Success or Death.
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To create a riding harness featuring a Personal Cloaking Device for Darth Ophidia's flying Sithspawn mount so it will be more in line with her ways.
- Image Source: Reddit: "My favourite Skyrim glitch" in reply by QuotesUnquotes [Link] hotlinked through Imgur.
- Canon Link: (N/A)
- Restricted Missions: N/A (Unique)
- Primary Source: (N/A)
- Manufacturer: Darth Ophidia, The Sith Empire.
- Model: N/A
- Affiliation: Darth Ophidia.
- Modularity: No.
- Production: Unique
- Personal Cloaking Device.
- Sound Dampeners.
- Strapped Saddle.
- Looks dashing.
- Personal Cloaking Device: The harness' personal cloaking device can render the Kakdjis Zûta practically invisible to the naked eye. However, there are limitations*1.
- Sound Dampeners: The harness is also fitted with a sound-dampening system that mutes a range of the beast's sounds.
- Sturdy: In order to survive flight, the cloaking device and sound dampeners are coated in alusteel plating. They are sturdy, though far from indestructible.
- Saddle: The harness features a padded seating area for the Kakdjis Zûta's rider, giving the rider the option of being strapped fast to the beast, thus allowing more areal acrobatics.
- *1 Imperfect Cloaking: The stealth field projected by the personal cloaking device is not perfect nor impenetrable. It is easier to spot the oscillations of a pseudo-dragon than a person wearing a cloaking device. It is also perfectly visible in a wide range of scanners, including, but not limited to, magnetic, sonar, UV, and thermal scans. The cloaking effect does not affect the rider.
- Imperfect Muting: While mostly inaudible to the average ear, scanning equipment can pick up residual sound waves. If the beast is exceptionally loud (e.g: Roaring), then it will break through the dampeners.
- EMP: The personal cloaking device is not secured against EMP attacks. Such an attack will instantly dissolve the cloaking.
- Stuck: A rider who decides to strap in will also be stuck to the dragon until unstrapped. Strapping and unstrapping is a process that requires both hands and a considerable focus.
As a Sith Assassin and all around sneaky person, Darth Ophidia knows just how essential a good personal cloaking device is to one of her profession. It has been a permanent feature in her personal equipment since Acolytehood. When the Kakdjis Zûta was developed for the Sith Lords of the newborn Empire, the Rattataki fell in love with their reptilian form and powerful stature. However, one problem became apparent: They were very visible, and very loud. So Ophidia set out to find a solution while her mount was being grown.
It took a while for the first saddles to be developed and improved upon in order to give the rider the right mixture of security and opportunity on their mount, and began the development of her own variant. Making the a personal cloaking device large enough for the beast was a challenge, but not outside the Empire's reach. After months of work, the first prototype was complete.
While it cloaked the pseudo-dragon to an adequate degree, it kept breaking apart from the turbulence of flight. So, the Imperial engineers devised a set of alusteel plates, imitating natural scales, along the device.
After a few test flights in which practice drones were set to spot the dragon through audiovisual detection, one big issue became apparent: The Kakdjis Zûta are loud. They were loud enough to be detected. It seemed for a while that the project was a bust, until one of the assistants came back with industrial scale sound dampeners from speeder-bikes. - An idea he had while riding his own speeder on his way home - These were stripped down to the bare necessities and given the same fitting as the cloaking device.
While neither the cloaking nor the dampeners worked as well on the mount as they would on an individual, it was found that the beast could hide relatively well. Its flying speed and sheer size made many visible oscillations, and it has no protection against more advanced scanners. The sound dampeners only dampened the mid-range of its sound emissions, and did little to nothing to deep roars and high-pitched shrieks. Yet, the project was deemed a relative success.
