Caliber Gold
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| [[Image:|300px|]] | |
| Caliber Gold | |
| Player: @Zaximillian | |
| Origin: | Technology |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Blaster |
| Security Level: | 37 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Mark Oliver Masters (secret) |
| Known Aliases: | None |
| Species: | Human |
| Age: | Mid 30's |
| Height: | 6'1" |
| Weight: | 205# |
| Eye Color: | sapphire |
| Hair Color: | coal black |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | Caucasian |
| Occupation: | Weapons Designer |
| Place of Birth: | Unknown |
| Base of Operations: | Unknown |
| Marital Status: | Single |
| Known Relatives: | Unknown |
| Known Powers | |
| Bio-Energy Emission, Battle Fulcrum Sense, Static Weakness Detection, Pattern Matching Sense | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Personalized Martial Art | |
| Equipment | |
| Customized Assault Rifle | |
| ' | |
Contents |
Bio
(RPer) Originally a weapons designer, Mark Masters defended the prototype T.H.O.R. against an assault by Arachnos. He damaged the weapon in desperation rather than let them have it. The feedback explosion shot waves of EM energy through his system and felled him, and Arachnos overwhelmed him and airlifted the weapon away. While recovering, he found that he could sense patterns and focal points in physical space. Applying his new ability to his body and to his shooting abilities, he took the name Caliber Gold to redeem his past, but at the cost of his ability to connect with people and the loss of his former, happy life.
Origin
Mark Oliver Masters (CALIBER GOLD #6) was originally a weapons designer for the military, specialized in energy weapons (CALIBER GOLD #1). His forte was in railguns, EMP devices, and Gauss weapons specifically. His final project was a very large, stationary weapons platform called the Gauss Super-Cannon, code named T.H.O.R. (ARMORED ARROW #1/2). Arachnos wanted the weapon and made a raid against the test facility. Mark was on duty that day, and defended his creation. Overwhelmed and in desperation, he damaged it (CALIBER GOLD #1). Injured in the electromagnetic feedback, he lay powerless as Arachnos agents, led by a shadowy figure, laughed at him as they airlifted the giant weapon from its mounts and away. The Arachnos attack team took the weapon, and partial blueprints, but did not get everything they needed to rebuild and activate the weapon. As the original designer, only Mark knew the rest (CALIBER GOLD #1). While convalescing, Mark discovered that the weapon remained classified, and that the project was over. He had been disgraced and released from the company as well. It was in his hospital bed that he began to discover his new powers, and from there to formulate revenge. Learning his own biophysical patterns during physical therapy, Mark healed very quickly and got back on his feet. He went back to the now bankrupt company. Using a combination of his former employment and breaches in security to work his way back to the test facility, he gathered resources as he went, including several copies of the EM suits he used while working on the weapon. These were designed to protect against long term exposure to EM fields. These suits formed the basis for his existing costume. Angry and desperate for redemption, he stole a wealth of equipment he designed and left as the company fell in on itself, armed with maps to a collection of abandoned company sites. Mark had taken up target shooting as a hobby related to his specialty of creating weapons. Training with a greater focus now, Mark found that he had developed into a crack shot overnight, another indication of his growing powers. Working night after night, Mark then created and refined a personal assault rifle in an effort to arm himself in tracking down Arachnos. Knowing that shooting would not be enough, he also continued to refine his physical training, and read through a number of military hand-to-hand combat training books, picking out the maneuvers best suited to his developing body. Months went by as Mark used his savings to train and to refine his equipment. During this time, his brain chemistry continued to settle. Without human contact, Mark learned to prefer the predictability and structure of training and execution over the capricious nature of human beings. He blames this part of his life for his shortcomings in human interaction (CALIBER GOLD #1). Caliber Gold then decided to make contact with the Paragon City PD through an Officer Hicks when he arrived.
