Memories Ch. 3
Summary:G1 Au Memories are shifting, ephemeral things but still they can change everything. Skyfire shares his memories of Starscream with the Autobots and suddenly finds himself in competition over the seeker's affections
Warnings for this chapter: Old prejudices die hard. An attempt at writing Jazz's accent. 7 pages of dialogue. Blending of fanon, canon and my muses suddenly coming up with a Cybertronian conspiracy when I tried to make them seem more like robots and less human.
Sideswipe, for his part, was starting to realize just how very boring Skyfire was. Just one kiss. Really? Really? Not even tongue? And as the memories moved forward he realized that he probably wasn’t going to show them any interfacing, either. Spoilsport. As for Starscream, well if this was the kind of thing he wanted in a courtship, no wonder he hadn’t responded to him and his brother’s overtures. They had assumed that the seeker would want a proper Decepticon romance, complete with scratched thrusters and bent wings. Now, a part of his mind couldn’t help but wonder if they had been mistaken about what a Decepticon romance looked like. However, he knew Sunstreaker would be pleased. He would never admit it, but he had always wished for somebot he could hold and spoil at the end of the day. Okay okay, so Sideswipe, kind of wouldn’t, you know, really object to that either.
Cliffjumper, too, marveled at this decidedly un-Decepticon romance. For millions of years everybot had assumed that Megatron and his Second’s in fighting was the Decepticon form of flirting. After all, war builds are so inherently violent, but if this gentle courtship from Skyfire was what the seeker truly desired… Cliffjumper could feel doubts try to surface, the seeker could easily be faking, he was infamous for his schemes, but every time Starscream smiled up at Skyfire, up at him, his doubts were shaken. In the millions of years since the war had started and he had been blasted from his home he had never seen Starscream smile. In fact the only times he had ever seen a smile like that was from his creators, when he was young, and when Prowl and Jazz were together and thought that no one was looking. When he was a youngling, before the war had torn everything apart, he had dreamed of finding somebot who would smile at him like that.
Not that the two didn’t argue. Even back then Starscream’s moods were mercurial at best, and he was possessed of a sharp temper and a sharper tongue. Even when it wasn’t completely directed at him Sideswipe was enthralled by his passionate burning optics, and caught his mind wandering off several times imagining what the humans so quaintly called ‘make up sex’.
Still, the years passed, the two scientists travelled through vast regions of space, charted new star systems, explored planets, until they came to the string of planets Perceptor recognized as what the humans had charmingly named “The Milky Way Galaxy”.
The link abruptly ended, and Perceptor froze in place until the static and disorientation faded from sensors no longer tailored toward space flight, but instead toward fine focusing lenses and precision laser work. The medbay, with its sterile walls and floor, slowly came into focus.
“I… don’t understand,” came a shaky voice from next to him.
“Understand what?” growled Ratchet’s familiar voice, “The fact that this many mechs aren’t meant to connect to just one bot? The fact that my sensors are telling me that the link was ended too abruptly and you’re lucky you didn’t suffer minor neural damage? Come on Skyfire, get up.” The shuttle groaned and shakily rose a servo to his head, “Starscream? Did we go drinking last night?”
“I’m not Starscream, you halfwitted dolt. Well, I’m not reading any permanent damage, but some of your energon lines came close to rupturing from stress, and you’ll have a headache for a while.”
Skyfire moaned in response. “Here’s something for the pain. Primus knows I shouldn’t give it to you, but since you’re not usually this stupid I’ll let it go for now. I don’t know what you were thinking ending the link like that.”
Several minutes later Skyfire was able to sit up and Bumblebee repeated, “I don’t understand.” A pause as he gathered his scattered thoughts, “I thought when the war builds were created they were programmed to be violent and blood thirsty.”
“They are! Their war mongering is why Cybertron is half dead now!”
“Starscream never wanted a war!” Skyfire visibly collected himself, “But… I suppose he’s changed… a lot of time has passed. After the Academy threw him out, I suppose he didn’t have anywhere to go. He must have been… Even now I can’t imagine what he must have done, what he must have felt.”
“No one ever told you how the war started,” Ratchet realized, looking stunned.
“Not many know,” Jazz countered.
“I very nearly joined the Decepticons myself, in the beginning. Then Sentinel Prime was assassinated, Optimus Prime came, and the lines were clearly drawn,” the medic admitted wearily.
“Why am I surrounded by traitors?” Cliffjumper asked the ceiling in defeat.
