Isambard Steiner

"So... my superiors suggested that I keep a diary-type job in order to keep me sane in times like these, they also asked a 19-year old boy with no discernible superpowers to fight off hordes of Grimm. Perfectly viable plan...shut up."

- Cobalt

''

 

Cobalt Ingénieur is a student at Beacon Academy, and a trainee hazard specialist at S.A.S.H.

Appearance
Cobalt appears as a medium build male with a subtly robotic posture and movement. His face is concealed by his gas mask most of the time, but feature eyes with blue irises, short, scruffy hair, and a small spiked beard at the chin.

Cobalt's normal attire draws heavily from cyberpunk and apocalyptic themes, consisting of a blue hooded long coat that hangs down to about knee-length secured around the limbs by straps, with light grey armour (embossed with Cobalt's emblem) adorned at various points. He also wears a darker coloured variant of the chestpiece worn by Atlas Soldiers underneath his coat and a silver duffel bag that he uses to store his equipment.

His most notable piece of attire is his black gas mask, fitted with two respirators and glowing lenses. The gas mask features a white design imitating a set of closed jaws with long, triangular teeth, running along the muzzle and respirators, tapering off at the jaws to form a smile.

Personality
Outwardly Cobalt is creepy: quiet, indifferent and having a penchant to appear out of nowhere at times, although he is actually solemn and amicable, albeit mad or excitable at times. As his mask obscures his facial expressions, he will add more emphasis to his body movements to compensate.

He is notably talented when it comes to engineering. He enjoys breaking into (and hopefully improving upon) a complex piece of machinery, and has set up a small workshop in the industrial area of Vale to satisfy his need to tinker and build. He likes to scavenge for anything he can use to tinker with, so he can often be found in the odd scrap heap or ruined structure looking for anything valuable.

He suffers from an existential crisis, due to being a robotic replica, and from not having a soul (in the traditional sense), he feels that his personality or skills are not 'genuine', and are only a result of pre-programmed routines in his robotics. Because of this, he tends to deflect praise and make self-deriding jokes about himself.

Cobalt tends to avoid angst or melodrama, acting aloof or attempting to lighten the mood, but generally dwells on such things in private, afraid to open up about his insecurities feeling that no-one would really care about the problems of someone who technically doesn't feel emotions.

Cobalt is insecure about his inability to produce an aura (given his profession), and overreacts to criticism, taking it as contempt or a personal attack (even if none was meant), this is revealed to be due to his unpleasant treatment being among the lowest ranking members of S.A.S.H., and only further reinforced in Beacon Academy, where his inability to produce an aura caused him to struggle as a huntsman, further drawing ostracism from his peers.

Background
Cobalt is not the original, he is instead an android designed to replace the original Cobalt Ingénieur, who was a human critically wounded during an attack at his old workplace. What is left of the original Cobalt is currently preserved so that the soul and the biological material could (hopefully) be transferred to a new body.

Unlike Penny Poledina, Cobalt's body consists of a mixture of mechanical and "Wet-ware" (or biological) parts sourced from the DNA of the original Cobalt, making Cobalt appear more human than Penny, although closer inspection would reveal distinctly inhuman traits.

Cobalt is a trainee hazard specialist under S.A.S.H (Support for Accidents and Specialist Hazards): Atlas' hazard and outbreak management division turned splinter group due to a major disagreement with the Atlas Academy since the end of the Great War. S.A.S.H. oppose the idea of Huntsmen, who fear that they will abuse the influence and trust they have with modern society.

Life before Beacon
The original Cobalt was born to a human father and mother, named Rhodes and Iris Ingénieur (respectively). There is mention of a brother and sister, whose names are as of yet unknown.

Cobalt was raised in the town of Gear, located at the borders of the kingdom of Atlas, and well known for its engineers. Most of Gear's younger engineers leave the town to join the Atlesian military or Schnee Dust Company post education due to the over-saturation of engineering jobs in the area, which had been caused by increasing pressure by the Atlas military in a drive for more manufacture to suit the needs of a machine army, and to maintain and Cross Continental Transmit System. The increasing levels of manufacture and overuse of dust in recent years have caused countless numbers of hazards and risks to the people of Gear, despite the increasingly clean, gentrified areas that now constitute the town.

Cobalt joined S.A.S.H. at the age of 17, disillusioned with the Atlas Military and Schnee Dust Company, given the increasing damage they have caused his hometown, Gear, and its inhabitants. He fears of what both entities' overuse of dust will lead to, hoping that S.A.S.H. would allow him to find an alternative to dust and prevent further damage.

While at S.A.S.H. Cobalt was regarded as a rookie throughout his career, and treated as such, often treated harshly by higher-ups in the organisation, at most, he would shadow other researchers or specialists, and never saw the opportunity to work on his own projects, nor advance in the ranks.

