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Revision as of 14:14, 14 November 2018
History
The Life and Times of Sir Robert Hollingsworth
Robert was a member of a family of scientists that dated back to the 1500's in the north of England. His grandfather, Oliver Hollingsworth, had pioneered many principles of electricity and electromagnetism long before it became accepted by mainstream society. The area near their manor house was plagued by strange attacks and disappearance over the years and Oliver was the first person to learn the true nature of that plague. A small lost colony of elder worms lived underneath that area and had for millennia. Never large enough to pose a significant threat to the surface, they still killed wantonly whenever it suited them. Oliver decided that he and eventually his descendants if need be, would fight this scourge using the advanced technology he had invented. He also became a founding member of The Sacred Order of the Chain when it became clear that he and his people were not alone their plight. By 1916 when Robert was 25, both his grandfather Oliver and recently his father Thomas had perished fighting the Elder worms. This is when he encountered Charles Griffin. The existence of the Elder worm was still a closely guarded secret so Robert made no mention of it while Charles recuperated at the manor house. When Charles was forced to join the war, he left behind his damaged ship, which Robert was delighted to have to learn from. (Robert had avoided military service for being blind in one eye.) Over the years, the Hollingsworths had captured advanced technology from the worms which had advanced their own science considerably, and pouring over the time ship did the same for Robert's. Charles had thought the ship irreparable by 1916 standards but using the Worm-tech Robert was able to repair it and have it ready by the time Charles returned in 1918. After Charles Sky Marshal Griffin departed for the future, Robert returned to his battles with the Elder Worm, now armed with 51st century advances.
The worms had been forced to retreat ever deeper into their warrens and by 1921 , Robert could find no more and believed they were wiped out. He moved his labs and technology into the worm's caverns below where it would be safely hidden and made even more advances based on what had been left behind. The battle with the worms had a greater toll than just the loss of life. The estates of the Hollingsworths had dwindled over the years till almost no income was being generated. Robert began to release some of his technology surreptitiously through third parties and under pseudonyms. The patents and royalties generated new income for him, especially his invention of the electronic pinball machine. In 1924 Robert met Felicity Kendall whom he married the following year. They had a a son, Eric and a daughter Melody. Things were going well for the Hollingsworths but by 1931, Robert began to experience odd muscle spasms and began to have difficulty keeping his feet. He was diagnosed with Autonomic Lateral Sclerosis which meant that his nervous system was slowly breaking down and that he would eventually become a complete invalid before he died in a few years. Just after this, Robert had an unexpected guest. One night there was a terrible noise, as if something had crashed into the stables outside the house.
Time enough for Time
Robert ran out to find that something indeed had crashed, his old friend the Sky Marshal lay amongst the wreckage of the stable roof, mortally wounded. Robert got his helmet off, he appeared much older than he remembered, decades older, beaten and bloodied, his protective suit was in tatters, his nanogenes apparently exhausted, so that he was not healing. He croaked out a few words, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry for what will happen to you." He shuddered with pain. His last words were, "Save the belt, you will need it." Robert buried The Sky Marshal with his ancestors and did indeed keep the time belt, and most of the other gear although all of it seemed too damaged to function. Despite this event Robert was obsessed with compensating for the deterioration of his body. He knew that it would not be long before we he was simply incapable of doing any work on his own. Neither of his children had shown any interest or aptitude in science which had dismayed him, and so he set about making a new assistant for himself, and delved into the world of robotics. The Elder worms had employed automatons and he was able to capitalize on this advanced technology to be light years ahead of contemporary science. His obsession and advancing disease alienated both his wife and his children who all moved to London to get away from him. But when the Blitz began in 1940. They were forced to move back. By this time Robert was confined to a wheel chair but had succeeded in creating his first assistant, R.O.D.
Robert's family were disgusted by him and as he had also lost the power of speech, tried to have him declared incompetent so they could take over his fortune. But at the inquest Robert was able to produce an automatic type writer and demonstrated that he was still quite lucid and fit to manage his own affairs. After this he kindly suggested to his family that they live elsewhere and they then emigrated to America. Now at peace, Robert knew his time was running out.
Time, Robert remembered Charles' last words, that he would need the belt and with the help of ROD, he turned his full attention to it. Unfortunately, the technology was simply beyond anything he had encountered before. It took years of slow, painstaking work to comprehend the device and return even the simplest functionality to it. He inadvertently discovered that the only time function he could generate was a stasis field, a time void in which nothing progressed. This at least was something he could use. Robert then began to resort to programming ROD with elaborate research projects which he carried out while Robert arrested his disease's progression with the stasis field. These periods became longer and longer till, in 1951, Robert inadvertently spent an entire year in stasis and was nearly declared missing, presumed dead. It became clear that it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep the outside world out of his affairs and he decided to create a new assistant, an android that would mimic human behavior and be his face to the world, his caretaker. He called his new assistant R.O.MAN and it was sophisticated enough to pass as a human being for brief periods and minimal scrutiny. The years passed and Robert came no closer to his goal of arresting or reversing his disease, biology was simply not his field of expertise.
