#rhisling

[askvectorprime]

Dear Vector Prime Within the events of the Earth Wars, you have recently stepped in to try and help stop a temporal vortex from ripping apart time and space, and it is said that Nova Prime is responsible for this vortex. Now, different variants of Optimus Prime and Megatron are entering the fray, and you seem to be busy elsewhere while individual Autobot/Maximal and Decepticon/Predacon crews seek the Forge of Solus Prime to put an end to this vortex. My question is a simple one, despite all the odd time discrepancies and timelines meeting in these events. Was this Vector Prime truly you? Or, was this a variant of you, wishing to help try and stabilize things?

Dear Earth Warrior,

The instance of myself that is currently caught up in the Earth Wars, as you speak of, certainly has his work cut out for him. With so many Primes running around, why, one could found a new Cybertronian society! Luckily, Rhisling grants him the ability to open a Portal, unleashing three Vector Primes from other universes with 35.0% of his Health and DPS—and recently, I myself have heeded the call, joining my temporally-displaced counterparts! We jump between buildings up to three times, dealing damage and applying acid for x4 DPS over six seconds. Enemies in range of the Portal are slowed by 30.0%.

With Autobot bases on Earth under continual threat from the Decepticons, and the Time Vortex now ripping through that reality, I take your summons very seriously. That said, I have noticed that most of the battles I am called to fight in are less concerned with the defense of the timeline, and more with the seizure of resources such as Energon, Alloy, or Crystals to power the Space Bridge for reinforcements. Please be mindful that the more time I spend assisting in battles, the less time I have for answering your questions.

[askvectorprime]

What can you see from wherever you operate in the Realm of the Primes? As in, if you opened a windows (if such a thing exists), how would you describe the view?

Dear Fluctuating Fenestration,

It changes constantly.

The landscape of this plane is a reflection of those who inhabit it. Prior to the intrusion of Galvatron into this realm, when I mostly had it to myself—barring the occasional visit from my siblings—it manifested as an infinite plain, below a cloudless sky, the constellations of the multiverse faintly visible in the perpetual twilight. I would walk these meadows, arriving at structures as the need arose: a library, a mausoleum, an observatory, a workshop, a brewery, a tower, a forge… upon departing, they would crumble to dust, millions of years passing in the blink of an optic. But nothing is ever truly gone, here; its history remains, and I could step into those halls, whenever I so chose.

Galvatron changed it into something else entirely. No longer could one readily distinguish “above” from “below”; the landscape folded in on itself with impossible geometry, fractal, burning with the light of trapped suns.

Then, there came the sparkfall: for it had become possible, once again, for something to fall here. The plain leveled out. And as the blizzard carved out canyons and built new mountains, I found shelter in a cabin. Into a lamp I poured a few drops of oil, and set it to burning. The flickering light revealed to me a homely place. I settled into an old chair, by the writing desk, and gazed upon the hands of a grandfather clock. Outside, the sparks of the lost continued to howl. When morning came, I set about to searching for them.

Now, few remain for whom I have not yet brought peace. Each time I return from my labors, it is to a warm hearth, old friends, and new correspondence. But when I imagine myself outside of this room, I become convinced that I am in a different kind of desert entirely—that it is sand, not snow, which shifts underfoot. I have stepped from one season to another. I think that I must be stood on the shore of a vast ocean, having washed up here one day long ago. The tide, which had receded, now rushes to meet me. And for a moment, as it washes over my legs, I am half in, and half out. I think that one day, it will carry me with it, and my time in this place will have come to an end. I hope, before that time comes, that I will have had a chance to say goodbye.

Ah, but let us not dwell on such things! You wished for me to describe the spectacle of the divine, did you not? Then spectacle you shall have! Behold!

With a single blow from Rhisling, I can cleave through the omniversal matrix of this Realm, and part the veil of the mind’s eye, to gaze upon the firmament that rests within the multiversal stack. It is the essence of pure change itself.

This “stack transformation sequence” appears to be the space between a pair of parallel planes, formed from neon streaks, which rush towards an infinitely-distant horizon. To your eye, they might appear as ultraviolet, I should think—if there is goodness within you. And if not, if the ground and sky appear as blue and orange plasma… well, this is the place where you change.

[askvectorprime]

Who or what is Mogahn the Mass?

Dear Mass Monitor,

A figure from my past—a past of mine, at any rate. Mogahn was one of the most ancient beings in the multiverse, from an earlier realm, one where the Originators and Terminators had been waging their battle for almost as long as that plane had existed. Mogahn was the last of the Terminators, the only one to survive after his own kind bred the Hytherion to destroy their foes. Like the other Terminators, he was a mechanical being—at least at first. But when he lived past the ending of his own universe, and traveled to others, he became something much, much worse.

