re_alignment_logs | Because comparative science is... fun..?

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Because comparative science is... fun..?

WHO: Jetfire and Skyfire
WHERE: Jetfire's lab on one of the terraces surrounding Liege's temple.
WHEN: Around now.
WHAT: Sharing history - and the differences.
WARNINGS: None.

It had hardly been a pressing priority to have this comparative talk, but it'd still been something Jetfire had looked forward to - mostly anyway, given some of the possible subjects that'd come up. The chance to get to have a comprehensive comparison of two similar-but-different angles in two different realities.

Themselves, that was.

"We know a few things already, since it's quite impossible to not pick these things up..." Trailing off, Jetfire smiled slightly, and sat down, still somewhat surprised he'd managed to find seating large enough to hold him comfortably... and Skyfire as well, in this case.

"The two immediate crossing vectors being at least some time frozen on Earth, and Starscream." The latter one didn't surprise him at all. Then he frowned slightly, resting his curled hand against his chin in thought. "You were in the ice a lot longer than I was, however. I was... er, involved in the war nearly from the beginning." Pausing, he spread his hands and looked to Skyfire.

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Perhaps not surprisingly, Skyfire was of the same mindset. He was quite aware that this was a potentially difficult conversation. There was a reason why they had chosen to talk about this in person and not over the network, after all. However, he was sure that whatever they might find out about each other would outweigh any awkward moments.

"That's right." He nodded in agreement, confirming Jetfire's information. "As I told you last time, I crashed on Earth before the war began for us. Starscream and I had been working together for a while, mostly as explorers off-planet. I crashed in the North Pole during a storm, and Starscream could not find me. He believed I was dead and returned to Cybertron after some time."

He said that with no hint of resentment. No matter how much his friend had changed later, Skyfire knew he had been honest about that much, at least. He did not feel abandoned. Just... very unlucky.

And here was when things began to get even more different, as far as he knew.

"I don't know much about the war itself, apart from what I have learned from Autobot history records. And, of course, there is the possibility that they may be biased," he admitted. "When I awoke from stasis, it had been going on for several million years already."

It took a moment to piece together and convert the amount of time Skyfire had mentioned last time by human thinking into something he was more familiar with, but thanks to the little boost he was rather sure came from the glyph, it was... nearly second nature.

"I'm somewhat surprised we seemed to have weathered Earth's ire rather well, especially given the time you were caught in the ice." He'd never even consider being incredulous that Starscream would have tried to find Skyfire. It seemed only natural, no matter what changes would have come later.

"Hmm... if I have the conversion reasonably correct, the time around where you'd have been in space and either on Earth or approaching, was around the time Starscream got interested in the gladiator games." Optics dimming in thought, Jetfire shifted in his seat and then crossed his arms over his chestplates.

"At first he tried to keep it secret, and then he started to attempt to convince me..." trailing off briefly, Jetfire looked away. This would be the first part that was... somewhat awkward. "There's probably some bias," said Jetfire with a slight smile, though dry. There was a reason for the seeming subject change.

"But if their philosophy includes anything that would imply we have the right to take what we want because we can, and that advancement - scientific or military - through those means are right? Some bias could be allowed. I listened to that, at first. It sounded very logical after all." Looking back to Skyfire, Jetfire shook his helm slowly.

"Starscream, because he's Starscream and because he's my friend, and because it seemed logical finally managed to convince me, despite the deaths that were mounting. I left around a million years later, because staying meant changing more than I could, especially when I realised and accepted the Decepticon way wasn't right. That was... around seven million years, I believe, before those who ended up stuck on Earth awoke there."

Skyfire may have been kept in stasis through the war, but really, that might have been kinder in the end.

Edited 2013-04-02 20:36 (UTC)

That had an interesting effect on Skyfire. It wasn't exactly a good thing to have in common, of course. But on some level it made him feel... not better, perhaps, but less awkward about his short involvement with the Decepticons. Or at least with the idea of talking about it.

"Yes, that sounds like them indeed," he sighed. "I don't know how they presented their ideas back when the war was just beginning, but by the time I first had contact with them, they weren't at all subtle about their, ah, preferred methods. Which was probably for the best."

