Masquerade Unmasking

[Sentinel Prime]

Sentinel Prime thinks he feels dizzy after that explanation, and he thought Jazz was hard to follow!

Sentinel Prime explains, "It's not that we don't have weaponised enhancements. It's pretty common for electric welders to get boosted up into combat stingers," hello Wasp, hello Bumblebee, "but it was always a point of cultural difference that we don't use... firearm-y ranged weapons. Grapplers? Those are okay." Only losers use grapplers. "I guess. Because you can use them to rescue people, too. A spiked shield shield that you throw at people? Perfectly fine." Of course. "But a blaster? Nuh-uh, not doing it. Firearms were always a Decepticon thing. I suppose it's sort of strange, thinking about it, that we're fine with someone who has built-in flame manipulation mods," Jetfire, "but not someone who uses a fireball cannon," Blitzwing, "but it's just how we are, and we've been that way for a long time. It's tradition."

He sits still, waiting for his paint to dry. He wouldn't want to ruin his sterling good looks!

[Perceptor]

Perceptor nods, moving on to another patch to apply the paint. "In my reality, there are no non-combatants. Though I am primarily a scientist, even I am required to participate in battle, and ranged weapons, specifically ranged energy weapons, are the norm."

"Typically, I employ a concussion rifle or a rocket launcher, rather than my light cannon, however, I possess the most accuracy while utilizing my light cannon. And while my light cannon is considered powerful, I am not generally considered to be a particularly heavily armed Autobot."

Of course, that may have as much to do with his preference to stay in the lab rather than fight, as it does the fact that no one knows that he's also a tank, too.

[Sentinel Prime]

"Did you just never have civilians? Or are they..." Sentinel Prime trails off; that is as delicately as he can phrase it. He doesn't do 'delicate' well.

He laughs a little as Perceptor rattles off his armament, and he admits, "Hooboy, if you ever get stuck in my reality? Keep your weapons manifest to yourself. We'll probably arrest you. No, really."

Wasp did time in the stockade on less evidence.

"But you have good aim, huh?"

[Perceptor]

"We had civilians. Once. A very long time ago," Perceptor replies sadly. "Before the various wars broke out, only those who wished to be combatants were armed. Eventually, everyone was forced to take up arms. Or perish."

He moves on to an arm, carefully laying down that base blue in even coats, listening to Sentinel's warning. "I do not think that will be much of an issue," he replies with something of a thin smile. "As I said, I am a scientist, not a soldier. I prefer spending my days in a laboratory, not a battlefield." Just ask Brawn. He was always so quick to point that out to anyone who would listen.

With a few last sweeps of the airbrush, Perceptor completes covering the bare plating and blending the new paint into the old. "Yes. I am capable of hitting a target of less than sixteen inches square from approximately 2000 miles." Much less than sixteen inches square, actually, but Perceptor is learning that no one really wants to hear the particulars out to the fifth decimal place anyway.

[Sentinel Prime]

"You're still in what we'd call the Great War, I guess? There were drafts back then," Sentinel Prime muses, staring off at nothing in particular.

Next moment, Sentinel Prime is pretty openly boggling as Perceptor rattles off his specs. Does not compute. At all. He sputters, "If you're a scientist, what are the snipers like in your reality?"

Are they some kind of Tron Woo double-rifled Equilibrium gun kata over the horizon insane?

Or does Perceptor just have some strange hobbies? It seems totally plausible that Perceptor would.

[Perceptor]

"I suppose that would be a relative equivalent, yes," Perceptor replies, tapping out the airbrush nozzle as he sets it to one side for now, just in case he has to make any touch-ups. "My reality has had several 'Great Wars', actually. This is merely the latest. And the longest."

"There was no official conscription, per se. Merely, those who wished to live took up arms to defend themselves, sometimes after a lengthy resistance to do so. Those who chose not to, either fled Cybertron altogether, or were killed in the fighting." It is easier to speak of now than when he had been forced to make those same decisions. That time is long, long past. History, even if it is his own history. Perceptor barely remembers a time without war, actually.

Coming to this reality has been the closest he has come to such a state in... millions of years.

