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[Lore] An Unofficial History of Cyberlord
canadascott
Posts: 1,257 Arc User
There's no real background on the supervillain Cyberlord. He was just a name that was attached to Justiciar's origin who died as part of his origin story. However, like all good villains, Cyberlord refused to stay dead, and Cryptic brought him back in Whiteout!
A lot of Champions' Canada background has its roots in the SUNDER campaign we ran back in the 80s, including Justiciar (then known as Paladin) as a friendly NPC, and Mark "Avenger" Derringer as a PC. Naturally, it seemed like a good idea to tie Cyberlord back to our old campaign too. One of our adventures featured Avenger (then running for mayor of Vancouver against a shapechanging supervillain) being hunted by a cyberneticist named "Dr. Meklar" Looking back on some old campaign notes got me thinking: what if Meklar and Cyberlord were one and the same?
The Hunter-Patriots also originated from one of the sessions in that campaign, and CO's Hunter-Patriots include cyborgs, even though the only H-P superhumans mentioned in Champions of the North are the genetically engineered offspring of the Frontiersman Project. Where did they come from? With Cyberlord back from the dead, a connection was suggested.
So, cobbling old connections together like repairing a broken toy, I've put together a tentative background for the menace that is Cyberlord! If Cryptic has different things in mind, feel free to forget everything I've written, in the meantime enjoy:
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 deraanged 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.
Which is where he stands at the beginning of Carrier Wave, where it looks like he's responsible for an attack on the Champions' computer Socrates, even if the Champions have never been his target before...
A lot of Champions' Canada background has its roots in the SUNDER campaign we ran back in the 80s, including Justiciar (then known as Paladin) as a friendly NPC, and Mark "Avenger" Derringer as a PC. Naturally, it seemed like a good idea to tie Cyberlord back to our old campaign too. One of our adventures featured Avenger (then running for mayor of Vancouver against a shapechanging supervillain) being hunted by a cyberneticist named "Dr. Meklar" Looking back on some old campaign notes got me thinking: what if Meklar and Cyberlord were one and the same?
The Hunter-Patriots also originated from one of the sessions in that campaign, and CO's Hunter-Patriots include cyborgs, even though the only H-P superhumans mentioned in Champions of the North are the genetically engineered offspring of the Frontiersman Project. Where did they come from? With Cyberlord back from the dead, a connection was suggested.
So, cobbling old connections together like repairing a broken toy, I've put together a tentative background for the menace that is Cyberlord! If Cryptic has different things in mind, feel free to forget everything I've written, in the meantime enjoy:
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 deraanged 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.
Which is where he stands at the beginning of Carrier Wave, where it looks like he's responsible for an attack on the Champions' computer Socrates, even if the Champions have never been his target before...
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Post edited by canadascott on
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Comments
I've long felt that the current official CU could use a "master cyberneticist" villain. Geneticists and roboticists there are in abundance, but no one with this particular specialty. Along those lines, I wonder if Meklar/Cyberlord could have had a hand in the creation of some of the other prominent cyborg villains of the setting? Perhaps he worked with/for VIPER for a while, and collaborated in the origins of Halfjack and/or Ripper? Might he also have been contracted by ARGENT to help develop Interface's body? Such bits of lore wouldn't change those villains' origins otherwise, but given Cyberlord's long and varied career, it would be reasonable for him to be integrated a little more into the mainstream history of the CU.
Always good to read some of that awesome lore of the Champions Universe. I really wish Cryptic didn't own the IP outright.
The context enhances the content, makes the mission more fun.
More action at Champions Online Comics @ http://co-comics.webs.com
Well, Cyberlord in particular doesn't upset me in this context. Still, I've noticed a few instances in which the CO devs seem to prefer to create their own additions to the setting when something comparable already exists in the PnP lore. Mind you, their additions are often derived and expanded from brief pre-existing lore references.