#mtos

[ask-a-bot]

Hi this is for everyone but mainly megatron. What your opinion on mtos and have you met any?

I have met a few. I have no issue with them, providing they carry out their tasks as assigned. When they do – and they usually do – they are better than... others that I could mention.

I hope you were looking at Bumblebee when you said that.

Why? He usually-

"Usually"?

Well... he at least gives Optimus less back-chat than you give me. You are a miserably insubordinate wretch.

I'm not miserable and you'd get bored if I didn't give you a little bit of playful banter to contend with, Megabum.

I think I'll insert myself here. Megatron, I believe you deliberately danced around the purpose of this question.

I promised to answer the questions as I see fit. I have done that. Is there a problem, Prime?

[askvectorprime]

dear vector prime, who are these medics?

Dear Medically Minded,

Lathe of Operation: Burning Sky was one of a number of Made to Order soldiers mass-produced in the wake of the Simanzi Massacree and the Forced Flood, though his wheeled alternate mode put him at a severe disadvantage in the boggy, waterlogged terrain that ultimately stymied the Autobot campaign. Like many MTOs, he found religion early on in the war, and his faith in Primus and the divinity of his “Chosen One” ultimately persuaded him to abandon the Autobots and join Starscream’s government, though he did not escape Cybertron before Unicron’s attack on the metal world.

Updraft of Devisiun emigrated to Cybertron along with her combiner sister Downwind. A medic by trade, she was fascinated by the study of mecha-biology and the allopatric processes which had resulted in several notable Cybertronian subspecies—though she was also more than a bit conceited and regarded her modular, energy-efficient body as superior to the “primitive” Cybertronian form.

Sump of Teledonia was an unsung hero of the war: when the conflict moved offworld, he was one of the Autobots under Bulkhead’s command, who battled Dauros and his Decepticons as they tried to destabilize the planet Frellus IV using infiltration protocol. Along with Turbine, Undertow, and Yamada-3, these heroes narrowly foiled Dauros’s plan to exterminate the native Hasmata by inflaming geopolitical tensions and deliberately sparking a thermonuclear conflict. Something of an egotist, Sump assumed that he would be handsomely commended for his cool head and heroism, but was dismayed to learn that Optimus Prime had already left his command post to take care of another situation on a backwater planet called “Earth”—it is unsurprising that he deserted the Autobots at the first opportunity. Despite his newfound faith in the Chosen One, he died during the Iron Ring’s attack on Iacon.

[anotherramblingfangirl]

Fulcrum’s “birth” must have given somebody a massive shock.

Because Fulcrum was warborn forged:

As seen here, the only other cybertronian even said to have been forged during wartime is Fortress Maximus, who is in fact all but confirmed to not actually be warborn and instead be a shadowplayed Pious Maximus.

This is because the very last hotspot on Cybertron, the one that brought forth Bumblebee, happened pre-war.

So anyone who popped up after would have been the extremely rare solitary spark and not at all expected. 

The wiki itself even says: “Forged sparks from during the war therefore are implied to be all-but impossible.”

And while the odd solitary spark, like Overlord on Luna-1, popped up pre-war too I very much doubt that usual procedure for such discoveries would still be in place. 

Nobody was expecting any more newsparks, so why bother prepare for them?

Meaning that in all likelihood, what happened when Fulcrum first popped up from the ground, somebody- perhaps even an MTO who likely didn’t know how currency worked never even mind proper child discovering protocols- discovered him and reacted something like this:

[prowlscreamevangelist]

obviously i think tyrest is wrong about constructed cold transformers being inherently corrupt, but tbh i also think ultra magnus is wrong about this being a concidence.

my question is: how many of the defendants were MTOs? how many of them were thrown onto a battlefield right after they were born? and how might that warp their ideas of what’s acceptable?  it wouldn’t surprise me if MTOs were more likely to commit atrocities (their lives have been nothing but atrocities). but this is because of how they were treated after they were born, not because they were constructed cold.

i also wouldn’t be surprised if MTOs ended up on trial for crimes that weren’t solely theirs. the Aeqitus technology could (supposedly) determine guilt, but it didn’t determine who was brought before it in the first place. even if MTOs did the dirty work, how many of these crimes were ordered by (potentially forged) higher ups who disclaimed knowledge afterward?

[wiredandrewired]

I have this thought on MTOs.

It’s been an ongoing thing, and for a little bit in Lost Light I thought it might come up, but of course that got jossed and it was something else entirely, but every so often I see someone else post something like it--just little snippets really--and y’know, fuck it.  I’m gonna make a post and it’s not gonna be great but really, fuck it.

So a couple of things we know in canon that are related to/feed into this thought:

-MTOs are built into bodies, Forged mechs ‘grow’ or ‘form’ from Sparks introduced to sentio metallico (basically protomaterial in other continuities) or however that’s written

-Sentio metallico is naturally occurring on Cybertron, on or in the ground, in limited amounts

-Sparks put into pre-built MTO bodies still have the ‘code’ for their own unique bodies that they could/should have become under normal/natural circumstances

-Some mechs get dysphoric as fuck about this and body swap as often as they can (*coughstarscreamcough*)

-Transformers eat snacks and chew on things

-Forged mechs have a high amount of sentio metallico and MTO/Constructed mechs have significantly less, but a higher amount results in ‘better’ or ‘higher quality’ MTOs.

Those last two are actually very related.

Because what I’m talking about is sentio metallico cravings.

