Leereknecht
You may despise my methods, and that is well within your rights, but do not attempt to insinuate that I am some sort of Frankenstein. Great care was taken to ease the suffering of those that were delivered to my labs in those early, care that was not included in the orders given to me by whoever happened to be in charge at the time. I remember each and every subject that died under my care, and the faces will never leave my memory as long as I live. They, as well as those that survived... I consider them my children, in a way."
Every species makes use of augmentations to some degree. Some more than others. The Gothenin will turn some of their fighters into golems, while the Edris largely forgo them except for what can be used to improve their speed and dexterity.
Humans have taken a more holistic approach, by and large, and walk the middle of the road in their end goal. That being said, humanity's general traits of adaptability have lead to a greater range of effectiveness and results in a higher ceiling to what augmentations can do for humans. This is exemplified in the "Leereknights", as they're now often known, which were developed and deployed for the first time during the Paradise War, where they quickly became a symbol of some variance to most of humanity, even as their home world burned.
Since the Paradise War, these enhanced humans have only become more ubiquitous, even within sectors outside of military contracts, and they are not an uncommon sight most-anywhere.
Social Impact
For much of the intervening time between the Paradise War, the Leereknecht found themselves in high demand, and their population exploded. However, they found themselves treated anywhere between simple tools with human faces, or as the next stage of human evolution.
Now that the need and desire for such individuals has stabilized, humanity is asking itself questions about the Leereknechts' place in society. Tense questions, as they realize the superhumans they've placed within their midst.
Karolina Stein, inventor of the human augmentation process, and shepard to the Leereknecht, holds an odd place in the social consciousness... Not a villain, not a hero, there are those who love her and those who despise her. Whatever the greater civilian populace thinks of her, I think it important to note that the ones who gave her the title of 'Grandma Leere' were those that had undergone her process directly.
She has always fought for the Leereknecht's rights, and that they were more than just weapons, though only in recent decades has anyone deigned to listen.
While it was once solely the purview of governments and militaries, the augmentation process is now widely available, as long as advanced medical facilities are available. Industrial workers, soldiers, and mercenary workers alike can and do acquire the process for themselves in the hope of gain in their profession.
The development of the process that results in the Leereknecht, spurred by the Paradise war, was... controversial, even at the time. During a period when augmentations were not really present within the technological sphere, attempting to coin such a fully altering process required a lot of trial and error.
Many labs and development projects took a crack at the problem, with wildly different methods and levels of adherence to ethics. While it could be interesting to pick apart the failings of many of these groups, or the untimely end to their research as they were killed, subjects rampaged or said research was "denied by the enemy" in pyroclastic fashion, for the topic there is really only one research group that need be mentioned. That being the team lead by one Karolina Stein, also known in modernity as Grandma Leere, and operating out of the Hellespont 3 facility for most of the war.
At the end of the war, as humanity was scattering in all directions, her research was funded by the U.E.G but in reality, she managed to attract pretty much all sides of the war, big and small, and none wished to deprive themselves of the fruits of her labor, and as such her team were largely undisturbed.
When it was determined that she had finished, there was a race to try and deny the others the harvest, but each was surprised to find a representative sent to them from Professor Stein, bearing the knowledge to create highly augmented humans memorized completely, and the skillset necessary to do so. Forces of all sizes found themselves with a representative, even if it was clear that they could never win the war. Professor Stein had determined it best that no one had sole dominion over such a process.
Other Names:
Cataphracti, Myrmidons, Immortals, Huskarls, Triarii, Argyraspides, and others...
Since much of the augmentation work for the Leereknecht is genetic in nature, they can pass many of their improvements onto their children. Children born to two Leereknecht are almost indistinguishable from a lab-enhanced individual, though they lack the synthetic parts that their parents would have. That being said, it's not uncommon for children born to such parental situations to have odd adaptations to their organs that can mimic or match the synthetic components of their parents. This phenomenon is not understood by modern science.
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