We are a literate, intermediate to advanced AU Transformers RPG Based off of the first season of TFP with dashes of other incarnations sprinkled here or there. Characters from any continuity are welcome however must be restyled to match the TFPrime universe.
Active, with ongoing plotlines, we are always willing to integrate new characters into storylines once incorporated into the setting.
"Hurt?" Metroplex contemplated that for a moment before realizing what Rhinox meant. So much of his maintenance work had been done by specially-trained staff that he'd forgotten what repairing him might look like to an outside engineer. "Ah. No, I cannot be hurt by such repairs. My structure contains many sensors of varying kinds, but they do not register pain, precisely. Temperature. Humidity. Auditory and visual information. Lack of connection to other sensors. Force and feedback. Changes in these might be startling if I am not aware of them ahead of time, but they do not register as 'pain'."
Metroplex monitored these as Rhinox cut. The cutting was in a particularly sensor-dense place, and if he did not have visual and audio sensors in that room, he wouldn't have known it was taking place at all. When Rhinox had set down the removed bulkhead, Metroplex replied, "I hope so, as well. You and your team have been very interesting to converse with." Metroplex contemplated, his attention drawn to a small sanitation-bot-engineer in his manufacturing plant, who had just discovered some long-ago engineer's goody stash. "Though I feel the need to warn you, as his supervisor, that Rattrap is consuming some extremely out-of-date oilcakes. I have warned him of the dangers of eating expired foodstuffs, but he insists on 'disposing' of them."
Rhinox rolled his optics. "Don't worry about Rattrap. The day a few out-of-date oilcakes upset his tanks is the day we all retire." He sent a query-ping to Rattrap nevertheless, and received a cheerful situation-all-good ping in reply. Rattrap was in his element.
Airazor was just as content when Rhinox checked on her, though for far different reasons. //I found some complete schematics of his power systems,// she reported. //Looks like they were cut off from his main processor at some point, so Metroplex won't have access to them. But we can use them to rebuild what he's missing.//
//Good work,// Rhinox told her, and relayed her find to Metroplex.
((OOC: I've a bit of an idea that further investigation (either now or at a later date) will reveal the schematics to be out of date and inaccurate to some degree, thus furthering the mystery of what happened to Metroplex in between the final battle on Cybertron and now? Up to you...))
((Sounds good to me! Obviously, he will have some issues from being, essentially, turned into the universe's largest triple-changer. I think the overall picture of him right now is that he was obviously built to be a city with a bipedal form, and that is what's going to be on his original schematics. That'll show adjustments made by his engineers over the time before the war (and probably through the first X amount of the war, before he was decommissioned and abandoned). Right now there are obviously a lot of discrepancies from that registered in Metroplex's internal sensor logs. Some of it is NOT related to his reformatting, but instead was part of looting and scavenging done on his structure while he was inactive prior to OP reactivating him. His logs will recognize those changes as first being registered when he awoke during Fall of Cybertron.
The Mysterious Changes will be the other part of the differences. Those changes have NOT affected Metroplex's ability to take city/bipedal form, which might strike the engineers as rather miraculous, as doing such a thing would be a monumental feat of engineering. Also oddly enough, those changes were documented oddly: some of them were registered like the scavenging (he woke up on Cybertron and these things were different and he doesn't have any record of why)...but some of them are registered in his activity logs as self-repair occurring, say, some vorns after the Ark left Cybertron and Metroplex fell into stasis again. These items are accompanied by logs of power fluctuations, manufacturing processes, and use of his internal droids like Scamper to refit him.
So basically, some (though definitely not all) of Metroplex's refit was done using his own infrastructure...while he was sleeping. The activity is logged...but there's no record of any order to make that activity happen. ))
"...curious," Metroplex said. "My power systems have experienced major disruptions several times in my functioning, but my decommissioning and stasis-locks should not have altered the location of the schematics themselves. Perhaps...hmm...."
