re_alignment | 02

Entry tags:

✘ tf: idw | swerve

02 - Video;

[The majority of Swerve's time is now spent in the Hub, seeing as it's sort of a hub for the glyphless and he's sort of the bartender, so it comes as no surprise that the background of his video feed is the bar itself. It's pretty obviously the slow part of the day, made more-so by the fact that he's actually made himself a fancy tiered drink, delicate layers and crazy straw and all. Where is he even getting those? Whoooo knoooows. It's a mystery!]

Well, that whole thing was fun.

[If by 'fun', one meant 'kind of exhausting'. The whole thing was made worse by the very public and very obvious information regarding the Glyphless. BUT WE'RE NOT FOCUSING ON THAT RIGHT NOW because wow, just no. There is a limit to how much shit he can put up with while sober. Or just in general. Remember when hot to live in peace and an adventure that occasionally went robot pear-shaped were his only worries? Good times.]

So yeah, you know what's actually pretty obvious? We've got a ton of people here from about eight different universes with cybertronians, and quite a few without, and so on and so on. So I'm here thinking “Wow I'd like to know more about these places”. Basically, I'm wondering if alla you are up for some kinda information exchange or somethin'. Everyone shares a bit about where they come from. Or a lot. Up to you all in general. I'm just curious is all.

Oh! Right. Before I forget, raise your hand if you wanna learn to mix engex and all that good stuff, 'cos I do actually have to recharge every once in a while. Y'know... [He holds his hands a little close.] Just a bit. So it'd probably be a good idea to have someone else who knows how.

[Not you, Wing. You have, like, fifty jobs. When do you even sleep, seriously?]

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Fun yes, tiresome as well. Are you feeling alright Swerve?

I don't mind sharing informationa bout my world, more knowledge always comes in handy.

You could teach us how to mix drinks? [Because Blurr thinks that could be interesting to learn. Plus, working keeps his mind occupied.]

whaaaaat? of course I am. just a bit tired is all, but I got my little pick me up so I'll be just fine.

maybe you could start with you and what you do. I got the elite guard thing and the whole fastest bot alive thing, but what else?

[o o p s. super interested in Blurrs all day erryday.]

well, yeah. I mean, if you're free to learn, that is.

Maybe you need to rest a bit mo...PICK ME UP?

Me? Well..[It's all so he can gossip better, isn't it?] I organize the shifts, GO on patrols, train my speed abilities, try to make a proper map about this place (that's taking me a lot), build things we might need like Rung's new office or vandal's bathroom try to teach my turbofox how to do tricks....and I rest a bit if I have the time. [He never has the time.]

I'm sure I can find a free moment. [What is sleeping needed for, anyway.]

that's what you zoomed in on? really? but yeah, pick me up. why?

[Not just gossip! Gosh!] your either busier or as busy as Wing is jeez. no learning for you until you finish one of those things at least. you gotta have some free time first, Blurr.

Oh nothing it's just that it's been ages since I tried that one.

[Well, sorry! :c] Maybe busier but i don't know for sure ...But....fine.

well it's not anything special, just a drink I made.

[Drinking on the job. +100 points for professionalism.]

you both should sit down for a drink and discuss your busy-ness in an attempt to actually relax

It's more than I can do, you know.

[Totes professionalism. The next time you could like, shoot a coworker in the head or something to top it.] Sounds like a plan.

pffffffft. you can do other things. it's just bartending.

[too soon man way too soon]

I'd definitely be interested; I've found some... similarities and differences both with one of the realities in particular, so it'd be useful to have a more coherent exchange to see if the initial impression holds up...

[He chuckles a bit, dryly.]

Of course being systematic about it might also become unwieldy, so I'm hesitant about where to begin...

Well, come on down to the bar then! Or stay where you are and we can just do it all over here. That'd probably be easier for you anyhow. Which world're you thinkin' about? Like whose here from it?

[Despite being a scientist, being systematic is not Swerve's forte.]

Then don't be? We can just gather it all up, organize and compare it later. Learn in the moment.

[But Swerve, you can't prove anything without being systematic! :c]

Hm... A moment.

[Oh, it does take more than a moment for Jetfire to appear at the Hub, but... well, not extremely long, considering his available speed. He looks only slightly uncomfortable - bars really aren't his thing, but at least it's mostly empty.]

Swerve, yes? And if I'm not wrong regarding the design details, the similarities I've noticed would be between the reality you come from, to my own. Superficial details with more similarity than other realities, and disregarding the seeming clumping of universes with general greater similar traits, like design aesthetic.

