Profile
Name: Jane
Class: Soldier
Australium Content: High
Mann & Machine - Soldier
Introduction
Soldier was never especially high tech, but high-tech was never exactly a requirement for working with Mann Co. Hold rocket launcher, point it at foe, and shoot. Simple job.
Or, well, it should have been a simple job. And for a time it was. But Mann Co. was never big on redundancies for their mercenaries, and that meant off-hours respawn failures weren't the sorts of things that were properly covered.
Medic worked his magic, as he always did - on what was left over, anyway. Rocket accidents are messy, after all, and there's only so much repair that can be done on body parts dispersed into the air. And what he couldn't do, Engineer filled in for. Skin, bone, arms, legs, organs. Carefully revitalised and locked away inside an optimised metal shell. High-tech, for once, and just as capable of singing an anthem or raising a rocket launcher as it ever was.
He should be grateful for it, Soldier supposed, but he couldn't help but wonder what had been lost.
Notes
Soldier. He's a deceptively complicated fellow, you know. Perhaps victim somewhat to flanderisation within his own media property? More complex than he's often portrayed as, at any rate.
Soldier can be quite cunning when he wants to be, but he's not very worldly. He's also pretty paranoid - he picks up on a lot of things, I think, but doesn't really process them in the expected manner. He's audacious, but also tends to view everything as occuring either within or outside of strict parameters to be enforced.
In Mann and Machine, I think Soldier takes everything pretty hard - not in an upsetting way, but in a stressful way. It's a strain on him. His whole peripheral botification sort of explodes his personal sense of self (goodbye mirrors), and even if he's not 100% aware of where different dangers are coming from, he picks up on the fact that everyone else is nervous and a bit paranoid and it feeds into his own. He's pretty reliant, at this point, on Sniper of all people, since they're mutually mediating each other's issues. But Sniper's getting a bit paranoid too. So that makes things worse. The only people who aren't obviously twitchy and mistrustful of everyone outside of Fortress are Scout (kind of annoying) and Medic (who probably thinks he could outwit the devil himself. Ahem). So a lot of his existing issues start feeding into him and making things worse.
"If fighting is sure to result in victory, you must fight...!" Only Soldier isn't sure it's going to result in victory, and he's not sure who "you" is, either. Ah well. He'll figure it out. Eventually. Slowly. Maybe. Look he's working on it, okay?
A quick bit about how Soldier processes identity - I think he puts a lot of emphasis on proving you can do things. In the sense that if you can prove things, you can claim it, and also in the sense that other people shouldn't be able to disprove things. Which is why his introduction in the timeline is a bit wobbly - I think he set out to war not to prove he wasn't Jane Doe, but to prove that Jane Doe was a military man. Etc. Thus, the whole incident with the explosion mucks up his sense of identity a lot; he's sort of no longer sure that what he's done was his own achievement, that what he's doing is is hown achievement, if the incident disproves anything, all that sort of stuff. Very wobbly foundation of self, because he's been running on a combination of very strict I Must Prove This and, where that fails, just repressing things. So he gets the Crisis. Eventually he'll realise the concept of Jane Doe doesn't need to be fixed so strongly to self-contained achievement, but for now he'll work through it.
I've got him noted down as originally hailing from Florida. This is solely because they had Bald Eagles in the 50s, when their populations were at their lowest. Soldier loves him a bald eagle. I think he feels a sort of kinship with them, because they're big and American and awesome and at some point they almost went extinct. But then everyone realised they had to bring them back! Even the hippies! So it's alright then.
Lt. Bites is here! Lt. Bites is very confused as to why the big man who provides food has gotten very shiny and unbiteable. Oh well. Everyone else is still biteable as ever.
When Lt. Bites kicks it, Soldier intends on having Medic revive him and put him in a little metal exoskeleton, just like his General. Does Soldier have issues with his own, ah, exoskeleton? Well, yes. But he reasons that raccoons don't have those issues, and he's probably right.
Mechanical Description
Soldier's current body is primarily composed of metal, encasing a few vital organs such as the heart, lungs, some of the spinal cord, and the brain. His mechanical parts are inlaid with Australium circuitry in lieu of synthetic nervous tissue, which makes him process data more quickly and efficiently. Due to his metallic exterior and lack of soft internals, he is quite resistant to damage, and can sustain significant wear and tear on his outer body before it begins to impact his function. Soldier's eyes are not located on his head; rather, his body takes input from cameras on his 'helmet', giving him a theoretical 360 degree FOV. This, however, makes him feel a bit sick, so he generally only engages the front cameras unless he is keeping a close lookout for spies or if the front cameras are somehow damaged.
Soldier's body contains a high amount of Australium, primarily in his circuitry, as well as from his respawn chip, which as with all mercs is embedded in the interventricular septum.