Doctor Machina

In costume, Machina dons a set of bulky archaic looking armor, he also possesses a control gauntlet on his left hand that seems to act as a sort of personal computer. All over his person are little gadgets and pieces of equipment, most notably a utility belt around his shoulder and his waist.

When not using his Power Armor he prefers a simpler techy lab coat and goggles get up.

Personality: Machina's mood ranges can go from professional and well mannered to harsh and as steel willed as the machines he makes in seconds. His aptitude for ambition is absolutely limitless, the way he speaks, plans, and gestures always seems to suggest some greater goal is at work. He is a planner, a schemer, and a general mastermind, always trying to find new ways to manipulate people, events, and everything in between to his advantage. Despite all this, to call Machina a complete coward is somewhat inaccurate, as the super villain has shown he has no fear of appearing publicly during his crimes, or even facing down the most super powered of heroes with nothing but witty banter or the occasional mech suit.

Machina considers himself a higher class of criminal. His primary motivation appears to be power in any and all its forms, be it through wealth, parts to doomsday machines, or simply influence over other people. He detest random slaughter and pointless destruction however. At least when he's not the one doing it. If anything, he is fine with it as long as it is merely a means, not an end.

History: Gerald Mordicai was born to a wealthy and noble (in blood not in morals) family somewhere in Europe. His family owned a rather large corporation called Scion Industrial, a respectable producer of military technologies and robotics. Well connected from birth, Gerald was basically surrounded by powerful people from governments, corporations…and criminal overlords. Indeed, the Mordicai families reputation had plenty of rumors that had them dealing with the vast criminal underworld and small time super villains. They were all true by the way.

Gerald himself was an exceptionally smart student, excelling in fields of engineering, robotics, science, psychology, sociology, political science, and other little skills that would aid him in his criminal career in the future (Especially robotics, anything doing with robots or A.I seemed to be his strong point). Earning doctorates in those fields, Gerald had obviously chosen the path of eventually inheriting his families company. If only things proceeded that smoothly...

At some point Scion's stocks began to drop and its profitability began to falter, causing stress and infighting within Geralds family. As the company his family had spent years building slowly collapsed things only got worse within his household. His father slowly turned into an alcoholic, and rumors of his mother having affairs and turning to drugs began to circulate, to make matters worse, the criminal connections the Mordicai family was known for slowly turned from benefits into liabilities, further soiling the families already dirty reputation. All the while Gerald battled with the stress of his home, the pressure from his studies, and the expectations demanded of him. To cope, Gerald took up multiple meditation techniques, some martial arts, and rigorous therapy in order to get by. Silently, Gerald also promised himself that when he inherited Scion Industrial, he would personally see to rebuilding his families legacy, and cleaning their soiled reputation. If not so that he would not travel the same road as his parents.

Eventually, the day came when Geralds father, the current CEO of the slowly failing Scion industrial, had fallen low enough that he simply could not continue to work. Gerald quietly inherited the borderline bankrupt company. He inherited a legacy of unclean deeds and fallen grace. Everyone mostly expected Gerald to simply start discussing plans to merge the company with a more successful one in order to save everyone's jobs. To everyone's surprise, Gerald scoffed at such notions, out of perhaps one part pride and two parts a genuine belief that he, with his own two hands, could lead the near bankrupt company back to prosperity. Needless to say many where skeptical.

Long story short: He did just that...

It is difficult to say how, but indeed, Gerald did exactly what he said he would do: Return Scion Industrial to prosperity. There had always been rumors of the Mordicai's only son to be an absolute genius. Said to have an unmatched talent in management, engineering and science to the point that he could be considered superhuman. The rumors indeed did the man justice. To his company, Gerald was not just CEO. He was head developer, head engineer, and head designer. Unlike his ancestors, Gerald also did not cut corners or rely on black market contacts for extra profits or to debilitate rivals. And those that attempted to use such tactics against him found their employees and mercenaries harmed in various ways via robotic homicide. Gerald may have been something of an idealist, and while he may have made it one of his goals not to descend into the same type of dirty business his ancestors practiced, he was definitely no saint. He backstabbed and manipulated as much as any other executive, he simply maintained higher standards than his predecessors.

Years later it became apparent to many of Scion's lesser executives that Gerald was less concerned with profit and more concerned with following his silly idealist goals and cleaning up his families "legacy" as he would call it. Many of Scion's military departments, the most profitable ventures in Scion where being turned towards more passive purposes, such as finding ways to quickly bring electricity and clean water to third world countries, all while Gerald himself pushed plans to end what he thought where pointless wars in many other nations. Essentially, Gerald was attempting to turn Scion into a leading force that would create a utopia. Thing is, creating a Utopia, while noble, is also rarely profitable. Even while pure-robotic labor allowed the company to make even more profits, even while Gerald's genius had dragged Scion out of the muck and back into the competing market, even while he was essentially the reason they still had jobs, these lower executives still hungered for more. They believed Gerald was in a way, cheating them out of extra money by following his silly ideals. Quietly they schemed, intending to take the scientist out of power and replace him with a business man.

