Overgrave

Record

Real Name: Dorothy Stralee
Alias: Doctor Overgrave
Species: Human (?)
DOB: The 'original' Dr. Stralee is believed to have been born on May, 30th, 1931 - however, it is not clear whether this person is one and the same.
Age: See above.
Height: 5'0
Weight: ??? lbs
Hair Color: Brown
Eyes: Brown
Nationality: American
Place of Birth: Massachusetts, US.
Prior Occupations: Research Assistant, Business Owner
Education Level: The legality of Dr. Overgrave's diplomas is in question, given her death and subsequent 'rebirth', but she was, at one point, a legitimate medical doctor before pivoting into research.
Martial Status: Single, Never Married
Known Relatives: None living.
Known Associates: O'Malley, an obnoxious former henchwoman.

History

Early Years

• Her father was an officer in the army, who retired in good-standing after the end of WWII. While he was unpowered, his good reputation was said have helped Dr. Stralee in both job prospects and the governmental ties necessary to fuel some of her research. She would come to reference him frequently when speaking of her creations; his experiences in war, she said, guided her into creating replacements for lost limbs, developing prototypes for devices that would help protect soldiers, etc.
• The wealth on her mother's side of the family helped bring in the funds necessary to create her own business; they were one of the few able to endure the depression with some grace. This wealth insulated her a great deal from the problems her gender would ordinarily face in the scientific field. Where one door closed on her, she forcefully opened it with money.
• Dr. Stralee attended medical school and completed her residency, but did not stay in the employ of the hospital long afterward. She expressed frustration with the hospital's administration for treating her like a nurse, not a physician.
• 1958: Records exist of a research assistant with the last name of 'Stralee' in the roster of [REDACTED]. There is little information on the exact experiments conducted in this covert project, but their goal was, allegedly, to enhance and reproduce mutant superpowers among normal soldiers in anticipation of a Soviet attack. While she played a relatively minor part, there are some suspicions that the knowledge she acquired from this operation have been used in her later business ventures.
• 1967: [REDACTED] was disbanded in the wake of the Might for Right act's repeal.

The Start of Bell Tech

• She met with an engineer, Caroline Bell, whose ideas intrigued her. Together, they founded a business in 1971. Their partnership was an unequal one, as Dr. Stralee's connections and capital were necessary to start the business. They bought several properties in Wyoming, and an old research lab. From there, they began producing and selling technological parts, most of which never reached the commercial market.
• Their biggest customer was the U.S. government, which is not surprising given Dr. Stralee's ties to [REDACTED].
• Around this time, she stated that one of her goals was to create an artificial prosthesis that looked and functioned exactly like the real thing. While this generated some initial interest among the press, it died quickly as a prototype was never revealed to the public. This detail would later come up in a hit-piece funded by her rivals.
• While the business was in Dr. Stralee's name, much of the technological know-how was contributed by Bell. They hoped to eventually synthesize their respective fields into something bio-technological, but this did not come to be.
• Caroline Bell died five years after the business's start, halting their plans. Stralee Tech coasted along without much in the way of public progress.
• By unfortunate coincidence, Stralee's father died not a year later, of unrelated causes.
• Dr. Stralee herself took an interest in the afterlife and the occult, contacting members of the Midnight Squad to answer questions. Ultimately, this did not change her interest in science, for she would later return to her research.
• In 1979, Stralee Tech became Bell Tech, in honor of the deceased engineer.
• In the 1980s, her ties to the government allowed her to buy a decommissioned missile silo before it came up for auction.
• In the later half of the decade, she expressed an interest in the growing movement of trashumanism. Through networking at a local organization, she recruited other scientists toward her endeavors, and better refined her creations. Here, and only here, was she willing to display her prototypes.
• She revealed that the company helped fund the research necessary to guide humanity toward the future (for her family's funds were not infinite), but she did not intend to sell the final product. However, when asked as to how she intended to fairly distribute the knowledge she acquired, she did not give a straight answer.
• It was at this point that her following could be described as 'cult-like', attempting to spread and covert others to her vision, although it was seen as ultimately harmless since she did not publicly encourage this behavior.

Decline

• It’s unclear when the doctor began turning to corporate espionage to accomplish her goals, but she was first implicated in the 1990s when one of her infiltrators was caught breaking into a rival’s business. Naturally, she disavowed any involvement, claiming that they were a lone wolf acting on a delusion. She had not told them to do this; they just had it in their heads that she would approve if they did it, because they were mentally unwell. This was taken as an admission that her own following was becoming unmanageable.
• As a result of this, Bell Tech's contract with the U.S. government was severed. She attracted the attention of both reporters and superheros, to which she responded by barricading herself within her missile silo. The company downsized significantly and those who remained were loyal to her vision of a brighter future.
• There were reports of intolerable working conditions - long hours, with little breaks - and a toxic culture that did not allow dissent.
• Later that decade, Bell Tech pivoted into, of all things, children's toys. My Talking Sidekick was a very lifelike toy that could speak. It was met with mixed reviews.
  • Early promotional material showed different species, but owing to budget constraints, it was available only in two: cats, and dogs.
  • Each toy had an articulated skeleton that was able to take a variety of different poses on command. It could walk, though it had no way to detect obstacles and frequently ran into things.
  • It could repeat the words spoken to it, and it would at times do so without any prompting. This feature (and the potential to repeat classified information) led to it being banned from government buildings.
  • Although lifelike, the way it moved did not match the way a real animal moved. This, combined with the ability to talk, gave it an uncanny aura. Some complaints called it 'possessed'.
  • My Talking Sidekick went through batteries at an unsustainable rate.
• Ultimately, the toy's biggest success was the heat it pulled off of Bell Tech. It did not inspire new followers, true, for how could she fulfill any of her far-fetched promises if she couldn't even a create a toy with proper pathfinding? On the other hand, it didn't look like the product of a supervillain in the making.
• There were other incidents, including an explosion in a rival corporation's research facility, which were not attributed to Bell Tech until much later.

Psychological Profile

• Her expression rarely changes. While a younger Dr. Stralee was said to be charismatic enough in press releases, at least in the sense that she knew how to appeal to the public and make her ideas sound compelling, this one has very little patience. This could be an effect of losing both her family and her business partner, for she was said to be much more animated before these events happened.
• There is some arrogance evident in the way she named the company after herself, and perhaps not unlike other historical figures, she intended to profit off of Bell's knowledge without ever crediting her. Before Bell's death, Dr. Stralee did not mention her to the public, except vaguely as a 'we'.
• It's unclear why her death could have caused this change of heart, but it does suggest that she has some capacity to feel remorse.

Known Abilities, Skills, and Powers

OOC

• Not finished, information is subject to change.