Ravage

[Ravage]

Player Info-
Name/Alias: Feldspar
IM/Email: [e-mail]
 

 

-Character Info-

Name: Ravage
Age (or human equivalent): ~ mid to late 40's...
Gender (or human equivalent): mech/male
Species: Cybertronian
Faction: Decepticon
Original Occupation: Security.
Occupation/Specialization: Special Operations (spying/sabotage/security)

Appearance/Altmode: Ravage's main form is a quadruped black body with gray limbs and gray facial markings. He has a prehensile tail and red optics that are sometimes covered by a full facemask/visor in battle. He is sleek, quiet, and slinks in a way that pings humans as a mechanical puma-type cat. On all fours, he is roughly the same height as Steeljaw: kneehigh on an average Cybertronian like Bee. He is not as bulky with equipment as Steeljaw is, but does have more plating, so they equal out to about the same size.

History: Ravage was originally sparked long before the war as a mech named Cipher. His frametype were made as companions or light-duty workers. Usually, they were pets, secretaries, administrative desk types; sometimes artists or thinkers. He himself started out fairly high-class for his frametype: a companion-guard for one of the Overlords, the Autobots in control for much of Cybertronian history. He and his partner Nightstalker remained as the first line of alert, guarding them until only one enfeebled Overlord remained.

Nightstalker was the muscle of the pair, never questioning his duty and ready to fend off all who might attack with fang and claw. Cipher was the intelligence-gatherer; sniffing out anything that might prove dangerous to his master. He was always listening, on guard to the world around him. 

It was inevitable that he would begin learning all about the Decepticon resistance movement and the measures the government was setting in place to put it down. Said measures were harsh and becoming increasingly reliant on just making the troublemakers disappear. Blackmail, intimidation, assault, torture, incarceration, involuntary recodes and reformats, murder... all tactics used by the government to deal with the nascent Decepticon threat.

Cipher at first dealt with the data in the abstract, the same as the commercial data he'd dealt with before. Then he began to see the patterns: mechs were sparked as cogs in the machine, were abused and treated unfairly, became upset...and were put down brutally. This only fed the discontent, which led to more crackdowns.

The pattern was clear, and yet the government that constantly trotted out the party line of serving the people did not answer the peoples' concerns, did not attempt even the minor concessions that would have stilled the violence. The illogic of it drove Cipher to begin questioning everything in the pattern in an attempt to understand.

He began re-analyzing the data he received: not for his superior, but for himself. The answer became clear - the government was lying. The government was corrupt. The government did not serve the people. The government served only itself and its own survival. The government was not interested in change or independent thought. The government wanted cogs. Silent, efficient, mindless cogs. And if those cogs drew attention to themselves by not being silent or efficient, well...cogs can always be replaced. New Cybertronians were coming online every day, after all, some of them tailor-made to just the function that the old, inefficient ones used to fill.

About that time, Cipher made his first, careful contact with the Decepticon movement. He saw no other logical choice. He was a cog. Eventually he would be deemed inefficient and replaced, too. He had to break the system before it broke him.

Cipher became a Decepticon sympathizer and then a Decepticon. His position allowed him to feed the revolutionaries information about government movements, moles, and plans. When the Autobot Overlord and Nightstalker were killed in a skirmish between Vos and Tarn, so was his loyal Cipher. All traces of Cypher's existence were wiped, hidden - forgotten about, and in his place padded Ravage, the master spy. 

He stepped into Megatron's devoted ranks, smoothly intercepting warnings about not one, not two, but three plots to assassinate Megatron and several sting operations that would have captured multiple high-ranking Decepticons. Ravage's bravery, cunning, and devotion to the cause earned him respect that outstripped his small size.

When the war truly broke out, though, Ravage's frame became a serious liability. Unike others, his body was not built for strength or speed. Any military-grade weapon would do him serious damage with just one shot, and one eventually did.

Critically injured, Ravage struck a deal with Soundwave, whom he'd worked with before. Soundwave wanted a cohort member and gestalt bond. Ravage wanted to live and to be upgraded so that he could fight properly for the Decepticon cause. They agreed that these two desires were compatible, and in the end he was rebuilt as Soundwave's gestaltmate.

Ravage worked quite happily with Soundwave for many vorns, gathering intelligence and expanding his expertise into special operations. Soundwave found him to be an intelligent, reliable gestaltmate, and sends Ravage on long, complex missions where only the most skilled of agents will do. Ravage has been away on such a mission for many vorns, tracking down a wily target. His return journey has been fraught with complications, but he's finally reached Earth....

