Ardacorp
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Contents
Overview
Ardacorp began as an automated security company, producing cameras and alarm systems for commercial, as well as private, properties. Its CEO, Victor Ardaman, set up the company in 1987, based in North Carolina; Ardaman's business was pooling in a fair profit, thanks to the concept of: "The product has to be as cost-effective as possible, as well as efficient." - and so large amounts of resources and time were spent in the research and development of materials to support this philosophy. Thanks to great advances within the field of sensory equipment, Ardaman also chose to pursue the world of spyware, having specialised factories constructed that were designed to build remote drones outfitted with such technologies. However, with increased demand in security systems, Ardacorp adapted, developing cameras with built-in weapons systems; these were purchased by other licensed businesses and property owners to protect high-priority buildings.
Staying true to its roots, Ardacorp stuck with the development of these systems, but began moving in the direction of mobile systems: robots. These were based on the idea of a hive mind, all of the drones linked to one (or several) mainframes that ran specifically to keep them all online and issue necessary commands to the units; the mainframes were also built by Ardacorp, and installed into properties that requested an order (which could even be ONE) of drones. It was then that Ardaman came to a realisation; these machines could be used in place of human soldiers... He now also intended to supply law enforcement and government military with weaponry and mechanical soldiers; Ardaman saw the implications of using people as soldiers, he knew the cost of supplying each individual with their own personal armament, as well as the cost and time of the training needed to create battle-ready troops.
Revealing to the American government the projects that Ardacorp had completed, Ardaman soon secured a deal to supply the military with a batch of thirty new "ICD" units...
Technological advancement
Ardacorp's robotic infantry were designed to be cost-effective. They needed to be able to act on their own, as well as use sturdy but fairly inexpensive materials. The result was the "ACRP-ICD-001", Ardacorp's first mechanised infantry unit. The name stood for "Intelligent Combat Droid"; it had a basic AI, controlled by a non-localised central mainframe, which would often be situated safely within a headquarters. The ICD ran with the concept of "quantity over quality", they were reknown for being cheap and easy to produce, but their programming often lead to confusion when in combat.
Limitations were a hurdle that Ardacorp sought to extinguish. The ICD's programming and processors needed to be upgraded; it took the company over 6 years to produce a new unit that was reliable enough to be used as conventional infantry. The ICD series ended with the Mk.4, which turned out to be too expensive to mass-produce.
The new unit that was chosen was the first in the ACRP-OSS series, or "Omega Super Soldier". It was a humanoid infantry unit that used kendrium armour plating with a cheaper titanium inner frame. It was durable, albeit more expensive than the original ICD; however, it proved to be a roaring success in action - able to take down at least four fully-trained men, on average, before their destruction.
Because of the Omega's success, large batches were purchased by the government to replace a number of human infantry units. Despite Ardaman's goal of replacing people entirely, it was still not economically viable for the mechanical units to be used all the time.
The original OSS series ended with the mk.1, due to Ardacorp being unable to design a cheaper unit without sacrificing other key elements. The company needed an alternative...
The Crusader
The alternative to robotics was clear. If Ardacorp couldn't produce a cost-effective mechanical infantry unit, they would attempt to create a biological soldier. The aim was to make them non-sentient, lacking any real human emotion aside from anger or, when necessary, fear. Only the most basic primal instincts were to be implemented within these soldiers.
After 11 years of research and development, Ardacorp managed to create the "Cerberus". This was to be known as the company's first biologically-engineered creature. It was large, standing at around 3 meters tall; it was a ferocious and largely feared unit, but it was too expensive and imperfect to mass-produce. The Cerberus took 2 years to fully mature, and only five were ever grown. The expense was due to the cybernetic implants needed to keep the creature alive; various life-sustaining pieces of equipment were necessary, or it would die. Ardacorp's bio-engineering labs were very sophisticated, but the professors and doctors involved in the project were still unable to yield a self-sustaining lifeform due to inexperience with growing man-made organisms.
