yvannairie | Entries tagged with reposted from tumblr

So, okay.

Since Dark Energon is shown in the first episodes of the show shown to have the ability to give non-sentient machines “life”, and we know that Dark Energon is way more potent than normal Energon by a factor of Oh No

and synthetic Energon has the property to generate cybermatter based on instructions when reacting with CNA (or, well okay, more likely, when reacting to with catalytic solution used for cloning, which is probably not unlike the protomateria that forms around sparks when they start to gestate b/c if it reacted with just CNA, Ratchet would have been immediately f u c k e d during his initial trial)

And since sparks and Energon both emanate from Primus

I don’t think it would be a stretch to argue that Energon itself is somehow protoconscious, and sparks are just Energon in some stable, self-regulating state – stable enough to form a consciousness, and to have a full set of assembly instructions for a frame (CNA) along with whatever root processes are necessary to make sure the two integrate properly.

So, theoretically, if you just put enough Energon in the right place, under the right conditions, eventually it’ll stabilise into a new spark.

That spark would have very little in way of personality, though – since sparks emerge in clusters, they probably interact through EM fields with each other during the gestation process. Under normal circumstances, this means that by the time newsparks are ready to emerge, they’ve developed a sense of self, and enough of a personality to direct their physical development. A spark created from distilled Energon wouldn’t get the chance to go through that development until later – and its development would probably be further informed/constrained by the kind of frame it was housed in.

(Also, to borrow from Jupiter Rising of all places – if Energon contains the information for the assembly code and conscious processes of Cybertronians, resurrection suddenly becomes a possibility, since there’s no reason other than probability for certain cybernetic sequences to re-emerge. Hell – if information actually returns to Primus when a Cybertronian dies, having generational memory becomes a possibility, as that information would probably just end up in the general circulation of Energon. I don’t know how that would actually work, though, it seems likelier just to be a belief.)

We actually see something like this happen with Predaking – he starts out with a very rudimentary consciousness that develops the longer it spends in the Predacon frame, and unless Shockwave split his spark between all the baby Predacons (the way Starscream presumably did with his clones), his and the rest of their sparks must have come from somewhere.

(Reposted from Tumblr)

The reason no mecha ever runs out of shots as long as they have fuel is that their blasters and cannons siphon gasses out of the atmosphere, ionise them and then wrap them in a magnetic field to keep the plasma shell from collapsing. The shells have an effective range that varies based on the strength of the magnetic field, but will dissipate into essentially a puff of hot gas after they've travelled far enough.

Calibrating weapons to use different gasses affects the power requirements and the effective strength of the shells. Heavier gasses and noble gasses require more energy to ionise but have greater mass, whereas lighter gasses pack less punch but require less energy to ionise. Earth has a really handy atmosphere in that way, being rich in oxygen and nitrogen which both have fairly manageable ionisation requirements and pack a wallop, with oxygen also being useful for it oxidising effect. In the absence of suitable gasses in the atmospwhere, mecha can also break Energon down into gases useable by their weapons.

Energon in gaseous form is also used as components of the shell, both to provide stability due to its unique magnetic properties, and to create a sudden surge of energy through the systems to do the damage, kind of like a stun gun. Weapons calibrated to only use atmospheric gasses may lack in range, but would be "heavier" than Energon-infused shells. Weapons that use noble gases often heat up less than weapons that use lighter, more reactive gases but what they lose in thermal potential they absolutely gain in mass.

Blaster shielding is usually just a strong magnetic field that'll rip the shell apart, dissipating it instantly. You also wouldn't want to walk straight through one b/c the field might do a number on your spark if you tried it. Some types of blaster shielding use their own field of ionised gas, more in the style of reactive armour. Terminology-wise, blasters aren't actually considered "mass-based", despite working on the same principles. That term is reserved more for mass-acceleration based weaponry -- railguns and the like. Combustion-based weaponry is rarely used as personal weaponry and is reserved for weapons platforms, missiles and artillery in general.

To close off, let's talk about Megatron's fusion cannon for a moment. Obviously, the energy released upon impact will come from nuclear fusion (although how exactly that fusion is achieved, I'm not quite sure) and while I suspect that means Megatron's cannon is a rare example of a "heavy" hydrogen weapon, who knows? Maybe the presence of Energon allows him to use gasses with larger nuclei for an even larger payload. Explains why the amount of damage it does seems to change.

(Although speaking of variable damage, I suspect that at least in Prime, Megatron's cannon has a few different firing modes. Most of the time he's using it as a regular ion cannon, b/c achieving fusion takes a lot of energy, and using it in every fight would get cost-prohibitive fuel-wise pretty damn quick. I honestly don't think Megs actually NEEDS to be able to fuse anything heavier than hydrogen, either -- that cannon is a effectively a WMD, what with how much energy fusion releases.)

