Scott Michael Palmer

Scott Michael Palmer is a Mann Co mercenary Engineer, stationed in Mountainlab.

Summary
Amicable and friendly, RED Engineer Scott Michael Palmer has little issue in getting along with his team. He is sensitive to how others act and is able to change his attitude to interact with them properly, from acting as the Southern Gentleman when talking to Spy, or nerding out over technical things with Medic, to goofing off around Scout and Soldier. Scott is incredibly humble, claiming his family had little growing up and for that, he is greatful to have what he has.

Biography
Hailing from the humble and beautiful Whichita Falls in Texas, Scott Michael Palmer was raised in a fairly poor household. His parents both never completed formal education and instead went to work at a young age after falling in love in high school. They dropped out of school to build a life together and many years later, bore their first child Scott.

The tough life his parents had taken did affect the family, for Scott's parents were only able to nab low-paying manual labour jobs. Despite this, Scott was raised not to shun such a job. Manual labour was looked down upon by scholars and businessmen, but Scott grew up with the idea that said scholars and businessmen couldn't stand a single day working on a ranch, or survive a single punch.

Scott took an interest in robotics at school and chose to pursue engineering. His parents supported him despite their lack of understanding of why Scott would want to pursue something like engineering, but their hard work put him through school. Once he was done with high school, he joined the army to have them pay for his college, serving with the military for a few years after his education was complete.

Once his contract with the military ended as well, Scott was on his own. He set up a shop, repairing cars and motorbikes for the most part while he worked on his own projects on the side. Constantly interested in how machinery could help humanity. Scott embarked on several ridiculous projects from scratch, using whatever he could spare around the workshop. Whatever failed prototypes he made, he would melt down into materials to use for something new. Months of hard work and lots of failed and half-working prototypes evetually lead to the first successful sentry gun. While it worked and was able to recognise and track enemies, it was bulky and heavy, too difficult to transport. Once more, he melted down the prototype and startd to build better working versions.

All this time he had the attention of Miss Pauling who had come to his workshop once when her motorbike broke down. During her brief visit, Scott mentioned his sentry gun prototype, catching Miss Pauling's attention. She left without talking much but reached out to him a year later to see if he was interested in joining Mann Co, offering him the space and materials he needed to continue working on new projects. The offer too good to pass up, Scott packed up and left Whicita Falls.

Personality
Scott is friendly and amicable, hiding few secrets under his bearded smile. He is sensitive to how others percieve him and adapts to their personality to make interaction easier. Because of this, he is well liked among his team. Despite his ability to socialize with just about anyone, he is an introvert at heart and needs time to recharge, which is often in the form of disappearing into his workshop to work on something new alone for a few hours or a day.