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.
Inevitably his thoughts returned to the Axalon and his lost crew. His lost commander. It was still an intense ache, his commander's absence a void that could never be filled.
If he let himself dwell, his work would never get done. He forcibly tore his thoughts away from it and back onto the bulkhead he was strengthening. After a moment, he apologetically pinged Metroplex with a packet containing all of the data on Earth he carried in his processor. Most of it was archived Wikipedia pages, but he did have some research of his own, mostly concerning desert wildlife.
Scamper's sensors picked up the fluctuations in Rhinox's field. Metroplex couldn't respond in the same way, his own field muffled, but he did what he could, transmitting glyphs of understanding/mourning. He could do that much, though he was not qualified to do anything beyond commiserate...and perhaps that even less than most other mechs. He, after all, had fewer personal contacts and close friends than an average mechanism. Still, even Metroplex's particularly even-keeled spark and processor could grieve over the destruction and waste of the Great War.
Then he opened the packet about the Earth, and his processor skipped a few threads. Such variety. Such intricacy. Such utterly improbable chemistry. Complexity and interactivity at once a thousandfold greater and a thousandfold lesser than that of mechanical beings.
Scamper continued on with his welding in a businesslike manner, while Metroplex's voice took on notes and glyphs of amazement. "Beautiful," Metroplex said. "It is amazing how something so complex can arise from so much chaos. And they are not an engineered species? Their mythology is...confusing...on the matter."
Hurt faded in the face of Metroplex's wonder, and Rhinox smiled. "It is varied," he agreed. "But their scientists are in general agreement on the process of their evolution. Random mutations and environmental pressure play large roles in guiding it, as well as sexual selection. I hesitate to say that humans arose, or became the dominant species, due to random chance, but -" He paused to lift off a buckled panel with a grunt of effort. "-They were presented an opportunity, so to speak, and they seized it." He set the panel aside and stuck his head inside the cavity, looking for cracks or leaks. "Much of success on this planet seems to depend on that," he said, his voice at once muffled and amplified.
Metroplex processed that for a bit, then turned his attention to the whales and some of the other small creatures surrounding his hull. "It sounds like a very inefficient method. It certainly explains the diversity of life forms."
He had wondered about that. His experience with organic life forms was entirely academic and perfunctory at best. There had been one or two organic visitors to Cybertron who had visited his facilities, but he'd never had an opportunity to view an entire ecosystem like the one that was swimming by his hull and attempting to colonize his nooks and crannies. He said as much to Rhinox. "I look forward to viewing more of the planet, once that becomes possible. I realize that my size may be alarming to the Earth's inhabitants. The Prime mentioned something about intertribal warfare being common on this planet?"
"Unfortunately very true," Rhinox admitted. "That's part of the reason Prime prefers to keep our presence here hidden from the majority of the population. He fears the added stress of first alien contact would spark further global conflict."
For a moment he wondered whether Metroplex was truly too big to hide. No secret is kept forever, as Rattrap was fond of reminding him, and - well. When their presence was revealed, it would also be revealed that one of the world's many governments knew about them all along, and wouldn't that be a day at Six Lasers Over Cybertron when the repercussions of that came down. When he thought about it that way, a cityformer seemed almost incidental.
"Until you can sightsee yourself," he offered, "I would be happy to bring you pictures and video of any locations I visit."
Rhinox's assessment of the humans' balance of power made Metroplex wish all the harder that he could connect to a datanet to become more informed. The humans' technology was primitive, but from what he'd detected, he found it unlikely that he'd managed to make a barely-controlled fall through their atmosphere without anyone noticing.The idea that his very presence might cause further conflict was troubling. He made a note to discuss contingency plans with the Prime.
"Thank you," Metroplex replied. "I would very much appreciate that. Some of my inhabitants would do the same on Cybertron. I always enjoyed watching their experiences of other places on Cybertron and other planets."
