The Diego Diaries: Ho. (dd7 185)
=0=Homeland
They gathered in the operational center and went over the data with the skeleton crew who were operating the systems while their holiday schedule rotated officers in and out on a one joor basis. It was quiet and felt like it always did in the early morning at a minimally staffed office.
Dull.
Quiet.
Slow.
Like a Taco Bell after midnight.
Outside, the sun was bright overhead and the oasis where the city lay in all its splendor was lush and green. Beyond the settled and highly engineered living area, the desert was seen giving it a Martian like appearance. Not all of the planet was desert. There were incredible mountains, lots of rivers with green belts on both sides sometimes up to a hundred miles wide along with brush covered flat lands where nothing more imposing than insects lived.
Styre and his group drew the short straw having been overtaken by scout ships from reaching first what would become Sun Base. This was the other inhabitable planet in the system, though the Cybertronians could live just about anywhere given the right circumstances and equipment.
Everyone sat around the room staring at each other with varying amounts of pique.
"This is a pain in the aft," Ratchet said as he put up his peds. "I think the Pantheon has a beef with us given that we almost never have a private moment without a problem popping up."
"I won't argue," Prowl said.
It was quiet a moment.
"How's the grand genitors?" Ratchet asked.
"They're doing well. They have their apartment two floors from Ada's and they're having a great time looking around and decorating it," Prowl replied.
"They have a schedule to begin in three orns. There's counseling, a full medical and mental health screening. I decided the works would be nice. Get it all done," Ratchet said. "Do you think they need a social worker stopping in to see them?"
"I don't know," Prowl said. "If the data says so, then yes. Right now just sleeping and feeling unburdened of responsibility is helpful."
Data was coming in from the science teams with Sun Base and from the planet which had sent the last bot and femme to Mars a mere joor before they came back. It was fast and efficient. Crater District 3 was nearly at full capacity so Crater District 4 was next.
"We can field six games now. Who could imagine it. Six stadiums with the new ones in the Crater districts. I thought we were doing apex work when we just had the three," Ratchet said. "The next game is who and where?"
"We play Altihex in the District 2, City 3 arena," Prime said. "I will be glad when they are named. City 3 sounds too impersonal."
"I agree," Prowl said. "Magnus is getting that organized. Right?"
Magnus nodded. "We will finalize things shortly. We have to reissue and update maps and all manner of official slag so its taking longer than it should."
"How's the prison going? I can assume that Gee-Gee has it in hand?" Ratchet asked.
"They are in solitary confinement in the level 4 detention block," Prime replied.
"They aren't happy about it either," Springer said with a grin. "They can't understand what's going on."
"It's a cult-like mentality we have here. It comes from having everything but controls on you. I saw the news feed from Earth just now and did you know that a mere 2,000 people own as much wealth there as the lowest … get this … four point six BILLION. Billion with a B. That's not going to be a problem down the road. No, it isn't." Ratchet smiled a dazzling shit eating smile as the rest snickered.
"There's only seven point seven billion people there. What the frag," Drift said with surprise. "They'd better rethink that. I'd think we would be a blaring siren for those kinds of things."
"I say that to try and explain the mentality of these mechs and femmes. They live in a world of their own making. I remember a president's aide said a while back, an American president, that everyone, meaning us, the peons live in reality. He said that they, the leadership MAKE their own reality."
It was silent a moment, then Drift shifted slightly. "That's insane. Sort of. Of course … its also a tiny bit right."
"How so?" Raptor asked with a grin.
"Oh frag," Springer said as he rolled his optics. "You'll be sorry you started."
"MAKE ME SORRY, INFANT!" Raptor said with a laugh.
Drift glanced at him after frowning at Springer. "Consider that everything is conscious and has consciousness. Even your thoughts are energy. If enough individuals think the same thoughts then they create that reality. If enough of us wanted peace and a different path on Cybertron we could have created it. The power of the processor or the mind can't be under estimated."
It was silent a moment, then Prime nodded. "I have been told that myself."
"By whom?" Prowl asked as he considered a subject that he HATED because it was illogical and strange to his calculator shaped processor: philosophy and consciousness.
Prime considered that, then he considered how it tweaked Prowl's finely turned religious sensibilities and his uptight science processor. "Solomus once. Prima. I think that even Solus told me that."
Prowl stared at him, once again feeling the holiness that Prime represented reverberating through him, then sat slightly straighter. "Oh."
Snickers rounded the room and so did Prowl's frowning optics. He glanced at Drift. "So … if all of us want peace enough, all we have to do is think it up and its ours?"
Drift nodded. "That's right."
It was silent a moment.
"Solus and the others said the same thing?" Raptor asked Prime.
He nodded. "Yes."
"How many would it take to make Cybertron have this other path? Or Earth? Or this area here even?" Raptor asked.
Drift thought a moment considering the teachings he was constantly absorbing through the Circle about life and the way things really worked at the supra conscious level. "Probably close to everyone."
"Then if Earth, say, wants to have another way of life … it would take nearly everyone there to be on the same page, to think the same things and want the same things," Prowl asked.
Drift nodded. "Pretty much."
