Optica
Another Lightspawn, young but a communications genius. Created by Riboflavin
INFORMATION:
NAME: Optica
ALIAS(S): Four (thousand) Eyes
FACTION: Predacon
TYPE: Transmetal
RANK: 5th Child, Lightspawn
BEAST MODE: Firefly
ALTERNATE MODE: Laser Array
FUNCTION: Communications Specialist
HEIGHT: 8 feet
SIZE: Medium
SEX: Female
AGE: 33 Stellar Cycles
THEME SONG: "Human Behavior" - Bjork
QUOTE: "There is a visual solution to every problem, though there often exist other solutions as well, even to explicitly visual problems. My seeing your ugly face, for example, is quickly remedied by a knee to the groin, like so."
APPEARANCE:
rough sketch
BEAST MODE:
Lightning bug, metallic black with off-white outlines on outer wings and highlists on head cover. Abdomen is a clear, glittering geodesic ellipsoid (a stretched out sphere with many flat pentagonal and hexagonal faces instead of a smooth surface) with faces that vary greatly in size. A white, starlike glow blinks on and off from the center of the abdomen.
ALTERNATE MODE
Laser array. From beast mode, abdomen tilts up to sit vertically on thorax, head turns upside down and tilts to face upwards, inner wings (the thin ones used for flight) move down on thorax almost to where the abdomen used to be, outer wings split out wide and then turn upside down, revealing mirrored undersides. each face of the abdomen is now the lens of a laser, and all lasers can fire simultaneously, thus creating a weapon capable of hitting multiple targets in a 360 degree radius. Each laser, however, fires in a fixed direction. aiming is done by chosing which laser(s) to fire and using legs to tilt the whole array to aim precisely. By cocooning the laser array with her reflective outer wings, with an opening at the top, Optica can also create a single, very powerful laser cannon. Due to her overall configuration it can only fire within 55 degrees of the vertical, however, so its primary use is as an antiaircraft cannon. Cannon is capable of penetrating lightly to moderately armored starships (only the lightest of military craft), array lasers vary in beam width but can all penetrate medium armors fairly easily. Heavy armors can be dealt with if sufficient power is available. This mode is most often used to defend a ship or base, sometimes against large hordes of enemies, and in those situations Optica will be plugged in directly to the ship's power supply if possible. Majority of computer systems are dedicated towards targeting in this mode, so general intellegence goes down to a bit below that of the average bot.
ROBOT MODE:
Optica is not your typical blindingly hot young fembot. In fact, the reaction the typical male will have upon seeing her is "yow, what a geek!" However, the male who likes an intellegent, unique fembot with a more subtle sort of beauty will smile, and be thankful that the typical male doesn't know what he's missing. Compare to movie stars Jodie Foster (Contact) and Thora Birch (American Beauty). In more detail then, Optica has a bit more of a square jaw and plain (but pretty) face than the "ideal" femme, but the biggest thing that stands out about her off-white face is her large, round, clear optics, each of which is a matrix of many, many small lenses. These look about the same on a bot as thick glasses do on a human. Above her optics is a small forehead (small because the optics take up so much facial real estate), and then long, straight hair that stretches down halfway to her waist. Her hair is composed of extremely fine fiber optic cable, each strand about as thick as a normal human hair, and there is light running through it, so there is a very faint glow throughout the hair, and then a much brighter glow at the tips. Usually the glow is white, but she can change the color on a whim. There is a single braid going right down the back, and at its end is what appears to be a data jack. From the top of her head extend two very long, fine, wispy antennae, waving upwards and reacting to movements and air currents in an exagerrated slow, graceful fashion, as if they were underwater. Her upper torso is metallic black with a modest bust, and her arms are long, thin, smooth, and off-white. Her hands are small, with long fingers. Her legs, while very long and shapely, are usually covered up, for her wings have become a long skirt. There is a slit on either side of the skirt, which is variable in length. Usually she varies it based on how much mobility she needs, though she is not oblivious to the other reasons to show some leg. The entire skirt can come off when she really needs to use her flexability. Her legs, by the way, have off-white thighs, metallic black lower legs and feet, and raised heels, so that it appears that she is wearing knee-high boots.
This just leaves the most distinctive feature of Optica's robot mode, her lower torso. This is exactly the same as her insect mode abdomen, but there is a need to go into more detail about it here. It is at the same time the most beautiful part of her and the most unattractive. Unattractive because of its round shape, that though it does not extend outwards laterally very far, makes her look a bit fat (of course, far more greatly so to herself than anyone else). Beautiful because it is the largest, most intricate gemstone you're likely to ever see. It is composed mostly of a composite of diamond and sapphire, has a total of 1024 faces, and is also one of the most advanced optical computers in existence. It is, you see, her CPU. It uses light based logic gates instead of electrical ones, which carries the advantages of being significantly faster, and being able to directly manipulate incoming light into meaningful data, instead of first converting it into electrical signals. If you look closely at Optica's stomach, you can see complex, minute clear conduits running all through it, like a clear circuitboard in three dimensions. Also you can see a few thin silver lines. These are aluminum wires, running out to the rest of her body, much of which is not optically based. These are only faintly visible, for they are only a few molecules wide, and are perfectly integrated with the rest of the system (the almuminum that composes them was converted from the sapphire, AlO3, by minute amounts of carefully applied catalyst). The center of the gemstone is her spark housing, which is surrounded by walls with variable reflectivity. If they are at maximum reflectivity, they keep the light from the spark inside and reflect outside light back outside, so it looks like there's just some sort of mirror ball at the center. At maximum transparency, the light from the spark diffracts outwards into a starlike shine.
