21 - Dead Metal and Living Metal / Cries and Screams

[Grand Moff Muffin]

DEAD METAL

PART 1

On the third of July, 2070, after transporting Crosshairs, Pointblank and the Technobots to join Chromedome, Lubedash and Revaway on Nebulos, Spanner the Space Bridge crossed the interdimensional void between Cybertron and Earth... for the very last time.

Just as it had a hundred times before, half of him dematerialised in Iacon and rematerialised over the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and the Autobots and other Cybertronians slowly, reluctantly, walked or drove across, instantly transported over light-years to the planet of the humans.

The Earthen Autobots - Jetfire, Omega Supreme, Defensor, Superion and the recently Matrixed Raiden - waited to greet their Cybertronian cousins. Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Bluestreak, Bumblebee, Hoist, Hound, Jazz and Smokescreen, now long-established residents of Earth, were also there to welcome them, as were various human officials.

First across the Bridge came Prowl and Wheeljack, the leaders of the new arrivals. Camshaft, Downshift, Freeway, Grapple, Landfill and Wideload rolled after them, the latter two laden down with precious items from Iacon's Great War Museum and Pipes' Museum of Human Cultural Artefacts. Pipes himself followed in convoy with Huffer, both of them towing fully loaded trailers, and after them them came Chase, Cliffjumper, Hardspark, Hotspark, Quickmix, Rollbar, Searchlight and Scoop. A score of civilian Cybertronians including Brains, Canopy, Daytrader, Hauler, J'Muk, Scorn, Slug, Sqweeks, Trench and Wheezel trudged or trundled across in the Autobots' wake. Mirage, Overdrive, Red Alert, Trailbreaker, Warpath and Wildspark brought up the rear.

After greeting Optimus, Jetfire and his other friends, Prowl turned sadly to the Space Bridge and said, "It's time. This is... the end. Say goodbye, Spanner."

TO BE CONTINUED

[Grand Moff Muffin]

DEAD METAL

PART 2

Spanner heard Prowl, and the half of him that was still on Cybertron took one last, long look at the planet of his birth... and then teleported to Earth, forming a complete suspension bridge across the Grand Canyon.

"It's over... finished," he told Prowl.

The two dozen Autobot arrivals transformed to their vehicular disguises and rolled out with Prime, Jazz and their other compatriots who had lives already long established on Earth.

Hauler patted the Space Bridge. "Onwards and upwards, Spanner, old chum."

"So be it," sighed the Bridge. "Next stop, Lithone!" And his formerly Iaconian half phased out of existence once more, a view of the peaceful Cybertronian colony world of Lithone now appearing under the Bridge's arch - the new home-to-be of Hauler, Wheezel and the other civilian refugees.

"Cybertron it ain't," shrugged J'Muk. "But it'll have to do!"

Though half of him was physically on Earth and the other half now on Lithone, Spanner's thoughts were all on his doomed homeworld.

It was hard to accept, that almost a century after the Chaos-Bringer's demise... Unicron had won!

TO BE CONTINUED

[Andy Turnbull]

Oooh.

Intriguing.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

DEAD METAL

PART 3

With Ramhorn and Steeljaw by his side, and the Rescue Force awaiting his instructions, Emirate Xaaron, a.k.a. Thunderclash Prime, helplessly watched the end of the planet Cybertron from the command platform of Metroplex's battle station bridge.

After four million years of fighting Decepticon rule on Cybertron, and less than a century of freedom on the planet, it was all coming to a swift and sudden end, and without a shot being fired. Who could have predicted that Unicron's mental reprogramming of a small number of Cybertronians to single-mindedly serve his long-stated agenda of Cybertron's destruction would survive the death of both the Chaos-Bringer himself and his mortal enemy, Primus? It was logical with hindsight. If you order a robot to carry out a task, it will keep doing it until told not to, even when it no longer serves any useful purpose. But hindsight is still, well, hindsight.

The Brotherhood of Chaos would have waited patiently in the shadows for a hundred thousand years for an opportunity to fulfil their mission, living unobtrusively as good little citizens of the new order, but the Autobots and Decepticons presented them with that opportunity far sooner than they could have dreamt. Rebuilding and re-energising the planetary rocket boosters with the sole aim of nudging Cybertron back into the orbit of a convenient star made perfect sense to the Transformers, the Quintessons, and all the other species who now called the metal world home. Yes, it was prudent to guard the operation against rogue demons and other aggressive types, but nobody seriously considered that anyone intelligent would have reason to sabotage the operation. Who could benefit from destroying the entire planet?

Answer: No-one could benefit from it. But Unicron's enslaved minions were programmed to do it, so they did it anyway.

A billion years in the future, Scarvix's sun will die, spectacularly shedding its elements across space, where they will eventually condense to form new stars and planets. Any intelligent species living on these planets will find themselves blessed with unusually plentiful deposits of iron and other metallic elements - far more than would normally have been created by such a star as that now orbited by the planet Scarvix. A billion years in the future, no-one will remember why this star had contained so much metal.

But on the fourth of July, 2070, ships from more than a dozen races watched as Cybertron plunged into the sun.

TO BE CONTINUED

[Andy Turnbull]

I am enjoying these little bursts.

I always thought if your take on Primus was that he was an all round good guy Cybertron would fall anyway, his children should spread throughout the stars ensuring life everywhere is safeguarded. Having such a massive portion of life energy taken on repairing what is in essence your corpse doesn't seem like the actions of a good guy. Probably what informs my opinion of him being a guardian of life but not good. Similar to how the cosmic forces wanted Adam Warlock's evil future self The Magus to be their champion for life, against Death's champion - Thanos.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

I've never viewed Primus and Unicron as being important beings on a cosmic scale because they've never shown themselves to be. You need to be able to do more than destroy or alter planets in order to claim to be a primordial force of the universe. I think the TF/Marvel universe is full of beings who claim to be at the absolute pinnacle of the food chain but only because the guy older and more powerful than them has yet to cross their path. Primus and Unicron may actually believe they are older than creation and the champions of good and evil in the multiverse, but they are robots, so they'll believe whatever their programming tells them to believe.

