The Diego Diaries: Onward Ho (dd6 53)

-0-Getting on with it

Ratchet bussed his home with the help of the others, then the lot of them walked to the door and left. A trip downward and an amble to The Diner On The Corner was had. Sitting in a big berth, Miler smiled. "I don't think I remember the time I ever spent the night away from Ven. We always did things together. This feels decadent."

Everyone smiled at Miler. "You're so cute." Turbine said. "This was fun." :Let us know when the story is ready to post. Corr is next, then me. I have a lot of ideas but this will be cohesive. I won't lead us off a cliff:

:Do: Ratchet said with a chuckle. :I think writing our dark sides is a great idea. Of course, Ironhide will be the handsomest mech in the story: Prowl who was leaning over to one side to speak to someone had no idea they were chatting and none of them were going to allow him to find out. They were a cult now, after all.

Huge laughter greeted that as their food came. Into the restaurant a steady steam of Watchmen and femmes, Wreckers, soldiers, sailors, tinkers, tailors, spies, and thieves meandered, all of them filling up seats around the group. Hercy and Kup who had just hung up the horses from night duty pulled up chairs to sit with them. "How was the boozer?" Hercy asked.

"I'll have you know my ada and ammas were there," Ratchet said.

"Like I said. How was the boozer and did we arrest any of ya?" Hercy asked with a smirk.

"Not this time, slagger," Ratchet said. "I had a sleepover."

The chat and guff was deep as they dined. Miler who was unused to such realness was awash with delight as was Prowl who was happy for his ada's happiness. If he had ever had a dream of how much fun they could have together, a boozer with the boys wasn't among them. Life was incredibly inscrutable sometimes.

Like now.

"What's the word on when they come back?" Kup said. "I hear that things are pretty well in order on Cybertron."

"Soon. Ironhide has to hear a petition in caste court," Ratchet said as he glanced at Turbine and Delphi. "I can't wait. Not."

They both nodded. "Count us in."

-0-Later at the airfield

They landed, Prime's flight, then walked toward The Fortress. A debrief was in order along with an amusing retelling of The Boozer. Prime would be highly amused and utterly delighted that his ada had come and had so much fun. All in all, very lovely times were had by some. As for Cybertron, the following would be clearly known:

More titans were needed to make steel, though the supply chain for nearly everything was stellar with little lag time, PRAISE MICRONUS! Even here, mini-cons were organizing into moving and shipping companies.

More outreach was needed to find the holdouts, those who were too scared or too impaired to come forward from their hiding places.

Gangs and road crews were still operating and had to be hunted down.

There were so many munitions and toxic spills that they had to send teams from Mars to supplement the effort to denature them. The list of where they were was almost final from the satellite scans being made by Teletraan I.

Deep structures within Cybertron were being coaxed back to life as repair teams reached them. Tracking backward from the endpoint (surface) to the beginning (deep down) was paying dividends. Toxic spills and munitions hampered the speed but each orn made something good happen.

Security was adequate in some places, top drawer in most and 'emergent' in others. Soldiers were being deployed to help police the area until Springer's re-training toward community policing could be had by all who were either regular police or wanted to become policemen.

Schools were reaching almost everyone of a certain age and the online tech classes that were broadcast world wide were helping those who wanted to learn things or upgrade skills. Skilled workers were had because of it and they in turn were mentored by those who already were tops in their fields. The learning curve spread out like ripples in a pond as the work force rebooted themselves.

Food reached everywhere. No one to anyone's knowledge short of the aforementioned holdouts were without food. Those who were holding out for whatever reason were picking up food stores 'left' here and there just for that reason. It was hoped to feed them until they could be bagged or coaxed out.

Forensic teams were everywhere photographing, meticulously gathering evidence, working out who, how, what, when, where, and why for the final acounting. It was slow and difficult work.

Iacon was at 15% rebuild

Kaon was 4% not counting that which the Decepticons had constructed for themselves and their faction on site. No one was surprised.

