Fictionary 1

[Andy Turnbull]

There but for the grace of...



Andy

[The Doctor]

Five billion years ago, they came from Cybertron One, a world composed entirely of machinery...a world torn by age-old war between they who called themselves the 'heroic' Autobots and their enemies, the 'evil' Decepticons. These incredibly powerful living robots, capable of converting themselves into land and air vehicles, weapons and other mechanical forms, continue their conflict throughout the ends of time and the wastes of space. They are...THE TRANSFORMERS.

THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF...
Written by Ralph Burns.
---
EARTH COLONY 'BRIGHTON', 332AF1984.
CENTRAL GOVERNMENT BUILDING: 'THE PIER'

“OK, you want to know how many of them are coming? Look up, up there at the sky. The number of stars you can see? More than that. They would be all blotted out by - oh, hang on. Never mind. Happened already. I really do think you should go to Red Alert, Minister. Hmmm. 'Red Alert'. That sounds a bit dramatic, doesn't it? What about-”
The man was dismissed with a curt wave. “Purely another one of your elaborate conjuring tricks.”
“Now, hang on a minute. Just because you found the inner dimensions of my travel machine beyond-”
The third technician on the left had raised his hand to speak. The First Minister, grateful for the interruption to the ravings of the lunatic who had burst into the central building just moments ago, shouting about the menace that was to come, was about to allow his subordinate to speak but the technician was babbling away already. The First Minister made a mental note, instantly transmitted to the disciplinary slate on his 9th internal primary computer buffer, for this matter to be addressed within the next 80 minutes.
“First Minister. I have checked all our sensor nets and have cross-checked them with 'Blackpool' and 'Bognor Regis'. There is indeed an invasive presence within our solar sytem. Two distinct waves, converging on this world. They are similar to Cybertronian life-forms, but...not quite.”
The lunatic grinned, a wide smile showing off disgustingly well polished shiny white teeth. “There, see. Now I reckon, we have about 12 minutes before-”
“We only use astro-seconds here, Doctor. We are not savages.”
“That's a shame.”
The building shook, and the first minister lost his footing. “What transpires here?” he bellowed in several different languages at once, his built-in language core momentarily jolted. He would have to pop down to Woolworths later to get it fixed. He regained his footing to find himself gazing into the eyes of the stranger who had introduced himself as 'The Doctor'. “Shockwave from the fleets. Now, listen here, First Minister. Usually I would have time to have a long and interesting chat with you. Like, how are you related to the human race? Why are your people partly cybernised? And what's up with designing your central building to resemble a seaside pier, hmmm? Some residual memories of what it is like to be human, perhaps? Well if you have any memories left of your humanity, you'll know that where Cybertronians tread there is always war and death and killing.” A slightly desperate and earnest edge crept into his voice. “Let me help you.”
The third technician piped up. “First Minister. I have a visual display now of the alien forces. Shall I display it in VHS or Betamax?”
The Doctor spun round to face the TV in the corner, not waiting for the First Minister to respond. “Oh yes! Betamax, please! Always should have won the format wars.”
A crackling black-and-white display filled the 14 inch TV screen in the corner. Millions of robots were streaming through space. Two mighty armies advancing inexorably on one location: Earth Colony Brighton. Each side was composed of identical forms.
The First Minister turned several shade of white, defying most of the local laws governing the colour spectrums. “No! No...it can't be them! It can't be them!”
The Doctor begin fiddling with the TV screen, fetching a long cylindrical device from within the folds of his voluminous brown jacket. “You recognise them, specifically? Come on then, out with it!” The device buzzed as he worked.
“Yes,” croaked the First Minister, “The painting. I have seen them in the painting-”
“What, this one here? I knew I could access your central computer via this telly if I tried hard enough.”
On the screen was displayed an image of a world on fire. In front of it were depicted the heads of two Cybertronian life-forms. The accompanying text underneath listed them as 'Optimus Prime, Autobot' and 'Jhiaxus, Decepticon'. The text continued:
'Victims of the Swarm'.
The Doctor jumped back, alarmed, and switched the display back to its original function to show the robot armies converging in space. From one side of the solar system came a wave of robots identical in every respect to 'Optimus Prime'. From the other, a race of robotic beings in the image of 'Jhiaxus'. Weapons were primed and ready on each side. Clearly, both sides intended to annihilate each other.
The third technician raised his arm again. The First Minister bade him speak. “First Minister, I am receiving a radio transmission from deep space over the wireless. It is being broadcast from both armies.” He did not wait for a command before tuning the wireless into the signal. The First Minister winced slightly at the poor sound quality. They would need to pop down to Curries and upgrade to digital equipment at some point. It would be costly though. He might have to raise the Council Tax, which he suspected would not go down too well with locals.
***ATTENTION, INHABITANTS OF THE PLANET BRIGHTON. WE ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE SWARM. YOUR WORLD HAS BEEN DESIGNATED A C-10 COMBAT ZONE***
“First Minister, at this point the signal splits into two frequencies. I shall put the FM signal on first.”
***STAND WITH THE OPTIMUS PRIMES AGAINST THE DECEPTICON MENACE. THEY EXIST ONLY TO DESTROY. JOIN WITH US AND WE SHALL PROTECT YOU. FREEDOM IS THE RIGHT OF ALL SENTIENT BEINGS***
“Switching to Medium Wave transmission.”
***JHIAXUS LOVES YOU. JHIAXUS WILL PROTECT YOU. JOIN THE EMPIRE AND DEFEAT THE OUT-DATED RHETORIC OF THE AUTOBOT MENACE***
The First Minister searched both his organic brain and his computer implants.”I believe he refers to the Cybertronian Empire. I have some historical information on that, hence my outburst earlier. But that was so long ago, so long ago.”
“Yes, First Minister. About five billion years, give or take a millenium or two. But who's counting, eh?”
For perhaps the first time since the stranger had appeared within the council chamber in his strange blue box during a recess in the recent election debate, the First Minister gave him his full attention. “Doctor, you must come with me. I have something to show you.” In truth, he had no idea what that was, but a central command had activated deep within one of his brains upon receipt of the voice messages and his actions were now no longer his own.