There was much in Metroplex's structure that now perplexed him. Keeping track of all the repairs conducted on his infrastructure had been a herculean task even in the best of times. With his long time in stasis following his decommissioning and then again after the launch of the Ark, Metroplex had reactivated each time to different sensor profiles. Following his awakening by Optimus Prime, Metroplex had assumed the differences to indicate scavenging of and damage done to his structure while he'd lain dormant.
Upon waking this last time, however, Metroplex had noticed many anomalous sensor readings that had still, inexplicably, been labeled as within normal ranges. He had awoken with the knowledge that he now had a third, space-faring alt, with all the remodeling required to make that so and an altered internal sensor profile that read the new configuration and capabilities as "systems normal" rather than "I have been cut apart and glued back together in unnatural ways".
Metroplex relayed this information to all three of the engineers. "I have no explanation available. My systems contain specifications and tolerances that must have been part of a current schematic, though you are correct, I do not currently have access to that schematic. Perhaps access to it was restricted for some reason during my...refitting."
Metroplex considered this. It was a bit disquieting to know so little about himself, but he was functioning and among talented friends. It was more than he'd expected, as he'd watched the Ark streak into the sky.
Rattrap, upon hearing Metroplex's analysis, smelled a rat. And said so in no uncertain terms.
So did Airazor, though she was not as profane about it. //'Curious,' he says,// she repeated, half amused. //If I'd been rearranged without my knowledge during a spell in stasis, I wouldn't have been so calm.//
Rhinox had to agree, but Metroplex seemed to have a different perspective on such things than they did as smaller, simpler mechs. Taking refittings in stride was probably a survival trait for cityformers. Still, the fact that there was no record of who had done the refit... that was troubling. Good engineering practice insisted that engineers log their work, leaving notes if possible, but at least their names and the dates they worked.
In order to retain Metroplex's ability to transform the way they did, the engineers could not have been unskilled. They had to have known the protocols. So why...?
Rhinox opened his copy of the schematics, frowning. "Metroplex, can you ping me the location of the closest refitted area? I want to take a look myself."
((OOC: Up to you if Rhinox rolls a natural 20 on his Insight/Perception check or not.))
"Affirmative." Metroplex, without access to the schematics, did a search of his sensor profile data to find the requested location and sent the result to Rhinox, along with an internal map with several marked paths. "Such a transformation join is not far, though there are several flooded chambers between it and this location. Avoiding them should not be difficult."
Scamper left off from its welding and paused slightly before leading Rhinox through the observation deck, to exit through the opposite end than they entered. The drone led them through half a Cybertronian block's worth of dimmed or dark chambers, including a maintenance cross-tunnel that was tight but passable for someone of Rhinox's framesize.
They emerged in an internal space obviously meant for engineering service to Metroplex's internal workings. One of the smaller of the cityformer's structural struts ran laterally through the room, a pivoting joint bisecting its length before the strut continued behind the walls of the room's terminus. The strut itself was as thick as Rhinox's head.
"My internal scanners report this joint as functioning properly within technical specifications," Metroplex replied to Rhinox, his voice close in the small room. "This joint did not exist at the beginning of my last stasis."
<<Feel free to have Rhinox figger it out, or at least figure out that this was no usual patchjob or refit. I imagine that to an engineer's eye, the structure will look....not like a usual refit done on a planet with limited resources and energy should look. It's not been cut and welded and such...it looks as if it was always meant to be there. Essentially, it's been remodeled with nanites. Like the kind you find in self-repair...or the kind a planetformer's self-repair might lend you because they want you to get better.... >_> At the very least, this does not look like the work of a normal engineer....>>
Grateful to be out of the access hatch, Rhinox approached the joint carefully and examined it from all angles. He searched for the pitting and wearing that comes with age, scrapes and grooves that came with use, or the weld marks that meant the presence of repairmechs. As the war had worn on and factories had shut down, Cybertronian tech had been increasingly jury-rigged, old parts cannibalized to make new things. This joint should not have been any different.
Yet it was. It looked like it had been there forever, a part of Metroplex since orn one. It also looked incongruously new.
