Danger Room
| Item: Danger Room | |
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| First Seen: | May 2003 |
The Danger Room is a training facility for the X-Men, located in the sub-basement of the mansion. It contains various mechanical and holographic training devices, and is programmed and controlled from an elevated "control room" complex.
EDITING IN PROCESS
The Danger Room is approximately 25m high and 80m in length and width, with a size that is often compared to a large gymnasium or small sporting complex. A sliding security door is used to enter the Danger Room itself, sealed both by a passcode and retinal scanner. There is a secondary access point on the other side of the room but it normally seamlessly closed. It leads to the Danger Room Control Centre, which sits above it. The Control Room is accessible through the upper basements separately from the Danger Room itself. Access to the Danger Room is restricted until a senior user verifies the individual, usually after a basic safety tutorial. Most of the mansions residents has general access, which allows them to access the room and select from pre-generated scenarios or build their own through existing modules. Those interested in programming the Danger Room are required to pass a tutorial program which takes roughly three months to complete. After passing, they receive programming access, which allows them to generate completely new environments or effects, within the bounds of the safety protocols of the room. Only a few residents have command access, which allows them to access the code directly or to modify safety protocols.
Control of the Danger Room can be had from either the Control Room systems or directly inside the room using a holo-interface which appears around the hands of the individual and generates an interface screen, all in gold light. The internal holo-interface is restricted to existing modules, scenarios and functional controls. Generating more complex scenarios or unique new challenges require the more robust systems in the Control Room. The Control Room comfortably sits four people, although as many as twelve can be reasonably accommodated. A series of monitors tracks both the action and any specific metrics they may wish to review.
History
Xavier has been extremely tight lipped about the origins of the Danger Room, but strong rumours from those who have worked on it extensively, suggest that Magneto was heavily involved in its creation. Like Cerebro and the X-Men situation table, the basic structure of the room is controlled through incredible small and sophisticated magnetic engines, which are capable of controlling metal in a fractional state and configuring it based on commend. Using this liquid seeming mass, it can be almost instantly reformed into solid walls, floors, columns, and structures. Only someone with incredibly advanced technological skills or someone capable of manipulating metal at a microscopic level could have created them.
The Danger Room was originally meant to be a simple training room where mutants could safely test their powers and learn how to control them. However, over the years, significant upgrades have gone into the room, the input of several generational level scientific geniuses focused on the capabilities and the programming, a several mutants with technology based powers have been involved in creating the modern Danger Room.
When Xavier brought Henry McCoy to the school, he developed what his described as 'solid holo-light projectors', capable of projecting complex holograms with tangible mass to overlay the room, turning it into a virtual reality environment capable of being manipulated to create highly complex and realistic environments.
John Forge would provide the next range of upgrade; his unique powers creating a faster and more integrated system, which included the ability to cover the participants in reactive holographic outfits, simulate a significantly wider range of powers, and highly increase processing times.
While neither McCoy or Forge were in the mansion immediately following M-Day, their improvements remained integrated in the Danger Room systems.
Following several interactions with the Avengers, Tony Stark provided several elements of upgraded technology for the room, but due to complexities of interaction with the other tech elements, it accidentally created a singularity capable of building customized alternate realities. Following the event, most of the technology was removed and instead, a Stark designed virtual intelligence was trailed in order to see if they could develop an integrated operating system over top of all the systems. During the attack on the mansion by The Fixer, the VI was deployed and due to the circumstances, has evolved into 'VI', a mansion wide virtual intelligence.
Technology
The core technology of the Danger Room is built around its malleable substate metal controlled through advanced magnetic fields. This allows the room to constantly reconfigure down to a granular level the interior of the room, create new interactable physical environments and adapt to mutant abilities. The room is capable of quickly shifting the metal into individual solid structures or act within a magnetic field to replicate physical resistance on people interacting in the room. Through these fields, it can simulate flight or underwater resistance, as well as keeping mutants in motion static while preserving the actions of movement, capable of replicating over Mach 2 of velocity. The metal is essentially indestructible, simply shattering back to the tiny motes under impact or powers use. Even mutants will magnokinetic powers have difficulty manipulating the metal inside of the magnetic fields.
