Kaiser Tarantula (Beta)
[[Image: |240px|]]
| |
| Kaiser Tarantula, as seen in Crab Spider power armor | |
| Kaiser Tarantula | |
| Player: Kaiser Tarantula | |
| Origin: | Natural |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Arachnos Soldier (Crab Spider) |
| Level: | Confidential |
| Primary Set: | Arachnos Soldier/Crab Spider Soldier |
| Secondary Set: | Training and Gadgets/Crab Spider Training |
| Epic Set: | Mace Mastery |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Unknown |
| Identity: | No civilian identity |
| Aliases: | No consistent aliases |
| Species: | Human |
| Date of Birth: | Confidential |
| Age: | Confidential |
| Height: | 7 feet, 10 inches (8 feet, 2 inches in armor) |
| Weight: | 260 pounds |
| Build: | Athletic, heavily muscled |
| Eye Colour: | Green |
| Hair Colour: | Blonde |
| Skin Complexion: | Pale olive |
| Distinguishment: | Surgically-attached Crab Spider pack |
| Medical Status: | Healthy |
| Financial Status: | Confidential |
| Religion: | Religious adherence to Arachnos philosophy |
| Sexuality: | Heterosexual |
| Marital Status: | Single |
| Known Relatives: | Unknown |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | Arachnos |
| Ethnicity: | Confidential |
| Legal Status: | Unknown |
| Place of Birth: | Unknown |
| Education: | High School Graduate, Arachnos Training Regimen |
| Occupation: | Confidential |
| Group Affiliations: | Arachnos (Tentative) |
| Base of Operations: | A secret laboratory somewhere on Sharkhead Isle |
| Residency: | Rogue Isles |
| Known Powers | |
| None | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Peak human physical conditioning, extensive combat training, skilled at weaponry and robotics maintainance | |
| Equipment | |
| Heavily-customized and upgraded Arachnos Crab Spider armor, Crab Spider servolimb pack, cloning lab, robotics facility | |
| Awards and Collections | |
| None | |
| Licenses and Certificates | |
| Finds licenses futile | |
| IC Accessibility of Article | |
| Arachnos dossiers, PPD threat databases | |
Kaiser Tarantula is a villain upon the Beta server, an Arachnos Soldier of the Crab Spider variety. Vicious, power-hungry, and fanatically loyal to the Arachnos ideal, if not its leadership, he's always looking for new opportunities to obtain power for his own ends.
Origin
Kaiser Tarantula's original identity is largely unknown; what is known from fragmentary records that survived the purging of his history, is that he was inducted into Arachnos at the tender age of 14, and he offered himself up for experimentation by the Arachnos science corps not long after, taking the risk that the experiments would make him stronger. What followed was an experimental, extreme-intensity training, diet, and mental conditioning regimen that has since been adapted and abbreviated for use on common Arachnos troops.
The training worked. Kaiser Tarantula grew from 5' nothing to nearly seven-foot-ten inches in height (over 8 feet in full armor) in the space of eight years. He emerged from the training program a mountain of a man, possessed of tremendous strength, stamina, and commitment to the Arachnos cause. However, the due to the excessive time the training took, and the fact that his exceptional performance was largely due to beginning as such an exceptionally young candidate, the training program had to be cut down and modified for use on rank-and-file soldiers. Kaiser Tarantula was secretly considered a failure, and relegated to the Wolf Spider corps as a result.
Unfortunately for Arachnos, Kaiser Tarantula is nothing if not ambitious. Conspiring with Alan Desslock, he added his own name to the Destined Ones list, securing his independence from Arachnos's chain of command. With the freedom being a Destined One allowed, he began to play the field of the villain groups of the Rogue Isles, always with the objective of gaining power in mind. His one true goal is to gather enough power to surpass Lord Recluse himself.
Powers and Abilities
Kaiser Tarantula is, beneath the armor and weaponry, a normal human being of exceptional height and physical development. He can bench-press about 400 pounds, and can run a mile over level ground in about 4 minutes from a standing start. That, however, is where the similarities end.