In 1975, he was contacted by the Marquis de St. Martin, the current heir to the St. Martin legacy and a fellow heir to the Sacred Order of the Chain. Robert had known and worked with the previous Marquis, but this was his son Gilbert. Gilbert came seeking help with upgrading the old combat suit that the St. Martins had originally built in the 1800's. It had gradually been advanced technologically, even though superficially it still looked to be from the Victorian era. Gilbert was apparently not nearly as adept at tinkering as his forefathers had been and needed help transistorizing some of the components. Robert agreed to do do the work, eager to see the inner workings of the suit for himself, and had Rod and Roman begin the upgrades. Gilbert left the suit and said he would return in 1 week, he never did. Robert completed the work on the suit, often having Roman wear and test it. He remarked at one time that He looked like some sort of clockwork corsair.
Heal Thy Self
In 1980, just when Robert began to accept his fate, the idea of nano technology was first introduced to the world, and suddenly he realized that he had had the answer in his hands all this time. He remembered that his old friend the Sky Marshal had been endowed with a subatomic repair system he called "nanogens". Robert had no idea how to begin creating such a thing but he knew where he might find one, in the body of the long deceased Sky Marshal. The Sky Marshal's supply of nanogens had seemed to have been depleted, resulting in his death, but Robert only needed to find one. And one he did find. He spent the next ten years studying the subatomic device and finally succeeded in reactivating it and programming it to create more of itself. 5 years later he succeeded in reinitializing the biological repair routines of the nanogens and inejected them into his body. The nanogens were still working at reproducing themselves while at the same time addressing the massive amount of nerve damage in his body. It would take time. Even with the time spent in stasis Robert was running out of time. He was already nearly a hundred years old although his body had only experienced about 70 of those years. The improvement from the nanogens was felt almost immediately but would it be enough to stave off death? And even if it did, Robert had lost so much of his life confined in a deteriorating body, he would be a very old healthy man by the time he was cured.
He turned his attention back to the time belt to see if there was a way out of this predicament. He also refurbished the Sky Marshal's old battle suit and turned it into an ambulatory life support system for himself while the nanogens made great progress revitalizing his nervous system, it would be some time before the damage to his limbs and lungs would be fully repaired.
The years passed and Robert continued to grow stronger and stronger. He could now walk with the aid of the suit and was able to make great progress on the time belt. He was able to jury rig the belt so that it was able to generate a reverse time endomorphic field to revitalize his cells. In other words, the time belt now made his cells age backwards so that each year he grew younger and stronger. This was in 1999. Robert decided that the new millennium would be the year of his rebirth into a new life. He decided to emigrate to America to assume a new identity and a new life. The reverse aging was a 1 to 1 ratio, meaning he aged backwards at exactly the same rate he had aged forwards so despite his desire to lead an adventurous new life, he still had the body of an old man.
A New Life, an Old Man
However he couldn't resist the urge to return to being a super scientist at large and so relocated to the fabulous Millennium City which was the heart of adventure in North America. Since Robert did not know anyone in America, he decided to take up residence at an exclusive retirement home in an effort to engender a new social life and to learn about the city and the country from it's oldest residents. There he met a rather interesting man named Mr. Hartenau. Robert's android Roman had set up a new identity and a home nearby that also served as the cover for his secret lab but he insisted that Rod accompany him in the rest home. The little robo the perked the curiosity of Mr Hartenau. The 2 men were both astute enough to realize there was more than met the eye to both of them and they eventually revealed some of their secret identities with each other. From that point on Mr. Hartenau, who was really the hero know as Count Ubiquitous, introduced Robert to a small group of like minded men that called themselves, Strike Team Zulu. Upon joining the team Robert took the code name Heron, after the ancient Egyptian inventor, and began lending his considerable expertise in robotics to the group while his body continued to regenerate. Recently Robert has begun taking on field missions as he has become strong enough to manage himself.
When Heron and Sky Marshal finally re-encountered each other in Millennium City in 2012, Robert related this tale to his old friend, who now understood that Heron was using his very own equipment, brought back to the past, from the Sky Marshals future. Knowledge of ones death is something every Time Agent is prepared to accept so Captain Griffin reassured Heron that it was not something to be concerned about, and that he would take solace in the knowledge that what ever happens in the mean time,he would eventually save the life of his friend.
