Profile art commissioned from Prydri. Do not repost or reuse.
Part of DragonDictatorAlts. Check there for more characters!
Notes
Big ol’ lazy robo lizard.
Appearance
Roughly 7 feet tall and 30 feet long, the obviously robotic tegu is a sight to behold. His various scales shimmer in and out of view as they playfully demonstrate their active camouflage abilities. His tongue shimmers with a thin layer of fluids that coat it. The visor lights up in a pleasant expression as the lizard's head turns to face one of the onlookers, and he takes a few heavy steps. Despite the obvious weight to his strides, aside from the crunch of whatever it is he’s walking over the tegu is almost completely silent as he moves.
Personality
Fairly laid back to the point of being lazy, Smartboard is generally not one to do a whole lot unless specifically motivated. In the chat his imposing stature as well as his armor means that he can generally pull off a “wait and see” approach to things, given the firepower it takes to harm him. The tanklizard is almost always goodnatured, and has no hesitation about stepping in if he sees an obviously unfair fight or someone being kicked while they’re down, simply gobbling up the losing party and tucking them away inside until the other party loses interest in pursuing.
Abilities and powers
Multipurpose Adaptive Display Armored SynthScales: Smartboard is covered not in metal plating, but in multipurpose (and admittedly still remarkably durable) sensory and display devices. These combine a series of microscopic cameras, touch sensors, and LCD displays that were built originally to give active camouflage functionality, but work also to display a general interactive UI for a myriad of other uses. From checking E-mail, to playing games, to streaming the latest videos, the MADASS system can let someone use Smartboard (with permission, of course) just as one would a computer or other mobile device. Wireless technology coupled with a hacking suite allow Smartboard to also take control of low security electronic devices. [i]Usually[/i] he doesn't do any lasting damage.
As far as the scales are to the senses, they are pictured above in their default state to sight, are odorless, taste roughly like licking a computer monitor. The touch however is the most distinctive part. His scales are smooth, self-cleaning, and have a bit of give to them, as if one was pushing against a firm rubber. Small indents can be made so long as one pushes slowly, but they pop back within a second. A 1 inch depth is where the armored portion can be felt. Fast impacts will find the surface as hard as any steel. This of course renders Smartboard almost immune to small-arms fire, as well as protects against larger weapons. Armor piercing bullets will leave noticeable damage, and anti-vehicle weapons can hurt the robolizard enough to impair his functions.
Social Focal-Point Visor: With so many cameras all around Smartboard's body, a dedicated optical suite (much less a visually appealing one) is a bit of an unnecessary luxury and quite frankly a waste of time, effort, and resources that would be better spent elsewhere. Or that's what a military engineer would tell you. Lucky for Smartboard, a gigantic eyeless cloaking mecha lizard tends to be a bit off-putting when in situations that require socialization. Thus the visor. It includes an elaborate array of specialty sensors from infra-red to ultra-violet, long and short wave monitoring, and a zoom function that would make an astronomer blush. In addition, to aid in social tasks, the visor projects eyes onto it that allow for expression and simply as a reference point for sentients to look at while interacting. Since there's already tens of thousands of cameras integrated into the SynthScales, and thus the synth has 360 degree situational awareness, the displayed eyes purely for the benefit of onlookers.
Battlefield Utility/Recovery Pod: Smartboard is equipped with a synthetic anatomy that mirrors (somewhat) the organs of a living creature. As far as the bits that people are interested in, that lizard's mouth does indeed lead to a throat but from there it's a little different. Smartboard is able to swallow people down to one of two different chambers. The first is a stomach in all but function, comfortably insulated, the surface smooth to the touch and usually kept well lubricated by a thin layer of gel that contains a simple disinfecting agent. From there the gel can have additional chemicals added to it to give it anything from analgesic, lubricating, sedative, or mind altering agents that can have from a calming or even aphrodisiac effect.
Originally it was intended that Smartboard was to be used to gulp down injured combatants so that their condition could be stabilized and they could be kept isolated and safe from further harm until the unit could bring them to the back lines for proper treatment. From then, the various chemicals were added so that it could be used to prepare people for various other things that would happen at a military base, as well as some other compounds that the AI itself decided to synthesize for different uses since he parted ways with his creators.
Background
As many people are aware, your average first world nation’s military budget is big. Like, really big. Like, ‘how do they even manage to spend all that money ‘ big. The thing is, not all of that money goes towards soldiers and existing tech. Billions upon billions go to contractors for the development of new military tech, and it’s there that Smartboard’s story begins.
A small research group that was part of a much larger firm was given the task of developing a platform to retrieve wounded troops from conflict areas. To do this, an oversight by the company allocated an unlimited budget as well as access to all other company projects and resources. Rather than point out this oversight, the team started to brainstorm about how many cool things they could stick onto such a robot.
The main design was decided to be quadrupedal, a something hairless to make use of department H’s active camouflage systems, and one of the scientists put her minor in herpetology to good use in shaping the platform like a tegu, a large and intelligent one that she had seen around and about. Resources from every other portion of the company were slowly siphoned off, all going to the project, codenamed Smartboard.
As accounting tried to track down where exactly all of these unexpected expenses were coming from, the team finally hit a wall. The systems that they had designed were far too advanced for any program, simple or advanced to use autonomously… So the team went and … requisitioned an unconfigured AI core, getting as far as installing and integrating it before their project was abruptly brought to an end.
Before they could activate their magnum opus, the entire division was brought in for questioning, and all of the employees who had anything to do with the whole debacle were terminated. Given that it was a shady defense contractor that was doing the terminating, some people were never heard from again. The majority however, were merely given a termination contract including a decent severance package along with several binding NDAs, while the rest of the mess was quietly and metaphorically brushed underneath the carpet.
Several years later however, one curious intern found his way into the sealed and abandoned project labs and found that the final touches had been made, and all that was needed to activate Project: Smartboard was a simple button press! Events get a bit muddled after that, but obviously said button was pressed, a large hole was made in the side of the project warehouse, and the gigantic robotic tegu was lumbering off towards the city, eager to explore the world and meet its occupants!
Notable Possessions
None yet
Locations frequented
Unknown
Notable setting information
Not always relevant
Scene ideas
Help come up with a couple!
Additional Pictures
Image done by Rimmi. For my own use. Do not repost or reupload.