Perceptor is from G1; they break physics there like it's just a suggestion, and basically on a whim. It doesn't even occur to Perceptor that his marksmanship skill is anything special. "My scope is a quite finely tuned precision instrument?" he offers hesitantly by way of explanation. "It allows me to visualize on a subatomic scale when utilizing it for its normal purposes, and great distances otherwise. Precise targeting is merely an exercise in calculating all the variables which may affect the trajectory of the projectile or beam, and making the appropriate adjustments?"

In other words, he's a freakin' four-opticked supercomputer.

[Sentinel Prime]

"Oh, my reality has had plenty of different wars, but the Great War's the one with the Autobots and Decepticons. Before that, we had Autobots and Destrons, and Protectobots and Destrons, Protectons, Guardians and Malignus... eh, that's Glyph's deal, you know?" Sentinel Prime shrugs a bit.

He frowns. "No conscription? But your way of life was being threatened! Your government just let people be selfish and skip out on helping?"

When you fly your shuttle alone, you're flying with Megatron! Always shuttlepool.

That's what Sentinel Prime was raised on, though now he wonders if it is really possible to force someone to be selfless, anyway. If bots don't want to join the military, and they're forced to, anyway, it's not like they're suddenly not selfish. They're just both selfish and unhappy now, though, Sentinel Prime rationalises to himself, if the Decepticons had won, everyone except for the Decepticons would have been unhappy, dead, or both. The ends still justify the means.

His optics glaze a little as Perceptor starts sciencesplaining again, he summarizes the gist he got out of it, "So you don't practise at the shooting gallery. You just apply theory."

[Perceptor]

"By the time the war was engaged in full, there really was not much government left," Perceptor replies with a small shrug. "Megatron was swift and brutal in developing his power base."

Just a vocal dissident until it was too late to spot him, and then... the war broke out in earnest.

Sentinel's summation breaks him out of somber thoughts; he nods. "Yes, precisely. Wasting time at any sort of range would reduce what I had available to utilize upon my experiments. And other duties."

Has it occurred to Sentinel yet that, for all his skill, Perceptor is merely a marksmech, not a sniper? Sentinel will have to talk to Spinister for the latter.

[Sentinel Prime]

"You didn't have a military chain of command to enforce law and order?" Sentinel Prime asks, sounding out-and-out disturbed. He fidgets a bit. Sentinel Prime is unnerved by the very concept.

He notes it down that Perceptor considers it a waste of time to practise his shooting. Yeah, well, Perceptor would, wouldn't he? Thing one, Perceptor's a scientist. Thing two, Perceptor can just crunch numbers and hit whatever he wants.

Some people aren't that lucky.

Sentinel Prime narrows his optics. "I see."

[Perceptor]

"It was the military that initiated the war," Perceptor replies. Military Hardware versus Consumer Goods. That's what it all boils down into, time after time. "Mere words erupted into a coup that won most of a disenchanted military order away from their government commanders, and, in one fell swoop, eliminated most of those very same commanders, all at once." *

Perceptor turns away to begin cleaning up his painting supplies, shaking his head as he does so. "By the time the government could see what was coming, there was no one left of any significant rank or power to stop it. Optimus Prime was created to fill that void in my reality, and the heart and soul of the resistance rested upon his shoulders and those he could rally to him."

"You see, in my reality, we, the Transformers as a race, were created as a commodity. A product for Quintessons to sell. Military Hardware, and Consumer Goods. Over time, our ancestors long ago awoke to their own awareness. Developed sapience, sentience. Became more than mere products. That was our first war: the rebellion against the Quintessons to win their freedom."

"For a time, there was peace as the ancient ones created a new society. Eventually, though, the restless, combative coding of the Military Hardware won out over peace, and a new war was born, where they struggled for supremacy. Had it not been for the development of transforming by the rebellious Consumer Goods, there would be no Autobots at all."

"With transforming, the tide of the war was turned, and, once again, there was peace. For a time, everyone was an Autobot. Life evolved, society developed. Cybertron flourished."

"And then a vocal dissident began gathering the disenfranchised individuals who could trace their roots back to the ancient Military Hardware, calling to him those who were bored with peace and desired conquest and victory. It was slow, at first. They developed flight capabilities, began arming themselves more heavily... But Cybertron was free, and everyone had a right to free speech, and it was assumed that these were merely grumbles that would settle over time."

"They did not settle, though, and when war broke out, those most prepared to defend against such an attack were generally in the front lines of the attack. Those of more of the Consumer Goods lineage... were not programmed with a desire for conflict; they fell swiftly under Megatron's heel." Perceptor turns back, wondering if any of this makes sense to Sentinel or not.