[Jetfire eyes the bar, the available seating, and then just shakes his helm slightly and sit down at the best available seat. At leats the place doesn't make it hard to walk inside, and there's some variation in the seats.]

Seems the Megatron from your reality might have had a shade more justified reason to arrange his rebellion, but there's otherwise some close similarities there as well.

[You're not the boss of science, Jetfire. Science will do whatever it wants, system or no.]

Nah, I'm not really Swerve. Holographic projection actually. Don't try and trick me I know everything you'll say before you say it.

[Beat.]

Just messin' with you. Yeah, 's me. But keep going about the differences. You look preeeetty similar to the Jetfire I know, but there's something different about you. Not quite sure what it is though. Maybe different experiences? Who knows.

[Maybe it's the art style?] Drink?

Someone already told you about Megatron? I'm guessing it was the mech himself?

[But unless you can verify or falsfify, it's practically useless!]

If you did, that'd make any conversation you got involved in pretty boring.

[He chuckles, though, shaking his helm. He's not completely unused to that type of humour.]

Ah... er, thank you. And I would assume there'd be some differences, if nothing else due to our background... and if the one you know spent any time as a Decepticon or not.

[It's probably the artstyle though. Definitely.]

[Jetfire says it with flat acceptance; if it would be a usefuk point to bring up that he was a Decepticon, if there was some sort of difference there, he'd be interested.]

Mostly from his announcement on the Link; while most of it wasn't explicit, I could draw some... conclusions. Though I have spoken to him personally as well. There's some similarity in, ah... personality, I suppose, though I'm quite sure the Megatron I know would have been standing at my shoulder to observe and to be able to repeat it himself.

[And learn. The mech, while he wasn't an inventor or anything, absorbed things terrifyingly well, and could then repeat... and sometimes even improve.]

Do you have any idea why the war started in your reality?

[That might be an interesting dis/similarity.]

[Don't argue with Science.]

What? If I knew the outcome? Maybe after a while. Could be pretty entertaining though, freakin' people out for a bit.

[Swerve tilts his head as far as he can and considers the thought for a while before shaking it.] Not that I remember. He's always been an Autobot. Scientist all the way, from what I remember. So you. A 'con? Really? How'd that happen?

Huh. [That's about all he's got to say on the subject of Megatron, a base expression of curiosity. They don't really run in the same circles back in his world.

That gets Jetfire a "Really?" sort of look.]

It's been going on for millions 'a years. Course I remember how it started. Maybe not as much as Prime or Ratchet, but enough. What d'you wanna know?

[But Science, don't be like that!]

I suppose, yes. [It shouldn't be amusing, but it sort of is. It reminds him somewhat of a few scientists in the spark-processor interface field talking about the possibilities of creating artificial telepathy.]

If I wanted to be incorrect, I could blame it all on Starscream. [Jetfire's not so much drinking what he's been given at this point as simply trailing a finger around the glass itself.] Since we were partners in the Academy. But it's partly connected to why I asked if you knew how it started, the reasonings for it...

Megatron talked about our supposedly suppressed purpose, the rights we had... what we ought to be doing and taking, and that the Council of Ancients were deciveing us. Keeping us as less than we could be. It made sense, back then... it simply seemed logical to do what we had to do. [He shrugs.]

I still wasn't sure if I should join, but Starscream managed to convince me. For a while.

[That "for a while" was still around a million years.]

So I was merely curious about the reasons behind it, in your reality.

[Science will be however it wants to be.]

Huh. Wasn't expecting to hear that, but I guess it makes sense. Going where friends go, I mean. I get that. Though it seems like your Megatron had a little more to say about the whole superiority thing.

[Swerve tilts his head in thought for a bit before nodding.] In my universe, my Cybertron, mostly it was the system we had. We were pretty strict about it, back before the war. If you had a function, you stuck with it, even if you could do something else. If you turned into an electron microscope, you were a scientist, even if you didn't like science. If you transformed into a digging machine, you were a miner, even if you were smart enough to be a scientist.

Mechs all over were getting sick of it, especially the labor mechs who were being outmoded. 'cons and bots wanted to fix it, they just had different ideas about how do it. So we started fighting for a few million years, and now pretty much everyone in the galaxy hates our race, and we're actually blacklisted by the Galactic Council.

