Zoom-Zoom
Mar 9, 2014 18:29:35 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2014 18:29:35 GMT -5
(This profile is bad in need of an update, which I'll write one day. ZZ's changed a lot over his time here on the boards since when he was first appped...)
-Player Info-
Name/Alias: House
-Character Info-
Name: Zoom-Zoom
Age (or human equivalent): young mech. Permanently stuck at that 'make poor life decisions' part of adulthood.
Gender (or human equivalent): For the humans sake, we'll put it at male but Zoom-Zoom scoffs at the organic concepts of gender.
Species: Cybertronian
Faction: Autobot
Original Occupation: Data analyst onlined during the caste system. Got fired from his job due to relentless boredom and hacking the systems of the company he worked for. Slagged off a Very Important Mech when he messed up a shipping manifest thus leading to an investigation that uncovered his extensive hacking. Couldn’t find any work after that for some strange reason.
Occupation/Specialization: Infiltrator
Appearance/Altmode:
Zoom-Zoom is a minibot. He's shorter than Bluestreak but taller than a cassette (sorta just around Arcee's height) with medium-light armour. His frame is factory stock for the most part (i.e what he was onlined with), but his armour was modified for the war resulting in thicker plating. He wears a visor to protect his optics and his face is set pretty much in a perpetual frown. Zoom-Zoom has a pair of energon daggers sheathed on either side of his waist and a shock baton that sits on his right hip.
Zoom-Zoom's Earth alt-mode is a tinted 3-door Mazda 2 Hatchback while his Cybertronian alt-mode was that of a small hovercar. His coloration tends to match the environment that he is in. On Earth, however, he is red as he'd previously been stationed on Centra Vita Eight, where his paintjob hid him amongst the planet's constant scarlet duststorms. His arrival (crash landing, really) knocked a few non-essential systems offline and he'll remain that way until he has access to a medic or the time to fix himself.
Picture by Zercon
History:
Zoom-Zoom was originally commissioned as a data analyst for one of Cybertron's shipping corporation, Iacon Freight, a rather prestigious company at the time. Zoom-Zoom is naturally bright and curious, two characteristics that did not mesh well with his job which required long hours and endless repetitive work that Zoom-Zoom suspected was designed to kill the processor of the mech assigned to the task. Unfortunately, even though he was specifically programmed for it, data entry and analysis never became his thing and he spent much of his time either completely bored at work or, alternatively, hacking the company's records to mess around with shipping manifests as an outlet for his restless creativity and for his own amusement. It took several vorns before his co-workers caught on after his meddling disrupted the business of a very influential mech thus causing an investigation to be launched. By that time, Zoom-Zoom's attitude had been set. If no one is paying attention to you, work as much mischief as possible while they aren't looking. And then some more. In the mean time, keep your head down as far as it can go. He'd made a scarce amount of friends in his cohort as they all worshipped the mind-numbing data work and Zoom-Zoom didn’t, so no one was particularly sad to see him leave.
Whilst Zoom-Zoom had a skill-set that should have at the very least ensured him employment with another company, he'd been blacklisted as a troublemaker. His hacking had actually altered and compromised a considerable amount of data systems for Iacon Freight and the branch that he worked for lost a lot of business from which it struggled to recover. Finding a new job therefore became extremely difficult with that reputation hanging over him and he wound up on the streets of Iacon for a while. There, he picked up a very different array of skills that allowed him to survive. He ran with a few gangs of disgruntled young mechs like himself, forced into an ill-suited function, unable to fit it or use their talents and skills in a meaningful way. They were not closely knit, rather they were drawn together by mutual hatred of the society that had no place for them and oppressed them. They spent most of their time defacing and vandalising public property and were considered more a public nuisance than any real problem. Many of them followed Megatron when he began to speak out against the caste system and Zoom-Zoom was no different. When Megatron's cause turned violent and dark, Zoom-Zoom returned to the streets. He recognised that he fell amongst the category considered ‘weak’ by Megatron and would be exterminated in the gladiator’s revolution to purge Cybertron of weakness. Additionally, whilst he thoroughly despised the Senate and all it stood for, he had not signed up for murder. An oddly noble sentiment for him, but there was a big difference between destroying a Senator's statue and killing a mech. Zoom-Zoom was young, disillusioned but not a killer (at the time at least). Unfortunately such resolve did not last very long as the situation on Cybertron steadily deteriorated. With a great deal of reluctance, Zoom-Zoom eventually chose to sign on with the Autobots, when the war reached such a point that neutrality did not look like a viable option.
