(4) More than Meets the Eye

Game Master mdt

Redshift nods.

"Indeed, we have more pressing matters than pointless threat displays when surrounded by allies. Like finding The Prime."

He taps his chest with a single finger. "I am Redshift. Cityspeaker of Helaxis, who was Hexalon, City Of Light. This is Skitter. That is Ulastron. I assume you know Sabre? Our small organic compatriots are known as 'Humans,' and behind you is our vessel, the Deltorus."

He offers his hand, which is holding an Energon Chip. "Would you like to accept this? Should I intone the Universal Greeting? Do you need a hand up?"

Roadrage scans the weapons aimed her way, then notices the various ticks and jitters in her limbs as her aim refuses to stay steady. Slowly, as her gaze circles the room, she lowers her arms, her face still grimacing. Her frame creaks from the buildup as she pushes herself off the side of the table, landing on the floor with a solid metallic crash before pushing herself to her feet.

She scans the room again, this time spotting the emblems on her fellow Cybertronians. Her tension seems to drop only slightly. "Autobots..."

She eyes Redshift with a dubious stare for a long moment before taking and consuming the energon chip. Once the jittering in her hands stops, she slowly, purposefully takes a step closer to the doctor, eyeing the trigger in her hand. "You think you're the first to order me around with a bomb on my back and guns to my head?" She glares at each and every soldier aiming at her.

"If you've been poking at me for this long, then you can take this charge off of me." She kneels down to look the doctor in the eye. "But I will be watching you."

Sabre looks Roadrage over for a few seconds.
"Easy there Roadrage, we were on the Ark and been in stasis a looong time. Either ejected or thrown in the crash. According to the organics here its been 35k+ cycles. The Ark was not found."
He then proceeds over to the rack attempts to retrieve his blade.
"As for these decepticons.....i'm all for punching their sparks right now. Enemies ahead, i'd rather not have ones behind as well."

Redshift sighs.

"Killing prisoners is not what The Prime would do, now is it?" he says. "We can just as easily remove their primary function systems, put them in suspension capsules. Isolate them. Probe their memories for information. Murdering them while they're helpless might be what they would do, but it's not the Autobot way."

He turns to Skitter. "Is it, Skitter?"

The doctor looks up at Roadrage, and seems extremely non-plussed by the threats. "The bomb is a safety device to ensure you did not immediately become belligerent. Given your reaction, it was wise to have it. I'll release the bomb from you and Sabre's backs as soon as Redshift is willing to vouch for your continued good behavior." She then turns on Sabre. "I don't know much about your people, but I had thought better of 'Autobots' than for them to murder helpless prisoners out of hand..." She looks up at Redshift, as Redshift basically says the same thing at the same time in response to Sabre. "I see, good. I can't say I'm very impressed by your new Allies, Speaker Redshift. They both seem more bloodthirsty... or I guess I should say Energonthirsty? Sparkcraving? How do you label someone who's more into killing and destruction than peace?"

Edit as I got Ninja'd by Redshift

"They've been held captive and brutalized by the Decepticons for who knows how long before going in to stasis lock," Redshift says to his small compatriot. "I can't blame them for being angry and reactionary. But I also can't blame them for being circumspect, given the threats they've woken up to. Let's all have some quiet time, some adjustment time. Get our bearings and our feet under us. And... how do you Humans say? Sort this out over coffee?"

Skitter shakes his head. "No... it is not. I understand your feelings, Sabre, I do. But these are the actions, or in-actions, that separate us from the 'cons." He looks over the other bots. "We don't have to bring them out of stasis. We can keep them on lockdown. But they will not be harmed." His face turns up to the much larger Sabre. "And if you want me to finish your repairs, that's the way it's gonna be."

He turns back to Red, having said his peace. "Accessing the memory is possible, but it involves activating certain circuits. I would... hesitate to do that. It would involve an infusion of energon that might bring them out of stasis. I don't think it's worth the risk at this point."

Sabre turns to face the others, a very serious look on his face.
"You are correct, I have suffered and seen others suffer at the hands of Decepticons. Redshift you asked me what my strength is and what did I say? And what is that job?"
Sabre kneels down to look Skitter in the face.
"There is no need for threats friend Skitter, I asked who was in charge, and could not trust the answer I was given and now I see the truth of it."
He turns to Redshift again.
"You speak first and have the respect of the others, Though I am not familiar with the title of City Speaker it is enough that I will follow you till I am given a new direction from Optimus. But know this I will do whatever it takes to keep my team from harm."
He then looks down at the doctor shaking his head.
"Better than what? You have know us for how long now? You may have scanned our bodies. But we are not all the same. Can you say the same of your race? You were fully prepared to end us as we awoke if we were what you considered dangerous. What would you have done if I had awakened without them here and wanted to leave. What then?"

