Approved Tech Howlshard Cluster Bomb Mk. I

[Darth Prazutis]

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• Intent: To create a Kainate exclusive cluster bomb designed for area denial, psychological devastation, and battlefield disruption through a fusion of alchemical shrapnel and Force bound echoes of suffering.
• Image Source:
  • Headers - Teresa Zambrano | Darth Pellax
• Canon Link: N/A
• Permissions: N/A
• Primary Source: N/A

• Manufacturer:
  
  • Malsheem Hypernautics and Manufacturing
• Affiliation:
  
  • The Kainate
• Market Status: Closed-Market
• Model: Howlshard Cluster Bomb Mk. I
• Modularity: No
• Production: Limited
• Material:
  • Bloodsteel Casing
  • Alchemized Shard Pods
  • Pain-Resonant Latticework
  • Ritual Binding Sigils

• Shardstorm Payload: Upon deployment, the Howlshard separates mid-flight into dozens of alchemized shard pods, each containing razor-flecked shrapnel infused with captured death-screams and pain-echoes from Sith execution rites. When detonated, the shards disperse in a storm of screaming fragments, piercing through armor, plating, and flesh. Every shard carries not only physical lethality but also a psychic echo that saturates the strike zone in wailing torment, creating a battlefield environment where steel and suffering fall together.
• Resonance Chaining Effect: The shard pods are alchemically tuned to one another, ensuring that when detonated in close proximity their individual screams do not overlap chaotically, but resonate in deliberate chains. This creates a field of escalating dissonance, a growing chorus that can overwhelm sensor systems, scramble communications, and amplify the psychological pressure on troops. To survivors, it feels less like a single explosion and more like a siege of voices hammering their senses from every direction.
• Lingering Wail Zone: After detonation, fragments lodged in structures and terrain continue to emit residual sonic vibrations. Some shriek with unending pain, others drone with low ritual chants, and a few erupt into distorted laughter. These lingering sounds create an area denial effect, making the strike zone not only dangerous to cross due to razor-shards but unbearable to endure. For Force Sensitives, these echoes rebound unnaturally, creating recursive feedback that mimics their own voice in agony, gnawing at their concentration.
• Gravitic Course Correction Nodes: Integrated into the bomb's casing are lightweight gravitic nodes, near invisible to conventional detection, that allow for minor in-flight adjustments. These systems enable bomber crews to drop the Howlshard with pinpoint precision, even against maneuvering ships or dynamic ground positions. The gravitic corrections ensure the shardstorm blooms exactly where it will reap the greatest psychological and structural toll, locking the field of screams over critical choke points, landing zones, or enemy formations.

• Shrapnel Storm Devastation: The Howlshard does not rely on its screams alone. Each shard pod bursts into hundreds of alchemized fragments sharpened beyond conventional tolerances. These fragments are propelled with enough force to shred armored plating, puncture bulkheads, and rip through infantry formations with terrifying efficiency. The result is not only a zone of fear, but a zone of lethal attrition where every square meter is saturated with cutting steel and burning energy traces. Even troops in partial cover or hardened defensive positions can be overwhelmed by the sheer density of the fragmentation pattern, leaving the blast radius both a psychological and a physical killing ground.
• Psychological Collapse Weapon: The Howlshard does not kill cleanly, it kills with spectacle. Its sustained scream field induces mass panic, disrupts command chains, and causes formations to break as soldiers abandon their posts in terror. The psychological contagion spreads beyond the immediate blast zone, affecting anyone within earshot or sensor range of the wailing.
• Sensor and Communication Disruption: Resonance chaining destabilizes targeting optics, auditory sensors, and long-range comms. Enemy scanners report false echoes or blank returns, making coordination between units unreliable. This compounds the terror effect by isolating soldiers not only physically but electronically.
• Force Sensitive Overload: Force Users suffer recursive scream feedback, hearing their own voices twisted and thrown back at them through the Force. This creates an acute disruption of concentration, weakening their ability to maintain defensive barriers, direct troops, or anticipate attacks.

• Force Nullification: When under the influence of Force Nullification, the shard pods lose their ability to project the psychic screams. The weapon still disperses lethal shrapnel, but it becomes a conventional cluster bomb, far less effective without its defining terror component.
• Collateral Hazard: The lingering wail zone does not distinguish friend from foe. If Kainate forces are not properly timed or shielded, they too may suffer disorientation and psychic backlash when advancing into the strike zone. Commanders must carefully coordinate drops to avoid hampering their own troops.

The Howlshard Cluster Bomb Mk. I is among the most feared munitions in the Kainate's arsenal, representing not the art of simple destruction but the orchestration of dread as a weapon. Forged in the dark foundries of Malsheem, it embodies the Kainate's doctrine of psychological dominance, an approach to war where terror is not a byproduct, but the intended payload. To the Sith engineers who designed it, the Howlshard is not simply a bomb. It is an invocation of fear that continues to echo long after the smoke clears, a weapon crafted to hollow out courage and replace it with silence, panic, and despair.

When released from the bomb bays of tactical bombers, the Howlshard splits apart mid-flight, scattering dozens of alchemized shard pods in a controlled spread. Each pod erupts into a storm of razor-flecked fragments fused with echoes of pain, their edges honed not only by alchemy but by ritual sacrifice. On detonation, the blast does not end with shrapnel tearing through armor and flesh, it begins there. The fragments carry with them a chorus of captured screams, recorded in Sith rites, and upon impact each shard unleashes its own psychic wail. The strike zone becomes a hellscape where every torn wound sings with torment, and soldiers find themselves surrounded not only by the dying, but by the voices of the already dead. Survivors speak of the sensation as being submerged in a tide of agony where the air itself seems to cry out.

The lingering effect is worse. Shards buried in walls, armor, and ground continue to emit their wails long after the detonation. Some howl in endless pain, others pulse in distorted laughter, while others chant in tones that seem to scrape at sanity itself. These residual echoes turn the battlefield into a haunted zone, making even approaching the strike site intolerable. Troops hesitate to advance into the cacophony, commanders struggle to issue orders through the sonic barrage, and even hardened veterans find themselves flinching at shadows and recoiling from phantom screams. Force Sensitives fare worse, as the shards rebound their own thoughts back at them, feeding recursive illusions of self-inflicted torment until concentration crumbles.

The psychological weight of the weapon is magnified by its precision. Integrated gravitic course correction nodes hidden within the casing allow the Howlshard to adjust silently during its descent, making sure the storm of shards blooms in exactly the place where it will cause maximum disruption. Whether dropped into the heart of a shield generator's control bunker, over a landing zone filled with enemy reinforcements, or across the corridors of a hangar bay, the weapon blooms with surgical cruelty, ensuring its psychological and physical damage overlaps perfectly.


To the Kainate, the Howlshard is more than just an explosive, it is a statement. It proclaims that no enemy stronghold is safe, no soldier's courage is unbreakable, and no machine can mute the voice of suffering once it has been weaponized. Unlike other cluster munitions, it does not simply saturate ground with fire and steel; it saturates the mind with terror, ensuring that even survivors flee the memory of the screams long after the fighting has moved on.

Where the Howlshard falls, armies do not just die, they unravel. Cohesion collapses, commanders falter, and troops lose faith in their ability to endure. It is a weapon that leaves behind not just a crater, but a story whispered by survivors and feared by entire campaigns: that when the Kainate comes, the battlefield itself will scream against you.

 

[MANIAC]

Darth Prazutis

Very cool sub again!

Approved.