Chance

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG
DOTM, spoilers
Barricade, Starscream
warning: possible spoilers and yyyyyyeah buddy angst like whoa.
Note: Because, honestly, we ALL know who the good guys in Bayverse really are. :)

 

“You know,” Barricade muttered. “Fraggin’ reason I stayed over here while you command idiots squatted in the sand over there.” 

“It is called you cannot fly,” Starscream returned, tartly, dropping down to one foreknee. “Now.”  He popped the amber canopy of his cockpit, spilling out the load of hatchlings.  “Your mission.”

The hatchlings, silver and grey and dull bronze, tumbled over Starscream’s taloned hands, their own limbs clutching, squirming over the battered metal. 

“Yeah,” Barricade said, taking a step back. “You see, THAT was the reason I was talking about.  Not really…a good influence for the younger element.”  As the jet should fraggin’ know.  His lower set of optics watched the squirming mass warily.  “Look kinda…runty.”

Starscream gave a dissatisfied chuff. “Yes.  We can survive on this human fuel, but it is…unsuitable for their developing frames.” 

“Gonna all be stupid.” Unless the plan was to raise a bunch of dronelings who’d never develop out. It was a Fraggin’ Disturbing Idea, but, well, that file in Barricade’s cortex was full of things also tagged “Megatron”.  “Should kill half of ‘em, let the others have a chance.”  He twitched as one of the hatchlings rolled onto his foot, its little uneven claws grabbing on his toespike.

“They are our future,” Starscream said, severely.  “We cannot choose who lives and who dies.”  He rolled a few of the hatchlings—almost tenderly—between his hands.  “What if we chose poorly.  What if the only ones we chose were groundframes.”  His mouth calipers pinched.

“Oh yeah, wouldn’t that be a shame. No airframes.”  Barricade stared at the hatchling, who was struggling to its feet, standing on his toeplate, optics spinning to focus.

“My point is,” Starscream said, “That we might choose poorly.”

“So damning them to…this? A lot better?”

“Have we ‘damned’ ourselves to anything better?”

Barricade glared up at the jet. “You sound like you’re giving up.”

“Giving up?” An uneven cycle of air and a flash of something that wasn’t—quite—anger.  Barricade was unsettled. He expected anger. What had happened during the last years?  “No. I am simply acknowledging,” the jet paused again, mouthplates grating, “that the future of our kind may…not include me.” 

“Traitor, are you?” Another hatchling bumped against him, little hands clawing against his ankle.  His window-wings flicked.  Stupid helpless creatures.  Should all die.  Be a fraggin’ mercy.

“No. Never.”  Another strange flare in the optics.  “I have always been for a strong Cybertron, for our kind to know its power. Its strength.” His talons curled into fists, until a trapped hatchling squeaked. He released his hand, wingflaps twitching.  “But our numbers are dwindling, on both sides.  And without a future…what are any of us fighting for?”

Barricade looked away. “Give ‘em to the Autobots, then. Sure they could get them the right nutrients.”

“Ah, but then I would be a traitor,” Starscream said, mildly, a bitter amusement in his voice.  “And besides…have our Autobot enemies, in all of this, ever sought to continue our kind?” He shook his head. “They would destroy the hatchlings. All of them. Deny it.” The optics grew sharp, a talon pointed at Barricade’s worn chassis. “Deny any of it.”

Barricade…couldn’t.  His optics dropped to the squirming mass, giving soft bleats of hunger. “Pretty fraggin’ pitiful future.”

“Better than nothing,” Starscream said.  “And perhaps they shall do better than we did.”

Barricade grunted. “What do you want me to fraggin’ do about it?”

“Take them.  Put them someplace safe, where they have food and protection. Where they have a chance.” 

“What if we don’t come back?” The possibility dropped on Barricade. He’d been fighting for millennia. Death was never a surprise.  But looking at the little things, mewling, pathetic, theirs, he felt a sudden pinch of…fear?

“We give them a chance,” Starscream said, straightening, forcing himself upright, aloof. “What they make of it is theirs. It is all we can do.”

 

Comments

[mewsing.livejournal.com]

*sniff* ;^;

[oni-gil.livejournal.com]

*HUGE WIBBLES* f-fffffffff hatchlings ;___;

What's sad is that in Bayformers, the Autobots really WOULD kill the hatchlings.

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Yes they are...stunningly amoral. I can't believe people cheered the destruction of Cybertron.

I tend to view the Autobots and their iffy morality as sort of a stand in for America at war. We try to balance between fighting to win (which means being pretty damn brutal at times) and still trying to have some sort of moral high ground. Bay Autobots have NEVER had the high ground for me. They have in every other continuity, but Bayverse? If you look at the Bay movies, they could so easily be inverted.

