Dominionist Mal-tech
In their pursuit to replicate and or surpass existing starlit Court technologies, radical groups among the Dominion have collaborated and integrated technologies from the other major factions of beacon space to create a number of truly impressive and abhorrent devices. These machines frequently break numerous social and moral taboos in the materials they are made of alone, let alone the process of their creation, or their implementation. The following are a number of confirmed Malicious technologies that radical elements of the Free Dominion employ.
The Revenant Engine
A strange and truly evil mimicry of a Starlit Court’s Sheath tech, the Revenant Engine is a bleed enhanced, networked cybernetic designed to grant Dominionist mech pilots greater control of their mechs and battlefield survivability. Based on the Sihian Sheath, the Revenant Engine creates a neural link between its implanted user, their mech, and all other Revenant Engine users in a certain range, allowing them to share information at otherwise impossible speeds. The Revenant Engine uses bleed magics and brain scans to rip the ‘soul’ of a pilot from their body moments before the point of death, and uploading it to the local network, preserving the pilot and allowing them to aid their allies in combat.
In the case that the lance survives the encounter, slain members of the lance can be recovered, having their ‘souls’ be uploaded into a temporary repository, or to be re-sleeved in clone bodies.
The Demon-Host Core
A horrific device employed by mech pilots in the Umbral Throne, it uses truly evil mimicry of a Starlit Court’s Sheath tech and bleed magic to grant a pilot the ability to wield the bleed. The Demon-Host Core consists of a coffin-like tube that houses a lobotomized lens kept alive through on-board life support systems and connected to a networked neural drive. Pilots connected to a mech via the Revenant engine with a Demon-Host core may then connect their mind to the braindead lens; overlaying their will and mind onto the lens and allowing them to use the bleed. Many of the traditional side effects of bleed use do not affect pilots who utilize the Demon-Host core, as the lens takes the brunt of the effects. Demon-Host core users however are highly vulnerable to the mind degrading effects of the bleed, and have reported audio-visual hallucinations that have been described as the nascent screams and will of the entombed lens.
The Torpid Bastion
A bizarre mimicry of the Starlit Court’s Avalon; The Torpid Bastion is a combination of flesh and machine designed by Children of the Vein heretics collaborating with the Umbral Throne. Composed of a 5m by 3m metallic cylinder with inbuilt life support systems. Inside of the cylinder is a highly tailored organism made primarily of human brain tissue, a structural endo-skeleton, and two sets of redundant circulatory, respiratory, and filtration organs meant to keep the brain tissue alive. The cylinder has in-built systems that handle the primary input and output of biological matter, and oxygenation of the creature’s blood stream. Attached to the brain mass are a series of complex cybernetics, allowing monitoring, direct communication, stimulation, and read/write access to brain matter.
This amalgamation of flesh and machine functions as an artificial environment in which ‘souls’ ripped by Revenant Engine networks can be uploaded and stored within. Once inside these ‘souls’ typically exist in a languid dream-like state, but can be contacted by forces outside of the Torpid Bastion via its external interfaces. A single torpid bastion can safely store up to 10 consciousness at once, with those confined within commonly reporting it as “like being half awake in a great, dark lake, drifting in the numb and warm, as you half hear those around you.”. The Torpid Bastion was meant to be a replacement for the Starlit Court’s Avalon, but the heretical Vein biologists and Umbral Throne scientists have had difficulty creating larger storage solutions.
Homo Maius
Through genetic engineering experiments with help from Children of the Vein heretic cultist the Dominion has perfected the Human + genome to create a strain of Super Soldier With enhanced traits in all aspects that a Human + could have. While not able to be as specialized in any one aspect they have all attributes of strength, speed, dexterity, sense, G resistance and other at greatly increased values. These Brutish soldiers were grown initially using a hosts DNA and restoring their minds using a Torpid Bastion to store a consciousness and transfer it to the new body. While not enough time has passed for a new generation of Homo Maius to grow to maturity naturally, their ranks grow as worthy Dominion officers are promoted to new bodies. The Umbral Throne is trying to make similar projects with other species.