Atomic Robo

PLAYER INFORMATION

PLAYER: Eric
ARE YOU AT LEAST 16 YEARS OLD?: Sure am
CONTACT: overbringer, or Overbringer#2743 on disco
CHARACTERS PLAYED: None

CHARACTER INFORMATION

NAME: Dr. Atomic Robo Tesla
CANON: Atomic Robo
CANON REFERENCE: There is, frustratingly, not really any kind of wiki summarizing Atomic Robo. Here is the wikipedia article on the comic (admittedly lacking in detail), and here is the official timeline on the website. I can provide more details myself if desired.
AGE: Atomic Robo is ageless, and his story spans from the 1880s to the modern day, with Robo himself appearing at all kinds of ages depending on when a particular story arc takes place, so there isn't really any "official age" for him. The Robo in this AU is 47, though he seems mentally older, as he didn't have to spend the first decade of his life figuring out how to walk and talk and all that.
GENDER: As a robot, Robo does not have any kind of biological sex, but he identifies as male.
CHARACTER TYPE: Artificial Intelligence.
APPEARANCE: A robot. Robo is 5'6 and weighs ~500 pounds. His eyes glow. Robo always wears clothes, despite not having any of the bits humans normally wear clothes to cover up.

PERSONALITY: Atomic Robo is an immortal, super strong, wisecracking, artificially intelligent robot powered by a tiny nuclear reactor. On top of that, he has made investigating the very strangest things the universe has to offer his life's work. He has no sense of what normal life is supposed to be like, and is equally comfortable working in a laboratory or fist fighting Nazi walking tanks (Mentally. Physically, the lab is more comfortable. It usually involves less getting shot at.). While he would consider himself a robot of science, the harsh realities of life have taught him that science as we understand it is tragically insufficient to deal with everything the world has to offer. The square cube law states that forty foot long ants are biologically impossible, but that didn't stop a small army of them from attacking Reno in 2007. Time travel is impossible, but that didn't stop a being from outside the universe from simultaneously attacking our universe at five points in history. He uses modern understandings of the universe as a starting point, and then just sort of rolls with whatever the world throws at him. This doesn't stop him from complaining a lot when the laws of physics (as we know them) are trampled beneath giant ants, but he'll still get the job done.

Robo is not a robot inclined to angst. His lived long enough to see almost everyone he knew while he was young die of age or go senile, and yet he himself will probably last for centuries more if something doesn't blow up. Humans are extremely fragile, compared to him. He sometimes laments that there aren't a lot of people left who still get the cultural references from his youth, but he never really curses his agelessness or wishes he could be human. He's comfortable being himself, and has accepted humans for what they are. He actually quite likes humans, in fact. He sees it as one of his primary goals to help and protect them. Often from themselves; Sometimes, from other things (like the ants). The only time he met another immortal AI like himself, he ended up killing it because it planned to wipe out humanity.

That said, he is not without his little quirks. Robo's greatest fear is bugs. Not giant ones that attack cities in Nevada. Little ones. The kind that can crawl inside of mechanical joints and get guts all over delicate machinery. The very thought of it makes his skin chassis crawl. He also has a petty streak. We don't know what started his personal beef with world renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, but we do know that when Robo was sent to mars in 1975 (It was determined that boosting all 500 pounds of Robo into space was infinitely less expensive than boosting a human astronaut along with all the necessary supplies and life support.) along with Viking 1, Hawking tricked NASA into thinking that Robo could go into a power save mode and thus survive the trip without any reading material, resulting in Robo almost going insane from boredom AND writing "STEPHEN HAWKING IS A BASTARD" in mile tall letters made of rocks on the surface of the red planet, and that this was NOT the start of their dislike of each other. He also has an aversion to swearing, preferring such G-rated alternatives as "Holy SOCKS!" or "Applesauce!".