After Skitter's mechanical talk:

"Hm. Has it really been so long that Therapeutic Synaptic Isolation isn't a treatment any more? I know you're no Mnemosurgeon, but..."

Redshift pauses, then continues over private channels to Skitter:

::I probably shouldn't say 'can't you remove their spark chambers, primary neural cords, and brain cases and isolate them in conductive fluids while interrogating them' out loud, should I? The Humans don't have the skill, but they certainly have the drive, to try such things...::

After the pause, in hopes of covering his behavior, he adds. "No, no, I see your point."

To Sabre:

"I once spoke for a Titan, friend. Her thoughts were my words. I was her caretaker, as she was the same for the populous of the entire city."

"It was... a very long time ago," he adds, sadness in his voice. "Another reason I should speak to The Prime."

Roadrage's eyes widen at the new information. She wheels around, spying inert decepticons. Her joints tense again as she spies the stationary minicon.

"Laserbeak..." she hisses, pure venom in her voicebox. She spins back around to Dr. Winters, pointing at the mechanical bird. "I don't care what you think of any of us; you should have filed THAT one down to shavings and sent his empty spark chamber back to Soundwave. They're never apart for long. If HE'S here, then they WILL come for him.
Which means they'll come for US."

She steps over and studies the silent form intensely, reaching up to touch the ravaged red emblem on her shoulder. "Dragged out of one war and into another..."

"You should be glad we have not done such, as we would have done so to you as well, 'Roadrage'. You appear to live up to your name." The doctor says dryly. "And of course not all of my race is the same, it is for that reason that we are loath to trust your people, especially after the damage you have wrecked on us. Or at least, that those whom you claim are 'Decepticons' have wrecked on us." She responds in reverse order to the comments, now addressing Sabre. "For us, you are each the equivalent of an entire army detachment, with the same destructive capability of a battleship." Turning to Redshift, she nods. "Close enough. I'm sure some section of humans says it about coffee. Proper Brits never talk about coffee, only tea. I believe the phrase you're looking for, ducky, is 'Let's all not get our knickers in a twist'."

::I probably shouldn't say 'can't you remove their spark chambers, primary neural cords, and brain cases and isolate them in conductive fluids while interrogating them' out loud, should I? The Humans don't have the skill, but they certainly have the drive, to try such things...::

This would be beyond Skitter's ability anyway. Cybertronians almost never put anything down in a fixed medium. Why would they? Physical books would be something they never think of. The downside of this is that once the electronic knowledge is lost, it stays lost. So Redshift has information that modern Cybertronians never heard of. This got accelerated by the war, as beings with the knowledge died, and the lack of resources meant repositories were lost. Additionally people would hide the knowledge to keep it out of one side or the other's hands, and then die before revealing where it was hidden. Cybertronians are also not exactly as creative as humans, given the way their bodies and minds work, so despite living longer, they don't often make huge breakthroughs. There are exceptions, such as Shockwave for example, or Ratchet, who are exceptionally creative, but in general, Cybertronians aren't the 'Eureka' make a breakthrough type, they're the plod along for several centuries trying things through brute force type. On the other hand, once something is figured out, they can all pick it up fairly quickly. Humans will be something of a shock with how fast they can innovate and make leaps forward.

Cool. I was more or less winging it off the episode where the decepticons find Skyfire and in trying to activate him, first activate his memory circuits, and eventually get him out of stasis. Since all they used was differing amounts of energy, it stands to reason that if you are only trying to activate memory, you might over-juice it and activate complete functions

Considering the Decepticons have been active here for several years, it's actually pretty amazing the humans have trusted us at all.

"Doctor, perhaps you can fill our newly awakened allies with some details about this planet, its inhabitants, and their encounters with the Decepticons. We'll see if we can subsequently rattle some memories free from their experiences as well." He turns to Roadrage, saying, "You do not have to tell us everything about your history, of course. But any information the two of you can provide may enable us to more thoroughly reconstruct how you got here."

do either of them have any major repairs that need to be done?

Both need the equivalent of a couple of weeks of physical therapy to work through the kinks and self repair systems. Plus energon infusions. I'll post the doctors response once others have a chance to post replies.

