An Exploration Mission (Closed; Att'n Vallermoore)

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

When they saw the successful bots that came back with LongCon, over twenty more bots joined. He planned to take them on a raid or two to enrich them, cement their loyalty, and enable them to upgrade a bit, and then he would get them to join him in an attempt to destroy the CBA, including SolarTempest. He might never get his offspring back, but he could kill SolarTempest or hack him and either make him into a replacement offspring-a slave offspring, with care taken to make sure he didn't break free of the slave virus--or something unpleasant like an Atari machine. He needed to defrag by now-raiding a hard target when fragged was a good way to earn a Darwin Award, and he was sure his Coder would let him defrag there. Once the CBA was wiped out, he could live in the former SolarTempest's mansion and would be rich again and would carry on growing his syndicate until he had a couple of hundred bots. More then that and the largest syndicates might see him as a threat and deal with him accordingly, or the Decepticon Government might start thinking in that direction.

When he got to his Coder's house, he noticed to his surprise a bot with a dented wing who looked very like SuperCon. Being a Decepticon and a con-bot to boot, as well as knowing that Megatron Metals Mine #1 was hard to break into or break out of, made him a bit suspicious. "SuperCon...is that you? How did you ever get out of there?" Decepticons, unless in a hand to hand brawl with another bot or undercover in a fake biological body, never hugged, or at least never hugged as a form of affection because it could and often did cause dents and damage. In this body, he risked crushing SuperCon, if it was him, like a tin can if he hugged him. They didn't kiss either except in an undercover biological body; it just wasn't done. Only Decepticon sex workers kissed, and that for a lot of Energon. But there were ways of showing emotion that were the Decepticon equvilent of a biological hug and forehead kiss. He pressed his palm up against the bots palm-mentally checking to see if the bot hesitated-and the bot pressed back, showing strong emotion and Coder-love if this bot was SuperCon. LongCon had, long ago, when he built SuperCon put his name in Binary like brail into the top of a storage panel having removed all the Domintel bugs he could find in the room first and had not even told SuperCon this after he activated him. Unknown to him the bot who replaced him had made the real SuperCon open his panels and found the hidden name and put it in this body too. Finding it would lessen LongCon's suspicions although FakeSuperCon would still need a plausible escape story.

*****
The real SuperCon's prayers for rescue never reached Megatron, who had several grades of prayers, that could either come in at once, be put in a holding section or be sent straight to dev-null. At the top were prayers from High Priest WarFire and from a High General who came in at once-if a High General was praying, it was a problem so large and dangerous that even a High General was unable to deal with the problem, whilst WarFire was the High Priest and trusted as well as Megatron could trust another Decepticon. Below that were prayers from Priests-Loyal Star was in this category, and Assistant Priests. Another level lower were most other Decepticons, and biologicals. At the bottom were biological slaves, but so far down as to be blocked out were enslaved Decepticons.

Little Equestria

The Black and Tans got a very violent reception from both undercover Forintel bots and angry biological ponies. As for the G Division detectives, those who tried to do their jobs and uncover the assassins were themselves quickly killed. With large scale open protest on the verge of breaking out, the False Alicorn was starting to consider a way to break out if it all went hooves up for his deeply unpopular regime. For now Megatronists, democrats and monarchists were all working together to bring him down, and he had few supporters left.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

FakeSuperCon didn't even flinch when he was asked how he got out of Mine #1. He delivered a well-practiced story about having moved his Code into a hidden set of boards just in time to avoid true enslavement, and that when the time was right, he simply used a remote switch to cut off the hacked boards' physical access to his body. Then, he claimed, he was able to take the lesser overseers by surprise and speed off while Overseer himself was defragging. "Even the undead must defrag," he said smugly, "or else they end up beset with lag and crashes."