Around 6 years later, the Crusader was born. This new unit stood as tall as 7ft, a bit bigger than the average man; it adopted a hunched posture, much like the Cerberus, but it was different; the Crusader made use of a biologically-engineered weapon, grown from its right arm. The weapon used a very simple concept: various specially-designed muscles were linked to a gland within the weapon. When fired, the muscles would spasm and force the corrosive biogel substance from the gland, and onto anyone unfortunate enough to be stood in the way. Unlike its predecessor, the Crusader was totally void of cybernetics; it was able to sustain itself without the need of machinery - they could live for a total of 10 years.
It wasn't long before a number of factories were converted into laboratories for the mass-production of the Crusader. They were superior to any soldier because of their short maturation period; it took only 2 weeks from birth for a single Crusader to fully mature, ready for combat.
Current Drone Units
Since the closure of the first OSS series, Ardacorp had moved forward in the field of robotics; introducing the OSS Mk. 2. This unit became the basis of the company's humanoid drone units - the chassis being taken and re-purposed to yield another variant for a different job. This DRASTICALLY reduced production costs, also due to the fact that these new units have all their equipment stored within the torso - which doubles as the head; additional armouring was implemented around the torso area on this design, but the cost of the extra plating is dwarfed by the articulation systems that were present upon the Mark 1, for connecting the head to the body.
The aerial variant discarded the Mark 2's twin particle blasters in favor of an arm mounted auto-cannon and a mechanical hand with arm mounted kendrium-questionite close quarters blade. Two large turbine thrusters are present upon its back, allowing it sustained flight for long periods.
The Titan takes the standard Mark 2 chassis, bolsters it with additional reflective armour plating for deflecting laser-based attacks, swaps out both particle blasters for a 15mm Gatling gun and questionite shield, and adds on two missile pods onto its back. Surely a force to be reckoned with, the Titan is a walking tank in its own right.
Easily the comany's most expensive mass-produced unit, the "Maglev" is, as its name would suggest, a drone that utilises magnetic levitation. It resembles the OSS Mark 2 in that its optical systems are housed within its torso, but it is in fact much different; because of its complex nature, the Maglev is required to have a more sophisticated AI, which in turn makes it more effective in combat. Because its body parts are separate from each other, it has an amazing ability to avoid enemy fire, tactically relocating its particle blasters to rain down destruction upon targets.
A slight problem...
Because of the nature of Ardaman's business, his privacy was routinely interrupted by superheroes to check up on the company and which direction it was headed. Needless to say that Ardacorp's biological experiments and genetically-engineered creatures would raise various ethical issues. Not only this, but the company became the target of the infamous supervillain, Warlord. He was interested in Ardacorp's technology, and sought to take it by force; most of the time, succeeding. Ardaman simply couldn't allow this, and the authorities weren't enough; he figured that taking the matter into his own hands was the best course of action.
The year 2011 was when Ardacorp changed its ways. Its CEO had deemed the company too vulnerable; so he began sending unmarked, newly-produced and unregistered units to attack numerous superheroes with publicly-known identities. The same was done with supervillains. The attacks seemed indiscriminate; had Ardaman gone mad? It was rather simple... By removing a large number of super-powered individuals, Ardacorp would be able to effectively operate in the open with very little disruption.
This would likely be Ardaman's biggest mistake.
An even BIGGER problem...
White-Glint... This would be the name that Victor had come to remember; the name that was carved into his mind. This particular superhero was incredibly problematic for Ardacorp; ironically enough, the company had nurtured this individual into adulthood, its forces having located what appeared to be a dinosaur egg; it was later revealed to be an alien organism, which Ardaman immediately retorted to by having teams of biologists study the creature in-depth; however, the company had already taken the now named "White" (because of his natural colour), from his parents - Ardaman recognised this, and so decided to have the organism raised and educated necessarily, providing for it where possible. Having come of age, White was now able to carry out assignments set for him by the company; one of these was to change his destiny...
During a testing phase with an advanced exo-armour that Ardacorp had designed,the creature received a heavy blow to the head (due to unknown circumstances), causing the cerebral augmentations to malfunction, activating their fail safe memory wipe procedure... By the time Ardacorp forces reached his last known destination, he had vanished. Several days later, the subject's tracking blip showed up once again; units were sent to investigate. White took down an unmarked OSS unit in self-defense, and later, even more units; in retaliation, Ardaman knew that this was a massive problem that needed to be immediately removed, he hired a mercenary called Arili Shen-Jon, hoping she'd be able to put an end to him. It didn't take long for Ardaman to realise that White was a lot stronger than he'd first thought, his powers of plasma-kinesis now becoming more apparent... Eventually, he tasked Arili with capturing the hero.
