[Video] Friends help friends get a social life they don't want

[daintylegs]

[It’s really nice to be on the network for a happy reason for once. Not that he has a lot of previous experience to draw from, seeing as he’s only ever posted there a grand total of one time. Or was it two? He could go back to check, but the amount of effort that will take is far too much for one marshmallow to handle. He’s pretty sure it’s one though.]

Hello everyone!

[He starts off with his usual good cheer.]

My name is Tailgate and I’d like all of you to meet my best friend and roommate, Cyclonus! He’s your resident Evacuation Specialist, so you can bet you can rely on him if things go wrong! He’s really cool and super into gazing out windows, swords, and warrior stuff. Y’know, just in case someone out there is into that too. Hint hint.

Anyway, Cyclonus, say hi!

[Tailgate’s face is very cute and nonthreatening, indeed he practically radiates “I will befriend anyone even if it kills me”. Cyclonus’s face happens to be the complete opposite of that. It’s a very jarring contrast.]

[Cyclonus is too cool for words. He just looks at the camera and nods acknowledgingly before looking away again.]

As you can see, he’s a real talker. But don’t let that discourage you from trying anyway!

[Tailgate turns the camera back to himself.]

Since I like to, uh, what’s the human saying for it? Kiss two birds with one stone? I’d like to take this opportunity to ask if anyone knows anything about gardening. I tried it recently and ended up killing a thing or two. My basic understanding of the universe says that this is the wrong thing to do, so advice would be appreciate. For the both of us.

Thank you!

Comments

[warandpeace]

[Miller is a little torn here. Despite himself, the robots are unnerving. It's not their fault, he knows they're their own people, but when you know of psychopaths making walking weapons out of them to try and dominate the world.]

[But that robot looks like it's in Samurai armor. And Miller likes Samurai.]

...What kind of sword?

[He guesses that gazing out of windows is some sort of universal warrior law.]

Video;

[tsunclonus]

[Well here's a response that actually piques Cyclonus's interest.

Pulling his sword from its place on his back, he pans the camera lovingly over its length.]

My blade of choice, a Great Sword.

Re: Video;

[warandpeace]

[That's a big sword.]

[Sahelanthropus had a sword that could double as a whip, but being that the robot depended entirely on a pilot and one that was rather young it wielded it like a club that it aimed at the target.]

Is there any sort of discipline on your planet for warriors? Code of honor, martial arts styles?

[The thought behind wielding a weapon makes all the difference.]

Re: Video;

[tsunclonus]

[The thing about Cyclonus is that he's actually willing to talk at length, as long as it's a topic he's interested in. Like Cybertronian legend and being a warrior.]

There were many, though I believe much has been forgotten. The most recent generations have little in the way of discipline or honed skill. The modern militaries seem more concerned with quantity than quality...

[Casting shade on the MTO program here. This can all be translated roughly as 'these darn kids these days'.]

Re: Video;

[warandpeace]

How many generations do you live through?

In Earth cultures, terms of loyalty and honor are set by tradition and culture, but when cultures mix the older ways were lost. The way land is divided, how that land is represented by figureheads and ideologies. Over time those disciplines can become diluted are lost completely, but there usually aren't any original practitioners that live long enough to tell you exactly how those ways went.

I know training got a lot less personal as time has gone on. A lot of skill is compromised in favor of general instruction. Like you said, it's the same for us, quantity over quality. More soldiers. Less instructors. More structuring to support larger units that can be deployed as quickly as possible. I guess it's a lot different to actually watch those sort of changes happening, rather than look back through history at that.

Re: Video;

[tsunclonus]

All of them.

[Because the last generation of Cybertronians was born several million years ago, and Cybertronians live a helluva long time.]

It is much the same on Cybertron. Even those who live through the changes will begin to forget things that once were. ['Information creep', when you're too old to properly remember your past despite being a robot.]

I was... absent for the changes to my world. I merely saw how it was before and the aftermath.

[warandpeace]

Where were you?