I've always used stars as examples of commonplace things Primus and Unicron would lose a fight with.

Martin

[Andy Turnbull]

If you accept what Primus tells us in The Void and Unicron to Death's Head in Legacy of Unicron as true, then they would have to be. In the Marvel U at least on a par with Galactus and the rest of the Elders, but probably below The Living Tribunal.

I'd also argue the technicality that Unicron isn't a robot. He's metallic absolutely, but not robotic. Primus - would possibly be the same. The Transformers - 100% robotic based on what we see of them in universe.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Jul 4, 2020 12:00:15 GMT Andy Turnbull said:

If you accept what Primus tells us in The Void and Unicron to Death's Head in Legacy of Unicron as true, then they would have to be.

Yes, of course, but why should anyone accept what they say as true, when they don't have any evidence to back it up? (The visuals accompanying the Primus/Unicron myth always rang warning bells in my mind as not to be taken literally, as they portray themselves as humanoid deities, which is unlikely.)

If you're a thousand times older and more powerful than the people you're talking to, they'll be so in awe of you that they'll believe you if you tell them you're actually a billion times older and more powerful. It's tempting to claim and believe you're more important than you are when you're the most important person in the room.

Martin

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Jul 4, 2020 12:00:15 GMT Andy Turnbull said:

I'd also argue the technicality that Unicron isn't a robot. He's metallic absolutely, but not robotic. Primus - would possibly be the same. The Transformers - 100% robotic based on what we see of them in universe.

I think Unicron was a robot in the cartoon series, wasn't he? I haven't seen any evidence that either he or Primus are anything other than robots with computer minds in the comic either. The Creation Matrix was always described as a computer program, and the way Primus possesses Xaaron suggests they have compatible systems.

Martin

[Andy Turnbull]

The comic has two random metallic asteroids as their form which are in their words psionically reshaped into Cybertron and Unicron, in the absence of a creator of these two or evidence of some such it does have to hold a bit of weight until being debunked.

The Matrix is an interesting one, it's initially described as a computer program before being ascribed as containing Primus' life force. The Transformers as a society having once being religious in some way, shaking that off to become an atheist society to then fall back to a more religious position.

Andu

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Jul 4, 2020 12:35:16 GMT Andy Turnbull said:

The comic has two random metallic asteroids as their form which are in their words psionically reshaped into Cybertron and Unicron, in the absence of a creator of these two or evidence of some such it does have to hold a bit of weight until being debunked.

I dunno, I'd say the burden of proof falls on a person who claims to be a fallen deity to back up that claim, not on the listener to disprove it, when there's no hard historical evidence either way surviving from the time in question. Should we take all Earth's myths that cannot be disproved as truth, in the absence of a time-machine to go back and disprove them? Fine for those who follow a religion to take unprovable things on faith, but faith must be recognised as such and not confused with history.

It's easy to build a robot and program it with false memories of being an energy being from the dawn of time. In the comic the power of Primus and Unicron has clear limits: Unicron's bulk is too big to teleport to Cybertron, they are not omniscient and can be fooled, you can hurt them with conventional weapons, Unicron needs the Junkions to rebuild his body, etc. It's the fact that they tell an origin story that has them infinitely more powerful and important in the past than they are now, without any evidence to support it, that makes me sceptical. If they'd told any origin story that matched with their current power levels, I'd be more inclined to take their word for it. But to say, "I used to be the most powerful force in the universe, you can't disprove it!" makes me go, "Okayyy... next Napoleon, please!"

Martin

[Grand Moff Muffin]

DEAD METAL

INTERLUDE 1

Previously, in 'The Last Days of the Transformers War: Escort Duty':

"I convinced 'Optimus Prime' to return me to my body before sending me off on my search of cyberspace, in order to download from my personal database some specialist mind-hacking software suitable for the job at hand. For his part, he uploaded to me a copy of an ancient Cybertronian text entitled 'The Ultimate Warrior', and Chapters 3 and 4 of something called 'The Eleven Portals of the Cybertriton Mainframe'. I did not press him for the complete text of the latter. Business comes first, yes?

"Now as a fully armed and armoured virtual avatar, and with my client's texts to show me the way, I have returned to the Decepticons' computer network to search for any records of energy signatures that may lead me to the resting place of the legendary 'Last Autobot'."
___

"Mission 81 – log tape continues. At least part of my client's tale is true, though 'The Ultimate Warrior' has been no help whatsoever. A search of the Decepticons' planetary network for the energy signature in question failed to turn up any leads, but in the late Lord Straxus's encrypted files I found mention of an older network, isolated from the Decepticons' system. I exited the Decepticon network in the city-state of Polyhex, uploading myself into a dormant harvester unit, which vessel transported my consciousness to the base of the Smelting Pool, and an ancient computer terminal left behind by a long-forgotten civilisation. Chapter 3 of 'The Eleven Portals' instructed me in the language protocols of this older system, and with some trepidation I entered the network.

"There are numerous intelligent life-forms within this system. Hard to say how many, as they split and merge freely. In conversing with them, I was unable to establish whether they had once inhabited physical mechanoid bodies or had always lived in cyberspace. They appeared for the most part benign, though I fear their memories have been corrupted over the millennia.

