Approved Tech Sith Order | Project Catena

[Darth Empyrean]

SPECIAL FEATURES (Full Parity with PRAETORIAN Program)

• SYSTEM-WIDE AUGMENTATIONS
  • Runic Bio-Transcription
    Modified retroviral agents rewrite DNA using Sith-scripted genetic overlays—encoding symbolic enhancements (e.g., aggression, cellular cohesion) in place of natural genes.
  • Titanium-Vascular Reinforcement
    Vascular system reinforced with a flexible titanium micro-weave, offering superior durability and electrical resistance compared to duralumin. Prevents hemorrhaging under high-G combat or pressure vacuum.
  • Arcano-Mechanical Limb Grafting
    Limbs and cybernetics are interwoven with mechano-organic circuits, ritually tethered through neural tattoos and bone runes. Enhancements operate as semi-autonomous reflex nodes when main cognition is impaired.
  • Neuro-Ouroboros Daemon
    An embedded, bound intelligence (daemon or AI shard) interfaces with the subject's nervous system to manage reflexive actions, tactical analysis, and anti-Force discipline. Must be ritually dominated by the host or risk insurrection.
• CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEM
  • Synthetic Aortic Tri-Heart Network
    Central primary heart with two auxiliary titanium-core hearts increase cardiac output by 220%.
  • Black Ichor Blood
    Artificial blood substitute made from ferrofluidic nanoparticles, Sith ichor, and oxygen-binding polymers.
    • Retains function in high-toxicity or vacuum environments.
    • Incapacitates Force-users upon contact via spiritual contamination.
• NERVOUS SYSTEM
  • Ultrachrome Neural Webbing (with Plausible Limits)
    Now routed through superconducting graphene-based myelin sheathing, reducing biological delay and enhancing reaction speed—up to 10× baseline human, without invoking FTL nonsense.
  • Triplet Thought Partitioning
    Tri-core neural architecture allows split-processing: muscle control, spatial awareness, and tactical reasoning operate in parallel with limited bleed-through.
  • Runic Cerebellar Lattice
    Alchemically enhanced cerebellum enables instinctual reaction programming, akin to flash training, but reinforced through ritual trauma conditioning.
• SKELETAL SYSTEM
  • Titan-Ossified Ashbone Matrix
    Combines titanium filament lattices with alchemized volcanic ashbone, retaining phrik-like durability while improving biological integration.
    • Capable of minor self-repair using bone marrow-encoded runes and ambient nutrients.
    • Resistant to magnetic disruption and sonic trauma.
• MUSCULAR SYSTEM
  • Myomeric Titanium Microfilaments
    Interwoven titanium-polymer bundles increase tensile muscle strength by 40× human baseline.
    • Lactic acid breakdown is managed by synthetic mitochondrial organelles.
    • Combat Overdrive Mode triggered through focus mantras (e.g., pain, rage, or obedience litanies).
• RESPIRATORY SYSTEM
  • Oxy-Graft Synthlungs
    Lungs modified with graphene nanopore filters and alchemically stabilized epithelium.
    • Operates in low-oxygen, aquatic, and irradiated atmospheres.
    • Integrated self-recycling NaO₃ salts provide 2–6 hours of emergency oxygen.
• ENDOCRINE SYSTEM
  • Self-Modulating Endocrine Loop
    Bio-computer aided hormone regulation, with enhanced pituitary and adrenal glands.
    • Enables controlled hormonal flooding during combat: cortisol, epinephrine, growth hormone, and painkillers.
    • Will-gated release system: subject must concentrate or invoke a command phrase.
  • Pain Tolerance Reinforcement Nodes
    Specialized implants modulate nociceptive feedback, allowing operation under catastrophic injury. Runic brands regulate threshold.
• IMMUNE / LYMPHATIC SYSTEM
  • Synthetic Bone Marrow (Mk. II)
    Rebuilds black ichor blood on-demand, though slowly.
    • Includes auto-adaptive lymphoid agents resistant to Sithspawn pathogens and bio-weapons.
  • Soul-Splice Phage Protocols
    Retroviral agents eliminate latent Force resonance. Also target Jedi Light-side toxins (e.g., Force Light, purification fields).
• DERMAL / INTEGUMENTARY SYSTEM
  • Runic Subdermal Circuitry
    Gold and ultrachrome micro-filaments form an occult-computational mesh beneath the skin.
    • Supports real-time tactical HUD integration, environmental feedback, and kinetic dispersion.
  • Photosensitive Dermis (Mk. II)
    Adaptive melanin distribution for environmental camouflage, UV shielding, and radiation dampening.
  • Scarification Nodes
    Ritual tattoos are encoded with microfilaments and bioluminescent inks. Glows in low light when activated for fear, communication, or intimidation.
• CYBERNETIC INTEGRATIONS
  • HydraLink Interface – Modular ports for direct mechano-spiritual connection
  • Selkie EyeNet – Ocular implants with AR overlays and spectral vision
  • Chiron FlashNet – Embedded training buffers for emergency knowledge uploads
  • Ocularus Runeware – Pattern-recognition AI bound to ancient Sith symbols
  • Daemoncore Symbiote – Embedded AI/soul co-processor for enhanced reflex, anti-Force discipline, and spiritual shielding

