Sideburn
Rookie
Must not chase Swerve, must not chase Swerve...
Posts: 211
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Post by Sideburn on Oct 25, 2007 21:44:38 GMT -5
Sideburn gets started helping to fix Rodimus' damages. "Nah. Scourge's weapons are direct."
Sideburn glances up and nods as both Rodimus and then Xaaron request more information on Scourge. His hands never pause as he talks, though. "Before me'n the rest of Optimus Prime's team went to Earth, another Autobot ship crash-landed on the planet. However, the crew of six were in stasis pods and didn't wake up when the ship crashed... We ended up finding out about it through some of Dr. Onishii's files... I can talk about Dr. Onishii later if you want. Anyways, we went to go dig them out, but when we got at the site, the Predacons had already started digging... In fact, we got there just in time to see them get it exposed. We tried to protect the ship and them inside it, but Megatron showed up and stole the stasis pods, leaving us with just the ship.
"Megatron used his spark to reprogram the protoforms, then took them to the nearest human military base to scan alternate forms for them. We managed to follow them to the base, but most of the new Decepticons had been awakened already. However, Scourge was still in his pod at the time. One of the humans on-base was panicking and driving a tanker truck around and hit a large pot-hole, and Prime grabbed it to steady it, just as Megatron had Scourge's pod scan the truck... The scanner didn't just get the truck, but the human inside and Prime. Then Scourge was released and Megatron immediately named him the commander of the Decepticons."
Sideburn sighs. "He's got to be the most powerful 'Con in my universe, aside from Megatron. Only Prime and Ultra Magnus are strong enough to take him on one-on-one. His favorite weapon his his Sword of Fury, but he's also got a bunch of long-range weapons, including a double-barreled Plasma Gun. His 'Barrage Attack' includes shoulder-mounted missiles, and his 'Ultimate Barrage Attack' adds in a whole arsenal from an attack base his trailer turns into." Not someone a normal soldier wants to fight on his own, that's for sure. Sideburn wouldn't even think of taking Scourge on unless he had his brothers to back him up.
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First Aid
Rookie
Conscientiously Objecting
Posts: 239
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Post by First Aid on Oct 25, 2007 22:30:58 GMT -5
First Aid is grateful for Rodimus’ cooperation as he works. He’s quick and careful about it. Unfortunately, lots of this, like the spoiler, is going to have to be dealt with back in the repair bay.
He’s sorry about that. He knows it has to hurt.
One of these days someone’s going to invent a pocket fabricator, and he will be first in line for it.
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Post by Rodimus Prime on Oct 25, 2007 23:26:47 GMT -5
Rodimus Prime's optics widen and flash at Xaaron's radio contact, and he's so startled that he says out loud, "You can sense it?" His expression turns... shaken, before he lowers his head. He studies his hands, a frown of intense concentration on his face.
What he's doing is looking inward. Can he be slipping? But no. No sign that he's losing control. It must, then, be something about Xaaron himself.
Finally, wits recovered, Rodimus opens radio contact with Xaaron even as he listens to Sideburn. //After the first time I defeated Unicron, I found I hadn't done quite as... thorough job as I had hoped. I... now have my doubts that he really can be destroyed completely, but... well, after his body was destroyed, his head remained and eventually found its way to the planet Junk. Unicron enslaved the Junkions, and tried to force them to build a new body for him. I went to Junk with the Dinobots, where we were able to destroy his head and imprison Unicron's essence inside the Matrix itself.//
//Since then, the Matrix has been... tainted. My fault. My mistake. When I returned from the Time Wars, I found my history had been rewritten. Galvatron had never left, and the Decepticons were in control of Cybertron. We lost... a lot of good people. I lost a lot of dear friends, and I... let Galvatron taunt me into bringing myself down to his level, into attacking him with all the savage rage I could muster. Arcee brought me back before I lost the Matrix, and myself, to it completely, but it gave Unicron an 'out.' I have control now; I've trained myself to maintain his prison at all times, whether distracted, unconscious... no matter what. But those first couple of years, he managed to take control twice.// Summarized, but the biggest points are there.
//To be honest, I wouldn't blame you if you did quarantine me. After the second time, I put myself into isolation for a year, until I was positive I could keep him safely locked away, but I know you have no reason to trust me to do so.//
Of course, Rodimus could have probably come up with a story a lot more reasonable and less dramatic than the truth. Sometimes, trust has to start somewhere.
