Argent

[Lord Liaden]

18 minutes ago, Stanley Teriaca said:

Who is the Canadian villainous cyborg creator? He might be a rival of Argent.

 

I had thought about the self-proclaimed "Cyberlord," but wasn't sure if he was appropriate to mention here. Cyberlord was originally a background character created by Scott Bennie for his personal Canadian-based tabletop Champions campaign. He's mentioned in connection to the origin/background of Justiciar in Scott's official Champs source book, Champions Of The North, but never given a full write-up. The Champions Online developers decided to utilize Cyberlord in their MMORPG beyond what was written for him in the book, although they haven't explored where he fits into the wider Champions Universe. In response to his CO appearances, Scott wrote a "biography" for the character weaving them together with his own campaign's history, and posted it to the CO forums. Scott made a point of describing this story as "unofficial," but it doesn't contradict anything in Champions history, and I can't think of anyone more qualified to give input on the matter. I'll transcribe his history of Cyberlord below.

The creature who is now Cyberlord was born Damon Meklar, on a small farm In Saskatchewan in the mid-1930s, at the heart of the Dust Bowl. His affinity with machines began at an early age: he had a knack for repairing broken down farm machinery and tinkering with broken machines to make new, improved farm tools.

In the mid-1950s, he ventured to the big city, where he sought to transfer those skills into more lucrative areas. Showing an aptitude for engineering, he graduated from the University of Toronto in 1959 and was hired to work in Canada's air defense industry as part of the team building the Avro Arrow.

But cost overruns led to the cancellation of the Arrow by then Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker. Many of his co-workers joined NASA, while one, Wally Thompson, built one of the world's most advanced battlearmors and became the first Forceknight. Meklar chose a different path. He had seen some of his most interesting aerospace designs foiled because a human pilot couldn't handle them. But suppose you could alter the human to better fit the machine?

It was that line of reasoning, along with a lifelong obsession with tinkering with machines that began on the farm, that encouraged Meklar to pursue a career in cybernetics. However, the cancellation of the Arrow project for the pettiest of political reasons embittered Damon. Needing funds, he turned his expertise to the criminal world, freelancing weapon designs for the newly emerged VIPER organization. He was captivated by the careers of larger than life 1960s supervillains like Revenger, and decided that he was just fine living outside the law.

Meklar spent a decade honing his skills, working at it with an obsession that led to his failed marriage (and the very suspicious death of his wife in a freak VIPER attack) Meklar spent the 70s and 80s testing the supervillain waters, first with the now long-defunct terrorist group WALL, and then the Enemy, a villain team that opposed the first Northern Guard. Meklar even put on a costume and did supervillain duty behind a mask, calling himself the Weaponeer. He also subcontracted privately to rich people who wanted to enhance their bodies with cutting edge cybernetics. One of his clients was Walter Burrell, head of Burrell Industries, who hired him to restore his son David's mobility after he was paralyzed in a mountaineering accident. But a dispute over his fee and a threat to expose Meklar led the cyberneticist to murder the industrialist and leave David in cryo-storage for future experiments.

The defeat of the Enemy resulted in Meklar's flight to Western Canada, where he built several cyborgs (each known as Dreadnought) in an effort to play behind the scenes mastermind. He also subcontracted to a group of wealthy Western Canadian separatists that became the backbone of the Hunter-Patriots. But the local team SUNDER defeated both his cyborgs and the separatists, and his failure to deliver on a contract to kill SUNDER's volatile second-in-command, Avenger, led to the villain fleeing stateside. There he attempted to capture and study the newly emerged robot villain Mechanon. But Mechanon was too much for him, and his attempt to interface with the genocidal robot fried Meklar's already deranged brain.