Scamper's internal systems fed Metroplex a tolerance warning as the drone attempted to peel back a section of corroded plating to get at the tear behind it. Metroplex halted the task, wary of damaging his one remaining drone. He was getting an anomalous power reading behind that bulkhead, but the machinery was so damaged that he could not get a clear reading on what the problem was. He assigned the task in the maintenance queue to Scamper and transformed out the drone's cutter to begin cutting through.
"One of my inhabitants was an explorer. She gave me footage once of an aquatic world. It was nothing like Earth, however. The dominant aqueous solution was not dihydrogen monoxide. I believe that it was some other type of phenolic ring compound--"
A flash and a loud brrrzzzzzzap! sounded through the room, interrupting Metroplex's words. Metroplex's power grid registered a fluctuation at the same time as Scamper's systems registered severe power overload. Metroplex pulled the drone back away from the wall. The drone's systems responded sluggishly as it twitched and jittered, then fell offline and clattered to the floor.
Metroplex mentally sighed and added "Power line malfunction in Section A-90" to the maintenance list.
<<Just thought I'd liven things up a bit. Scamper'll reboot (mostly) ok in a bit, but yeah...power problem behind the panel he was working on. ^_^;;>>
His first priority was Scamper. The little drone had suffered quite a shock, and was smoking faintly, but a quick scan revealed no major damage. It would be up and squeaking again in an hour. Rhinox carried it to a safe, dry corner and gave it a pat before leaving it alone.
That done, he eyed the panel that had zapped Scamper. "Metroplex, can you cut power to that part of the wall? My energy tolerances are higher than Scamper's, but not by that much."
"In progress," Metroplex replied. His power grid was more than a little tetchy with disuse and neglect, and it took a bit for him to reroute power so that it did not affect the pumps keeping the water levels in that section from rising.
"Completed," Metroplex stated when the reroute was finished. "That area of the power grid is dispensable for main power and pumping and is easily diverted. It is relatively unimportant but for..." A half-hearted spark of energon leapt inside the wall cavity, along with a splurt of sea water. "...safety issues."
Power shifted through Metroplex's grid in a totally unrelated way, one maintenance ticket in his manufactories being tagged as "resolved", then another. "Your team is very skilled."
Metroplex queried Scamper's systems, prompting a reboot that made it halfway to boot up before collapsing into overcharged chaos-code. Metroplex let the drone be for the moment.
Rhinox smiled fondly. "Yes, they are. I couldn't have asked for better." Rattrap and Airazor were pinging him updates as they made progress. Already they'd locked down two decks and restored power to a few dark quadrants. Rhinox passed along Metroplex's praise along with his own.
Moving to the offending section of wall, Rhinox made sure his capacitors were up to spec before reaching in to get to work. Some of the wiring was corroded and would have to be replaced; lucky he had some to spare. "Rattrap and Airazor and I were serving on an exploration vessel when the war broke out," he explained as he worked, his voice quiet and contemplative. "We reconfigured the Axalon for speed and harried the Decepticons for vorns, hitting their installations all throughout space." He paused to reconfigure his spanner tool. "They caught up with us in the Argonon cluster, but we had a pretty good run for a while."
The casual way that Rhinox mentioned such a radical shift in function was amazing to Metroplex. He had been built for one purpose, and though he had been modified over the eons, his function had always been to house and protect his inhabitants and to defend Iacon. Even though Iacon was long gone, his coding endured, and he would follow the Iaconian Prime likewise until the end of his functioning.
Metroplex knew that mechs changed function. Still, it was something that OTHER MECHS did. Metroplex himself wouldn't have even known where to start making such a change. He said as much. "I admire your flexibility. It is a travesty that civilian personnel have been so drawn into the fighting."
He attempted to reboot Scamper again. The drone's systems sputtered to life and immediately booted into diagnostic mode. Metroplex let the drone's systems right themselves.