Behind the walls is a complex modular set of support systems, capable of a tremendous range of actions. They can simulate winds up to 200mph, virtually any atmospheric condition, project energy, fire, smoke or other payloads. A complicated chemical bay is capable of replicating over 2 million individual smells and scents, and a massive sound array can generate up to 200 decibels, localized within the room from over ten thousand separate origin points. The room is pressure sealed and can be partially or fully filled with filtered water from the aquafer beneath the mansion.
The mechanisms of the room are overlayed by the 'solid light holoprojectors'. These projectors are capable of generating sophisticated holograms that are almost indistinguishable from reality. For items people might interact with, from a generated weapon to generated clothes, beneath the overlay, the room generated a temporary metal form bound within a magnetic field to create comparable weight and resistance.
The Danger Room handles over fifty million exaflops of computational power, making it by far the most powerful supercomputer on the planet. The level of complexity is integrated into not just the staggering amount of power to create and simulate the environment, but also to the massive array of sensors, which constantly feed data back. The sensors are capable of monitoring virtually any range of powers, interactions, and effects though hundreds of different elements from bio-metric data to full spectrum visual and then providing it within a highly agile format for complex analysis and review.
Vi, the Danger Room virtual intelligence, now serves as the topline operating system in using the room.
Capabilities
Inside, the Danger Room normally appears as a dull metallic space, with the walls, ceiling, and floor crisscrossed by a faintly luminescent grid. All the surfaces of the Danger Room are movable, to an extent, to simulate varying elevations and obstacles, as well as buildings and landmarks.
The construction of the Danger Room is such that it can withstand an incredible amount of damage. The walls are made of high-strength steel, interwoven with a vibranium mesh to absorb impact and polycarbonate fibers to provide resiliency.
The Danger Room also incorporates a number of holographic projectors, designed by Henry McCoy, to provide an immersive environment for more realistic training. Various types of robotic and mechanical 'drones' are also utilized for anything from targets, civilian hostages, or lifelike opponents (utilizing the hologram system). These drones can be equipped with offensive capabilities ranging from small electric shocks to rubber bullets. All training devices in the Danger Room are specifically designed to be non-lethal, even with the safety locks disengaged.
The room also contains various devices used to test a mutant's power levels, such as piston-driven presses to gauge strength and laser-equipped rangefinders for calculating the speed of fliers in an enclosed area.
Training programs utilizing the Danger Room often take the form of:
- an obstacle course, to test the X-Men's agility, teamwork, and physical conditioning
- a recreation of a field mission, to evaluate tactics and strategy
- an original simulation of a field condition, often used to test decision-making skills and expertise in use of powers
Use of the Danger Room was originally restricted to the X-Men team members and those trainees who have reached the point in their training to be tested under simulated field conditions. However, since M-Day is has been opened up to specialised powers training and Generation X as well as members of the other X-teams now living at the mansion, although under strict supervision. Other than the Cerebro chamber, the Danger Room is one of the most secure areas of the mansion's sub-basement complex.
Only the X-teams have unsupervised access to the Danger Room. Generation X, students and non-team staff only have supervised access to the room, with one of the X-Men observing the simulation.
The room can be controlled through the control room/observation room, or remotely through voice commands in the room itself.
The room has established safety procedures for programs for group and individual training which minimizes the risk of accidential injury. However, certain training programs for some X-Men (such as those meant for those with superstrength, for example) represent a risk if used by X-Men it was not intended for, so the Danger Room can be dangerous if used improperly.
There are emergency systems that can freeze a simulation or end one immediately, shutting down any drones or systems in use at the push of a button or a specific word as a final backup safety procedure.
