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Post by Sentinel Prime on Apr 17, 2011 22:15:21 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime stands, put one hand on his hip, and smirks slightly. He corrects her, "I think offending someone with a bald-faced accusation is a good way to put her on the defensive and get her justifying herself before she's had time to think."
He's amused more than anything else. Stepping stone, huh? What a delightfully ruthless assessment. Refreshing. That and... yeah, she is doing this for the name, just in prettier words. Sentinel Prime will need to find someone who actually gives a slag, just so they can have someone genuine on the team when they visit Planet of the Empaths.
Sentinel Prime says coolly, wickedness dancing in his optics, "Well. I'll consider all that... once you've turned in your application."
Right rotten bootleg? Oh yes he is.
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Post by Elita-1 on Apr 17, 2011 22:49:46 GMT -5
Elita's lips thin out and for a moment it looks like she might snap Sentinel's head off. Then she laughs, actual humor dancing through it.
"Right. And that application will be on the appropriate desk before the day is out."
She sighs and stands, "It's probably for the best. The two of us together would get into a lot of trouble."
Smiling up at him, she asks, "So, can a friend ask another friend to share a table in the public mess so they can catch up?"
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Apr 17, 2011 23:09:14 GMT -5
If Elita-1 is the id: dark, mysterious, primal, unknowable, and ruthless in its desire to survive, Sentinel Prime is the ego, but together, they still lack the conscience of the super-ego. Where's Optimus when he's needed?
"We did," Sentinel Prime says quietly, gaze a bit distant. Too much. He shakes it off and replies brightly, "Sure, she surely can! Just... don't expect it to be that way on duty." Sentinel Prime turns a bit more serious. "Troops can't be friends with their leaders during duty."
This may explain a bit of why he considers his Jazz to be the closest thing he ever had to a friend in a long time but not exactly a real friend.
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Post by Elita-1 on Apr 18, 2011 12:05:00 GMT -5
"Of course," she says, then teasingly adds, "Just remember that you aren't always on duty."
"So, you want to spar some, or go grab a bite?"
OOC: looks like we are heading to a wrap or a scene change, whatever works for you?
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Apr 18, 2011 14:09:57 GMT -5
"Yeah, I'll... remember that," Sentinel Prime says, rubbing the back of his helmet and looking away. Can he help it if parade stance feels more natural to him than just standing there? If Chapter and Section comes to his lips more quickly than 'hello'? Then he aims a snap kick at her ankle and replies, smirking, "Spar. The rations in the mess always go down better when you're hungry." Sentinel Prime's a dirtier fighter than he used to be. Fighting dirty is efficient and effective, something he appreciates through that lense of artificial clarity Elita-1 gave him. He's also a better fighter than the cadet Elita-1'll remember. Sentinel wouldn't be a Prime if he wasn't. - - - OOC: I could see doing a skip over the sparring straight to the mess, unless you feel like writing a fight scene. Maybe someone'll join them for lunch?
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Post by Elita-1 on Apr 18, 2011 14:41:46 GMT -5
Sentinel's kick connects, but Elita turns the fall into a tumble, coming back up in a ready stance. The gloves stay on. This spar needs to be about using what one can naturally bring to the table.
OOC: and skip, because I am horrible at writing fight scenes. >_>
Tired and a little dinged up, Elita-1 slides into the chair at the table Sentinel claimed. She pushes his cube toward him and then takes a sip of her own ration. She'd lost the spar, so she bought. Well- used her bonus ration. Same diff.
"So tell me about how you got selected for the Guard back home. I know you did your stint as drill instructor, but not everyone moves up from that."
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Apr 18, 2011 16:01:52 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime slams the cube back, draining a quarter of it in one go before setting it back down. He was usually a bit more mindful of his manners around Elita-1, but apparently, he's serious about treating her as just one of the guys. Sentinel Prime stretches out a bit, making a triangle of his arms behind his head, and says, satisfied, "Now that hits the spot." He stiffens when she asks him about how he was selected into the Guard, and he stammers, "I, ah, it wasn't really all that exciting," and he toys with his cube, spinning it back and forth a little nervously. Oh, but Sentinel Prime can't hold that look seriously for long. "Just kidding. It was pretty awesome! I trained hard as much as I could - as much as I ran my students ragged, I was running myself ragged, too, but it was all getting me nowhere." There was also a lot of shameless sucking up, which he declines to mention. "Then one day, there was a ninja-bot from the Elite Guard touring the grounds. I remember telling that class, 'Now, there is a real soldier. Don't you even look at him. Don't even. You sparkplugs aren't worthy to look at him.'" Elita-1 should remember that, not being allowed to look at full Autobots back in boot. Someone from another reality might get some odd ideas it they walked in and heard that, though. "But slag, the ninja-bot was the one who should have been looking - he stepped right into the line of fire, and we were doing live fire exercises that day with the automated turrets. I pushed him out of the way." It was more of an accidental panicked bump, and they went down in an ungainly tangle of limbs. "His name was Jazz. I saved his life. Now that got attention." Sentinel Prime beams smugly and downs another quarter of his cube. - - - OOC: It's not explained in any canon how or why Sentinel Prime was inducted into the Elite Guard. So I made up some fanfic speculation. ICly, Sentinel Prime might just be outright lying here. I ran the story by Shockwave-admin, though.
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Post by Elita-1 on Apr 18, 2011 18:10:35 GMT -5
If Sentinel starts burping and backfiring in front of her to prove a point, Elita will smack him silly. Just because he doesn't want to boff her anymore doesn't mean he can be a total brute around her.