Meklar became obsessed with scavenging technology from every source available -- hero, villain, and alien alike -- and becoming earth's supreme lord and master of all tech, a Cyberlord who would surpass even Dr. Destroyer and Mechanon. It was this obsession that led Meklar to begin cybernetic alterations on his own body and the body of his own son Joseph, whom he rechristened Circ. It was this obsession that led Meklar to make a deal with the Gadroon: in exchange for the secrets of their gravitic technology, he would produce an army of cyborgs under Gadroon control, to be used to mollify the human population while the aliens altered earth's biosphere to their liking. These cyborgs would be called Justiciars, and they would ensure that humanity would be led like lambs to the slaughter. But Lyle Doerksen, the third Forceknight, had caught wind of the new Gadroon presence on earth, and he assembled a team of Canadian heroes to stop them, The trail led Forceknight and his reformed Northern Guard team straight to Meklar, and in the ensuing battle, David Burrell was released and immediately turned on his father's killer.

Cyberlord was caught in the crossfire of this fight by his ally, a supervillain named Megavolt, and was electrocuted to death. David Burrell, christening himself Justiciar, took in young Circ as his ward. In 2008, well after Circ reached the age of majority, the two men married.

Cyberlord's body was dead but he had transferred his consciousness in electronic form into a Hunter-Patriot database. Posing as an AI, Cyberlord designed a series of cyborgs for the Hunter-Pats and guided their organization as much as he was able, while directing them to craft him a new body and (in imitation of the Warlord) a carrier ship base. After a series of defeats decimated the Hunter-Pats' command staff, Cyberlord finally transferred into his new body in 2008 and resumed his master plan, revealing himself publicly in 2011 when he attempted to scavenge a Roin'esh ship. He was defeated by his son in law Justiciar and an ally, but thanks to a mysterious benefactor, he quickly regained his freedom. Defeat unhinged him even further. Vowing revenge on Justiciar, his "traitor" son Circ, and pretty much anyone who's ever crossed his path, Cyberlord planned a reign of technological terror that he would let loose on the world.

Unchallenged! Master of technology! Lord of the Future! Albert Zerstoiten would laugh at him if he didn't feel it was beneath him. Mechanon considers him inferior even to organics, a tinkertoy abomination deserving only obliteration. In truth, Cyberlord remains a technological scavenger whose days of genuine innovation are long behind him. However, he is still more than capable of integrating the efforts of others into his "technological empire", and in the superhuman world, that makes him dangerous enough.

[Stanley Teriaca]

We could either...

1) Adopt Cyberlord as a tribute to Scott, or...

2) create our own similar but different character, or...

3) adapt an already existing villain which can do the same thing as Cyberlord, but may or may not himself be a cyborg himself.

 

I don't see why cybernetics would be off limits to Argent, much like any other science would be off limits to to Argent.

 

Which reminds me about the argument about Argent's supernatural investigation using scientific methods arm, as being the laughing stock of the company.

 

I'm not going to argue for this anymore. Nor against this. Everything deserves comic relief. But magic has no place in Argent.

Edited July 28 by Stanley Teriaca

[Lord Liaden]

53 minutes ago, Stanley Teriaca said:

I don't see why cybernetics would be off limits to Argent, much like any other science would be off limits to to Argent.

 

 

Quite the contrary. Some of ARGENT's most notable successes have been in cybernetics, e.g. the villain Interface and hero Circuit Breaker. The task force assembled to counter the teen hero team Nova (see Teen Champions pp. 104 & 106 sidebar) includes two mercenary cyborgs, Engine and Wingman. Their origin isn't specified, but they took that assignment in exchange for lifetime servicing of their parts, so they could be ARGENT creations. Also, the corporation's Maskbot infiltration androids suggest ARGENT's development of robotics and artificial intelligence is quite advanced. Probably not up to Mechanon's or Dr. D's level, but still very sophisticated.

 

One other cautionary note, about Cyberlord: Champions Online developed him, and he's still part of their adventure content, so we might need to ask their permission to use or adapt him.

Edited July 28 by Lord Liaden

[Stanley Teriaca]

Well, did I say cybernetics were beyond them? Probally not. But maybe said that maybe Cyberlord might not be useable.

 

What other cyborg makers are there in the Champions Universe? Dr. Destroyer had been linked to Aragent Arnaky, the musical/cyborg/supervillain group, but I doubt Destroyer would create them because the group hates following orders.

