S.P.I.R.I.T

S.P.I.R.I.T (Special-operations Preventative Investigations and Response Intelligence Team) is a recently-declassified office of the Brotherhood of Steel. The group is a think tank created after the collapse of the New Australian Monarchy, designed in order to create new weapons, technology, and other critical assets. They are behind such designs as the Stalker-2 Plasma Sniper, KERBEROS, EAGLESTRIKE, and MARSHAL- class power armors, the OSC-class attack craft, and AMCA (Advanced Multipurpose Combat Armor) suits. They have scattered since the enactment of Redsteel Contingency, with roughly 830 of the 40,000 former operatives joining the Brotherhood’s New England First Expeditionary Force, 11,000 —joining Lord Felwinter and running missions from the Lifeboat facility in New Zealand—, 19,000 confirmed K.I.A, and 8,000 otherwise M.I.A or unaccounted for.

—History

As stated above, SPIRIT was developed after the Australian Revolution, specifically after the Citadel’s collapse. The group initially sent to contain the Portal Storm left in the Citadel’s wake constructed a device that drained part of the storm’s Dark Energy, which became known as The Mattercatcher. Said machine was studied for the purpose of replicating the Dark Energy inside (this energy having been created from the quantum detonation of the Citadel’s hyperreactor). Whilst this process took place, SPIRIT was officially formed as a sister organization to Aperture, with the purpose to investigate possible incursions on Brotherhood soil and to develop technology to combat said incursions. Their inaugural project was the Iron Coast Initiative, a towering and well-defended rampart that encircled almost the entire coast of Australia using imported off-world metals and nanite tech developed as a strain of non-aggressive SIVA. Further projects were Brotherhood Phase-VI and VII Power Armor, officially known as EAGLESTRIKE and KERBEROS armor, with a sort of “Phase-6.5” being a spin on old brotherhood Jet Trooper armor known as Project: Sky Martial. Recent projects include the first successful use of Dark Energy as a renewable power source in human history, in the form of the massive Dark Energy reactor which powers all of New Sydney. Projects released in the final days of SPIRIT’s operations in Australia included a highly-lethal plasma-based sniper modeled after a rifle used by a pirate force known as the Banished, a cheap alternative to starfighters known as an Orbital Strike Craft (specifically the OSC-75 Cutlass fighter) and even rumors of a Dark Energy-based infantry rifle which would hypothetically run out of ammo at an exponentially slower rate than a kinetic rifle. Their pride and joy, however, was the Advanced Multipurpose Combat Armor, or AMCA armor. The armor was more akin to Mjolnir Gen-2 UNSC armor than Power Armor, and hosted a variety of advanced upgrades. It ran off miniaturized Dark Energy reactors, and severely heightened a soldier’s mobility and strength, while also constantly monitoring their vitals and injecting them with a specific formula that allowed them to stay awake at all hours without inducing insomnia or other negative effects. The suits also came with cloaking systems, magnetic boots that allowed the user to survive a fall from over 3900 meters, and constant accurate battlefield communication and targeting systems. 13,000 of the suits are known to exist, of which 8,000 still remain.

Sadly, SPIRIT’s engineering was cut short by the demonic invasion. The Brotherhood’s initial first response, codenamed Operation: Crimson Saber, ended with a catastrophic defeat as the initial Brotherhood forces sent to contain the demons were massacred. The arrival of millions of further demons prompted the enactment of Redsteel Contingency, a multiple-part response plan.

Alongside the better-known battles of the contingency (Operation: Barbossa, Operation: Skyburn, the Battle of Point Zion, and the Battle of New Sydney) there was a fifth scorched earth operation, known as OPERATION: BLACK PYRE. The operation’s goal was to either retrieve or destroy critical assets of the Brotherhood of Steel. The operation was both a success and failure, as it resulted in hundreds of weapon plans, prototypes, critical personnel, and experimental projects getting saved from destruction, but resulted in the loss of a little under a third of all SPIRIT personal. During the Battle of New Sydney and the breaching of SPIRIT’s government headquarters, the toll reached a little under half of all SPIRIT personnel.

In the aftermath of the Fall of New Sydney, most SPIRIT personnel evacuated to Melbourne, except for a few hundred who joined the Brotherhood at the Gold Coast and were among the roughly 3 million soldiers who were evacuated on the Royal Fleet. The surviving personnel in Melbourne prepared for destruction as demons began to move south towards the already-damaged city, but at the last second the 9,000 or so SPIRIT personnel, 7,000 of which were in AMCA suits, received a transmission from Lord Felwinter. He informed them that he was en route with an evacuation ship, and to defend the city until his arrival. The group, alongside 2,000 standard soldiers still in the city, held off the demons in waves, taking little losses despite the destruction of most of the city. Eventually a massive starship arrived overhead, roughly 7 kilometers in size. The ship was actually an old prototype massive cruiser developed by SPIRIT known as Lifeboat Contingency, and involved almost four dozen of the vessels evacuating humanity from Earth. The cruiser, equipped with an experimental BFG-16k cannon, decimated the demonic forces on the ground, and deployed dozens of helicopters and OCSs to cover the troops. All of the personnel, roughly 11,000, escaped onto the craft, which escaped to New Zealand. The ship landed on the ground and activated the other half of the Lifeboat’s functionality, which turned it into a fortified 7 kilometer-long bunker and dug itself largely underground. It also deployed cloaking craft for the time being to avoid Demon detection. There, it coordinated its’ next move, which would eventually result in Killstroke Protocol a little under a year later.

