Warriors:
A Zakaabite Warrior is the mainline of all Conquest Cadres and military garrisons throughout the Grand Army; it is the regular, but this does not become apartent in any lack of ability. Just like all other Zakaab military members, the Warrior has been subject to gruesome and ruthless training for over 400 years, resulting in most Zakaabite Warriors lacking emotion or personality, acting more like highly developed killers than any form of sentient lifeform.
Zakaabite Warriors lack the ability to decide for themselves on anything larger than during an engagement, at which point words are not necessary to engage the enemy in the most efficient way possible. The time that was spent within the Artificial Reality is simulated and therefore passes at a much quicker rate than the real one, which leads to each Warrior having an accumulated military record of thousands of years and tens of thousands of experienced deaths.
Each Warrior is equipped with a Macromega laser RK-s113, a hand-held high-powered laser rifle with extensive range, precision, and stopping power - as well as two shoulder-mounted Utility Nodes. These nodes can be equipped with numerous things depending on the environment of the mission, or simply the time of day. The nodes range from rocket launchers, additional laser weaponry, and radio communication nexuses for Comms troops.
Zakaabite Warriors are ruthless and inhumane, they lack compassion, but make for the ultimate warrior; obedient, extremely capable, and unable to break orders. Whilst they would be an incredible waste of resources should the leaders of the Grand Army of Zakaab lack skill, but thankfully that is not quite the case.
Warrior Specialists (Anti-Tank):
Warriors have two specializations, one of them is the Anti-Tank specialization. A carbon copy of the regular warrior in manners of obedience and skill. The Warrior Specialist is given a path to follow upon the completion of their initiation into the Grand Army as a Warrior, one is the Anti-Tank specialization and the other is the Anti-Infantry one.
Anti-Tank Warriors are equipped with, instead of the RK-s113, a superpowered variant of a similar weapon, the RAK-12. The RAK-12 is a superpowered anti-armour laser originally designed for mining, since the Grand Army of Zakaab however, it was reconstructed, repurposed, and given to the Anti-Tank Specialists given their surprisingly long range and effective stopping power.
Anti-Tank Warriors can equip Reactor Nodes that grant the weapon a much increased punch at longer ranges, but are also succeptible to exploding should the process be disturbed by external forces. For this reason, the Specialists utilize a more armoured variant of the Typical Warrior Exoskeleton, the Sanguine Armour.
Warrior Specialists (Anti-Infantry):
The Anti-Infantry Specialist operates the Extradictor, another heavily armoured exoskeleton variant. The Anti-Infantry Specialist, just like the Anti-Tank Specialist, does not lack the resolve or the willingness of the Warrior in any regard, in fact, some would consider them more conditioned to serve their role than the rest. The indoctrination process of each Anti-Infantry Warrior Specialist is, in fact, especially built to reduce and deconstruct any resolve or will to personal freedom one could hold through the absolute massacering of innocents in the artificial reality.
After this process, training remaisn typical, and consistent. In order to perform its duties, the Anti-Infantry Specialist utilizes two independent chainguns, capable of spewing kinetic energy down the range at incredible rates, as well as a sight-guided shoulder mounted Megalaser turret. It is fired by neural command, as each exoskeleton has a direct connection with neural and optical systems.
Warrior-Engineers:
The Warrior-Engineer is an asset most useful during prolonged campaigns on alien planets where infrastructure is scarce, or quite simply in the eventuality that Forward Operations Outposts need to be established and maintained. Each Warrior-Engineer operate in perfect unison during repairs and construction projects. This is mainly due to having repeated the same routines tens of thousands of times during the simulations. Words, much like the Warriors, are unnecessary and taking orders is everything they are capable of.
Naturally, no servant of the Grand Army follow orders blindly, the necessity of following orders is strictly limited to that of Zakaab people of greater rank than their own.
Warrior-Engineers are equipped with a similar weapon to the RK-s113, however, it also has a built-in weld- and grind laser modes. They are also equipped with a shoulder-mounted fabricator, as well as the Constructor-Class Exoskeleton. Warrior-Engineers sacrifice their limbs in order to better serve the Zakaab Empire, this allows their robotic extensions to operate and function much more efficiently and effectively.
Overseers:
The Overseer is the mediator between High Command and the Frontline Warriors. Each Overseer oversees their own Company of Warriors and any given specialist within. Each Warrior is also conditioned extensively to follow the will of each Overseer exactly, just as each Overseer is instructed in how to lead, mediate, and most effectively handle tactical scenarios of a greater scale than their Warrior counterparts.
Overseers are conditioned to apathy and forced objectivity, in order to most effectively accomplish any given mission objective, but they are also exceptionally skilled warriors, as they need greater skill in order to survive longer than Warriors for the purpose of directing local war efforts.
The Overseer is equipped with Imperial Exoskeletons, a much more protective version than the aforementioned ones (not to say that the ones before this were weak, because they are far from it). The Imperial Exoskeleton also features adaptive layered armour, which gives it the ability to survive even the strongest of anti-personnel weapons, and even some anti-tank equipment by shedding its armoured layers. Naturally, each layer has less armour than the ones before it.
