Rail
Oct 14, 2018 2:47:31 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Oct 14, 2018 2:47:31 GMT -5
PLAYER INFO
Name/Alias: Dragon
IM/Email: dragonandoff@gmail.com
Where did you find us?: Google search
CHARACTER INFO
Name: Rail
Age: human equivalent of mid 20’s
Gender: Mech
Species: Cybertronian
Faction: Autobot
Original Occupation: Energon transmission line technician.
Occupation/Specialization: Energon/resource scout, scavenger, survivor.
Appearance: Strong functionalist coding coupled with a mild inferiority complex has led Rail down the path of body modification to feed his self worth. Adding to this are numerous repairs from wartime injuries and so Rail’s framework and chassis are far from his original appearance and Cybertronian norm.
Rail approximates Bumblebee’s size and bulk although he is about a third lighter. His armor is a cohesive blend of simple curves and angles. His outer armor plating is muted silver while his less armored areas are primarily simple black. Rail has no intention to stand out from the background and get shot at! His optics however are bright red.
Rail’s helm is much more elongated than his original. He has two large swept back finials laying almost flush with the top of his head and another large sweeping finial on either side of his head. His large red optics are deeply set into a super black background. His battle mask is actually two pieces – upper and lower – and forms his non-expressive mouth. It is sharply wedge shaped. Overall his face and helm have an aerodynamic appearance seemingly built for speed. He has two small forward pointing horns from his temples and on his cheeks lay two puck shaped air inlets.
The upper arms and shoulders of Rail’s frame are more heavily built than his forearms shifting mass closer to his torso. Likewise, his legs are digitigrade with most of the bulk in his thighs and knees, a reversal of the norm. His feet are broad, with three flattened claw like toes to fore and one to aft each. His chest plate is formed from his alt-modes windscreen and he has four “ribs” on each side of his torso formed of his altmodes V8 exhaust manifold. The front wheels of Rail alt-mode are buried in his knees. The rear wheels lay mostly flat against his shoulder blades. Flat plate sections of Rail’s alt-mode fan out slightly from his hips in a vague resemblance of a bird’s tail feathers.
He has a hunched semi-crouched posture in part to balancing the weight of his kibble, in part to make him a smaller target and in part due to him taking on a stalking posture. Rail has an Autobot emblem etched onto his left shoulder. It’s only really visible when the light hits it just right.
Altmode: Rail’s altmode is cunningly disguised as a 1970’s Chevrolet C10 stepside pro-street drag truck. He has taken the opportunity to pick something a little more fun than his previous form of a regular Cybertronian pickup. Looks alot like this
History: Rail came online about halfway between the commencement of the Caste system and the beginning of the Great War. He was constructed cold in Alpha Numerica, Tagan Heights and he was built to replace an off-lined member of a five strong cohort. The four others of Rail’s cohort all donated code and as such, his personality traits strongly reflect theirs. At the time, he had what would be in human terms, two sisters and two brothers, Harpoon, Staple, Nail and Taser respectively.
The five worked all over the city maintaining the aging energon lines. Due to the nature of their work and the particular environment of the Energon lines, standard comms often couldn’t get through the interference. Rail received his first mod less than a deca-cycle of coming online, that of high reception finials. It was just the start of Rail’s path of modification to become better. Rail’s work consisted repairing aged line, power converters and substations, preventive maintenance and even liaising with construction crews when new building were interfaced with the network. Rail had some tools built into his hands and forearms, the gas spectrometers built into his facial air vents were used for detecting leaks before and after work, and he simply carried anything else he needed in the truck bed of his altmode.
For what seemed an eon, peace reigned between the five. When Megatron came to public attention and starting voicing what plenty were feeling, then the split in the cohort started forming. One fateful day Staple and Taser joined the Decepticon movement. It was the last Rail ever heard of them. Within a decacycle the war started. Nail, Harpoon and Rail all agreed that the Decepticon rally for freedom for the working class was a worthy ideal, but not when the means was so aggressively violent. Thus the three joined the Autobots in a support role.
Early in the war, Nail was obliterated in a flash of plasma during a Decepticon bombing run. In the aftermath, Rail and Harpoon vied for resource scouting rolls, not wanting to lose each other and be the last of their cohort. Millennia spent scavenging weapons, ammunition, repair nanites and simply energon brought the pair closer together. Under a quiet night sky where both sides had currently committed to solidifying their positions, Rail and Harpoon performed the ceremony of becoming Amica Endura. For a million years of war, their romance seemed to be the only thing keeping each other sane.