It should also be noted that struturally in relation to the rest of her body, this orb works like the ball in a ball and socket joint. Her upper torso and hips can move pretty much wherever they want on it, and this gives her very impressive flexability, even among Transformers. Additionally, she has a secondary CPU in her head, partly optical, which mainly handles sensory processing from the head, including radio.
STATS:
Strength: 9
Stamina: 5
Speed: 5
Skill: 7
Aim: 9
Discipline: 6
Intelligence: 10
Firepower: 8
Luck: 4
SKILLS:
*Communications
*Electronic Warfare
*Technical: Computers
*Science: Physics (primarily optics, E&M, dimensional)
*Research
*Beam Weapons
*Hand to Hand Combat: Wrestling
*Joga
TRAITS:
Strength and Flexability: Like her mother, Optica has fiber-based actuators which give her very impressive strength for her body mass. She wields this strength effortlessly, sometimes without even seeming to realize it. This, it seems, is not due to any showoffism or ignorance on her part, but rather that her actuators have a much more sudden dropoff in functionality than most. The dropoff point can be changed by exercise and ample energon (or lack thereof), but is usually somewhere around five tons. She can get into situations where she lifts a G1 bot as if it were a paperweight, but then a bird lands on it, and she collapses. Also, in addition to her ball and socket stomach mentioned above, all of Optica's joints are extremely flexable.
Wrestling: Grappling style, not pro style. Having never gotten very far with any of Lightspeeds attempts to teach her martial arts, Prism tried teaching her a few wrestling moves, and she took to it immediately. Her strength and flexability noted above make her very good at pinning and subduing opponents, as well as escaping holds, and her awkwardness with the swinging and hitting movements of martial arts (as well as just regular walking) seems to disappear at very close quarters, where she is always very aware of just what her body is doing. It seems she might get a sexual kick out of wrestling- she has been observed to put male opponents in rather suggestive (but effective) holds- but nothing has been confirmed, and she will of course refer you to the effectiveness of the hold when questioned. However, since this is the closest she ever gets to ever being explictly sexual about anything, it is worth noting.
Communications: Built in advanced com device, already capable of handling up to 256 simultaneous channels and communicating with signal strengths down to one photon across the entire EM spectrum and subspace, has been enhanced to handle extra-dimensional communication, among other things. Optica is by far the most adept Lightspawn at using this, since she and Lightspeed (mostly Optica, but don't let L know I said that) invented it. Also most adept at using the even more advanced ship's communication system (it is not limited to, say, talking to one other dimension at a time).
Vision: Optica has two nearly independent visual systems. One uses light coming in to her abdomen/orb, where each face is a lens. Focal length of each lens is variable within a very small range, but there are lenses of many sizes. The result is 360 degree vision that is at almost all points comparable to human vision straight ahead, with nearly all focal lengths covered simultaneously. Her other system is her actual optics, these can each function as 128 individual lenses, or one big lens. This is her enhanced vision. It covers microwave to gamma rays, is capable of 500x zoom at either long or short range, can adapt to any lighting condition, and has a resolution of 2.8 gigapixels. Highly advanced optical circuit visual processor in cepharal secondary processing unit to make sense of all that info. Constant near-overflow of visual information leads to poor coordination skills and attention span that switches back and forth from short and broad to long and extremely focused.
Indestructability: Yes, I see the low stamina stat. Optica's indestructability is more of the Waspinator sort. Her robotic components aren't much more durable than the average cannon fodder drone, but her optics, crystalline orb, and much of her secondary processor are made of a diamond-sapphire composite that is extremely resistant to all punishment. Even the electrical components of her secondary CPU are encased in this material, as is a long lived battery and solar cells to keep her spark on life support for perhaps thousands of stellar cycles. Optica could be at ground zero of a hydrogen bomb explosion, and still be rebuilt without much trouble- her body plan is even stored in memory, so some time, raw material and a CR chamber will pretty much do it.
Science/Engineering: Yes, Optica has a genius level scientific mind, incredible knowledge, all that. Her expertise is focused on communications only because her family demands that it is. To this point she has not found a specific field that she really wants to focus on.
Singing: She has a nice voice. Good range, too.
WEAPONS:
Eye lasers
Big, thick optics make for powerful optic lasers. Beam width is variable, but max power output is fixed, so at 1mm width she can cut through just about anything instantly, and at 10cm it's just about right for frying a chicken (5-7 min for chicken strips or wings, 20-30 min for a whole chicken. She's going to be pretty drained after firing lasers for 30 min straight, though.).