Amongst the Autobot ranks, he was initially assigned to the frontline due to his low rank. He proved to be rather useless on the battlefield and his backtalk and failure to respect the chain of command did not impress his commanding officers. He was not the most loyal of soldiers, he'd joined up out of sheer practicality and not because he believed in the cause. This showed and alienated his fellow soldiers. It did not help that he'd gained something of a cowardly reputation as Zoom-Zoom often retreated and hid himself rather than standing his ground and fighting. Zoom-Zoom was bounced from unit to unit until he came to the attention of Special Operations. Zoom-Zoom's ability to remain undetected intrigued them and he was brought into their ranks to serve as an infiltrator. He was normally deployed to recover information or to sabotage an enemy base, he did undercover work only as a last resort due to his abysmal people skills. Zoom-Zoom soon flourished under the unconventional command style of Special Operations and felt that he'd finally found a place. His loyalty to the Autobot cause cemented here, it was not to Prime or his ideals but to the bots of the Ninety Second Division that he served with and under, a true cohort at long last.
When the Autobots attempted to flee Cybertron, Zoom-Zoom had been assigned off-world on a long term infiltration mission and was too far away to receive the summons to return. When he did finally make it back, it was to a broken and empty planet. At that point, seeing his home lost, Zoom-Zoom commitment to the Autobots died. Their failure to save his planet embittered him to the point that he destroyed the Autobrand that he bore and disabled his Autobot identifier codes. He was not neutral, not by a long shot, but he was no longer driven to carry out his duty as an Autobot or uphold their tenants (which he'd adhered to very loosely in Special Operations anyway). He drifted from planet to planet, searching for traces of his people. Occasionally, he encountered Decepticons and other Autobots during his search. Whilst before, he would attempted to sabotage or kill the Decepticons, now he tended to ignore them and the atrocities they were carrying out. On several occasions, he snuck aboard the transport ship of an odd lone Con undetected before parting on his own path. His encounters with other Autobots were quite similar and equally brief, his main interest from this point on was finding the rest of his cohort.
His latest lead has sent him towards the Sol system. There, he’s heard rumours of the remnants of the Autobot High Command. Whilst Zoom-Zoom has no current intentions of returning to active duty, he does have hope that he might uncover information regarding the fate of his cohort.
Personality:
Most mechs tend to find Zoom-Zoom a bit annoying (or very annoying). He is a smart-aft with an attitude problem and his processor to vocalizer filter is too slow at times. Somehow, even after all this time and the entire freaking war; he hasn't quite figured out when to keep his vocaliser off and that there can be a direct correlation between him speaking and other mechs' desires to pound him into scrap metal. He tends to make few friends and many enemies due to his behaviour. He uses humor and sarcasm as a deflection for darker emotions such as anger or fear.
His spark is usually in the right place though. Ish. Okay, so maybe it's a couple of centimetres off. His first priority is normally himself, the only people he trusts and care for are his long lost cohort and as such, he is self-centred. At his core, Zoom-Zoom is a survivalist. He has spent a lot of time fending for himself and is very self-sufficient. He will not rely on others to help him and he therefore expects others to hold him in the same regard. He is not a team player, though his cohort was beginning to teach him how to operate within a team just before he was sent off on his last Autobot sanctioned mission. Since then, he has hugely regressed on all he’d learnt regarding team work.
The war has left Zoom-Zoom with severe anxiety. He's almost constantly stressed and paranoid, not quite trusting that he's ever truly safe or he isn't one step away from everything going terribly wrong. He also exists in complete denial that the few remaining members of his cohort could possibly be dead and it's pretty much the only thing that has keep him going all this time. As far as Zoom-Zoom is concerned, until he sees their dead bodies, they're alive. On his own, he's able to persist in this delusion either by not thinking about his cohort or carefully controlling what he does allow himself to ponder. However, someone outright asking him about them will upset the delicate balance Zoom-Zoom has built and will distress him. Additionally, the loss of most of his cohort has embittered Zoom-Zoom to that whole friendship gig and he'd much rather be on his own, than seek out company.