A few years later these executives launched their coop on Scion, unknowing that Gerald had long caught wind of their scheme but knew there was little he could do to stop it. In a short one week "war" as some would call it, Gerald practiced a policy of scorched earth. He knew he could not save Scion industrial, most of his executives had betrayed him, and the staff that where once loyal to him had sided with them. So he intended to make sure that they would gain nothing from their victory. Gerald siphoned every bit of money he could from the companies coffer, he also downloaded and stole every bit of his designs, research, and data from his own company. He ended it all with destroying his own company head quarters. When the smoke, rubble, and disastrous bank reports cleared, the executives indeed attained victory. Their reward was a completely bankrupt and useless company. They thought that when Gerald was put out of power, they could use his ideas and designs for their own profit, but Gerald had taken everything that made Scion industrial profitable. Mainly: His genius.

As for Gerald? Well quite simply, he snapped. All of his ideals where crushed by greed in that week. All of his plans to help people where ruined by the selfishness of "parasites" and "doubters". And worse off, he had failed in fixing, or even building his legacy. He made a realization that idealism was a poor way to leave ones mark. He realized that the only people who ever left their mark in the world where those who were willing to truly stomp on others. Gerald had tried to be an idealist, he tried to be charitable, he tried to use his tools to help bring about utopia, and look where it got him? Determined to rebuild his prosperity, Gerald decided to dedicate his life towards gaining power. Only this time he (believed himself) was wiser than his previously idealistic self. With his tools and his machines, there would be no retreat, no surrender. Chaos, anarchy, and corruption would be his means to ends, his path to domination. Whether for good or ill , Machina would find a way to change the world, and carve out his empire within it.

Rise of Machina

The issue with Scion was in absolute chaos. Gerald Mordicai, the keystone to the failing company had completely vanished off the map, but that was not the reason there was chaos, after all who cared about some genius, idealistic, scientist? Where the hell was his money? That was the problem, not only did Gerald disappear, but all of the Scion's acquired wealth had also vanished, denying greedy rivals, dept collectors, and any other parasites there so called "reward"

Gerald’s movements became difficult to track at this point, his new need for power awakened previously latent megalomania and kleptomania tendencies that began to take hold of him. Gerald's first step towards gaining power was to reopen the previous black market connections his family was known for, no longer caring for "cleaning up" his family name. Luckily, his money was still good there and with that, Gerald began to rebuild his powerbase and forged a new identity to remain anonymous: Machina (Doctor Machina is ironically a joke, yes Gerald has a doctorate but originally his alias was only "Machina" it was only until the media actually started calling him Doctor Machina that he actually decided to embrace the name).

Utilizing his horded fortune, Machina began his criminal career as something of an arms dealer. Armed with his intelligence and several valuable trade secrets from Scion industrial, he began to sell to different black market clients, from mercenary groups to small time super villains. Gerald used these new funds to continue selling his equipment, but at the same time, build his own criminal infrastructure. His most notable purchases where having some unscrupulous building contractors who knew how to keep their mouths shut build his hidden production facilities that provided him with his own personal robotic armies (he never did not trust mercenaries as henchmen). This pretty much continued for seven years. Seven years of creating secret lairs and bases of operations, designing instruments of destruction, and building robotic henchmen, culminated in him slowly moving up to higher crimes… Machina was done selling to super villains…

He was ready to be one…


Powers: Aside for incredibly impressive programming, engineering, and remarkable planning skills, Gerald himself actually has no superpowers and thus relies on things such as weaponry, robotic henchmen, explosives, cunning plans, and the sheer industrial power he commands, to protect himself from his foes. However, he is not completely helpless when it actually comes to fighting himself. Though one would not call his hand to hand skills full blown martial arts, he is skilled in many forms of armed combat. Its to be expected when you work with many forms of military technology.

Resources: Machina possesses several secret lairs hidden throughout the world. Most of them are simple bunkers built with the intention of acting as temporary hideouts. While larger ones are almost like military bases.

At first Gerald relied on building contractors to build his factories and bases. However, his infrastructure has become so complex now that it has effectively become self sustaining. This is what makes Machina dangerous. He is a single man in command of a sizable industrial power base, allowing him to manufacture an armies worth of weapons, equipment, and mechs.

Engineer: Gerald is an incredible engineer and avid inventor. Although he lacks super powers, he makes up for it with his ability to design a variety of diabolical gadgets, devices, and vehicles to use against the agents of justice that oppose him.

Robotic Henchmen: Gerald has a great many talents when it comes to the fields of engineering and science. But truly... truly robotics are indeed Gerald's forte. He is a robotics expert with few equals, capable of designing and manufacturing an amazing variety of machines. Several hidden factories provide Machina with his own personal army of loyal automatons. Data is constantly gathered by his subservient A.I's for analysis. Heroes beware, Machina is always redesigning and upgrading his army to better fight them.

Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: He admitably does not have as much as he had before but several well placed investments, combined with the extra money made from his criminal affairs, gives Gerald quite a bit of play cash. It has aided him greatly in building his secret empire.

PowerGrid: (-1 for wealth -2 for technological based flight)
Intellegence-6
Strength-2
Speed-3
Durability- 3
Energy Projection-0
Fighting Skill-5

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A long time ago I came to this site. I came with a silly and rather zany villain know as the Deceiver. But then the all devouring alien intelligence know as real life, and the fact that I had stupidly spread myself thin in other RP forums giving me way to much work to keep track of, forced me to leave. I deeply regret it. Until now that I can focus solely on this RP. Since old Deceivers in the trash bin, and I barely even used him, this is my revamp of him. Took longer than I thought though because at the last minute I decided not to be lazy and rework his backstory. Mainly because I guess Machina slowly took on a personality of his own the more he stewed in my head...

Also something I said in the Deceiver profile that deserves repeating.

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Approved!