Like. Okay, take 2007. Here's a story for ya: A team does anything it can to rescue one of their own who has been captured, held and tortured by an enemy. T-that sounds like the good guys, right? Well, that's the Decepticon storyline for most of the film. And what's Megatron's reason for being on Earth to begin with? To regain the thing that would restore life to his home.

THEY DO NOT SOUND LIKE THE BAD GUYS.

DOTM: Again, a plotline (I'll only go through Issue one of the comics so as not to spoiler excessively but as you've read this story which has a spoiler warning, blah blah): Our characters are down and out, huddling in the desert, scant resources, doing anything they can to help children stay alive.

THESE ALSO DO NOT SOUND LIKE THE BAD GUYS.

I love Bayverse, but part of what I love is the WTF morality of the Autobots. It's unique among franchises--G1 Optimus is The Best Guy--this one is...morally void. It's fascinating to me watching who totally buys into the jingoism and who does not.

/shuts up nao

[oni-gil.livejournal.com]

They CHEERED? (Okay, I admit, I was waiting for people to clap or something, but it's a smallish city, not many people there.)

[mewsing.livejournal.com]

G1 Optimus is The Best Guy--this one is...morally void.

He's almost human. o_O

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

While I have my headcanon to keep me from mourning Cybertron (it's very tied up with my Primus muse), I certainly didn't cheer. Had Doctor Who deja vu, but not cheer.

[femme4jack.livejournal.com]

I love this, but where do you get that the Autobots would kill the hatchlings? I must admit that really can't see that. Killing those who have been in active combat, yes, but innocents? Just not seeing it.

Also, I really need someone to explain the hatchlings to me some time. I haven't read the RotF tie in, so I'm not clear on how they are created, etc.

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Well, let's see. What were Demolishor and Sideways doing in Shanghai that deserved death? N-nothing? Sitting around? Sideways *wasn't even fighting*--he was just running. And he got executed by Autobots. It's canon that they kill in non-combat situations.

They also ripped the Allspark out of Cybertron, dooming THOUSANDS of innocents to death. They then at the end of DOTM, collaborate on the utter destruction of their home planet. Death of noncombatant innocents.

Genocide, genocide and genocide. Sorry, compared to what they've already done in canon, you can't tell me they'd balk at babykilling, especially if the babies are connected to the Fallen.

And the baby making is thankfully unexplained in the tie ins, though it's clearly not mechpreg. No carriers. WHEW.

[femme4jack.livejournal.com]

Okay, so you know that when I look at from your point of view, I can agree with you, or at the very least see your point of view, but I do not agree that everyone who sees the Autobots as the good guys in this are buying in to jingoism, and I can a different point of view on the story line.

I haven't read all of the tie in material, but here is my devil's advocate position on this. You know I like things to be morally complicated, and I'm not arguing that Autobot choices haven't been iffy, I just don't view it clear cut as you do.

The Allspark - Megatron wanted to control it in order to create more warframes that would be used to wipe out the last of the Autobots (genocide) and then used for expansion and conquest (likely genocide on other worlds). Sending it to space prevents anyone from making new combatants. It doesn't doom noncombatants to death, unless I'm missing something. Also, don't the 'Cons have a pretty horrid track record in their treatment of neutrals? Or is that all fanfic? Didn't the 'Cons set out to commit genocide on their own planet, to purge it of "weak influences"? How is preventing that from taking place and preventing the creation of more warframes genocide?

Sideways and Demolisher - they appear to simply be sitting there in the film. Do we know that for sure? Okay, I don't have anything better than that. That part of the movie always drove me nuts as well. The only thing I can do is fix it in fanfic. The only argument I can make is that they do have thousands of years of being combatants, and considering what will take place in DotM, there is no reason to think the 'Cons will be up to anything good on the planet they are currently living on. It still bugs the hell out of me, though. That scene sucks.

but DOTM? The Autobots STOP the 'Cons from transporting their world through a space bridge, dooming yet another world to extinction (no way that Cybertron in Earth's orbit is not going to be an extinction level event - they are bringing it close enough to collect their slaves. Earth is toast). They didn't collaborate to destroy Cybertron. They stopped the 'Cons from genocidal destruction of yet another world. In the novelization, Cybertron clearly still exists in the end. It is not destroyed, and my head canon for the film is that what we are seeing is the space bridge closing, not Cybertron being destroyed. I cannot equate stopping the wholesale enslavement of 6 million beings and the destruction of their planet as "collaborating in the utter destruction of their planet." That does not compute for me.

I love the way you think about these things. I love that it isn't clear cut. I can see both ways. But, at least in my head canon, there is no way that the Autobots would destroy hatchlings.

