Tales of the Intermezzo - Documentary Hypothesis A Transformers Universe Story copyright 2006 by Dave Van Domelen based on properties owned by Hasbro =========================================================================== "intermezzo - n. A brief entertainment between two acts of a play." - American Heritage Dictionary WARNING: this story contains information revealed in episodes of Transformers: Cybertron that had not yet aired at the time of posting (May 2006), including the final episode. It also contains my usual rampant speculation and harebrained ideas, and doesn't really have much of a plot. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Okay, Jolt, how're we fixed for tape?" Bud asked the red and green Mini-Con. "I don't wanna run out like on the last shoot." "All full up with new tape, Bud dude," Jolt patted the camera. "We're ready to roll out." "It's just 'roll,' Jolt. Geez. Oh, here they come!" A trio of twenty-somethings, or old geezers as Bud thought of them, filed into the interview stage Bud had set up. "Hello, everyone, I'm Bud! You must be Alexis, Carlos and Rad!" "Please, call me Brad. I've kinda outgrown that nickname," the taller of the two men blushed. "And this is Jolt," Bud pointed to his camera operator. "Hey, you don't look..." Carlos started to say. "No relation," Jolt shook his head. "It's a common Mini-Con name. Like Carlos is among humans, if my research is correct." Carlos put an arm behind his head and laughed. "Y'got me there!" "If you guys are ready, I'm gonna start the interview, okay?" Bud asked. Then the three all nodded, he signaled Jolt to start the tape. "Brad, Carlos, Alexis...you three actually met the Autobots and Decepticons several years ago, before anyone else on Earth knew about them. How did that happen?" "Well," Brad chuckled nervously, "Carlos and I were messing around in the mountains and we stumbled across some Mini-Con plates." "Plates? Like dinner plates?" Bud interrupted. Alexis shook her head. "It was a way for Mini-Cons to protect themselves from, well, a lot of things. They went into stasis inside metallic plates about this size," she held her hands apart to indicate. "It turned out a whole ship full of Mini-Cons had fled from a war and crash- landed on Earth. When we found Sureshock, Highwire and Grindor, it triggered an alert that was picked up on Cybertron. Mini-Cons were only a legend there, so only a few Autobots were sent to check. Megatron believed in the legends, though, so he came with a hand-picked cohort as well." "I've been talking to Jolt...our Jolt," Brad clarified, "and it looks like they were fleeing the war between Gigantion and Planet X. The X guys were finding ways to exploit the Mini-Cons, and modified some of them into teams that could form astonishingly powerful weapons." "Like the Star Saber, or the Requiem Blaster," Carlos interjected. "We'd always wondered why only a few groups of Mini-Cons could do that sort of thing. I think we just blamed it on Unicron at the time." "Cool," Bud said. "Er, I mean, fascinating. But didn't the Mini-Cons think the Gigantion...ites could protect them?" Brad shrugged. "The Mini-Cons were created during a war, soon after the inhabitants of Gigantion tapped their Planet Key and grew to immense size. A lot of the Mini-Cons felt they were made to be cannon fodder or something. The ones who had a better opinion of their companions were the ones who stayed, but a lot left. And didn't want to have anything to do with any 'bulks' regardless of faction." "Which is why they all relocated to one of Cybertron's moons after Unicron was first defeated," Alexis noted. "Thank goodness they all managed to evacuate before Primus used their home as a *weapon*." "Oh yeah, that was WICKED!" Bud effused. "Um, that is, yeah. Good thing they all got away safely. I hear a lot of them are moving back to the old Mini-Con city on Gigantion." Carlos nodded. "I hope they can finally settle down for a while. I mean, they'd barely waken up on Earth before we all ran of into space." "And it was a good thing we did, Carlos," Alexis wagged a finger. "If we'd stayed on Earth too much longer, everyone would have known about the Transformers. As it stood, both sides got off the planet without too much fuss after all three weapon groups were found." Bud looked over a sheet of notes. "Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. I heard you guys found Atlantis. Why didn't you turn it on and fly it to Cybertron?" Brad shook his head. "Different Atlantis. The Atlantis that everyone's preparing for the new exploration trip might've inspired ours, but the one we found was a human city founded using the power of the Star Saber. Maybe the rogue Decepticons that Crosswise kept under wraps helped spread some of the legends of Atlantis in ancient times, along with Lemuria and Hyperborea." "We coulda used a monster hunter during the Mini-Con hunt," Carlos opined. "Too