Membrane Projector

A type of purposed organism which was used mainly by the Harkas to project a shield around themselves without any technology. They are still used.

As a symbiotic organism, it would live inside the body of the host. This has the key advantage of allowing the host to be constantly ready even while they were sleeping, as enemy rounds would be stopped by their organic shield. However, it would take up no small amount of space within the hosts body, making less room for their organs and other symbiotes. They did however harvest nutrients from the host as well as enough energy to maintain it's basic organic functions to remain alive.

No harkas or naturally evolved sentient species would ever produce enough power to deflect modern rounds, which have become extremely powerful over time. The membrane projector must be supplied with energy or antimatter manually, probably involving use of teleporters. They only drained very little power to maintain this membrane, but it required a lot to regenerate it or deflect enemy rounds. Even then, it could still only deflect projectiles for a short time before it was bound to run out of energy so they are not to be relied on too much.

Despite all this, it allowed infantry to become much more effective, as they are often given a chance to take cover if they are hit without being wounded. Other species began to ask the harki for similar symbiotes, and they became more common on the battlefield.

They worked in a similar manner as mechanical shield projectors. They could project a membrane of plasma or hardlight. This made many people decide between either an organic version or a mechanical version, as both perform very similar. Some infantry chose the mechanical variant because it does not leech the hosts body but the symbiote does. Those that pick the organic variant either chose it for the reliability or the fact they do not need to power it manually. Of course, all HF power armour also comes equipped with their own shield generators so this results in multiple layers of shielding, though that from the armour was usually stronger.

To issue a new person with such a symbiote required a process performed specifically by a harkas. They would guide a small bug creature to dig through the hosts skin to the location where desired. The host would have to slowly heal the created wound. The bug creature would then connect itself to the hosts nervous system and veins for resources, energy and to grow. During the next stage it then grows the organelle required to project the membrane. Due to a very efficient growth process due to its highly repurposed nature, it would only take weeks to fully grow and could not reproduce on its own, relying entirely on harki to spread them to other hosts of the HF. Some non military personnel might even get them out of paranoia, so they have designed versions to work with many species including Suons.

Membrane projectors were highly inspired by hyperionite Cybernetic Enhancements which could shield a person from many kinds of danger. The harki constantly drive to rival the engineering work of machines with the power of biology.