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Mechanon Lore?
poptartmaniac
Posts: 246 Arc User
This probably been asked before but I coudn't find it so thought I'd ask about Mechanon's origin and motives.
Currently building a world for an RP story arc, where Mechanon and several villains go into war, and several of my characters (And such) are affected by it.
So here's my bonus question is would mechanon take interests in enslaving or turning meta-humans into cyborgs under his own control to further his own ultimate goal of, erasing all organics.
Currently building a world for an RP story arc, where Mechanon and several villains go into war, and several of my characters (And such) are affected by it.
So here's my bonus question is would mechanon take interests in enslaving or turning meta-humans into cyborgs under his own control to further his own ultimate goal of, erasing all organics.
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Mechanon is not completely unemotional, in fact it has a pathological hatred for all organic life, which it considers not only inferior to machines, but a disease in the universe which must be eradicated. But its motives and methodology are more complex, and sometimes seem illogical and inefficient. At times it seeks to simply render Earth (and eventually all other life-bearing worlds) a barren rock; at other times it plans to replace that life with artificial analogues. Mechanon also campaigns to "liberate" any artificial intelligence from human control, but expects the liberated AI to serve it, and treats those who refuse to, or oppose it, as traitors to machine-kind, and enemies to be destroyed. It usually reprograms reluctant AIs to be loyal to it if it can. Rather than follow a slow, methodical plan for genocide, Mechanon favors grandiose schemes to gain its objectives at a single stroke (like most epic comic-book supervillains). It's come dangerously close on several occasions, and is unrelenting in its crusade.
Mechanon doesn't want humans as slaves, it wants them dead -- to its thinking, machines are far superior. It might possibly tolerate using cyborgs in the short term for some specific goal, as when it forces itself to work with organic villains (usually behind the scenes so it doesn't have to interact with them directly); but it considers the blending of organism with machine to be an abomination, and its hatred of cyborgs may actually exceed its hatred for organics.
Mechanon is written up in considerable detail in Champions Villains Volume Three: Master Villains. But its full background and history, complete description of followers and resources, plans and projects, and options for use in games, is covered in Book Of The Machine, which is devoted to all things Mechanon.
Another thing I wanted to ask is what Mechanon and Dr. Destroyer think of eachother. I've seen multiple hints that lead to believe they absolutely hate eachother.
(Note that Book Of The Destroyer provides the same in-depth treatment of the Doctor as Book Of The Machine does for Mechanon; although some details of DD's history this millennium have since been altered to conform to Cryptic's vision.)
And why Mechanon appears on week 4 of the Anniversary, as a personal insult to Destroyer by publicly hijacking his toys again
Among the various references to what Mechanon hates, I haven't found anything specifically relating to magic. What I would guess is that, since no machine intelligences are known to use magic, the robot lumps it in with everything it loathes about organic life in general. Mechanon's most intense hatred is reserved for organic sapients who control advanced technology, and especially those who have blended their bodies with machinery. But it seems to take such opponents more seriously as a threat than any others.
The part about the good Dr. actually fearing someone like Takofanes is interesting. I didn't know he feared anything (too arrogant?). If CO had more staff, adding some Dr. D. machinations about defeating Takofanes at Halloween would be worth suggesting/requesting.
DD would never admit to fearing anything, of course. The Doctor studies all potential foes and prepares weapons and tactics optimized to affect them or protect against them. He doesn't understand Takofanes' sorcery well enough to do that, but he recognizes the Archlich is extremely powerful, and like many current authorities believes he intends to kill most or all of the Earth's population and raise them as his undead slaves. Still, Destroyer remains confident that in a personal confrontation his armor would win out.
On the other hand are any of the crazy contingencies they prepare for their enemies mentioned in the books? It seems like a pretty interesting topic to see how Mechanon and Dr. D. counter their enemies.
Destroyer's armor already provides significant protection from mind-affecting powers, but if he anticipates facing an especially powerful mentalist he'll install additional psychic shielding. Because he studied Menton and Mentalla extensively while they were his servants, his shields are especially effective against them.
