Activate
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
Radiation Blast
Quinten Talbot was born on October 12th, 1993 to Sebastian and Allison Talbot in Rutland, Vermont. Growing up, Quinten was to be bred to follow in his father’s footsteps. A prominent, District Court Judge, Sebastian along with his wife were both heavily involved in local politics in as many ways as possible, joining any board or committee they could attain a seat on. They raised Quinten as loving, but exceedingly strict parents, and while he had the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth, gentle nurturing was sparse.
In light of his upbringing, he had a tendency to fall on video games and comic books for fun and a sense of release. With no interest in political endeavors, he delved deeper and deeper into his true passions for fiction and gaming. In school he was part of multiple geeky clubs, showing remarkable creativity and his hobbies quickly grew into something more. His parents gave him no encouragement, even going so far as to say he was wasting his life and to condemn his choices for his life and upon learning of his acceptance into the Paragon University software engineering program they effectively cut him off, telling him they wouldn’t offer any assistance until he decided to do something useful with his life.
Fortunately, he was able to generate proper grants and scholarships in order to attend and even to live comfortably on his own, relatively speaking. It was a large step down from his parents’ estate, but the low income housing in Kings Row offers him more freedom. Always living up to the nerd stereotype, he blended in at PCU, despite a certain degree of social awkwardness, and received high scores in all of his classes. In an attempt to broaden his horizons, he attended classes during the spring and summer semesters and it was during this period that his life took a turn.
With his attention fully lost inside one of the new issues of his favorite comic book, as he often did, he completely lost sight of where he was as he wandered the campus. As he walked, he inadvertently entered the science department’s portion of the building, even going so far as to accidentally run into one of the researchers there, causing them both to drop their bags. Fate, it would seem, insisted that such an event would lead to more. Assisting each other with their things, it was only after he had returned to his apartment that he realized that one of the researcher’s items had been placed in his own bag.
Being the person he is, when he recognized the foreign object among his things, he had ever intention of returning it. Of course, upon closer inspection, he recognized it as very similar to the game discs used in his PlaySystem Handheld, and being the diehard gamer he is, he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try a potentially new bit of software. Curiosity got the better of him.
By sliding the “Activation” disc into his PlaySystem, Quinten is transformed in a whirl of digital coding and an explosion of electromagnetic energy into the amazing Activate. Taking on the life of a video game character complete with incredible powers, cheesy one-liners, the great physique and a penchant for saving the damsel in distress. Preferably all before the mid-term.
All of his powers come with limitations, however. Since his transformation is fueled by the disc itself, damaging his player would instantly change him back. Also, given the notoriously short battery life of such systems, if he doesn’t pay attention to his charge, it could quickly become game over. Unless he finds a way to charge himself, but how embarrassing could that be?
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Like most heroic campaigns, Activate started out slow. Random encounters with Hellions, magical forces and other nefarious evils that plague the citizens of Paragon. However, not one to be discouraged simply because he wasn’t saving the planet in some high profile endeavor, he continued to work diligently, exploring and developing his new abilities as his experience grew. As with any quest, he made friends on his adventures, fellow heroes whom he would often team up with, combining their collective might to fight larger foes. He even found someone he would consider a mentor, someone he could sidekick to, and while the two grew closer, they would eventually fall apart when tragedy struck.
In his travels, he happened to run into a nice blue woman, one that seemed to have an instant affinity for him. The two talked for what could’ve been hours before she revealed that she was, in fact, a member of the Eternals, a super group set on the heroic ideals his comic book heroes always embodied. He may well have been the easiest recruit she’d ever brought in, as both the Player and the Avatar instantly knew this was kismet, this is where they were meant to go. This fact seemed to only gain credence when he realized where they were based. While many had underground networks or their own tower to call home, the Aeternus was further into the realm of science fiction. A fully functional space station, purely devoted to aiding their quest for justice.
After their brief tour and meeting a few of the other members, Activate joined and quickly fell into his role as the resident technopath. The group led him on to do all the things he had ever expected of them. Aiding the Phalanx, helping with problems on a citywide and even global scale, even taking preemptive actions when things got weird. All the while developing friendships with the fellow heroes he saw as mentors.
This would all change when he was eventually invited to a party in Galaxy, invited by the same woman who had invited him into the Eternals in the first place. Neither the Player or the Avatar had ever been invited to a party before, so after ensuring that it was an actual party and that it wasn’t some kind of joke, he went to what would later be seen as his first and more memorable party experience. Dozens of heroes gathered, ate, drank and danced as the night went on. Being new to this type of function, Activate remained on the outside, quietly watching everything, working on various tasks on his visor, until he was told what exactly they were celebrating. “The Last Night of Galaxy.” It was a party to send off Galaxy Park, a massive meteor was racing through space on a collision course and it was predicted to land the next morning.
