Shanodin
Major
The Chamberlain, Her Chivalrous Immensity, Lady Botanica. The Unyielding Vanquisher of Weed Killer
This is NOT her field of dreams
Posts: 700
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Post by Shanodin on Dec 28, 2010 13:33:14 GMT -5
Botanica looks from Bambi to Rodimus to Perceptor. After a few seconds she throws up her hands and stalks (yes, she manages to stalk even though she doesn't have legs. It's about carriage.) over to one of the terminals and starts to review some data.
"I do not understand the fascination some of you people have with having a 'glorious death,'" she almost snaps, "But no one is dying here today."
She wouldn't let Bambi go haring off to fight Blitzwing just so the Dinobot can die in fancy flames. Not at all.
"There doesn't seem to be a reliable way to remove the nanite infection. However, there is a way to effectively freeze them in near stasis so that you will be an old and rusted fossil beneath the sands before they can complete their work. You should thank Blurr. His getting slowed down and needing treatment is probably what is going to save your life."
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Post by Rodimus Prime on Dec 28, 2010 14:25:30 GMT -5
"I'm more interested in making sure she gets a glorious life, but if Bambi doesn't want to stay, she's not required to," Rodimus answers Botanica. He looks straight at Bambi. "But I still ask that you try it first... you've got your whole life to gain."
The thought actually does occur to Rodimus to lie in answer to Bambi's question. He's perfectly willing to use trickery to accomplish his goals. But Bambi was there when he gave the order to go further up that mountain, and she was there when he set the egg in place, and she is not a fool. He lowers his head, now no longer meeting his gaze.
"No, Bambi, I would not have done differently." He would have sacrificed his own life to do what he did there, but that's not who he was called on to sacrifice. This is much harder.
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Post by Lynn Deanna Payne on Dec 28, 2010 14:59:18 GMT -5
Bambi settles herself down on the table and sniffs at the chemicals, tail-tip flicking back and forth listlessly. Sullen, and defeated, she sulks, "Fine, try treatment. Me Bambi jump class and be mammal, be guinea pig, instead of Reptilia."
She shoots a particularly hateful glare over at Botanica. Not mere sulking. Hate. Snap over Bambi's desire not to die a straw death, like she's some idiot girl who doesn't know what's good for her. Tell her that she should be grateful to Blurr for being enough of an idiot to get himself sick. Talk to the sick, scared little girl about being a rusted fossil.
Bambi looks over at Rodimus and growls slowly, laboriously, picking the words like tiny, needle-sharp fossil teeth embedded in a rock matrix, "Me Bambi no want follow you. No want join cause that throw civilians' lives away. No deny it. Me Bambi not soldier. Me Bambi not you soldier. Volunteer soldier consent to fight and die. Me Bambi no volunteer to fight and die, but you Prime and you Botanica throw me Bambi away, anyway. It different, if me Bambi volunteer. But me Bambi not."
Indiana Jones killed Nazis; that was fine. They were doing bad things to people who didn't deserve it. But Indiana Jones didn't get his sidekicks knowingly screwed over!
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Post by Perceptor on Dec 28, 2010 19:39:13 GMT -5
"It is the Dinobot way," Perceptor offers to Botanica gently, trying to explain something that he barely grasps, himself, and what little he does, only because he had taken it upon himself to watch over the creations of his closest friends after their deaths. Try wrangling Grimlock, or worse, Slag, into something unpleasant or something that they did not wish to do often enough, and one learns certain coping mechanisms.
"However, I do agree: no one is dying here today."
"We could simply give up, if that is what you truly wish, Bambi," he replies with a far too steady voice devoid of far too much emotion. "Cease our work and allow YOU to give up. To surrender. Is that what you wish? It is not what the Dinobots I know would wish, but, perhaps, you are not constructed of the same fortified materials as they." Doubt in his voice now as he watches her from over the top of a test tube that he had picked up in order to examine its contents. He returns the test tube to its rack and makes a few notations on a nearby datapad, before turning back, his expression... solemn.
