re_alignment | [Audio] [Transmission originating from: Solian Sector]

I'm out of contact f'r a couple days and everything goes crazy. Y'all are really trying to make me feel at home aren't you, darlings?

[Barricade sounds tired, but amused. He's been in and out of the medbay keeping an optic on Ratchet and tweaking the upgrade plans for the prototype that kind of... exploded at said medic, and in between that has been trying to finish the renovations to his quarters in Solus Prime's temple.

Busy bot has been busy.]

So we've got a police force coming up, and a mercenary guild forming, huh? Well, I frankly ain't seen any law system work out - and I certainly ain't joining any of you, no offense - but I will say this.

I've been told that here we're more or less at peace among one another. Means we don't need warriors.

We need cops.

And if there are outside aggressors, we don't need warriors either. We need soldiers, because the whole Spec Ops suicide runs? Don't end well. For anyone. Ever.

That's all.

[Encrypted to Knock Out]

Probably nothing you ain't heard from others yet, but I finished my sniffing around for your partner. Trail went farther towards the Badlands than I was willing t'go and I didn't catch anything indicating he might have exited it or changed directions.

For what it's worth, I'm sorry he's gone.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Soldiers also know how to work in groups and are willing to. I haven't met many warriors that would do that. And a warrior's ideals are personal and don't always fit within the society - or run completely contrary to it.

Ever considered using that talent to train others to defend themselves and this place we're trying to protect? Or to try to set them onto an honorable path.

And a society's 'ideals' are often corrupted by demagogues. Groups often lead to groupthink and nothing is more easily led.

[He was one of those, easily led.]

[He frowns.] So you think that the individual offers nothing. Only consensus. And ideals and conscience are worthless, then?

[He gets very quiet. Because, sorry, Barricade, you have no right.]

And what do you think I do? What do you think I did during the attack? I didn't wait for some group to get together. I did what I could to protect others.

Don't preach to me. You don't know me.

You seem to think you know an awful lot about how I think, for someone from a completely different timestream from mine.

[He quirks a brow ridge.]

I missed the attack, so I couldn't say what you did. And I didn't go digging through the archives for this network to find out everything about everybody - or you - because I'm not that kind of mech.

But I get the feeling we ain't gonna agree on a single thing in this conversation.

Merely returning the favor, it seems. You refuse to grant that a warrior has any merit, and a mere wage-soldier's superior. Based on what experience?

I am speaking from mine, as both.

And yes I will speak up, and disagree, where good mechs with good sparks and good intentions belittled.

Edited 2012-08-27 22:38 (UTC)

Warriors have merits. But Goths and Samurai were both warrior types, and one of them is rarely seen as the high ideal that you put the word at.

You say that like you're the only one in this conversation that's been a warrior and a soldier.

You sound like a mech I knew once, when you say that.

Samurai were lead by a war leader, Barricade. They had honor, but their flaw was that it was tied, ultimately, to one person. Not an ideal, not their own spark.

[He knows samurai.]

I'm talking about my experience, because you're dodging the issues. You're content with us 'disagreeing'. Maybe I'm trying to get to something else.

It sounds like you don't very much like who I remind you of.

Mm. Studied them a bit, I see.

Such as? Trying to get me to open up? Bear my spark about the issues; or get me to agree with you?

[He'd had enough of spark-bearing when he did it and then was separated from the ones he'd gotten that close to.]

Oh no, I did. I respected him and his cause. It was a fragging shame when we lost him, back in Axiom Nexus. I might have even pledged myself to him, if he'd lived.
Just I don't know how you'd feel, being compared to a Megatron.

I had a chance to, yes.

[He frowns, wishing silently he had a quarter of Wing's charm.]

Is there a problem with either one?

We're all here together. Why shouldn't we want to get to know each other?

[...yeah that's...it's not an angry button but it is a button. One that no one's pushed before. Give him a moment.]

..._{I lack his eloquence}

'S not that easy. Not anymore.

[Every time he opens up the other mech dies or gets deported or just leaves and he's sick of it. Sick of the hurting.

Mostly sick of getting close and losing them.]

But y'don't lack his conviction. Which I can respect.

But that doesn't make it less worthwhile. I let myself harden up after Gasket died. And I let it change me. In ways I didn't like.

But with Wing. It hit me, after the war, that he wouldn't have wanted me to be like that. He wouldn't want to be the mech who made me miserable.

It'd be more worthwhile if all of them didn't end up gone.

But you got Wing back, didn't you? He's here.

But that's how life works isn't it? Even not in war. Friends...leave. Or you leave them. It hurts but it's how life is.

[Jobs Drift should never apply for: grief counselor.]

Yes. I have Wing. But...so much has changed for me and it's...something I never expected.

... That doesn't actually make me wanna get all warm and fuzzy with anyone here, you realize.

[Or with his 'alive when he shouldn't be' complex, now that he thinks about it.]

But you've still got him. And we're an adaptable species; even if it's unexpected you'll get accustomed to it.

[Audio] [Transmission originating from: Solian Sector] - Second Offense

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