Singularity - App
Player Information ;
Your Nickname: Teal
OOC Journal: teal_deer
Under 18? Lol nope
Email/IM: ryuutenshi@gmail.com / Failscream
Characters Played at Singularity: NONE! I r freshmeat
Character Information ;
Name: Starscream
Name of Canon: Transformers
Canon/AU/Other Game CR: G1 Cartoon | Cape and Cowl
Reference: G1 Cartoon; also His Beast Wars cameos | Cape and Cowl main comm posts | Cape and Cowl logs comm posts
Canon Point: In actual canon, just after the episode Possession from the Beast Wars cartoon; in CnC canon, after the end of this log and after this short story. Log was (sadly) never finished in-game; however I worked out in advance with the other players what the outcome was (see Setting)
Setting: Nine million sixteen thousand three hundred and twenty six years ago, the mechanical world of Cybertron was in an unprecedented golden age. The second Cybertronian Civil War had ended, the Decepticons threat ended. The Transformer race prospered in unprecedented ways, and all was well.
During this time, someone decided that it was necessary to bring a large number of fliers online. Starscream was the second of these. He was not as strong or fast as his older 'brother', Thundercracker, and he did not have the teleportation powers of his younger brother, Skywarp. What he did have, however, was guile.
He was shortly thereafter admitted to the Crystal City Academy of Sciences, where he eventually met Skyfire. Though Starscream was not the type to make friends, something about Skyfire meant that the two of them actually got along. Indeed, Skyfire may have been his only friend. The two of them worked primarily on planetary science, traveling from world to world in search of natural resources.
One day, Skyfire discovered a planet with an unusually high concentration of pure energon; not to mention copious amounts of water and carbon. He suspected it might harbor life forms, and urged Starscream to take a closer look. Starscream urged caution, telling Skyfire that he thought the planet might be unsafe. Skyfire insisted, and together they flew down into the atmosphere to take a closer look.
There, the pair was beset by a terrible storm. Starscream became separated from Skyfire by the violent winds. Fearing the worst, Starscream sent out dozens of hails, trying to raise his friend; he then proceeded to search the entire planet for his friend. His efforts came to nothing, as his scanners could not detect a single sign of the space shuttle.
Despondent, Starscream returned to Cybertron. It was around this time that he began hearing more rumors of a being called Megatron. Megatron was a revolutionary, urging rapid change in the upper echelons of Cybertron. Starscream had always had problems with the government, but Skyfire helped him to keep his head on straight and focused on more important issues. Still hurting after Skyfire's loss and looking for somewhere to take his anger out, Starscream decided to join the Cybertron War Academy to prepare for service under Megatron.
The next five million years are not elaborated upon very well in canon, but presumably Starscream joined Megatron's cause after graduating from the Cybertron War Academy at the top of his class (or so he says). From there, we can only speculate on what occurred before the trip to Earth, which I will (this being an AU application, after all).
Starscream had limitless ambition, and a vision for the future of Cybertron; he always had. He believed that if he could make his way up through the ranks of the new Decepticon Army, he could perhaps gain the ear of Megatron and influence real change. But he was continually frustrated in his efforts to do so, and rapidly found that the Decepticon army was filled with low-life backstabbers and thugs. If you showed weakness, you would die - it was as simple as that.
Starscream chose to show no weakness.
Starscream had always been a bit of a bastard, posessed of an extremely abrasive personality, but he had never been a murderer.
Until now. The first one was the hardest - probably his captain or commander, and probably made to look like an accident. They became easier with time, until eventually Starscream had backstabbed, blackmailed, and murdered his way through the Decepticon ranks... all the way to second in command.
There he served for a time, until Megatron's leadership began to grate on him. They had been fighting this war for over four million years, and what did they have to show for it? A dead, decimated husk of a world, a large number of Autobot rebels at large, and that was about it. He began to loudly voice his opinion that he should be the new leader of the Decepticons, and he believed it, too, holding steadfast to a delusion of a new Cybertron under his glorious rule. With him in charge, they would end the war, enter a golden age... with the entire planet worshipping at his feet, of course.
Megatron, naturally, was not amused, and took the time to continually backstab and browbeat Starscream for his impertinence. However, Starscream was too useful a soldier to completely destroy, so Megatron let him live. For the time being.
The Autobots then hatched a desperate plan to leave the planet aboard the Ark (a transport ship) in search of more energy. Megatron ordered the Decepticons to pursue the ship in their own, the Nemesis. The Decepticons boarded the Ark, and after a vicious battle, both ships crashed onto the Earth, with the Ark eventually coming to rest inside a dormant volcano, with all inside damaged to the point of stasis-lock.
Four million years later in the year 1984, a volcanic eruption brought the ship's computer, Teletraan 1, back online. Teletraan 1 was apparently a bit dense, because its first act was to bring the Decepticons back online, including Starscream. The Decepticons immediately set about immediately wreaking havoc outside. Starscream's first act, in fact, was to shoot at the Ark out of spite. This had the effect of jolting Teletraan 1 into starting another revival sequence... this time on the Autobots.
Good job, Starscream. Good job.
Over the next year, Starscream helped the Decepticons in various exploits, including building a Space Bridge to re-connect with distant Cybertron, as well as, of course, trying and failing to plot against and overthrow Megatron, and declaring himself leader every time Megatron so much as sneezed.
At one point, during yet again attempt by the Decepticons to exploit the Earth's resources, Starscream re-discovered Skyfire buried deep beneath Antarctic ice. Hardly believing it possible, Starscream demanded that Skyfire be brought back online, and that the utmost care be taken in doing so. He then invited his friend to join the Decepticons.
It soon became clear, however, that Skyfire would not exactly fit in with the rest of the crowd. Starscream kept insisting that Skyfire act as a warrior, fighting - and eventually, executing - Autobots and humans alike. Skyfire refused, much to Starscream's rage, and Starscream attacked his former friend. Skyfire was then buried in the ice a second time.
Of course, that wasn't the last time Starscream saw his former friend. The Autobots resurrected Skyfire to... well, mostly use him as a bus. During that time, Starscream could not overcome his rage at his friend's betrayal (ironic, given how much of a traitor he himself was) and they mostly just fought.
The Decepticons had many more adventures, which can mostly be summed up as “Try to take over the world; get their asses kicked by the Autobots; repeat.” Starscream's actions during this time can be summed up as “Try to defeat Megatron; fail; repeat.” There were a few particularly memorable incidents, however. At one point, Starscream traveled back in time to Camelot, and managed to conquer the kingdom using hand-made gunpowder and a generator constructed from spare parts (as well as, y'know, the fact that he was a GIANT ROBOT); and later built the most powerful combiner team ever assembled on an island, with a bunch of rusted out World War II machines and the sparks of convicts. There was also the time he ended up on a planet where he was the size of a child's toy to the inhabitants, and the other time that he and Soundwave ran a dance club.
I am not making this up I swear.
Sometime in the futuristic year of 2005, where of course everybody had hoverboards but no cell phones, there was yet another Autobot and Decepticon battle yadda yadda blah blah, except this time Megatron really DID get damaged almost beyond repair. Starscream, being Starscream, immediately took advantage of this fact, gleefully chucking Megatron out of an airlock and into the void of deep space.
This came back to bite him in the aft shortly afterwards, when Megatron was reformatted into Galvatron by the dark god Unicron. Galvatron, being somewhat displeased with Starscream's shenanigans, vaporized Starscream right as the Seeker was about to get crowned Emperor of Destruction and Leader of the Decepticons.
This is where it gets peculiar. Or, perhaps, more peculiar.
