If you engage in combat in the Voidpunk Universe, you want to keep your shocksuit handy. A shocksuit is a piece of advanced individual armor, which does a lot more than just protect its wearer against the impact of energy and projectile weapons. When its first iteration came out of entrarchic labs, its original designation was “Exo Suit for Hazardous Operations and Combat.” This spawned various acronyms and brand names across the Entrarchies that adopted the principle for their militaries, of which “shocksuit” did stick as a universal term.

A shocksuit has an inoperational state, called “paused,” from which it can be booted up into an operational state, called “active.” When paused, it flexibly covers its wearer’s torso, legs, and arms. When active, it hardens against projectile and energy weapons impact and encloses the wearer fully, including feet, hands, and head.

There are models for different purposes, but advanced combat models feature tactical data visualization; movement, load-bearing, & medical assistance; and programmable weapon system APIs. Depending on model and use, shocksuits can also provide backside connectors for specialized equipment, from oxygen supply modules for EVA missions to ethercoil backpacks with gravity assist for drops and vertical engagements. There also exist much lighter versions that are purely protective. Shockvests, for example, merely cover its wearer’s torso and, when active, the wearer’s head with an open helmet and a transparent vizor.

Beyond protection, a shocksuit’s most important components are its combat electronics and weapon system APIs—in the Voidpunk Universe, you can only fire energy weapons that are connected to electronic targeting systems. As energy weapons are essentially particle accelerators, these targeting systems do a lot of heavy lifting to make small arms energy weapons operable, efficient, and safe to use.

But that’s a topic for another post.