Joining Beacon
Six months before the events of RWBY, assailants of unknown affiliation raided Cobalt's workplace, while S.A.S.H was able to evacuate the surviving staff, the building succumbed to the damage it suffered, taking most of the data from multiple S.A.S.H projects with it. This event later became known as the "Cracked Sash" incident internally, and was the worst that S.A.S.H had suffered in years.

During the attack, Cobalt was fatally wounded by one of the assailants, while unable to fight the attacker off, he was rescued by an unknown group, who transferred his consciousness into a new, semi-synthetic body.

With S.A.S.H. decimated after the attack, Cobalt (like many of his fellow students) went into hiding to avoid further persecution, some hiding among would-be Huntsmen at academies while S.A.S.H. recuperated from the losses from the Cracked Sash Incident (the irony was not lost on them, but seldom academies outside of S.A.S.H offered similar training). Cobalt had recovered what few prototypes remained after the Cracked Sash incident, including the last remaining prototype of the "One-to-One" project, and decided to take up research into his own hands, using his own education and career as one long experiment to finish the projects that were lost.

Current Time (Volumes III - IV)
Cobalt had joined Beacon as an average student, not piquing the attention of anyone in the academy (or in other institutions) and generally keeping his head down. He remained in Vale after the events of the Battle of Beacon. He actually remained due to orders from S.A.S.H, who wanted to capitalise on the attack (as well as the damaged reputation of the Atlas Military) to rebuild reputation and trust with the public, as well as attempt to recover the remains of Penny Poledina for research purposes, however, he ultimately focused on helping those affected retake their homes.

Abilities
Cobalt plays a "Jack of all Trades" role in combat, but is better suited for support and area control, however, he is unable to generate an aura, making him fragile, and unable to generate a semblance or use dust effectively, nor can he receive healing from aura based sources.

His robotics allow him to wield most weapons at an above average level of skill, be more resilient than others (Aura not included), and be immune to fatigue, toxins or environmental hazards (excluding extreme conditions). His robotics also allow him to quickly scan and estimate an opponent's moves seconds in advance, allowing him to dodge attacks or land hits easier.

Subroutines
To help compensate for his lack of a semblance, Cobalt uses Subroutines: unique pieces of software that increase the effectiveness of a certain aspect of himself, improving Cobalt's ability to adapt in combat. While using a Subroutine, Cobalt risks "Overloading" if he puts his body under too much stress while using a subroutine, which disables him from using subroutines and leaves him vulnerable from fatigue.

Cobalt's Arsenal
Cobalt keeps a wide array of weapons on his person most of the time, and are collectively known as "Cobalt's Arsenal". Cobalt can use all of his weapons interchangeably to perform more advanced and powerful techniques.

AS-121(P) "Hacker Hands" Support Drone Control System
The "Hacker Hands" S.D.C.S. refers to the only surviving prototype of the "One-to-One" Project. The Hacker Hands allow Cobalt to direct a small squadron of eight deployable drones, or command other combat drones in the area. They also serve a number of smaller functions as well, such as updating allied scrolls with useful information. The Hacker Hands replace Cobalt's scroll, but functions exactly like one outside of battle, with the screen projected as a hologram.

Cobalt can deploy his drones in three configurations: Outside of battle, the drones will attach to the bag that Cobalt normally wears, and will recharge and repair in this state, the drones can either be reattached manually, or automatically hover back to the bag.
 * Spinner:- The drone's default configuration, disc-shaped drones used in the style of a yo-yo to deal damage; Cobalt can handle all eight drones simultaneously to unleash a barrage of attacks.
 * Razor:- Attack drone, fires a burst of whatever ammunition currently loaded at the target before returning to the user, this can include explosive projectiles, such as grenades.
 * Pulse Drum:- Defensive drone, creates a powerful shock wave to disorient targets, deflect projectiles or launch the user into the air.

(Modified) Atlas Rifle Model-A "Elysium" Assault Rifle
To help compensate for his vulnerability without his drones, Cobalt carries a modified version of the assault rifle models employed by Atlas Soldiers. Cobalt has modified the rifle with a rotary barrel to allow for higher fire rates (without the barrels succumbing to heat), a greatly strengthened casing and underside to allow for use as a club. Cobalt can use his rifle to great effect to capitalise on opponents made vulnerable from being disoriented by his drones.

Trivia

 * Cobalt's name alludes to the colour Cobalt Blue, while his surname is French for "Engineer".
 * The element Cobalt is also used in a variety of engineering purposes, namely super-alloys, batteries and magnets.
 * Cobalt's Parents, Iris and Rhodes, are references to the elements Iridium and Rhodium respectively, which share the same group as the element Cobalt on the Periodic Table.
 * Within Cobalt's workshop there are multiple references to works from Rooster Teeth or other franchises, such as the Grifball from 'Red vs. Blue', and a Mini-Sentry from 'Team Fortress 2'.