Variyarsa, Sakti, and Kankala Armor

The 22nd century is filled with danger. Open warfare between corporations is forbidden by the Allied System Conference treaties and conventions, but nevertheless sometimes occurs. The most common type of warfare is electronic because of the vast capital investments in spacecraft. However, out in the far reaches of the Outer System or on the ground in any of the colonies, there is an entirely different method of warfare, namely: the warfare of semi-autonomous weapons systems, drones, and waldo armor.

Drone warfare was perfected in the late 21st century and is now a staple of most ground conflicts. Of course, they are rarely large scale. Conflicts on Mars or the Outer System are between bands of hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands. Rarely will warfare escalate into combat between hundreds of thousands of combatants. The ASC simply would not allow for it. The most active warfare takes place between mining concerns on Mars, though there is a close second in terrorist activity stemming from the anarchists of Titan.

Variyarsa. Variyarsa cover a wide range of remote drones that are generally operated by Turings or other limited forms of artificial intelligence by means of central command-and-control broadcasters. Variyarsa are terrifying in the field, operating in swarm tactics. Also known as remote armor or hard armor, Variyarsa are a specialty of Kartikeya's weapons productions teams. Note that any type of remote equipment may be jury-rigged to operate on swarm intelligence or wired to a waldo command center or a Turing and then outfitted with weapons systems.

Kankala Armor. "Skeleton" armor, Kankala is a type of exosuit that utilizes miniservos and high-pressure hydraulics in combination with jacksuit-type synthetic muscle. Unlike jacksuits, Kankala is plated for ablation. It generally provides similar protection as a jacksuit PLUS the ablating power of the ceramic high-tensile nanoweave plating. Kankala is often outfitted with extensive sensor systems for 360 degree field-of-vision as well as autosurgeons and other such niceties.

Sakti Armor. Sakti, "powered," armor are any large-scale drones or armor pieces that receive orders from a swarm-brain. Much like Variyarsa, sakti machines can be piloted without intervention of human operators. Unlike Variyarsa, sakti machines operate on an emergence-intelligence model: destruction of the central broadcaster cannot limit them (as Variyarsa), though they must maintain a certain level of cohesion and density in unit-number to chain processors together for intelligent behavior. There are legends of sakti convoys that achieved self-awareness and fled into the deep Martian desert, though none have ever been substantiated.