[Being absent for serious changes, even if it's not millions of years that's not foreign to him. Considering his closest friend and person he sometimes despises spent nine years in a coma.]

[A lot can change in nine years.]

[tsunclonus]

Lost.

[In more ways than one, but it's not something he wants to discuss, particularly not with a stranger. The Dead Universe was not a pleasant experience.]

[warandpeace]

Lost, huh?

Hell of a thing for a warrior to find his way home to.

[tsunclonus]

[Cyclonus inclines his head in acceptance of the reserved sort of sympathy.]

There was no home to return to. My shining planet reduced to a battle-scarred husk.


[The loss still aches inside of him, regardless of the new home he'd begun to find among the Lost Light and its crew. It makes him want to sing and remember the Lost glory.]

and then they had the most serious introductory discussion

[warandpeace]

[It's a valuable sort of sympathy, because he's recently found out what Big Boss's plan will lead to. And a very real fear- one day soldiers will be dependent on nanomachines, the world dependent on a war economy.]

[The funny thing about this, it's almost like a world of Metal Gears having the same problem.]

Think you'll find a place again?

A home or in battle?

Cyclonus sucks at non-serious conversation :')

[tsunclonus]

[Despite himself, his gaze flicks over to his small roommate, his harsh features softening minutely. Be proud of him, Tailgate, he's talking

Then he's looking back at the camera, cool and unyielding once again, and perhaps the human didn't notice.]

I already have.

[warandpeace]

[Did he just see a huge robot eyeball another robot?] That's better than a lot of warriors I know have a chance for.

I had been wondering because your build is similar to that of Samurai armor. Vaguely. They also used swords. Used a number of martial arts styles.

But I have to admit, despite the obvious cultural differences I think I can see how our military forces can go the way your world's did. [And he's pretty sure it will.]

[tsunclonus]

[No way, he definitely did not just make moon eyes at Tailgate, nope, not at all, ignore that]

I have been lucky.

[He raises a hand to his chin. You mean there's a type of human that has armor that looks like him? What a strange coincidence.]

I haven't heard of 'Samurai' before, but I am not well-versed in human cultures. My own frame certainly predates them, and I have never been to Earth. Curious. I, too, am versed in a number of martial arts...

[He tilts his head.] It seems to be a consequence of ongoing war, when the value of life is lost and there is no line deemed uncrossable in the pursuit of victory.

[warandpeace]

What lines do you lay down in the pursuit of victory?

[Philosophical discussions right off the bat. But now he's curious. What becomes of a warrior when there's no wars, how do you choose what victories are out there.]

I could tell you more about older style Earth military versus the structure that I come from? I wouldn't mind learning more about yours.

[tsunclonus]

Warriors should fight warriors. Cities shouldn't be reduced to ashes. Worlds should not be devastated. Sparks should not be brought to life for the purpose of dying.

[Choosing a fighter's path or even being born into a warrior cast by merit of your alternate mode is still a far cry from the sheer disposability of the MTOs.

Cyclonus pauses for awhile in thought.]

I would like that. There are many humans aboard this ship, it would be good to learn more about your people.

[And he'd get a chance to vent about how good things totally were back in his day and how the younger generations screwed up everything.]

[warandpeace]

Alright. We should arrange meeting, sometime.

And those all sound like reasonable thoughts to me. I was born in a country where many of cities were destroyed, or nearly so. Decades later the country is still scarred. [It's a line of thinking he can respect. More than some he's run into.]

Sparks. Is that-? [What makes them alive?]

[tsunclonus]

I find myself with a great deal if free time. [That he can't spend looking out windows] It would be good to have something to fill that with.

[Only many cities? Only decades?] Perhaps your species' shorter life span is a blessing in its own right. Such short generations are unlikely to sustain a war with a beginning four million years behind them...

[His own people are painfully stubborn.]

Ah. The spark is the center of every Cybertronian, ignited from the metal of the Cybertron by the will of Primus.

[Except for the constructed cold ones, but he always thought that method of reproduction was kind of blasphemous.]