[OOC Drabble--Blackout contemplates his repairs]
Diagnostics were not coming back well. Blackout studied the displays scrolling across his vision minutely, as if the projections had changed significantly since the last time he’d studied them.
No such luck. Blackout vented the air in his secondary cooling ducts in annoyance. He wasn’t looking forward to the next few weeks-even with the repairs his children and his brother were affecting on him, he’d be essentially immobile for at least a week more, and not up to reasonable functioning capacity for another couple after that. Transformation was out of the question for…too long. The projections were implacable.
Oh, what he’d give for the attentions of a properly equipped medic, or suitable spare parts to swap into himself. His self-repair systems were capable of repairing all the damage, of course, but it would take time, time and raw materials. The resources he was sure he could acquire, or Scorponok or Eros, but the time…
Having Scorponok there would significantly reduce the time it would take to fix himself, actually. The drone was capable of foraging for metals to smelt down and dump into Blackout’s raw materials reservoirs, meaning he wouldn’t have to stall the process to go looking, and his fuel conversion tank was capable of handling a wider range of consumables than Blackout’s.
Of course, Scorponok couldn’t burn them entirely into energon on his own. It was a physiological failsafe designed to prevent drones from going rogue-Scorponok could break down organic and inorganic materials both into an energon precursor, but his system had to be piggybacked onto Blackout’s for the refinement to be completed. Blackout wouldn’t have to expend energy acquiring fuel, and Scorponok got processed energon; true symbiosis, and a defense mechanism for when Blackout was undercover and couldn’t risk making his presence known.
His drone would make his recovery easier, but he still would have appreciated the attentions of a medic. Decepticon medical staff were brutal, as likely to scrap you as save you, but when they did their job, they were exceedingly competent. They had to be, lest they be scrapped themselves for botching repairs. And while any Cybertronian, if given the time, the energon, and the raw materials, could reconstitute himself to full working capacity without outside assistance, some injuries proved fatal within the time-frame needed by the self-repair nanos. Medics reconnected severed fuel lines, stabilized erratic energon pumps, patched cracked processor and spark casing, ensuring the patient in question lived long enough for his own programming to kick in and finish the effort.
His most grievous injuries had been dealt with, his crucial repairs taken care of under the direction of his drone. He’d make such repairs are he could using what they were able to salvage from him, but many of the pieces were damaged beyond use, and there was only so far he could stretch Earth technology. For most of it, he would have to rely on himself, on the swarms of miniscule drones that flocked to damaged regions and rebuilt them from bottom up.
It was going to be tedious. It was going to be boring. But he suspected, in a part of his processor that ignored probabilities and statistics and damage reports, that this would pass easier than his last major repair.
No such luck. Blackout vented the air in his secondary cooling ducts in annoyance. He wasn’t looking forward to the next few weeks-even with the repairs his children and his brother were affecting on him, he’d be essentially immobile for at least a week more, and not up to reasonable functioning capacity for another couple after that. Transformation was out of the question for…too long. The projections were implacable.
Oh, what he’d give for the attentions of a properly equipped medic, or suitable spare parts to swap into himself. His self-repair systems were capable of repairing all the damage, of course, but it would take time, time and raw materials. The resources he was sure he could acquire, or Scorponok or Eros, but the time…
Having Scorponok there would significantly reduce the time it would take to fix himself, actually. The drone was capable of foraging for metals to smelt down and dump into Blackout’s raw materials reservoirs, meaning he wouldn’t have to stall the process to go looking, and his fuel conversion tank was capable of handling a wider range of consumables than Blackout’s.
Of course, Scorponok couldn’t burn them entirely into energon on his own. It was a physiological failsafe designed to prevent drones from going rogue-Scorponok could break down organic and inorganic materials both into an energon precursor, but his system had to be piggybacked onto Blackout’s for the refinement to be completed. Blackout wouldn’t have to expend energy acquiring fuel, and Scorponok got processed energon; true symbiosis, and a defense mechanism for when Blackout was undercover and couldn’t risk making his presence known.
His drone would make his recovery easier, but he still would have appreciated the attentions of a medic. Decepticon medical staff were brutal, as likely to scrap you as save you, but when they did their job, they were exceedingly competent. They had to be, lest they be scrapped themselves for botching repairs. And while any Cybertronian, if given the time, the energon, and the raw materials, could reconstitute himself to full working capacity without outside assistance, some injuries proved fatal within the time-frame needed by the self-repair nanos. Medics reconnected severed fuel lines, stabilized erratic energon pumps, patched cracked processor and spark casing, ensuring the patient in question lived long enough for his own programming to kick in and finish the effort.
His most grievous injuries had been dealt with, his crucial repairs taken care of under the direction of his drone. He’d make such repairs are he could using what they were able to salvage from him, but many of the pieces were damaged beyond use, and there was only so far he could stretch Earth technology. For most of it, he would have to rely on himself, on the swarms of miniscule drones that flocked to damaged regions and rebuilt them from bottom up.
It was going to be tedious. It was going to be boring. But he suspected, in a part of his processor that ignored probabilities and statistics and damage reports, that this would pass easier than his last major repair.