“Not many Autobots left who were here from th’ very beginning,” Jazz commented lightly, “Ah may or may not have had something to do with that.”
“Jazz?” Bumblebee asked. He knew that glint in his superior’s visor. It often appeared after a completed mission or vengeance for a fallen comrade had been taken.
“Well, Ah didn’t do nothin’ outright, not with Optimus and Prowl around, but Ah made sure most of ‘em, ‘ceptin Ultra Magnus, of course, never made it near a higher officer.”
“I don’t understand,” Silverbolt said slowly, “They were all untrustworthy?”
“Sometimes I forget how young you are. Some of them were worse than the Decepticons.”
“I may have been young at the time, but the Decepticons started the war!” Cliffjumper snarled, “They burned down civilian buildings, many of them still had mechs inside!”
“Yes, the council refused to listen to their demands, and they started rioting.”
“Rioting? Like the humans sometimes do?” Silverbolt asked in bewilderment. Even after the memory uplink a Cybertronian society that was at peace was still somewhat incomprehensible to him. The only real life references he had for peaceful, working societies came from the humans.
“You don’t know anything about Cybertronian society, do you,” demanded Cliffjumper.
Silverbolt drew himself in defensively, but before he could answer, Bumblebee defended, “I don’t know much about Cybertron before the war either. I was very small when the Autobots found me.” It had been not long after the major bombings on civilian cities had begun, Hound had spotted Bumblebee’s bright colors under the rubble. When he was younger he had sometimes dreamed of finding his parents, (generally he imagined that they were powerful Autobot warriors and that they would then team up with his ragtag band of guardians to defeat the Decepticons) but as he had grown up under the harsh realities of total warfare these dreams were slowly discarded. Many of the Autobots still thought him naïve because of his age and attitude, but he could barely remember anything before he had been forced to grow up in the middle of various combat zones. Maybe this was the reason he could remain cheerful and optimistic while risking his life to alternatively save or kill other mechs; he had never known anything else. He still listened carefully to Prime’s speeches of freedom and peace and he too dreamed of a time when his friends would not come back from missions mangled or offline, but in reality Bumblebee had little more idea of how to coexist in a peaceful Cybertronian society than Silverbolt or the others who had been created in the middle of the war.
“You’re right. It’s our fault that you do not know this,” Ratchet sat down on one of the medbay berths with a creaky complaint from his joints. “It’s… difficult to admit that we were so wrong.”
Wheeljack’s lights flashed dimly, “I don’t know exactly how it began. We- me and Perceptor, were always buried in the lab back then…”
Sunstreaker snorted and Sideswipe said, “You’re still always buried in the lab, sometimes we forget you’re even here.”
“Well, be that as it may,” Perceptor continued, “We weren’t aware of anything but a few rumors shared by our colleagues until the war builds started rioting in the streets.”
“Don’t you mean the Decepticons?” Cliffjumper asked gruffly.
“No, no Megatron was still gathering his officers and organizing, they didn’t become known as Decepticons until after the Senate was… attacked.”
Cliffjumper mulled to himself quietly, and faced with the others honesty and his own shaken perceptions begrudgingly admitted, “I didn’t pay much attention to them either. Not until…”
The Autobots lapsed into silence, the buzzing of the lights and whirring of machinery loud in the younger bots audios as the others were lost in memory.
Silverbolt hesitatingly spoke up, “War builds. Those would be the tanks and most of the flight models, correct?”
“There were once many more model types, but yes.”
“And seekers are war builds. Starscream, the others didn’t like him because he was a seeker?”
“It’s well known that war builds are violent; it’s perfectly understandable that peaceful scientists wouldn’t want him around,” Cliffjumper defended.
“There were never any studies to back that up. I would know; I sometimes worked on war builds in the lower cities. Yes they were angry, but not without reason, and Primus knows you’re not in a position to complain about other mech’s tempers.”
“I cannot believe that the Science Council would dismiss him based on blind prejudice,” Perceptor frowned.
“Starscream never would admit it but he had to threaten to take the council before the Prime before they would allow him entrance in the first place. Even then they only allowed it because his scores were in the top 10 percent.”
“Couldn’t he have left it well enough alone? Couldn’t he have gone to a university in one of the lower cities?” Cliffjumper asked in frustration. He didn’t often feel conflicted, but when he did it invariably made him angry.
“The universities in the lower cities only ever dealt with weapons and war or policing,“ Wheeljack noted quietly.