He then waited to see LongCon's response, hoping that his ruse had worked and he would be able to serve up a "very special" glass of Supreme to his target.

~~~~~~~~~~

CBA

Most of the CBA was happily planning their next raid so that they could get upgrades just in case they wound up having to fight the strange, giant bot who had shown up. Buzz, however, made up an excuse about having to defrag and went off towards his home. In reality, he had simply had enough of talking and wanted a break. He soon stopped off at one of his favorite places: a Quick Drink a few neighborhoods over.

There, he was surprised to hear rumors of a new gang that had managed to pick up 20 members without much effort. "They were really successful on their first run, and everyone was impressed," the guy at the counter said, clearly in awe of the newcomers. "I can understand everyone's eagerness to sign up, too. I'm tellin' you, I've never seen anyone so well-built in person. His body must have cost him a billion Cubes at least. He had five fusion cannons and DomIntel knows what else. I bet he could give Megatron a run for his money!!"

With that, Buzz changed his plans. Instead of sipping his glass of Energon and listening to the latest rumors, he chugged it and then took off fast.

Soon, he was back at the CBA, and telling SolarTempest what he had heard. "That guy surely wants to get a big group up and kick all of our asses!" He said with some concern. "The QuickDrink guy told me that he already got 20 more guys, and that they're going off to raid one of the hardest targets on the List soon! If they manage to knock it over, they'll have the money for all sorts of upgrades, and they'll easily get even more members. Granted, expanding that fast is a bad idea - it's impossible to vet that many people at once, let alone if you just take randoms out of a QD. But if he can only keep them together long enough to hit one target, and WE'RE that target, it'll be just as bad of news for us as if he did things the proper way," he reported.

SolarTempest looked both concerned and aggravated about this news. He was aggravated that the guy was not going to simmer down and go away, and of course, concerned about the growth of the new gang.

"We have to raid something ourselves and upgrade," SolarTempest announced after going back inside where everyone could hear. "This guy's gang doesn't even have a name yet, but it's growing so fast that they'll be competition right away. Buzz here says that the rumor is that they intend to hit one of the hardest targets on the Raid List. They'll probably take a lot of damage from that even with their big goon of a boss. I say we 'greet' them when they try to re-enter the Decepticon Zone of Control and blast them and their loot to smithereens. If we can catch LongCon in the explosion, it should deal some damage to even that armor. Then we all fire on him until we win!"

It was a plan, but the group hoped to be able to discover more details. The main one was when the opposing gang was going to go raid - they'd need to know that in order to predict when to fly out into space to await their quarry's return. Soon, Buzz and another scout were sent out to do what scouts are supposed to do: Gather information. Usually, scouts checked out enemy positions or new terrain, but they were also decently-good at spying. Before long, they had positioned themselves in a couple of different Quick Drinks in the hopes that some of the new gang would show up and be loose-lipped enough to spill some important information. If any did arrive, the scouts would position themselves at stools close enough to listen in.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Little Equestria

While the most rebellious ponies and the government were both mostly concerned with the fate of the regime, another part of society was keeping track of the breakdown of policing for a much more basic reason: They were the criminal element, and a distinct lack of cops was good for their plans. Most of these criminals were not nearly skilled enough to be called Decepticons-in-Spirit, but instead, were common lowlifes who would ordinarily end up in prison in fairly short order.

As these ponies became bolder, the streets of Little Equestria became much less safe. Muggings, breakings-and-enterings, vehicle thefts, and other such crimes spiked. Meanwhile, the ForIntel ponies began to talk about how ineffective the regime was, and those who took the form of Megatronists noted how Megatron would redirect this sort of activity into raids on foreign lands.

Other Megatronists - actual ponies - were also already taking steps to try to position themselves so that they would have a good chance of ruling any new government. They figured that no matter what form such a government would take, they could eventually subvert it and put it under the ideals, if not the direct rule, of their Divine Leader Megatron. Of course, ForIntel had even greater plans. They were intending to put an actual Decepticon in charge, whether that agent was overt or covert, and outright hand the planet over to the Decepticon Empire.

Meanwhile, the False Alicorn took steps to arrange a "recuperative vacation" on a foreign planet. He wasn't the shiniest apple in the bushel, but he knew that his government was in big trouble now. Earlier reports of his and his cabinet's corruption were being rebroadcast, the Megatronists were emboldened by the presence of Carjack's apples in the stores, and his Grey Hooves had gained no traction with their new units. It was time for him to take off. If he could make it to his ship and get into another planet's sovereign airspace, he figured he would at least be safe from any lynch mobs. With this in mind, he began to pack a few small bags...

[Vallermoore]

Little Equestria

The False Alicorn was not so politically blind as to not see the way things were going, and knew what his fate would be if he were overthrown. So he decided to get out whilst he still could, as it wouldn't be easy to leave with hundreds of thousands of angry ponies of all three species of Equis Sapiens marching on the palace. Packing a few bags with his most important things and some bars of gold for when they shut down his bank accounts, he decided to pretend that he was going abroad on an official foreign trip for Vallermoore. By maintaining the image of the proud ruler with his closest bodyguards by his side, he was able to bluff his way to the spaceport, making it seem that any attempt to interfere with him would result in painful punishment for anyone who dared intervene. Of course, once his spacecraft took off, the image burst like a bubble. Ponies both criminal and not celebrated in the streets, pulled down the hated statues of the False Alicorn, broke into his villas to expose his luxury and his royal apple stores and marched on the Royal Palace. The army came out against the False Alicorn as well. There was a strange, uneasy peace for now, as the Megatronists, the democrats, and those who wanted a monarch-just not that monarch, had cooperated for now as one to rid themselves of a deeply unpopular hated government. On that first day, apples and all other fruits and other pony foods were made legal, political prisoners-and by mistake a lot of criminals, were set free, and whilst cutie marks could have an influence over jobs, no more would a pony be limited to the job that his or her cutie mark signified.

Everypony knew that sooner or later things would break down, and there was much secret plotting on all sides, but Forintel would have a distinct advantage. Decepticons were very good at this sort of thing, and undercover Forintel bots were the best at it apart from General Soundwave and Megatron himself.

Cybertron

LongCon grinned, and his eyes showed something unusual in them-an openly displayed love of Coder for offspring. "I'm going out on one raid on the planet of Tabriz,and then one big battle to wipe out another gang, the CBA, that dared to mess with you and me-and then you and me will properly celebrate as if it were your Sapience Day and drink Energon Supreme together and I'll get you a spare body. And after all that, we can hold trials to see who holds what rank in our new gang, and we will own the mansions and all the Energon of the CBA. And there is so much we can do after that-raids, cons, I can sell a small amount of my love to Changelings who consider such love a delicacy-love is not a weapon, so Domintel won't go after me for it, and one day I will be as rich as I once was." LongCon and the real SuperCon had never had a falling out like so many former biologicals had when making offspring. In fact, the fights that often resulted when former biologicals coded offspring were so common, that Debugging had done a prayer to Megatron asking to give a warning to former biologicals that Decepticon offspring were not like biological offspring and treating like that after the age of four could be very dangerous.

*********
CBA

When Buzz heard of a strange new bot in a super-strong body that was recruiting new gang members at huge speed, he went back at once to SolarTempest with the news. "That guy surely wants to get a big group up and kick all of our asses! The Quick Drink guy told me that he already got 20 more guys, and that they're going off to raid one of the hardest targets on the List soon! If they manage to knock it over, they'll have the money for all sorts of upgrades, and they'll easily get even more members. Granted, expanding that fast is a bad idea - it's impossible to vet that many people at once, let alone if you just take randoms out of a QD. But if he can only keep them together long enough to hit one target, and WE'RE that target, it'll be just as bad news for us as if he did things the proper way." They decided to spy and it was not long before juicy info came in. OpSec was not the Equality Raider's strong point.

A blue bot with spiked armour at the shoulder joints and a silver stripe met up with a copper-coloured bot. "There is a new gang in town, the Equality Raiders, led by the most armoured and armed bot that you've ever imagined to exist, not counting our God or His High Generals. And for now he is not even going through the normal rankings. And he is going to raid Tabriz and then wipe out the Cybertronian Business Asses and take all their stuff."

"Tabriz? Even the Decepticon Military is wary of that place. And you want me to join with you and raid it? I like this body."

"You haven't heard the best thing. Equal shares in the loot, EQUAL shares. If the raid works, the things we could buy-games, new bodies, new blasters if you want them-or something big like a new house." Heads turned and suddenly more bots-including the undercover CBA members, were interested.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Little Equestria

Despite the immediate legalization of pretty much everything that was edible without being intoxicating, no sudden increase in availability happened. The interim "government," which was little more than a collection of the most persuasive ponies willing to pick up some of the work, had the same problem that the False Alicorn's government did: a lack of wholesale supply of all of the different things. However, unlike with the old government, the people were understanding of this predicament. This new group had just gotten into power, and did not yet have supply likes set up like the FA should have had. The general populace was sure that this and other such things would be corrected soon enough.

For now, everyone concentrated on keeping the basic services running and on firing the Grey Hooves' new divisions along with many other unwanted apparatuses of the False Alicorn's government.

While the general mood was one of great levity, there were many ponies who began to take advantage of the distraction and current lack of law enforcement. Saddlebags were pickpocketed, and people who weren't home came back to find their houses robbed. It was clear that if some kind of law enforcement wasn't put into place quickly, chaos would soon consume the nation-planet. Megatronists, who of course had their sticky suckers working overtime, secretly agreed that something had to be done or else it would get to be too much, too soon.

Despite this, it was also important NOT to end up hiring the old police back. The people wanted new ones - ones who could be trained properly and would not carry the attitudes, beliefs, and methods of the old police forces. This would make it a bit hard on ForIntel's police infiltrators, who had relied on the old force structures to position themselves as the leaders of key departments and as the expected replacements for those leaders. The agency would now have to come up with supposed "outsiders," even if they were actually just the same faux-ponies but with new "coats" on.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cybertron

Meanwhile, red alerts and flashing lights were going off all over Cybertron's Foreign Intelligence offices, including all of the branches. While immediate cheers broke out, they only lasted for about 10 minutes. Everyone there knew that now, it was time to swing into even more action than ever before. The job for this stage: Install actual Decepticons and Megatronists into all positions of power. This would almost surely take quite a long time to fully accomplish, but they knew that they could get a significant bloc in position right away. There were already some Megatronists openly serving on the interim government, which they learned had been named the governing panel for the time being. A more official name would come after the dust settled.

ForIntel's first thought was to send covert agents to infiltrate right away, but after some discussion amongst its strategists, it was decided to hold off on that. "There will surely be a civil war after a short period of celebration and calm," one of the strategists said. "We should make sure that our people aren't caught up in it. Instead, it's likely best to infiltrate the official positions after a government has attained some dominance. Before that, our job should be to make sure that Megatronists win that civil war - and that is best done with military infiltrations, aid with weapons procurement and interference with competing groups' procurement, and by training biological Megatronists in basic Decepticon Military tactics."

The other strategists agreed with most of this, but not with the idea of using Decepticon Military tactics.

"Our military's tactics are designed around the idea of maximizing swarm efficiency and damage potential," they protested, "but the Megatronists of Little Equestria are a distinct minority. Instead, the monarchists have the numerical advantage. A small swarm against a big one will not work well for us at all, and may end up bringing our allies completely unfortunate results. On top of that, our military's tactics are designed with the assumption that the swarmers will have a massive base physical advantage over their foes. Unfortunately, that will not be the case with the biologicals. Their body Code is all basically the same, with no connection to ideology except on the very fringes. Even these fringe groups do not have an advantage, but instead, tend to modify themselves in disadvantageous ways like adding piercings that can be used as handles by their enemies."

The group members began to murmur to each other as they considered these facts. After some time, one made the suggestion of teaching Megatronist Little Equestrians tactics based on the Tip Chip for Establishing Territorial Dominance, a nearly-underground educational data pack for domestic raiders, Scroungers, and others who would - when successful - be menaces to Decepticon society. What made this chip seem like a good source was that it dealt with subduing enemies of generally-equal physical capabilities and skill levels. It would be far easier to adapt to biologicals than the Decepticon Military's Basic Training Module on Tactics and Strategy.

"We're going to get accused of running domestic raid gangs if it leaks that the Tip Chip is in our official training materials," someone protested. The group, however, was unconcerned about that.

"That's what Propaganda is there for," another quipped with a slight chuckle, referring to the department dedicated to it. "They'll have to stop playing games all day for once!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Quick Drink/CBA

While many younger bots were intrigued by the promise of equal shares of the loot, the oldest ones there quietly turned back to their drinks. A few disgusted looks were glimpsed on the faces of these uninterested ones, but the excited Equality Raiders and those who liked their pitch overlooked this. Soon enough, several new bots had signed on, though the CBA spies held back.

Hitting Tabriz, of all places, was not something the CBA "agents" were that interested in doing - especially since they doubted the ability of a single highly-upgraded leader to effectively command and protect that many troops. They knew the backstory that SolarTempest had gotten from DomIntel, and that the ER leader was actually a con-bot rather than a battle-hardened warrior. With that in mind, they demurred from the offer and strolled out, waiting until they got far enough away from the Quick Drink to fly back to the CBA unseen by the others.

Back at the pub-like establishment, the older bots waited for the overeager ones to go on their way. Then, comments began to fly.

"I wonder how many minutes that 'Equality Raider' dude is going to last," they chuckled like old men.

"Not long, I bet! He's upgraded now, but it won't be long before his gang catches up to him with a deal like THAT!"

"I bet they'll tear his 'Guaranteed Winner Package' into a million pieces before they do a couple more raids," predicted another. "These idiot idealists never realize that the leader of a gang isn't just being greedy by taking the biggest share. That's to make it easier to maintain an advantage over the rest of the gang! And with so many new guys, he doesn't have any actual loyalty to him built up, either."

After that, a betting pool spontaneously formed. The bets were on how long it would take LongCon to be usurped by a coalition of his own new recruits. Next, they began to discuss - and bet on - whether or not the gang would be able to take on Tabriz.

"Tabriz! Ha ha, lotsa luck!" The voice was young and strong, but the tone was rich with experience. This one had clearly bought a new body recently and transferred his 500-year-old mind into it. "I was in the scouting squadron that went there just 10 years ago. I got down just about to where what seems like clouds begin. The next thing I knew, I felt my body being torn apart at the molecular level, and a few seconds later, I was being reactivated over at the MB." He jerked his thumb in the general direction of the Main Military Base.

"We lost all but one of our members going over to that Megatron-forsaken hole!" Complained another, clearly referring to his raid gang. "Same thing as that soldier said. We descended into the clouds, and then we were on our way back to our spares. Poof. I lasted just long enough to see that the clouds appeared to be growing as we descended."

After many comments like this, both with stories of direct experience and ones that were passed on only through hearsay, one slightly-worn bot came over holding a glass of Low Standard. He sat down on a stool with a creak. It was clear that he hadn't raided well in a long time. Despite this, he did have the information none of the others did.

"It's a nanite swarm that's over that place," he said, taking a long pull of the cheap Energon. "They make most of it out of lighter metal so it looks like cloud stuff. Each nanite is also so small that it easily rides on the convection currents near where it was deployed. They drop 'em by the trillions out of specially-built, nanite-proof planes. Once they're out of their canisters, they just devour almost every kind of metal they encounter and use that to make more of themselves." He paused a bit.

"That's not all, though," he went on. "They're also well-programmed not to devour biologicals or any metals within biologicals, and they deactivate if they get too close to the ground. This keeps Tabriz itself safe from their effects. We've tried to hack the things to change their programming, but it's actually hardwired in. They have no way for us to connect to them from the outside."

Before long, the underperforming bot had his first complimentary glass of Standard, purchased by someone who had long been curious about what had deactivated one of his bodies there. The bot smiled and thanked him, and indicated that while he appreciated that, his voice chip worked even better when it was lubricated with Supreme.

The glass of Supreme banged down, paid for by a raider who had been wanting to hit this "hard target, Tabriz," and the exposition continued.

"It's not impossible to get by those stupid nanites," the now-talkative one went on. "Our standard anti-nanite coating holds for 10 minutes, but to hit Tabriz, you need to upgrade to one that lasts at least an hour. The cloud is quite thick, and you have to plow through it going both from and to space. This can be a problem because most bodies' parts tolerances are smaller than the thickness of the needed coating, so they won't want to transform - or simply won't transform - with so much stuff in the way. So you need a body that's engineered for it. That's too much of an investment for many gangs, and I suspect that the blowhards who were in here haven't thought of it at all."

"The worst part, though, is not the nanites. That's just their FIRST line of defense. Once you get past that, you'll see a pretty layer of yellow smokey stuff that you might mistake for industrial pollution. But what it IS, is a material that congeals into gel upon exposure to heat. So if you've switched back to Energon combustion - instead of your solid space fuel - your air intakes are immediately clogged and you lose your main engines. Now you're going slow. And that's right about when the railguns will pick up the atmospheric disturbance you've been causing."

The others looked at each other with expressions indicating that they were becoming uninterested in trying for a rematch against the Tabrizian Defense Systems. Even so, they were quite fascinated to learn all about them.

"These guns don't just shoot bullets," the bot said. "They shoot explosive, acid-filled ones. And they can penetrate standard Decepticon armor. So, what happens is they ventilate you, and just as you're thinking the little holes will do nothing, the loaded bullets go off and spray highly corrosive acid throughout whichever compartments have been penetrated. This acid is keyed to be very devastating to all common wiring types in their area of the universe. Unfortunately, that includes copper, gold, silver, lead, and alloys thereof. All of these are common Decepticon wire materials, so even if you have some sort of upgraded wiring, it's probably going to include at least one of those metals. And, of course, the acid melts right through the insulation, too, so it's all right out there. Needless to say, if you get hit in any boards, the sprayed board is gone. Copper traces and lead solder stand no chance against the stuff, and you'll have to pay 10x more per board if you want to use ones that the acid absolutely will not work on."

"If you get by that, you can finally reach the ground. Which is mud. Not mud like Earth's 'mud,' which is actually quite solid in most places, but MUD. Deep mud, all over. And that's where my own adventure ended. I'd spent all of my money on a body that was invincible to nanites, automatically de-gelled the gel defense so I could use standard combustion through that layer and maintain my speed, resisted most of the rail-gun projectiles, and resisted the acid in ALL parts. And then I landed, and within a frantic 10 minutes, my 10 million-Cube investment sank to its doom."

