Fallout

Emerson Cord

The project classified as NINE TANGENT APPLE, nicknamed “Project: Hyperion” by the scientists working on it, was designed to create a nuclear-powered superman to fight America’s battles against the Soviets and their ‘Evil Empire.’ That was the plan as envisioned, adding one more notch in the annals of super-soldier programs the country had pursued with limited success. The twenty volunteers who passed a rigorous set of physical, psychological, and political criteria were subjected to brutal and torturous procedures culminating in violent exposure to a tightly-controlled nuclear explosion. All but four of the men died, either immediately or in the days following the experiment. The four survivors were changed, though, each a newly-empowered superbeing—so, initially, the program was considered a success.
The scientists at the project built a harness that allowed Cord to contain his vast powers, but when they started working with him and the other survivors to learn more about their abilities, the personnel noticed that each of the men had experienced serious psychological deterioration. Half-Life’s descent into psychosis was the most obvious, but Fallout’s paranoia became more apparent daily. Fearful of unleashing four walking weapons of mass destruction on the world was unacceptable. The men were tricked into entering stasis capsules while undergoing a “routine” examination and the entire project was buried, figuratively and literally. The whole thing was written off as a failure. And there the four men stayed, buried in a hidden complex, sleeping away decades.
One unfortunate day, while exploring government computer systems at random, doing a little harmless mischief in this one and that one, Digital Demon of the Cybertribe happened upon a set of systems that did something odd—they monitored a facility that a number of other systems said didn’t exist. Intrigued, he went for a look-see… and accidentally overloaded the system and triggered a cascading failure in the stasis controls. Digital Demon fled back into cyberspace before he could see the results of his actions. Shortly after he left, four confused, upset, and very angry supermen found themselves free.
Once they put together what had happened to them, each of them started venting their hostilities at available targets, Fallout immediately started focusing on military and intelligence installations, causing loss of life, but more importantly to him, substantial and highly visible property damage. He wanted to draw the project founders out into the public arena. Those few that were still among the living, now very firmly embedded in the country’s political power structure, reacted instead by using the press as a weapon. They identified Fallout as the nominal leader and most powerful of the four and have focused their efforts on bringing him down in the hopes that they can use him as bait for the others. Once all of the Project: Hyperion subjects are in hand they’ll be dealt with permanently.

Physical Description

Special abilities

Cord is a living nuclear furnace. His form is composed of hard radiation and exotic energy somehow held in check by his will and the harness he wears. He can exert control of the energy field that makes up his body to interact physically with the world around him. Fallout can also release this energy as destructive emissions and can irradiate the area surrounding him. His body constantly gives off heat and radiation , making him dangerous to the touch.

Mental characteristics

Intellectual Characteristics

Major Emerson Cord volunteered for the project that turned him into Fallout in the hopes of becoming a great American superhero. Instead, it not only turned him into a freak, it cost him his face, his career, and any semblance of a normal life. As Fallout, Cord has developed a pathological hatred of the military and government he views as having betrayed him. He also resents the public for so easily falling for the “lies” of his former masters, viewing them as sheep unworthy of his terrible sacrifice.

Social

Contacts & Relations

Fallout has few true allies, due to his raging paranoia. He only considers Meltdown, Ground Zero, and Half-Life worthy of his trust because they were all created by the project. Together, they’re not so much a team as four individuals who sometimes work together. Each of the others is loyal to Fallout and comes to his assistance when he requests it.
Fallout views the government and, most of all, the men behind the project that created him, his enemies. He also considers the most of the American people his enemies because they swallow the lies the government feeds them without question.