Of course, this version of Robo was built 150 years later. This has a number of small differences (he's never met Stephen Hawking OR Carl Sagan in this universe, just for example), but the BIGGEST difference is that while he was one of the oldest AIs still around, he is not the ONLY AI. Canon Robo has met precisely one other AI (which, as I mentioned, he had to kill to stop it from destroying the Earth). This Robo has watched AI research advanced and seen thousands of other AIs pop up around him. As much as he does like humans, he still isn't one, and feels a stronger connection to other AIs. Robo sees himself as a sort of father figure to them all, as he's vastly older and more experienced than just about all of them. He will offer them as much advice as he can from his own life, and will do whatever else he can to protect them from being hurt or exploited.

POWERS & ABILITIES: - Atomic Robo's name is very literal. The same supergenius that built an AI decades before anyone else figured them out also built a nuclear reactor the size of a baseball. Robo has a nigh inexhaustible power supply as long as he can get his hands on some uranium every couple of years. No one is sure how the hell it works.
- If Robo were badly injured enough, it is possible his reactor could be damaged, causing a meltdown and either irradiating several square blocks or just obliterating them in a nuclear explosion. It's perfectly possible to kill him without this happening, though.
- Robo's chassis is heavily armored and can shrug off anything short of anti-tank weapons. Small arms fire doesn't do any meaningful damage, but apparently does hurt, in an "ow, goddammit!" sort of way.
- Robo is strong enough to use cars as melee weapons, make fifty foot vertical leaps, or run at fifty miles and hour
- As long as he has enough fuel, Robo never gets tired and doesn't need to sleep
- Robo is wifi enabled, and can connect to most unsecured networks or make phone calls without a phone or even browse the internet entirely in his head. He cannot download himself onto the web or into a new body, however. His mind is hardware as much as it is software.
- Robo can see a lot more of the electromagnetic spectrum than humans can, and can zoom in his vision enough to make out satellites in orbit (if he knows where to look). He doesn't have a sense of smell or taste, though.
- Strong electrical shocks can short him out, temporarily shutting him down and leaving him frozen in place. While in this state, Robo is unaware of time passing.
- Robo has a degree in physics.
- Robo is a skilled marksman. His hand to hand skills aren't nearly as good, as he can usually just physically overpower his opponent in most fights.
- Robo owns "Tesladyne Laboratories", which is a company he built to further what he thought Tesla's legacy should have been by working to advance the sciences. It's not nearly on the level of most Megacorporations, and Robo has to struggle constantly to keep it functional while existing between much larger competitors, but it has some small amount of influence that he can bring to bear however he deems necessary. He has a human partner that owns the company legally, since AIs don't have rights as people.

AU HISTORY: In 1923, Nikola Tesla drew up plans for building what he called an "Automatic Intelligence." Unfortunately, these plans never went anywhere, as the technology to create his vision simply didn't exist at the time. It wasn't until the year 2073 that another scientist was able to get his hands on these designs and actually try to build the damn thing. And so, the Atomic Robot was created, a miracle of strange black-box technology that only two people ever understood: Tesla himself, and the unnamed scientist who built them. One of them was long since dead, and the other was keeping their identity secret for privacy reason. The robot knew who they were, but it kept it a secret.

Everyone kept on calling it the "Atomic Robot" which was eventually shortened to just "The Robot" or "Robo". Eventually, it took the name "Atomic Robo" officially, and started pushing to be treated as a person. At first, people decried the robot as a hoax. And who could blame them? AI research was still relatively primitive, and here comes one designed by Nikola Tesla a hundred years ago that was powered by a nuclear reactor you could hold in one hand? The very idea was absurd. People declared him a human actor controlling the robot remotely, or a man in power armor. Others wanted him disassembled to see how he worked, or labeled as a nuclear weapon and taken away by the government for public safety. The only reason he survived his early life was because he WAS getting so much media attention. Robo appeared on talk shows and podcasts, where his sense of humor and obvious intelligence made him too popular of a public figure to just be disappeared by some shady organization. People would ask questions.