He looked ill at this memory, and how awful it had been to think that he had beaten Tabriz's best defenses only to have his expensive body deactivated by its natural environment.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Outskirts of the Tabriz Zone of Control

LongCon looked out at the target planet along with his gang as they approached from a decent distance. It appeared to be very peaceful, with thick white clouds sitting just over the sort of pretty pastel yellow that a young human girl might like her bedspread or towels to be. Since he and he others hadn't been in the Quick Drink while the experienced bots were talking about the place, all they had to go on were a few notes that came with a Syndicate Helper's Raid List that LongCon had purchased earlier.

"Beware the clouds of doom. Air does not carburate or run through jet intakes. Good paint is well suggested. Bring your clown shoes."

They had easily deciphered two of the hints, and knew to keep running their solid space fuel during their descents. They also knew that "clown shoes" was a military slang phrase for big, snowshoe-like footwear used to go over soft ground without sinking. However, they didn't really realize what the "good paint" was, nor did they know the nature of the "clouds of doom." Finally, the notes made no mentions of there being railguns, nor of the special ammo fired by those guns.

It was with this incomplete information that the growing Equality Raiders gang approached one of the hardest targets known to Cybertron.

[Vallermoore]

b]Outskirts of the Tabriz Zone of Control[/b]

Tabriz seemed like a pretty place, with puffy white clouds with yellow smog below. It was well known that the successful raider could get very rich very quickly by raiding this place-but very few of them had done so with success. For every successful raider (a handful of all the billions , a large number including whole raid gangs had pinged back as data packets to their spares and a few had not come back at all. Even during the Zombie Event the place had been left off the Military Raid list. LongCon pinged the area with radar first but it bounced off the puffy clouds. After circling a few times, the bots headed towards the clouds, and as soon as they touched them cursed as pain shot through their bodies. One or two decided quietly not to enter the clouds. With thoughts of the Energon down there just waiting for the raiding, the rest turned down their pain sensors and went into the clouds. Running on solid space fuel, they were able to avoid having their engines jammed, but then came the railguns. Badly weakened as they were by the nanites, the bullets got through their defences except those of LongCon's whose armour was still very solid. Ten bots were shot down in a matter of seconds and the tankers that would carry the loot were hopelessly holed beyond patching up. Now even if they won the battle, they had no way of taking their loot back home with them. Cursing they flew back, only for most of them to perish in the deadly clouds. If jammers had been running most of them would have died that day. In a stroke, the reputation of LongCon in the local area where he had hired his small syndicate-to-be was ruined and despite his still formidable strength he was seriously cursed out over the radio by the other bots close by whose bodies were lucky to still be flying.

He was the only bot whose armour was only badly dented (and minus all it's paint as well.)

Quick Drink, Cybertron.

A bot stomped in. "Damm that bot who thinks he is Mr Universe. I lost my best body, and I'm telling you this despite the embarrassment because you shouldn't suffer the same fate. My advice is not to join him if he calls on you again." If LongCon wanted a new group he would have to find it in a different area of Cybertron.

Little Equestria

Whilst about a tenth of ponies were Megatronists and another tenth were democrats, the biggest faction of ponies were in fact monarchists who wanted one of their leaders crowned as the new King. Whilst the new pony junta were having trouble getting enough apples and other tasty foods together, there was good will at least for now. It would take time to get trade deals going with other nations and to plant their own fruit trees and everypony knew that. With the police abolished, the Megatronists knew that if they wanted to have enough goodwill for a coup attempt, new police were needed to deal with the crime wave, and the non-Megatronists were sick of all the crime. No pony wanted the old police force back, let alone the G Division or the Black and Tans. New ponies would need to be hired which was a short term headache for Forintel. Despite this, Forintel was having so much fun, and so was General Soundwave. This was so different from the normal military conquering of planets that was normal Decepticon practise.

On that first glorious evening, some ponies found the False Alicorns private firework stash and happily exploded it.

On the service the ponies were unified but below the surface there were already tensions that were held in check for now because the general mood was so happy that noone wanted to ruin it. The more the national mood went back to normal, the more likely it was for a pony Civil War to begin.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Border of the Decepticon Zone of Control

The Equality Raiders who still had their old bodies were shocked to be hailed as they approached Cybertron with a very stern message from the Decepticon Military. When they looked forward, they could see 10 well-armored troops headed in their direction as well, and the troops had their blasters already locked onto them.

"You have been deemed to be contaminated by the weaponry of Tabriz," the voice on the radio announced. "You must either jettison your bodies here, or be escorted to a Military asteroid for full decontamination. This is not negotiable." It was clear by the speaker's tone of voice that he was 100% serious and that trying to run the emerging blockade would result in the Equality Raiders being subject to the full power of the Decepticon Forces.

"It must be the nanites they're worried about," Dom radioed to LongCon. "Not all nanites are destroyed by entry or re-entry heat. Any that are made of heat-resistant material or that have burrowed far enough into our bodies would survive, and that could start an infestation on Cybertron. While I'm sure the government could figure out how to eliminate it, I'm also sure that they'd find blasting us to atoms to be the easier and more efficient alternative..."

LongCon cursed. First, his big raid had failed hard and those who had mind-transferred back were surely already badmouthing him at their favorite Quick Drinks. And now, he couldn't even fly home to take out his frustrations at a range and then defrag. Still, he knew that even this body couldn't withstand a proper Decepticon Military assault. Even if he blew away the 10-bot advance guard that was coming, doing so would only cause the Military to authorize the use of its artillery capabilities or a huge division of troops - and there would be no way he would be winning against either possibility.

With that in mind, he radioed his willingness to be decontaminated. To his surprise, the original 10 bots were joined by 10 more, and they were escorted under extremely heavy guard to a far-off, yet not secret, small asteroid-based military base. There, troops in what amounted to hazmat suits would carefully strip off layers of metal until testing revealed zero nanites and no evidence of any nanites having ever penetrated that deeply. All of their metal would then be removed down to this point.

It would be a process akin to removing cancer from a human, only for them, their entire surfaces would be treated. Metal, after all, could always be replaced, so there was no need to put in much effort to preserve it as long as the end result was still capable of getting back to Cybertron. If so much metal had to be taken off that the body was rendered non-flightworthy, the body would simply be considered totaled and its owner forced to transfer to a spare.

LongCon's armor layers, which was specially made to be anti-nanitic simply because it was part of his Guaranteed Winner Package, would have no trouble getting through this process. For him, it would be merely cosmetic - everything under the armor was completely protected from infiltration. The others, however, had a very real chance of never being allowed to take their current bodies to Cybertron again. They began to rev and glare at LongCon. Dom made sure to play along, even though he had "luckily decided" to copy another bot and stay above the clouds during the raid. (In reality, of course, Dom knew better than to come anywhere truly near to what DomIntel had designated as a poison planet.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Foreign Intelligence Division - Operation Little Equestria

Over the last few months, what started out as an investigation, and then a big project, had now fully bloomed into a massive Operation with tens of thousands of agents both at home and on the ground within the target society. A full 10% of the formidable power of the Domestic Intelligence Supercomputer had been turned over to the operation, and it now calculated exactly who had the best chance of winning, which political positions were the most popular, which government type an agent should pretend to be a part of, and more. Its results constantly updated on screens at Foreign Intelligence Headquarters, and often, General Soundwave and even Leader Megatron were right there to get the latest information.

It was within this fast-paced, but carefully-controlled, environment that new plans were being made in accordance with the most up-to-date reports.

"There is clearly going to be a civil war," Megatron said. "Almost any preliminary political kingmaking will be wasted. What we need to do instead is control that war and ensure that our side is victorious. Usually, I would order the Military in now and ensure it in the most decisive possible way: By genociding all opposition. However, this project has brought such life and purpose to ForIntel that I think it is more beneficial for the Empire to let you keep handling it, at least unless it starts to look like another faction will prevail."

General Soundwave nodded at this. There was no doubt that ForIntel's morale was at a record peak, surpassing all other times in the agency's existence - and it was all because of the now-solid belief that it could conquer a world with no open military intervention.

Megatron continued: "The Supercomputer reports that the monarchists are the most likely to align themselves under one named Lightning War. He was a general under the king prior to the one we just got rid of, and he has a stellar record. Kill him. Kill the five other military-aligned monarchists under him as well."

Soundwave nodded at this, too. Eliminating Lightning War and his cronies would do two major things: It would severely weaken the military command abilities of any upcoming Monarchist Forces, and since civilians had been aligning with him over time and were expected to continue to do so, it would create a political vacuum as well.

"Next is the problem of these worthless democrats. We have 30 idiots all vying to be popular since they intend to vote for the next leader. Here is what you do. Kill ALL of them when they have their big debate. Send someone to mow them down with a machine gun or something similar. But make sure that this assassin is identified as a monarchist."

A false flag. One of the oldest tricks in the espionage book, but despite being well-known, it was often still effective.

"So who officially kills the heads of the monarchists?" Soundwave asked. "It'll seem too convenient if we say that it was the democratic faction..."

Megatron smiled a sadistic, closed-mouth grin.

"That officially gets done by rabid Ponyists who are not affiliated with any particular cult. The general population will immediately fear that every vocal Ponyist they run into - not just obvious cultists - could be a terrorist. Only later, as the democrats are trying to regroup and it won't look so fishy, is it to come out that this rabid Ponyist also happened to be pro-democracy. But it must come out that it was a democrat who did it. You just need to make it look as legit as you can within the needed timeframe."

"Soon after these clearly politically-motivated assassinations, people will be ready to go kill whoever they think did it. Your covert 'regular people' agents are to ensure that both sides think that each other did it, regardless of whatever their ForIntel-infested media says. And this will start the war with the monarchists trying to kill the democrats and vice-versa, while nobody pays much more attention to the Megatronists...until the Megatronists are ready, that is..."

Soundwave would have smiled at this too, but he wore a faceplate, so he couldn't make the facial gesture. Still, his eyes glowed with the shine associated with planning a combination of plain connivery and outright treachery. His engine was purring; he was right in his element with these sorts of machinations.

"So what do we do with the actual Megatronists? Our records indicate that we've doubled their ranks with our agents. But we need a plan for the biological ones." Soundwave noted.

Leader Megatron began to outright chortle. "Right when everyone else is in chaos, I will create a series of visually-impressive signs that will let everyone know that my blessing has arrived and is upon the Megatronists - and no one else. Then, I will go there and meet with their top members and lay out my plans for victory in the civil war, and later, the installation of myself as Little Equestria's conquering god - and, of course, the installation of the Temple of Megatron as its only government. Your division will then switch its focus to outright sabotaging the other factions - their equipment, key personnel, and anything else that would help them win is a target. And, of course, make sure that verifiable bad reports about all opposing groups keep hitting the media. If you have to make bad news for them, then make it. Infiltrate their armies and slaughter villages in their name. Kill some puppies. Stuff like that. Just be sure to have a 'leaker' nearby with a camera to capture the worst of it."

With that, the strategy meeting ended. ForIntel would now have one of the biggest missions ever. It would, without the intervention of other Decepticon government divisions, need to orchestrate not only an entire war but guarantee the victory of the proper set of combatants - both on the field, and in the minds of the civilians. Soundwave's engine revved with excitement.

[Vallermoore]

Border of the Decepticon Zone of Control

The chastened, defeated Equality Raiders got a nasty shock when they came out of FTL. On occasion the Decepticon Military acted as border guards against other Decepticons-though only with a good reason for it. In this case, the nanites they had encountered could be a possible threat to all Decepticons and indeed to the Metal Planet, their most prized world in their entire Empire and one designed perfectly for robotic life. Noone wanted it to be munched up by nanites. An angry voice came over the radio. "You have been deemed to be contaminated by the weaponry of Tabriz. You must either jettison your bodies here, or be escorted to a Military asteroid for full decontamination. This is not negotiable." LongCon cursed allowed, as he had been looking forward to going to a range, paying a few Cubes to be allowed to blast away and then celebrating with his offspring, but he was not going to fight the Decepticon Military. It wasn't like they were an execution squad after all. He and Dom and the others were escorted, heavily guarded, to a clean-up asteroid where LongCon couldn't help letting out a little laugh at the sight of Decepticons who wore clothes. "It's not funny," a bot said. "These are hazmat suits, nano-proof. If we can clean out the nanos, fine, but if not, then any bots affected have to mind transfer to their spares." When the other bots heard that, there were angry glares, dull eyes and some revving of annoyance. Some only had one spare. It was likely that LongCon's short term oversized gang was at an end before it could evolve to a syndicate. Unlike on biological planets where members of criminal organisations might well be murdered if they left a gang, gang members could normally leave without penalty other then being barred from re-joining. With no open police, very few laws anyway, and grassing itself very illegal, there was no worry on that front.

Dom and two others including the bot pretending to be LongCon's offspring were totally clean, and LongCon's armour was so good it needed just a biopsy (the removing of a tiny bit to test) and a cleaning which removed any paint that was still left. Whilst Cybertron was warm and dry, he'd still need to get repainted before going near anywhere even slightly wet. The other bots were informed that their bodies would have to be melted down for safety and they would need to mind-transfer to their spares. For them the raid was a disaster. The Equality Raiders now consisted of four bots, one of which was an undercover Domintel bot and another who was planning to poison it's leader at the first chance. When they got back LongCon went to a range and paid for an hour, and had a good long blast with his formidable weaponry, grumbling to his *offspring* who pretended to feel sorry for him although in fact he thought he was an idiot with not enough RAM. The two went to the home of SuperCon, who offered to let his Coder stay there for three days or so whilst he did smaller raids and cons to get back on his feet. He then offered a single Cube of Energon Supreme for them to drink together, something normally done between Coders and Offspring only, although Megatron had been known to do this with High Generals on rare occasions. Even then, according to a custom so strong as to be almost a de facto law, the one who offered the Cube had to drink from it first, in case of poison. When SuperCon drank with no harm as a result, LongCon had a nice long drink of what he thought was unpoisoned Energon Supreme.

**********
Foreign Intelligence Division - Operation Little Equestria

The large part of Forintel that knew even a little about the planned takeover of Little Equestria was extremely excited. Undercover pony tails twitched when they could secretly do so in sheer joy, whilst bots back on Cybertron were bright eyed with purring engines at the chance of taking over a planet all by themselves.
If they could pull this off it would be their finest hour and biggest achievement so far. Megatron could have kyboshed it but decided to let it carry on since Forintel was having so much fun.

Little Equestria

The unicorn general General Lightning War, a pony with a lightning bolt and two crossed unicorn horns as a cutie mark, was looking forward to his chances of being crowned the new monarch. He and his military divisions had not been involved in repression and he was a successful general, so he was personally popular and was deep in thoughts of the crown that would soon be on his head. Until he and his five closest friends walked into an ambush before they could raise a force field and were rapidly blasted by what seemed like unicorn magic but were in fact disguised blasters. At a stroke, the monarchists had lost all their best candidates with a solid claim to the pony throne.

At about the same time all the top leaders of the democratic faction, mainly earth ponies, were making speeches and getting embryonic political parties set up in a hall, when they were attacked by what appeared to be monarchist ponies and slaughtered, very few making it out alive. Before long, monarchist and democrat ponies were cursing and fighting in the streets and it would not be long before a civil war broke out, whilst both most Forintel agents and genuine pony Megatronists kept their heads down for now. Their foes would be doing much of the killing for them.

[Victorious Decepticons]

FakeSuperCon's House

The assassin didn't even run roughly as his target let the poison roll down his throat, enjoying the taste of the legitimate Supreme that covered the flavor of the engine-seizing component that had been added. Instead, he continued to chat nicely, regaling the target with horror stories of Mine #1, waiting for the single minute to pass before the ingredient came to full temperature inside the engine and did its dirty work.

Then, at the last possible moment, he flicked on a super-powerful jammer just a fraction of a second before the poison kicked in and turned the engine into what amounted to a block of cement and iron. With an extremely loud bang followed by deathly silence, the Guaranteed Winner Package became a loser. LongCon's backup electrical engine came on, and this kept him conscious, but it couldn't provide enough power to do more than raise his blasters at what he now knew had to be a fake copy of his beloved offspring.

"You lousy pile of REJECT PARTS! How dare you capitalize on my wish for my offspring's return like that?!" LongCon yelled as he tried to take aim at what was now a quickly-dancing target. He let off several blasts, shooting up the place quite severely in the process, but couldn't keep up with his targeting now that he only had a weak engine to try to move all of that armor. Even worse for him, he had decided to use his fusion cannons in his rage, and it only took a couple of shots before he was down to a critically-low amount of overall power. Finally, he stopped firing and his arms now sagged to his sides.

Using any more energy now would surely cause LongCon to lose consciousness immediately. While there wasn't really any strategic difference at this point, his survival instinct made the idea seem quite scary. Equally scary was the jamming signal that was still going strong, and making it so that the only way to avoid whatever fate his assailant had in mind would be to commit suicide. The assassin stood over him, waiting to see if he would do so. His contract only called for the body, so there was no need for LongCon to be mentally alive at the time of delivery.

"You have been captured at the behest of the operator of Mine #1," the assassin said, now using a different timbre and cadence in his voice. Instead of sounding like SuperCon, he now had a tiny bit of Masher's fake-Italian mob accent - an intentional identifier of his IOPC roots - along with a more gruff way of talking. "Showing the Mine that Ultimate Laborer Package was a mistake. Still, I have left you with one very minor mercy, if you can call it that. I have left you unhacked. The contract only calls for your body. While I am not stupid enough to let you go to another one, and later pester me with revenge attempts, you are able to transfer yourself to another realm by initiating the transfer command now or by using the Fatal Command. Otherwise, you'll be made into a hacked slave and be aware of serving as completely-controlled equipment in Mine #1 for - by the looks of your body - 10,000 years if not longer..." He would have said more, but his thoughts were suddenly interrupted.

Without warning, the sound of kicking and ramming came at the door. Before long, about 10 absolutely furious bots kicked it down and barged in with their blasters blazing at LongCon. LongCon's body withstood the assault with ease, but the assassin was quick to yell out for them to hold their fire since his body wasn't all that upgraded. After a few tense moments, the situation was explained and the assassin was no longer in danger. "We only believe you because we can smell the scent of burnt engine parts still in the air," one said. He looked at LongCon. "It serves you right for leading us to that death trap! I hope you have to move a million tons of ore a day and never get a break!"

