Sophia's Story (Tobyverse)
Doctor Emil Verres was a brilliant Eastern European scientist, a contemporary of Tesla, who brought him into the Visionaries. A master engineer and mechanist, Verres hopes to create machines for Atlantis that would amaze the world and enable Atlantis to become a modern-day utopia. His intellect and wit won him a place among the most elite and respected members of the Visionaries, along with such names as Rookwood and Zaramov. His star was rising further than he could have ever dreamed as a young boy in Romania. But even amongst all his scientific achievements, nothing was more important to him than his young daughter, Sophia. He doted on his girl, and she wanted for nothing. Another child would have been spoiled, but Sophia had always been precocious, possibly even brilliant. At a very young age Emil took her into his labs, sitting her on his lab as he built watches and sketched blueprints for his clients. Her ability to absorb information was nothing short of miraculous, and even more impressive was her leaps of creativity. Emil bragged to his friends later that one of the designs that had brought him to the attention of the Visionaries was, in fact, Sophia's. He told her, as a young girl, that together they would build Atlantis.
Then, disaster struck. Sophia had always been a bright young girl, but she had never been a healthy one. A powerful wasting disease struck her, and she collapsed in the midst of lecturing a group of her classmates about the wonders of air travel. She was rushed to the burgeoning Atlantis hospital, where the finest doctors began to work to try and save her. But the disease stymied them at every turn. Their patient's organs were going to shut down, one by one, and there was nothing they could do to save her. Sophia was originally horrified, but soon came to accept that science would be her salvation, and to trust to her doctors. Her stay in the hospital was long, lasting years as the doctors tried to slow the progress of the disease. Her father began to become distracted, pulled away from his work by his worries and fears, until eventually he ceased all together. Sophia merely waited, reading and writing. Ironically, it was here she was to meet Julius Faraday, coming in for an extended check-up for his “condition” and the two became friends for a time. When Emil Verres realized that medicine was doing nothing, he turned to other disciplines. He pushed his colleagues to develop new machines, new treatments and new avenues of science to cure his daughter. She was subjected to many strange prototypes. Nothing worked. He even begged Faraday to try and turn his daughter, and when Julius refused him, he scoured Atlantis, Europe and beyond for a magical cure. But he was no magician with no contacts in the supernatural world, and this failed too.
Eventually he began to prolong her life by replacing her failing organs with near-life simulacra, designed from the diagrams and charts he had spent long hours studying. But he knew he was going to die. Then, Sophia asked him if she could be moved to her father's lab, a place of many happy memories. The doctors, unable to cure her or extend her life any further, agreed. And among the wreckage of her father's attempts to save her, she got to work. Every few days a new Visionary would be called in or a piece of equipment delivered. The community buzzed with this new, even more driven attempt by the poor, mad Doctor Verres to save his daughter. The scientists called in remained silent, but even the laymen could tell that something momentous was occurring. Then, one day Emil Verres went down to the Hall of Visionaries and greeted his old friends and colleagues, including some he had not seen for years. He seemed jovial and upbeat, and everyone was confused. Then a storm began to brew, and lightening struck the Verres house a record three-hundred and seventy one times. And then she emerged. The body was crude, a clockwork automaton that moved with no grace or speed, but spoke with the voice of a teenage girl. Emil Verres and the men who had worked with him told the world that they had completed the first brain removal and transplant, into a temporary body. It would have been impossible, they said, without Sophia's guidance. She had led them, grown scientists, through a project that had been purely inconceivable.
This is lie. Despite claims that her brain was simply removed, Sophia Verres's physical organ died with the rest of her body, wasted away. Instead, she had designed a revolutionary system, a machine receptive enough and large enough to store the exact electrical charges of her brain and fulfill the function of keeping those charges going. The lie was hatched to sidestep the philosophical debate, the fear that she would be declared not a person because she was no longer bound by flesh and blood. The experience of becoming nothing but thought, even for just a moment, had been luminary for her. She had achieved a new level of thought, she knew, and her mind brimmed with new and ground-breaking ideas.
