Gaiaterra: Elysea's Conflict/Desolator

"Ready for toxic meltdown!"

-...

The Desolator is one of the infantry forces used exclusively by Gorizont, one of Voshkod's Subfactions. Planned to be voiced by Antony Howell.

Tactical analysis

 * The aptly-named Deathspray: Desolator Troopers fight using a repurposed ROKS-3 flamethrower that projects streams of vile, toxic fluids that can strip flesh from bone almost instantly and cause the bone to disintegrate moments later. Thus, this unconventional weapon is considered to be far more dangerous to flesh-and-blood targets than bullets or bombs.
 * The armor-melting Splattershot Gun: Desolators also have means of dealing with armored vehicles. The corrosive globs fired from the Desolator's Splattershot Gun not only clog up mechanical parts (thereby reducing top speeds), but serve as a catalyst for the Deathspray. In essence, once a vehicle is "splattered", it becomes as vulnerable to the Deathspray as a portly fellow at the beach.
 * Nearly immune to injury: A happy side-effect of the Desolator Trooper's resistance to all kinds of different toxins, combined with the horrid training they endure, has extremely high resistance to general pain and physical injury. It is not the case that these men feel no pain; they have simply grown used to experiencing constant, negative sensations.
 * A costly experiment: After the death of Aleksandr, the Ministry of Experimental Science desperately spent most of its remaining funds developing the Desolator Trooper's armor and weaponry, and though the results proved effective, if profane, the costs associated with these forces make them quite uncommon.

Overview
The aptly named Desolator is the bane of any organic lifeform. A person in power armor built solely to resist the effect of the Defoliant of which they are named, the Desolator can traverse and resist any hazards. Coupled with a ROK-3 flamethrower repurposed to hold Desolator defoliant, the Desolator can melt any infantry into a puddle of residue in seconds. The potent defoliant shells are even powerful enough to damage armored vehicles, regardless of how heavily armored they are.

Appearance
They're based off the Desolators in Red Alert 3 Uprising.

History
"Shock wave after shock wave,

shock wave after shock wave.

Blood and glory await us.

Our leader gave the order - and off we go!

Our black banners flying in the wind,

towards the battlefield.

For victory, for victory

Day and night we'll be fighting,

crossing blades with blades.

And the rain will not wash away,

on the mound and in the trench,

the blood of brothers, sisters, and warriors!"

-The infamous anthem of the Desolator Division

In Eorzea is it often said that mistakes are made only when they are admitted. And for once, the Union's notorious Ministry of Experimental Science, founded by the infamous general Aleksandr, made a mistake when it introduced the Desolator Troopers, though Aleksandr considers it a success. Their poisons are so vile that most other Voshkod forces soon learned to stay far away. Those who did not tend to die rather shockingly.

The idea of the Desolator Troopers is nearly as wretched as they would have been themselves. As the hour grew ever-darker for the Voshkod and its leadership, Heart entertained several options and cared little for consensus, as some of his fellow scientists chose to flee the nation, or attempted to do so in vain. Others surrendered to Allied forces; their whereabouts are unknown. Heart, however, steadfastly continued his research, even in the face of imminent defeat. After all, with many of his colleagues gone, several layers of bureaucracy had vanished, allowing him to rapidly continue with whatever it was cooking up in the Ministry's secret halls. The only known product of this desperate time is the Desolator Trooper Idea (DTI), which was to breed a front-line soldier so terrible that their very existence would have flown in the face of an astonishing 71 different International Provisions of Appropriate Military Conduct (though that isn't saying much when other factions have done the same or a lot worse such as the Alliance Scramblers).

Although he was responsible for the DTI, he was not imprisoned for it. The Desolator Troopers of course would have taken their name from the poisonous fluids they would have used as weapons. The poisons would evaporate quickly and leave little residue behind so it is impossible to know what exactly they consist of, though they are believed to be the chemical by-product used to power the Voshkod super-reactors. That is, the discovery of the Desolator Trooper is linked to a series of terrible accidents, though the ever-resourceful Heart soon found the silver lining in this. Desolator-based airstrikes have been in vogue for Voshkod frontline offensives for years, yet only recently did the Ministry find a way to transport these fluids in a more-portable fashion.

Seeing the basic idea, the Ministry was interested at first, but upon reading Runolf Heart having written on his formal suggestion that inmates from insane asylums should be put in armored life support suits armed with cannons holding shells full of Desolator Defoliants (for use in clearing underbrush ahead of tanks), his proposal was only approved, much to the complete disgust of the Ministry, by Aleksandr of the Gorizont Division, the rest was returned with [REJECTED] stamped on every available spot.

Now under the command of the Gorizont Division, whose reputation suffered a major hit for approving such monstrosity (and further proving Orlov and Lunafreya's suspicion of Aleksandr's sanity), the Desolator marches alongside their division, melting apart any infantry unfortunate enough to be in its line of sight. The average lifespan of a Desolator trooper piloted by inmates is about a year or two (or until their life support dies), during which they require no sleep nor food due to being cybernetically and surgically augmented.

