops, the versatility of these suits has led to the creation of battle armors with unmatched precision and lethality.
Thus, the nanosuit stands as one of the most adaptable and crucial technological achievements in the Imperium's history, cementing its place as a cornerstone in humanity's survival and expansion.
-History-
At the dawn of the Great Exodus, mankind encountered vast and varied challenges—both environmental perils and the relentless threat of xenos species. This era spurred countless arms manufacturers and designers into a frenzy of innovation, crafting a bewildering array of military equipment. Yet, with it came chaos in production and a lack of standardization. The growing menace of advanced xenos races demanded not just weapons of greater lethality, but a solution to humanity's fragmented armories.
In desperation, they turned to the annals of history, recalling the Age of Terra and the cataclysmic conflicts that scorched Old Earth's surface. Amid the ruins of the Last War, fragmented records hinted at a mythical suit—one capable of adapting to any battlefield condition, an armor that could turn the tides of battle. With this spark of ancient knowledge, the first Phobos armor was forged, resurrecting an age-old legend.
Through the passage of countless ages, humanity's mastery of nanotechnology expanded exponentially. In the era of the Federation, their brilliance reached new heights, creating suits that met every conceivable need—whether for the mundane, the utilitarian, or the ravages of war. But it was during the Dominion War that humanity's dark genius reached its zenith. In the face of the Aeldari's psychic dominance and their terrifying cycle of reincarnation, mankind birthed unthinkable horrors. There were suits crafted in those desperate days, so powerful that when wielded by a potent psyker or a null, they could lay waste to entire solar systems.
But with the rise of the Imperium, many of these forbidden technologies were sealed away, hidden behind layers of bureaucratic classification. The Emperor, in His wisdom, decreed that humanity's technological progress must be tempered, nurtured with care. Lessons were drawn from the devastating conflicts of the Age of a Thousand Empires and the Third Galactic War. The fires of innovation, though necessary, were not to burn unchecked.
Yet, in the shadows, whispers persist. It is said that these forbidden suits—these tools of unimaginable power—are still being refined, advanced in secret. Some within the highest circles of Martian forges and other Imperial research facilities suspect that the latest nanosuits bear traces of this forbidden tech. It is as though the High Lords of Terra, or perhaps the Senatorum Imperialis itself, are preparing to cautiously unseal these ancient horrors, bringing them back into the fold of human progress.
Despite the Imperium's efforts to standardize nanosuit production, the truth is far from simple. Various factions within the Imperium—each with their own agendas—continue to craft their own iterations, pursuing power and dominance under the guise of progress.
-Nano suit variants-
During the latter half of M29, the Imperium initiated a sweeping standardization of nanosuit technologies across its vast dominion. In civilian sectors, this standardization proved largely successful, with various classes of nanosuits tailored to everyday needs, from environmental protection to medical applications. But for the military, the answers varied to many degrees.
1) Skin suit
Skinsuits represent the pinnacle of civilian nanosuit technology, crafted to seamlessly integrate with the wearer's body—becoming a second skin in both function and form. Designed to sustain and enhance, these suits regulate metabolism, body temperature, and nutrient intake, all while providing comprehensive medical support. Their adaptability is unmatched, allowing users to modify the suit's function and appearance through a simple mental interface, made possible by nanites that bond with the wearer at a cellular level.
Through this mental link, a user can command the suit to perform tasks as simple as altering its color and texture, or as complex as initiating cellular regeneration and psychological treatments. The suit maintains the user's physical form at optimal levels, manipulating proteins, fats, and essential minerals to sculpt the body as desired.
Beyond these practical functions, skinsuits possess a quasi-artificial intelligence capable of recording and analyzing every detail of the wearer's life. This creates a comprehensive data map, enabling the wearer to draw upon a vast repository of personal experience, guidance, and even predictive models for future actions. The suit enhances cognitive functions, improving memory retention and intellectual acuity. In the event of the wearer's death, the AI can be extracted alongside the individual's Geass, preserving a perfect record of the user's essence for potential study or transfer.
2) Combat Skin
Combat Skin, or Armorum Victrix in High Gothic, is a type of nanosuit engineered with a singular purpose: war. These suits manifest in myriad forms, variants, and patterns across the Imperium, reflecting the vast scope of Imperial warfare. The implementation of standardization maximized industrial efficiency, transforming what was once a logistical nightmare into a streamlined war machine. With this standardization, the Imperium unlocked near-limitless possibilities for innovation, each branch of the military engineering its own tailored modifications.
