Iron Reign (Triumph)
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| Iron Reign in his "normal" armor. | |
| Iron Reign | |
| Player: @Obsidius | |
| Server: Triumph | |
| Origin: | Technology |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Mastermind |
| Threat Level: | 50 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Heinrich Joachim |
| Known Aliases: | None known at this time |
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Human Cyborg |
| Age: | 45 |
| Height: | 6' |
| Weight: | Approx. 250 lbs due to cybernetic implants |
| Eye Color: | Cybernetic spectrometers |
| Hair Color: | None |
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Formerly male |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | German (East German) |
| Occupation: | Lead Researcher of Arachnos' Humanoid Robotics Division |
| Place of Birth: | East Berlin, East Germany |
| Base of Operations: | Paragon City, Rhode Island, USA |
| Marital Status: | Single |
| Known Relatives: | None |
| Known Powers | |
| Robotics, Traps, Leadership, Jumping | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Can alter appearance through magic | |
| Equipment | |
| Cybernetic implants, guided robotic warriors, the full robotics capabilities of Arachnos | |
| No additional information available. | |
Iron Reign is a level 50 Robotics/Traps Mastermind on the Triumph Server, played by @Obsidius. He is a a leader of the villain group Oni's Tears and the current Lead Researcher of Humanoid Robotics for Arachnos.
Contents
Overview
Iron Reign is a man who rose from his own ashes as a cyborg, his limbs and other parts having been replaced in the aftermath of the trap that turned him into what he is today. Together with robotic soldiers of his own design (more or less), he sought vengeance against the Malta Group, climbing the ranks of Arachnos in the process. Today, he is the Lead Researcher of Arachnos' Humanoid Robotics Division.
In-Game Description
*Obtained through Arachnos Counter-Intelligence*
*** Confidential File ***
From: Operative Crimson
- Agent Crimson
Subject: Criminal matermind codename: Iron Reign
Iron Reign first appeared in the Rogue Islses shortly after Statesman's Strike. It is believed he was a former East German cybernetic researcher Heinrich Joachim, who was forced to work on Malta's Titan project. After his usefulness to Malta had 'expired', he 'died in a tragic lab accident'. Knowing this might happen, Heinrich had secretly dosed himself with nonamachines, which kept him alive until his robotic drones could extract him. Although he eventually lost his limbs due to the lab fire that was supposed to kill him, his robosurgeons were able to fabricate replacement parts for him. After creating robot soldiers based upon his Titan research, and swore vengnece upon the Malta Group. Heinrich died in that fire, and was reborn as Iron Reign. His mental state and augmentation make him extremely dangerous, and is considered a high-priority target.
Pre Rogue Isles Background
Early Life
Born 31 March 1964, Heinrich Joachim was born to middle-class family in East Germany, during the Cold War. Heinrich had as normal of a childhood as any boy could have in Cold War East Germany, under the constant pressure of Socialist Unity Party of Germany dictation, the attempts of some people to get over the Berlin Wall and flee to West Germany, the common shortages on basic goods, and the like. However, in order to ensure their only child could receive the highest education from the state, Heinrich's parents kept a clean record and strictly avoided any activities that could arouse suspicion of the party or authorities.
During his polytechincal school years, Heinrich studied chemistry and productive works. At age 16, his vocational learning encompassed electronics.
When he reached the age of 18, like most other East German males, Heinrich joined the Nationale Volksarmee and served in the Landstreitkräfte. It was here that, instead of admonishing his service to the Army like many disenfranchised males, he took a liking to the military, especially in terms of gear and equipment. A such, he was able to become an equipment technician, servicing armored vehicles including T-72 battle tanks.
University Studies and Robotics
Having received high marks in his vocational studies and military service, Heinrich was one of the few lucky men to be accepted to the state university in East Berlin in 1984. Because of his highly technical expertise, Heinrich was allowed, under top secret clearance, to study in one of the state's preeminent fields - robotics. As part of an inter-university research project with Moscow, researches and scientists in East Berlin were conducting research and trials in order to develop advanced robotic weaponry for use in homeland defense and superbeing suppression, as well as possible offensive uses in ground combat. The USSR and Eastern Bloc countries reasoned that, given the correct technology and manufacturing processes, robots could easily and economically counter most metehuman threats from the West, removing the need for development of super-powered defenders, who could be affected mentally as well as physically during risky and costly metahuman transformation procedures.
Heinrich was a quick learner and quickly became an expert in the field. Even with their limited resources and budget, Heinrich was able to do amazing things with the technology at hand. In the course of a few years, his department had almost perfected a handful of models that, in unison, could effectively neutralize most metehuman threats.
