Wheeljack (G1) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ye_olde_engineer) wrote2015-05-20 07:37 pm
ye_olde_engineer) wrote2015-05-20 07:37 pm
Entry tags:
App for The Wake
Personal Information
Name: Dragon
Age: I've reached the apex of "The Hill" \o/
Personal DW:dragondancer5150
Email / AIM / MSN: dragondancer5150@yahoo.com (email and AIM), OldMaidDragon (Plurk), or just PM this journal
Current Character(s): Drill Boy, Mutou Yugi/Yami no Yugi
Character Information
Character Name: Wheeljack
Fandom: Transformers, Gen 1 cartoon
Source: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Wheeljack_%28G1%29
Also: http://www.unicron.us/tf1984/toypix/wheeljack.htm
Character History:
Wheeljack was chosen to be the chief Mechanical Engineer for the crew of the Ark, leaving his home planet along with his fellow Autobots on their Prime’s mission to find new sources of energon and revitalize Cybertron. After a deep-space altercation with the Decepticons, both ships were badly damaged and pulled into the gravitational field of the nearest planet. Four million years later, he was among the first eighteen to be repaired and revived.
From the start, his biggest asset to his fellows, on Earth as it had long been on Cybertron, has been his ability to come up with devices and upgrades as needed . . . or his uncanny knack to have one on-hand already, having anticipated the need, such as with his handheld bomb that was used to collapse the mine in Burma, or the remote control device that was implanted on Skywarp to help the Autobots combat an antimatter-powered Megatron. He can very often be found working as an assistant to his best friend, Chief Medical Officer Ratchet, as when the two fought to save Prime’s life after an accident at a human industrial weapons factory followed by a lethal strike by Laserbeak. It was an unusual and vital Cybertronian component retrieved from his workshop back on Cybertron that finally did the trick.
Arguably one of his greatest achievements, and perhaps greatest headaches, is his creation of the Dinobots. Wheeljack worked out the designs and construction details, with Ratchet overseeing their medical needs. Problematic as they can be, they are Wheeljack’s creations and he loves them, even willing to defy Prime himself for their sakes . . . not something he would ever do lightly.
His involvement in the Autobot cause didn’t stop with them, of course. He built a special cover to cap an energy leak in a pyramid in Peru, outfitted a number of his fellows with hydrofoil capability, went on the rescue mission to Cybertron (then in Earth’s orbit) to rescue Sparkplug, been introduced to the worst that Mother Nature has to offer, and hacked a data disk Bumblebee stole from the Decepticons’ HQ and built an emitter to override and deactivate the human Dr. Arkeville’s hypnochips. He’s been better acquainted with quicksand than he’d ever want to be. He’s performed numerous field repairs to his friends, especially on missions that Ratchet was not also assigned to. He is brave, quick-thinking . . . and impulsive, such as when he jumped in front of his own Immobilizer to keep Spike from being hit by the ray. Other inventions of his have included a shock blast canon, cybernetic attachments to transfer a human’s mind to a robot, the Negavator, and an anti-tranfixation grenade to free his mode-locked friends. He learned to play football before he was captured by the Sub-Atlanticans to be studied for weapons to use against both Cybertronian factions. With Chip Chase’s help, he designed a set of dominator disks to take control of Devastator. Yet again working with his best friend, he and Ratchet came up with a neutralizer for a destructive and unstable power source consumed by the Insecticons.
Ever quick to defend his creations, Wheeljack had been working with the Dinobots and held a demonstration of their new finesse. Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned, which made it rather convenient that a prehistoric island had been discovered – it was a place the behemoths could train where they couldn’t risk any more collateral damage to the Autobots’ HQ. That consideration didn’t keep them from abandoning the Autobots in their time of need, choosing to try to go sight-seeing on Cybertron rather than retrieve the needed cybertonium they’d been sent after. After finding themselves enslaved and escaping with the “puny humans’” help, the Dinobots got back on task, returning – with the cybertonium – to the Autobot ranks. This would be the last time Grimlock led the Dinobots into betrayal of the faction that built them. That was too little, too late, however, to keep Wheeljack from being stung by betrayal of a very different kind. Right before the incident over cybertonium, the Autobots learned a very hard, firsthand lesson in human public opinion and how quickly it can turn against someone. Even after such a devastating experience, though, Wheeljack along with his fellows continued to protect and fight for the humans and their planet against the Decepticons.
