The Diego Diaries: Now (dd7 236)
This was supposed to go out last night. Sigh … :D:D:D
=0=In a dining room at The Citadel
"I know you think you're very put upon, all of us making you do and think about things you don't want to do," Jack said as the others nodded. "This is about you and it isn't. Actually, most of this isn't about you."
"Oh, do tell," Rockwell said with anger.
Blackjack laughed. "I'm Blackjack the Elder, former Quintessan slave, Praxian Elite Warrior and Immortal. I have many other things to do but here I am trying to help you pull yourself together. This isn't Cybertron in the orn and it never will be. That life with its privileges and inequities will never come again. If you had any character and the ability to feel shame and remorse there might be a quick end to this. But because you were raised in a bubble, because you were never challenged out of your thinking, place and privilege, this is going to take as long as it takes. We do it with you but we do it for everyone else who harbors the same poison."
"You're young, infant," Trooper said. "You never had to feel the pain of deprivation and fear nor wonder where your place was in society. You never had to worry about your dreams coming true. I'm mid caste and so is the bond, here. Our sons, Steiner and Alor are as well. Imagine if they'd enforced the laws they pulled out of their aft to the degree that they should have and told everyone they would ... imagine a world without Alie's talent being allowed full rein. A world without us, me and Scout. The talent would still be there rotting but the music, the books and plays, all of it would never have been created."
"Considering that your family is the pinnacle of creative achievement in several art forms, that would have been a disaster, Troop," Hardie said.
"Thank you, Hardie," Trooper said with spark felt emotion. "We were 'allowed' to flourish because they saw personal benefit and gain from it. There was no other reason to allow it."
"I was 'lucky'. too. Some fragged up slagger saw talent in me and it was allowed to be developed. It wasn't for my benefit either. It was for theirs. I always had slaggers sent to me to repair or revive from the high castes. Those fraggers did what they wanted and a lot of them abused themselves knowing they could be fixed. The rest of the planet had to make due. That was the biggest and worst waste of our existence, not allowing talent and dreams to exist past a certain circle of usually hapless slaggers with little talent and imagination. Your caste killed your own innovation, too," Ratchet said. "Why apply yourself when your hand will always be filled?"
"I dreaded parties," Turbine said. "I dreaded the conversations, the obliviousness and worse that the leadership felt for everyone. I knew there was hunger and hopelessness and when I talked about it they didn't want to listen. It wasn't that they didn't want to feel badly. It was because they didn't care. It was all abstract to them, what they felt about Cybertron. It was a … a remote feeling about the totality of Cybertron without any feeling for all its parts. Do you really think that Sentinel Prime cared about anything but himself? What he wanted for Cybertron with his greatly professed love for it was the restoration of the material part. He didn't care about doing anything for the people. He couldn't. He was as much a prisoner of his own delusions as you are."
"So now I'm mental," Rockwell said with dripping venom.
"You are, You have a sickness of the spark," Delphi said. "If you can't care about something without expecting a return for feeling it, if you can't see the life most of our people led and not feel rage, if you couldn't look at everyone and see yourself when you did, then yes, in my opinion you're mental. All of us here fought for everyone and we still do. Your lifestyle and laws made Megatron inevitable. He wasn't the problem. He was the symptom.
"If there had been a just and equitable society where everyone was equal and had their rights to dream and then act upon it, there would have been nothing for which Megatron could stir up the public. You can't crush a dream. You can't halt feelings. The People had them. They were done with you and your ego slag. All the punishment and prisons in the world couldn't stop that train from ramming into you at full speed. It was always interesting to me that your caste was too oblivious or stupid to see it. Megatron was made more inevitable every orn with every crackdown and repressive law that was enacted."
Hardie leaned on his elbows. "You made the mistake of thinking that everyone who is high caste is like you and still wants what you want. There are millions of our former caste here and they've moved on. They don't harbor the delusion that fuels you because they understand that the past is gone, the present won't permit it and the future depends upon us being vigilant against it. There is no version of this new paradigm where the ideas and behaviors that you revere will ever come back. It never will. No one will willingly go back into their chains. Most of us in this room can attest to that personally."
Ironhide stared at the heroes of his existence and felt the blazing rage that thinking of them as slaves always brought to his processor. That they were ever disrespected let alone abused, afraid and desperate was a searing pain in his spark. The sons and grandsons of those wholly mistreated dealt with this everywhere massive injustice occurred.
When he was small and struggling to understand, he used to think about why they didn't just leave or fight the enemy. In his limited child understanding of how a system can steal your spark and how fear can paralyze a nation and a world, he didn't know how complex things could be. He did now but it still sparked an inferno of vengeful hatred in his spark when they talked about that time and the events they participated in that shaped the future of their world.