The third technician stayed behind to 'hold the fort', such as it was. He did not have to wait long until two short-range orbital bounces brought forth two towering artificial beings before him. They both looked at him intensely but without meeting his eyes, almost as if they were looking straight through him. “Uh, hullo. Welcome- welcome to Brighton”, he stammered, “Can I interest you in a souvenir brochure-” He did not finish his thought, never mind his sentence, for he was cut down in an instant.
The two robots, one from each army, just stood there. They said nothing, they did nothing. And out in deep space, the two mighty armies clashed and engaged in bloody and terrible three-dimensional war. Battle reports flashed across the cold eyes of the two robot generals, statues in a world they did not belong in.

“Here, Doctor. Press 'GO TO: 10. RUN' to enter.”
The Doctor turned to give the First Minister his full attention. “I'm sorry, I'm oh so sorry”, before carrying out the instructions on the wall mounted keyboard directly beside the door. The First Minister's eyes winked out and he fell to the floor, like a puppet with the strings cut. His commands had reached their conclusion.
The Doctor raced inside, running his hands through his unkempt hair as he gazed wildly upon the banks of the dusty computer banks stored within, piled as high as the eye could see, and beyond. Then, his eyes alighted upon a Commodore 64 home computer system in the corner. Beautiful! That had to be it!