"Chapter 4 showed me the way to a second level, of which the inhabitants of the first were ignorant. There were no conventional virtual life-forms down here that I could discern, though I could feel what can only be described as an electronic whisper on the periphery of my consciousness. Haunted by ghosts, yes? The computer network criss-crosses the entire planet..."

INTERLUDE ENDS

[Grand Moff Muffin]

DEAD METAL

INTERLUDE 2

Previously, in 'The Last Days of the Transformers War: Xaaron':

"M-magnus..." the voice trickled weakly from the face of Primus.

"Xaaron, is that you?"

"H-help meee..."

"Don't worry, I'll get you out of this mess."

Ultra Magnus turned on the spot, taking in the remains of Hook, Line and Sinker, a dormant Guardian battle droid standing in a corner awaiting instructions, Huffer's work bench, the Powerdashers' charging apparatus, the open panels in the wall dangling cables, where Grapple had been trying to interface with Primus by technological means, and the five aerial Decepticons standing in the open doorway with blasters levelled at him.

He turned back to Primus/Xaaron.

"I've got an idea."
___

Previously, in 'The Last Days of the Transformers War: Unicron':

Ultra Magnus's Duocon friends returned to the surface with Wingspan to join Astrotrain, Blitzwing, Bludgeon and the other survivors from the last three generations of the Mayhem Attack Squad in their stand against Unicron. Ultra Magnus followed minutes later with the Guardian unit into which they had transferred the consciousness that spoke with the voice of Emirate Xaaron, previously trapped in the face of Primus. Magnus ordered Grapple and Huffer to return to the Primal Chamber, disconnect the cables and secure the room from any further outside interference.
___

In the shrine of Primus, Grapple and Huffer were just tidying up when the face of Primus spoke.

"Huf-fer..."

"What the-? Xaaron!" gasped Huffer. "Are you still inside that thing?"

"Then who's in that Guardian unit that left with Ultra Magnus?" wondered Grapple.
___

"We are... not alone," Xaaron told Grapple and Huffer. "This face of Primus is just one of many hidden access terminals scattered around the planet."

"What do they give access to?" asked Grapple.

"The great, lost mainframe of Cybertron. Call it the mind of Primus if you like, but there are many sentient minds in here with me, and they all tell slightly different versions of our origin story..."

INTERLUDE ENDS

[Grand Moff Muffin]

DEAD METAL

PART 4

The fourth of July, 2070.

Watching Cybertron burn up in Scarvix's sun from the cockpit of his ship, Death's Head grunted with exasperation. Fools. Not his fault, eh? Hired him to protect the planetary boosters from physical interference. Not his job to stop traitors amongst the Transformers themselves altering the engines' firing pattern, so that Cybertron entered a decaying orbit around the star rather than the stable one they had all intended. Completed his contract, got paid. Tough luck for the Transformers, but business was business.

So why, then, if he felt no responsibility for the outcome, had he thrown in that freebie? Death's Head never works for free... And yet, when Thunderclash, a.k.a. Xaaron, appealed for his help in the planetary evacuation, he had agreed to do so without demanding further payment for his services. Must be getting soft in his old age, yes?

And he could have charged premium rate for this one. To his knowledge, no-one alive today but himself and Xaaron had ever uploaded their minds into the ancient Cybertronian computer core, encountered the virtual life-forms residing within, and returned to tell the tale - and of the two of them, only Death's Head had done so willingly and got his original body back upon his return to the physical world.

So while the other Autobots concerned themselves with the evacuation of Cybertron's surface, he, Xaaron and the Autobot 'Action Master' called Mainframe set about evacuating the planet's virtual life-forms.

And as far as they could tell, they had accomplished what they set out to do. Metroplex's massive database now held all the sentient programs that had previously inhabited the circuits of Primus.

So much for charity. What to do with them was Xaaron's problem. Elsewhere in the Galaxy, Death's Head had paying customers waiting for him.

Through shielded optics he saw Cybertron die... or rather, he saw dead metal vaporise. He tapped the console, and his ship banked away, passing between Trypticon's flagship 'Revenge' (one more piece of the legacy of Unicron) and Astrotrain's shuttle form. He flipped a switch and jumped to hyperspace.

TO BE CONTINUED

[Grand Moff Muffin]

DEAD METAL

PART 5

In their own opinion, if the Junkions knew one thing, it was what made for good television. And the destruction of Cybertron made for good television.

In the short window of time available, there was nothing anyone could do to save the planet - except on film.

The Junkions sourced the most heat-resistant cameras and transmitters available, and installed them at key points around the planet. So when Cybertron fell into Scarvix's sun, they captured the melting of the Manganese Mountains, the boiling of the Sea of Mercury, the toppling of the Celestial Spires, the crumbling of the colosseums and the crystallisation of the Terbium Plains, before the last camera failed and dissolved into static.

Sharing it live across the Galaxy, they rather unoriginally called it the Big, Big Broadcast of 2070.

TO BE CONCLUDED

[Grand Moff Muffin]

DEAD METAL

CONCLUSION

Death's Head's ship was the first to leave, jumping into hyperspace, destination unknown. Of the Decepticons, Astrotrain, Blitzwing, Turbo Master and the Stratotronic Jet commanded by Gutcruncher set course together for an orbital space station circling the system's third gas giant, where they would take on fuel and supplies while deciding upon their next move. The starship Revenge, carrying the bulk of the Decepticon forces under the command of Trypticon, turned and left the star system at sub-light speed. The Junkions' mobile 'planet' chose a scenic route through the outer asteroid belt. The Cosmic Carnival snaked its way out of the system, the Quintessons' corkscrew-like cruisers set off in the direction of the K'Tor wormhole cluster, the Robo Machine Renegade Monsters' Command Centre followed in the Quintessons' wake, and the ships of various races that had launched from Scarvix in order to view the spectacle from space returned one by one to the planet's surface.

