Byte's Intermission 1 (11/12/2009)

Greetings. I am Special Operations agent Byte, filling in for Bumblebee today since he appears to have contracted what the humans call "the flu." Please allow me to explain:

Though he would never admit it, C-Bee feels somewhat guilty for destroying the human Kelsey's original laptop. As such, he tries to make up for it by maintaining some of her portable personal computer needs. In order to do so he occasionally incorporates software updates from the original laptop's operating system, Windows Vista. This has previously caused him to malfunction.

I would have thought he'd learned from those experiences, but it seems not.

He did not thoroughly check over the most recent updates, nor did he remember to create a restore point in the programs. One of the updates has appeared to unintentionally tamper with with his cooling systems, causing his fans to cut in and out. It sounds very similar to the human's respiration, which has been affected by a virus in recent days.

One is now resting under a heated blanket trying to stay warm, while the other is laying on several ice packs in his alternate mode waiting for Kelsey's sibling to return and safely repair the problem.

Needless to say, I am thoroughly amused.

The human has recently created a second Gaia account to mimic an alternate version of the Autobot's CMO, Ratchet, in order to "cosplay" him. While this has yet to lure any true members of my kind out of hiding, I am tempted to use it to continue seeking out other lost Autobots.

Ah, pardon me, the youngling is whining about his condition again. I suppose I should at least go make sure he won't offline before he is repaired...

~Byte, Spec. Ops.

Day... Aw, Who Cares? (Re. false comm.s) Jul 16, 2010

Hey. If you don't know who I am yet, my name is *:}{*&x-. I am an Autobot scout from the planet Cybertron. Since obviously you squishies can't translate my name from my native language, Cybertronian, you may call me by the (ughhh) nickname my human room mate gave me: Chibi Bumblebee, or CB for short.

Quote:

"Sorry that I had to send this message. Since Gaia has recently become very popular, has become the many complaints that Gaia has become unacceptably slow. The report shows that the reason is that Gaia has a number of non-active members and, secondly, many new Gaia members.
We want to send this message to see whether you're active members or not. If you're active, can you send this message to at least 10-15 users. Use the "Copy - Cut and Paste" to show that you are still active. Those who do not send this message within 2 weeks in, will be removed in order to get more space.
Send this message to your friends to show me that you are still active, and do not want to be removed.

Gaiaonline founder"

You know what frags me off whenever I get one of these comm.s? That somebody was dumb enough to create it in the first place. You know what else frags me off? That most 'bots fall for it.

I mean, look at it; since when do professional memos contain spelling and grammatical errors? Primus help me if I ever sent out an official report as slagged up as this thing is, 'cuz my superiors would shoot my aft to the Pit and back for bein' so careless. Word to the wise, squishies:

If it ain't proofread, it probably ain't credible.

And for bootin' up cold, use some common sense! Gaia Online is able to track when an account was last logged in to - something that, in fact, can often openly be viewed on one's profile. Oh, and if it were really that big an issue, would it not be more efficient and far-reaching to use their already-established announcement system to inform all the fleshies at once that there's a problem?

While the message implies that it's from an official source, this is an old chain-letter tactic often used by those of malevolent intent to slow and eventually crash communication servers. You heard me - this is spam.

You won't damage yourself by ignoring this message, but by forwarding chain letters like this one you contribute to the issue that the message is supposedly trying to resolve; server overload and congestion. I post this as a friendly note to you young and maybe-not-so-experienced humans out there; you are perfectly safe in disregarding messages like this one in the future. If you receive this message from your peers, you do not need to forward it. You will not suffer any negative consequences. Your account will probably continue to function long after you cease to.

The Smelting Pits will freeze over and the Chaos Bringer will eat me before one of these piece-of-slag comm.s is real.

~CB

Byte's Log, Terran date Oct. 24, 2010

Greetings, organics. I am Autobot S.O. agent Byte once again borrowing our human host's log.

In the months since Chibi-'Bee's and my arrival in this reality, we have had limited luck in locating and contacting others of our kind. We have had even less good fortune in finding a way to return to our own reality. A scant number of other Cybertronians have moved into this area, but communication with them has mutually been left at a minimum. Though many of us still wear our factions' insignias, we have unanimously come to an unspoken agreement; for us, the war is over, and in our shared exile we have come to know a sort of peace.

But in that peace, we each face a new enemy that none can overcome for long:

Our own physiology, alien to this word, and how it now succumbs to the limits this reality has set upon us.

While it is true that we Cybertronians can adapt foreign fuels to meet our power needs, it is a poor substitute for true energon and we eventually suffer for it. I myself have felt the cold, creeping sense of my system's decay as my power cells begin to fail. The time between when I am fully operational to when I must recharge is becoming shorter and shorter. Thankfully it is as-of-yet the only symptom of my hunger. Chibi-'Bee has not been so fortunate.

He has valiantly attempted to conceal the growing number of system errors plaguing him, but I knew it could not last. Over the past few months his performance has become sluggish. His comm. systems flicker in and out and his processing ability is compromised. File corruption has become common.

He has had difficulty rebooting himself and in waking from slumber, and recently his power cells completely failed to recharge. For an Autobot this is a critical failure and means deactivation once one's in-built power supply is depleted. Chibi-'Bee's saving grace has been his self-created form of life-support.

CB has been using his alt. mode's power adapter system, taken from the computer he originally replaced himself with, to fuel himself. The adapter had become worn and burnt out, but he vehemently refused to admit it needed replacing and went so far as to modify it himself to continue the deception of functionality. This has not helped his failing systems any.

When at last he went into stasis lock this morning, our host, Kelsey, was not pleased to say the least.

There is little we can do for his internal state at this time, but we frantically raced out to replace the power adapter so that Chibi-'Bee could attempt to refuel. This has appeared to have had some measure of success. The young Autobot recharged for the better part of this solar cycle. After a series of diagnostics and at the insistence of our host for Chibi-'Bee to raise his power consumptions levels from "power saver" to "optimal," he appears to be functioning properly again (his reduced power consumption in addition to the adapter's damage could have been compared to starving one's-self to preserve one's dwindling supply of nutritionally deficient rations).

It is hard to say how long his current stability will last.

As it is with all Cybertronians exiled in this foreign reality, we will eventually fail and deactivate from energon hunger. In the face of this fate it is hard to believe that our archaic war was all for naught, for within a few hundred of this planet's stellar cycles none of us ancient beings shall remain here to remember why we fought in the first place.

I write this perhaps final report from my own adapted recharge berth; a clock radio designed to seat my alt-mode, an iPod nano. Like CB, this new power source has bought me a measure of time. Like CB, it is hard to say how long my power cells' stability will last.

Our war is at last over, and in our shared knowledge of our eventual fate, we have come to know peace.

~Byte, Autobot Spec. Ops.

(A/N and disclaimer: I don't own Transformers or the movie rights, I'm just borrowing them for a way to pass the time. 'Bee's snarky little opinions are his own, and don't necessarily reflect the real-life views of this author.)