AUDIO POST

[popculturecon]

Hey! Excuse me! Anyone on this line?

[This voice sounds... like you are talking to Guyman himself. Musical and modulated, and kind of sort of loud]

Since when did Cybertron have grass? Or... y'know still be here? The fact that it's still... I mean that it's not... y'know really... dead and stuff is sort of-

NO REALLY WHY IS THERE GRASS HERE?

[He sounds pretty disturbed by this]

Not that grass is bad! I like grass, it was great on earth, if... y'know anyone here has been there at all, but like- Is that a farm? ... There's a tiny farm he- Did anyone see the tiny farm? Oh my god, I have to get a picture of this no wait, hold on.

Comments

[popculturecon]

Yeah see that's too long, no way.

[He's also slipped in a LOT of high grade because he wants to have this night of gluttony count]

[the_other_green_seeker]

[Jadewing notices that, but waits til the server's moved out of audio range before commenting.]

Heh... good thing the high-grade here isn't Skycutter's bootleg stuff from back home. That stuff's strong enough to floor a combiner.

[popculturecon]

I don't think I've heard of Skycutter before... Knock Out was working on Synth-en but Ratchet made it first and hit himself up with it aaaaaaand...

...

Uh... ...

Well-

...

Breakdown doesn't like to talk about it.

[the_other_green_seeker]

Skycutter's another Seeker back home who happens to have a talent for making high-grade. And since the officers got a cut of it, they let him have the extra to work with. Don't know if he has a counterpart where you're from, though.

[He gets more serious at the next bit though, just nodding slightly at the comment about Breakdown. Yeah, he can guess what that means.

Though he is sort of curious about one point.]

What is Synth-en, exactly? Other than bad news.

[popculturecon]

I have a pretty big file on all the Deceptions we have, but he's not appearing...

Synth-en is synthetic energon. Knock Out hasn't gotten a chance to refine it well or anything. When a mech takes it, their speed, energy and strength all spike, but... logical and critical thinking drops, they become reckless and hasty, a lot more likely to hurt themselves and others.

It didn't matter to Ratchet, he already hurts people, but while he was on it he was almost better than any Wrecker I've ever seen.

Megatron finally managed to subdue him and damage him enough to take the edge off, but Optimus showed up before we could do anything else.

... I told him it was pointless to try and reason with Ratchet anyway.

And Jade is about to highlight a big difference between the G1 and Prime verses... X3

[the_other_green_seeker]

Hmmm... Sounds kinda like sook- an illegal circuit booster back home. The effects are similar anyway; don't know how the composition compares.

I'm not quite sure what qualifies energon as being 'synthetic' or not, though. What kind of energy sources do you guys normally draw from?

yaaaay

[popculturecon]

I've never heard of it, must not exist in my world.

We usually mine it from the ground. Y'know, it appears unrefined in crystals, and you have to refine it into liquid.

The synthetic stuff is all complicated chemicals. I have the formula on file but Primus if I know what to do with it, I'm not a scientist.

Also I'm pretty sure Knock Out doesn't want me sharing that and even if he isn't here from where I'm from I'm uh... kinda convinced he'll still find out.

Re: yaaaay

[the_other_green_seeker]

[Jadewing seems surprised by this news.]

Wait-wait-wait... You mean that you guys can only convert naturally occurring energon crystal into cubes? No other kinds of energy sources?

[Because does he have a surprise for you, Soundwave...]

[popculturecon]

Not... really no? Primus, if that was the case we'd just solar power up cubes of energon all the time, the ship's always above the clouds, we'd just follow the sun.

[the_other_green_seeker]

Oh boy... Well assuming you can make it back to your universe one day with your memories of this place intact, I might have just the thing you guys need then.

Because, see, where I'm from we can refine energon from just about any source of energy. That's why Earth was such a big target; it's got massive amounts of energy resources. Our Megatron's original plan was to drain it dry to repower Cybertron.

I could even show you how to put together a basic refiner after you've recovered from the massive hangover you'll inevitably end up with tomorrow after consuming all the high grade you ordered. Most of the parts we'd need aren't that hard to find, and the ones that are, I can ask Wheeljack about.

[popculturecon]

Well maybe you could just download it into my visor? Then I won't have to remember, it'll be on the backup.

R-really? Really? So I could totally like... like just build a few solar panels and attach them to the ship-

Or make wind energy or-

Primus!

[the_other_green_seeker]

Your visor has data storage capacity?

[Who knew?]

Well, it'd take more than a few to power a whole ship and crew, but yeah. You can theoretically use any source of energy to produce energon, even sonic vibrations, but unless you're drawing from a relatively concentrated source- something that could normally be used for power- the refining process would wind up using more energy than it produced.

Our main Earth-base was on the bottom of the ocean, so a lot of what we got was hydro-power. We were able to produce enough to sustain ourselves that way. I assume the Autobots used geo-thermal similarly, since their original Earth base was in a volcano.

Whatever you do, don't use coal, though. For some reason, energon derived from coal is incompatible with Cybertronian systems and makes your joints lock up. We found this out the hard way.

[popculturecon]

Well obviously, but it could still be done! I bet if I covered the top of the Nemesis in panels, we'd be all set! Oh man I can't wait to tell Megatron! No more scraping for energon or fuel for the ship! No more rations!

Okay don't worry, no coal.

[the_other_green_seeker]

Well, the lack of rationing might depend on how fuel efficient you guys and your ship are. We could produce enough to live on, but if we needed extra for any big projects or anything, we had to raid from the humans to get it.

You might be able to work out some kind of deal with the humans on your end, though. From what I understand, the Autobots got a regular consignment of fuel from the American government in return for their protecting them from... well, us.

What it will do, unless your ship is a major energy-guzzler, is make you self-sufficient, at the very least. Not quite as miraculous as you might be expecting, but it still ought to be a big help.

[popculturecon]

Uh well most humans may... not... know we're actually here. At all.

We might be a really big top secret thing that no one is aware of.

Sort of.

[the_other_green_seeker]

[Jadewing quirks an optic ridge.]

Seriously? The humans where you're from are oblivious enough not to notice a bunch of mechanoids the size of some of their houses waging a war on their planet? With lasers and explosions and collateral damage all that good stuff that tends to go along with that?

And I thought the ones from my world could be dumb sometimes...

[popculturecon]

Well it's kind of all our in the middle of the Nevada desert. At night. Or like... in space.

[the_other_green_seeker]

[The flattest of flat looks, because srsly bro? Srsly?]

The entire war on Earth. Has been out in the middle of the desert. At night.

[Pause.]

You do realize how ridiculously unlikely that sounds, right?