[Lord Liaden]

That's just the thing, there aren't any specialist "cyborg makers" in the current official CU.  Dr. D certainly has that expertise (Argent Anarky haven't made it to Fifth or Sixth Edition CU, and I hope they never do) as does Dr. Moreau who contributed to the creation of Ripper when Moreau worked for VIPER; but neither of them specialize in that science, the way Teleios or King Cobra specialize in genetics. That was the reason I suggested adapting Cyborgs Inc.

 

But all this talk of cyborgs has gotten me thinking: from the medical and technological viewpoint, ARGENT had a nearly unqualified success in the creation of Interface. Rutger Eisenmann was a mercenary before being 'borged, but afterward he worked for ARGENT for several years. I know that in the past I've expressed reservations about ARGENT maintaining a cadre of staff supervillains, but Interface demonstrates a precedent for them keeping someone of their creation, using their successful tech. Now that ARGENT fields their own security force of Soldiers, I could see them offering (or ordering) to convert Soldiers or mercenaries in their employ who suffered crippling or critical injuries, or facing terminal disease, into a "steel squadron" of elite cyborg Soldiers.

 

The basic Interface chassis could be customized with differing weapons, defenses, sensors, movement aids, etc. to make each cyborg unique. Having learned from the fiasco of Interface's capture, ARGENT would undoubtedly outfit their cyborgs with additional security and loyalty features, such as continuous automatic tracking, remote viewing through their eyes and ears, and a "kill switch" if they're captured or betray the corporation.

Edited July 29 by Lord Liaden

[Steve]

I wonder if ARGENT could have reverse engineered any of Teleios’s bio creations? Or come up with their own once they saw it was feasible?

 

They could have cybernetic soldiers but also replicants. Bleeding edge cybertech and biotech for sale.

[Lord Liaden]

Precedents suggest that super-class bionics from ARGENT make for significant cosmetic drawbacks, while superhuman biological augmentation fails the majority of the time, and often produces severe physical and/or psychological side effects, up to lethality. I'm thinking that the types of "cyberware" and "bioware" written up for Hero's futuristic Terran Empire setting (pp. 132-33) might be good examples of the kind of augmentation that ARGENT generally sells -- relatively minor but useful abilities that function reliably and are in most circumstances indistinguishable from normal body parts.

 

I believe there's a point where sciences in the CU transcend pure Science into the realm of Art, where creativity and inspiration play a major role. To use painting as an analogy, real-world genetic engineers are doing paint-by-numbers. In the CU the cutting edge in that field is equivalent to painting still life by sight. A few geniuses like Dr. Moreau or the Overbrain have gained the skill to paint portraits and landscapes. And then there's Teleios, who paints the Sistine Chapel.

 

 

Edited July 29 by Lord Liaden

[tiger]

Still plugging away, still have quite a bit to do, and I keep making changes as well. I really need to stop doing that part, but can't seem to shut my mind off

 

If you join Hero Games Patreon you can read some of the files I have been sending to Jason

[tiger]

Just a little update: I've been adding and rewriting some of ARGENT's background. I have also worked on some of their secrets and a twist or two. I'm planning to work on a list of corporations that ARGENT owns and uses. The Board of Directors is also on this list, plus what area of the world they look after. Still making notes on the campaign section and the technology section, I will flesh those sections all out later.

[Stanley Teriaca]

1 hour ago, tiger said:

Still making notes on the campaign section and the technology section, I will flesh those sections all out later.

Make sure to make the technology loose enough that a GM can easily use them as an excuse for whatever they can think up without stepping on the toes of already established villains and villainous businesses.

 

Beyond that....well...I'm no help there.

[tiger]

Every little bit helps

[Stanley Teriaca]

Any thoughts on ARGENT and Cryptocurrency?

 

I thought up an energy pistol which requires a credit card to use and cost $10 per trigger oil. Now if $1 can buy you 100 ARGENT Points, then that same pistol with an ARGENT Points Card then cost 1000 ARGENT Points per trigger pull.