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| - Cybertronian Spacecraft - The interior of the Ark, the most famous ship ever to leave Cybertron. It's seen better days, and much is in disarray and disrepair after it's fateful crash landing. Reidan Wesley had acquired some meat finally, with help of one of the Autobots. It had been a saber toothed tiger, and he had even stretched out the skin and nailed it to the ground outside while stewing up the meat and bits, having saved a few claws and teeth for himself as the improvised spit-roaster turned, the man reclining on a few rocks near the entrance, looking like he was fast asleep. Remedy comes out to check on one of her 'responsibilities', seeing Reidan cooking dinner, and maybe sleeping. She sighs a little, wondering how humans can eat such things. It's like humans are scraplets, or Insecticons, just with a little more Darwinbot-ism. "Hello," murmurs Reidan from under his hat. "Whyfor the sigh, my lady?" he notes, giving the spit roaster a turn. Remedy notices Reidan's awake, "Did I wake you?" She goes to sit down next to him, drawing her knees up, "I don't... understand why you humans do that?" gesturing at the spitted meat. "No you did not. I am able to sleep with only half my brain. Do what? Cook the meat? Its better than getting parasites." Remedy shakes her head, unsure if he can see her, "No, I mean... On Cybertron, the only sentients who devour the structure of another, are the Insecticons, or the scraplets..." Reidan Wesley ohs and pauses to think 'Let me have five minutes to construct an explanation." he notes, falling silent, chin on his chest. Remedy gives the human time to formulate his response, watching the fats and juices bubble up and fall into the fire. She shifts her attention to the sky, mainly because her 'stomach' was starting to protest Reidan Wesley finally murmurs "Unlike robots, who get their energy in a pure form, humans and organics must render it down and process it on-site. An organic body is full of this energy in individual little cells, but we need to activate chemical reactions like in a pile battery to do so. It can seem rather uncouth but considering that we basically process it all inside ourselves..." Reidan Wesley says, "Females you know, also carry factories for producing other organics inside them" Remedy ewws, her face scrunching up. Reidan Wesley chuckles "Well, YOU folk perform open-heart surgery and remove limbs to replace them anew. THAT is quite disgusting to some people. To be honest I prefer vegetarianism myself, but this is safer." he gestures to the sizzling meat. Remedy laughs, "There's also the fact that the food in question may have tried to have you for dinner... so there's some poetic justice." Reidan Wesley nods "That much too. It’s a cat-eat-cat world." he remarks as he turns the spit once more "Your name?" Remedy blinks, "I'm Remedy..." She smiles a little, looking up at the sky, "I suppose the fact that you do cook it, makes it a little more... civilized than what the Insecticons do..." Reidan Wesley nods "Yes. If I have to eat meat, I prefer it as dead as possible." he agrees. Remedy smiles, "That's good." Reidan Wesley smiles a little bit back. "I'm Reidan Wesley by the way. Have you seen the girl." Remedy tilts her head, "The girl? You mean Amber? I'm not sure if I have that recently." Reidan Wesley ohs. "Is that what her name is?" he shrugged "Well she should be about. Remedy nods, "Perhaps she's off doing something with another bot. Bumblebee seems rather smitten with her. I think the young bot is kinda smitten with me." "He's smitten with everyone. A little yellow social butterfly." remarks Reidan. "A very pleasant fellow." Speak of the devil. Amber appears out of nowhere... well, actually, she came from around some nearby boulders, her hair tied back, and breathing hard from a run. She pauses to sniff at the air and wonders what unlucky beast was volunteered to become dinner. "Evening," she says politely as she walks back and forth to cool down. "Good afternoon." replies Reidan simply, as he reaches into his pocket. From a tiny notebook he had rolled some paper and his tobacco into a rough cigarette. Remedy mms, "Did you have a good exercise program?" She notes the human has increased oxygen exchange, thermal regulation seems to be in high function, and the prime energon pump is running fast Amber MacKenzie finishes cooling down and fishes a bottle out of her backpack. "Yes, thanks," she answers before tipping the bottle up for a drink. Mmmmmmm, distilled water, fresh from a mountain spring. "Looks like someone went a hunting..." She examines the spit and snorts quietly. "There's something satisfying in eating a creature that would do its best to eat you," she observes. "Yes. One of the smaller Autobots - a red one, I forget his name. Has horns - helped me acquire it. They are shockingly unafraid of humans." admits Reidan "I guess an innate fear of humanity has yet to be naturally selected. And yes." he gestures as well to a