The Neostigma Weapons, or Neo-Weapons, are incredibly powerful weapons developed by Oberus Janner under the banner of Project Darkseed. They are used by the Holy Inquisition, the Crusader Corps, and various other elite organizations which are part of the Roman military and intelligence forces. These weapons make use of Neostigmata and synthesized Soulstone, allowing each individual weapon to enslave hundreds of souls and store these within itself. The massive amount of energy provided by those souls can then be used in various ways, such as providing fuel for powerful weaponry, or boosting innate superpowers.
Inner Workings[]
Every single type of Neo-Weapon contains three main components: a Neostigma; a shard of Soulstone to house the Neostigma and any souls captured by it; and a system which manages the Neostigma's ability to connect to souls outside of the Neo-Weapon. More specifically, this system destroys any Soullinks the Neostigma has to souls outside of the weapon on command. When this system is turned off, the Neostigma has free reign and can create Soullinks to other souls outside of the weapon, slowly putting them under its control. Souls unattached to humans or Soulstones are in this way easily pulled into the Neo-Weapon, while souls attached to humans or Soulstones offer much more resistance. Because the control a Neostigma has over souls it has connected to grows over time, it is unsafe to have the system turned off for long, because the wielder and his allies may be enslaved by their very own Neo-Weapons.
Types of Neo-Weapons[]
Type A[]
Neo-Weapons of this type directly transfer the energy of their collections of enslaved souls to their wielders on command. This has as a result that the users' superpowers are greatly empowered. If the users are capable of manipulating soul energy, then they can use the massive amount of energy directly, allowing them to damage or even completely shatter the souls of their opponents, as well as shielding themselves from soul-based attacks. Humans who are not capable of tapping into their superpowers gain no benefit from wielding this type of Neo-Weapon, because it only benefits superhumans.
Type B[]
Neo-Weapons of this type do not directly transfer the energy of their collections of enslaved souls to their wielders: instead this energy is converted into other kinds of energy, suitable for mechanical weapons. Examples are heat-based weaponry (lasers) and kinetic-based weaponry (railguns). Replacing conventional energy sources with this Neo-Weapon energy source greatly reduces the size of the weapons, because the size of a soulstone together with its isolating system and energy converter can hold and produce much more energy per volume unit than a conventional energy source. This allows for practical vehicle-mounted railguns and similar combat systems. Because of the nature of this type of Neo-Weapons, they can benefit both superhumans and normal humans.
Neo-Weapons of this type are also used as engines for large flying ships, though technically they should in that case not be called 'weapons'.
History[]
The first attempts to weaponize Neostigmata were done by Mentar under the banner of Project Darkseed before and during The Fall of Gods 1. Because Mentar had no access to Soulstones however he couldn't get his weapons to work properly, and thus he died without ever developing true Neo-Weapons.
When Oberus Janner stumbled upon the abandoned project, he adopted it. Having somehow managed to obtain knowledge of the composition of Soulstone, Janner was capable of producing a synthesized version which was almost as effective as the real stuff, allowing him to realize working Neo-Weapons which would become one of Rome's most powerful tools in their fight against the world, allowing the Crusader Corps to obliterate Portugal, Spain, France, and the city of London with relative ease before being defeated by the heroes during The Fall of Gods 2.