Hephaestus 1
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
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| Oh, sure, I could just use my lasers... | |
| Hephaestus 1 | |
| Player: @jchinds | |
| Origin: | Science |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Tanker |
| Security Level: | 50 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Michael O'Flannagan |
| Known Aliases: | Heph, Mick |
| Species: | Human |
| Age: | 50 |
| Height: | 7'11" |
| Weight: | 575 lbs |
| Eye Color: | red |
| Hair Color: | none |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | American |
| Occupation: | process server, reality tv star |
| Place of Birth: | Chicago, Illinois |
| Base of Operations: | Paragon City, RI |
| Marital Status: | single |
| Known Relatives: | none in Paragon City |
| Known Powers | |
| Super Strength, Invulnerability | |
| Known Abilities | |
| ' | |
| Equipment | |
| ' | |
| Watch Hephaestus 1 in "Serv'd!" Fridays on A&E! Reached Level 50 on Nov. 23, 2008 at 11:35pm Central time. | |
Contents |
Affiliations
Personality
Hephaestus 1 has a love for life, and is generally happy-go-lucky. He considers everything he has to be a gift and tries to act accordingly. One of Heph's other quirks is to find himself in weirder and weirder situations every time he walks out the door. One of his more recent brushes with weirdness involved transporting a blues-singing robot, MUDD-E, to court.
Powers
Invulnerability
Thanks to the designs of the cybernetic engineer known as The Mysterious Doctor Nambu, Hephaestus 1's cybershell can withstand most types of physical damage better than some older models of main battle tanks. A combination of high-strength metal and ceramic alloys plus a thin kinetic deflection shield creates a nearly impenetrable shell.
Super Strength
Specially-geared servomotors and pneumatic piston assistance allows Hephaestus 1 to strike with forces up to the equivalent of a 2000-pound bomb, or lift up between 7 and 10 tons depending on size and shape of the item being lifted.
Superleaping
The pneumatic pistons in his cybershell's legs allow Hephaestus 1 to leap great distances, often covering up to a mile at a time
Fitness
Energy feedback systems, colonies of repair nanites and a stride-check program provide Hephaestus 1 with greater recovery, repair and running speed than normal.
Energy Mastery
Recent additions to the cybershell include a regenerative force multiplier to conserve energy without losing strength and a pair of head-mounted laser generators for quick engagement of the enemy.
Abilities
Hephaestus 1 has knowledge of numerous types of criminal law thanks to his careers as police officer and process server. He also homebrews his own beer.
Weaknesses and Limitations
Being mostly machinery, Hephaestus 1 must be maintained and repaired on a regular basis, plus he goes through a nightly inspection process.
Equipment
What, you think an ex-cop is going to go anywhere without having access to doughnuts?
Character History
Back in 1960, Michael Brian O'Flannagan was born to Mr. and Mrs. O'Flannagan near the Bridgeview neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois. The oldest of nine children (eight sons and a daughter who was the youngest child), Mick (as Michael was called by his friends and family) went from being a bright and happy child to an athlete who enjoyed using his brawn and bad attitude more than his brains. His family had been surrounded by numerous influential politicians, union leaders and ward bosses and over time Mick began doing "paid volunteer" work for these various bigshots. Usually this would involve things such as vandalism of opponents' houses and cars, wrecking their places of business, redirecting shopkeepers' shipments to his political paymasters, and harassing or beating strikebreakers. This did finally get him into trouble when he attacked a newspaper reporter who he caught snooping around a campaign office one afternoon. Mick's streak of good luck ended with a public trial but no jail sentence, as he was a sophomore in high school at the time. He was disowned from the political schemes of his neighbors until his father ran for an aldermanic position. The favors the young man did for his neighbors were called in as Mick blackmailed the various politicos into supporting his father. Mick graduated high school in 1977, right in the middle of his class. He decided to put some of his old life behind him and joined the Marines, serving for four years as a rifleman. He earned a few small distinctions here and there, but none were enough to gain anyone's notice outside of the Marine Corps. He returned to Chicago, where the secrets he kept still had enough pull to get him a slot in the police academy in 1981.
