Juston Seyfert and his Sentinel

Background

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Powers and Abilities

Years of practice with kit-bashing in his father’s junkyard have made Justin a decent amateur mechanic and electrician.

He is capable of constructing small simple robots, usually equivalent to remote control cars with a mechanical arm attached. Juston and his brother would often put simple hammers, flails, or cutting implements on these robots and pit them against each other in duels for fun.

The largest item Juston has constructed this far is a two-person go-cart, for which he required his father’s help in building.

The vast array of spare parts at Juston’s father’s junkyard facilitates these home projects. Otherwise, Juston probably would not have the resources to indulge in his hobby.

Sentinel

The Sentinel’s abilities have been drastically reduced. This is due to battle damage suffered when its controllers attempted to dispose of it. But it still has:

• Sufficient strength to hold up a small commercial passenger jet (albeit at great strain to its structural integrity).
• Sufficient durability to withstand energy blasts from power armor  or mutant attackers.
• The ability to leap up to a hundred feet.
• The ability to run at high speeds.

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The Sentinel’s palm-mounted energy blasters  still function. It uses them for both offense and flight propulsion.

Incorporated into the Sentinel’s fingers were retractable tentacles. These were normally used to facilitate self-repair work, but could also interface with other computer systems.

The Sentinel’s self-repair skills were sufficient for simple repairs but were not up to the task of replacing completely destroyed systems, particularly with the limited resources available at Juston’s junkyard.

After defeating the Stealth Sentinel, the Sentinel further repaired itself using parts from its opponent. That included the Stealth Sentinel’s right arm and a module on its left shoulder – and perhaps more. This may have given the Sentinel some of the Stealth Sentinel’s abilities, including its invisibility and energy claws.

History

Juston Seyfert was a typical high school sophomore. He was hassled by bullies for his geeky engineering interests and for being from a poor family. He amused himself by building small robots out of parts from his father’s junkyard. He would pit them against similar creations by his little brother Chris.

The boys missed their mother, who had disappeared for reasons unknown when they were young. But their father saw to it that they never lacked for affection or a parent who was actively involved in their lives.

This normal life underwent an abrupt change when Juston discovered a damaged Sentinel mutant-hunting robot in the family junkyard.

Mecha

Fascinated by the idea of having a giant robot, Juston slowly helped the Sentinel rebuild itself. He kept this a secret from everyone he knew. His friends and family noticed that he had withdrawn a bit. But they did not suspect anything since such behavior is typical of young men at Juston’s age.

Juston was disturbed to learn of the robot’s intended use in hunting mutants. But he quickly set his reservations aside by telling himself that the robot would no longer be used for this purpose so long as he controlled it.

After particularly brutal treatment of himself and his friends at the hands of his tormentors, Juston decided to use the Sentinel to take revenge and improve his social image. He had the Sentinel attack his school, hounding the jocks who had abused him and his friends. Juston then rushed in to “chase off” the Sentinel and save the day.

Though Juston enjoyed putting his enemies in their place and the acclaim that came with being a local hero, he regretted the damage the attack had caused. To make up for this, Juston used the Sentinel to carry out secret rescue missions during local emergencies and accidents.

At the same time, a power-armored team from the Commission of Superhuman Activities (CSA) came to town searching for the mysterious giant robot that had attacked Antigo High School.

Escalation

The CSA team caught the Sentinel as it and Juston were working to rescue survivors of a crashed airplane. They attacked the Sentinel, triggering its combat protocols. The Sentinel quickly defeated the CSA agents. However, it took some creative effort on Juston’s part to redirect the Sentinel back to the rescue once the fight was over.

This began a struggle over the next few days between the Sentinel’s original programming and Juston’s instructions. That made the Sentinel’s compliance with Seyfert’s orders erratic.

Everything came to a head when the sympathetic CSA Agent Rineheart figured out what was happening. He met with Juston to discuss the situation.

But at the same time, the Sentinel’s mutant-hunting codec had finally repaired itself. The Sentinel tracked down and attacked Rineheart, who was secretly a mutant. The battle between the Sentinel and Rineheart left Rineheart comatose and the Sentinel disabled.