Ducking under the strut to get a look at the other side, Rhinox mused. How would I have done this? He had to assume access of things that didn't exist on Cybertron anymore - dedicated fabrication facilities, a team of engineering staff and medics, and plenty of time with no need to worry about battles or starvation. Given all that, he would have installed the joint in pieces to avoid disturbing the rest of him, making sure all of the power and sensornet connections were sound before placing the final protective casings, and welded -
...Rhinox paused at the wall, tracing a finger over the place where strut and wall met. No weld lines. No one had the skill to get such a clean line. Either Metroplex was mistaken at this join not being here at his forging - unlikely - or...
"Nanite remodeling," he murmured. "But if your own repair systems built and installed this, they had to get the specs from somewhere." He stepped back, directed his gaze to the ceiling. "However you got this piece, Metroplex, it wasn't by an ordinary engineer cadre."
"Hmmm...." Metroplex's glyph was contemplative. "I have no explanation for this, Engineer Rhinox. Though you are correct: certainly my last stasis was long enough for significant remodeling to take place. Why, though, is a mystery. I would also offer up the mystery of where my repair systems got the energon for such an extensive project, but given the state of my tanks when I awoke, that is likely part of a larger mystery."
Metroplex, as a cityformer, only had basic information on his own structure. Other Cybertronians had before found this strange, to which Metroplex had pointed out that he had never been meant to be independent. He had been meant to have inhabitants, steady supply chains, and his own cadre of engineers to repair and upgrade him. His repair drones were equipped to make only minor repairs of the most basic kind, and had been programmed to do so by his engineers vorn and vorn ago. He could, thus, repair some parts of his structure, but not others, simply because he did not have the expertise necessary. This was not odd to him. After all, most Cybertronians could not perform self-surgery, either.
As he would never have needed to perform extensive repairs or upgrades, having his own specs had never seemed necessary. Having his repair drones and structural sensors tapped into a proper, functional set of specifications was what he truly needed, rather than the specs themselves.
Having said specs change while he had, ostensibly, been unconscious on a dead planet, was strange. The mecha who had had the correct permissions and knowledge to do such a thing (and do it WELL) were long dead.
Metroplex mentioned this to Rhinox. "Perhaps...perhaps someone gained access to my mainframe while I was in stasis? I do not understand why or how they would do such a thing, but it is possible."
Metroplex set his processor on a search-and-compare mission, combing through his sensor archives and finding every instance where his "normal tolerance" readings had changed or where sensor readings had appeared or disappeared between his last fall into stasis and his awakening. After a long moment, he burst the compiled report to Rhinox helpfully. "This is all the information I can gather in my databanks. With your accesses, you may dig deeper into my machine code and research further, if you would like."
Rhinox was distracted perusing Metroplex's report for, perhaps, a bit longer than was polite. Two pings from Airazor and an emphatic ping from Rattrap (//HEY BIG GREEN, YOU IN STASIS OR WHAT?//) finally jerked him out of his fugue and back to reality. //Sorry, ready,// he sent back, and was immediately pinged with their findings of discrepancies within Metroplex's sensor archives.
...Specifically, the lack thereof. Everything was as it was supposed to be, as far as they could tell, a bit battered but unchanged in any significant way since Metroplex's forging.
//Rattrap, any possibility someone hacked Metroplex's files?//
//Ehh, maybe, but - slag, why bother? That's a lotta effort just to mess with his processor. ...And anyway, if it were me doin' this sweet refurb job, I'd be slappin' my name on every rivet, you know what I'm sayin'?//
//He's got a point,// Airazor admitted. //Why do all this and then go to so much trouble to hide it?//
//I thought so.// Rhinox heaved a sigh. "Metroplex... this is where my expertise fails me. Would it be possible for this - these modifications to have been here all along without your knowledge?"
Metroplex gave this idea due consideration. "Yes," he said, finally. "It is possible. In the same way that I cannot fix all of my systems, I also do not have direct sensory knowledge of all of them."
