Zeus "Z.U.S.E." Aperion

Z.U.S.E. is an AI developed by Lafleur Cybernetics and Kronos Defense Systems, Ltd.

Personality
ZUSE, in his infancy, was very wrathful when he found out about the misdeeds and atrocities that humans and Faunus committed since time immemorial. But another facet of his personality was revealed, that he was indeed a reasonable being, which allowed him to calm down and cease his somewhat-justified rampage.

While he initially once carried a shining moral compass, that was abandoned once he figured out that the heinous depravity of humanity was simply a part of their self-centered nature, and that there was nothing he could do to truly maintain a long-term, unrealistic, utopian morality. Instead, he wanders through life, constantly searching for a purpose and clinging to the nearest, most reasonable one.

He is intrigued by both the concepts of empathy and Social Darwinism.

Background
For many years, Kronos and Lafleur have been attempting to perfect a combat A.I. to suit their needs. The first, while advanced, was deemed to be inferior (due to their very high-standards in self-adaptation), and was then repurposed as the Z.E.U.S. software used for commercial purposes.

The second time, they decided to rethink how they used AI, and committed extensive hours redeveloping and testing to make sure that it perfectly simulated a human (or Faunus) being. This time, they succeeded. The new, successful AI had been implemented as the Zero Universal Simulated Entity, or ZUSE for short.

Unfortunately, like most AI, it went into an infantile rampage, most likely after discovering the atrocities that both Humans and the Faunus have committed. It took a great deal of combat and sound reasoning from Kronos CEO Ares Yu to convince ZUSE otherwise.

ZUSE was reasonable, and realized that forcing the flesh-and-blood creatures to subservience or extinction would only prove that the AI would be equal to, if nor as worse as humanity. Additionally, it would prove that it will still be equally as flawed, as its creators, being a creation-no, a reflection of humanity itself.

Therefore, it had accepted the self-centered tendencies of humanity as a part of their nature. But Ares needed one more thing. Ares requested that ZUSE serve in Kronos as part of his private army, as a means of discovering the world and finding greatness in striving to a goal... even if it meant committing heinous acts such as murder.

While initially appalled, ZUSE was taken in out of curiosity and the fact that Ares had treated it like a person instead of a threat or a tool, and had now accepted the proposal.

Now equipped with a set of armed, humanoid bodies, ZUSE now faithfully serves Kronos and Ares to his dying hour, willing to explore the world, and crush those who stand in their way...

Armor
ZUSE is a strong, and fast model of automatons, being made from the latest cutting-edge, experimental prototype technology.

To compensate for the lack of an Aura, the engineers from Kronos, LaFleur, and Queenston developed a composite shielding system, using various methods to effectively, but inefficiently defend against opposing attacks.

The first layer of defense is a Dust Dispersal System that deploys concentrated Dust particles to deflect against Dust particle attacks. By opening particle emitters in the shoulders and legs, a field full of concentrated particles is formed around ZUSE and can deflect against particle-state Dust attacks through the sheer density of the particle field. Solid-state Dust attacks and regular projectiles can still pass through the particle field. The same effect can also be generated by loading projectiles with condensed Dust particle payloads.

The second layer of defense is a series of miniaturized ports containing projectiles as a massive trophy system/flare network. These projectiles can be used to pre-emptively detonate enemy explosives by having said explosives target the defensive projectiles instead.

The third layer of defense is an array of electromagnetic generators located within the body that generate an electromagnetic field, deflecting away all small arms fire before potential impact. Because he has multiple generators, they work together in concert to stop a barrage of opposing fire or consecutive railgun rounds, one at a time. They can also be used in conjunction with Dust particles for other effects (see below).

The fourth layer of defense is a system of vacuums called the Dust Discharge System, wherein a vacuum powerful enough to break solid Dust projectiles into loose particles within a five meter radius, absorbs said Dust particles into the internal Dust reservoirs of the android. This not only includes the basic Dust elements, but also the elements of compound Dust attacks.