Starscream discovered that somehow, he wasn't dead. Despite his body being so much ash, he still had a presence - his spark had endured, somehow indestructible despite what Galvatron had done. Plotting vengeance, he first engaged in a bit of petty prankery with Octane, taking over Cyclonus and Scourge and making Galvatron even angrier/crazier than he already was. Later, however, he proved far more ambitious - he made a deal with Unicron himself. He would re-connect Unicron's severed head to his body (Unicron had been defeated in 2005 by the Autobots) if Unicron would restore Starscream's body. Unicron agreed, and Starscream went about possessing a bunch of people (like Trypticon, the city-sized robot) towards this end. He actually succeeded in gathering all the necessary materials, but told Unicron that he couldn't re-connect the god's head without a body. Unicron, a bit tired of Starscream's whining, obliged. Now with his own physical body, Starscream had no intention of actually obeying Unicron, and, with a laugh, he threw the cables down.
Unfortunately for him, the Autobots and the Decepticons had found out about his misadventures, and decided to shoot him, since they weren't too happy about him trying to resurrect the TF universe's equivalent of Robosatan. As such, his time in his new body didn't last long, as he got shot into space, and presumably out there somewhere lost his newfound shell.
Three hundred years later, the Autobots and Decepticons were all dead and gone, having been replaced by the Maximals and Predacons. The Maximal High Council had ordered the historical evidence of the Great War classified, in the hopes of preventing it from happening again. And Starscream was erased from the history books.
Eventually, however, Starscream's spark found its way back to this new Cybertron, where it was captured by Maximal scientists. Noticing Starscream's unusual mutation, they decided to see if it could be replicated. The best way to do this, they felt, was by cutting Starscream's spark in half, and putting that half into a new body.
This was a bit painful, to say the least.
The new machine, Rampage, immediately went insane on activation from pain, fear, and having the worst parts of Starscream's personality. He tore the lab apart, in the process letting Starscream escape into space once again. Out there, he fell through a transwarp portal and eventually came upon a group of Maximals and Predacons on prehistoric Earth. There, he posessed one of them, Waspinator, and attempted to (yet again), overthrow Megatron - this time with ostensibly the plan of repairing the ships belonging to the two factions and flying back to Cybertron, where he would presumably take over. Or something. His plan didn't seem all that well thought, honestly.
After being ejected from Waspinator's body, he floated through space for an unspecified period of time, before suddenly finding himself in yet another world.
This is where the bit about capeandcowl starts.
Cape and Cowl's universe is centered around the City, an alternate New York run by a psychotic AI who decided it would be hilarious to bring in people from other dimensions and tell them to play heroes. It's every bit your ridiculous crossover comic. And it was thus that Starscream found himself in a human body, albeit one with superpowers. He couldn't decide if this was better or worse than having no body, and tried (and failed! Badly!) to hide the fact that he was Starscream.
Naturally, the resident Cybertronians (at the time, Waspinator, Terrorsaur, and the Beast Wars version of Megatron) figured him out immediately. Starscream was none too pleased at Megatron's presence, and immediately started plotting against the other mech.
Numerous Misadventures Happened. The highlights included getting mutated by Smallville kryptonite so that he acted like a living Allspark, causing an entire Best Buy to attack him; watching in glee as Megatron got deported and finding himself the LEADER of the DECEPTICONS only to realize that this involved a lot more work than he'd suspected; pretending to work for an anti-mutant lobbying firm for the sole purpose of backstabbing the CEO and taking over the company himself; getting turned back into a robot for a week and rampaging across the city; meeting Skyfire again and accidentally falling in love (frag it all); completely botching said relationship and actually feeling a bit bad about that; sometimes managing to do things right but usually cocking them up badly; actually making at least one friend, and generally being a screechy nuisance of a jerkwad. He managed to get himself killed repeatedly (it's kind of a bad habit of his), possessed a few people, eventually found a way to turn himself back into a robot even if it was a Pretender (that is, a robot that looks human) and not his true form, and made a lot of really insane plans.
After Skyfire was ported back out of the City, Starscream found himself desperately longing to return home. Skyfire had reminded him of what it was like before the war, and he decided (in his own flawed way) that what he truly wanted was to have the old Cybertron back. He thus devoted all of his resources to trying to turn Earth into a new Cybertron. After months of planning, he nearly succeeded, taking over the Empire State Building with a doomsday device designed to turn the entire population of the City into Cybertronian machines loyal only to him. This being a city full of superheroes, however, he was stopped by the Blue Beetle and, of all people, by Waspinator, who used a piece of his own doomsday device to pierce his mutant spark and, once and for all, end his life.
But again, things are a little more complicated than that. (Here we get into the SECOND AU. Which you can read here if you care)
Starscream found himself in a part of the Transformer afterlife, a between-place called Limbo. Limbo is a place without time, beyond space itself, filled with strange beasts and odd situations. There, he met dozens of alternate universe versions of himself. He also found that he could not remember his own name there, and this bothered him a great deal. One of his alternates found a way out, and escaped, leaving the rest of them alone (this is based loosely on a bit of obscure Japanese canon). Our Starscream, fed up with sitting around in Limbo, searched for a way out, only to find himself in the Pit - the belly of Unicron, and the Transformer equivalent of Hell.
Laughing at the absurdity of the Pit - it is very like the steryotypical Earth version of Hell, all fire and torment - he loudly proclaimed that this was entirely stupid and began to lecture the screaming masses (who were a bit preoccupied) about how the Pit was totally absurd, only to be grabbed by the Fallen (Unicron's personal herald and servant) and told that there was a reason that Starscreams were forbidden to enter either the Pit or the Well (the Well being the Transformers equivalent of Paradise)
The result of this was that he found himself, once again, immortal and back in space, having been kicked out of the robot equivalents of Purgatory, Hell, and presumably Heaven. There, he slipped into his own delusions, trapping himself in a dream of an empty Earth. He soon became unable to tell what was real and what was the dream, shifting between the black emptiness of the void of deep space and his dream of this abandoned planet (and, particularly, a boneyard full of rusted airplanes - a graveyard).
It's about at this point that he gets yanked into Singularity. Wheee!
Personality: Starscream is driven by ambition above all else. He hungers for power and recognition to the point of sheer irrationality, and he'll have it at any cost, no mater who he has to hurt in the process or how. He'll pretend to be your friend if you can serve some purpose to him, and when you've outlived your usefulness (or if he perceives you to be getting a bigger slice of the pie than him) he'll instantly turn around and viciously backstab you.
He's also vain, haughty, arrogant, and temperamental - he believes fully that he deserves the power he so desperately desires, and he'll let you know it, too. He thinks of himself as the greatest thing since cubed energon, and if you say anything to put this into doubt he will completely flip out at you and throw a screaming hissyfit. He also enjoys being a jerk for the sake of being a jerk - other people's suffering is funny to him.
Which isn't to say that he can't be clever or subtle. On the contrary, Starscream is a skilled liar and speaker - while among the Decepticons he had the nickname of 'Silver Snake'. When he puts his mind to it and sets aside his bluster he can be insidiously charming and manipulative. … of course, five seconds later he'll lose his temper and ruin the whole thing. Indeed, Starscream can be said to be a classic sociopath in that regard - superficially charming but ultimately uncaring for the plights of others.
Starscream has chronic bad luck - not precisely a personality trait, but it might be why he's so bitter all the damn time. Even when he has good plans - which he actually does, surprisingly often - he'll usually forget one small detail, or something will happen that causes the whole thing to tumble like a house of cards.