The pair was ambushed when returning from what they thought was a successful scouting run on Decepticon fortifications. Sentries had somehow picked them up on their sensors, tailed them and gained steadily. It was a drawn out fire fight between three ‘Cons and the pair of ‘Bot scouts. In the end, Rail was the only survivor in the ensuing battle.
During the last million years, time spent with only the memories of his cohort, Rail became increasingly anti-social. He grieved when he could but never found comfort. As the war depleted any and all resources, scouting became increasingly dangerous as both sides became more desperate. It was during this time that Rail had his arm blades upgraded to their current form in his own desperation to combat enemy scouts.
Time went by with Rail drifting deeper into a feral state. He still scouted for the Autobots but communicated less and less. A point in the war came when both sides started to consolidate everything they had in preparation for leaving the planet behind. Like the proverbial rat leaving a sinking ship, Rail did what it took to survive. He swallowed his fear of social interaction, his fear of getting close to someone only to lose them. Rail joined the exodus. He integrated himself into the remaining Autobots forces using his technical aptitude to help prepare and crew the Ark.
Of course the Great War continued in space, all manner of combat taking place between the Decepticon Nemesis and the Autobot Ark. Rail fought Decepticon boarding parties desperately, turning his relentless fear outward into determination to not fail. As the battle for survival was all but lost, Rail like so many others found the only place to not die was the inside of a life pod. The pod flung itself free half a second after the Ark made its quantum jump into local Earth space. Caught in cross fire, Rail’s pod was damaged, losing partial control of thrusters. The only available maneuver was for the tiny ship to set a round-about intercept course that would take over fours years to complete.
Utterly alone in the open vastness of space with not a single pressing duty to attend to, Rail found himself at peace for the first time since losing Harpoon. He spent a lot of time grieving and healing. In-between bouts of repairing his psychological issues, Rail spent the time binge watching Earth documentaries whenever the life pod was able to intercept Earth TV signals. He rather enjoyed learning about everything from ancient ammonites to ziggurats and zebras. He’s in for a surprise when he finds out just how small a human is compared to a Cybertronian.
Personality: Rail is mostly driven to act for two primary reasons. Firstly, he is very dutiful. He takes his responsibilities seriously and will nearly always do the best he is capable of. During the war, his success as a scout could mean life or death for others and himself. Rail does have a bad habit of taking on too much responsibility. Secondly, Rail is a coward at heart. He fears death, and rightly so. He also fears failure and loss. The conflicting fear for his own survival versus the survival of another in dire circumstances has left him paralyzed with indecision at least once resulting in him feeling guilty for still being alive. Screwing his mind in endless circles however is the knowledge that his continued ability to find resources means others also get to live. Rail is currently a bundle of twitchy nerves wary of everything that moves and some things that don’t. He also has an unfulfilled desire to be better than he currently is. To this end, he is often seeking ways to get himself modified and quite literally make himself better. He is however very fussy and always weighs up every pro and con.
One thing that Rail does not instinctively fear is change. He delights in new experiences and any chance to indulge his natural curiosity. It must be said that Rail does follow “Is it safe?” protocol before chasing novel experiences. Earth would be a delight were it not for Energon starvation, Decepticons and MECH. He is surprisingly bright and easily understands even verbose specialists. He may not use many polysyllabic words himself but he knows what they all mean. Rail reads quite a lot as he finds both the learning and the exercise in itself relaxing and rewarding.
If and when Rail can put his duties and fears aside, others will find what lies beneath is much warmer. It becomes obvious that Rail deeply cares for others. He is helpful, attentive and friendly. In the company of someone with who he feels comfortable, Rail can be quite playful, cheeky and affectionate. Sadly, even at his pre-war best, Rail is socially inept and comes across as awkward and dorky. He knows that he is awkward and dorky, he’s fine with this.
Rail is far more loyal to Autobots individually than he is to the cause. He is in part coded, built and brought up by functionalists. He believes that every mech and femme should take their duties seriously, but they should also be free to choose what that duty is.