Despite the unrelenting tide of unauthorized innovations that arise with every century, all new variants must be submitted to the Administratum for formal recognition and sanction.
Among the vast array of Combat Skins, the most prevalent and widely distributed is the Allarus Pattern. Cheap and easily manufacturable, this nanosuit can be produced even by a minor manufactorum. Due to its low cost and high efficiency, billions of these suits flood the warzones of the Imperium, with countless sub-patterns emerging alongside it. The Allarus Pattern has become synonymous with the Solar Guardians, representing the uniformity and unity of the Imperium's military might.
Yet, while the Allarus is the common soldier's armor, there are far more advanced and specialized designs tailored for exotic forces. Many of these exotic patterns trace their origins back to the Builders, or the Ariscator Primum Exaltans—master artificers whose technological prowess rivals the legendary Arcant Praeftor. Among their most infamous creations is the Cataprachtor Pattern Nanosuit.
The Cataprachtor Pattern is a marvel of adaptive warfare, designed to respond to any combat condition with blinding speed. Its components can shift and realign in a fraction of a second, adapting seamlessly to the wearer's commands. This is achieved through the unholy fusion of warp-fused Omniphages and a reality matrix, allowing the suit to manipulate the fabric of reality itself. This fusion of psychic and material energies enables the suit to process and bend raw data from the surrounding environment, granting its wearer a terrifying degree of control.
The suit's capabilities border on the godlike and due to its capability, this patter was sanctioned as superweapon in Solar Guardian's arsenal. With its Omniphage core, the Cataprachtor can consume and integrate anything it encounters, evolving in real-time. In one infamous incident, a newly introduced Cataprachtor suit obliterated hordes during the Helltide, assimilating entire worlds as it absorbed matter and knowledge, evolving with each encounter. The suit transformed into a titan-sized war machine, later morphing into a living Omniphage Hivemind that consumed the planet itself, shaping it into a vast neural network stretching across the planet's crust. The wearer's consciousness extended across this planetary body, the Ferrous Mind of the suit continuously evolving and recalibrating itself to accommodate its ever-shifting form.
In contrast to the staggering power of the Cataprachtor, there exist other, more "tame" variations. These suits, though less volatile, are no less exotic in their function. Each was crafted for specific duties, but all share technologies so advanced that they appear indistinguishable from sorcery.
-Bio Suit-
This particular type of nanosuit is often favored by the Bio Crafters of the Imperium, a marvel of biotechnology compressed into the form of a single, wearable entity. Essentially a Medicae room in the form of an adaptive suit, it can synthesize any biological substance it encounters and craft everything from life-saving serums to genetic rewriting enzymes on the fly.
The Bio Suit's capacity for biological repair is staggering, able to correct even the most horrific mutations, purifying genes and restoring Geass during the heat of battle or within the confines of a Medicae facility. Though its primary function appears to be medical, any enemy assuming it is limited to mere healing would be gravely mistaken.
Leveraging the Imperium's mastery over biological manipulation, Bio Crafters have developed countless patterns to weaponize these suits. The most basic, such as the Octus pattern, is mass-produced and distributed widely across the Imperium. However, there are far more insidious variations—suits capable of evolving and weaponizing diseases according to pre-programmed directives.
Among the deadliest of these is the Apolyon Pattern Bio Suit. When this terrifying suit is deployed, it is often accompanied by War Skeleton units from the Solar Guardians to maximize its lethality. The Apolyon Pattern's unique power lies in its ability to interact with even the simplest pathogens, whether organic or synthetic. Through the Geass Rewriting Code, the suit can alter the nature of a pathogen it encounters. What begins as a simple bacterium can be transformed into a devastating biological weapon, engineered to rewrite the genetic code of any living organism it touches.
The Apolyon Pattern stands as a testament to the dangerous potential of Imperial technology, where life and death are manipulated with terrifying precision.