“Well of course Iacon’s Science academy was the most prestigious on Cybertron, but what do you mean to say by that?”
“Not long after my science download I worked under the research publishing unit-”
Ratchet interrupted “They don’t know what that means, and Silverbolt is only familiar with the human’s universities.”
“Ah, yes, I suppose we should be giving them a brief summary of the academies.”
“As you know, a Cybertronian is not forced to study basic factual data if there’s a download available. Before the war a bot could download anything from basic history to advanced mathematical algorithms. Of course, the cost of these downloads varied, and many of them were quite expensive. “
“Most of the ones who downloaded them were Tower Mechs who had run out of other things to buy,” Ratchet huffed, “I don’t know how many bratty Tower Mechs I had to treat because of glitches they’d gotten from downloading more information than their memory capacity could hold.”
Wheeljack continued, “In order to enter an academy a mech had to take an aptitude test. If they got a high enough score the Academy presented a contract- information downloads in exchange for a certain number of years of research or work under the Academies name. The Academies, especially the Science ones, also gave out contracts for using their equipment.”
“Starscream hated it,” Skyfire remembered, “He thought they were stealing the credit that should have gone under his name.”
“And the restrictions,” Wheeljack grimaced, “All research had to be approved by the board first. They were so focused on making money. Some of the richest mechs on Cybertron were on one of the academy boards.”
“Yes, as soon as I could afford enough equipment I had planned to leave, but I never knew where I would get the money,” Perceptor remembered quietly, “I worked with some scientists who were so far in debt that if not for the war they would still be working under the Academies.”
“I was lucky; my creators were well off enough that they could afford most of the medical downloads necessary for me to practice medicine. It still took years to get the necessary equipment and modifications to practice medicine on my own though.”
“It was one a’ the Decepticon’s chief complaints, they said tha’ the average mech could never afford more than a menial job with the cost of downloads,” Jazz pointed out calmly.
“It sure didn’t keep them from targeting those average mechs, though,” Cliffjumper snapped.
“Well that’s why Ah’m on this side instead of theirs, ain’t it?”
“After being created we got many downloads of our own, I had no idea that they were such a precious resource,” Silverbolt said guiltily.
Sunstreaker snorted, “Most weren’t. But the academies needed to keep a monopoly on the best and brightest in their fields, didn’t they?”
Skyfire leaned back in astonishment, “What?”
“Well where do you think the sellers got the information for their downloads? The companies needed their information to be seen as reliable, and what could be more reliable than the prestigious Cybertronian academies?”
Perceptor froze as he ran the hypothesis through his processor, “…It does make a certain amount of logical sense.”
“I… I can’t believe it could have been that corrupt.”
“You said that some of the richest mechs on Cybertron were on Academy boards. Well guess what, the rest of the rich ran the companies that created information downloads.”
Shaking his yellow head Bumblebee asked, “But why did no one else notice?”
Sideswipe spoke up, “I only noticed because I went into business distributing musical composition downloads in Praxus and did some investigating on the company. Sunstreaker’s lucky he didn’t become popular until after he’d had all the downloads he wanted.”
Sunstreaker straightened in disdain, “Never needed more than the most basic downloads on art. A pure information download doesn’t make anybot a good artist.”
Ratchet started slightly. That’s right; Sunstreaker had been a well-known artist before the war, and Sidewsipe had dabbled in various businesses all over Cybertron. It was easy to forget; for centuries now they had been set apart for their viciousness on the battlefield. He couldn’t help but wonder if Sunstreaker ever missed being known for his ability to create rather than destroy.
“The Academies, especially the ones in Iacon, really did control all the information on Cybertron,” Wheeljack said in awe. “I could see that when I worked in the publishing center.”
“Yes, you mentioned something about the lower Academies?”
“It was possible for other Science Academies or individuals to publish research on their own, but most sent it through to the Iaconian Science Academy in order to reach a wider audience. Any papers submitted had to be approved by a select board of Iaconian Science academy members before publishing. It was a running joke in the office that the academies from the lower cities rarely sent anything worthwhile through. I saw the papers from them myself, and it’s true, they were all related to either war or policing.”
“Why policing?” Silverbolt felt his panels heat slightly in embarrassment when he realized that he had interrupted the much older Autobot.
“During peacetime the armies evolved to take charge of much of the policing in the city states. That’s part of the reason why the riots were so devastating; most Cybertronian cities had no police force to control the protests because in many cases it was their police force that was rioting.”