"In the end, infant, you have two choices. You can learn the new life and uphold it no matter your feelings or you can enjoy jail. We have the authority to control you because you gave it to us. We plan to work on this blind spot in your thinking as long as it takes. You have to decide when that train will finally reach the station," Raptor said. "There's plenty who decide they can't change but they find they can live in them. In time, they actually do. I don't know that you can. I think you're mental over this issue. I don't trust you in the general population with these ideas and values."
Turbine nodded. "You're standing in the way of everything that The One and Primus taught. They taught us that we had a duty to love each other and to see justice and unity prevail everywhere. Your path is the anti-love. If we had held to what we were asked to believe we wouldn't be here and everyone would be living the high life on Cybertron. Your caste destroyed our planet with their behavior and laws. Now your caste has to help put it back together."
"You're high caste, Turbine," Rockwell said. "You don't seem capable of feeling anything over losing our rights under the laws. That treachery I can't forgive.."
"I never felt it. Ever. As for the laws … I can write a law now and get it passed that says high castes are the new lows and whenever anyone sees one they should hit them hard with whatever's laying around. How's that for a law? Laws are only ideas everyone agrees upon subject to change when they don't and no one agrees with the caste system anymore. I don't regret the loss of what I never loved.
"As for the rest, my clan and family raised me differently and that's the crux here. You were raised steeped in the poison. Everyone in your family chose to follow that thinking. Now you sit here and everything you know has not only been called out, its been condemned by The One and The Great Lord both. All of us heard and saw. Plenty of others did as well. You can ask them and get the same answers. Its too bad for now for those who still cling to this abomination but then your family has the same problem as you and taught you well," Turbine replied. "You're selfish, self involved and delusional."
Rockwell leaned back, crossed his arms over his chassis and stared at them with a firm commitment to his thinking.
"Too bad you were because you miss out on the fun," Alor said as he glanced at Ratchet. "Are we still on for a boozer this Second Friday? The squad and all?"
"We are," Ratchet said with a giant smile. "How about stuffing kids in daycare and the boys come, too? We can all go to jail and the kids can get foster homes and a better shot at life."
Huge laughter greeted that.
Sun leaned toward Rockwell. "That was a joke, just so you know."
"Is that so? Sounds like a good idea to me," Rockwell said.
Sun glanced at Hardie for a moment as animation and surprise lit up several of the elders during the brief off line conversation they had.
Then Hardie who chuckled nodded.
Sun glanced back at Rockwell. "Well, this is your lucky orn."
Rockwell stared at him with sudden wariness. "What?"
"I just adopted you," Sun said.
Rockwell sat straighter. "No."
"Oh yes," Sun said with a big smile. "According to The Code and the Court's scope, I can and I just did. Think of me as the anti-Sentinel. He was I'm told your adoptive uncle, right?"
Ratchet grinned at Sun who was on the future bond list. "Give us the gory details, Sun. You know you wanna."
"There was once a problem with a dynastic bond and resultant adult dynastic adoptions. The court, us, had to settle it. It involved the adoption of several adults from industrial families that involved inheritances. Of course," Sun said as he glanced at Rockwell. "It always seems to involve money somewhere. Anyway, the court resolved it by doing a temporary transfer of custody of several of the miscreants until things could be resolved through the civil courts and by negotiation in arbitration. The catch to the adoption was that they had to abide by Praxian rules and all of the parts of our code that are in the legal system of Cybertron. Invoking. All of it."
"The frag I will," Rockwell said venomously.
"You will," Hardie said. "I concurred and its done. The forms are being registered with the Magistrate's Court right now. Understand, Rockwell, the consequences of disobedience. If you disobey anything we demand, you will be shunned. Your bond will be shunned. Your family, your elders. I will post it myself among the congregation and make it universal. You do understand, don't you, what it takes to ask for the shunning to end? That is, if I feel that I want it. I'm not going to be amenable nor is this court to anything that doesn't help you make the jump. Right now, you're the son of Ironhide the Elder. You must and will obey everything that he tells you to do as a faithful son or the consequences under the Praxian Code will be immediate and severe."
Rockwell stared at all of them with a mix of emotions, fear, fury, uncertainty. For the first time anyone of those present had looked at him, he was actually showing a normal array of reactions. He sat back, his expression hardening to something defiant and uncertain. "Frag all of you. What if I never agree to change?"
"Then I will have a son who's not only stupid but disappointing." Sun glanced at Hardie and Jack. "I wasn't my CNA that's responsible. That will be my only consolation."
HUGE laughter and agreement met that.
=0=TBC 3-21-2020 4-10-2020
HAPPY SPRING IN THE NORTHERN TIER EARTH AND HAPPY FALL IN THE SOUTHERN!