All right. Better get this over with.

"The Decepticons were the ones who found me, in fact. Starscream was there. I trusted him; I had no reason not to. So of course I agreed to help them. It... didn't last long."

Skyfire paused for a moment. The memories were still fresh, for him. And, since everyone around him back home knew about this already, he'd never actually needed to sit down and talk about it. This was the first time he was trying to put it into words, and it was just about as hard as he'd imagined.

"They didn't even bother to hide the way they did things. I don't know how Starscream thought he could convince me to stay, in those conditions, but..." He shook his head. It was better to focus on the facts, for now at least. "They threatened to harm innocent humans, which was already a bad sign. And then Starscream tried to get me to execute Autobot prisoners for no particular reason."

He grimaced.

"Of course I couldn't stay."

Jetfire remained quiet, letting Skyfire talk. It was... interesting, the different-similarities. A pattern not really mirrored, so much as... duplicated and then having the broad strokes switched out, while details remained the same.

"I would surmise he'd believe you'd stay for the similar reason Starscream never thought I'd leave, and was - understandably - angered when I did, despite the time it took me to agree to join." Pausing, Jetfire cocked his helm and briefly spread his hands, palms up. "You having been gone or not, he still expected you to simply be there."

He didn't feel he needed to make it a question, and while he'd said 'you', it could just as well have been 'we', and at the same time, what could have sounded very bitter... only had the slightest shade of it. Starscream was, unfortunately, for better or worse, always Starscream.

"In the beginning, Megatron talked about our place in the universe, about the Council being corrupted... Which I could see, honestly, but it also never led to people living bad lives. When Megatron killed Sentinel Prime in - apparently - in attempt to get the Matrix for some reason, I realised I had... made a bad choice." He looked away again, leaving his hands laced together on the table.

"It took several hundred more vorns before I decided I couldn't stay, but in the end..." Back to Skyfire, a small twitch of his shoulders and wings both, which were by now tucked down along his sides. "Like you said, of course I couldn't stay."

There was a momentary pause, and then Jetfire shook his helm.

"Which such a similar pattern... I'd advice to to stay away from any mechs who are tall, dark and on fire." He was both joking and utterly serious.

"I think different versions of Starscream might have a few things in common, too."

He smiled a little at that - and it felt nice, not having to make an effort to hold that back. Skyfire didn't blame the Autobots in his world for thinking of Starscream the way they did. After all, the Decepticon didn't even bother to pretend he had any good left in him. But he couldn't simply forget that he had known him as someone different, either. With Jetfire, however, he didn't need to explain himself. That was one source of tension less, and he appreciated it.

Especially considering that the current topic of conversation wasn't the most pleasant in and of itself.

"I'm not sure of precisely what happened on Cybertron while I was in stasis. I do know that the Decepticons somehow gained control of the planet, but it is almost inhabitable at the moment. There was a large energy crisis at some point, and it caused both factions to leave in search of more resources. That was how they all ended up on Earth."

And that was pretty much all he knew, to be quite honest. He couldn't get into subtler details. He wasn't sure he wanted to know, anyway.

Jetfire's last comment, on the other hand, did make him curious. If there was an equivalent to this mech back in his universe, Skyfire didn't know about it. The 'on fire' part would have been hard to miss.

"... oh? What do you mean?"

"Undoubtedly." Smiling slightly at that, because he'd seen some of it with the alternate that had been here before Jetfire then straightened up slightly.

"We had an energy crisis as well, it apparently led to a natural shut-down of Cybertron, I found out later. I left on a mission with Omega Supreme and two others before the shut down happened. And as for what I mean... Before the energy crisis got anywhere near noticeable, there was an... ah, incident. He called himself the Fallen." Jetfire paused, hesitating in whether to mention the fact that the Fallen and Megatronus Prime looked... rather similar, accounting for the differences in aesthetic design.

In the end, Jetfire just continued.