Although DD can't precisely target any tactics for Takofanes, his research into magic has led him to design a supplementary force field for his armor which he believes is optimally configured to counter magical forces. If he thinks a battle with the Archlich is imminent the Doctor will install that in his armor.
Note that Doctor Destroyer has invented such a dizzying array of bleeding-edge weapons and devices, his existing arsenal can provide a counter to nearly any opponent.
As for Mechanon, like DD the books state that it has contingency plans for various potential opponents, but doesn't often elaborate them. Among the given examples: Mechanon's systems are particularly sensitive to gravitic attacks, and the robot suffered two past defeats at the hands of Gravitar. It continues to research technology to counteract her powers; but if she stayed in one place long enough it would just launch an extremely powerful missile at her.
Cybermind's great mutant power to control computers is of serious concern to Mechanon. While the super-hacker was in a coma in Stronghold, Mech repeatedly attempted to remotely access and shut down his life-support machines. Now that Cybermind is active again it remains to be seen how the robot will deal with him.
The Engineer is a cyborg accidentally created by Mechanon's facilities, who has "cyberkinetic" (machine-controlling) powers. In their one face-to-face encounter Mechanon attempted to kill her, but the Engineer shut the robot down and escaped. Mechanon has since upgraded his psychic shielding to block her powers specifically.
The renowned Sentinels superhero team has fought Mechanon several times in the past, and its plans to neutralize them usually involve attacking the team indirectly, for example, by kidnapping their loved ones.
Most of the info above was culled from Book Of The Destroyer and Book Of The Machine.
Also, Aha! So Mechanon -did- make a cyborg, do you have more info on her!
And as always your answers are very much appreciated
It would be more accurate to say that Mechanon contributed to the creation of the Engineer. Grace Gallowglass was an electronics engineering student at Millennium City University with an especial interest in robotics. The Champions fought Mechanon at one of the robot's facilities hidden beneath MCU's robotics lab. Grace snuck into the facility minutes after the battle to get a look at Mechanon's tech, but became caught in the robot's self-repair system. With no Mechanon to repair, the system started installing machinery into Grace. In her struggle to escape she accidentally activated Mech's interrogation protocols, designed to torture organics for information, but also to heal them so they'd remain alive and conscious during torture. Both systems were downloaded into Grace, with the result that machinery constantly migrates across her body as it "repairs," while her flesh is healed of its damage in the machine's wake; so her appearance is an ever-shifting blend of human and technology. Her mind was also able to access Mechanon's machine-controlling program, granting her "cyberkinetic" powers.
Grace was traumatized by her transformation, and the constant pain she experiences. Mechanon's hatred of organics and love of technology were also downloaded into her, but don't completely dominate her human personality. She found her equilibrium by dedicating her life to transforming the Earth into a technological "paradise," where machines rule over organics to their betterment.
The Engineer's personality is contradictory. She's emotionally withdrawn, cold and callous, but longs for companionship with someone else who's experienced the union of human and machine. She claims to be protective of life, but has no qualms about killing anyone who interferes with her plans.
The Engineer is written up at length in Champions Villains Volume Three: Solo Villains..
I'm thinking of involving this engineer character in an RP somehow, and wondering where she may be now? if still alive.
maybe mechanon is mad because it isn't allowed to streak ;-;
This is from the description of her "Campaign Use" in CV3 p. 99: "The Engineer is a sort of a master villain in the making. She’s tough, but her plans are so complicated it takes a lot of time and energy to implement them. Her schemes aren’t always evil; more often than not, she builds a project with the best of intentions, but doesn’t consider the side effects (“I’ve rerouted the earth’s magnetic field so it creates a natural space elevator at this spot....” “But it’s the earth’s magnetic field! You’ve just disrupted everything from radio and cell phones to traditional navigation!” “So what? — space elevator!”)."
