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Post by Sentinel Prime on Jun 13, 2011 17:58:45 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime puts up his hands defensively when Botanica snaps at him, visibly cringing and shrinking like a violet. He frowns and opines, saying it like it's a dirty word, "That's another no-win situation, ma'am. I don't really think much about what could have been, though, more about like what might yet be."
He's just not that creative, and anyway... what might have been is confusing.
What if Cadet Sentinel'd been a little less interested in rules, and he'd ignored the senior cadet when Optimus said there were no lifesigns? What if he'd found Elita-1... Blackarachnia?
Sentinel couldn't have taken her back home with him. The Autobots would have taken her apart and left her in a coma at best. Maybe he could have hidden her and tried to get the laws changed, but... would she have wanted to hide? That's no life to lead.
So two kids running in space. That's a good way to get killed, especially with all the robophobes out there. They'd need some kind of infrastructure to protect them, a society accepting of outcast robots. Like the Decepticons. Is there a Decepticon Sentinel out there in the multiverse, somewhere? A little lawless but bitter all the same, nursing a grudge as deep as the draft of a Kalis-class dreadnought?
No, Sentinel Prime doesn't consider 'what if' much. That mirror might show him a perspective where he's wrong, and he can't have that.
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Shanodin
Major
The Chamberlain, Her Chivalrous Immensity, Lady Botanica. The Unyielding Vanquisher of Weed Killer
This is NOT her field of dreams
Posts: 700
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Post by Shanodin on Jun 13, 2011 21:42:11 GMT -5
Botanica gives Sentinel a sad, considering glance. "I'm not entirely sure you think of anything other than rules and rank, Sentinel," she says, "Which is not necessarily wrong, but not something I would wish for myself" Or anyone else, really.
"I am at peace with the possibility of my death, Sentinel. Do you protest that peace because you do not feel the same peace in regards to your own?"
She rakes together another pile of burnt thorns.
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Jun 14, 2011 16:32:53 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime looks hurt! He corrects, "Oh, you know that's not true, ma'am! For one thing, I think of you." Sometimes.
He pitches in and helps with the raking, insisting, "I'm much too young to die. I... guess that's not really a justification, though. Still, no, I'm not at 'peace' with the idea, and I don't see why I should be. I have... killed, I suppose, to no purpose other than the saving of my own life. I didn't think it was wrong at the time. Then again, I didn't know they were real people at the time, either..."
Sharkticons. It's sort of like killing special ed kids. Sentinel Prime should really feel terrible about himself.
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Shanodin
Major
The Chamberlain, Her Chivalrous Immensity, Lady Botanica. The Unyielding Vanquisher of Weed Killer
This is NOT her field of dreams
Posts: 700
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Post by Shanodin on Jun 15, 2011 22:49:09 GMT -5
Botanica moves to try and place a hand on Sentinel's shoulder. "A person seldom ever wants to die, Sentinel, and it is certainly a tragedy when someone dies seemingly before their time."
"However... if one knows that he has lived his life well, that he has perhaps, in some small way, left the universe a better place, then he need not fear his end. Regardless of what one might believe happens after that end."
Her brow furrows, she bends down and starts to sort through the pile of charred brambles Sentinel has gathered.
"But it is also perfectly normal to fear that end, and to fight against it. Just don't let such thoughts lead you to think yourself invincible."
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Jun 16, 2011 19:51:56 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime confesses that he's not entirely shallow, and he gets no reaction about it? Time to swim back over to the kiddie pool; it isn't worth it to be deep. These are the wrong reasons to try for character development, but Sentinel Prime goes about things the wrong way.
Her words are making him uncomfortable, though, and he all but blurts, "I... really... I'm more worried about seeing someone else die than myself."
If one of his many sins is being over-protective, it grows forth from the root of protectiveness, and dying would be... inconvenient, to say the least, but plenty of Autobots have died as heroes, good Autobots all of them, remembered with glory.
Only screw-up cowards let someone die in front of them.
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Shanodin
Major
The Chamberlain, Her Chivalrous Immensity, Lady Botanica. The Unyielding Vanquisher of Weed Killer
This is NOT her field of dreams
Posts: 700
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Post by Shanodin on Jun 16, 2011 23:41:00 GMT -5
Botanica said nothing of Sentinel's admission because she didn't feel it needed comment. She appreciates Sentinel's worry over her, and she has made it clear, she thinks, that she appreciates his company and assistance. If the get too much into touchy-feely wibble land, then someone will write a fanfic involving vine bondage because OMG! They are two people who can get along for more than one frame! They must be a couple!11!!!1
Of course, if Botanica was a dude, that would already have happened. Silly fangirls.