"I could tell he was from before our recorded time, but given that we've lost a lot of historic knowledge, it's hard to tell how far back... except for the fact that the Covenant of Primus would give one of the first thirteen cybertronians to have been created betrayed the others." Shrugging, Jetfire leaned back in his seat, optics dimming as he thought back on it.

"He claimed he was restarting a war older than we knew, which involved four particular individuals, and unleashing... something," Jetfire paused. He should say what it might have been but frankly, he didn't feel like discussing religion and what else it might have been today, so instead he twitched his shoulders and continued. "Which had been behind a seal. This was done with a machine which I and the three others were hooked up with. The whole thing backlashed on him."

Optics brightening again as Jetfire shook his helm and let his wings angle upwards again, he'd hope Skyfire wouldn't have to deal with anything like that.

"While that might be one of the things we do not share you may want to exercise... ah, caution." Another tiny, dry smile even as the image of the Fallen, Megatronus and the fire they seemed to share flittered through his processor.

He didn't want to come to unfounded and hasty conclusions, but.

Well. That made his life look a lot better, if only by comparison. Jetfire was right, however. It was something to be cautious about. Just in case. Perhaps even more here, in an actual version of Cybertron, than back in his own dimension where he spent most of his time on Earth.

It didn't have to be something that would happen to him, but given how similar their pasts sounded so far... he'd rather pay attention.

"The Fallen..." he mused, thoughtful. "It doesn't sound familiar. But if he was indeed from before recorded time, then that doesn't necessarily mean anything. There might as well be an equivalent of him in our dimension and we simply don't know about it."

It was a worrying thought, really.

"Precisely, though one could hope not." He shook his head and put that aside. If Skyfire would wish him to go through that whole thing more in detail at some point, he would certainly oblige, but while it was important and part of it felt not exactly on-topic.

Instead, he considered again the similarities of their being brought back online... ah. He hadn't actually told Skyfire of that, had he? There was also the brief thought that despite the curiosity of their different designations, it made things somewhat simpler actually.

"How were you found, Skyfire? You mention Starscream finding you..." briefly trailing off, Jetfire smiled dryly. "Which, since I doubt Soundwave or Thundercracker and Skywarp would have bothered, is the same for me. It seems safe to assume so anyway, even if when the CR chamber released me I was already on the Nemesis, so by then I'd obviously been removed from where the avalanche that surprised me buried me, which I believe was somewhere in modern Alaska."

Frowning, Jetfire considered the whole disorienting moment of waking up, checking the CR chamber...

"... I have no idea how long it would have taken the CR chamber to melt the ice and repair the damage done, and I haven't asked Starscream yet, but given that he seems to have waited with the last stages until he needed me, I'm not sure I want to ask." Not so much bitterness, as tired exasperation of fulfilled expectations.

At least he had been let out, right?

Edited 2013-04-06 01:35 (UTC)

"I see. That's... somewhat different from my experience," he replied.

He had noticed Jetfire's tone, so he didn't press the issue at the moment. It wasn't that he didn't find the story, well, upsetting. But his alternate seemed to take it in stride. Besides... Skyfire couldn't help but wonder if it would have been so different, had Starscream found him alone instead of with a whole excavating team. Then he decided he didn't want to know, either.

"The Decepticons were digging for energy sources in the North Pole when they found me," he went on instead. "I don't know if Starscream was the one who first discovered me, but he was definitely there in the group. They brought me back online immediately. And then they, ah, 'explained' the situation."

He couldn't hold back a grimace.

"It seems reasonable to assume that Megatron only agreed to spend time and energy on me because I looked like I might be an useful soldier."

Explain, yes, clearly. Jetfire's arched expression said all what he thought of that, as the air quotes had indeed been more or less audible in Skyfire's voice.

"Yes, I don't doubt that was the reason, and technically an understandable one." Jetfire's glance, from himself and then to Skyfire, and their frames ought to be telling enough. They were quite tall and well-armoured, if just by altmode circumstance.

"I'd assume that'd be the only reason I'd have been repaired as well if Megatron had been present, if I hadn't just been killed outright given the past, but Starscream had no one to answer to but himself when I was found. Apparently he was presently in charge of the group of Decepticons on Earth by then." Because if things had been normal, Jetfire sincerely doubted they'd have let loose a decided faction-switcher unless Starscream thought he could be... convinced.