(Reposted from Tumblr)

Sparkbonded mechs can eventually learn to “ride along” each other’s sensory feed, even over long distances. It’s most likely to occur when one of them is in recharge (lack of other input), and the other one awake, so most don’t realise that’s what’s happening b/c at first the differences in sensory input parsing leads to an incoherent, dreamlike experience.

Over time, sparkbonding causes various subsystems to synch up, which will make the sensory experiences easier to parse, and may even lead to “phantom limb”-like sensations whle awake, especially between bonded pairs of different frame types and classes. The sensation source is rarely aware of the connection – for some people it can lead to feeling like they’re being watched, but even that is usually hard to distinguish from the general mutual “awareness” typical of a sparkbond. (Subsystem synch-up itself is actually a widely-known and understood phenomenon. Past a certain level of synch the difference is flatly detectable in vital functions to the point where it's regularly used as a diagnostic tool. )

Sensation transfer while awake is rarer, but it’s known to occur with sudden spikes in sensory or system activity, and the frequency at which they happen has a rough correlation with the percentage of system synch-up the bonded pair is experiencing. Data compression artefacting and junk data synch while in recharge (”dream sharing”) is considered a separate phenomenon from sensory transfer, and is a lot more common even among newly-bonded pairs.

(A lot of the literature about sparkbonding from the Golden Age has gone missing by the time the civil war starts and sparkbonding has been elevated to have this quasi-mythical status, but after the war th research picks back up and a lot of the superstitions start getting cleared up mostly due to an ample amount of cross-frame-class-and-type bonds to use as test cases. There still doesn't seem to be a clear rule as to what causes it, although some highly unscientific theories about attachment and 'missing' your partner have been floated >v>)

(Reposted from Tumblr)

A possibility I really like is that the kind of temporary glitchiness resulting in blackouts and symptoms we’d associate with a mild concussion is due to connection failures and power rerouting.

Basically, circuit boards themselves are usually not the parts that get damaged when electronics are hit with concussive force. It’s usually the mechanical parts – spinning hard drives, screens and keyboards – that absorb the impact, breaking in ways that requires repair or full-on replacement, but something else that can absorb the impact is the wiring. Spesifically, cables and their connectors.

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(Reposted from Tumblr)

there was a post doing the rounds about how modern cars have plastic/fiberglass parts designed to minimise the energy transferred to the passengers in a crash, and it got me thinking about racer frames, especially frontliners.

Like, outside of aerodynamics, collision resistance is probably an important consideration for racers. As speeds grow, so do the energies involved in a crash, and there probably exists some threshold beyond which vital components like drives, processors (or, per some separate headcanons I've written down, connectors) start getting damaged. Having plating that crumples on impact is would be a really useful redundancy for those moments where even quick decision-making won’t save you from wiping out.

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(Reposted from Tumblr.)

Optimus is not a bad-looking truck. He’s very classically handsome, and his charisma helps to elevate him into Quite A Catch for those into his frame type.

Ultra Magnus, however, is basically the standard of beauty for his frame type. He’s a bona fide Fine Specimen, impossibly handsome for a truck, a legit case of “have you ever seen a mech so beautiful you started crying”. He could have easily been a model, if he didn’t have the charisma of a rusted nail.

(Another Tumblr repost)

Seekers and other jet frames should have one of the highest tolerances for cold and icing, b/c icing is a problem they regularly have to deal with, at the altitudes and speeds they fly at. Like, they should probably have the highest tolerance for temperature variation, period, b/c of the kind of heat gradient acceleration generates.

Racer frames and two-wheelers with small-volume engines would have the absolute worst time in cold conditions, b/c without proper grip they’re too light to really get anywhere in ice and snow and also if it gets cold enough their engines will plain refuse to run properly, even if we assume Energon confers energy at lower temperatures than igniting fuel does. In general, grounders need much more prep for extreme conditions than fliers do, unless we’re talking about a grounder specifically designed to work in shitty cold-ass conditions like a snow-mobile or a treaded motor lorry.

(Reposted from Tumblr.)

Mecha with aquatic alt forms aren’t the only ones that are waterproof. In fact, most mecha are well-shielded enough that shorting out in water rarely happens, and in the 30-100m range the biggest problem is limited mobility. Going deeper than that, the problem becomes one of pressure – Cybertron has a pretty sparse atmosphere and without necessary reinforcements, various components (such as the spark chamber) have fairly low crush depths. Even with being fitted for seafloor operation, it’s sort of like working in extremely low temperatures. Stuff will start failing, it’s not a matter of if but when.

I also don't think cooling would be that big of a problem underwater -- the low ambient temperature will help with the cooling. Shuttered vents are another easy failure point, though, especially on light frames that are heavily reliant on airflow cooling, such as racers and light vehicles that use a two-cycle cooling system (drawing air in and cooling it before it passes over the components that require cooling), but water also damps movement to the point where frictional heat pretty much stops being an issue.