“Prowl was part a’ the policing units that were created by Vector Sigma ta take over from the army,“ Jazz’s expression went distant with memory, “There were never enough a them and it jus’ made the war builds angrier that the few jobs left to them were being taken away.”
“The riots didn’t do anything but make things worse for them. Especially since most of them were in the lower cities,” Ratchet said wearily.
“The war builds,” Cliffjumper said in confusion “They couldn’t get other jobs?”
“It’s kinda hard ta get a job when everybot thinks you’re a violent maniac,” Jazz pointed out drily.
“The prejudice was everywhere, the only time I ever saw a paper from one of the lower cities that was not related to policing or war, it was a research paper on crystal growth. The senior board members automatically accused the mech of plagiarism. After all, everybot knows that the only things warbuilds are interested in are inherently violent, so logically the work had to be stolen. The mech went to jail for it, I tried to help but the board threatened to add more years to my contract.” Wheeljack lowered his head in shame, “I should have tried harder.”
“They put him in jail for wanting to publish a paper?” Cliffjumper asked in astonishment.
“Plagiarism was a very serious offense. The Academies had a great deal of influence in the Senate, and they demanded harsh punishments for infractions.”
The red mininbot felt the revelations of the past few hours accumulate like blows to his spark“…I never knew that Cybertron was... I never… I never… Primus, I never paid any attention to all that. I was happy just working and, and going to a bar afterwards and…”
Wheeljack resisted the urge to pull Cliffjumper into a hug. The warrior would likely not appreciate it, despite how his parental instincts clamored and his recollections of how hugs always helped his dinobots.
As Skyfire sat and listened to the growing revelations he felt a dawning sense of horror creeping up on him. “I never should have left him,” he whispered. When Bumblebee glanced at him questioningly, he said, louder, “He’s right. I did betray him. Even after all those years of loving him all I saw was him and a group of war builds attacking what appeared to be civilians. All I saw was all the stereotypes of war builds apparently come true right before me.”
Cliffjumper straightened from his slump with an alternately angry and grief stricken expression, “Starscream is the betrayer! He has betrayed everything he believed in!”
“Wait, calm down you two glorified buckets of bolts,” Ratchet grumped at them, “There’s more to tell yet. Jazz? You probably know the details better than the rest of us.”
“Righ’. Well, riots in Kaon weren’t unheard of, ‘specially after a gladiator match, but the government jailed one of the few war builds tha’ had managed ta climb up to a high rank in tha army on trumped up charges and Kaonites started calling out for equality. Then the other lower cities, Vos and the like, started protestin’ an’ riotin’ too. Well, the rioting kept spreading an’ mechs were startin’ ta get real nervous like but it prolly wouldna added up to nothin’ without Megatron. The rioters had no leadership, nothin’ ta keep ‘em together but anger. But Megatron, Megatron was a widely popular and respected gladiator. When he started speaking out, mechs listened. He ‘n Soundwave put together a list of demands for the Senate, but they refused ta see ‘em.” Jazz glanced around at his audience. Except for Ratchet they were all leaning forward and watching him intently. “Megatron rallied the war builds, told em ta ‘make war’ on the higher cities. Like we said, most a the police were war builds and many either refused to go against their own kind or joined ‘em. Mechs started takin’ up vigilantism against ‘em to protect their homes or business.”
Sideswipe and Sunstreaker nodded absently in remembrance.
Ratchet spoke up, “I set up a free clinic in Praxus. Made the council angry cause I’d take in any mech, war build or not. The few war builds still peacefully in the city were forced to flee from the vigilantes. Didn’t matter if they’d been neighbors for years, a war build caught out alone on the streets was due for a reckoning. The war builds and the civilians, they were both reduced to mobs. It’s then that I learned to defend my patients.”
“…We drove out all the small groups of war builds we could find too, but It wasn’t quite as bad in Iacon,” Cliffjumper shifted uncomfortably, “We were angry, but I think most of us… me too, couldn’t really believe that it could get any worse.”
“Well, as most a ya know Sentinel Prime and the Senate eventually agreed ta meet with Megatron. It was a trap. His followers blew up half the senate building in one go. Megatron told his followers that they would never be held back again, that they would put the civilians into their proper place in tha Cybertronian Empire. After that they became known as Decepticons.”
