Gold Meteor
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
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Hannah Goldshire
"The reality behind Satan is simply the dark evolutionary force of entropy that permeates all of nature and provides the drive for survival and propagation inherent in all living things. Satan is not a conscious entity to be worshipped, rather a reservoir of power inside each human to be tapped at will. " --Peter H. Gilmoire
When her father told her she'd never make it as a physicist, she proved him wrong.
When her college professors told her she'd never figure Rikti technology and get a job with the Vanguard, she proved them wrong again.
When her brother told her she'd never get away with getting a heroine license, she proved him wrong as well.
Born on march 30. A rebellious child with a prodigious mind, she always showed the strong-willed and individualistic personality of her mother, who was her main support and counterweight to an all too conservative father. A few months before college she left home on bad terms after a heated discussion involving autonomy, authority, and her sexual preferences.
College and the Rikti
Hannah's college studies were barely begining when the Rikti invasion came. Cut from family and most friends, the months she passed in the civilians' shelter were most frustrating. After the war was over, however, she decided to make the most of whatever came after that. As soon as she got notice of job opportunities in Vanguard, she didn't rest until she secured a place as an intern, where her innate talents for reverse-engineering quickly got the attention of her superiors. From her perspective, she was a child in a candy store: After the war was over, the Vanguard secured enough spoils of war from the enemy to put to practice theories that have been canned for decades, and she was having a chance at testing them first-hand; from the correspondence point to the theory of the multiple universes.
Enter Gold Meteor
Hannah managed to get back in touch with her brother, Nicholas, just in time for her first promotion in the Vanguard. During this time she developed a growing interest in Paragon City's new flood of super-powered heroes and villains. As fate would have it, opportunity would one day present itself with an assortment of worn-out Rikti devices that were ready to be discarded, same devices that Hannah would borrow right away now that they were no longer in inventory, and refurbish them into a miniature gravity-induction engine capable of producing enough energy to power "something". The void of that "something" filling up when she brought the plans to Nicholas. Like Hannah, Nicholas was born with a privileged mind, but he instead focused on weapons development. Conceding to her sister’s nagging, he helped her build a wrist-mounted energy weapon for her Rikti improvised battery. There was a new cape in town.
A Cape's Lyfestyle: More than just Cheers and Autographs
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After her first big case put her under the spotligth, she became acquainted with the ego-bolstering reality of fans, and found the adoration appealing.
Hannah was living the dream, she felt empowered, adored, and liberated. She did the right thing, took (some) right decisions, and she saved many people, but her lust for life was too big for her to ever take things too seriously. Furthermore, she was never that much into being a “heroine” as much into simply being “something else.” Ever since her discovery of gravity technology, she started a love affair with transhumanism that will most likely endure to her death. She wants to become something greater, too much is never enough, and she’ll never, ever, stop.
Even today she flirts, she jests, and she can be a goof.
While she played it safe at first, with increased fame she grew cocky and reckless, a lesson she’d pay soon enough when the Clockwork King used his telekinesis to break every bone in her body and propel her miles away to a nearby river, leaving her for dead. Even with the miracles of supers-grade medicine, it took her a month to get out of the hospital, and while she forced herself to get back in the horse and not to let trauma get the best of her, she spent the next months in PTSD therapy and years after that on pills.
The second rikti invasion became a most significant time for her. To her, it was a time for payback, and a time to prove herself. This new war, however, also taught her responsibility and helped mature as a heroine. She became an ardent supporter of Vanguard as she moved in ranks, as a consequence harboring a growing animosity against Longbow, and especially Ms. Liberty, whom she views as a pampered princess and completely out of touch with reality.
While the rikti invasion taught her responsibility, the dimensional war with Praetoria taught her the meaning the fear. Where humanity just took a leap thanks to rikti salvaged tech (and the rikti remain 30-50 years ahead technologically), Praetoria was at least ten years ahead of primal earth, and they didn’t have any alien invasion or salvaged tech to piggyback on. What she feared the most was a faceoff with a society she at first perceived as the right way to do things... a society ruled by those ahead on the evolutionary chain, and so able to lead it at the proper pace, the people ahead helping those behind to catch up, rather than the people behind struggling to hold back those ahead.
Friends and Enemies
Following Vanguard’s credo, Gold Meteor is known for associating with anyone in order to get the job done. As a matter of fact, she’s known for choosing some rather questionable companies, including Labal, a known son of Lucifer who is on several heroes’ hit list, yet with whom sustains a strangely amicable and cordial relationship, and who has proved most useful furthering her understanding of infernal physics.