History
After meeting Mr. Lantern, Caliber decided to begin converting one of his company's abandoned weapons storage facilities into a base of operations (FORCE #0). To avoid detection by his former employer, Caliber has designed all of the equipment to be modular, and moves the FORCE base between the facilities from time to time. Relationships Caliber Gold has family, and doesn't like to talk about them because of his current function as a hero and its risks to them (KENNADY #1/2). He feels guilty about not contacting them since the accident that put him in the hospital. Apparently, his family doesn't even know about that. He has taken his team as his new family (SOLINK #3). Caliber Gold has no friends, per se. He has combat comrades. Everything in his mind including rest and relaxation is geared toward refining or recharging his combat efficiency. Caliber Gold shies away from personal contact with women to avoid complicating his readiness and focus. For better or worse, he considers FORCE to be his new family. Secretly, he considers them a defense mechanism against Arachnos as well, gathering colleagues in what he considers to be partially a selfish move to combat them and recover his personal honor one day.
Nemesis
Caliber Gold has no nemeses at this time.
Enemies
Caliber Gold considers Arachnos his main enemy, since it was they who interrupted his work and his life. Over his time in Paragon City, he has attacked the Freakshow a number of times, and considers them an enemy simply because he expects them to try to exact revenge. Caliber Gold openly hates mobsters (ARMORED ARROW #1/2). He thinks of them in a similar light as Arachnos, both of them being large scale, professionally organized crime.
Rivals
Caliber Gold has no superheroic rivals, since he doesn't actively compare himself to others in any competitive terms.
Allies
Caliber Gold is the leader of FORCE (FORCE #0). He is acquainted with many, but only considers a few to be friends. All of them are on his team. Part of this is because Caliber Gold still feels responsible for not attending to the needs of Kennady (CALIBER GOLD #5). Among his friends is Mr. Lantern. Caliber Gold considers Mr. Lantern to be emotional where he is not, and values his unique insight. The two have shared some details of their real lives, and Caliber Gold trusts Mr. Lantern as his right hand man. Another teammate that Caliber Gold cares for is Solink. The two of them have shared some long conversations (CALIBER GOLD #5), and have stood up for each other at risk to themselves. Caliber Gold considers Solink more of a battle brother than a confidante. He tries to look after Solink a little, knowing that he is without a home, family, or past. He has promised to try to analyze the drugs that Reverie Sire was forced to take by the FBSA (REVERIE SIRE #2). Caliber Gold, as leader of FORCE, is allied with The Brawlers, but he feels that this team is on its way out, and pays them little attention. He is also allied with The Sword of Paragon, and considers this team much more active. In particular, he feels indebted to Iron Edge for his help. Caliber Gold's allegiance with Drake's Institute of Higher Learning is limited to Light-Ghost, who is the only member of that team to consistently respond. Finally, The Minutemen are also allies of FORCE, but Caliber Gold has only met members of that team once, and considers FORCE allied with them in name only until they make more of a presence.
Beliefs
Caliber Gold believes that everything has a pattern, however obscure, and that the best way to find the truth is to find the patterns in what data he collects. Caliber Gold is not much for moralizing. His motives and directives are clear and his priorities very organized. This also makes him a stickler for rules and regulations. Oddly, aware of his own condition, he consciously factors in the human element where others are concerned to compensate for his own lack of emotion. Yet he doesn't expect anyone else to follow his high professional standards. Based on his previous reliance on numbers and procedures, he considers most human interactions to be inconvenient and unpredictable. He also considers superpowers to be unpredictable themselves, and a likely destabilizing agent on a human being's sanity. He considers himself to be limited to his current outlook and function because of his brain's altered workings (CALIBER GOLD #1). Caliber Gold formed FORCE to be publicly unaffiliated with any of the existing structures of Paragon City (ARMORED-ARROW #1/2). He distrusts those government run facilities. Even though he realizes that all heroes in Paragon City need to be registered to operate within it, he sees the potential for inefficient limitations on tactics and strategy and the potential for abuse and governmental control for geopolitical purposes. He