Transformers: Ashes of Victory

[Dark Silver]

Average Size was about 8-9 meters, with the larger ones like Prime and Megatron hitting 10-12 meters in height.

Some like Bumblebee, were only 3 meters.

Most combiners were approx 20m tall, Omega Supreme was closer to 23-24m tall. Going by the Gen1 Cartoon scalings.

As seen here: http://libriumarcana.com/users/darksilv ... ideic1.jpg

Fun Time: How many Transformers can you name in the above image.

[LadyTevar]

I might not know the names, but I recognize every one of the bots and can tell you which side they were and which season they appeared.

Hey, frigid... tell me more about these Headhunters of yours. I'm thinking you might need a friend to dig you out of that tomb.

[General Havoc]

Cyncat, I need to know if Wheeljack is alive or dead, so that I may complete Hornet's character sheet's background section.

[frigidmagi]

Hey, frigid... tell me more about these Headhunters of yours. I'm thinking you might need a friend to dig you out of that tomb.

All KIA or MIA I'm sad to say.

[Cynical Cat]

There will be no Headmasters or their sillyness.

[Cynical Cat]

Breakout is good.

Novawing is okay, will the following caveats.

There is no Autobot elite to approve him and if there was, they wouldn't.

Grasers do not make things explode by hitting them. The are coherent beams of gamma rays, which means they tend to penetrate through things not blow up their surface. If you want grasers, and their attendant advantages and disadvantages fine, if you don't edit and call them blasters or whatever.

[rhoenix]

Alright - the cannons have been renamed Particle Cannons, with the same effect they had before. The Lance however still relies on raw puncturing power.

Bio has been edited.

[Charon]

My fairly random idea.

Name: Medicon
Affiliation: None
Classification: Medical Expert/Field Medic

Background: Medicon is perhaps Megatron's greatest failure. Designed and built to be a Decepticon that would fix their injured and dying soldiers and keep the Decepticon's in the fight. Medicon proved that he was an expert physician, capable of fixing even some of the most grievous of injuries, but on his field test, it was discovered that he had what the Decepticons considered to be a fatal flaw. He was a pacifist. The Decepticons tried to kill him, but Medicon fled them to try to join the Autobots, where he found that many did not accept him because they thought he was a Decepticon spy, and those that did not think that did not accept him because he would not fight.

Medicon thus found himself stuck in the middle of the fighting, healing all those he could, be they Autobot or Decepticon. Most of his time was spent covertly behind Autobot lines, since they were far less likely to summarily execute him. After the Decepticons won Cybertron however, Medicon was one of the few bots that were not directly affiliated with the Decepticons that stayed behind. Shockwave for the most part was willing to leave the medic alone, as his primary business at that point in time was Decepticons. Though there were several occasions when Medicon had to flee the planet to either one of the moons or further ranging to avoid the wrath of Shockwave after he was discovered to be fixing Autobot guerrillas as well.

Medicon was on Cybertron when the chaos, death, and wide-spread destruction took place. It was at this time and in that place that Medicon truly proved himself. Moving through the fields of dying and dead, saving lives that might not have survived the wrath of Unicron.

Alt-Mode: Ambulance
Max Speed: 120 mph
Size: 8 meters

Weapon Systems:
Cerebral Inhibitor: Designed by Medicon himself, the cerebral inhibitor is a non-lethal pistol that generates electric pulses that can do exactly as it suggests it can, which can severely disorient those struck by it and can put a bot in stasis lock if it gets a lucky shot or just hits someone enough times. Something Medicon has had to do to the occasional difficult patient.

Plasma Thrower: A rather deadly close-range weapon, which Medicon has never used for its actual purpose. The Plasma Thrower spits out jets of burning hot plasma at targets within 20 meters. Medicon has found it is also useful for getting through pesky things like doors.

Special Systems:
Medkit: The term is somewhat of a misnomer, as Medicon has facilities for almost anything he might need (and some things he doesn't) to fix injuries on the battlefield.