---

* - given that G1 has actually Joss'ed and outright contradicted itself more than once on several canon points, this is Perceptor's interpretation, based heavily upon what the Aerialbots reported after their little jaunt through time into Prime's past, and what he learned both from his own life, from historical records, and from Rodimus Prime in FFoD. If the mods have an issue with any of this, lemme know, and I'll edit.

[Sentinel Prime]

Sentinel Prime is reminded of his history lessons with the teacher-bot, and soldier that he is, he falls in line and listens while Perceptor speaks, his posture becoming a bit straighter. There's a slight twitch in his left optic as Perceptor explains how super-special Optimus Prime saved the day, but there's little else to betray his cross-dimensional jealousy, other than that little slip.

Only when Perceptor seems to be done for the moment does he interject, "Decepticons have always been more openly military builds, in my reality, and Autobots more civilian. Not to say that Autobots can't fight - we have a standing army," he sounds a little proud of that, and he is, "but our refusal of firearms and flight technology stems from that divide. The protoform foundries that Decepticons use tend to be a lot more powerful than ours - one Decepticon is usually a match for five Autobots, but they don't work together the way they do. Our war started more slowly, though, and spanned more planets. The original issue was that the Decepticons wanted to use the AllSpark to bring Cybertron to life... I guess as some kind of ' war world' or something, to take over the universe?" He shrugs. Crazy Decepticons. "But that was 70 million years ago. The Great War didn't start until around 10 million years ago. Didn't help when Ultra Magnus enacted the Decepticon Registration Act," since Sentinel Prime can never resist casting his Ultra Magnus in a bad light, if given the chance, "but tensions were already pretty bad, anyway."

[Perceptor]

"Our Megatron had wanted to do something similar to our Cybertron, as well. Not bring it to life, but utilize it as a roving war world. He even had Cybertron transported into Earth's orbit to destroy the planet, the Autobots, and harvest all of the energy from that destruction."

Tools cleaned, Perceptor tucks them back away, and turns back to cast a look of bafflement upon Sentinel. "Decepticon Registration Act?"

[Sentinel Prime]

Sentinel Prime keeps forgetting that these things are obvious to him are not obvious to everyone else. Still cautious of his paint, even though Perceptor probably used a quick dry formula, he just stays still and explains, "Before the war, but back during the escalating Autobot/Decepticon tensions, Ultra Magnus put a law in place that all Decepticons had to register as such, so the government could better track them and keep tabs on them."

Put them on the Cybertronian equivalent of a 'do not fly' list, that sort of deal.

Sentinel Prime stares off at nothing for a moment, before adding, "Which the Decepticons didn't appreciate and only made the situation worse." In making cheap shots about Ultra Magnus's leadership, Sentinel Prime has inconveniently discovered that the enemy are Cybertronians with feelings, who get annoyed like everyone else when mistreated. Awkward! Better repress that thought fast.

[Perceptor]

Perceptor merely tilts his head, thinking about that revelation for a long moment. "Hindsight often displays a clarity not found in the heart of the situation," he murmurs, guessing, a little, at the path of Sentinel's thoughts.

"How does one adequately balance liberty and safety?" he muses, crossing his arms as he leans back against the table behind him. "I am content to merely be a scientist and leave such weighty dilemmas to those who are better suited to such machinations." But, perhaps, not quite so self-absorbed this time as to wake up one day with a war raging around him and his freedoms utterly curtailed without any clue as to how it occurred.

[Sentinel Prime]

"I suppose it made sense at the time," is all Sentinel Prime will grudgingly admit.

He's always, always, always been on the side of safety, not liberty, but he remembers how startled Botanica was at how untutored Sentinel Prime was in the discussion of these issues. He reasons evenly, "Might not be your job to think about these things, Perceptor, but it would have been mine, someday, if I hadn't been dragged," yes, dragged, he's still bitter, "here. Ultra Magnus was the Supreme Autobot Commander. I was his second. When he died, it'd pass to me. I'd owe it to the Autobots and the civilian population to think about the... implications of my... choices..."

That's true, isn't it? Sentinel Prime's just saying it because he thinks that is what Perceptor wants to hear, but he has the uncomfortable feeling that it just might be true.