#seeker behavior

What is a Seeker?

Apex predator flightframes, the term is from “seek and destroy.” Before, it was “Seeker of Knowledge, of Experience, of New Homes.

 During the Paradise Era, Seekers were originally guardian frametypes that guarded Cybertron from extraterrestrial threats. Occasionally picking off mecha that threatened Cybertron’s peace. 

During the Quintesson Invasions, Seekers and other mecha had to become vicious and weaponized to fend off the colonizing invaders. Many frame-types got hit with quintesson-viruses, making them happy to produce sapient products.

Insecticon hives were the hardest hit.

With energon being harvested by the Quintessons and hotspots turned into product factories, Seekers turned to predation and recycling of the infected individuals to fuel their flights, growth, and manufacturing.

Religion

https://rogue-seeker.tumblr.com/post/645124239808167936/rs-lore-religion

Codelines

Kaonite Ram - Burrowing owlbearlike mecha that live underground and feast on radiaoactive ore to fuel their fusion cannons. Their religion is on digging through the corpse of Primus, and praising Unicron on killing him. Death feeds life. They host their sparklings on their backs as pods.

Voidwing - Ambush hunters from the Sonic Canyons, they are noted for their processors capable of crunching complex equations for warping and bridging.

Rainmaker - Spark-gifted Seekers that cause acidic rain and thunderstorms around Vos. In eons past, this helped save Cybertron from the Quintessons.

Spire Dancer - Noted for their complex aerial displays and holographic feathers, Spire Dancers hunt with null rays and impale prey on the spires of Vos.

Cone Cuckoo - Seekers who stash their sparklings with other codelines to be raised. Have a complex shifting ability that lets them easily copy other seeker codelines.

Honkbiner - Geeselike mecha with chainsaw wings that combine with other Honkbiners to create a giant kaiju-sized uber goose.

Sonic Storm - Seekers of gas giant planets, they are absolutely gigantic in order to brave the planet-sized storms of their homes. Often large enough to house other Seekers in their shuttle-maw space.

Starcrest - Great shuttles capable of producing any Seekerline, usually accompanies titan ships.

Each codeline has its own unique spark gift, that can be passed down from creator to creation, however hybridization can weaken spark-gifts and even cause it to be lost within family sparklines. Hybrid sparklings have to be design carefully to make sure nothing is lost.

Durability/Physical Notes

All seeker codelines are fairly tanky. Wings aren’t fragile at all, compared to fanon seekers. Like irl jets, they can be shot full of holes and still be able to fly home even if only one engine is intact. If all engines are damaged, they are still capable of gliding.

No landing gear, Seekers will transform in mid-air and land on their pedes.

Non bipedal body-types are common, its easier to support large frames that way. Thundercracker has a winged centauroid body type, while Skywarp is quadrupedal.

RS Mecha will often have built-in antigrav to lighten their weight and increase agility, and Seekers are no exception.

Sensors

No noses. Noses are for humans. Chemoreceptors are located in the vents. While insecticons have a higher sense of taste/smell, Seeker chemoreceptors are still more sensitive then the average humans. Seekers will often taste things with their hands/paws/manipulating appendages.

No pain receptors. Damage and sensory information is given via list of notifications.

Thickly armored areas can feel pressure, and only places like hands and other manipulating appendages like data-cables have high amounts of tactile sensors.

Glossa tendrils and brushes is mainly used for grooming. Chemoreceptors there will take note of any contaminants found while grooming and doing other maintenance upkeep of flock members.

Front-facing facial optics are the main set of cameras, but its common to have cameras in other places.

Proximity, wind/air pressure/weather/em sensors are usually located on wings and fins.

Social

Seekers will usually place mecha into several categories, depending on frame-type and size.

These categories range from flock member, to allied outsider, to prey, to baby. Smaller mecha interacting with a brooding Seeker might be placed in the baby/sub-adult box. Especially if certain behaviors are shown. (magnetic clamping, climbing on the bigger mech, predatory grooming/removal of wire mites, wi-fi limpets, plate mites, etc)

Being treated as baby might be embarassing, but its better then being fed on.

Seeker flocks are communal when raising offspring and sharing partners. Coteries (polyamorous seeker groups above the number of three) will often get quite large as they absorb a partner’s partners,and their partners, etc.

Depending on codelines, flocks will usually reside in nesting spires, canyons and burrows on planets. Or on great Titan ships. Multi-codeline flocks are more common out on colony titan ships.

Flocks have a hierarchy usually based off skills, age, and dueling prowess. Being combat-ready is important. If physically disabled, duels are done in VR instead.

Courting flights are common.

And when greeting another friendly Seeker, they’ll usually sniff and inspect each other’s frame to ensure good health and allogrooming to ensure they smell of “Ally” and not “stranger.”

Manufacturing

Unlike Velocitronian forges and Insecticon hive factories, Seekers usually design, spark, and build their own offspring in trines.

One parent to code the personality, one parent to build/spawn the frame, one parent to incubate the spark.

Post-war, its become common for another parent, the largest one to produce photonic crystals for back-up sparks.

Manufacturing techniques can become complicated, this will be its own post.

3D birth-printers are common, and found in nursery-forges and nesting grounds. They’ll usually be covered up due to its sacred status, and gifting of 3d printers is a common thing when wanting to produce a sparkling.

Those who are not mid-wife engineers, will often scrape nanites from under their plating, and mix the samples into a gestation pod. A newspark will be inserted and the third parent or more will often insert a datadrive with their little ones’ personality coding in there.

This produces sparklings that are more “randomized.” Since building little ones requires more intensive skill. And often requires a larger parent  or fabrication shop in a titan ship to grow/shape the parts required.

On the livestream,

Thundercracker is loafed on yres lower half and yre upper arms are clutching Soundwave’s spindly digits as ze stands on a communal table.

Both of them are marked with paint in old pre-quint war glyphs and Soundwave has zir old gladiator veils and conjunx crown. 

Both their vocalizers are loud and rumbling as they chant.

TC booms out the history songs of free seekers while Soundwave chants the songs of the lost gladiators, as ze is mostly the last.

The stream is being recorded and played for Humans, because if the flock and seekerkind goes extinct....someone will remember. A holoscreen in the back flickers with a live translation into several human tongues.

Howlback is docked on Soundwave’s chest as ke listens, this is the pre-programming ritual for kir mindchecks. 

The little one learns the history of Seekerkind, while their new mind and coding is added to the extremely long songhistory.

Both junis’ voices die down into lower and lower tones as their data cables slither out and both of them plug into Howlback.