also believes that the FBSA's hero registration card system is more than it appears (REVERIE SIRE #2) and wants to investigate a decommissioned card. Even so, he is aware of the possibility of himself or his team being depicted as a loose cannons or vigilantes, and will do whatever he has to off the battlefield to make sure that never happens. Once in a mission, however, cold efficiency trumps everything except the lives of the innocent. He believes in the iconic nature of superheroes, and sees himself and others as avatars of goodness and force, and inspirations for the people. He constantly reminds himself of the multiple purposes of his job, and tries to set those standards whenever the opportunity presents itself. He adopted this outlook from Roostertail (BRAWLERS #3). Caliber Gold has a number of theories about Paragon City. One is that a disproportionate number of villains and heroes alike are flocking to Paragon City for reasons unknown (BRAWLERS #3). He also believes that the Rogue Isles and its criminal elements could lure a large number of heroes to switch sides (BRAWLERS #3). Another theory that he has is all of the drugs produced in Paragon City originated from a single source (BRAWLERS #4). This theory links the Trolls' Superadyne, the Vahzilok's Embalmed Abominations, and the Freakshow's Excelsium to a single person who had a hand in designing all of these super-empowering drugs. He also believes that the Outcasts, being excluded from that social fabric, are affected by an exact set of mutations across a broad band of people. He suspects genetic engineering (RAVENCROSS #1/2). He has some very strange views on metaphysics and spiritualism. He believes that most of these things can be explained through quantum theory and esoteric energy fields. He believes that magic is merely science that has gone undiscovered, and that the gods, if they exist as such, are merely immensely powerful and ancient entities, not the avatars of particular essences. He does believe in fate, and is a determinist, believing that everyone's varying self-awareness combine with stimuli both large scale and minute to make a person choose an action. He has little opinion about God because of the lack of proof. Thus, he also doesn't trust place nearly as much in faith as he does in action, although he values religion as vital and as perhaps the sole source of organized morality on the planet for those who lack the capability or patience for ethical reason and careful moral deliberation.
Personality
Caliber Gold used one word to describe himself: analytical (UMBRAL ARCHER #2). This, more than anything else, is the driving characteristic of his personality. When it comes to setting up and executing a task, Caliber Gold is utilitarian and pragmatic to the point of being cold and impersonal. Even at his best moments, he is emotionally sparse. However, he is intrigued and delighted by the development of others, and is eager to congratulate teammates on their efforts after a job well done. Caliber Gold is aware of the heroing business, and the importance of a case to the hero working it. He is perfectly willing to play second banana when a case isn't his, interjecting only critical tactical necessities. When running his own case, however, he immediately adopts a leadership role, trying to use his teammates for maximum effect. He is relentlessly meticulous in cataloging information about his encounters, missions, and records his own testing data in and out of combat, studying his own battles as fervently as professional athletes study game tape. Caliber Gold is keenly aware of costuming, and this is one area where he is not purely utilitarian, because he believes that heroes need to be iconic, which requires some minor concessions to the functionality of a costume. Because of that, he is loathe to exploit those weaknesses in a villain when he sees them. He will happily talk shop and get into the minutiae of the efficiencies of the tactics that he's put together. He's always looking to improve his personal effectiveness in combat, and actively leaps onto new concepts and possibilities, as long as those capabilities can be controlled and maximized. However, he is keenly aware of the destabilizing influence of powers on humans, and takes an interest on heroes' developing strength and how they deal with it. On the job as well as off, he prefers to digest subjects objectively, placing himself at a distance from any situation at hand and examining it at a philosophical and intellectual distance before engaging himself. Once engaged and fully armed with as much information as he can gather, he is relentless. This can be a problem for him, because with so much to attend to, Caliber can lose sight of longer term conditions and priorities, not to mention the feelings, goals, and needs of other people.