All that said, Starscream's time in the City changed him somewhat significantly. There, without a Megatron to order him around, Starscream was given what he'd thought he'd desired all along - leadership of the Decepticons. While in charge, he learned, always the hard way, that he could not simply be a tyrant ordering his soldiers around - he had to respect them, give them incentives. He would always think of them as tools, but he began to think of them as specialized tools, tools to be gently cared for and used with precision and finesse (it is this way that he thinks of Soundwave and Shockwave). He learned to reign in his temper a little better, and even how to lie well enough to work with heroes on occasion.
Furthermore, Starscream found that relationships were, indeed, somewhat more complex than people who he could use. For example, there was one Arnold Judas Rimmer whose friend he pretended to be in order to convince the other to help him backstab their boss (a Cameron Hodge) and take over the man's company, after which Starscream left Rimmer by the wayside. Later, however, he realized that Rimmer had genuinely thought of him as a friend, and found that he actually enjoyed the man's company. This perplexed him - Rimmer could offer him nothing now, he had nothing Starscream wanted and was not useful, yet his presence was something Starscream found preferable to the presence of others. This was extended to a few choice humans and Cybertronians as well, and a few others (most memorably, the Lady Death [from Sandman], Bakura Ryou (from Yu Gi Oh), Alastair (from yu gi oh 5Ds) and Kiryu (from the same series), among others). He made a pretty terrible friend, all things considered, but. Well. Baby steps.
He also learned how to respect Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots, while said leader was in the City. It was a grudging respect, and they remained enemies, but it was the first time Starscream had ever actually respected a foe rather than simply disdaining them as obstacles to be crushed.
Finally, there was Skyfire. While Starscream had been in the void between the stars, most of his thoughts were occupied with delusional visions of how to destroy Megatron and how he would eventually rule Cybertron... except for a few. He would still have nightmares of the day he lost Skyfire beneath the ice; and while in the City, particularly before the other Cybertronians showed up, he would often reminisce on the days when he and Skyfire had been true friends. He eventually came to the conclusion that Skyfire was the one thing in his life he actually did regret (particularly after a space-parasite ate his ambition and arrogance for a week and thus forced him to face his regrets - long story).
Of course, once the renegade AI dumped Skyfire into the city, Starscream immediately began denying the whole thing and acting like a complete tsundere towards his former friend. But their paths kept crossing, and despite Starscream's protests to the contrary, he found that he had missed the Autobot, and, indeed, was glad the other was here. Eventually, he even admitted some sort of love.
This, of course, was not meant to be. Starscream's life had made him a weapon. Despite all he had learned in the City, he remained vicious, violent, and villainous - all things which put him into direct opposition to Skyfire's pacifist personality. Eventually, it became too much for Skyfire, and the Autobot left... only to be teleported out of the City.
Once again left without a voice of proper reason in his life, Starscream quickly reverted back to his old ways, though with a bit of a different bent. He still maintains his arrogance, his pride, and his ambitious drive, but he is a bit more cautious now. His time in the City changed his focus from ruling Cybertron to making Cybertron anew - after all, Cybertron is dead and in some far distant dimension, so his true wish is to bring it back in whatever universe he happens to be in now.
The one thing Skyfire did manage to get through his thick head is that it's really better not to indiscriminately murder people. The last time he tried to take over the world and turn it into a new Cybertron, he explicitly attempted to avoid as many casualties as possible, and indeed succeeded, with only two deaths happening due to his actions. Of course, it wasn't as if trying to take over the city, brainwash everyone, and turn them into robots was that much better, but like I said. Baby steps. He'll still hesitate a bit more before outright murdering anyone than he used to, though not much.
Starscream's latest failure and the rather painful nature of his death (and subsequent derping around in Limbo) have put a bit of a damper on his usual ambition. He still wants recognition, he'd still kill for power, but a part of him is worn down and beaten. He's begun to wonder if perhaps a rest wouldn't be a bad thing after all. Of course, giving up is out of the question - destiny awaits, slag it all, he'll be ruler of Cybertron somehow... eventually... but for now, can we just stop getting dragged into other worlds? Maybe...?
Abilities and Weaknesses: Hoo boy. Dividing this into three sections :|
Powers and weapons
Immortal Spark
Starscream's spark - the Transformer equivilant of a soul - is immortal. It cannot be damaged save by either a spike of pure crystal energon, or a being of godlike status (sufficiently advanced aliens, such as the Q or the Vorlons, would probably also count).
Starscream can posses machines and people, much like a ghost. While possessing non-sentient objects the object essentially becomes his new body. When possessing people, Starscream will fight with the will of the person he is taking over for control of the body. Someone with a weak will probably will be unable to resist; someone with a strong will can probably keep him from complete control and give him a massive headache besides.
While in a person or sentient machine's body, Starscream can have limited access to their memories. How much is up to the player (I will have a permissions post for this). Again, a strong-willed person can lock him out. By the same token, the posessee can see Starscream's memories, and again, this is dependent on the will of the person involved - someone with a strong will can probably drill deeply into his memories, while someone who is weak-willed won't get much. There's also the problem of Starscream's memories being those of a nine million year old alien war machine, so they might be a bit much for your average carbon-based life form to handle.
While possessing a body, Starscream can use all of its abilities and powers, if it has any.
While disembodied, Starscream also has the ability to project an image of himself - this appears as a faintly glowing (and sparkly! I swear I'm not making this up!) bluish hologram, and is insubstantial. He can also speak.
Other powers
Though Starscream will not have these abilities in the game yet, I am still going to list the superpowers he had in Cape and Cowl, which are coincidentally identical to the abilities he had in Transformers canon. I'm not sure if/when they will come up, but I list them for completeness' sake.
Null Rays - These are electromagnetic pulse rays capable of disabling all but the most well-shielded electronics. In canon, Starscream is even capable of shutting down full sized generators at a power plant. The rays can be used to shut off most electronics for about an hour.
Standard lasers - They're not so much 'lasers' as... er... 80s cartoon show lasers. The damage they deal is primarily concussive rather than incendiary.
Flight - Starscream can generate enough thrust to reach speeds of up to Mach 3. In human form, however, he cannot safely go much faster than about two hundred miles an hour as he'd probably kill himself with the acceleration. As a robot, obviously, he has no such limitation.
Skills
Starscream is a scientist and military commander. His scientific specialties are chemistry, physics, and engineering (when you have sixteen thousand years to learn these things you have the time to be multidisciplinary). He's a skilled fighter, though much better at attacking from a distance than hand-to-hand combat. He relies primarily on his superior speed and flying abilities when fighting.
Weaknesses
See most of the personality section. The arrogance and cowardice doesn't do him any favors.
Starscream in most of his bodies isn't particularly durable - he's built for speed and agility, not taking hits. As a disembodied spark, he's completely insubstantial and incapable of interacting with his environment in any meaningful way - he can sometimes fritz electronics if he tries REALLY HARD but that's about it. Furthermore, his spark is easily contained by force fields of all types. Even a strong enough magnetic field (like that produced by an MRI machine) can be enough to contain him. Interestingly, this may mean that he's capable of physically interacting with solid-light holograms, depending on the principles they run off of (ie, they'd be 'solid' to him).
In terms of science, he's a complete idiot when it comes to any kind of biology. He can do okay with organic chemistry, sometimes, but forget biochem. Seriously, fuckin organic life, how does it work?
He's actually a pretty terrible tactician, doesn't plan ahead very well, and likes to insist that his horrible plans are totally correct shut up HE IS RIGHT, YOU ARE WRONG.
And the universe kind of hates him. Just how it goes, mate.
Inventory: A tiny cute toy robot bird, which Starscream will be using when he first arrives on the station. The bird's sole ability is that it can fly. It cannot speak. … yep.
Other things that will appear in his general area: a garish gold crown and tattered purple cape, a rubber duck, an LP of the song A Glorious Dawn, a few coffee table books of jet planes, a Top Gun DVD, and a tattered copy of Popular Mechanics. He won't get to take these with him, being a small robot bird, but they are there for anyone to stumble upon.
