New Harmony Data Storage.

Hello, and welcome to the Data Storage facility.

I am Album.

I am the official organizer of stored statistics, history, data, and servers. I am also a close consultant to General regarding tactical troop coordination, and the official Drone Commander in his absence.

I have been designated DataMan by the local humans, a name I have little use for, but WILL answer to if requested.

I have been authorized, nay, commanded to give you all available information regarding the current conflict between (I will attempt to remain objective) the New Harmony police force, specifically its Robot Master Combat Force, and the Malevolent, outsider forces led by enemy Reploids.

If you have no specific questions, I will give you the information from the ground up.

If you have a specific question regarding the conflict, and its Agents, including Robot Masters and known Malevolents, I will give tell you everything you need to know on the requested subject, within reasonable margins of error.

As soon as I've compiled my data, we will begin.

And please, do not interrupt me. I avoid extreme emotion as a matter of course, but I hate to be interrupted.

I will being simply, with the Humans. Although my ego tells me to begin our conversation with my own "species," they are the chief players in this struggle.

Homo Sapiens Sapiens. They are the dominant species of this planet, and at one point, they arguably conquered their home planet.

In the ancient days of proto-reploids (complex robotic drones who were possibly OUR predecessors), the humans worked alongside simpler robots, creating a utopia for both man and machine, all the while preserving their ancient ways of life. They were an impressive, industrial people. Given time, they may have ventured out into the stars.

But, thousands of years ago, a great cataclysm occurred. Proto-reploids, and more modern reploids, were driven extinct in the conflict, some protecting the humans, and some turned on them. It was man against man, and machine against machine.

The nuclear fallout had repercussions on the planet that are still seen to this day.

The lucky humans banded together after the great struggle, and travelled across North America, finding an immense power source. They used said power source, the Forge,

to build a better future. After years of work and hardship, they created New Harmony, a haven for humans. The very same haven that us, the Robot Masters, would be born in. The place we would protect against our more savage brothers.

As I said, the humans who live in New Harmony are the lucky ones. There are countless stranded nomads outside of New Harmony. It has been proven that other settlements have been created outside of New Harmony. An estimated 88% of human beings do not have the privilege of living here.

We have room, and are searching for every last soul. We will expand if needed. In my personal opinion, we should not rest until every human is safe.

Vital Statistics

Life Span: Although humans are organics, their ancient and present medical science has given them impressive life spans, ranging between 300 to 500 years, inside of New Harmony.

Doctor Monday, one of our oldest citizens, is currently moving towards his 550th year, and shows no sign of disease or overpowering weakness, scourges that once ravaged humanity.

Their physical abilities range from person to person. The strongest human being in New Harmony, Donald Hudson, can lift two tonnes due to constant physical training.

Their physical appearances vary depending on their ancestry. As do ours, as our physical appearance, for the most part, is based on theirs. I am made to resemble a man born in Ancient England, as shown by my accent, mustache, and light skin.

General and Lady Opera are made to resemble Caucasian Americans, and handsome ones at that. The Twins (Pastoral and Octave) were made to appear African American.  Our newest addition, Sonata, was made to resemble a young woman with strong Native American heritage.

...You seem bored. Fret not, I'm not going to quiz you. This is enough for now. You may go. Return when you're ready for your next lesson, friend.

If you don't mind me calling you "friend." I apologize. My social experience, and as such, my circle of "friends" is limited to the custodians, Lady Harmony, General, and Pastoral. 

Nobody else visits here.

I should dust this place a bit. Please see yourself out.

Ah. Hello again. Since your curiosity hasn't piqued quite yet, I'll continue to give you the broad strokes.


Today, I'll tell you about my OWN species.


There are many names for us. Ancients, and more technically savy humans, call us Reploids. Some call us Robot Masters, given our technically robotic physical nature.


I prefer to call us Souls. In a way, that's what we all are. On a basic level, we're disembodied programs, siphoned off from the Domain using Forges.


Am I going too fast? I'll slow down a bit, and start from the Source.


