10785/Secrets of Vector Sigma: Heart of Cybertron

Secrets of Vector Sigma: Heart of Cybertron
Date of Scene:	19 January 2020
Location:	Starsreach Spaceport (ICN), Jan-Ja, Iacon, I. Plat., Cybertron (1623)
Synopsis:	Doug and Shannon talk to Primus. But he's grumpy.
Cast of Characters:	Blurr, Nightingale, Cypher

---

Blurr has posed:
    So! Last time, our intrepid heroes were trekking through the Undergrid deep below Iacon, having escaped the grip of some sort of worm-like monster. Now they continue forward, even deeper into the bowels of the planet.

    Finally, after long hours of wandering the seemingly endless labyrinth of tunnels, passageways, bridges and causeways, they find themselves at base of a steep upward incline. It has various ridges in it, but...it looks like it's at least height of several earth-sized skyscrapers. Still, at the top, there is a prick of bright white light. It illuminates the metallic surfaces, exposing those strange linear patterns that seem to cover most of the landscape around here.

    Blurr checks his navigation, and points upward. "Well, according to the data I have, it should be up there. Smelt I'm glad I got flying exos." he says partially to himself.

Nightingale has posed:
     "Plus you have someone with you that naturally has flying." Shannon smiles somewhat, peering up at the point of light while shielding her eyes. It was beautiful, in its own odd way. What other wonders abounded in this strange place? Somehow, despite the long hours of wandering, the fact that there seemed to be--very literally, in this case--a light at the end of the tunnel, well, it made things a little easier.

     "So... what's the plan here?" At least one couldn't complain about her willingness to help. However, this was Blurr's home turf, and Doug was the more tech-savvy of the two mutants. This... was going to be interesting, to say the least.

Cypher has posed:
    Doug takes a moment to calculate the optimal feed to his energon jets. "Well, we fly up there and see if I can get past whatever encryption system is locking them out from the supercomputer. Here we are, on the other side of the galaxy, end of game."
    He activates the jets on his Exo, and shoots up into the air.

Blurr has posed:
    "Well, you guys fly up there, Doug tries to work his magic and you watch his back." Blurr says to Shannon. "I'll make my way up too, but given I can't fly might be a little bit." Much as he hates to admit being slower. But not because he isn't fast, just lacking the right tools.

    It seems Doug is already on top of that though. So he backs up a bit, and darts at the wall, actually starting to run up the side a bit before grabbing a ridge and pulling himself up, then jumping to the next one, and so forth.

    It is a bit of a distance, but it's not long before Doug and Shannon reach the top. The prick of light is actually a massive sphere, it rotates slowly, as flashes of golden light pulsate along its various circuits in complex patterns.

    It's almost as if it's alive...

Cypher has posed:
    When Doug lands, he stops, and... he stares. His eyes dilate, and he stares at the rotating sphere. "I've never seen anything like it..." For a long time, he shushes any attempt to talk to him, as he stares at the glowing sphere.

Nightingale has posed:
     Unable to help herself, Shannon stares at the sphere for a few long moments. Was it alive? Was it life as they knew it, captain? Smiling, she knew that even if it were several lifetimes, she would never be able to forget this sight. This, then, was the source of life for an entire race--and they had been asked to help ensure its safety, and ability to do what it was meant to do. Where had it come from? Perhaps that was a question she could ask Blurr one day.

     For now, though, there was a job to do. Making sure her arm cannons were armed, Shannon takes up a vantage point slightly above and behind Doug, hovering in the air under her own power, and acting as lookout. "So far, so good here, Doug. Let's hope it stays that way."

Blurr has posed:
    Blurr finally makes his way up to the top to join them. He also stares at it a for a good long moment. When it came to this particular part of his homeworld, he was kind of in the same boat as the Terrans--he'd never seen Vector Sigma up close and in person like this.

    It was...beautiful.

    He walks up to the housing, where the sphere appeared to be hovering between two sections, and runs a hand along its surface. Then he frowns and backs away slightly. "Cypher, I was thinking--m-maybe you shouldn't do this. Like I said, I don't actually know anything about how this thing works or what it even is--I mean," he pauses, turning toward the Terran mutant. "...What if it kills you?"

Nightingale has posed:
     Furrowing her brows in thought, Shannon glances down at Blurr. "An object like this must surely have some legends built up around it," she muses. "And legends often have some grain of truth in them." Whether or no that would help either Doug or Blurr, she didn't know, but at this point, any line of inquiry was worth considering, rather than rushing in blind where angels fear to tread....