The Sacrificed One misses Xaaron's comment about these people being used to following Primes, as that was made when he was focusing inward, but he does listen with an intent frown to Sideburn's story. "I think I've got the gist of what you're saying, although some of those things don't make a lot of sense to me. Protoform? And what's a Spark? Something that can be used to reprogram a Transform, I take it?"
"The weaponry and abilities match what I saw." //And he felt like Optimus,// he adds privately to Xaaron. "Do you know any weaknesses? Favored tactics? He seemed to get angry pretty easily; do you know the sorts of things that push him over the edge?"
Rodimus seems to be steadfastly ignoring his own earlier outburst.
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Post by Emirate Xaaron on Oct 26, 2007 10:23:11 GMT -5
Emirate Xaaron listens along to Sideburn's explanation, hands folded behind his back and a stern, pensive expression on his face. Quite a bit of incomprehension shows on his face during the explanation, and there's no point in hiding it. He honestly does not understand these terms, and he'll need to learn them. He asks, "What are sparks and protoforms? The only sparks I know are the electrical kind. The gist I'm getting is that he was meant to be an Autobot, but he was forcibly corrupted. Is that assessment correct?"
He frowns rather sourly at the explanation of Scourge's power. It just figures, that the arrival of a prime on their side had to be countered by the arrival of a dark duplicate of Optimus Prime. It is almost as if the cosmic forces aspire to maintain some balance here. Indeed, is he not the trickster Autobot leader, counterpoint to the wily, treacherous Starscream?
Emirate Xaaron half-turns, mouth opening slightly when Rodimus Prime exclaims out loud. Their conversation sounds so non sequiteur to an outsider. He closes his mouth and replies, //I can. Touching you felt like being throttled by Galvatron. I see why now. He carries only a portion of the Chaos Bringer. You bear all of him.//
He considers Rodimus Prime's story and their options. Overall, he is appalled both by what this Rodimus has had to endure and by what he has done, but he cannot allow feeling to cloud his thoughts. They cannot kill the Prime, for Unicron will not die with him. He must live, and he must stay sane enough to maintain Unicron's prison. Emirate Xaaron wrestles with himself and problem.
//No. I will not lock you away. I suspect that the worst thing I could do is cast you out alone, without support, and more, I imagine that Kup and Grimlock would fight over who would have the honour of strangling me if I did. We will offer what support we can to you, but please do not mention your burden to anyone else here, except perhaps Kup. We Autobots always mean well, but we recently had an infiltrator problem.//
At Rodimus Prime's insistence that Scourge felt like Optimus Prime, Emirate Xaaron says, "Sideburn, how deep do your scans go? We only scan for alternate mode, just picking up structure and function, and we need a device to do the scanning and rebuilding for us." Not that Emirate Xaaron has ever actually done this. He still has the form the factory gave him. Perhaps scanners in Sideburn's universe touch the very soul.
//Given all that, who led your Autobots?//
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Sideburn
Rookie
Must not chase Swerve, must not chase Swerve...
Posts: 211
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Post by Sideburn on Oct 26, 2007 14:27:30 GMT -5
Sideburn looks up sharply at Rodimus' outburst, then decides he doesn't want to know and quickly returns to his work.
"A protoform is the person stored inside stasis pods. A lot of times they're fresh from the factory and don't come online for the first time until they're released from their stasis pod, though sometimes someone can choose to be put in a stasis pod. That's risky, though, 'cause there's a high chance of losing most or all of your memories." He looks up quizically at Rodimus and Xaaron. "You don't know what sparks are? They're are souls, what makes us alive. They kinda look like these round balls of light made physical."
Sideburn shakes his head at Rodimus. "No weaknesses that I know of. He prefers melee combat, but with all his weapons he's tough at ranged fighting too. And as for things that get him angry... A lot of the times I remember him getting angry were when Prime was trying to reach the 'goodness in him'." Sideburn snorts at that, clearly not believing that there's any good in Scourge.
"Our scans? I don't know. I had thought they were superficial, but nobody I know had ever scanned a vehicle containing someone before, either." Sideburn gets a thoughtful look. "Though Skids never was as crazy about racing as he is until he scanned that earth car... Sure, he liked racing, but he never ran off at just the sound of one."