Mannerisms
Caliber Gold has a larger vocabulary than most, and prefers to converse in complicated, precise terms. He also tends to be so focused on the subject of a conversation that refuses to let go of a subject until he feels he's covered it completely. He tries not to shorten words, and uses colloquialisms rarely. Caliber Gold used to be in the military. When standing and speaking seriously or formally, Caliber Gold tends to stand at military parade rest. Before his accident, he enjoyed target shooting as a hobby, and still practices, even though now the challenges he sets for himself are superhuman. His military experience affects his speech, especially in combat. During a mission, he usually clips his speech into sentence fragments and military speech, both to get attention and to direct his team efficiently. The only exception is when he lines up a sniper shot or takes down the last foe in a group, when he will sometimes use his tagline: “If you're LOS, you're SOL.” LOS stands for Line Of Sight. Caliber Gold says that SOL stands for Slight Of Luck, usually with a knowing smirk. He avoids use of acronyms, however, because he knows that few people understand them. Another holdover from his time in military service is the fact that he occasionally enjoys a drink (CALIBER GOLD #6). He doesn't like to openly display his enjoyment of it, considering it at best a celebratory and gentlemanly toast to a job well done. He does keep a bottle of wine on hand for special occasions (FORCE #10). When agreeing with something, he responds with a nod of his head or, more often, with a thumbs up. His jokes, rare as they are, are self deprecating and very dry, rarely developed beyond sarcasm. He prefers to be called Caliber, but only lets close teammates and friends call him Cal, which he tolerates. He does not like to be called Gold.
Powers
Caliber Gold has a number of powers, based on two sources: the effects on his brain and the multipurpose assault rifle that he has built. After the Gauss Super-Cannon T.H.O.R. exploded, the electromagnetic field permanently affected Caliber's brain chemistry. Now, Mark Masters' brain is a pattern matching machine, plucking out patterns out of chaos and giving Caliber Gold insight. The more complicated and unanalyzed the pattern is, the more time Caliber Gold needs to find his way through it. However, Caliber Gold can make sense of the most chaotic and random seeming sequences. This applies not only to the abstract, but to three dimensional spaces and how they changes over time. This means that he can sense what he calls “fulcrums” (UMBRAL ARCHER #2). These are pivotal points in combat, patterns in motion, or weaknesses in physical objects. He can, in the span of a few seconds, find the weak spot in established patterns and take advantage of them, even complicated patterns. However, this takes concentration to do, and during that span of time, all of Caliber Gold's powers are dampened. As he trained to go after Arachnos, he discovered patterns that enabled him to perfect a number of martial arts maneuvers suited specifically for his body. These maneuvers enabled him to attack a range of opponents based on pressure points and leverage. This in turn allows Caliber Gold to dizzy his opponents or thrust them away from him with a straight armed thrust (MR. LANTERN #1). And so Caliber Gold applied his fulcrum sensing power to his own body. As he built his customized assault rifle, he designed and redesigned it to take advantage of his new knowledge, enabling him to graze targets to specifically stun them, knock them down with expert placement of launched beanbags and concussive grenades, and even knock an opponent down at long range with a sniper shot (MR. LANTERN #1). In addition, he has modified his concussion grenades to burst the air close to the ground instead of on impact to maximize the concussive force and minimize permanent damage to people and property (MR. LANTERN #1). His ability to sense fulcrums also includes the ability to piece or shatter large objects with a perfectly placed shot as he senses the physical stress point of a static object (MR. LANTERN #1). This power takes time to fully activate as Caliber Gold goes into a kind of trance, feeling and sensing the patterns and fulcrums involved, and can't be used if the target is moving at all. At present, Caliber Gold also has confiscated a beanbag launching weapon from the Freakshow that is even more powerful than his own, if less flexible than his assault rifle. The changeover time from one weapon to the other is the reason that Caliber rarely uses it. In the future, another power that Caliber will develop is to analyze repeating patterns in automatic fire and to be able to launch his way through it untouched. This unique and superpowered brain structure also enables Caliber Gold to conquer other things, such as to decrypt codes just by looking at them for a long time, translate languages with minimal effort, program computers and design AI, and hyper-invent a number of devices. For example, Caliber Gold knows how to construct carbon nanotubes (KENNADY #1/2).
Tactics
Tactically, he typically focuses on securing innocent lives from harm first, then property, and finally the combatants last, unless the direction of the battle is aimed directly or indirectly at the innocents. In that case, the combatants come first, then the innocent, then property last.