Wheeljack could only laugh in ironic amusement when he heard that one of Megatron’s acquisition targets – which the Decepticon leader had convinced himself was some powerful and deadly weapon (even Megatron knows to respect and fear the Autobot engineer’s genius and inventions…most of the time) – was nothing more than a pet project of his that he’d never managed to get working to begin with. He was present when Megatron created the Stunticons, has met Alpha Trion and Vector Sigma in person, headed the team that created the Aerialbots and later raced to repair the Kronosphere in order to recall the combiner team back from the far past into which they’d been accidentally thrown. One of the times he most regretted not managing to stop Megatron from having Vector Sigma spark the Stunticons was the day he was flattened – literally! – under the brutal weight of the team’s leader Motormaster during a trans-continental race in Europe. He helped Perceptor create more corrostop to save their friends from a Cybertronian disease called Cosmic Rust, located and helped capture the Stunticons out on a series of seemingly unconnected heists, created a fake ruby for the Autobot team of Stunticon-doubles to take back to Megatron in a bid to learn his plans via subterfuge, and finally defended HQ against a massive weapon of the Decepticons.
((Wheeljack’s first entry into Wake was shortly after this, long before Autobot City was built, let alone his death in the 1986 movie. He has, however, since gone back and experienced those intervening 20 years. So he is dead “now” in his home reality. The only real experience of note was the Battle of Autobot City where he was killed [as were his “brother” and several other close friends].))
Wake History: Is a long-ass affair, covering almost three years of in-game time. So I gave it its own post.
Character Personality: Wheeljack is about as friendly and helpful as they come . . . though you might be wary to accept that help if it comes in the form of one of his latest inventions. Make sure he’s fully tested it first. His knowledge of mechanical engineering and related disciplines is exceeded only by his creativity and his enthusiasm. He gets a lot of wild and amazing ideas, such that he’s frequently teased by his friends as being a “mad scientist,” a moniker he takes in stride.
When he gets focused on a project, he tends to lose track of time, and it can be difficult to pull his attention away from his work before he’s finished. If you approach him with a question or problem, he’s about as apt to notice that as he is to just start gushing to his new audience about his latest work . . . and he’s likely to lose any but the most mechanically adept as his talk will very quickly go over anyone else’s head, not that he means to. If you can manage to interrupt him, however, he’ll apologize and turn his attention to whatever your need is. He really does want to help others – when it comes down to it, his work is secondary to his friends.
Dogged determination is one of his greatest assets, especially in the lab. It’s rare that an invention of his will work on the first try, especially considering thecrazy innovative ideas he works from. Frequently, something will blow up in his face, and his best friend, Ratchet, has lost track of the number of times he’s had to repair Wheeljack – and his lab – but as soon as he can, Wheeljack’s right back at it. He’s pretty sure he knows what went wrong the last time; he just needs to address that little flaw in the plans and…
He does not discourage easily, and if it takes him fifty tries to get something to work the way it’s supposed to, he’ll tell you he didn’t fail fifty times, he just found fifty ways not to do it. Wheeljack is nothing if not an optimist.
This has its negative effects too, of course. He is his own worst enemy, with as frequently as he injures himself with the experimental weaponry and other devices and upgrades he works with. However, this too he takes in stride. It’s not that he enjoys pain, but really one must make these kinds of sacrifices for science! Being an inventor means accepting the setbacks that inevitably come before the big breakthroughs.
Powers: As a Cybertronian, he has the usual transformation capability. In his root-mode, he has limited flight capability via thrusters in his arms (up to 320mph for up to 800 mi). Permanently mounted to his right shoulder is a cannon which he can hide away in subspace, for which he has a variety of munitions shells. He has a laser blaster as well as an onboard fire suppression system (for ex., he can dispense fire-retardant foam – good for when one of his inventions backfires on him 9,9). In his alt-mode, he’s a Lancia Stratos turbo custom racecar, and he’s a freakishly adept and daring driver, able to pull tricks that stunt drivers haven’t even thought of. (Incidentally, he really likes to race and show off, too.) He’s also an amazingly brilliant mechanical engineer and inventor, so much so that even the Decepticons respect him and his creations, and another Autobot once claimed that Wheeljack could “build a neutron bomb out of a wristwatch and a rusty can” . . . which, hyperbole though it is, isn’t far from the truth. He’s the Autobots’ resident MacGuyver. And fondly-nicknamed “mad scientist.”