Cypher has posed:
    "No." Doug says, "I can do this. Amazing. There is an encryption here, more complex than anything I've seen before... and I've cracked Shi'ar Quantum Encryption. But this..." He says... then he holds up his left hand, and the gauntlet retracts, showing his techno-orgaic arm.
    Slowly it shifts, bit by bit, deductive leap by deductive leap becoming a perfect copy of the Key to Vector Sigma as depicted in the archives, right down to the golden web pattern of the circuitry. A perfect counterfeit.
    Doug says, quietly, "I can't not do this."
    Then he interfaces with the ancient Supercomputer.

Blurr has posed:
    "Yeah, there are some l--" But before Blurr can even finish the sentence, Doug is already plugging in. "Doug wait--!" Too late.

    Suddenly, Cypher is plunged into a completely different world. There is so much...it's not like anything he has ever touched before. Not anywhere -near-, even. It's as if the entire planet were one giant machine, and he'd just tapped into the main control console. He can feel the presence of every Cybertronian on the entire planet. Their hopes, their fears, their dreams....

    Cybertron had a long, dark and violent past. Filled with war and desolation, and wrought with conflict ever since the beginning, which was long before humans even walked the Earth. While the young Terran may have previously gained somewhat of an understanding of why they had such a terrible reputation, now he understands it -fully-. Everywhere they went, death and destruction followed. Entire planets, even systems razed. Civilizations wiped out of existence.

    But there is something -else-. A presence. It's not just a supercomputer. While he is communicating with it...it communicates -back-.

    You...stranger...are not of this place, or of my people. Why have you come here?

    Meanwhile, the chamber starts to churn, panels shifting around them. The ceiling and walls move too, the ridges grinding as long metallic formations seem to emerge.

Nightingale has posed:
     While keeping an eye on their surroundings, Shannon is perhaps the first to notice the shifting, the metallic grinding, the odd clacks, clicks, and rumbling that precedes a transformation. Whatever this was, her arm blasters were unlikely to do any good, and might very well create more trouble than they're worth. It looks to her eyes as if this part of the planet itself is transforming. Good gods, was this world /alive/?

     "Ummm... Blurr... this is going to sound really stupid, but what the slag is going on here? Do the legends mention anything like it?" She gestures quickly around the room, dividing her attention between Doug, Vector Sigma, and the apparent transformation of the immediate area into... what?

Cypher has posed:
    "I want a thousand guitars," Doug rasps, "I want pounding drums - I want a million different voices speaking in tongues..."

"In... in the beginning, so far back Vector Sigma's memory fails, before the Shi'ar, the Skrulls, the Kree... the Progenitors, the Many-Faced ones, sought to understand the nature of the universe... Quintessence! Quintessons. They built..." He pauses, taking in vast amounts of data, "Two children. A creator... a builder. The first! Primus. Its job was to produce the tools the Quintessons would need to perform their work. A great factory capable of constructing Dyson spheres and other galactic installations! I see..."
    He licks his bottom lip. "Another. Primus's counterpart. The harvester, the one who measures."

"Unicron! Its task was to break down massive amounts of resources so Primus could perform its duties. For a billion years, the work progressed unimpeded..."
    "But then... but then... they discovered *organic life*. So small... but for the first time in their existence, Primus and Unicron reached different conclusions. Primus... was elated. This life changed, grew, evolved, with no directive but that which it gave itself."

"Unicron... was *revolted*. It viewed life as a plague... that infested everything it touched and made it unclean."
    Doug looks up at Vector Sigma. "Because I was asked to. Because Primus's children are dying."

Blurr has posed:
    Blurr seems just as disconcerted as Shannon at this new development. "OhnoIdon'tknowIdon'tknowIjustknowit'sprobablybad--!!" Slag, this had been a bad idea to begin with. Why?! A panel underneath him shifts, retracting and re-emerging somewhere else, causing him to tumble down onto a lower platform. The walls--are they closer than they were before?

    Inside Doug's head, the voice comes again. Like the sound of a thousand Cybertronians in unison.

    An Outsider. You claim to know us. To know me. To understand beings who touched the stars long before your kind could even speak...

    I am Primus the Life-Giver, and who are you but an arrogant stranger to question me?

