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Post by Sentinel Prime on Apr 28, 2011 11:55:48 GMT -5
"It was sort of like saying, 'I care,' by walking up and stabbing you," Sentinel Prime observes. Yeah, Elita-1's right; he says things that are calculatedly hurtful with the greatest of ease. "And I didn't want you to become her because she tortured me," which is pretty selfish of him.
"And before you get any ideas... no, I still don't want you to torture me." He gives her a very stern look. "But you're going to be who you're going to be. Your future and what you want to do with it aren't for me to decide. I hope... you decide to do what's right at the time, not what's easy or convenient. That's all you can really ask of anyone, isn't it? And it's a lot to ask, all by itself."
Sentinel Prime doesn't manage it particularly often, himself, selfish and intolerant as he is, but it makes for pretty rhetoric.
"So there's your answer."
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Post by Elita-1 on Apr 30, 2011 21:03:55 GMT -5
"Yes, well- you do tend to do that," Elita-1 says, "The metaphorical stabbing bit. Even when you weren't so cold."
She fiddles with her drink for several minutes, looking off at some spot over Sentinel's right shoulder and not saying anything.
"All I can promise is to try."
OOC: er, running out of things to say. Time to start Tryouts for Elita and whomever else?
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Post by Sentinel Prime on May 6, 2011 13:43:31 GMT -5
OOC: Since I've started Skyfire's interview, let's do Elita-1's, too! Timeskip and scene change to a conference room? I suppose this is on Month 2, Week 4, Day 6 now.- - - Sentinel Prime has grabbed a conference room, and he's there early, sitting at the head of the table, because that is clearly the best place to sit. Until they force him into an office with that condemnable F-35, this is how he'll roll. He has his notes. He's good to go! Elita-1 better be ready and have her high traction tyres on. There are some sick curves coming up on this course.
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Post by Elita-1 on May 7, 2011 18:05:34 GMT -5
Speaking of sick curves....
Elita-1 times her arrival so that when the clock hits the appointed time, she is standing at the opposite end of that conference table. She stands with her legs shoulder width apart and her hands clasped at the small of her back. She holds the position naturally, looking neither stiff nor negligent. If Sentinel Prime wants her to sit for this interview, he'll tell her to do so. Right now, he isn't her friend; Sentinel is an officer evaluating a candidate. She looks straight ahead, not speaking until spoken to.
Her armor has been polished to a military-grade shine. She'd pass a white glove test; even those tiny and hidden areas no one ever seems to get clean in boot camp are spotless.
See Sentinel, some things did stick with her.
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Post by Sentinel Prime on May 7, 2011 19:12:16 GMT -5
OOC: Going to assume this interview happens after the one with Skyfire, since that one is mostly done by now, whereas this one is just starting.- - - Sentinel Prime was fairly casual with Skyfire, because he felt like getting all military up in Skyfire's grill was not the best tack to take there with such an obvious free-thinker. Elita-1 is clearly going out of her way to impress him, but he withholds judgement so far. He won't be as casual with her as he was with Skyfire. Sentinel Prime basically knew that Skyfire could do the job, whereas Elita-1 is awfully young and inexperienced. Because of their past history together, he is obligated to go harder on her, anyway. Without really looking at her, without a word, Sentinel Prime stands and pulls out a white glove that he apparently just keeps around so he can be a complete skidplate about checking parade polishes. Sentinel Prime doesn't even 'hmm' when she comes away clean on the obvious areas. There's always those spots that no one ever gets to, like those tucked away wheelwells and... she got those, too. "Hmm." Not quite looking at her has another benefit, aside from making him seem distant and impassive; Sentinel Prime loves a woman in a uniform, and if he looks at her too much, he's going to start thinking about how he wants her to put on a thousand years and go join the Wreckers or something so that he won't feel inappropriate about his interest in her. Sentinel Prime turns around and sits back down at the head of the table. He does not ask her to sit. Instead he starts, as he did with Skyfire, "Why do you want to do this?" She's told him before. Elita-1's even had time to work on her answer. It'd better be good.
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Post by Elita-1 on May 7, 2011 20:48:07 GMT -5
Standing stock still while Sentinel makes his inspection, Elita's expression doesn't change. Inwardly though, she's smirking. She knows Sentinel, knows him well, and his only real love is the Rulebook. He'll be looking for something wrong with her, some way she's broken protocol.
He won't find any.
"Sentinel Prime, Sir, I was being groomed for the Elite Guard in my home reality. I have a knack for research and for remembering history. I have a talent for finding information that wasn't meant to be found."
"Also, I am very good at manipulating people."
"I do not consider myself appropriate for infiltration. However, as a member of the Elite Guard as it would serve here, I feel I would be able to make the best contribution I possibly could to the Autobot contingent here."
"I earned this sigil, Sir, and I would like to earn more. Yes, I have ambition, and one day I hope to earn the title of Prime. If not here then back home. But above all things I am an Autobot and not offering my services where they could be best utilized would be counter to the well-being of the majority."
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Post by Sentinel Prime on May 7, 2011 20:56:12 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime listens along to her reply, which is more polished than her earlier explanation. She admits her vices, which is interesting and different, though she still talks about making the world better in the fluffy way that everyone does. She's also very much speaking the language of a cog in the machine, like the people of his reality.
He asks coldly, "What makes you think you're cut out for this? You have no experience."
Sentinel Prime didn't ask Skyfire that; it would have made no sense. With Elita-1, it makes all the sense in the world.
