For milliways_bar.
(After this.)
Prime had briefed all the Autobots on his encounter with Isaac as soon as it had concluded, so Ironhide was well aware of the entity's presence when he reached out to connect.As yet, there wasn't any communication between the two of them beyond an acknowledgment. Ironhide wasn't quite ready to say sorry about all the times I trash-talked your parents, today least of all; as for why Isaac didn't make contact himself, Ironhide didn't know. One day, maybe. For now he had information to find. Humans were a young species, and shockingly short-lived. It stood to reason that if they were being incepted- born, whatever- and dying at such a swift rate, then probably there were changes being made in both their physical forms and their society at a pretty good clip as well.
On the first front, it seemed, the only significant changes were an increase in height, a tendency to weigh more, and a much lower number of females dying during the reproductive process. Everything else about their physical forms in the past hundred years seemed to be a matter of the development of medical techniques. He noted a few of the more peculiar ones to ask Ratchet about. 'Body modification' sounded promising at first, but turned out to be confined to ornamentation. Most of that seemed highly counter-productive, from what little he knew of the human body to start with. Ironhide was about to give up when he encountered the term 'transhuman'; that caught his attention, all right. Most of the material associated with the term appeared to be some kind of planning for the future, though, so he merely marked it down for later examination.
The social changes were something else entirely. That changed more rapidly than any biological cycle in the species could account for, in hundreds if not thousands of places across the planet. Ironhide shunted most of the information aside and concentrated on two places: England (since Yorkshire turned out to be part of it), and America. Several of his circuits rebelled at the description of a part of the English government called the House of Lords, but it turned out that the name was about all that they shared with the position he understood from home. The King or the Queen was a lot closer to any Cybertronian Lord than anyone in Parliament. Once he got past that it was relatively easy to determine that their naming customs were still much the same as they'd been in 1906, and that they still made a fuss over reproduction outside of the structure of a bonded pair. Weird, but he supposed that if they incepted while the physical form was still constructing itself, it made sense to insist that two fully formed humans be present to ensure that someone could accomplish all necessary functions until the new incept came fully online.
For some reason virtually all the bonded pairs seemed to be one male, one female. He'd have to check out why that mattered later.
America, when Ironhide turned his attention that way, was prone to even more rapid social changes, although there were more humans there than in England. Apparently they had less social inertia despite their greater number. It might, he thought, have something to do with their government; they seemed to make a point of changing rulers a lot more often. Secretary of Defense Keller had mentioned that, but Ironhide hadn't been aware of just how often the changes happened. Possibly they were trying to burn through all of their mistaken leaders until they found a few worth keeping for a longer period? He'd have to ask about that... for now, there was something more important, and that was locating some part of the Web that could tell him about the Lennox ancestry. Captain Lennox was a good man, and Ironhide respected him as much as he respected any human, but if he shared genetic programming with that child in Milliways then Ironhide was going to have words with someone about the Captain's and Sarah's offspring.
Actually, he'd probably have words anyway, just to be on the safe side. Orientation and debriefing were vital to setting new incepts up on their best paths in life. With humans it seemed to be much the same. It just took longer to sink in.
Prime had briefed all the Autobots on his encounter with Isaac as soon as it had concluded, so Ironhide was well aware of the entity's presence when he reached out to connect.As yet, there wasn't any communication between the two of them beyond an acknowledgment. Ironhide wasn't quite ready to say sorry about all the times I trash-talked your parents, today least of all; as for why Isaac didn't make contact himself, Ironhide didn't know. One day, maybe. For now he had information to find. Humans were a young species, and shockingly short-lived. It stood to reason that if they were being incepted- born, whatever- and dying at such a swift rate, then probably there were changes being made in both their physical forms and their society at a pretty good clip as well.
On the first front, it seemed, the only significant changes were an increase in height, a tendency to weigh more, and a much lower number of females dying during the reproductive process. Everything else about their physical forms in the past hundred years seemed to be a matter of the development of medical techniques. He noted a few of the more peculiar ones to ask Ratchet about. 'Body modification' sounded promising at first, but turned out to be confined to ornamentation. Most of that seemed highly counter-productive, from what little he knew of the human body to start with. Ironhide was about to give up when he encountered the term 'transhuman'; that caught his attention, all right. Most of the material associated with the term appeared to be some kind of planning for the future, though, so he merely marked it down for later examination.
The social changes were something else entirely. That changed more rapidly than any biological cycle in the species could account for, in hundreds if not thousands of places across the planet. Ironhide shunted most of the information aside and concentrated on two places: England (since Yorkshire turned out to be part of it), and America. Several of his circuits rebelled at the description of a part of the English government called the House of Lords, but it turned out that the name was about all that they shared with the position he understood from home. The King or the Queen was a lot closer to any Cybertronian Lord than anyone in Parliament. Once he got past that it was relatively easy to determine that their naming customs were still much the same as they'd been in 1906, and that they still made a fuss over reproduction outside of the structure of a bonded pair. Weird, but he supposed that if they incepted while the physical form was still constructing itself, it made sense to insist that two fully formed humans be present to ensure that someone could accomplish all necessary functions until the new incept came fully online.
For some reason virtually all the bonded pairs seemed to be one male, one female. He'd have to check out why that mattered later.
America, when Ironhide turned his attention that way, was prone to even more rapid social changes, although there were more humans there than in England. Apparently they had less social inertia despite their greater number. It might, he thought, have something to do with their government; they seemed to make a point of changing rulers a lot more often. Secretary of Defense Keller had mentioned that, but Ironhide hadn't been aware of just how often the changes happened. Possibly they were trying to burn through all of their mistaken leaders until they found a few worth keeping for a longer period? He'd have to ask about that... for now, there was something more important, and that was locating some part of the Web that could tell him about the Lennox ancestry. Captain Lennox was a good man, and Ironhide respected him as much as he respected any human, but if he shared genetic programming with that child in Milliways then Ironhide was going to have words with someone about the Captain's and Sarah's offspring.
Actually, he'd probably have words anyway, just to be on the safe side. Orientation and debriefing were vital to setting new incepts up on their best paths in life. With humans it seemed to be much the same. It just took longer to sink in.