[Jetfire just chuckles dryly and shrugs. There's not much he can say to that, unless they go into a very long and personal history. And even if he was inclined towards that, he's a bit too surprised by what Swerve just said.]

You... That's... not what I expected. We didn't have anything similar at all. While the Council of Ancients were closing off large parts of Cybertron, especially underground areas, and Megatron implied there was more than simple secrecy behind that, we didn't... Have anything similar to a caste system.

[The idea was utterly alien, and Jetfire drums his fingers against the cube as he thinks it over.]

What about the majority, who would be less easily classified vehicles? Excluding transport-class flyers, and cargo-carrying capable ground vehicles, most of us do not have something as simple to put in a function as an electron microscope.

[Frowning, Jetfire rubs his chin. Under that sort of society, he would possibly not have been able to do what he'd been doing practically forever now. Well, adding his weapons development/engineering as well...]

Wow, I did not recognize like... any of that from what we had going on in my world. At all. Weird.

[Swerve shrugs.] Yeah, that was kind of the problem. It was all pretty arbitrary. I mean, I turn into a car. Well, a buggy really. Small car. Whatever. Point is, I'm a metallurgist. Not really a lot to do with my alt mode.

Curious that things can be superficially similar - even more than what's simply suggested from the general theme of two factions and the war, and yet there's some... impressive differences.

[He nods, slowly, at that.] I suppose the mere force of social habit would've kept the system going, especially with the government behind it?

[Until, obviously, it got challenged enough to broke.]

Yeah. I guess if every universe was just exactly the same though, it'd be kind of pointless to have a bunch of them. Variety and all that.

[Swerve nods in agreement.] I was talking to Wing once about how we were kinda stagnant for a species all about adapting. There're some mechs who didn't even like it when other change jobs during the war. Perceptor wasn't always a sniper, y'know.

Points on a prism; they might all look similar, but at the simplest they all point in a slightly different direction.

[A slightly differently phrased agreement, but agreement nonetheless.]

Patterns are preferred, especially old patterns, even if we are more or less made for change... But it also means that any changes on a personal and social level would be resisted, even from someone who eagerly and easily switches between altmodes... or even between different types of such. [Jetfire pauses, helm tilting.] Ah. Was he a scientist previously?

[Not that Perceptor obviously wasn't capable of still doing science, that being preferred or not.]

Most of the ones that have been or are here seem to be.

I can share basic information I've gathered on various non-Cybertronian lifeforms here. But only what is not deemed confidential. Not sure if such information is something you're looking for, but... You could probably use non-Cybertronian biology and biological functions in order to create something for them to consume, besides your engex. [The best use of medical info: how to make booze for aliens.]

Confidential like what? Feelings? 'cos I was thiniing more along the lines of general information anyway, not someone's armor specs or anything. [Not that he can't find those out anyway by coping a feel.]

Buuuut if you're offering up bio lessons on organics, who am I to say no? 'specially if it'd help me help them. I mean bein' taught by a book or Vandal is fun, but I'd like to see what I can do their their human versions of engex too, yanno? [He knew there was a reason he liked you, Ambulon. Beyond the fact that he likes almost everyone.]

Confidential as in confidential. [There.]

And... [here, have an uploaded file of organic mumbojumbo] You may or may not make good use of these.

Someone should make you head of the Vague Answers Committee.

[Thankfully, Abulon has distracted him with shiny shiny mumbojumbo. Well more like wet and organic ans squishy, but beggers, choosers, etc.]

Define 'good use'.

Heh. [VAGUE]

Medicinal purposes, perhaps? Just a suggestion. If you've a thirst for inquiry and knowledge, I'm sure you'd find some use out of them.

Even if it means finding a way to get organics and non-Cybertronians overcharged.

It seems funny now, but one of these days there'll actually be one and I'm nominating you for head. [His tone makes it clear that this is all one extended joke though. The best kind, obviously.]

I'm not really a medic. Well, I can fix chinks in armor and things like that. You know, really easy surface things. Buuuut I'm pretty sure humans don't work the same. At the least, it's useful knowledge that I'm just gonna keep in my brain until I need it. Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it, y'know?

But yeah, you pretty much got me there. [Ain't even ashamed, bro.]

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02 - Video;

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video;

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video > action;

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Action; I AM SO SLOW AND SO SORRY

Action; It'S OKAY

Action; c:

Action; :D and then Jetfire got difficult...

Action; oh god what have i gotten myself into

Action; I'm sorry 8c

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