Mogahn's home universe had a higher quiddity than most others (I here use "quiddity" to mean a metric for how much something exists, how "real" it is), and so when he traveled to a new reality, he found himself more real than anything else therein. Nothing in existence could harm him—in fact, his mere presence laid bare the unreality of that existence, which suddenly found itself defined in the context of Mogahn.

The ground he strode over eroded under his tread; that upon which Mogahn walked, must surely have been Mogahn's feet. The armies that rose to slay him were slain by his hand; that with which Mogahn fought, must surely have been Mogahn’s fists. Metallic, organic, living, dead, starships, stars—all matter, everything that mattered in that universe could only be a thought in Mogahn's head, a part of Mogahn's body. His power was true solipsism, an unholy rendering of all unto one. Mogahn's conceptual mass pressed down on that universe, warping spacetime, folding it in two like a finished book, shut. And in adjacent dimensions, those onlooking the event horizon observed that curvature for the first time, and reckoned with their models of reality.

Those few beings who could pose tangible, realistic resistance to Mogahn the Mass were felled by the Cyber Caliber. When my fellow Time Warriors and I tried to defeat him, we tasted that blade's edge too many times to count, and only our chronowarping abilities allowed most of us to survive—myself being the sole exception, thankfully. I believe you know the rest: that lethal blow was what allowed me to discover my true nature, and thus awakened, able to see Mogahn for the ephemera he was, I called the Cyber Caliber to me. Using the knowledge granted to me by Adaptus, I reforged the blade—because the one thing as real as Mogahn the Mass must surely have been Mogahn’s sword, that with which Mogahn lost. I named it Rhisling.

Cleaved free by that blade, the Mass and all the lost sparks within now exist without a frame of reference, no longer defined by Mogahn yet unable to be returned to the existences they had once led; instead sinking into the void between dimensions. With its high quiddity, and the void's timelessness, the Mass may never fully dissolve—and until then, I must keep a careful watch, lest anyone tries to unleash it once more.

[askvectorprime]

we saw what happened to galvatron entered the realm of the primes. would that happen to everyone? what would happen to a human, for example?

Dear Existential Emissary,

I can describe the "place" that is the Realm of the Primes, but you must understand that it is not a location in your universe—indeed, in any 3D space—that you can reach, no matter for how long you travel. In Primus's very first flash of consciousness across the newly-created multiverse, he became aware of the threat of his Old Foe, and immediately began preparation for their eventual encounter. He sent forth a hyper-spherical wave across the multiverse, and the energies generated as it rippled across spaces and times would coalesce into us: the Thirteen.

That wave that even now spreads across the multiverse, this is the Realm of the Primes, a legacy of Primus's covenant to protect us from the Uncreator Himself. This divine energy is pure creation, conceptual potential; to journey to the Realm of the Primes is to connect with this raw possibility and conjure space from thought alone. It is important to prevent the abuse of such power—as you say, you have all seen firsthand what could happen if the Realm of the Primes were breached by a being of ill intent. Fortunately, such occurrences are uncommon!

If you, as a human, were to arrive in the Realm, I imagine you would find the experience to be highly confusing. Your three-dimensional body would assume its natural thirteen-dimensional shape, and as a result, it may not be possible for you to return to your original reality. You would likely be blinded by the sheer intensity of light generated by Primus upon the creation of an infinite number of universes. You would become aware of multiple kinds of time and have considerable trouble orienting yourself; "later" and "earlier" and other one-dimensional temporal concepts would become completely meaningless. Against these side effects, Galvatron was to an extent inoculated: he had battled for a long time inside a black hole, weathering the energies in its singularity, and had been exposed to the temporal power of Rhisling when I defeated him prior.

Nothing, however, can prepare you for confronting an infinite number of alternate versions of yourself. My siblings and I, as sometimes-singularities, are blessed (or cursed) with a singularly-consistent state of being, and even we find this to be overwhelming at times. I will say that Galvatron's reaction was particularly intense; if you are open to differing perspectives and at peace with all that could-have-been in your life, you might find it bearable. Perhaps you would even come out of the ordeal with a better understanding of your own self, as I believe Galvatron did—but no life lesson is worth putting yourself in mortal peril! Do not try this at home.

[askvectorprime]

What was the outcome of the fight between the fight between you and Galvatron after you both perished in the physical world?

Dear Masterful Menace,

Ah, that truly was a story for the ages! It'd be easy enough to simply tell you all that occurred—how I was victorious, and that with the victory hard won, I retired to the Realm of the Primes. But I feel that the outcome was not so simple as all that, and that you deserve to know the whole story of what transpired between the two of us.

With my last act in the mortal plane being to bequeath my sword to Optimus Prime, my spark was allowed to pass on to the greater beyond. However, as the Guardian of Space and Time, I was still connected to the timestream, and it was there that I felt a disturbance.

