ICT-106 Iscariot

Overview

The ICT-106 Iscariot is one of the most iconic and widely deployed Terpsichorean Warframes of the Sol Zareth Combine—a masterwork of form, function, and flair. Designed as both a performance instrument and a lethal battlefield ballet dancer, the Iscariot is instantly recognizable by its elegant silhouette, dynamic fluidity, and its unsettling faceplate shaped into a stylized comedy mask, permanently frozen in a wide, grinning expression of mockery and joy.

Design & Aesthetics

Iscariot frames are sleek and athletic, with reinforced hydraulic musculature under sculpted plating. Their movement systems include a full gyroscopic balancing core, making them capable of executing mid-air spins, inverted contortions, and pirouettes—even during live fire.
Key Design Traits:
• Articulated Hands: Fully dexterous with sub-finger manipulation—capable of wielding any weapon or tool. Riders use them to paint murals on buildings, sculpt terrain, or perform interpretive art mid-campaign, as well as wielding weapons of war.
• Cockpit-Living Integration: Designed for permanent habitation, with nutrient delivery systems, waste cycling, neural interface beds, and emotion-drip regulators to maintain the rider’s psychological balance. Many Iscariot pilots never leave—they live, create, and die inside their machine.
• Armor Coating: Often painted in flamboyant patterns—pearl lacquer, mirrored chrome, deep violet, or gold-flake marbled tones—each unit a unique gallery piece unto itself.

Mobility & Maneuverability

The Iscariot’s agility is unmatched in the Combine’s arsenal. While incapable of sustained flight, the unit’s frame is covered with dozens of micro-jump jets, concealed within the shoulders, calves, spine, and even the fingers. These allow:
• Mid-air course correction, wall-kicks, and rapid directional shifts.
• Full-speed cartwheeling evasions, and multi-axis rotations in confined spaces.
• Graceful bounding across terrain as if performing across a galactic stage.
• While in-atmosphere is impossible, these thrusters do allow limited vacuum maneuverability.
In motion, the Iscariot does not run—it leaps, twirls, slides, and flourishes, turning war into an artful execution.

Armament

While capable of bearing a full loadout of ranged and support gear, the ICT-106 excels in close-quarters combat, where its grace can be fully appreciated and its kills delivered in intimate beauty.
Typical Weapons:
• Twin plasma blades, glowing like arc-lit swords, capable of cauterizing as they carve.
• Electro-whips, with ribbons of crackling energy trailing behind like the silks of a dancer.
• Ceremonial spears, fluted with musical resonance coils—each thrust producing harmonic shrieks.
• Some pilots attach streamers or ribbons to their weapons, not for combat, but to enhance visual aesthetics for future viewers.
Ranged weapons are still employed—often stylized rail-lances or pulse-casters—but only when distance cannot be closed artistically.

Communications Suppression Spikes

The ICT-106’s back-mounted dual spinal prongs, sometimes mistaken for ceremonial blades, are in fact high-powered communication disruptors:
• Spike One operates as a high-bandwidth signal repeater, ensuring Combine operatives and cameras maintain a full feed.
• Spike Two is a directional comms jammer, capable of blacking out enemy communication grids across a mile-wide radius.
This leaves enemy units cut off, disoriented, and alone, watching as the Iscariot dances through their lines, severing bonds of command with each flourish.

The Core of Performance Memory

Housed within the center chest of the Iscariot, just beneath its armored glass casing, lies the Performance Memory Core—a dense crystalline 50 plus petabyte datavault designed to record:
• Every movement, every neural impulse, every emotional spike the pilot experiences.
• Scent overlays, internal body temperature, heartbeat rhythm, and even the muscle tension of each maneuver.
These experiences are not streamed, as the sensory data is too rich and synchronized with high-speed neurofilaments. Instead, the core acts as an emotional black box, a repository for future Combine audiences.
When an ICT-106 falls, another Terpsichorean must retrieve the core—an act known as the Reverent Salutation:
• The living mech must kneel beside the fallen.
• Its hands must form the Gesture of Witnessing—a specific motion performed three times.
• Only then can the chest open and allow the retrieval of the glowing red-cored memory sphere.
These cores are brought back to Combine theaters, where millions experience the combat ballet through immersive projection, reliving the thrill, pain, and joy of the fallen pilot as if it were their own.

Final Impression

The ICT-106 Iscariot is not a machine of war. It is a dancer in fire, a canvas of violence, and a living testament to the Combine’s belief that war must be witnessed beautifully. It does not kill efficiently. It kills flawlessly—and immortally—for all to admire.

Nickname

“Smilies”, “Psychos” or “Laughers”

Manufacturer

Natsuka Hikadori Mecha Industries

Owning Organization

Sol Zareth Combine

Price

$232.6 million

Rarity

42,391 produced

Related Technologies

• Omnifiber Muscle Strands

Height

42’1”

Weight

33.25 tons

Speed

75 mph

Complement / Crew

1 rider