Likes:
Himself, causing trouble, Special Operations, explosions, really big explosions, his cohort, hiding places, closed areas, energon knives, magnetic repulsors, programming viruses, medics, Ratchet, more explosions
Dislikes:
Authority figures, Decepticons, Earth, humans, the war, being on the frontline, open space, wheels, mechs outside his cohort, Optimus Prime
Strengths/Weapons:
Minibot stature- Zoom-Zoom is small and compact and this affords him an unexpected amount of durability. His frame is geared towards survivability and escaping enemies, so he has medium-light armour and a decent amount of speed on him.
Ghost movement- Zoom-Zoom relies heavily on stealth and is equipped with multiple dampeners (experimental design supplied to him by Spec Ops) to keep him off enemy sensors. He normally keeps out of sight, sits still and cloaks himself from conventional sensors that would otherwise detect a Cybertronian, ie spark scanners, EM fields, etc. This approach works best in a place where Zoom-Zoom can hide himself and observe enemy movements at the same time.
Colour changer- Zoom-Zoom is additionally equipped with an experimental nannite reconfiguration system. He can have up to five colours programmed in that he can switch between, thus altering his paintjob to suit his purposes and blending in better with the background. However, quick changes between paintjobs or taking damage can jam the system, resulting him getting stuck on a colour until it can be fixed.
Element of surprise- If Zoom-Zoom is undetected and attacks an enemy, then he is at an advantage. He normally waits before striking, studying his opponents if he can for weak points. Such confrontations are normally short and sweet; Zoom-Zoom will normally knock a mech offline when infiltrating as it is much easier to hide an offline frame than spilt energon and a dismembered body.
Short range combatant- Zoom-Zoom is a good close range combatant, he doesn't ascribe to any particular martial school but instead relies on what he learnt during his time on the Iacon streets. He is quick and precise and goes for what works. He favours a shock baton in close combat, capable of giving a lethal charge or stunning a mech offline. He is also quite adept with energon knives as they were the usual weapon of choice on the backstreets. Zoom-Zoom is also a decent marksman but his accuracy definitely drops over distance. He utilises a pair of inbuilt laser pistols, which are at their most powerful in closer range.
Acid pistol-Zoom-Zoom gains this weapon on Day 3, week 1 in Ep 1.5. Built by Wheeljack, the acid pistol is a slow firing, short ranged weapon built into ZZ's right forearm. It fires one acid round at a time and uses clips containing 20 rounds. Those ammo clips however have to manually built by Wheeljack and they take quite a lot of time to make, so ZZ might only have one spare ammo pack on him at any time. The acid is extremely effective against metal.
Weaknesses:
Minibot strength- Zoom-Zoom is small and short. He therefore has a great deal of difficulty overpowering anymech bigger than him. A straight out confrontation is Zoom-Zoom's last viable option; he tries to avoid combat at all costs.
Long range combat ain't exactly fun- Zoom-Zoom has a severe lack of offensive weaponry at a distance. His laser pistols lose power the further away he is from an enemy, so even if he manages to land a hit, he tends to do very little damage. This usually isn't a problem, he normally is situated in enclosed areas and in close quarters to whatever his objective is.
On Earth, however, it is a huge slagging problem. Zoom-Zoom and Earth is not a good combination. Zoom-Zoom does not approve.
If they can see me- If Zoom-Zoom lacks the element of surprise, then he is in a lot of trouble, especially at a distance. Up close, he can hold his own for a bit but he'll generally attempt to escape rather than remain locked in combat. Depending on the skill level of his opponent, he might be able to fend them off and possibly defeat them but as Zoom-Zoom's opponents are normally larger than him with longer reach, he is normally at a disadvantage.
Stealth blind- the dampening systems Zoom-Zoom is equipped with shields him from conventional sensors...and Zoom-Zoom's own sensors are switched off when these are running. His own scans can be detected so using them on would defeat the entire purpose of the dampening systems. He therefore must rely on his optics only at this point and he can still be detected visually, he does NOT turn invisible. His paintjob therefore normally matches his surroundings, if it doesn’t then he can be detected a lot easier.