STRENGTHS

• Transcendent Reflex Loop
  • With ultrachrome-inspired neural enhancements routed through superconductive graphene and ritualized cerebellar programming, Catena operatives exhibit sub-Force reaction speeds. Their ability to process and act on sensory input borders on precognitive—without requiring actual Force sensitivity.
    • Effect: Operatives can track, react to, and outmaneuver even low-tier Force users in close-quarters combat, particularly in environments that suppress Force powers.
• Multi-Layered Durability
  • From titanium-reinforced vascular and skeletal systems to ashbone ossification and adaptive dermal armor, Catena units are nearly immune to conventional trauma. Even internal organs are reinforced or redundant, making them functionally unstoppable without specialized weapons or attacks.
    • Effect: Sustained ballistic, blunt, and even lightsaber damage is survivable under most conditions. Their black ichor blood can seal wounds on contact with air, and their pain response is voluntarily suppressed.
• Anti-Force Warfare Optimization
  • Through the Force-Eater Glands, spiritual brandings, and Soul-Splice Phages, Catena soldiers are anathema to Force-based attacks. Not only do they resist precognition and mind-affecting powers, but their presence also subtly disrupts Light Side alignment in Jedi adversaries.
    • Effect: Enemy Force-users feel disoriented, weakened, or emotionally unbalanced in close proximity. Force-based healing and perception powers become unreliable.

WEAKNESSES

• Arcano-Biological Instability
  • The integration of alchemical ritual and biotechnology creates unpredictable feedback under stress. Strong Jedi healing techniques, Force Light, or spiritual trauma (e.g., possession attempts) can cause system-wide collapse, seizures, or tissue degeneration.
    • Risk: Exposure to intense Force Light can unravel their runes, induce psychic seizures, or cause memory loops. They are especially vulnerable in holy or consecrated zones.
• Willpower-Driven Functionality
  • Many enhancements are not automatic—they require active concentration or ritual invocationto activate. Mental fatigue, trauma, or emotional instability can cause malfunctions or render key systems inert mid-combat.
    • Risk: In extreme psychological states (fear, doubt, rage), the internal daemon-core or symbiotic implants may rebel, freeze, or backfire unless reinforced with mantras or meditative rituals.
• Medical Isolation & Resource Scarcity
  • Their physiology is so radically altered that conventional medical treatment is impossible. Even minor injuries can become fatal without access to specialized Sith-Imperial bioforges, alchemical ichor, or tailored blood transfusions.
    • Risk: Bleeding out or internal failures must be stabilized with custom tools or rituals. Standard medpacks, bacta, and cybernetic clinics are ineffective or outright harmful.

DESCRIPTION

Following the repeated incursion of the Bryn'adul, Darth Maliphant realized that perhaps Caulder Dune was indeed correct in his assumption that the Galaxy would not soon deal with the threat as it was meant to. Knowing the danger they posed, Maliphant began to test scale models of bio-optimization on animals through Sith Alchemy and traditional splicing means before realizing that even greater threats still existed - for when the Bryn'adul fell, there were still a thousand Sith, a thousand Jedi, and unknown horrors all throughout the Galaxy. When the Sith Alchemist realized such, the PRAETORIAN program took on a new realization.

While there were precursors for the PRAETORIAN program in the likes of the Those Feral Few or even The Everchosen, the PRAETORIAN program itself relies far less on the direct sith alchemization of its participants and rather the assisted manipulation of existing organelles through the complex algorithms of various X-02 AI - constantly churning out DNA adjusted organs, augmentations, and more to its subjects. This also had the secondary benefit of making them more resilient to things like Force Light from Jedi Masters - while also hoping to negate the Dark Side's influence on the minds of already highly-trained killers.

Traditionally, the PRAETORIAN program goes through extremely stringent guidelines for choosing candidates. High on the list of successful participants are veteran special forces units, Mandalorians from various conflicts across the galaxy, bounty hunters who have made a significant name for themselves, those who failed out of BLACKGUARD but still kept up their prowess, and even the highly educated and trained minds from the finest colleges in the galaxy. It is these minds that serve as the backbone of PRAETORIAN, but they are not the only ones - as Maliphant has a darker side to the collection of the units.

