Nene Romanova

Real Name: Nene Romanova

Identity/Class: Human, technology user

Occupation: ADP Operator

Affiliations: Knight Sabers

Enemies: Boomers

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: Little Miss Cyberpunk (Priss' nickname for her)

Base of Operations: MegaTokyo, c. A.D.2040

First Appearance: Bubblegum Crisis (February 1987)

Powers/Abilities: A genius, Nene is a skilled computer hacker, and expert in all things technological.

Like all the Knight Sabers, Nene's most impressive powers come from the powered battle-armour "hard suit" she wears. To operate the suit, a special skin-tight sensory suit is worn against the skin (no underwear allowed), which serves to exactly transmit every body motion to the hard suit, making them far more agile than they would be otherwise. This also allows the onboard computer to monitor the wearer's health at all times.

The suits all have a combination ceramic/metal alloy armour, which absorbs and disperses energies which strike the suit, whether they be lasers, particle weapons or the kinetic energy from punches or bullets. Small arms fire cannot penetrate the suit, and other attacks have a much reduced affect on the wearer. The suit functions provides a full range of protection from NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) attacks - it's sealed system keeps out chemical and biological weapons, as well as radioactive fallout, and it's internal life support and temperature control protects the wearer from heat and pressure changes. The internal batteries allows the suit to function for up to fifty hours without needing recharges, in optimal conditions. The armoured helmets both protect the faces of the wearer and provide Heads-Up Displays (HUD) for tactical purposes.

The suits are also offensively armed. The exoskeleton amplifies the wearer's strength to about 10 times their normal level - since each of the Knight Sabers are at peak human fitness to begin with, this means they can lift between one and two tons on average while wearing the hard suits. Each suit is also equipped with at least one in-built blaster weapon in one of the gloves, most commonly a laser cannon and a "knuckle blaster", which creates an electromagnetic explosive capable of blowing up Boomers.

For transportation purposes, all the hard suits include jump jets built into the back and hips, allowing the wearer to make impressive leaps or break their fall from great heights.

To maximise team efficiency and to prevent hard suit theft, each suit is tailored for a specific user, making it difficult to operate if stolen (and frankly, considering how form fitting they are, all but impossible for anyone with a dissimilar build to even get into). Each suit is customised to take into account the given Knight Saber's own skills and weaknesses.

Nene provides the team with technical support, rather than front line combat assistance. Her suit is the lightest armoured, and her only weapon is the laser cannon (she doesn't have even have a knuckle bomber), although that is precise enough to allow her to "write" in metal or concrete. Instead her suit is equipped with antennae, electronics and the extra batteries to power same, allowing her to do radio jamming, anti-missile electronic counter measures, and long range (250 km) radar scans. She can also scan technological devices and instantly produce detailed schematics of them. An onboard computer enables her to hack into systems with ease, be they enemy computers, orbital laser satellites or guided missiles.

Later upgrades to her suit improved her ECM to allow her to actually seize control of enemy missiles, and turn them against the person who fired them. She also gained an extra offensive ability - ultrasonic blasters in the suit's shoulders; and an extra defensive capability, in the form of a energy shield which can deflect lasers and possibly other types of attack.

History: The only Knight Saber who wasn't orphaned, Nene grew up in an overly strict household. Extremely smart, she found school all too easy, and boredom led her to truant school and get up to high tech hijinks, such as computer hacking. This was what eventually led her to join the Knight Sabers, after Sylia sent out a complicated and encrypted program on the Net as an advert, seeking to recruit whoever could break it and find the offer of membership in the Knight Sabers. Nene turned up almost immediately on Sylia's doorstep, and became the team's communication and electronic defense expert.

The youngest of the team, Nene sought to prove herself the other's equal, and often got frustrated when Priss and Linna tease her for her lack of combat skills. Brave but naive, she is the least violent of the team, and thus the least adept at fighting. However she makes up for this weakness by being smart in combat, preferring to scramble enemy systems to taking them on face-to-face.

In her day job she is an ADP data analyst, giving the team access to police files, and allowing Nene to act as the team's main information gatherer. She isn't actually old enough to work for the Police, having run away from her all girl's school to join the Knight Sabers, but Nene used her computing knowledge to alter her age in the files to hide this.

Comments: Created by Toshimitsu Suzuki and Ken-Ichi Sonoda.

Voiced by Hiramatsu Akiko.

CLARIFICATIONS: None

Any Additions/Corrections? Please let me know.

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