Roadrage glances down at Skitter, then off into the distance. "The Ark. They said it was our only chance to escape the war. They thought I was an infiltrator ready to sabotage them, but Ratchet convinced them otherwise. If not for him, I'd have been in range of the artillery strike instead of on the ship." She glances back at Laserbeak and Onslaught.

"For all the good escaping did us..." She looks at her hands, grimacing as she changes them into mace mode and back through jerky, grindy movements. "Stiff..."

"You mentioned an oil bath."

Sabre stretches out and their are audible and noticeable pops and squeals in his works. He frowns.
"Seems I'm not in the best form yet."
Looking at the good doctor.
"I think I will take you up on the help and repairs. Not to mention removing the explosives attached to me."

Doctor Winters smiles, a look of satisfaction on her face, as if she had single handedly won a hard battle. "Yes, I did. And yes, we can remove those." She taps a few commands on her device, and then pushes a red button. There's two sharp hisses from the backs of Roadrage and Sabre, and then a clattering sound as a large metal harness clatters to the ground behind them. "There, all removed. If you'll follow me..."

She leads the group off to an area down in the catacombs below the base, where not even the already awakened Autobots have seen. It appears to be a customized lab with a mixture of equipment designed to be operated by humans, but with devices obviously designed with the much larger anatomy of Cybertronians in mind. "Now, we can work on most of your internals, however, my understanding is, based on conversations with the very knowledgable Skitter, that after so long in stasis, you will be unable to assume a 'vehicle mode' until you scan another one. I guess your 't cogs' have short memories." There's an Energon dispenser in the lab, which appears to have the Energon that was earlier requested by the humans for 'study'. "Go ahead and fill up, I'm sure Engineer Skitter will replace my sample from his stores later today." She nods toward a flat platform. "Speaker Redshift, if you'll please lay on the right platform, and either Ms. Roadrage or Mr. Sabre, if one of you will lay on the left. I believe Engineer Skitter and I can perform some maintenance and do some internal comparisons simultaneously." She points to the obvious and very strong looking restraints. "Obviously, being as I am a fragile type of life form, we'll need to restrain the subjects, as even a small twitch from Engineer Skitter hitting a relay accidentally could result in my being turned into a red smear on your plating. Whoever doesn't lay down, can if they wish, soak in the oil bath over there." She points to a pit of heavy weight motor oil big enough for two warriors to squeeze into if they liked each other.

Sabre walks over and climbs onto the table.
"Might as well get it over with. Be nice to not be getting field repairs for once."

Hmph, as if I would be so clumsy. Skitter gets the scanner ready as indicated. "Relax. This won't hurt a bit," he chuckles as the straps attach to Sabre.

Roadrage rolls her shoulders a bit once the harness is off, grunting at the resistance. As the group enters the lab, she spots the oil pit and immediately steps over to immerse herself. She narrows her eyes at Skitter's jest. "If I had an energon chip for every time I heard THAT one..." she growls under her breath as she goes under.

"Restraints shouldn't be necessary," Redshift comments. "Unless our new friends have forgotten how to turn off motor responses temporarily. It's an advantage our kind has over yours. Or, at least, we used to?"

The doctor shakes her head. "Sorry, but a short circuit can bridge systems, and cause a motor servo to misfire. Skitter would get a bad dent at worst, I'd be a red smear. These safety protocols are mandatory." She says, tapping the restraints. "Please remember that humans are as fragile around you as houseflies are around humans. Let's not prove the safety protocols necessary by turning your friendly neighborhood researcher into a smear of bone and gristle, thank you?"

Sorry everyone, should be back to posting regularly now

"Don't worry, Redshift. Safety precautions aren't too onerous." Privately Skitter wonders if there's some convenient way to simply 'enhance' humans. I wonder if any of them would be interested in having a more resilient body. I may need to discuss this with the doctor later.

The doctor smiles and nods, and motions for Red to lay down on the table again.

RoadRage's oil bath is soothing, and she can feel the bits of dust and dirt that are still left in her mechanisms slowly easy out as she soaks in it and moves around in the oil, working things out. It's also heated to a nice 250 degrees, which helps with the lubrication.

Redshift gingerly gets onto the table, more than a little remorseful that he hadn't studied Cybertronian Self-Neural-Hypnosis, so that he could simply safety-lock himself, rather than leaving it up to others.

Once on the table, the clamps lock down over Red's arms and legs, pinning him quite securely to the table. A little minor test with servos makes him feel quite helpless. It's possible he could get out if he tried, but it would take awhile.