Basically, he's an easy target in a wide open space at a distance with multiple enemies (i.e Earth). He's at his deadliest in a dark place with an unaware enemy (i.e not Earth).
Glitchy processor- Zoom-Zoom's original function was extremely taxing on the processor as it required analysing huge volumes of data. So much information goes through the mech's processor all at once that it is incredibly difficult to retain a sense of self; essentially the mech's own mind is suppressed. Whilst Zoom-Zoom was fired from this job very early on, it was already too late, the minor instabilities that developed in his processor were permanent as they occurred during his fomulative vorns. Whilst it had no discernible effect on him for most of his life, after the Exodus, Zoom-Zoom lacked regular access to a medic and was left on his own for many vorns. The solitude as well as the many patches and alterations he made to his own processor exacerbated the instabilities and the first of the cracks are starting to show. Sometimes, Zoom-Zoom finds himself stuck in memories that he'd really rather not be or his thoughts run in circles and he can't break out of them. These episodes tend to occur when he skirts the edge of breaking the denial that's been keeping him going for so long.
Special skills:
Hacking: Zoom-Zoom’s always had a gift for code, it manifested during his first vorns of life. Whilst he is very good at getting in to things, he isn’t very good at getting out and leaving everything just the way he found it. This mostly due to his own particular sense of humor, he’ll leave programs and viruses that will activate long after he’s gone to make life particularly miserable for whoever requires the hacked computer/data system. He works best with non-living computer systems, so his ability to hack another mech is rather average (he has the equivalent ability to a normal mech, so they’d be quite capable of countering him/counterhacking him in turn. So he doesn’t bother, it’s rather pointless)
But he does have the unpleasant ability to hack the processor of dead mechs. Information recovered is normally incomplete and fractured, so that is a last resort.
Attention to detail- Zoom-Zoom was onlined as a data analyst and even though he did not enjoy his function, he still has the knack for absorbing large volumes of information in a short amount of time. He pays a large amount of attention to his surroundings and is always planning how to use the terrain to his best advantage.
Unfortunately, this ability does not translate to reading bots in a social setting.
First aid: As a consequence of his own upbringing and because Zoom-Zoom is rarely fortunate to have access to a qualified medic, he knows a fair deal about first aid and how to patch himself up. He has many ‘home remedies’ and has made many alterations to his coding that enables him to remain online after taking heavy damage. As a consequence, his neural net does not register pain properly…and his many other receptors are similarly numbed.
Extra Info:
Insubordinate- Zoom-Zoom respects a very small number of mechs. It takes a lot to earn his respect and most therefore do not bother or decide that it is not worth it. However, once earned, Zoom-Zoom is very loyal to that person. It doesn't have to be directly earned though. For instance, prior to Cybertron's fall, Zoom-Zoom held Optimus Prime in very high regard as the rest of his cohort had a lot of respect for him. Zoom-Zoom had never encountered Prime nor did he pay much attention to him, having dismissed Optimus as just another politician. His faith in Optimus and the Autobots however is shattered upon his return to a dead Cybertron. Convincing him to take up the Autobrand again will take time and even more time is required to convince him that humans are worthy of his attention.
Bad-luck magnet- Zoom-Zoom is sometimes convinced that the only reason he is alive is because Primus has a very twisted sense of humour. His stealth approach doesn't always work and more often than Zoom-Zoom likes to think about, it fails in situations it really shouldn’t have. This leads to bizarre misadventures as he attempts to escape. Zoom-Zoom is all too well acquainted with the weird and wacky.
Miniature purple griffin- The MPG is a luxury companion toy from an organic planet somewhere. It was a popular choice for young children, the small mechanical creature is pure distilled happiness. Somewhere along the lines, Zoom-Zoom acquired one. Whether this during his times on the Iaconian streets or during the war remains unclear. For the most part, it lives inside Zoom-Zoom's subspace and has managed to outlast the war. It was Zoom-Zoom's only companion during his many lonely vorns after the Exodus and as a result, he is rather attached to it.
