Hi today I would like to talk about this account's (and au's) name origin
Here's the thing about metals, in most cases they will get damaged as a result of chemical reactions with their environment. Such reactions are commonly known as corrosion. While yes everyone knows that steel corrodes, the iron in it reacts with the oxygen in the air and creates iron oxide — rust.
And yes some metals are rust resistant, it's why we have something called noble metals (Gold, Platinum, etc.), which means there are things that need aggressive chemical conditions, usually probably lab-induced.
There's also ways to prevent corrosion to the main metal by coating it in protetive layers of metals that will react with the environment instead. Like putting zinc over a steel construction. The zinc will react with the oxygen protecting the iron under it from getting damaged. However there are some metals that are better than others at preventing corrosion, if you put a protective layer of a metal less active than the one the main construction is made of, the construction will start corroding should there be a hole in the layer. Such thing doesn't happen when the coating is a metal more active than the one you want to protect.
This all is important because it corresponds to what role characters play in the story, specifically the Robertsons and Vizier.
See, Mecha Man Prime was created because a man wanted to give back to people, help others like he was helped in a life-or-death situation. Mecha Man Prime was the Mecha Man for the people, having everyone's safety in mind and always appearing in that shining, clean mech suit that gave everyone hope- he's the one with the protective layer over his surface, and he coated his family in the same material that gave everyone a sense of safety.
However when that man was killed, in action, it turned out the coating was thin. Weak. Less reactive than the material the others were made of. Sure, Robert Robertson III wasn't alive yet, but his father witnessed Bobby's death. And oh, the bubble of safety and hope for a good future burst so fast. Yes, he took on the mantle of being Mecha Man, but the mech suit wasn't as shiny anymore. And violence incites more violence, and Mecha Man 2.0, later renamed Mecha Man Astral (due to the new source of power, new suit and mental health reasons), wasn't as gentle as the first one. He was actually the first superhero to intentionally and directly cause harm, and later kill, a villain.
And later on when Robert Robertson II was killed as well, and when it came to light people believed Vizier to be a villain who killed a man who truly had good intentions- he had to, right? He was Mecha Man's successor! The Mecha Man that the people called Prime after the birth of the next one, it had to be all in good faith. That's what Robert believed, too. Despite being the closest to everything that happened, knowing the truth instead of a fabricated story the news tell, he still thought his father was a good man. So when he saw the person who killed him? He got angry. He nearly tried to beat him up, but all his emotions only let him snatch the pulse from Vizier and shut the door to... process? He didn't know himself. If Robert Robertson II was the stage where the protective layer breaks and the main material starts corroding, Robert Robertson III is the stage where it spreads and starts damaging more and more of the entire thing. He was fifteen when it happened. Over time, he got so damaged from his own grief and anger that he decided to join the SNC.
The state of the first Mecha Man suit is a reflection of the mental, physical and public state of the current Mecha Man, in a way.
And Vizier represents the noble metals, the ones that are difficult to corrode, extremely resistant to that. He needed to be, after all the media came for the man who killed their hero. He needed to be resistant to a lot, had to withstand the backlash and the accusations before he cleared everything up. He needed to be able to keep his cool under abysmal amounts of stress, and that's what makes him a good hero. His eye still twitches when people don't trust him to this day, he isn't immune to corrosion, he is just extremely resistant to it.