Over the eons of the Great War, Rail became increasingly reclusive on his scouting missions to the point that until recently, he was almost feral. However, he has spent the last five years alone and has taken the time to reflect inwards and start to sort himself out. He yearns for a future where he can spend his days working happily alongside his friends and not fearing for his safety or theirs. Currently Rail is still very much nervous, skittish and even twitchy but he is at the point where he is ready to try and put past fears behind him and get close to people again.
Likes: Feeling Safe, soothing music, documentaries, reading, being helpful, easy going ‘bots, praise and new experiences.
Dislikes: Landmines, tripwires, booby traps of all manner, unexpected loud noises, intimidating mechs, failure, being chewed out, seeing someone die, and bugs on his windscreen.
Strengths/Weapons:
They see me rollin’: In vehicle mode, Rail is built for speed and acceleration, it’s basically the definition of his alt mode. Being a giant alien robot disguised as a Chevy drag truck means he is not as fast as the vehicle he scanned – he tops out at 250KPH – but he has no problems cornering either.
Moves like Jagger: Rail has had himself modified to be as fast and agile on his feet as reasonably possible without compromising strength and armor too much. He is quite frankly damn nimble though the likes of Arcee will show him up easily. The toes of his feet provide him unparalleled traction on rough terrain and he is an excellent climber. Rail’s movements are in no way graceful and he is the most awkward dancer despite his flexibility.
Sick sense: As part of his core design, Rail has two special air filters – effectively finely tuned gas spectrometers. Puck shaped, they sit on both cheeks. Simple enough in nature, they detect specific ionized trace gasses associated with Energon leakage. For about fifty odd gasses, his sense of smell is at the limit of technology. He can detect most Cybertronians by smell provided they are up wind of him and can identify one cybertronian from one another. Rail can only detect energon based technology in this manner, he cannot and his sense of smell for anything else is purely average for his species. The first mod Rail ever received was extended communications reception in the form of his four extended finials. This was the primary means of contact within his cohort when they were scattered across a city on work detail. The rest of Rail’s senses are quite average in term of quality and design.
What’s good for the gander: Rail has the same basic ability to transform his arms into melee or ranged weapons as most Autobots. His blaster mode is nearly identical in style and power to a common Vehicon trooper. He can gun down lightly armored opponents without undue difficulty but would be unable to scratch anyone heavily armored.
For melee, his hands and outer sections of his forearms transform into curving blades that stretch past his elbow. These have also been modified from the smaller original design. If Rail so chooses, the outer edge of the blade can superheat to 4000 degrees Celsius. This allows Rail to slice into heavier armor as though his blades were preternaturally sharp. There are limitations, it takes Rail close to twenty seconds to heat the blades up and this consumes a tremendous amount of energon. At most, he can keep them hot for another forty seconds before needing to recharge. In practice, this really only gives Rail twenty seconds in which to whittle down the armor of tough opponents if he wants to do anything else before recharging – like running away.
Fast and furious: Rail’s martial skill at combat compared to the other Autobots is lackluster. However Rail fights with frantic savage energy because to him, every fight is a fight for his life. Rail survives by simply hitting and moving fast enough the opponent never gets an opening. He prefers melee to ranged combat as it maximizes his agility and he can take a punch better than he can take getting shot.
Five star crash safety: Rail’s armor is built specifically with impact in mind. Knee, hip elbow and shoulder joints are all well protected from knocks and blows, or falling damage. Rail’s armor is better optimized to absorb the physical energy from a punch, but it is weak against stabbing/piercing weapons and abysmal against energy weapons. To quantify this, Rail’s armor is medium vs. impact and bludgeoning, light vs. stabbing and piercing, and barely there vs. energy weapons.
Weaknesses:
Please don’t hit me: Rail’s armor is not designed to protect from any form of energy weapon, like the one’s most Cybertronians use in ranged combat. He appears to be much better armored than he actually is. For somebody of his physical size, Rail has below average strength. At best he can lift his own weight above his head. He is a lightweight and he hits like it. These combined means an opponent might over compensate or overestimate and treat Rail like he more challenging than he really is. Rail’s least armored body parts are his lower back and his feet and ankles.
It hurts when I tee: Mods and wartime repairs have put undue stress on Rail’s T Cog. He is currently on his second which already has significantly worn down teeth. If Rail receives damage in either mode, there is a chance parts won’t align completely and he won’t be able to complete his transformation as his cog binds up. Anytime this happens puts extra stress on his t cog and increases the probability of a critical failure. Rail noticeably transforms slowly and carefully.
