History Main / FlawedPrototype

* ''Series/SyndromeE''. Jerome Becker acts as TheDragon and disposes of other test subjects for Syndrome E, and potential witnesses ''including his own father''. However while he tries to frame Lucie Henebelle to stop her investigation Jerome turns down several opportunities to kill her, as he admires her for being the first fully successful test subject for Syndrome E, who is able to live a normal family life.

* ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'': [[spoiler: Apocalypse]] functions as this to Strange's other apprentices, being both this and SuperPrototype - he's got a very reasonable claim to be the most powerful, and he was Strange's original crack at finding and trained TheChosenOne to take down Thanos. Unfortunately, while he UsedToBeASweetKid, he got a taste for [[BloodKnight blood]] and conquest, combined with the sort of ItsAllAboutMe mentality that was exactly what ''wasn't'' needed. Unlike the others, he's the only one who really went against Strange's design in ways that were fairly disastrous - the other two fallen apprentices are implied to have respectively fallen partly at Strange's design, or in one case, pulled a HeelFaceTurn.

** ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' has Type: Null. It was conceived as an [[CreatingLife artificial Pokémon]] named Type: Full, which would be able to [[PowersAsPrograms become]] any of the 18 types using the "RKS System". Three prototypes of Type: Full were created, but all three of them rejected the RKS System and subsequently [[UnstoppableRage went berserk]]. They were fitted with suppressive helmets to [[TameHisAnger keep them under control]], but they still couldn't activate the RKS System. The project was declared a failure, and all three were put into [[HumanPopsicle cryogenic storage]] indefinitely. [[spoiler:And all it would've taken to make the RKS system work was ThePowerOfFriendship.]]

** In "[[Recap/TheOwlHouseS2E10YesterdaysLie Yesterday's Lie]]", [[Characters/TheOwlHouseLuzNoceda Luz Noceda's]] first attempt to create a new portal door to the Human Realm, using rough guidance, in replacement of the original door; results in a jagged, unstable door which transports Luz to the [[VoidBetweenTheWorlds In-Between Realm]], collapsing in on itself after a short life.
** "[[Recap/TheOwlHouseS2E16HollowMind Hollow Mind]]" reveals that in the past, [[Characters/TheOwlHouseEmperorBelos Emperor Belos]] took a while to perfect the Coven Branding magic through trial and error, judging an early experiment which [[spoiler:failed to kill the subjects outright]] as this trope.

** The ''Daboku'' Assault 'Mech was among the first new [[HumongousMecha Battlemechs]] built with the [[LostTechnology lost knowledge]] gleaned from the Helm Memory Core, and it shows, becoming the [[JokeCharacter laughing stock of the battlefield]]. While it was advanced, the mech was riddled with massive faults. The Mech would sometimes spontaneously [[EjectionSeat eject the pilot]] when hit in the lower torso[[note]] a joke about the Mauler toy from the ''WesternAnimation/BattleTech'' cartoon, which had an ejection button in the pelvic area[[/note]], which caused the frustrated pilots to [[ArmoredCoffins disable the auto-eject]] (which still failed to correct the issue). The [[MoreDakka quadruple autocannon]] ammo feeds were poorly designed, causing them to jam up, and the 'Mech lacked enough heatsinks to prevent it from [[OverHeating overheating]] when firing its lasers. It was so infamous that the much more common successor dropped the name entirely, instead being called the ''Mauler''.
** The ''Battletech'' writing staff had a field day with the concept of failed designs in ''[[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Experimental_Technical_Readout:_Boondoggles XTRO: Boondoggles]]'', best described as a sourcebook full of abject failure. Fifteen units are collected in the book and every one of them is a screwup of the highest order. Pick your poison. An unarmed FragileSpeedster that overheats just moving and is so vulnerable that it could be killed with a thrown rock? What about the attempt to make a SpiderTank into a TransformingMecha... namely, [[MilitaryMashupMachine a plane]] that flew about as well as tanks tend to fly? Or perhaps the automated probe ship that [[AIIsACrapshoot blithely ignored its orders]], went on a random drunken hyperspace tour of known space, then disappeared never to be seen again? It's all there.

** A running theme in ''Battletech'' history seems to be megalomaniacal dictators mandating the development of super-heavy war machines that end up being utter failures on a mechanical and practical level. The most notorious individual responsible for the most gigantic failures was Stefan Amaris, who was [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler based on the obvious unsavory real-life inspiration]]. He had a thing for demanding giant, oversized 'Mechs and tanks that carried ludicrous amounts of armor and weaponry and yet had reliability issues so severe that most of them broke down just trying to move. The list includes the 140-ton ''Burke II'' super-heavy tank, the 110-ton ''Matar'' Battlemech, and the 90-ton ''Rifleman III'' Battlemech, among others--only the last of these was able to actually escape the kind of severe mechanical faults that plagued the rest of his ideas, and even then it was still little better than a bipedal gun turret due to its abysmal speed and mediocre armor. The ''Matar'' is a particularly bad case of EpicFail, as its knees, ankles, and hips basically exploded from the weight stress the first time it tried to move.

