Tales of the Intermezzo - Second Seed A Transformers Universe Story copyright 2000 by Dave Van Domelen based on properties owned by Hasbro =========================================================================== "intermezzo - n. A brief entertainment between two acts of a play." - American Heritage Dictionary Apollo extended a slender blade from his right forearm and cut away at the vegetation that was encroaching on his path. All he needed...to have to ask for more groundskeeping funds in the next year's budget. Used to be that a cleared path would stay clear for three or four lunar cycles before needing serious work done on it. Now the plants seemed to be coming back every few DAYS. But no one at the Institute was working on biological science, so this couldn't be accidental fallout. Besides, from what his colleagues on the southern continent told him, it was happening there too. Maybe.... No. Those old legends made no sense. Besides, it was superstition, and he practiced science. He was a techno, not a whimpering organic. Shrugging, Apollo hacked aside a clinging vine before it could gain purchase on the doorway, and entered the building where he had worked for nearly a hundred solar cycles. The Cybertronian Institute of Advanced Science. * * * * "Ah, Pol, late again I see!" a feminine voice chirped as Apollo exited the sterilizer. He brushed off dead plant matter and pollen that had been vaporized by the radiation treatment and stepped into the office. Then he paused to shudder at the memory of what had happened last time the sterilizer had been inoperative...the lab had been crawling with vines and microscopic life for days. He nodded to his sister and co-worker. "Vines pretty thick today. I don't think our groundskeeping staff is up to the challenge." She smirked. "Well, you could always use your matter duplicator to make more groundskeepers." Apollo's expression quickly darkened. "Don't even JOKE about that. You KNOW I've never been able to make it work safely on living beings. I can't even admit that I've gotten it working on inanimate matter until I've fixed that problem...too much potential for abuse." "I think I've figured out the problem with that, actually," she replied. "It's the energy source. Fusion power just isn't enough, you need to try Core Energy." Apollo sighed and turned on his workstation. "Core Energy is too dangerous, sister." "That's what the legends say. And since when did you believe in legends?" she retorted. It stung, since he'd just been thinking about how he paid such things no heed. His face burning and showing the small amount of organics he still had in his system, he replied, "Legends grow from a seed of truth, even if it's only a moral or symbolic truth. There's scientific evidence that Cybertron was once very advanced technologically, then it fell to barbarism for hundreds of generations. It's possible that the Core Energy was related to this Fall, hence the persistence of legends calling it evil." "Point conceded," she nodded. "But the same legends speak of a balance, of good and evil in the Core Energy. And I think I've found a way to safely use it...tap just the 'good' Core Energy." Apollo shot a worried look at his sister. Her tone, and his experience with her impulsiveness, suggested that she'd already been experimenting with Core Energy. "You haven't...." "I have. What's more, the Foundation has approved my research. They consider it very promising, and have allocated additional funds for its continuation." Apollo tried to keep himself from panicking like a fully organic barbarian. He was a True Cybertronian, not one of the beasts into which over half the population had degenerated over the millenia. He would NOT give in to this nameless dread that seized him. Calmly, Apollo said, "I just hope you're right." * * * * Nearly a year had passed. His sister's technique had proved to be totally safe, to the amazement of many and the relief of all. The bountiful energy of Cybertron's core was now being tapped all over the world, replacing less efficient or even wasteful power sources. A few reactionary regions stuck to the old ways, but even they were slowly being swayed as nothing disastrous seemed to be happening. Unless you considered the plants. They had gotten even worse. Some areas had to be totally abandoned to the wild organic growth, and the degenerated Cybertronians were happy to have more territory to run wild in. The Institute was kept clear only by liberal application of Core Energy used to burn down the growths as they rose up. Solar scientists were puzzled, there was no upsurge of energy to fuel the plant growth. "The King of War is coming!" cried a voice nearby, breaking Apollo's reverie. Apollo turned in shock. It was a student, that much he could tell from the markings of his outer shell. He mentally ran through the enrollment lists, and quickly had him identified as Tiresias, a member of the historical group. "Who is the King of War?" Apollo asked, quickly closing the gap between himself and the student. Tiresias didn't seem to have expected anyone to pay attention, and he paused for a moment in stunned confusion. Then he stammered, "I...I don't know exactly. But it's in the old legends." He fell into a singsong cant, obviously quoting one of the old songs that carried history across the barbaric gap when technology was lost. "The balance disturbed, the riot of green. The King of War's power, soon will be seen." He looked up sheepishly. "There's more in that vein, but it's pretty clear once you study the old songs," he gestured to the machines burning away the forest. "What balance is being disturbed, though?" Apollo asked. "The balance of the Core," Tiresias insisted. That old fear grabbed at Apollo's spark once more. "It is a balance of good and evil, the power of the King of War and the power of the Lord of Life. Between Unicron and Primus, if you believe