Also, self-repair nanites don’t actually know what the fuck to do with the micro-organisms, so if mecha don’t thoroughly drain and wash themselves there’s a chance the presence of foreign organisms will trigger what is essentially an autoimmune response, with fever-like symptoms, as it tries to kill them dead so they don’t start replicating. Injuries sustained underwater also have a high chance of oxidising, especially in salt water, which also fucks with how nanites operate. Often they’ll “scar” for a significant time as the surface oxids need to be thoroughly cleared away before the recostruction of mesh can start (b/c oxidisation has a bad habit of spreading), which is less of a problem when it’s just a welt across the paint job and much worse of a problem when it’s a joint that gets broken or dislocated due to a structural deficiency.

Oh and as a total aside b/c Rosy and me were talking about this the other day, the problem with cold weather operations is icing, not temperature. Mecha are warm, moisture gathers and then freezes and expands, limiting movement and causing injuries. That’s why cold-climate operations are on a time budget – heating themselves up enough to protect against the icing issues is a huge fuel sink and it’s still not enough if there’s no way for them to dry themselves up.

(Reposted from Tumblr. Original post was made while I was in the middle of writing Half A Same Mind, and struggling with writing characters whom Earth Idioms would make no sense to.)

Adapting idioms and phrasings has a double function, right? Yes, they’re meant to make the characters using them more relatable to the reader because ha! you recognise the thing, but at the same time, they’re also meant to reinforce the sense of otherness because wait, that’s. That’s not the usual thing. It’s different.

And aiming for that “similar, but different” sensation is really valuable for stories that revolve non-human characters because on the other hand, you want your audience feeling empathy for these characters, you want them being able to relate to their experiences, but at the same time? That otherness is often the draw in stories like these. Because if they’re not kind of strange and different and exciting, then why are you using them for the story? Why can’t they just be people?

(Not to mention, a healthy sense of the other helps with suspension of disbelief a lot, and managing the suspension of disbelief is key for science fiction but that’s kind of. Like that’s a big enough topic for its own post and is kinda besides the point in this context.)

So when you’re working with an adapted idiom, you’re doing it to deepen the audiences intellectual engagement with the… let’s just call it the text, broadly, which encompasses everything from story to characterisation to worldbuilding. And this is great for making stuff feel like it fits into that world you’re describing, but.

When you’re writing something that’s supposed to be primarily emotionally engaging, you’re… actually making that harder, because every use of an adapted phrasing reminds your reader of the otherness of these characters. So, while writing this thing, I’ve kinda noticed I’m working on some vague Attention Budget™, where, if I go out of my way to get the language right, to deepen the sense of integration with the text, I’m having a way harder time actually hitting the emotional beats I’m gunning for.

Like, I still use them? Because not using them also has the problem of making this story feel like I’m writing it about Just Some Characters, and not my dumb idiot Wrecker Husbands whom I love very much, but, for example, I tolerate a lot of “wrong” instances of human-specific words I know have alternatives because they just feel more right to me, and this Fuckening Thing That I’m Writing really lives and dies on the tone of it and I dare not fuck with the tone now when I’ve gotten it down so well.

So, like, yeah, I could come up with some fun adaptation of the phrase "a roll in the hay", but if what I want to communicate is “aw, he wants to fool around but is trying to not come across as too desperate”, communicating “ooh, cool thing I don’t recognise, man these aliens sure are alien” before the audience can even start parsing the intended emotional effect feels like wasted effort at best, counterproductive at worst.

And of course this is super subjective, I bet for a lot of people the intended effect of the way I’m doing it is the opposite, and sometimes, you can work with that “boy these aliens sure are alien” effect to actually deepen the emotional bond (Prime does this really well in places, I’ve written about that before), and if you’ve built up like, a surplus of empathy for the characters, then you can get away with doing it for the flavour way more,

but since this is the first story I’m writing with them, and I am not kidding about This Thing living and dying on the tone, I’m playing it extra safe with the language I’m using, and thus will have to figure out something else cheesy and embarrassing for Wheeljack to say ┐(￣ヮ￣)┌

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Base style: Practicality by timeasmymeasure
Theme: Airplane by krja

The New Garage Chronicles

New digs, same old bullshit.

Entries tagged with reposted from tumblr

Some thoughts on the nature of Energon

Some base knowledge weaponry headcanons

Here's something self-indulgent from a while back

Regarding the "They’re Robots Why Can They Be Knocked Out" question

Some robot-related backprocessing:

Also while I'm busy having Bad Taste Over Robots, here's a Classic Useless Headcanon:

Also here's another thing about mecha and cold that bothers me

Water interaction headcanons

"A roll in the acicular crystals": a meditation idioms and emotionally resonant fiction

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