Gold Meteor
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| |
| Gold Meteor (MK-IV) | |
| Gold Meteor | |
| Player: | |
| Origin: | Technollogy |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Blaster |
| Security Level: | 50 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Hannah Goldshire |
| Known Aliases: | None |
| Species: | Human, now transhuman |
| Age: | 24 |
| Height: | 5' |
| Weight: | 115lbs |
| Eye Color: | Brown |
| Hair Color: | Brown |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | American |
| Occupation: | Vanguard: R&D Operations Leader (as Hannah), Damage-Control Operative (as Gold). Part-time teacher (Paragon University), Super-powered heroine. |
| Place of Birth: | Paragon City |
| Base of Operations: | Confidential |
| Marital Status: | Single |
| Known Relatives: | Confidential |
| Known Powers | |
| Energy expulsion, gravity technollogy applied to force fields and teleportation. | |
| Known Abilities | |
| A genius' level intellect which gives her an innate talent for reverse engineering and quantum mechanics. | |
| Equipment | |
| Able to teleport any tool she needs short of human-sized gear, in addition to the powers granted by her gear. | |
 | |
Contents |
[edit] Gold Meteor
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 technollogy 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.
[edit] Hannah Goldshire
Born on march 30, 1982. 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] Gold Meteor
Hannah manage to get back in touch with her brother, Nichollas, 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. With her brother she joked with the idea of becoming one herself as her curiosity only grew. As fate would have it, opportunity would one day present itself with an assortment of worn-out Rikti devices that were ready to de 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 Nichollas. Like Hannah, Nichollas was born with a privileged mind, but he instead focused on weapons development. Tried as he might, Nichollas couldn't resist his sister's pressure and eventually agreed into building a wrist-mounted energy weapon for her Rikti improvised battery. Gold Meteor was born.
[edit] Integrated Systems
With her brother's assistance, Hannah has managed to evolve her former rustic energy blaster in further models as more outlandish concepts come to her head.
[edit] Gravity Technollogy
Right after the blaster, they integrated an ablative graviton field generator into the gauntlets, which help her deliver punches that can currently punch-through 1 inch of steel.
Current MK-IV also includes a full-omnidirectional graviton field which can deflect anything short of a rail gun as well as an experimental energy screen which, besides granting a moderate amount of protection, also allows her to attack.
A slight tuning in her graviton field also enable her to deflect photons around her the same way water flows around a rock in a river, becoming invisible.
Finally, as much as Hannah has resisted the urges to become able to fly (seeing it has the most cliched power along with super strength), she finally surrendered to the practicality of the power "Well, I had the gravity technollogy right there anyway".
[edit] Short-Range Mass Transponder
As time passed and Hannah got a second degree in robotics and nanotechnollogy to complement her brother's skill, they started experimenting with teleportation: Based on the principle of every atom in the universe existing everywhere at once, yet only manifesting physically in one place at a time (where its wave-particle frequency allows without interfering with that of other objects), they started toying with the idea of playing with an object's wave-particle frecuency, tuning it down in its present location to amplify it at a "destination point", the brainstorming ending in a short-range mass transceiver. Earlier models only allowed for personal transportation and limited movement of human-sized targets. Current MK-IV allows her to send back and forth any object up to human-size without error.
[edit] Psionic Dampener
After her first run-ins with the Carnival of Shadows, Hannah learned to apreciate the relative privacy of her own head. A work still in progress, Hannah's psionic dampeners work electronic counter-measures at the wavelength of the human brain jamming to some degree psionic influence. While still prone to overheating, thus not suitable for long bouts of heavy duty, it's still reliable enough in one-on-one encounters.
[edit] Quantum Array Systems (RP Device)
After a small spark of curiosity regarding a comrade from another universe scaled into a long research into the dimension where the demons of the Circle of Thorns come from, she ended up developing a variant of the Quantum Arrange weapons used by the Nictus Council. By means of subtle linking between her mass-transponder and weapon systems she can now attune her blasts to different wave-particle frequencies, which enable her to harm pan-dimensional entities which would otherwise be too tough or plain untouchable.
[edit] Aditional Sensors and Devices (RP)
- Built-in Radar: After her promotion as a field operative, it became necessary to devise means for keeping tabs on the men assigned to her once the shooting starts, in addition of the obvious benefits of having eyes on the back of her head.
- EM vision: Most useful for quick pinpointing of working devices on close proximity, Gold's Electro-Magnetic sensors are particularly acute.
- Communications: Not willing to risk external signals compromising her systems' security, Gold instead resorts to a special communications ensemble not unlike those of military's special operatives: A thin, transparent patch in her throat which catches vibrations without her needing to open her mouth, complete with a tiny, unobtrusive ear piece which sends the sound straight to her eardrum.
- Miscelaneous Tools: Having perfected her matter transponder, Gold can summon nearly any object to and from her hands as long as she has its coordinates. She has taken the time to label and keep the coords of most tools and toys readily available, just in case.
