Storm Knights

"A gift from our god, mighty warriors, with bodies and wills of steel!"

- Zealot Mak Toru

The Storm Knights was the Storm Covenant's attempt to reproduce the Promethean Knights utilised by their Forerunner benefactor, the Ur-Didact. While crude compared to the Knights, Tempest Warriors were lethal, uncompromising and deadly combatants, but thankfully few in numbers. While created by the Storm Covenant, some units would go on to function even after the faction fell apart, as the private guards of high members of the Storm Covenant that escaped persecution.

Design
The Storm Knight were designed by the very best armour and weapon smiths of the Storm Covenant to empitomise lethality. Taking cues from designs of the Promethean Knights and automatons of Sangheili history, they were also influenced by the designs of the Storm Covenant's most feared enemy, the demonic Spartans. While crude compared to the Promethean Knight, and the UNSC's exotic profile Project Siren, it was a dedicated combat unit, optimised for fighting the UNSC at close quarters.

Creation
Like Promethean Knights, the creation of a Storm Knight required blood sacrifice. The Storm Covenant recovered numerous relics during their rise to power, including several functional Composer devices. Reverse engineering these, they attempted to replicate the indomitable army of their god, the Promethean Knights. Using their own Sublimation Device, they could extract the mental patterns of an individual and implant them into an external device. Several lab facilities created 'ascension chambers' for this to be done, allowing Storm Knights to be created at a low rate. These initial Knights were created from loyal soldiers, meaning the creators required no programming constraints to hold them, however, later instances used forced populations and prisoners, requiring them to install programming guards to prevent them from rebelling. These Ascension Chambers grew in number, allowing the Storm Covenant to field more and more Storm Knights, the largest example being Didact's Wrath, a Forge Ship refitted to Compose 3,000 individuals in a day and implant them into freshly built Storm Knight bodies, which produced almost 130,000 Storm Knights until it was destroyed, ironically by one of the Iso-Didact's disciples, The Traveller. Storm Covenant doctrine demanded that only Sangheili be used for the Storm Knights, and any Sangheili would do. Republic prisoners, colonists, women, children, any were fair game. A few unscrupulous commanders would use Kig-Yar, Jiralhanae and humans though. Such industrial level Composers functioned like abattoirs, with lines of prisoners waiting to be fed into the Ascension Chambers. Prisoners outside would be incapable of seeing inside the chambers, and unable to hear the screams of those inside. The chambers would clean themselves of the ash-like by-product and then compose the next individual.

Cerebral Matrix
The Cerebral Matrix is the centre of the Storm Knight and provides all control. The mental patterns of the composed are imprinted in the Cerebral Matrix, which begins to develop as an A.I.-like entity. Unrestricted Storm Knights retain all of the knowledge of their prior life, their memories, their skills, while restricted Knights, usually forcefully composed, retain few memories and skills, have programming embedded in their code to ensure loyalty and are 'flash' trained in combat, making combat capable units in just under 8 hours. This cerebral matrix is linked to all systems in the unit, and is placed in the head, and while armoured, is vulnerable to enemy fire.

Power Systems
The power for the Storm Knight consists of a micro plasma reactor embedded in the chest. This provides power for the shields, movement and weapon systems. While powerful, its also highly volatile, and a penetrative shot will cause the Storm Knight to explode in a ball of fire. While successive levels of armour and fail safes protect it, explosives will often cause near instant rupture of the reactor. It can also be used as a makeshift bomb to prevent capture, or as a last resort.

Armour and Defence
The Storm Knight focuses heavily on defence, with a primary armour layer made up of super-dense alloys and damage resistant polymers. This armour rivals that of light vehicles and often allows a Knight to survive substantial amounts of fire before it begins to fail. This is backed up by secondary plating protecting joints, which is made up of weaves of damage resistant by flexible polymers. This armour is usually painted to represent the rank of the warrior within. The shielding systems are reliable, and equal to that of an ultra, giving them even more protection. The armour can also project a fixed plasma shield, similar to that of a Kig-Yar, to protect them during an advance.

Sensors
The primary sensors of a Storm Knight are the pair of ocular sensors mounted on each side of the head. These provide accurate vision to several thousand meters, and thermal enhancement. This allows the Storm Knight to be incredibly precise in battle. It also has ocular sensors for detecting sounds, even those out of immediate visual range, and pinpointing their location. It also has a Covenant designed motion sensor, capable of detecting and tracking targets, even through thick foliage.

Motor Systems
To provide motor control, it is powered by bundles of artificial muscle fibre, constructed from mixes of high strength, high-tensile polymers. They could take significant punishment, give the Knight unbelievable speed and strength, and thanks to their speed of light reactions, allowing them to be incredibly fast. This allowed them to run as fast as most medium ground vehicles, jump large gaps, and lift five times their own considerable weight. They could also leap from large heights and survive.

For increased movement they were increased with two high-power plasma motors, utilising plasma straight from the reactor. This allowed them to make longer leaps, scaling large gaps and leaping up several stories, like Sangheili Rangers.

Weapon Systems
Unlike the Promethean Knight, Storm Knights only have one integral weapon, a plasma sword. Ideal for dismembering enemies at close range, these large swords are more than capable of cutting a enemy soldier in two.

It can also carry any standard firearm with its hands, such as Storm Rifles, Concussion Rifles or even Fuel Rod Guns, and is strong enough to carry and fire rifles from a single hand.