Australium
First revealed by the story depicted within the Team Fortress 2 web comic "Loose Canon", Australium is a metal element which can adapt and transform itself into different states and forms, therefore making it extremely valuable and sought-after.
Australium was discovered by the country of Australia, explaining the element's self referential name to the country.
The discovery of Australium has most likely been the cause and reason behind Australia's rapid speed increase of technology advancement. Australium is believed to have also played a large part in the process of Australia creating cloaking devices, teleportation devices and the entire spectrum of moustache sciences.
Australium is believed to be sold and exchanged within the form of solid bars, similar to the way gold is often reserved and stored. Despite sharing similar appearance properties to gold, such as a similar color and the level of reflectivity, bars of Australium can be identified by the unique logo of a lone figure boxing a kangaroo, one of Australia's most known and iconic animals. This act of boxing between the kangaroo and the figure is supposedly how Australians choose their next rightful king.
Australians are known to be very secretive about Australium, most likely in order to keep the element in high value and demand, therefore allowing them to continue to outpace the rest of the world in the race for further technology advancement.
Australium was also used in terms of payment to Dell Conagher's grandfather Radigan, in exchange for him to build Blutarch Mann and Redmond Mann a life extending machine to further their own attempts to try and outlive and inherit each other's land. Radigan Conagher is believed to have found many more caches of Australium, and Dell later discovers hidden files detailing these caches amongst the blueprints Blutarch has lent to him to repair his own life extending machine.
Trivia
- It is believed that the Golden Wrench is plated with Australium, due to it's ability to transform any struck victim into solid gold by the killing blow.
- Australium seems to carry many references to Saxton Hale, such as the nature to fight with almost anything and anyone, including cougars and kangaroos.
- The self referential naming of discovered entities is also rather common in today's modern discoveries, such as recently discovered planets, stars and elements that are also named after the person or group which first discovered them.
- It is rumored that those who work with this material have their mental capabilities enhanced as well.