While she isn't particularly judgemental of aliens, she'll automatically reject aliens who use lies as introduction card, which put Kheldians on top of her least favorite persons list.
The first thing she did after finishing her MK-III suit was chasing the Clockwork King for a rematch, where she managed to beat him only to be stopped from delivering the killing blow by Positron, a fact that she resented for a while. Today, her personal issues with the C.K are mostly behind her, fortunately.
For years, Hannah had the most unlikely infatuation possible to a cape: Lord Nemesis. She considered him the brightest mind on earth, thus, in her words, "the hottest man on earth." The romance that never was, however, died after she found out about Nemesis' involvement in the Rikti invasion. Her disappointment later on worsening when, after his return to earth, he hacked her MK-IV to possess her as part of a plot to use the medport network to download copies of himself in the minds of every hero in the world (see Architech arc: Ghost in the Machine).
She sides with the Rikti Traditionalists in order to attain an eventual peace, but she won’t hesitate in shooting hostile rikti dead at the drop of a hat.
She holds a deep hatred towards Ouroboros, whom she holds partially responsible for nearly ruining her current relationship when the constant traffic to and from their universe slipped a younger version of her life partner from an alternate universe into this earth, which spiraled in a series of unfortunate events leading to them splitting for a time as well as a small-scale incident between Ouroboros and the Vanguard. This grudge is added to the contempt she already had towards them for perceiving them as scammers, tricking people of this earth into helping them with vague objectives for obscure, ulterior motives:
"Let's suppose for a moment that I travel back within -my- timeline to prevent some great catasthrophe... and let's suppose I succeed. Well, if I succeeded then the event never happened, if the event never happened I never got wind of it, if I never got wind of it then I never went back in time to prevent it, and if I never went back in time to prevent it, then the tragedy happened... Look, I don't know what's the deal you've got with working events in alternate universes or creating your own [*] but please, stop playing us all for fools, and stop insulting my intelligence"
- [*] Extrapolation based on Physics' theories of plasma as the fourth state of matter and the theory of multiple universes applied to time travel. Plasma (not ionized gas plasma), is considered a "fourth state" which keeps oscilating between the three states of matter. The existence of plasma is considered in itself proof of the theory of the multiple universes, which proposes that each particle existing in this universe exists at the same time in a multitude of different states across an infinite number of universes. Gold's extrapolation proposes that, given how the past can't be changed as far as known physics are concerned, in the unlikely event a time traveller managed to actually change something, the changes would rather be reflected in a new universe, which would have been created as a consequence of the time traveller's actions.
Her enmity with Ouroboros, combined with her unchecked drive to take her transhumanist research to incarnate levels and beyond are bound to lead her on an inevitable conflict with the titan Prometheus.
Warning: Game Lore Spoilers from this point on
Needless to say, Mender Silos' later revelation as Lord Nemesis didn't improve her opinion of him. Still, to this say she still has mixed feelings on the issue. Nemesis did the world (and her personally) a lot of harm, but if not for his meddling with the rikti, not only the world would have never had the means to oppose Praetoria today, she wouldn't have had the chance to take the leap that eventually led her where she is today.
As her MK-IV implied a closer relationship with the Vanguard as a heroine, the government started seeing her with suspicion, seeing how they had been trying to disband the Vanguard for a while, eventually other capes and people within the administration started seeing her as a "fence sitter", having little qualms in gradually tripping her more often in red tape until a girl she was protecting from the Devouring Earth died because Asuria didn't bother in providing proper protection for her while Gold went raiding the lair of her ward's assailants. The ensuing conflict with Asuria ending up with her cancelling her heroine license and instead doubling in the Vanguard now also as a Damage Control operative, which besides of getting her closer to the action in the frontlines, also still allows her to do heroing in the city under the "first responder" excuse.
Physics Man Was Not Meant to Know
Upon observing the strange and often physics-defying properties of extra-dimensional beings people call “demons,” Hannah set her mind to deciphering the mystery they posed. As part of her research of the infernal universe the demons of the Circle of Thorns come from, she bartered with the Archmage Tarixus for a demonic soul. While Tarixus guaranteed the soul would be perpetually dormant and bound within an object for ease of study, he never told her the delivery method and, in a display of dark humor, he sealed the promised demonic soul inside Gold's subdermal circuitry. While the demon is totally dormant and little more than the spiritual equivalent of stem-cell tissue, the powerful oranbegan spells used ensure it can't be removed from the circuitry altogether. On 2009, Hannah learned to tap on the demon's power in a process not unlike Dr. Aeon uses to power Cap Au Diable.