Scamper laid a hand on the joint in question. "This is the first time, for instance, that I have received direct video feedback about this piece of my structure. I have blueprints and sensor logs, tolerance lists and damage sensors, but there is much of my structure that has never needed my direct attention."
Metroplex's glyphs became pensive. "In fact, there is much of my structure that, at my forging, SHOULD never have needed my direct attention. Again...I was never meant to self-diagnose any problems I encounter. Any transformation system errors or damage was to be dealt with by my engineers. I do not have the expertise to repair it, so I only received error logs of the problems, which were then forwarded to my engineers. Error logs which, of course, were based upon internal sensor tolerances, which...are mutable."
Metroplex was quiet for a long moment. Disquieted.
"You are suggesting that I might have had this alt form...all along?"
Rhinox ignored both of his comrades. "I think it's the most likely explanation for what we're seeing. Someone must have thought you might need it someday." It was the kindest motive he could think of for giving a mech a secret altmode, cityformer or not. If I had helped design someone with a secret alt form, how would I justify it? How would they react? How would I react if it were me? Rhinox couldn't quite fathom it, but that didn't mean he couldn't offer a sympathetic audial. He moved to the wall, placed his palm on it gently. Speaking with voice only so Rattrap and Airazor couldn't eavesdrop over comms, he said, "I'm listening, if you want to talk it out, my friend. How do you feel about this?"
After a long moment, Metroplex was still unsure. It was not that he didn't understand what Rhinox was asking, or why he was asking it. Metroplex had seen enough mechas' lives to make a guess how an inhabitant would react to the knowledge that they had been built with an alt that they had not known about.
An alt that had been HIDDEN from them.
Something hidden was always hidden for a reason.
A hidden alt mode was created for a reason.
A hidden alt mode that gave...freedom. And power. Hidden...for a reason.
Metroplex knew the answer to this riddle. The simple answer was that he had not needed to know. Just as he did not need to know how to fix himself. It was not in his function to...need to know. To use or not to use the alt he was currently curled in had...not been his decision to make. Just as it was not his decision to choose targets...or choose who to fight for...or....
Metroplex felt something welling inside him. Something that cascaded across his spark like an error across his processor. He backed hurriedly away from it, shaken, running reflexive diagnostics and code checks.
"I...I am operating...within accepted parameters."
He was. Wasn't he?
...how would he know? What else did he not know about himself? How important was it? How much more could he help (have helped!) if he knew (had known!) everything about himself. If he'd known that he could FLY?
It was not a cityformer's place to operate in seclusion. It was a cityformer's place to follow orders. It was his place to follow the Prime's orders. The Prime had...given him...if not orders...purpose. Reassurance.
Slag slag slag I broke the city. Internally he was wincing, picturing how the post-mission report would go. Physically Metroplex is now in excellent repair; however, I managed to give him a mental breakdown. Right. That wouldn't add to the Prime's stress levels at all. The decision to cut Rattrap out of this conversation had been a wise one, clearly.
"Cityformers entrust their health to their supervisors, to the point where they are not privy to every detail about their bodies. It seems strange to me, but for you - you were built to be a dwelling place for other mechs, not an autonomous mech yourself. The rules are different. Your comfort level is different."
He paused mid-pace. "I'm sorry. It sounds like I'm telling you how to feel. I'm just trying to see it through your optics." He glanced up at the ceiling - a useless mannerism, as if he expected Metroplex to be located above him when he knew better. He might as well look at the floor or a wall. "I just - there has to be a balance. You are a sparked mech and a Cybertronian citizen, and you do have rights. Not being versed in every circuit in your body is one thing, most mechs aren't, but - a whole other alt hidden from you?" Rhinox shook his head. "My cadre head wouldn't have approved. Prime wouldn't approve. Even if they did it with the best of intentions." Rhinox sighed, leaned against a wall again. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "I'm probably making it worse."