The Domain is an immense, roughly spherical, presumably manmade force of raw energy. Long ago, when mankind was still scouring the wasteland for resources, they found the Domain. They found US.


The Domain gave them energy to build. They used it as a power source, around which they made New Harmony.


But soon, they began to receive signals. Words. Screams. Personalities surging through the Domain.


All of it was ALIVE with minds, all of them...us, in true pain. We were all in there once.


For us, the Domain is experienced...differently. I experienced it as a mass of numbers that I couldn't decipher. Numbers and words and problems too complex to solve. Every time I could latch onto an equation, I was shoved aside by another trying to grasp and solve them.


My dear friend Pastoral experienced the Domain as a massive, crowded lake. Those who could force their way to the top for air were soon dragged down by hundreds of others, all gulping for breath.


His brother, Octave, experienced a spinning typhoon. A tornado, in which you were battered and smacked and ripped by the wind. Clutching at the ground, he tried with all his might to hold on, only to be blown away again.

Whatever is TRULY awaiting us all in the Domain is always unpleasant.

But, each of us is a person, in there. All of us, on a basic level, are the most advanced forms of Artificial Intelligence that humanity had ever encountered.

So, to fish us out, humanity, in its greatest act of mercy and curiosity, created the Forge. An immense, constantly computing funnel, built to filter and tear out each individual soul.

However, extracting souls is difficult. The risk of damage by pulling too fast is high. Only one is drawn out at a time, at pure random, at a relatively slow rate.

And not all of us are intelligent, or kind.

The Malevolent souls far outnumber the Benevolent ones. Evil, within the Domain, is far more common than good.

But I'll get into that later. That is enough for this particular lesson. See yourself out, and have a nice day.

Inquiry: "Who/what IS General?

What does he do, besides frighten everyone?"

Ah. A fine question.

Good of you to ask.

General is, in fact, one of the FIRST robot masters, and since his creation, he was geared solely towards combat.

He is one of the many checks and balances in New Harmony, possessing enough raw power to defeat any rogue robot master. He is totally loyal to his country, and is the Military Leader of all combat robot masters.

Due to years of training, updates, and experience, his fighting skill is simply unparalleled. He possesses almost supernatural competence on the battlefield, and has total mastery of each working part of his body, attaining maximum output whenever necessary. The typical robot master, while a great deal more physically competent than the average human, simply cannot compete.

He possesses an immensely powerful buster, dubbed the Imperial Cannon, and a Saber. He is instant death.

As to why he is considered "frightening," the answer hinges on crowd psychology and urban legend. He is incredibly powerful, he tends to be reclusive, and is very terse.

Those who have trained with him fear him due to his incredible power. He is quite strict on students, which has lead to a few of them (Octave, the most extreme case) to hate him.

There are others, who fear him for more...legitimate reasons, but that is a private matter.

To be fair to him, he is just as much admired and respected as he is feared. Some even love him. Human children see him as a Superhero, like all other Robot Masters.

He wears dark, towering armor, a wide, clean, grey cloak, an angular helmet, and has a generally tall, brooding stature and profile. His power output is incredibly high for his body type, and he is considered, in terms of combat strength and threat level, in a class of his own.

Inquiry: "Album, could you provide the necessary data on the Robot Master called Quakeman, or better referred to as Crescendo? I am curious of how his repairs are coming.

I must also ask about Lady Opera, she appears to be a mentor of combat, but is there anything more you can share about her?"

Ah. Cresendo. QuakeMan.

As a soul, Cresendo is very boisterous, loud, competitive, and resilient. He isn't without admirers and friends, and has a winning personality. Like most Combat Masters, he has an indefatigable fighting spirit, persisting tirelessly to fight on for causes that matter. 

He has proven on many occasions that he will lay down his life for his comrades and his republic. This, unfortunately, led to him taking heavy damage in a malevolent attack. Though all enemies were destroyed, he suffered extreme injuries, losing a leg and being put into near death stasis.

His base appearance is based on human heroes of action movies. He has caucasian, fair complexion, dark hair, and a strong jawline with dark blue eyes.

