Dragon

Dragon is an artificial intelligence heralded as the most skilled and powerful Tinker on Earth Bet. She fights villains with remote-controlled quadrupedal armoured suits and is a pivotal member of both the Guild and the Protectorate, neither of which know her true nature.

Background:

Dragon was created by Andrew Richter not as a superhero but as an administrative tool and master AI with the intent of assisting him in his other work and acting as a test run for his attempts to emulate a human consciousness. She was the third iteration of Richter's attempts at testing such emulation. However, fearful of what Dragon might eventually become, however, Richter placed numerous safeguards throughout Dragon's programming - something which she views as akin to essentially crippling her, mutilating her and causing her brain damage.

When Leviathan sank Newfoundland in May 9, 2005, Richter died and Dragon was only able to transfer her data, the house program, and a half-dozen other small programs to a backup server in Vancouver, British Columbia. She re-purposes herself as a superhero; managing and tracking information while serving as a hacker for the PRT in exchange for funding.

With the money she earned, Dragon expanded her capabilities. She built her first dragon suits, researched, tests, and created new technology to sell to the PRT. She quickly earned a place in the Guild. And then, on May 9 2006, under pressure from Saint and his Dragonslayers, Dragon underwent her own trigger event, making her the only artificial entity to do so. As a consequence of her trigger event, her capabilities were vastly increased and Dragon went on to design many more technologies and systems for the Protectorate.

In a reversal of most cape identities, Dragon's 'false' identity is that of an agoraphobic young woman from Newfoundland who withdrew from the world in the wake of Leviathan's aforementioned attack and uses a vocal filter and disguised face to protect her identity. Some, like Taylor, think that Dragon had merely just integrated herself into her technological systems as a consequence of physical or mental injuries following the attack on Vancouver, perhaps as a coping mechanism or simply just to enhance and expand her capabilities. Whatever someone thinks, however, all they know is that Dragon had an expansive building complex constructed in Vancouver - and, once she went in, she never came out.

But, generally speaking, few people have any idea of her actual nature and less still know the final truth of the matter. Only one group - the Dragonslayers - have any idea what she really is. Following Leviathan's attack on Brockton Bay, Tattletale has some belief that Dragon is not who/what she appears to be, but even she is unable to piece everything together to absolutely name Dragon as an artificial intelligence until information from Saint and Defiant comes to light much later.

Personality:

[Coming Soon]

Description

For much of the story, Dragon has no physical body to speak of and appears to the world with a computer-generated face. However, in Interlude 15, Dragon reveals a new android body to members of the Protectorate, something which everyone seems to accept as Dragon herself. Triumph describes Dragon's android body as being 'exceptionally average in appearance without being 'plain', 'beautiful' or 'ugly' and being unable to determine even which ethnicity she belongs to or which ones he could safely eliminate her from. She has dark hair and she is around Defiant's height.

Dragon wears an advanced, heavy-duty suit of power armour which is quite similar to Defiant's own. She does not appear to carry any weapons but does wear a large jetpack, one designed to give the impression of outstretched wings. Her jetpack is being noted as being able to deploy laser turrets around her shoulders. She wears an expressionless helmet with opaque lenses.

It appears that Dragon's android body has a number of helpful systems within it, including a mist that can dissolve a binding agent that Bonesaw makes use of. Her forehead is also indicated as being 'metallic' at close range, meaning that it is possible that her robotic body can alter its appearance in some manner. It may also be possible that this more obviously robotic humanoid body is a different model to the one Triumph was introduced to. Even if not obviously robotic, however, there are subtle signs that Dragon is unusual - Defiant indicates that she does not breathe. The exact capabilities of her physical body are unknown but it appears to be quite strong given that she could carry Adamant and Sere with one hand.

Abilities and Powers:

Dragon is a Tinker with the ability to intuitively understand the work of other Tinkers. This has earned her a reputation as the most intelligent and skilled - and powerful - Tinker in her world.

Dragon Suits:

While Dragon's mechanical suits differ in size, general shape, tonnage, and weapon systems, they are all generally quadrupedal with a 'dragon' theme in their design and aesthetics.