Little is known of the soldier inside the Desolator Troopers' armored suits. They themselves have no coherent memories of their past lives and seem content to fight. A few of them require no rest and no food, although they live in their suits for only about a year or two, or until their life-support systems' batteries fizzle out. And so, given all the numerous unresolved reports of terminally-ill patients disappearing from triage centers in the Ministry's headquarters in Ksmo, there is a distinct possibility that these "dead men walking" are exactly that. Whatever Aleksandr has done to the Desolator Troopers, they have become extremely resilient both to their own poisons and all types of injury, such that even a single Desolator Trooper could viably stand against a well-trained Alliance platoon and emerge victorious... In a way.

Even with the many reforms made by Thancred after Aleksandr's death, the infamy of the Desolator lives on, in part due to Thancred refusing to dissolve the division despite everyone's urging.

At least one good thing came out of the hideous proposal however - the Vodyanoy battlesuits. Armored, capable of storing great amounts of liquid, and capable of surviving in hazardous environments, such suits have instead been incorporated into Voshkod society... As firemen outfits.

Short story
Undetected by the attackers, only half a dozen soldiers had made it into the Shelter alongside General Orlov. Meanwhile, the MLA fighters were too busy looting the camp for their private possessions and celebrating the bloodbath they had committed. The inside of the container was cooking hot, the air heavy with the stench of sweat and foul breath. Hours passed; they could tell by the movement of a lone spot of sunlight that wandered across the floor as it fell through the air pipe. General Orlov was sitting in a corner of the container with his jacket and shirt taken off, but his cap still on. Fran squatted in the opposite corner, her hands clutching desperately at the small, golden Orthodox cross dangling from her necklace as she whimpered the Lord's Prayer, waiting for the heat to overtake him. Orlov pitied the Vieran woman for her suffering but admired her faith, for he himself no longer had any. The haunting memories of countless black operations had taken that away from him. But as always, he had to keep his composure, for if he lost it, so would his men.

Suddenly, Orlov was shaken out of his increasingly delirious thoughts by the sounds of an attack on the surface, followed by hellish screams, night elven, and a disgusting stench similar to melted plastic.

"Is this the reinforcements?", the tired soldiers wondered with weak voices. "Possibly", Orlov replied. "But let's not rush out too soon. Ready yourselves!" With their last breath, everyone picked up their rifles and assumed firing positions towards the hatch. Suddenly, it swung open and a deep, mechanic-sounding voice bellowed down - in Hyur: "Is there anybody in here? The situation is clear, you can come out!" Orlov scouted ahead and was greeted by a man in bulky armor, similar to the Kvant's Shock Troopers, with a face-obscuring grill mask. "Major Thancred Waters of the 1st Desolator Division, Sir! Our General is over there!", the brute reported while Orlov was still blinded by the setting sun, trying to make out just what exactly was going on. Around the outskirts, there was still a battle, though a battle involved both parties of equal power, as platoons of other peculiar men began shooting at the MLA with old ROK-3 flamethrowers, except it shot a green, horrible-smelling, liquid and cause the targets to scream as they melt into a pile of bones, they were wielding so-called 'Desolator Defoliant' that Orlov had read classified reports of while the MLA tried to retreat, as their rounds bounced off the soldier's heavy armor.

Next to the Trooper stood another gas-masked man with a PDA in his hand and a fine necktie sticking out of his noticeably less filled jumpsuit, taking careful notes of the weapon's performance as it was tested on a group of terrified MLA combatants that made the grave mistake of surrendering. "Orlov?" he wondered as the General doused himself with a bottle of water and approached him. "Excuse my impoliteness, but I didn't recognize you at first. I am General Nikita Ivanovich Aleksandr of the Advanced Weapons Research & Development Corps, though you may know it better as the gorizont division", he introduced himself while handing over his PDA to Major Waters to carry on with the testing as another prisoner was pushed in front of the weapon. Orlov was irritated by the complete absurdity of the situation and promptly refused to shake his hand. "What's happening here? I was expecting Wolfga... General von Kuerten; the 10th Panzers; the Midgardians!" Aleksandr sighed: "Midgardians? Comrade, I am sorry, let me give you an update: Our forces have been hit hard across the entire theatre and are retreating towards their regional headquarters. The Midgardians you've been expecting turned tail and ran like cowards halfway through the border region." Orlov was shocked: "I cannot imagine Wolfgang just running away like that! He seemed like a man of integrity". Aleksandr let out an inappropriate chuckle: "Never trust someone's outside appearance, Orlov. Quite honestly, I too would have expected more from the famed Tula Division, let alone the Spetsnaz. Anyway, we are done testing and it's time to pack up. Get yourself and your remaining men on one of my BMPs; we're falling back to Juba!"

Trivia

 * This is the based off the Uprising version