"Fat chance," Prowl said as he sat back and folded his arms over his chassis. "You can't get that many people to believe the sky is blue. Not here, not there, not Cybertron so … "
"Oh, ye of little faith," Ratchet said. "I think its possible and its coming. Look at the surrender of Cybertron. Why didn't anyone fight? Because at a conscious and unconscious level they all agreed, frag this. It feels to me that Earth is headed the same direction. Look at the unrest. People always had it slagged at them there but now they're not accepting it. They're banding together to change things when before they didn't. Even and especially people who never stood up and did anything ever before. Its glorious."
"Well, let us hope they do so before they fall over the edge," Prime said.
Everyone nodded, then it was silent a moment.
Springer grinned. "This is going to be a long night."
Ratchet grinned back. "Well, we covered philosophy, consciousness, weirdos and the like. How about all of us telling everyone their favorite facing story?"
Huge gagging and smug faced bemusement greeted that.
"You were fixing to tell us about the slaggers," Blackjack said with a chuckle. He was sitting at a table with his father and grandfathers. All was well in his world sitting around shooting the shit with the boys.
And girls.
"Oh, those guys," Ratchet said with a dazzling smile. "Well, consider that you never had to deal with anything that you didn't want around you. You never had to worry about a slagging thing because you had minions taking care of all that annoying stuff.
"Imagine never being hungry, cold or uncomfortable. Imagine having access to the best, first. Always. Imagine no one ever disagreeing with you or correcting you when you were wrong no matter how big the error was. That one is very important. If there's no accountability for you no matter what you do, then you can't imagine ever being wrong. You might be but no one corrects you. You never have any other opinion from them but your greatness so you become that 'thing'.
"Delusion is a very powerful thing and couple it with the wealth and power to make it your reality, the bigotry of The System enforcing your world view in the legal system and you have a recipe for disaster. A gilded cage is still a cage and in this isolation it turns to stone. Nothing, not even light can penetrate it.
"These slaggers have been out here in a closed society that has continued the worst aspects of our previous life and no one ever told them to stop, think, moderate or reconsider what they did. Couple that with religious convictions that are rigid in their error, that justify what you do and you can do anything even if its unthinkable and not see that its wrong or bad. You can starve children because the Pantheon 'wills it'.
"You and I know that isn't true but then we live a life with checks and balances. We have other points of view around us, experiences and opportunities to hold up to what we believe and the possibility to change. They don't and have never had that. They just have constant reinforcement of their point of view, their ideas and convictions. They sat and steeped in it here without any challenges.
"This is what happens to our culture under The System when it gets a chance to fester out of the reach of anything that can challenge it. Led by the ultra privileged, guided by a perversion of religious belief, girded up by unlimited wealth and power, enshrined in the legal system and the government, you get this kind of thing. They really earnestly and honestly believe what they believe at the level of intensity that they do. They just fragging don't know any better."
It was silent for a moment.
"Are they insane?" Prowl asked.
Ratchet considered that. Then shook his helm. "No. I don't believe they're insane or mentally impaired along that line. They're in my opinion completely self aware and sane. Of course, Rung and Jarro will take care to study this to get the best conclusion but its my experience that you don't have to be insane to be like this and do this sort of thing.
"You can be stone cold sane and have nothing in your spark that recognizes someone else as important. This bunch is Functionalist level hardcore and without the reasoning of anyone with a more normal tempered sentimentality. This isn't about form or function per se. This is rock ribbed cybertanium quality bigotry distilled to its purist form."
Prime considered that. "I was poor growing up. I know about hunger and disappointment. I remember wanting to be more than a longshoreman and knowing it would never happen. I felt frustration all my life. But I had unconditional love from my family, a true belief in the goodness of our people and the idea that somehow, someday, the world would change. Our people would reach the end and it would change for the better."
Magnus nodded. "I see this kind of thing and I feel gratitude for who and what I am. My life had a lot of hardship but it also had a lot of good things that money cannot buy."
"We grew up together," Elita said. "We have all the memories of the hardships but we also have memories of the neighborhood, the individuals who watched over us and our families who loved us. You can't buy that no matter how much money you have."
"My genitors gave me the important things. I know about love and endurance, grace, dignity and tenacity from them. I would not trade one orn with them for all that these people think they have." Prime sat back. "You can have the world at your feet and have nothing."
Hard Drive nodded. "My house at the Sea of Mercury holds so many memories. Little mech," he said nodding to Ironhide, "learned to walk there. We had games in the yard and waded in the water. Our house had a lot of stuff but those things are the best part, the memories and they cost nothing."
"Well, Hardie," Ratchet said with a slight grin. "You had to have a house by the sea, a backyard and a chance to swim."
Hardie stared at Ratchet, then he grinned. "Slagger."
Ratchet snickered. "How about we tell our best poor story?"
Prowl frowned at him. "Frag that." He glanced at the others. "How about we tell the best story we have of defying The System when we were younglings? You can start, Springer. You were mid caste."
Springer stared at Prowl, then Drift. "Uh, I used to skip school."
Prime grinned at the Former Mrs. Optimus Prime. "I did not get to go to school."
Springer stared at Prime, then grinned. "Frag this," he said to great and loud laughter.
Merry Christmas Surprise.
=0=TBC 1-19-2020
ESL
pique: (peek) slight irritation or concern though sometimes it can be a 'fit of pique' … drama!
There is your consciousness, the part of you here observing and living this reality and the supra consciousness, the part of you that is 'up there' and is aware of everything and everywhere. Consider calling it your conscience. Some call it their greater self or higher self. I call it Cath. ;)