re_alignment | [Video][Transmitting from the Junk Pile]

Entry tags:

brave police: j-decker | mccrane

[Video][Transmitting from the Junk Pile]

I might have accidentally started the fireworks early.

[The edges of his plating are singed, and just behind him the very flaming carcass of an automobile is roaring in its death throes.]

Energon, it seems, is not a viable replacement for gasoline. [He is grateful he didn't try consuming it before this test, and even more grateful that he managed to start the vehicle from a distance.]

[Since. Ah. It exploded.]

I don't suppose anyone has any suggestions? Or a way to convert us to a different fuel source?

Or some wash-cloths and soap?

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Elita...

Thank you.

[He wasn't embarrassed, before. He is, now, though he couldn't tell you why.]

If you were stranded on an alien planet with dwindling resources...would you have done differently?

You're all right, that's what matters.

[It'd be kind of terrible if someone got injured, or rather, injured themselves this soon.

She pauses, frowning.]

Maybe I wouldn't, no... [Elita shakes her helm and rubs her lower face, frown deepening minutely.] Since part of the problem is also that there is fuel... But no way to be sure you can actually use it.

That would be even more unpleasant than just facing the fact of dwindling resources. There must be a solution, though.

[She doesn't like to think that anyone would have to starve to death, not with all this available; there must be some way for those made of Earth to use energon as well.]

[Your concern is touching. He nods.]

It's causing me to think on solutions that I wouldn't prefer. If we cannot find a way to convert energon to be used by us...

[He doesn't like this, but--]

We'll have to convert us to use energon.

[There's no reason to withhold concern, especially from a situation that, even if it could have been avoided, could have caused serious injury.]

... I admit, that was my first thought. [Elita shakes her helm, a frown forming on her faceplates.] But, if you have to do the second, there would be an issue when you get home, if you can't get converted back.

[And that wasn't any good at all, and wouldn't solve anything except for the stay in this dimension, on Cybertron.

She was still of the thought that it would be the most practical solution currently, but it was obvious it would only be a temporary practical such.]

That worries me, as well.

[It worries him a lot.]

However, I am reasonably certain that our engineers could put a whole new engine inside of us, if it was required. I have also heard mentions of some robots being able to process both. [Blurr confused him with that, but it was interesting, too.]

And how much do you have, until something would have to be done imminently or risk deactivation? [She pauses, tapping a cheek in thought.]

Or can you close down into a lower level of activity if needed, so that if there's no more gasoline to be found, you would, at least, not risk potential death?

Several days. Possibly several weeks, if we are frugal and if no danger presents itself.

We have already been taking longer down-time to help.

I don't know what would happen if we completely ran out of gas, however. I've never been fully shut down.

[The irony of that statement, but neither of them are obviously aware of this yet.]

So, either a very short time, or something closer to a reasonable time-frame... [She trails off, frowning.] Is that Earth-standard twenty four hour days, or days as this Cybertron counts them?

[Since firstly, they weren't the same, and this Cybertron didn't even exactly revolve at the same length/speed as she was used to, she'd noticed quickly.]

We'll hope you don't have to find out, then, and that there's an avilable solution before that.

[It'd probably be both harder and easier if they did know, however. Easier to plan, if nothing else.]

Earth-based days.

[He's only vaguely noticed that time was passing differently, here. It wasn't priority enough to devote processing power to. However, now that you've mentioned it...]

How long is a Cybertronian day?

[Keeping time was a detail that could be - and often was - important in her line of work, so she'd early noticed that her internal chronometer and the passage of Cybertron's turning hadn't lined up correctly, and so adjusted to compare.]

This Cybertron has a full revolution of 32 hours, so it's significantly longer than an Earth day...

[Which made her frown, expression tightening slightly. That meant both the shorter time-frame and the longer one McCrane had given would have to be shortened. Significantly.]

My own had a shorter one, but after it went rogue, the day/night cycle tended to be... erratic.

[She shook her helm and shrugged. The problems the lack of a set orbit and no gravity from a nearby star would cause.]

32 hours?

[He is worried about the effect that might have on humans. It hasn't been bad for him, yet.]

[Wait.]

Cybertron went rogue?

[How do you keep saying these things like they are normal?!]

On the dot, nearly. I over-adjusted for planetary temporal lag at first, and jad to adjust back.

[Which... doesn't surprise her; Cybertron... even void of its most precious, important core, isn't a normal planet subject to the inprecise whims of its parent star.]

It did, yes. The fighting...

[She shrugs, frowning as she briefly looks away.

You mean they aren't normal? :D?]

I suppose the knowledge that Cybertron isn't a normal planet would explain why the intensity of the war might knock Cybertron out of orbit and send it rogue, but it was quite a shock when it happened.

[Suddenly, no suns.]

[It might have been a shock, then, and it is definitely a shock, now.]

That didn't rip the planet to shreds from gravitational forces?

[She's briefly wondering why this would be an issue before she remembers how planets and gravity and everything (basic even so) that she does know about space. She shakes her helm.]

No. Which I don't think any of us thought about back then. There were only very brief consequences of that happening, in fact.

[She tilts her helm, and yes, that's strange, but with Primus being Cybertron... well, that seems to be enough of an explanation. To her, anyway.]

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