The capture was a success, and White-Glint was taken to Ardacorp's Westside outpost in Millennium City. Face-to-face with him, Victor threatened to bomb his Liberavi brethren with a nuclear warhead, who were held up on an island in the Pacific; filled with anger, the hero managed to break free of his bindings, and would've come close to killing Ardaman if it weren't for his Hercules power armour. The avian hero fled the outpost, and made a mission of destroying any Ardacorp units he came across from then on.
Eventually, Ardacorp managed to capture him again; but this time, he wouldn't be killed - he would be re-purposed. Victor saw it as an excellent opportunity, and attempted to turn White-Glint into a weapon - a weapon that would be considered Ardacorp's most powerful unit. Because of the nature of the hero's powers, he was capable of being immensely destructive when in the right state of mind - this state of mind was the thing that Victor wished to exploit; with the use of heavy cybernetic augmentation and mind alteration, Ardacorp put White-Glint into what could be considered permanent anger, following the direct command of Ardaman himself; he was lead to believe that Victor was his father, and that his friends were his sworn enemies.
However, it was down to the valiant efforts of White's allies that he managed to remember the past. By crushing the arm of his girlfriend, Slicer, White was struck with strong feelings of guilt and sorrow; memories of his friends began to surface again - obviously, the alterations weren't enough for his strong willpower.
Ardaman became more and more obsessed with getting rid of White-Glint after his most recent escape; he'd hired a large number of mercenaries to help him with this. The obsession still plagues Victor today...
A new era
Despite the obvious problems the company now faced with White-Glint, it was because of him that they'd developed so much in the last few years; they began building units designed specifically to kill this particular hero, incorporating metals such as tungsten into their armour plating to combat White's superpower, plasma-kinesis. Today, Ardacorp's standard armouring consists of kendrium, titanium, and tungsten; this made an incredibly strong alloy that was very resistant to heat, but it came at a high cost. The company needed to expand its customer base, in order to gain the additional profit for the production of these new materials.
VIPER is just one example of an organisation that Ardacorp supplies to, because of the "White-Glint problem"; but this isn't a bad thing, not for Ardacorp, anyway... It meant that they could pool in even more profit from UNTIL, because of the higher demand for weapons and armaments to combat VIPER. Of course, UNTIL isn't aware that Ardacorp supplies to VIPER, and neither is anyone else; It was agreed upon that VIPER and Ardacorp would keep their relationship a secret.
With all this extra money, the company would be allowed to progress even further with their technology; it gave birth to a large number of one-of-a-kind units:
Aegis - a super-intelligent mobile weapons platform that uses an actual organic brain as its central processor. The machine itself is revolutionary, and entirely sentient. The brain isn't human, however...
Baetylus - a sophisticated artificial intelligence, designed with a multirole concept in mind. The unit is fitted with a number of weapons fit for all ranges. Not only this, but it's also Ardacorp's most advanced AI to date.
Strix - an artificially-intelligent robot, built with the concept of aerial efficiency in mind. The unit is outfitted with a multi-functional laser cannon, and is able to reach mind-numbing speeds in the air.
T-22 - the least sophisticated AI of the unique units, T-22 was designed with the concept of underground locomotion; it uses two sets of large kendrium-questionite alloy claws and advanced actuators to dig through even the toughest of materials. It was also the only unit capable of incapacitating the hero known as Slick, one of White-Glint's friends.
Virtue - the largest of Ardacorp's unique mechanical units, Virtue has various chassis that it can switch between. It's an AI that is able to upload itself into other mechanical bodies augmented for the AI specifically; this, coupled with its relocation system, allows it to teleport to its assigned base and swiftly upload itself into the most suitable chassis for the task at hand, then teleport back into action.
