The Knight Sabers' Hardsuits

Individual Hardsuits

Note that because this page goes over most of the armor, form, and general details, the individual Hardsuit pages are fairly basic and just give an idea of how a particular one functions rather than specifics on motors, agility, abilities, position in combat, and so on.

Before Katsuhito Stingray was assassinated, he anticipated the events that were going to unfold and devised a plan to keep his legacy and dreams alive through the use of his children, Sylia and Mackie Stingray. Doctor Stingray had all of his knowledge and available data loaded into a data unit. The information contained therein was extensive, but possibly the most important schematics were that of a type of personal body armor called a Hardsuit. The Hardsuit was designed to encase a single body for which it was specifically contoured. It would perform with exceptional mobility while maintaining a degree of protection that was not greatly forfeited. The maneuverability that the suits were capable of was astounding by the standards of the time. The armor was form-fitted to an individual's body shape to decrease the bulkiness that was seen in comparable armor that the government and private corporations manufactured. The morning after her father's death all of this information was transplanted directly into Sylia's brain. Eight years later she began to work on his design.

The only design on the data unit was a basic preliminary sketch of a Hardsuit. It was certainly feminine by design and was intended for a woman. The armor had all the weapons of larger units in a far more compact design. This would increase not only the aforementioned mobility factor, but would also allow the wearer to go places that larger mechanical units could not. The Hardsuit had armored plates that were connected by flame/bullet-proof materials that were impermeable to normal weaponry carried by civilians and much of what GENOM's Boomers were armed with. The material was also heat resistant and could seal up over the wearer in the event of outside chemicals or other dangerous elements. The armor itself was crafted of a ceramic and steel alloy that Sylia designed on her own by combining several known effective types of plates. Inside each Hardsuit there were several layers of padding to protect against blows, falls, and kinetic attacks. The material on the neck was reinforced with plastic fibers to prevent broken necks and decapitations when the wearer was dealt a blow to the head.

Mobility and weight in the suits depended upon each one individually. Linna Yamazaki's was the most mobile due to her role as the melee attacker of the group. Her position was to close in on her opponent, deliver quick attacks, and then get away so that Sylia Stingray or Priss Asagiri could finish the Boomer off with their more powerful weaponry. Nene Romanova's Hardsuit was weighted down by a great deal of technical warfare equipment that Sylia placed on its back, resulting in Nene's suit being heavy and clumsier than the others, though not clumsy at all by most standards. Nene's role in combat also called for less protective padding and Sylia had to make the armor less durable to bring down the weight so that Nene could still dodge attacks and occassionally enter combat when called upon. Priss Asagiri's mobility was the most impaired due primarily to her need for extra padding and armor around her Hardsuit. Priss' role was as long range combat specialist but she could, and would, engage in close combat, most often not to her advantage until her second generation Hardsuit was built by Sylia in mid-2033. Sylia Stingray's Hardsuit is arguably the second most agile of the group. Her Hardsuit is the only one that can reach true flight level and can engage in long-range and close combat, making a need for maneuverability a must. Because she is the leader, the need for protection was greater than that for the others. Thus, her Hardsuit was the most heavily armored and had reinforcement padding in almost every part of it, making it the heaviest suit.

The Hardsuit had separate leaping/jumping abilities, too. As mentioned, Sylia's is the only one that can truly fly, making getaways during a losing battle easier for her than it would be for the others. Linna's was made to have extended leaps that could span over two-hundreds meters, nearly but not quite flight. Nene's had a powerful engine and could maneuver well enough in the air, making her possibly third for jumping. Priss' was created for long range so her suit was designed less for flight and more for standing her ground and firing from a fixed point, unlike the others. While not severely impaired, her leaping ability was not anything like Sylia's or Linna's.

The engines that propel the suits into movement are placed around the body pertaining to joints. There are units that, while technically controlled by the wearer, are really part of the suit making the wearer move notably faster than she would otherwise. For instance, when Sylia engages in a thrust of her arm, the motors push her arm to a higher speed and greater force than it would otherwise move with, therefore exceeding human limits and taking the Knight Sabers to superhuman levels in their combat speeds and functions. The main engine for the suit as a whole is, in the cases of Linna, Priss, and Nene's Hardsuit, placed in the center of the back to prevent it from getting in the way of proper maneuvering. There are also flight verniers on the hips and, in some cases, on the boots, shoulder plates, and other parts of the Hardsuit. Sylia's Hardsuit differs because it needed to be able to fly. She has a central motor not unlike that of the other suits in that it is placed in the center of her back, but she also has 'wings' that extend to her sides, each being sixty centimeters long. They add an extra push to the Hardsuit that allows it to take off instantly, having no need to push off of other surfaces or rely on being able to bounce from place to place.

