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Post by Emirate Xaaron on Feb 20, 2011 21:52:22 GMT -5
OOC: Space, Week 1, Day 5. Event Horizon. One of the non-sim training rooms. About half of the Mil-Sec division would have been ordered here, but players are free to decide whether they want their Mil-Sec characters to be in this meeting, in the one that Kup is setting up, or 'on watch' (meaning someone else will get to them, either on or off screen, as per player preference). If anyone not in Mil-Sec wants to join, please ask first. You can post your character as already having been here, or as arriving.
Emirate Xaaron has claimed the simulation room, and he's done it up such that, when folks walk in, they're at the top of a lecture hall, suitable for physics lectures... or theology, for that matter. There are several rows of seats, totaling up to just exactly enough seats for those summoned to be here. The chairs are really just stools - no back, no arms, and the table portion hovers, unattached to the rest of the chair, to accommodate kibble. Emirate Xaaron stand at the bottom of the lecture hall, at a podium. Behind him are large flatscreens on a movable gantry, so they move up or down as needed.
Hard light simulation rooms are amazing things.
Some may already be in attendance. Some may yet be arriving. Either way, Emirate Xaaron looks at ease, his expression serious but distant, and a faint, neutral smile on his face.
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Post by Impactor/"Imp" on Feb 20, 2011 23:40:01 GMT -5
Impactor limps in. He limps because, while he's received the repairs necessary to get him moving again, the other repairs are lower priority. On another robot, the self-repair system might even have handled them, but Impactor's self-repair system no longer works the way it should.
He takes in the room and groans. "You gotta be slagging kidding me," he mutters as he views its layout, then limps to the nearest seat, one fairly far away from Emirate Xaaron. The choice is mostly because he doesn't really want to have to move any farther than he has to until he's more fully repaired, but the fact that he's the sort to try to sit as far away from the teacher as possible certainly facts into it.
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Override
Minor
The Chancellor, Her Noble Potency, Empress Override. The Glorious Victor over Everyone Else On the Track
Shut up and drive
Posts: 476
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Post by Override on Feb 20, 2011 23:49:10 GMT -5
Override filled the role of "general background combatant and damage control" during the attack, and thus took generic amounts of minor off-screen damage. She hasn't even been to medical yet for it, because it's minor enough to be low-priority, and because it is that minor, her self-repair systems have taken care of a fair amount of it. She struts confidently into the sim room for no other reason than because that tends to be how she walks and grins broadly at Emirate Xaaron as she arrives, heading straight to the front of the room before throwing herself into one of the seats.
"Hey, boss. What's the big pre-race announcement?"
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Post by Jetfire (Ani) on Feb 21, 2011 21:39:30 GMT -5
Jetfire walks into the sim-room, taking in the lecture hall with wide optics. He's moving well enough, though he still shows a few battle scars, but his fuel tanks are patched and he's raring to go! Which means he's not especially looking forward to sitting around and listening to people talk. Still, he pops off a salute to Emirate Xaaron then kicks into the air with a blast from his heels. Performing a mid-air flip, he proceeds to drop onto a stool.
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Post by Drift on Feb 21, 2011 23:31:57 GMT -5
Drift hates this room already. It looks...educational, in that clean, prim way that the weak used to gloss over the fact that war was about killing others.
He's doing...well enough, all things considered. Been hurt worse. Right now his major agitation is that he can't figure a reasonable place to sit. This one...and his entire back is exposed. Over there, and he's too vulnerable from the blindspot of his right shoulder panels.
Stupid. He flops onto one of the seats. They all look worse off than he does anyway. He could take any one of them if it came to it. Well, he'd wanted someone who looked like he knew a slaggin' thing about how to run a war, and there he was.
Drift will wait to be impressed.
(ooc: no, he doesn't say anything. It's his schtick. Instead, have some Measuring Optics.)
