Dark Niobium

During the war for Niobium amongst the feuding Forerunner Houses the scientist Kellek of the House Meijillaann travelled through time and ultimately another universe itself, one of dark twisted beings of his own kind. It housed horrors not thought of in our universe and beings so drastically removed from anything we know of that they were thought the things of nightmare and dark fantasy. One constant remained though and that was the use of Mecha. To run a Mech no matter the form or function you need niobium, this place of horrors called the Negaverse had its own version of the rare and precious material. However much like everything else there it was corrupted and contained properties unknown to this universe.

The refining process was intricate to the point of almost being a true alchemical process, involving it being bathed in the radiation of cold stars, bombarded with energy from dark matter converters, and even blood sacrifices of transformed organic beings infused into the material itself. Normal niobium as we know it is spherical in shape and roughly the size of a large baseball, Dark Niobium is hexagonal in shape, usually no bigger than a softball, often of a rust color (due to the infusion of blood into the mixture) and without proper shielding is very toxic to most forms of organic life should they be exposed to it. The substance has a cold almost frozen feeling to it if one should be bold enough to handle it without special care, yet when read by temperature gauges, and examined by thermal imaging contains an immense amount of heat. Like its counterpart here in our universe it can hold an immense amount of energy and distribute it however best seen fit by its creators.

One of the surprising side effects of utilizing Dark Niobium is reanimation of mechanical constructs even after they have been by all intents and purposes destroyed. If that machine or mecha has been using that substance long enough it gets infused throughout with the energies of the battery. The more Dark Niobium that is used in a mecha the quicker it gets infused with these energies until it ultimately warps the machine itself and the pilot. This warping allows for such a machine to pull itself back together and ultimately repair itself. The process often occurs with the original machine repairing itself with the parts of others that littler the battle fields, leading to some truly horrific mechanical end results. The pilots do not fare much better and have also been known to replace lost limbs and organs with still viable parts of other pilots on the battle field after combat.

Some of this rare and valuable material has been found in this universe leading many scientists to believe that inhabitants of the Negaverse have found their way to this one in the past, and remain on high alert to keep an eye out for any future incursions or even the return of Kelleks followers if not the mad Forerunner himself. Although many do not see how he could have lasted so long it is feared his twisted ideals and teachings have survived. If he has utilized or been exposed to this material it is a possibility, however how much of the original being is left and what is by this point a mad abomination is the reason for much speculation.

Submitted by Pat Willis#224534