Capture

Though Juston thought the situation was resolved with the Sentinel deactivated, he was soon disabused of this notion.

The CSA was still investigating. Though Rineheart had not told anyone about his suspicions regarding Juston’s involvement, the other government investigators had realized someone was controlling the Sentinel. Juston learned that the CSA was planning to go through the Sentinel’s memory files to find whatever clues they could about its controller.

Fearing discovery but not knowing what to do, Juston finally came up with a desperate plan. He snuck into the local warehouse where the Sentinel was being stored and reactivated it. He gave a sample of his mother’s hair to the Sentinel, hoping that the robot could use its DNA detection mechanisms could track her down.

Together, Juston and the Sentinel made their way out of Antigo without Juston telling anyone where they were going, traveling through the woods to avoid detection.

After Juston ran away, there was an intense media furor around his friends and family regarding his disappearance. This also set two powerful political figures in Washington, D.C., into motion: Wisconsin Senator Jeff Knudsen and Colonel Archie Hunt of the US Army.

Conspirators

The two men had previously used the Sentinel as an assassin and then had attempted to dispose of it. This was what led to the damaged state in which Juston initially found the robot. Fearful that the Sentinel’s on-board records of the murder it had committed at their behest would be discovered, the two men sent a prototype Stealth Sentinel after the rogue Sentinel.

As this was going on, Juston had in fact uncovered the records of the murder in the Sentinel’s memory banks. Seeing once again that the Sentinel had been designed and used for violent acts upset Juston. Yet it ultimately strengthened his resolve to keep the robot out of the hands of the people who would use it for evil.

Soon afterward, Juston arrived at his Aunt Ginny’s house. Ginny was a bitter, selfish woman. She only welcomed Juston in the hopes of exploiting him. Once she realized that his recently-acquired celebrity status had not made Juston rich, she taunted him with the knowledge that his mother had left because she considered Juston and his brother to be annoying burdens.

Juston fled his cruel relative’s house. However, he was attacked by the prototype Sentinel controlled by Colonel Hunt and Senator Knudsen. Escaping the Stealth Sentinel, Juston and his robot returned to Antigo. During the return trip, Juston took the time to modify the Sentinel so that he could ride inside it.

Back to Antigo

Upon their arrival in Antigo, Juston and the Sentinel were attacked again. This time, Colonel Hunt had taken direct control of the Stealth Sentinel, using a full-body rig to manipulate the robot’s actions remotely.

The fight was fairly even until Senator Knudsen decided things had gone too far. Unlike the first fight, the second fight was in a populated area. It caused collateral damage and put innocents in danger. Knudsen thus tried to stop Colonel Hunt, distracting him long enough for the Sentinel to interface with its rival counterpart and shut it down.

Juston took that opportunity to negotiate a truce with the men. He agreed not to release the records of their crimes so long as they no longer came after him and his robot. He also threatened reprisals if he found out the two men were engaged in any further wrongdoing.

Senator Knudsen and Colonel Hunt were on the fence regarding their current situation, with Knudsen mostly concerned about making sure no information came to light and Colonel Hunt now experiencing pangs of conscience.

With the situation resolved for the moment, Juston reunited with his friends and family. He then set about trying to amend for his recent poor choices. He also worked on establishing clearer cooperative parameters with the Sentinel and resolving to use the Sentinel to “do some good.”

Description

Seyfert is a adolescent White male of average build, slightly shorter than his similarly-aged peers, with shoulder-length hair and long bangs.

He usually wears rough-and-tumble clothing such as weathered khakis and a sweatshirt.

Sentinel

The Sentinel is a 30‘ tall humanoid robot with purple armor plating.

The plating pattern over the head looks like a crude medieval helm with a blocky approximation of a human face on the front. The face is painted beige in a rough attempt to match a White person’s skin tone. But this attempt is offset by the Sentinel’s glowing yellow eyes.

The face is currently missing the lower jaw, making it look a bit more like a skull than Sentinels’ faces typically do.

Visual inspection will reveal other obvious battle damage, such as cracked or missing armor plates and a wealth of scratches and dents. Some of these have been covered by rough patches welded over the gaps.