The MPG contains several recorded messages from Zoom-Zoom's cohort along with memory vid files and images from them, a timecapsule from happier times.
-Player Info-
Name/Alias: House
-Character Info-
Name: Zoom-Zoom
Age (or human equivalent): young mech. Permanently stuck at that 'make poor life decisions' part of adulthood.
Gender (or human equivalent): For the humans sake, we'll put it at male but Zoom-Zoom scoffs at the organic concepts of gender.
Species: Cybertronian
Faction: Autobot
Original Occupation: Data analyst onlined during the caste system. Got fired from his job due to relentless boredom and hacking the systems of the company he worked for. Slagged off a Very Important Mech when he messed up a shipping manifest thus leading to an investigation that uncovered his extensive hacking. Couldn’t find any work after that for some strange reason.
Occupation/Specialization: Infiltrator
Appearance/Altmode:
Zoom-Zoom is a minibot. He's shorter than Bluestreak but taller than a cassette (sorta just around Arcee's height) with medium-light armour. His frame is factory stock for the most part (i.e what he was onlined with), but his armour was modified for the war resulting in thicker plating. He wears a visor to protect his optics and his face is set pretty much in a perpetual frown. Zoom-Zoom has a pair of energon daggers sheathed on either side of his waist and a shock baton that sits on his right hip.
Zoom-Zoom's Earth alt-mode is a tinted 3-door Mazda 2 Hatchback while his Cybertronian alt-mode was that of a small hovercar. His coloration tends to match the environment that he is in. On Earth, however, he is red as he'd previously been stationed on Centra Vita Eight, where his paintjob hid him amongst the planet's constant scarlet duststorms. His arrival (crash landing, really) knocked a few non-essential systems offline and he'll remain that way until he has access to a medic or the time to fix himself.
Picture by Zercon
History:
Zoom-Zoom was originally commissioned as a data analyst for one of Cybertron's shipping corporation, Iacon Freight, a rather prestigious company at the time. Zoom-Zoom is naturally bright and curious, two characteristics that did not mesh well with his job which required long hours and endless repetitive work that Zoom-Zoom suspected was designed to kill the processor of the mech assigned to the task. Unfortunately, even though he was specifically programmed for it, data entry and analysis never became his thing and he spent much of his time either completely bored at work or, alternatively, hacking the company's records to mess around with shipping manifests as an outlet for his restless creativity and for his own amusement. It took several vorns before his co-workers caught on after his meddling disrupted the business of a very influential mech thus causing an investigation to be launched. By that time, Zoom-Zoom's attitude had been set. If no one is paying attention to you, work as much mischief as possible while they aren't looking. And then some more. In the mean time, keep your head down as far as it can go. He'd made a scarce amount of friends in his cohort as they all worshipped the mind-numbing data work and Zoom-Zoom didn’t, so no one was particularly sad to see him leave.
Whilst Zoom-Zoom had a skill-set that should have at the very least ensured him employment with another company, he'd been blacklisted as a troublemaker. His hacking had actually altered and compromised a considerable amount of data systems for Iacon Freight and the branch that he worked for lost a lot of business from which it struggled to recover. Finding a new job therefore became extremely difficult with that reputation hanging over him and he wound up on the streets of Iacon for a while. There, he picked up a very different array of skills that allowed him to survive. He ran with a few gangs of disgruntled young mechs like himself, forced into an ill-suited function, unable to fit it or use their talents and skills in a meaningful way. They were not closely knit, rather they were drawn together by mutual hatred of the society that had no place for them and oppressed them. They spent most of their time defacing and vandalising public property and were considered more a public nuisance than any real problem. Many of them followed Megatron when he began to speak out against the caste system and Zoom-Zoom was no different. When Megatron's cause turned violent and dark, Zoom-Zoom returned to the streets. He recognised that he fell amongst the category considered ‘weak’ by Megatron and would be exterminated in the gladiator’s revolution to purge Cybertron of weakness. Additionally, whilst he thoroughly despised the Senate and all it stood for, he had not signed up for murder. An oddly noble sentiment for him, but there was a big difference between destroying a Senator's statue and killing a mech. Zoom-Zoom was young, disillusioned but not a killer (at the time at least). Unfortunately such resolve did not last very long as the situation on Cybertron steadily deteriorated. With a great deal of reluctance, Zoom-Zoom eventually chose to sign on with the Autobots, when the war reached such a point that neutrality did not look like a viable option.