Personality:


Ravage is dedicated, loyal, intelligent, logical, and ruthless in pursuit of an objective. He is a true Decepticon loyalist, with a considerable amount of that loyalty pinned upon Megatron himself.

Ravage has a cohort-bond and gestalt-bond with Soundwave, meaning that they have a low-level sparkbond. Though others usually assume due to their closeness and his size that he is Soundwave's immature symbiont, Ravage does not disabuse them of this notion, using this to his advantage. If you think he's just a simple mecha-beast, all the better for him.

He has a strong sense of self. The spy knows the value of being underestimated and will take great pleasure in using it against any who step out of line. He is grateful and loyal to Soundwave and respects him greatly as an ally, a partner, and a superior officer. In the end though... Ravage is always listening. He will never allow himself to be simply a cog, ever, ever again.

Likes: Soundwave, Megatron, the Decepticon cause, puzzle games, ferreting out secrets.

Dislikes: Foolish mechs telling him what to do, those who chatter aimlessly without anything important to say,  self-righteousness, anyone who is all bluster and no bearings... and anyone between him and his objective (usually Autobots.) He's really not fond of rain, either.

Strengths/Weapons:

Claw and Tooth -What it says on the tin: he's got claws and teeth that can go through most Cybertronian materials and make dust and scrap out of most earth materials. He also has a mid-range laser in his tail and short-range hipmissiles (both technically available in rootmode, if he can get a good aim down).

Scent Track - Ravage's olfactory sensors are highly advanced. He can easily sniff out a drop of fuel in a swimming pool full of water. He uses this to his advantage, placing himself downwind from others to track and trail.

Sneaky Kitty - Ravage is trained as a spec ops agent, which means he's good at getting where he needs to be unseen. He's also relatively small, so he's able to squeeze into places others overlook. He's the master of the sneak attack.

Gestalt Bond - Ravage has a gestalt bond (low-level sparkbond) with Soundwave. This is not a "read each others' thoughts" type of sparkbond, but he and Soundwave have practiced with it enough to be able to know the general direction of each other's position and (if they concentrate) each other's basic emotional state. This can give him an advantage, as it is a very limited but unblockable method of communication with his gestaltmate.

Weaknesses:


Middle Runner - In Ravage's cat mode he can run up to ~40mph top speed. Fast enough to outrun a mech on foot...but not fast enough to outrun a mech in vehicle mode.

Small Size - Despite him being well-plated, Ravage is not a heavy hitter. He is small. A larger bot can pin him with one foot and stomp him to the ground with weight if they really try and Ravage can't get away.

Light sensitive - Since he is designed to work best in shadowy environments; Ravage is particularly sensitive to light. He can be overloaded and blinded by especially bright bursts, including flash-bang grenades and close-quarters explosions.

No Humanoid Form - Opposable thumbs sadly are not over-rated. In his defense, Ravage can do most tasks with teeth and paws. To get through some areas, he does have a small, three-fingered appendage that he can unsheathe from the top of his foreleg to pick up tiny objects and deal with doorknobs and locks. However, extra fine manipulation is not one of his foremost skills. That and he's terrible with a keyboard.

Gestalt Bond - If Soundwave is in danger, Ravage will drop whatever he's doing to protect him. Additionally, if Soundwave dies, Ravage will be instantly incapacitated and his spark will be permanently damaged.

Special skills (that are not weapon related):

Holomatter Projector - Ravage has the ability to create tactile illusions of anything he can visualize in three dimensions. How long he can hold the projection depends on whether it is 2D or 3D, how big it is, and how complex. Making a large, mobile 3D projection, for instance, would require a lot of processing threads and power, and the process would leave him fairly distracted and vulnerable. Cloaking himself from visual sight, however, is easier, and contributes to his "no no you don't understand, he WASN'T THERE a minute ago!" reputation.

Hacker - Ravage is a middling-good hacker and has the same prehensile data cables (from ports on his sides) to facilitate this that Soundwave has.

Mindmeld - Ravage and Soundwave can link up their processors via a hardline when in close proximity. Inside each others' firewalls, they can swap information, tasks, and processor threads like two cores of the same processor. When they do this they are, essentially, one processor with two bodies. One BLAZINGLY FAST dual-cored processor with two bodies. Thus, they can make each other much better at stationary thinking tasks.  They are very distracted and vulnerable when in this state, however, and only do it in safe situations.

Extra Info:
Icon graciously done by the awesome Zercon - thank you!