[edit] Gold Meteor Suits
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.
[edit] Fame, Fashion, and Self-fulfillment
After her first big case put her under the spotligth, she became acquainted with the ego-bolstering reality of fans, and found out she actually likes the adoration, eventually conceding to skimpier outfits all the way to the shameless MK-IV, with no other concealment to her bare skin than the side-effects of MK-IV's activation: Skin turns pitch-black, with portions of the nano-circuitry glowing underneath the skin, eyes crackling with electricity. Hannah feels extremely satisfied with the latest model, proud of having taken her agumentation technollogy to its "logical conclusion", achieving transhumanism. She justifies her new "bareskin" costume with the grudge she holds on Yakuza full-body tatooing, seeing it as a huge waste of astistic 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 are now attempting to sue her for contract breach after the release of her MK-IV. The Vanguard, however, is in charge of her legal defense as of now, which makes victory for the magazines very unlikely.
Careful whenever possible of keeping a (reasonably) good image in front of the press for public relations' sake, she loves to unwind whenever possible at the Pocket D, where she can get back to her overly flirty, politically-incorrect self. Contrary to other, more comitted heroes, she has no qualms about socializing with "red siders" at the D, as Hannah isn't in the business out of feelings of duty or selflessness. Hannah wanted to be on-par with the superhumans, and eventually become one of them, so as long as the person in front of her isn't giving her reasons to think otherwise, she'll party with everyone and anyone.
[edit] Friends and Enemies
In spite of having a lot of friends and acquaintances in the capes scene, Gold usually choses to work alone, this decision taken after a poor judgement call regarding accepting a team of amateurs' invitation to try and take the clockwork King, which injured her not so much physically as it hurt her pride. Nevertheless, she occasionally teams up with other heroes for the occasionally big job as long as they look like they actually have a clue on how do to things.
Due to her "I'll only be politically correct in front of the cameras" policy, she is strongly reluctant to take sidekicks... with one exception. She met young Megan at the D, when she was interviewing several heroes as homework. Answering with more honesty than interest in being politically correct, Gold was, according to Megan, the only cape that scored well in her test, aknowledging she is human, with flaws, and vices, contrary to most heroes who pretended to uphold an impecable image and seemed wary or dodgy of touchy questions. Combined with Megan's compliments to her (MK-III) costume, Hannah grew fond of the young girl right away and, when she eventually got interested enough in the capes to get a sidekick license, Gold took her under her wing without a second though as Silver Comette.
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 favite persons list.
"It's -always- the same story, -always-: At first the person is convinced he's either still himself, or a merge of human/alien. It might take years, it might take weeks, but eventually the person will wake up one day and realise it was the squid all along, and the host died during the possession [*]. I don't trust liars, and I don't trust lying aliens, there's a reason why we have no squid officers at Vanguard."
As enemies and rivals are concerned, she developed a rivalry with the villainess Frigid Razor, to whom she has come to grow a fondness for, finding much fun in their regular clashes. She holds a big grudge, however, against the Clockwork King, who nearly kills her on the early stages of her career. She jumps any Arachnos' trail like candy, the spiders being a sure ticket to increased reputation and fame. Finally, her other big hobby is the council, which she harasses on a regular basis for sport.
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 girlfriend 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"
- [*] From Blue King's City of Heroes graphic novel.
- [**] 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.
[edit] Vanguard and Strained PR
As her MK-IV implied a closer relationship with the Vanguard as a heroine, the government started seeing her with suspicion, seeing how they have been triyng to disband the Vanguard for a over a year now, 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.
The administration, however, used Gold's conflict with Asuria as a weapon for even more bad press against the Vanguard, causing more capes to estrange the golden heroine by the day. This happened just by the time of her temporary breakup with Maki, which got her into a big depression that only ended after they got back together. However, in spite of the attempts at bad press, years of fame are not easy to erase from the minds of her fans (or her most loyal fans at least), and the late Rikti increased attacks have put her back in touch with the people, who seemed to be fast to take her back in high esteem. Today Gold is as happy as she can get and is back to her regular heroing and mischief: "It isn't my time to leave the spotlight just yet. It's the people that decides after all".
[edit] Asociates/Relationships
As described by Hannah:
- Maki Aikawa "The love of my life, easy as that."
- Mercy.Killing "Someday we'll be back on good terms, but it won't be today nor the day after that. Next time he screws up he better keeps my people away from the frikking fallout."
- High Jinks "The coolest man in a costume and more fun than a barrel of Rikti Monkeys."
- Lumena "I'm glad she now has a chance of getting her life back. Transhumanized, precocious, superpowered kids need parents too."
- 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 "Two Makis are better than one, I guess."
- 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 "She and Kazzi make a cute, techno-ghostly couple."
- 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."
[edit] Credits
Artwork property of Bitmonkey
Categories: Female | Technology | Blaster | Hero | LGBT | Character