Equipped with a suit of Arachnos Crab Spider powered armor, his physical strength and stamina are amplified several times, allowing him to go toe-to-toe with even the mightiest of Paragon City's heroes. The Crab Spider Armor also comes equipped with a Crab Spider Servolimb Pack, which is directly connected to his nervous system via surgical attachment to his spine, allowing him to move the four clawed limbs as though they were his own. Among the weapons mounted in each of these limbs are a Longfang heavy machinegun, a Channelgun energy cannon, and a grenade launcher capable of firing various munitions. Each limb is tipped with a monomolecular-edged claw of solid Impervium, ensuring that no hero can escape a close-ranged confrontation with him unscathed. In addition to this, he also carries an Arachnos standard-issue assault rifle, a souvenir of his days in the Wolf Spider corps, although he's seldom seen actually using it save to launch web grenades at fleeing opponents. Outside of active villainy, Kaiser doesn't lack for hobbies. Proficient at weapon design and robotics maintenance, he keeps a small supply of customized, personally-modified Arachnobots, which he built himself after stealing some Arachnobot blueprints during a raid on an Arachnos base.
Kaiser's adolescence spent in an Arachnos training camp has warped his mind, instilling the ideals of Arachnos as his driving motivation above all else. Despite this, he bears little actual loyalty to the organization, seeing it as limiting the growth of his power. He believes that the best way to serve Arachnos and its ideals is to treat it as a client, rather than a master. This strange duality of his loyalty is something other Arachnos agents find frustrating. He will cheerfully sing Lord Recluse's praises and preach Arachnos philosophy, even when working directly against Lord Recluse's stated goals. This dichotomy makes him difficult to read and even more difficult to control; he is very much a loose cannon.
Due to the eight year training regimen, Kaiser Tarantula is a master of battlefield tactics and a capable leader. His fanaticism is simultaneously inspiring and terrifying, and some say he has a voice that just compels one to follow orders - in reality, that ability comes from a device pilfered from Baron Zukor's corpse; the Suggestion Engine. Though the loss of Baron Zukor and Kaiser's own lack of psychic potential has weakened it significantly, the Engine still serves to make his statements unusually stirring. Coupled with his skills in battlefield tactics, he can easily improve the performance of any villain willing to cooperate with him and follow his instructions.
Weaknesses
Kaiser's primary weakness, in a world of superheroes and supervillains, is that underneath the armor, the training, the physical development, he's an ordinary human. If his equipment fails and his allies rebel, he can die just as easily as any other man. Keenly aware of this limitation, Kaiser Tarantula prefers to be the first to strike, using the element of surprise to throw opponents into disarray. Similarly, due to the risk of his armor being opened up like a can by a Hero with super-sharp claws or swords, or just monstrous levels of super strength, he typically fights from a distance, only lashing out with his Crab Spider claws from close range once the enemy's been softened up by his Channelgun, Longfang, and grenades.
Kaiser's other weakness is his unchecked ambition. He will jump at almost any chance to gain power, often taking seemingly-insane risks to do so. Usually, he is canny enough to avoid catastrophe, but it's only a matter of time before reckless ambition turns around to bite him. A promise of power is an exceptional method of baiting him into a trap, and he has reputedly fallen for this several times, though as of yet no ambusher has succeeded in killing him. Even midlevel supervilains, such as Dr. Graves, and heroes such as Ajax and Overdrive have all failed to take him down.
Kaiser Tarantula used to operate a cloning lab, staffed by the now-defunct Mane Corporation. It was used to produce back-up clones to carry on in his stead, should he perish for whatever. Sadly, due to the involvement of Praetoria and the supervillain Protean, this laboratory, and all of the clones within, were destroyed, save for one, which Kaiser rescued. Why he rescued the clone, and then subsequently spared it to live its own life, is unknown, but the fact that there is a second person out there, who shares his exact appearance, capabilities, and skills, down to the cellular level, represents a significant threat to him. The destruction of the cloning lab means that, once well and truly killed, there will be nobody to replace him. The loss of the cloning lab has curtailed his rampant ambition somewhat, but if anything it's only made him more ruthless and more likely to dispose of any threat to his wellbeing.
