Gaiaterra: Elysea's Conflict/Shock Inquisitor

"Inquisitor, fully charged!"

-...

The Shock Inquisitor is one of Kvant Division infantry that replaces the Roegaydn Tesla Inquisitor. Planned to be voiced by.

Tactical analysis

 * Resistance is Futile: Shock Inquisitors wear heavy Tesla Battlesuits which make them deadly and robust opponents. Though their Arc Guns require a brief charge up, the resulting blast of electricity can rattle and heavily damage a tank, slag a light vehicle, or fry multiple infantry with arcing lightning.
 * I'd Like to Be, Under the Sea: The pressure-sealed battlesuit, with its own batteries and air supply, is perfectly capable of moving along the sea bed of its own power. Though the danger of using a Tesla coil while submerged makes them incapable of harming anyone underwater, a surprise attack on the beach by these tough suits is hard to follow up.
 * Stop and Go: By activating their EM antenna, Shock Inquisitors can stop enemy any ground forces in their tracks, leaving them at the mercy of other Voshkod forces, or doom infantry to a slow death as the electricity eat away at their flesh.
 * Tough as Nuts: As a battlesuit, Shock Inquisitors are the worst nightmare of traditional anti-infantry armor protection. They are armored enough to shrug off fire from small arms but small and flexible enough to take cover and avoid damage from heavier weapons. They are only really threatened by mid-level weapons such as grenade launchers and autocannons.

Appearance
Their attire of the Hyur Shock Inquisitor is based off the Red Alert 3 Tesla Trooper suits rather than the Roegaydn's Tesla Trooper suits from Red Alert 2

History
"Like a Christmas tree!"

-...

During the later stages of the Great Voshkod-Aquilan War, increasingly refined Tesla Technology was deployed in a man-portable form in special "Tesla Trooper" squads. The bulky packs and forked projectors were still too heavy for all-day use, particularly the Hyurs; tesla troopers were issued special powered exoskeletons normally used by artillery crews to lift heavy shells, and forced to rely on stationary or vehicle-based generators for frequent recharges of both their weapon and exoskeleton. To make up for their reduced mobility and reaction times, many tesla troopers were also issued crude steel body armour that proved effective against the submachine guns popular with Guardian-affilated troops at the time.

This would allow a Tesla Trooper to get into position and ready a blast from his Arc Gun, which was powerful enough to mission-kill any vehicle in Allied, Aquilan, Zemurian/ADI, Andoran and Ulthuan/Katsuragi service. As a result, during combat Tesla Troopers were considered the most dangerous infantry assets in Voshkod service, and many Alliance advances were arrested by the presence of these infantry; most Allied commanders would rather wait for the Tesla Trooper's batteries to run down than to face them directly. Fortunately for the Allies, Tesla Troopers were very expensive to field, and Garlean had little patience for them, preferring to allocate resources to his bloated Black Guard divisions as the war dragged on.

After Garlean's death, a series of meetings were set up for tactical experts, Tesla Trooper veterans, scientists and engineers to attempt to optimize the Tesla Trooper concept for the reformed Red Army. After a series of talks and concepts for the miniaturization of Tesla weapons, a veteran of the Kvant Division instead proposed scaling up the exoskeleton rather than scaling down the technology, a solution with wide appeal. By increasing the carrying capacity of the exoskeleton, a more robust power source could be carried, which would actually increase rather than decrease combat time and allow for more powerful Tesla weapons, not to mention the inclusion of a great deal more armour, though some detractors had noted that such armour would make the troopers too expensive and instead wanted to simply upgrade the frame instead, eventually leading to the creation of the cheaper Tesla Trooper used by the Zenit Division, Gorizont Division and, before the introduction of their own Shock Troopers, the Vieran Reserves. While the Kvant Division continued and made the Shock Inquisitors.

The eventual result was the world's first practical powered combat suit, a hunched, heavily armoured device powered by a powerful Tesla reactor. Though only capable of eight hours of combat operations, which the designers didn't see as a problem as most battles didn't last a fraction of that, and Shock Inquisitors weren't supposed to be sentries, anyways. The armour also had a separate set of batteries for its Arc Guns, which also powered the suit systems, which can be swapped in the field with the assistance of an unarmoured soldier. Rather than having the soldier's feet or arms be separate portions of the suit, there are a pair of articulated robotic feet with mechanical toes (which help protect the occupant from land mines) with legs actuators strong enough that they can keep a Shock Inquisitor upright even when strongly pushed, meaning any tank that tries to push them over will be pushed back, and a directly integrated gun on fully mechanical arms, controlled by the occupant's arms from inside the torso. This reduces overall mechanical complexity and increases the armour protection in these areas; the lower legs and arms can be considered entirely ablative, and indeed both are separated by armour plates from the wearer.

The suit is notable for its ability to operate in extreme conditions. They can also stomp along the sea floor without consequence as the Shock Inquisitors don't need air to operate (and their suit already contains an air tank that can last for twelve hours and the suit can unseal in an emergency), and they are fully capable as RBC suits. The suit is also fully grounded and electromagnetically hardened, allowing it to use its weapon safely. There are several concessions made to allow this, however, most notably highly reduced visibility. The suit has no articulated "head", instead having a simple armoured viewport on the front of the head bubble. To make up for this, the suit has a 360-degree internal sound system tuned to filter out the noise of the suit's operation, to give the wearer a full audio tapestry of the battle around it.

The suit is also equipped with a low-powered EM field that acts as a sort of directional metal detector; metal objects that are moving within a certain distance set off a directional alarm, giving the operator a chance to react as well as contributing to the balance system. During tests, it was found that pumping greater amounts of power into the EM field antenna would create a powerful current that would paralyze almost anything hit, with tests on rats also showing that the flesh slowly boils until they combust when under the paralysing energy.

Trivia

 * Rolewise, this is based on the Mental Omega version with the attire of the Red Alert 3 Tesla Trooper.