Most of the biggest cities were anywhere from 3-11% in rebuild. It was agonizingly slow but the vast tent cities were patient, more patient than Prime could have hoped. Though there were 'committees of discontent' and 'spokesmen for this and that', the degree of hopeful patience that greeted Prime was astonishing. It was so everywhere.

Businesses were being brought to bear and the system of a cashless society was the basis for its resurrection. No one wanted any other system any longer. Having the majority on the outs in the past, no one was ready to go back to the idea that some had more than others for ANY reason. All were one was a immutable factor now in the thinking of the rising population. Given the level of poverty and starvation that had led to their near annihilation, no one could be blamed for feeling that way. Though no one could guess the future, it appeared that the system on Mars was fast becoming the system on Cybertron.

The lesser populated areas were either on their way to complete rebuild or finished. It was amazing to travel through towns and villages that were back to their pristine glory. Or at least, they were pristine now. A lot of differences were apparent with the better organization of the layout of the areas and the excellent materials used to create beauty here where slums, slapdash construction and official indifference had reigned before.

Illness, injury, mental disturbances, disease, and other afflictions were still visible among the people but they were being treated, some with surgeries that had been overdue for eons. The broken down appearances of too many were no longer the norm. Their appearances had improved and along with it, their ability to get a detailing that reflected on the outside the hope and possibility that many felt on the inside.

Troublemakers were still around, those who wanted to make things happen faster and their way. They were for the most part exercising their right to have their say but a couple of them were trouble. Prime listened to them stoically as they lambasted him for the past, present and perhaps the future. He took down their grievances as Springer took down their names. Prime would do what he could about those things that he could help. The rest? He wasn't a god.

On the way to another town …

"That mech is trouble around here. He's trying to stir up the population. He wants to shut down the work," Springer said. "What do you want me to do about him?"

"Nothing," Prime had said. "Until he does something, he has every right to speak. If he works up a mob, then you know what to do. Until then, he is just one mech with opinions. There are no laws against opinions."

They finished their chat at Ops Center, got the heads up about the local scene, then walked out to dine. Soon, there would be a caste court and Prime would have to be there. So would Ironhide. Neither was looking forward to it.

-0-Earth2

Sam Thomas sat in his office talking to Roto and Herling over the monitor. He was getting the test results from both about the children who wanted to attend Cybertronian schools. It was not unexpected but it still stung.

"We find that most of them are not at the level of educational attainment that we require to keep them with children their own maturity level. We will be placing them into Youngling Day with our own who are younger but have been in our system all their lives and thus, have learned what we expect them to know. Their placements will be there with no more than three per classroom for their best advantage. They'll be having half day pull out to catch up with specialist teachers. We're putting together a number of our trainee specialist teachers under the supervision of a master-mentor who'll work with them to make sure these children have every opportunity to catch up.

"The genitors of each of them have to be clear that they'll be needed to assist the children in their studies. I'm aware that your system allows days off beyond weekend and holidays on our shared calendar to follow internal scheduling for your families and cultures. We have only those days off that are on the general shared schedule. There's no summer vacation and the school year never ends. If the adults are behind our system and are willing to support it, then I think there will be great success had. If not, then perhaps they need to rethink their ideas here. We'd need to know, Sam. We've assigned them their placements and their teachers would have to know soon."

Sam nodded. "I'll get confirmations today, gentlemen. When would the children begin to go to your schools?"

"Tomorrow," Herling said.

Sam blinked. "Okay. I'm on it."

-0-A half hour later

They sat in a big room at the schools, the parents of the kids who would be going to Cybertronian schools. Sam had gotten the data from the bots and was going over it with the parents, all overachieving, nerd-like, educationally advanced human beings even among the support crews sent to another world to do hard science for the common good.

"Now turn to page three," Sam said. "Here are the scores for mathematics for your children. As you can see … we also have deficiences here. Strong enough in language, weak in sciences. Of course, the bots' science is eons ahead of us but that'll be a secondary concern when you consider that the children will be immersed in their system and information base.