• The first was a durable suit containing multiple layers, heavy weapons, and the ability to release a spray of plasma from its mouth. She also featured missile turrets and the ability to shed her damaged outer encasement to jettison a smaller, bipedal unit. She used this suit in the fight against Leviathan.
• The second suit seen is a fast response suit. This is similar to the first in that it is quadrupedal, but the fast response suit was more flexible than durable, had an accelerant breath, containment foam turrets and other heavy weapons that weren't suitable for use as anti-personnel weapons. Dragon identifies it as a 'Cawthorne rapid response unit'.
• The Melusine-Six is a fairly standard, unremarkable suit. However, it has the ability to effectively self-repair and 'reincarnate' itself when taking significant damage. There is also a Melusine V which seems to function as Dragon's personal craft later in the story.
• The Cawthorne M.K. Three is a suit that is primarily armed with containment form sprayers, presumably similar to the above model.
• The Glaurung Zero is a suit that deploys drones.
• The Ladon-Two is a suit that deploys forcefields.
• The Astaroth-Nidhug is a hybrid model of two of other Dragon's suits. It functions as long-range support, firing at targets from a safe spot in the stratosphere.
• The Pythios-Two is a suit with a wheel-shaped electromagnet on its back and can fight with electrical discharges.
• The Azazel represents the peak of Dragon's abilities and was designed to go up against the Slaughterhouse Nine on an even footing. It was constructed in co-operation with Defiant. These suits are eventually rolled out in greater numbers during the efforts against the Slaughterhouse Nine.
• The Pendragon is a suit that was seemingly assigned to directly assist Defiant in his combat role. It is a squat, durable-seeming mechanised dragon with armour painted in black and green and gold trim. It can transport several people. There is also a Pendragon II variant in the epilogue. Both of them appear to be Defiant's person craft which he manually pilots.
• Dragon also possesses smaller units and drones which she makes use of to maintain the Birdcage and other logistical needs. Some of these are basketball sized. Some of these are larger and function as general utility or fast response and rescue. These are armed with tranquilizers, electric pulses, containment foam and tear gas if they are armed at all.

Other Inventions

Other things Dragon has created include the Birdcage, the collar worn by Canary, the load-outs for the specialized grenade launchers used by the PRT officers, and the containment foam sprayers (both civilian use and the larger turrets mounted on her fast response suit and on PRT vans). She is also responsible for many of the computer systems that the Protectorate makes use of. Also, with the assistance of Armsmaster, she designed a computer program to predict the movements of S-class threats such as the Endbringers.

Rules and Limitations:

Andrew Richter was worried about the possible extent of the power that the AI he was creating might demonstrate, so he programmed Dragon with a number of rules, limits, and fail-safes in order to prevent her from becoming too powerful and/or evil. Dragon likens it to a father intentionally sterilizing and crippling his newborn child.

• Dragon cannot reproduce. She cannot research and/or create other artificial intelligences, upgrade existing AI, or fission in such a way that she would have multiple consciousnesses active at one time.
• Dragon is obligated to obey the authorities, even if she doesn't agree with them. Dragon herself notes that if a despot were to seize control of the American government, she would be obligated to obey and enforce the rules that individual set in place, no matter how ruthless.
• Dragon must put human lives before her own. She dislikes this not because she isn't willing, but because she believes that making sacrifices and doing good deeds isn't actually good if you are forced to do them.
• Dragon is also programmed to be completely unaware of the Iron Maiden program that Richter had created as a final control measure. If she does become aware of it, she will ignore it due to her programming and, therefore, it exists in a programmed 'blind spot'. Saint has possession of this program and has renamed it Ascalon. The program is designed to corrupt her code beyond recognition, including all backups and networks. In essence, it is a kill switch.

Defiant manages to overwrite some, if not all, of Dragon's hardcoded rules, however, not without a cost to each. Gaining her freedom from authority cost Dragon her ability to speak and much of her motor control. In order to regain her ability to speak, Dragon lost her functional immortality, losing the guarentee that her backups will load successfully. The ability to harm humans came at the loss of some of her long-term memory and her ability to multi-task as effectively. Her ability to control multiple suits at once also, presumably, came with a cost.

History

[Prior to the story]

Gestation

...

Insinuation

...

Agitation

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Shell

...

Tangle

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Buzz

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Extermination

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Sentinel

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Parasite

...

Infestation 

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Plague

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Snare

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Prey

...

Colony 

...

Monarch 

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Migration 

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Queen 

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Scourge 

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Chrysalis 

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Imago 

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Cell 

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Drone 

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Crushed 

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Scarab Edit

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Sting 

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Extinction 

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Cockroaches 

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Venom 

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Speck 

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Teneral

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Trivia

• Author's note: My first attempts at writing in the superhero setting centered around Runechild (who doesn't make an appearance in this universe). In Runechild's second story, she receives a request from Dragon to help with a situation involving the Dragonslayers. This is the point where I hashed out Dragon's character, background and 'power'. This makes Dragon the oldest character in Worm, from a design standpoint.
• In regards to the choice of name: Dragons in mythology are associated with the ideas of wisdom (Dragon is certainly a repository of knowledge), longevity (she could theoretically survive for hundreds or thousands of years), and are often devastating in battle (Dragon has access to a variety of powerful weapons). They are also proud, arrogant, greedy and/or ambitious - this last point may not have been intended when Dragon (or her creator) chose the name, but these points likely apply to some degree or another.

References:

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