"Yet, you did choose to take a stand when you shattered the false Egg, did you not?" he asks quietly. "And would it have been preferable to sacrifice an entire world for the sake of one?"
He holds up a hand, trying to forestall the inevitable explosion. "You were not given the opportunity to choose. I understand that, Bambi, and I empathize with your anger and the betrayal you feel. I am not a soldier, either, though I have, and I will, pick up a weapon to defend my friends. To defend those who cannot defend themselves. Given the choice... would you have asked an entire world to perish for you?"
He looks away, down at the floor, one hand resting upon the datapad of his notations. "I was offered such a choice, once, and I chose poorly. I wish that I had been the only one who had been forced to pay for that decision..."
"Sometimes, we are not offered the opportunity to choose between right and wrong, but to select the lesser evil. Raw data may be binary, but the world we must inhabit is not so strictly dichromatic."
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Shanodin
Major
The Chamberlain, Her Chivalrous Immensity, Lady Botanica. The Unyielding Vanquisher of Weed Killer
This is NOT her field of dreams
Posts: 700
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Post by Shanodin on Dec 29, 2010 12:23:19 GMT -5
"Throw you away? Throw you away!"
Botanica whirls on the little Dinobot, fists clenched at her sides.
"Let me explain something to you Bambi. I do not throw away life, any life, for nothing, and that is why I get so angry at the idea of you giving up and throwing away your life because you are too damn stubborn and scared to risk trusting us."
"We could save you, I knew we could save you, but an entire planet was dying. You have no idea, no idea at all what drives those of us who are connected to such things. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and I detest that fact with every fiber of my being."
Botanica's anger drains out of her, and her voice goes soft and pleading, "I detest it, but that doesn't change the fact of it. I was never a solider, I never wanted an ability so deadly as the one Primal gave me. I never wanted to have my very existence tied to the lifebeat of a planet, never asked to be its keeper. I tried not to fight, to merely tend my gardens, and I almost caused the deaths of everyone and everything I held dear. "
"So don't think we don't care about you Bambi, or that we don't wish there were other choices. Because we do. Primus help us, we do."
She turns away again, one hand over her eyes to hide the tears shimmering there.
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Post by Rodimus Prime on Dec 29, 2010 20:50:31 GMT -5
For a moment, Rodimus takes a step back and lowers his head slightly, preparing for battle. His instinct is to defend himself against the accusation that he's just threw her away, but then he stops himself, optics wide with realization.
This is no good. Throwing up his defenses, launching a counter-attack, will only escalate matters. Defending against the other means assuming the other is the enemy, and if the other senses that, it becomes truth. Rodimus himself is not patient on the surface... he's a mechanoid of action, of swift decisions, but there is more to him than the surface, and now he draws on that, forcing himself to calm down, to lower his defenses.
And then Perceptor and Botanica do just what Rodimus had decided against.
Botanica's angry retort, in particular, alarms him. "Botanica, no!" he calls, running around the table to stand between her and Bambi, sensing Bambi grow angrier. As the smoke starts to curl up from Bambi, he pleads, "Botanica! Please!" Then he turns to include Perceptor, to address him as well. "Please. This isn't helping. Move forward with her cure, and be ready with whatever back-up options in case it doesn't work, and if we do end up at that point, we'll go over Bambi's options with her and she'll choose. But... please. She's upset. We're all upset, but she is, especially. Upset and angry and... she has every right to be."
He turns towards Bambi and crouches down, bringing his head down to her level, attempting to appear less threatening. "You've got every right to be angry, Bambi. You're not a soldier. You didn't volunteer for this. You didn't choose this, and you feel like we've taken away your choices and just thrown them, and you, away. Do I have that right?"
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Post by Lynn Deanna Payne on Dec 29, 2010 22:19:06 GMT -5
Perceptor goads Bambi, calling her courage into question. She's a Dinobot, so it makes her angrier than she already is, how he all but tries to lead her around by the nose to make the conclusion that if she doesn't try this untested experimental cure, she is a coward. Her feathers rile in a threat-display. She's also a smart Dinobot, which means she knows that Perceptor's trying to screw her around, and the fact is: "Me Bambi already say me Bambi try treatment! Shut up!"
