[ti]Flashback[/ti]So, why is it purple?
Jul 1, 2022 2:54:04 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Jul 1, 2022 2:54:04 GMT -5
As Backbeat sorted ammunition request forums his mind wandered to a time before the war...
Career wise, Backbeat had stalled out. Which for a bot with an aerial altmode, stalling out in any context was disastrous. He'd just been forced to watch his boss, a rather full of himself yellow and green communication truck, threaten another round of budget cuts. More cuts to an already compressor tight budget meant one thing. Bots getting tossed on the street and project budgets getting an energy axe to them. Backbeat like being a communications tower system technician, but this was slowly driving him insane. What supplies he had were cheap and shoddy, the budgets for projects could barely pay for Energon to get to the towers, and worst of all he'd had to resort to the Black-market to get any of the supplies he actually needed. In short, the situation was very bad. Bad enough that even a management team made of Primus and the thirteen themselves couldn't save it...
It was when his boss had explained in the same "breath" that he and the other managerial staff were going to receive a pay increase to reflect "good departmental leadership" during the last fiscal quarter, many of those forced to attend the meeting collectively decided to swear silent and terrible revenge. Half the people in the room hadn't seen a raise since Solus Prime. Backbeat watched one of the repair foremen snap a stylus in incoherent rage at the two announcements. It was what you'd say if someone asked you step one to starting a riot, a celebration of tone deafness and everything Backbeat considered wrong with the world. To make matters worse, Backbeat had later inadvertently overheard his boss and someone else discuss who was going to be fired in the next round of cuts. That Backbeat was on the list of potential victims was not surprising, as he figured that the radio stuffed idiot was axing anyone more competent than he was to secure his own job. Backbeat quickly made himself scarce, marveling at the brazen corruption he'd just watched. Backbeat was no saint either, he'd long ago started frequenting Cybertron's preverbal underworld. At the time it was the only way to get what tower replacement parts he could, but these days he'd started using it to "supplement" his income. He was going to go visit the "Pit".
While many future Decepticons could cite the Kaon Gladiator Pit as their point of origin... How they came to be and all that. The normal line is that one “learned to kill” or “gained a taste for spilled Energon” in the Pit. But mindless violence was not Backbeat's experience. To him, the Pit was where he got his first taste of real backroom dealing. His usual contact being a rather quiet bot in blue. “And the network relay is…?” The shifty look bot glared down at the drink he’d just been handed. While many patrons huddle around the ring to watch a grey colored miner obliterate some poor construction vehicle, a smaller group milled around the makeshift bar like space moths to a flame. Backbeat taps on the bar table absentmindedly. “Been patched with the override like you asked.” Backbeat smugly said. His contact nodded and slid something flat and purple towards Backbeat. He picked the item up and stared at it for a moment. It looked like a purple badge. “It’s… Uh, nice. You take up art or something?” The contact chuckled. “What, no. When the time comes your either be wearing one of these… Or rusting in scrap heap of history.” Backbeat held what would later become infamously known as a Decepticon symbol up to the light. “So, why is it purple?”
Career wise, Backbeat had stalled out. Which for a bot with an aerial altmode, stalling out in any context was disastrous. He'd just been forced to watch his boss, a rather full of himself yellow and green communication truck, threaten another round of budget cuts. More cuts to an already compressor tight budget meant one thing. Bots getting tossed on the street and project budgets getting an energy axe to them. Backbeat like being a communications tower system technician, but this was slowly driving him insane. What supplies he had were cheap and shoddy, the budgets for projects could barely pay for Energon to get to the towers, and worst of all he'd had to resort to the Black-market to get any of the supplies he actually needed. In short, the situation was very bad. Bad enough that even a management team made of Primus and the thirteen themselves couldn't save it...
It was when his boss had explained in the same "breath" that he and the other managerial staff were going to receive a pay increase to reflect "good departmental leadership" during the last fiscal quarter, many of those forced to attend the meeting collectively decided to swear silent and terrible revenge. Half the people in the room hadn't seen a raise since Solus Prime. Backbeat watched one of the repair foremen snap a stylus in incoherent rage at the two announcements. It was what you'd say if someone asked you step one to starting a riot, a celebration of tone deafness and everything Backbeat considered wrong with the world. To make matters worse, Backbeat had later inadvertently overheard his boss and someone else discuss who was going to be fired in the next round of cuts. That Backbeat was on the list of potential victims was not surprising, as he figured that the radio stuffed idiot was axing anyone more competent than he was to secure his own job. Backbeat quickly made himself scarce, marveling at the brazen corruption he'd just watched. Backbeat was no saint either, he'd long ago started frequenting Cybertron's preverbal underworld. At the time it was the only way to get what tower replacement parts he could, but these days he'd started using it to "supplement" his income. He was going to go visit the "Pit".
While many future Decepticons could cite the Kaon Gladiator Pit as their point of origin... How they came to be and all that. The normal line is that one “learned to kill” or “gained a taste for spilled Energon” in the Pit. But mindless violence was not Backbeat's experience. To him, the Pit was where he got his first taste of real backroom dealing. His usual contact being a rather quiet bot in blue. “And the network relay is…?” The shifty look bot glared down at the drink he’d just been handed. While many patrons huddle around the ring to watch a grey colored miner obliterate some poor construction vehicle, a smaller group milled around the makeshift bar like space moths to a flame. Backbeat taps on the bar table absentmindedly. “Been patched with the override like you asked.” Backbeat smugly said. His contact nodded and slid something flat and purple towards Backbeat. He picked the item up and stared at it for a moment. It looked like a purple badge. “It’s… Uh, nice. You take up art or something?” The contact chuckled. “What, no. When the time comes your either be wearing one of these… Or rusting in scrap heap of history.” Backbeat held what would later become infamously known as a Decepticon symbol up to the light. “So, why is it purple?”