The Ancient One
The Ancient One was the founder of the Order of the Automata, appearing as a humanoid copper robot, faintly resembling a Clockwork Cherub.
Biography
Under his guidance, the Order founded Automatia and fought the First Great War against the Salamandyrs, anthropomorphic salamanders with their own Void Ships who were based out of their own diemsnsion. As the War seemed hopeless, the Ancient One declared that he had a “secret plan”, and also that should he be killed, he had discovered a way to come back to life in the Order's hour of greatest need. The former part was a lie meant to boost morale, though the latter actually wasn't, but the Order never got the chance to find out as the Ancient One was destroyed in a surprise attack, only for the tide to then turn and the Automata to triumph against the Salamandyrs on their own powers.
Over the following decades, with no other threats forthcoming, they slowly “decommissioned all of [their] battling equipment and military bases and turned them into shopping malls and more robots and the like”. This left them basically defenceless when the Salamandyrs returned in 2019, with the Salamandyr War Fleet invading Automatia itself without warning, headed by the Salamandyr Emperor's Void Ship. Remembering the Ancient One's prophecy, the Automata waited around a while, but as the number of captured robots grew, they realised no help was coming, and the Captain gathered all the robots he could aboard the Order's single great Void Ship and headed out into the Void.
There, while hovering above the Interdimensional Tavern, they found Marksmanship-522, who they decided must be the reincarnated Ancient One. Taking him to Automatia, they beamed him onto the Emperor's ship despite his protests. However, by coincidence, Marksmanship ended up discovering the Salamandyrs' great weakness to lavender, and soon forced them all to flee back to their own Dimension. As he was being hailed by a hero by the Automata, Marksmanship witnessed the return of the actual Ancient One, who apologised for being late, explaining that traffic in the Underworld had been terrible. While he caught up with the rest of the Order, minor robot 21-419 was assigned to fly Marksmanship back to the Tavern aboard the Order's Void Ship. (PROSE: Peace and Quiet)