However, arguments aside, I love your take on Starscream here, and Bay's treatment of him in the film is unforgivable.

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Actually, yeah, we know for sure Demo and Sides aren't doing any damage. They've been spotted. They are reported to be 'looking for something'. If you wanted to find out what they are looking for, you do not KILL them, you capture them and interrogate them. THAT IS, if you're an army and not a genocidal force. AUTOBOTS choose option B.

It's like okay, so you hear that there are kids wearing MS-13 colors in someone else's neighborhood. They're not doing anything illegal, just hanging out.

And you go to this other neighborhood.

DESTROY the neighborhood, because, hey, it's not yours, whatevs.

KILL THEM for wearing MS-13 colors.

And then gloat.

That's...how you justify American/non Chinese troops trashing a foreign country with no attempt to make the damage whole, for no real threat...that's imperialism, and accepting that as 'okay' is jingoism.

And if you're arguing that killing them because they USED to kill Autobots? Yeah, uh, I was a soldier too. I killed people in the line of duty. I don't anymore. Am I allowed to sit quietly or are you justifying killing me, too, because I fought in a war? O_O

If Autobots are for peace, they have to have a mechanism that allows them to tolerate that some day all will want to lay down their weapons. IF they are unwilling to tolerate any other Cybertronian presence on Earth, well, wow, that's like Hezbollah and the Shi'a twelvers who can't tolerate the idea of any Jews existing in Palestine.

Sorry, I prefer to believe in peaceloving Autobots, reluctant warriors who want nothing more than to lay down their arms and rebuild. Bay's Autobots, in canon, are anything but.

[femme4jack.livejournal.com]

I can't argue with anything you are saying here. The scene has always been abhorrent to me as well. My head canon is always going to change the Autobots to make them more into the ideal I believe they are supposed to espouse to (ETA kind of like how you said your head canon will ignore certain horrid parts of Mik's characterization in ROTF) They will fail, but I'd like the failure to be due to the agonizing choices one makes in war, not because of what Bay made them to be in RotF.

However, you take on DotM as their being complicit in genocide? That one I can't see.

Having said that, I adore the 'Cons in DotM (other than Bay's failure at your lovely Dorito). I almost want them to win I love them so much. Megatron is just so dang wonderful in Africa.

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Well, that's writer's choice. I think that changing Autobot morality that radically from what canon gives us is AU. Canon gives us psychopathic murderers (really, how can you not consider Optimus's killing of Megatron as anything other than murder?) so that's what I run with.

NOT saying the 'cons are any better.

HOW is DOTM genocidal. I dunno. Something about DESTROYING CYBERTRON at the end there? We know from Reign of Starscream there were mechs--including Autobots--alive there. Did they have another choice? I don't know. Canon writers could CERTAINLY have found a better way to save the day--the book has a much more satisfactory ending IMHO. Movie writers could certainly have gone that route and shown us merciful, peace-wanting Autobots. They did not. They gave us mechs who gutted their planet and then were complicit in its destruction. Kinda...genocidal.

Honestly I like my Autobots to be GOOD and PURE, even if complicated. IDW has the best mix, right now, of Autobots who are 'right but kinda screwed up'. (I love G1 OP, but he's...kind of a crackmagnet). TFA, even TFPrime have done much better jobs of giving us *admirable* Autobots. Bay Autobots...not so much. Which is why when I write Bay Autobots they're...really kind of struggling with it. And I don't write them often.

Besides, if you really want the short answer? The story's from the Con perspective. You honestly aren't trying to tell me that a lifelong Decepticon would say, OH YEAH THOSE AUTOBOTS REALLY ARE PRETTY SWEET. No. If they were to say, well, those Autobots sure love babies (despite the fact we don't see ONE Autobot with a hatchling once the war starts) then...yeah. They'd have to say, 'hey I must be on the wrong side...?' And traitor/defection fics? Major Do Not Want, in my book.

[femme4jack.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm going with the novelization in which Cybertron clearly was not destroyed, and I think it is questionable in the movie whether you are actually seeing its complete destruction or the collapse of part of it due to the collapse of the space bridge. I'm going to go with novelization as canon on that one for my own selfish purposes.

And I agree, so would not want Cons to skip off and join the Autobots. That would suck :)

[mewsing.livejournal.com]

This entire discussion has been pretty interesting. I can get behind points on both sides.

Honestly I like my Autobots to be GOOD and PURE, even if complicated.

I agree and I have to admit I'm a bit sad at what Bay has done to Prime. Being bad-ass is totally great, but...yeah. *sigh* I still love Optimus though, in general—G1 and from the 2007 movie and my own head canon. XD

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

/too lazy to edit.

So right, demo/sides shows Autobots will kill you JUST for being connected with Decepticons. They don't leave other Cybertronians to live in peace.