-Arcantor Suit-
This suit was designed exclusively for the military arms of Arcant Praefator, crafted to reflect the profound mastery over material reality held by the transhumans of Mars and its sister worlds. Due to their nature, the Mechanictors of Mars are firmly bound to the Materium, much like the ancient Yngnir and their thralls. As such, they are experts in manipulating the raw data of the universe. To further enhance this capability, the nanosuits designed for their forces serve not only as protective armor but also as processors that amplify their computational abilities. One of the most basic models is the Allestan-pattern Arcantor suit, which stands as the standard military gear of Martian transhumanity. With technology drawn from the vast armories of Arcant, these suits give their wearers a power that transcends the conventional laws of physics.
Like the immortal armies of ancient myth, the soldiers of Mars wield weapons that seem magical in nature but remain firmly grounded in the logic of the physical universe. Their equipment commands the laws of the material realm, bringing about destruction on a scale unimaginable to the unaugmented.
The Acastus-pattern nanosuit, the most common form of Arcantor armor, exemplifies this principle. It was designed to function as living armor, capable of regenerating even if reduced to a single atomic particle. Imprinted with an artificial signature upon the fabric of quantum reality, the Acastus suit can be reconstructed via Ingram protocols, activated either by the wearer or external controllers. The suit's unique matrix also allows it to perceive and interact with the free data of the Materium, granting it the ability to teleport or establish communication through quantum entanglement.
At the pinnacle of this technological spectrum lies the Galaspar-pattern nanosuit, a masterpiece among even the most advanced creations of Arcant Praefator. This rare and master-crafted armor is outfitted with a suite of sensors known as the *Eye of the Omnissiah*. These sensors provide unparalleled awareness, detecting everything from the tiniest dust particle to the flow of space and time itself. The suit's sensor range extends beyond the boundaries of conventional three-dimensional space, granting the wearer insight into the countless dimensions that interlace the Materium.
The wearer of a Galaspar suit perceives the cosmos in a completely different way, thanks to the suit's ability to tap into the flow of the universe. This power, when combined with various fabrication technologies—both common and esoteric—enables the wearer to craft extraordinary inventions. They can mold time and space to create physical objects, or harness fragments of universal laws to form constructs of immense power. Light itself can be shaped into armor, and entropy can be manipulated to forge devices that reshape reality itself. For a Galaspar wearer, the material universe is nothing more than a resource to be bent to their will.
-Rune armour-
The Psycant Astra stands in stark contrast to the Praefator, focusing not on the mastery of physical reality but on the manipulation of the Immaterium. This unique division of the Imperium specializes in crafting reality-defying technologies that often bewilder those of lesser intellect. With the ever-growing psyker population within the Imperium, the production of Psycant Astra's specialized suits has steadily increased, driven by the need to harness the immense power of psykers while ensuring their safety as they navigate the treacherous Warp.
The primary function of these suits is to serve as conduits and anchors, allowing psykers to tap into the Warp without losing themselves in its chaotic depths. Among the various models, the Polaris pattern is the most widely used. This suit was designed to act as a stabilizing force, anchoring both the psyker's material form and their psychic abilities, ensuring that they remain tethered to reality even as they delve into the Immaterium. For psykers blessed with the Anathema, the *Polaris* pattern allows them to unleash their full power without fear of being consumed by the Warp. The suit enhances their ability to manipulate the Immaterium, unlocking psychic arts once thought impossible during the Federation Age.
In contrast to other powerful nano suits, the Psycant Astra did not limit themselves to creating a single, standalone piece of technology. Instead, their most devastating creations are often a combination of devices, forming interconnected instruments of destruction and creation. One such example is the Atrapos pattern—a suit that comes with a colossal paired structure known as the Seraph's Ring. This city-sized structure is centered around a throne and was designed with a singular purpose: to amplify the psyker's power to god-like levels.
The Seraph's Ring functions as a massive conduit into the Immaterium, forming a well of psychic energy for the psyker to draw upon. Only Alpha-class psykers, those with immense psychic potential and blessed by the Emperor's blood, are permitted to wield such immense power. When seated within the throne at the core of the *Seraph's Ring*, these psykers can bend the fabric of the universe to their will, remaking stars, planets, and even reality itself. The overwhelming power of this arcane superweapon is such that entire solar systems can be reshaped or obliterated at the psyker's whim.
The Atrapos pattern and the Seraph's Ring represent the pinnacle of the Imperium's psychic might, a testament to their mastery over the Immaterium and the terrifying potential of psykers when wielded as instruments of both creation and annihilation.