#iconclast

I think I mentioned them a little before, like how they make life together by creating Scorponok, who at first is small and looks like the Cyberverse Purple Scorpions but grows and gets upgrades to resemble he's usual self? He still keeps a Scorpion alt-mode but huge to honor he's creators.

He's actually just one of their collection of created/adopted creations/mentees. On Shockwave's part, it is mostly accidentally, but Wheeljack likes kids and is more than happy to invent the concept of parent and baby given he already baby talks the equipment in their lab to make it work better.

(Though when he finds out that the computer he's been sweet talking for years is actually Mainframe then he is a mixed of embarrassed and pissed and makes Shockwave clarify if any of their equipment is or was a person.)

Their ongoing list if children rather created or adopted or mentored by Wheeljack and by osmosis Shockwave:

Accidental Baby

Scorponok

The Phase Sixer Equivalents of TFI

Sixshot

Black Shadow

Fortress Maximus

Blue Bacchus

The Science Babies

Brainstorm

Nautica

Perceptor

Scalpel

Flame

The Military Babies

The Combaticons

The Coneheads

Ooooo on Scorponok having somewhat of a metamorphosis! Thinking about his IDW self but actually scorpion capable sounds so pretty

Also the Cyberverse minibots were scorpions? How did it take me this long to figure that out. I could never place what exactly they looked like and now I know why.

Yesss on Wheeljack baby talking to the lab equipment and Shockwave going along with the new surprise child. Shockwave, yes it would be a good idea to specify who all in the lab is sapient, sentient, not sentient, or somewhere in between.

Brinnt (Quintesson Governor of Cybertron and Prowl’s owner) found out about her when she was going to be disposed of. She was basically turned on and then immediately failed "product testing".

(Unknown to everyone, Rung argued vehemently against the attempt to make them and then to let him keep Glitch, but once they found out she could short security doors, she was too much of a risk so Trepan said no.)

Brinnt had promised his nibling one and bribed the disposal unit to send him the rumored untouched model who was basically a newborn.

The moment she was turned on and asked to sing, though, he realized why she was marked for disposal. She was an Outlier as well and destroyed tech. He directed Prowl to get rid of her, and Prowl scooped the newborn up falsified disposal records and found Jazz.

Jazz answered and took the newborn away, who had by this time bonded with Prowl, who hid her in her rooms and plating as needed. Jazz took her home, and Aquarius was absolutely delighted by faer grandcreation. And helped her perfect her skills.

Glitch, called this since she woke up, and decided to name herself something different but can't settle on anything. She found that she became very good at killing if she needed to because Quintessons were technorganic.

She cannot be ordered around, something Jazz and Aquarius encourage and will only listen to her mothers, a term she picked up from organic soap operas Aquarius enjoys.

Prowl would teach her wait she new, paperwork, organizing, and bureaucracy.

Jazz taught her sabotage and planning missions and how to charm and sneak.

She becomes somewhat feral and threatening but adores music and singing.

She fits in most Cybertronians' hands.

Quintesson barbie

Quintesson barbie

Damnnn that's just. So awful of a process. And Glitch was to be destroyed as well? Fucking damn.

So Brinnt too sent for Glitch to be destroyed and Prowl internally said "fuck that shit I'm keeping her, where's Jazz"

"yOU BROUGHT HOME A BABY, AWW YES!"

Interesting that Glitch's ability applies to technoorganics (such as the Quintessons) too!

Amazing that Aquarius loves organic shows

So, I had to figure out why Orion Pax became Optimus Prime when Primes aren't a thing in this universe AND how to connect the Jazz & Prowl Plotline to MegOP.

So the basic premise of the first part of MegOP is they both recognize the mistreatment and even more that the current general is corrupt. They set out to speak to Ultra Magnus, who is a folk hero figure and famously a free Transformer, and Quintessa, who is Ruler For Life of the Quintessons and has a Cult of Personality with them and is considered genuinely divine by some Transformers.

They both still believe Quintessa would listen and help. Somewhat naively. She is known as one of the original Creators and who famously fought in battle with Transformers during a famous War that nearly destroyed the Quintessons and that she freed her soldiers granting them citizen status and who enabled laws for "fair treatment" and that allowed other freed Transformers some partial rights as citizens. Ultra Magnus was the most famous example of this and is, allegedly, Supreme Head of the Military, and gives yearly speeches and appearances.