Samples
First person:
Um . . . hi, guys! You, ah . . . probably heard that big ka-boom? Y-yeah. I’m fine! Well, mostly. Hey, Ratch, ya gonna have time in a little bit for a limb reattachment? Most everything’s still intact, it just . . . well, yeah, you’ll see. I’d do it myself, but it’s kinda a two-handed job. BUT! I think I know what went wrong. Cliffjumper, could ya come by my lab later? A-after I’ve had a chance to clean up a bit, that is. This new spike-gun should be able to deliver your glass gas a lot more efficiently than your current gun. I think you’ll like it! Okay, anyway, I’ll see ya then!
Third Person:
Wheeljack shut off his communicator and turned his attention back to the mess on his table . . . and strewn across the floor . . . and embedded into the wall. That piece was the one that had taken off his right arm at the elbow joint. He sighed, ignoring the pain in his limb – the half that was still attached – as he stepped out from behind the blast shield that he’d not managed to duck behind quite fast enough and stooped to snatch up the other half. The hand and forearm seemed fine, and the engineer nodded.
“A’right,” he muttered to himself as he stepped back up to the table, brushing twisted scraps aside and setting down the severed limb. His optics focused on the device and his charred notes, and he leaned on one hand and started to rest the other on his hip as he thought. Only . . . yeah, not present. He let the stump rest gingerly along his flank instead. “Gotta be the other configuration, then. I mean . . . that’s the only one left, an’ I know this works; I’ve done it before.” Except that had been quite a while ago now, long enough ago that, while he knew one of the final two possible configurations had proven to be the right one, he’d long confused himself on trying to just reason out which one it was, and his original notes were in his old workshop back on Cybertron. In the end, he’d built two devices and had to just pick one of his choices and go for it, reserving the second for the other configuration in case . . . well, this happened.
But that would have to wait. He really did need to get things cleaned up before Ratchet got there to help him with his arm. He wondered how the medic’s day had been going so far. That’d determine how much of a grousing he’d get for managing to “dismember” himself again. The engineer couldn’t help a rueful snicker as he shook his head at the thought. Oh well. Now, where was that hand broom…?
After a moment’s searching, he couldn’t find it right away, and in a mild fit of ornery . . . something – even he couldn’t have quite defined the impulse – he picked up the detached limb by the forearm and used the hand to start scooping the debris into a pile. Yes, it was silly – and depending on who was asked, admittedly kind of creepy – but . . . hey. He’d not gotten where he was in life without being able to poke a little fun at himself.
Name: Dragon
Age: I've reached the apex of "The Hill" \o/
Personal DW:
dragondancer5150Email / AIM / MSN: dragondancer5150@yahoo.com (email and AIM), OldMaidDragon (Plurk), or just PM this journal
Current Character(s): Drill Boy, Mutou Yugi/Yami no Yugi
Character Information
Character Name: Wheeljack
Fandom: Transformers, Gen 1 cartoon
Source: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Wheeljack_%28G1%29
Also: http://www.unicron.us/tf1984/toypix/wheeljack.htm
Character History:
Wheeljack was chosen to be the chief Mechanical Engineer for the crew of the Ark, leaving his home planet along with his fellow Autobots on their Prime’s mission to find new sources of energon and revitalize Cybertron. After a deep-space altercation with the Decepticons, both ships were badly damaged and pulled into the gravitational field of the nearest planet. Four million years later, he was among the first eighteen to be repaired and revived.
From the start, his biggest asset to his fellows, on Earth as it had long been on Cybertron, has been his ability to come up with devices and upgrades as needed . . . or his uncanny knack to have one on-hand already, having anticipated the need, such as with his handheld bomb that was used to collapse the mine in Burma, or the remote control device that was implanted on Skywarp to help the Autobots combat an antimatter-powered Megatron. He can very often be found working as an assistant to his best friend, Chief Medical Officer Ratchet, as when the two fought to save Prime’s life after an accident at a human industrial weapons factory followed by a lethal strike by Laserbeak. It was an unusual and vital Cybertronian component retrieved from his workshop back on Cybertron that finally did the trick.
Arguably one of his greatest achievements, and perhaps greatest headaches, is his creation of the Dinobots. Wheeljack worked out the designs and construction details, with Ratchet overseeing their medical needs. Problematic as they can be, they are Wheeljack’s creations and he loves them, even willing to defy Prime himself for their sakes . . . not something he would ever do lightly.