The Time Eater - a huge creature fitted with special machinery that allowed it to manipulate time itself. The time-bending machinery was under development from quite an early stage in the company's existence; it had been worked on for over 20 years, and finally made its debut as a cybernetic attachment to a monstrous beast grown within Ardacorp's labs. It was destroyed by White Glint within R&D Bunker Alpha.
The Space Eater - this creature was never truly made, but the concept still exists; equipment designed to simulate the conditions required to create a black hole. The design was never built.
Crathix, avatar of Scindixus
After a massive energy spike was detected on Monster Island, a contingent of Ardacorp units were dispatched to investigate. The source of the energy spike was a massive celestial entity, known as Crathix; this creature claimed to be the avatar of an extra-dimensional deity known as Scindixus, whom it referred to several times as the company's forces attempted to subdue it. Ardaman wanted this beast - he knew nothing of magic, but he had his technology; after hours of grueling combat, Ardacorp forces managed to tire the creature and successfully plant a mind control device onto the back of its head; This would only be temporary. After Crathix was made docile, it was taken to R&D Bunker Alpha, in Millennium City Center, where it underwent heavy cybernetic augmentation.
The celestial avatar was not as it once was - its mind was manipulated by Ardacorp's implanted machinery, after the removal of the temporary exterior device. It was outfitted with two specialised arm-mounted projection modules, powered by Crathix's energy - they were designed to amplify the creature's power in the form of directional energy attacks. Not only this, but tubes were installed in and around its body, linked to a machine that produced artificial adrenaline; the result was a tireless and extremely powerful entity, capable of mass destruction.
To this day, Crathix remains as Ardacorp's most powerful unit.
New Friends
As Ardaman was refitting his Hercules exosuit within Outpost Charlie (an underground base in Westside), he was alerted by the noise of the elevator descending. Three figures were stood upon it. They weren't Ardacorp employees - neither was it White Glint. These figures were two OSF soldiers, accompanying the Overseer himself! Apparently, Ardacorp had caught the attention of the Vengeful Specter of Ississ, a massive intergalactic military group.
Ardaman had no idea who this organisation was, but it soon became clear that the Overseer was an incredibly powerful individual... After a short discussion, it was revealed that the Overseer wanted Ardacorp to work alongside The VSI - but Victor refused, stating that the company was doing just fine by itself. The Overseer didn't seem like the type of "man" that responded very well to refusal; using his mind alone, he tore Victor from his armour, leaving him vulnerable. Ardaman's mind would then go through a very painful telepathic assault, witnessing the Overseer's true face; it wasn't long before he accepted his "offer".
The OSF is a branch of The VSI, specifically tasked with operations involving the Earth; it is this branch that Ardaman associates himself with. Despite his initial refusal, he would soon learn that he'd made a very powerful ally; but he certainly wouldn't want to anger their leader again...
Slick
Another obstacle that the company had stumbled upon would be a hero known as Slick. It's unknown what he actually is, but he could be described as a mass of black goo that takes a humanoid appearance. Whatever he is, he certainly disrupted Ardacorp's operations, dealing more catastrophic damage than White-Glint; Slick managed to destroy a number of factories, which quickly caught the attention of Ardaman.
In response to this near-indestructible hero, Ardacorp created "Muck"; it was just like Slick in power and ability, but it used nanobots instead of the organic goo-like substance to make up its mass. To mimic Slick's black gloopy appearance, Muck's nanobots were designed to produce a viscous black substance to conceal themselves - it was also controlled by a basic AI, using various necessary components, such as its processors and targeting systems, that were also hidden within the mass of nanobots and black gloop. A cyclopean optical camera is used to give Muck visual perception, and a built-in laser projection module to give the unit ranged offense.
Unfortunately, Muck wasn't the unit responsible for eventually capturing Slick; T-22 was. The clawed rig managed to successfully incapacitate the gloopy hero by utilising its maintenance nanobots to swarm within Slick's body and rapidly break down the black substance from the inside out. However, the hero wouldn't be going down without a fight; he successfully destroyed T-22 before going unconscious. It was only thanks to T-22's independent nanobots that Slick remained in this state; another unit had to respond to T-22's distress message, taking Slick away to be re-purposed, like White before him.