Tales of the Intermezzo - Opt Out
                       A Transformers Universe Story
                     copyright 2008 by Dave Van Domelen
                     based on properties owned by Hasbro
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     "intermezzo - n. A brief entertainment between two acts of a play."
          - American Heritage Dictionary

     There weren't many Cybertronians who could travel through the hazardous
hyperspatial threads between stars without the protection of a starship.
Even the remarkably durable Protoforms that all Cybertronians possessed would
stand a high chance of being destroyed along those naturally occurring "space
bridges", making those like Megatron a rare breed.
     However, this particular hyper-capable Cybertronian shared almost
nothing else in common with Megatron.  He found the Decepticon leader's
avarice to be repulsive, and his willingness to extinguish the Spark of
another was anaethema.
     Megatron's brother, Optimus Prime, was little better.  Prime's response
to Megatron's power madness was to invent war, and then wage it for aeons
almost uncountable.  Before Optimus Prime there had been disputes,
skirmishes, various reasons for weapons to be created and used.  But it had
always been individual, the result of misunderstandings or of personalities
that couldn't mesh.  Prime brought warfare of faction against faction to
Cybertron, was perhaps the first one in all the universe to invent that
particular abhorrent concept.  Hence, while the Autobot faction did seem to
be preferable to the Decepticons on most grounds, it was their invention of
organized warfare that kept the starfarer from joining them.
     Now, however, Prime had apparently buried his shameful invention.  It
had cost many lives, and possibly doomed Cybertronians to extinction as the
AllSpark was no more, but could a race that brought war to the universe hope
for any other fate?
     Turning below him was a water world, something he had come across in
many of his travels over the aeons.  It even had intelligent life, which was
far more uncommon...and it was technologically adept life, an almost
impossible event on the cosmic scale.  Prime's message had included a
subchannel with language databases, and from those the traveler had chosen a
name in one of the dominant tongues that seemed to fit his true name.
     He would be known to the inhabitants of Earth, at least those who could
be trusted to know the truth, as Skyfire.

               *              *              *              *

     Skyfire finished bleeding off his excess velocity and found himself over
one of the planet's larger landmasses.  It was time to use another of the
files Prime had included under his greeting, a catalog of Earther technology
that could be mimicked.
     The choices were fairly limited, and only two or three were even
appropriate for an aerial Cybertronian such as Skyfire, but he could always
choose a more fitting form once he had learned more about this world where
warfare had come to die.
     He did make a mental note, after assuming a fairly simple airborne form,
to determine what the "UPS" symbol on his tail meant, though.
     Settling down to a speed low enough to be consistent with the technical
data on his "Boeing 737" disguise, Skyfire set subroutines in motion to
infiltrate the Earther communications grid, so that he might learn more about
this world that he might consider calling home.  
     He mused as he flew, wondering if the organic life here had the cerebral
multitasking capacity of Cybertronians, or if it was limited to one thought
at a time.  Most of the sapient organic life he had met was astonishing by
the simple dint of managing intelligence in the first place, given such messy
beginnings.  And none had been able to detach processes in the efficient
manner of a Cybertronian mind.  They each had to consciously work to
understand something, as far as Skyfire could tell, meaning they could do
little else while processing new information.  It did have the advantage of
never losing track of what they knew, as subroutines occasionally failed to
alert the main thought process, but it was still...inelegant.
     Every so often, Skyfire checked on the process of his searches.  For a
race without knowledge of hyperspace technology, they certainly had a robust
infostructure!  He lacked context to understand most of what he was
processing, but was confident that when his subroutines were finished he
would grasp it all.  Still, the tidbits of data he pulled out of the stream
were fascinating.  Why, they seemed to revere their own biological means of
reproduction as much as Cybertronians revered the AllSpark, to judge from the
sheer weight of data devoted to its discussion and depiction!
     Skyfire's sensors suddenly picked up two aircraft approaching him at a
fairly impressive speed, for Earther technology.  He then realized that one
of the datastreams going through his subroutine was a radio frequency
communication apparently directed at him by those aircraft...he'd been caught
doing what the Earthers called "woolgathering".
     "Attention unknown aircraft," the translated playback began.  "You are
violating the airspace of the People's Republic of China.  Identify yourself
at once."
     By the time he'd finished reviewing the transmission, he'd caught up to
realtime, and was now paying full attention as the message was repeated,
albeit in a different one of the Earthers' many languages.  Only, this time,
it added a phrase that made a cold chill run through Skyfire's Spark.
     "If you do not comply, you will be fired upon."
     He scanned the approaching aircraft, noticing now that each was heavily
armed.  Decepticons?  The war may be over, but the individual fighting may
still be continuing...no, the technology was purely Earther in design.
Potent enough to hurt Skyfire, however.
     He had no desire to fight, so simply increased his speed to the point
where nothing this planet had spawned could hope to keep up, quickly finding
himself over one of the many bodies of water that swathed Earth.
     Directing his subroutine to analyzing the images he had taken of the
Earther aircraft, he quickly discovered that they were built for war as
well.  
     Had the ages-old Cybertronian conflict infected yet another world?  Even
with the AllSpark gone, would these poor Earthers keep battling over it?