Force Field: Medicon was also equipped with a very powerful force field that when brought up is large enough to protect both himself and generally at least one other medium-sized bot from incoming fire for a period of time. Medicon cannot keep the field up for more than a few minutes at a time, but it is a strong enough shield to even take a blast from Megatron.

[SirNitram]

There will be no Headmasters or their sillyness.

Darnit.

I suspect an Iowa-class as a Transformer would also be too much?

[General Havoc]

My first reaction is: "That's absurdly overpowered"

My second reaction is: "An Iowa-class Battleship that could transform is AWESOME"

I'm thus torn.

[Charon]

They had something somewhat similar to that in the Steampunk Transformers mini. Shockwave was an Ironsides ship.

[SirNitram]

My first reaction is: "That's absurdly overpowered"

My second reaction is: "An Iowa-class Battleship that could transform is AWESOME"

I'm thus torn.

Overpowered guns is easy: While down after locating the ark, the Navy put him through the 'modernization', giving him brand new.. But circa 1980s Earth.. guns.

[Charon]

Which doesn't change the fact that in alt. mode you're going to have super-heavy armor, dozens of smaller guns, and 9 16 inch guns. Not to mention anti-aircraft, and missiles, advanced radar, maybe some sonar...

All of which would be hampered severely if we aren't near water... But I'm still uneasy with that level of firepower.

[rhoenix]

Playing a full-on naval battleship Transformer would be a bit over the top, Nitram. In my semi-humble opinion, that sort of power is best left to NPC's such as Omega Supreme and the like.

If you want to play a big fella, there are a number of options depending on how you want to play it. Even NASA's pet project the X37b, the unmanned shuttle they're testing, is a possibility.

[SirNitram]

Bah. I had these ideas written down for the next game. Oh well, I'll browse Teletraan-1 Wiki for ideas.

[General Havoc]

Well... here we go:

Name: Hornet
Affiliation: Autobot
Classification: Light Reconnaissance/Mascot

Background: Hornet is not like other Autobots.

Of all the myriad transformer designs that sprang from the mind of the Autobot scientist Wheeljack, Hornet is perhaps the strangest. The product of Wheeljack's research into both the origins of Transformer behaviorology and human biological and psychological research, Hornet is nothing less than an attempt to replicate the transformer equivalent of a child, a bot designed to grow and change over time, in a manner similar to robots supposed by Wheeljack to have existed eons ago. Designed with the most advanced of behavioral heuristic algorithms, his systems miniaturized and condensed to fit within a smaller frame, Hornet was the subject of debate and disbelief even before he was first activated, as many among the Autobots questioned Wheeljack's very sanity in creating him, either decrying the cruelty of bringing forth such a bot in the midst of an interstellar war, or the waste of time and resources required to bring this pet project to fruition.

Regardless of any and all objections, however, Hornet was built, activated, and set loose upon the rest of the Autobots, and while there were those who questioned whether Wheeljack had been malfunctioning in assembling him, he was, eventually, brought into the fold with the largely contrived role of "light reconnaissance", his actual function approximating more of a mascot for the Autobots in general. Whatever the debate surrounding his creation, after all, he was unquestionably an Autobot, and whether by Wheeljack's programmatical intent or his own nature, he rapidly found supporters within the Autobot organization for his simple, (some might say naive) kind, and sympathetic nature. With the support of his friends, Hornet managed thus to survive and even thrive, a few "incidents" and "accidents" notwithstanding, and gain the acceptance of the majority, if not all, of the Autobots, whatever they thought of the circumstances of his construction.

But events moved quickly, sweeping bots much larger and stronger than Hornet along with them. Megatron's assault on Earth, Optimus Prime's death, the ascension of Unicron, the return to Cybertron, Hornet weathered all of these things through the simple expedient of being too small, too weak, for his betters to notice in the convulsions that overtook them. His creator, protector, and chief defender, Wheeljack, did not, and neither did the Autobots as a single, unified entity. With Wheeljack dead, or at least missing, with the Autobots fractured into factions and petty cells, Hornet has been cast adrift from all anchor points, and though many of those he regarded (and regards) as extended family are still around, for the first time since he was activated, he has been left functionally and effectively, all alone.