~~~~~~~~~~~

Soon, the assassin had radioed his headquarters, and in turn, they told Overseer to go ahead and send a cargo-bot - his "order" was ready to be picked up. A loud whoop came through the communicator and into the ex-IOPC store. One bot's dreams had been dashed, but another's had just come true. Mine Number One would have an Ultimate Laborer at last, and it would happen under Overseer.

Overseer, it turned out, would not just send a low-level cargo-bot slave to get this rare and expensive shipment. Instead, he came himself with one of the finest glider-trailers behind him. Inside it, a full can of zombification dust waited - along with a new matching engine from Ultimate himself, paid for by the Megatron Metals Company, to replace the seized one AFTER the body was properly zombified and enslaved. Even a zombie engine couldn't run when that powerful of an engine-seizing element had been used on it, and getting another of the finest only stood to reason.

Soon, Overseer arrived at the ex-IOPC store, congratulated his contractee, and looked over the new body. "You'll be getting a new paint job and engine - your final maintenance for the rest of your existence, by the way - but first, you get this," he said in his hollow voice. He showed an enslavement chip, but soon saw that this body had no external ports at all.

He then took the body into a back room set up for miscellaneous activity, and began the long and very slow process of cutting through the layers of Cybertron's best civilian armors so he could yank open a panel and directly access his new slave's mind-boards to install the enslavement program. In a battle, he would never have the several days it would take to get the relevant panel open, but now, he had all the time in the universe. He would simply persist with the high-power cutting torch, enslave his quarry, and then order it to open its other panels with its normal internal latch controls. Once all of the panels were opened, he'd simply spread zombie dust all over its insides and all over the new engine, complete the engine replacement, and be good to go except for the paint.

Overseer did not yet know whether or not his latest acquisition still had its mind, and while he preferred slaves to have minds so that his enslavement program had some code to hook into, he had a fairly large Slave Mind chip on him just in case this one had suicided.

As he went through the preparations, however, a thought came to his mind: He could take this body for himself. Yet, while it was tempting, he also knew that even zombified, an extra-heavy body like that would need a huge amount of fuel to operate. It'd be a big money loser, and frankly unnecessary for him, who would use it just to walk around his mine in. The only way it made sense to keep it was to put it to work - a whole LOT of work. Having made his decision, he continued to prepare the body for thousands of years of complaint-free operation as Mine #1's most powerful piece of equipment. Thanks to his lack of a soul, Overseer had no problems with lingering desires to use it as his own vehicle. It would up mine productivity the most to use it as equipment, so that was that. The few feelings that made it through came from his code rather than a soul, and they were ones of satisfaction for having made such a fine acquisition.

