Prador Alloy
From Earth Central
Prador technology outstrips the Polity in terms of their metallurgical prowess and armour development at the beginning of the war. So complex is the construction of the alloys commonly used by the Prador, that it defies replication by Polity AIs, who simply refer to the material as 'Prador Alloy'.
The best example of this advantage in defense is present in their warships. Prador warship armour is resistant to powerful impacts, absorbing and distributing the kinetic energy evenly around the entirety of the ship, is quite capable of absorbing powerful energy based weapons fire, and can even reassert its original shape under combat conditions. From what Polity AIs can determine, Prador Alloy is both superconducting and piezoelectric. These properties make for vessels that are incredibly tough and spectacularly difficult to destroy, requiring suitably powerful weaponry, or even near light speed kinetic projectiles.
In stories set later in the Polity's history, however, the Polity has been able to develop armour of similar capabilites to Prador alloy, which partially contributed to the eventual Polity victory in the Prador war.
