Mother-One was one of the Golden symbiote-powered members of Wetworks.
History
Rachel Rhodes distinguished herself as a field tactician and negotiator in the FBI, and amassed extensive paramilitary experience in irregular warfare tactics, possibly through her work with/for Cyberdata:
During the 1970s, Rhodes served as in an early Cyberdata SHOC (Special Hazardous Operations Cyborg) team, under the ID "Mother". Other members included Christian Nichols, SHOC ID "Archer" (with whom Rachel appears to have had a relationship) and Brenda Lewis, SHOC ID "Killjoy".
Some time later, Rhodes was transferred into the CIA. She was immediately put into the field and spent two years supporting rebels in third world countries, helping them to overthrow local governments and strengthening US positions around the world.
Rhodes was then assigned to a special NSC task force and sent to Egypt to provide security for a secret archaeological excavation, financed and overseen by Armand Waering. When the dig was attacked by a werewolf faction, Rachel took refuge in a nearby pyramid, but was caught in an explosion and lost both arms and most of her skin. In the same attack, an urn containing a golden symbiote (an ancient relic of the Werenation, stored in the pyramid) was smashed. The released symbiote was drawn to the injured (but still conscious) Rhodes, attaching itself to her and saving her life.
Apparently with the permission of the NSC's National Security Advisor, Miles Craven, Waering took Rhodes to his Waering Industries weapons/cybernetics labs. Waering's scientists fitted Rhodes with prototypes of highly experimental cybernetics, including hydraulic limbs and neural implants. Given Rhodes' past with Cyberdata, it's possible that she already had some such implants.
Waering erased Rhodes' memories and all records of her in computers other than his own (though he seems to have missed some of Cyberdata's records). He named the Rhodes cyborg "Mother One" and programmed her to be the key to his "Red Winter" satellite network, which was designed to seize control of the US and USSR's nuclear arsenals, as a "final stand against genocide". Waering also seems to have (maybe unintentionally) established a link between Mother One and another of his defense projects from the 70s, CAINE (Cognitive Artificial Intelligence Neural Entity), a biosynthetic CPU patterned after Waering's brain. This link which provided the cyborg with an emotional support system: Mother One imprinted herself on CAINE and came to think of the biosynthetic brain as her mother. Waering then handed Mother One bask to the NSC, where Craven put her to work co-coordinating a specially modified fleet of SOG (Special Operations Group) gunships.
Wetworks
Mother One was a sleeper agent for Waering, though: She turned on an I.O. (International Operations) cleaner unit that she was supposed to be leading, in order to save the members of Team 7 (in its last incarnation, under Colonel Jackson Dane) following their exposure to golden symbiotes like her own in the Balkans. Mother One then recruited the team, who took on the name Wetworks, to Waering's cause: An ongoing secret war against the Vampire Nation.
In the follow years, working with Wetworks, Mother One developed a relationship with team-mate Grail (Joel Alonday), in no small part due to the fact that her cybernetic limbs allowed her to touch Grail in his energy-based "chi-state".
Rhodes regained some of her memories when Wetworks infiltrated a secret Cyberdata facility with the help of CyberForce member Ballistic, and when she was taken over by CAINE and used to activate the Red Winter satellites. After the latter event, in which Waering destroyed CAINE, Mother One and the Wetworks team left Waering's employ to operate as a rogue unit, then later in conjunction with I.O.
Rhodes was also taken over by the ghost of a Soviet super-psychic, named Rostov, becoming one of Rostov's "Tanagers". She was only freed from Rostov's control when Grail used his energy broadcasting abilities to "reboot" her brain/CPU (an ability that Mother One and Grail had kept secret from the rest of the team).
It is so far unclear how Mother One died, but in the wake of the WorldStorm Dane recovered her lifeless and mummified body from the ruins of an old Wetworks base. When the US Government sought out Dane and the remaining members of Wetworks, he demanded that they help him bring Mother One back online in return for his help in combating a new vampire threat. Dane also recruited a creature known as Ab-Death to help revive Mother One: Apparently Rachel's soul had not yet departed beyond Ab-Death's reach.
