It started so innocently; just a Saturday morning in the silo with the three humans on the team watching cartoons while their guardians went about conducting the various domestic chores even a base of alien warriors couldn't go without. The three were strewn about on the couch, simply taking in the colourful animation with varying states of enthusiasm- Miko openly entertained and expressing it with her whole body, Raf quietly enjoying both the tv and Miko's antics and Jack stubbornly laying back and pretending he was too cool for the entire thing while sneakily keeping an eye on the screen.
All in all; a perfectly normal Saturday morning for everyone involved.
Until the next cartoon came on.
"… and stay tuned for The Series Premier of;
The Transformers: more than meets the eye!"
"Hunh?" Jack roused from his apparent apathy, "I thought the one with the stretchy dog was next?'
"Oh, you mean the one you totally don't really like?" Miko rolled her eyes. "I'm surprised you care Mr 'I'm too mature for cartoons'!"
"I heard the network's really been pushing this new show," Raf hastily intervened. "They've even moved around a lot of the others for a two-hour special."
"Eh…" Jack wouldn't admit it, but the fact that one of his guilty pleasures had been stripped from him had killed his mood. "Whatever, guess I'll just nap or something."
"Sure thing 'Mr Grownup'," Miko snorted.
Jack, confident in the fact that he was actually more of an adult than Miko could ever be, contented himself in just flipping her off while her back was turned and settling down into the couch to catch up on some sleep.
At least, that was his plan. As the teenager relaxed into a pleasant doze, his ears caught something…
Alarming:
"… against the war-hungry Decepticons lead by the evil Megatron!"
Jack's eyes snapped open and he jerked up to be sure what he'd heard wasn't some half-dream. But both Miko and Raf's jaws had dropped in shock, and when he turned his attention to the T.V…
"Transformers, robots in disguise!" An autotuned voice rang out as animated versions of their guardians and half a dozen other cartoony Cybertronians flew across the starry screen to land on earth. "Transformers, more than meets the eye!"
Jack could feel his eyes bulging as the intro continued. "Oh Fuck!"
"Language!" Ratchet called out from his console without looking at the 'human section', "I don't need another lecture from Nurse Darby about-"
"Just look Ratchet!" Miko demanded. The medic blinked in surprise at her tone, and found himself curious enough to glance over to their section. Rather than wait for him to come over, she bounded from the couch and tried to turn the T.V. around by herself- and Jack promptly joined in to help in case she dropped it or something.
Ratchet rolled his optics and humoured the little fleshlings- only for his faceplates to drop in disbelief at what his optics focused upon;
"Scrap!"
"Agent Fowler, this is a most disturbing development." Even Optimus Prime's usual stoicism couldn't help but coloured by a distinct undercurrent as the mech shook his head in quiet disapproval. "We were assured any and all decisions about our disclosure to this planet's inhabitants would be made with our input."
"I know, I know," Fowler looked like he'd swallowed a fly as he explained; "look; I only just found out this morning myself. I can promise you no one in my department sanctioned this and it's as much a surprise to us as any of you."
"I find that hard to believe," Ratchet muttered.
"Then how exactly could this have happened?" Optimus pressed on. "The idea that this animation could resemble our history so closely by mere happenstance stretches plausibility."
"I'm getting to that," Fowler stretched out his collar for a second before he answered, clearly not enjoying what he was about to say. "It turns out that someone in the chain of command got wind of Bumblebee getting caught on camera so often-"
The mech in question issued a rapid fire of protesting beeps and whirs.
"I know, I know; you get them off the web!" Fowler falcated, "but that doesn't stop the agency boys from spotting them in the first place!" He started pacing on the platform; "and when word got to the up and ups, they did what they do best;
Think of a coverup."
"And this is their 'coverup'?" Ratchet waved at the T.V., where the children, Arcee and Bulkhead were gathered to observe. His dubious tone indicated what he thought of that. "Broadcasting our existence to the world!?"
"It's not my cup of joe either!" Fowler snapped, "look; it's like I said; this all happened out of my sight and it's too late to pull back the curtain now. But for what it's worth, this whole mess might still work out in our favour."
"Ha!" Ratchet gave off a bitter vent, "I would like to see that… foolish humans with their contradictory…" the medic began muttering.
"How so Agent Fowler?" Optimus rumbled, his expression as inscrutable as ever.
"Just think," Fowler insisted. "Before now anyone who snapped a picture of a transforming robot was a security threat because people might think it was real and start putting the pieces together about this whole 'war of the worlds'! But now… now they're gonna think it's some prank, or-or some kind of fan's art project.
It'll be like if I somehow got a genuine, hundred-percent real photo of Father Flipping Christmas on his sleigh a hundred feet above the artic," Fowler exclaimed. "People just wouldn't believe it because they know Santa's not real."
"… What's Santa?" Bulkhead 'whispered' to Bumblebee, who beeped in equal confusion.
"I believe I understand," Optimus cast his optics over to the human section; "so your belief is that this animation will imbue a sense of fiction around any evidence of our existence to the public? And that it will be more effective in obscuring our activities than the stealth we have previously employed?"
"I mean, yeah- probably," Fowler admitted. "Again, it wasn't my call, but it's not a total loss!"