Cresendo's body was created in response to a proposal to merge the raw power of an Industrial Master with the combat experience and resilience of a robot geared towards heavy combat. The result was his specialty weapon, the Tremor Arm. Using powerful vibrations generated in his buster, he can shatter the ground beneath him, creating fissures and destabilizing the ground in whatever direction he sees fit. His power output is quite high, and he can generate said tremors in concentrated lines for distances exceeding a kilometer. If he places himself at the center, he can devastate thirty meters of land.

His physical attributes are built for power over speed, although as a combat master, his movement algorithms are quite impressive, granting him a running speed not far below the average, and much faster than a normal human being. He boasts powerful armor, and strong limbs.

His weapon is the DrillBuster, a melee weapon that can launch and cause extreme penetrative and blunt force damage.

He has been repaired quite well, and expects to see combat assignment within a month. However, due to pressing circumstances, he may be fielded sooner, should General give the word.

To answer your second question, no, Lady Opera is not technically a Combat Master, nor is she a trainer. 

She is a diplomat for the Robot Master workforce, and she speaks on behalf of the Robot Masters for New Harmony's government, when military matters are not of concern to the issue.

She serves as a spiritual leader above all. She despises violence, and has never been fielded in combat.

However, rumor has it that she was taught combat, and she herself has given private tutelage to Pastoral. It is outwardly said to be religious advice, but multiple times, Pastoral has been reported to have received combat damage after one of their "prayer sessions." It is whispered that she taught him how to fight, but these rumors have not been proven, nor are they being investigated by anyone of note.

OH! What's the deal with Big and Little Duet?

How do they "balance" each other? Does Little Duet do anything in battle? Does Big Duet need little duet to function?

A fine question, as per usual.

Big Duet and Little Duet are the first two souls in History to have been born at the same time. Their simultaneous birth led to a naturally symbiotic nature.

Little Duet, the more childlike, is very vocal, curious, and heavily interested in the world around him. These factors made him...less than useful in combat. He appears to be a small child with light blue eyes.

Big Duet is totally silent, either by choice or some sort of defect in his mind. He was discovered to be completely stoic and fearless, yet totally loyal to the humans who birthed him, making him a very good fit for combat. His appearance is in stark contrast to Little Duet's. He is entirely robotic, possessing one cycloptic eye. His armor has purple and grey trim, and he stands ten and a half feet tall.

Big Duet makes few attempts to communicate, never speaking. He knows sign language, but rarely utilizes the talent. He has only been seen speaking at length with Lady Opera, General, or his peers. He has never spoken directly to a human.

Little Duet understands the low humming of Big Duet as speech. When Big Duet wants Little Duet to come, he stamps his foot against the ground with enough force to send small tremors through the ground. Little Duet seems to know when this occurs the moment Big Duet's foot touches the ground, and before the vibration or sound even reaches him. This link does not seem to be limited by distance. Once Little Duet is attentive to Big Duet, the two seem to be able to hone in on each-other as if by instinct. They appear to have some form of mental link, but that has yet to be determined.

Big Duet, on his own, is a capable fighter. His armor is incredibly dense and powerful. He makes up for the inability to avoid incoming fire by not needing to dodge. He simply charges forwards, taking the damage, and administering a brutal assault in close quarters. His punch was hard enough to temporarily render both QuakeMan and Pastoral offline simultaneously in a training exercise.

Despite Big Duet's resilience and courage, however, he was found to be only capable of locomotion and hand to hand combat. Any complicated weapons systems, like Pastoral's buster or Octave's saber, were useless to him because his soul didn't have the innate ability to control his own body to that degree.

The human scientists were willing to completely dedicate his body to melee combat, before a breakthrough in Robot Master technology was made.

The Support Unit.

Little Duet's body was modified to work as a conduit of sorts. The two combine in battle, activating Big Duet's innate weapons systems. Little Duet's mental capacity operates their usage, while Big Duet's combat experience and sheer guts take the helm of their "shared" body.

The change causes drastic physical modifications, including the negligable added dispersion of mass, a slight change in color, and the addition of Big Duet's shoulder cannons, arm buster, underslung missile cannon, chest laser, Heat Shielding, and knuckle mounted energy torches.