The war in heaven had not gone well for the army of Primes. Nearly two thirds of their forces had been decimated in the first assault, but they had been tenacious and had dug themselves in on the outlying colony worlds of 'Blackpool', 'Bognor Regis' and 'Planet Falkirk'. The army of Jhiaxus' had then been required to fight hard from then on, sometimes fighting against insurgencies from within. It was certainly something to ponder, remarked Jhiaxus One to Prime One within the ruins of the central chamber on the Pier on 'Brighton'. Indeed, concurred Prime One. They hadn't seen a battle of this nature, this side of the Time Wars. A shame that 'Brighton' had been on the front line though. The damage was regrettable. It had seemed quite nice.
“Oh, I'm sorry. Am I interrupting something?”
Ancient servos within mechanical necks twitched and turned as the robots turned their attention to the organic intruder within what was now their sole domain. He was carrying something under his arm. A very old item. Oil on canvas, an outdated mode of recording an image. Of course, both beings recognised their images affixed upon it.
***DOC-TOR...*** they said as one.
“One of them, anyway. Flattered you recognise me. I have changed my appearance since I last met any Cybertronians, but then you're not quite the full shilling are you? There's nothing pure Cybertronian left in you, is there?”
***WE ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE SWARM***
“Yeah, so you said. Swarm, eh? Great big world destroying intelligence, sweeping from world to world, consuming world after world after world! But that was destroyed, oh, eons ago. I know. I was there. But it wasn't destroyed, was it? Not completely, not entirely. Something survived.”
Jhiaxus One strode purposefully towards the doorway the Doctor was leaning against.
***THE SWARM WAS ALMOST DESTROYED, BUT A VESTIGE REMAINED. IT REMEMBERED THE CYBERTRONIANS. IT REMEMBERED THE TWO OF US WHOM IT HAD CONSUMED. WE ARE MADE IN THEIR IMAGE, RE-CREATED, BUT WE ARE...INCOMPLETE***
The Doctor looked up at the metallic behemoth before him, apparently not caring that he could be struck down at any time. “Incomplete copies of two Cybertronians dead and forgotten long ago, replicating yourself and fighting out a war that no-one cares about any more. It's so sad, so very sad. 'There but for the grace of...'”
***DO NOT THINK TO STOP US, DOC-TOR. OUR WAR MUST CONTINUE. THE LAST REMNANTS OF THE SWARM THAT ANIMATES US MUST KNOW PEACE AND WE WILL ONLY KNOW THAT PEACE ONCE WE HAVE FOUGHT THE CYBERTRONIAN'S CIVIL WAR TO ITS' LOGICAL CONCLUSION***
The last of the Time Lord's folded his arms. “Don't you have free will? Choose some other path. Your war brings death to those who cross your path. Is that what you want your enduring legacy to the universe to be? Go on, choose. Choose to live. Choose something else. Break the shadow of your programming." His voice lowered, as did his gaze. "Or I'll stop you.”
Prime One activated his primary weapons turret and aimed at the Doctor.
***WE ARE THE LAST OF OUR KIND. WE MUST COMPLETE OUR FIGHT. YOU CANNOT STOP US***
A whisper. “Too late. I already have. 'GO TO: 10. RUN'. “
Prime One and Jhiaxus One gasped once, and died. Their arms hung listlessly by their side. Up above in space, the fighting stopped. Forever.

The lonely Time Lord stood alone within the central chamber with the prone bodies of the robot warriors. “But there is something I can do...” he said softly to the room.

“Doctor! How unexpected to see you again.”
“Oh, I'm full of surprises, First Minister. And so is this solar system! Composed entirely of survivors from a Cyberman incursion, rescuing what they could of their individuality during a cyber-conversion war by downloading half-corrupted memories of a forgotten planet Earth into themselves, Building in failsafe programmes in case of futher alien invasions. OK, they got a few details wrong about the past of Earth, but the fact is you're alive! All of you! A bit of jiggery-pokery with the Sonic Screwdriver and your main controlling computer and I got you all up and running again. I love my Sonic Screwdriver.”
The First Minister shook his head. Clearly this man was utterly mad. He knew that something had transpired recently, but he couldn't quite put his finger (or toe) on it, other than a vague recollection that he had to discipline the third technician about something, who was currently enjoying an ice-lolly on duty. An outrage!
The Doctor was continuing to babble, even as he as he walked over to his blue box, parked in the corner of the central chamber. “It was all there in your central records, you see! Clever of your progenitors to research the Cybertronians and their many wars, their links with Earth.... Knew about the Swarm's continued life and it's children. Knew the spoken command that would shut them down! Anyhow, got to be going now! Ta-ra!”
The First Minister tried his best impersonation of a cheery wave, but it really didn't suit him. “And where are you going now, Doctor?”
The Doctor paused on the threshold to the TARDIS. “Cybertron.” Then he dove through the door. The light on top flashed arthritically for a few precious moments and then with a wheezing and groaning sound, both the Doctor and his travel machine faded him view, off to another time, another place.
“Hmmmph,” muttered the First Minister. Why was the place so dusty and where had the roof gone? There was a big hole in it, for some reason. Might be best to fix it before getting back to the election. “Third technician...”

