caughtinanetwork

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Fraggin' pit, you gotta be kiddin' me... [A pair of red, glowing, eye-like shapes set in a copper...well, it sort of looks like a face dim, plates moving down to narrow the shape into slits. This wasn't a human peering out from the screen, but there was something humanoid about it. Like whoever designed it cared more about function than the actual form, and the function was to give others a place to direct their comments, hold a pair of optics, and a mouth.]

[So, yeah. It's a goddamn robot you're looking at.] This is a communicator? What kind of bolthead would design a comm system wit' dis many useless points? I mean pit, even is a newly sparked could tell ya dat dere ain't no point in wastin' metal like dis!

[Pauses, a hand coming up to thoughtfully cup his chin] Unless you was throwin' at somethin'...

[Shrug] Aaaaaanyway, if dis's a communicator, dat means someone's out dere to receive the signal, right? So, to whoever's tunin' in, dis's Rattrap of the Maximal exploration ship, the Axalon. Last I knew, the whole world was goin' white on account a' a transwarp explosion. My scanners ain't pickin' up any Maximal or Predacon signatures, so... Whoever's listenin' in betta' cough up some answers 'bout dis place quick, or I'mma hafta start slaggin' stuff up. I ain't really in the mood t'be pussyfootin' around, capiche?

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Hmmmm... so clearly, you've been programmed to be rude. Probably made by someone young then, who would find such a thing amusing.

[Stop that, Equius, you are only six yourself.]

Where do you come from?

[More questions, apparently.]

[There is such a long pause here before there's a snort, a snigger, then outright laughter]

Oh Primus! Oh, slag! Ahahahaha, I see what's going on here!

[And then Rattrap's voice takes on a sweet, wheedling tone, the kind used for children and fluffy animals]

You think I'm just a toy, don'cha? Put together from a kit in some organic's workshop. Ohoho, it's so cute when squishies think they're technologically advanced. It's like watchin' a diplomat fire a gun for the first time.

[Oh HAAAALE NAAAAAH, robot!]

I beg your pardon? Are you questioning my mechanical knowledge or my culture's advancements in technology?

[You better not be. Or he and his not-dad are going to gang up on you.]

Kid, do you even know what a transwarp drive is? How about energon? Is your entire race made up of robots, so that not on are you a robot, but so was your creator before you, and his creator before him, and all the way down millenias of history which have been recorded, then erased to make room for more history so that really, there ain't no way of telling exactly how old your race really is?

[ . . . . ]

[OH MY GOD AN ENTIRE RACE MADE OF ROBOTS, BE STILL HIS POUNDING CARDIOVASCULAR ORGAN!]

Your... entire race?

[There's a definite change in tone here.]

You mean, there's an entire race out there with no need for organic bodies, who don't get old or die or break down, who have developed the technology to keep themselves going, to keep improving, and have expanded into the stars?

Please... tell me more.

[Rattrap, +1 fanboy.]

[Oh, oh Equius. You are just... so precious. There is nothing more appealing to a bot like him than a brat who's willing to shut up, siddown, and listen to him talk. Too bad he doesn't have a cube of high grade and a femme on either side, or he'd be just about the happiest mech ever]

Now, don't get ahead of yourself, kid. Yeah, there's a race out there in the stars who're made outta metal and wire, but we do get old, and we to break down, and we do die. It just ain't like it is for you organics. Bein' metal don't just stop time, yanno. Or life, neither. You can have all the best parts, be on top a' the game, and still, in quiet moments, sit there, and go, "What's the point of it all?"

But ehn, that's all philosophical slag, and you won't hear a word a' it from me. Bots who ask themselves questions like that end up shootin' themselves in the spark. I start askin' questions, I jump ship, and go find somethin' new to see. And trust me when I say, I seen just about everything. We've had star-travel since before I was even built, and I been taking advantage of it for just about as long.

[Hey, it isn't often he gets to talk to completely autonomous robots!]