Why are they still trying to convince her to do something she already said she'd do? It's irritating!
Then Perceptor goes on about what an idiot she is for breaking the fake Egg. He didn't say call her an idiot, but he may as well have said so, to Bambi's audios. She's already defensive, and neutral facts take on the shades of an attack when she's on the defensive. Her tail-tip is not twitching listlessly anyone; her tail has raised up, rigid, feathers flared out, all to make her look bigger than she is. Oh, she's also selfish and awful for not wanting to die, never mind that Bambi's not sure if they even accomplished anything there! They put a museum piece on a mountain! What the scrap did that accomplish?
When Perceptor doesn't shut up, her voice raises into a roar, "It no matter, because me Bambi have no choice! Them Autobots and Maximals just decide for me Bambi, decide me Bambi acceptable losses, like me Bambi butterfly." Butterfly. Aztec slang for a prisoner of war who was sacrificed. Doubtful that anyone here will get that, but Bambi is angry, and angry people don't make the most sense. "Them Autobots and Maximals not even warn me Bambi that them decided it okay for me Bambi to die. Just spring it on me Bambi by not trading Egg for cure." Bambi is not the politest of bots, it is vastly clear, but she feels some more courtesy could have been shown.
Then Perceptor dithers about some story from his life, blah blah blah, like he thinks he knows where Bambi's coming from. He doesn't know. He doesn't know Tz'is, for a smart guy.
Botanica is making her own threat display, with those fists. Bambi edges toward the back of the table, claws click-click-clicking against the surface of the table, so she can get away from Botanica in a hurry, if need be, but Bambi's threat display stays up in full force, metal lips pulled back to bare metal teeth. Botanica, like Perceptor, insults her courage and tries to manipulate her, and as sick of being sick as Bambi is, Bambi is sicker of these self-righteous Autobots and Maximals jerking her around.
A screech like an eagle's cry enters her roar, "You Botanica no know nothing! Cure no tested! No know it work! You Botanica babbling about nonsense!" Bambi has a defect that makes her catch on fire now and then. There's a curl of smoke rising from her now, hinting that her problem is very near to flaring up.
The needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few is all well and good when the few are prepared to nobly sacrifice themselves. The needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few is downright ugly when the few are entirely unwilling, clawing desperately for a hold on life, and when the few can't even make sense of how their suffering even serves the many.
Then Botanica, like Perceptor, also tries to give some useless life anecdote, and, to ice the misery cake, she makes phony claims about caring. If they cared, they'd have given her a choice in all this, or they would have at least told her what they were doing to her. They didn't. They don't get to claim to care and be so sorry now. Words are useless. Maybe, someday, their actions will show something or other, but they don't get to say that right now.
When Rodimus moves, just Bambi's head swivels to track him. Now, is he protecting Botanica from Bambi or Bambi from Botanica? Or both? He... doesn't try cold facts on a hot head. He doesn't try to distract her with anecdotes. He just... listens.
Bambi blinks and snorts smoke, grumbling softly, "Me Bambi just say that."
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Post by Perceptor on Jan 1, 2011 12:37:45 GMT -5
As usual, he says too much. This is the first time, however, that someone has come this close to bursting into flames because of his excessive vocal diarrhea. Not exactly a "first" to be proud of, though.
He sighs, shoulders slumping in defeat as he turns away back to his chemical apparatus long enough to grab the fire retardant blanket tucked in the cabinet with the other emergency mitigation supplies. Bambi is not yet aflame, though - physically, that is - and so he merely lays the blanket on the table not far from her, ready to deploy, just in case.
He would have been there to take her off for immediate treatment, if he'd known. He would have done nearly anything to spare her from having been infected with the nanites in the first place, if he'd been able. She is not stupid, or foolish, or something to be "thrown away".
But he understands that she neither wants to hear any of these things, nor would understand them even if he did try - again - to explain that.