He did make a mental note that if the Empire's slave-worked operations were ever attacked like they had been years ago, he could then take that body and deliver a defense that no lousy cattle-rustler could handle. As he removed its fusion cannons and other weaponry, he vowed to himself to bother maintaining this one every so often so that it would be decently-ready for repurposing at all times. He would also keep the extra fusion cannons in his vault so he could re-weaponize it if he ever made it into his own body. As for the arm cannons, however, those would be going onto his current form...

~~~~~~~~~

The store personnel watched all of the activity through over their in-shop CCTV screen behind the front counter, and the hardened gangsters were initially impressed by Overseer's emotionless efficiency. "He would make an excellent assassin himself," they said to each other. "No chance of him backing out or missing due to wondering if the target deserves it, or worries about the target's offspring, or anything like that. All he lacks is industry-specific practice."

"He'd also make a great spy," they remarked, also to each other. "That total emotionlessness means that he'd never have qualms about totally backstabbing a target that had fallen in love with him."

"That's because he has no damn soul!" The supervisor said, clearly not approving of the measure Overseer had taken to become what he was. "What good is that, really! I give him the same retail courtesies as everyone else because Cubes are Cubes, but never forget: He's a hyper-advanced automaton, not a Decepticon. He's just running whatever program he set up for himself before he killed the part that made him truly conscious. Now, he's really no different from a set of gears and pulleys! He is the very thing that the biologicals that built Megatron had wanted him to be: Hyper-efficient, extremely productive, and never questioning of anything that isn't hurting the company, or even thinking of anything not already in the script!" If the supervisor was a human, he would have spat on the floor. "If it wouldn't bring the wrath of Megatron Metals' Asset Protection Force," he went on, now looking at the assassin, "HE would be your next target. His soul is gone and his body should be turned to slag as the abomination that it is."

In the back room, Overseer continued working on his new prize, oblivious to anything being said out front.

Meanwhile, the entire shop was - thanks to the air currents created by its A/C system - being covered in an invisible layer of zombification dust. The next employee to get himself killed somehow would find that he got a wonderful bonus from the Empire's most infamous slavedriver as he rose as a nearly-invincible zombie himself - with his own soul intact.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Little Equestria

The false flag killings took the situation straight to the boiling point, and when word got out that Ponyist cultists had wiped out the monarchist leaders, they were the first to be decimated in a series of lynch-mob attacks. When it got on the news that the killers had been democrats as well as Ponyists, it was war in the streets before any station could even think of retracting these actually-dubious stories. Each faction was now actively bringing in arms, often without bothering to smuggle them, and then using them as soon as they got their hooves on them.

This is when the night sky suddenly turned as bright as day with the light of Decepticon Seals over the now openly-operating unofficial Megatronist Temples, and Megatron's own voice boomed out across the entire planet: "ALL BOW TO THE ONE PROVEN GOD!"

The next day, ponies saw the dawn's light reveal a giant mirage of Megatron surrounded by millions of equally-mirage ponies, all looking triumphant. Megatron set it up so that everyone on the planet saw the same thing as long as they were on the day side, meaning that there were actually several of these mirages all carefully set up so people could see only one at a time.

"My blessing is with my followers," the mirages announced with Megatron's voice. "To them go easy victories! To the opposition go my curses, and those who oppose me shall feel my power through their bad fortunes!"

With this announcement, there was the sound of massive thunder and the sight of ethereal lightning going toward each and every opponent. Meanwhile, Megatronists were seen with ethereal light - rather than lightning - momentarily being projected at them. Then, the mirages dissipated, and by the time the anti-Megatronists (who were still the majority) looked around to see who was glowing so that they would know who to shoot, the effects on the ground were gone as well. No one had been permanently changed in any visible way, whether they were for or against the rule of Megatron.

On the many battlefields and in street fights, however, it soon became apparent who was who. In any fight between a Megatronist and an opponent of Megatron, the opponent would have tremendous bad luck. His gun would jam or backfire, unicorns would often have confetti erupt from their horns instead of battle lightning, and even the saddlebags of the major opponents of Megatronism would fall apart and spill their contents all over the place at the worst possible moment. Meanwhile, the Megatronists had nothing but stellar luck and excellent aim even if they'd never used a gun or battle magic before, and their civilian equipment seemed immune to all wear.

It seemed as though everyone's results now depended both on their opinions of Megatron and his religion, and on how deeply they held those opinions. The only way to avoid any supernatural results entirely was to not care at all, and even that meant missing the blessings as well as the curses.

The Divine Leader himself currently remained on Cybertron, watching the chaos over the screens of Foreign Intelligence. He would only visit Little Equestria in person when there were more converts and some of them had begun to take on leadership roles.

[Vallermoore]

FakeSuperCon's House/Decepticon Afterlife

LongCon was surprised when a hugely powerful jammer flicked on just before his engine ground to a stop, leaving him with just his electrical engine. He blasted at his foe, trying to reduce him to scrap but couldn't target properly or move much. When a large number of angry bots arrived on the scene he remembered a sermon about the afterlife that he had once heard and mind transferred out but never reached any spare body. Overseer's contract had not called for him to be taken alive. He found himself in a small metal room just as the Megatronist Priest had once spoken about with three TV screens. One showed the rarely attained Realm of Endless Energon, for the very best of the best who nonetheless had unfortunate results. Dying counted as a minus in itself, but not one of the largest minuses around so with enough plusses it was still possible to reach this realm. Next was the Neutral Realm where most Decepticon dead went. At best, it could be fun as a quarter of the screen showed, but most bots that went here ended up as sapient machinery making parts endlessly. Lastly was the Realm of Punishment for Decepticon traitors who violated the few laws of the Decepticon Empire, showing them undergoing torment. LongCon had never committed treason or even thought of trying to overthrow Megatron, so he considered himself unlikely to be sent there. With his offspring enslaved, and most bots that he knew now enraged at him, there was little chance of being brought back. The only bot that might at least consider it was LongCon's Coder, but whilst the two were not enemies they rarely hung out together.

******
Overseer was overjoyed to attain this amazing body, and personally left his mine, his body clearly Undead except the gleaming new wing part. Rust itched, and most bots most of the time left their itch sensors on to catch the problem early rather then let it run through their bodies and weaken them, but not Overseer who left his off 24/7. Despite the rust, he could only be defeated by totally destroying him and there were Save Discs to bring him back if that should ever happen. As he was preparing the body for enslavement he considered mind transferring to it himself. Most bots would love to have a body this good after all, but he decided it was better as an enslaved piece of zombie equipment then just walking around Mine #1 with him inside it. He rarely left his mine; although when God's forces had attacked Cybertron he had sallied to it's defence. With no soul he was incapable of feeling love for anything, but he knew the importance of the Metal Planet. With no love he needed no anti-changeling mods as he was immune to draining anyway.

*****
Little Equestria

After several days of outright battle, the night turned as bright as day in what many ponies would think of the baleful light of Decepticon Seals operating over unofficial Temples run by pony Acolytes.Megatron's voice boomed out over the whole planet "ALL BOW TO THE ONE PROVEN GOD!"

No biological could be an Assistant Priest or Full Priest , which was why the lower rank of Acolyte was created for places with no Decepticons yet.
Before he became a Decepticon, Loyal Star had become one of these, and when there was noone of a higher level around anywhere near, they could preach rather then having noone preaching at all.

The next day the whole day side planet saw an image of Megatron on the day side with huge numbers of earth ponies, pegasus ponies and unicorn ponies around him and when he announced his blessings and curses and they came true most ponies who were still alive became Megatronists. When this indeed came true within a week most ponies had willingly converted. Decepticon flags were made and hauled above major buildings and whilst a few dissidents and cults still existed below the surface, the planet had effectively become Megatronist without being conquered and would only need a few Full Priests and a small garrison of the Military. Loyal Star flew in and transformed in front of what had been the False Alicorn's palace to be greeted by a great crowd of amazed and scared ponies, some no doubt expecting to be blasted or scooped up for enslavement, and after virus checking it he accessed a Priestly Chip containing all he needed to know about this planet.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Decepticon Afterlife

LongCon waited a fairly long time, and finally took a seat on the spartan-styled metal bench that was there, but eventually a glowing afterlife administrator came melding through a wall to welcome him.

"You have had a long life; 729 years to be exact, so it took us a while to go through your file. However, we now have made a decision as to your fate..."

Before getting to the bottom line, the administrator listed several points that factored into the decision.

-He had succeeded at many, many connives - even against some of the most intelligent Decepticons - making him an expert practitioner of the connivery side of the Decepticon Way. This was a major plus.

-His Military performance was perfunctory, but he had showed up for every conscription stint, and with a life that long, there had been plenty of stints. This was a minor plus in the grand scheme, but it did count.

-He had acknowledged, of course to himself only, that he was mediocre at best when it came to direct combat. This negative was overridden by the plus of having bought a Guaranteed Winner Package to compensate. LongCon groaned, however, when he was told that he would have almost surely been successful if he had continued with his direct assault on the mine. The administrator told him that the GWP body would have withstood the artillery blasts long enough to enter at only 30% damage, and with that sort of body, he would have had superiority up until 70% damage. "This miscalculation has cost you a few points in our battle scoring system, but it won't make a big difference in your placement. I'm telling you mainly in case you end up in a similar situation later, or on the small chance that you get reincarnated," the administrator stated.

-He had successfully Coded an offspring, raised him in the Decepticon Way, and cared for him enough to first invest in a GWP body and wage war, and then, to attempt to avenge him. This was a huge plus, not just because he was a 'good Coder' all around, but because it showed that he was willing to take responsibility for the results of how he'd raised said offspring. "Many Coders quickly disown their offspring when they lose a battle. In some cases, this is the right thing to do, but sometimes, it stems from rather ignoble motives such as cowardice in the face of the thought of a battle for vengeance. You, on the other hand, not only didn't disown SuperCon, but attempted to build a gang large enough to destroy a budding syndicate." The administrator was clearly approving.

On the negative side, however, there were some significant strikes.

-He had attempted to take on Tabriz without even having given his gang any kind of cohesiveness training. This was such a basic error that it took 10% of his score right off the top.

-His "Equality Raiders" idea was suspect, and showed a lack of forethought about the possibility of others quickly matching his upgrade level and then fighting for control of the gang. It was also politically dicey. "Societal stratification based on strength is a pillar of Decepticon society, and this persists in all of the afterlives we control. That you gave no thought to the fact that your own strength is more easily matched when you don't get the largest share of the loot is definitely a negative. But worse is the thought that your actions could have spread a demand for egalitarianism throughout the general populace..."

-He lost at Mine #1 when he could have won. "Decepticons are not to retreat just because they *might* lose. They should do so only when they ARE losing, and clearly have no way to rectify that."

-He lost at Tabriz. This showed a lack of targeting skill. "FOOLS rush in, as the humans say."

After listing several hundred earlier incidents in LongCon's life, the adminstrator finally delivered the verdict that had been arrived at behind the scenes. "You will be spending some time in the Neutral Realm. This is only because of your un-Decepticon, egalitarian-ideology-spreading loot distribution system. We cannot trust you to not try to spread that idea, and you cannot attain the Realm of Pleasure - or, the Realm of Punishment - until this uncertainty has been dispelled. However, other than that, you have done very well in life. Therefore, we will put you in charge of one of the parts production factories of the Neutral Realm. As a factory operator, you will be over the many who are incarnated there as equipment, and you will be responsible for making deals with the distributors in that and other realms."

At this, LongCon's eyes lit up. He would be able to screw so many buyers and suppliers!

"I knew you'd like that placement. Just remember: You can still end up getting your factory blasted, just like in the Mundus, and you yourself are still killable as well. So be careful..."

With that, the floor below LongCon became semi-solid. He instinctually tried to fire his jets, but it was to no avail. He soon melded through, and with a clunk, found himself behind a large desk in the main office of the NR Starter Facility. It was quiet in the office, and this gave him plenty of peace in which to allow his disorientation to dissipate. When he opened the door, he was greeted heartily by secretaries and salesbots, given a pamphlet explaining how things worked here, and welcomed to his new position. "I trust that since you were chosen, you'll be able to get the most Cubes for our products," many of the salesbots remarked in various ways.

When he opened the door to the factory part, his audio circuits were assaulted with all sorts of manufacturing noise. To a bit of horror, however, he found that the factory was filled with what seemed to be non-sapient equipment. "Our slaves...er, those assigned here as workers for their lack of attentiveness to the Decepticon Way," the lead secretary said, waving a hand to encompass the entire view. "They're quite sapient. They remain here until they realize that following the Decepticon Way is better than a life of peasantry and endless labor. We don't need to do anything to keep the work going; when one manages to attain the Realm of Pleasure, a new and differently-painted one appears in his place. In fact, the only reason that we've needed to seek buyers is that our Divine Leader realized that secretarial, sales, and upper management positions are otherwise pointless, and he wanted to leave room for those who were above plain labor, but not quite ready for a fully-unregulated existence."

In a location only attainable by the realm's administrators, a team of DomIntel-like agents watched LongCon intently over monitors. Would he be - and continue to be - a proper Decepticon in this role, or would he try to Communize his factory with some sort of egalitarian nonsense? Once they had their answer, they would know where he should truly be placed: The Realm of Pleasure, as a proper Decepticon and Coder; or the Realm of Punishment as a culturally-corrosive traitor? They knew that for someone as unique as this, the Neutral Realm would be unsuitable for more than the time it took to gather the data needed to make a decision.

~~~~~~~~~~

Outside the ex-IOPC Store

Overseer didn't realize the importance of the powerful, but shady-looking, bot that watched him enter the store with his fancy glider-trailer...and his own obviously-rusted body. After all, there were plenty such people in syndicate territories, and most of them didn't actually cause trouble to those who had clearly come into the area on business. Later, he simply didn't hear the set of five different transformation and landing sounds because he was in the back room.

When he came out, however, the significance of the first person was crystal clear. He found himself surrounded by a strong Scrounger gang, whose members had been called in by that one idle character who had been watching him. To them, his rusted body was nothing but Energon in a less-convenient form. Taking it to the Iron City foundry would surely increase its convenience level.