Anti-social butterfly: Rail currently has trouble interacting with others; he has spent too much time alone. He’s unlikely to ask for help when he needs it because he doesn’t want to put someone out and he sees it as personal failure. Rail’s also fears getting close to others again. He has made some progress but it’s an ongoing process. The novelty of Earth is a big help here as his inquisitiveness can lower his defenses.
Take a seat: Being digitigrade in Rail’s case means his legs never fully straighten. Because his joints don’t lock either, he gets tired if he stands too long just like a human which can lead to poor actuator response for a few seconds. This can make Rail a lot less agile if caught unaware. While this can be viewed as a design flaw, it is deliberate to maintain stability.
Wildly predictable: Rail was never coded to be a frontline soldier nor has he trained as one, and this shows in his melee skill. He relies on his agility and reflexes to fight and less so his skill. For an opponent of sufficient skill, Rail’s moves, for all their speed are very obvious.
Optics up here!: A focus on duty leaves Rail prone to tunnel vision. He’s good at scouting for resources or enemies but not both at the same time. Throw in scouting for traps and something important will get missed.
Energizer stress bunny: Rail frets way too much about duties and responsibilities. Work life balance? Work is Life!
Special Skills:
Jack of all trades, master of some: Anyone who can survive millions of years of the nastiest Civil War the galaxy ever saw has got to be made of something special. Great manual dexterity, quick mind and resolve to get the job done has Made Rail highly capable in most tasks he’s been assigned.
Energon is life: Between his core coding and work experience, Rail knows the ins and outs of all manner of energon transfer systems and energon handling. He knows how it’s generated, refined and processed, all the varieties and other stuff that the author doesn’t know.
Extra Info:
Stainless Steel Rat: Rail is outright fussy about his personal upkeep. He has to take care of himself if he wants to be fit for duty – which is an absolute must, but also, if he didn’t, one or more of his mods would cause some systems to crash in no short time.
Speech impediment: Whether due to lack of use or some deterioration in vocal circuitry, Rail, instead of vocalizing expletives or growling or hissing in aggravation like a human might instead produces a sound of static. It is close to a hiss, but recognizably wrong.
Who am I?: The combination of dark plain colors, red optics and no obvious faction symbol means Rail is not easy to identify as either Autobot or Decepticon visually. This confusion can be played to Rail’s benefit under the right circumstances.
Sample RP:
The two Autobots were in a fire fight with two Decepticons. It was a running battle as each individual ran from cover to cover, the Autobot scouts retreating back in the general direction of safety, with the Decepticons intent on stopping them with lethal force. The good guys had already taken down one of the enemy reducing the ‘Cons from their previous three.
“RUN!” Harpoon screamed at Rail. She stood up from behind the rubble that was her cover, and fired frantically at three enemies providing covering fire for Rail’s retreat. He sprinted over the torn up ferrocrete road and dived for the next piece of cover. Rail expected to see Harpoon duck back down but instead he saw her slowly collapse as sparks arced from her chest. He panicked and sprinted over the intervening distance to her aid as energy shots from enemy weapons whizzed past. Rail cradled Harpoon’s face as her optics flared out, the fresh hole torn in her chest testimony to her extinguished spark. A single second morphed into eons as pure shock flooded Rail. His conjunx endure was dead, the one he loved with a fire hotter than sun, the last of his cohort. Loss flashed through him, transformed into agony and then blazed into abyssal fury. Conscious thought no longer existed in Rail’s mind, only the need to extinguish the Decepticons.
Hands transformed into paired blasters as Rail charged with ungodly speed at the targets of his fury. With every step he fired those blasters in their direction, accuracy was not needed. Such was the turn of events that the Decepticons were caught unprepared for Rail’s wild charge. He jumped over their cover, rotating in the air to keep firing at the ‘Cons. As he landed, the blasters transformed once again into punch daggers. With agility maximized by absolute focus, Rail fought both of his targets simultaneously. Their defenses failed against the relentless onslaught of Rail’s blows. The two Decepticons fell quickly and it was only when he had beheaded one and torn the spark from the other did Rail cease.
The Autobot scout and lone survivor choked back sobs as reality hit home. The violence of Rail’s own actions shook him up. He half stumbled his way back to Harpoon, his mind such a mess of emotion that he could only act and not think. Rail gently scooped up Harpoon into his arms and walked back to the camp of his assigned squad.
