Inanem Magnanime Milites

The Inanem Magnanime Milites, or empty-hearted soldiers, were emotionless technosapien marauders from before the posthuman era. They preserved themselves in warships resembling asteroids which contained vast refrigerated suspended animation systems. (PROSE: Weapons Grade Snake Oil) They were one of the Spiral Politic's most militarily assertive human/cybernetic species. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

Litany Chromehurst was a proto-technosapien with silver skin. (PROSE: Happily Ever After Is a High-Risk Strategy)

During an invasion of a minor world, the cyborg later known as Pinocchio was infected with a Faction Paradox biodata virus and retro-actively became one of the only renegades among its people. Pinocchio infiltrated an assault force with the intention of defecting to the Faction.

Into the posthuman era, the emotionless militant cyborgs who forcibly converted other humans eventually became regarded as simply another posthuman subspecies, some of them forming the Silversmiths' Coterie. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

Christèmas used a forgotten warship of the Inanem Magnanime Milites to create a hole in the defences of the Chance Coteries. (PROSE: Weapons Grade Snake Oil)

In the City of the Saved, the Order of the Iron Soul was composed of humans who were converted into cybernetic hybrids in their first life and continued to believe in the superiority of machines. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

Behind the scenes

 * Although no story has ever made the link explicit due to legal concerns, the parallels between the Inanem Magnanime Milites and the Cybermen are obvious.