User:Fire Team Bravo/Huragok Medic

Many associate the Huragok with an engineering caste, which is true. Both the Alliance and the Loyalists use the Huragok as engineers, and they serve that role faithfully. Throughout the Alliance, it is not unusual to see groups of Huragok Engineers wandering throughout civilian cities and military bases, doing a variety of tasks, from maintenance to repair to construction. However, around 2559, a new class of Huragok was discovered. They were the Huragok Medics.

Prelude to Discovery
After the titanic battle at Installation 00, the Loyalist Covenant forces were shattered and without leadership. The Loyalist leaderships castes, the Prophets and the Brutes, were almost completely destroyed, and the rest of their castes heavily depleted. Communications broke down, and there was chaos and disarray amongst what Loyalist forces remained. A bulk of them would eventually manage to regroup, and retreat to parts unknown, at least, unknown until about three hundred years later, when an Alliance scout ship chanced upon Loyalist territory.

However, a good portion of the remaining Loyalist forces never re-established communications with the rest of the Loyalists, and, as a result, were oblivious to the fact that the war was already over. They continued to fight, and caught the UNSC and the Separatist Covenant, both just starting to recover from the enormous casualties they sustained in the Human-Covenant War and the Covenant Civil War, respectively, were taken by surprise. Due to the lack of proper leadership, these attacks were badly-organized and were conducted with almost no battle plan in mind.

Though the armed forces of both the UNSC and the Separatists were sufficient to keep these splinter elements suppressed, they lacked the resources to destroy them. As a result, in 2557, four years after the Human-Covenant War ended, the Alliance was formed. With the combined forces of both sides and the beginnings of technology sharing, they were able to destroy these splinter elements with relative ease. The attacks slowly began to slack off, and eventually stop altogether. It was during one of these efforts to destroy a Loyalist splinter group that led to the discovery of the Huragok Medics.

Discovery
The Huragok Medics were discovered in a number of Forerunner facilities, all carved into large asteroids. The first Huragok Medics, however, were discovered in a Forerunner facility carved into an asteroid in the Delta Draconis system. Alliance forces had detected the energy emissions of this facility, and deemed it noteworthy. A scout was dispatched to investigate the asteroid, as the energy readings were similar to that of an asteroid base.

Sangheili Rangers were dispatched as an advance force, to gague enemy presence. They confirmed that the asteroid was indeed a base, though not of UNSC or Covenant design. The Sangheili were quick to recognize the design as Forerunner. The Alliance government, unwilling to let such a monumental discovery slip between their fingers, immediately dispatched a large force of ships to secure the base and its technology.

The station uncovered a number of Forerunner artifacts, including a large collection of starcharts. But the most significant discovery was deep inside the base. UNSC Marines, breaching a closed door, stumbled upon a room containing thousands of stasis tubes, with a Huragok inside each one. An oddity, considering Huragok were machines. It would later turn out that the Forerunners would use facilities such as the Delta Draconis facility to store unneeded Huragok until their services were required.

From recovered starcharts, the Alliance was able to uncover a dozen asteroid facilities, though there are undoubtedly more. Though three of these facilities were used to store Huragok Engineers, the other nine were used to store Huragok Medics.

The Alliance-Loyalist War
Though the Huragok Medics had been in widespread military service since 2556 and in widespread civilian service since 2572, their true test was not until 2621, when the Loyalist invasion began. Alliance forces, caught by surprise, were taking enormous casualties. Historians agree, however, that, without the Huragok Medics, casualties would have been much higher. The efficiency off the Huragok Medics saved countless lives on the battlefield.

In the many battlefields of the Alliance-Loyalist War, the Huragok Medics treated wounds and performed lifesaving battlefield surgery, rapidly putting wounded Alliance troops back into the fight, or, at the very least, kept them stable enough to be evacuated to better medical facilities. They also served to treat wounded enemy soldiers, whom were a valuable source of intelligence during the Alliance-Loyalist War.

Though the Huragok Medics did not participate in combat directly, their role in the war is still, beyond any reasonable doubt, one of the deciding factors of the war.

Post-Alliance-Loyalist War
The Huragok Medics continue to save lives after the conclusion of the Alliance-Loyalist War. They work at civilian and military hospitals as physicians and surgeons, though more specialized jobs such as pediatricians and therapists still require the skills of trained professionals, and not the Huragok Medics. Nevertheless, their ability to perform lifesaving on-the-spot surgery has saved countless lives.