Appearance: Though Starscream will be appearing in the game initially in the form of a disembodied spark and a small metal bird, I have included his appearance in all of his forms for reference.
As a Transformer. As a jet, he's usually either an F-15 Eagle, or an F-22 Raptor (he used the latter altmode in CnC) with the same garish colors.
His human appearance is based on this fanart; he's the one in red, white, and blue.
I use Christian Slater as a PB, cira the movie Heathers. Example! The main difference with Starscream is that he ALWAYS wears red, white, and blue (out of habit); and he has red eyes that glow faintly in the dark.
His Pretender form looks identical, but tends to trigger people's Uncanny Valley reactions due to being a little too perfect.
As a disembodied spark, he looks like this.
His current holographic projection while in Spark form looks like a hybrid between his human and Cybertronian forms, most notable in that he has wings, jet engines for feet, and metal protrusions (they look a bit like the sides of his helmet) instead of ears. This is because of how long he's spent in human form - he is caught between two worlds. If he concentrates, he can look more or less human, but it's not something he generally thinks about. He can't change his form significantly from that (it's based on his subconscious perception of himself)
The bird body is roughly the size and shape of a common magpie, but metallic silver in color, with bright red eyes. The bird body will not be able to speak.
Age: 9,016,326. Give or take.
OC/AU Justification ;
If AU, How is Your Version Different From Canon, and How Will That Come Across? Plz see the Setting/History section.
Samples ;
Log Sample: He hadn't moved for eons.
Or so it felt like. There was no time, here. Eventually, he couldn't even tell the difference between dreaming of the graveyard and being awake, floating bodiless between the stars.
Sleeping, waking. Waking, sleeping.
No.
He stirred.
Who are you.
“Starscream,” he whispered, staggering to his feet, the dead grass crunching beneath them. “I am Starscream. I will not... will not. I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED!”
He ran.
He ran hard, he ran and then he jumped and he flew, his eyes full of fury. He would fight... whatever. Whoever. He would...
And then the dream dissolved and he awoke again, shuffling back into the black between the stars. He felt no cold, no pain, and he simply shone like a star himself. He flew there, too, a short burst of speed as he traveled. He'd find... something. A planet, a drifting probe, a sattelite. He'd find it, and he'd take it as his own and then... something. He'd go home. Yes. He'd go home, and he'd... travel back in time and this time he'd know the future. He'd kill Megatron. Yes. Kill Megatron, take control, kill the Autobots and return home triumphant, and then... then Cybertron would be his. And once it was beautiful he'd find...
No, no, nevermind that. No. It was over. That was over, and no, no, never again.
Shut up shut up shut up, you don't, don't go there, he's not -
No. He couldn't - wouldn't - think about that. Or his failures. No, he wasn't a failure, he was...
Something more, frag it all, something vast, something predatory, something...
Something...
He stopped, again, floating simply in space, and fell, spiraling down into the dream. Again, dead rusted out hulks of ancient aircraft; again, dry grass. Again. No, he couldn't stand this. He needed to do, to be, to something.
Please, Primus, for the love of light. Anything but this. Back to the Pit. Back to life. I have a purpose, frag you, you stupid rustheap of a god, I have to -
Twist. Tear. Flip. He knew this feeling and he almost laughed.
Again? Oh, frag you, Lachesis, I want to go home, not back to -
Not the City.
He spun, floating in ghost form, his mental projection flickering in confusion. He was still a ghost. He was still dead, where was this? Another...
Another graveyard?
He had to be still dreaming.
He wandered floating through the junkyard, seeing the derelicts of ages past. He ran smack into a field of magnetic radiation, like walking through molasses, before a fragging couch fell straight through him. What was this place? It wasn't anywhere he knew. Looked like Junk, actually. Only a bit less orange, and more blue, and with less... freaks running around.
“This is stupid,” he hissed aloud. “Dear my subconscious - come up with something more entertaining, would you? Primus. Can't even trust myself these days.”
He tried to wake back up, floating upwards and trying to go out.
Nothing.
“What?!”
Again. And again. And again. He floated in a panic, losing coherency over his projection and reverting to a simple orb, trailing light as he did. Wake up! Wake up wake up wake...
Nothing.
“... this is real!?”
Frag, not again. Not again, not another fragging dimensional rift. Not another new city and not another new life.
“I WANT TO GO HOME, YOU FOOLS! HOME! I DESERVE A SECOND CHANCE, I'LL DO IT... this time...”
Slag it all.
“Fine.”
He looked around. If it was this again, he'd need a body. Something. Anything. He scrounged and searched the junkpiles, and most of everything there was too damaged to be useful. There was a blender, but... bah. No, useless. Pointless.
There.
“Oh, for spark's sake!”
It was tiny. A simple child's toy, a little bird. Completely useless. But it was all he had right now. He needed to interact with his environment somehow, and this was all he had.
Floating downwards, he settled into the little bird's circuts, feeling its body out, testing it. Its vision was terrible, the wings barely functional, and the voicebox useless.
It would do. For now.
Taking flight, he got exactly three feet before crashing into a pile of junk. It was all wrong - flying by flapping. The bird had no real programming or instincts, nothing he could draw on. He was so used to flight by fixed-wing with thrust for propulsion, none of this swimming through the air scrap.
It was going to be a long solar cycle.
Network Sample: DOIN TWO VERSIONS. One of Birdscream; one of how he'd actually sound were he not being a toy birdie.
[BIRD]
[Video feed. There's a loud flapping noise, the sound of something thumping into something else solid, and a confusing swirl of color as the camera is thrown. When it lands, it seems to be pointing up at a crazy angle. This seems to be an area in the space between two buildings - perhaps on a rooftop somewhere? The architecture makes it look like this is probably somewhere in Kurzwiel. There's a ladder nearby, but no stairs.]
[There's a tinny screech, and then you can see something silver fly across the screen, trying to get up and out of the area. Whatever it is flaps furiously, lauching itself at the nearby wall, only to smack its head near the top and fall backwards to the concrete below]
[It lays still for a few seconds before twitching, flipping itself over, and wobbling to its feet. You can now tell that this is some kind of toy bird-robot - it looks a bit like a common magpie, but entirely silver. It makes a metallic chirping sound, then tries again]
[And again.]
[and again.]
[eventually, it lets out a loud cry - frustration? - before flopping its way past the camera and... you hear a repeat of the same sounds. Whoosh, flap, thud. Skree.]
[Again, it comes back into view, flying past the camera, and slams into the far wall, this time crumpling a wing in the process. It screeches again, then keeps screeching and squawking as it runs in a small circle, its broken wing unable to get it up into the air.]
[GHOSTSCREAM]
[Voicepost! It sounds mechanical, and kind of... tinny. There's an echoy quality to it all, a slight flange to it. Whatever this person is, they're probably not human]
[They also have the world's most annoying voice. Seriously. Think fingernails on chalkboard. Your ears! Primus, your ears!]
Again?
[A hissing sigh that sounds a bit like static]
Again. Again, again again, what is it with you humans and building renegade AI that decide it'd be a lovely time to drag people out of their home dimensions and have them run amok for its own amusement? Always femmes, too. Tch, wouldn't be surprised if the fragging glitch was the same AI as last time, and I'm just in some distant future.
Perhaps I never left...?
Well, it's her mistake, not mine. Me, I'm glad for the chance to live again! It's destiny. It must be. I will... I will.
Anyway.
You, idiots out there on the network There's always idiots. Make yourselves useful and tell me where the nearest robotics depot is! There must be something somewhere in this pathetic excuse for a space station!