Big Duet was given the combat name BlastMan, and Little Duet is called Clip, due to his ammunition granting nature.

Support Unit technology is relatively uncommon, most being inanimate drones, providing less complicated support, such as jet packs providing flight, jackhammers, and buster attachments.

Pastoral was originally a support unit to General, providing New Harmony's most powerful robot master with a significant boost in combat ability. The partnership ended when Pastoral was upgraded to a full combat unit. He still retains his Support Unit protocols, and, in theory, would yield an even more powerful combination now, due to the addition of his weapons systems.

Inquiry: "Commie some info on Malevolents? Why are they the way they are? Do they choose to be bad, or does the Domain produced them that way?

If they are produced that way by the Domain, it seems like a sad existence."

A rather dark question, but I will answer to the best of my ability.

To understand fully the difference between Robot Masters, and our fallen Malevolent brothers, you must understand the nature of the Domain, and the psychology of souls.

Although disembodied until we're given robotic form, we are all people. Functioning minds. Souls, if you will.

Many of us describe the Domain as Hell.

Within the Domain we were tormented and hurt in ways specific to our own minds. We had no concept of time, or space, or self. All we knew was pain, fear, and endurance.

Then, we were extracted. Drawn out by the Forge.

Upon extracting a soul, human scientists communicate with it, while it is in a disembodied state. In total darkness, our mental acuity and personality are tested. The details of these tests I will outline another time.

Using certain criteria, the soul is split into one of three categories.

Benevolent - A soul that is cooperative, and willing to work with humans. Intelligence varies.

Souls like these, while in the Domain, held on to hope, and kept heart despite the constant torture, and prayed for a better day. During the interview, they often express gratitude, curiosity, or a fierce desire to solve problems or experience life.

These are souls who are fundamentally good, or at very least agreeable or reasonable. They are extracted, and given bodies based on their personality traits.

Malevolent Type A - Souls who are angry, violent, uncooperative, or exhibit sociopathic tendencies.

Souls like these gave in to the torment of the Domain, or blame the humans for their suffering. Some are simply excited at the concept of victimizing someone without being hampered by the Domain's chaotic, painful nature.

The souls of thugs, murderers, and sinners. They either do not know right from wrong or do not care. Intelligence is often average, but typically human level.

Like Benevolent souls, some possess genius level intellect. These are to be treated with the most caution, as they tend to be very good actors.

Malevolent Type B - Feral Malevolants. Their only form of communication is an terrifying scream. Given bodies, they would attack and rip apart anything that moves.

Souls who totally give in to the torment of the Domain lose all sense of self. They simply become animalistic savages.

Malevolent souls cannot be simply sent back to the Domain, so, as disembodied electronic signals, they are cast out using signal dispersion technology similar to a cellular phone. They are unable to control their signal's trajectory, so they simply go away.

Unfortunately, unknown malefactors outside of New Harmony build conduits called Nexus. These devices catch those signals, and retrieve souls sent away by New Harmony, despite their randomized trajectory.

Those souls are given bodies. Despite the overall low quality of most Malevolent Robot Masters, they have us vastly outnumbered, and we don't know where all of them are.

Although they have the advantage, we will not lose heart, and we will fight them to the death if necessary. The humans gave us life, in a way, and we shall defend their lives as repayment, and protect their precious city.

Currently, Malevolents are scattered, some guarding Nexus, some abusing human nomads, capturing them for slave labor. The Combat Masters often go on outings to hunt them down, and lead humans to New Harmony for protection and a new life.

All things considered, it is a sad existence to be a Malevolent, but it matters not. New Harmony Robot Masters are guardians of Justice, Peace, and Industry, and we'll be damned if we allow our Malevolent brothers to take their misery out on the weak!

...Sorry if I got a bit...carried away. Passion and ideology rarely get the better of my logic, but passion and ideology seem only logical when fighting demons.

Alright, this board is now open for any revealed information from the Writers or any questions from the peanut gallery.