Orion and Megatron have been left for dead by their superior officer who is involved in shady things with their contracts with Xetaxxis and Lanarq working both sides. They succeed and get to Ultra Magnus first who immediately clocks onto the fact their behavior regulation modules are busted. He tells them to run but before they can the guards arrest them and take them to Quintessa. They plead their case and offer evidence while Ultra Magnus stands silent and obedient. Quintessa nods and listens saying she believes them and is every inch the regal figure they imagined.

She summons the General, reads him the riot act with the evidence and then finishes coldly with, "I cannot stand incompetence." before shooting him point blank and telling the guards to clean up. This is when she drops the act and turns cold eyes to explain she can excuse a little skimming the top and ambition but sloppiness enough that products figure things out is inexcusable and compromises operations. She tells the guards to restrain them and Orion and Megatron fight back with Megatron firing at her and scarring her face which infuriates her. They are restrained and separated.

She is cruel and decides to use Orion as a "bait mech" on Velocitron which is the entertainment colony famous for both its gladiatorial pits and racing. The battle mask is actually a muzzle and Quintessa removes his ability to speak. Megatron, a gunformer, is mode locked as a trophy for her due to him saying something along the lines of rather dying so she decides he can "serve his betters". Orion survives his first fight and though the pit runners are told to kill him the decide to paint him bright red and blue and rebrand him as Optimus Prime.

Here Optimus starts a rebellion with Jazz's people and meets people like Drift, Lugnut, Arcee, etc.

Optimus is his Gladiator name and I am so excited about it!

Ooooo??? Megs and Oppy teaming up together?

why do I get the vibe quintessa won't help /j

Behavior regulation modules

hmm. interesting interesting, noted.

goddamn, quintessa, that's. damn

OWO on the "bait mech" detail and Orion eventually becoming a gladiator THAT way? I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought about that concept for my plotlines before, and the battle mask being a muzzle? Damn.

And Megs getting altmode locked? wow

So when I was presented with the concept, I asked "What war?" as in what war required Orion to be built as a warframe in this universe instead of dock worker/archivist/civilian frame, etcetera.

And he thinks on this for a bit and shows me the song that made him think of it (Megatron's parts are the soft bits but it is MegOP's song) "Enemies" - The Score.

Then he tells me the next day he thought about it is G1 Cartoon based except A3's rebellion failed and the Quintessons are in control of Cybertron and still selling consumer goods and military lines.

I, of course, go "holy shit, yes, Dark AU," and he nods and says, "No civil War AU."

Which starts the whole thing.

Transformers (they were never called Cybertronian) were not made by the Quintessons, but the Quintessons found the planet right as Primus went into hibernation after activating the hotspots and leaving them to produce with Rung/Prima as his first born/mother/father of their race to create and raise them.

The Quintessons observed the first Transformers emerge and looked at each other and immediately set themselves up as their creators to sell as products and exploit, which gave rise to the later myths that they made them because no modern Transformer remembers their origin and all new builds are wiped to factory reset once they are old enough to leave Rung’s care and shipped out to "factories" to be "activated".

(Rung's life and arc are all kinds of holy shit.)

They've locked up Vector Sigma, and Transformers don't even know they have Sparks/souls themselves because the "laser core" that is mentioned in G1 is a Quintesson invention to keep them locked away and contains a kind of field that ingrains loyalty coding similar to a shell program.

Ohhhoh yes

Ohhh that's gotta have so many fun (for us) consequences

Red Alert does security in one of the colonial posts that is the main Rescue Bot Hub and where they get deployed throughtout the Empure and occasionally rented to show the Quintessons diplomacy to other galactic powers and only communicates to the staff through private messages and intercom and radios.

No one has ever seen him. He is completely omnipotent on his network, though, which is planet wide but especially in the Hub where most of them stay. He also controls all Rescue Bot calls and requests.

During Red's introduction, we get Inferno, who is terribly fond of him and one of the only people who react positively to him. Red Alert’s constant watching saved Inferno, who has been "rented" to do a lot of search and rescue on foreign planets as a Rescue Bot line. He asked Red to keep speaking to him while he waited for rescue, and Red did.

Red then later checked up on him in his room, and Inferno started to notice the camera move slightly. He called Red out on it and insisted they talk as "payback." This starts them having late night talks and becoming close.

When the Uprising happens and things fall apart, Inferno is the one who insists they go and save Red Alert because it is discovered the Quintesson Empure intends to bomb Rescue Bot Hub which as a choice continued to operate for all sides and the Quintesson in charge refused to activate the Kill Switch and instead released them.

Red Alert keeps trying to make them go back, though, because he can't go, he also is physically incapable of telling anyone why. They all finally get to the security room and find out why. Red Alert isn't a bot acting as security he's the full Hub and network. The building and planet or his body. Inferno finds his central processing unit and inside finds his "laser core" and hooks Red Alert inside himself to keep him active and downloads a compressed backup of his memories and books it.