"Not a total loss?" Ratchet threw up his servos at that, "literal decades of closely protected anonymity thrown away in instant by some overly-involved bureaucrat's impulse and its 'not a total loss'!" The medic promptly stomped back to his station, grumbling all the way; "humans and their solutions… probably make Megatron president and call it a victory…"
"Agent Fowler…" Optimus shuttered his optics for a moment before re-opening them; "what's done is done. For all our sakes, I can only hope that this decision proves more helpful than harmful."
"You know, it could do with a bit more Bulkhead, but it's actually kind of fun," Miko chirped, once again sitting on the couch. "I mean, they've got a lot of details wrong-"
"I'll say," Arcee mused from where she crouched behind them. "I've always been a two-wheeler."
"-And there's all these other 'bots we don't know instead of the real ones-"
"Fowler's superiors evidently put our crew manifests to 'good use'," Ratchet vented from his console. "It's certainly not like we gave them those to help with identifying any Autobots they might find before us, no, no, no; it's the juvenile entertainment industry where our personal information was truly needed."
"-But they've got Buckethead and Screamer down to a 't'!" She snorted and pointed at the T.V. screen;
"You're either lying, or you're STUPID!"
"I'm STUPID! I'm STUPID!"
Bulkhead roared with laughter behind them, while Bumblebee issued a series of happy whistles and whirrs- even Arcee appeared to be fighting back giggles.
"It doesn't even sound like them," Ratchet sulked from his console.
That of course was him just being sour, if one were to put a blaster to his head the old medic would have to admit whoever voiced Optimus and Megatron were uncannily accurate to the real thing, with Optimus' gentle strength being as perfectly replicated as an organic could hope for. Megatron meanwhile was almost as accurate- but his animated counterpart lacked the growling menace and toned down the brutality. Evidently the producers had felt the need to water the dictator's worst aspects down along with the rest of the juvenile-disturbing elements of Cybertron's Civil War that might otherwise affect their 'ratings'.
"Reducing our civilisation's apocalyptic conflict to petty amusement, why even I never thought…"
Raf watched the decidedly upset medic with a little worry, "hey guys? Maybe we should go watch something else; I think it's bothering Ratchet."
"Ah don't mind him, he's just sour 'cause they didn't put him in the show," Bulkhead dismissed with a casual wave.
"They didn't put you in either though," Miko pouted. "How they got everyone else but you two? There's even all these other 'bots we've never heard of in it!"
"Arcee's only sort of in," Jack offered up as he looked at the very pink Arcee on the screen with a decided dislike. "I'd never think she's our Arcee if she rolled up to base."
"I don't know," Arcee mused with amusement, her shorter height enabling her to rest her arms against the side of the 'human section' like she was holding herself against a couch. "I've seen femmes in my model with that design, I think I could pull it off."
Jack gagged at the mere thought and twisted around with pleading eyes; "Arcee, please tell me you're not thinking about trying pink again."
Arcee's optics gained what humans would deem 'a twinkle' "and what if I am Jack?"
The two started 'debating' the merits of such a change while the rest of the team observed either the T.V. or the argument- depending on which was more entertaining at the time. All save Ratchet and Optimus of course, since there had to be at least some responsible beings in the base.
The medic rolled his optics once more and started muttering once more; "… can't believe it's come to this… and they're treating it like entertainment- a complete desecration of our history so juvenile humans will buy cheap toys… bet a week's rations we won't even get royalties-"
"That's probably the case old friend," Optimus remained still as Ratchet suddenly yelped in surprise- evidently the Prime had unintentionally crept up on him again (how exactly Ratchet managed to miss him with his infamously sharp hearing was beyond even The Matrix's grasp). "But I fear we may have more pressing issues at hand."
"And what exactly would those be?" Ratchet irritably inquired, but his petty frustration drained away at the serious firmness to his old friend's expression.
"The fact that this broadcast, as seemingly beneficial as Fowler's associate might have deemed it for our cause, will inevitably make its way to The Nemesis." The Prime spoke his next words with a heavy weight; "with it already released, I fear there is little we Autobots can do but wait for Megatron's response to how he has been caricatured- and hope that he finds it beneath him to respond to."
"Soundwave; trace the broadcast to its source," Megatron; Gladiator, Revolutionary, Survivor of Cybertron and Lord of All Decepticons spoke with a deadly calm. "Starscream, prepare the armada for strategic bombing."
The warlord was the visage of uncharacteristic stillness, with his servos folded behind him and his faceplates relaxed in the visage of boredom.
His optics however were staring daggers into the holoscreen before him, one depicting a poorly-imaged version of himself screaming like a Sparkling over a ruined shot. It was but one of many from the humans' propaganda, their broadcast seemingly intent of informing the world of their Cybertronian invaders by depicting them as the most laughably incompetent mechs in the galaxy- incapable of even defeating literal human juveniles.
…
To their credit; Starscream at least seemed to have presented almost perfectly.
It wasn't quite enough to warrant the species' continued survival however;
"We will level their sector and any others who dare to repeat this absurdity." He concluded. "It will be erased from existence."
"As you command my liege," Starscream's simpering sounded sincere for once.
Soundwaves's visor turned to the warlord, just enough to call his attention. The screen suddenly changed from its usual black to the imaged Starscream pleading for his wellbeing; "I'm STUPID! I'm STUPID!"
"… Very well Soundwave, you may keep that file."