rdfs:comment
| - Primus, a brilliant Quintesson scientist, goes rogue, fed up with not being allowed more freedom in his experiments. He sets out to create a race of his own; a race that will survive him, and will worship him forever. Locating a large, ore-rich asteroid belt, he selects one good-sized asteroid and builds drone-robots that mine the other asteroids and encase the entire asteroid with metal, building several layers atop it. Cables, wiring, engines are placed throughout the layers. And then, Primus dies.
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abstract
| - Primus, a brilliant Quintesson scientist, goes rogue, fed up with not being allowed more freedom in his experiments. He sets out to create a race of his own; a race that will survive him, and will worship him forever. Locating a large, ore-rich asteroid belt, he selects one good-sized asteroid and builds drone-robots that mine the other asteroids and encase the entire asteroid with metal, building several layers atop it. Cables, wiring, engines are placed throughout the layers. He names his new base Cybertronia when construction is finally complete, and heads away from the asteroid belt closer towards the core of the galaxy. He wanders around from system to system, harvesting resources and stocking his metal planet to the brim, not wanting to have to constantly refuel. Primus is a little absent-minded, however, and forgets to deactivate all of his mindless drones. They placidly keep going around and building layers. Many of the fuel and mineral deposits he has had harvester drones collect and store on the surface become covered over (the source of future mines), leading the harvester drones to think that they are running out of resources, and start to go out and look for more. Primus' first experiments are miserable failures, most of the wretched results barely living long enough to draw a single breath, and the few that survive unintelligent, shambling monstrosities (the Transorganics). Dismayed but not dissuaded, he shifts his attention from biological to mechanical life. This creation survives and has vast intelligence, but has no emotions or motivation: it must be programmed to do anything. This is the supercomputer Vector Sigma. Frustrated, Primus returns to the drawing board. He begins to use Vector Sigma as an assistant, programming him to help make his creations. One day, he makes a mistake and feeds in some of the old plans for creating organic life. Vector Sigma churns over the information and resolves the inconsistencies, and creates a new life form: a mechanical life-form with evolutionary capabilities. The Cybertronians are born. Primus finds the originals and improves on the basic design, adding some integral design patterns to give them even more of a drive by instilling some basic goals in each. A golden age begins on Cybertronia, as the new creations emerge onto the surface of their homeworld and start to create a civilization. Primus watches over them rather smugly, adding new enhancements to them and to Cybertronia as time goes on. But then Primus begins to feel the touch of his own mortality. He sets his drone-like mechs, now called the Guardians, to protect Vector Sigma, the planet, and the Cybertronians, and prepares for death while his creations grieve in anticipation, vowing never to forget him. He feels some niggling fear, however. The other Quintessons haven't shown up during his life, but he fears that the Cybertronians may be assaulted by them after his death. He decides that in order to protect them, he needs to keep certain information secret from them until they learn more about the galaxy. He wants their civilization to develop normally: they have already started out at a technological level incomparable to any evolved organic race. So he takes certain steps... He builds three mentally and physically enhanced 'protectors' who are intended to have far longer lifespans than the other Cybertronians and provide continuity for them: Alpha Trion, Straxus, and Excelsius. He constructs three geographically separated bases for each of them: Iaconia, Calyhex, and Myridon. To each one he entrusts the guardianship of one powerful artifact. Alpha Trion receives the Matrix of Leadership, an artifact that can store impressions and memories of great individuals, if they bear it for some time, and which can detect leadership ability. Straxus receives the Seal of Cybertronia.... To Excelsius, his final creation, he gives the Oracle: a storage device with his final testament that holds all of his experimental records and a chronicle of Cybertronia's history, which also is tied into the network of Cybertronia and can affect its environment. And then, Primus dies.
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