However, things go relatively smoothly, Skitter is able to disengage Red's chest plate without issue, and begin showing the human the various components of a Cybertronian. The internals are a mix of purely mechanical and bio-mechanical (servos and gears that can be replaced easily, and more semi-organic components like t-cogs that can't be replaced easily).

During the exam, the doctor seems to follow most of Skitter's explanations, although she has to ask follow up questions to translate his information into something she understands. It's also revealed that some repairs are much easier for her than for Skitter, given her small and very dextrous hands, such as replacing a faulty heat sensor in Red's energy core that had been giving him problems. It's usually an hour long process for Skitter, usually involving some cursing. Dr. Winters was able to snake her arm around under the plasma conduit and jerk the old sensor out and slip the new one in without much fuss, and in less than 5 minutes.

When the two are done, Red is buttoned back up, and released from the table. Dr. Winters, with some grease on her hands and face and lab coat, smiles. "Thank you, Speaker. That was most helpful to me, and to you also I hope."

Roadrage stretches and flexes beneath the oil, making sure to lift her head enough to watch the operating table with a scrutinizing eye every few moments. Her gaze relaxes slightly as Redshift is released from the restraints; she climbs out of the bath, rolling her joints more nimbly than before. "That's more like it," she muses, flexing her fingers. She changes her hands out for her maces and back, nodding at the far smoother switch as she walks toward the other table, eyeing the restraints with apprehension as she wipes off excess oil from her arms.

Sabre watches the maintenance on Red and waits his turn under the knife.

Once Roadrage is out of the oil, and once she dries off, the human doctor motions for her to take her place on the table. Then the oil baths are free for Sabre to partake of to get the worst of the grit out of his systems.

Ok, need a mechanics roll from Skitter to perform maintenance on Roadrage. She needs a fairly extensive overhaul from her stay in the lava.

Sabre wanders over to the oil bath and lowers himself into it slowly.
" This should feel good."

mechanics: 17 - 3d6 ⇒ 17 - (2, 2, 5) = 8
Skitter whistles appreciatively as he inspects the damage. "This will take a little finesse. But you'll feel like a whole new bot."

Skitter and the Doctor work on Roadrage's repairs for about a half an hour, and by the time they are done, they've gotten most of the remaining bits of rock and debris out of her joints and internals. "Well, I believe that's all we can do for now, your own repair nanos will have to work on the rest. If I've learned correctly, it should be a few weeks before your back to normal."

She looks over at Sabre in the oil bath. "Your turn."

Sabre reluctantly climbs out of the oil bath and walks over to the table.
"Lets get this show on the road"

Omnibus post coming in this weekend

The next few weeks are more of a getting to know the humans than anything else, and letting them get used to you. Well, that and being poked and prodded by Dr. Winters.

Roadrage and Sabre are finally brought back up to full speed after several weeks of continuous, and often frustrating, maintenance to get all the little bits of lava stone out of their insides.

The work on the Deltorus continues apace as well, and while most of the work is more cosmetic than anything else, the ship at least looks more presentable.

June 23rd, 2018, GI JOE secret base
07:30 Local Time

The bots morning is interrupted by a woman with dark hair and a green military uniform who enters. "Good morning Autobots. My codename is Lady Jaye, and I've been authorized to request your help on a mission." She gestures to the first of the two men who follow her in. "This is Wild Bill, he's a pilot." The man she gestures to has a different type of green uniform, and an oddly shaped black hat, as well as a large gold mustache.

He reaches up and tips his hat. "Morning, gents.. her ladies.. or whatever. Hard ta be polite when you can't tell the difference. Apologies." His speech patterns are slow and have a slightly musical tonality to them, even though he's not singing.

The other man with her is quite possibly the largest human being the bots have seen. He's 6'5, and extremely heavily muscled. He has a large rotary style weapon on his back that looks big enough to do some damage to even the largest bots. It's almost as big as Skitter. "You can call me Roadblock, I be da team's heavy weapons specialitist." This man's accent is heavy, and somewhat difficult to follow. "I'm also da chef, not that I t'ink ya'll be findin' that of any use."

OOC Notes : The Joe's have decided to use only code names for anyone who's identity is not already leaked to Cobra. So the Joes have been only using codenames since then. Wild Bill's accent is very thoroughly Texan, while Roadblock does NOT speak in rhyme, but he does have a fairly heavy Cajun/New Orleans accent.

Lady Jaye nods, and then continues. "Which of your crew is available to assist?'

A basic way of getting a roll call to see who's still with us IC

Redshift greets the strange new additions to the Human's menagerie.

