An ancient weapon unearthed, yet her past remains buried.
- Age
- At least 150 years old.
- Date of Birth
- Unknown
- Gender
- female
- Eyes
- Grey
- Hair
- Dark Gold (Grey Streaks)
- Skin Tone/Pigmentation
- Grey
- Height
- 4'5"
- Weight
- 800lbs
Entry #438
"We've found something very interesting on our last outing to Alco. Friendlyhoof, his clumsiness i usually berate but today has proved quite useful to our chapter. While clearing out a storehouse he bumped into something, or rather... somepony. A dormant clockwork, covered in burlap... who knows how long it- I mean she -has been here. Doctor Thundercrown thinks she can get her working again, but i think she needs a tinkerpony instead of an alchemist."
Entry #452
"This mystery has proved a great challenge for us here in Basin Sage, we're a military compound so its easy for us to find the best doctors and tinkerers, yet even they come up empty hooved when it comes to the clockworks dormancy. The closest weve come to an answer is thanks to our new expert tinkerer Wrench Glassbottle who says that the alloy compound that makes up her chassis hasn't been the standard for over 100 years! in fact he says its quite the rare alloy... if we cant get her working at least we could sell her parts... if Ms. Thundercrown would let me, of course."
Entry #456
"A new development! After a few days at the military history museum we were able to find some documents hinting at just what exactly our tin friend is. "Project: Busterhawk", apparently long ago, Goldenport was working on creating the perfect Anti-Dragon weapon. The aim was to fuse the soul of a pony with the heart of a dragon, a novel idea at best... The project was deemed a failure very shortly after its conception, the reason being not many ponies, or any of our fair quadruped friends for that matter, are willing to give up their body and soul to a military. The archival scroll did say there was at least one prototype that was completed, "Codename: GREY_LANCER", perhaps this Grey Lancer is the very same clockwork that we've found, but why in Alco? well... we have other mysteries to solve first."
Entry #489
"We found Ms. Lancer here about 4 months ago, and in our many days working on her we learned nothing at all, nothing about how she works, her inner mechanisms, the alloy is perfectly sealed on all sides and none of our tools can even think about opening up her chassis... maybe she's shy? Nonetheless I am about ready to call this project of ours a failure. Despite the hours of stress and barrels of ale we've gone through poring over this mystery we have learned nothing, Ms. Thundercrown insists we keep trying to 'save' her, but she's been long dead for years... shame though, for a construct... she's kind of cute."
Entry #501
"Son of a bitch, and blast those darned Skeins. Solving a mystery with a different mystery is hardly a mystery solved. The news of red dragon attacks and sightings have been making the rounds in our organization. One of those little annoying dragons stopped by just as we were packing Ms. Lancer away, and at the first mention of the Sacred Skeins reports, her gears started to whirr and hum. Friendlyhoof accidentally knocked her to the ground he was so frightened... I'm going to have to dock his pay. Either way it seems we have a new Bannermane in our hooves here. I wonder if those combat tests were accurate, because if they are... well, all I can say is that I'm glad WE found her first."
Appearance
Physical Description
"I'm glad that Ms. Lancer being awake has saved us the trouble of relocating her. During our analyses of her we had to rig up a bunch of pulleys to make a lift just to get her on one of our scales... 800 pounds, if a stallion out there we're to fall for her, let's just say i wouldn't envy them."
Body Features
"Every time I look upon Ms. Lancer I cannot help but be fascinated at the quality of her construction. Most clockworks i have come across have been very obviously mechanical, with gears about them, steam vents, and armor plates. Her chassis looks much more 'natural' like the shell of a lobster, scorpion, other such armored beasts. She's constructed so well I often forget she's constructed at all."
Identifying Characteristics
"We thought it mighty novel that she has a regular mane and tail, when I think 'clockwork' i think of a suit of armor come to life, not a pony made metal. I theorize that they were made to resemble Ms. Lancers previous body, could I ever prove that? no, not without a development notebook but ever since the fire, I'd just assume most records like that no longer exist. Many of her hairs are split, evidence that she was indeed a battle device. The tail had most obviously been chomped at by something, and her ragged uneven mane-hairs tied up into a little ponytail is almost stylish. It's a touch harrowing to think how it happened."
Apparel & Accessories
"I laud the inventor of this busterhawk, putting goggles on her face that don't come off. Either they had a sense of humor, or they had a particular type of pony they fancied. Either way, the lens suits her i think."