Deep within the central computer core on the Pier, a solitary programme was running. Within it, the downloaded conciousness of beings who had once held the names 'Prime One' and 'Jhiaxus One' continued their life-long combat within a secure mainframe, killing only digital 1's and digital 0's. How they had got there they did not know, but they would continue the fight. One day, their replica of the Cybertronian civil war would come to an end.
One day, they would know peace.
But until that day...

THE END.

RB 4/5/07

-Ralph

[legios]

There but for the grace of god

by David Thurgood

I fear these new Decepticons and I fear their leader, this Jhiaxus. But not in the way they might expect me to fear them. Their physical power and military might give me pause certainly, but that is not the source of the cold hand that grips at my processor. I fear rather that they are the end result of all that we have done, that they are the children of all our mistakes.

****************

These relics, these fossils, these artefacts of a bygone age, these... Autobots appall me. I look on them and I feel a certain revulsion for what I see. To think that our species sprung from these roots – that it was from creatures such as these that all that we have built has come. I wonder at the fact that we have come so far from such wretched beginnings.

****************

I look at these new Decepticons, this Empire, and I cannot help but wonder, have they not learned too well the lessons that we have taught over millions of years. A cold, unyeilding people they have learned the nature of war all too well. Indeed it could be said that it is all they know. We have learned here on this blue world to treasure the differences we have encountered. Humans first seemed as different to us as anything we could have imagined, but we have learnt to appreciate their diversity and to celebrate our differences.

Not so this Empire. United in their grey conformity these may have ceased to war amongst themselves but it has brought no peace to them. Instead they have taken up their arms and declared war against the universe. Everything not like them is to be expunged, destroyed in order that they may expand, monopolise the resources of the galaxy and survive at the cost of any that does not fit their narrow definition of “us”. They spread across the galaxy, reshaping worlds into mockeries of Cybertron. Indeed, these very worlds are an ironic metaphor for their very nature. A thin veneer of metal around a barren planet, like the thin veneer of a society that encases their empty natures. Is this what the crucible of war without end did to our kind? Did our war smelt down everything that we were and reforge it into Jhiaxus and his kind – unyeilding, hardened and with a purity of purpose that chills me?

******************

I look at these Autobots and wonder at how small they appear, them and the so-called Decepticons they have allied themselves with. How limited their concerns. From all we have been able to ascertain they have been stranded on one single world, replaying a microcosm of our ancient war on one single solitary mud-ball. Of what consequence is a single world when measured against the galaxy. Where is their vision, their clarity? They squabble like children over scraps when the feast lies within their grasp. How can they not see that the stars, are there for the taking? Optimus Prime calls himself a man of vision and honor and yet he would stand between us and the organic detrietus that litter this galaxy. How can he not see the truth – only we are fit to be stewards of the galaxy. Organics are weak and fragile, existing in a universe that respects only strength and the will to survive. We arm and armour the galaxy spreading the sheltering arm of order across it and fortifying its worlds. Only we can prepare the galaxy for the war against the Chaos Bringer. Only we are strong enough to see that the galaxy, the universe itself survives. Optimus Prime cannot see the true scale of our goal, the enormity of the task that our creator has set before us. He weakens himself with foolish compassion for those too weak to survive what must be.