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Post by Jasper Stoneham on Feb 22, 2011 2:08:10 GMT -5
One cranky, old, faded codger is enough in one meeting; that's why Jetfire-the-elder is here, instead of at Kup's meeting. He, surprisingly enough, made it through the battle with quite possibly the least amount of damage. He'd been more than holding his own, in fact, before his bloody spacebridge had malfunctioned. His own self-repair systems had long since become accustomed to replacing the various bits he sheds, and what damages he had received had been incredibly minor and are being easily handled by his own systems.
It had been a critical loss of energy that had posed the most serious risk. Two jumps in such a short period of time had drained him almost to stasis lock. Had he not been a bit on the overcharged side to begin with, he'd probably be little more than parts in a bin, as it were. Now, he's parts on the hoof, with a small energon cube in hand, as he shuffles into the room and has a look around.
"Reminds me of the indoor lecture amphitheaters of Kalis," he observes to no one in particular.
Unlike his younger namesake, there will be no jumping and tumbling and/or mid-air acrobatics from Grampa Blackbird. He merely sips at his cube as he leans on his cane and shuffles past Impactor (which of them has their foot further into the grave? The Zombie? Or the Zombie-look-a-like?) to find a seat in the back row where his bulk won't be impeding the view of someone behind him.
ooc: will there be a standard posting order for this thread? It's bound to be very large. If there is, Gramps is skippable unless addressed. He's just going to sit back, sip his fuel, and grumble to himself a little about show-off kids and smug commanders.
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Post by Farlane/Faye Fairlane on Feb 22, 2011 8:41:39 GMT -5
Farlane isn’t really sure he should be here, but he prances in on time anyways, just in case. And also out of curiosity. If he isn’t supposed to be here he’ll probably get kicked out sooner or later, and then he can go back to janitor duty for a while or something.
Oh, hey, wow. Those are some hot tail skirts over there!
Somehow, the pink car seems to teleport into the seat next to Drift, curvy legs crossed and a purely salacious grin on his face. If he was going to get kicked out, he’s totally going to get some quality flirting time in beforehand.
“Hello, baby doll,” he purrs, resting his chin on a palm. “Ya new here?”
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Post by Emirate Xaaron on Feb 23, 2011 12:13:48 GMT -5
Emirate Xaaron looks around the room, nodding as people arrive and greeting many of them politely but shortly. Huh, does Override have a brother? Emirate Xaaron squints for a moment.
Then he stands up straighter and gets started. His voice tends to naturally carry without help of amplification, and he's lacing it with a hint of command. Listen to this. Emirate Xaaron starts, and the reel from Gillanan III of Unicron destroying the other inhabited planet in the Gillanan system starts to play on one of the virtual flatscreens behind him, "You should have all seen this. It's required viewing. If you haven't, you're seeing now. That's Unicron."
He turns around and points out the orange planet-killer with a laser pointer that may not actually exist. "I could debate endlessly about what Unicron is or isn't, but there's empirical proof that he's a planet-killer, and a little research on Pz-Zazz suggests that everything any stellar government in this universe has ever thrown at him has been ineffective."
A second flatscreen pulls up some grainy footage of some stellar empire or other attempting to dump Unicron into a smallish star. The orange planet of evil comes out unscathed. "In many realities, Unicron is able to assume a robot mode, much as we can."
On a third flatscreen, he pulls up a picture of just that. On a fourth, he pulls up a rather ancient-looking metal carving, with some of the dignity of red figure pottery, of a Unicron-looking being in mortal combat with a Rodimus-looking being. Emirate Xaaron adds, "Now that last image is an illustration of the creation myth of my people - that our creator god was chosen to fight Unicron on the astral plane. Unable to beat Unicron in direct combat, Primus tricked Unicron and locked him in an asteroid cage to chain him to the physical plane. I don't expect you to believe it. I just want you to keep in mind the idea that, perhaps, Unicron's true form is energy, not matter."