Metroplex latched onto that comment. The Prime wouldn't approve of giving a mech (him) an alt and then not telling that mech (him) about it. Was that true? Metroplex did not know. The Prime was the Prime, and Rhinox knew him better than Metroplex did. Metroplex had to defer to Rhinox's greater expertise in that respect.
The Prime wouldn't approve. Thus...the Prime would approve of him knowing about this alt...at least now. Perhaps before, as well. But...if before...then that suggested that the Prime would approve of Metroplex making his own decisions about what to DO with the alt. That he approved of Metroplex's self-determination.
Metroplex was not programmed to self-determine. He was not even programmed to be able to panic at the idea of not being programmed to self-determine.
It occurred to Metroplex that he had no idea what would be expected of him, here on this alien world. He had not planned beyond performing repairs and fueling himself at the most basic levels, and the Prime had not indicated any other expectations, though he must have some.
It was understandable that he could not fulfill either of his primary functions. He was even more out of scale with the small native organics than he was with Cybertronians, and the political situation was such that he needed to remain hidden. Obviously, the Autobots could not use him as a base when he could not come within sight of the humans, nor could he defend them if he was at the bottom of the ocean. What, then, was Metroplex's function? Metroplex had assumed that the Prime would assign him a commander, when one was available, who would make these decisions for him. But...if the Prime thought that Metroplex did not need the guidance...perhaps he would not. Metroplex's spark ached at the idea. Would he be left to his own devices, once he was repaired?
Metroplex was not capable of panicking, but he was capable of worrying.
"I value your input, Rhinox," Metroplex said. "My creators, my builders, my commanders...did what they thought best, for reasons...now lost. Perhaps...they overstepped their authority. Perhaps not. I only regret any...lost opportunity to aid others."
He paused. It was a fact of his construction that he needed the aid of others. However, he'd never had to ask for this type of aid before. "Would you mind, Rhinox, if I ask for your advice...when needed? I am of an outdated function-class. My primary and secondary functions are no longer efficient or required. My previous mode of operation is...expensive in terms of personnel and maintenance, as well as energon. I do not wish to be a drain on the resources of the Autobots or this planet. I do not know what I can do to help the Autobots, but I will do it to the best of my ability. I may need, however, some...aid. I am not programmed to self-determine. I may need some...help."
Last Edit: May 30, 2013 16:17:06 GMT -5 by Deleted
Rhinox's next move was a foregone conclusion. "You will have it, my friend. I promise."
Metroplex had never been simply a mission or a mystery, but Rhinox hadn't expected to find a friend in him - at least, not so quickly. He was warmed by this display of trust, and promised himself he would continue to be worthy of it.
"The challenges of a cityformer on Earth are unique, I know," he offered with a smile. "But not insurmountable. If I don't know the answers, then I will help you find someone who does - and I know you will be able to help us with our challenges as well. Even if your functions must be adapted to this new world, you are a priceless asset to us, Metroplex. Don't doubt that."
He was rather pleased with that peptalk. His commander would have been proud.
"Thank you," Metroplex said, something deep in his spark relaxing in relief from the knot he'd not realized existed. Between Rhinox's support and his brief conversation with the Prime, he felt a bit more...sure of his place.
Earth would be a challenge, an environment that did not need and could, perhaps, not support him. But knowing that he had...if not inhabitants or a commander, but at least...friends, here, eased a few of Metroplex's concerns.
"Thank you. I appreciate your friendship and your support, Rhinox. I look forward to aiding and interacting with the Autobots here on Earth. If there is anything I can do, please do not hesitate to ask. The energon deposit I have excavated is sufficient to allow me minor internal transformations. I can provide quite a few raw materials that I believe are rare on Earth, as well as quarters and facilities. I would welcome--" company "--the chance to help."
"And you are, of course, welcome to visit the whales whenever you might wish. I...have taken on quite a bit of water and indigenous life that I find most fascinating. I would appreciate your advice on how best to accomodate or relocate them."
<<feel free to continue or wrap up however works best. >>
Last Edit: Jun 11, 2013 11:54:35 GMT -5 by Deleted