* The X-Aestivalis from ''Anime/MartianSuccessorNadesico'' was this. An Aestivalis armed with a Gravity Blast Cannon normally reserved for capital ships, Urubitake deemed it a failure because it would destroy itself if it actually tried to charge the power needed to fire it... which it promptly does when a drug-crazed admiral takes it and attempts to fire on another ship with it.

** The ''K-Class'' submarines of the British Royal Navy were built during the First World War and used steam turbines, which allowed them to travel at impressive speeds for a submarine, being designed to screen ahead of British fleets and attack the flanks of enemy fleets. They were very problematic and accident-prone, however, and steam engines in submarines would not gain favor again until the advent of nuclear submarines during the Cold War.

* ''ComicBook/IronMan'': It's probably easy to say that a lot of Tony Stark's armor fits into this category. His original armor was too bulky, nearly killing him when he was possessed by a voodoo practitioner, and another armor proved to be susceptible to control by Ultron. This is a result of his tendency to immediately attempt to use a new suit in the field as soon as he completes it, without bothering to properly test it first (In Tony's defence, this is mainly because most of his new suits are created to immediately stop whatever threat destroyed or damaged their predecessor, giving him very little time to test the suits before his foe causes more damage).

** In "[[Recap/TheOwlHouseS2E10YesterdaysLie Yesterday's Lie]]", Luz's first attempt to create a new portal door to the Human Realm, using rough guidance, in replacement of the original door; results in a jagged, unstable door which transports Luz to the [[VoidBetweenTheWorlds In-Between Realm]], collapsing in on itself after a short life.
** "[[Recap/TheOwlHouseS2E16HollowMind Hollow Mind]]" reveals that in the past, Belos took a while to perfect the Coven Branding magic through trial and error, judging an early experiment which [[spoiler:failed to kill the subjects outright]] as this trope.
* On ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'', one of Dr. Doofenshmirtz's plans involves making several clones of Perry [[FrameUp to frame him]]. The very first one out is Jerry the Platypus, a dumb, imperfect version that [[PetTheDog Doofenshmirtz can't bear to throw out]].
** In "Run, Candace, Run", Candace uses a pair of super-speed boots her brothers invented to [[TwoTimerDate be in two places at once]]. Unfortunately, she puts on a pair of unstable prototype boots and ends up running at breakneck speed when she tries to go ''anywhere''.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': In "Future-Drama", Homer Simpson owns the first hover car ever made. It scratches the streets it's driven through.

** The mothership itself: In the first game, the mothership (both the Kushan and the Taiidan variant) is lightly armed and armored and (in the single-player campaign) can't move in real space due to its engines being unfinished. This is a complication in some missions, such as the one where the mothership is endangered by asteroids and the one where the enemy tries a ColonyDrop on it. To rub salt in the wound, we see that the Kadeshi mothership has ion cannons and very fast engines, in addition to building capabilities and point defense weapons. In ''Cataclysm'', your mothership comes with working engines and capable weapons, and over the course of the game you upgrade it with superior armour, energy cannons, and a WaveMotionGun, while the Beast mothership has comparable normal weapons, slightly slower engines, and inferior construction capacity, but it has superior armour and swaps the WaveMotionGun with a beam to spread TheCorruption. In ''Homeworld 2'', the ''Pride of Hiigara'' (itself an improved version of the Kushan mothership) has working engines, decent weapons, and can be upgraded with various systems, including cloak generators and sensors to defeat it.

* ''[[Creator/ChoiceOfGames Mecha Ace]]'' has the [[HumongousMecha Lionheart]], which is both this and a SuperPrototype. While it's superior in many ways to the bog-standard mecha, it turns out that there's a bug in the piloting software that causes it to become unresponsive at max speed. [[OhCrap You discover this just as you realise you're on a collision course with a civilian ship]]. The player can choose to have limiters installed, slowing it down to the same speed as a regular mech but eliminating the problem, or not, giving you access to its full speed but having to deal with the bug.