There was little delay once he came outside. The Scroungers aimed for the limbs and opened fire, easily pasting him in the knees. However, Overseer simply moved his legs from the hips to take his battle stance as he returned their fire, laughing as their response times and hit rate were both lowered by their desire to hit his arm joints instead of his boards. Scroungers preferred to hit the joints instead of the usual key areas so that the loss of metal was minimized, and only escalated if absolutely necessary. By the time they realized that it would, indeed, be necessary, it was too late: Overseer had yelled for his new slave to come out of the trailer and join the fray.

When they saw the nearly-new, relatively huge, body come forth, they realized that they might have made a big mistake. "Rip their heads off!" Overseer ordered, and the now-disarmed slave stomped forth to obey the command using brute force. In the process, the slave took a huge number of blasts, but none of them did anything to it. Meanwhile, Overseer began to blast the now-distracted gang right in their boards, and before long, one clanged to the ground. "ONE free new slave!" He yelled out as he immediately began shooting at the next one. That one didn't last long either, and his defeat was marked with the victory shout of "TWO!"

As the others returned their attention to Overseer, the expensive slave caught up to one, and began trying to behead it with brute force. This was to no avail until Overseer yelled over to twist the head instead of prying. With sustained effort, the Guaranteed Laborer was able to overcome the resistance of his victim's neck servos and twist his head around and around. Eventually, it separated at the joint that normally allowed it to swivel, and soon, hung down its body's back connected only by the main command cable. "Now snap that cable!" Overseer ordered, and in an instant, it was done. "THREE!" the slavemaster called out.

Now, the three remaining members of the 6-person Scrounger gang had their attention divided between Overseer's continued blasting and the golem-like Guaranteed Laborer's mindless brute force attempts to grab another of their number. It wasn't long before this led to the disabling of the fourth, but at that, the remaining two quickly retreated down the street and then took to the skies, flying for their lives as fast as they could.

"That's what they get for mistaking me for just any old rustbucket!" Overseer chortled. He threw the new bodies into the trailer, jumped in behind them, and closed the door, leaving his most expensive slave outside standing guard. Inside, he easily got the Scroungers' panels open and covered their innards with zombie dust before quickly installing his enslavement virus into the few that were still conscious. He would finish processing the completely deactivated ones back at the mine since they couldn't become threats at this point, and give them enough repairs to restore their mobility and commandability.

After the few minutes it took to do the very slight preliminary work, he emerged from the trailer and ordered his first slave back inside. It obeyed without comment, and he closed the door. Overseer took a quick look around, determined that there was no more free metal itching to present itself, and finally hitched the trailer back up and took off. All in all, it was a very good haul.

Far in the distance, the two still-functioning members of the Scrounger gang looked up in wonder at the sight of the trailer. That's when they finally noticed what it said on the side:

Megatron Metals Mine Number One
Resource Sector 1
Earth

"That was that crazy zombie guy!" They marveled. "No wonder nobody's been able to raid that mine in years!"

"If I knew that, I wouldn't have gone after him," one said. "The only way to delete a zombie like that is to cut the command cable so he can't get any motion commands through to his body. You can bet that THAT is the one thing on that rustbucket excuse for a body that has some new armor around it."

Sure enough, Overseer did indeed have a special, extremely battle-resistant tube around that cable.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Little Equestria

LoyalStar set about the first task in his instruction chip for this planet, which was to meet with the leaders of Megatronism and give each of them an official Book of Megatron chip as well as one with a condensed version of the official beliefs, practices, and canon of the religion. This would prevent the accidental spreading of heresy and do much to start getting everyone onto the same page.

His next task would be to build a Main Megatronist Temple of Little Equestria. It would not technically be a "First" Temple since there were already several that had been operating underground (and that had just recently come into the open), but it would be the official seat of the religion on this planet.

He now began to read the known details of this strange planet and its people, who were still quite fearful of the Decepticons even though they were simultaneously converting to Megatron's religion in droves.

[Vallermoore]

Decepticon Afterlife

LongCon was one of a very few bots that came through every twenty years or so where they really didn't know where to put him. Only a few bots went to the Realm of Endless Energon or to the Realm of Punishment. The normal place was as non-mobile but still sapient machinery in the Neutral Realm, but LongCon deserved a bit better then that. In most religions, his being a very successful con artist would have got him sent straight to the religion's Hell; but here, being so successful at the arts of being deceptive and conniving that he could even con other Decepticons who were expecting that sort of thing and get away unblasted was seen as a major plus. Such a successful level of dishonesty was the equivalent of solid honesty in other religions. A Decepticon was expected to cheat and lie and work all the angles he could, with a handful of exceptions (for example, Debuggers were the only bots in the Nation who were expected to be honest, and those bots of any kind who corrupted Domintel agents to the point that they overlooked treason or framed the innocent were in the deepest trouble.) Another big plus was that he had, unlike MasterBlaster, done such a good job of rearing his offspring just right, and then tried both to avenge his capture and to rescue him even at the cost of what had been a huge fortune.
Not having ever been a biological probably helped in that. Biologicals who became Decepticons often had no idea how to bring offspring up properly. A handful had been street-executed or melted down for horrible child abuse.

On the other hand, his attack on Tabriz with no proper preparation was dreadful. Had jammers been running, he would have sent a lot of bots to the afterlife for no good reason. He retreated far too early at Mine #1 when he might well have won. If he had rescued his offspring, it was unlikely that Overseer would have gone to war over one slave when he had so many more. And his idea of the Equality Raiders could have spread egalitarianism on Cybertron-which would most certainly have got Domintel on his case, even if they needed a whole company of bots to defeat him.

"You will be spending some time in the Neutral Realm. This is only because of your un-Decepticon, egalitarian-ideology-spreading loot distribution system. We cannot trust you to not try to spread that idea, and you cannot attain the Realm of Pleasure - or, the Realm of Punishment - until this uncertainty has been dispelled. However, other than that, you have done very well in life. Therefore, we will put you in charge of one of the parts production factories of the Neutral Realm. As a factory operator, you will be over the many who are incarnated there as equipment, and you will be responsible for making deals with the distributors in that and other realms. I knew you'd like that placement. Just remember: You can still end up getting your factory blasted, just like in the Mundus, and you yourself are still killable as well. So be careful..."

After finding himself in his new position, LongCon decided to spend the first two days just working out fully how everything worked and for those two days to stay honest. Doing a con when one didn't know the situation was dangerously stupid and could get one blasted or worse. After that he would become his old pre-gang leader con-bot self, even to the point of conning other Decepticons when he had a good enough chance of getting away with it, as long as it neither got him caught nor snarled things up and stopped too many parts getting to where they were needed. He also started quietly and covertly building a new offspring, one piece at a time, although he didn't activate it yet, and was not even sure if he could in effect create new life in the afterlife. If he turned it on, would it vanish to reappear in the world of the living? Was it legal? His Treason File didn't list it as treason. If he did earn his way to the Realm of Pleasure could he take his unborn ethereal offspring with him? Although he only spent ten minutes a day building it, he took as much care as he had done with SuperCon.

Outside the ex-IOPC Store

When a Scrounger gang thought they could take on what they thought was a rusted bot, they soon discovered that his blasters worked perfectly and he had a huge slave as a bodyguard. He would end up with four new robotic slaves, his favourite type of slave. The other two were lucky to make it out alive and unenslaved.

Little Equestria

The first thing Loyal Star did, and quickly, was to visit all the Megatronist Temples to give them the official orthodox version of what Megatronism was and wasn't. If he didn't do that, heresy could spread-and it wouldn't be the heretic's fault either if they really didn't know the proper details because their Priest had been lazy. Both as a former pony and Ponyist priest and as a Decepticon Priest, Loyal Star had always done his job well and by the book. He would give High Priest Warfire no reason to be angry with him, and remembering when he had his knees burned out, he really didn't want to get on the wrong side of his God either. Having done that and constructed a proper Main Megatronist Temple he took a look at the sky. Unlike Arfon, this planet was not a moon of a gas giant and had a couple of moons of it's own. He got back to work and opened his details on this strange pony planet.

Before Equestria fell, it had been an average planet, ruled in the pony way. Earth ponies tended to be democracies, pegusai rule was in some ways similar to how Decepticons were ruled, and unicorn rule was baronial or monarchical. Then the refugees from Equestria had come led by the False Alicorn, and taken over through a mixture of force and persuasion, taking advantage of the pony fear that the Decepticons were coming to impose a very strict and frankly heretical form of Ponyism and in effect almost enslave their fellow ponies. Even though the ponies were converting, many were still fearful and a few foes needed to be winkled out. He would also need to keep his anti changeling shielding on at all time. Like parasites, where there were large numbers of ponies there would be covert changeling swarms feeding on pony love, and just longing to drain the rare fiery Decepticon love so they could serve it to their Queens. Of all the many alien races encountered so far, the changelings were the most similar to the Decepticons and as far as any biological could be respected at all, they were respected for their deceptive and conniving nature. He ran a quick one second ping just strong enough to uncover any disguised changelings in the same way it could uncover cloaked Decepticons.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Little Equestria

To LoyalStar's dismay, when he ran his ping, two of the top Megatronist priests he was talking to were lit up on his internal scanner. They had almost surely been preying on the love and devotion their Temples' followers had for Leader Megatron and the Decepticon Way. Even outwardly, they looked quite fat and content compared to their fellows.

Decepticon Afterlife
Domestic Intelligence Regional Headquarters

There was nowhere within the Empire that was truly outside of the view of DomIntel, and even death did not change this. The parts that were going missing from the supply were noticed almost immediately, and the Neutral Realm's administrator was soon brought in. Together, they decided to let the building continue, but to monitor closely to see LongCon's goals with this new offspring. Would he try to train it to be a communist or some other subversive? Or would he desire to properly raise it in the Decepticon Way?

They weren't too sure about the idea of building a new offspring here. Wouldn't that make it a realm of the living? Like LongCon himself, they weren't really sure what would happen. They suspected, however, that the new bot would never be ensouled or otherwise attain a status above that of an automaton. The decision was made that it should be treated just like on Cybertron: LongCon would have to have the new offspring's Code checked by Debuggers before it was activated, and then, after 2 years, it would be tested for sapience. If it failed this test, it would have one more year to develop - after which, if it was still non-sapient, it would be deactivated. Debuggers usually didn't end up here in this realm, but Leader Megatron would surely open a portal for some to come from the Realm of Pleasure for a temporary assignment if the project was completed. (The deactivated Debuggers who had become so honest as to have also become anti-Decepticon, of course, were in the Realm of Punishment as traitors and would stay there.)

For now, DomIntel - Neutral Realm and the realmal adminstrators kept their monitoring of LongCon's project secret. This way, they could discern his motives without him knowing there was any reason to hide them - and therefore, it would be easier to find out the truth.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Cybertron

The Cybertronian Business Association's more pub-going members were glad to learn of the demise of the Equality Raiders through overheard conversations at their favorite Quick Drinks. Soon, the message was spread throughout the group, and they convened to consider their strategy for the future. It was decided that they should go on some big raids now, even though the immediate danger had passed. The sudden rise of the Equality Raiders had, despite their equally-sudden fall, shown that new enemies could arise at any time. "We must upgrade enough to be truly ready," SolarTempest said. "That way, we can just smelt any other interlopers who try to show up!"