Name/Alias: Dragon
IM/Email: dragonandoff@gmail.com
Where did you find us?: Google search
CHARACTER INFO
Name: Rail
Age: human equivalent of mid 20’s
Gender: Mech
Species: Cybertronian
Faction: Autobot
Original Occupation: Energon transmission line technician.
Occupation/Specialization: Energon/resource scout, scavenger, survivor.
Appearance: Strong functionalist coding coupled with a mild inferiority complex has led Rail down the path of body modification to feed his self worth. Adding to this are numerous repairs from wartime injuries and so Rail’s framework and chassis are far from his original appearance and Cybertronian norm.
Rail approximates Bumblebee’s size and bulk although he is about a third lighter. His armor is a cohesive blend of simple curves and angles. His outer armor plating is muted silver while his less armored areas are primarily simple black. Rail has no intention to stand out from the background and get shot at! His optics however are bright red.
Rail’s helm is much more elongated than his original. He has two large swept back finials laying almost flush with the top of his head and another large sweeping finial on either side of his head. His large red optics are deeply set into a super black background. His battle mask is actually two pieces – upper and lower – and forms his non-expressive mouth. It is sharply wedge shaped. Overall his face and helm have an aerodynamic appearance seemingly built for speed. He has two small forward pointing horns from his temples and on his cheeks lay two puck shaped air inlets.
The upper arms and shoulders of Rail’s frame are more heavily built than his forearms shifting mass closer to his torso. Likewise, his legs are digitigrade with most of the bulk in his thighs and knees, a reversal of the norm. His feet are broad, with three flattened claw like toes to fore and one to aft each. His chest plate is formed from his alt-modes windscreen and he has four “ribs” on each side of his torso formed of his altmodes V8 exhaust manifold. The front wheels of Rail alt-mode are buried in his knees. The rear wheels lay mostly flat against his shoulder blades. Flat plate sections of Rail’s alt-mode fan out slightly from his hips in a vague resemblance of a bird’s tail feathers.
He has a hunched semi-crouched posture in part to balancing the weight of his kibble, in part to make him a smaller target and in part due to him taking on a stalking posture. Rail has an Autobot emblem etched onto his left shoulder. It’s only really visible when the light hits it just right.
Altmode: Rail’s altmode is cunningly disguised as a 1970’s Chevrolet C10 stepside pro-street drag truck. He has taken the opportunity to pick something a little more fun than his previous form of a regular Cybertronian pickup. Looks alot like this
History: Rail came online about halfway between the commencement of the Caste system and the beginning of the Great War. He was constructed cold in Alpha Numerica, Tagan Heights and he was built to replace an off-lined member of a five strong cohort. The four others of Rail’s cohort all donated code and as such, his personality traits strongly reflect theirs. At the time, he had what would be in human terms, two sisters and two brothers, Harpoon, Staple, Nail and Taser respectively.
The five worked all over the city maintaining the aging energon lines. Due to the nature of their work and the particular environment of the Energon lines, standard comms often couldn’t get through the interference. Rail received his first mod less than a deca-cycle of coming online, that of high reception finials. It was just the start of Rail’s path of modification to become better. Rail’s work consisted repairing aged line, power converters and substations, preventive maintenance and even liaising with construction crews when new building were interfaced with the network. Rail had some tools built into his hands and forearms, the gas spectrometers built into his facial air vents were used for detecting leaks before and after work, and he simply carried anything else he needed in the truck bed of his altmode.
For what seemed an eon, peace reigned between the five. When Megatron came to public attention and starting voicing what plenty were feeling, then the split in the cohort started forming. One fateful day Staple and Taser joined the Decepticon movement. It was the last Rail ever heard of them. Within a decacycle the war started. Nail, Harpoon and Rail all agreed that the Decepticon rally for freedom for the working class was a worthy ideal, but not when the means was so aggressively violent. Thus the three joined the Autobots in a support role.
Early in the war, Nail was obliterated in a flash of plasma during a Decepticon bombing run. In the aftermath, Rail and Harpoon vied for resource scouting rolls, not wanting to lose each other and be the last of their cohort. Millennia spent scavenging weapons, ammunition, repair nanites and simply energon brought the pair closer together. Under a quiet night sky where both sides had currently committed to solidifying their positions, Rail and Harpoon performed the ceremony of becoming Amica Endura. For a million years of war, their romance seemed to be the only thing keeping each other sane.
