Apebot & Virus (Hero/Villains)
Full Names: Apebot & Subject 046
Faction: Ape Revolution Committee
If a person was able check the research logs detailing Professor Andryshnikov’s primate experiments, and if they looked for any entries about the A.R.C. Supreme today known as Virus, they would find quite a few records, starting with a sentence that would highlight the small monkey’s future capacities: ‘Subject 046 appears to be highly interested and proficient with hand-held electronic games.’
A long time before the ill-fated shuttle plummeted to Earth, Subject 046 had mastered all the primitive electronic games his era could muster. His technological capabilities were evident in a number of areas, but he seemed to above all focus on the electronic diversions made available to him.
In time, Subject 046 and the other young primates were launched into space, eventually crashing to Earth, and surviving only by some miracle.
While in South America, when the nascent A.R.C. was salvaging all of the precious items they could from the shuttle wreck, the skilled spider monkey discovered that the ship’s main computer had several games loaded in its memory. Pong, Space Invaders, and Asteroids immediately captured the imagination of the A.R.C.’s technological genius in-the-making. Not willing to part with these treasured delights, he quickly redesigned a training bicycle into a motorized three-wheeler that would help him to drag the computer and other necessary components to his destination.
A few years later, with the A.R.C. and its loot smuggled into Pulp City, Guerilla assigned the task of researching new means of combating enemy Supremes to Dr. Red and Virus. Since “da teknology” was more or less black magic to the fierce leader, they could do whatever they wanted. First on their agenda was the creation of advanced weaponry. In a frenzy of development they constructed plasma guns, new types of ammunition and grenades, all to aid the cause of the A.R.C., and possibly more likely Red’s own agenda within the Team. But the little spider monkey wanted something bigger, more fearsome, something to test his ingenuity and expertise, something that could be A.R.C.’s trademark.
Virus posed himself a question: if in a game of Pong a paddle would be used to chase the ball, why couldn’t a robotic body be programmed to chase real enemies?
Thus, the first Apebot was born, or rather constructed. The simple gaming algorithms that Virus prized so highly were built into its computer brain, and shortly afterwards, the mighty beast of steel saw its first action. Everything was fine to begin with; Apebot (the paddle) chased down stray a Grimm (the ball) and repeatedly kept smashing its opponent against the asphalt. The faulty and simplistic programming saw its demise when many more Grimm arrived, and Apebot’s brain circuitry fried as it was not able to process so many ‘balls’ that needed to be ‘paddled’.
The second, driven by more advanced programming, crashed after a month of steady work, when Apebot was overcome by swarms of Heavy Metal Sentry Bots, failing to attack Androida who controlled them. Virus noted that Apebot performed well against many ‘balls’ but failed to recognize and eliminate ‘the opposing paddle’. More work was needed.
The current Apebot programming still retains some faults as Virus has not been able to overcome every bug, but nonetheless he has created a primitive form of artificial intelligence. The robotic hulk freezes every time it fails to complete a series of complex patterns. However, as long as Virus is near to Apebot, able to override its programming directly, the steel gorilla performs wonderfully. It is able to process increasingly more advanced commands and make simple tactical decisions.
What has been even more important and absolutely unexplainable through the basics of its programming, is that the bond between Apebot and its creator Virus is much more than one would expect from more than three tons of steel and a little over fifteen pounds of spider monkey.