Rachel was eventually repaired with a drastically different appearance and a new ability to shape her "skin" into blades for use in close-combat.
Powers and Abilities
Powers
- Golden Symbiote: Like everyone in Wetworks she is bonded with a symbiote that hides inside of her and instinctively comes out to cover her skin as a golden Armor.
- Invulnerability
- Enhanced Strength
- Enhanced Reflexes
- Psychic Link: She has a telepathic link with the other symbiote wearers, the rest of Wetworks.
- Technopathy
- Electrokinesis
- ESP
- Cybernetics: Rachel was grafted with with highly experimental cybernetics, including hydraulic limbs and neural implants.
- Laser Protection System: She activates her PIDS (Personal Integrated Defense System) or laser protection system, on her shoulders, whenever a hostile approaches her.
- Mother One Special: She also carries Mother One Special; an ultra close combat high capacity machine pistol. It is fully automatic, high performance pistol, designed to engage Mother One's radius #1 hardpoint and interface through her "palm" comlink.
- Computer Operation: Her brain has been cybernetically enhanced and she has the ability to tap covertly into any satellite or computer system. Which she uses to get an overview of the battlefield.
- Latent Telepathy: Rachel, as noted by Commander Rostov possesses a natural yet ill defined psi talent of her own. Something which he notes is extent within all of the opposite sex; whilst possessing her the wayward disembodied consciousness could use said abilities in conjunction with hive gestalt of her symbiote in order to bolster her use and control over which.
Once during a failed mission with Wetworks, Mother One had been sired by the vampire clan and gained the abilities of the undead.
- Vampirism: In addition to the various mental and physical benefits that vampires are heir to, they also possess the ability to turn others into vampires as well. Each new vampire is traditionally subservient to the one who "turned" them, but some strong-willed vampires have been known to rebel against their masters.
- Enhanced Senses: A vampire's senses are enhanced far beyond those of a normal human being.
- Immortality: So long as vampires continue to consume blood, they will not age beyond the physical state they were in when they first became a vampire.
- Invulnerability: Vampires are invulnerable to most forms of injury (certain exceptions apply). Bullets, blades and blunt objects do little to no damage to a vampire's body.
- Regeneration: In addition to being virtually indestructible, whatever damage a vampire does in fact suffer can be healed through the consumption of human blood.
- Superhuman Strength: A vampire's strength level is several times that of a normal human being and they are considered superhuman.
- Superhuman Speed: A vampire's speed level is several times that of a normal human being and they are considered superhuman.
- Superhuman Stamina: So long as they continue to consume human blood, a vampire can function tirelessly without rest or relaxation. However, a vampire's stamina wanes the closer it is to sunrise.
- Psychokinesis: Most vampires possess some form of psychokinesis. Some are clairvoyant, others can communicate telepathically, some possess mind control. Particularly powerful vampires can control the minds of several people at once.
- Transformation: Vampires often possess the ability to transform into a variety of creatures or effects such as bats, wolves, rats or even mist. While their physical attributes may fluctuate during such states, a vampire's mental acuity is the same as that when they are in their human shape. A vampire who transforms into an animal may also benefit from that particular animal's attributes including razor-sharp claws, fangs or the ability to fly. Vampires also often demonstrate the ability to alter their appearance at will.
Abilities
- Master Tactician
- Expert Negotiator
- Expert Combatant
Related
- 35 Appearances of Rachel L. Rhodes (Wildstorm Universe)
- 4 Images featuring Rachel L. Rhodes (Wildstorm Universe)
- Quotations by or about Rachel L. Rhodes (Wildstorm Universe)
- Character Gallery: Rachel L. Rhodes (Wildstorm Universe)
Footnotes