"Did you stay for any length of time after being brought out, or..?" Jetfire asked, curious. Skyfire had implied it wasn't long before he switched, but that didn't necessarily mean much, and Jetfire wouldn't find it strange if Skyfire would have been convinced to stay for a while.

The whole thing with waking up right into a war and the only recognisable face being with the mechs who were present when you woke up, well...

Skyfire couldn't hold back a small - and perhaps a bit bitter - smile. Everything had happened very fast, for him. Since then, he'd had time to put it into perspective, but it still felt almost unreal. As if this was the part that had happened long ago, instead of his old life of studying and exploring.

"I made a very bad Decepticon. I didn't last a day," he replied, with the slightest touch of humor. "They were almost in the middle of battle, when I woke. I saw the Decepticons at their worst from the very beginning. Even... no, especially Starscream."

That had been the most unsettling of all. The way Skyfire saw it, there were two possibilities: either time and war had changed Starscream into someone almost unrecognizable, or the potential for him to become like this had always been there and Skyfire simply hadn't seen it. He wasn't sure of which option was more frightening.

He shook his head, as if trying to get rid of the thought.

"They didn't have time to try to talk me into anything," he went on. "And after threating innocent lifeforms for no particular reason, well, it was a bit too late for that."

It was hard not to chuckle at the comment over how long Skyfire lasted as a Decepticon, and Jetfire shook his helm, smoothing out the brief smile as he listened.

"At least you saw the core of the matter quickly, which hopefully made the switch easier, if only because there was no time to start making excuses for what was happening." He knows exactly what he's talking about, by the way. Leaning forward to rest elbows on the table and his chin on his interlaced fingers, Jetfire's optics dimmed slightly.

"And while there's undoubtedly differences, there seems to be enough parallels at least between us, that I could hazard some comparison for Starscream, if it might help."

Angling his helm slightly, Jetfire aimed his gaze at the opposite wall as he paused briefly, not so much out of hesitation as gathering his thoughts.

"I saw the changes to Starscream firsthand, and while he was always... sharp and hardly the easiest to get along with or indeed get the chance to know, before the gladiator games, before the beginning of the war, he wouldn't have killed to get what he wanted." Or any number of other atrocities done. Jetfire's gaze wandered back to Skyfire.

"Not to say there wasn't other things he did, but he wasn't a murderer. Megatron's methods of forging his army, and especially his first and closest... seemed to have loosened something, is what I can say, looking back on it. Not that that excuses anything." He huffed, and briefly, the frustration is nearly tangible before Jetfire shrugged, wings flicking, as he leaned back in his seat again.

"What happened after that battle?" It's hard not to be curious about the way Skyfire joined the Autobots, given that it's obviously a recent thing, and what he's already said.

It did help, in a way. Even though it wasn't something Skyfire liked to hear, knowing there was some common ground made him... not feel better, exactly, but understand better. What Jetfire was telling him about his own version of Starscream sounded familiar enough.

"I can see something similar happening in our world," he admitted, with a slight nod. "I wasn't around to see what Megatron's influence on him was like, but even back in the Academy, Starscream wasn't exactly, ah, sociable. And he's always been ambitious. I just couldn't imagine how far he could go."

The next part was something he wanted to think about even less, but that was a good reason to get it over with. Skyfire frowned and spent a few seconds considering his words.

"We managed to stop the Decepticons, but I crashed again. They... didn't dig me out right away." He wanted to believe they couldn't. But he didn't know for sure, and it felt dishonest to make guesses. "It was only a few days until Wheeljack and Sideswipe came to look for me, though. And I've been staying with the Autobots since then."

"He is, isn't he?" Jetfire said with a shake of his helm, because that was certainly what he was used to as well. And it was, in a way, somehow a little reassuring to see this mirrored somewhat as well. "It requires a particular type of stubborn persistence and probably at least a little lack of... ah, self preseverance to get close to Starscream." Jetfire's smile was dry as he said it. Because liking the Seeker or not, despite everything, didn't mean he wasn't aware of Starscream's... faults.

