Gaiaterra: Elysea's Conflict/Initiate

"Yuri is our master"

-Initiate

The Initiate are the advanced anti-infantry of the Collective of Auring's PsiCorps faction exclusively. Planned to be voiced by Luke Millington-Drake, emulating the voice of Initiates from Yuri's Revenge.

Tactical analysis

 * Yuri is master: The Initiate is a particularly powerful and dangerous basic infantry unit, attacking with powerful pyrokinetic bursts that quickly set men ablaze and can even threaten lighter vehicles in a way that assault rifles never would be able to, and their durability is superior to that of most other basic infantry. Cover is less effective against the attacks of Initiates than against most other weapons.
 * Enlighten me: It is highly advise to spread out when facing Initiates, as their pyrokinesis attacks propagate at the target, also making them dangerous to entrenched foes.
 * Cleansing flame: To hide in a structure is no defense against the Initiate, for they can dig into their willpower and charge up a mighty pyrokinetic blast that will clear out everyone in a building like a thermobaric bomb, or use it to deal additional damage to selected enemies for an ambush.
 * I am but a student: With that said, the Initiate is not without weaknesses. They are among the shortest-ranged non-melee basic infantry and will be massacred if caught in the open by the likes of anti-infantry vehicles or suppression infantry. Similarly, if they can be prevented from closing the distance, their powers will come for naught and aircraft are their bane.

Overview
Whether actually convinced Yuri will bring about a better world or mind-controlled and forced to do his bidding, the Initiates are fiercely loyal to the Collective cause. They consist mostly of ordinary soldiers augmented with psychic apparatuses that allow them to create and manipulate fire with thought alone. This allows Initiates to ignite enemy infantry with ease and even put the heat on lightly armored vehicles. Initiates can garrison civilian buildings for protection against bigger threats.

Appearance
The attire of the Initiate are the same as in the Yuri's Revenge ones.

History
Yuri was always deeply interested in the power of the human brain and pursued its secrets to degrees unmatched by lesser minds. His Initiates were formed out of those who had started following his teachings, and they followed the word of their sinister master to the ends of the Earth. He taught them one of the simpler psychic techniques, the ability to conjure heat energy through one's psychic abilities, and this became the first step in essentially all of Epsilon's psychic training programs. From the start of his operations in the Alliance, the "Great Master" formed what amounted to a cult around him, and with a handful of exceptions, all who rose to prominence in his Epsilon unit started their careers as initiates. The ease with which he conceived of all the technology and even the appearance of the initiate amazed his new followers, and even in Epsilon's days as a research division, countless Initiates served at Yuri's commands.

Within the Voshkod, these Initiates formed a secretive group that was almost impenetrable to Voshkod's internal security. However Leese and others repeatedly told the rest of the Voshkod to not worry, Yuri was a loyal and valuable member of the Voshkod whose research was indispensable to its prosperity. Most generals and officials who met Yuri in person found themselves agreeing with this assessment, and the Initiate program continued to expand. Yuri, however, always made sure to hide some of his best research or put in special failsafe to ensure that they would favor him. Any of the psychics he trained for the Voshkod were given secret instructions to turn to his service when the day came that the Voshkods would betray him, while he himself amassed a great army of initiates in secret. He made absolutely sure that the initiate program's research was kept within Epsilon, and that all were loyal to him and his inner circle first.

In the GVAW, the first initiates mostly engaged in secret operations or in support roles to try and preserve the element of surprise. He had them intentionally downplay their abilities to the point of even using guns instead of pyrokinesis; using their psychic abilities more for subtle purposes. The elaborate ruse worked, as no one who participated in that conflict suspected the truth that Yuri had created a secret weapon that would have won the Voshkod the war. His initiates even formed secret cells deep within Communist territory, cells that would wait for his orders to defend their allies in the next war after correctly predicting that the Voshkod would not be victorious in this war. As ever, the initiates of Epsilon were the foot soldiers in this sinister scheming and dealing, often being seen speaking to strange figures bearing the symbols of black hands and scorpions and fighting other strange men in medieval armor and wielding primitive seeming weapons.

Unfortunately under Cherdenko, Yuri's research would be cut short. As his first rule as Premier would be the complete shutdown, and destruction, of psychics. With his Blackguards storming his facilities to wipe all of the staff. Fortunately, Cherdenko underestimated just how large Yuri's contingency army was. Whose sacrifice had given Yuri and the researchers enough time to evacuate with important data and scatter throughout Gaiaterra. And in the aftermath his cells would remain hidden, though now they would fight against the nations they were supposed to attack when the order comes in.

Now under the service of Auring, the Initiates would continue to maintain their ruse. Many people across the world were even trained as sleeper initiates, their status as Epsilon's psychic warriors kept hidden from all, even themselves as their programming was buried into their consciousness. The Alliance, the Voshkod, the Coalition; everyone thought that there were maybe a hundred thousand or so initiates in existence. Such a calculus could not be more wrong, as in truth Epsilon had grown its armies to include millions upon millions of soldiers waiting to stab their erstwhile masters in the back. Day and night they were trained, day and night their psychic abilities and devices were honed and perfected, and day and night they engaged in secret drills and genetic programs to prepare their bodies to bring peace to humanity and to its next stage of evolution. Fanatical in their devotion to Epsilon's vision of a psychic humanity under the leadership of the Great Master and his inner circle, the initiates were prepared to launch a most devastating war that would end all other systems of society and bring about the new age.