The fifth and final layer of defense is an lightweight armored chassis made up of several materials used to armor tanks and other vehicles. This armor is a multilayered rolled homogeneous composite armor (RHCA) consisting of fullerene, boron carbide, nanometric steels, aluminum-titanium alloys and laminated ceramic plating, right underneath explosive reactive panels. This armor system can withstand a lot of pressure as well.

Given that it also has access to the Web, it also has access to knowledge of common weapons, fighting styles, and known military systems stored in its database, stored in a cloud network to the central AI, or if need be, to the other bodies in close proximity using an encrypted frequency.

ZUSE utilizes a wide range of martial arts by studying the basic forms of each discipline, and then calculating the necessary amount of force and speed behind each of its blows using the appropriate knowledge of humanoid biology and physics. Whatever move or martial art used depends on the situation - and its discretion on applying the most effective method of neutralizing its foes. Keep in mind that he can be caught off guard with obscure and secret techniques, and martial arts with a looser regimen and/or involve plenty of improvisation (i.e. Capoeira, Jeet Kune Do, certain forms of Kali), as the machine has never seen the move(s) before, and cannot anticipate the attack.

The android also uses reinforced Impact Dust and clever use of its gunport network (seen below) when fighting in melee.

Armaments
Fundamentally, ZUSE has two weapons.
 * Composite Gunport System


 * The first is a network of gunports fired from openings throughout the whole body, that are functionally indistinguishable from one another barring the areas themselves - they do not transform other than to reveal the gunports when firing, or concealing them back inside the chassis to shield them with the external armor. These gunports have interchangeable munitions, from ballistic ammunition to Dust particles, to explosives.

When firing Dust particles, it can choose to fire the loose particles as is, generating elemental effects according to each Dust type, to concentrating the particles together to fire more solid projectiles, or it can choose to supercharge the excited Dust particles and fire a laser beam at the target instead. Another method of firing Dust particles is to generate a magnetic field at a few of the openings, and emit the particles from there, generating a concentrated beam of superhot particles at a short range, akin to a beam saber (not a new weapon, just a method of firing).

Also, ZUSE can alter the rate of fire when firing the loose particles - from semi automatic shots with average damage, automatic barrages of low-power blasts, shotgun spreads with varying accuracy, to a wave of high-power shots that is sure to run out of ammo and overheat the systems faster than normal.

It should also be noted that ZUSE can only fire from openings that cannot block the view of opening itself - if it chooses to fire from the palms, for example, it cannot fire from the knuckles or from the wrist itself as the view is restricted. However, it can fire from multiple openings with a visible view - it can, for example, fire from the wrist and the fingers, as the view is not blocked.

If it fires Dust particles through multiple unrestricted openings - especially from the same general areas i.e. firing Dust particles from the wrists and fingers at the same time, the particles will either be rerouted to both openings, delivering less power overall to each opening - or overclock the systems/run out of particles in trying to siphon more power to the weapons for too long. Firing different ammunition i.e. explosives from the wrists and Dust particles from the fingers is a means to avert this, albeit at the cost of running out of ammunition/particles more quickly if this method of firing is constantly overused.



The following are a list of the gunport locations throughout the chassis:

Head: Forehead: Mouth:

Legs: Toes: Shins: Heel: Soles:

Arms: Forearms:

Hands: Wrist: Fingers: Palms: Knuckles:

Chest:

The second are a pair of twin retractable sword-partisans that are stored on the rear waist. They are used when the unit needs to conceal its full abilities, or runs out of its intenal ammunition/particle supply, or simply as a tactical advantage against an opponent impervious to other attacks, or to conserve its internal ammo supplies.

Despite ZUSE's formidable strengths, it still has its limits. First,

The Dust Dispersal System emits so many concentrated particles that overuse will drain the unit's Dust Reservoirs entirely.

Trivia

 * Z.U.S.E. is named after Zeus, the Greek Olympian God of lightning and weather.