The Autobot fleet was the last to leave, the city-sized mobile battle station called Metroplex escorted through space by Cloudraker, Cosmos, Doublecross, Dragonstorm, Quickswitch, Sky Lynx, Skyhammer, Windmill, the Action Masters' Armoured Convoy commanded by Jackpot, the Big Powerdasher crewed by Drillbuster, Sonic and Speeder, and the Micromaster Battlefield Headquarters piloted by Full-Barrel and Overflow.

"Where to, boss?" Slamdance asked Thunderclash Prime. "Cameron? Halfworld? Nebulos? Pequod? Planet Beast?"

The Autobot Leader hesitated, drawing concerned looks from Blurr, Eject, Fastlane, Gunrunner, Hopper, Landmine, Longtooth, Nautilus, Repugnus, Rewind, Skater, Whirl and the other Autobots and civilian Cybertronians gathered around him on Metroplex's enormous bridge.

"Commander?" prompted his second-in-command, Grotusque.

"We can't go to any of our allied worlds," Thunderclash spoke carefully at last. "Not yet. There are too many of us, and our first responsibility is to the lives in our care. We can't take the sentient virtual life-forms in Metroplex's databank to planets with insecure computer networks. We need to find a safe world where they can establish themselves in a new computer matrix."

"Do you have somewhere in mind to create this new civilisation?" pressed Springer.

"Yes, I do," replied Thunderclash. "A planet called Theturis."

THE END

[Grand Moff Muffin]

DEAD METAL: IN THE ZONE

Robocritter (or Rabbicrater)
Said "So long!" and "See you later!"
When he launched his rocket ship,
The Thunder Arrow, to take a trip
Around the Galaxy, and see the sights
He'd heard about on winter nights
When comrades told heroic tales
Of astral storms and cosmic gales.

Rabbicrater (or Robocritter)
Received a call from home most bitter.
Rushing back to Cybertron,
He found, alas, his world was gone!
All that awaited him in its place
Were a space-copter and a friendly face:
His pal Deadwheeler met him there,
Ensconced in Sky Hyper's pilot's chair.

"So it's true!" our hero wailed.
"Our plan to save our homeworld failed!"
"It happened, yes!" Deadwheeler cried,
"Though no-one but the culprits died."
"Then where has everybody gone?
To Earth, Pequod or Cameron?"
"Some to each," replied his chum.
"It's time we too departed. Come!"

"What is to be our destination?
Each of us has a big battle station,
And Micromaster Island's much too small
For Earth to accommodate such urban sprawl."
"Halfworld's where we've been asked to go.
Hot Rodimus is our agent there, you know.
He's found us employment designing toys -
Transforming robots for girls and boys."

Rabbicrater smiled and said, "That sounds fun.
Better than orbiting this thrice-cursed sun!
My ship can help us sell a load
When in its shopping centre mode."
"That's the plan," Deadwheeler agreed.
"Plastic toys to alien kids in need
Of a treat to help them shift the frown
That comes from living in perpetual lockdown."

THE END

DEAD METAL: LIVING PLASMA

"Make your report, please."

"Well... Dicet thinks his father is angry because his essay shone a light on the potential for time-travel to cause rifts in time and space, and therefore caused us to withdraw our support for Project: Transtime."

"That is a logical inference... from Dicet's point of view."

"Indeed. As for Dicet's father, his fury is the fear-masking anger of a parent who has just nearly lost his one and only offspring to an act of stupidity, for which he blames himself. He had told Dicet the Transtime Pod was safe, you see. Which is true, up to a point. It's perfectly safe, for travelling to a planet at a well-specified point in history."

"Which is all anyone would reasonably expect it to be used for."

"Quite. But Dicet didn't just use it to travel to planets at well-defined points in time... such as Earth, New Year's Day 1989. He used it to travel to the bridge of the Ark shortly before it crashed on Earth."

"Which, as we've discussed before, is a theoretical impossibility."

"Of course it's impossible. How can you use a time machine to visit an event in history if you can't specify its exact co-ordinates in time and space?"

"Nobody knows what year the Ark crashed, never mind precisely where it was in space at a particular instant prior to said crash."

"Right. We understand that the crash happened some 60,000 gluxins in our past... 50,000 vorns in old time units, 4,000,000 Earth-years. But those are round numbers. Nobody knows more precisely than that. And the Ark was somewhere between the orbits of Mars and Earth - planets circling a star falling through space. How can you instruct a time machine to take you somewhere so vague?"

"And yet the essay claims Dicet did it."

"By rights he should have materialised in the empty void of space, hundreds of gluxins and microparsecs from anything solid."

"Are we any closer to explaining this prodigy?"

"I believe so, though we'll have to come up with something else to tell Dicet's father. He may be one of Theturis's top scientists, but he is not privy to the secrets of our society's origins."

"His ancestry... it traces back to one of the Prime Programs?"

"It does. Since the time Thunderclash Prime established our progenitors in the first Metroplex on Theturis's plasma plains, and entrusted them with custody of the re-ignited Matrix Flame, certain software lines have maintained an unshakeable affinity to the Autobot race, despite our best efforts to forge a distinct species, a more enlightened civilisation."

"You think the piece of Primus within Dicet Alpha-zero enabled his subconscious to... home in on Optimus Prime and the Creation Matrix?"

"What other explanation is there?"

"Can you prove it?"

"There's only one way to be sure."

"Yes. It's more critical now than ever, despite what we told Dicet and his father. The Project: Transtime trials will continue."

THE END

[Grand Moff Muffin]

DEAD METAL: LOST

PART 1

- All systems reactivated -

Drillbuster returned to consciousness. For a second or two, nothing seemed to be amiss. Transformers routinely switch themselves off for short durations, usually either to conserve energy or to undergo maintenance, and the Autobot Micromaster had done so hundreds of times before.