rough pail "There is fresh water there too. It is clean." Remedy icks at that thought, though it's better than the Insecticons who just nom other Cybertronians. She looks at Reidan, "I think you're referring to Cliffjumper." "Is that what you... humans eat?" Prowl says, emerging from the Ark and appraising the cooking site warily. "I knew that it had to be biomass, but does it specifically have to be intelligent creatures, even ones less intelligent than yourselves? It seems barbaric to me." He sniffs the air, and coughs. "What a horrible smell." Amber MacKenzie stiffens at the sound of Paranoid Man... or Mech's voice, her green eyes darkening with suspicion. She backs up into an opening between boulders, but doesn't quite hide. Other than that, she has nothing to say. Reidan Wesley's body tenses imperceptibly as well. The unlit cigarette is put away again, this time in his back pocket... let's try prowl take THAT one. He then replies coolly "That is how organic life is. We all devour each other, and then when the mortal body dies, it becomes food for the plants, then the insects, and so on back up again. Consider it the oldest recycling process in the universe." Remedy ughs softly, "You need to square yourself away, Prowl. Yes, it's not appealing what they're doing, but, it's better than watching scraplets devour a bot alive." Prowl sits down on a boulder, frowning. "But you don't have to eat the intelligent ones. You're omnivorous, right? I could tell from the teeth. It's those large, thick ones in the back, good for chewing plants, but you've also got a couple that can bite through flesh. So... given the choice between eating plants and eating creatures, why go out of your way to eat creatures? You don't *have* to." He flicks off some soot from his armor. "You can make a choice, but you choose to kill intelligent beings." "That's Prowl, *sir,*" Prowl reminds Remedy. "And besides, if you managed to get a scraplet to stop trying to eat you for five microcycles I'm sure it believes that it's just part of a natural process, too." "Actually, some of us medically do not get enough nutrients and proteins from vegetables to be able to survive. Thus for some it is NECESSARY to eat meat. A lot of humans also do it because it is more pleasing to eat." explains Reidan "I personally, am usually vegetarian. I do not like the taste of meat. However, while my knowledge of foliage is quite extensive, I did not want to chance devouring a prehistoric deadly nightshade ancestor and perishing a few million years before I was born. Thus I went with what I know that we can eat, through research into the humans' own ancestry." He turns the spit again "Almost ready. Do you have a knife, my dear?" Amber MacKenzie doesn't answer out loud, she merely retrieves her Swiss army knife from a pocket and waggles it. Her eyes still remain on Prowl. Remedy sighs a little, "Yes, Sir..." Yes, there's that darn vocalizer slip that sounds like she's saying C-U-R. "So, Sir, what do you think of the sky?" Reidan Wesley hrms a little bit and nods as he picks up two pointed sticks "Good." as he pulls out his own jungle knife. A kind of smaller bowie knife. He carefully swings the meat away from the fire, stabbing it to start slicing "Will this piece do? I admit it is not my BEST spit roasting, but considering that Basil has yet to evolve..." A glance upwards "Familiar." Prowl folds his arms, thinking. "Alright. So some of you MUST eat meat. Alright. But some of you don't. You just want to. Now, if Optimus was here, he'd probably make a distinction about humans like yourself being "sentient"--which is actually the wrong term to use, he should really say "sapient"--but I really don't see why that makes you qualified to determine which creatures are fit for slaughter. Why, you may even have some distant ancestors in this jungle. They might only be somewhat less intelligent than yourselves--but do you still get to decide if you can eat them?" He leans to the right, noticing Amber squeezed between the rocks. "It's alright, Prime vouched for you. Well, Rodimus Prime. And if HE was actually a Decepticon, well, we'd all be in deep trouble." Turning to Remedy, he looks puzzled. "The sky? Hm. I suppose it's a nice shade of blue, but that and the constant atmospheric disturbances are making it very difficult to use our star charts. I find it a bit of a nuisance." Reidan Wesley responds to Prowl "Well, I am relatively certain that /I/ am not descended from anything on this planet. And I believe humans are not descended from Saber Toothed Tigers. Our own ancestors are already shuffling about, I believe, in a semi-recogniseable form." "Thank you," Amber responds distantly, skewing the proffered piece with her own, smaller knife. She's perfectly happy to leave the discussion of anthropology and the evolution of sapience to Reidan. As Prowl leans towards her, she leans back, her knife gripped tightly in her hand. Remedy stands up, "Rodimus Prime is fairly new to being a Prime, but, he's no Decepticon, Sir!" She