Robo was a regular appearance on news feeds for the next decade as he and the rest of the world tried to figure out where he fit in it. When the secrets of artificial intelligence were unraveled by others, Robo was on the forefront of the fight to grant AIs rights as people alongside humans and metahumans. He still is, as despite his best efforts, AIs are still legally closer to appliances than people. Largely through human intermediaries who can legally sign paperwork, Robo worked to assemble Tesladyne Laboratories, a research company dedicated to preserving what he figured Nikola Tesla's legacy would be as well as for fighting for AI rights.

Not all of his activities have been working in a laboratory or lobbying in the courts, however. The world saw a lot of instability and chaos as metahumans started becoming more and more common. It was not unheard of for new metahumans to decide that their strange powers marked them as chosen ones who could do whatever they wanted, while others saw their abilities as a sign that they were chosen ones who had a duty to protect and help others. It was a turbulent time. And young Atomic Robo, who loved comic books and superhero movies, and who was armored like a tank, thought "Why not me?"

He spent his days furthering the cause of science, and his nights exploring the city streets, during which he got caught up in all kinds of strange scrapes. He learned how to handle himself in a fight, and he on average caused more good then harm, to the point that the police decided they had much bigger problems to deal with than him. Robo's status as a sort of weird folk legend only grew.

When he heard about the Neo Sapien Organization, Robo saw people who were in a similar position to him. He contacted the organization and worked out a deal to pool their resources and further their own ends, since they're both fighting for the same thing: recognition by a human society that ranges from indifferent to outright hostile. Metahumans, Robo figured, would at least be able to relate to his struggle.

SAMPLES

A few TDM threads and one more for good measure.

"You have reached the voice mail of Atomic Robo, owner of Tesladyne Industries. I can't take your call right now, probably because something is exploding or someone is shooting at me. Leave your name and contact info at the beep, and I'll get back to you once mortal peril has passed."

BEEP

〈 PLAYER INFO 〉
NAME: Eric
AGE: 31
JOURNAL: overbringer
IM / EMAIL: Skype: SamOverbringer
PLURK: overbringer
RETURNING: No

〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Dr. Atomic Robo Tesla
CHARACTER AGE: 87
SERIES: Atomic Robo
CHRONOLOGY: July, 2011. Shortly before his encounter with ALAN.
CLASS: Hero
HOUSING: Throw me down for whatever, initially. Whatever living situation they put him him, Robo's first goal will be acquiring enough funds that he can get his own lodgings.

BACKGROUND: Behold, a wiki

PERSONALITY: Atomic Robo is an immortal, superpowered, wisecracking, artificially intelligent robot powered by a nuclear reactor. On top of that, he has made investigating the very strangest things the universe has to offer his life's work. He is equally comfortable working in a laboratory or fist fighting Nazi walking tanks (Mentally. Physically, the lab is more comfortable. It usually involves less punching and explosions.). While he would consider himself a robot of science, the harsh realities of life have taught him that science as we understand it is tragically insufficient to deal with everything the world has to offer. The square cube law states that forty foot long ants are biologically impossible, but that didn't stop a small army of them from attacking Reno in 2007. Time travel is impossible, but that didn't stop a being from outside the universe from simultaneously attacking our universe at five points in history. He uses modern understandings of the universe as a starting point, and then just sort of rolls with whatever the world throws at him.

Robo is not a robot inclined to angst. His lived long enough to see almost everyone he knew while he was young die of age or go senile, and yet he himself will probably last for centuries more if something doesn't blow up. Humans are extremely temporary, compared to him. Yet at no point in his various adventures do we see him lamenting the curse of immortality or wishing that he wasn't a robot. He's comfortable being himself, and has accepted humans for what they are. He actually quite likes humans. He sees it as one of his primary goals to help and protect them. Often from themselves. Sometimes, from other things. The only time he met another immortal AI like himself, he killed it because it planned to wipe out humanity.