Even when his memories returned, he didn't panic. So this hadn't been a routine, run-of-the-mill shutdown. He remembered now, the entire Autobot fleet had been ordered to deactivate for six hours, while a sentient computer virus of cosmic proportions passed through this sector of the Milky Way Galaxy. A dozen robot worlds had fallen victim to it before word spread far enough ahead to allow those in its path to take appropriate precautions. Elpasos, Junk and Lithone had all gone dormant until the danger passed. The Autobots living on Cameron, Earth, Halfworld, Nebulos, Pequod and Planet Beast had all temporarily shut themselves down. And the main Autobot fleet had done likewise. That Drillbuster was now awake simply meant that his internal alarm clock had determined the enforced period of inactivity to be completed.

He was in a dark, enclosed space. Big deal - he remembered that when he had gone into shutdown he had been in a windowless compartment within his partner Roadfire. It hadn't been dark then, but the fact it was pitch black now simply meant that just as he'd gone to sleep before Roadfire, he had also woken up first.

"Rise and shine, big guy," he called, hammering on the compartment wall, as if that was how you reactivated a dormant robot. He recalled where the control interface was and pressed the power restore override.

Nothing.

Hmmm.

Maybe Roadfire had pre-programmed his systems to stay shut down for the set period regardless of outside interference. How annoying. Drillbuster wasn't in a waiting mood, so he felt around for the door handle.

Drillbuster pulled himself through the hole and climbed a ladder to the external escape hatch. The inside of Roadfire was already a vacuum, so there was no danger of being sucked out into space by explosive decompression. He cranked the handle, wrenched open the hatch, and swung himself onto the outer hull of the Big Powerdasher.

He magnetised his feet, stood and walked along Roadfire's exterior until he reached the first connection, and stepped across onto Zetar, or Atlas as he now preferred to be known. This giant Autobot also appeared to be inactive, but Drillbuster felt a vibration through his feet that suggested someone was hammering on his inside, trying to get out.

He found the hatch, which appeared to be jammed by a shard of space debris. He made short work of it, turned the outer handle and released his fellow Micromaster, Speeder.

"I'm glad to see you!" the small white robot gushed over inter-Autobot radio. "I've been trying to get out for hours!"

"Hours?" pondered Drillbuster. "Either you awoke early, or I overslept."

"I think we all overslept!" his friend opined. "Haven't you noticed the stars?"

"No, what about them?"

"I've been looking out of Atlas's window since I awoke. We're not where we were when Thunderclash ordered us to shut down."

"Really?" grunted Drillbuster, looking up from the hull for the first time. "Where are we, then?"

"That's just it - I don't know! None of these constellations conform to any star configurations in my memory banks. Either we're no longer in the Milky Way Galaxy..."

Drillbuster finished Speeder's thought. "Or we've been inoperative for a lot longer than six hours!"

TO BE CONTINUED

[Grand Moff Muffin]

DEAD METAL: LOST

PART 2

"What is wrong with them?"

"Beats me. Sonic, you're supposed to be mind-linked to Bomber - can't you, like, give him a mental boost or something to wake him up?"

"I could, except that 'mental boost' isn't a thing. You just made it up."

"Really? I'm sure I've heard of it as a thing."

"Nope."

"Well, it sounds like it should be a thing."

The three Micromasters had been working day and night (or would have been if there was such a thing as day and night in deep space), but had been entirely unsuccessful in reviving the large Powerdasher Masters. Sonic and Drillbuster were still arguing about it, quite unproductively, but the more practical Speeder had long since given up and moved on to focus on reigniting the combiner starship's engines, with far greater success.

The other two were debating the finer points of Creation Matrix nanobot transfusions (which also isn't a thing) when a violent jolt almost shook them loose from the hull, and the Big Powerdasher slowly accelerated relative to whatever galaxy they had been cast adrift in.

"Where are we going?" demanded Sonic, as he and Drillbuster carefully made their way back to the Roadfire module.

"Magnetic sensors detect three large metal objects drifting several hundred kilometres astern," Speeder radioed back from the engine room. "Could be fellow Autobots... and maybe some answers."
___

The first and smallest contact turned out to be the Micromaster Battlefield Headquarters, drifting in space without the faintest sign of power, completely dark until illuminated by the spotlights of the Big Powerdasher.

Speeder matched the Battlefield H.Q.'s velocity and drew their own ship alongside. Sonic and Drillbuster secured the two ships' hulls with magnetic grapples, and the three small Autobots together forced the H.Q.'s airlock and pulled themselves inside the Big Powerdasher's sister vessel.

"Overflow? Full-Barrel?" Although they had received no response on the radio during their approach, they continued to call out to the ship's two-robot crew as they explored the vessel's interior.

They found the pair - the only Micromasters besides themselves assigned to Thunderclash's fleet - strapped into the pilot and co-pilot seats, as lifeless and unresponsive as Atlas, Roadfire and Sonic Bomber. Nothing they could do would rouse them.

TO BE CONTINUED

[Grand Moff Muffin]

DEAD METAL: LOST

PART 3

They transferred their two comatose friends to the Big Powerdasher and took the Battlefield Headquarters in tow as they made their way towards the second object, which they found to be the Action Masters' Armoured Convoy. Its interceptor shuttle module carried its trailer module underneath, and Commander Jackpot and his lieutenant Mainframe could be clearly seen slumped at the cockpit controls. The Micromasters docked, and having gained access to the trailer they found the remainder of the ship's crew - Circuit, Glitch, Kick-Off, Lionizer, Over-Run, Powerflash, Push-Button, Rad, Road Rocket, Rollout, Rumbler, Sights, Skyfall, Sprocket, Top-Heavy and Windmill - in much the same condition.