And like so many of those he was patterned off of, all he wants is for things to go back to the way they used to be.


Personality: Kind, sympathetic, and friendly to a fault, Hornet's best qualities have always been internal ones, and despite all the upheaval, chaos, and loss of the last few months, those qualities, though often submerged beneath his feelings of loss or displacement, have never deserted him. Childlike, emotional, and often entirely thoughtless, Hornet wears his spark on his sleeve, always ready to jump at the opportunity to either make new friends or show himself useful to the older, more powerful Autobots, many of whom he openly idolizes. Yet his exuberance is balanced by a keen sense of introspection and an almost insatiable curiosity, one sometimes leads him to barrages of questions that could try the patience of the most saintly Autobot.

Yet for all the antics Hornet gets up to, there is a slightly more serious side to the little Autobot that a select few have remarked upon. Hornet's fractal behavioral algorithms have always made him a little strange, but some of his behavior crosses over from strange into actively disquieting. Hornet occasionally suffers from what appear to be entirely lifelike audio-visual hallucinations, speaking to people who are not present, hearing voices that do not exist, or claiming to have encountered Autobots long dead or wholly fictitious. These hallucinations can vary from the harmless to the (apparently) terrifying, disrupting his already fragile concentration at terribly wrong moments. He occasionally makes offhand comments or remarks that, in context, speak to either prescience, deep intuition, or some kind of madness. Moreover, these effects have slowly become more and more pronounced, to the point where even Hornet himself has noticed them, a source of some understandable anxiety. Hornet is, after all, both an experiment and a prototype, and Wheeljack's work, though unquestionably brilliant, has never been noted for its faultless execution. What cause Wheeljack may have ascribed or theorized these effects to is unknown, leaving Hornet with only the dubious hope that, whatever is going on, there is at least a chance that Wheeljack intended it to be this way. While he has yet to suffer any major fault or damage, Hornet privately fears that his programming may be starting to break down, much like all the rest of his world has been, since the death of Prime, the displacement from Earth, and the loss of his creator, Wheeljack.


Forms: Hornet's alt form is a small, single-engine fighter jet, with mixed lines from the FA/18 Hornet (his namesake), the F-16 Fighting Falcon, and the MiG-29 Fulcrum. Proportionally sized down as his size would indicate, Hornet is too small to carry an adult passenger, and can carry only a small child at the most within his canopy. Hornet's chassis and hull is comprised of a substance called "Cerasteel", a ceramo-metalic compound invented by Wheeljack as a lightweight replacement for polyluminum, which grants him a modicum of protection. Nevertheless, Hornet is one of the most fragile Autobots alive, and a single high powered shot from any Cybertronian-scale weapon is capable of simply disintegrating him.

Fortunately, what Hornet lacks in durability, he at least partially makes up for in speed and agility. His engine is extremely powerful given its size, giving him superior thrust-to-weight ratios, and his handling characteristics are second to none. While Hornet's experience is lacking, and his concentration is not always "there", his skill at flight is quite exceptional, and promises one day to become more so, a fact helped by his natural love of flight, aerobatics, and other such pursuits.

In both robotic and vehicular forms, Hornet's paint scheme is silver with light blue trim, and the Autobot logo stenciled on his shoulders and wings. His robotic form is somewhat more "normally" proportioned than most, with fewer extraneous tires, grills, and radiators, save for his arms, which are actually articulated airplane wings, his chest, in which is mounted a folded up cockpit, and his head, which appears to have a flight helmet of sorts built into it.