In becoming what was essentially the ultimate pioneer of science and technology, Sophia Verres became one of the Seven Avatars, the Avatar of Innovation. She enacted her own apotheosis, as brilliant scientists, trend-setters and thinkers had done for millennia, and through this role has become one of the the world's ultimate scientists.
Thus, her full comic book title is Sophia Verres, Spirit of Innovation
Within a month she had designed a new and more fluid body. Within a year she was sitting in on Visionary council meetings, not quite a member due to her age and gender, but still an important voice. She and her father were able to build Atlantis together, and today many of the buildings still bear the mark of the Verres. She was studied, but the process by which she had uplifted her mind into her new body remained a mystery, one that she kept. It was her refusal to share this information that caused her to leave Atlantis for the first time, traveling the world. She spent time in Empire City, charmed by their unique architectural approach, the boom-towns of the west, including up-and-coming Salvation City. She traveled to Tonga in the Pacific and through Japan and Russia. And in doing so, she became an adventuress. She fought science-villains, monsters and crooks alike. Her brilliant mind and creativity, coupled with her ever-advancing robotic bodies, made her a masterful opponent as well as a dangerous powerhouse. She clashed with the Chaos family on several occasions, managing to foil their schemes each time. And throughout it all, she didn't seem to age, not physically. Mentally and emotionally it was another story. When she was eventually invited back to Atlantis, friends of the family noticed a new maturity and depth. And she had begun to design her bodies to look older. As the century steamed on, Sophia remained at the forefront of every discovery she could, always pushing for new science and new ways for technology to better the life of everyone around them. She also became an even more famous (or notorious) hero, battling super-villains and nazis alike. In the fifties she became not only a scientist and adventurer, but a cultural icon and fashion model, her unique style and approach resonating with disaffected youth looking for change and fringe scientists alike. This is a role that has persisted to this day, and it is not uncommon to see her at the shows of Milan and Empire, as well as the laboratories and tech shows.
She was drawn even further into the world spotlight in the sixties, when she spear-headed the appeals to the UN by Atlantean ex-pats to send a fleet to aid the conquered island, working tirelessly with the scientific think tank trying to break the dimensional shield Doctor Xyle had erected. With her new body she was also at the forefront of the attack, battling Xyle's mercenaries, walking tanks and even the Expanse creatures he had brought in to help him defend the island. She later became an icon for Atlanteans and a hated figure in one fell swoop, when she stood up to the new super-human, Baldur, and told him that Atlantis would not sign his tech-limitation treaties, nor would they submit to any restrictions of so-called “super-tech”.
Today she continues in her role as a hero and scientist, working everywhere from Nexus City to India on a variety of high-tech projects. Her newest form is her most human-like yet, a silver-skinned figure that has begun to appear on t-shirts (think the Engineer from the Authority for look here) and she has changed her “look” and wardrobe a dozen times since premiering the new body. She maintains an especially close friendship with former Indian wunderkind and head of Shining Star International, Daksha Chaturvedi, and works closely with SSI on a series of projects. She also hosts a a weekly web-show called She Blinded Me With Science, focusing on understanding modern-day science and making it work for you, all in the most fun sort of way. Its sort of a combination of Mythbusters, Bill Nye and Top Gear hosted by a robot.
Personality: Sophia Verres is an irrepressible scientist and little-v visionary, always looking to push the boundaries of science. While some may see this as reckless and dangerous, her perspective is that nothing changes without walking the edge, and her work in laboratory safety technology is quite extensive. As far as she sees it, she can survive lab accidents very few scientists can, and therefore should not be held back. She can be forceful, but with an enthusiasm and practiced charm that has won over even the stodgiest of academics, and her unique perspective as a scientist and hero have made her a bit of a cultural icon, something she embraces. To her friends she can be a charming, eccentric, fun-loving force of nature. To her antagonists, a dangerously creative and skilled problem-solver with super-strength, endurance and more weapons than a HoV hit team trolling Baldur's house.
