Touchdown Series -

This is part of a short series of stories for our game, Touchdown: Armor League
Touchdown is set in 2089, in a world football is played in mechanized powersuit with guns and rocket launchers.

Kayin Ortiz is a 60 years old Brazilian scientist, who suffered anonymity for most of his life. With great aspirations for advancing the Touchdown Armor League, he spent most of his time in his self-built lab located in his own garden. Despite the reputation for somewhat abrasive personality traits, the man was always very conscientious and thorough in his research. A few years ago, an obscure experiment involving a soda can and an air-to-air missile led him to discover micro-depressurization. The phenomenon, when occurring in the helmet of a Touchdown suit, would allow the player to enter a state of unparalleled clarity of mind and focus for a few seconds, this could occur as many as four times in a single match, at random. Most scientists had never even considered such a possibility, as depressurization of a suit would normally cause its wearer to faint.

The benefits of such an invention were clear to him: the athletes would be able to assess the on-going action better, thus improving their decision-making ability on the field, if only for a moment.

In the days following the discovery, Kayin felt an exuberance he had last experienced in his youth, when his passions for the Touchdown Armor League and science were irrepressible.

He decided to introduce the idea to Impulso, a famous brazilian suit manufacturer for the Touchdown Armor League. Later reports state that his presentation was interspersed with the yawns from Impulso’s executives, who shortly stopped him in the middle of a passionate explanation about the potential of his invention. After thanking him for the “interesting exposé” they had him home. Mr. Ortiz was never contacted by Impulso again, and learned a few months later that the company, forward-thinking as it was, implemented micro-depressurization in their helmets.

The firm received endless praise for its drive for innovation and its contribution to the progress of TAL, to the stupor and indignation of the scientist. The grudge he held against Impulso was rooted in the absence of recognition for his own work. His exasperation reached a peak the day Mowl K.Z., a Touchdown Armor League player, saved his team in a decisive match at the last minute, describing in the following interviews the outlandish feeling of lucidity that surged through his head in the crucial moment.

However, Kayin felt helpless as he knew he would not stand a chance against a company of such size and renown, his precarious financial situation being a concern. He brooded over these events for a long time and the idea of building robot lawyers to bring his case to court crossed his mind more than once.

One day, as he was working in his lab, he uncovered a zinc solution by accident which could potentially make micro-depressurization more reliable and less expensive. A far more coherent solution than litigation then presented itself: he would promise to Impulso an enhancement of the technology they allegedly stole, on the condition that they signed a contract that obliged them to credit him for it. An agreement was reached and Ortiz’s name now appeared on the manufacturer’s website, in the “Our Science Team” tab, in addition to nominating him for the Industrial Innovation Award, which was more than sufficient to him. Impulso’s executives, on the other hand, were happy to avoid a lawsuit with such little effort.