Isambard Steiner

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Cobalt Ingénieur (also known by his alias: "Sabot") is a Student at beacon, and part of an (as of yet) unknown team.

Appearance
Cobalt appears as a slim-medium build white male with a clear complexion, short, somewhat spiky brunette hair, and a short, spiked beard protruding from his chin. His eyes have dark grey sclera and white neon lights in place of irises, and various technical details etched in around the irises; he normally dons a neutral or tired expression. On closer inspection one could see that he is actually an android, with cybernetics subtly exposed on his limbs and face, the body and legs presumably share these traits, but are covered up in most scenes.

Cobalt can remove his synthetic skin at will, revealing synthetic muscles and sub-dermal implants, alongside exposed parts of a robotic skeleton; he removes his skin on occasion to clean and maintain said implants and muscle, although this is a common feature among self-preserving models. Aside from the ability to remove the synthetic skin at will, most of Cobalt's physical traits (as a second generation android) are virtually non-existent on newer models of androids, such as Penny.

Cobalt's normal attire is heavily cyberpunk/apocalypse themed, consisting of a deep blue hooded jacket with light-grey lining on the inside and coat tails that hang down to about knee length, the coat also features straps attached to Cobalt's limbs; the coat is worn open over a black top and navy blue cargo pants, and he also wears dark grey boots and gloves. His most notable piece of attire however is his gas mask, which is a pitch black mask with two respirators and glowing lenses that can change colour (but are usually faded colours), with a laser dot attached to each lens, which acts as a pseudo cross-hair. He also wears a dark grey duffel bag on his back, that he uses to store his equipment.

Personality
Cobalt is boisterous and eccentric at heart, with some unpredictability thrown in for good measure, but his true nature is normally hidden behind a neutral expression and a casual demeanour, he is kind-hearted and eager to lend a hand whenever he can (to a reasonable extent). He is often unfazed by unusual events, or at least appears to be on the outside, and has a tendency to be anxious when he feels he is becoming a burden on others.

He is notably talented when it comes to all things engineering, most of his weapons, gadgets and even some of his his body parts have been designed and constructed by himself. He enjoys breaking into (and hopefully improving upon) a complex piece of machinery with a "Mad Scientist" approach, and because of this has set up a small workshop in an industrial area of Vale to satisfy his need to tinker and build; this has often attracted small business from Civilian and Hunter alike. Because of his love for tinkering, Cobalt is often lost in his own ideas and thoughts, often scribbling said ideas on the odd wall or item, and will sometimes completely disregard the outside world until given more physical reminders to refocus.

When he isn't doing anything engineering related, Cobalt is an avid music fan, and is often listening to electronic music while working and in some cases while fighting.

He dislikes the heavy reliance of dust that is common with students and Hunters, fearing what the practices of the Schnee Dust Company and the recent cases of dust being stolen will lead to, so he normally tries to use and/or experiment with alternate means of power, having been inspired by reports of alternatives to dust that appear occasionally, but have normally been disproved.

Although appreciating the attention, Cobalt tends to shrug off any recognition for his accomplishments, and feels that his talents are not actually his own, he instead considers them as the mere result of his coding or robotics, this can come off as either modesty or arrogant angst depending on the person; he prefers to be genuinely modest about his talents, however, and will often attempt to avoid most publicity because of this.

Cobalt has a potent and somewhat illogical fear of becoming outmoded, which he defines as "becoming useless because something has been built to be *you* better", this is more noticeable when he is at conventions, particularly if they are being held by the Atlesian Military, or if Penny is around, this is why he refused to join the Atlas Academy (despite it meaning that he would have to migrate over to Vale for his tuition), fearing the consequences if this secret were to get out in Atlas.

Due to the source of his abilities, Cobalt suffers from a phenomena usually manifested as his processors becoming overwhelmed by data, and is described as being similar to a fever dream, it is unknown what exactly triggers it. There is no definite cause to the fever dreams, but are presumed to be damaged circuitry; however, this phenomenon has been linked to odd readings coming from unspecified hardware when these fever dreams occur. Interestingly enough, Cobalt's greatest ideas have normally resulted from things he has seen in these fever dreams, including improvements to his gadgetry, and how to harness his innate abilities.