"Do you think the cosmic virus got them all?" wondered a frightened Sonic.

"We don't know they're dead," Drillbuster countered. "Remember, we were inoperative for a long time ourselves, and we've come out of it."

"What's so special about us?"

"Maybe the Big Powerdasher's armoured frame somehow provided more protection for us than either of these ships did for their crews."

Speeder returned from the engine room with terrible news. He had measured the extent to which the radioactive isotopes in the Armoured Convoy's power core had decayed since the ship's fuel cells had last been replenished. Knowing the half-lives of the elements in question, this had enabled him to calculate how long they had been drifting in space.

Their worst fears had been realised. They had been out for approximately 6,000 vorns, or half a million Earth-years.

TO BE CONCLUDED

[Grand Moff Muffin]

DEAD METAL: LOST

CONCLUSION

The awesome responsibility that now rested on the shoulders of the three Micromasters hit home when they finally reached Metroplex's battle station form. Having docked the Big Powerdasher, the Battlefield Headquarters and the Armoured Convoy they ventured inside the great city Transformer, still keeping their feet magnetised until they could get the artificial gravity working again.

In the main shuttle bay, the twelve Guardian Knights who formed the invincible Dragonstorm floated like ghostly sentinels. Drillbuster, Sonic and Speeder hurried past them, and passed as quickly as they could through the lower decks, where some five hundred Cybertronian civilians, many of them never engineered to transform, resembled so many metal statues.

And then on the main bridge they found him - Thunderclash Prime, formerly Emirate Xaaron, supreme Autobot Leader and trusted protector of those five hundred souls - as still and silent as all the rest, surrounded by his followers - the Cassettes, the Clones, the Monsterbots, the Rescue Force, Blurr, Hopper, Nautilus, Quickswitch, Skater, Springer and Whirl. All without signs of life.

"We're way out of our depth here, guys..." muttered Drillbuster.

"I agree. We need help with this. Let's get Metroplex's engines running, and head for the nearest friendly star system." Speeder began to move off.

"Not so fast," cautioned Sonic. "How do we know which star systems are friendly in this time period? What if we run into hostiles? The three of us are too few to crew and defend a ship of Metroplex's size. If we take our fellow Cybertronians to the wrong planet we may be taking them to their deaths."

"So what do you suggest?" challenged Speeder.

"We leave them here. The chances of anyone stumbling across something of this size in interstellar space are zero. We've been out here for thousands of vorns without anyone finding us. This is the safest place for our sleeping comrades."

"You're right," said Drillbuster. "But so's Speeder. This is beyond us. We've got to get help, but our friends stay here. We only put our own necks on the line. Well, ours and those of our Powerdasher partners."

"All right," said Speeder. "Just us, then. Let's go see what's out there."

THE END

[Andy Turnbull]

That ending put me in mind of Ulysses 31 there with the lifeless bodies of Thunderclash and co there, shades of Nestor and the companions.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

You got me - Ulysses was in my mind when I wrote it!

Cheers for reading, Andy.

Martin

[Andy Turnbull]

I've been enjoying it immensely.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

DEAD METAL: ALIEN ROBOTS AMONGST US

PART 1

Half.



A million.



Years.



Earlier.



The late 21st Century.



"Madam President, Cameron Space Control reports that the intelligent cosmic computer virus has passed out of this sector of the Milky Way Galaxy."

"Explain to me again how it's possible to have an intelligent computer virus in the vacuum of space, travelling faster than the speed of light, which is somehow compatible with every sentient artificial intelligence created by independently evolving technological civilisations across the known universe."

"It's... a VERY intelligent computer virus."

"All right, skip it. So, have our Autobot friends been reactivated on schedule by their internal alarm clocks?"

"Er... no. They haven't."

"Oh. Interesting! Any idea why?"

"Not a clue. Virus must be even more intelligent than we thought. It's gone, but it appears to have wiped the Transformers' reactivation settings in passing."

"So, for the first time in a hundred years, Earth has no active Cybertronians."

"Correct."

"I see. Er... I was just thinking... I know they're our allies, and we've granted them full Earth citizenship since their planet got destroyed, but... maybe it's for the best. Perhaps we should keep them this way for a bit, at least until we've fully thought things through..."

"Excuse me, Madam President... Hmmm. My apologies. The situation has changed."

"What is it?"

"One of our Matrix-bearers tried giving one of the dormant Autobots a mental boost..."

"Is that even a thing?"

"Apparently it is now. Anyway, it worked. Optimus Prime is now active."

"Oh... good."

"What was it you were saying when my communicator beeped?"

"Never mind. I'm going to use my mutant powers to wipe it from your memory."

"Wipe what from my what?"

"Nothing. So, Optimus Prime has returned to us?"

"Yes, as now have Inferno, and Jetfire, and Prowl."

"Splendid."

"And Cosmos, and Godbomber, and Sky Lynx."

"I'm so pleased. So, everything's back to normal."

"Ummm... not exactly, Madam President."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, our Matrix-bearers can reactivate all the Transformers whose location is known to us - those parked at their registered addresses, or based at government buildings or on Micromaster Island."

"But?"

"Transformers who did not tell anyone of their whereabouts before going into lockdown... there's no easy way to locate them."

"How many?"

"Dozens. Earthen vehicular Transformers like Beachcomber, Brawn, Drift, Gears, Hubcap, Punch, Sideswipe, Skids, Tracks and Windcharger... animalistic Pretenders like Carnivac and Chainclaw... humanoid Pretenders like Gunrunner, Metalhawk and Skyhammer... They're all out there somewhere. Fully shut down and disguised, there's no way for even one of our Matrix-bearers to sense their presence remotely."