Years later, when she decided to remove said demonic soul from her subdermals as parts of a research to fix her daughter's transhumanized state, this demon would be revealed as Iblis, the first Djinn (See Architect arc: Under My Skin)
Hannah's final objective is figuring out the way demons can "change reality", a project for which she's researching the physics of infernal worlds. This research, however, is a long-term plan that might as well become her life's work.
Incarnate Gold Meteor
Delving into both infernal and divine physics; a one-woman war with Ouroboros, atrocities inflicted on Praetoria during the dimensional war; atrocities committed in the name of science; a non-stop transhumanist self-evolution. Some successes, some failures, but all of them display of two things: Power and Will. These two things were eventually noticed by higher powers, and on 2011 Hannah Goldshire’s work breached the third law of thermodynamics for the first time. Unbenknownst to her, the Well of Furies had reached to her and established a link, allowing her to transcend physics.
As grand as it sounds, however, this breakthrough isolated Hannah. Her science was no longer understandable by regular human minds, her peers could no longer make sense of anything she said, and the only thing keeping them from dismissing her theories as the ramblings of a mad woman was that, in fact, they worked. Nevertheless, these new developments forced her to leave Vanguard’s R&D but, having coincided this with Mot's attack on Vanguard, given the losses they took and observing her performance during the emergency, she instead got promoted to First Sergeant and transferred to the Gauntlet.
Her biggest grudge on this, however, she’s no longer eligible to a Nobel Prize.
Incarnate Philosophy
Gold has made of transhumanism her personal religion. She is convinced that mankind is destined to transcend the limits of the flesh to the point of being able to choose their own evolutionary path individually.
Excerpt from an essay Gold contributed for the Theoretical and Applied Genetics journal:
"We leave a school when it's time to move to the next. We leave our parents' home when it's time to take flight on our own. We leave a job when we get a better one. Likewise, now that we have the means, it is time to abandon our basic flesh molds and become what we were meant to be. Some will move in large groups, some will take individual paths, and inevitably many will be left behind. The process will not be easy and there will be several barriers to overcome, social, political, and religious. Blood will be shed, yes, but such is the price of change, and we have paid it several times in the past in order to be where we are today. My point is, the future is inevitable, someday we will all be incarnates.
If I were to predict a scenario for the end of the human race, I'd say that in the final days, we will all go our separate ways to become our own Well each. If there is a God, and if it made us in its image, then it's our destiny to become just like it."
While Gold's ideas have a heavy affinity with luciferan philosophy, she has denied more than once any rumored affiliations with the church of satan ever since the publication of this essay. The rumors and PR headaches may or may not be mainly fanned by Longbow.
The Future
As trying as the present already is, Hannah keeps a wary eye on the future. While extended time-travel shenanigans have shown her both the world and her family will still be around in the next decade, she's aware that the latest spread of incarnates threatens current world order to a point never seen in history.
Three incarnates losing their patience was all it took to bring the Cold War to a sudden stop in the 60s in spite of the world powers. Now the world has hundreds, and the only reason no one notices is because the world is being hit by consecutive crises that would have destroyed it several times over by now if we didn't have as many incarnates. There's something she has for certain, however, and that is that the last large-scale threat will be the Coming Storm (at least within her lifetime), and once the storm blows over, unless the event culls at least eighty percent of incarnate population, she already has the calculations for the breaking point at which war on metahumanity will be declared down to month and day as well as the scenario most likely to happen.
Hannah hopes for the best while preparing for the worst. If the worst-case scenario doesn't happen that will be great, but if it does, she'll have a safe haven ready for her family, and she'll be ready to remove whoever becomes a threat.
TO BE CONTINUED
After their marriage, the Aikawa-Goldshire family were already thinking of moving, and after Detroit's reconstruction as Millenium City, it turns out it's now one of the only cities in the world where metahumans can use their powers for profit free of accusations of Anticompetitive Behavior... time to move to greener pastures!
Gold Meteor's story continues in PRIMUS Database:
http://www.primusdatabase.com/index.php?title=Gold_Meteor
Gold Meteor Models
MK-I (Prototype): A bulky set of blaster gauntlets, Hannah completed the disguise with a full-body spandex suit. Hair dyed blonde with an electro-reactive pigment that acts as soon as the gauntlets are powered.
MK-II: A single sleek, arm-length gauntlet. Integrated amplificators can now boost firepower a two-fold and first attempts at gravity technollogy enable her to punch like a fully-trained combatant.
