#autopedia

[drill-bits]

Character moment (sharing w mama)

Unlike human children, who see their mother as an extension of their own body, in cybertronians, Carriers see their sparklings as a extension of themselves

[jrtweetsindex]

[twitter convo between Laaamp @Laaamp and James Roberts @jroberts332 on 7 February 2013.

L: Did Tailgate edit his Autopedia entry or... did Magnus find an Autopedia from some sort of alternate dimension?

JR: He edited his own entry - and it was further embellished by other crew members after he misled them. ]

source

[drill-bits]

Carriage

A guide to stages and movements and terms of carrying a sparkling to term (with supplemental diagrams)

Creation Types

Edited June 3, 2025: Carrier bulking and strengthening

First Event: Spark Merge

Merging of sparks, forms the sparklet (extremely early stage sparkling which is incapable of sustaining itself beyond the carrier’s corona).

Demonstrated below in figures 1-4

Term One: Sparked

Sparklet is attached to carrier’s spark, held within the corona (see fig. 5). At this time, carrier becomes lethargic and sensitive to any sort of spark strain (physical or emotional).

During this stage, the sparklet can be reabsorbed without issue if the carrier is under too much stress (basically, if physically unwell, carry will not proceed and terminate itself).

Ex. Effects of war would prevent sparkling from developing beyond first term

Carry is undetectable beyond very precise medical scan at this time. If reabsorbed/self-terminated, carrier may experience mild and temporarily abnormal spark rotations.

First Movement: Separation

Sparklet separates from carrier’s spark and enters orbit around it.

Carry is now obvious to carrier.

Term Two: Orbit

Sparkling begins orbiting carrier’s spark (see fig. 8)

Gestation tank and forge begin building the sparkling’s protoform, initiating creation protocols to take in more fuel and repair nanites necessary to manufacture sentio metallico. In some cases, referred to as “primordial gestation”.

Orbit continues until protoform is fully built.

Carriers begin to develop reinforced armor and “bulking up” in legs, back, and waist struts to carry the load.

Carry can be picked up on regular scans.

Second Movement: Descent

Sparkling leaves carrier’s orbit and descends into the waiting protoform.

Detachment is extremely painful. Movement is excruciating and carrier is at high risk throughout duration of descent.

Term Three: (final) Gestation

Carrier’s T-cog freezes, preventing full transformation (beyond cosmetic/external movements such as panels, ports, and weaponry). Carrier protocols enable freezing without risk of carrier going into shock.

Sparkling’s frame begins developing features and qualities as ascribed by spark coding and coding taken from construction nanities.

Depending in frame type, sparkling may develop certain features first. (See above graphic)

Carrier begins craving minerals and additives to assist in building sparkling frame and armor. Materials are specific to sparkling frame requirements.

Carrier’s back and leg struts are reinforced to support the sparkling’s increasingly dense and heavy little body (eating for two). Carrier also becomes more armored (immovable object) and gain strength disproportional to their size class.

Event: Emergence

Sparkling emerges from carrier’s body. The carrier’s t-cog reactivates suddenly and forces the carrier into a position of rest where they can then open their internal casings so that sparkling can be removed/extracted or ejected.

[drill-bits]

A diagram of different ways cybertronians are born. Categorized in three sections: constructed cold (CC), forged, and gestated

Additional info:

- cc bots don't go through an "infantile" phase as gestated sparks and forged sparks do.

- CC sparks were harvested from the matrix during the silver age

- The quickest method to build cybertronians is Cc's (few hours), followed by forged (hours to days), then gesparks (years). With the influence of political and religious beliefs, as well as circumstances such as war, some methods were favored over the other, and some let go of to compensate for the lack of resources.

- What distinguishes cc and forged bots from gestated ones is the origin of the spark, however the coding from gesparks doesn't wildly differ from either others fundamentally. During the orbiting phase, Gesparks simply inherit both codes from their sire and carrier, then rewrite it to remove any overlapping sequences (this process is randomized, which explains why gespark bots pick up characteristics from both parents), then refines it to become its own personalized copy before the descent phase.

UPDATED: May 27th, 2025

[drill-bits]

can sparklings also be created accidentally?

UM. THE ANSWER to this question is not straightforward. Like, yes but also no. They happen by accident because of ignorance, not because of like “unprotected sex” or “faulty protection”.

More like “hey i didn’t know putting our life forces together would make a third life force.”

Although I am thinking of ways this MIGHT happen beyond that like. I read a great fanfic series (it’s the SwinBlurr Hustle series) where conception occurs because SOMEBODY’s spark accumulates such an insane amount of charge that he got a dude pregnant THROUGH his chest plates. Bluetooth pregnancy.

[drill-bits]

I’m back. Released two chapters of my fic—mechpreg in the future. So for research purposes, would you ever explain the concept of emergence of the sparkling? I’ve seen some different concepts and would like to know your thoughts.

Omg i was just thinking about this in the car today

So the event is pretty straight forward — the way it looks is just the carrier’s frame opening up and transforming away / transforming the sparkling out. Their bodies are made to move and change. This is objectively very simple.

The time in between the event beginning and the actual opening of the frame is where it gets complicated. This is because it’s not the carrier that decides “the baby is done. It comes out now”, it’s the SPARKLING that decides “i am done. Release me please” (ideally — this says nothing of any potential health complications).

From Descent to the beginning of Emergence, the carrier’s t-cog has been frozen for upwards of several years. Emergence begins when the sparkling sends a signal that reactivates its carrier’s tcog to open up and let it out. It is essentially a negotiation between the sparkling and the carrier’s frame to be released, as the carrier’s frame, which is NOT in control of one of its major organs, typically tries to resist opening up in an unnatural way to allow for the evacuation of what the carrier’s frame fully believes is a very heavy very sentient part of its body.

Basically, the sparkling tries to open its own carrier and the carrier’s frame instinctively is going to do whatever it can to stay shut and keep the baby inside where its safe.

Hence why it is Emergence and not Expulsion.

I want emergence to be difficult and laborious without it being too organic-mammal-forcing-wet-baby-out. There isn’t MUCH screaming involved, it does hurt a LOT when your body tries to keep its organs closed and inside, but i’d say its more a labor of pure terror than a labor of physical distress. Sparklings are so integrated into their bodies, it’s like if your own heart and soul started trying to crawl out of you :)

This CAN be negated with special codes or program blocking. Assisted emergence where a medic manually activates the tcog while the carrier is under.

(Spectra au: Drift absolutely had a “natural emergence” that took hours with every medic and gestation expert coaxing him along while Ratchet’s was assisted, He Ain’t Doin’ All Of That)

[drill-bits]

You’re Eating for Two comic has me so hooked. Can I ask tho why Shockwave is so hung up on Deadlock? Is it because mechpreg is so rare in this instance? Or the fact that the site is unknown?

It’s because of the second spark, revealing a way to make another Cybertronian life form without the need for a hot spot or crystal storage.

Think of the soldiers!!!

[drill-bits]

Does the cannibalisation of other mechs as resources for the sparkling affect its development or how it turns out? Do we get a vampire sparkling that comes out craving the same thing that supported it with its carrier?

So it wouldn’t be the materials, but Deadlock’s EM field, and the EM fields he interacts with. That’s how sparklings learn and develop emotionally and mentally.

A War-time sparkling would be exposed to a lot of aggression, fear, and hate. Anger as well. Not just Deadlock’s but anyone Deadlock is exposed to.

That baby is gonna come out SO fucked up lmaOOOO