**************

Jhiaxus and his followers have a clarity and a focus that frightens me in its intensity. They have been stripped of everything extraneous to their purpose, honed to a killing edge in the fires that raged on Cybertron even as we slept within the bowels of the Ark. Remorseless and dedicated they are the perfect end product of our conflict. Weapons without peer, warriors without distraction. I fear I can see no means of defeating them. But that is not the greatest fear that they evoke in me.

***************

I could almost bring myself to pity Optimus and his followers, if they were not such a threat to us. Evolutionary throwbacks to a softer age they dimish our species by their very existence. Whilst an irrelevancy in military terms, and destined to be inevitably crushed, they represent the weaknesses that we have grown beyond – the hinderances we have discarded in our drive to achieve our vision.

And yet. And yet, what manner of being would I have been had I not been forged in the fires of our purpose? I tell myself I am as I am and that nothing would have changed that. But without the grinding war for Cybertron, without the unending task that stretches before us now, what kind of Cybertronian would I have been? Would my will have been forged as strong, my purpose as clear? If I were to slumber for so long and awaken a prisoner on an alien world would my vision be as clear as it is now? Or could I be deflected from our divine purpose, to fall into apostasy and maudlin sentimentality as Prime has? Better to be thankful that I have been spared such a fate, and to cast aside these doubts. And yet, for this one moment, I cannot help but wonder.....

****************

So much of who we are is rooted in our experiences, so much of our nature shaped by the world that we encounter. Whilst we slumbered here within the Ark Jhiaxus was in the heart of the maelstrom of four million years of war, tempered and forged in the fires of unceasing battle first on Cybertron and then out amongst the stars. Can any being face conflict on that magnitude without being changed by it? If we had fought those four milion years - struggling unendingly for survival - if we had not awakened on this world and seen all the wonders it had to offer, or had seen them after milennia of war through jaded eyes?

If I had experienced what Jhiaxus had experienced, had lived in his world, how might I have been reforged. In the face of grinding, endless war would I have been hardened and ground down to a keener edge. The question haunts me. Faced with the unending war that Jhiaxus has seen would I have been reforged as a colder, harder individual simply to survive? Is their something innately ignoble and evil within Jhiaxus or has existence simply made him thus?

Had Primus gifted me with a life such as Jhiaxus has lived, would I too have become as he has?

END.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

21/04/07 at 06:52 AM #5

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AN UNEXPECTED ALLY

Extract from A Rage in Heaven, G2 #12:

My mind boils and expands, rolling across the collective consciousness of the Swarm. The Matrix sustains me for precious moments beyond death, uniting me with the force that destroyed me. My final act is to take all that was Primus, the very essence of the dream that began with the construction of the first Transformers... and give it all to the Swarm! With a hunger greater than any exhibited thus far, it consumes five lifetimes' worth of honor, resolve, responsibility and nobility, tasting the pure, untainted glory of Primus's dream, the true spirit of the race that birthed it. With my final conscious thought, I pray that my legacy does not prove a hollow one!

End extract.

It isn't enough. The Swarm is not convinced, and I realise that my sacrifice is in vain - our race is doomed.

Except... I sense that I am not alone.

"I am Jhiaxus, Liege Centuro of the Decepticon Elite: High Commander of its forces! I CHALLENGE YOU!"

Jhiaxus's mind boils and expands, rolling across the collective consciousness of the Swarm. The Matrix sustains him for precious moments beyond death, uniting him with the force that destroyed him. His final act is to take all that was Primus, the very essence of the dream that began with the construction of the first Transformers... and give it all to the Swarm! With a hunger greater than any exhibited thus far, it consumes five lifetimes' worth of preparation for the coming of Unicron, preservation of the species at any cost, certainty of cause and propagation of Primus's gene pool across the universe, tasting the pure, untainted glory of Primus's dream, the true spirit of the race that birthed it. With his final conscious thought, he prays that his legacy does not prove a hollow one!

It is enough. The Swarm is convinced. In the end, it too is a creation of Primus, and cannot act against the Grand Plan by extinguishing the Transformer race. Jhiaxus has fulfilled his purpose, and granted his final reward. Optimus Prime has failed, and has yet to fulfil his destiny. He will not be granted rest just yet.

THE END