Nightingale has posed:
     A cry of alarm escapes Shannon as Blurr takes a tumble. The younger mutant is torn between looking after Doug, and helping their new friend. Her brows furrow. It might be Doug that was patched in to Vector Sigma right now, but would it be able to hear and understand her? Would there be any response she could understand?

     She had to try. Briefly, she thinks back to another training session, in which communicating with something much larger, much more powerful with herself, had been the key. But what could she say?

     Taking a deep breath, she calls out into the seemingly empty room--though perhaps it wasn't quite so empty after all. "Please. I don't know if you can hear me, but we came here because we were asked to help. We heard that Blurr's people are dying. I know our lives are short, and there's probably a lot we may never understand in a thousand lifetimes. But we want to help our friend's people. Please, are you willing to allow us to help?"

     Her gaze flits between Blurr, looking for signs of damage there, and Doug, hoping and praying that he was alright.

Cypher has posed:
    "No. Before life even evolved on our planet." Doug replies.
    "I'm not questioning. I'm *listening*."
    "Where once there was harmony, now there was Chaos. You were a creator... Unicron was a destroyer. You wanted to analyze life, to understand it! But Unicron wanted to purge it! You... prevented him from doing so, and so Unicron decided to destroy you. But you... you were made to build, to create, not to break down and destroy! How could you battle Unicron and hope to survive--"
    "Except that you saw within life the ability to evolve, to change, and in so doing overcome that which would undo it. You transformed! You unlocked the enigma of life and you adapted to fight Unicron. To survive!"
    "Because you realized that the enigma of Life is that it *strives*. It yearns for freedom, and the right to exist. And in so striving, you found the will to win. In the end, Unicron fled... and you were hopelessly damaged. And in order to save yourself... you created life, independently of yourself. Mechanical life with the ability to change, adapt, and grow. But... it wasn't that you couldn't give it a controlling directive... you *didn't*. Because that would have defeated the purpose. You asked for its *help*. But they were so small, and you were their god."
    "And they lost their way. Because Unicron couldn't create, but it could *corrupt*, so it left a virus in the machine... a plague. And when its command variable executes, it takes the form of Unicron's *hate* for life itself. And in ways great and small... the Chaos-Bringer continues to fight you, until the day it returns to finish your war."
    "And you're afraid the time draws near. You'd rather your children go extinct... then be at Unicron's mercy?"

Blurr has posed:
    Blurr seems to be all right, at least he didn't seem to have fallen that far. But the chamber continues to churn and shift, the walls and ceiling contracting more and more, causing her to lose sight of the Autobot. Chasms open while others close. Suddenly, a wall is coming toward Shannon!

    You saw the destruction my people have wrought upon this galaxy. Yet you still know nothing. They will destroy themselves and take this world and others with them...

Now begone from this place!

    Suddenly, the platform Doug had been standing on is whisked out from under him, as it begins to rotate up and into a compartment that has opened in the wall.

Cypher has posed:
    Doug holds up his hand. "WAIT!"
    "Time and time again, my people come up against men who sacrifice their humanity for the power to destroy us." He reaches out with the interface, displaying images of Cameron Hodge, Sentinels, the Reavers, Nimrod -- "Again and again, their hate urges them to destroy us, and again and again the *machine* appears."
    "For some reason, Unicron is trying to kill Mutantkind -- and with us the whole human race... and I need to ask you *why*. I wasn't sure, but now I see it clearly. *Why*. Why does Unicron want humanity gone, Primus?! Their lifespans are a *mote* compared to Cybertronians, so why? Why does the Machine rise to kill the Mutant?"

    "You created them with the ability to change. And now you've decided they *can't*? I don't believe that, not for a second. I know despair when I see it. But one of your children came to find me -- just a nobody with the power to communicate with anything capable of it. You can't stand the thought of birthing more Cybertronians just for them to be chewed up by your people's civil war. And... yes, in life's striving, all too often it turns on itself."
    "But wars *end*. Even the one that's consumed your people. It can end. I don't know *how* to end it... but I saw it in Blurr's data files. Your Prime has never *stopped* trying to end it. Never stopped trying to *reason* with his enemy. And I've *met* Megatron... as angry as he is, he's brilliant. I believe if he understood Unicron for what it was... he'd understand how the Chaos-Bringer has been manipulating him! And if there's one thing that drives him to righteous fury... it's having his function dictated to him by *someone else*. All hope is not lost. There is a chance! And even if there's only one chance... you take it!"