On a fifth screen pops up an image of the Matrix. It'll be familiar to some. Those of Bayverse who have seen the Matrix used by the ancient Primes as the key to their star-killer might even see some similarities to it. "This is the Creation Matrix. In several realities, it has successfully been used to destroy Unicron in rather spectacular fashion. Rodimus Prime is currently carrying one version of it. It's simple physics to say that, in order to destroy something as large as a planet, you need a lot of energy, yes?"
Emirate Xaaron looks around for nods of understanding and tosses up some simple math on one of the flatscreens behind him. "So it is reasonable to assume that the Creation Matrix can store large amounts of energy. This is also consistent with the Creation Matrix being able to create new life - it provides the necessary ignition energy to body shells. So we've established that the Creation Matrix is plausibly an energy storage device."
"Remember what I said about it being possible that Unicron's true form is energy, not matter? In our Rodimus Prime's universe, after he destroyed most of Unicron's physical form, it didn't end. Unicron, as a severed head alone, was powerful enough to mentally enslave the Junkions, a lost tribe of Autobots who live on planet Junkion, and he forced them to try to re-create his body. Eventually, the head was destroyed, but even disembodied, Unicron's energy remained, as malevolent a force as ever."
"Rodimus Prime sealed that energy in the Matrix, which we established prior as an energy storage device. He has the essence of his reality's Unicron within his Creation Matrix, even now."
Emirate Xaaron smiles grimly and concludes, "Any questions?"
OOC: To basically yoink Kup's boilerplate (wow, that sounds wrong) - I'm going to keep this thread under a 'normal' rotation, because I find that 'meeting style' threads have a tendency to just randomly... stop for no obvious reason. Characters are free to set themselves skippable if they suspect they won't be doing much. If someone wants to post in later, feel free to claim that your character has been here from the start of the meeting, listening in; and, if your character is in MilSec, you are also free to claim your character was here 'in the background' in a future post without actually posting into this thread. ICly, everyone in MilSec would have been either in this thread or in On Inner Demons, and ICly, Emirate Xaaron wouldn't really get started until everyone is here, so either way you want to go, please assume your character is already in here for this.
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Post by Impactor/"Imp" on Feb 23, 2011 18:39:24 GMT -5
Impactor seems to take the whole business of energy beings and planet killers in stride, but that may partly be just because the whole thing is too... too big for him to properly grasp.
So instead, he just asks, "So, if he's got all this excess energy in the Matrix, can he use it?"
That's right. Impactor is wondering if Rodimus can weaponize Unicron.
OOC: Skippable.
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Post by Elita-1 on Feb 23, 2011 19:02:04 GMT -5
Elita's been here the whole time of course. She's a good cadet; she'd never miss a mandatory meeting like this. Currently, her lips are pursed in a puzzled frown.
She gets that this is a Very Bad Thingtm. She's seen the vid, a few times now, and Unicron is one scary guy. But, how can Rodimus Prime have Unicron stuck in the Matrix?
She raises her hand. That's the correct thing to do when you have a question in a classroom setting, after all.
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Override
Minor
The Chancellor, Her Noble Potency, Empress Override. The Glorious Victor over Everyone Else On the Track
Shut up and drive
Posts: 476
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Post by Override on Feb 23, 2011 19:18:01 GMT -5
Override doesn't raise her hand. Because she doesn't care about the proper thing to do in a classroom setting.
Also, it's entirely possible that she's never been in a proper classroom.
She leans forward to peer up at the presentation, frowning in puzzlement.
"So... wait. Does that mean a black hole is going to open up?"
This question makes sense if you're from her reality.
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Post by Breakaway on Feb 23, 2011 19:30:52 GMT -5
Breakaway gave himself extra time to get here, because his middle still hurts when he walks sometimes. He has been here the entire time, sitting near the back of the room and trying hard not to scratch where his plating is regenerating.
Like Override, he does not raise his hand. "Unless I'm interpreting you wrong, sir, Rodimus Prime has been carrying Unicron around in the Matrix the entire time he's been here and you're just now telling us. What happened that made this need-to-know information?" If anyone can tell through the canopy and the mask, Breakaway is scowling.