hmmmphs, "Didn't the fact he has the Matrix mean anything to you? Decepticons don't have that. A leader in their ranks is determined by who the strongest is." Prowl gives Reidan a puzzled look. "That statement was somewhat self-contradictory. Regardless, why does the ability to speak, make tools, and build make you so much better than the other life forms on this world? The Decepticons would argue that they could exploit you in much the same way because THEY are so much more advanced than you. We Autobots, of course, don't believe that, but what's so different from their philosophy versus yours?" He smiles down at Amber, though he doesn't do well with 'warm and friendly' so it comes off a bit forced. "Come on, that knife wouldn't hurt me anyway." Prowl turns back to Remedy. "Ah, good, you're calling me 'sir,' I appreciate that. But yes, you noticed that I deactivated the fire suppression system when I saw it, didn't you? And, if Megatron is truly missing, I'd say the Decepticons aren't exactly following their own rules anymore. Starscream and 'strong' don't seem like concepts that mesh together very well." Reidan Wesley responds "Our philosophy, their philosophy, but also your own, by your own actions which speak louder than your words, sir. You did, after all, try to kill us, as well as take an item that was very precious to me and destroy it when a simple 'no smoking' would have been quite sufficient." he takes a piece himself, eating it right off the knife. Amber MacKenzie notes, "I had no intention of attacking you; you just make me nervous." Much like being trapped in a room with a psycho would. You never know when he'll have an attack of acute paranoia and believe that they're all Decepticons in disguise. She takes a bite of her cooling dinner and makes a face as she chews the tough meat. "I'd recommend that you read Darwin, but it'll be a long, long time before his works are published." Remedy sighs again, "Autobots and Decepticon subjugate Cybertron, just like humans subjugate the earth. The way things go. And, I'm sure the humans don't target the other sentient creatures." Reidan Wesley notes "We do, however, we are also trying to keep those people from doing it. We've had our own civil wars, I will not deny it. All truly alive beings in the universe are, at the bottom, animals, preying on each other to out survive and outlive the others. Prowl shakes his head. "No, I wasn't trying to kill anyone. Just draw them out into the open. I'm sure she..." He nods towards Amber. "...would have come crawling out before she actually suffocated." And then they would have suffocated anyway, most likely, because he overestimated how long a human could go without air, but he doesn't realize that. "And your pipe is just a thing, it can be replaced easily enough I'm sure." He looks pensive. "Well. I think the Autobots are a prime example of how you can get by in the universe without having to subdue anyone. Yes, we fight for your planet, but not to eat. We had plenty of energon--it was the war which depleted it all. We Autobots can survive without having to kill at all. All we need is a source of energy to harvest. It could even be sunlight." He's about to say something to the effect of 'that's why we're better than you' but holds off. For now. Reidan Wesley snorts at prowls' guess "Unlikely. That one was one of a kind, and a gift from a very good friend. It is not some two shilling piece off a shelf." He gestures dismissively as he munches into his steak as well, finding it juicy and tender, if a little dry "And yet, you still resort to violence when threatened." Amber MacKenzie arches a brow and asks coldly, "Come out before I suffocated?" You arse, she adds mentally. "Human brains are irreparably damaged in a matter of minutes, and death follows quickly. If not for Rodimus Prime's quick action, you might have killed both of us." Remedy nods, "Yeah, humans are rather fragile. And, none are conversant in human anatomy. So, they'd be in bad shape." "I resort to violence, unfortunate as it is, as necessary to protect the *group,*" Prowl says. "Do any of you have any idea how bad our situation is? Yes, we have the Ark, but it's badly damaged, we don't have a reliable source of energy, Optimus is missing, and I've had to manage the Autobots, and I swear they're like PROTOFORMS sometimes--" He realizes he's nearly shouting at the end, and catches himself. "Sorry. I've... been under a lot of stress. I have to admit, I'm still not sure what to make of Rodimus, but seeing him has taken a load off for me." Prowl regards Amber with a blank look. "Well, I'm sorry. I didn't know that. But all the more reason not to skulk around in what is effectively a military installation." Reidan Wesley simply snorts at Prowl's explanation, obviously not believing it as he simply munches on his food a little bit more. Then he looks to Amber "What do you do?" Remedy okies, "Then, you need to learn how to delegate the tasks. Even Prime knows he can't carry the whole team by