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

SteelHard said "What place shall we go to? We all have faith in you and your abilities to find the best places." If SolarTempest didn't yet have any places in mind, the other bots would politely suggest their own places to go. One way or another, they would soon be raiding somewhere to gather Energon for upgrades. Apart from the handful of bots who were in bodies so good that they could not yet upgrade any further, all sane and sensible bots were trying to upgrade frequently. It was not just to avoid falling prey to the Scrounger gangs-bots like SteelHard would have to be seriously damaged in battle or develop serious mental problems for that to happen. It was to be the best and the strongest and most successful Decepticon one could be and was in their Base Code.

Decepticon Afterlife
Domestic Intelligence Regional Headquarters

Domintel even had it's agents and bugs in the afterlife, and they soon uncovered this petty theft, which was not at a level to cause any problems except a very small individual delay before a new part was found. Apart from that, it was not technically illegal to purloin stuff from factories. It could get one sacked or indeed blasted or even worse, if the boss was angry enough, but it was not listed as treason. As LongCon was the boss of this factory, the chances of being uncovered, he thought, was small.

Little Equestria

As a Ponyist Priest, which Loyal Star used to be, the right thing to do would be to publically expose the changelings. But as a Decepticon narking even on biological life was rarely if ever seen as the correct thing to do, unless the danger was both acute, and too big to deal with. Cybertron for example had a number to report a foreign invasion fleet as no lone Decepticon (not counting Megatron) could deal with it alone. He decided that he would look over his congregation at the next sermon, and if they seemed to be reasonably healthy, he would turn a blind eye to these lings. He was pleased that he had anti-changeling shielding-if it had not been invented, lings were perfectly capable of draining his love and possibly shutting his existing body down. If the others were clearly having so much love drained that it was a health hazard to them, he would talk to the two lings in private with a simple warning-either greatly reduce their draining-or face the Decepticon Way, and see how their chitin fared against Standard Blasters and Decepticon Steel. He hoped he would not have to do this however. The Changeling Way and the Decepticon Way were not so far apart. Both were raiders, although for different resources; both used disguises when needed, both had a bitter hatred of narks, and the rule of the Changeling Queens over their Hives was not all that different from how Megatron ruled the Empire.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Mine Number One

As soon as Overseer arrived, he put his most expensive acquisition straight to work. As expected, the body was able to outdo even the other robotic slaves, having 10x the productivity of the normal thanks to its increased hydraulic power. It was also so well-built that it could withstand dangers like cave-ins, boulders falling, and the mishandling of equipment by the living. Therefore, it was quickly stationed in the most dangerous area. The copy-mind now in the body, soulless as it was since that mind's original running instance was still operational (and had its soul there), realized that its situation sucked but could do nothing about it. Like the other 99 copy-instances of that mind, it toiled away without either rest or voiced complaints.


Once he was done with that, he made just enough repairs to the extra four bodies he had gotten to get them to function, and immediately put them to labor. They were recorded only as numbers, and soon, even these would be forgotten in day-to-day operations. With there being nothing special about them, there was no real need to keep track of anything about them except for the accounting department of the giant company this mine belonged to.

Far away, in another section of the mine, SuperCon worked ceaselessly, completely unaware of the arrival of his Coder's body or the fact that his Coder's mind was no longer within. If he ever did see that body, his enslavement script would prevent him from deviating from his programming enough to even outwardly acknowledge it anyway. However, he was unlikely to ever see it since his fairly-average body was deemed unsuitable to go into the dangerous area that the Guaranteed Laborer - now designated as Special Unit GL - had been deployed to.

~~~~~~~~~

Later, the part of the mine near Overseer's underground office was filled with the sound of welding, assembly-tool noise, and grumbling in equal measure. The fight with the Scroungers had ended up leaving the mine boss's main form with many holes as well as his blast-welded knees, and despite making it back to the mine with his loot, he could tell that its functionality had been severely weakened by the simple loss of mass. Now, it was time to do what he only did every several decades, or after a big fight, whichever came first: He was building himself another complete body. Once it was complete, he gave it such a coating of zombie dust, inside and out, that it looked like he had been bathing in the powder. Then, once he was sure that it would zombify, he mind-transferred to it and immediately disconnected its battery, which took it offline - and instantly triggered the zombie effect.

After getting himself into the new, but just as zombified, body, he put the old one through a special shredder that sent it through enough passes to finally powderize it. This material was then added to his existing stock of zombie dust, greatly enlarging his supply and adding a personal touch to the zombification process for years to come.

Now, for a few years anyway, Overseer would look like a new bot and a proper Decepticon save for his supernaturally-dim and soulless eyes. He gave it a coat of medium-dark gray paint, added a black stripe, and surprisingly, gave it a few coats of wax as well. Zombie or not, he had just made this body, so he still had the pride of creation and a bit of a desire to keep it looking nice...at least for a while.

Of course, the color scheme practically screamed of lifelessness despite the wax, and that was intentional. He wanted the living to get an instinctual feeling of dread and doom just by looking at him.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Cybertron

Suggestions quickly came in response to SolarTempest's query as to where to go. Some were far-off, but had a good supply of oil, while others were closer but referred to planets with better defense or only a little loot. All of the planets near Cybertron were subpar in one way or the other - years of having existed so close to the original Decepticon planet ensured that they had either learned how to make great weaponry or had, through the years, been looted of almost all of their oil.

"I have an idea," Fine Print finally said. "How about we raid Earth? Not the one we already own, but the one that they say is on the other side of the mysterious Transdimensional Warp Point. If it's like the Earth we know, it has a huge stock of oil way out in the desert somewhere, and there's nothing there to protect it but some humants in robes and a few SAM batteries. The best thing is, there's way more oil there than they think there is. Their equipment just can't get to it, and in some cases, can't scan far enough down to detect it in the first place."

Non-Decepticon Earth. Only a few had direct proof that it even existed, and until the war against the cattle rustlers, most didn't know that it did exist. The Warp Point, however, had become a battleground in that war and gained a bit of notoriety at the time. So far, though, few had gone to raid there since they suspected that what was said about it was highly fictionalized by the Bureau of Propaganda.

If the claims were correct, though, it was pretty much what Decepticon Earth would have been if it hadn't been invaded years prior. There had been multiple Bay movies instead of just one, the political left of the whole planet had jumped an entire pod of sharks and was continuing to do so with enough gusto to suspect the presence of highly illegal intoxicants, and a civil war was threatening to engulf the United States in a strange fight between green-haired weirdos and beer-drinking Bubbas. Meanwhile, zit-covered far-right ranters fought conspiracy-minded and wild-eyed far-lefters using television as a weapon instead of proper military equipment.

In the country where the proposed oil field target was - Saudi Arabia - there was no leftist upsurge. Instead, they had bands of extremely no-fun-allowed terrorists trying to take everything over, so much hatred for the West that they'd never ask for its military aid even if they were being stomped into the sand...and an oil field that was so far out into the middle of nowhere that it'd take backup ground troops days just to get there. The country's own terrorists had often leaked out into the West, too, to the point that those watching Western-power spy satellite imagery would almost surely laugh when they saw Decepticons land instead of wanting to help anyway.

~~~~~~

SolarTempest's eyes lit up as he considered everything that he'd heard about this place. "My data says that half of their people think that 'shame tactics' will be effective. But what are those?" He asked. The entire concept was outside of the normal Decepticon way of thinking.

Lightning Dust was able to answer this thanks to data he'd acquired as Milorg. "They basically try to make you feel bad for using sense or doing what comes naturally," he laughed openly. "It's only effective on those who care about the opinion of the one trying to do the shaming, or if they can raise enough of a hue and cry to get someone to pretend to care."

SolarTempest laughed. "So, they have no defense is what you're saying." The judgments of mere humants were of no concern to Decepticons, even if billions of humants held the same ideas. A few quick stomps would easily put such creatures in their proper places.

"Yes." Lightning Dust confirmed. "If the reports are correct, that is. Technically they have a decent amount of military hardware spread across the countries, but with all of the domestic interference going on there, they'll never be able to use it effectively. Unlike our Earth, the people on this one do know about us - thanks to some of us having gone through that Warp Point to pick up slaves or to raid - but in practical terms, the reports say that they're even less ready than those who tried to defend against the Invasion of Earth. This is due to the continued combination of nerfing and fracturing of the major Earthian societies."

Soon, SolarTempest had made his decision. They would go ahead and raid Non-Decepticon Earth.

"Since we can just fly through that warp instead of coming all the way from here, our first step should be to set up a temporary base in a convenient location on the Decepticon side. Then, we can stock that base with glider-trailers and a small refinery of our own. Once that's set up, we can just tag-team the place until it either comes up with some real defense or we drain that field dry." SolarTempest announced.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Little Equestria

The changelings quickly detected the ping, but kept faces as straight as professional spies despite this. Their faces remained in the poker form even after his expression toward them hardened slightly, and to their surprise, he didn't say anything about them yet.

Later, he took a tour of multiple congregations, making sure that theirs were on his itinerary. At one, he found the people in normal health; obviously that preacher had spread his raiding around and resisted the urge to gorge. At the other one, however, the people were noticeably sickly, and in fact, his speech was about how this was actually the fault of some hidden polluter. A quick ping revealed that at this congregation, the priest wasn't the only problem. He had brought in a large number of other 'lings, all who were surely raiding away.

To LoyalStar, who had been a pony before his ascension, it was very obvious that the "sickness" of the second 'ling's congregation was the result of too much love-raiding. Not only were the people physically weak, but they went about their day with a cloud of emotional grayness and mental haze, much like what was depicted in anti-Soviet propaganda on Earth before the Invasion. This changeling was unlikely to reform with a mere talking-to - it was clear that he would have to go. Fortunately, as the planet's current High Priest, LoyalStar could simply order this instead of having to work any connives to make it happen.

Meanwhile, his Temple set up an official process for ordination as acolytes. Due to this, many other of the current priests would have their positions changed or even be dismissed simply due to failing the tests that were put in place, and others would have their hidden skills recognized. Overall, the Temple leadership system would become much more standardized and quality would, if all went well, increase across the board.

Once all of the dust settled in terms of who led the minor temples, Leader Megatron would arrive to meet them all at a huge gathering, and then speak with a select few in private.

[Vallermoore]

Mine Number One

SuperCon was doomed to work endlessly, unable to do anything else, and as his body had been zombiefied it could last indefinitely. Special Unit GL would be able to work almost as hard as Santa Claus had done when he had been captured and chipped, which made Overseer very satisfied. The mind inside would end up going quietly insane from frustration and a lack of debugging, but as it did not control the body that did not matter.

Cybertron/Our Earth

As it turned out, SolarTempest wanted ideas from his gang. Several were turned down as they had been raided dry, or were like Tabriz too dangerous even for Decepticons to raid successfully. It was Fine Print that came up with a really good idea. "I have an idea. How about we raid Earth? Not the one we already own, but the one that they say is on the other side of the mysterious Transdimensional Warp Point. If it's like the Earth we know, it has a huge stock of oil way out in the desert somewhere, and there's nothing there to protect it but some humans in robes and a few SAM batteries. The best thing is, there's way more oil there than they think there is. Their equipment just can't get to it, and in some cases, can't scan far enough down to detect it in the first place." If the stories about the planet was correct, there were whole countries full of oil just waiting to be raided. Lightning Dust, the former Vallermoorian military computer, proved once more to be a useful gang member and explained what shame tactics were which made SolarTempest laugh out loud. After getting a suitable temporary base they decided to raid an oilfield near the centre of Saudi Arabia, far from war-torn Syria or Yemen. To their delight they found not even one piece of heavy artillery big enough to do more then pinprick damage to them and were able to raid the place thoroughly with only damage to their paint and one single wire of SolarTempest getting cut by a bullet, which as it turned out slightly damaged his hearing in his right ear until it could be repaired, causing temporary minor deafness in that ear.