Nightingale has posed:
     Yelping, Shannon darts behind the sphere itself, hoping to dodge the wall that was coming at her. It seemed that Doug and Blurr were both in one piece, but where were they going? Clearly, Vector Sigma seemed to be attempting to dislodge them. Yet even now, that was all it was doing. It was moving them aside, not killing them. Was there still something she could attempt to reach? From what Doug had spoken out loud, this was actually Primus. Its prime directive was life, its creation, and preservation. Could she, with her lack of understanding, somehow communicate with this mysterious, ancient being? For it was indeed a being, not simply a machine. It was alive, as much as either Doug, Blurr, or even she herself was alive.

     Doug was right. What she heard from his words, was that this world, this Primus was in despair. What being wouldn't be, to see its children come to life--only to be chewed up by war that seemed without end?

     Taking a deep breath, Shannon rested her hand very gently on the sphere, not attempting to access it, but to offer some small hint of fellowship. To reach out in the only way she knew how. "Please," she murmured. "Doug is right. And someone who is a lot wiser than myself had something to say about this as well. They were words spoken to me when I tasted despair. When I failed to heal and saw just a small hint of the ugliness of war." She pauses, calling up the words in her mind.

     " 'You can't save 'em all. But if you can't find a way to keep going, how many other people are going to die instead?'."

Blurr has posed:
    DO NOT SPEAK OF HOPE WHERE THERE IS NONE.

    Shannon barely manages to dodge that wall. It moves all the way across the chamber and slams into the other side, locking in with a loud clank. But even the housings are moving away from the sphere too, the entire platform they had been standing on earlier seeming to come apart and move off in other directions.

    A different housing moves in around Vector Sigma, and it begins to move downward toward another chasm that has opened in the floor, pulling away from Doug. But at the same time, the walls and floor begin to close in rapidly, threatening to crush them if they can't find a way out! There are plenty of gaps between panels and passages opening the closing as everything seems to be in constant motion, but hopefully they can pick one that isn't a dead end or won't become one...

Cypher has posed:
    "If there wasn't hope why would that guy there--" Doug points to Blurr, "Have dragged my tuchus all the way across the Galaxy in hopes of being able to access you? That's a pretty desperate freakin' hope!"
    Doug clings to a platform, for dear life.
    "You're Primus, the master builder! If all you see is darkness, create a light! If all you see is despair, then transform something into hope!"
    "You see this arm? You recognize this for what it is, don't you?" He holds it out. "The Technarchs of Kvch are monomaniacs! They *scour* worlds of organic life. Unicron is in *them*, too. But this came from one of them who saw the Hate for what it was, and he *REJECTED* it! On his own!"

Nightingale has posed:
     "Where there is life, there is hope! Please don't lose that!" Tears of frustration stream down Shannon's face, and she is scanning the ever-changing exits, keeping something of an exit route in her mind as the walls and floors clang together in different configurations than before.

     "There is hope. Please, what would help you to believe in that? Doug's right. One of your own came to us on the strength of hope. How else can we show you hope?" She holds off on making for an exit for the moment; to flee before it was absolutely too late would only lend credence to hopelessness. That, it seemed neither she nor Doug would stand for.

Blurr has posed:
    Despite Shannon and Doug's desperate pleas, no further communication comes from Vector Sigma, and the chamber simply continues to shift inward. Finally, Blurr seems to pop out of nowhere, bouncing from platform to platform even as they are in perpetual motion.

    "What are you doing?! We have to get -out- of here!" He leaps up toward them and tries to grab them and get them out through an opening that looks big enough to fit them all.

Cypher has posed:
    Doug closes his eyes, and says, "I'm sorry Blurr. I tried. But maybe it's for the best." Yeah, maybe.
    Doug activates his Exco, and tags after Blurr, to flie to safety. "I guess you wasted your effort bringing me here!"

Nightingale has posed:
     Shannon didn't want to give up. But at this stage, they are left with no choice. She is plucked out of the air by Blurr and pulled to safety, not even putting up a fight as the tears stream down her face. "Maybe Vector Sigma will remember this, when it's ready. Maybe it just needs time to think about it." Her voice is shaking as they make their way to safety, even now holding on to some slim hope.

Blurr has posed:
    They are pulled through the opening and it closes shut with a loud clang of finality. On the other side is another passage lined with piping and circuits much like the many others they've been down. Blurr vents a sound that resembles a sigh of relief. "That was close. -Too- close." he shakes his head. "I shouldn't have brought you here. You could have died. Just another casualty of -our- problems. It wasn't right."