himself. So, find some bots you trust, and have them take some of the load off." Amber MacKenzie snorts, too. "Poor baby. We didn't have an Ark, or a reliable source of energy, our TIME is missing, and Rodimus had to manage a few Autobots and a couple CIVILIANS, but you don't see us crying about it. We had no information about how this happened until Reidan 'fessed up, and I was the only one who had some skill in sneaking around. Did a good job of it, didn't I until you were tipped off. I snuck around your damned Ark because Rodimus asked, and because we had no other choice." She glares at Prowl before glancing back at Reidan. "I mentioned it the other day. I'm a part-time journalist, usually for ecological-based news services." Reidan Wesley ahs. Then pauses. "A journalist? Are you going to be writing about this? " he asks, uneasily. Prowl clenches his teeth, telling Remedy, "But there's so few of them that I can trust! Ironhide's got the respect of the men, but he has no leadership qualities. Jazz is too laid-back... Wheeljack is... I don't even know... Ratchet's too busy... Bluestreak is a *coward*... The twins! Frag me, the twins aren't good for anything but shooting Decepticons..." He rubs his chevron with the back of his hand. "...well, I suppose I could delegate a *little.*" He shoots a glare at Amber. "Rodimus told you to infiltrate the Ark? Well, maybe you should take your grievances up with him because at the time we had no idea if you were friendly or hostile. He should have just confronted us." Reidan Wesley says, "He did, and you threatened to shoot to kill before giving him a chance to talk." "Depends," Amber answers Reidan. "I want to hear what the EDC has to say for itself before I break any news. If they were just being stupid..." Her eyes move to Prowl. "... paranoid arses, then I'd be happy to embarrass them in world news. If they have some justification, then I keep my mouth shut." Prowl's attempt at justification meets with another snort, and she turns towards him. "I have this odd feeling that Rodimus thought I would be infiltrating *Autobots*, not trigger-happy, shoot-on-sight PTSD Man. Learn to delegate, man! You didn't have to do it all yourself, even if you had to make the final decisions." "Well, to be honest our current conundrum is, I am sure, entirely unanticipated. To be honest I kept myself OUT of the business entirely and just went along for the trip to Brazil where the first one was found." admits Reidan "Therefore, I am uncertain how this is OUR fault. IT is no more our fault than the man who, while investigating a Pyramid, accidentally unleashes a plague-wielding mummy that eats people's eyes." Prowl looks indignant at Amber's rant at him. "I'm not trigger happy. I'm just cautious. I have to be... Anyway, I wasn't just going to shoot them. I just wanted to take them into custody before simply welcoming them blindly into our last refuge." Amber MacKenzie crosses her arms and snaps, "Oh, I guess I imagined you shrieking, 'shoot to kill' the other day. You went overboard, man." She sighs and adds, "I have nothing against caution. In fact, I approve of it in a situation like this, but you crossed a line. I have a sharp tongue, and you scared the hell out of me, so I'm pretty harsh right now, but in all honesty, you're out of your depth right now. Just... chill. Take advantage of Prime's presence to get yourself together and think things through." Turning to Reidan, she tries to collect her thoughts for an entirely different matter. "The EDC found a nice, shiny, pretty gun in a sandbox. It was clearly marked, 'property of the Cybertronians', but instead of returning it to its owner, they decided to play with it. The results should have been expected." Reidan Wesley responds "Make sure to get the specific name of the person who ordered it then. I do not even think she is IN the EDC to be honest." as he finishes his meat, standing with a roll of his shoulders "to be honest, I just hope we are home by January first, otherwise things will be... MUCH worse," he admits, his tones seriously grave as he turns to walk towards the small shelter set up for the two humans. Prowl fidgets on the boulder he's sitting on. "That was IF they resist...." He sighs. For personal reasons, he can't ever admit it, but he realizes he did go way overboard. Prowl prefers to advise or to lead small squads of Autobots, but all of them? It was a bit much for him. Remedy looks at Prowl, shakes her head, "I'm gonna take a quick flight around the area. Care to give any roving patrols a heads up, so I'm not shot at? Just need to stretch my legs." "Good night, Reidan," Amber calls after him. "And yes, I'll find out who's behind it, and I'll ask for some kind of reasoning." She sighs and climbs one of the boulders and perches atop it, looking upwards at those amazing stars. "Prowl, you put them in a bad position with your threats. Most people with sense would feel threatened and untrusting of anyone making that kind of demand. And... if the door mechanism