"Assuming the mission is a noble endeavor, I'm always willing to assist," he says.

"That's part of what we're here for," Skitter says. "Nice to meet you."

Is that all we have still playing?

Maybe drop them a note to check?

Jaye nods, and looks at the two of you. "I see, well, I understand, you need to continue repairs on your ship. If all we can get is 2, we'll make do." She frowns however. "The biggest problem I have though, is.. well, you're neither very... blend in.. types. A big robo-wolf and a formula 1 car. Neither of those are going to blend in very well where we're going." She looks at both. "My understanding is you can change how you look? Is that difficult or painful?" She asks, raising one eyebrow, apparently not quite sure what the cultural issues might be about asking a Cybertronian to alter their physical forms.

"No. It's... well, it's a bit complicated, but it can be done. And it isn't generally a painful process." He looks over to Red and back. "Do you have any suggestions?"

"Our entire species has evolved around the concept of change," Redshift says, nodding in agreement. "Although strangely, many of us... resist it... often violently."

"I'm not a Spectralist, so my color choices aren't rigid, but I do rather like these. They were my Titan's. They have sentiment."

Jaye shrugs. "It's not the colors, it's the car. That's a formula 1 car. It's not legal to drive on the streets, and you stick out like a sore thumb. We'd have police and paparazzi after us all the time."

Note, Skitter is an animorph, meaning he can't duplicate vehicles, only animals, and he ends up with a very large robotic version of whatever animal he duplicates, so him changing would not really help, but the humans don't know that... yet

Skitter shakes his head. "I'm afraid I would continue to 'stick out like a sore thumb.' That's a very curious expression. When your thumb pains you, why does it stick out? In any case, I do not have a vehicular alternate. Rather I have a quadrupedal form. I can demonstrate if you like." He had noticed that the humans seemed a little skittish about certain things and didn't want to cause her unnecessary fright by changing without warning.
With her permission, he transforms. "Based on my reading of popular culture, I believe I might be classified as a were-wolf." He grins showing large metallic teeth.

"For that matter, would such a thing as this... were-wolf?... also be obvious and incite unrest? I've noticed several of our Cybertronian animals have analogues here on Earth. A cat, perhaps? A large dog?"

Redshift scans around on the internet until he can find a suitably stylish, yet... "street legal"... option.

"This one looks suitable. It'll take a while. I'll need to prepare my transformation cog for the change."

What did Redshift pick?

Jaye frowns. "You may look like a wolf, but you look like a giant metal wolf the size of a brown bear." Remember, Skitter is about the same as Ravage or the dino-bots. He is obviously a robot, but his alt mode is a quadruped that looks like a good robowolf model. She looks over Redshift's selection, and nods. "That would at least be street legal, yes. So, unless Skitter can grow fur, and shrink some more, I don't think any animal form is going to be useful." Looking over her shoulder, she nods at Roadblock. "I think you and and Bill will be in the Black Van with Skitter."

Roadblock makes a face. "De black van, she smell..."

Wild Bill tips his hat down to hide his eyes. "Like three day old cow puckies..."

Probably a Rimac C Two, which is a Tesla-competitor electric out of Croatia that has a body shape similar enough to Redshift's current frame that it wouldn't be much of a hassle to shift over to, and even has a spoiler suitable enough to keep his Autobot form relatively unchanged.

yeah, I know he's a big obvious robowolf
Skitter doesn't mind riding in a van. "Not sure what a pucky is, but it will be interesting to explore new smells." He twirls a gear on his wrist that whips out a blow-torch. "We could also go with oxy-acetylene if you prefer. But I think it might cause you to pass out."

"What an interesting smell you've discovered." Jaye quips, causing a bark of laughter from Wild Bill, and a groan from Roadblock. "We'll still kind of stick out, but at least the cops won't pull us over as long as we keep it under the sound barrier." She says, tilting her head. "I was told you'll need access to one to shift forms, yes?"

That, or the ship will need to send out a hunter probe to scan it and transmit that data to your t-cog

One of these yes?

Son of a... the forums ate my post!

This sleek, sexy import in red and white and yellow, Redshift's standard color scheme.

"I don't care what you smell," Redshift smirks. "Is that the right quote? I'm trying to learn about your popular culture, as it appears to be such an influence on your vernacular."

He nods in response to Jaye's question. "The complete schematics would work, if an actual model isn't available. But yes, that's the preferred method. Be grateful I'm not a Constructionalist. I'd have to eat it, piece by piece. Gets expensive."