Mick's career as a police officer was as dirty as his high school years. He shook down shopkeepers for protection money, took bribes to look the other way, "fixed" traffic tickets by threatening judges in their homes and on occasion was "accidentally" unable to keep his subordinates from beating suspects until they spilled everything they knew. If you wanted an example of a "bent shield," you wouldn't need to go further. Mick's last brush with the dirty side of being a Chicago police officer came when he was told to set fire to a local church because the priest who was pastor there supported an aldermanic candidate who wasn't taking bribes. The only three types of people he wouldn't harass in his life were women, children, and clergy of most any type. He turned over evidence to federal prosecutors rather than take part in a crime that went beyond even his standards. From that point on, he did his best to become a model cop, with few people knowing why he did what he did. He eventually took and passed the sergeant's exam and the detective's exam, taking what he knew from his previous years and using it in order to enforce the law instead of breaking it.
By 2002, Detective Sergeant Mick O'Flannagan was getting closer to retirement and constantly watching as better-connected officers got promoted past him to Commander. His life was comfortable, even on a cop's salary. He never married, saying that he was already married to his job. In truth, he'd been so much of an obnoxious and criminal boor that no woman in her right mind would be romantically involved with him. The only woman he ever dated was a girl from his neighborhood who never married due to letting her political ambitions dictate her life. She and Mick had a relationship based on political expediency and mutual disgust for each other. Mick was assigned to the Special Liaison Unit, a unit created by the police commissioner to coordinate and watch over the various superpowered and non-powered costumed heroes who worked in Chicago and its environs. During this time he encountered such heroes as the Cobalt Claymore and his son, the Gladius Kid (who took his father's heroic identity a few years later), the armored hero Rivethead, Northsider and Southsider (two on-again-off-again brutes whose love for their respective baseball teams could lead either to great acts of heroism or great acts of destruction depending on their level of inebriation), "Dangerous Dan" Ryan, the Red Line Avenger and Lincoln Park Trixie. He achieved some prominence as the go-to guy for bringing heroes and police officers together.
In June of 2002, Sgt. O'Flannagan and his partner, a detective with a few years of Tactical Team service under his belt were involved in a horrific collision while en route to a drunken brawl started by Northsider and Southsider. Mick's partner was killed as the late-model Cadillac rammed the side of their unmarked sedan, and Mick himself was injured an paralyzed from the neck down. He resigned himself to a life of being wheelchair-bound, deciding that this must be his punishment for his early years.
Shortly after getting used to his new situation, the now-retired police lieutenant received a call from a very eccentric man who claimed to have the cure for Mick's condition. This odd bald-headed man in a lab coat introduced himself as The Mysterious Doctor Nambu, Scientist Extraordinaire. He claimed to be able to give Mick the body he always wanted, and could make him walk again. If he could have moved, Mick would have jumped at the chance. Indeed, The Mysterious Doctor Nambu (and refused to acknowledge anyone who wouldn't say the entire name when addressing him) could cure him, but it would involve having his brain and numerous glands placed into a biopod, which would regulate his remaining biological functions. This biopod would then be placed into a robot body that simulated all of the senses that Mick once had.
Mick still agreed to the process anyway.
After months of preparation for the conversion process, Mick was ready to go. He was wheeled into surgery and the next thing he knew he was watching tv. However, it wasn't quite tv. His biopod had been hooked up to a basic camera and microphone so he could see and hear people. A speaker was hooked up so he could talk to the scientists, doctors, and engineers who were monitoring him. Sadly, instead of thinking of something profound to say to his audience, he responded with "Holy shit! I'm a brain in a fucking jar! This shit is completely fucked up!"
Clearly, the staff was expecting Shakespeare.
After months of getting more and more refined sensory input, Mick was introduced to his new robotic body, the Hephaestus-class Cybershell, Model 1. The Mysterious Doctor Nambu had a penchant for naming things after Greek mythological figures. He called his first design Hephaestus after the crippled god of the forge, a play on both Mick's condition and the forged and milled body which would house his biopod. Within hours, Mick's biopod was fitted into the armored torso of the cybershell and its sensory inputs installed. As the inputs were tuned, Mick found himself with better sight and hearing than his old body. He could feel the cold metal of the maintenance cradle where his new body sat. He could even tell who had a shot of vodka or three in their coffee that morning. He later had his sense of smell tuned back to normal. After the first week he would be allowed to move his head, neck and arms. After the second week he'd be allowed to move his torso. After the third week he'd be able to stand. Four weeks after installation, he took his first few steps, with governors and limiters inhibiting full movement and full use of his strength until he could get used to the body.
A few months into his new-body training, the scientists, doctors, and engineers decided that Mick would be allowed to use fine motor control. His first task was to pick up an egg with his thumb and forefinger. He shattered it. He tried a teacup, and it shattered as well. Pencils, more eggs, and more fine china were broken as his motor-control was fine tuned. The staff decided to give Mick one last test.
