Doctor Evangeline Caizer, Log 1566: Carthonex



With ever present anxiety and loathing, I am once again back on the topic of Carthonex. This time, my thoughts pertain to the nightmarishly beautiful ‘Bride’ carriages and their battlefield capabilities. ‘Carriages’ are the term used to describe the ghost co-piloted battlesuits that make up Carthonex’s military, as previously detailed in my log surrounding the Geist.



Whilst the Geist is something akin to a cross between a wrecking ball and a soldier, the Bride is… more complicated than that. She floats gracefully within a nano-weave powered veil that coats her entire chassis, making her nearly completely impervious to damage. Direct hits with anti-capital weapons have proven effective but these are typically fifteen feet tall battlesuits, not multi kilometer long ships. Long story simplified, Brides are extremely difficult to damage whilst covered by their veil. They also have full hover capabilities, allowing them to ascend or descend at will, albeit slowly and surprisingly gracefully too.



Their terror lies in their ‘static’ cannons, usually mounted to their forearms. Once in range, Brides seemingly reroute their power from their veils to their cannons and unleash pure hell on their targets. I’d like to imagine a giant blow-torch, spraying a black and white flame that stings to look at, never mind being struck by. The sheer level of physical damage these cannons inflict is second to almost none, they can eat through entire buildings, tanks and spaceships in a matter of seconds. Our current hypothesis for these weapons is that they fire some sort of metallic slurry, similar to a water blade or sand blaster, but it does appear to have an energetic element to it that plays absolute havoc on any electrical systems and quickly eats through shields. Their destructive potential is vast and the threat they pose is imminent: A squad of Brides dismantled an entire Orion mega-city in an afternoon. For reference, that’s a city the size of a moon. Gone. I am as appalled as I am intrigued.



They can fire these dual nightmare cannons up to half a kilometer away, with a diameter big enough to fill an entire street. If a single Bride gets in range of a cruiser, it will systematically ‘scrub’ away the entire thing. Needless to say, getting caught in open ground is a death sentence, a bunker may add something in the region of a single second to your death timer. Now add that little factoid I mentioned earlier regarding the durability of the veil and their omni-directional movement and realise why these awful things have the reputation of the grim reaper. Unless you have surface to orbit anti-capital capabilities with high precision, their approach is all but guaranteed. 



The one small blessing is that their veil retracts entirely when they fire their weapons, exposing their inner chassis and allowing some retaliation, but the nature of the assault generally means that Bride’s will at least trade bodies with you even if you take her down. They are surprisingly fragile beneath the veil, with even infantry weapons being able to severely damage and disable them, providing you’re shooting for the upper body. Faster trigger finger wins I guess? Call me pessimistic but I don’t find that entirely comforting. Bride’s also seem to use some type of psychological warfare as their seldom seen faces beneath the veil appear to shift and morph into the skulls of their targets. We do not know if they have a database of skeleton shapes or if it's generated using visual data, honestly, I’m not sure I care. Carthonex may well have a database full of everyone’s skeletal structures. You can add that to an ever expanding list of concerns, have fun.



The point is that Bride’s are seemingly designed as ambush units, using nasty psychological tricks to give them the edge in close quarters where a split second hesitation is enough for them to use their cannons to make exceedingly short work of practically anything. Their presence on the battlefield makes the already chaotic hell that is fighting Carthonex about twenty times worse. Their unstoppable approach adds a ticking clock and a near unbearable amount of pressure to the front lines. A single Bride is a nightmare, a fleet of them is living, floating hell. I’ve seen video footage of them descending from the sky, ghostly green lantern-like dresses and veils in the dead of night, leaving nothing but scorched earth and ashes in their wake.



In terms of tactics, Carthonex have a variety of roles they use the Brides for. Their main purposes appear to be ambushes, applying pressure and breaking fortifications. A descent of Brides is like a vice, squeezing the defending army tight under the looming threat of the static cannons. Should a single Bride get to open fire for even a second, it will leave a street sized hole in your defences, often enough to outright cripple any operation in the blink of an eye. Queen forbid if she gets an important fortification or a key figure in the defence.



Thematically, I think the Bride might be my favourite of the Carriages, not to make light of the sheer damage they cause. They are graceful in their descent and movement. You may not peek beneath her veil until you see the whites of her cannons. There's something almost poetic about it. Almost. The reality is that death is approaching. Slow, unstoppable and aimed right at you. Truly terrific.



I’m not sure if i’d prefer to fight the Bride or Geist… At least the Geist lets you think you can damage it.



Drawn by the fantastic - https://x.com/kingline_art



You can find the first Carthonex Carriage, the Geist, drawn here - There is No Victory-