The pair was ambushed when returning from what they thought was a successful scouting run on Decepticon fortifications. Sentries had somehow picked them up on their sensors, tailed them and gained steadily. It was a drawn out fire fight between three ‘Cons and the pair of ‘Bot scouts. In the end, Rail was the only survivor in the ensuing battle.
During the last million years, time spent with only the memories of his cohort, Rail became increasingly anti-social. He grieved when he could but never found comfort. As the war depleted any and all resources, scouting became increasingly dangerous as both sides became more desperate. It was during this time that Rail had his arm blades upgraded to their current form in his own desperation to combat enemy scouts.
Time went by with Rail drifting deeper into a feral state. He still scouted for the Autobots but communicated less and less. A point in the war came when both sides started to consolidate everything they had in preparation for leaving the planet behind. Like the proverbial rat leaving a sinking ship, Rail did what it took to survive. He swallowed his fear of social interaction, his fear of getting close to someone only to lose them. Rail joined the exodus. He integrated himself into the remaining Autobots forces using his technical aptitude to help prepare and crew the Ark.
Of course the Great War continued in space, all manner of combat taking place between the Decepticon Nemesis and the Autobot Ark. Rail fought Decepticon boarding parties desperately, turning his relentless fear outward into determination to not fail. As the battle for survival was all but lost, Rail like so many others found the only place to not die was the inside of a life pod. The pod flung itself free half a second after the Ark made its quantum jump into local Earth space. Caught in cross fire, Rail’s pod was damaged, losing partial control of thrusters. The only available maneuver was for the tiny ship to set a round-about intercept course that would take over fours years to complete.
Utterly alone in the open vastness of space with not a single pressing duty to attend to, Rail found himself at peace for the first time since losing Harpoon. He spent a lot of time grieving and healing. In-between bouts of repairing his psychological issues, Rail spent the time binge watching Earth documentaries whenever the life pod was able to intercept Earth TV signals. He rather enjoyed learning about everything from ancient ammonites to ziggurats and zebras. He’s in for a surprise when he finds out just how small a human is compared to a Cybertronian.
Personality: Rail is mostly driven to act for two primary reasons. Firstly, he is very dutiful. He takes his responsibilities seriously and will nearly always do the best he is capable of. During the war, his success as a scout could mean life or death for others and himself. Rail does have a bad habit of taking on too much responsibility. Secondly, Rail is a coward at heart. He fears death, and rightly so. He also fears failure and loss. The conflicting fear for his own survival versus the survival of another in dire circumstances has left him paralyzed with indecision at least once resulting in him feeling guilty for still being alive. Screwing his mind in endless circles however is the knowledge that his continued ability to find resources means others also get to live. Rail is currently a bundle of twitchy nerves wary of everything that moves and some things that don’t. He also has an unfulfilled desire to be better than he currently is. To this end, he is often seeking ways to get himself modified and quite literally make himself better. He is however very fussy and always weighs up every pro and con.
One thing that Rail does not instinctively fear is change. He delights in new experiences and any chance to indulge his natural curiosity. It must be said that Rail does follow “Is it safe?” protocol before chasing novel experiences. Earth would be a delight were it not for Energon starvation, Decepticons and MECH. He is surprisingly bright and easily understands even verbose specialists. He may not use many polysyllabic words himself but he knows what they all mean. Rail reads quite a lot as he finds both the learning and the exercise in itself relaxing and rewarding.
If and when Rail can put his duties and fears aside, others will find what lies beneath is much warmer. It becomes obvious that Rail deeply cares for others. He is helpful, attentive and friendly. In the company of someone with who he feels comfortable, Rail can be quite playful, cheeky and affectionate. Sadly, even at his pre-war best, Rail is socially inept and comes across as awkward and dorky. He knows that he is awkward and dorky, he’s fine with this.
Rail is far more loyal to Autobots individually than he is to the cause. He is in part coded, built and brought up by functionalists. He believes that every mech and femme should take their duties seriously, but they should also be free to choose what that duty is.
Over the eons of the Great War, Rail became increasingly reclusive on his scouting missions to the point that until recently, he was almost feral. However, he has spent the last five years alone and has taken the time to reflect inwards and start to sort himself out. He yearns for a future where he can spend his days working happily alongside his friends and not fearing for his safety or theirs. Currently Rail is still very much nervous, skittish and even twitchy but he is at the point where he is ready to try and put past fears behind him and get close to people again.