Unfortunately, their research was cut short by the Reunification of East and West Germany in 1990. As the Berlin Wall fell, so did tension between East Germany and the Western nations. The project was scrapped, and the scientists, including Heinrich, were dismissed in order to quietly brush their anti-Western research under the rug of a new Germany.
An Offer Too Good to Refuse
Heinrich, like many Cold War weapons researchers, was out of a job. Although absurdly gifted, because he couldn't include his preeminent research in robotics on his resumé due to its top secret nature, he had in incredibly tough time finding steady employment.
In 1994, after a series of stale research jobs and some work for a Japanese toy company, Heinrich was caught in the mediocrity of capitalistic corporate culture. It was at that point he was approached by a man representing the Malta Group. The man explained that the Malta Group was a private military company that serviced many governments, but also protect against metehuman threats. They had received his name from another scientist and one of Heinrich's former colleagues and new Russian counterparts, and were interested in hiring Heinrich to continue his previous robotics research for the Malta Group.
It was more than Heinrich could have hoped for - not only was it a secure job, but also the chance to complete his masterwork. Heinrich spent no time signing up with the Malta Group. Days later, he returned to his old laboratory in Berlin, no longer run by the state university, but now funded by Malta. There he was reunited with some of his old colleagues, and proceeded to pick up where they left off, as if the past four years had never happened.
The Catch
Heinrich and his team worked feverishly on Project Titan, as it had been renamed by Malta. Because they had better funding, equipment, and resources this time around, research proceeded at a quick pace. After only a few months, robotic endoskeletons were being tested.
After successful tests of endoskeletons, Malta requests for the project started becoming strange. Technology was developed to allow Titans to merge together during combat emergencies. And when Malta requested that robot AI be replaced with human donor brains, many German scientists started to question the ethics of the project. Heinrich grudgingly agreed to work alongside his Russian counterparts, fearing the not doing so would put his job at jeopardy - or worse. After months of deep research, Heinrich had helped to develop nanomachines to help integrate circuit pathways with neural pathways. Nanomachines completed the link between neurons and circuits, as well as aiding in organic tissue maintenance and repair. After extensive testing on several subjects, secretly including himself, the Titan project was near completion.
When Malta requested that battle computers be used in addition to human brains to not only control Titan weapons systems but to also help "condition" brains for battlefield environments, many scientists refused to work. Heinrich himself was unsure about the ethical implications of conditioning human brains with battle computers. More to the point, he questioned it - why even bother with human brains at all when simple robot AI would be immune to battlefield stress and trauma? The German scientists even made some battlefield drone prototypes as a demonstration of the superiority of robots over cyborgs, in hopes of finding an alternative to Malta's proposal.
Malta, on the other hand, was not interested in pure robots. They had several reasons for using conditioned human brains over robots, but none they wished to disclose with low-rung researchers. If the Germans refused to work on cyborg technology, they were no longer useful; in fact, they could become a liability if they shared their research information with the wrong organizations. The Russian scientists, who performed ethically unimaginable experiments in developing Soviet super-soldiers during the Cold War, had no issues with what Malta was doing. Because of this, the Russian scientists secretly backed up all of the research data as instructed by Malta. During a typical day in the lab, the Russians took a scheduled break together as they normally did. 30 seconds later, an explosion ripped through the research lab, killing Heinrich and the entire German scientific team.
From the Ashes
... or so Malta thought.
Heinrich had become paranoid during his last few weeks working on the project, with the ever-increasing tension between the German scientists, Russian scientists and the Malta Group. He had secreted away a pair of prototype drones in some maintenance closets and programmed them with instruction in case of alarm or catastrophic accident. He had programmed them with battlefield medicine instructions originally developed for the East German robotics program, as well as coordinates to a private facility he used during his consulting jobs after the Cold War, which had its own laboratory and had been restocked with medical supplies and the like by Heinrich during the past few weeks. When the explosion occurred, the robots spring to life from their hiding places and quickly extracted Heinrich from the ensuing fire. They secured a vehicle and took Heinrich's burnt, unconscious body back to his secreted location.
Heinrich was horribly burnt; the only reason he survived the explosion and fire at all was due to the nanomachines he had injected into himself during his Titan neural interface experiments, which helped to keep his brain and vital systems alive. Over the next few days, his impromptu medical drones worked on stabilizing his condition with limited equipment at hand, keeping him in a medically induced coma. To reduce infection to his badly burned limbs, amputation was required. Once he was stabilized, prosthetic adapters were implanted onto his limb "stubs", and crude robotic arms were added to his upper limbs. His face also required reconstruction, involving cybernetic eye replacements. Ironically, much of the technology used to save Heinrich's life was derived from his work on Malta's Titan project.