"I'm sorry, Bambi." It's the only thing that he can say that she might, maybe want to hear. He'll leave it at that, leave Bambi to Rodimus Prime's more-than-capable hands, and return to what he can do with any amount of skill: his chemistry apparatus.
ooc: Perceptor will be puttering with the science stuff and go skippable unless directly addressed.
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Shanodin
Major
The Chamberlain, Her Chivalrous Immensity, Lady Botanica. The Unyielding Vanquisher of Weed Killer
This is NOT her field of dreams
Posts: 700
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Post by Shanodin on Jan 1, 2011 21:24:41 GMT -5
Botanica stays turned away. She doesn't answer Bambi's accusations, because doing so would only fan the fires. Literally. Botanica knows this will work because she has trust and faith in the abilities of herself and the science team. It is only nanites after all. Transformers have been dealing nanites for ages untold.
Still, the Dinobot is right, and so is Rodimus, so Botanica remains quiet, silently berating herself for keeping her temper. Again.
Skippable as well.
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Post by Rodimus Prime on Jan 1, 2011 23:08:40 GMT -5
Rodimus glances up at the others and he slumps almost imperceptibly. He hadn't wanted to cut them off. They're the ones doing the real work, after all! However, right now, Rodimus, non-scientist, has to make the frightened young Dinobot a priority. He turns back towards Bambi and dips his head. "I just wanted to make sure I had that right."
"Now, Bambi, I'd like to explain some of why I did what I did. Not just the part about the... the world-soul, but there are other reasons I did what I did. I did not communicate them like I should have when it was happening, but I'd like to explain now. Will you listen?" When Bambi nods, a brief smile tugs lightly at the corners of his lips and then fades out again. "Thank you."
"Bambi, I just really did not believe the people who poisoned you to be trustworthy. That is, I suspected that if they had done what we wanted, they either wouldn't have given us your cure, or would have tricked us in some other way, found a way to continue to use us further." He shrugs. "I admit I don't have any hard proof of this, but what they did to you alone, plus the way Montaigne treated Persipax caused me to think that he was someone not to be trusted. I mean, really, who poisons strangers to get what they want? Meanwhile, my own past experience gave me very firm confidence in Perceptor and Botanica's ability to find another way to save you, one that didn't involve potentially walking right into a trap or letting them dig their hooks deeper into us. I... I know I should have explained all of this to you when it was happened, and I am sorry."
OOC: Posing of Bambi nodding done with permission, to get things moving faster. Sorry, Perc and Botty!
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Post by Lynn Deanna Payne on Jan 1, 2011 23:32:07 GMT -5
Bambi is apparently a terrifying monster. She doesn't know what to make of that.
She nods listlessly to listen to what Rodimus has to say, pulling out her notebook and starting a new section. Her writing isn't as neat as it usually is - she hurts, but she stubbornly writes anyway.
All Bambi asks is, "Why you Prime not explain?"
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Post by Rodimus Prime on Jan 2, 2011 0:49:29 GMT -5
"Well, mostly because there was little time, and a lot of distractions," Rodimus answers. "We had Decepticons to deal with, plus all those other groups. But also, once we got the Egg itself..." he hesitates. "I know you don't believe in the mystical side of things, and I can't really blame you. I... don't want to, really. But for me, not believing in gods is about as impossible as not believing in the medical berth you're sitting on. The Matrix that I carry gives me a connection to things of that nature, and once we got near the Egg, the urge to see things through was almost overwhelming." He shakes his head. "It was very hard to think straight."
He slumps in his chair. "I realize that's not very reassuring, but there it is. Still, none of that... it's a reason, but it's not a justification. I should have explained, and I didn't, and I screwed up. I would like to find some way to make it up to you, once they've helped you, but I'm not sure what I can do."
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Post by Lynn Deanna Payne on Jan 2, 2011 10:00:20 GMT -5
Bambi grumbles, "Maybe them soldiers used to him commander that no explain what him doing. Them soldiers jump when him commander say, 'Jump,' and not ask why. Me Bambi no can live like that."
If that's what being an Autobot is...