Amongst the Autobot ranks, he was initially assigned to the frontline due to his low rank. He proved to be rather useless on the battlefield and his backtalk and failure to respect the chain of command did not impress his commanding officers. He was not the most loyal of soldiers, he'd joined up out of sheer practicality and not because he believed in the cause. This showed and alienated his fellow soldiers. It did not help that he'd gained something of a cowardly reputation as Zoom-Zoom often retreated and hid himself rather than standing his ground and fighting. Zoom-Zoom was bounced from unit to unit until he came to the attention of Special Operations. Zoom-Zoom's ability to remain undetected intrigued them and he was brought into their ranks to serve as an infiltrator. He was normally deployed to recover information or to sabotage an enemy base, he did undercover work only as a last resort due to his abysmal people skills. Zoom-Zoom soon flourished under the unconventional command style of Special Operations and felt that he'd finally found a place. His loyalty to the Autobot cause cemented here, it was not to Prime or his ideals but to the bots of the Ninety Second Division that he served with and under, a true cohort at long last.
When the Autobots attempted to flee Cybertron, Zoom-Zoom had been assigned off-world on a long term infiltration mission and was too far away to receive the summons to return. When he did finally make it back, it was to a broken and empty planet. At that point, seeing his home lost, Zoom-Zoom commitment to the Autobots died. Their failure to save his planet embittered him to the point that he destroyed the Autobrand that he bore and disabled his Autobot identifier codes. He was not neutral, not by a long shot, but he was no longer driven to carry out his duty as an Autobot or uphold their tenants (which he'd adhered to very loosely in Special Operations anyway). He drifted from planet to planet, searching for traces of his people. Occasionally, he encountered Decepticons and other Autobots during his search. Whilst before, he would attempted to sabotage or kill the Decepticons, now he tended to ignore them and the atrocities they were carrying out. On several occasions, he snuck aboard the transport ship of an odd lone Con undetected before parting on his own path. His encounters with other Autobots were quite similar and equally brief, his main interest from this point on was finding the rest of his cohort.
His latest lead has sent him towards the Sol system. There, he’s heard rumours of the remnants of the Autobot High Command. Whilst Zoom-Zoom has no current intentions of returning to active duty, he does have hope that he might uncover information regarding the fate of his cohort.
Personality:
Most mechs tend to find Zoom-Zoom a bit annoying (or very annoying). He is a smart-aft with an attitude problem and his processor to vocalizer filter is too slow at times. Somehow, even after all this time and the entire freaking war; he hasn't quite figured out when to keep his vocaliser off and that there can be a direct correlation between him speaking and other mechs' desires to pound him into scrap metal. He tends to make few friends and many enemies due to his behaviour. He uses humor and sarcasm as a deflection for darker emotions such as anger or fear.
His spark is usually in the right place though. Ish. Okay, so maybe it's a couple of centimetres off. His first priority is normally himself, the only people he trusts and care for are his long lost cohort and as such, he is self-centred. At his core, Zoom-Zoom is a survivalist. He has spent a lot of time fending for himself and is very self-sufficient. He will not rely on others to help him and he therefore expects others to hold him in the same regard. He is not a team player, though his cohort was beginning to teach him how to operate within a team just before he was sent off on his last Autobot sanctioned mission. Since then, he has hugely regressed on all he’d learnt regarding team work.
The war has left Zoom-Zoom with severe anxiety. He's almost constantly stressed and paranoid, not quite trusting that he's ever truly safe or he isn't one step away from everything going terribly wrong. He also exists in complete denial that the few remaining members of his cohort could possibly be dead and it's pretty much the only thing that has keep him going all this time. As far as Zoom-Zoom is concerned, until he sees their dead bodies, they're alive. On his own, he's able to persist in this delusion either by not thinking about his cohort or carefully controlling what he does allow himself to ponder. However, someone outright asking him about them will upset the delicate balance Zoom-Zoom has built and will distress him. Additionally, the loss of most of his cohort has embittered Zoom-Zoom to that whole friendship gig and he'd much rather be on his own, than seek out company.
