Mann & Machine - Pyro

Backstory

I'm not entirely sure I can get the whole backstory down in like. One fancy little writing task. SO. Here goes the Explanation.

The Pyro that exists today is an entirely artificial robotic being, with a mind meant to mimic that of the previous Pyro, who died as a teenager in an unfortunate accident. Sort of like the Caroline situation with GLaDOS, except that the Caroline in this example is the only thing present. Pyro's memories of the Before aren't exactly great - the copying process wasn't really cutting edge or anything, and Pyro took some pretty decent damage beforehand that make everything related to his actual death hazy at best. Nevertheless, Pyro retains some of his memories and the majority of his personality - the former perhaps more so than would be expected from how messy the procedure was.

As a teenager, Pyro and Pauling ended up running away together. She doesn't remember why - it's possible that it doesn't even really matter why. Pauling has never mentioned it, and Pyro doesn't really feel like it'd be right to ask. Nevertheless, it was something they did, and they lived with each other for a short while before they ended up sticking their noses into some shady Mann Co. business and Pyro got pretty darn deaded. Luckily for her, the Administrator figured that Pauling would make an excellent new assistant and picked her up with the agreement that in exchange for bringing Pyro back, Pauling would work with the Administrator and not ask stupid questions.

Pyro isn't entirely sure if he's quite the same as the original Pyro, but in time, he's come to feel that such questions aren't really the point, anyway. He and Pauling aren't so close as they used to be, which stings a lot; but he understands why it happened and that it's neither of their faults. For now, Pyro prefers to keep his head down, pretend he knows less than he does, and continue to set things on fire. That was always his favourite thing to do when he was made of flesh, and switching to metal shouldn't stop that.

Notes

OKAY PYRO. Pyro was one of the earlier concepts I like Pyro very much.
I think. Pyro in terms of herself is doing fairly okay. Originally there was a lot of doubt and all that because of like. The cloning paradox and all that sort of thing but she's very much made peace with that side of things. There's a lot of angsting you can do about whether you're technically real and all but in the end there's nothing you can actually do about all that and Pyro figured that out long before Mann and Machine started.
In a sense I see Pyro's altered sense of self and all as a sort of side-fork to the Pyrovision we see in canon. There's really not a lot to go off for it but. Making peace with that view of things that isn't necessarily 100% correct but still serves to let you percieve the world is sort of the idea, you know?

It's really hard to talk about Pyro and Pauling separately in this because they're both tied together so closely and because their backstories revolve around each other they inevitably have had these strong effects on each other. Pyro really learned to act from Pauling, I think; learned to hold everything in when necessary and only let it out when it was safe. Pyro in canon is very expressive - even without taking speech into account the way he moves is quite distinctive, but there's also a surprising amount of emotion in what amounts to mumbling. Pyro doesn't really have that luxury to the same extent in Mann & Machine - he can be expressive, sure, but only in certain ways and definitely not in a manner that could lead to him giving any information away that he wants kept under wraps. Does it take a toll? Well, yeah, it does, a bit. But I don't think that toll is anywhere near some of the other stuff going on.

More than anything I knew I wanted Pyro to be a full-body robot that looks like a full-body robot from the beginning, but I also didn't want Pyro to be inhuman in any way. It's common to make Pyro seemingly inhuman, sure, but it felt like a cop-out at best, here. Mann & Machine tends to circle around to ruminations on the nature of People and Pyro is very much one of those people.

Mechanical Description

Pyro's brain is composed entirely of electronic components mimicking the structure of her original brain. The mechanics make use of Australium in order to allow a more compact model of the brain to function locally, rather than having to be hosted primarily on servers. In addition, Pyro's body contains Australium circuitry in order to enhance his reaction times.

Pyro's body is very rich in Australium, which is infused into almost every functional part, as well as being present in the respawn chip. Pyro does not have a functional "heart", per se, but the chip is located in a similar part of the chest cavity.

Art