Weapons:

Gatling Laser Blasters: Mounted on Hornet's wrists in robot mode, and wingtips in airplane mode, Hornet has a pair of six-barreled rotary laser blasters. While the shots they fire are not terribly powerful, scarcely capable of scorching the armor of a heavy Decepticon, the combined blasters are capable of a sustained rate of fire in excess of four thousand shots per minute, more than sixty blasts per second. As such, Hornet can project an almost solid-state hail of laserfire from his cannons, the combined effect of which can utterly decimate unarmored targets, and potentially even damage armored ones, as it often only takes one shot to a weak spot to turn a battle tank into a towering inferno. Hornet's lasers are the only weapons he has access to in robotic form, the others being all stored in subspace until he takes on his vehicular form.

ATA/ATG Missiles: Hornet's primary air-to-air weapons are a quartet of dual-purpose, all-aspect, radar-guided, high-explosive missiles. These missiles, stored in subspace while Hornet is in his robotic form, are deceptively powerful weapons, for while Hornet is not a full sized Autobot, his missiles very much are, and pack a proportional wallop that is easily capable of knocking a Sweep out of the air. Though the missiles are designed for anti-aircraft work, they are perfectly serviceable in an air-to-ground role, and Hornet has employed them as such many times. On special occasions, Hornet can also replace his missiles or missile warheads with more exotic munitions, though the legwork for such things generally must be performed by others with skill in weapons design or maintenance.

Armor-piercing Bomb: Hornet's most powerful weapon is a single bomb, held beneath his undercarriage, and based on the design of the French "Durandel" anti-runway munition. The bomb is laser guided, with rockets to propel it downward at trans-sonic speeds, thus enabling it to strike a tremendous blow. Designed to penetrate the enemy prior to exploding, the bomb is Hornet's single reliable method of engaging armored targets. For size reasons, among others, Hornet can carry only a single bomb at a time.

[Charon]

As a minor note, I am expecting that Medicon knows just about everyone. This war has been going on for a long time and he has fixed bots on both sides over the course of most of it. So Medicon has probably sometime in the past fixed up most if not all of the PCs.

[Cynical Cat]

Medicon and Hornet are good.

rhoenix choose either stealth or hypermaneuverability. You can't have both.

[rhoenix]

rhoenix choose either stealth or hypermaneuverability. You can't have both.

Hypermaneuverability it is.

[SirNitram]

Name: Flamebringer
Affiliation: Autobot
Classification: Air Superiority Seeker

Background: Like Hornet, Flamebringer is one of Wheeljack's creations. A full sized seeker, Flamebringer was built to overcome the technological stasis in energy generation that had led Cybertron into some of the worst fighting: The need for Energon. While for millions of years, Cybertronian science in energy was for weapons or better extraction or use of Energon, Flamebringer was the paradigm shift brought about by exposure to humans. Originally built as a test-bed for whether a Transformer could function with an internal reactor, the needs of war pressed Flamebringer from merely a test subject(A willing one, seeing his existance as a noble attempt to free Cybertron from the Energon shortages), into a full fledged warrior. Not as professional as Breakout, not as childlike as Hornet, and not as pacifistic of many pre-war Cybertronians, Flamebringer intends to burn away those who seek conflict for conflict's sake. Equipped with a fusion pulse-detonation reactor, he has the fire.

Personality: While it might be cliche, it has to be said: Flamebringer's spark is full of fire. But unlike Sunstorm, a deranged fanatic, he understands the flame: It is safety and danger, creation and destruction. Inside Flamebringer is the intense burning need to succeed, both in war and peace, and to bring peace, as his original purpose demanded. While respectful of his commanding officers and quite militarily competent, he has a notable soft side, especially for Hornet, who he views as a brother.

Special Systems:
'Prometheus' Fusion Detonation Core: Named for an Earth god who brought fire to man, Flamebringer's signature system allows him to run without energon indefinitely, as long as he occasionally refuels from water or other solutions containing hydrogen. He can easily keep up with his 'little brother', but he's not terribly maneuverable.

Alternate Form: Sukhoi PAK FA jet fighter

Weapons:
Blaster Rifle: A fairly generic weapon, this one was simply grabbed from the armory and given a brief upgrading to handle Flamebringer's power output before being shoved into his hands. Engraved on the stock is 'This Machine Kills Tyrants'. This weapon becomes an underslung cannon in his alt-mode, giving him limited arc but considerable firepower. Sadly, it points directly ahead in that form.