Eventually, they get a body for him, but it is fully constructed without sentio metallico and so his sensations are muted and he has to get used to having a body and complains at how limited it is. He gets anxious because he doesn't have full coverage anymore, even if it is healthier, and he doesn't need to reboot as often or dump files because he is overclocking himself. He usually plugs into bases he is assigned to and slaves the security network to himself, making it act as an extension of his processor when needed and sometimes physically plugging in.

A lot of his issues are also related to how his Spark was straining to maintain such a large framework because it wasn't designed to.

Ooooo okay so cool, Red Alert sees all but is relatively physically isolated as he doesn't really have a body yet, and Inferno has grown close to him through said network

I admit I'm more unfamiliar with the rescue bot version of Inferno than I am beast wars Inferno which is kinda funny

She gets a bit flustered, and he feels bad about it because she was good enough to come back for him.

They become a Thing that takes a while for people to pick up on. Powrglide helps her find her permanent name: Astoria.

Fair fair on Glitch going through a bunch of different names mood

Sfg oh no Powerglide oh no

Summary: Orion Pax has finished training and is being deployed for the first time to start his life as a warframe in the service of the great Quintesson Empire. His first assignment is playing security with his unit for the Xetaxxan Government at the Xetaxxis-Lanarq Peace Accord. It should be a fairly simple job but when an attack happens right in front of him he discovers there is a lot more going on behind the scenes. Accompanied by Megatron, a distant Targetmaster that refuses to complete their bond, Orion tries to negotiate this new world and discover the truth behind the events rapidly escalating around him before the war reignites.

Ooo???

So far the Plot has five basic focus areas:

MegOP and the Warframes and the start of that Rebellion. Starscream and Thundercracker who are hoth mourning and raging over Skywarp’s murder are then ones who convince a good percentage of the Air Force to join MegOP's rebellion.

JazzProwl and their helpers. Prowl and her group are on Cybertron and owned by Governor Brinnt. She is a secretary and information processing model and has been slowly sabotaging from the inside with Mirage and Crasher working under her. This position also gives her access to Shockwave's lab. Jazz meanwhile is on Velocitron and with her spies and Prowl’s reports has been rescuing people from euthanasia clinics. Jazz is a "homemade model" whose creator Aquarius was a hobbyist and got sent an unused Spark by a friend. While making Jazz and getting to know her, raising her and teaching her about the world fae realized that the Transformers were sentient and actually people and were horrified. Aquarius is just an everyday citizen and not part of big production and fully supports faer daughter's cell.

RodiMims. Their household gets sold and split up and links a lot of different threads together as well as revealing what normal life is like for Transformers not at the center of conspiracies.

Pharatchet. Pharma and Ratchet are repair techs at a Repair Shop and have a connection with the mysterious A3 and secretly repair those they find in the trash heap. Eventually they pull out a strange half of a Transformer who introduces themselves as Overlord. Ratchet throws herself into it because it is the first time they've been able to save someone since Ambulon. Pharma is wary because she thinks Overlord is suspicious as fuck. Ambulon also agrees with Pharma but helps and all three hide them.

ShockJack. Shockwave is the Quintesson think tank and selects a janitor, Wheeljack, to be his partner because he gets him and is the only person on this planet he respects. They do beautiful mad science together have a team of others selected and saved by Shockwave (Percy, Brainstorm, Flame, Nautica), make an evil baby (Scorponok), and build the Phase Sixers who were supposed to be single Transformer armies for rent but Overlord broke most of them when he was turned on too early.

Fort Max, Sixshot, Blue Bacchus, Black Shadow live, and Wheeljack calls them the kids (they like him but hate Shockwave), and Shockwave eventually follows his tiny husband into the Rebellion for survival.

And the secret Soundwave & Blaster plotlines and Whirl Makes a Baby which comes up later.

Ohhhhh

Oh now that's such a situation

They're preparing like hell, and good on them for that

Are we gonna get Quintessons that help the Rebellion? OWO OWO? and do my eyes deceive me or does Aquarius use neopronouns?? Please?? A Quintesson using fae/faer pronouns? Omg?? why is that the thing I'm focusing on

Oooo now Roddie and Minimus sound like they're in for one hell of a journey of their own

Now that's an interesting way to introduce Overlord indeed

Please tell me this suggests Shockwave is a Quintesson, ohh that would be so interesting as hell.

Beautiful beautiful mad science together, yes yes🥰, this time Scorponok gets to be the evil baby.