A fully shedded Overseer looks akin to
this.
Overseers are equipped with the standard RK-s113's modified variant, the RKm-s114, which is equipped with an under-slung high-caliber focused laser, for anti-tank threats. In order to sustain itself, the Imperial Exoskeleton is equipped with a high-powered internal reactor, directly connected to the Overseer's biology. This results in an interesting system, but should the Overseer be killed, the Imperial Exoskeleton will explode violently, both to ensure it isn't captured, but also due to the instability of the reactor itself.
Grand Army Protectors:
The Grand Army Protectors are an extensively trained, cybernetically enhanced elite combat force of the Grand Army of Zakaab's forces. Selected especially from exceptional warriors through the process of Empire-wide Colosseum tournaments, the Grand Army Protectors is one of the greatest warriors within the Empire.
Enhanced though processing systems, combined with cybernetically merging the warrior to the Imperial Protector Exoskeleton unit, grants an almost unsurpassable combination of sentient thought and cybernetic might. Grand Army Protectors are trained in an almost endless scenario of situations, both in common warfare and covert operations.
Equipped with an internal aviations system, the Grand Army Protector is capable of traversing distances through the air by activating jump jets for a short period of time. Additionally, the Imperial Protector is equipped with the Macromegalaser Scatter Gun MAC-Z12, which is an oppresingly capable suppressive chaingun-esque high-powered anti-infantry laser.
In order to operate more autonomously and in direct conjunction with the upper echelons of the command structure, Grand Army Protectors are granted a far more extensive sense of free will through their process of military indoctrination in opposition to the regular combatants of the Grand Army.
Chosen Warriors:
Chosen Warriors are the most skilled combatants of the Empire of Zakaab's Grand Army regulars. As such, they are granted the privilege of commandeering the Golden Armour, the greatest military exoskeleton ever created by the Empire. The Autarch used this Golden Armour to sway the people, especially his military, to his side in joining together within their Crypt Worlds and temporarily uploading themselves to the Artificial Reality Nexus maintained by KHAAR.
The Golden Armour is the manifestation of what an Imperial Warrior is striving to become, almost undefeatable in combat, the Chosen Warriors are granted the privilege of retaining free will and free reigns as to their weapons and equippment.
As most Chosen Warriors are considered frontline Commanders, as their skills and capability have been repeatedly proven to their own forces, Chosen Warriors also maintain the privilege of commanding the frontlines however they see fit, unless an officer is present during the battle.
The Golden Armour is almost impenetrable to regular small arms, and the typical anti-armour weaponry, only really being succeptible to aerial and orbital bombardments. The Golden Armour is also highly modular, which also ultimately leads each Chosen Warrior to act and operate incredibly independently, which is highly unique for a warrior of the Grand Army.
Most Chosen Warriors, through sheer loyalty to their Autarch whom granted them their privilege as the Chosen, carry into battle his banner, and wear robes and ornamental garments made especially for their 7-8 meter sized exo-skeletons. For a Chosen Warrior, their Golden Armour is a direct extension of themselves, and through the use of artificial neural fibers throughout the machine, it is truly simulated.
The ornamental garments and robes carry back long into Imperial Tradition within the Zakaabite Empire where the first Autarch, Gulzer, established the Imperial Chosen Guard, a selection of hand-picked warriors whose sole purpose were the protection and safety of the Autarch. Their robes signified their power and their skill, but mostly their alliegance to their Autarch, many times sacrificing their lives to save the Autarch Gulzer from poison. Through their ability and skill, Gulzer became the only Autarch in recorded history to die of old age, and not of blade or assasination.
Overlords:
The Overlord is a position held by the ranking commander of any military force, officially an Overseer holds the Overlord position of their Company, but Overlords are more recognized in their command of Battle Cadres (Army-sized combat groups), Invasion Cadres (All Battle Cadres assigned to a planetary invasion), Supremacy Cadres (All Invasion Cadres assigned to a campaign spanning a single solar system), and lastly the Conquest Cadre (All Supremacy Cadres assigned to a campaign spanning numerous solar systems).
Overlords are equipped in the absolute greatest equippment known to Zakaab and lead the war efforts from the frontlines where the danger is at its most and their infallible and unchallengable skills are at its most needed. Overlords are equipped with an Imperial Scepter, a powerful close-quarters combat weapon of traditional Zakaabite design. Overlords are also equipped with an Imperial Sigil, a Nexus type system connecting them with the quantum network maintained through the Artificial Reality Nexus. This gives them the possibility of discussing battle tactics and strategies between Overlords in real time across potentially hundreds of light years.
The Overlords are equipped with the Paramount Exoskeleton, the strongest, most capable exoskeleton ever built by the Empire of Zakaab. The Paramount Exoskeleton is much akin to the Golden Armour, merely more compact and mobile, giving the Overlord the ability to close distance rapidly through the use of internal hover engines located throughout their cybernetic legs. Overlords are also completely merged with their armour, giving them the experience of their armour being their own actual skin. Whilst they are able to feel the pain, through personal request, prolonged simulations have dulled their perceptions of pain incredibly.
All in all, Overlords are officially the greatest warriors of the Zakaabite Empire.