Flashback – “De Facto” – Closed
May 7, 2012 15:30:38 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on May 7, 2012 15:30:38 GMT -5
Ironhide grunted, vents huffing as he rocked with the impact of the blast. The Prime had been targeting a spark kill shot, he could tell from the initial trajectory, but the final burst caught the weapon specialist across his upper chestplate. It splashed harmless hot fire across his mesh and left naught but a scorched mark and a dull ache behind. Ironhide shrugged it off, shook his plates back into place, and walked back to where the other mech was waiting.
"So," he said heavily. "Now yeh know what's wrong. They flash targeting algorithms an' aggro-tec on yeh an' tell yeh it's good - look, yeh turn yer protocols on and yeh can hit what yeh aim for, yer fine." He flushed a particularly crude ventilation through half clamped vents, the sound sharp and disdainful. "It's also a load of Pit slag. Good enough for cannon fodder drones, but Ah wanna fraggin' rearrange th' faceplates of every so-called 'instructor' who keeps sendin' recruits out t' th' front lines with nothin' but targeting protocols."
He waved a hand at the featureless targets on the far end of the range. "Any tec flashed newspark can hit those. Don't mean slag. Yeh put a face t' th' target, try t' lock on somethin' that's starin' back at yeh - one of us, one of them, xeno or not, doesn't matter - an' it ain't th' same thing. Yer processor an' spark know it, an' those targeting protocols don't have th' last word."
His own words settled uneasily in his tanks. His function class had been designed and implemented 'out there' against 'them' and there was a difference, a large one, between inanimate and animate targets, but there was an equally large gulf between an alien species and a Cybertronian spark.
Protect, the phantom echo of coding, ripped out by Medtec programmers and wiped clean from his core processors, still writhed through his spark. Preserve. Guard.
He had a sick, rust and acid crawling feeling that he knew why so many of the former Guard were falling on the front lines and unfamiliar ground and careless commanders was only half of the story. They had been created and sparked to defend the Cybertronian race. No one had ever taken into account that the front line defense might someday be on their own planet, against their own people.
Ironhide shuttered his optics for a nanoklik and firewalled the thought, locking it down. It was a different thing, to look into Cybertronian optics and aim for a Primus given spark. It was what they were all there to do, though, their new Prime included.
Drawing in an ventilation, he refocused on the other mech who was watching him soberly. "Best way around it," he said aloud, "is not t' rely on yer targeting software. Yeh got audios an' optics. Yeh got echo an' wave an' electro sensors. Yer not relyin' on software t' keep yeh on yer pedes or keep yeh from walkin' into walls. Yer guns need t' be th' same way." He wove a video and display channel from his own HUD feeds, pinging the Prime with the key. "Here. Watch. Look. Ah ain't gonna turn on th' targeting locks at all."
Turning back to the far end of the range, Ironhide spun up one of the least of his blasters. Judging the distance by optic alone, without any of the lock or targeting feed of protocols, he aimed and fired four shots in quick succession, nailing the first four targets one after the other.
"So," he said heavily. "Now yeh know what's wrong. They flash targeting algorithms an' aggro-tec on yeh an' tell yeh it's good - look, yeh turn yer protocols on and yeh can hit what yeh aim for, yer fine." He flushed a particularly crude ventilation through half clamped vents, the sound sharp and disdainful. "It's also a load of Pit slag. Good enough for cannon fodder drones, but Ah wanna fraggin' rearrange th' faceplates of every so-called 'instructor' who keeps sendin' recruits out t' th' front lines with nothin' but targeting protocols."
He waved a hand at the featureless targets on the far end of the range. "Any tec flashed newspark can hit those. Don't mean slag. Yeh put a face t' th' target, try t' lock on somethin' that's starin' back at yeh - one of us, one of them, xeno or not, doesn't matter - an' it ain't th' same thing. Yer processor an' spark know it, an' those targeting protocols don't have th' last word."
His own words settled uneasily in his tanks. His function class had been designed and implemented 'out there' against 'them' and there was a difference, a large one, between inanimate and animate targets, but there was an equally large gulf between an alien species and a Cybertronian spark.
Protect, the phantom echo of coding, ripped out by Medtec programmers and wiped clean from his core processors, still writhed through his spark. Preserve. Guard.
He had a sick, rust and acid crawling feeling that he knew why so many of the former Guard were falling on the front lines and unfamiliar ground and careless commanders was only half of the story. They had been created and sparked to defend the Cybertronian race. No one had ever taken into account that the front line defense might someday be on their own planet, against their own people.
Ironhide shuttered his optics for a nanoklik and firewalled the thought, locking it down. It was a different thing, to look into Cybertronian optics and aim for a Primus given spark. It was what they were all there to do, though, their new Prime included.
Drawing in an ventilation, he refocused on the other mech who was watching him soberly. "Best way around it," he said aloud, "is not t' rely on yer targeting software. Yeh got audios an' optics. Yeh got echo an' wave an' electro sensors. Yer not relyin' on software t' keep yeh on yer pedes or keep yeh from walkin' into walls. Yer guns need t' be th' same way." He wove a video and display channel from his own HUD feeds, pinging the Prime with the key. "Here. Watch. Look. Ah ain't gonna turn on th' targeting locks at all."
Turning back to the far end of the range, Ironhide spun up one of the least of his blasters. Judging the distance by optic alone, without any of the lock or targeting feed of protocols, he aimed and fired four shots in quick succession, nailing the first four targets one after the other.