One of the engineers had picked up a pair of kittens that were being given away. He hated cats and figured that it would be no big loss to have them squashed by his cyborg test subject. They placed the kittens on a table in front of Mick and told him to pick them up. Mick didn't move. Now he had two living things in front of him and he was told to be careful if he felt like it. He kept breaking everything and this... meatbag... of an engineer was hoping to see a little animal cruelty. Very gently, Mick opened his giant metal hand and let one of the kittens sniff at it. He slowly raised and lowered his fingers, watching the little creatures batting and nipping at the big blue wiggly things in front of them. It wasn't two minutes into the experiment and he'd already named the kittens. Soon they'd both climbed into the palm of his giant metal hand, and he slowly closed his fingers to cup them as he lifted them off the table. He stuck both of them right under the engineer's nose, then set them down gently. Then he grabbed the engineer much more roughly and held him against the wall, explaining what he'd do to him if he tried that again.
After another few months of training, Hephaestus 1 was deemed ready for his full introduction into heroic society. He was introduced to a gaggle of reporters, who immediately launched into questions about how the funds were raised and if the Millennium Park overages were designed to disguise the money diverted to this project. Never mind that Chicago now had a superhero as one of its police officers, the reporters were still looking for ways to make the mayor look bad. His first call as a hero was to quell yet another fight between Northsider and Southsider. The two had bumped into each other at US Cellular field during an interleague series and a fight broke out over whose side of town had the best Italian sausage sandwich. The resulting brawl destroyed dozens of cars, three or four merchandise stands, and collapsed part of a footbridge onto the Dan Ryan Expressway's southbound lanes. Hephaestus 1's arrival was delayed by a dozen protesters who kept trying to block him from leaving City Hall, as they didn't want a "government-controlled hero" on the city payroll. Hephaestus 1 held out his hand and fired a blast of pepper spray into the protesters, dispersing them quickly. It took the tactical team vehicle he was riding fifteen minutes to reach its destination, and by then the two brutes had worn each other down. Hephaestus 1's first operational workout was mostly a mopping-up exercise, as he wound up taking statements from other heroes who had been able to respond faster.
It was decided after a few more months of being late to scenes of crimes that Hephaestus 1 should be sent to the Paragon City Police Department as part of an exchange program. He'd learn the newest techniques for stopping superpowered criminals and be able to bring them back to Chicago. During this time his funding was cut and he was all but abandoned by the CPD and the Mayor's office. Rumors flew of having the Hephaestus 1 cybershell scrapped. The man inside the robotic body decided it would be best to fill out his retirement paperwork and hope he could find a new way of financing his repairs. He found it through the unlikely source of reality television.
Hephaestus 1 had picked up a part-time job as a process server with the Rhode Island District Courts to supplement his pension. The court officers started using the big blue cyborg as their specialist, the one who could deal with the more violent offenders, those who liked to cover their tracks, and the super-powered. In a matter of weeks a television show producer from New York caught wind of this cyborg who deals with getting powerful people to stand trial for petty cases. All the cable channels bid for the show, but A&E Network got the winning bid. Hephaestus 1's series "Serv'd!" now runs back-to-back with Dog the Bounty Hunter. Since then, Hephaestus 1 has been able to ensure his continued existence and to improve upon the Mysterious Doctor Nambu's designs.
Trivia
Hephaestus 1 attends Mass at St. Florian's Parish in Kings Row along with Back Yard Boom and the Cobalt Claymore. His homebrewed beer, "Bridgeport Bitter" has won Best Microbrew awards from six of the local weekly papers. He is the proud owner of two cats named Ozzie and Pudge (two of his favorite players from the Chicago White Sox) Heph was also unable to eat solid food for the first year and a half of his career, as the primitive digestive tract that kept his remaining organs and glands alive could not process solid foods. He was essentially forced to eat his favorite meals heavily blended into rather disgusting-looking smoothies. His two major quality-of-life upgrades are the new digestive system for solid foods and the necessary machinery to actually have sex again. The Mysterious Doctor Nambu does not like the idea of removing something so hardwired into the human brain, so he worked with engineers and doctors to build something that would allow Hephaestus 1 the chance to father children the old-fashioned way. As of yet only one person has assisted Hephaestus 1 with making sure that the machinery works properly, that person being his girlfriend.