Your Nickname: Teal
OOC Journal: teal_deer
Under 18? Lol nope
Email/IM: ryuutenshi@gmail.com / Failscream
Characters Played at Singularity: NONE! I r freshmeat
Character Information ;
Name: Starscream
Name of Canon: Transformers
Canon/AU/Other Game CR: G1 Cartoon | Cape and Cowl
Reference: G1 Cartoon; also His Beast Wars cameos | Cape and Cowl main comm posts | Cape and Cowl logs comm posts
Canon Point: In actual canon, just after the episode Possession from the Beast Wars cartoon; in CnC canon, after the end of this log and after this short story. Log was (sadly) never finished in-game; however I worked out in advance with the other players what the outcome was (see Setting)
Setting: Nine million sixteen thousand three hundred and twenty six years ago, the mechanical world of Cybertron was in an unprecedented golden age. The second Cybertronian Civil War had ended, the Decepticons threat ended. The Transformer race prospered in unprecedented ways, and all was well.
During this time, someone decided that it was necessary to bring a large number of fliers online. Starscream was the second of these. He was not as strong or fast as his older 'brother', Thundercracker, and he did not have the teleportation powers of his younger brother, Skywarp. What he did have, however, was guile.
He was shortly thereafter admitted to the Crystal City Academy of Sciences, where he eventually met Skyfire. Though Starscream was not the type to make friends, something about Skyfire meant that the two of them actually got along. Indeed, Skyfire may have been his only friend. The two of them worked primarily on planetary science, traveling from world to world in search of natural resources.
One day, Skyfire discovered a planet with an unusually high concentration of pure energon; not to mention copious amounts of water and carbon. He suspected it might harbor life forms, and urged Starscream to take a closer look. Starscream urged caution, telling Skyfire that he thought the planet might be unsafe. Skyfire insisted, and together they flew down into the atmosphere to take a closer look.
There, the pair was beset by a terrible storm. Starscream became separated from Skyfire by the violent winds. Fearing the worst, Starscream sent out dozens of hails, trying to raise his friend; he then proceeded to search the entire planet for his friend. His efforts came to nothing, as his scanners could not detect a single sign of the space shuttle.
Despondent, Starscream returned to Cybertron. It was around this time that he began hearing more rumors of a being called Megatron. Megatron was a revolutionary, urging rapid change in the upper echelons of Cybertron. Starscream had always had problems with the government, but Skyfire helped him to keep his head on straight and focused on more important issues. Still hurting after Skyfire's loss and looking for somewhere to take his anger out, Starscream decided to join the Cybertron War Academy to prepare for service under Megatron.
The next five million years are not elaborated upon very well in canon, but presumably Starscream joined Megatron's cause after graduating from the Cybertron War Academy at the top of his class (or so he says). From there, we can only speculate on what occurred before the trip to Earth, which I will (this being an AU application, after all).
Starscream had limitless ambition, and a vision for the future of Cybertron; he always had. He believed that if he could make his way up through the ranks of the new Decepticon Army, he could perhaps gain the ear of Megatron and influence real change. But he was continually frustrated in his efforts to do so, and rapidly found that the Decepticon army was filled with low-life backstabbers and thugs. If you showed weakness, you would die - it was as simple as that.
Starscream chose to show no weakness.
Starscream had always been a bit of a bastard, posessed of an extremely abrasive personality, but he had never been a murderer.
Until now. The first one was the hardest - probably his captain or commander, and probably made to look like an accident. They became easier with time, until eventually Starscream had backstabbed, blackmailed, and murdered his way through the Decepticon ranks... all the way to second in command.
There he served for a time, until Megatron's leadership began to grate on him. They had been fighting this war for over four million years, and what did they have to show for it? A dead, decimated husk of a world, a large number of Autobot rebels at large, and that was about it. He began to loudly voice his opinion that he should be the new leader of the Decepticons, and he believed it, too, holding steadfast to a delusion of a new Cybertron under his glorious rule. With him in charge, they would end the war, enter a golden age... with the entire planet worshipping at his feet, of course.
Megatron, naturally, was not amused, and took the time to continually backstab and browbeat Starscream for his impertinence. However, Starscream was too useful a soldier to completely destroy, so Megatron let him live. For the time being.
The Autobots then hatched a desperate plan to leave the planet aboard the Ark (a transport ship) in search of more energy. Megatron ordered the Decepticons to pursue the ship in their own, the Nemesis. The Decepticons boarded the Ark, and after a vicious battle, both ships crashed onto the Earth, with the Ark eventually coming to rest inside a dormant volcano, with all inside damaged to the point of stasis-lock.
Four million years later in the year 1984, a volcanic eruption brought the ship's computer, Teletraan 1, back online. Teletraan 1 was apparently a bit dense, because its first act was to bring the Decepticons back online, including Starscream. The Decepticons immediately set about immediately wreaking havoc outside. Starscream's first act, in fact, was to shoot at the Ark out of spite. This had the effect of jolting Teletraan 1 into starting another revival sequence... this time on the Autobots.
Good job, Starscream. Good job.
Over the next year, Starscream helped the Decepticons in various exploits, including building a Space Bridge to re-connect with distant Cybertron, as well as, of course, trying and failing to plot against and overthrow Megatron, and declaring himself leader every time Megatron so much as sneezed.
At one point, during yet again attempt by the Decepticons to exploit the Earth's resources, Starscream re-discovered Skyfire buried deep beneath Antarctic ice. Hardly believing it possible, Starscream demanded that Skyfire be brought back online, and that the utmost care be taken in doing so. He then invited his friend to join the Decepticons.
It soon became clear, however, that Skyfire would not exactly fit in with the rest of the crowd. Starscream kept insisting that Skyfire act as a warrior, fighting - and eventually, executing - Autobots and humans alike. Skyfire refused, much to Starscream's rage, and Starscream attacked his former friend. Skyfire was then buried in the ice a second time.
Of course, that wasn't the last time Starscream saw his former friend. The Autobots resurrected Skyfire to... well, mostly use him as a bus. During that time, Starscream could not overcome his rage at his friend's betrayal (ironic, given how much of a traitor he himself was) and they mostly just fought.
The Decepticons had many more adventures, which can mostly be summed up as “Try to take over the world; get their asses kicked by the Autobots; repeat.” Starscream's actions during this time can be summed up as “Try to defeat Megatron; fail; repeat.” There were a few particularly memorable incidents, however. At one point, Starscream traveled back in time to Camelot, and managed to conquer the kingdom using hand-made gunpowder and a generator constructed from spare parts (as well as, y'know, the fact that he was a GIANT ROBOT); and later built the most powerful combiner team ever assembled on an island, with a bunch of rusted out World War II machines and the sparks of convicts. There was also the time he ended up on a planet where he was the size of a child's toy to the inhabitants, and the other time that he and Soundwave ran a dance club.
I am not making this up I swear.
Sometime in the futuristic year of 2005, where of course everybody had hoverboards but no cell phones, there was yet another Autobot and Decepticon battle yadda yadda blah blah, except this time Megatron really DID get damaged almost beyond repair. Starscream, being Starscream, immediately took advantage of this fact, gleefully chucking Megatron out of an airlock and into the void of deep space.
This came back to bite him in the aft shortly afterwards, when Megatron was reformatted into Galvatron by the dark god Unicron. Galvatron, being somewhat displeased with Starscream's shenanigans, vaporized Starscream right as the Seeker was about to get crowned Emperor of Destruction and Leader of the Decepticons.
This is where it gets peculiar. Or, perhaps, more peculiar.