Caliber Gold's Ten Rules of Combat
Over time, Caliber Gold has developed ten rules of combat that comprise the basics of his strategic preparation and tactical execution. These rules aren't always for tactical combat. Caliber Gold uses them to plan strategy and rules for living as well.
| 1. Know the mission. |
| 2. Know your priorities. |
| 3. Know yourself. |
| 4. Know your enemies. |
| 5. Know your terrain. |
| 6. Prioritize the threats. |
| 7. Contain and redirect. (CALIBER GOLD #2) |
| 8. Do not hesitate. |
| 9. Expect the unexpected. |
| 10. Know when to retreat. |
When selecting maneuvers, Caliber Gold will first assess a grouping's shape. On approach, Caliber will try to position himself so that most of the group is in a straight line, and then unleash his Full Auto attack followed up with a Grenade. If one opponent appears separate from the rest, he may try to lure them in with a sniper shot. When engaged against one or two targets, he likes to power thrust or stun one of them to deal with the other one. If possible, he'll follow that up with a medium range sniper shot. Against multiple opponents, Caliber selects the opponent that is the weakest to cut down on the number of incoming attacks. Caliber Gold will defer on critical targets to other heroes who are personally or emotionally involved.
Appearances
| 1. 04-28-2009 MR. LANTERN #0 |
| 2. 04-29-2009 MR. LANTERN #1 |
| 3. 04-29-2009 KENNADY #2 |
| 4. 04-29-2009 FORCE #0 |
| 5. 04-29-2009 CALIBER GOLD #1 |
| 6. 05-02-2009 KENNADY #1/2 |
| 7. 05-04-2009 ARMORED-ARROW #1/2 |
| 8. 05-23-2009 MR. LANTERN #2 |
| 9. 05-24-2009 CALIBER GOLD #2 |
| 10. 06-02-2009 MR. LANTERN #5 |
| 11. 06-06-2009 CALIBER GOLD #3 |
| 12. 06-11-2009 MR. LANTERN #6 |
| 13. 06-15-2009 FORCE #4 |
| 14. 06-15-2009 BRAWLERS #3 |
| 15. 06-20-2009 BRAWLERS #4 |
| 16. 06-28-2009 CALIBER GOLD #4 |
| 17. 06-29-2009 CALIBER GOLD #5 |
| 18. 07-16-2009 FORCE #5 |
| 19. 07-17-2009 FORCE #6 |
| 20. 07-20-2009 UMBRAL ARCHER #2 |
| 21. 07-21-2009 SOLINK #3 |
| 22. 07-22-2009 REVERIE SIRE #2 |
| 23. 07-25-2009 FORCE #7 |
| 24. 07-30-2009 CALIBER GOLD #6 |
| 25. 08-09-2009 FORCE #8 |
| 26. 08-09-2009 BUZZKILLER-B #1 |
| 27. 08-25-2009 RAVENCROSS #1/2 |
| 28. 09-02-2009 CALIBER GOLD #7 |
| 29. 09-03-2009 BIG GOOD WOLF #10 |
| 30. 09-06-2009 FORCE #9 |
| 31. 09-07-2009 GRIMWORD #3 |
| 32. 09-10-2009 BIG SECRET #1/2 |
| 33. 09-13-2009 FORCE #10 |
To contact this character's creator
- In-game: @ZaxOmegaVerse
- E-mail: zaximillian@yahoo.com
I play from 7-9 EST most days, and most of the day on Sundays or Thursdays. On those days, I try to RP.
Future Plot
CALIBER GOLD #10?
CALIBER GOLD #15?
CALIBER GOLD #20?
Caliber Gold's nemesis Firecross appears, taunting Caliber Gold and his team by interfering with their cases.
CALIBER GOLD #25?
Caliber Gold confronts Arachnos at last, finding out what they did with T.H.O.R., the weapon that he was designing when Arachnos came in and stole it, creating the accident that created Caliber Gold.