Mentality
Personal history
"We dont know much about her actual past, what she did as a Busterhawk, or who volunteered to put their soul inside this thing. Perhaps the answer is locked deep deep away in her memory banks, but unfortunately we cant access those."
Education
"We've given Ms. Lancer some aptitude tests from some nearby universities and high schools. She has a very rudimentary grasp of the core subjects... I'm a little disappointed, I know many clockworks that are able to compute very complex equations and logic puzzles in the wave of a tail."
Employment
"Doctor Thundercrown asked Ms. Lancer if she remembered what she used to do before her long slumber, what she meant was to ask her career but i think she may have worded it wrong. Ms. Lancer just stared out the window for a minute and only said one word... 'Kill'"
Personality
Motivation
"While technically it is only a theory that this clockwork is the Busterhawk prototype, i think the fact that A) She awoke to the catalyst of Red Dragon Reports, B) She goes absolutely ballistic at the sight of anything resembling a red dragon, and C) She herself seems to be designed to hint at something draconic within; has at least provided extreme credibility to my theory. So while she says she doesn't know why she awoke, i think her 'heart' does."
Savvies & Ineptitudes
"For the last few weeks we've been having Ms. Lancer do odd jobs around the Bannermane Headquarters here. To say she has no innate talent for anything at all is actually an understatement, everything we've asked of her has ended up a total disaster taking the effort of most everypony in the building to clean up. I don't know how you set plants on fire by watering them... perhaps something like that is a talent of some sorts."
Likes & Dislikes
"Ms. Thundercrown had the bright idea of taking Ms. Lancer around the market the other day, 'for SCIENCE!' she says, but I think she just wanted to go for her own sake... she did bring a notepad so I'll forgive it this once. I've glued her 'findings' below"
"Grey Lancer Likes and Dislikes, by Dr. Thundercrown
As a woman of science, I must ascertain whether or not this particular clockwork has any preferences of any kind. I took her to my favourite coffee shop, her olfactory sensors seemed to wriggle with delight at the roasted beans so I ordered her a cup, total waste of 3 copper as she effortlessly crushed the ceramic mug into fine dust as she tried to grasp it between her hooves.
After the stress of cleaning up the mess and apologizing profusely to the owners I decided to take us to a confectionary, my favourite green apple candies made with real juice are in season right now and i have the perfect excuse to buy a pouchful. She seemed disinterested as the hard sugar rolled around her mouth... but she did stare longingly at the stand as we walked away... success? I'll need more research.
To cap off our little date i took us for a stroll in the park. I shouldn't have been so aloof in cloudwatching as I lost sight of Ms. Lancer. I found her after noticing a clamoring by the playground, she was towering over some (what used to be) sandcastles and some foals and fillies who were tackling at her legs and crying at her for destroying their toys (at further inspection the sand was fashioned into dragon's lairs for some game, and in that sand were shattered ceramic dolls resembling dragons, the pony knights remained untouched). What a chore it was to apologize to the nearby parents... Ms. Lancer shows much disinterest for most things, but i can most definitely put dragons in the 'dislike' column of my research.
I'd love to take our lovely clockwork friend out for more 'research' but I doubt we'll get another chance for a while. -Dr. Thundercrown
(addendum: this morning i went to my office to find Ms. Lancer muzzle deep in the jar i left the candies in. GREAT success.)"
The major events and journals in "GREY_LANCER"'s history, from the beginning to today.
The list of amazing people following the adventures of "GREY_LANCER".
Social
Birthplace
Unknown. (Discovered in Alco)
Current Residence
Basin Sage
Social Aptitude
"It's becoming hard to take Ms. Lancer out in public, always with the 'is he/she an enemy?' and the 'should I destroy this?'. I don't blame the ponies for staring at us or running away, they dont seem to bother Ms. Lancer, but I'd rather not become an article of The Weekly Gazette for it..."
Mannerisms
"Ms. Lancer is a tough pony to find. She keeps going on patrol around the walls of Basin Sage and at night coops herself up in a tower and looks eastward. Perhaps it is a result of her programming, training, or perhaps a deep seeded sense of purpose leftover from many years ago."
Speech
"At first we thought her to be mute, but she's just shy and soft spoken, that was our second thought, our third is that of confusion... We brought her to the military compound to test her abilities and we thought it fun to bring out a red dragon standee we had from a celebration a while back, that was a big mistake. We're still patching up ruptured eardrums in the infirmary and there's hoovefulls of guards sorting through their mental trauma here too. Who knew she could roar just like the dragons she supposedly was made to hunt, and its going to take the landscapers a week to fill the crater in the field..."