As he had done thrice before, Galvatron had turned a defeat into a means to survive. You will recall that after seemingly being destroyed once, his essence persisted thanks to the Armor of Unicron. That power, combined with the temporal energy his spark absorbed from my blade, allowed Galvatron to transcend as I had. But where I was the Guardian of Space and time, he set out to be its Conqueror.

We clashed many times. Each blow sent ripples through time and space. Across multiple streams, fates were altered, events were given new destinies, and others were split asunder merely by the clashing of my Rhisling against his Death Calibur. We became locked in a stalemate, until Galvatron decided not to attack me, but rather, time itself.

Across the time stream, Galvatron's voice reached his past self, telling him of his ultimate fate, of Unicron, of the true nature of Mini-Cons, the Super Energon, the power of the Cyber Planet Keys—all of it, every power he would one day seek to attain. This, as you might imagine, gave the Megatron of the past an advantage, and he took quick action to seize the opportunity. It was only by reaching out to the past version of Starscream, who was yet untainted by years of Megatron's cruelty, that I was able to stop Megatron from gaining dominion over Cybertron.

I was then forced to use my power to splinter these events off into a new timeline—one where Starscream took Megatron's place as the new leader of the Decepticons—rather than allow a new future to overtake the old. In doing so, I allowed my nemesis, Galvatron, to slink away from my gaze in order to scheme again another day.

Even now I still feel his presence in the timestream. I fear he is learning to manipulate time in more subtle ways—making incremental changes, and studying the repercussions, rather than altering events drastically. But for now, his menace has subsided, and I am free to wait here for when he might emerge again, answering all your questions.

Nevertheless, one question weighs upon my spark. Be he Megatron, or Galvatron, one thing that has been proven again and again is that even death is no obstacle to him. Each time he has seemed to have met his end, he has emerged from the brink of oblivion, stronger than ever before. And so I wonder... if Galvatron meets his end, by my hand or any other, will it truly spell his demise? Or will it simply grant him another opportunity to exploit, and transcend to greater heights? Or is the answer to quelling his threat to instead find the twisted sliver of honor that once existed in his spark—the one that led him to honor his soldiers' memory and sacrifice himself against Unicron—and reaching him in some other way?

One thing is for certain, at least: I have not seen the last of Galvatron by any means.

[askvectorprime]

Dear Vector Prime

Did any of your equipment ever break before and if so how did you repair them ?

Dear Technical Taskmaster,

In my youth, I could always rely on Solus Prime to repair cracked armor, mend shields, and resharpen blades until they looked as though they had come fresh out of her forge. Nowadays, I’ve learned how to keep Rhisling and my Critias Gateway in good working order, although after all this time I cannot make my hands effortlessly dance over their intricate mechanisms the way my sister did.

[askvectorprime]

Dear Vector Prime, is the technology of your siblings weapons, such as the Forge of Solus, able to be reproduced?

Dear Relic Replicator,

It is possible, although the technology involved is rather arcane, more mystic than mechanical at times. To further complicate matters, the process of their creation often involves substances that are difficult to come by.

Let us take my blade Rhisling, as an example. The original blade used to form it was from a dimension with a higher quiddity than most, leaving it more real than other substances. To alter such a weapon required a forge strong enough to affect it, and using a binary magnetar system, the forces involved were able to hone the blade properly. Once it had been sharpened enough, I quenched the blade in the timestream, giving it a tachyonic patina. At last I had created a blade worthy enough. It could cut through the Shroud, feint through time, and even heal any wounds it had caused. I am rather fond of it, but if you seek to create your own, I wish you the greatest fortune in doing so.

[askvectorprime]

The last time we directly heard from your Nexus self, Scorpia and Safeguard, your holomatter avatar resembled one face worn by a legendarily healer/warrior, who in another life encountered a certain Freelance Peacekeeping Agent, have you ever encountered this individual?

Dear Axiom Autocrat,

I believe that I have encountered the freelance peacekeeping agent you speak of, yes. In one distant reality, Omega Trion offered a bounty to anyone who could bring him my head, which this mechanoid mercenary sought to claim; though a cunning foe who caught me off-guard, he was no match for my experience as guardian of time and space, and I was able to sever his interchangeable weapon hand with a single blow from Rhisling. Of course, Omega Trion had anticipated this—the bounty was merely a pretext, used to lure me in range of a geobomb that threatened to trap myself and my pursuer at the heart of a black hole; I believe the sinister sage's scheme would have worked, had the bounty hunter not detonated the warp core of his ship, the Lockdown, to allow us both to escape. The freelancer would subsequently aid me in hunting down Omega, citing a "breach of contract"... but perhaps that's a story for another time.