Starscream discovered that somehow, he wasn't dead. Despite his body being so much ash, he still had a presence - his spark had endured, somehow indestructible despite what Galvatron had done. Plotting vengeance, he first engaged in a bit of petty prankery with Octane, taking over Cyclonus and Scourge and making Galvatron even angrier/crazier than he already was. Later, however, he proved far more ambitious - he made a deal with Unicron himself. He would re-connect Unicron's severed head to his body (Unicron had been defeated in 2005 by the Autobots) if Unicron would restore Starscream's body. Unicron agreed, and Starscream went about possessing a bunch of people (like Trypticon, the city-sized robot) towards this end. He actually succeeded in gathering all the necessary materials, but told Unicron that he couldn't re-connect the god's head without a body. Unicron, a bit tired of Starscream's whining, obliged. Now with his own physical body, Starscream had no intention of actually obeying Unicron, and, with a laugh, he threw the cables down.
Unfortunately for him, the Autobots and the Decepticons had found out about his misadventures, and decided to shoot him, since they weren't too happy about him trying to resurrect the TF universe's equivalent of Robosatan. As such, his time in his new body didn't last long, as he got shot into space, and presumably out there somewhere lost his newfound shell.
Three hundred years later, the Autobots and Decepticons were all dead and gone, having been replaced by the Maximals and Predacons. The Maximal High Council had ordered the historical evidence of the Great War classified, in the hopes of preventing it from happening again. And Starscream was erased from the history books.
Eventually, however, Starscream's spark found its way back to this new Cybertron, where it was captured by Maximal scientists. Noticing Starscream's unusual mutation, they decided to see if it could be replicated. The best way to do this, they felt, was by cutting Starscream's spark in half, and putting that half into a new body.
This was a bit painful, to say the least.
The new machine, Rampage, immediately went insane on activation from pain, fear, and having the worst parts of Starscream's personality. He tore the lab apart, in the process letting Starscream escape into space once again. Out there, he fell through a transwarp portal and eventually came upon a group of Maximals and Predacons on prehistoric Earth. There, he posessed one of them, Waspinator, and attempted to (yet again), overthrow Megatron - this time with ostensibly the plan of repairing the ships belonging to the two factions and flying back to Cybertron, where he would presumably take over. Or something. His plan didn't seem all that well thought, honestly.
After being ejected from Waspinator's body, he floated through space for an unspecified period of time, before suddenly finding himself in yet another world.
This is where the bit about capeandcowl starts.
Cape and Cowl's universe is centered around the City, an alternate New York run by a psychotic AI who decided it would be hilarious to bring in people from other dimensions and tell them to play heroes. It's every bit your ridiculous crossover comic. And it was thus that Starscream found himself in a human body, albeit one with superpowers. He couldn't decide if this was better or worse than having no body, and tried (and failed! Badly!) to hide the fact that he was Starscream.
Naturally, the resident Cybertronians (at the time, Waspinator, Terrorsaur, and the Beast Wars version of Megatron) figured him out immediately. Starscream was none too pleased at Megatron's presence, and immediately started plotting against the other mech.
Numerous Misadventures Happened. The highlights included getting mutated by Smallville kryptonite so that he acted like a living Allspark, causing an entire Best Buy to attack him; watching in glee as Megatron got deported and finding himself the LEADER of the DECEPTICONS only to realize that this involved a lot more work than he'd suspected; pretending to work for an anti-mutant lobbying firm for the sole purpose of backstabbing the CEO and taking over the company himself; getting turned back into a robot for a week and rampaging across the city; meeting Skyfire again and accidentally falling in love (frag it all); completely botching said relationship and actually feeling a bit bad about that; sometimes managing to do things right but usually cocking them up badly; actually making at least one friend, and generally being a screechy nuisance of a jerkwad. He managed to get himself killed repeatedly (it's kind of a bad habit of his), possessed a few people, eventually found a way to turn himself back into a robot even if it was a Pretender (that is, a robot that looks human) and not his true form, and made a lot of really insane plans.
After Skyfire was ported back out of the City, Starscream found himself desperately longing to return home. Skyfire had reminded him of what it was like before the war, and he decided (in his own flawed way) that what he truly wanted was to have the old Cybertron back. He thus devoted all of his resources to trying to turn Earth into a new Cybertron. After months of planning, he nearly succeeded, taking over the Empire State Building with a doomsday device designed to turn the entire population of the City into Cybertronian machines loyal only to him. This being a city full of superheroes, however, he was stopped by the Blue Beetle and, of all people, by Waspinator, who used a piece of his own doomsday device to pierce his mutant spark and, once and for all, end his life.
But again, things are a little more complicated than that. (Here we get into the SECOND AU. Which you can read here if you care)
Starscream found himself in a part of the Transformer afterlife, a between-place called Limbo. Limbo is a place without time, beyond space itself, filled with strange beasts and odd situations. There, he met dozens of alternate universe versions of himself. He also found that he could not remember his own name there, and this bothered him a great deal. One of his alternates found a way out, and escaped, leaving the rest of them alone (this is based loosely on a bit of obscure Japanese canon). Our Starscream, fed up with sitting around in Limbo, searched for a way out, only to find himself in the Pit - the belly of Unicron, and the Transformer equivalent of Hell.
Laughing at the absurdity of the Pit - it is very like the steryotypical Earth version of Hell, all fire and torment - he loudly proclaimed that this was entirely stupid and began to lecture the screaming masses (who were a bit preoccupied) about how the Pit was totally absurd, only to be grabbed by the Fallen (Unicron's personal herald and servant) and told that there was a reason that Starscreams were forbidden to enter either the Pit or the Well (the Well being the Transformers equivalent of Paradise)
The result of this was that he found himself, once again, immortal and back in space, having been kicked out of the robot equivalents of Purgatory, Hell, and presumably Heaven. There, he slipped into his own delusions, trapping himself in a dream of an empty Earth. He soon became unable to tell what was real and what was the dream, shifting between the black emptiness of the void of deep space and his dream of this abandoned planet (and, particularly, a boneyard full of rusted airplanes - a graveyard).
It's about at this point that he gets yanked into Singularity. Wheee!
Personality: Starscream is driven by ambition above all else. He hungers for power and recognition to the point of sheer irrationality, and he'll have it at any cost, no mater who he has to hurt in the process or how. He'll pretend to be your friend if you can serve some purpose to him, and when you've outlived your usefulness (or if he perceives you to be getting a bigger slice of the pie than him) he'll instantly turn around and viciously backstab you.
He's also vain, haughty, arrogant, and temperamental - he believes fully that he deserves the power he so desperately desires, and he'll let you know it, too. He thinks of himself as the greatest thing since cubed energon, and if you say anything to put this into doubt he will completely flip out at you and throw a screaming hissyfit. He also enjoys being a jerk for the sake of being a jerk - other people's suffering is funny to him.
Which isn't to say that he can't be clever or subtle. On the contrary, Starscream is a skilled liar and speaker - while among the Decepticons he had the nickname of 'Silver Snake'. When he puts his mind to it and sets aside his bluster he can be insidiously charming and manipulative. … of course, five seconds later he'll lose his temper and ruin the whole thing. Indeed, Starscream can be said to be a classic sociopath in that regard - superficially charming but ultimately uncaring for the plights of others.
Starscream has chronic bad luck - not precisely a personality trait, but it might be why he's so bitter all the damn time. Even when he has good plans - which he actually does, surprisingly often - he'll usually forget one small detail, or something will happen that causes the whole thing to tumble like a house of cards.
