HISTORY

Zenith Labs built several types of robots for distribution and use with its secretive operations to help augment and support its Augmentation Powers Enhancement Teams (APETs).  Once such robot series, E-BOT 4E1-1, was considered a veritable tank of a machine that was originally to be built for Prince Adrastos of Adastros Investments for security to his secretive money laundering floor of his business.  Unfortunately, Adrastos' business was shutdown on racketeering and money laundering charges, and the prototype was instead left to the side, finished, yet never activated. Zenith Labs considered the prototype way too expensive to mass produce and instead shelved the whole series.  The prototype was kept off to the corner of the factory floor gathering dust for nearly four years.

The protoype's designer and builder, Professor Robert Gould-Durst,  had left Zenith Labs and was working on projects for CANIS when he was caught and jailed by G.U.A.R.D. in a raid on CANIS.  Gould-Durst, knowing he'd be killed outright by CANIS or Zenith Labs for being captured and potentially interrogated by the police, set off a signal he'd programmed into E-BOT 4E1-1to hone in on his own bio-tracker/ transceiver (a composite, initially inert (once activated, it turns into a transceiver) implant he'd placed under his skin in his forearm) to create enough of a distraction for Gould-Durst to possibly escape.  Once Gould-Durst activated the signal, E-BOT 4E1-1 came to life.  It started tearing through the Zenith Labs factory floor, destroying dozens of other assembly line robots and servers with all the other active robotic schematics, thus destroying whole series of Zenith Labs robot lines.  Zenith Labs sent out two of its secretive super-powered agents to stop the prototype, but instead those 'agents' were hospitalized as a result of their fight with E-BOT 4E1-1.

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Eventually, E-BOT 4E1-1 made its way to the GUARD HQ. Dozens of GUARD troops, police and SWAT teams were called in to stop the prototype on its trajectory through Boston and towards GUARD's HQ, but to no avail.  Eventually, GUARD sent in its own super-powered teams to stop it, yet again, unsuccessfully.  Eventually, the prototype made its way to GUARD's HQ and tore through two floors of the HQ before a separate super team, the Yankee Minutemen, arrived on the scene.  One of their teammates, Maine Man, was the only one capable of stopping the robot, using his magically-empowered axe.  Maine Man eventually chopped E-BOT 4E1-1 to pieces before the team's leader, Minuteman, was able to damage the prototype's mobility core, thus causing it to stop moving.  

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When Gould-Durst was shown the played-back security footage of E-BOT 4E1-1's demise, he had a fatal heart attack.  Interestingly enough, his death prompted a specialized signal between Gould-Durst and the prototype, merging the builder's thoughts and unconscious mental faculties to upload to the prototype.  It was Gould-Durst's way of achieving what he considered to be "a means of reaching a limited immortality for himself". Although Gould-Durst's memories weren't uploaded, his mental state, being angry, aggressive and disliking GUARD, the police and others of authority, transferred to the prototype, making the limited internal circuity and diminished Artificial Intelligence (AI) capacity to that  of a caveman's mentality, but with technical knowledge and skills to not only repair itself, but for use in limited situational troubleshooting and solution generation.

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Gould-Durst's body was never claimed by family and instead cremated and left in a potter's field type graveyard.  The device under Gould-Durst's skin was destroyed during the cremation, thus E-BOT 4E1-1 no longer had a signal or purpose to hone in on. During Gould-Durst's funeral and cremation period, E-BOT 4E1-1's pieces were locked in a vault in one of GUARD's Boston warehouses where it was to be further analyzed by GUARD's robotics experts, all of whom were busy with other jobs.at the time. 

While E-BOT 4E1-1 was locked away in the vault, it started to repair itself, all the while never moving or letting on it was performing self repairs.  Rerouted power in the prototype's network prevented anyone in GUARD from monitoring what it was doing.  After three months, the prototype repaired itself and thus simply waited for the opportunity to escape.  Four months later, it had the opportunity to escape.