-Assets, inventions, and base of operations (to transfer to infobox)

—Phase VI, VII, and SKY MARSHAL armor

Phase-VI armor served as a bridge to the gap between old Fusion Battery-powered Brotherhood Power Armor and the new, sleeker Phase-VII Dark Emergy core Combat Armor. Phase-VI was the last generation to utilize Fusion Batteries, and was codenamed EAGLESTRIKE armor. Sleeker than T-60 armor, it still offered the protection of T-60 armor with a more maneuverable and lightweight design. Typically used by heavy weapons troopers, and served as the base for KERBEROS armor.

KERBEROS, or Phase-VII Combat Armor, is widely regarded as the finest armor to emerge from the Brotherhood. Powered by easy-to-reproduce Dark Energy cores, they were regarded as the perfect balance between speed, strength, and defense capabilities. It also, unlike most armor in the Brotherhood, sported localized energy shields powered by Dark Energy. Distributed to 2 million of the Brotherhood’s 12.7 million troops, KERBEROS armor was the pinnacle of the Brotherhood’s armies (though it proved not as capable as the AMCA) and roughly 97,000 sets of the armor were used by the First Expeditionary Force.

Finally, SKY MARSHAL was more symbolic than a widely-utilized armor set. Developed as a successor to the Jet Trooper program from the early days of the Brotherhood, SKY MARSHAL armor was built off EAGLESTRIKE armor sets, but used Dark Energy cords like KERBEROS suits. This powered both a Dark Energy jet pack and far stronger shields than KERBEROS armor. Only 60,000 sets of the armor saw the light of day, and most were given to the New Sydney Elite Guard. Some 2,300 sets of the armor remain, 500 of which are used by the Expeditionary Force and the rest of which were given to the 2,000 accompanying infantry of the Melbourne defense force ( of which the remaining 200 not using MARSHAL armor were given AMCA gen II armor.)

-Dark Energy Reactor

Regarded as a successor to the technological marvel that was the Citadel, the Dark Energy Reactor was a nearly 16 kilometer long facility beneath New Sydney. The plant itself consisted of a massive Dark Energy singularity, contained and stabilized by massive rods that sapped the rapidly-regenerating singularity before it had the chance to overload. The energy generated was so great that it powered nearly the entire city indefinitely. During the Battle of New Sydney, the some one and a half million Brotherhood defenders and 8 million citizens still within the city were instantly vaporized when a demon Superspell impacted one of the topside substations of the facility, destroying it and revealing the reactor. It was soon swarmed by demons, who accidentally destroyed one of the facility rods, causing the reactor singularity to ultimately collapse before a restabilization team could arrive. The singularity’s collapse generated a secondary singularity and a massive Dark Energy pulse which evaporated all human and Demon life in the city. The Australian Royal Navy, which was en route to New Sydney to evacuate the troops and civilians there, claimed they were able to see the blast from a long distance. The second singularity exists to this day, and it is believed it’s’ collapse could possibly obliterate the planet. The singularity was eventually contained by a supposedly-unbreakable Demon spell.

-OSC-class fighter craft

OSC (or Orbital Strike Craft) are cheaper alternatives to starfighters, as they do not require hyperspace engines but are still capable of flying almost a hundred kilometers out from a planet’s atmosphere. The craft are, essentially, highly-advanced fighter planes with orbital capabilities.

-Reverend-class submersible

Originally was planned in tandem with an Aperture Science teleportation experiment known as the Bootstrap Device, the submersible would hypothetically be able to teleport to any location on a planet and run long-term missions there. The project, however, was scrapped during the Demonic Invasion and the disappearance of the Bootstrap Device.

-AMCA Suit Gen I/II

Far more advanced than any T-series or Phase-series combat armor, AMCA suits could rival and surpass such soldiers as Spartan-IVs. Though few of the suits exist, they raised the bar of advanced combat suits in what was the last advanced suit created by the Brotherhood.

Stalker-2 Plasma Sniper

Highly-lethal, the Stalker-2 deploys super powerful plasma which could theoretically cut through any surface except Vibranium. Equipped with advanced targeting systems which resisted jamming and can detect a target through any surface, it was the preferred weapon of AMCA units.

-Warmind version 2

Simply a highly-updated Warmind with complete star maps if the known universe and advanced data. The only known version 2 Warmind was Warmind Scipio, created by the First Expeditionary Force.

-T-72 Power Armor

A scrapped project employing Dark Energy cores into T-70 Ultracite armor. Cut due to lack of funding and the demonic invasion.

-Dark Energy Rifle

Another scrapped project, the Dark Energy Rifle was a powerful assault rifle using Dark Energy batteries as ammunition. Not much is known of the project, although it is rumored it was retrieved during Operation: Black Pyre.

-BFG-16k

The next evolution in the BFG-series, the 16k was almost twice as powerful as the 10k.

-Winter Stronghold (Lifeboat bunker)

A contingency plan to evacuate humanity on several dozen of the vessels, only one exists. The facility evacuated the remaining SPIRIT personnel in Melbourne, though it was damaged during its’ flight to New Zealand and was forced to enter a ground-based bunker configuration.