"Well, that's just great."

"And as for Transformers who have shut themselves down in interstellar space, expecting to wake up of their own accord once the virus has passed. They're... lost... possibly for all eternity."

TO BE CONTINUED

[Grand Moff Muffin]

DEAD METAL: ALIEN ROBOTS AMONGST US

PART 2

The year 2084.

Hotspark and Wildspark (formerly Sizzle and Fizzle respectively) wound their way along the scenic coastal roads of Chile, heading north from Santiago. The South Pacific Ocean stretched off to their left, where Seaspray matched their land speed on the water, scouring the shores for any sign of the missing Ultra Magnus and his current travelling companion, Outback. As the road turned briefly inland, the Sparkdashers paused to take stock and let their Battle Beast partners stretch their legs in the sunshine. Tracking outwards from Magnus's last known position had so far proven utterly fruitless.

Many miles to the north, Powerglide searched Los Flamencos National Reserve from the air in the vain hope of spotting Magnus, Outback or one of their other missing comrades. But given that the Autobots had spread the word to find safe hiding places in which to shut down while the cosmic virus passed through Earth's Solar System, finding one of those who had opted to go off-grid was like looking for a pin in a stack full of needles.
___

Somewhere on a traffic-lined back street in a leafy residential suburb of Cardiff in South Wales, Ironhide was parked quietly in his van mode. The last his comrades had heard from him, he had been somewhere in the Brecon Beacons. The area he had chosen to shut down in was one where people minded their own business. It could be months before anyone reported the unattended vehicle.

In a quiet corner of a disused underground car park in downtown Beijing, Swerve and Tailgate slept peacefully in their disguise modes, the Pretender Metalhawk slumped seemingly lifeless in Tailgate's passenger seat. In Swerve's glove compartment, the Autobot Browning rested in his gun form.

And in a dark crater on Earth's Moon untouched by sunlight, Action Master Thundercracker sat patiently astride his Solo Mission Jet Plane, awaiting an internal alarm clock to go off and reactivate him - an alarm call that had been cancelled by the intelligent cosmic computer virus.

TO BE CONTINUED

[Grand Moff Muffin]

DEAD METAL: ALIEN ROBOTS AMONGST US

PART 3

The day after the cosmic virus passed through the Solar System, a man stumbled upon a blue and silver antique camera, complete with flash and telephoto lens, marked 'Reflector', in a secluded alley in Madrid whilst on his way back from emptying out the bins.

The following afternoon, in Cairo, police towed away an illegally parked yellow vintage Porsche 924 Turbo and red Lamborgini Countach.

In a cave on an inaccessible cliffside somewhere in the Indian Ocean, a dark blue truck cab with silver exhaust pipes, a black 2017 Mercedes-AMG GT R and a blue Pontiac Fiero were parked safely out of reach of either friend or foe, two apparently healthy human males in their late thirties stretched lifeless across the vintage sports cars' back seats.
___

"How bad is it?" Optimus Prime asked Prowl, who stood before him with Inferno and Red Alert in the Autobots' temporary New York headquarters.

"Bad," came the reply. "At the present time, not counting Micromasters and Pretender sleepers, and the Special Teams under Jetfire's command, we can confirm the location of only around a third of the Transformers on Earth. Wherever the rest of them are, they remain completely shut down. Defenceless."

"But it's worse news out in space," said Red Alert. "We've completely lost contact with Metroplex, and as for the non-Micromaster Decepticons, they could be anywhere right now. We can't even be sure they received the Galaxy-wide warning to shut down ahead of the cosmic virus wave."

"Cosmos has established contact with our allies on Cameron, Femax, Halfworld, Nebulos and Planet Beast," reported Inferno. "By all accounts, the Autobots stationed on those worlds are currently safe, but the sooner we get Matrix-bearers out to reactivate them, the better. The situation on Planet Beast remains volatile, and our Battle Beast, Rock Lord and Thunderian friends remain reliant on Red Phoenix the Blazing Eagle and the Victory Lion as a deterrent against hostile forces."

"All right," sighed Optimus. "We have eight human Matrix-bearers currently available, not counting the one that has gone with Jetfire and the one being flown out to Micromaster Island. The four most powerful of them possess mutant powers and Titan genes. Ask them to go with Countdown and Sky Lynx to Planet Beast and Lithone, and once Spanner has been revived, the others can begin the reanimation of Cybertronians on Cameron, Femax, Halfworld, Junk, Nebulos and Pequod. My friends, this is going to be a long, drawn-out process, with a far from certain outcome..."

TO BE CONCLUDED

[Grand Moff Muffin]

DEAD METAL: ALIEN ROBOTS AMONGST US

CONCLUSION

The Throttlebots had cleverly predicted that if they parked in the rear of a large used car dealer's yard, they would not be interfered with during their brief shutdown. After all, nobody in their right mind wanted to buy cars that ran on fossil fuels in this day and age.

