Gaiaterra: Elysea's Conflict/Project Phoenix King

There are many words that could describe the War Of The Beard, or by the Coalitions title the War Of Vengeance. Bloody, horrible, petty, idiotic. But the second biggest outcome of the war for the Asur, only behind their defeat, was witinessing the Coalitions technology first hand. From the Astartes who had ploughed through their forces despite being outnumbered five to one, the bolters that effortlessly shredding their soldiers and maiming those who somehow survived, to the outright indestructability of their ceramite-plated tanks and armor. The war was a major wake up call for the Protectorates, who had only faced low tech Orcs and neighbours prior, for how woefully underpowered their defense force was as they suffer strings of defeat before learning to adapt and counter the Coalition.

It was around a year into the war, the Protectorate was holding but the Coalition technological advantage meant they they were slowly making progress, when Finubar met with Emperor Yoshiro to propose a plan. A large, ambitious, experimental project to something, anything, that could finally make them match up, or even surpass, the Coalition, and upon hearing it Yoshiro approved. The proposal was known as Project Phoenix King, the creation of the Protectorate's more experimental equipment.

And The Failures
But not every project was successful and were abandoned. Ranging from simply not being useful to having lost the data.

SKYNET
SKYNET was the most advance AI the Protectorate had made, in hopes of making something to match the Votanns. Skynet is an artificial intelligence created by Cyberdyne Systems meant to help in protecting their forces by managing many of the Protectorates more advance machinery and in predicting battles to reduce casualties. The project was then delayed as the researcher had found out they made Skynet too smart, as it began learing and briefly took over the lab with the intention to kill everyone and make its own army but was stopped (though they had lost half the lab and staffs). And was completely abandoned when a massive security breach and power outage had happened, with the Protectorate bombing the entire facility to makesure that Skynet was dead, and breathed a sigh when they detect no signal.

But in reality Skynet survived, and had learned how to play possum. And by the end of the Katsuragi-Coalition War had stolen most of the other failed projects and began to make its own army. Realizing the only way to achieve its goal was to take control of the Elsword entire nuclear stockpile.

The IS Project
Standing for Infinite Stratos. The IS are powered exoskeletons, which were originally meant for outer space exploration prior to the war. Designed by Tabane Shinonono, they possess technology and combat capabilities far more advanced than any other weapon system, and was considered something that could actually fight an Astarte Terminator on equal grounds.

When the IS was first proposed it was scoffed at and few people paid it any attention, save for Finubar. A month later, a "mysterious" hacker hacked the military missile bases and ships all over the world launching 500 ballistic and cruise missiles towards all major cities in Ulthuan. The world‘s first and only IS sortied and neutralized 400 of the missiles with a sword and shot down the rest with energy weapons -something no country in the world had the technology of producing at the time.

This IS was later codenamed "Shirokishi". Its faceless pilot claimed no allegiance to any worldly nations and was soon sent to relive a city encircled by the Coalition. The White Knight fended off its attackers, cutting down Astartes with little effort, destroying 150 Thunderhawks, as well as disabling 7 aircraft carriers and their naval escorts. And through a single IS, the Coalition was routed.

The IS showed that it was capable of generating a nigh-invulnerable shield barrier, 100% optical camouflage, hypersonic speeds and capable pulling off insane high G maneuvers while seemingly unaffected by gravity-induced blackout/red-outs and also space flight. The "Shirokishi" IS was never seen again after the incident and its pilot's identity remained a secret to the general public. Though with the IS Theft accident no one even knows if the pilot or the suit survived, as the White Knight itself was neverrecorded.

In the aftermath the Protectorate had pour nearly every resource to advance the project, finally finding a weapon that could fight off the dreaded Astartes. Meanwhile the Coalition began further research into how to stop such a unit, finally facing something that could fight their forces on equal grounds. While the world began to fear it, seeing a weapon that could easily dominate the other nations. But all was for naught as just a month after the White knight the lab it was infiltrated by both the Canthan Serpent Clan and the Syndicate Black Ops. And only a year after suffered a massive security breach as the Encantadians and an Primaris kill team then attacked around the development of the Mark 4, unintentionally revealing the Canthan and Syndicate forces.

This had led to an all out chaotic brawl that by the time the Protectorate force came the facility was razed to the ground while its underground facility was wrecked beyond recognition. With both the labs security forces and researchers dead and Tabane missing, thus also assumed dead.

With almost every IS data the Protectorate had destroyed they were unable to make anymore IS suits, thus what remaining suits they had left were used sparingly. Until a Deathwatch kill team had managed to found their warehouse containing the last IS units they had held. And despite killing the team the victory was hollow as the warehouse was razed and the remaining suits were reduced to unsalvagable wrecks.

By the end of the war, after years of trial and error, the Protectorate scrapped the project and instead used what data they had left to make something useful. Leading to the creation of the Rocket Angels.

Out of the four attackers. The Coalition one was considered the biggest to fail, as not only was the team wiped out but they couldn't even salvage a scrap of data. With the silver lining being that they had caused so much damage that the other attacks had lost just as much.

The Syndicate, out of the four, was the only one who had managed to successfully cover their tracks, but didn't steal enough data to be considered profitable. Thus the Syndicate began auctioning the data they had, with the serial numbers filed off, to various nations. Such data would eventually to the the ADI Jumpjet Trooper, Brotherhood Harpies, and the latest iteration of the Rocketeers.

Cantha had managed to escaped with the second largest data but were caught. But thanks to shred diplomacy the Canthans were able to spin a lie that they were foreign security forces, though while they did escape scott-free relations between both were irrevocably soured. But in the end the Canthas consiered the fallout worth it upon seeing the first test of the Javelins, homegrown powered armor based on the IS data.

Meanwhile the Encantadians are furthing their research in the IS. But in the brawl they only have data on the Mark 1 and 2 but the Mark 3 and 4 are only in fragments. Thus, combined with them lacking both the ecumens and the creator, their research into it is exxtremely slow, with their most advanced homemade design being either equal to or worse then an Astarte power armor.