Skyfire's revelation about what'd happened next, however, had Jetfire staring quietly for a moment, slowly shaking his helm.

"They... what?" He frowned, straightening up a little. "I suppose there were circumstances..." Jetfire's focus returned to Skyfire, because there was no reason to dwell on that; he didn't know the situation and hadn't been there, so it was easier to put it aside for now, despite the questions. "And that's where we are now."

A question didn't seem necessary in this case.

It was true, and Skyfire knew it. He couldn't hold back a chuckle, in spite of the situation.

"Being Starscream's friend means getting in trouble, yes," he agreed. Or at the very least, getting him out of the trouble he made for himself. The end results, however, were quite similar. "Even back before the war started."

As for the rest... well. Skyfire certainly hoped there was a good reason for what had happened. To be quite honest, he hadn't wanted to ask for details. He was happy, with the Autobots - as much as someone in his situation could be. They were his friends. That was all he needed to know.

"Indeed. And... I don't have much more to say, really," he said. "I had only spent a few months in the Ark before I arrived here."

Nothing wrong with taking your amusements where they could be gotten, really. Jetfire smiles as well and lets the moment be as untainted as it can by all the other factors.

"Perhaps especially before the war, given that he did not take to violence to solve his problems back then." Jetfire's rather sure, however, that he probably never saw the worst of it, for whatever counted as "worst" back then.

The things Starscream worked really hard on succeeding at or attaining because they were... delicate.

"Getting used to the situation, then?" There's a bigger difference here compared to when he defected, because hopefully Skyfire has had to deal more with trying to get used to the lost time than any... suspicion. "And if there's something you can think of or would like to ask..." He shrugs, open to suggestion.

"That's a good point. He used far more... ah. Imagination, you could say."

He grinned again, amused. No matter what had come later, Skyfire still had plenty of good memories of those times. He saw no reason to push them back or pretend he hadn't been happy back then. Especially when the main reason why his present wan't entirely unhappy was that he made a conscious effort to keep it that way.

"I've mostly been trying to get used to it, yes," he replied to Jetfire's other question. "Keeping myself busy also helped. It's been a very hands-on approach so far."

Skyfire paused for a moment, and then finally voiced the question that had been bothering for a while, now. He was aware that he might not like the answer - but he had to know.

"You said your Cybertron went into a natural shut-down," he mused. "Is it... Do you know if it's salvageable at all? Or has it been mostly abandoned like ours?"

Because that seemed to be a general pattern, too. A quite depressing one at that.

"I think that's a suitable word for it, yes." Smiling, amused as well, Jetfire glanced away briefly. "I admit, sometimes it was... interesting... to see what he came up with." Because well, admittedly there were reasons he'd found Starscream interesting to stubbornly stay with until that hadn't been an issue any longer.

Jetfire nodded at the confirmation, and decided it might be simpler not to ask further about it; it'd have a lot to do with trying to get used to waking up in a completely new situation and while that was... interesting, it was certainly unsettling and personal as well.

"It seems to have been called the 'Great Shut-Down' by now," said Jetfire with a dry smile, turning to that question, which could have been yet another depressing topic, but luckily wasn't. "And while no one knew it at the time, it was a natural process of renewal."

He'd left before that, and in a way, Jetfire supposed, he was both lucky, and... ah, unlucky, he had, given what it had led to.

"I got a brief update from Bumblebee about the situation on Cybertron while we were dealing with Sunstorm, and while the planet had completely shut down and taken anyone on-planet with it as well, it started up again later, and is now, apparently, back to pre-war levels of energon."

With Shockwave taking control until recently, but they weren't talking about that, even if he'd had gotten more than one audial full of it from Starscream.

Skyfire nodded, thoughtful. He couldn't know exactly how well the details matched up, or not, with what had happened in his own world. But the basics were very clear.

"I see," he mused after a moment. "It's good to hear that, at least in some worlds, Cybertron still has a chance to live."

That had been the worst part of all, for him. His own personal life was bad enough, but the loss of his entire planet - that had been overwhelming. And yet, hearing this now, he couldn't help but smile just a little.