His involvement in the Autobot cause didn’t stop with them, of course. He built a special cover to cap an energy leak in a pyramid in Peru, outfitted a number of his fellows with hydrofoil capability, went on the rescue mission to Cybertron (then in Earth’s orbit) to rescue Sparkplug, been introduced to the worst that Mother Nature has to offer, and hacked a data disk Bumblebee stole from the Decepticons’ HQ and built an emitter to override and deactivate the human Dr. Arkeville’s hypnochips. He’s been better acquainted with quicksand than he’d ever want to be. He’s performed numerous field repairs to his friends, especially on missions that Ratchet was not also assigned to. He is brave, quick-thinking . . . and impulsive, such as when he jumped in front of his own Immobilizer to keep Spike from being hit by the ray. Other inventions of his have included a shock blast canon, cybernetic attachments to transfer a human’s mind to a robot, the Negavator, and an anti-tranfixation grenade to free his mode-locked friends. He learned to play football before he was captured by the Sub-Atlanticans to be studied for weapons to use against both Cybertronian factions. With Chip Chase’s help, he designed a set of dominator disks to take control of Devastator. Yet again working with his best friend, he and Ratchet came up with a neutralizer for a destructive and unstable power source consumed by the Insecticons.
Ever quick to defend his creations, Wheeljack had been working with the Dinobots and held a demonstration of their new finesse. Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned, which made it rather convenient that a prehistoric island had been discovered – it was a place the behemoths could train where they couldn’t risk any more collateral damage to the Autobots’ HQ. That consideration didn’t keep them from abandoning the Autobots in their time of need, choosing to try to go sight-seeing on Cybertron rather than retrieve the needed cybertonium they’d been sent after. After finding themselves enslaved and escaping with the “puny humans’” help, the Dinobots got back on task, returning – with the cybertonium – to the Autobot ranks. This would be the last time Grimlock led the Dinobots into betrayal of the faction that built them. That was too little, too late, however, to keep Wheeljack from being stung by betrayal of a very different kind. Right before the incident over cybertonium, the Autobots learned a very hard, firsthand lesson in human public opinion and how quickly it can turn against someone. Even after such a devastating experience, though, Wheeljack along with his fellows continued to protect and fight for the humans and their planet against the Decepticons.
Wheeljack could only laugh in ironic amusement when he heard that one of Megatron’s acquisition targets – which the Decepticon leader had convinced himself was some powerful and deadly weapon (even Megatron knows to respect and fear the Autobot engineer’s genius and inventions…most of the time) – was nothing more than a pet project of his that he’d never managed to get working to begin with. He was present when Megatron created the Stunticons, has met Alpha Trion and Vector Sigma in person, headed the team that created the Aerialbots and later raced to repair the Kronosphere in order to recall the combiner team back from the far past into which they’d been accidentally thrown. One of the times he most regretted not managing to stop Megatron from having Vector Sigma spark the Stunticons was the day he was flattened – literally! – under the brutal weight of the team’s leader Motormaster during a trans-continental race in Europe. He helped Perceptor create more corrostop to save their friends from a Cybertronian disease called Cosmic Rust, located and helped capture the Stunticons out on a series of seemingly unconnected heists, created a fake ruby for the Autobot team of Stunticon-doubles to take back to Megatron in a bid to learn his plans via subterfuge, and finally defended HQ against a massive weapon of the Decepticons.
((Wheeljack’s first entry into Wake was shortly after this, long before Autobot City was built, let alone his death in the 1986 movie. He has, however, since gone back and experienced those intervening 20 years. So he is dead “now” in his home reality. The only real experience of note was the Battle of Autobot City where he was killed [as were his “brother” and several other close friends].))
Wake History: Is a long-ass affair, covering almost three years of in-game time. So I gave it its own post.
Character Personality: Wheeljack is about as friendly and helpful as they come . . . though you might be wary to accept that help if it comes in the form of one of his latest inventions. Make sure he’s fully tested it first. His knowledge of mechanical engineering and related disciplines is exceeded only by his creativity and his enthusiasm. He gets a lot of wild and amazing ideas, such that he’s frequently teased by his friends as being a “mad scientist,” a moniker he takes in stride.
When he gets focused on a project, he tends to lose track of time, and it can be difficult to pull his attention away from his work before he’s finished. If you approach him with a question or problem, he’s about as apt to notice that as he is to just start gushing to his new audience about his latest work . . . and he’s likely to lose any but the most mechanically adept as his talk will very quickly go over anyone else’s head, not that he means to. If you can manage to interrupt him, however, he’ll apologize and turn his attention to whatever your need is. He really does want to help others – when it comes down to it, his work is secondary to his friends.