All that said, Starscream's time in the City changed him somewhat significantly. There, without a Megatron to order him around, Starscream was given what he'd thought he'd desired all along - leadership of the Decepticons. While in charge, he learned, always the hard way, that he could not simply be a tyrant ordering his soldiers around - he had to respect them, give them incentives. He would always think of them as tools, but he began to think of them as specialized tools, tools to be gently cared for and used with precision and finesse (it is this way that he thinks of Soundwave and Shockwave). He learned to reign in his temper a little better, and even how to lie well enough to work with heroes on occasion.
Furthermore, Starscream found that relationships were, indeed, somewhat more complex than people who he could use. For example, there was one Arnold Judas Rimmer whose friend he pretended to be in order to convince the other to help him backstab their boss (a Cameron Hodge) and take over the man's company, after which Starscream left Rimmer by the wayside. Later, however, he realized that Rimmer had genuinely thought of him as a friend, and found that he actually enjoyed the man's company. This perplexed him - Rimmer could offer him nothing now, he had nothing Starscream wanted and was not useful, yet his presence was something Starscream found preferable to the presence of others. This was extended to a few choice humans and Cybertronians as well, and a few others (most memorably, the Lady Death [from Sandman], Bakura Ryou (from Yu Gi Oh), Alastair (from yu gi oh 5Ds) and Kiryu (from the same series), among others). He made a pretty terrible friend, all things considered, but. Well. Baby steps.
He also learned how to respect Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots, while said leader was in the City. It was a grudging respect, and they remained enemies, but it was the first time Starscream had ever actually respected a foe rather than simply disdaining them as obstacles to be crushed.
Finally, there was Skyfire. While Starscream had been in the void between the stars, most of his thoughts were occupied with delusional visions of how to destroy Megatron and how he would eventually rule Cybertron... except for a few. He would still have nightmares of the day he lost Skyfire beneath the ice; and while in the City, particularly before the other Cybertronians showed up, he would often reminisce on the days when he and Skyfire had been true friends. He eventually came to the conclusion that Skyfire was the one thing in his life he actually did regret (particularly after a space-parasite ate his ambition and arrogance for a week and thus forced him to face his regrets - long story).
Of course, once the renegade AI dumped Skyfire into the city, Starscream immediately began denying the whole thing and acting like a complete tsundere towards his former friend. But their paths kept crossing, and despite Starscream's protests to the contrary, he found that he had missed the Autobot, and, indeed, was glad the other was here. Eventually, he even admitted some sort of love.
This, of course, was not meant to be. Starscream's life had made him a weapon. Despite all he had learned in the City, he remained vicious, violent, and villainous - all things which put him into direct opposition to Skyfire's pacifist personality. Eventually, it became too much for Skyfire, and the Autobot left... only to be teleported out of the City.
Once again left without a voice of proper reason in his life, Starscream quickly reverted back to his old ways, though with a bit of a different bent. He still maintains his arrogance, his pride, and his ambitious drive, but he is a bit more cautious now. His time in the City changed his focus from ruling Cybertron to making Cybertron anew - after all, Cybertron is dead and in some far distant dimension, so his true wish is to bring it back in whatever universe he happens to be in now.
The one thing Skyfire did manage to get through his thick head is that it's really better not to indiscriminately murder people. The last time he tried to take over the world and turn it into a new Cybertron, he explicitly attempted to avoid as many casualties as possible, and indeed succeeded, with only two deaths happening due to his actions. Of course, it wasn't as if trying to take over the city, brainwash everyone, and turn them into robots was that much better, but like I said. Baby steps. He'll still hesitate a bit more before outright murdering anyone than he used to, though not much.
Starscream's latest failure and the rather painful nature of his death (and subsequent derping around in Limbo) have put a bit of a damper on his usual ambition. He still wants recognition, he'd still kill for power, but a part of him is worn down and beaten. He's begun to wonder if perhaps a rest wouldn't be a bad thing after all. Of course, giving up is out of the question - destiny awaits, slag it all, he'll be ruler of Cybertron somehow... eventually... but for now, can we just stop getting dragged into other worlds? Maybe...?
Abilities and Weaknesses: Hoo boy. Dividing this into three sections :|
Powers and weapons
Immortal Spark
Starscream's spark - the Transformer equivilant of a soul - is immortal. It cannot be damaged save by either a spike of pure crystal energon, or a being of godlike status (sufficiently advanced aliens, such as the Q or the Vorlons, would probably also count).
Starscream can posses machines and people, much like a ghost. While possessing non-sentient objects the object essentially becomes his new body. When possessing people, Starscream will fight with the will of the person he is taking over for control of the body. Someone with a weak will probably will be unable to resist; someone with a strong will can probably keep him from complete control and give him a massive headache besides.
While in a person or sentient machine's body, Starscream can have limited access to their memories. How much is up to the player (I will have a permissions post for this). Again, a strong-willed person can lock him out. By the same token, the posessee can see Starscream's memories, and again, this is dependent on the will of the person involved - someone with a strong will can probably drill deeply into his memories, while someone who is weak-willed won't get much. There's also the problem of Starscream's memories being those of a nine million year old alien war machine, so they might be a bit much for your average carbon-based life form to handle.
While possessing a body, Starscream can use all of its abilities and powers, if it has any.
While disembodied, Starscream also has the ability to project an image of himself - this appears as a faintly glowing (and sparkly! I swear I'm not making this up!) bluish hologram, and is insubstantial. He can also speak.
Other powers
Though Starscream will not have these abilities in the game yet, I am still going to list the superpowers he had in Cape and Cowl, which are coincidentally identical to the abilities he had in Transformers canon. I'm not sure if/when they will come up, but I list them for completeness' sake.
Null Rays - These are electromagnetic pulse rays capable of disabling all but the most well-shielded electronics. In canon, Starscream is even capable of shutting down full sized generators at a power plant. The rays can be used to shut off most electronics for about an hour.
Standard lasers - They're not so much 'lasers' as... er... 80s cartoon show lasers. The damage they deal is primarily concussive rather than incendiary.
Flight - Starscream can generate enough thrust to reach speeds of up to Mach 3. In human form, however, he cannot safely go much faster than about two hundred miles an hour as he'd probably kill himself with the acceleration. As a robot, obviously, he has no such limitation.
Skills
Starscream is a scientist and military commander. His scientific specialties are chemistry, physics, and engineering (when you have sixteen thousand years to learn these things you have the time to be multidisciplinary). He's a skilled fighter, though much better at attacking from a distance than hand-to-hand combat. He relies primarily on his superior speed and flying abilities when fighting.
Weaknesses
See most of the personality section. The arrogance and cowardice doesn't do him any favors.
Starscream in most of his bodies isn't particularly durable - he's built for speed and agility, not taking hits. As a disembodied spark, he's completely insubstantial and incapable of interacting with his environment in any meaningful way - he can sometimes fritz electronics if he tries REALLY HARD but that's about it. Furthermore, his spark is easily contained by force fields of all types. Even a strong enough magnetic field (like that produced by an MRI machine) can be enough to contain him. Interestingly, this may mean that he's capable of physically interacting with solid-light holograms, depending on the principles they run off of (ie, they'd be 'solid' to him).
In terms of science, he's a complete idiot when it comes to any kind of biology. He can do okay with organic chemistry, sometimes, but forget biochem. Seriously, fuckin organic life, how does it work?
He's actually a pretty terrible tactician, doesn't plan ahead very well, and likes to insist that his horrible plans are totally correct shut up HE IS RIGHT, YOU ARE WRONG.
And the universe kind of hates him. Just how it goes, mate.
Inventory: A tiny cute toy robot bird, which Starscream will be using when he first arrives on the station. The bird's sole ability is that it can fly. It cannot speak. … yep.
Other things that will appear in his general area: a garish gold crown and tattered purple cape, a rubber duck, an LP of the song A Glorious Dawn, a few coffee table books of jet planes, a Top Gun DVD, and a tattered copy of Popular Mechanics. He won't get to take these with him, being a small robot bird, but they are there for anyone to stumble upon.