"I wonder if there is hope for own Cybertron, too."

Jetfire knew the feeling well, since when he left, it'd seemed it was all going towards an inevitable and unforgiving end, with the suns not providing enough energy for conversion.

At least, not for an entire planet, and two factions in war, even if the population as a whole was less.

"I was certainly revlieved when I was told," agreeing with a shake of his helm, Jetfire's expression is very sober for a moment. "It was... utsettling to see the slow descent, though I wasn't present for the last of it. I, Omega, Countdown and Groundshaker were attempting to stop Decepticon spread to other systems, in addition to finding the Ark and Prime. They had left earlier to find energon."

The grim expression lightening a little, Jetfire hummed quietly, his field flexing briefly around him.

"I don't see why not. Given that it was a natural and not manual shutdown, it would imply it's a mechanism that could exist in other realities. And even if it doesn't... does your Cybertron have the ability to move freely? Moving it to a strong star and converting the energy could help."

"It must have been hard," Skyfire said, his tone pensive. "When I last left Cybertron before... everything, something like that wasn't even a possibility to be considered. We still had enough resources to spend on off-planet travels simply for basic research, after all."

It was yet another proof of just how much things had changed since then. This was exactly the kind of situation that reminded him of how long it had been since his time.

He grimaced a bit at the other question.

"It can move, yes. Megatron had a similar idea." He paused for a moment, and sighed. "Of course, he intended to use Earth's sun instead. That wasn't an option."

"Depressing, if nothing else, but the war took up most attention and resources... and yes, before the war, energon was not a problem." A thought occured to him and Jetfire frowned before continuing. "I wonder, though, since the Great Shutdown was a natural function, if an energon crisis would have become an issue regardless of the war..."

And that was a rather unsettling thought. If Megatron hadn't become dissatisfied with the situation as it was, and how it wasn't suitable for his own intentions, perhaps a war would have started over lack of energon, if the Great Shutdown would have happened automatically...

Tilting his helm at the comment about using the Earth's sun, Jetfire folded his arms over his chestplates and leaned back in his seat.

"Hm, well. I surmise it ought to be possible to move Cybertron into Earth's solar system to take advantage of the sun without any great disruptions, but I suppose that wasn't Megatron's intention?" He shook his helm, a bit incredulous.

"And either way, there are a lot of other suns available with a greater energy output and thus, technically, more effective." It seemed a bit silly to choose a very average sun like Earth's, when there were a lot of hot, young suns to choose from.

"It's entirely possible," he mused. "Especially considering that it seems to be a constant between several different versions of Cybertron."

Well. Talk about depressing. Skyfire tilted his head, thoughtful for a moment, and then moved on to the parts that he could answer.

"It would be far more reasonable to move the planet towards a sun of that kind, yes. But the Megatron in our world has never been particularly reasonable. I suspect that causing trouble for Optimus Prime was just as important to him as getting Cybertron a new sun," he said. "I don't doubt that Megatron is serious in his goal of finding new energy sources. But, even without taking ethical issues into account, his methods aren't the most... efficient."

It was a bit depressing, wasn't it. All those possible realities, and so far all of them pointed to some sort of total or partial decline or even unhabitability.

"... Flat-out unstable, or more... ah, obssessed with his 'personal' enemy?" asked Jetfire, leaning forward in his curiosity.

Sure, Skyfire only had a few months of observation to draw from, but compared to any other Autobots or Decepticons from there, it was a few months fresh from thousands of vorns of familiarity and routine.

"I do know the Megatron from my reality ended up quite... focused... on Optimus."

Skyfire considered it for a moment. Megatron was certainly the kind of bot that made an impression, even in a short time. But he had never stopped to think about this particular issue.

"I think there might be a little of both," he said at last. "It's true that he tends to, ah, pay more attention to Optimus, even when it isn't necessarily the best strategy. But a lot of his plans aren't necessarily the best strategy to begin with. On the other hand... he's not above cooperating with Optimus when the situation is dangerous enough, either."

And, of course, by 'situation' he meant 'Starscream'.

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