How long does a carriage normally last? Are there any noticeable frame changes?
Stoodie: For the sake of simplicity, we shall use Earth units of time! Time on Cybertron is far different than time on Earth, as our planet
has longer days and takes longer to orbit our star! Fun fact, our planet takes 83.3 earth years aka a vorn to orbit our star!
The average carriage takes about 3 Earth years from sparking
to emergence! A long time to you humans, surely! But a quick process considering our very long lives! And it affects us in some similar and some dramatically different ways!
It seems you are interested in learning more about the details of Cybertronian biology! Delightful! I love to see creatures eager to learn!
Click the read more and follow along the C.A.R.I.E. cycle!
(Stoodie will be used to answer History/biology asks that aren't asked to a specific character! And if anyone wishes to use these headcanons in their own works, that is 100% allowed!)
(Caution: fictional infant development topics of pregnancy and labor under the read more.)
Stoodie: A cybertronian's gestation goes through four key phases!
Phase one: The first phase of a carriage is called "The Orbit". This phase starts the second after two or more sparks participate in a merge that successfully causes one of the creator's sparks to fissure from the electrical surge and ignite a proto-spark.
Over the course of 2-5 hours, this proto-spark will spin chaotically from the energy still surging through it from the merge. In this state, it will either destabilize and fizzle out into nothing, or if a stable rotation and energy level is achieved, it will form its own orbit around the adult spark. The proto-spark, completing its first full stable orbit, signals the start of its journey.
Over the following month, the sparkling's orbit will change the nature of its new carrier's spark. The two will form a small gravitational field as they pull at each other. The presence of that field of influence causes the carrier's spark to release an energy signature signaling to the rest of their systems to begin construction of a body for this new energy. Sparks do not like to share their chambers, you see, so it becomes the frame's mission to get this new spark out of it. This is the end stage of the first phase of gestation and is usually when a Cybertronian discovers they are carrying, as they will feel a strange fluttering static inside their chest. That is, unless it's discovered earlier by physically opening the spark chamber for whatever reason.
Phase Two: Well, now we've got a little bitty one on the way, who needs a body, and how does the Carrier build that body? Well, first, they will need resources! The carrier will spend the remainder of the first year of their carriage accumulating resources like energon, metal, and nanites and stockpiling them in special ways.
For example, the metal that will physically build the little one is stored in Carrier's own armor. Now, to store that access metal without symphoning what the carrier needs for their own body, the excess metals and minerals are added onto the carrier's armor, physically increasing their density and making them much sturdier to protect the delicate newspark inside, but also much heavier! Most carriers will weigh 5-15 tons more, depending on the sparkling frame type, by the end of this stage of sparkling development. But that armor is tougher than a tank's during it, protecting both baby and parent!
One of the most important stockpiled resources in this phase are construction nanites from the sire, after all if the carrier's frame only used their own nanites, they would just try and program and grow a clone of the carrier, which might cause spark-frame disconection errors as this new body would try and steal the carrier's spark and not the one it was intended for. So nanites need to be taken from the Sire so that there are two different codes interchanging information to build a body tuned to the sparkling's unique frequency that was generated when it was sparked. This ensures that the only spark leaving the carrier's spark chamber at emergence is the sparkling's.
There are many ways for a carrier to harvest the sire's Nanites, and each couple has their preferences. The most efficient is for the sire and the carrier to do a cross-feed connection with fuel lines found in their chassis. While it is the fastest and most efficient way to transfer the nanites, as this method only needs to be used once, most bots find it the most boring, as you have to basically sit there and do nothing until the carrier's storage tank has filled.
Another example that I guess could be considered appropriate in terms of content, though I find it rather barbaric, is Syphoning. Akin to how you humans portray vampires, a carrier with pronounced fang-like denta can bite and steal the nanites from their partner. Obviously, many bots try and avoid needing to syphon as it's not exactly a painless way of doing it, but one that has developed in our species in the event of an emergency situation. Carriers are known to develop permanently pronounced canines during carriage, and it's common for some to have a medic reduce them down.
There was an old saying that you could tell a bot had carried either many bitlets or multiple times the longer their canines were. That, of course, was a tall tale and has no scientific backing to prove that the number of sparkling a carrier has effects the length of their denta. Anywho, we are getting distracted, moving on!
Phase Three: This is the longest phase in the carrying process and lasts 2 years! During this phase, the gestation chamber takes over primary control of the creator's T-cog to change its structure, which also means the carrier loses the ability to shift into their altmode the deeper into this phase the carriage gets. And like anyone going through gestation emotions can run wild!
It goes from being a rather small, unnoticeable spherical chamber under the spark chamber to a structure that could best be described as a clawed servo that spans a majority of the hollow space it's created through the T-cog in the chassis. This clawed servo structure forms an antigravity field only within the sphere of influence it has between its digits. It fills this gravitational void with a dark and thick, viscous material composed of energon, nanites, plastics, oils, and metals. It has the consistency of the earth food, jello. Inside this ball of goo is where the sparkling body will be constructed. And thanks to the antigravity field that protects the space, it doesn't matter how hard the carrier is jostled, the sparkling's frame will not move inside this space and is protected from physical damage.
During phase 3, both sets of construction nanites (sire and carrier) work in tandem to construct the sparkling's frame. This process takes a long time because the nanites do not always get along, and one team may deconstruct the parts the other group has constructed. In the first year of the building, both creators' nanites will fight each other over what elements and features they want to remain in the final construction. From the color of the optics to the shape of the olfactory and even the final altmode class, all these necessary components are determined by the winner of the individual fight when construction first occurs.
By the second year of the construction phase, the nanites have settled on what features to build and focus solely on building. That's why some sparkling may look more like one creator than another; it's all due to which creators' nanites were the more successful in fighting for their preferred features. By the end of the carriage, all of the sire's nanites will have died off from fuel deficiency and will be recycled as material into the sparkling's frame.
(WARNING EMERGENCE BELOW. Nothing graphic but may be upsetting to those with issues revolving around the topic of labor)
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Phase Four: Once the sparkling's frame is constructed, a portion of the carrier's nanites will sacrifice themselves to cause an electrical pulse to activate the sparkling's frame. This activation Is temporary and lasts only long enough for the frame to let off a signal tuned to the newsparks frequency, which coaxes the sparkling to leave its carrier's spark and descend from the spark chamber of its carrier into the gestation chamber where it will be locked into its brand new spark chamber. Once that new chamber is fully sealed, the sparkling frame jolts from new life activation protocols and the emergence protocol begins!
This is a very delicate task but also very straightforward. The carrier will be driven by the C.A.R.I.E protocol to seek a safe, quiet, and secluded space for emergence due to its delicate nature. During this phase over the course of 2-7 days on average the carrier will be in "labor" as their frame opens their chassis and moves the carriers spark chamber out of the way to quite literally drop out the sparkling. The carrier will drop onto their elbows and knees so gravity can do the work and the ejection has the lightest impact.
and TADAAA! You have yourself a fresh bitty! They are but a fraction of the adult's size and have zero kibble or color outside their spark, optic, and biolight color. So teeny and helpless and precious.
though the development of a sparkling outside of its carrier is a lesson for another day!
this concludes our lesson for the day!