some of the older songs. And now we draw out the power of the Lord of Life, leaving the King of War to grow in might at Cybertron's heart!" Apollo paused, then gathered his wits. "Tiresias, energy does not have intrinsic morality...it is just energy. The technique used to draw out Core Energy isn't pulling out 'good' and leaving 'evil,' it's just a way to safely extract an otherwise unstable power." The student seemed to be cowed by Apollo's authority, now recognizing him as a senior scientist at the Institute. Apollo took the silence as an end to the increasingly uncomfortable conversation, and turned to leave. Then Tiresias spoke again. "If energy has no morality, what of our sparks?" * * * * Tiresias had been right. Damn him to the Pit, he had been right. Apollo had spent the last three lunar cycles trying to prove that the Core was undisturbed by his sister's technique, that it had no "good" or "evil" to be put out of balance. He had proven the opposite. "Check your figures again," his sister pleaded. "I did. Five times," was his cold reply. "Call it good and evil energy, or just different polarities, or whatever you want to...your extraction method is causing an imbalance in the Core." He brought up a screen full of equations and diagrams that would have been incomprehensible to anyone outside the room, a room that held him, his sister and a handful of eminent scientists. "I've checked his conclusions independently," Hi-Ram added. "The Core Energy consists of two distinct 'flavors,' only one of which is stable on its own. The problem is, it also stabilizes the other sort of energy. The more we withdraw from the Core, the more dangerous the whole situation becomes." "It's worse than that," Apollo frowned. "We've already passed the critical point. Even if we stop using this method NOW, the planet will soon become covered in organic life, wiping out every trace of the civilization we have built since the Fall." There was a brief panicked murmuring through the room, which turned to horrified silence as the scientists mentally checked the calculations and confirmed them. "How long?" his sister asked, afraid to do the calculations herself, shocked by the enormity of the disaster she had brought down on Cybertron. "Two, maybe three years. We can't reverse it. We can only flee, take what we can and found a new Cybertron elsewhere," Apollo said. Then he turned down his audio receptors so he wouldn't hear his sister break down and weep. * * * * Apollo stood uneasily in the reduced gravity of the moon. Ten years, ten long and soul-wrenching years had passed since the first day his sister had tapped the Core Energy. The organics had been left to their fate...they would fit in well with the new Cybertron anyway. The robotic population had moved to the moon, but it was only a temporary solution. It had too few resources to sustain the population, especially since many were organic enough to require air. The refugees had formed two factions. Most, considering themselves still Cybertronians, advocated finding a suitable uninhabited world and reshaping it into the image of the fully technological Cybertron of legend. Others, however, felt it would be a waste of time to find a suitable world that was devoid of life. After all, it would be much simpler to *render* a suitable world devoid of life. These Destrons, as they called themselves, tended to be the least organic of the technos, bigots of steel in a way. Listening to their leaders talk made Apollo feel ashamed to be mostly inorganic. But now both Cybertron and Destron had finally left the moon, heading off in different directions and with different goals. Apollo hoped the two would never again meet, but knew in his spark that one day the two factions would go to war. For all their similarities, it took only the tiniest of differences to set them on each other. "Apollo?" He turned to see his sister drifting towards him. "Yes?" "I...I hope you can forgive me someday for what I did to our world." "I forgave you years ago, sis," he reached out to hold her slender form in his arms. "You don't have to do this, you know." "Someone has to watch the planet and let everyone know when the balance returns...and keep anyone from upsetting it more," she sighed, sounding like she wished for even more punishment than a lonely exile. Well, not totally lonely...she had one companion on this long watch, one of the more organic of the technos, who didn't feel like he belonged with the Cybertrons and didn't dare go with the Destrons. "And maybe I can let myself forget some of this," she sobbed. "I could stay..." he offered. She pushed away from him. "No. You were the one to save everyone, you should get to go be a hero to everyone, not stay here and share my punishment." They'd had this argument hundreds of times in the past few years, and they both knew she was right and he had only made the last offer because he couldn't bear to lose her. He turned and walked towards the last ship, leaving two lone Cybertrons to stand eternal vigil over a world destroyed not by a lack of life, but by an excess of it. "Goodbye, Artemis." ============================================================================= Author's Notes: Okay, I haven't seen the second season of Beast Machines yet, but after reading Robert Powers's description of the final episode, it hit me that Cybertron now looked a LOT like Gaea from Beast Wars II. High tech structures covered in vegetation that ran riot, etc. True, it didn't totally match up, since the Angolmois Energy in Gaea was actually Unicron's life essence in the Japanese continuity, but...what if they decided to import BWII and rewrite the story? The Good Angolmois energy could now be Optimus Primal's essence, and the Evil Angolmois energy could be Megatron's essence. Of course, now some people will kill me for even suggesting that BWII comes out of Beast Machines. }->