#multiversal singularities

Dear Culinary Champ,

Across the multiverse, versions of Optimus Prime boast a consistency that few can match—they are courageous and selfless, intelligent and dedicated, willing to lay down their lives to save others and weighed on heavily by those they fail to save.

Dear Optical Opinionated,

Do you know, I've never checked! Let me go count.

Dear Friendly Philosopher,

This gets into rather metaphysical territory, but I will attempt to summarize.

The Cybertronian philosopher Platonix claimed that existence is but a reflection of the reality created by G One. In this theological model, the universes Cybertronians observe are like photonic umbras upon the hull of a warehouse, created by these true substances—in other words, every plasma pump, smelting pool, or Optimus Prime was created in the image of some ideal source object. These ultimate forms would reside in the "real universe", a hyperuranic realm close to G One.

Dear Euphoric Expresser,

Your question is a difficult one to answer, as my relationship with the nature of universes I visit has changed since the falling of the Shroud. Before, I was a singular being, transcending multiversal boundaries; when I traveled to a universe, my essence would fill the space of whatever role "Vector Prime" was to be in that reality. In the world of the TransTech, I was an academic, prone to use of complicated jargon and obscure terminology; in a world where my siblings resided on Earth, I became a trickster and emissary, watching over human travelers and heralds. Though my memories and consciousness maintained continuity, there was a malleability in my nature that meant I would behave in one universe in a way that I never would in another; it is this that made me so reluctant to ever visit a negative-polarity universe, for fear that it might corrupt me in some way.

Now, however, I exist in a far more mundane context. Though my status as the Guardian of Space and Time still allows me to walk between planes of existence, I remain the same across all of them. In many ways this is limiting, as I am but a fragment of the entity I once was... but in others, it is liberating. There is a certain constancy to who I am now that I lacked before, that made travel between dimensions uncertain even as it was necessary.

All that said... now that I dwell within the Realm of the Primes, I bear a connection to countless other splinters of the Vector Prime that once was across the multiverse; indeed, it is only thanks to the awareness that this transcendent space provides that I can remember the nature of my existence before the Shroud. As such, I can recall being a noble warrior queen, or a humble shrine maiden attending to the great Sigma Oracle; I have the memories of a Vector Convoy who founded a civilisation on the planet Athenia, and of a Vector Maximo who defended xir homeland from Quintesson conquerors. On an intellectual level, I know these were lives I never led, but that does not stop them from feeling true.

I cannot help but wonder whether, if I were to set aside my preconceptions of what my self is and instead embrace the truth of all that Vector Prime can possibly be, I could fulfil some greater potential.

Dear Singular Statist,