Appearance: Though Starscream will be appearing in the game initially in the form of a disembodied spark and a small metal bird, I have included his appearance in all of his forms for reference.
As a Transformer. As a jet, he's usually either an F-15 Eagle, or an F-22 Raptor (he used the latter altmode in CnC) with the same garish colors.
His human appearance is based on this fanart; he's the one in red, white, and blue.
I use Christian Slater as a PB, cira the movie Heathers. Example! The main difference with Starscream is that he ALWAYS wears red, white, and blue (out of habit); and he has red eyes that glow faintly in the dark.
His Pretender form looks identical, but tends to trigger people's Uncanny Valley reactions due to being a little too perfect.
As a disembodied spark, he looks like this.
His current holographic projection while in Spark form looks like a hybrid between his human and Cybertronian forms, most notable in that he has wings, jet engines for feet, and metal protrusions (they look a bit like the sides of his helmet) instead of ears. This is because of how long he's spent in human form - he is caught between two worlds. If he concentrates, he can look more or less human, but it's not something he generally thinks about. He can't change his form significantly from that (it's based on his subconscious perception of himself)
The bird body is roughly the size and shape of a common magpie, but metallic silver in color, with bright red eyes. The bird body will not be able to speak.
Age: 9,016,326. Give or take.
OC/AU Justification ;
If AU, How is Your Version Different From Canon, and How Will That Come Across? Plz see the Setting/History section.
Samples ;
Log Sample: He hadn't moved for eons.
Or so it felt like. There was no time, here. Eventually, he couldn't even tell the difference between dreaming of the graveyard and being awake, floating bodiless between the stars.
Sleeping, waking. Waking, sleeping.
No.
He stirred.
Who are you.
“Starscream,” he whispered, staggering to his feet, the dead grass crunching beneath them. “I am Starscream. I will not... will not. I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED!”
He ran.
He ran hard, he ran and then he jumped and he flew, his eyes full of fury. He would fight... whatever. Whoever. He would...
And then the dream dissolved and he awoke again, shuffling back into the black between the stars. He felt no cold, no pain, and he simply shone like a star himself. He flew there, too, a short burst of speed as he traveled. He'd find... something. A planet, a drifting probe, a sattelite. He'd find it, and he'd take it as his own and then... something. He'd go home. Yes. He'd go home, and he'd... travel back in time and this time he'd know the future. He'd kill Megatron. Yes. Kill Megatron, take control, kill the Autobots and return home triumphant, and then... then Cybertron would be his. And once it was beautiful he'd find...
No, no, nevermind that. No. It was over. That was over, and no, no, never again.
Shut up shut up shut up, you don't, don't go there, he's not -
No. He couldn't - wouldn't - think about that. Or his failures. No, he wasn't a failure, he was...
Something more, frag it all, something vast, something predatory, something...
Something...
He stopped, again, floating simply in space, and fell, spiraling down into the dream. Again, dead rusted out hulks of ancient aircraft; again, dry grass. Again. No, he couldn't stand this. He needed to do, to be, to something.
Please, Primus, for the love of light. Anything but this. Back to the Pit. Back to life. I have a purpose, frag you, you stupid rustheap of a god, I have to -
Twist. Tear. Flip. He knew this feeling and he almost laughed.
Again? Oh, frag you, Lachesis, I want to go home, not back to -
Not the City.
He spun, floating in ghost form, his mental projection flickering in confusion. He was still a ghost. He was still dead, where was this? Another...
Another graveyard?
He had to be still dreaming.
He wandered floating through the junkyard, seeing the derelicts of ages past. He ran smack into a field of magnetic radiation, like walking through molasses, before a fragging couch fell straight through him. What was this place? It wasn't anywhere he knew. Looked like Junk, actually. Only a bit less orange, and more blue, and with less... freaks running around.
“This is stupid,” he hissed aloud. “Dear my subconscious - come up with something more entertaining, would you? Primus. Can't even trust myself these days.”
He tried to wake back up, floating upwards and trying to go out.
Nothing.
“What?!”
Again. And again. And again. He floated in a panic, losing coherency over his projection and reverting to a simple orb, trailing light as he did. Wake up! Wake up wake up wake...
Nothing.
“... this is real!?”
Frag, not again. Not again, not another fragging dimensional rift. Not another new city and not another new life.
“I WANT TO GO HOME, YOU FOOLS! HOME! I DESERVE A SECOND CHANCE, I'LL DO IT... this time...”
Slag it all.
“Fine.”
He looked around. If it was this again, he'd need a body. Something. Anything. He scrounged and searched the junkpiles, and most of everything there was too damaged to be useful. There was a blender, but... bah. No, useless. Pointless.
There.
“Oh, for spark's sake!”
It was tiny. A simple child's toy, a little bird. Completely useless. But it was all he had right now. He needed to interact with his environment somehow, and this was all he had.
Floating downwards, he settled into the little bird's circuts, feeling its body out, testing it. Its vision was terrible, the wings barely functional, and the voicebox useless.
It would do. For now.
Taking flight, he got exactly three feet before crashing into a pile of junk. It was all wrong - flying by flapping. The bird had no real programming or instincts, nothing he could draw on. He was so used to flight by fixed-wing with thrust for propulsion, none of this swimming through the air scrap.
It was going to be a long solar cycle.
Network Sample: DOIN TWO VERSIONS. One of Birdscream; one of how he'd actually sound were he not being a toy birdie.
[BIRD]
[Video feed. There's a loud flapping noise, the sound of something thumping into something else solid, and a confusing swirl of color as the camera is thrown. When it lands, it seems to be pointing up at a crazy angle. This seems to be an area in the space between two buildings - perhaps on a rooftop somewhere? The architecture makes it look like this is probably somewhere in Kurzwiel. There's a ladder nearby, but no stairs.]
[There's a tinny screech, and then you can see something silver fly across the screen, trying to get up and out of the area. Whatever it is flaps furiously, lauching itself at the nearby wall, only to smack its head near the top and fall backwards to the concrete below]
[It lays still for a few seconds before twitching, flipping itself over, and wobbling to its feet. You can now tell that this is some kind of toy bird-robot - it looks a bit like a common magpie, but entirely silver. It makes a metallic chirping sound, then tries again]
[And again.]
[and again.]
[eventually, it lets out a loud cry - frustration? - before flopping its way past the camera and... you hear a repeat of the same sounds. Whoosh, flap, thud. Skree.]
[Again, it comes back into view, flying past the camera, and slams into the far wall, this time crumpling a wing in the process. It screeches again, then keeps screeching and squawking as it runs in a small circle, its broken wing unable to get it up into the air.]
[GHOSTSCREAM]
[Voicepost! It sounds mechanical, and kind of... tinny. There's an echoy quality to it all, a slight flange to it. Whatever this person is, they're probably not human]
[They also have the world's most annoying voice. Seriously. Think fingernails on chalkboard. Your ears! Primus, your ears!]
Again?
[A hissing sigh that sounds a bit like static]
Again. Again, again again, what is it with you humans and building renegade AI that decide it'd be a lovely time to drag people out of their home dimensions and have them run amok for its own amusement? Always femmes, too. Tch, wouldn't be surprised if the fragging glitch was the same AI as last time, and I'm just in some distant future.
Perhaps I never left...?
Well, it's her mistake, not mine. Me, I'm glad for the chance to live again! It's destiny. It must be. I will... I will.
Anyway.
You, idiots out there on the network There's always idiots. Make yourselves useful and tell me where the nearest robotics depot is! There must be something somewhere in this pathetic excuse for a space station!