Likes: Feeling Safe, soothing music, documentaries, reading, being helpful, easy going ‘bots, praise and new experiences.
Dislikes: Landmines, tripwires, booby traps of all manner, unexpected loud noises, intimidating mechs, failure, being chewed out, seeing someone die, and bugs on his windscreen.
Strengths/Weapons:
They see me rollin’: In vehicle mode, Rail is built for speed and acceleration, it’s basically the definition of his alt mode. Being a giant alien robot disguised as a Chevy drag truck means he is not as fast as the vehicle he scanned – he tops out at 250KPH – but he has no problems cornering either.
Moves like Jagger: Rail has had himself modified to be as fast and agile on his feet as reasonably possible without compromising strength and armor too much. He is quite frankly damn nimble though the likes of Arcee will show him up easily. The toes of his feet provide him unparalleled traction on rough terrain and he is an excellent climber. Rail’s movements are in no way graceful and he is the most awkward dancer despite his flexibility.
Sick sense: As part of his core design, Rail has two special air filters – effectively finely tuned gas spectrometers. Puck shaped, they sit on both cheeks. Simple enough in nature, they detect specific ionized trace gasses associated with Energon leakage. For about fifty odd gasses, his sense of smell is at the limit of technology. He can detect most Cybertronians by smell provided they are up wind of him and can identify one cybertronian from one another. Rail can only detect energon based technology in this manner, he cannot and his sense of smell for anything else is purely average for his species. The first mod Rail ever received was extended communications reception in the form of his four extended finials. This was the primary means of contact within his cohort when they were scattered across a city on work detail. The rest of Rail’s senses are quite average in term of quality and design.
What’s good for the gander: Rail has the same basic ability to transform his arms into melee or ranged weapons as most Autobots. His blaster mode is nearly identical in style and power to a common Vehicon trooper. He can gun down lightly armored opponents without undue difficulty but would be unable to scratch anyone heavily armored.
For melee, his hands and outer sections of his forearms transform into curving blades that stretch past his elbow. These have also been modified from the smaller original design. If Rail so chooses, the outer edge of the blade can superheat to 4000 degrees Celsius. This allows Rail to slice into heavier armor as though his blades were preternaturally sharp. There are limitations, it takes Rail close to twenty seconds to heat the blades up and this consumes a tremendous amount of energon. At most, he can keep them hot for another forty seconds before needing to recharge. In practice, this really only gives Rail twenty seconds in which to whittle down the armor of tough opponents if he wants to do anything else before recharging – like running away.
Fast and furious: Rail’s martial skill at combat compared to the other Autobots is lackluster. However Rail fights with frantic savage energy because to him, every fight is a fight for his life. Rail survives by simply hitting and moving fast enough the opponent never gets an opening. He prefers melee to ranged combat as it maximizes his agility and he can take a punch better than he can take getting shot.
Five star crash safety: Rail’s armor is built specifically with impact in mind. Knee, hip elbow and shoulder joints are all well protected from knocks and blows, or falling damage. Rail’s armor is better optimized to absorb the physical energy from a punch, but it is weak against stabbing/piercing weapons and abysmal against energy weapons. To quantify this, Rail’s armor is medium vs. impact and bludgeoning, light vs. stabbing and piercing, and barely there vs. energy weapons.
Weaknesses:
Please don’t hit me: Rail’s armor is not designed to protect from any form of energy weapon, like the one’s most Cybertronians use in ranged combat. He appears to be much better armored than he actually is. For somebody of his physical size, Rail has below average strength. At best he can lift his own weight above his head. He is a lightweight and he hits like it. These combined means an opponent might over compensate or overestimate and treat Rail like he more challenging than he really is. Rail’s least armored body parts are his lower back and his feet and ankles.
It hurts when I tee: Mods and wartime repairs have put undue stress on Rail’s T Cog. He is currently on his second which already has significantly worn down teeth. If Rail receives damage in either mode, there is a chance parts won’t align completely and he won’t be able to complete his transformation as his cog binds up. Anytime this happens puts extra stress on his t cog and increases the probability of a critical failure. Rail noticeably transforms slowly and carefully.