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A group of engineers finally got around to E-Bot 4E1-1's analysis. When they entered the room, E-Bot 4E1-1 stood up, killed the engineers and escaped from the facility.  It made its way to the last known location of Gould-Durst - the crematorium.  There, E-BOT 4E1-1 followed by dozens of GUARD, police, SWAT teams and helicopters, the robot searched for its creator, but to no avail. Unsure what next to do, it started rewriting its algorithms, looking for its next orders.  The police, rather than reason with E-BOT 4E1-1, instead, commenced attacking it.  It's defensive and offensive protocols kicked in and quickly began fighting the police, wounding 40% of those present including downing a police helicopter.  At one point E-BOT 4E1-1 went behind the remnants of the crematorium and found a man calling himself Goldmaster there.  Goldmaster ordered E-BOT 4E1-1 to stop and asked it what it was trying to do.  E-BOT 4E1-1 stopped its aggressive actions and told Goldmaster it was looking for its creator to provide orders and update its own process algorithms as its hard-coded procedures dictated.  Goldmaster had originally shown up at E-BOT 4E1-1 crematorium battle by order of  Prince Adrastos who requested Goldmaster to track and return his old security robot he'd bought but never previously received from Zenith Labs many years before (seeing as E-BOT 4E1-1 was being shown live on TV as it rampaged through the crematorium). With E-BOT 4E1-1 asking for a 'master', Goldmaster decided to take advantage of the situation.  He tried to tell E-BOT 4E1-1 that he, Goldmaster, was E-BOT 4E1-1 master now.  The E-Bot instead stated that Goldmaster was not listed in its 'directory of authorized personnel' and could not comply.  As E-BOT 4E1-1 was about to attack Goldmaster, Goldmaster instead mentioned Adrastos' name.  E-BOT 4E1-1 stopped short of its attack and grabbed Goldmaster up, demanding to be taken to his '4th listed choice'.  With that, as the police rounded the corner of the nearly destroyed crematorium, Goldmaster activated his teleporter system and teleported him and E-BOT 4E1-1 back to one of his hidden bases he had as part of being the leader of the villainous Gold Syndicate team, leaving the police dumbfounded and confused over E-BOT 4E1-1s sudden disappearance.

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Back at the hidden Gold Syndicate base, E-BOT 4E1-1 met with Prince Adrastos.  Once it verified Adrastos identity, E-BOT 4E1-1 requested a series of answers from its owner to perform specific functions and ensure existing safeguards were established.  After several hours of discussions and question answering, Adrastos and the E-BOT 4E1-1 were complete with all but one item: E-BOT 4E1-1's new name.  Adrastos decided upon a meld of his owner's last name and a word using 'gold' in it, thus Goldust was designated as the E-Bot's new code name.  Adrastos' became Goldust's new primary master and followed his orders; , Goldmaster was allowed to be the next in line to give orders, so long as they didn't conflict with Adrastos' orders (some of which were filed in E-BOT 4E1-1's secretive and encrypted files).

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Painted in gold paint, Goldust was placed into the Gold Syndicate as its new strongman. Since then, in many of its fights, whether victorious or calamitous, Goldust has updgraded its weapons, armor and systems so as ensure greater odds of victory over its opponents.  Goldust's only major design flaw, however, is its access to wireless data and frequencies.  Its limited AI, coupled with its older baud-rate transceiver are unable to be upgraded due to its primacy protocol; no one other than Directory contact #1 (Gould-Durst) is allowed to change, alter, repair or replace its AI and wireless data transfer equipment.  Seeing as how Gould-Durst is no longer alive, no one else can override Goldust's primacy protocol without E-BOT 4E1-1's computer memory and processors being destroyed (which it has back-ups internally and through hundreds of unlisted remote computer locations all around the world (through its baud-rate modem). 

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Today, Goldust is a powerhouse for the Gold Syndicate.  It has no morals or humanity and as such could easily rip an opponent's body in half rather than shoot that same opponent.  It follows Goldmaster's orders in the field, however, on occasion, Prince Adrastos has sent Goldust on missions for his own personal reasons. It is also learning to adapt to combat encounters, constantly upgrading its weapons, sensors and armor to augment its existing powers/capabilities depending on its opponents or mission parameters (i.e., to combat a group of aerial combatants, Goldust may load mini-missile packs in its gauntlets to use for air-to-air combat).

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