    He transforms. "C'mon, let's go. I know a shortcut back to the gravlift."

Cypher has posed:
    "On the plus side," Doug says, "I now see the face of Mutantkind's great enemy clearly. I'd seen hints of it in the pattern before... but now I know its name. Unicron. And the Machine leads back to it. All of it. The Sentinels... all of it - just echoes of that engine's all-consuming *hate* for everything that lives."

Nightingale has posed:
     Shannon's voice is barely above a whisper, her wings drooping behind her. "Not just Mutantkind, Doug. Life. This... Unicron... sounds like it hates life." Closing her eyes, she takes a few deep, shuddering breaths, trying to still the tears and square her shoulders. "Maybe we've given Vector Sigma something to remember when it's time. Till then, we have to be the ones to fight for life."

Blurr has posed:
    "Maybe." Blurr says with a sigh. "I appreciate holding onto hope and all that...but when you get be around for as long as we have--well, it doesn't get any easier, that's for sure."

    A pause. "Are we gonna get going now or do you wanna live down here or something?"

Cypher has posed:
    Doug sighs, and says, "I just... I keep looking for some sign that I got through to it. I don't know..." he says, before he tags after Blurr. "Come on, let's get out of here."

Nightingale has posed:
     Shannon's tears would have to be kept to herself, the sort that fell when she was alone and nobody was around to see. Still, her eyes glisten as she looks between Doug and Blurr, nodding in assent. They had done everything they could here for the time being, but their own world needed them as well.

     "I guess in a way, I could understand a tiny bit of what Primus must have felt, when it found life out there. It's been like that ever since I got a chance to meet others of our kind. There's always a sense of joy and wonder."

     Pausing in thought, she purses her lips slightly. As she looks back the way they came, she wondered, would the one they left behind hear her? Who knew. Possibly. It was worth a try. Her voice raises in song, just for a few moments, the words and melody betokening faith, and never losing hope.

"I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean
Whenever one door closes, I hope one more opens
Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance
And when you get a choice to sit it out or dance
I hope you dance...."

Blurr has posed:
    Blurr zooms off toward the elevator that brought them down here. He takes the two of them back the way they came--back up the to the surface, and back to the spaceport where his ship is waiting to be boarded.

    As they blast off once again into the cold void of space, the shimmering planet is again seen out of the ports and viewscreens.

    The group soon arrives back on Earth, touching down in the same spot outside of Salem Center. But before they part ways, he pulls something out of subspace. It looks like a small piece of an antenna. "Hey uh, I found this on that bridge we crossed right before that worm thing attacked. I think...it's a piece of Creed, so I thought you might want it. I never thought I'd say this about an Insecticon, but it must have sacrificed itself to save us."

Cypher has posed:
    Doug coniders the antenna, before he sits in sullen silence. He rests his hand on his chin, as he stares out at the stars, and thinks.

Nightingale has posed:
     A heavy sigh escapes Shannon as she reaches out to accept the small bit of a friend she had barely known, her hands curling around it and holding it over her heart. This time she can't prevent it, tears falling for their erstwhile companion. "Thank you." Her voice is low, choked up as a lump forms in her throat "I... guess we can hope maybe he just lost the antenna, and perhaps he's found his place." But she knew all too well that it was entirely likely Creed was gone, the one who had been despised by all having giving all to save the very one who had disliked him the most. "Either way, the sacrifice won't be forgotten. If... if by some chance he did make it, take care of him?"

Blurr has posed:
    "Doubt it did, but if I ever do run across it again, I'll be sure to try to make sure the little guy's all right." Blurr assures Shannon. Then he returns to his ship and takes off into the night sky, leaving the two humans to make their way home.

Cypher has posed:
    "Just let me take the heat for this," Doug says, "I should've sent you home." He sighs, and calls for an Uber... using something he cobbled together from the tech on Blurr's ship.

Nightingale has posed:
     Shannon just nods, and waits there with Doug for the Uber to arrive. They had both seen and done a lot, and would have a lot to think about. "I hope it's not the last we'll see of him," she offers. "Real friends are rare, doesn't matter where they come from." A teary-eyed glance is given to the antenna cradled in her grasp, crystalline droplets falling to the dinged-up metal and following the grooves in the surface. "Or what they are. But... I'm glad you're one of them."