Synthetic

Synthetic (シンセティック, Shinsetikku), also known as Mil-Spec Child (ミルスペック・チャイルド, Mirusupekku Chairudo), Designed Soldier (デザインド・ソルジャー, Dezaindo Sorujā), Advanced (アドヴァンスド, Adovansudo) among other names, is a type of humanoid soldier featured in Black★Rock Shooter FRAGMENT.

Description

Synthetics are soldiers created with synthetic genes via genetic and molecular engineering, and are designed to be immune from Innocent Cloud's biological weapon that is highly lethal to unvaccinated humans. Although a vaccine is developed specifically against the said weapon, vaccination is still not widely available, hence synthetics take over the combat role as strikers against Innocent Cloud and EXMATA.

Synthetics can easily be distinguished from ordinary humans by their anatomy, mostly in the form of different ears, but some also have additional features such as tails or horns. A majority of synthetics were female; this is intentional so that they could help humans recover as a species should the latter be wiped out.

As artificially created soldiers, synthetic strikers are conditioned to rely on and take orders from human field commanders. They are not trained to become officers due to humans' mistrust of their created beings, and as a result they are prone to disorder in the absence of commander. They are also conditioned to be forbidden from pointing their armaments towards human beings, a trait that is exploited by humanoid type EXMATA, who can potentially carry out a pre-emptive strike on synthetic strikers while they are still hesitating.

Each synthetic is implanted with a soul chip (ソウルチップ, Souruchippu) inside their brains, which records information on the host synthetic's brain activity and endocrine system status. By uploading the information to a remote storage regularly, these chips serve as part of a backup system; should a synthetic suffer serious wounds, including those that would normally be fatal to human beings, they can be rejuvenated by recreating lost body parts from molecular printers based on the latest updated information on storage. However, such rejuvenation are not without problems, as a heavily wounded synthetic may suffer from memory loss and emotional instability due to desynchronization, and there were rumors of past incidents where strong electromagnetic pulse from EXMATA could damage soul chip's record, causing the host synthetic to regenerate into an entirely different person afterwards. Synthetics can no longer be "revived" if the host soul chip becomes damaged or destroyed, and despite their resilience from battle wounds, synthetics are not immune from aging, as their telomeres cannot be tinkered with.