I keep having this thought of MTO mechs who want to ‘find’ their ‘real body’.  Starscream keeps getting new frames, never seeming to get comfortable in one.  We have other characters who do a lot of swapping who might or might not be in the same boat (honestly, I wonder if it’s not part of Megatron’s deal).  But maybe some mechs don’t react that way to the same feeling, either it doesn’t occur to them or they don’t like the idea or they just don’t have the means.  I got to wondering if there were other ways mechs might try, consciously or not, to deal with that feeling of not being in their or even A real body, whether some of the time or all of the time.

I got the idea of some point that, given this is a species that’s pretty malleable and can change pretty dramatically with the introduction of new material, a bunch of big metal shapeshifting nerds, I mean, that either consciously or subconsciously some might start trying to introduce more of the stuff that at least originally could have gotten them there--to that real or ideal self.  While we don’t know whether or not introducing new, especially dormant sentio metallico to a mech has any effect whatsoever on them, we do know from the Grindcore issues that a higher amount of it is desirable even in MTOs and from more recent issues of Lost Light that even inert it can be ‘reanimated’ to respond to and reform based on even a small spark or amount of spark energy.  ESPECIALLY if this isn’t just a mental or emotional dysphoria but, the spark being an actual physiological thing, I feel like it’s unrealistic to assume that no MTO EVER has ANY cravings for this stuff as the spark itself goes ‘hey, hey, this body isn’t right, hold on, I need the stuff to fix it!’.  Especially-especially since we know spark ‘capacity’ is a thing (ie, loadbearers in canon are a big deal because they can run bigger or more energy-hungry bodies than their sparks seem like they should--and probably higher-output sparks burn out lower capacity bodies conversely) and it could be a genuine physical health issue if the MTO spark and body aren’t properly compatible.  Less of a dysphoria thing even than an active and dangerous deficiency in cases like that.

But other than taking a bath in it (a la Overlord and his unutrium infusion) there are limited ways to get new solid stuff into a body...except that we know transformers also chew and eat solid snack things.

So like

The idea of mechs digging at the ground where Spark fields came up at one point for trace remainders of the stuff.  Gnawing on debris that has some residue.  

Losing a chunk of themselves that has some of the precious stuff to an injury and picking it up and chewing on it desperately to keep what they have while their Forged companions look on in horror and the other MTOs just kind of...know.

Finding someone’s remains that have a little, late in the war when they’re off on other planets, and you know, the other guy isn’t using it any more, and just hoping they don’t get caught (but someone eventually does, someone always does).

Forged mechs starting nasty fuckin rumors because they just don’t get it.

Forged mechs talking about what ghouls MTOs are.  Monsters.  Animals.  Whatever word fits best to them.  Just one more reason for mechs like Tyrest to justify treating them like a blight.

Forged mechs making sure MTOs KNOW they don’t trust them to be up while they recharge because they ‘don’t want to wake up with pieces missing’.

And then every so often that one terrible motherfucker that just snaps and says ‘fuck it’ and starts eating people.  Maybe they start small.  Bits and pieces.  But they get there, and then that’s the guy everyone ends up talking about, and it just gets worse, because now there’s a fucking anecdote.

Yes I was desperately hoping to find out Getaway was chewing on life cords due to protomaterial cravings why do you ask

ON A LIGHTER NOTE PLEASE ALSO IMAGINE GOOD FORGED FRIENDS OFFERING A LITTLE OF THEIR OWN LIVING METAL TO AN MTO BUDDY IN A BAD WAY I LIKE THAT A LOT ALSO

MTOs who are doing okay hoarding any traces they can find for batch brothers who they know aren’t.  

MTO message boards or secret comm frequencies where MTOs let each other know if they found a patch somewhere and where to go to find it.

Support groups for getting through cravings and the things a deficiency might be doing to them.

When an MTO is in critical condition, instead of leaving innermost energon loved ones leave a shaving of their own sentio metallico at the bedside to show support.

[sweetpotatodraws]

We have some COOL OCs.

Hunker, Static and Adagio belong to @bulkheading, @writingpteropod, and @cornetespoire respectively.

[jrtweetsindex]

[twitter convo between vepe @Munatron and James Roberts @jroberts332 on 4 December 2014.

vepe: Did First Wave Constructed Cold bots have the city name suffix? Wondering since I can't recall Starscream of ___ mentioned

JR: Yes; it was only the MTOs that had the campaign-related 'surname']

source

[anotherramblingfangirl]

I still genuinely believe that Chromedome ought to have known where Brainstorm came from, that he was an MTO and that he’d just covered for him. 

Chromedome might know what Brainstorm is, but Chromedome also knows the stigma that can be even just constructed cold, never mind literally being built-to-be-a-soldier, so he covers for him.

If Stormy doesn't want anything said then Domey’s not going to say it. It would be hugely awful of him to do otherwise, to out him against his will.

Not that he’ll let him get away with being obnoxious in his ruse though, clearly. He still interrupted and told Stormy off when he tried that with Tailgate.

The only point I have to debate, is when Chromedome found out about it. 

About Brainstorm being an MTO.

Did he know from the start? Before Brainstorm was efficient at hiding it?

Did he find out some other way or guess?

Or even, did Brainstorm wind up confessing to his friend?

I mean, they are very close.

There’s also how we know that the first husband of Chromedome, Scattergun of the Fourth Vorsk Offensive, was canonically also an MTO and one who didn’t hide that either, with a friend he had, Hoist, knowing and talking openly about that fact.

And I very much doubt an MTO running off and getting all domestically married would be looked upon kindly either too.

So perhaps seeing how Chromedome didn’t mind MTOs being not as they were supposed to be, with his associations with who would become his husband, that could have helped Brainstorm feel he could confess to him? And not be immediately disregarded or ratted out?

I’m not sure.

But regardless of how Chromedome might know, I do maintain that he surely must have.