When Heinrich awoke, he found himself a monstrosity, a bastardized mix between who he used to be and the technology he had created for monstrous people. Heinrich's psyche broke, overcome with revulsion, anguish, hatred, and revenge. Knowing that Malta had set up him and his colleagues for liquidation, and knowing that attempting to do anything related to his former life would put him on "the grid" and alert Malta to his unexpected continual existence, Heinrich decided to lay low, give himself a new identity, and plan his revenge against Malta.
Rogue Isles History
The Birth of Iron Reign
Heinrich spent the next month improving his state of being. He worked on new neural interfaces, which in turn helped him work on new limbs for himself and improving his robots. After trial and error, he was finally able to be mobile through cybernetic legs and without his robots' assistance. His nanomachines had also helped to greatly accelerate the healing of his organic body and grafting of cybernetic implants.
The kind of revenge Heinrich wanted would not be condoned by the law; using Berlin as his base of operation would be too problematic; therefor, he decided to move where the law was less of a problem - the Etoile Islands. Of course, to reside in Lord Recluse's domain, he would need a moniker that would inspire fear. Drawing inspiration from the Cold War and his new metal body parts, Heinrich renamed himself Eisenherrschaft, or Iron Reign.
After confiscating a van, Iron Reign packed his research, robots, and what equipment and supplies he could easily transport and drove north. Under cover of night, He stole a sailing yacht near Bremerhaven and set a course for Mercy Island in the Etoile Islands, using GPS and heading to deep sea to avoid being caught by authorities. Three weeks later he arrived, first setting up shop in his stolen vessel and then eventually finding an abandoned building that provided better security and secrecy.
Over the next few months, Iron Reign did what many Rogue Island hopefuls do - rob from banks and steal equipment. He then bought better equipment (or manufacture it from better parts), created better combat robots and combat traps, cultivated new contacts, and rose up the Darwinian ranks, all in his ultimate plans of revenge. Eventually he gained the attention of Arachnos. Although he was relatively uninterested in Arachnos as an organization, their contacts could undeniably lead him to high-ranking Malta members.
Iron Reign chose the patronage of Black Scorpion, an easily manipulated and moronic technophile. After learning what he could from Black Scorpion's vast array of acquired and stolen technology, he betrayed Black Scorpion. When Black Scorpion tried to attack Iron Reign for revenge, Iron Reign and his robotic soldiers beat Black Scoprion within an inch of his life. Iron Reign's notoriety within Arachnos had been solidified.
Sweet, Delicious Revenge
After proving his loyalty to Arachnos (but really just proving his enjoyment of decimating the moronic Black Scorpion), Iron Reign was called upon by Arbiter Daos, Arachnos's head Arbiter. Daos' agenda sent Iron Reign against the Knives of Artemis, who in turn led Iron Reign to the very thing which he had spent the past few years yearning - the Malta Group.
Some say that "revenge is a dish best served cold," but Iron Reign decided to serve it hot, with the lasers, flamethrowers, and missiles of his deadly robotic soldiers. Iron Reign wasted no time hunting down members of the Malta Group, cell by cell, each new cell offering information that lead to another cell. Even against Agent Deathstalker, Iron Reign showed no mercy. Every operative, every Gunslinger, and even the very Titans that he helped Malta create, he crushed underneath his prosthetic metal heel. By the time he was done, he had done irreparable damage to the Malta Group. The fact that retribution against Malta was also an Arachnos agenda was merely icing on the cake.
Present Day
After putting Black Scorpion in his place, enacting openly vicious retribution against Malta, ransacking Paragon City on several occasions, and causing the heroes of Paragon City to retreat with their tails between their legs, Iron Reign proved himself worthy of a top position within Arachnos. He now leads Arachnos' division of Humanoid Robotics.
Iron Reign's current goal is to create robotic Arachnos soldiers to replace their frail, inefficient human counterparts. Using the data from his own robotic soldiers as a reference, Iron Reign has calculated that Arachnos Soldier efficiency could be increased by at least 75% using robotic replacements, based on the following premises:
- Robots would not be susceptible to combat stress, loss of morale, betrayal, or bribery
- They would not need sleep
- They could be powered with nuclear reactors or Rikti technology, decreasing downtime
- They would not need rations or food in the field or on extended deployments
- They can be networked together using existing technology
- With the right materials and manufacturing techniques, they would require little maintenance.
Because cost seems to be of little concern within Arachnos' technocratic philosophy, Iron Reign has high confidence that, once enough data is collected from his prototype android Crab Spider, he will have little trouble pleading his case to Lord Recluse himself.