Five years after the virus passed, they were still there gathering dust.
___

Ten years after the big shutdown, Longtooth slept undisturbed at the bottom of the ocean on Planet Beast.
___

Fifty years on, Trypticon's Unicronian warship, the 'Revenge', drifted silently through interstellar space, not a spark of life showing in any member of its formidable crew of Clones, Insecticons, Predacons and Pretender Monsters.
___

A thousand years after the great sentient cosmic computer virus, when the number of humans with mutant powers, Creation Matrix nanobots in their blood and/or Asgardian, Olympian, Thunderian or Titan genes in their make-up first surpassed the number of 'mundanes', Astrotrain remained undiscovered and inactive on a minor asteroid in the belt between Mars and Jupiter, his partner Blitzwing stowed neatly inside him in tank mode.
___

Twenty thousand years on, when the first Battle Beast was elected President of Earth and Grand Central Space Station had grown to a size that meant it no longer relied upon artificial gravity, Blaster lay still in his cassette deck mode in a dry water pipe in a failed mining facility somewhere in the uncharted badlands of the third moon of Rigel Six.
___

And half a million years after the momentous events of the 21st Century - the birth of the Godmasters and Titanmasters, the destruction of the six great magic swords with the deaths of their final custodians, both good and evil, the disbanding of the surviving Avengers, the fall of Cybertron and the coming of the great cosmic computer virus - three Micromasters hibernating in the Autobot spaceship known as the Big Powerdasher mysteriously woke up.

THE END

[Pinwig]

Martin's been busy today and beat the klaxon - above is post 12k.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

LIVING METAL

"Well, anyway, 'Star Trek' is a load of rubbish."

"Hmmm?"

"I mean, whenever they arrive at a planet, they go, 'Computer, scan for life-signs,' and the ship's sensors tell them how many intelligent life-forms are on the planet's surface, what species they belong to, and their exact co-ordinates."

"Yeah, Eduardo, that is silly, now you come to mention it. Sure, the ship could analyse the composition of the atmosphere, and look for heat sources and electromagnetic signals, but that's about the limit of what's physically possible, isn't it?"

"Right, Anya. You can't determine a creature's species from orbit. You need to sample its DNA. And infra-red scanning has severe limitations."

"Such as when searching for life-forms that don't give off heat when dormant."

"I understand what you're both saying, but I've been on spaceships that have scanned planets and located Transformers without difficulty."

"Yes, Kay, Transformers who wanted people to know where they were. Active Transformers who aren't trying to conceal their true nature or location transmit radio signals, in order to stay connected with one another. But a Transformer in disguise or in hiding doesn't broadcast signals of any kind. And if it's powered down so that it can't even receive signals from the outside, such as when shielding itself from a super-advanced cosmic computer virus passing through our Galaxy... and if somehow that virus breaks the Transformer's internal alarm clock that was supposed to wake it up when the danger had passed..."

"Then the only way to prove it's a Transformer is to open it up and see its alien innards."

"Delicately put, Dave."

"Or have a Matrix-bearer try to levitate and disassemble it, and fail because it's already alive and protected by its own Matrix nanobots."

"Popping the hood's less effort. That's how we found Beachcomber."

"How did you know which buggy to look inside?"

"I didn't. Seaspray thought Beachcomber was hiding somewhere on the Miami coastline, so we announced a contest for holiday-makers - an all-expenses-paid ocean cruise on Pequod for whoever was clever enough to find the mock-up Autobot beach buggy. They found him in less than four hours."

"You didn't tell them the Autobot you were searching for was real?"

"Hell, no. Let on that there's a defenceless deactivated Autobot waiting to be found? Far too dangerous."

"It's bound to leak out soon."

"You mean, that there are dozens of Transformers out there somewhere on Earth, who can't wake up without a jolt from a Witwicky?"

"Not just here. Across this entire sector of the Galaxy. Most of the Autobots and neutral Cybertronians are out there floating somewhere in interstellar space on board Metroplex. All the non-Micromaster Decepticons are likewise missing. There are a lot of Junkions and Lithones still unaccounted for on their respective homeworlds. And goodness knows where the six Dinobots are right now, or whether they even survived the virus wave."

"And what about the Micromaster Decepticons?"

"What about them, Eduardo?"

"Are we going to reactivate them?"

"Anya already did that when she visited the island yesterday."

"I see... Don't you think we should have discussed it first?"

"Minerva made the call, before departing for Lithone. What was there to discuss?"

"I dunno, leaving them to sleep a while longer, I guess."

"How much longer?"

"Until someone thinks of a good reason why they should be woken up."

"They're citizens of Earth now. There are treaties in place giving them rights."

"Sure, but we're not Autobots or government employees. There's no law saying we have to use our powers to wake up robots who were stupid enough to shut themselves down."

"You'd condemn them to death for crimes of which they've been pardoned?"

"Who said anything about killing them?"

"If a Transformer temporarily switches itself off and no-one ever switches it back on, its life is over."

"Not really. How can its life be over when someone could choose to switch it on again tomorrow, or next year, or four million years from now?"

"Oh, will you three please stop arguing? I woke the Decepticon Micromasters up again along with the Autobots, and that's the end of it."

"And what about the bigger, nastier Decepticons like Trypticon, Razorclaw, Shrapnel, Sixshot and Gutcruncher, out there somewhere in deep space? Would you wake them up if you found them?"

"The odds of anyone ever finding them floating in interstellar space are infinitesimal."

"Yeah, but what if? Supposing you stumbled across them by chance? Would you wake them up, knowing what they are capable of? If you turned your ship around and flew away without touching them, would you be guilty of their murder, or just exercising your right to do no harm?"

"Are you saying that if I woke them up I'd be responsible for any crimes they went on to commit? That Anya is now somehow responsible for any future crimes of the Decepticon Micromasters? If that's true, then no convict should ever be released from prison."

"Human offenders can be reformed. Can Decepticons?"

"They can be reprogrammed, or choose to alter their own programming. Or they can be changed through binary-bonding to a human."

"Or by being nudged awake by a human Matrix-bearer."

"You mean when we wake up comatose Transformers, we may unintentionally be modifying their personalities?"

"Maybe we imprint a part of ourselves onto a Transformer whenever we connect to one through the Creation Matrix. We do when we create new Transformers, that's for sure."

"I'd like to think that when we show compassion to a Decepticon by returning it to life, that has some lasting effect."

"Time will tell..."

THE END