She continues her sorting, though she does look up at Sentinel's comment. "Ah," she says, "That is a less common issue. Why?"
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Jun 17, 2011 20:47:23 GMT -5
No, the fic would be about Optimus Prime/man!Botanica, and Sentinel Prime would get his rank stripped and his mouth welded shut. That's how those fanfics always go.
He stoops to pick up some stray branches, which conveniently gets his face out of view, and he admits awkwardly, "Two things. One, from my perspective, our culture puts a lot of emphasis on self-sacrifice. It's better to be the bot who throws himself on a grenade than the bot who survives in the corner." Don't even talk about the bot who shoves someone else on the grenade. "I suppose I've internalised that to an extent."
He has his moments of cowardice, most certainly, and perhaps unusually for an Autobot, given how blindly brave they tend to be. Then again, doesn't that mean that it really means something if he'd die for someone else, that such an offer isn't always on the table?
"The other thing. I was built during a long, uninterrupted period of peace. As much as I look up to the heroes of the Great War, I... have always had in mind a career where I run down a traitor here, a stray Decepticon there, slap stasis cuffs on him, and haul him off for a trial. Here, I'm a real soldier. I can't complain. I read the fine print. I signed on the dotted line. But I... am going to have to kill someone someday. Of my own species. When I'm angry enough, I know I can do that," good or bad as that may be," but when I'm not angry, it's just... what? I beat someone to death with my shield? I stab them with my lance? It just seems... I... I don't even know. I'll do what I'm ordered to and what I have to. I won't shirk. I won't be a coward. I... just..."
Ugh, this is terrible. Where is he even going with this?
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Shanodin
Major
The Chamberlain, Her Chivalrous Immensity, Lady Botanica. The Unyielding Vanquisher of Weed Killer
This is NOT her field of dreams
Posts: 700
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Post by Shanodin on Jun 18, 2011 10:13:06 GMT -5
Botanica pauses in her sorting to watch Sentinel Prime as he answers her. By the time his words trail off into nothing, she is standing next to him, her hand possibly resting gently on his arm. She would embrace him, but she's not sure he could handle quite that much contact from her- or well, nearly anyone.
"You can take some small comfort, Sentinel, in the fact that we do not often ask for such things except under dire circumstances, or in the heat of battle. Yes, Autobots will take the fight to their enemies, and yes, you may well have to kill in battle, but we do not ask that anyone ever become comfortable with that fact."
"I enjoyed a mostly peaceful existence in my time, before I returned to Cybertron, and the concerns you express are not new to me. There was quite the heated argument in fact, because I refused to go out with the other Maximals. Some felt my ability was just the thing needed to turn the tide. Especially given that the more targets I have, the stronger my attack, and the Vehicon drones never attacked in small numbers."
She tries to give his arm a reassuring squeeze. "When that time comes, you'll do what is needed. Whatever else you may be, you are still a guardian, Sentinel Prime."
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Jun 18, 2011 21:03:41 GMT -5
Young soldiers often have problems with the concept of first blood with the enemy. Young Transformers often don't have these problems. They're built for a specific function, in most realities, and that function is often some variation on 'warrior'. Sentinel Prime's reality doesn't exactly do that, so perhaps his worries are normal enough - as is his anxiety that, compared to every other reality, he just might be doing it wrong.
"I don't know about that," Sentinel Prime says doubtfully, chewing on his lip. "I mean, my Ultra Magnus... they talked about how many Decepticons he killed like it was... some kind of game. A lot of the Great War heroes, they talk about them that way. I suppose that's how I ought to be. It doesn't seem to bother Impactor, all the killing. Or even Kup, as far as I can tell. Or Drift. Or, I mean..."
Slaggit, why is he talking about this at all? This is stupid. He's making himself look stupid. Stupid Botanica being stupidly easy to talk to.
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Shanodin
Major
The Chamberlain, Her Chivalrous Immensity, Lady Botanica. The Unyielding Vanquisher of Weed Killer
This is NOT her field of dreams
Posts: 700
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Post by Shanodin on Jun 19, 2011 9:20:34 GMT -5
"Sentinel, you must make some allowances for upbringing. In many of the realities here, a person was brought online ready and willing to fight to the death for whatever side. Fully functional and adult, he or she was expected to do his or her part just as any other."