bad Crosswise and Evac were both on ice then." "Evac says that the Mini-Con activation signal triggered a power surge in his stasis pod that kept him locked down for a few years," Bud explained. "Bummer," Carlos added. Alexis sighed. "Huh?" Bud reacted. "Oh, just thinking of another 'bummer,' Bud. Starscream," Alexis frowned. "You still on about him?" Carlos replied incredulously. "Man, he's totally evil now, forget about that dude!" "Shut up, Carlos," Alexis snapped. "Kicker told me he seemed almost amnesiac when he came back from the dead. But I'm sure the hero he turned into has to be in there somewhere...." * * * * "Thanks for coming, Kicker," Bud greeted the college-age young man. "Oh, call me Chad." "Do all young humans who associate with Autobots acquire nicknames they later regret?" Jolt asked. "Sally managed to avoid one," Chad smirked. "So did I," Bud chimed in. "So, Bud is your *real* name?" Chad asked. "Heeeeyyyy, I like my name! Anyway, roll camera, Jolt!" "Rolling!" "Mister Jones, I hear you were actually present when Megatron fell into what became the big black hole thingy. How did you get involved in the Energon War?" Bud asked. "Well, I guess I can say now, since Transformers aren't top secret anymore. My father, Doctor Brian Jones, was one of the few people to figure out what was really going on during the Mini-Con hunt on Earth, and he managed to contact Optimus Prime directly. The two of them found others who knew the truth and took them all to Cybertron, to help keep things secret. Later, humans and Autobots colonized a few worlds in a distant star system, worlds that were rich with raw Energon. They also had some weird ruins on them that made it look like humans had once lived there, but we didn't get very far in figuring that out before the Terrorcons attacked on their mission to re-energize Unicron." "What was it like growing up on a whole other planet?" "Boring, most of the time. When you move to Cybertron as a little kid, the excitement value wears off by the time you're a teenager. It got a little more exciting once we started traveling around between Alpha Q's worlds." "What was up with those, anyway?" Bud asked. "One sounds a lot like Velocitron, and another was a dead ringer for the Jungle Planet." Chad shrugged. "Alpha Q said they were reconstituted worlds that Unicron had once eaten, but Unicron never ate Velocitron, did he?" "Not that I know of," Jolt averred. "Maybe Unicron was tapped into the Planet Keys on some level," Bud suggested. "And Alpha Q just said those were his worlds, when they were really copies of...oh, I'm probably wrong." Chad reached over and pulled Bud's knit cap down over his eyes. "Don't be so hard on yourself, kiddo. All this cosmic stuff is way over my head too. Heck, it's over my dad's head, although he'd never admit it." * * * * "So, how do you guys like my documentary?" Bud asked the assembled Autobots. "Is it the best ever, or just the best you've seen personally?" he beamed. "I liked how Mudflap put Thundercracker in his place," Landmine chuckled. "It's a fine work," Optimus Prime nodded. "People need to know what has been happening under their noses, and this will help. Jetfire, don't you agree? Jetfire?" "Huh? Oh, yeh, Prime. It's a mastahwork," Jetfire nodded. But silently, he wondered. He remembered things the way Rad, Carlos, Alexis and Kicker had described them...but couldn't shake the feeling that there was another way they'd happened. Like there was a faded old memory painted over with a new one. Oh well, nothing for it, he decided. He was a warrior, not a historian. He'd do the things, and let others worry about writing down what he did.... ========================================================================== Author's Notes: In the final episode of Cybertron, there were quick still shots of the kids from Armada and Energon. Thing is, as I pointed out in "Ripples", the cartoons don't really fit together. The Energon/Cybertron disconnect is particularly jarring, considering how Transformers are still largely unknown to humans in Cybertron, but make far too big an impact to be ignored in Energon. So I decided to do a little backfill based on the time alterations idea I presented in "Ripples". By the way, the term "Documentary Hypothesis" comes from Biblical scholarship. It's the idea that the Torah (first five books of the Old Testament) was assembled from several other sources (named J, E and P), edited together by a "redactor" to make some sort of sense. I figured it'd be a good name for an effort to piece together the somewhat disparate A/E/C sources, and also punning off Bud's documentary efforts. Later note: it turns out that the stills of the kids from Armada and Energon were added on for the Cybertron version, and were not present in the Galaxy Force release. This makes a bit more sense, given how aggressively Galaxy Force seemed to be not following Energon. :)