Elita uses her cube to hide her small smile at Sentinel's story. She knows him well enough to know that any story relating to his awesome self must be taken with a grain of salt. That said, this story is believable. Mostly.
She sets down her cube. "And what, they just suddenly went 'Here you go old son, have a new commission?' Word has it you're now next in line for Magnus. That didn't happen just because you maybe saved a ninjabot's life."
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Apr 18, 2011 19:05:17 GMT -5
"Hey, it got them to look at my application!" Sentinel Prime protests. His many, many lonely applications, so many of them doomed for the rejected pile. "And my Jazz was a Great War veteran, I'll have you know."
He may have said so before. He repeats himself.
Sentinel Prime boasts, "And once they looked at it, of course, I was a shoe in, with my natural charm, my sterling tactical abilities, my bravery under fire. And yes, of course I'm next in line for Magnus. He... might be dead now, actually."
He frowns into his cube, still uncertain what to feel about all that. On the one hand, Ultra Magnus was a complicated 'bot and not necessarily a good 'bot. On the other hand, there are appearances to uphold.
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Post by Elita-1 on Apr 18, 2011 21:16:48 GMT -5
"Yes," Elita says dryly when Sentinel mentions Jazz, "You've mentioned."
She out and out laughs as Sentinel enumerates all his wonderful qualities. "Oh Sentinel, you are such a humble, selfless soul." Her optics continue to twinkle with laughter as she adds, "And completely full of it."
"So, if you get back, and he is, and you remember everything from here- will you carry on, business as usual? Or will you try and make things better?" She's still smiling, but it's a very serious question she's asking.
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Apr 18, 2011 21:35:22 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime needs a drink. Luckily, he has one. Now, the cube is almost empty! He narrows his optics and pins back his antennae, insisting, "I am not!"
Being full of it would imply that that Sentinel Prime is deep enough to be full of anything. He's much too shallow for that!
And much too hollow.
Sentinel Prime's like an echo cavern, really. He puts out what's put in.
"I've always wanted to make things better. I think you're really asking if my definition of 'better' has changed."
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Post by Elita-1 on Apr 19, 2011 16:57:16 GMT -5
Propping her elbows on the table, Elita laces her fingers together and pillows her chin on the resulting bridge. She studies Sentinel very carefully for a few moments.
"So. Has it?"
You're not getting off that easy, Sentinel.
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Apr 19, 2011 17:37:53 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime answers without hesitation, "Yes, it has changed. I have different information at my fingertips now. The thing is..." he drums said fingertips on the table, "...'better' is misleading. 'Better' for who? It'll be better for some and worse for others, and I don't think that can be avoided."
He leans back and adds, "Not unless we all really are just cogs in the big Autobot machine. Don't think I'd want that."
"But anyway, there so no such thing as a free cube." He eyes his speculatively. "Give one program more support, and another will have to be cut... unless you can somehow get more funding in total. Then there's public opinion. Say I said I wanted to re-open exploration and colonisation. More resources would be great, right? Less overcrowding. The potential for valuable discoveries. For, hah, trade with alien species."
"I'd simultaneously be branded a warhawk Decepticon sympathiser and a bleeding spark xenophile."
Nowhere in any of this has Sentinel Prime said what he'd actually like to do.
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Post by Elita-1 on Apr 19, 2011 18:55:43 GMT -5
"You want me to get you another?" she asks, nodding at his cube, "I've got enough rations for it." Her own cube is still mostly full.
"You don't just go in as a new leader and make sweeping changes, especially when those changes might be contrary to the People's" yes you can hear the capitol 'P' there, "comfort zone. You make changes in small stages, starting with the least threatening aspect and moving up, with time between stages for people to acclimate."
Her lips quirk up in a smile, "But you aren't going to go back and campaign for an Open Border policy. You haven't changed that much."
"So what do you want to change?"
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Apr 19, 2011 19:41:28 GMT -5
"Mmm. Sure," Sentinel Prime says to the offer of another cube, optics narrowed. He's going to pay for this someday, he's sure. He finishes off his cube and crushes it.
Oh, so he has to actually nail something down? Cute, Elita-1, but the hardnosed reporter with the all black outfit, the smoking a pack of cy-gars a day, and drinking whiskey energon out the bottle went out of style with Pz-Zazz. Sentinel Prime says, "I really should re-do those pie charts. My old ones are all out of date now, and no one like stale pie. But hmm... ditch the xenophobia. It's not doing any of us any good. If we're scared of an alien, and it is a threat, it's not going to do any good to have the populace standing on their toes and screaming instead of defending themselves. If it's not a threat, then it's doubly silly to freak out over it. I understand that fearing the Other is a good technique to promote nationalism and to excuse alienating the Decepticons as subTransformer, but it's not a good thing, and I just explained the pragmatic reasons why it isn't good, anyway."
"I want to do something about experimentation ethics." He says nothing more on that topic.
"And we need to think about some method of handling the Decepticons. 'Exile' is not 'handling'. If you look at other realities, kicking the Decepticons off the planet always leads to bad things, and it seems the same case in our reality. I'm not sure... what to do about them. If we wanted to round them up and execute them, I feel like we should have done that when the Great War ended - but we couldn't. We had to accept their exile at the time, because we were about spent. Reprogramming them is just a no go. You can't lock them up - they'll get loose somehow. It's... tough. But there has to be something better than 'let them sit there and wait for them to attack again'."
He finishes, making a sour face, "And... slag, we need to do something about the AllSpark ferals."
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