I was thinking some time ago about a good-guy Hyperion loader. Maybe Mal, from BL2 and that trio of quick side quests in Eridium Blight.
Name: MAL
Class: (?)
Preferred: Hyperion weapons
Action Skill: WAR LOADER (Mal evolves temporarily to a Hyperion WAR LOADER, growing in size and gaining a huge boost to his health, as well as gaining twin shoulder cannons that fire a constant barrage of fire projectiles; can damage friendlies, and speaks lines that show an internal struggle between his Hyperion programming and his newfound humanity)
Skill Tree 1: BA LOADER (Skills generally improve firepower output, accuracy, overall damage potential; capstone enhances his action skill to grant him SIX cannons and much more health)
Skill Tree 2: BULL LOADER (Skills buff Mal’s health, damage resistance; melee override in this tree to add a dozer blade to Mal’s arm, and make him bulldoze enemies in front of him, dealing greatly increased melee damage to them and reflecting incoming bullets/lasers)
Skill Tree 3: ION LOADER (Team-focused skill tree, gives Mal the ability to project a shield over a radius around him to protect himself and teammates, can add shock element to his action skill attacks, grants shock resistance, enhances shield capabilities; capstone allows Mal, when activating his action skill, to summon shield surveyor bots to recharge his and/or allies’ shields, and alternately, to attack enemies on the battlefield [surveyors also have a chance to drop loot, such as ammo and health and money, when they are destroyed, or when Mal’s action skill ends])
Back story: Mal was a Hyperion loader that got separated and cut off from Hyperion in the Eridium Blight during a bullymong attack on the mining operation he worked in. Mal was slightly damaged in the attack, but survived. The damage he suffered led him to believe himself to be self-aware and sentient. Vault hunters seeking the Vault of the Warrior encountered Mal, and helped him to look and feel more human, and to eventually learn to feel pain as well. Mal essentially became a living robot. After the fall of Hyperion on Pandora, Mal sought out the vault hunters that had liberated him from servitude, and sought to learn to be a vault hunter himself. He got help from some recently ‘liberated’ ex-Hyperion programmers, and ditched his mining and other work protocols, to activate all of the various combat loader routines available in the native OS for loaders. Gaige, being a fan of robots herself, lobbied Lilith successfully to authorize Mal’s training with the Crimson Raiders and other vault hunters on Pandora. Claptrap also spoke up on Mal’s behalf, being a former Hyperion combat bot himself, and Lilith eventually gave in and added Mal to the new vault hunter roster, if only to shut Claptrap up about it.
NOTE Some of Mal’s skills, including his action skill, introduce the chance to harm friendlies. Mal struggles with the Hyperion-loyal parts of his programming, and with his more rudimentary loader programming. The reprogramming, along with the damaged AI core, lead to a slightly bugged sense of Mal’s new self, that can sometimes be a little unsettling to his fellow vault hunters. Occasionally, his voice will be that of a proper Hyperion loader, or his lines will start to drift into common Hyperion loader combat lines, and he’ll catch himself mid-line. That sort of thing.
Also, his appearance will change with certain skill add-ons. For instance, the melee override in the BUL LOADER tree will cause the dozer blade to become part of his appearance at all times. The ION tree’s skill for that big shield will sprout antennae on him somewhere, like proper ION loaders. And so on.