He was shocked, both by the impending destruction and the sight of all these heroes celebrating. Heroes he had looked up to. Those he thought worth idolizing, yet here they were partying rather than helping. While surely not all could access space, those that could not could have helped in the evacuations, but no. His fantasy world was falling apart in front of him, but it didn’t change the fact that there was a cosmic boulder ready to wipe out the city. He didn’t waste any time, racing back to the Aeternus, quickly charging some external battery packs and then racing off to meet the other heroes that were prepared to do whatever it took to stop this thing.
Electromagnetism - Able to control and generate electromagnetic energy for a wide array of effects. Most notably at the moment are the abilities to create fields of energy to hinder his foes or aid his allies, and even fire of blasts of focused energy. In theory, his powers could expand almost exponentially, but at the moment, he’s got no clue how, and who knows how the battery would hold up.
Laaaaag - A recently developed, not entirely stable ability, Activate is able to impose game style "lag" on the immediate timeline. Freezing objects in place or slowing them to a frame by frame rate, or even using it to displace his allies to help them. His ability to control this depends entirely on his energy levels.
Viral-ball - Capable of gathering a large amount of his digital and electromagnetic energy into a massive energy projectile, Activate can launch this Viralball, as he calls it, at his foes with devastating results. The ball tends to resemble the stereotypical hadoken blast, and he even takes the same stance when firing it. Upon impact, it appears to erupt in flames, but there isn't any fire involved, it is simply the coding eating away at whatever it's hit.
Cheat Codes - In true gaming fashion, he has recently discovered his own powers are susceptible to the proper codes. To date, said codes have been used to make himself and his powers work faster, as well as augmenting his electromagnetic blasts to hinder their targets even more on impact. Among the codes, he's recently discovered one for a temporary Invincibility, though it only lasts a few seconds before gradually wearing off.
Gaming Spirits - He's recently been able to, with focus, summon forth the essences of one of his favorite third person shooters, taking the form of Federation Troopers armed with Plasma Projection tech to help him out and supply much needed firepower in a pinch.
Technopathic - Due to the nature of his powers, Activate is very skilled with computers, able to interact with them on an advanced level. At present, this is pretty limited to just a software interface, enabling him to hack a system and augment programming. As for hardware, he has a heightened knowledge of technological systems, but it would equate more to a person with an advanced knowledge in computer systems.
Flight - While his electromagnetism does allow him stability and control in flight, the flight itself is achieved by propelling energy beneath him to generate thrust. This makes it very taxing on him to fly at speed while fighting and will drain his batteries quickly.
Gamer Vision - Equipped with a user friendly Head-Up Display, the visor can target and identify based on PPD records that he probably shouldn’t have. Delving into other databases is possible, but in true video game style, the information probably wont come through until the last possible moment. Aside from identification, the visor does offer a degree of targeting assist, as well as keeping track of his “hit points” and battery life. Once he de-Activates, the visor changes back into his glasses and no longer holds any special properties.
PlaySystem - Normally your run of the mill PlaySystem Handheld, with the gamer graphics slapped on for coolness purposes, it plays the standard PSH discs. Once he slips the Activation disc in however, it transforms, wrapping around his waist like a belt. The links on the belt light up on both sides until joining in the back and as he uses his powers they slowly tick away as he runs out of juice, representing his battery bar. The buckle tends to glow with his energy, and if one were to look closely, they could undoubtedly see something spinning inside
Game Gear - It turns out that his Activation disc houses more than one style of play. By switching things up, he can sacrifice his standard electromagnetic powers to generate a shield and sword out of his energy to fight with in true action and fighting game style. Being made out of his energy, the shield can deflect most attacks and the sword can cleave through most material with ease. However, like all of his powers his Game Gear's performance is subject to his limited energy supplies, so as he runs low on juice, the Gear loses effectiveness.
Bots - In order to stabilize his now fluctuating energy levels, Activate has created a series of robots to act as supports and keep his power levels in check. Seemingly able to appear from nowhere, these robots are summoned and then connected to him via a solid energy game controller and a series of barely visible energy cords.
Miss Knockback - An awesome hero he met that packs a big boom! They seem to be on the verge of a great friendship and she might even be a fellow gamer. How cool is that!
Sayge Stardust - Super nice, blue, half alien girl that brought him into the Eternals! He hasn't quite mapped her out yet, but she's all sorts of cool and seems to like him, which just gives him a big system error.
Wavebreak - The super Exfoliette! She moisturizes and hydrates with the best of them and the two have had a number of good laughs together... For Justice!
(( Activate started as just a name I had been given by a friend and his concept quickly grew. I had been wanting to make a gamer inspired character and the name just sounded perfect for it, then mixed it with a recent interest in a Rad/Rad, and I wanted a techno path… Hurray for combining concepts!
Thanks for helping with this toon go to @Maressa for the name and @Dollirot for the VV coolness. ))