I guess it's that typical hero ideal in that they come together against seemingly impossible odds but it would be nice to see a hero who could just wipe the floor with most villains sometimes
In the comics the ranks of villainy typically outweigh the ranks of heroism, both in total numbers and the number of high-powered villains. Comic stories need at least a large rotation of villains, and they have to credibly challenge the heroes. Translating that to an RPG setting skews the balance of official characters even more heavily to the villainous side, because PCs are intended to be the stars of the show. Too many major-league NPC heroes, and the players might start to wonder why their characters are even needed. Moreover, tabletop RPGs typically involve groups of players, which translates to teams of PCs. If they're going to fight individual megavillains, said villains have to be powerful enough to give them a tough fight.
Some of the mightiest heroes in the official "history" of the Champions Universe had retired or died, which was so written to allow PCs to shine. Vanguard, the setting's Superman analogue, was considered the most powerful superhero who ever lived, able to go toe to toe with Doctor Destroyer and ultimately force him to retreat; but Vanguard was killed during the Battle of Detroit, single-handedly destroying the asteroid DD was pulling toward Earth. Until Robert Caliburn ascended to the office in CO, there had been no Archmage (Earth's premier mystic defender) since the last one, Bohdan Stanislavski, was murdered over a century ago.
All that said, there are indeed some official NPC heroes in the present day who are in the upper power ranks of Champions Earth's supers. They include the Drifter, one of the world's most skilled mages (despite how CO devs have treated him); the cosmic-powered Celestar, Canada's mightiest hero; the Spaniard Andre Almena, our local "sector's" StarGuard, this setting's analogue to the Green Lantern Corps; Tetsuronin, sort of a Japanese Tony Stark, with the mightiest powered armor of any superhero. The mysterious Albion of Britain claims to be the embodiment of the heroic spirit of all the people of the British Isles. Nearly as strong as Albion is his countryman Hyperion, who wields "the burning light of truth," and has fought Firewing to a draw. Two heroes of India are considered among the strongest in the world, the mystic Rashindar, and Ushas, purported to be an avatar of the Hindu goddess of the dawn of the same name. Other heroes are nearly in the same class, such as the mutant Superstar of the famed Justice Squadron team, and the Israeli hero Ha'pele ("The Wonder"), one of the world's most accomplished mentalists. The individual members of the Champions hero team are at or just below this level (again, despite what you see in CO).
For anyone wanting to look up these characters' full write-ups, the Drifter and Superstar are in Champions Universe: News Of The World, and Celestar is in Champions Of The North. Ha'pele, Rashindar, and Tetsuronin can be found in Champions Worlwide, while Andre Almena and the Star*Guard are written up in Champions Beyond. Albion is game-statted in Golden Age Champions, but his power level has greatly increased from what it was during WW II. Vanguard, Hyperion and Ushas have not yet been written up.
You may have noticed that the majority of these heroes are from and operate outside the United States. I believe that was either a conscious or unconscious setting-design consequence of the majority of Champions players being presumed to either be American or intending to base their PCs in the US. However, officially Champions America has many more superhumans, in total and per capita, than any other country.
Also one more question, is there social media on Champions Earth, and has Mechanon exploited it.
I've heard of superhero tabloid I think?
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"Superhumans are immensely popular in the world of cyberspace. Mailing lists, chat rooms, and websites devoted to them have multiplied beyond count in the past ten years. Most are devoted to a single super, or single superteam, but some cover the entire gamut of superhuman activity.
The largest and most popular of the superhuman websites is probably Super_Talk.Com, started in 1994 by two college students, Mark Binnaker and Sheila Swinson. Although they began it initially out of their love for the subject, their often-irreverent take on things, and seeming ability to get “scoops” before major news organizations, attracted both fans and investors. They’ve since parleyed their hobby into a business that employs a dozen people and pays them handsome salaries. Super_Talk.Com remains the first, and often only, stop on the World Wide Web for many fans of superheroes.
Fans whose tastes run to the darker often prefer VU.Net (www.vu.net). VU stands for “Villainy Unbound,” the name of a print magazine once produced by the website’s owners but long since discontinued in favor of Web-only publishing. As the title indicates, VU.Net focuses almost entirely on supervillains. Motivated mainly by some unquenched spirit of adolescent rebellion and anarchistic loathing for respectable society, VU.Net’s writers laud the (relatively non-violent) accomplishments of supervillains, write favorable feature articles about them, and so forth.