His tone was sad. "I suppose that this war has changed who we all are. So much time has passed. That the war is still going on is..." The cityformer's glyphs trailed into amazing/terrible/unknown/frightening.
Rhinox pulsed silent agreement to Metroplex's glyphs. The war had changed all of them, forced them to adapt in a variety of unlooked-for ways. Even Optimus Prime... Rhinox pulled his thoughts away from that subject, not wanting to dwell when there was still so much work to do. Nor did he want to drag Metroplex's mood down any further.
"I don't... like parts of what I've had to become," Rhinox admitted. "But we've also discovered hidden wells of courage and ability within ourselves. We still have it within us to end the war and forge peace. I have to believe that."
As he moved on to the next bulkhead, he gave the recovering Scamper a gentle pat on the shoulder.
Scamper's systems finally ramped up to operational, pinging Metroplex as not...totally functional, but functional enough. Scamper stood with only a little wobble and turned to look at Rhinox, following him to the next bulkhead.
Metroplex's glyphs were the very picture of somber, stoic agreement. He was very much aware of all the time that he had missed, all the terrible things that had inevitably happened while he was in stasis on Cybertron. Both before the Ark's launch and after. But given his own miraculous survival, Metroplex was not at all ready to give up now, and he was glad to see that others shared his optimism. "I agree. If there is one thing that structureformers like myself know, it is that all things change. We are meant to be long-lived and to endure. We are observers and supporters. We are meant to be patient while the universe moves around us. And move around us it does. Whatever sorrow we endure now, it will not endure forever."
Metroplex's glyphs pivoted wryly. "Of course, sometimes what replaces current events is no better, or is worse, but that, too will change, and every change brings the chance for a better outcome."
Scamper glanced at Rhinox somewhat sheepishly. "I do not know if that was comforting or not."
Rhinox accepted Scamper's help in shoring up the next bulkhead, though he was careful to not overload the drone. Half the room was done now; there was no need to rush. "I used to think that the inevitable change you speak of would work its will on us, and change us in turn. Now I understand that we are the agents of change, not merely its victims. We will change, since it is our nature, but we have an opportunity to choose our path."
A stubborn bolt cut off his philosophizing; Rhinox grunted as he worked it free. Somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered what that felt like for Metroplex. Was it painful, or more like easing a cramp or scratching an itch? It seemed awkward to ask.
"Uff." With one last grunt the bolt came free. "Forgive me if I ramble. I had a lot of time to think about this sort of thing."
Metroplex monitored the work with quiet pleasure. The engineers had been there for less than a cycle and still issues were being resolved, errors silenced, and his maintenance queue was actually shrinking for the first time in a very long time. It was a good feeling. Rhinox's work was already affecting the rate of water seepage into the entirety of that section.
"I do not consider your thoughts 'rambling'," Metroplex replied. "I, also, have had a lot of time to think, and no one to talk to. I appreciate the opportunity to share points of view. I do not like to complain, but...sometimes our circumstances are troubling and confusing, and discussing aids in understanding."
He considered the panel that Rhinox was struggling to unbolt. "Please feel free to cut through if that would be more expedient. This entire section will need to be re-modeled once the leaks are patched, and I don't imagine that anyone will object to a few holes in the bulkheads in the meantime."
A quick glance over the bulkheads revealed the truth of Metroplex's words. A thorough remodeling could only do him good, and probably relieve some of the stress on his structure, poor thing. "I suppose making the offer means you wouldn't be hurt by it," he observed, amused that his question had been answered, and accessed his subspace toolkit.
For a few minutes, the loud and piercing sound of cutting metal precluded all conversation. Fortunately only two rusted bolts were still stubbornly holding on to their moorings, and Rhinox made quick work of them. "I think you're right," he continued, pulling the section of bulkhead free. "With that in mind, I hope we can continue to be conversation partners, even when the work is done." Metroplex was an intriguing entity, and Rhinox always appreciated being able to make a new friend.