"They'll be going to classes half day taught by bot teachers who are specialists in getting children up to speed. Apparently, most of the children coming to the colony are educationally deficient so their plans and programs in place for this are amazing. Half day with the specialists and half day with the rest of their classes … that's the story.

"I would suggest that you discuss this with your kids and find out who's really ready for this. There's no shame in this. We can't have them feel like failures or feel shame if they don't go or if they do and it's hard. We're truly out of our league here but the kids who want to go should be congratulated and suppported. And remember to tell them that with few exceptions their system goes every day, year around. Any impressions, questions, suggestions, comments?"

It was silent a moment, then a parent sat back. "I expected that they'd be advanced. My son asked to come when we made the list a couple of years ago. We agreed that extra teachers and programs were in order and he went. The scores aren't as bad as I expected but its going to be a rough road."

"Understand, the bots aren't as goal oriented in the same way we are. They made a point of telling us that they don't consider any of this something to be ashamed of if its hard or they decide to leave and that they never give up on a kid. If it takes a long time, it takes that long. No matter what, they'll be receiving a stellar educational experience and if at some point they want to return to this school, then fine. No fail, no shame. They don't operate on the same kind of results-oriented perspective as us. They want good results but they're prepared to put in the time, effort and whatever it takes to get the kids there. The results they strive for are happy educated kids."

It was silent, then a woman spoke, one who ran the kitchen. "My son and daughter want this. I support them. Whatever they want, I'll support because they didn't choose this. My husband and I did. If they want back, they can come. I'm leaving the decision up to them."

It would be the consensus opinion. A bus would arrive at Earth2 the next day and kids would board it for their first day in a new school on a new world. It would be epic and Earth would eat it up. Again.

-0-1600 hours at the University

Ratchet sat in the slowly filling auditorium as the high caste community from the Greater Iacon area filed in. They weren't happy but they were here. Prime and Prowl sat with him along the wall nodding to this and that bot as they came inside to sit. Partition, his entire family and Sherrod entered, walked stiffly to the front, then sat. They conferred among each other but no one else.

It was tense, dense and awful.

At last, the door opened as Piro came in, walked down, then set up the recording device. He looked around the room, then nodded respectfully to Prime. "Please stand for the court."

Everyone did as the door opened again. A stern-looking Ironhide entered to be followed in rank and seniority by an equally stern-appearing Blackjack, Turbine, Raptor, Delphi, and Hard Drive. They came inside, walked to the platform in front and turned to the crowd. It was obvious that they had dialed down their emotions as they stared at the people with a mechanical expression. They turned to Prime and bowed slightly. He nodded back, then the group sat.

Piro arose again, then stated the proposition. "Be told today, that the party affected, Partition of Iacon and his family, Lucien of Iacon, Laslo of Iacon, Morius of Iacon, and Inweld of Iacon have put the proposition forward by petition that they wish the ceasation of the shunning of their family by the Congregation. It is their most prayerful expectation that this can be accomplished. Who speaks for you?" he asked.

Sherrod stood. "I do."

Piro nodded, then turned to the judges. "What is your will, Lord Hard Drive?"

He stared at Sherrod, then Piro. "Let the petition be put."

Piro nodded, then turned to Sherrod. "You may begin." He sat.

Sherrod stared at the crowd a moment, then the panel of judges. It was then that he put the petition forward. "Amma Allie and Appa Revue, I come to you in humble supplication," he said as he knelt down to his knees and bowed his helm before the two elders who had brought forward the shunning.

-0-TBC 7-1-17 edited 7-12-17

NOTE: It should be noted that in the beginning when Transformers were brought here and became the phenomenon they have become, Hasbro ordered that there would be no female transformers. Only public outcry by some changed that ruling. Interesting.

Pandora: I would love to own that sword. Imagine it 17 feet long. :O

ESL: to buss something up is to clean it. A buss is also a kiss on the cheek