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Post by Elita-1 on May 7, 2011 22:25:44 GMT -5
A very good question, that. One Elita expected.
"Sir, with all due respect neither does the majority of the soldiers and civilians on this ship. Not for what Command wants this unit to be. The people with the most fighting experience aren't accustomed to diplomacy, and the ones used to talking their way out of scraps haven't been fueled nearly enough, or are the very people we'd be speaking in the name of."
"I'm green, Sir, I'm not going to deny that. But we don't have the luxury of sending people through limitless training exercises before testing them in the field here, and Sir, people with a lot of life experience don't tend to be breaking down the door to sign up for what might well be mostly a window dressing assignment."
"I'm green, but I can do the job. Can I do it without making mistakes? No. Anyone who tells you they can is lying. But I can do the job."
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Post by Sentinel Prime on May 7, 2011 23:15:10 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime counter-points patiently and ruthlessly, "You have neither combat experience nor field experience in science nor serious diplomatic experience."
Her only real combat engagements have been here. Lab reports for homework are not real science. Convincing guys to go on dates is so not diplomacy.
"You're starting from zero. Why shouldn't I pick someone who at least has experience in one of these things?" He leans forward, folding his hands under his chin, and he says lowly, "Because there's making mistakes you can recover from, and there's making mistake where people die."
Pot, meet kettle. There's this colour, black? You might have heard of it.
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Post by Elita-1 on May 8, 2011 21:06:34 GMT -5
Did you think you'd get Elita to turn and look at you with that last comment Sentinel? She would have, if you were just talking as friends, and it would be a nasty look at that.
Not going to happen. Though it does take her a few moments longer to phrase her response.
"Because, Sir, if I'm cold-fueled enough to destroy my best friend because he wasn't acting the way I thought he ought, then I'm cold-fueled enough to smile through a ritual execution of an innocent if it means gaining us an advantage or getting us off a planet alive."
"That isn't something a person can learn. And there's precious few of the Autobots here that can do that."
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Post by Sentinel Prime on May 8, 2011 21:51:46 GMT -5
Does Elita-1 think Sentinel Prime's going to break his composure over that jab?
He replies calmly, "Uh huh. You know that we need to represent the best of the Autobots, right? Convince potential allies that we're the good guys? You're slick, but there's no sincerity in you. You're not out to protect the universe. You're out for you."
Just like him.
"But you know, the easiest lies to sell are the ones you really believe. What do you really believe?"
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Post by Elita-1 on May 9, 2011 10:56:35 GMT -5
"And that makes me different from the average Prime of our reality with any real power how exactly, Sir?" Elita responds to the accusation of selfishness versus selflessness.
"I believe that most of what the Autobots here stand for overall is more noble than what those of our home reality stand for. However, I also believe that the members of High Command here have their faults and are just as morally gray as our own High Command. The very creation of this squad is indication of that."
"I believe it's a lot finer line than most think, the line between Autobot and Decepticon. Some of us might step toes over that line from time to time. It's the fact that we don't stay on the wrong side that makes the difference."
"I firmly believe that the symbol I wear now is the right symbol, Sir."
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Post by Sentinel Prime on May 9, 2011 11:13:11 GMT -5
"What makes you think how things went in our reality matters one bit?" Sentinel Prime asks coolly. "We're not there. Being moderately better than back home doesn't matter now. You need to show the best side of here, where the Botanicas will go out on a limb," oh, slag it, more stupid plant metaphors, "treating their patients and come down with Cosmic Rust and no regrets. Where the Ultra Magnii will get themselves beat senseless by Scourge just to let some grunts get back into the ship safely. Where the Perceptors will splice their own electrical systems into a dying patient for any chance to save him. Where the Emirate Xaarons will rush into battle with gangsters or Starscreams like common reinforcements. Where the Rodimus Primes will put their lives on the lines for aliens that don't even care. We didn't get a treaty or anything out of what he did for Pz-Zazz, and he did it anyway."
That concept has been one of the hardest for him to grasp. That his reality doesn't matter one whit. His whole life and existence. That his title doesn't matter. That he doesn't matter. None of it matters if he can't live up to the standards of his new society. Sentinel Prime still doesn't get it entirely, and he probably never will.
"If you want this, 'average back home' is not good enough. Tell me how you'll do better."
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Post by Elita-1 on May 9, 2011 11:50:54 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime is running Elita-1 in logic circles, trying to catch her in a contradiction. Or perhaps, to run her out of patience and make her snap out of line, so he can deny her because she lacks discipline. He does know her well, after all. Almost as well as she knows him.
"The examples you list are exactly why I believe here is better than there, Sir."
"I'll do better, because I will maintain the standard set by those examples, Sir, not lower the standards to what I was taught."
"And just like those examples, I won't leave any Autobot behind."
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Post by Sentinel Prime on May 9, 2011 13:29:51 GMT -5
If they were throwing sharp things around instead of words, they'd both be bleeding out from puncture wounds by now. Instead, they just have those emotional wounds that don't show.
Still, that's a pretty low blow, Elita-1.
Now that he's soundly metaphorically beaten her around the head with the message of 'we have to actually be good guys', Sentinel Prime's going to ask her something along opposing lines, "If things go horribly wrong and if it is necessary - not if it is easy - think you could kill another sapient being?"
This is a bit of a sore point between them, given who he asked her to kill before, in a fit of pique. However, no matter how ruthless she may be, she is also young, and killing someone takes a certain amount of mental conditioning. On the other hand, does she even see alien life forms as worthy of life? Sentinel Prime has his own problems with that!
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