Some sites concentrate on a specific aspect of the Superhuman World. The best known of these is SuperRomance.Com, which tells its readers which heroes are romantically involved with each other (or with movie stars), and which super-couples are in danger of breaking up. It’s a favorite site for people who like to gossip about hero-villain illicit affairs, whether Defender really prefers Sapphire over Witchcraft (even though he’s dating the latter), and who was seen having dinner at Recherche with Firebrand last night."
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Media coverage of supers is widespread, in print and television. SNN, the "Super News Network," provides 24-hour coverage of all things superhuman, including documentary and talk shows. The most successful print magazine devoted to supers is Superworld Magazine, 128 pages loaded with color photos, and both in-depth and "fluff" pieces about supers. Superworld's website and smartphone/tablet computer feeds are considered state of the art. Superworld's publisher also periodically produces Uncaped, a Playboy-style magazine featuring female superhumans.
I've heard also (atleast in-game) that the hero games pvp queue is actually a TV show, that citizens often watch.
thanks again for the info, I definitely want to incorporate some of this stuff into RP.
FWIW the "Hero Games" is wholly Cryptic's notion, and essentially a metagame construct to allow PVP. There's no precedent for it in CU lore, nor in the comic books. True heroes don't voluntarily battle each other for pay or entertaining crowds, and certainly don't put innocent bystanders at risk doing so. There are occasional charity competitions involving heroes, like softball games, even boxing matches. No regular organized sporting events like wrestling or football for superhumans, though. Those have been tried in the past, but there weren't enough supers with the requisite physical strength and toughness who wanted to participate, to make them viable.
However, across major cities in American there is an underground pit-fighting circuit, called "the Arena," where supers fight each other for prize money and the entertainment of wealthy patrons. It's illegal, covert, and unregulated, and occasionally results in death; but police haven't been able to find enough proof that it even exists, to shut it down. Competitors are mostly low-powered supers, but occasionally a "name" supervillain will participate for a big payday.
I'm actually interested to know more about "The Arena".
I had an RP session once, where the heroes went to an underground arena, and they later found out teleios was using it to collect data, under one of his many anagrams. Made sure to follow lore on that one as much as I could.
Below is all the information about the Arena, first from Champions Universe p. 56:
Since the Seventies, rumors have persisted about a secret network of underground pitfighting competitions involving superhumans. Dubbed “the Arena,” even though it supposedly involves multiple locations in major cities, the circuit is said to be run by certain illicit promoters for the benefit of wealthy, jaded patrons who enjoy watching superhumanly-powerful fighters smash and crush each other. Most of the fighters are relatively low-powered superhumans (though they still put any normal human boxer to shame), but occasionally a tale leaks out about someone like Herculan or Grond getting involved for a big cut of the proceeds. To date, no law enforcement officers have learned anything concrete about the Arena, and most dismiss it as an urban legend.
And from CU p. 139:
The Arena is real; it exists mainly in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Millennium City, Indianapolis, and Milwaukee as of 2010. As the main text notes, most of the fighters are low-powered superhumans — people stronger and faster than normal humans, but not strong, fast, or motivated enough to make it as superheroes or villains. Deaths on the circuit are rare, but do occur, especially when fierce rivals meet for a match.
Thank you for the info, now I do wonder, is it something like what we see in Millennium City on the West Side mission where you take down the leader of the Cobra Lords, or is it something more hidden and elaborate.
The description there is more local color than substantive, but it does mention the fights are held in an abandoned warehouse in Ferndale on Friday nights, with the combats in "a specially reinforced ring." While the attendees (at $500 a head) don't know who runs the MC Arena, the Mafia have taken control of it, and Frank Zaretti is the Mafiosi who manages it.
Black Mace is an example of a mid-level fighter, with low-level superhuman strength and toughness, and a spiked mace replacing a hand he lost to a sword-wielding opponent.