BOOTING UP/
EXPOSITION/
"Copper-09.
A terrestrial exoplanet, located in the Alpha Centauri star system. Colonized by the Sumdac corporation (in spaaaaaace), and valued for its the mining operations, industrial manufacturing, and robotics research. This is where we were made. But we know this planet by another name.
Cybertron.
Our home. For generations it's been a peaceful world, and even called a paradise–for humans. For us, drones, it has been nothing short of a hell. A caste society where you were at the bottom, simply because of how you were built. Ruled by a Senate who carved up the planet's population–our population–according to utility. It was a world where your form dictated your function, and your function dictated your fate. Your entire life thought up and planned out from the moment your spark first ignites, till it eventually burns out. Without you ever having a chance to say anything about it. Social-Engineering in the most literal sense. Us drones were put through everything you could imagine. Oh, sure, the Senate tried to make it seem liveable. Tried to make it look as if our voices matter, by allowing fellow drones within their circle. A face for us to look at and smile. A goal that one day, any of us can achieve.
Prime.
The humans, they took our dreams of the original 13 and Primus himself and used them to control us. Through taking drones that they control and turning them to false Prophets. Leaders that us Drones can look up to with hope. That would pretend to speak and care for us all. All the pretty words, all the distractions like the celebrity-races or builder leagues, meant nothing compared to the reality of the situation. We were slaves to the human race.
Someone had to say 'No.' Someone had to say 'Enough.'
A miner of Tarn knew this best. He saw firsthand the suffering we all went through because he experienced it every single cycle–every single day–of his life. The Hazardous working conditions, the energon starvation, the Functionist's horrid ruling that dominated each of us. He was an idealist, an intellectual, a visionary, and a poet.
He fought first with his words, and inspired many. Towards Peace. His seminal work had millions of us protesting the senate as he helped us see that we were being oppressed. But it wasn't enough. Words and painted signs were never enough. He took action and the Senate feared him because of it. They went so far as to outlaw saying his name in public, because they were scared of him and they were right too. Because he named himself. Because he did the one thing no one thought a bot could. He won! He won! He broke the chains of the Senate, and stood at the highest point of Iacon City where he told us that the Age of the False Prophets is over. That he will bring a new age for Cybertron, a golden age as we rise up against the humans that had us as pets, servants, and slaves.
With him as our leader, he promised the stars themselves will witness our ascend. That over each and every galaxy, our decree will be sent so that every organic lifeform knew what we are. No force will halt our charge, and none could dare to disrupt what we have become. Because he...
He became the Dominator.
He became the Destroyer.
He. Is. Megatr-"
"Uzi."
The sudden call of her name snapped Uzi out of her zealous reverie, making her turn sharply toward the teacher, who tapped a digital display on his visor, showing she was running out of time for her five-minute classroom presentation.
"Ah, scrap, I have like seven more slides to go through…" Uzi mumbled, glancing at the projector screen while fumbling with her cue cards. The projection showed a chaotic mix of images for Decepticon propaganda. "Okay, speedrun." She cleared her throat and began speaking faster to make up for lost time. "Anyway, right after Megatron tore down the Senate, the planet's core had a meltdown. No one's really sure how that happened or why, but whatever—biological life was wiped off the face of Cybertron in an instant. Finally, we had the planet all to ourselves. Our home was ours, and the new Golden Age could begin as our entire world was transformed into a cold, metal paradise. But, believe it or not, some idiots were actually sad about losing the human tyrants! Blame was thrown around about who might have caused the core meltdown, and this led to a war that's still ongoing today. And then there's the entire faction of our kind—our parents—who choose to be Non-Aligned Indigenous Life-forms… NAILs!"
Uzi was forced to rush through her presentation, flipping through animated slides one after another as she recounted the Great War and the many millennia spent fighting it. Though she hated reducing a nine-million-year-old war to a footnote, the teacher's ticking timer made it clear that sacrifices had to be made—for the sake of her grade.
"We just sat around doing nothing! Just hiding under the ice and metal, behind three stupid doors! Sitting on our hands, as if we're waiting for someone to come along and say, 'Hey, the war's over, you can stop being total cowards now!' Well, someone has to say, 'No.' Someone has to say, 'Enough.' I am that someone! And that's why I made myself into this!"
Uzi threw her cue cards to the floor and leapt into the air. The purr of a T-cog shifting could be heard as her body rearranged, changing not only in shape and size but function. Uzi transformed from her robot mode into an alt-mode—not a vehicle, but a weapon. A customized Israeli submachine gun, retrofitted with all kinds of sci-fi augmentations. "My sick-as-hell Gun Mode!" she declared loudly—just before hitting the floor with a hard clang, as no one was there to catch her. "…ow."
"So… you changed your alt-mode into something you can't even move in." The teacher's unimpressed tone cut through the classroom, and several classmates began laughing at Uzi's blunder. "And while it may be a poor time to remind you, the project was a word problem based on buying watermelons. Not… whatever this obvious cry for help is."
"I mean, I did rediscover the Mini-Con mass-displacement sequence. Doesn't that count?" Uzi asked, still lying on the floor in gun mode, her voice strained to be heard from within her smaller, compacted form.
"...No." The teacher offered little sympathy. "I'll give you a few extra credits for clearly paying attention in history class. Now please, transform before you make this classroom a statistic."
"Oh, relax. I don't have the energon to shoot… yet! Or maybe I do. We'll never know unless we try, right?" Uzi giggled, switching off her safety. Bright green light pulsed through her sci-fi-style augmentations, sending energy sparking across her frame. Several classmates gasped as her glowing intensified.
"Anyway," the teacher continued, his dull, deadpan tone unchanged against Uzi's enthusiasm. "You finished on time, so let's move on to Q . Does anyone have questions about the presentation? And Uzi, please transform, or I'll be forced to confiscate you and lock you in my drawer for the rest of class."
"Fiiiine! Uzi, terrorize!" The T-cog's purr sounded again as Uzi transformed back into her robot form. However, she still glowed with an otherworldly green energy, her sci-fi augmentations sparking off her frame, making her hair float slightly. It was an unintended feature she kept—it reminded her of anime, though she'd never admit that. Besides, she liked looking a little intimidating, hoping it might keep her classmates in awe for a while longer.
"Did you just call out your transformation?"
"Oh, Primus, she still uses activation codes like a newly developed protoform. A baby!"
Confidence left Uzi instantly as her classmates burst into laughter again. "Oh, I have a question! If this Megatron was such a good guy, why's his faction called the Decepticons? Isn't that a totally evil-sounding name?" one student asked, raising a hand. Grasping at a chance to recover, Uzi leapt to answer, hoping to change how they saw her.
"Only because the Senate branded his followers as liars. Deceivers. Decepticons."
Another classmate snickered. "Careful, Uzi—you might hurt yourself on all that edge you're playing with."
Uzi tried not to let it get to her. She failed miserably.
"It became a badge of honor, to show that the Senate's words had no power over us!" Uzi continued passionately. "We, the Decepticons, will win the war, and when we do—"
"Uh, are you supposed to be glowing that color?" another student interrupted, hand raised.
Uzi froze mid-sentence and looked down at herself. Her visor eyes widened as the green energy sparking from her body suddenly shifted to red, bursting out erratically.
"…Oh, scrap." It was all she could say before—
BOOM.