That said, he is not without his little quirks. Robo's greatest fear is bugs. Not giant ones that attack cities in Nevada. Little ones. The kind that can crawl inside of mechanical joints and get guts all over delicate machinery. The very thought of it makes his skin crawl. Or would if he had skin. He also has a personal beef with world renowned physicist Stephen Hawking. The cause of this vendetta is not clear, but we do know that when Robo was sent to mars in 1975 (It was determined that boosting all 500 pounds of Robo into space was infinitely less expensive than boosting a human astronaut along with all the necessary supplies and life support.), Hawking tricked NASA into thinking that Robo could go into a power save mode and thus survive the trip without any reading material, resulting in Robo almost going insane from boredom AND writing "STEPHEN HAWKING IS A BASTARD" in mile tall letters made of rocks on the surface of the red planet. He also has an aversion to swearing, preferring such G-rated alternatives as "Holy SOCKS!" or "Applesauce!".

Finally, Atomic Robo hates Dr. Dinosaur. Like seriously. You would not believe how much sheer, platonic hatred he has boiling in his nuclear heart for everyone's favorite sentient utahraptor that might be a time traveler but is probably just a deranged genetic experiment that got loose. It's unreal. Time travel shouldn't even be possible, okay? And where does he get all those guns? How does he even travel anywhere? He showed up on an island in the south pacific! He's a dinosaur! He can't just buy a ticket and get on a plane! Everything about Dr. Dinosaur is a personal affront to Robo's sanity!

POWER: Atomic Robo is a robot possessing "automatic intelligence". He is fully sentient and (in his world at least) recognized as having all the rights of a human being by most major governments. I would like to keep him in his fully mechanical form in this RP, without so much as a human hologram to disguise him as normal. His robotic body grants him the following "powers":

1: Superhuman physical abilities. Robo can lift cars and swing them around as bludgeons, walk through a hail of gunfire unharmed (though apparently bullets still hurt, even if they do no meaningful damage), and he never gets tired as long as he can top off his reactor with uranium every couple years.
2: Integrated sensor suite. Robo can see in far more wavelengths than humans can, magnify his vision, and connect to wireless networks or radio signals without difficulty.

You know, robot stuff. I figure if either of those powers is too much for 1 slot, it can sort of spill over into his third slot.

His WEAKNESSES, if you need those, are that he can get temporarily shorted out by electric shocks, freezing him in place, and that he has a nuclear reactor in his chest which can be dangerous if it gets damaged (for hopefully obvious reasons). No one is sure how Tesla made a nuclear reactor that small. Not even Robo himself.

〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE: Check it out, a musebox post! And also an entry at your very own TDM!

LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE: Robo stared into the bay as an eighty foot tall creature vaguely reminiscent of a bipedal lantern fish lumbered out of it and narrowed his eyes. "You can't just scale something up like that! It would crush itself under its own weight!"

It stepped on a bus as tourists ran screaming. Robo glared at it as if the sheer force of his offended sensibilities could let him WILL the thing out of existence. "And look, it's tracking things with its eyes! That thing came from the bottom of the ocean! That it even HAS eyes is amazing enough, but eyes that aren't blinded by direct sunlight!? Come on, you're not even trying to make sense!"

Really though, what offended Robo most about the creature's existence was not the biological impossibility of something from the bottom of the ocean functioning on the surface. It was the fact that when he ran out of things to say, he was going to have to go down there and fight it. It was probably going to hurt, and it was definitely going to be very, very gross. He could see the slime from its footprints glistening in the sun, and the clouds of brownish gas sloughing off of it made Robo suspect he should be thankful he didn't have a sense of smell.

The monster picked up the flattened bus and threw it into the side of a warehouse, causing something inside to explode. Atomic Robo's shoulders slumped in defeat. He was going to have to fight it. "I'll go get some guns."

FINAL NOTES: How do the nanites work with a character that does not have blood or anything resembling organic tissue? "Don't worry about it, they just do" is a perfectly acceptable answer, I just want to know if there's any special considerations I should keep in mind.

Also: Atomic Robo was built by Nikola Tesla. I know normally that any cultural references to my character's canon are erased upon their arrival into the world, but Tesla was a real person. Was there a Nikola Tesla in this universe, even if he was not the supergenius he was in Robo's universe who built artificial intelligences in his garage?