Likes:
Himself, causing trouble, Special Operations, explosions, really big explosions, his cohort, hiding places, closed areas, energon knives, magnetic repulsors, programming viruses, medics, Ratchet, more explosions
Dislikes:
Authority figures, Decepticons, Earth, humans, the war, being on the frontline, open space, wheels, mechs outside his cohort, Optimus Prime
Strengths/Weapons:
Minibot stature- Zoom-Zoom is small and compact and this affords him an unexpected amount of durability. His frame is geared towards survivability and escaping enemies, so he has medium-light armour and a decent amount of speed on him.
Ghost movement- Zoom-Zoom relies heavily on stealth and is equipped with multiple dampeners (experimental design supplied to him by Spec Ops) to keep him off enemy sensors. He normally keeps out of sight, sits still and cloaks himself from conventional sensors that would otherwise detect a Cybertronian, ie spark scanners, EM fields, etc. This approach works best in a place where Zoom-Zoom can hide himself and observe enemy movements at the same time.
Colour changer- Zoom-Zoom is additionally equipped with an experimental nannite reconfiguration system. He can have up to five colours programmed in that he can switch between, thus altering his paintjob to suit his purposes and blending in better with the background. However, quick changes between paintjobs or taking damage can jam the system, resulting him getting stuck on a colour until it can be fixed.
Element of surprise- If Zoom-Zoom is undetected and attacks an enemy, then he is at an advantage. He normally waits before striking, studying his opponents if he can for weak points. Such confrontations are normally short and sweet; Zoom-Zoom will normally knock a mech offline when infiltrating as it is much easier to hide an offline frame than spilt energon and a dismembered body.
Short range combatant- Zoom-Zoom is a good close range combatant, he doesn't ascribe to any particular martial school but instead relies on what he learnt during his time on the Iacon streets. He is quick and precise and goes for what works. He favours a shock baton in close combat, capable of giving a lethal charge or stunning a mech offline. He is also quite adept with energon knives as they were the usual weapon of choice on the backstreets. Zoom-Zoom is also a decent marksman but his accuracy definitely drops over distance. He utilises a pair of inbuilt laser pistols, which are at their most powerful in closer range.
Acid pistol-Zoom-Zoom gains this weapon on Day 3, week 1 in Ep 1.5. Built by Wheeljack, the acid pistol is a slow firing, short ranged weapon built into ZZ's right forearm. It fires one acid round at a time and uses clips containing 20 rounds. Those ammo clips however have to manually built by Wheeljack and they take quite a lot of time to make, so ZZ might only have one spare ammo pack on him at any time. The acid is extremely effective against metal.
Weaknesses:
Minibot strength- Zoom-Zoom is small and short. He therefore has a great deal of difficulty overpowering anymech bigger than him. A straight out confrontation is Zoom-Zoom's last viable option; he tries to avoid combat at all costs.
Long range combat ain't exactly fun- Zoom-Zoom has a severe lack of offensive weaponry at a distance. His laser pistols lose power the further away he is from an enemy, so even if he manages to land a hit, he tends to do very little damage. This usually isn't a problem, he normally is situated in enclosed areas and in close quarters to whatever his objective is.
On Earth, however, it is a huge slagging problem. Zoom-Zoom and Earth is not a good combination. Zoom-Zoom does not approve.
If they can see me- If Zoom-Zoom lacks the element of surprise, then he is in a lot of trouble, especially at a distance. Up close, he can hold his own for a bit but he'll generally attempt to escape rather than remain locked in combat. Depending on the skill level of his opponent, he might be able to fend them off and possibly defeat them but as Zoom-Zoom's opponents are normally larger than him with longer reach, he is normally at a disadvantage.
Stealth blind- the dampening systems Zoom-Zoom is equipped with shields him from conventional sensors...and Zoom-Zoom's own sensors are switched off when these are running. His own scans can be detected so using them on would defeat the entire purpose of the dampening systems. He therefore must rely on his optics only at this point and he can still be detected visually, he does NOT turn invisible. His paintjob therefore normally matches his surroundings, if it doesn’t then he can be detected a lot easier.