Background
"Cracked Sash? Well let me tell you about Atlas State's biggest screw up in over three decades..."

- Cobalt

Chronologically, Cobalt is 19 years of age, having been one of the first batch of androids with "proper" artificial intelligence, but is technically 18, as his credentials have been altered to avoid becoming the subject of unwanted attention, such as paramilitary organisation or governments looking to reverse engineer the technology he is composed of, as the scientists that created him fear of the consequences that come with said technology if it were to fall into the wrong hands.

Cobalt is a second generation android, which roughly equates to an Atlesian Knight-200 with a self-aware and self-evolving AI, as well as pseudo-biological components (similar to those used in artificial transplants), these features allow him to think, act and live like a Human or Faunus. Cobalt has made some modifications to himself (with the help of his family) that have furthered these inherent traits, and has prevented him from becoming outmoded (as mentioned above).

Cobalt is a trainee combat engineer under S.A.S.H (Support for Accidents and Specialist Hazards): Atlas State Armaments' hazard and outbreak management division, which is the source of most of his equipment and was the source of funding for his work, as well as his combat experience.

Life before Beacon
Twenty years before the events of RWBY, Scientists were tasked by the Atlas government to create an Android that would have the ability to fit in and integrate with society, and ultimately have an aura. The experiment was a great success, and the first batch of successful Androids were created, which could. This research eventually culminated into Penny's creation, as the first Android to have an Aura, and thus a Semblance.

A year later, Cobalt (as a second generation model) was "born" to a faunus father, and a human mother, named Rhodes and Iris Ingénieur (respectively), as well as one faunus brother and a human sister, whose names are as of yet unknown.

At the age of thirteen, Cobalt and his father, Rhodes, attended an engineering convention where they competed in a competition to make a small catapult using dust as a source of power, they ranked highly in the competition, reaching speeds on par with most conventional weapons using much less dust than usual, but did not win.

Regardless of the loss, the event had inspired Cobalt to pursue engineering as a profession, and eventually became an apprentice for Atlas State Armaments, where he later joined Atlas State Armaments' S.A.S.H division as a trainee, where he would be working on the "One-to-One" project.

Joining Beacon
Six months before the events of RWBY, Cobalt was forced into combat during an attack on his workplace by criminals of unknown affiliation, where Cobalt was able to fend off the attackers until law enforcement had forced the criminals to flee; S.A.S.H was able to evacuate nearly all the staff inside during the incident, bar three members (all of which were friends of Cobalt), however, before any attempts to rescue them, the building succumbed to the damage it suffered, taking most of the data from the "One-to-One" project with it. This event later became known as the the "Cracked Sash" incident internally, and was the first (and worst) incident S.A.S.H had suffered in 30 years, and the "One-to-One" project was cancelled.

With S.A.S.H. decimated after the attack, Cobalt (like many of his fellow students) were sent off to continue their training under Hunters at academies such as Beacon while they recuperated from the losses from the Cracked Sash Incident. Cobalt had recovered (what would come to be) the last remaining prototype of the "One-to-One" project, and decided to take up research into his own hands, using his own education as a two year long experiment to finish and calibrate the prototype.

During the attack, Cobalt was severely damaged when he was attacked by one of the assailants, while able to fight the attacker off, he collapsed shortly after, but was saved by an unknown third party, who repaired the damage, and added some unknown upgrades to Cobalt's system, the effect of the upgrades are unknown, but are said to give off aura readings from time to time, and have been theorised to be linked to Cobalt's fever dreams.

Abilities
As an Android, Cobalt can wield ranged weapons with mechanical precision, as well as interface with electronic devices within his vicinity. Cobalt's fighting style focuses on being adaptable, as well as area control and denial, his execution is unconventional and abstract, with the intention of confusing his enemies with false patterns and strategies.

As a "pre-Penny" android: Cobalt has no stable aura to speak of, and therefore cannot use dust effectively like his organic brethren, nor can he use a Semblance; however, he has been able to find workarounds to this problem, albeit comparatively less effective; he favours electromagnets more than any other propulsion device, as they can achieve speeds and penetrating power on par with conventional weapons.