At least now he knows what these mysterious mandatory meetings are all about.
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Post by Jetfire (Ani) on Feb 23, 2011 19:54:11 GMT -5
Jetfire looks perplexed, unsure of what to make of this. Unicron is bad, the Creation Matrix is kind of like the Allspark, so that's good. But Unicron is in the Creation Matrix, so does that make it bad now? Or is Unicron being the Matrix good? And then Unicron is in the Matrix and the Matrix is in Rodimus, so where does that leave Rodimus?
One thing he does understand, though, is that large amounts of energy can be hard to control, even if it's your own and not the energy of some sort of malevolent planet-eater.
"Is this Unicron-energy being beneath the control?" he asks.
OOC: Skippable.
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Post by Drift on Feb 23, 2011 20:17:52 GMT -5
[OOC: skippable except maybe for Farlane here. ]
Drift turns his head slowly to the pink (?) mech sitting unwisely close to him. "Baby. Doll."
He tries to pay attention to Xaaron's lecture, but it's pretty fantastic. He didn't think much could top all this talk of zombies and...females and such, but giant planet-eating robots that are actually energy instead of matter....yeah. His head hurts, and not in the good 'head butting' kind of way.
He's going to rub his temples for a bit.
You can't fight energy. It's like trying to slice up water.
"What we need," yeah, he's not asking this as a question, "is a way to trap him in a body." THEN, killing can happen. QED
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Post by Jasper Stoneham on Feb 23, 2011 21:23:34 GMT -5
Gramps had watched the required video shortly after arriving. He'd done all that stuff long before getting his Decepticon sigils repainted, in fact (and no one has commented that the one stamped into the metal of his alt undercarriage remains as a reminder of who he was, once upon a time. Probably, no one has noticed it.) He'd tried to be blase about the video when he'd watched it - a planet killer? He helped to harvest stars! What possible menace could a mere planet killer be compared to a star harvester?
The sheer scale of Unicron, the utter malevolence contained even in a purely visual format, however, had cowed even Jetfire's sense of dismissiveness. The Fallen? Hated the humans. Unicron? Seems to hate life.
He is very still, and for once, quite quiet as the video plays, and though his first, primarily visceral reaction is to look away, perhaps even hide, he forces himself to watch. This is their foe, their ultimate foe, and to be hanged with the Decepticons.
And their foe... is in The Prime. There may be other Primes aboard the ship, but they are like hatchlings just fresh from their pods - all frenetic action, no wits, no wisdom. Optimus and Sentinel may yet grow into their potential, but Jetfire... does not really consider them to be real Primes. Only Rodimus bears that burden.
"'S'not merely energy," Jetfire intones softly, optics fixed upon the images on the screens. "It's destruction. Pure primal force of... of malevolence. 'S'not like a well t'be tapped. It's like a dam that holds back... tha'. Once breached..." Jetfire shakes his head as he drops his gaze to Impactor for a moment, before flicking an annoyed glance at Breakaway. Doubting the Prime? That makes the old Seeker cranky.
"Oh aye. Let's turn the bloody blighter loose and stuff him into a body where he'll be free t'work. That makes sense," Jetfire grumbles, shaking his head. "S'not mere energy. Essence, lad, essence."
He turns his crimson gaze down to Drift and waves toward the boards. "You've a spark, aye?" Jetfire's just assuming; some of the transplants don't, which is an odd thing to him, but it seems like the majority of the Autobots do. Those that don't seem at least to be able to understand the concept. "Well, tha's just energy, right? Let's pop yours out and drop in any old battery and see what happens, shall we?" He flicks his gaze back to Impactor for a moment, then returns his attention to Xaaron. "It doesn't work like tha'."
"The Prime. He's safe now from that rust thing, aye? Did that affect the Matrix?"
Imagine. A Matrix here, too. Jetfire can't help but wonder if this Matrix would serve the Fallen's needs or not. Just one more thing to worry about protecting the Prime from.
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