Basically, he's an easy target in a wide open space at a distance with multiple enemies (i.e Earth). He's at his deadliest in a dark place with an unaware enemy (i.e not Earth).
Glitchy processor- Zoom-Zoom's original function was extremely taxing on the processor as it required analysing huge volumes of data. So much information goes through the mech's processor all at once that it is incredibly difficult to retain a sense of self; essentially the mech's own mind is suppressed. Whilst Zoom-Zoom was fired from this job very early on, it was already too late, the minor instabilities that developed in his processor were permanent as they occurred during his fomulative vorns. Whilst it had no discernible effect on him for most of his life, after the Exodus, Zoom-Zoom lacked regular access to a medic and was left on his own for many vorns. The solitude as well as the many patches and alterations he made to his own processor exacerbated the instabilities and the first of the cracks are starting to show. Sometimes, Zoom-Zoom finds himself stuck in memories that he'd really rather not be or his thoughts run in circles and he can't break out of them. These episodes tend to occur when he skirts the edge of breaking the denial that's been keeping him going for so long.
Special skills:
Hacking: Zoom-Zoom’s always had a gift for code, it manifested during his first vorns of life. Whilst he is very good at getting in to things, he isn’t very good at getting out and leaving everything just the way he found it. This mostly due to his own particular sense of humor, he’ll leave programs and viruses that will activate long after he’s gone to make life particularly miserable for whoever requires the hacked computer/data system. He works best with non-living computer systems, so his ability to hack another mech is rather average (he has the equivalent ability to a normal mech, so they’d be quite capable of countering him/counterhacking him in turn. So he doesn’t bother, it’s rather pointless)
But he does have the unpleasant ability to hack the processor of dead mechs. Information recovered is normally incomplete and fractured, so that is a last resort.
Attention to detail- Zoom-Zoom was onlined as a data analyst and even though he did not enjoy his function, he still has the knack for absorbing large volumes of information in a short amount of time. He pays a large amount of attention to his surroundings and is always planning how to use the terrain to his best advantage.
Unfortunately, this ability does not translate to reading bots in a social setting.
First aid: As a consequence of his own upbringing and because Zoom-Zoom is rarely fortunate to have access to a qualified medic, he knows a fair deal about first aid and how to patch himself up. He has many ‘home remedies’ and has made many alterations to his coding that enables him to remain online after taking heavy damage. As a consequence, his neural net does not register pain properly…and his many other receptors are similarly numbed.
Extra Info:
Insubordinate- Zoom-Zoom respects a very small number of mechs. It takes a lot to earn his respect and most therefore do not bother or decide that it is not worth it. However, once earned, Zoom-Zoom is very loyal to that person. It doesn't have to be directly earned though. For instance, prior to Cybertron's fall, Zoom-Zoom held Optimus Prime in very high regard as the rest of his cohort had a lot of respect for him. Zoom-Zoom had never encountered Prime nor did he pay much attention to him, having dismissed Optimus as just another politician. His faith in Optimus and the Autobots however is shattered upon his return to a dead Cybertron. Convincing him to take up the Autobrand again will take time and even more time is required to convince him that humans are worthy of his attention.
Bad-luck magnet- Zoom-Zoom is sometimes convinced that the only reason he is alive is because Primus has a very twisted sense of humour. His stealth approach doesn't always work and more often than Zoom-Zoom likes to think about, it fails in situations it really shouldn’t have. This leads to bizarre misadventures as he attempts to escape. Zoom-Zoom is all too well acquainted with the weird and wacky.
Miniature purple griffin- The MPG is a luxury companion toy from an organic planet somewhere. It was a popular choice for young children, the small mechanical creature is pure distilled happiness. Somewhere along the lines, Zoom-Zoom acquired one. Whether this during his times on the Iaconian streets or during the war remains unclear. For the most part, it lives inside Zoom-Zoom's subspace and has managed to outlast the war. It was Zoom-Zoom's only companion during his many lonely vorns after the Exodus and as a result, he is rather attached to it.
The MPG contains several recorded messages from Zoom-Zoom's cohort along with memory vid files and images from them, a timecapsule from happier times.