BUT there's a fantastic darkfic idea in that: that the Autobots DON'T kill the hatchlings, but of course they have Decepticon programming so they have to be excessively brainwashed/mindfucked into being proper Autobots.

[femme4jack.livejournal.com]

That is a delicious darkfic.

You know, DdG Prime is always getting in trouble for making the sentients of other worlds more important than his own. I decided it was a flaw in his core programming.

It is fascinating that the Autobots seem willing to protect other species at the expense of their own, and 'Cons seem willing to destroy another species for the good of their own. Both are doing the "right thing" depending on ones point of view.

[swordage]

;A; Bawwwwww Starscream and Barricade, I just want to hug them and hide them away and make it all better. And oh, the practicality of killing half so that the others might thrive, and yet going for sheer numbers in the hope that some will make it - very r/K there. And it fits. Oh, Starscream. :c

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

It's how I imagine cons would think. Survival and strength.

/goes back to bawling about the movie.

/distracts self with your awesome link...

[wicked3659.livejournal.com]

This was rather heart breaking given what happens in the film, but I do prefer your portrayal of these two than Bay's. But that goes for a lot of things.

In my head canon, and probably everyone elses too, the Autobots wouldn't kill innocents just because. The book is more true to how I see the Autobots being too, war weary but not murderers. But Bay's Autobots, well if the ending of the film is anything to go by, they seriously lost that shine off that Autobot symbol, because there's just so much unnecessary killing. I feel like Bay's Autobots would stop at nothing to win and protect the humans. whereas the 'cons just want to save their world. We only don't like them because they want to use humans to do it - how very dare they :p

Tell me we wouldn't and havent done the same throughout history?

Anyway, i liked this fic and I do like that you, like me, don't paint the evil label on the 'cons and the good guys on the bots because it's just not that clear cut.

[mieka-writes.livejournal.com]

*wibbles* ohh Star...

[darthneko.livejournal.com]

AWWWWWW. [sniffle] That's a Starscream I can totally get behind.

[playswithworms.livejournal.com]

*wibble*
Barricade's gonna make such a good mom :P
And I add Starscream to my reincarnation list. Can't let 'Cade have all the fun, now!

Fascinating comment debate! I'd two cents but I'm typing on my phone before movie starts. I've become one of those people, lol

[akufu.livejournal.com]

So love ya for this...
I mean after Optimus killed Megatron - who actually asked for a ceasefire - and Sam slagged Starscream... my first questions was: who cares for the babies now ;___;?
I mean... seriously Megs was... half dead the whole time and still brought them food and even Q would not have died by 'Con hands if that stupid human would not have provoked... :C Autobots got scary.... a bit SG-ish...

[karanseraph]

Happy to see you being in touch with the Barricade muse, recently.

Yay for "fix it with fic"!

Also, overall nice, awesomely-written fic, that plausibly fits into the existing canon and feels in-character.

Since the movie, I've been tempted to write something for Bayverse about battle-damaged, road warrior, lord of the elephants Megatron. I'm still not well-informed about Bayverse, but in my head!canon, I'd like to think Megatron has some kind of character growth from being Lord Protector, then a fearsome faction leader waging a war and possibly quite arrogant, to being captive of an insect species, minion to an ancient Cybertronian, and maybe at the end, gaining some kind of wisdom in his old age and just wanting to give his people a chance to survive (and not under Sentinel's rule).

[tainry.livejournal.com]

It is called you cannot fly...
Snerk! :D
Your mission, should you choose to ac-::brick'd::
I agree with Swordage's r/K comment, too.
Fantastic!

And also hat's off to you and femme and the debate.

[kyme.livejournal.com]

;A; It's so saaaaaaaaad *wails*

...I might just watch the movie to look at the hatchlings. ....Though not in the cinema. >>

[zea-taylor.livejournal.com]

This was lovely, and so, so sad. I've been wibbling about the film since I saw it last night, and it was so lovely to see this thoughtful, sad and in-character story for the poor Decepticons. Reading the debate in your comments was interesting too. There's so much in DotM to change the way you look at the characters and the whole situation... and I agree with you - very little of it is good.

Kudos on a well-written and touching story.

[xxsomeoneelsexx.livejournal.com]

And suddenly, I am a Decepticon. O:

[eerian_sadow]

now you understand.

[eerian_sadow]

*wibbles*

[kamiraptor.livejournal.com]

*rolls in this because I love it*

[sp4z01d.livejournal.com]

.. and suddenly I have images in my mind of Barricade arriving at June's garage in the middle of the night, and June the next morning, coffee in hand, the mother of all O_O on her face at the sight of 'Cade covered in resting hatchlings..

"Uhh, babe? we gotta' talk.."