still works, I'd suggesting closing it. It's just too easy to get it. I've heard of Decepticon tapes my size, and they might get in just as easily." Prowl nods to Remedy. "Alright, I'll let them know." He puts two fingers to the side of his head, mutters something frowns. "Okay, the twins are on patrol and they've been notified, but... from the sound of it you might have to shoot THEM down, if you take my meaning." He stares down at Amber. "I had little choice. And as for Ark security... I... look, it's a crashed spaceship sticking out of a volcano. I'll do what I can but don't expect miracles, okay?" Amber MacKenzie squirms a bit. This boulder isn't particularly comfortable. "I know. You have other priorities, but this is just something you can keep in mind for when you *do* have time." She's calming down. A starry night, a full tummy (even if the meat was gamy and tough), and nothing trying to kill her. "We ought to talk about the future some time. The future, or an alt universe; we still don't know which, but it's important to find out." Remedy transforms and takes off, certainly a bit less energetic compared to the ride Amber got. She arcs off to circle the mountain, certainly flying slow enough that anyone could see her coming... Prowl's frowning deeply, now, and not just from the thought of the future. "The future. Risky talking about it, from the theoretical discussions I've had with Wheeljack. But then again... maybe we could do with a few spoilers." He looks her in the eyes. "This is difficult for me to say, but... for what it's worth? I'm sorry." Awww, maybe he's not such a bad guy after all? Amber MacKenzie nods agreeably. "We Terrans - that's natives of this planet - have theories about time travel and alternate dimensions, but our technology isn't up to yours. We adapt extremely quickly; we went from slow, primitive land vehicles to space travel in a hundred years. Anyway, back on topic. There are theories, but no proof of the validity of time travel. Me personally, I think it's impossible. Well, not so much in of itself, but the ability to truly *change* anything in the past. You've heard about the..." She breaks off and rolls her eyes. "Er, no you wouldn't have. Well, hypothesize that you go back in time and kill the person who created you. That would be a paradox, as how could you go back in time if your creator was killed and never created you? So the past can't be changed. However, I believe it can be finessed. It all works out to being a part of the past that happened with your help. If something changes too much, then it can't be finessed. I'm thinking that too much has happened here for history to be finessed, so this has to be an alternate universe." She smirks. "Or I could be completely wrong, because this is all theory, not fact." Prowl taps his chin, thinking. "So... what are you saying? That this is an alternate timeline, since too much has changed, and the fact that the individuals from the future still being here is proof that their timeline remains intact? I wonder... if we were to find Megatron first..." His optics widen. "...why, we could finish him off without damaging your time at all!" Amber emphasizes, "*If* we can determine that this is not time travel. Like I said, that's what *I* think, but I'm hardly an expert. However, think about it. What would we have to do to make this situation work out to how it goes in our timeline? Optimus Prime and Megatron rescued, all of you Cybertronians back here in the Ark, all of you get your memories changed... Pretty complex, isn't it? Then there's the Butterfly Effect. That has two meanings. 1) There's a saying that if a butterfly (a tiny organic insect) flaps its wings on one side of the world, the weather will change in another part of the world due to that minute air movement's effects building into a chain reaction that causes larger and larger effects." She rises to her feet to give her backside a rest. Prowl still towers over her, but it doesn't bother her any more. "Meaning #2 comes from a fictional theory. If you go far enough into the past, something as insignificant as crushing an insect could radically affect the entire future of civilization." She grins suddenly, thinking of a better metaphor. Amber MacKenzie quotes, For want of a nail the shoe was lost. {C For want of a shoe the horse was lost. {C For want of a horse the rider was lost. {C For want of a rider the message was lost. {C For want of a message the battle was lost. {C For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. {C And all for the want of a horseshoe nail. "In this case, consider the horse a vehicle, and the horseshoe and horseshoe nail as vital components. A kingdom was lost because of a tiny component." Prowl hmms. "Right, but by coming back online too 'early' we've already changed the Earth in ways obvious and, well, not so obvious. That saber-toothed tiger, for instance, could have spawned a whole brood of its kind if you hadn't hunted it. And to change our memories... well, I have no idea