Submitted by MrDave on Tue, 03/02/2004 - 18:38
Posted in
Character’s Real Name: Donald Franklin Gannet
Character’s Official Name: Prototype (becasue Donny stenciled the words "Prototype MKI on the back of the armor)
Nickname: Donny (or in-armor 'Proto')
Species: Human (non-meta)
Gender: Male
Birth date and place: 8/8/80- Richmond, Virginia. USA
Occupation: Appliance Repairman
Affiliation: none
Description: Longish sandy hair and a good-guy smile. He is smallish in stature standing only 5'4" tall. He often has a dreamy look on his face along with a smile as if he knows something the rest of the world does not.
Donny is played by Jonathan Taylor Thomas
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History
"Ready..."
*** A warm summer night - July 4, 2003 ***
"Donny! Get in here and eat Dinner with us!" his mother called out to the shed.
Donny was too preoccupied to hear her. He was so close that if he could just get the cyclometer to work then he would have enough power to...
The door of the shed jerked open. Donny's mother was pretty angry, he'd ignored her calls once too many times again. He jumped at the sudden intrusion and knocked over the jar that held all the rare-metals that he'd been saving for ...well... he didn't know, but he was saving them.
They poured out over the cyclometer and bright light flashed as some bit connected in just the right way. Donny, his mother, and large piles of parts were blown out of the door and into the yard.
Donny's mom stood up, and brushed off her dress. "Donald Franklin Gannet, you are just like your father," she said with a huff and stormed back into the house. Over her shoulder she called to him, "And be sure to wash your hands before you come sit down."
Donald went back into the shed and pulled the rare-earth key from the cyclometer and it shut off immediately. He checked his readings, for the last 2 minutes it had been producing the power of a medium-sized generator without any appreciable heat.
He chuckled to himself and trotted back to the house. In his mind he knew that come fall he'd be ready with his prototype. *And then everyone needs to watch out.* he thought.
"Set..."
*** A cool autumn night - October 31, 2003 ***
He stepped into the bodysuit to test the response of the armature's feeback control systems. On his back the cyclometer power source gave off a gentle light. He rached forward to grab the heavy anvil his father had kept in the shed. It must have weightd 250 lbs. He slowly grasped the horn, gently applying more and more pressure until his knuckles were white.
He could hear the armature creaking with the pressure it was exerting on the metal anvil. Donny let go of the anvil and turned to face the workbench, but the armature delayed a fraction of a second and flung the anvil over the workbench and through the shed wall. Donny watched the anvil make a long low arc and land in the horse paddock beyond.
Mentally he made a note to increase response time and to perhaps add a strength safety switch.
"Go..."
*** November 23, 2003 ***
Donny's Mom watched him climb into the huge metallic thing that was now living in the barn. She had heard Donny tell her what it was for and why it was necessary, but for the life of her she didn't understand it one bit. It seemed to be the height of foolishness to her.
Donny was inside it and she pulled down the clamshell back like he had instructed her to do. He told her that he cold not find the right kind of motor to make it close itself. That worried her becasue if Donny couldn't find the right bit then it had to be pretty rare. The boy was driven.
The two of them had watched the Meta Conferences on TV when he had sprung the surprise on her. Until then she had throught that the metal thing was gong to be some kind of new-fangled tractor or forklift or tool. Well it was a tool all right. A super-hero tool.
She had begged Donny to change his mind, but he was determined. He was going to be a super hero. Dressed in a huge green and yellow metal suit he was going to stand up as a hero for the common people. Mrs. Gannett wasn't so sure, but she wished her boy the best of luck.
Powers
Donny has no powers of his own. He does have a genius-grade intelligence and a working knowledge of physics, chemistry, electronics, and mechanicals that would make him more than qualified to run any research project for any major corporation. but Donny is not like other boys.
Equipment: Prototype MK I
- Dimensions: 7' tall, 4-1/2' wide, 3' thick, weight: 1800 lbs
- Self-contained power source (the Cyclometer) capable of generating 1MW of electrical power. It takes about 20 KW to run the suit in standard mode.
- Shock-absorbing kevlar plating (can stop up to a .50 cal bullet)
- Infra-red and light-amplifying night vision goggles
- Voice scrambler
{*}External power points
- Police and common-band scanner (can pick up nearby cell-phone calls if they aren't secured)
- Secure Cell phone and wireless internet.
- GPS Locating system.
- Active radar scrambling/detection (must be activated)
- Jump Jets (experimental - They are fairly random sometimes but they can lift the MkI about 10' in the air once before needing a recharge)
- Strength Amplification: The suit is capable of lifting up to 1500lbs (about 2.25 metric tonnes) - however the suit does not really provide a lot of leverage so it gets unbalanced easily
The Suit does have some limitations:And there may be other things. Donny will be constantly twiddling with the mechanisms. But thats a given. Unless there is a complete re-build it will stay the MKI. I figure the MKII will debut somewhere around the beginning of Mini-series 2.
[/][/]Character/Motivations
Donny wants to be a superhero. Unfortuantely Donny is very human and has no super-powers of his own. He isn't independantly wealthy (and he used all the inheritance his Father left on the MKI). He is serious about the secret identity though. he put as much anti-tracking hardware as he could muster in MKI to keep it from being tagged, bugged, or followed.
Donny's day-job is a one-man Appliance Repair shop in Richmond, Virginia. He has a small apartment there in the city. He keeps the suit at his Mom's farm just outside the city where he works on it weekends. He is looking into buying a trailer that he can tow behind his 1995 Green Geo Tracker to hold the suit.
Donny tries not to sell the really advanced stuff he designs and builds. He may be naive but he isn't stupid. He knows that if he lets out the stuff he is using to make himself a super-hero then he will create his own competition. He is not averse to building custom things for clients however if he trusts them to keep his technology safe from 'evil'.
Donny feels that ignorance is the best protection so be cautious if he repairs something for you. It isn't known how many TVs, VCRs, Toasters, Blenders, and Vacuum Cleaners in the Richmond area are packed with little super-sophisticated gizmos that Donny tucked into them to make them work.