History & Deeds
First Steps
Once free of the direct chain of command of Arachnos, Kaiser Tarantula, at the time just a humble Wolf Spider, wasted no time making a name for himself. Operating on his newfounded philosophy of treating his former employer as a client, he worked with Operative Kuzmin on the long and arduous job of kicking Longbow out of Mercy Island. The first victims of Kaiser's campaign of villainy were five random Longbow agents, their names lost to history. Demonstrating a certain... 'creativity' in disposing of Longbow, Kaiser left one of them as a warning, leaving the victim's bullet-riddled body slumped against a wall with the words "YOU ARE NEXT" written in bulletholes above it.
He then interrogated a longbow captive. Oddly enough, he demonstrated surprising subtlety, opting to describe in excruciating detail the ways and means an Arachnos assault rifle could be used to torture a man. This left the Longbow captive unfortunately unharmed, but intact enough to squeal on future Longbow operations. It was at this point that Kaiser started demonstrating the ability to play "the long game" as he puts it, forgoing immediate viciousness in favor of long term efficiency.
Using the info taken from the captive, as well as communication codes from additional longbow he subsequently captured, Kaiser Tarantula bombed a Longbow base, curbing some of Longbow's aggressions in Mercy. The info also revealed the location of a main base. Using a longbow costume looted from the guards at the entrance of the base, Kaiser Tarantula was not only able to sneak inside unmolested and spy, but also took out Sargeant Kinney and Golden Palm, as well as most of the base personnel. In the process he saved the life of Dario Stanzini, again playing the long game - he knew that Dario would prove a useful ally later.
Dealing with Betrayal
Operative Kuzmin would then introduce Kaiser Tarantula to a man named Fire Wire, a small-time bank thief looking for his first big heist. Working with Fire Wire, they laid out the plans for a bank heist to end all bank heists, which unfortunately meant that some Rogue Islands Police members needed to die. Matthew Burke, however, tipped Kaiser off that Fire Wire wasn't on the up-and-up, and was intending to betray him to the RIP and Arachnos during the heist. Using an Arachnos disguise (they would recognize his regular uniform, after all), Kaiser infiltrated an Arachnos base to confirm Burke's info.
Then the heist went down. Things went off without a hitch, until Kaiser hit the vault. Fire Wire sprung his trap, but Kaiser was ready. Proving far too strong for Fire Wire and his cronies to take down, Kaiser riddled Fire Wire with holes, and then brutally snapped the firebug's neck with his bare hands. Betrayal was one thing he would not tolerate. Making off with several sacks of hard cash, Kaiser made his getaway, his bank robbery successful.
Corrupting the Righteous
It was after this that Kaiser obtained a communique from Lieutenant Harris, an ex-Lieutenant of Longbow. At first skeptical of the man's motives, Kaiser soon learned that Harris was motivated primarily by revenge, an emotion he could very easily understand and get behind. Having a 'pet' longbow agent would be useful, so Kaiser nurtured Harris's desire for vengeance, by helping him carry it out.
Thus began a bloody campaign of isolation, cutting off Longbow from its communications, its supplies, its allies in the Legacy Chain, and it reinforcements. It ended with Kaiser storming Fort Darwin, with allies from the Skulls in tow. He also recieved assistance from Dario Stanzini - playing the long game had once again paid off in spades. Longbow stood no chance, and finally Kaiser and Harris were able to defeat Lt. Page, exacting Harris's bloody retribution. While Harris wallowed in emotional confusion, Kaiser simply gently comforted him, and spared him. Once again, he was playing the long game - left alive, Harris would eventually 'see the dark' and come to understand that vengeance was the 'right' thing. Who knows, he might even join Arachnos or another villain group in the future, making himself useful to Kaiser once more.