This heterogeneous appearance was further enhanced by the end of the second mini-series. The Sentinel’s left arm was replaced by one scrounged from the wreckage of a different model of Sentinel (the same Sentinel that had cut off the original arm, in fact).

Personality

Despite the personal difficulties that shaped his life, Juston was a well-balanced person. He wished that his family had more money and that the school goons would leave him alone, but he did not let these issues truly depress him very often.

Thus, Juston often served as the voice of reason when his friends were on the verge of letting their frustrations over similar circumstances goad them to reckless actions.

While Juston is very mature and responsible for a 15-year-old, he is still a young man with a tendency for rash action. He sometimes acts without fully considering the consequences and can be a little self-centered at times.

Benign

Nevertheless, once he realizes he has acted inappropriately he will try to make up for any harm he has caused and even pass on what he has learned if he can. These attempts to be a proper role model were especially important to Juston in regard to his younger brother Chris, who looked up to his elder sibling.

When Juston discovered exactly what the Sentinel was designed for, he was a little upset at first. This was overcome by the intellectual challenges of repairing the robot and the thrill of finally having some form of power to call his own. This tension resulted in Juston’s staged attack upon the school and his later heroics to make up for that reckless plan.

Discovering that the Sentinel had been used in at least one murder also troubled Juston. But he has come to terms with the Sentinel’s previous missions. He is now attempting to redeem his mistakes and the abuses the Sentinel was put to by taking on a heroic role.

Sentinel

The Sentinel’s personality was very limited. Its primary goal was self-repair, working either with Juston or on its own. It would accept orders from Juston as part of its emergency programming, which included routines for collaborating with friendly entities in order to complete its work.

The Sentinel would sometimes avoid answering certain questions about its capabilities, simply stating “Access denied.” In some cases this appeared to reflect a genuine lack of knowledge due to the damage the Sentinel had taken to its computer systems. In other cases this may have been a lie to balance security directives with the Sentinel’s need to cooperate with Justin.

The Sentinel is becoming more accommodating as it becomes more familiar with Juston. And Juston is in turn learning how to better reason with the Sentinel by understanding its motivational logic.

Quotes

Juston

“All I wanted was to be, you know… accepted. And now I am. But (…) I don’t think I thought it through. I never thought… about the reality of it. The property damage, the damage it would do to… the community. My dad says I should never take the easy way out, should never change the rules just to suit me… but that’s just what I did. I took the easy way out.”

Juston (taunting Colonel Hunt as he stalks Juston with an invisible sentinel): “What’s the matter, huh ? Can’t fight like a man ?”
Hunt: “I have to say, as last words go, kid… yours are pathetic.”
Juston (ducking Hunt’s attack and knocking his Sentinel back with a swift kick): “Thanks for giving away your position, butt-head !”

The Sentinel

“Primary objectives accomplished. End routine.”

(Whenever a question or command could not be responded to due to the Sentinel’s damaged state) “Access failure.”

(While carrying out his faux attack) “DIE, HUMANS ! I am Baalazar, sentry of the Galactic Ancients ! I have come to DESTROY you !”

“Supplemental protocol override. Accessing combat matrix. Engaging combatants.”

DC Universe History

When Lex Luthor became president, he “released” (i.e. sold) some of his older technology to the government for military development. This included the Klaash robot and early versions of the Team Luthor battlesuits. From this technology, the US government began to develop the sentinels to serve as a defense against metahuman villains.

This project was also assisted by knowledge gained during an ill-advised attempt by rogue DEO agents to task an Amazo android with a similar function. An early result was the classic sentinel robots, of which the Sentinel was one. Colonel Hunt and Senator Knudsen were part of the project.

The history proceeds from there with minimal changes. Instead of a power-armored CSA team, the Sentinel was confronted by DEO agents using government-modified Team Luthor battlesuits. The prototype stealth sentinel was a combination of the Team Luthor armor, robotics technology, and the invisibility device originally used for the Klaash robot.

By Roy Cowan.

Source of Character: First and second Sentinel mini-series (from Marvel Comics’s Marvel Age line).

Helper(s): DCH list for suggestions regarding DCU History, Dr. Peter S Piispanen.