Cobalt's most notable ability are his "Subroutines": unique pieces of software that make use of his upgraded hardware to increase the effectiveness of a certain aspect of himself, such as strength, sight or even weapon effectiveness, while decreasing effectiveness with any actions that aren't compatible with his currently loaded subroutine. While using a Subroutine, Cobalt becomes vulnerable to "Overloading", where the areas affected become damaged from being overloaded (hence the name), disabling them and leaving him vulnerable for a short while.

Main Weapon: AS-121(Prototype) "Hacker Hands" Support Drone Control System

The "Hacker Hands" S.D.C.S. are a more recent development in the Arms industry, and the only surviving prototype of the "One-to-One" Project. They allow Cobalt to direct a small squadron of 8 deployable machines to aid him in battle. They also have a number of smaller functions as well, such as temporarily recruiting Atlesian Knights, or updating allied scrolls with battle information. This weapon replaces Cobalt's scroll, and functions exactly like one outside of battle.

Cobalt can deploy the following drones: Alternate Weapon: Gauss Spinners
 * Grunt :- Grunt is Cobalt's primary attack drone, it is a military-grade attack drone that has been upgraded to handle most if not all handheld armaments.
 * Bastion :- Bastion is Cobalt's primary support drone, and creates a powerful shield capable of blocking most attacks, it also supplies ammunition to allies.
 * Infiltrator :- Infiltrator is used to gather information on the battlefield and relay it to allies as well as sabotage certain enemy assets, it can also disable certain targets and machines with it's variety of tools. Infiltrator's secondary role in combat is to "paint" targets, allowing Cobalt's other weapons (as well as his allies) to target enemies easier.

The Gauss Spinners (shortened to "Spinners" in dialogue) are one of Cobalt's signature weapons, which he uses to give himself an offensive presence in the battleground, often catching out combatants who mistake the weapon as a "simple toy". The Gauss Spinners consist of disc shaped modules that can each deploy a spinning blade or kinetic pulse to deal damage; they function using the same principles that a yo-yo toy would, instead being bound by magnetic forces instead of a cable, and are controlled using the same technology that Cobalt uses to command his drones. Because the Spinners rely on magnetic forces, they are rendered almost useless against anyone who can control polarities, such as Pyrrha.

Other than their "close" combat uses, the Spinners can create a small electrical field to stun targets, and detonate to catch out enemies that stop the Spinners in motion. Cobalt can initiate an manoeuvre he nicknames "Plasma Breaker", where he concentrates the Spinners towards one target, while increasing their electrical abilities to bring down a barrage of lightning strikes onto a target, this damages the Spinners in the process, but is lethal if it lands. Cobalt later develops this attack to only drain the spinner's charge.

The Gauss Spinners can be converted into twin Plasma Casters for light skirmishes or for environments where the Spinners do not have enough room to be effective (such as cramped corridors or when Cobalt cannot keep reliable control of the Spinners), they function similar to sub-machine guns, and the charge in each "clip" of plasma is equal to approximately 40-50 rounds.

Trivia

 * Cobalt's Name, refers to the colour Cobalt Blue, while his surname is French for "Engineer", referencing one of his defining traits.
 * Cobalt is one of the few characters that doesn't directly reference a character from a story or historical figure, but instead references themes in media, mainly Cyberpunk and Post-Apocalyptic Themes. This can be seen in the design of his weapons and clothing, which look like weathered science fiction devices, the focus on emerging technologies such as Autonomous Drones and Magnetic Weapons, and the Gas Mask that Cobalt frequently wears. It could also be said that his technological prowess is also indicative of many protagonists in Cyberpunk themed media.
 * Cobalt's Parents, Iris and Rhodes, are references to the elements Iridium and Rhodium respectively, which share the same group on the Periodic Table.
 * Cobalt's middle name: Dell, is in reference to the Team Fortress 2 character "The Engineer", he also references this character in some lines.
 * Within Cobalt's workshop there are multiple references to other works by Rooster Teeth or from third parties, including (but not limited to): a "grifball" from the Red vs. Blue web animation, an "OmniWrench" from the Ratchet and Clank franchise and the gask mask worn the character Snippy from the Romantically Apocalyptic webcomic. There are also odd recoloured replicas of other character's weapons, including a blue Crescent Rose, and a brass coloured variant of the White Fang Lieutenant's Chainsaw.