The surface layers of Optimus's mindscape reveal his tendencies as an analytical dreamer. His thoughts float in interconnected webs around the central viewpoint, moving closer or farther away as he shifts his attention. They diffuse into nebulous colors in his abstract awareness, then sharpen into focus when he considers the details. It can become a busy, complex place when he's deep in analysis, and his time as an archivist has left its mark on it—it feels rather like a virtual research station.
Optimus does not spend all his time there, however. When he is not locked into focus, there is a shift, and the expanse of thoughts clears like fog. To understand the space beneath it, we need first go back in time.
When Orion Pax relaxed, he would find himself beneath a starry sky. Iacon's native flora spread across the dreamlike landscape, the small shrubs bearing his favorite Noctium-blooming flowers shimmering in the silver light. The shallow pool in the center resembled the hotspot where he was forged—his earliest memory of lying in that pool and gazing up at the stars remained with him. Farther off lay crystally thickets, and beyond that, hints of a forest fade into the dark sky.
The first time the new Prime viewed himself responsible for another mech's death, he reserved a small spot to honor them within this precious landscape. A small light, like a spark, nestled in the ground beneath the flowers—a private and personal memorial.
mood: The Beautiful Ones - Poets of the Fall
The same space exists still, but it looks very different now. The cool midnight blues and silver light have shifted to a warmer atmosphere of reds and browns. Fog often covers the stars overhead, but just as many lights shine from the ground now—for every life lost in the War, regardless of faction, he has placed another spark. Not all are individuals he's met—most are not—but all deserve to be remembered, and so he represents them in the best way that he can. Monuments he's constructed stand here and there, the largest of which is a fountain that flows with shimmering liquid. It's decorated with small crystals that he's plucked from the wild plants.
The area is beautiful in a different way from before, but the atmosphere is heavy with melancholy. The pool that once soothed him can no longer be found—perhaps it has dried up, or simply been buried under the shifting ground.
This is the most expansive and prominent part of his mindscape, grown many times over from the space it held originally. The glimmer of the graveyard stretches as far as the optic can see, and the once-distant trees now house more lost sparks among their roots, well-kept paths indicating how often Optimus walks among them.
There is no physical path that leads to the more hidden levels of his mind. To find them, one must instead step inward, through the space between moments.
mood: Almost Like the Blues - Leonard Cohen
Nothing is so well-kept here. Here, there are ruins, cold and charred. Here, the skeleton of Iacon. Here, a battlefield, smoke still rising from the bodies. Each blends into the next, leaving it unclear if these are many separate spaces or a single tunnel layered over itself.
Though the scenes are coherent and even specific at first, as one ventures deeper they grow less focused. Buildings distort. Colored fog fills the space. Eventually the air itself fragments, leaving broken shards floating through empty blackness. Anyone journeying through here will at this point begin to struggle—an invisible force determined to keep them out.
Pushing through, even the shards grow scarce. At the end, nothing but the void remains.
mood: The Contortionist - Melanie Martinez
The air here is heavy, ringing with a sound you can't quite hear. A sour taste sits on your glossa, just enough to be noticeable. It's a little too hot, a little too cold. Your vents can't seem to find anything to circulate. You are alone. No one can reach you here. No one will ever reach you. And yet—a thousand invisible gazes judge your every move. You can feel them almost physically upon your plating. Perhaps there is a crowd around you, bodies closing in and trapping you, and it is simply too dark to see it—your sensors refuse to confirm or deny. It doesn't really matter. You cannot escape.
This darkness is where Optimus subconsciously locks away his most shameful feelings—anything incongruous with the core of the identity he tries to embody. Resentment, bitterness, all but the most “justified” anger… any part of Optimus that is tired of giving, feels the role he was pushed into is unfair, places blame onto others, or fantasizes of escaping the responsibility on his shoulders… all are banished into this space. His awareness of what's in here is peripheral and vague, as examining the darkness too closely could mean a complete breakdown of the “selfless” identity that shields him from feelings of despair and worthlessness.
mood: Gradus Prohibitus - Yuki Kajiura
Though it is not truly part of Optimus's mindscape, the Matrix of Leadership makes its presence clear when he communes with it. Optimus's own landscape begins to deconstruct, unfolding and falling away. What's left behind is a luminous white space. He finds himself on a strange ocean, thick and made of jagged edges, like flowing shards of glass. Geometric forms grow and fade around him as he navigates the waves. Sometimes images reflect back at him—sometimes his own face, just a little wrong, a little too impassive.
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