Tales of the Intermezzo - Name A Transformers Universe Story copyright 1999 by Dave Van Domelen based on properties owned by Hasbro ============================================================================= "intermezzo - n. A brief entertainment between two acts of a play." - American Heritage Dictionary On a world with no name circling a star with no name, something very important had just happened. Potentially the most important thing to happen in eons. The first naming took place. Prior to that moment, nothing had been named. The life of this world, robust and growing as it was, had not previously produced anything resembling intelligence during millions of years of random combinations and mutations. Well, no more intelligence than the dogs or cats which had yet to evolve on another unnamed world around another as yet unnamed star. Intelligence is a complex thing, and while all the pieces may be in place for thousands of years, it takes a certain unknown and unknowable spark to set things in motion...to bring the pieces together and create a thinking being. The Namer was bipedal, a trait which often helps spur intelligence, but isn't necessary to that gift. She was also the female of her species, mature enough to bear children but not yet knowing birth. The first name was not spoken aloud. There was no speech yet, although the Namer would certainly seek to remedy that soon enough. Nor was there anyone around to talk to. The others of her tribe tended to leave her to her own devices, as they feared and admired her. Perhaps by that action she had already been named by the others, set apart by an unspoken label that recognized her ability to act out of more than instinct and reflex. She was strange, yet also valuable, for she could see patterns in the seasons and the life around them. Patterns that let them hunt more successfully, gather better food from the ground. And so she gave herself a name. It was just a thought, a suggestion of a sound she would try to make once she felt comfortable, and it had no meaning yet. Or, rather, she herself was the meaning. Everything she was, everything she did and stood for would be recalled when the name was invoked. She liked the thought of that. The Namer was aware of how she was different from the others, but she knew she would die like anyone else. Once she was gone, how could she be remembered? With a name, she could be remembered. And so could the leader of the tribe...she realized she would want to give him a name as well. Respect? Perhaps, although that concept was a bit complicated for a race so young. To her, it was simply the way of things. You made the leader happy, and he kept you safe and gave you children. To give herself a name and not give him one would make him unhappy, and that would be bad. Her strangeness already kept the leader at a distance, had kept her without child. Perhaps the gift of a name would win his approval? But those thoughts were quickly pushed away. It was like a fire had been lit inside her, one which could not be stopped. A name for the sky. A name for the ground. For the waters, for the mountains, for the plants, the animals...it all came so easily, a giddy rush. She knew she wouldn't remember half these new names, but that didn't matter. The good names everyone would remember, the bad ones would be forgotten. What had been a swirling chaos of impressions and emotions inside of her was starting to settle into a clear picture of the world, as if the names anchored her reality. She ran down the hill, naming it as she ran, eager to share this new idea with the others. Then she stopped dead in her tracks. A night-glow was in the sky. But it was day. Only one glow should be in the day sky, and there were now two. The new one was dimmer than the day-glow, but getting brighter. And then everything was brightness. * * * * The Namer awoke, as if from sleep. The brightness had faded, but not entirely gone away. The sky was gone. The hills were gone. The plants were gone. Her tribe was gone. In their place was...she had no experience with the idea, much less a name. Everything shone like water, but was solid like rock. The sky was vaulted over as if by trees, but the canopy was solid. Too solid. This water-rock seemed to be closing in on all sides, and she let out a guttural wail of distress. "What are you?" A chill went through her. She heard sounds, but they were not the rustling of the wind or the growl of an animal. The sounds were meant to communicate. They were words, she realized with a pang of regret. She had been so excited to come up with the idea herself, and someone else had already perfected it. The words were not the warm, emotive sounds she had envisioned...they were cruelly cold and sharp and precise and impersonal. They had a definite meaning, yet lacked any nuances that could have told more. "Wh-what urr oo?" she strained to form these words, to see if she could. She could not feel her mouth, or any part of her body, but how could she exist without it? It must still exist. She *was* her body. There was a pause. Finally, the voice said, "I am Primus. What are you? You seem to be alive, but there was no life on this world." When she finally grasped what the voice was saying, she let out a bitter, barking sound that might have been called a laugh. Hers was a world full of life! Who was this that he could not see that? "You are life," Primus admitted. "But barely. You can barely communicate. I will remedy that." There was another blinding flash, and suddenly that cold, cruel clarity that she had heard in the voice of Primus was washing over her. It was like leaping into a cold river without the benefit of going numb shortly afterwards. The swirling chaos of her thoughts, which had only recently been tamed, was now gone. Every thought was crystal clear, and the half-formed concepts and words she had been toying with in a time that seemed forever ago snapped into focus. "This world is alive," she spat out, stumbling over the words, but growing in confidence as she continued. "Life in the air, in the water, in and on the ground. Life all around." "Not life as I know it," Primus countered. For the first time, there seemed a hint of emotion in his voice. Could it be sorrow? "Then you need to know more," she snarled. "What did you do to me? To my home? My people?" "You are all inside me. I am your world now, and have circled your star over a thousand times since I arrived." "WHAT?" "I was injured, near death. I absorbed and merged with your world to save my own life...and hopefully all life in the universe, someday. Somehow, you have the spark of life that let you separate yourself from me, although it took a great deal of time. You *have* a self, the only true quality of life." "Life is more than that. There is more life than you say. A world full of life," she replied, feeling sick to her stomach, even though she somehow knew she no longer had one. "And this world will be full of life again...in time," Primus assured her. "The life it once had?" "No...a new life. Stronger, better. Able to oppose the Dark One when he returns," Primus claimed. "Perhaps you can help me create that life. Who are you? You have a self, do you have a name?" She considered all the new words now in her possession. One of them seemed to fit the name she had chosen for herself. "I will help create life," she promised. But she knew it would be the kind of life she once knew, green and growing, vibrant and warm. Not this cold steel. "My name... my name is Oracle." ============================================================================= Author's Note: One of the points brought up in Beast Machines was that Cybertron once had organic life. But, in the various creation legends presented to us, Cybertron was a lifeless ball of rock before being turned into a gleaming metal world of robots by Primus or the Quintessons or whoever. Thing is, to a mechanical species, a world covered in organic life might initially seem to be devoid of any real life. Compared to the magnificent multilayered world of Cybertron, with miles and miles of developed tunnels and structures reaching down into the rock of the world, the organic "encrustation" of a planet might seem like nothing at all. And to Primus, a being of energy and pure intellect, anything lacking that intellect would not necessarily appear to be alive. Not until it was too late, anyway. Of course, the remaining episodes of Beast Machines (#10-13) might render this story totally moot, just as parts of "Pairbond" no longer quite work. That's okay with me...Transformers long ago gave up any pretense of a single storyline. It's a mythic cycle, full of multiple stories and multiple takes on the same characters and situations. In the end, people will remember and build on the ones that meant something to them, "canon" be hanged.