Those with blacklisted histories, confidential program entry, and almost nothing known of them are children who show signs of gifted aptitude - either stolen away from homes deemed unfit for their skills or even bought from slavery. Maliphant, somewhat conflicted by such, sees it as a means of giving these children with no future something to be proud of - a future that could see them becoming some of the greatest soldiers, generals, and shakers in the galaxy; and those who would die had little to live for, to begin with. It is the children, entered into the program at the age of four, who take the augmentations the best - with both the highest rate of survival and the greatest post-augmentation results.

However, the process for augmentations - regardless of background, skill, wealth, or even fortitude - is a highly dangerous procedure few ever live through. While normally hidden from potential candidates who are warned only that it has a low rate of success, the program has a casualty rate of nearly 86.5% - where 48% of those are fatal. The others are permanently marred, either mentally, emotionally, or physically - leading to various paths from that point forward they can take. Nearly 75% commit suicide within a three year period of 'flunking' out.

For those lucky enough to survive, they are given a wide variety of educational programs to bring them into the body they earned. Flash training to better acclimates them to the speed and reactions the body offers which helps reduce the damage caused by first time experiences, along with working along side well known special forces instructors to ensure operational supremacy. These instructors are either flunked out candidates, or Ori'rammakade Mandalorians who found a highly profitable job in teaching the next generation of killers.

After only a few short years of training in a wide variety of environments ranging from space combat to highly sensitive force nexus - they are given a set of [REDACTED] armor and sent into various squads. Those who score highest are given to Maliphant himself to serve as his personal escort - the highest honor a PRAETORIAN can achieve, though at times the most dangerous. Graduating magna cum laude sees them sorted into various squads named after the various gods of the galaxy - thereafter sent on missions to contain rogue force users, collect dangerous artifacts, and infiltrate and destroy dangerous areas including Bryn'adul encampments and Sith Vessels.

But as the years passed and the galaxy continued to rot beneath the weight of its own contradictions, the purpose of the PRAETORIANs—designed in the shadow of war and in anticipation of brute extinction—began to feel incomplete. The threats had changed. The Bryn'adul were gone, and in their place rose something far more insidious: creeping entropy, spiritual fracture, and the quiet failure of the Sith themselves to sustain purpose beyond conquest. It was not enough to build perfect soldiers. The Sith needed relics that could think, kill, and endure long after the galaxy itself began to forget what purpose meant.

When Maliphant ascended into Darth Empyrean, he carried forward the shattered dreams of the program—not to perfect it, but to bury it under layers of heretical evolution. What was once scientific was now sacramental. What was once technological was now ritually forged. The Catena Initiative, as it would come to be known in internal memos and whispered invocations, was not a continuation—it was an apotheosis.

Project Catena began with the cadavers of failed PRAETORIAN candidates—those whose bodies had twisted, or whose minds had collapsed under the strain of ultrachrome neuroloops or synthetic blood incompatibility. Their remains were reclaimed by Empyrean's Sepulchral, studied not as failures, but as blueprints for transformation. Where their predecessors relied on X-02 algorithmic gene-crafting and flash training alone, Catena was born from a fusion of arcane rune-biology, symbiotic machinery, and ritualized soul-binding.

Every organ was reforged—not merely with alloys and recombinant DNA, but through Sith alchemical rites conducted in void-black crucibles deep within the Sith-Imperial catacombs. Their blood was replaced with living ichor, their bones rebuilt with ashbone and titanium filament, and their minds branded with sigils designed to suppress the Force's influence while binding their will to the higher logic of the Eternal Doctrine.

What made the PRAETORIANS dangerous was their precision. What made Catena terrifying was their devotion—not to Empyrean, but to the ideology he represented, etched into their nervous systems, whispered into their sleep, and embedded in the very resonance of their titanium-enhanced bones.

And so the chain was reforged—each link representing a sacrifice: a child lost, a soldier broken, a soul branded for eternity. No longer merely enforcers or hunters, the Catena became vessels of purpose, unleashed upon collapsing sectors, Force cults, heretical Jedi remnants, and rogue Sith alike.

Each bore the mark of the chain. Each carried within them the hum of an inner daemon, watching. Waiting. Whispering the rites that gave them strength.

They did not speak.
They did not falter.
They remembered only this:

"We are not men. We are not dead. We are the silence that follows."

 

[MANIAC]

Darth Empyrean

Amazing work!

Approved.