She snorts as Rodimus goes on about gods and shakes her head, shutting her optics off for a moment. "Me Bambi no can believe that. You Rodimus entitled to own religion, but me Bambi not want follow and no can agree with religiously motivated judgements. Me Bambi scientist, not crusader."
That about the shape of it, she feels. The Autobots, at least under Rodimus Prime, seem to be some kind of religious army. It doesn't go with what Mirage said, but this isn't Mirage's reality. Bambi wonders if Mirage knows what he's getting himself into. Bambi at least knows that she doesn't know.
She hisses quietly, "Me Bambi want go back to own Earth."
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Post by Perceptor on Jan 2, 2011 11:03:20 GMT -5
"I posit that everyone feels the same, Bambi," Perceptor offers quietly from where he decants a thin, iridescent mixture from a retort into a graduated flask.
There's so much more that he wants to say... About how keeping one's suspicion at a level where one does not blindly follow is a good thing, but that there must be a happy medium where one trusts one's commanders, because there will not always be time to sit and explain and discuss the motivations for action or for orders given. How the middle of a battlefield is no time or place to hold such a philosophical discussion, and battlefields do not always look like two sides squaring off firing rifles and rockets at one another. How he hates this world, Pz-Zazz, and the things that it has forced he and other Autobots into doing, into even contemplating. How he hates the loss of compassion so many mechs from other realities than his own have suffered due to the machinations of fate in their various realities. How he wishes that he could finally find the answer and send everyone home again, because she is not the only one who is homesick and weary, and she is not the only one who has doubts. How the longer he is forced to stay on this cursed world, the harder it gets to convince himself to rise from his berth and venture forth after every recharge or defragmentation cycle.
How he does not believe in this "Primus" that Xaaron and Shockwave and Rodimus Prime speak of, but that he does believe, and more importantly, trust the Matrix... and thus, Rodimus Prime, himself.
But he also knows that she doesn't want to hear anything but that which vindicates her own self-righteous sensation of being abused; he flinches even thinking of it in such unflattering terms, but he's tired. Tired in body, but mostly just tired inside. Tired of feeling like he's trying to juggle a dozen live sharkticons without losing more than a limb or three. He's tired of looking after everyone, only to see them throw themselves back into harm's way again and again and again, and him helpless to protect them or send them home, or even so much as finish a sentence without someone getting angry at him. And unlike everyone else in the room, he did not even receive the benefit of experiencing that moment of sublime joy when the artifact had been returned, and even first hand accounts cannot give him that.
So instead of saying any of that, he merely snaps his mouth closed again after a moment, and then turns to Botanica to indicate with nothing more than a jerk of his chin for her to hand him another flask of liquid to continue their work.
ooc: still skippable.
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Post by Rodimus Prime on Jan 2, 2011 18:15:13 GMT -5
Rodimus inclines his head briefly in a nod. "You may have heard this before, but we Autobots are not used to Transformer civilians. It's been... a very long time since anyone on our world could really afford to be neutral, and while we've spent decades now protecting the people of other worlds, we've... fallen out of touch with the need to defend our own, not as fellow warrior, but as civilian." In truth, Rodimus's own reality does contain those known as Empties, but to his mind there is a difference between a person who has witnessed first hand what the Decepticons are capable and still refuses to stand for what is right, to the point that they are willing to reject their own species name, and a true stranger who just happens to share their species. "It is... taking some adaptation on my part, and I am not doing it as quickly as I should."
"I'm not asking you to believe me on the... 'religious' aspect," though Rodimus himself finds it very hard to think of it in such terms - he still does not see himself as a religious mechanoid, "but even that doesn't erase the problems we were having with the Decepticons and other factions. I've already admitted that I was wrong in not discussing my decision with you. You've asked me for my reasons, and I've given them. I don't expect you to see them as good enough because..." he lowers his head, right corner of his lip pulled back in a self-depreciating smirk, "well, I don't."
Then he looks back up at her. "You've asked for something I can't give you. Not something that I won't give you, but something I'm incapable of giving you. This is something we are still trying to figure out. As soon as we have a means to send you home, we will. In the mean time, is there some other way I can make things up to you?"
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