Notes: This is a Shattered Glass AU, with Evil Autobots and Heroic Decepticons. Further notes at the bottom.
A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic. — Joseph Stalin
Sixty-five million dead, and counting.
New York City, gone. The shining towers of metal and glass (so like and yet unlike their own Cybertron!) fallen, unable to withstand the explosions and trapping thousands of fragile humans within each equally fragile building. They lay on the broken grid of roads like broken dominoes, shattered glass coating the city in a fine dust, where it was not melted completely. The last census had listed 22.115 million people living within the metropolitan region. There was no news yet of any survivors.
Los Angeles, gone. The City of Angels lay under a thick blanket of smog and dust, bits and pieces of rubble peeking through the unnatural clouds. Here, too, there was but thin hope that any of the 12.9 million inhabitants had survived the assault.
Washington, D.C., gone. The Americans had given their everything, and now their capital lay in ruins. The proud obelisk of the Washington Monument lay supine on the ground, the tapered point missing and the shaft cracked and battered. The White House, once a symbol of freedom, was smashed in to the ground, nothing remaining of its white walls. The surrounding areas were decimated as well; of the population of 5.3 million, none had yet been found alive.
London had been destroyed before anyone knew what was really happening. 12 million people, no known survivors. Paris had a little warning, but not near enough. Of the 11 million people within the city and surrounding areas, only a few thousand had been found alive. Many, many more were dead or dying as their rescuers reached them. Brussels managed to retain over half of its population of one million, but the city centre itself would take a long time in recovering, with most buildings smashed or blown to pieces. Rome, however, hadn't this small bit of luck. It had been hit just as quickly as London, and no avenging angels came swooping down to protect the populace. None of the 3 million inhabitants had yet been found alive. Jerusalem fared the same; 700,000 people missing or dead.
They had thought, perhaps foolishly, that it was over, for now. Eight cities destroyed within a day, surely that was more than enough to prove a point. Surely the enemy faction would wait for it to sink in before another demonstration, and conserve their strength.
Hong Kong was attacked then, and somehow, they fended the enemy off. Several thousand lives were lost among the human population, and several mechs near deactivation, but the majority of the city was intact. Then Tokyo. Seoul. Sydney. All sustained losses, but the nearness of allies kept the disasters of earlier that day from repeating themselves. And then, finally, merciful quiet for two hours, until a planet-wide broadcast swept across the planet.
Optimus Prime, his purple armor gleaming spotlessly in the mild Oregon sunshine, regarded the camera with cold red optics. "Your governments are nothing. Your armies will avail you not. You will submit to Autobot domination, or be destroyed completely." New York City, Los Angeles, D.C.. The people of the United States and done nothing but help the Autobots, and this was how they were repaid. London, Paris, Brussels, Rome, Jerusalem. All had supported those mechs who had come calling with honeyed words and clever lies, and now they lay in ruins, a simple object lesson to cow a frightened populace. How would those of the Earth believe any alien species now, with their trust broken and smashed? "'Til all are gone." Prime's voice was mocking, a cruel smile on his face plates. The connection terminated.
Starscream put his hands on Megatron's shoulders, leaning against his commander slightly. Megatron leaned back, shuttering his optics against the death and destruction rained on the innocent planet caught in the crossfire of a war that shouldn't have involved them in the first place. "Six billion humans on this planet." He finally said lowly, looking up in to his Second's optics. "How will we protect them all?"
Starscream had no answer for him.
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A/N: This is has been kicking around on my hard drive for awhile now. I finally decided this was as far as it wanted to go, and posted it.
Generally, it's been pretty clear cut to the humans who the bad guys were, but what if it wasn't? What if the 'bad guys' were the ones who got to the humans first, and convinced them otherwise? This seems especially easy in the SG 'verse, with the 'good guys' having a faction name like 'Decepticons'. We tend to make snap opinions based on names and appearances first, and it often takes awhile to revise those opinions. Given the choice between the names 'Optimus Prime' and 'Megatron', who would you be more inclined to trust?
In this AU, the Decepticons are based closer to Asia, their underwater base located in the Pacific Rim, off the coast of Japan. The Autobots are still in Oregon, hence why the American cities were hit so hard.
The population data was taken from Wikipedia, based on 2008 census results. The cities themselves were chosen based on Foreign Policy's 2008 Global Cities Index, as posted in Wikipedia.