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Gaige is the playable Mechromancer class character, and the fifth playable class overall in Borderlands 2, first revealed at PAX East 2012. Gaige was added as post-release downloadable content released on October 9, 2012 for $9.99 USD / 800 Microsoft points / $14.40 AUS. Those who pre-ordered Borderlands 2 received the character free of charge. Her skill grants her the ability to control the D374-TP, or Deathtrap. She is also used as a marketing tool outside of Borderlands 2 where the character chats on Twitter and releases ECHO logs.

Background

Gaige was a high school student from the planet Eden-5, and lovingly supported in her endeavors by her parents, particularly her father. She would often ECHOcast live about what was going on in her life and had a dozen subscribers to her channel, although this dropped over time to two. Gaige found the history behind the Vaults, Eridium, and Pandora to be particularly fascinating, and considered her era to be "the most awesomely awesome time period in history" to be living in.

She originally conceived Deathtrap, then called the Mechanized Anti-Bully Deterrent Test, or Project DT, as a science fair project to combat bullying. Her rival, Marcie Holloway, was a contestant in the science fair as well, and used her father's money to buy her way through the competition. After Gaige was inspired to amputate her left arm with a particle saw and replaced it with a robotic one she built, Marcie apparently stole Gaige's DT designs and sold them to Eden-5's corrupt police force.

On the day of the science fair in the school auditorium, Marcie's father bribed the judges, helping her win first place with a defective robot based on Deathtrap's first or second revision blueprints. Gaige, with at least a fourth revision Deathtrap, placed third. Marcie then shoved Gaige, causing Deathtrap to identify her as a hostile. Deathtrap attacked with its digistruct claws, which unexpectedly caused her body to explode the moment her skin was touched (likely all over Gaige as well), due to a miscalibration of the claws by Gaige, likely when she had added the discord circuits the night before. After the auditorium was cleaned up of Marcie's remains, the traumatized Gaige was escorted to the principal's office and faced expulsion and arrest for accidentally murdering her rival. She called her father to create a distraction to help her evade arrest, which apparently consisted of the novel use of a golf cart and lots of gasoline. Gaige and her father realized she would have to leave Eden-5 so the police and her misappropriated invention couldn't find her and after an emotional farewell, she bought a transplanetary shuttle ticket to Pandora to become a Vault Hunter. ECHOcasting during the journey, she was shocked to find that her two subscriber count had jumped to 20,000 because the science fair incident had been reported on the ECHOnet and people apparently found her channel; she explained what had happened and the subsequent fallout. After landing on Pandora, she stowed away on a train leading to Windshear Waste.

Appearances

Skills

Action skill: Deathtrap

Deathtrap stays on the battlefield for 60 seconds and has a 60-second base cooldown.

Gaige's skill tree features player challenge level variances. This would make her both the easiest and the most difficult character to play. Gaige has three Skill Trees:

Class Mods

Main article: Class Mod (Borderlands 2)#Gaige

Quotes

Main article: Gaige/Quotes

Trivia

  • Gaige is the first playable character to be released as a DLC for the Borderlands franchise.
  • Gaige is the first playable character to not have an ECHO log in her inventory at the start of the game, nor does she have a personal trophy/achievement for the use of her personal skill.
  • The intro of the game wasn't renewed after her release, so she was the first playable character who isn't featured in the intro of the game.
  • Gaige likes cupcakes and hot chocolate, and her favorite color is purple.
  • Gaige dislikes country music.
  • According to Mad Moxxi and the Wedding Day Massacre, Gaige seems to have a crush on Sir Hammerlock and she has a very close relationship with Axton, calling him "unparalleled stud", according to their chat with Athena.
  • One of her random lines while opening treasure chests - "It's like Hanukkah!" - is a parody of Roland's, "It's like Christmas!"
  • A few of her general combat quotes (the 'unstopabble', 'dominating', 'multi-kill', and 'monster kill' lines) are references to the announcer voice in the Unreal Tournament series of games.
  • The bounty on Gaige's head is $820,000,000,000 which is the highest among all playable Borderlands characters to date. She is wanted for the "creation of unauthorized technology" and "excessive adorability." No wanted posters of Gaige exist in game however (the $820 billion figure is from her intro movie).
  • When using the Handsome Jack voice modulator, Gaige's voice remains the same the first time it is picked up.
    • The line Gaige says after picking up the voice modulator is exactly the same as Axton's.
    • Only the English voice of Gaige using the voice modulator currently exists, being played in all versions of the game.
    • She also doesn't use any of her Anarchy stack gain quotes while using Jack's voice.
  • When building stacks of Anarchy, Gaige's personality undergoes a gradual shift from normal, to highly excited, to full-blown god-complex and fourth-wall breaking.
  • Original concept art of Gaige featured her robot hand as being more crude and with only four digits. The arm in her final design has a full set of digits and has a more completed appearance. Aside from the arm, little else seemed to have been changed from the original design.
  • Many of Gaige's skins are based on the punk culture.
  • Many of Gaige's skills are based on phrases from the TV show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
  • Her line said when she`s summoning Deathtrap "It`s robot fighting time" is a reference to BattleBots "The box is locked the lights are on: It`s robot fighting time"
  • Klaatu Barada Nikto is a line from the 1951 movie "The Day the Earth stood still". From Wikipedia: The humanoid alien protagonist of the film, Klaatu (Michael Rennie), commanded Helen Benson (Patricia Neal) that, were anything to happen to him she must say the phrase to the robot Gort (Lockard Martin). In response Gort relented from destroying the Earth and resurrected Klaatu from death.
  • When Gaige summons Deathtrap and says "To hell with the first law" she refers to The first Law of Robotics which states that no Robot may harm a human or allow a human to come to harm. This echoes with how Hyperion Loaders may say "First law disabled" upon sighting a target.
  • The quote "Number Five Alive!" Gaige utters when summoning Deathtrap is a reference to the 1986 movie Short Circuit in which robot "Number Five", also called "Johnny Five", is considered a sentient being. The line "Number Five is Alive." is the actual phrase used in the movie.
  • Gaige's Necromancer class mod, introduced in Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep is the only class mod from that DLC to not be named after a standard playable class in Dungeons & Dragons.

Media

References[]

  1. The Worlds of Borderlands. p. 95
  2. Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep credits
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