MK-III: Black, smaller gauntlets. Both gravity-induction engine and weapon sistems are optimized to accomodate for mass-transponder technollogy. Ablative-field melee can now punch through 3 inches of rock effortlessly. Attuned mass-transponder also enables instant costume change.
MK-IV: Subdermal nano-circuitry with all systems integrated. Constant power through Vanguard-provided wireless energy lines. Auxiliary energy cells can be teleported in case of an emergency. The MK-IV is self-repairing and fully tempest-hardened.
Side-effects of the MK-IV's activation are her skin turning pitch-black while big portions of the nano-circuitry glow underneath the skin. This look fascinated Hannah to the point she used this model in the nude, taking advantage of the glow conveniently concealing her private parts. The MK-IV is one of Hannah’s biggest prides, having taken her augmentation technology to its "logical conclusion", achieving transhumanism. She justifies her new "bare-skin" costume with the grudge she holds on Yakuza full-body tatooing, seeing it as a huge waste of artistic work if you're going to be keeping all that ink to yourself while wearing clothes. Before the MK-IV, she has posed for at least two magazines (not nude, but very little clothing), same magazines which later on sued her for contract breach after the release of her MK-IV.
MK-V: Rather than relying on wireless power, MK-V tapped tapped into the power of the demon currently sealed within MK-IV's circuitry. The MK-V can control the color of Hannah’s skin and has a less exaggerated glow, which means Gold Meteor wears clothes with this.
MK-V.5 (current): Incarnate grade technology. While V.5 still relies on Iblis’ power, its power output surpasses the limits of what should be physically possible.
MK-VI (Scheduled for 2018): No longer powered by Iblis. The MK-VI produces potentially infinite amounts of power with processes that defy our universe’s physics. The MK-VI has a computational power that allows her to interface with any device and bypass anything short of incarnate-grade security. MK-VI can also create “quantum constructs” composed of semi-solids and controlled by rudimentary A.I. Increased proficiency with time and space allow her for limited feats of bi-location. MK-VI may be beyond the limits of her current sub-dermal circuitry, requiring a new, synthetic body.
MK-VII (Far future speculation): Should Gold complete her research on the way demons rewrite reality and all it implies (including surviving both Prometheus’ reprisal and the Well’s will should it still be awake), the MK-VII would turn Gold Meteor into one of the Ascended, severing her from creation for her to become her own Well.
Asociates/Relationships
As described by Hannah:
- Maki Aikawa "The love of my life, easy as that."
- Mercy.Killing "We're back on good terms, or as much as we can be, but I know things will never be the same."
- High Jinks "The coolest man in a costume and more fun than a barrel of Rikti Monkeys. I miss you, clown."
- Lumena "When you become a mother, you'll understand the things I've done."
- Enerix "If I didn't have the hots for her I might actually hate her guts, but we've been getting along better lately."
- Nephilim-01 "The single best arena partner you could ever have. Lately he's finally learning to loosen up, in his own way, that is."
- Kyndall "The one and only orange ranger. She's cool and hot... I mean literally."
- Sumaki Aikawa "...and dad feared he'd never be a grandfather."
- Lucy Xiao "Superspeed and ADHD in one cool package."
- Wivern "She can be cool, except when she ain't. I miss her though, the squid she left in her place just isn't the same thing."
- Kilowatt Cat "Adorable as she is, the sooner she embraces what she is and quits suffering over not having been born a baseline homo sapiens, the happier she'll be. Meanwhile, I can't think of a funnier, cuter kitty to tease."
- Lady Abigail "Back on back terms... right before she died for good, but better late than never."
- Labal "Like a kid without sense of right/wrong running with scissors, except the scissors are a-bombs. He'll catch up eventually though."
- Siege-Engine "Like a bear wearing a marshmallow, an enchanted impervium, armed marshmallow."
- Toy Blaster "You gotta love an A.I hitting puberty, he grows up so fast. Also he prepares some mean drinks."
Trivia
Her "theme songs" would be Princes of the Universe by Queen and Handlebars by Flobots.
Her favorite ice cream flavor is rum and raisins.
She started a religious cult during her first vacations in Cimerora for teh lulz... a shame they all died when the city was burned by the Talons of Vengeance before they were delivered "salvation," and would have joined the Talons post-mortem and hunted her down as an oath breaker if not for the four thousand years of waiting for Hannah to be born.
For a time she had a sidekick: Silver Comette.
She built her current house and private lab by predicting the lottery winner.