** Protomechs -- sort of an in-between hybrid of PoweredArmor and light Battlemechs -- would end up proving to be a technological dead-end, and hints of this eventual obsolescence can be detected in the [[https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Harpy Harpy]] Protomech. Despite costing more to develop than Elemental armor, it did not actually benefit from being bigger, as the Elemental was just as tough, and better armed to boot (the Elemental has an arm laser, a light machinegun, a disposable four-shot rocket pack, and an armor-ripping claw where the Harpy only has the machinegun). It was slightly faster on the ground, but that just put it in range of infantry, who could actually damage the Harpy quite easily. It's telling that even among the handful of Protomech users, no one actually tried to update the Harpy after the fall of Clan Smoke Jaguar.

** The Zudah from [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamMSIgloo MS Igloo]] competed with the Zaku I to be Zeon's mainline mecha. While all-around a superior machine, its engine tends to produce vibrations that shake the machine to pieces when overexerted, meaning it was passed over.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E103InHisImage In His Image]]", Walter Ryder, Jr. shows Alan Talbot the two failed prototypes in his quest to create an android: Alan Talbot 1 and Alan Talbot 2. It turns out that Alan is flawed himself due to his frequent homicidal urges.
* ''Series/{{Warehouse 13}}'' has many such items on display. In this case, "flawed" means "GoneHorriblyWrong" -- case in point, a self-replicating dodgeball used for military target practice.
** Some items are not "flawed", in that they are exactly what their creators wanted them to be. They're just too dangerous to be allowed into the world. Timothy Leary's Reading Glasses simulate the visual effects of LSD by anyone wearing them, resulting in the person never wanting to take them off or do anything, including eat, drink, or sleep. The end result is obvious. Copies made by [=McPherson=] only cause the world to appear trippy but don't result in addiction, and can also be used to send secret messages.

** Speaking of the RX-0 series, their primary armament, the Beam Magnum, is an immensely powerful beam rifle that has the drawback of being supremely energy-inefficient, consuming an entire E-cap per shot, which limits the number of shots to fifteen maximum, assuming that extra magazines are carried. This is on top of the fact that any machine that isn't an RX-0 unit will break their arms if they try using it due to the weapon's recoil.

** Even the powerful [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn Unicorn Gundam]] suffered from this. First off, all RX-0 units have the Newtype-Destroyer System (NT-D System) installed on them, and it's noted that the system is unable to differentiate between Cyber-Newtypes and real Newtypes, and that's without mentioning the fact that the NT-D system may be based on the even more flawed EXAM and HADES systems, which may explain another drawback to Destroy mode - using it effectively turns the pilot into a WetwareCPU, meaning that if the pilot is not careful, the will of the System will override theirs, meaning that rather than the pilot controlling the machine, it's the machine that controls ''them.'' The Unicorn also has intense acceleration and mobility - requiring that its pilots wear a specialized pressure suit to avoid blackouts. If one happens to not be wearing this special suit while the unit's Destroy Mode is active, it will result in the pilot losing consciousness from G-LOC, as Banagher learns the hard way after his first encounter with the Kshatriya. There's also the matter of the mental strain that the system imposes on the pilot, meaning that, ironically, the best pilot for a machine designed to destroy Newtypes is, in fact, a Newtype. Last but not least, the fact that the RX-0 Units having an embedded Psychoframe throughout their entire body means that they light up like a Christmas tree when in Destroy Mode - making them very obvious targets the moment someone spots them.

** Even the powerful [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn Unicorn Gundam]] suffered from this. First off, all RX-0 units have the Newtype-Destroyer System (NT-D System) installed on them, and it's noted that the system is unable to differentiate between Cyber-Newtypes and real Newtypes, and that's without mentioning the fact that the NT-D system may be based on the even more flawed EXAM and HADES systems, which may explain another drawback to Destroy mode - using it effectively turns the pilot into a WetwareCPU, meaning that if the pilot is not careful, the will of the System will override theirs, meaning that rather than the pilot controlling the machine, it's the machine that controls ''them.'' The Unicorn also has intense acceleration and mobility - requiring that its pilots wear a specialized pressure suit to avoid blackouts. If one happens to not be wearing this special suit while the unit's Destroy Mode is active, it will result in the pilot losing consciousness from G-LOC, as Banagher learns the hard way after his first encounter with the Kshatriya. There's also the matter of the mental strain that the system imposes on the pilot, meaning that, ironically, the best pilot for a machine designed to destroy Newtypes is, in fact, a Newtype. The primary weapon of the RX-0 series, the Beam Magnum, is very powerful but also noted to be supremely energy-inefficient, consuming an entire E-cap per shot, limiting the number of shots to fifteen maximum, assuming that extra magazines are carried. Last but not least, there's also the matter that the fact that the RX-0 Units having an embedded Psychoframe throughout their entire body means that they light up like a Christmas tree when in Destroy Mode - making them very obvious targets the moment someone spots them.

