#simfur

Dear Sauropod Sentinel,

Backdrop: what’s your favorite place or setting in this AU?

I’ve actually answered this once before! I haven’t managed to draw any more of Simfur, whoops. Settings and backgrounds are not my strong suit 😬

But I can tell you about a different ancient city that rose after the sundering of Simfur. While the story of SNAP never actually visits this place, I think it’s important enough to at least mention. Tyrestis, later translated as Doradus, was the second greatest city of ancient Cybertron. It rose after the God War ended, trying to recreate the grandeur of Simfur and, uh, not quite succeeding.

In fact, that’s where the first version of functionism began. It’s actually better described as ratioism, but function by frametype, classification by size, and the concept of worthlessness outside of work began in Tyrestis society. It was an incredibly wealthy city, and very prosperous... for those who were rich. The servant, laborer, and slave castes were not so fortunate.

It didn’t have a particularly large territory, but the size of the city itself was enough to contain several million citizens. Very few Knights of Cybertron passed through Tyrestis despite its extensive temple network and heavily religious society. None of those ancient heroes seemed to trust it very much, especially as the original thirteen Primes began to disappear. This did not stop the religious culture at all, especially in later years when fanaticism took over. Cybertronian sacrifice became a common practice, with insurgents and blasphemers usually thrown to alloygators to be consumed. Alloygators are still linked to sacrifice in modern superstitions and are thought to drag their victims to the Well of Sparks, where they placidly swim with the dead.

It fell, eventually, partly because of its own bloated corruption, partly because people became dissatisfied and left for a less oppressive home, and partly from skirmishers and raids from nearby cultures chasing Tyrestis’ fabled wealth. The Maximal Empire rose soon after the twilight of the city, absorbing its territory into its borders, and the area is no more than ruins now. As Cybertronix evolved over the megavorns, it became better known as Doradus. Most people only know of it in the history books, its plundered remains somewhere in the crust of Cybertron near Vos.

i mean

just

think about it

stuff like that but

10000% more robot dinosaurs

an ancient, graceful land, full of splendor and artistic beauty made directly into the living metal of its cities, its mountains. seas and inland lakes of oil/mercury/liquid ferromatter moving through amid vast swamps, all proud and fiercely ignoring the Functionalist order in favor of veneration of Onyx Prime, spiritual guardian of all things that walk and crawl and fly

people expect Simfur to be a brutal, ferocious place, because of the way her most famous heroes act. but the Dinobots only act like that because they’ve given up on trying to prove to anyone that they’re not savage, vicious monsters or nearly mindless animals

Priests were said to have the power to tell Names apart - they could tell you which one belonged to your actual soulmate, and which one belonged to your arch enemy. They must’ve had something going on for them, considering most of the time they actually ended up right...

Both Names were always worn proudly. Mecha didn’t hide them unless their Named were already offline, or if something was just considered wrong. Criminals, nonbelievers, cold constructs, etc.

It really didn’t make a difference whether or not your soulmate became your conjunx or your amica; either was acceptable. It was almost unheard of for a pair of soulmates to remain unbonded though, and mecha who chose to remain unbonded were often looked down upon. Soulmates who broke bonds? Even more so.

Iacon: Southern Capital, realm of the Prime, most noted for the Iacon Archives (situated at magnetic north - Cybertronians are complicated)

Kaon: Northern Capital, realm of the Lord High Protector, mostly subterranean, lower levels flooded by oil (situated at magnetic south - see Iacon)

Kalis: Equatorial, traditional home of the High Council, widely sprawling and split into east and west by a large crevice in the planet's surface

Helex: Business centre, strong sense of community, poor pedestrian access but renowned for its market

Vos: Almost entirely inhabited by aerial bots, independent from the high council, distinguished by tall spires and narrow walkways between towers Simfur: Industry centre, situated on and around a small plateau, inhabitants tightly packed, poor alt-mode access in all but the industrial sectors

Tarn: Military centre, the largest state/polity, inhabitants speak the widest range of dialects, the high end Towers district is found in the east

Altihex: Old fashioned, on the coast of the Rust Sea, home to many aquatic bots

Praxis: Smallest city-state, landlocked by other states, very formal society, strictly functionist, large numbers of civilian enforcers who work in states all over Cybertron

Polyhex: Architecture predominantly skyscrapers, a loud city-state with a mostly lower caste population, has a large number of orphaned or abandoned younglings living on the streets and in alleyways

Interesting take! There’s a few different ways I use this.

There’s no “demons”, at least, not any more. They feature heavily in tales of the Primal Era, quasi-organic beasts falling from the sky and rising from below to ravage the land until the heroes slew them all. Most of the stories are supposedly exaggerated and mythologized, especially since a good half of them relate to the story of the sundering of Simfur. Modern sightings of demons are either wild mechanimals, hallucinations, or a very bigoted perception of junkers, who often live in the undercities and low abandoned places.

People do live underground! The sheer breadth of possible dwelling places is enormous, from Luna 1 and 2, the flying city of Vos, and the pits and warrens of Kaon. There are certainly underground cities, though none of them delve too deep, and many former prosperous eras have left behind hollow labyrinthine ruins in Cybertron’s strata, too dangerous to explore and declared off limits to the public. Iacon is bordered by one such area, a broken plateau plunging into a canyon called the Forbidden Zone, and it’s long destroyed any exploratory expeditions to the point where no one is ever allowed to approach it.

Backdrop: what’s your favorite place or setting in this AU?

This is a tough one for me! I haven’t.... actually drawn very many settings yet oops but the one I like best conceptually is Simfur. Here’s my base sketch.

The Sundered City of Simfur, much like Atlantis in human myths, is a lost city of legend. It was the temple city of the Allspark, the seat of the Guiding Hand, the Citadel of Light and the bastion of the Thirteen Primes. It has been so long gone that historians aren’t even sure it really existed. No one is quite sure where it could have been located, if it was real, but the dangerous and unexplored Forbidden Zone outside of Iacon is the most likely spot. But the agreed upon story about Simfur’s fate is widely known.

The God War sent it to the Pit.