               *              *              *              *

     After several long seconds of contemplation and analysis, what to one of
the Earthers would have felt like hours or even days, Skyfire had his answer.
     Humans had invented war without any help, long before they had
discovered Megatron's frozen body and set in motion the events that would end
the universe's oldest war.
     "Why is there war?" he queried the growing database being assembled by
his subroutines.
     "Too many people, too few resources," came one answer.  But there had
been war when humanity numbered in the mere hundreds of thousands, orders of
magnitude fewer people than now lived on the same resources.  That couldn't
be the sole reason.
     "Religion" was another answer.  Humans had no AllSpark, nothing they
could point to as the source of all life.  But they needed an explanation,
and explanations abounded.  Gods and systems almost uncountable in their
diversity...and each inspiring such fervent awe and dedication that any
intimation that they might be wrong was enough motivation to go to war.  But
nations with no religion, or with the same religion as their opponent, had
gone to war, so that couldn't be the sole reason.
     "Shortsighted leaders" was a plausible answer.  After all, it had been
the leaders of Cybertron who created war in the first place.  They always
seemed to think that the outcome of war would be preferable to the outcome of
not waging war.  "The risk that somehow inaction will make the world safer is
a risk I'm not willing to take," said one of their leaders, before starting a
particularly wasteful and shortsighted war.  But how could a race so
inherently foolish as to wage war as often as Earthers did manage to
accomplish anything else of lasting value?  That couldn't be the only reason.
     "It is human nature."
     Had he eyes like the humans, Skyfire would have wept at the realization
of the truth in that statement.  Humans waged war because of their own
violent natures.  They were wise enough to recognize it, yet savage enough to
be unable to stop themselves.  
     It was tragedy on a planetary scale, Earthers clearly seeing their own
flaws while being doomed to act upon them.  Everything else was excuses,
rationalization.  There were other ways to deal with resource problems.
Religions could and had coexisted peacefully.  Foolish leaders could be
balanced by wise.  But humans waged war, because it was a part of their
ineluctable essence.  Part of whatever they had for a Spark.
     But Skyfire didn't merely feel sorrow for the Earthers, because now he
knew Prime could not be blamed for inventing war.  War was a state that
existed in nature, much as hyperspace filaments did.  One could discover the
capacity for it, but it was not something one invented.  It clearly just
*was*. 
     War must therefore also be a part of Cybertron's own nature.  Something
Prime could only be blamed for discovering, not for creating.  But it also
meant that Megatron's demise would not end it.  War was as natural for
Cybertronians as it was for Earthers, and it would return soon enough.
     Skyfire could deny the call of warfare, but that call would always be
there, waiting for someone to listen.  The Cybertronian war was not over, it
was merely experiencing an intermezzo, a brief time of peace before war
returned.  
     No, he decided as he discarded his disguise and resumed a form better
suited for travel along the hyperspace corridors of the universe, Prime
hadn't ended war, and Skyfire couldn't stop it from continuing.  All he could
do is what he had done across the ages.
     And so, Skyfire once again opted out of the whole affair, leaving Earth
without even a hello, much less a goodbye.

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Author's Notes:

     Written for the March 2008 AllSpark 'Fic Challenge, "Culture Shock".
The premise for the challenge was to show a Cybertronian coming to Earth, and
finding it to be strange or shocking, how unlike what he was used to...or how
dismayingly familiar it might be.
     The idea that Protoforms can't travel unaided between the stars comes
from the "Ghosts of the Past" novel.  While that novel seems to be largely
contradicted by the actual movie, the movie never really addressed
interstellar transport, so I've decided to use Ghosts for that angle.
Obviously, the 2009 movie is likely to contradict things futher, but running
counter to later canon isn't exactly a rare thing in my TF fanfics.  :)
     I deliberately used a more elaborate vocabulary here, in fitting with
Skyfire's personality as a scientist and thinker.  If you're stuck on any of
the words, http://dictionary.reference.com should be able to help.