Physiology and Mentality
Huragok Medics are, aesthetically, identical to their Engineer counterparts. They are approximately 1.8 meters tall and have purple-pink skin. Like their Engineer counterparts, the Huragok Medics are actually extremely sophisticated nanomechanical constructs. So sophisticated, in fact, that they are often mistaken for living creatures. They float from place to place on their gas bladders. It is interesting to note that the deflation of these gas bladders will quickly cause the Huragok to asphixate. The reason behind this is still being looked into at Alliance labs. They have six eyes.

The most obvious benefit of their nanomechanical nature can be seen in their four tentacles, which, like those of their Engineering brethren, can split into thousands of microscopic cilia. However, unlike those of their Engineer counterparts, they use these cilia for medical purposes, instead of engineering purposes. Their capability is amazing, capable of performing minimally-invasive surgery with ease. Given the time, they can treat all but the worst wounds. These cilia work on a cellular level, capable of quickly removing damaged tissue without harming healthy tissue, and cleanly knitting broken bones and flesh wounds better than most conventional methods readily available on the battlefield.

The Huragok Medics are fully-equipped to perform surgery, with the ability to rapidly synthesize a variety of pharmaceuticals, then quickly administering them where they're needed. This ability has saved many lives on and off the battlefield, quickly bringing medicine to places where it would normally not be readily available. They have demonstrated the ability to synthesize not only anesthetics by also sedatives, stimulants, and antibiotics, along with a wide variety of other pharmaceuticals. They are also capable of producing effective cures for diseases in a matter of weeks by simply taking the strain into their bodies, analyzing it, and producing antibodies. They can also produce vaccines with this same method.

The Huragok Medics are also capable of rapidly fabricating organs utilizing a process extremely similar to flash-cloning: a sample of DNA is taken from the person, and the needed organs are rapidly cloned in a matter of minutes, sometimes seconds, depending on the complexity of the required organ. Though they are capable of generating a sterilization field on their own, Huragok Medics are usually accompanied in the field by other Alliance medics, who carry field-portable generators.

Much like their Engineer counterparts, Huragok Medics are very much indifferent to the world around them, and are almost totally absorbed in their work. Their diligence has saved many lives, both on and off the battlefield. However, great care must be taken that they do not wander into an enemy crossfire. Alliance troops, as part of their basic training, are taught basic Huragok hand signs, to facilitate communication. They also have a verbal language, though this form of communication is often only employed between Huragok.

Huragok Medics learn at an unprecedented rate, and, similar to their Engineer counterparts, could teach one another what they learned. At first, survival rates of patients treated by Huragok Medics were not much better than that of those treated by conventional doctors. However, survival rates quickly rose as the Medics rapidly learned the biology of their patients and taught one another. There is apparently also some form of genetic memory in play, as newborn Huragok are born knowing what their "parents" knew. It is interesting to note that the naming scheme for newborn Huragok Medics is the same as that of Engineers.

Of course, Huragok Medics do not reproduce in the conventional sense. Like their Engineer counterparts, new Huragok are constructed by two to three other Huragok when sufficient raw material is acquired. The process can take between thirty to forty-five minutes, depending on whether two or three Huragok are participating. Huragok Medics are every bit as plentiful as their Engineer counterparts in the Alliance, as the Alliance had allocated a significant amount of resources to producing more Huragok Medics in the years following their discovery.

Huragok Medics, despite their name, can, ironically, heal just about anyone but each other. The fact that they are rather fragile creatures doesn't help at all. This has proven a problem in the field, as sometimes, the surgery must be performed on the spot. As a result, Huragok Medics require protection, often being escorted by Alliance combat units. Though extremely valuable assets, Huragok Medics are exceedingly fragile. However, if the remains of a Huragok Medic can be recovered soon enough, there is a small chance that a Huragok Engineer might be able to restore them to working order. Experiments thus far to produce a hybrid Huragok, with the capabilities of a Medic and an Engineer have thus far proven unsuccessful.

UNSC Remarks
"One of those Loyalist Grunts shattered my legs with a Needler. I thought I was finished, when I saw one of those new Medics coming towards me. I'm telling ya, the thing told me, 'You're gonna be alright, buddy. Just stay still, this won't hurt a bit.'"

"Yeah. Sure. And next, you'll be telling us that you caught one of them reading out of a field manual."

-A common exchange between UNSC Marines and UNSC Army troopers, whom share a mutual disrespect for one another.

Separatist Covenant Remarks
"I once took a chest wound fighting a Jiralhanae armed with a Spiker. I would have been dead quickly if one of those Huragok Medics hadn't found me. It did such a good job that you can't even see the scars anymore." -Unnamed Elite

"One of them saved my bond-brother. For that, I am eternally grateful." -Unnamed Hunter (rough translation)