Dogged determination is one of his greatest assets, especially in the lab. It’s rare that an invention of his will work on the first try, especially considering the
He does not discourage easily, and if it takes him fifty tries to get something to work the way it’s supposed to, he’ll tell you he didn’t fail fifty times, he just found fifty ways not to do it. Wheeljack is nothing if not an optimist.
This has its negative effects too, of course. He is his own worst enemy, with as frequently as he injures himself with the experimental weaponry and other devices and upgrades he works with. However, this too he takes in stride. It’s not that he enjoys pain, but really one must make these kinds of sacrifices for science! Being an inventor means accepting the setbacks that inevitably come before the big breakthroughs.
Powers: As a Cybertronian, he has the usual transformation capability. In his root-mode, he has limited flight capability via thrusters in his arms (up to 320mph for up to 800 mi). Permanently mounted to his right shoulder is a cannon which he can hide away in subspace, for which he has a variety of munitions shells. He has a laser blaster as well as an onboard fire suppression system (for ex., he can dispense fire-retardant foam – good for when one of his inventions backfires on him 9,9). In his alt-mode, he’s a Lancia Stratos turbo custom racecar, and he’s a freakishly adept and daring driver, able to pull tricks that stunt drivers haven’t even thought of. (Incidentally, he really likes to race and show off, too.) He’s also an amazingly brilliant mechanical engineer and inventor, so much so that even the Decepticons respect him and his creations, and another Autobot once claimed that Wheeljack could “build a neutron bomb out of a wristwatch and a rusty can” . . . which, hyperbole though it is, isn’t far from the truth. He’s the Autobots’ resident MacGuyver. And fondly-nicknamed “mad scientist.”
Samples
First person:
Um . . . hi, guys! You, ah . . . probably heard that big ka-boom? Y-yeah. I’m fine! Well, mostly. Hey, Ratch, ya gonna have time in a little bit for a limb reattachment? Most everything’s still intact, it just . . . well, yeah, you’ll see. I’d do it myself, but it’s kinda a two-handed job. BUT! I think I know what went wrong. Cliffjumper, could ya come by my lab later? A-after I’ve had a chance to clean up a bit, that is. This new spike-gun should be able to deliver your glass gas a lot more efficiently than your current gun. I think you’ll like it! Okay, anyway, I’ll see ya then!
Third Person:
Wheeljack shut off his communicator and turned his attention back to the mess on his table . . . and strewn across the floor . . . and embedded into the wall. That piece was the one that had taken off his right arm at the elbow joint. He sighed, ignoring the pain in his limb – the half that was still attached – as he stepped out from behind the blast shield that he’d not managed to duck behind quite fast enough and stooped to snatch up the other half. The hand and forearm seemed fine, and the engineer nodded.
“A’right,” he muttered to himself as he stepped back up to the table, brushing twisted scraps aside and setting down the severed limb. His optics focused on the device and his charred notes, and he leaned on one hand and started to rest the other on his hip as he thought. Only . . . yeah, not present. He let the stump rest gingerly along his flank instead. “Gotta be the other configuration, then. I mean . . . that’s the only one left, an’ I know this works; I’ve done it before.” Except that had been quite a while ago now, long enough ago that, while he knew one of the final two possible configurations had proven to be the right one, he’d long confused himself on trying to just reason out which one it was, and his original notes were in his old workshop back on Cybertron. In the end, he’d built two devices and had to just pick one of his choices and go for it, reserving the second for the other configuration in case . . . well, this happened.
But that would have to wait. He really did need to get things cleaned up before Ratchet got there to help him with his arm. He wondered how the medic’s day had been going so far. That’d determine how much of a grousing he’d get for managing to “dismember” himself again. The engineer couldn’t help a rueful snicker as he shook his head at the thought. Oh well. Now, where was that hand broom…?
After a moment’s searching, he couldn’t find it right away, and in a mild fit of ornery . . . something – even he couldn’t have quite defined the impulse – he picked up the detached limb by the forearm and used the hand to start scooping the debris into a pile. Yes, it was silly – and depending on who was asked, admittedly kind of creepy – but . . . hey. He’d not gotten where he was in life without being able to poke a little fun at himself.