Equipment
The Chair
Until Roberts nanogen therapy allowed him to walk again, he was confined to a wheel chair for decades. After building ROD, Robert designed and had ROD construct, an advanced chair that could propel itself. As time wore on and his disease progressed, he improved the chair till it could react to his simplest commands and see to his every need with out the aid of ROD. While in his civilian identity, Heron still uses the chair to hide the fact of his progressing recovery.
The Robots
After his disease began to take hold and his family abandoned him, Robert spent all his efforts into constructing a sophisticated robot that could replace his failing hands. After that he spent a great deal of time researching his disease but also tinkered further with robotic designs. When it became clear he needed a new assistant he built R.O.MAN and abandoned his ALS research and concentrated on robotic designs including nanogen research. After he was contacted by Halon, he put his robotic expertise to use by designing technology for the STZ.
R.O.D
R.O.D. stands for Remote Operation Device. ROD was initially designed to follow voice commands which it did well. When it became apparent that Robert's voice was going to fail, he designed a new logic processor that he could program with advanced research that ROD could execute with simple commands. After many years of ROD being his only companion, Robert designed a simple personality program, about as sophisticated as a dog's, so that he would be more enjoyable to be around and made loyalty to Robert his primary directive. ROD is roughly humanoid in design but of a small stature so that Robert would not have to look up from his chair constantly. After R.O.MAN was built, upgrades to ROD have been few and far between, but he still represents a sophistication in robotics few can match.
R.O.MAN
When Robert was nearly declared dead after being in stasis for a year, he decided that he needed a new assistant. One that was as loyal as ROD but could pass for a human being. He then designed the Remote Operation Man to emulate human appearance and behavior and to become his face to the world. His initial product was still rather robotic, and he at first only allowed Roman to interact with other people while he was there to help smooth over any mistakes it made. He then designed a fuzzy logic Duotronic brain that was capable of learning from human interactions. As time wore on and Roman was left to himself more and more, he began to venture out into world more often. While nothing could obviate his base programming of loyalty to his creator, Roman began to want more. A core trait of his personality, like Rod's, was loyalty and a need to protect. When Robert was protected by the time stasis field, Roman looked for other people to protect. When The Marquis De St. Martin left his combat suit in the care of Robert, he trained Roman in it's operation and uses for testing purposes. After that, Roman began adventuring on his own as the Clockwork Corsair and is now considered an honorary member of Strike Team Zulu. Recently, Roman was invited to join Gretchen Hammersmith and Simon Sixkiller in reforming the Sacred Order of the Chain.
Sigmalon
Sigmalon was the brain child of Bryan and Norman Quinn but it took Heron's unmatched ability to bring it too life. It is built on the salvaged underframe of a Mega-Destroid but all of the locomotion and weapon systems are totally new. Sigmalon is meant to level the playing field against Argent's and Viper's heavy ordnance and is not generally deployed in populated areas.
Model H and Model S
After Heron finished Sigmalon, he then designed a much smaller weapons platform that could travel inside Sigmalon and be deployed to handle smaller threats as needed. He designed, and Halon constructed, 2 models with onboard, high powered small caliber machine guns and electrical stun devices. Model S also includes long range communications and observation systems and may deployed as a high altitude reconnaissance drone. Model H has stealth camouflage abilities and a high powered anti materiel rifle. Model H and S drones now also accompany Heron on his own missions as offensive weapons.
Recovery and Combat Drones
After the the success of his nanogen replication, Heron developed a field delivery system that would support troops in the field but also not allow this technology to fall into the hands of their enemies. Drone L is capable of delivering nanogens to help injured troopers heal and also to repair their combat systems but these nanogens are programmed to disintegrate after a short time to prevent their capture. The Drone R series is a combat weapons platform that utilizes the same power transfer technology as the Avenger and Thunderbolt drones to power their force fields and particle beam weapons. The R drones have little to no AI sophistication simply the ability to tell friend from foe and to receive orders to attack or retreat.
Avenger and Thunderbolt Androids
Now that Strike Team Zulu is on the road to becoming a global force, one that values human life, Heron was tasked with designing a sophisticated android soldier for large battle support. The base droid fits inside the Avenger battle suit designed by Halon and is based on the work he did with Roman but the programming is much more straight forward and less prone to independence. The Thunderbolt Drones are a complete integration of the android and suit technology making a highly durable foot soldier.
Powers & Disabilities
ALS
Robert Hollingsworth is descended from a long line of advanced scientists and it may be assumed that his family is endowed with superior genes leading to a superior intellect. As a young man he had the normal speed and strength for his age and size. After being diagnosed with Autonomic Lateral Sclerosis, Robert was able to delay the progress of his disease and prolong his life with the aid of the Time Belt. Now that he is aging backwards and the nanogens have repaired a significant amount of his neurons, he now posses the strength and agility of an 80 year old man.
Affiliations
Member of the Strike Team Zulu
Former member of the Sacred Order of the Chain