So if you get too old, or too sad, you can just... turn yourselves off?

[He doesn't understand why robots would want to die. Being a robot is clearly the coolest thing ever, right?]

My race travels the stars too, but we never met yours. We must be on completely different sides of the universe.

Nah, not that easy. I mean, it is, but once a spark goes out, it can never come back on again.

[Which sort of makes him uneasy, and a second is spared to spend thinking about the Boss Monkey. No one could have survived that explosion, and while he's grateful for his life....]

[Just going to shake that off and get on with it]

And it ain't just about bein' old or sad. Sometimes, it's just... time. Ain't too many old bots around, when I'm from. 'Bout three hundred stellar cycles ago, Cybertron went through a mass upgrade. Some of the old bots, ones that was upwards a' millions a' years, figured it was better to just shut down, and let a new generation take over. Young bots, with fresh ideas, and a distinct lack of old grudges. Been keeping closer to our half of the universe, since then. So, never know. Could be.

You had bots that were millions of sweeps old?

[Even with his extended highblood life expectancy... that he would have had... if he weren't dead... Equius can't even fathom that amount of time.]

No wonder you could travel the stars! With life expectancies like that, you wouldn't even need to break the speed of light!

Kid, not only did we break the speed of light, some genius thought it would be a good idea to break time too. That Transwarp Drive I mentioned? It can go anywhere, anywhen in the blink of an optic.

And the Axalon, the ship I was set-up on, was the only one in the sector with a working one, huh. Start of all my problems, too...

How is that even possible? How were you able to produce the energy necessary for that sort of thing? How were you [insert long string of physics related questions that Equius would think of but I can't because I suck at physics]?

Whoa, whoa, whoa, kid! Hold yer horses! [He's laughing, though. Like wow, enthusiastic much? It's like dealing with Cheetor, cripes] Yer askin' the wrong bot for this sort 'a thing! I'm just a tech! I can maintain it, put pieces back when they fall off, but I ain't got the foggiest how it actually works! You want Rhinox for that slag.

Oh.

[That's disappointing, but Equius still has high hopes for this new citizen of Vatheon.]

So you're a mechanic, then? I'm something of a mechanic too. If you have any blueprints or anything from your world, I'd love to see them.

[Oh, isn't he just so cute in his naivety?]

Kid, I'm a robot. Why the frag would I be carryin' blueprints around?

[Because Equius wants to know how you work?]

Do you have any sort of documentation on you? About any of your technology?

[Sigh]

No, I ain't got nothin' but what's in my harddrive. Now, if I had parts, I could probably rig up a projector or something if you're really that bent on seein' slag, but I ain't doin' that sorta thing for free.

I could do that. I have the materials for such a thing in my workshop.

Yeah, you probably could. For whatever weirdaft biotechnology yer pop was talkin' about you guys havin'. I ain't shovin' nothin' remotely bio in my circuits though.

My pop?

[You've lost him.]

Darkleer.

Oh, you've met Darkleer.

What's a pop?

Yup.

S'a slang term for a creator, or whatever the squishy equivalent is.

Or an old person who don't wanna shut up 'bout how things were back in the old days.

[There's the soft whir of a shrug]

Think both apply pretty good here.

You mean... like a dad? You think Darkleer is my dad?

[Oh my goodness, Rattrap, if he wasn't a total fanboy already, he definitely is now!]

Like a dad, yeah, I guess that works, sure. [Another shrug. He doesn't even get why this is a good thing to Equius.] He said you was his descendant, and seemed interested enough in your well-bein' to be somethin' like that.

Really? He was acting concerned and like he cared and everything?

[Equius has a very obvious case of hero worship when it comes to Darkleer, and whenever anyone says they're reminded of Darkleer when they talk to him, it puts him in throes of ecstacy. It's even better when they think Darkleer is his dad, like the robot is doing.]

Edited 2012-01-01 11:17 (UTC)

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