“ A serious fight starts with shock and awe. Give ’em Hellshok. ”
– Corporate Slogan
A chief manufacturer of military-grade arms and armaments, Hellshok Corp has exclusive and perpetual contracts with the One Earth Ascendancy. Cultivating a design philosophy of function over form, Hellshok weapons, ships, and armaments are renowned for being extremely powerful.
Besides their excellent manufacturing, Hellshok Corp is known for its unmistakable and shocking logo. Hated by wives and mothers throughout the aether, but much loved by many an Ascendancy Servicemen, and every Mercenary fortunate enough to get their hands on one, the Hellshok logo has been tattooed on countless bodies since its founding.
Hellshok Corp also does its own, small, elite private military contracting under a subsidiary called Hellshok Group. Most of their contracts involve providing security and escort for transports traveling through aether. Hellshok Group is in high demand, and thus equally high in cost. Hellshok Group comes with the backing of Hellshok Corp’s track record of state of the art arms, armaments, and equipment. Thus far, Hellshok Group has a flawless track record, mostly due to pirates and Dissidents being too afraid to engage anyone under their escort.
History
Among the few corpos to survive the collapse of the United Earth Empire, Hellshok Corp has been around since the mid-period of the UEE. It was from this time that Hellshok Corp arose from the dustup of military arms corporate warfare to reign supreme in the field. Benevolus Hellshok founded the company in 2153AD. Not much is recorded about Benevolus, due to his infamously private life, but most believe the founder had some connection to the OEA. It is said that Benevolus is still alive, as the corpo still lists him as the CEO.
Hellshok weapons are known for being durable and reliable. Fielded especially among elite groups, such as RAS units, Oculus Investigators, and even Preliators of the Vestiary of Pursuers, only those who make combat their life typically carry a Hellshok weapon.
Following the events of the UEE Parturition, after 2270 weapons carrying the stamp of Hellshok require nanosuits, or special mounting to be fired safely. This is due to the large caliber, and high perceived recoil elicited in propelling such rounds. To compensate for the inability of a normal man to wield weapons barreled for the largest of their “small arms,” Hellshok Corp created the Minotaur.
Technologies
Hellshok Minotaur
The Minotaur is a bipedal automaton, programmed and manufactured in-house by Hellshok Corp. As per the namesake, it resembles the titular mythical creature.
The Minotaur is fitted with digitigrade legs, permitting it to move at frightening speeds and maneuver with surprising agility. Equipped with two dexterous hands each with twin multi-jointed opposable thumbs, the Minotaur is capable of using any weapon or tool a man can. Size can vary depending on the model, but for purposes of practicality, they are most often standing at 1.9 meters, or 6’6″ tall, and weighing in at an impressive 550lbs when unarmored. The Minotaur also boasts incredible strength, all models being able to lift eight times the unit’s weight.
Their construction is proprietary, but it is known the skeletal structure of a Minotaur is apholtrum plated with platinum. They come standard from factory painted black with red highlights. They are often fitted with red backlighting in locations such as the eyes, for purposes of intimidation. All units are fitted with state of the art scanning and targeting systems. Often, the enemy is dead before they even see the Minotaur coming.
However, whether it is due to an errant coder’s sense of humor, or Hellshok itself, Minotaur’s are often seen charging headlong into enemies for the purpose of destroying their prey with their own hands.
Carrion Fighter
The Carrion is the fastest, most efficient, and deadliest fighter-sized craft ever developed. Having been fielded since 2239AD, the Carrion is combat proven, and considered one of the primary reasons the Ascendancy defeated the United Earth Empire. Besides having been designed for atmospheric conditions, Carrions are also aetherworthy, exceling in both aetheric and atmospheric combat spaces.
Besides the regular Carrion Fighter, Hellshok Corp developed a special edition solely for three elite Ascendancy Fleet fighter groups, all piloted by top Winged Aether Weapons School graduates. These are fielded as “Red Carrions,” for their titular red color, and each shares a unique version of Hellshok Corp’s company logo. Rare for fighter craft, Red Carrions are powered by a down-sized Drive Core. How Hellshok Corp managed to stuff a functioning Drive Core in a Carrion footprint is mostly due to the increased size of the Red Carrion, but is a mystery, even still. It is suspected Helloshok engineers worked closely with Obelisk, who is known for developing the Drive Core.
Along with standard munitions, every Red Carrion is equipped with an electro-magnetic energy cannon thanks to the power of the Drive Core. What that equates to is a plasma cannon. This weapon is highly feared on the battlefield. Although some tanks are fitted with them, this fear was cultivated especially due to the Red Carrions, whom swoop in silently thanks to the Drive Core being able to store its waste energy in thermal banks for a limited time before eventually needing to exhaust that energy as heat and noise. The sudden windup noise of the Red Carrion’s plasma cannons are reported to send chills throughout the whole body, filling the very air and earth with a feeling of static electricity. Some wartime reports state men have died from the dread, alone.
Weapon Optics
Among their many other offerings, Hellshok makes some of the best weapon optics on the market. With a history older than the OEA, itself, and a battle-proven track record, a debtor cannot go wrong dropping chiun on a Hellshok.
- Fully Formulated: REDStar Pro, REDStar Fighter, El0 Elite, El0, El0 Lite.
- Variable Sight Acquisition Suite (VSAS): L1 HSHK-90 (aetherships), O1 HSHK-80 (tanks, gunships), K1 HSHK-60 (heavy mounted weapons), K1 LSHK-40 (man-portable heavy to light duty), L2 LSHK-30 (rifle), K1 NSHK-10 (handguns).
- Hard Optic: H2 Shok 3 (recently released!), H2 Shok 2, H2 Shok 1, S1 Shok 3 (the venerable), S1 Shok 2, S1 Shok 1, with anything below these being obsolete, and little more than collectors items.
Hellshok Nomenclature
Being rather simple, Hellshok military nomenclature is often represented by the initial letter-number combo being the current iteration of the platform. The letter being a representation of “Hellshok,” with the numerical value determining which letter in the company’s titular name the letter represents. Example: H1 being the first letter, meaning the very first iteration of the platform, while H2 is the sixth letter, thus the sixth iteration. Hellshok does not advance a platform beyond the 8th generation, instead developing a new platform altogether, or tagging on a number at the end of the platform’s name (such as with the “Shok” line).
Sometimes, as with their VSAS offerings, the number at the end of the nomenclature is used to indicate a general sturdiness of the optic, with larger numbers indicating its use in more powerful applications. Another thing of note is that Hellshok’s fully formulated optics, being their most modern offering, differ from their standard naming convention. With these, the iteration of the platform is not publicly stated. Instead, the iteration is etched into the serial number of the formulating chip’s housing.