Captured Gears, including Tai Kaliso, being taken for processing.
Processing was a Locust torture tactic used on captured Gears and Stranded. The purpose of the process was for the Locust to break their Seran prisoners, which ends in lobotomy.[1]
History
Tai being processed.
Operation: Hollow Storm
The first known uses of processing were discovered by the COG during Operation: Hollow Storm. Gear squads discovered captive Gears and Stranded being tortured by Locust. They were loaded aboard Torture Barges or taken to Nexus to be processed.[2][3] The process involved being hung up by metal hooks, and whipped by metal chains that had spikes on them.[4] Other techniques are slowly dipping prisoners in a vat of Imulsion as the flesh melts off, starvation, decapitating heads and limbs for Bloodmounts. The final step of processing is lobotomy. A prisoner is chained down while a device cuts under the left tear duct (such as the crescent scar under Maria's left eye) and begins to scrape at brain matter, resulting in the prisoner becoming a mindless slave to the Locust Horde.