"But from what I understand of yours, war had become such a faraway thing for you, much as it had for mine before things went to hell in a handbasket. Also," Botanica levels a meaningful look on Sentinel, "They wanted to keep the populace manageable, and thinking that the Decepticon menace was dealt with. And that if it were not, it would be no more than a mere inconvenience to your military. Trivializing the deaths of their opponents added to that illusion. Did it not?"
"The taking of a life, any life, should bother you. There are some who would disagree with me on that, but they can go hang. All life is sacred, a gift from our maker; even when it is necessary, it should never be trivialized."
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Jun 19, 2011 21:45:26 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime's gaze sharpens and takes on a new clarity. The politics of control. Those he can understand and handle. He agrees, "Oh, yes. Make the enemy subTransformer via propaganda, and it becomes a lot easier to accept doing anything to the enemy. Exile? Never seeing our beloved mother planet of Cybertron again? No access to the AllSpark? Being killed by the droves in our stories? All suddenly acceptable. Decepticons are, after all, perhaps not even the same species, more some sort of vermin."
He smiles, something absent behind his optics, and remarks, "It's amazingly simple and easy, when you see it for what it is, but when you're there, you might as well be stuck in marshland."
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Shanodin
Major
The Chamberlain, Her Chivalrous Immensity, Lady Botanica. The Unyielding Vanquisher of Weed Killer
This is NOT her field of dreams
Posts: 700
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Post by Shanodin on Jun 20, 2011 23:40:12 GMT -5
Botanica's eyes narrow a bit at the change in Sentinel, but it's what he actually is saying that worries her. Is he spouting off rhetoric or something he actually believes?
"Is that a common outlook in your reality, that Decepticons are another species?"
Please tell her no. She doesn't want to have to round up all the Optimus Reality Autobots and have to give them a biology lesson.
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Jun 21, 2011 21:38:59 GMT -5
"I would not exactly call it common, but Elita-1 suggested it. It... bothered me, actually. Her future self is a Decepticon!" Sentinel Prime throws his hands in the air, flailing. The burned branches he was holding go flying, so he transforms to catch them in his truck bed before it makes a huge mess.
He's just the type to be surrounded by dirt and to nonetheless worry about making it messier.
"But no, you can pick any trait and demonise it. It didn't have to be powers versus guns. It could have been red versus blue. Male versus female. It's arbitrary, and the very arbitrary nature of the divide reveals its lack of foundation. So there has to be a sham to keep it up, or the populace will see it for the farce that it is."
"I'm not saying it's the right way to go about things, but it's something I have to understand intimately if I am to rule, and I am. My enemies and allies alike are going to use these techniques. You need to know to layer a soil so it won't blow away in the breeze. I need to know how to layer all the means of control, and believe you me, rot'll spread quicker there than in this garden."
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Shanodin
Major
The Chamberlain, Her Chivalrous Immensity, Lady Botanica. The Unyielding Vanquisher of Weed Killer
This is NOT her field of dreams
Posts: 700
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Post by Shanodin on Jun 23, 2011 23:51:38 GMT -5
Botanica frowns, and the frown grows deeper as Sentinel talks. This is all rather disturbing to her.
She waves Sentinel off to dump his load of branches. When he returns, she will have moved to another section and started clearing it, working in silence for awhile.
At length she asks, "So Sentinel- what do you actually believe is right? You talk about control and ruling, but you do not seem inclined to challenge the hypocrisy of your reality's current establishment."
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Jun 24, 2011 20:03:54 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime drops off a load and comes back.
"I couldn't change everything overnight. I'd be removed from office," Sentinel Prime explains patiently, "I'd have to work with what's there and make incremental changes in a logical and orderly fashion. I do want to make changes for the better, though. The status quo just isn't sustainable, as is."
This is a whole lot of politico blather.
"What's right, though, is... complex. It's not quantifiable. You can't measure it. That's... not one of my strong points. My Ultra Magnus was always on about justice, and I never really listened to him - it would have been hard to listen to him about it, anyway, given that what he said and what he did were so... different. I should have... probably listened a bit more, anyway."
This is still blather.
"The right thing is to see any problem from all perspectives and weight them equally to come to a conclusion. This is difficult," Sentinel Prime finally finishes. This idea could probably come out of an ethics textbook, but at least he's stopped weaseling and given her an answer.
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