how to do that, to be quite honest, aside from bombarding our laser cores with ionizing radiation, and that, frankly would leave us all mentally handicapped and also alter the time stream. It's also not an option I'm considering." "Yes, theory two..." He looks back to the saber-toothed tiger. "...again, no telling what you changed just by killing that one animal." He listens to the quote, considering. "One little thing changes everything for the worst. I think I understand. We have to proceed very carefully." Amber MacKenzie nods. "You see the implications. As you noticed, too much has happened to change back, at least according to my theory. Remember that this is an *theory*, not fact. I think it's an alt universe myself." "It's a theory that makes a lot of sense," Prowl says. "It does make me wonder, though... what would happen if we find the other side of this time gate--if there is one--and I step through it? Would that change anything? Can I even exist in your time? I don't see why not, but on the other hand... Hm, I'd have Wheeljack theorize on this if he was here." "We're here, from wherever, whatever else," Amber points out. "Have Wheeljack theorize on whatever brought us here, too. A Quintesson device, a Cybertronian device... Rodimus seems to know something about this himself. If this is an alt universe, it'd be a fascinating idea to try to bring you guys back with us." She sighs, suddenly depressed. "*If* we get back." Prowl nods. "I'll do that." He laughs out loud, grinning. "And I guess I'm curious to see how I turned out four million years from now." "We can't risk -any- assumptions that this isn't anything other than the timeline itself." Rodimus suddenly cuts in as he's striding up the path to the mountain, coming from having done a patrol to look around at their surroundings. Conveniently it just happens to be at the moment Prowl mentions curiosity at how he turns out in four million years. {C Or maybe not so conveniently. "Maybe it is an alternate universe...we'd have experiences with that sort of stuff before. But if it -is- our own timeline, we can't risk ignoring that." Remedy comes flying back, not sporting any signs of weaponfire. Descending, she transforms and alights with a few paces. She looks back and forth, "Well, this is promising. No squished human stains, and Prowl isn't trying to eat the muzzle of his rifle. So, I think this is a win win sit." Amber MacKenzie nods to the suddenly-appearing Rodimus. "So how do we determine which it is? I recall the Militants/Benefactors immigration and subsequence migration. Can that be detected by instruments?" She breaks off to wave to the returning Remedy. Prowl bristles a bit at seeing the Usurper again, but... he had just been in a good mood, so he forces it down. "Logic dictates that isn't possible, Rodimus," Prowl says. "For a variety of reasons that I just discussed. Such as... wiping our memories would likely cause permanent core damage, and alter the future for the worse for both sides of the war. And the humans have already killed a native creature--" He points at the skin of a saber-toothed tiger. "--which will likely set in motion a chain of events that might prevent them from ever being born. And yet, here they are." He glares at Remedy. "The apes that will eventually evolve into humans are still developing in Africa, as we speak at this moment. There's an entire ocean between us, so I'm willing to bet that the death of this animal won't have an effect on their surfacing." Rodimus states, crossing his arms over his chest, "Nonetheless, we need to exercise as much caution as is possible. We've got a little more experience in our history with things that aren't...logical, Prowl. Yet they happen all the same. And you'd be surprised at the things that can be done with us too. You don't recall who the Quintessons are, but they've done some...incredible, unbelievable things where we're concerned. Also some incredible, unbelievably evil things. But it -is- possible." Rodimus adds, "As for how...I'm not sure yet. I think we need to figure out the Quintesson link in this first and track down that information. We may learn more in the process..." Amber MacKenzie recalls the images shown by Teletran. "They were half dragging the sled. It should be easy to track for someone with the skill. And no, that's not me." Prowl looks skeptical. "Whenever something occurs that does not seem logical, it is only because we do not yet understand the mechanism by which it occurred. There is no such thing as 'magic,' luck, or supernatural forces which defy the laws of physics. All the evidence thus far points to this being an alternate timeline, so that is the theory I'm sticking with until I'm presented with credible evidence to the contrary." He stares down at Amber. "Yes, we've still got Skyspy out looking for the trail. I expect it to return a report soon." "You're not always going to get all the evidence you want to make a decision, Prowl." Rodimus sighs and just shakes his head slowly, staring