** Even the powerful [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn Unicorn Gundam]] suffered from this. First off, all RX-0 units have the Newtype-Destroyer System (NT-D System) installed on them, and it's noted that the system is unable to differentiate between Cyber-Newtypes and real Newtypes, and that's without mentioning the fact that the NT-D system may be based on the even more flawed EXAM and HADES systems, which may explain another drawback to Destroy mode - Due to Destroy mode's turning the pilot into a WetwareCpu, if the pilot is not careful, the will of the System will override theirs, meaning that rather than the pilot controlling the machine, it's the machine that controls ''them.'' The Unicorn also has intense acceleration and mobility - requiring that its pilots wear a specialized pressure suit to avoid blackouts. If one happens to not be wearing this special suit while the unit's Destroy Mode is active, it will result in the pilot losing consciousness from G-LOC, as Banagher learns the hard way after his first encounter with the Kshatriya. There's also the matter of the mental strain that the system imposes on the pilot, meaning that, ironically, the best pilot for a machine designed to destroy Newtypes is, in fact, a Newtype. The primary weapon of the RX-0 series, the Beam Magnum, is very powerful but also noted to be supremely energy-inefficient, consuming an entire E-cap per shot, limiting the number of shots to fifteen maximum, assuming that extra magazines are carried. Last but not least, there's also the matter that the fact that the RX-0 Units having an embedded Psychoframe throughout their entire body means that they light up like a Christmas tree when in Destroy Mode - making them very obvious targets the moment someone spots them.

** Even the powerful [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn Unicorn Gundam]] suffered from this. First off, all RX-0 units have the Newtype-Destroyer System (NT-D System) installed on them, and it's noted that the system is unable to differentiate between Cyber-Newtypes and real Newtypes, and that's without mentioning the fact that the NT-D system may be based on the even more flawed EXAM system, which may explain another drawback to Destroy mode - Due to Destroy mode's turning the pilot into a WetwareCpu, if the pilot is not careful, the will of the System will override theirs, meaning that rather than the pilot controlling the machine, it's the machine that controls ''them.'' The Unicorn also has intense acceleration and mobility - requiring that its pilots wear a specialized pressure suit to avoid blackouts. If one happens to not be wearing this special suit while the unit's Destroy Mode is active, it will result in the pilot losing consciousness from G-LOC, as Banagher learns the hard way after his first encounter with the Kshatriya. There's also the matter of the mental strain that the system imposes on the pilot, meaning that, ironically, the best pilot for a machine designed to destroy Newtypes is, in fact, a Newtype. The primary weapon of the RX-0 series, the Beam Magnum, is very powerful but also noted to be supremely energy-inefficient, consuming an entire E-cap per shot, limiting the number of shots to fifteen maximum, assuming that extra magazines are carried. Last but not least, there's also the matter that the fact that the RX-0 Units having an embedded Psychoframe throughout their entire body means that they light up like a Christmas tree when in Destroy Mode - making them very obvious targets the moment someone spots them.

** Even the powerful [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn Unicorn Gundam]] suffered from this. First off, all RX-0 units have the Newtype-Destroyer System (NT-D System) installed on them, and it's noted that the system is unable to differentiate between Cyber-Newtypes and real Newtypes, and that's without mentioning the fact that the NT-D system may be based on the even more flawed EXAM system, which may explain another drawback to Destroy mode - if the pilot is not careful, the will of the System will override theirs, turning the pilot into a WetwareCpu. The Unicorn also has intense acceleration and mobility - requiring that its pilots wear a specialized pressure suit to avoid blackouts. If one happens to not be wearing this special suit while the unit's Destroy Mode is active, it will result in the pilot losing consciousness from G-LOC, as Banagher learns the hard way after his first encounter with the Kshatriya. There's also the matter of the mental strain that the system imposes on the pilot, meaning that, ironically, the best pilot for a machine designed to destroy Newtypes is, in fact, a Newtype. The primary weapon of the RX-0 series, the Beam Magnum, is very powerful but also noted to be supremely energy-inefficient, consuming an entire E-cap per shot, limiting the number of shots to fifteen maximum, assuming that extra magazines are carried. Last but not least, there's also the matter that the fact that the RX-0 Units having an embedded Psychoframe throughout their entire body means that they light up like a Christmas tree when in Destroy Mode - making them very obvious targets the moment someone spots them.

* ''Fanfic/LimitlessPotential'': Roll is technically this for the reploids, since her new body was built by Dr. Fujiwara as a test run to see if X's systems could be replicated, so he didn't spare on high-quality materials for her. Ten years after, she still wishes he'd given her an upgrade, but he never got to do so.