Laser Array/Cannon Alternate Mode
See Alternate Mode description above.
EQUIPMENT:
Communications device: See Traits
Data jack: There is a braid in her fiber-optic hair that ends in a data jack. This is functional, and very much so. Hair is long, but not long enough for the data jack to get very far. However, she can grow her hair longer if she wants to. She does this once in a while, and then cuts it, and uses the cut hair to make extension cables. The actual jacks, her body produces as well, but must be manually attached to the end of the strands of hair. Also carries a small specialized router in subspace with extension cables, which she uses so she can hook up to multiple devices. If 244 tbps isn't fast enough for her, she can braid more of her hair and make more data jacks, but one is usually enough.
PERSONALITY:
Absentminded adolescent geek girl, brilliant scientist and technician, mistress of overeducated sarcasm. Optica is generally a nice, sweet girl, but pragmatic, at least on the surface. Optica is known for having a very narrow, focused span of attention that rejects all distractions, but also often switches off to the broad, short attention span typical of web and channel surfers. The former makes her very good at performing specific scientific, technical, or research tasks, and the latter, while not allowing her to get much done, is more relaxing, and gives her more overall understanding than one would expect from someone who displays such obsessive focus when on a task. Her approach to problem solving and understanding is purely visual- practically everything is transformed into some sort of visual metaphor in her mind. He social manner is cool, often disdainful or sarcastic, but she does not have any real disdain for anyone (besides perhaps her siblings) and will often put herself in social situations despite her apparent antisocialness. She has never been known to flirt conciously, though she does seem to make herself look and smell a bit nicer when she knows she's going to be around eligible bachelors. A possible exception to this is close quarters combat, as mentioned above, but information is still inconclusive on that. Efforts to flirt with her she usually humors to some extent, or makes fun of, but she does not allow it to go anywhere. Alcohol causes another slight exception, she's much friendlier then, and will allow some friendly physical contact, but it's still a long, long road to first base.
Oh, also in the last six stellar cycles or so she's taken up meditation and ieoga (a series of exercises similar to yoga, but designed for Transformer bodies, which of course have different joint structures than humans, as well as from each other (which is why there are over 30 ieoga variants)). These exercises help calm her down and control her focus better.
Let's see.. oh, yes, no acts of insanity, deviousness, dark brooding lonerness, sluttiness, or general evil will surprise or phase her. In fact, these are generally her prime targets of mockery.
HISTORY:
Optica is one of the Lightspawn, children of the Predacons Prism and Lightspeed. Information about Prism and Lightspeed can be found on the Predacon and Vehicon boards, I have a comic or two the Lightspawn on the General board, and Psyckogod has posted or will post a short story about the Lightspawn as a family unit. Basically, though, Prism is a mercenary, Lightspeed an ex-Secret Police agent, and they've been training their family into a black ops mercenary team, and the most up-and-coming one on the scene to boot.
Optica and his slightly younger brother Blacklight were born when their mother was just getting on to a serious hardcore training kick. Their childhoods were almost exclusively devoted to learning their crafts. Optica mainly specialized in computers and communications, while Blacklight took to stealth missions and melee combat.
Optica was a happy, if a bit geeky, child, always happy to meet people and do new things, if introverted, and though she quickly became the family's top scientist, she also was always bugging to go on away missions.
When Optica was 14, she and Lightspeed completed work on a highly advanced communications device, capable of sending messages between dimensions. Combine it with an off the shelf transporter, and that means travel to other dimensions. Optica's first test of this setup landed her in a particularly bad neighborhood in a crime-ridden Cybertropolis, and she quickly ran into a sick Franken-bot called Bartievus. He immediately saw that she had some very unique and valuble components, did some rather horrible things to her, and ended up integrating her secondary processor into himself as a radio, and selling her crystal orb for a handsome profit. Fortunately, the Lightspawn were able to track both items. The crystal orb was stolen back within a day, but the secondary processor was a much trickier proposition. Eventually, with the help of that universe's Lightspeed, a forced lobotomy was performed on Bartievus, and two weeks of CR later, Optica was good as new, physically, but she now acted much more reclusive, venturing out of her lab only when absolutely necessary. Her interaction with boys as an adolescent was limited to talking online, and later on being forced to go out and meet people by her family, which went.. not well.
She became the Lightspawn's mission control, a role she wasn't entirely suited for, because of her tendency to have a one track mind and ignore "superfluous" information her family might report, like, say, there was a giant monster coming right at them while she was trying to decrypt something. Also her phone manner was curt and to the point (actually these were tendencies she had even before her unfortunate incident- social tendencies were never her thing)
Being outlaws and terrorists according to some governments, the Lightspawn had their ship raided once in a while, basically whenever one of those governements could track them down. On one such raid Optica became trapped in her lab after everyone else had escaped. She quickly set the computer to beam her out just anywhere it could among stored coordinates, and then self destruct the ship. Strangely enough (She always thought the computer on that ship had a sadistic sense of humor), the coordinates it chose for her were the same ones Blacklight had snuck off to and returned from several stellar cycles before.
Graphics Provided by Riboflavin