off to the distant horizon, "If that were the case, leading would be a lot easier than it is. At any rate, we'll see what Teletran tells us when the Skyspy gets back...I hope Wheeljack was able to fix everything it needs." Remedy mmms, "Well, I'd almost think finding evidence of the Quintessons would be kinda easy if they're here. There should be some signs of major disruption." Amber MacKenzie sighs and shakes her head in unconscious tandem with Rodimus. "Remember that it's a theory, Prowl, not a certainty. I'm not necessarily right, especially as human technology falls far behind yours. It's nice that you agree with me, but please try to keep an open mind. If *our* theory is correct, the proof should fall into place as we go, but that's no reason not to play it safe. The pieces may fall entirely differently." Prowl ignores Rodimus's leader advice, because obviously he doesn't need it. "I'm willing to consider to alternatives," he says. "But not speculation. Anyway, Remedy's right. These Quintessons probably left a trail back to their staging point. What I need, however, is a threat analysis. Are they more dangerous than the Decepticons?" "If there's one thing we've learned about the Quints in our dealings with them, Remedy, it's that they're very VERY good at keeping a low profile until it's too late." The young Prime drums fingers on his opposing arms as he keeps them crossed, seeming unperturbed by Prowl ignoring his advice. "If you're going to ask if they have the firepower that the Decepticons do? No, typically they don't. If you're asking if they're still more dangerous? Yeah. By a long shot." "I recall an 'Astracius' claiming to be defending us against the Cybertronians, and that turned out to be a rather ridiculous charade. He also took General Briar prisoner. I don't know about their technology, but they're manipulative." Amber paces her very short distance atop her boulder. "Is this another case of manipulation? If so, it'd be directed at you Cybertronians. Something to do with the kidnapped leaders? Blackmail? You have to do what they say, or the leaders die?" Prowl gives Rodimus a concerned look. "Less firepower, but MORE dangerous? I don't like the sound of that. At least I'm going into this forewarned that they aren't to be trusted. Hm. As for what they want with our leaders... maybe they're going to try and reprogram them, and send them back to us, subtly altered? And then, at some hidden command, they'll turn on us and we'll become easy prey for their forces?" Rodimus Prime idly observes, "They had a chance to take -all- of the Autobots and Decepticons into custody while they were offline. Or at least mess around with their circuits and make slaves out of them. They've done it before and still know how to do it. Why just take Optimus and Megatron when there was the opportunity for everyone?" At Prowl's idea, Rodimus actually just folds his hands behind his back, "They've been known to pull tricks like that before. Remember what you said about the difficulties of messing with our programming? The Quintessons have an...aptitude with it that not even we can match." Remedy hmms, "Didn't the Quintessons make the Sharkticons?" She looks between Rodimus and Prowl, reasonably sure the timeline is fragged anyhow. Rodimus Prime says, "We don't know. They may have been created, or enslaved a very, very long time ago." Amber MacKenzie nods enthusiastically. "Yes, it's just Optimus and Megatron they want. Now, why would they want them? What do they have in common? Leadership skills, strong bodies, powerful weapons..." Amber MacKenzie muses, "If not the troops here, maybe they're going to manipulate the rest of you on Cybertron." Prowl fights down panic as Rodimus says that the Quintessons could in fact brainwash Optimus Prime. The thought of that is simply horrifying. "Ah... I see. Well, it's possible that they lacked the resources to recover ALL of our bodies, so they instead settled for grabbing our leaders. If that's the case, then that's encouraging--defeating them militarily should be fairly easy. Supposing we can get to them before it's too late..." Rodimus Prime can sense that his words are probably starting to cause a bit of worry, so he just shrugs his shoulders and turns slightly, as if to start making his way back into the Ark. "This is all just theory right now, more than anything. We'll see what the Skyspy brings back, and we'll go from there. The Quintessons are tricky, but we -have- beaten them before. Multiple times in fact. We'll beat them at whatever they're up to this time as well." Amber MacKenzie shrugs. She doesn't know the relative military strengths of Autobots or Quintessons, but nothing's that easy. "Here's hoping I don't have to do any more sneaking," she states glumly. "These Quintessons are not nice people." Prowl rises from his boulder. "Well, neither am I," he says. "Good discussion. But now, I've got to get back to work." And he tromps off back into the Ark.
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