Optics wide with remembered horror, Wheeljack whispered, “The whole city was nearly massacred. It’s only because of the Autobots that it was evacuated.”
“Yes, before the Senate’s massacre the war builds had held back. They wanted to prove a point, many of them had no real desire to kill, but afterwards Megatron began to reward those who came back with-trophies- from the bodies.”
“Th’ original Autobots were in the army or worked with the war builds. Most a them were pushed out or reassigned to the Higher cities when the riots firs’ started spreading. Many a them were the higher ranking officers- can’t trust war builds ta run an organized army after all. There were also the government workers from the Lower cities. Despite workin’ with ‘em, these were often some of the worst perpetuators of the prejudice against the war builds before the war.”Jazz paused, then continued pragmatically, “But, they were useful in the first chaotic years a tha war. They were the few non war builds who were trained in combat, and civilians could either learn from ‘em and fight, hide, or die.”
“The thing you have to understand about this war is that no mech has a completely clean spark. It’s gone on for too long and been too personal for that. The Decepticons burned Iacon, so- Optimus tried to stop it but he was too new- the remaining Senators ordered Vos bombed, Sparklings and all. The Seekers were enraged, so they bombed Praxus, even with their own troops inside. Optimus has managed to clean up the Autobots, make us better than what we were, but atrocities have been committed on both sides.”
“Over the years it has become less tangled. It is now clear- and we’ve had many a deserter because of it- Megatron is a crazed megalomaniac, and Optimus wants nothing more than for the war to end. But in the beginning it was the war builds versus every other mech.”
Cliffjumper could feel the air in the room pushing, pressing, crushing him. The phantom sensations lingering from the memory uplink had the sensors in his-Skyfire’s wings registering the atmospheric pressure and the number climbing higher and higher.”I- are we done with the lecture yet?!” Not waiting for an answer the red minibot stomped his way toward the med bay entrance.
“Well, as the humans say, the rest is history.” Wheeljack turned towards Skyfire earnestly. “Everybot has their own story, but in the end most of us had no choice of what side to join at first.”
“So Starscream, really had no choice? Isn’t their some way of convincing him to join? I’m sure the Prime would never allow any prejudice against him,” the large shuttle met his each of his surrounding companions optics desperately.
“Perhaps, however, as our colleague Wheeljack has said, we have had many deserters, if Starscream wished to join us… I fear that he already would have.” And with Perceptor’s solemn judgement, the small group of Autobots found that there was nothing left to discuss.
Cliffjumper swiftly made his way to the range, in desperate need to stop his thinking. Of course as he blasted his way through the various drones and obstacles available he came back to his same old problem; once he felt something all the way down to his spark he never could stop himself from dwelling on it.
Wheeljack and Perceptor headed back to their labs, however, upon their arrival, found themselves reminded of the many memories they had just recently downloaded, and Wheeljack found himself soon departing in search for some overly enthusiastic Dinobot hugging. Perceptor sternly told himself that he was being illogical, that his lab was only superficially similar to Starscream and Skyfire’s, however hours later found that he had still made little progress on his current projects.
Skyfire lingered for some time in the medbay, lost in what was becoming a sickenly familiar grief. Only after Ratchet’s grumbling transformed into outright threats did he gather together the motivation to return to his cramped quarters.
After asking if Ratchet needed any help in the medbay, and was in answer shoved out the door Bumblebee spent several hours outside staring at the sky and sighing, oblivious to his friends’ questions and inquiries over his health.
The Aerialbots, who for the past few hours had felt Silverbolt’s emotions dip and sway every which way met him halfway to their quarters and barely waited for the door to close before connecting to each other for a mutual sharing of emotions and memories. The ecstasy of sparkmerging soon followed and as the glow of their bright sparks faded and was blocked by their closing chestplates they were all in agreement that Something Must Be Done. However, as was often the case for the Aerialbots, there was great disagreement what it was exactly that should be done.
The twins, after their own merging to stabilize their spark resonance and the consequent convergence of their impressions and emotions since their last interface together, were also in agreement that Something Must be Done, and Sideswipe was soon happily crafting Master Plans and strategies.
After quickly updating the Special Ops file on Starscream in Teletraan 1 Jazz made a beeline for Prowl’s office. The repercussions of this incident would be resonating throughout the crew for the next several Earth weeks and the Second and Third in Command would need to make plans to monitor morale closely as well as adjust battle strategies. That, and Jazz was feeling a sudden need to see his mate’s eyes light up when he entered.