Inside the Hardsuit are layers of polymer-resin padding (similar substances to those used for making nylon). The padding is obviously to prevent outside blows from being too damaging to the wearer. Priss has several layers of this, second only to Sylia, because despite her role as long range specialist, her temper gets in the way of clear thought and logical actions. Thus, she placed herself in the line of fire. While typically the long range specialist will not have tougher armor than a close range specialist, someone like Priss would be dead in an instant without it. Linna has the least padding, sacrificing protection for agility. Nene has the second least padding because she tends to do very little physical combat. Sylia has the most padding because she not only engages in all kinds of combat, but is, once again, taking cares that she survives the battle intact.

The strength amplifications of the Hardsuits depend, as all things do, on what part the Hardsuit is to play on combat. The enhanced strength comes from myomer flex cables where are like artificial muscles for the Hardsuits. When Sylia punches the myomer cables amplify the force behind the punch and bring it forward more like a steel bar swinging from a crane than a twenty-two year old woman's arm. Nene's Hardsuit is weak compared to the other three because it was made for the technical end of the battle. Linna's Hardsuit is stronger than Nene's but less so than Priss and Sylia's because her attacks were meant to be brief and effective but not all around devastating. Priss' strength was taken up above Linna and Nene's when Sylia realized that, with most things, Priss' position was also going to be compromised due to her inability to stand back from the fight and her action oriented style. Sylia herself received the most strength amplification, making her able to stop a charging Boomer without budging a centimeter even though a Boomer can pick up and through a medium-sized truck without putting forth any real effort. With their strength at such levels, the maximum being maybe fifteen times what a normal woman's would be, the Knight Sabers each had the ability to rip off a Boomer's head with her right hand, except for Sylia who had both gauntlets armed. There was added force behind each movement from any one of the women.

One of the most integral pieces of the Hardsuit is the helmet. It serves its purpose as an upscale hardhat for combat, but moreover it locks onto targets, registers vital signs, performs scans, and much more. What it does and how far it takes certain commands depends upon the Hardsuit and wearer. If Priss' Hardsuit were to feed her an endless stream of computer jargon it would do her no good. If Sylia or Nene were to receive that same information they would be able to use it at their advantage. Linna and Priss' Hardsuit were designed solely for combat and not for performing technical duties. Nene's Hardsuit, on the other hand, was designed specifically for technical warfare and bears almost no weapons aside from her computers. Her HUD is the most advanced of the group, reading everything from vital statistics of the other members to what the air is like, temperature, information taken from other computers, specs of the other Hardsuits, warm and cold heat, can scan for organic and inorganic life forms, and any number of other things. Sylia's is the second most advanced. She, too, can see the other member's vital statistics when she calls for them and can read a variety of information. If a link is set up between two Hardsuits (as was done in the first episode of Bubblegum Crash!), they can feed information back and forth. Nene can lock onto an object for Priss and Priss can shoot, hitting something that she would not otherwise have been able to find.

The contour of the suits is disinctly feminine not so much as a statement as for maneuverability that larger suits cannot attain. The military's K-12 Armored Troupers surpassed most standards but the Knight Saber's Hardsuits were vastly superior to those. General Schwarz of the U.S.S.D. had computer equipment installed in a hidden room behind his office in an attempt to secretly scan the Knight Sabers' suits but Nene's scanner spicked up the cameras watching them and Sylia promptly destroyed the camera which resulted in the computers going berserk. The designs of the suits were the envy of several concerns including GENOM. They manufactured similar, more masculine suits briefly before officially ending the project. Mason's battlesuit was simply a more masculine version of Sylia Stingray's, and in some senses inferior while in others superior. However, its greatest problem was that Sylia had a much better range of mobility and her suit was agile while Mason's could hardly leave the ground at all.

Inside the suit there was a system that read even the slightest impulses and sensations from the wearers' bodies. To use the system correctly the wearer had to don a softsuit which was created from a thin sensory film that had several thin wires in it that fed information to the helmet and the other parts of the Hardsuit. If a portion of the softsuit was destroyed it would no longer function properly. The only parts of the body that did not have cover from the softsuit were some parts of the back, above the breasts, and the area from the mid-forearm and down, along with the head. The arms were not covered in this fabric because they manually controlled the gauntlets and, in the case of Priss, Linna, and Nene's left arm, it would have served no purpose whatsoever to have covering below the elbow because their hands were free.

Ultimately there is no perfect Hardsuit; the closest thing to that among the four originals would have been Sylia's but later fighting roles and suits were changed occassionally dramatically. It is impossible for the Knight Sabers to fight well without having at least two of them cooperating on an opponent. One suit can easily taken down a BU-55C but even then there are less complications when there are specialized positions among the team. Originally Priss was long range, Linna was close-in, Nene was communications (ECM/ECCM), and Sylia was multi-purpose, although calling her suit general would be a hideous misnomer. In battles such as the one with the SuperBoomer that Mason constructed it is apparent that a cooperative group makes the most out of the four Hardsuits. Mackie fed Sylia information about the SuperBoomer, Sylia crushed its head, and Priss fired rounds into the open cavity Sylia had created. Without that teamwork the Knight Sabers would have lost many more fights than they did.