Anti-social butterfly: Rail currently has trouble interacting with others; he has spent too much time alone. He’s unlikely to ask for help when he needs it because he doesn’t want to put someone out and he sees it as personal failure. Rail’s also fears getting close to others again. He has made some progress but it’s an ongoing process. The novelty of Earth is a big help here as his inquisitiveness can lower his defenses.
Take a seat: Being digitigrade in Rail’s case means his legs never fully straighten. Because his joints don’t lock either, he gets tired if he stands too long just like a human which can lead to poor actuator response for a few seconds. This can make Rail a lot less agile if caught unaware. While this can be viewed as a design flaw, it is deliberate to maintain stability.
Wildly predictable: Rail was never coded to be a frontline soldier nor has he trained as one, and this shows in his melee skill. He relies on his agility and reflexes to fight and less so his skill. For an opponent of sufficient skill, Rail’s moves, for all their speed are very obvious.
Optics up here!: A focus on duty leaves Rail prone to tunnel vision. He’s good at scouting for resources or enemies but not both at the same time. Throw in scouting for traps and something important will get missed.
Energizer stress bunny: Rail frets way too much about duties and responsibilities. Work life balance? Work is Life!
Special Skills:
Jack of all trades, master of some: Anyone who can survive millions of years of the nastiest Civil War the galaxy ever saw has got to be made of something special. Great manual dexterity, quick mind and resolve to get the job done has Made Rail highly capable in most tasks he’s been assigned.
Energon is life: Between his core coding and work experience, Rail knows the ins and outs of all manner of energon transfer systems and energon handling. He knows how it’s generated, refined and processed, all the varieties and other stuff that the author doesn’t know.
Extra Info:
Stainless Steel Rat: Rail is outright fussy about his personal upkeep. He has to take care of himself if he wants to be fit for duty – which is an absolute must, but also, if he didn’t, one or more of his mods would cause some systems to crash in no short time.
Speech impediment: Whether due to lack of use or some deterioration in vocal circuitry, Rail, instead of vocalizing expletives or growling or hissing in aggravation like a human might instead produces a sound of static. It is close to a hiss, but recognizably wrong.
Who am I?: The combination of dark plain colors, red optics and no obvious faction symbol means Rail is not easy to identify as either Autobot or Decepticon visually. This confusion can be played to Rail’s benefit under the right circumstances.
Sample RP:
The two Autobots were in a fire fight with two Decepticons. It was a running battle as each individual ran from cover to cover, the Autobot scouts retreating back in the general direction of safety, with the Decepticons intent on stopping them with lethal force. The good guys had already taken down one of the enemy reducing the ‘Cons from their previous three.
“RUN!” Harpoon screamed at Rail. She stood up from behind the rubble that was her cover, and fired frantically at three enemies providing covering fire for Rail’s retreat. He sprinted over the torn up ferrocrete road and dived for the next piece of cover. Rail expected to see Harpoon duck back down but instead he saw her slowly collapse as sparks arced from her chest. He panicked and sprinted over the intervening distance to her aid as energy shots from enemy weapons whizzed past. Rail cradled Harpoon’s face as her optics flared out, the fresh hole torn in her chest testimony to her extinguished spark. A single second morphed into eons as pure shock flooded Rail. His conjunx endure was dead, the one he loved with a fire hotter than sun, the last of his cohort. Loss flashed through him, transformed into agony and then blazed into abyssal fury. Conscious thought no longer existed in Rail’s mind, only the need to extinguish the Decepticons.
Hands transformed into paired blasters as Rail charged with ungodly speed at the targets of his fury. With every step he fired those blasters in their direction, accuracy was not needed. Such was the turn of events that the Decepticons were caught unprepared for Rail’s wild charge. He jumped over their cover, rotating in the air to keep firing at the ‘Cons. As he landed, the blasters transformed once again into punch daggers. With agility maximized by absolute focus, Rail fought both of his targets simultaneously. Their defenses failed against the relentless onslaught of Rail’s blows. The two Decepticons fell quickly and it was only when he had beheaded one and torn the spark from the other did Rail cease.
The Autobot scout and lone survivor choked back sobs as reality hit home. The violence of Rail’s own actions shook him up. He half stumbled his way back to Harpoon, his mind such a mess of emotion that he could only act and not think. Rail gently scooped up Harpoon into his arms and walked back to the camp of his assigned squad.