Rosalie "Ro" Rowan was a friend that accompanied Zeta on his adventures and acted as a big sister and adviser to him in the regular world.
History
Early life
Ro and her brother Casey were left behind with their grandparents for unknown reasons on their mother's part. Ro was called "Little Bulldozer" by her grandfather, because of her desire to plow through anything to get what she wanted. When their grandparents passed away, the siblings were separated and put into foster homes.[1] Ro was given to the Morgan family—Wendell and Mary—who weren't exactly her "type of people", and once told her that she'd never amount to anything. Her foster sister Tiff was more of a "goodie goodie", and stole a picture of Casey when Ro first arrived.[2]
Eventually, Ro ran away and ended in a girls' home in Spring City, Maryland. One day, she was defending a new girl against bullies and got stuck on restroom cleaning duty. Tired of such a life, Ro broke the restroom window locks and managed to escape the home. However, she was spotted and a guard chased her. Luckily for her, Slam, a local gang leader snagged her out of the way. She was promised a new life; she only needed to be initiated into the gang.[3]
Meeting Zeta
Ro was detained by the police for trying to steal food as part of the initiation. She managed to escape and deliver the goods. However, when the gang wanted her to rob a credit bank, she refused, so Slam moved to shoot her. Luckily, an unknown man moved to save her but was shot, revealing his true nature as a synthoid, throwing her would-be assailant at a group of NSA agents.
Ro helped the robot, who had been damaged in the fight with Slam and the NSA, escape. He tried to hotwire a hovercar but was too damaged to do so, so Ro assisted him. Hiding in a gutter, the robot introduced himself as Zeta, a government infiltration unit purposed to kill and replace a targeted individual. However, the last target was innocent, so he abandoned his mission. Now the NSA was after him, believing that he was reprogrammed by terrorists. He tried contacting Agent Bennet to convince him that he was peaceful but they refused to believe him. Ro pointed out that obviously Bennet would "shoot first, ask questions later". She then became interested in Zeta because he had a built-in cred card with unlimited amount. She decided to use this to buy herself new clothes then advised Zeta on a new look for himself, as well as take five thousand credits.
Next day, Ro suggested to Zeta that he'd seek out the ones who originally created him, in order to prove his innocence to the NSA. Zeta had to retrieve the information from Bennet's hover van; to allow him access, Ro distracted Agent West. Unfortunately, West realized who she was and rushed back to warn Bennet. Ro almost thought to abandon Zeta but then rescued him, promising to help him prove his innocence.[4]
Searching for Zee's Creator
Out of the partially downloaded file, "Zee", as Ro had gotten to call him, could only identify one scientist: Nelson Arroyo, who worked at Dyron Aerospace. After a failed infiltration that ended with the destruction of a security bot, they escaped with Spaceys, protesters who demanded free space travel. Ro returned to Dyron with a group of Spaceys and made contact with Arroyo, telling him that Zeta wanted to meet with him. However, she soon realized that Bennet had set it up, and gathered the Spaceys to save him. They escaped with Arroyo, who had been saved by Zeta from the NSA's trap. The Spaceys covered them, believing Zeta was an alien. Out of reach from the NSA, Arroyo stated that he didn't do much on the project but did know someone who would: Dr. Eli Selig, the man who programmed and designed everything about Zeta. The problem was that the government had taken him in for a more classified project but luckily, he would come out into the open once in a while.[5]
The Brain Trust
Zee and Ro got to grow together, and Zee would often help her shopping. At one such occasion, he holomorphed into Ro, to show her how a jacket would look on her. Still in Ro's shape, he stopped a malfunctioning robot, which was witnessed by two members of the Brain Trust. Believing Ro possessed a crude level of technopathy, they kidnapped her for their own goals.
At their hideout, they forced her to try and fix a bomb. Though Ro protested that she had no powers, her protests were to no avail. Ro tried to pretend to and was secretly aided by another child, Transita, who fixed a broken wire.
Later, the group revealed their plan to use the bomb Ro "fixed" to release radiation on the nearby town from a radio transmitter to awaken the dormant power in any potential youth. Just then, Zeta walked in, in a biker disguise. When it was apparent that Schiz couldn't read his mind, Ro acted quickly, revealing Zeta's true nature, and hinting him to play along. She stated that the government was onto their plan and they should cancel it; this only compelled the group to act sooner and seemingly trashed Zeta.
As they arrived at the transmitter, Ro was ordered to disable the alarms. She deliberately triggered the alarms but the group continued with the plan nonetheless. As Zeta arrived, Ro urged him to stop the bomb. Meanwhile, Ro took Transita and Amp to hide in a nearby cave. She instructed them to aid Zeta. Schiz caught on to them, but Amp amplified his powers. Reading the thoughts of everyone around him, the telekinetic was knocked out. As the Sheriff cleaned up the mess, he let the two fugitives go, as thanks for saving their town.[6]
Reunion
Besides helping to search for Dr. Selig, Zeta also tried to assist Ro and locating her real family. She decided to return to the Morgans to find records, posing as vidstar Adam Heat's assistant. When their ruse was exposed, it only took Zeta saving a theatre from a load of logs to convince her foster father of Zeta's innocence. Though her records came up with nothing, Tiff did give her back Casey's picture.[2]
They eventually tracked Casey's last known location, Twin Cities, Minnesota. Sadly, they hit another dead end when the files turned out to be corrupted. The social worker directed them to an unorthodox source: Skye's the Limit, a reality show that assisted people in finding their lost family members. Though going on TV would mean that Bennet would find them, Ro decided to take the risk. However, the person she met wasn't Casey, as he looked nothing like the photo Tiff gave her. Zeta then ran in, revealing that she was deceived and that the producer was planning on sending her back to the girl's home. They then evaded the NSA agents waiting in the crowd.[7]
After evading Rush and West at a picto convention, Bucky called them on a vid phone. He had found Casey, and redirected the call to his office in Golden Bay City, where he worked as a text news reporter. The siblings were surprised to see each other and planned to meet. They both caught up on what has happened to them in their lives. Unfortunately, Casey's boss, Pat Jensen had contacted the NSA, intent on filming Zeta's capture. After Zeta saved a trolley, they escaped.
They arranged to meet again at the Golden Bay Bridge. However, when they arrived, the NSA revealed themselves. Casey had collaborated with Bennet to get the charges against Ro dropped. Reluctantly, Ro got into the copter with Casey, as Zeta ran down the bridge tethers. Realizing his earlier mistake, Casey deliberately blocked the NSA copters, botching the capture. Jensen attempted to stop him only for Ro to push his own camera bot against him. A severed wire hit their craft, sending it down. Zeta managed to rescue Ro and attach the copter to the wire. They then left Golden Bay. On the flight out, Ro looked into the textnews, on Casey's advice, learning that they could use it as a secret message system and promises to keep searching for their parents.[1]
Background information
- In 2013, Robert Goodman said that "one of the twists the network wanted" for a third season was that Ro would be a robot.[8]
Appearances
The Zeta Project
Batman Beyond
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 The Zeta Project, "On the Wire"
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Idem, "Hicksburg"
- ↑ Idem, "Lost and Found"
- ↑ Idem, "The Accomplice"
- ↑ Idem, "His Maker's Name"
- ↑ Idem, "Ro's Gift"
- ↑ Idem, "Ro's Reunion"
- ↑ Screenshot of tweets between Goodman and Nathanson, "The Zeta Project" tumblr