The only reason I initially did this was to create a simple Shockwave one-shot (since he is my all-time favorite transformer), but I ended up creating something reflecting current events and a tragic story about conformity and the soulless nature of government life. I seriously spent only twenty minutes writing this, so if it seems flat I wouldn't be surprised. Please leave a review at your leisure.
Shockwave silently watched the riots unfold on the holo-monitor as the news-bot droned on about civil unrest and whatnot. It had been like this for some time, ever since the shooting of the nameless Decepticon drone who had robbed the Iacon bank. Thousands of former Decepticons rallied in response and wreaked havoc in the streets as Elite Guard grunts held their positions and patiently waited to become executioners. The unrest was worldwide in fact, spread across every city and state on Cybertron. The return of the Decepticon army looked probable, but Shockwave had run numerous possible scenarios through his mainframe. Out of exactly one hundred and ninety-six possible outcomes only four would result in a total Decepticon victory. However, despite the riots, the chaos, the looming specter of war, and Sentinel Prime's antagonistic politics, Shockwave could not bring himself to care.
Since his fall from his place on the High Council and the ultimate removal of his emotions, Shockwave's only desire for his mortal life was purpose. He saw himself as a machine, one that needs to be active and doing something productive. If he failed to accomplish these tasks or, for any reason, could not do them, then that meant he was utterly useless and had no reason to live. Since his enlistment in the Decepticons, Shockwave had numerous task: he was a technician, a guardian, a war strategist, a spy, and even a soldier at one point, but primarily served as the Decepticon's chief scientist, specializing in numerous fields such as physics, astronomy, and cyber-biology. Even after the war ended, he found purpose. He became a professor at the Cybertronian Institution of Astrophysics where he spent many cycles teaching young mainframes the things he had studied during his career, but all of that ended when the long-buried hatred between Autobots and Decepticons awoke and caused Cybertron to descend into hell again. Shockwave tried to remain neutral for as long as he could, but when the Bureau of Education found out about his history as the Decepticon technician and scientist, they quickly terminated his employment. It did not hurt him, for he had no emotions that could hurt. Like an incecticons instincts driving it to mindlessly forage for energon, Shockwave simply set out to find another purpose.
He searched for a reason to live amongst the seething factions, but neither side would accept him. The Autobots were appalled at the idea of letting Shockwave into their ranks due to his "rap sheet", and Decepticons saw him as a useless computer that went obsolete cycles ago.
Now he sits, alone, static, and without purpose, like a cog that has been removed from the machine of life and left to rust. His single, yellow eye stared forward at nothing, devoid of any emotion. He was completely useless. He no longer had any reason to exist. He briefly pondered what most Cybertronians would do in a time like this. Skywarp, Thundercracker, and many others would simply come up with useless task to perform (sports came to mind) if they happened to be completely unoccupied. The idea of a useless task was ridiculous to Shockwave and even if he gave slag about distracting himself, it was impossible to do because of his complete lack of any emotions to accommodate such task.
Shockwave remembered what Megatron had said long ago: "The caste system of the Primes is enslavement. Any bot with a spark is meant to form his own purpose." Shockwave had a spark, this he knew as he placed a servo over his dark purple chest-plate and felt its gentle thrum, yet he had no sense of being alive.
In contrary to Megatron's words, he also remembered what his fellow councilmen told him before the war: "An analytical type such as you, brother, could easily see where self-determination had driven our great society. War and sin has once taken hold of our race and nearly destroyed it. For peace to prosper we must put aside our own needs for the needs of the whole." Such philosophy comes easily to a group of emotionless bureaucrats at first, but when it is all over it seems dead and pointless. He once enforced a system that embraced monotony and conformity in exchange for emotion and individuality, but later fought for freedom alongside commoners.
If Shockwave was capable of feeling humor, he would have laughed at the cruel irony of a bot fighting for freedom when he himself had no way of embracing it, yet that is exactly what happened. As the bots around him reveled in their own free will, Shockwave sat alone and meaningless, unable to enjoy a campy joke, or feel the warming pain of losing a comrade, or love a particular femme, or feel refreshment from a cool mug of energon, or have the ambition to choose his own meaning in life. Shockwave could almost say he felt tormented by his lack of a soul, but that would be ludicrous. Primus had been cruel to him and, ironically, he could not feel it, but deep within his spark, the only thing that let him know he was alive, Shockwave felt the aching desire to feel again.
But in the end, he can't.
"I am without purpose." He whispered in his droning voice. The truth was simple: Shockwave could not feel. He was simply a machine and now there was no longer a reason for him to live. He leveled his gun arm to his temple and fired.
Well, that happened. I'm not sure if got the point across in a particularly heart wrenching way, but that's that. For the very few of you out there you have also read The Delirium of a Peridot, it might have become evident that I like to mentally torment my favorite character and ultimately kill them, but what could I say? I am one seriously f***ed up person!
Anyways, don't give up on life. You were born a free-thinking individual, so don't let "the man" tell you any different! Don't lose sight of your ability to feel and the fact that you are special.
Remember kids: disobey! :)