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First Aid
Rookie
Conscientiously Objecting
Posts: 239
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Post by First Aid on Oct 26, 2007 18:18:31 GMT -5
First Aid doesn’t startle at Rodimus’ exclamation, but he does want to know. He knows he might be happier not knowing, but he wants to know anyway.
With a careful application of continuous heat (hurrah for being able to fine tune the surgical lasers built into your hands!) and an equally careful, if slightly less delicate, application of physical manipulation, he thinks he’s got the immediate problem of the dent taken care of, although the armor’s currently weak there, and he’ll want to go back later. He pauses, and looks up to Rodimus. “How’s that feel?” he asks, “Better?”
What Sideburn says about sparks matches some of the things in the file on Jazz that Perceptor gave him. “Transformers from my universe don’t work that way,” First Aid tells him, “What you need to stabilize – if you’re ever in a position to need to – is the laser core. I’ll dig up a few diagrams for you later, so you can recognize it."
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Post by Rodimus Prime on Oct 26, 2007 19:17:20 GMT -5
Rodimus tilts his head slightly and glances up at Emirate Xaaron out of the corner of his field of vision. //I knew there was something odd about you,// is his first comment, a radio'd murmur.
//In answer to your question, I did. For the most part. The year I went into seclusion, Kup handled it for me.//
//We lost contact with you in the late '90's, and leadership of all Autobots, both on Cybertron and off, fell to Optimus Prime, and when I became Prime, it fell to me.// Rodimus is capable of a very convincing lie when he wants to do so, but for the most part he's rather honest, almost earnest.
He listens carefully to both Sideburn and First Aid. In answer to First Aid's question, Rodimus nods. "Much better, thank you." Then he looks at Sideburn. "Sometimes we'll use a phrase like, 'as long as spark flows in my circuits,' but that's really just a nicer way of saying our circuitry's operational. We have souls," something Rodimus is more intensely aware of than most may be, "but they're not physical objects, like what you describe."
Then he looks down at First Aid, and adds, "And... we'd refer to our essential personality unit as a 'brain module,' actually.1 There have even been cases of Transformers who've had their personality and memories recorded on more primitive media who were later returned to life when the information was transferred to a proper brain module. In fact, that happened to our reality's Optimus Prime once."
1 'Sparks' are big round glowy things, sometimes encased. G1 Cartoon and Marvel Transformers don't have them. Brain Modules are small units of circuitry which look quite different from the way Sparks are presented. Canon doesn't show what a laser core looks like, so we're assuming that unlike the case with 'sparks', 'brain module' and 'laser core' are just different terms for the same object. A laser core/brain module may be stored in the head or the chest.
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Post by Emirate Xaaron on Oct 26, 2007 21:37:49 GMT -5
Emirate Xaaron rubs his chin as he listens to the lecture on sparks and protoforms. Idly, he asks, "Any idea if this Scourge was a blank or someone before he came to Earth?"
He notes to the Prime, somewhat flippantly, //Blame it on my friends.// Anyone can talk to God. Emirate Xaaron gets answers.
Emirate Xaaron scowls when the tainted Prime explains that he led. He rants, //When we figure out how to get people back to our home dimensions, I'm going to visit yours, find my dead body – because this would be over my dead body, I assure you – and bring him back to life to chew him out for abandoning his duties to our people by getting himself killed.// Emirate Xaaron is one of those people who does not have the luxury of his death, and he's rather irate at his other self for being so irresponsible.
Emirate Xaaron shakes his head. He tries again, "As I said, these people elected me leader. You can challenge that if you want. However, if you don't want to," and he really hopes that Rodimus Prime doesn't, because there is no way Emirate Xaaron is letting someone who has been possessed by Unicron twice have the position, "I have yet to set up the ranks. Second in command is open."
He'll throw a bone to the people who love Primes, and it'll let him keep a close watch on the boy Prime. Besides, if he's done anything better than a half-cocked job of leading, he'll be a decent person for the job, so long as he stays a person. Emirate Xaaron was intending on offering the job to Kup, but he can't see Kup ordering around a Prime 24/7. When the Prime is being dumb? Oh yes.