Burners: Both wrists mount exhaust ports to vent superheated gas from from his engines in robot mode, becoming plasma torches. Though short ranged, they chew through armor, rapidly melting it. In alt-mode, these are useless, but his jet wash has a similar effect on anyone too close to his exhaust.

[Cynical Cat]

Flamebringer is accepted with modifications. The fusion core is a fuel hog. You're much less fuel efficient than a standard transformer, you can just use a wider range of fuel as a pay off.

[SirNitram]

Flamebringer is accepted with modifications. The fusion core is a fuel hog. You're much less fuel efficient than a standard transformer, you can just use a wider range of fuel as a pay off.

Works for me.

[frigidmagi]

We are a sky heavy group.

[LadyTevar]

Name: Shimmer
Affliation: Autobot (female model)
Classification: Courier/ Spy
Size: 8m

Alt Form: Tesla Roadster 2.5.

Background:
When the Autobots and Decepticons fled the dying Cybertron after the loss of the Ark, Shimmer went with a group of fellow Autobots. For a time, she remained simply a courier, helping the far-flung Autobots keep in touch, if only tenuously.

That changed when she was recharging on a planet that came under sudden attack by Decepticons looking for Energon. Unable to leave, Shimmer used her illusion ability to remain out of sight. However, she knew she had to find out not just who these Decepticons were, but what they were planning to do once they left. Thus Shimmer became a spy.

She managed to get off-planet finally, before the Decepticons had totally drained it dry, and her information went to the closest group of Autobots she could find; the Wreckers gang lead by Grimlock. From then on, Shimmer stopped simply carrying messages between Autobots, and started actively tracking down Decepticon planets to infiltrate. The information she gathered she handed over to whichever group of Autobots she felt could use it: Grimlock, BreakOut, UltraMagnus.

Her path took her across the universe, and she survived many close calls that nearly put her permanently offline during her self-appointed duty. To her, however, it was worth it. She was making a difference, helping the Autobots gain an edge, however temporary, in the ongoing war. Over the years, she impersonated Decepticons and sapients of all shapes, whatever it took to get the information.

Personality:
Shimmer is whomever she needs to be at the time -- cruel and malicious, stiff and proper, snarky and backbiting, effacious and sniveling. It has so long since she's been 'herself' for a prolonged time, she cynically wonders if she ever could be that 'Bot again. Even among Autobots she tailors her body language and personality to what best fits in. By now, tha's second nature.


Special Systems:
1. Variable Paint Scheme.
To aid in her function as spy, she is able to alter her external skin pigment from a light silver/gray up to a deep twilight blue. This extends to a limited digital camo pattern.
(The exact shades can be seen in the paint scheme of the Tesla -- "Sterling Silver", "Glacier Blue", "Thunder Grey", "Twilight Blue", "Jet Black".)

2. Fake transponder.
It's not only the visual senses that need fooled, but the technology as well. The fake transponder can be turned on and off at will, switching the brand as well.

3. Improved sensors & data storage.
Couriers and spies have to be able to transport information, as well as hear and see things they shouldn't. They also need to have the means to play that information back in detail.

4. Hologram Function:
Mostly used for impersonation during her missions, the holograms are limited to within a meter of Shimmer's chasis. They can be used to playback vital data Shimmer has acquired. The holograms are full visual spectrum, but non-solid.


Weaponry: (Electricity based)
Lightning Whip: Extends up to twice her height, able to entangle an opponent. Possible to cause EMP damage to unprotected circuitry.

Arc Welder: In the Golden Days of Cybertron, an Arc welder was simply that, a high-powered electric welding gun. Centuries of conflict had many of these turned from peaceful repair into deadly weapons of war. After all, if it could melt metal, it could damage armor and joints.
Shimmer can summon it when needed whenever she needs a ranged weapon.

[Cynical Cat]

Shimmer is approved.