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Sideburn
Rookie
Must not chase Swerve, must not chase Swerve...
Posts: 211
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Post by Sideburn on Oct 27, 2007 13:57:42 GMT -5
Sideburn nods to First Aid. "And I'll see if I have some diagrams of sparks stored in my memory banks that I can pull out for you to see. Would be neat to compare them."
The blue 'Bot shakes his head. "I have no idea."
OOC: And we can just assume that whatever patches/repairs Sideburn is doing is done by whenever First Aid is done, or when Rodimus wants to leave.
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First Aid
Rookie
Conscientiously Objecting
Posts: 239
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Post by First Aid on Oct 27, 2007 18:50:33 GMT -5
First Aid nods happily at the positive answer to the repairs and straightens up a bit to get a better look at Rodimus’ shoulder. “You learn something every day,” he says, in answer to Rodimus’ clarification, “I know we’ve suspended personalities before, but it’s not an area I’ve much personal experience with.” (Unless you count frequent civil conversations with Swindle. Well, civil except for the shooting.)
First Aid would beam at Sideburn’s comment about diagrams if he had a mouth. “Yes. I’d like that.”
He’s not worried about Emirate Xaaron and Rodimus and leadership. That will turn out all right.
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Post by Rodimus Prime on Oct 27, 2007 19:24:22 GMT -5
Rodimus may wince slightly at the 'over my dead body' radio comment from Xaaron. Perhaps, if one's paying close attention. What there's no mistaking, however, is the more determined set to his jaw shortly after, and he nods his head once at the Emirate's proposal. "I have no intention of upsetting any elected leadership," unless doing so turns out to be a really, really good idea for all involved. "No challenges from me, and I accept your offer. For as long as we're here, anyway." The Chosen One reaches up to shake the Emirate's hand, then hesitates, remembering Xaaron's comment about how coming into contact with him feels.
He glances down at First Aid, gives a faintly amused smile, and says, "Well, it's nothing I've done, either." Rodimus Prime has a rather impressive array of weird technical talents, largely carried over from Hot Rod, but his concentrations tend to be in 'Uses Most Likely To Annoy Kup,' and while swapping around personalities and recording people onto floppy disks certainly has potential to that end, that would have been a little extreme as practical jokes go.
He tilts his head away from the shoulder First Aid is working on to give the medic better access, but asks, "If it's all right for me to walk again, shouldn't we head... I don't know. Somewhere in doors?"
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Post by Emirate Xaaron on Oct 27, 2007 20:46:43 GMT -5
Emirate Xaaron listens along the medics talk. It is all useful information, he is sure, but it's not his area.
Emirate Xaaron is indeed paying very careful attention to the Prime, as much as he can. So the lad has a Unicron inside of him and thinks that he can control a dark god. Emirate Xaaron has to have some faith, more because he can’t afford to watch the child 24/7 than any goodwill toward his fellow Autobots. He accepts the offered hand with a stifled grimace. Emirate Xaaron is going to have to get used to it sometime, because he knows that he has too ingrained a habit of patting his subordinates on the arm or holding them by the shoulder in down times.
Smoothly, sounding fairly pleased, he replies, "Excellent. We'll get started as soon as you're up to it. To the medical ward, then?"
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Sideburn
Rookie
Must not chase Swerve, must not chase Swerve...
Posts: 211
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Post by Sideburn on Oct 29, 2007 1:29:48 GMT -5
Sideburn gathers up his tools and steps back from Rodimus, then tilts his head at First Aid. The white medic is the chief medical personnel here, so he gets the final word on what to do with the young Prime.
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First Aid
Rookie
Conscientiously Objecting
Posts: 239
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Post by First Aid on Oct 29, 2007 21:35:40 GMT -5
“Medical’s definitely the ticket,” First Aid says, and sets to quickly getting his kit put back together.
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Post by Rodimus Prime on Oct 29, 2007 21:47:52 GMT -5
Rodimus stands up, testing his recently repaired leg carefully. He smiles down at First Aid and Sideburn. "Excellent work, you two," he approves. He leans over to pick the black door back up, then shuffles it once more into subspace.
He looks around at the group in general. "Well, then, if you don't mind, lead the way."
OOC: Working off the assumption that someone will lead him to Repair, Rodimus is now jumping threads.
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