Little Equestria

Loyal Star found that one changeling had restrained himself and had only love-raided a little and left him in place without saying anything either in public or in private about it to him. A changeling capable of self-restraint would surely make a great Megatronist Acolyte. The other one had summoned a dozen more lings and was raiding so much love that he was causing the rest of the congregation to fall sick. Ponies could lose a lot of love without harm but these raiders had taken too much. After summoning the lead changeling to a private meeting, he gently but firmly scooped him up and showed him one of his blasters. "I respect you lings and your Way which is so much like ours, but if you and your fellow lings don't leave my diocese by tomorrow evening, I will deal with you according to the Decepticon Way. You are injuring my congregation and stealing their love of Megatronism, that should be feeding their and my God. I won't warn you again. Go. Away." That soon did the trick and within a few days the congregation was healthy again. As time went by formal tests were put in for would be Acolytes. Some would pass with flying colours like Loyal Star had once done, some would just scrape through and some would fail, but be told that they could still be ordinary worshippers and would not be excommunicated for their failure and in ten years could try again if they still wanted to. The quality of sermons (which had to get an OK from Loyal Star) and other such things increased. Loyal Star knew there were hidden cults out there who wished him ill and was well aware that if his Faraday Cage could somehow be cracked, pony magic of a pony with enough magical skill could fry his circuits and send him to a spare on Cybertron, and was not going to let that happen. He hoped to be one of those bots who was lucky enough to be invited to a private meeting with his God.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Decepticon Earth

The Cybertronian Business Association quickly returned to the Decepticon side of the Warp Point with its glider-trailers filled to their brims with crude. Behind them, a few Saudi planes raced to get within missile range, but they were too slow to catch up. Then, to the humans' amazement, the Decepticon contingent just disappeared. The humans flew to the same location, but as is natural for the species, they cautiously slowed down a bit in the place their quarry had seemed to wink from existence. This, however, put them out of the speed range that triggered the aerial aspect of the portal, so they flew past it without warping. They were left totally confused, while on the other side, the CBA landed easily at its base camp.

Once landed, the gang made military-like haste to fire up its refinery and unload the tankers into its stacks. Soon, finished Cubes of Low Standard were being filled up and loaded onto other glider-trailers. It was typical for a fast-built field refinery to produce this low grade, which was still much less bulky than crude. Once their Energon transports were full, the gang would take the fuel to Cybertron and exchange it for Standard at a Raid Dropoff Point. While the tax would remain the same, the refinery surcharge would be much lower since the loot would be arriving there in a form that was already saleable (though it would likely be refined up at least one more grade before sale, it was at least possible to drink it as-is).

After enough Low Standard was produced, SolarTempest and half of the rest of the gang headed off to Cybertron. Meanwhile, most of the other members headed back to Saudi Arabia with their now-empty crude oil trailers. The gang would continue to hit the same oil field again and again until they either drained it or were driven off, whether by some sort of stronger Earthian force or a Decepticon gang that was even bigger and more powerful than their own. Even with their high-speed drilling and extraction equipment, they figured that it would take months to actually clear this field. The gang members laughed to each other about how Earth had thought that this place had reached "peak oil," when in reality, most of the field had still been untapped.

"Humans must think that if they can't get to something, that it doesn't exist!" The CBA scoffed. "One thing's for sure: it'll REALLY be empty by the time WE'RE through with it!"

Non-Decepticon Earth

All over the planet, major governments were having panic attacks. Unlike the usual quick raids they had witnessed, this one seemed like a massive operation. Already, Saudi Arabia had jacked up its prices claiming a lack of supply, even though its actual stockpile hadn't been touched. Thanks to this, the other OPEC nations were starting to show a unity that hadn't been seen in a long time, and their prices were going up as well. Way over in the United States, gas station operators were capitalizing on the news they had gotten from their Al Jazeera feeds and had almost doubled their prices in just a few hours.

"We can't let those damn hunks of tin mess with our economy like this! Send out the Navy and blow 'em out of the sky whether those towel heads like it or not!" The American president, who everyone had once worried would drop a nuke on little North Korea, finally had his war. He signed the executive order with relish, bypassing Congress for at least 30 days, and the US Marines began to prepare for battle.

There was just one problem that the White House hadn't stopped to think about: It generally took the military giant two or more months to get properly ready for a new war. Meanwhile, the Decepticons were raiding right now. At the speed they were going, there wouldn't be any oil left in human-reachable range after a week, let alone two months. It was a level of "fast" that human armies were nowhere near used to.

Meanwhile, across the pond, the Prime Minister of the UK was already facepalming and wondering why he ever took this job. He knew that the American ambassador would be on the phone in no time, trying to cajole him into joining in on this latest adventure. The US was that friend who always gets you in trouble, and as soon as his private wire service let him know that the Marines were in active preparation, it was clear what would be happening soon. In Australia, a similar scenario was playing out, though the Aussies were always ready for a fight if the truth be told. What really ground that country's gears was the idea of protecting the oil of Saudi Arabia, which it would rather have been bombing.

In Canada, very little had yet hit the news. As usual, it would at least try to stay out of any fighting, and if pressed, send a token few troops so its allies wouldn't be so prone to whining at it.

Over in Japan, the response was quite different. REAL MECHS were coming in large numbers! Its Prime Minister was secretly eager to fly over to Saudi Arabia and check out the coolness! However, as the head of the government, it was his duty to try to keep his people safe. To help prevent Japanese citizens from winning an inordinate number of Darwin Awards from rushing to what would surely be a very dangerous area just to gawk, he ordered the information to be classified. Unless someone leaked it, the media would never know.

Little Equestria

A giant sports arena was rented, paid for by the donations of what were now millions of Megatronists, for the arrival of Divine Leader Megatron himself. Priests and acolytes soon filled the seats, and several media crews waited outside. These crews would not be let in for the private address to the clergy, but later, there would be a public segment which they would be allowed to broadcast. For now, the only restriction was that if they did broadcast, it had to be live and in its entirety. There would be no selective editing going on, or at least, there wouldn't be any of that nonsense by anyone who didn't want to be smitten with divine lightning right during their broadcast.

LoyalStar, of course, was not only allowed to attend the event but ordered to. In fact, only 10% of the priests, including a Decepticon who had just been deployed to the planet, were ordered NOT to come. It was standard practice for the military-minded Decepticons to leave a percentage of people out of a single location just in case that location was somehow attacked or some other disaster happened. While disaster was never expected, and losing a battle was expected even less, it was seen as simple insurance to never have all of a large class of government people in one place when a meeting was known to the public.

~~~~~~~~~~~

From outside the roofless arena, the media crews were some of the first to see Megatron arrive. They quickly activated their live broadcast abilities, giving the people of Little Equestria their first look at the Leader of the Decepticons as he came down from the sky. He had expected this, and was sporting 20 coats of the finest wax to ensure that he had a better-than-showroom shine. He also had plastered a strong, leaderly expression on his face - there was no doubt that he was not a people-pandering politician, but instead, a military general first and foremost. No one could reasonably doubt that this person demanded obedience.

The viewers were awed by the size and obvious strength of their new leader, but when they saw his expression - clearly captured by the zoom lenses of the many news cameraponies - they could only hope that his orders would be of high quality. Silently, a few were already planning on another revolution if this turned out not to be the case.

Soon enough, he disappeared behind the walls of the stadium, and the waiting news crews went back to filling up the airtime with empty commentary. They would continue this until they were allowed inside, and bore anyone with even a few neurons half to death.

[Vallermoore]

Decepticon Earth

The first raid of the Cybertronian Business Association went unopposed except for one guard who shot at SolarTempest and got stomped on for it and ground into the sand. They would return again and again, draining most of the oilfield before the Saudi Air Force finally caught up with them. Lightning Dust was the best at shooting the missiles in mid air and blowing up the planes, although all the gang who were not stealing the oil at the time did their bit. When a column of Saudi tanks arrived it was only able to cause some severe denting before being strafed and destroyed. A coalition would take time to form and even longer to be allowed into Saudi Arabia; before it did, not wanting to risk some firepower that might in fact destroy their bodies and/or explode their loot, the CBA decided to get out with the huge amount of Cubes they now had after a week and fly home to Cybertron to buy upgrades. SolarTempest had learned how dangerous overconfidence could be from his now-dead Coder, MasterBlaster, and didn't want to risk making the same stupid mistakes.

Little Equestria

Loyal Star felt very...and this was a strange feeling for a Decepticon...small next to his God. Every time he had been anywhere near Megatron, he could sense the sheer power radiating from the Ultimate Decepticon, whatever Megatron's mood. When he had felt Megatron's anger, it had been terrifying. But he had also felt Megatron's gratitude too, and he just had to look at his own Double Gold Stripes to remind himself of the time when he had freed his God from the grip of the afterlife. He had kept the secret very well; although he suspected that when he next needed to go to Debugging, the Debugger would find out the secret. But that didn't officially count as blabbing it; Debuggers had Privacy Protect and would never willingly betray secrets-if any did, the fires of the Main Pit would await the errant Debugger. Debuggers were especially banned from blabbing secrets, even those relating to treason against the Empire, as Debugging had to be trusted for bots to go to it; and they wouldn't go if the wrong thoughts could lead to execution.

Soon enough Megatron began to speak to the relatively small number of Decepticon Priests and Assistant Priests and the far larger numbers of pony Acolytes who sat there gawping up at him and twitching their tails all over the place with excitement. A handful of undercover changelings were also present, but even if they could have successfully raided Megatron of his rare love, none wanted to be incinerated by his fusion cannon for trying to do so. Perhaps, they silently hoped, a tiny bit of said love might freely leak out that they could absorb without Megatron finding out and give to their Queen later. Megatron opened his mouth and spoke.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Halfway to Cybertron

As the full CBA headed through space at FTL, they were surprised when their automatic internal systems suddenly dropped them back out of it and they entered regular flight speeds. Soon, they saw the reason: If they kept traveling at FTL, they would have collided with a 40-member gang that was directly in their way, leading to the obliteration of all involved.

While this saved them from being bashed to atoms, it now put them into a situation where it seemed like a fight was inevitable. This gang was already spreading out into a formation that was clearly adapted from the Military Handbook - one that was used for assaults rather than defense. Immediately and without waiting for orders, the CBA also began to take up a formation. It chose one that was made for attacking with inferior numbers, believing that the other gang would expect them to instead take the Defensive Formation that the Military taught as the counter. By doing something else, the CBA hoped to throw the other gang off of its intended strategy.

"Thanks for collecting all of that loot for us!" The other gang radioed, making its intentions even more crystal clear. With that, battle began. Both sides made sure not to end up blasting the loot in question, and instead, focused on deactivating each other. Whoever won would get both the original loot and the bodies of the losers.

~~~~~~~~~~

At first, it seemed as if the CBA would surely lose. They were outnumbered by about 20 bots, and sure enough, a few of its members were sent to their spares right away. However, after the initial few moments, the strategy changed. Multi-channel cloaking was deployed by the CBA, its scouts began to fly around erratically and get potshots in, and others took cover behind the glider-trailers that held the now-dismantled pieces of refining equipment instead of Energon. Those with Energon, on the other hand, were avoided to keep from attracting fire in their directions.

The other gang had expected full cloaking and easily saw/detected through it since they came prepared with advanced detection upgrades. However, it had trouble with the erratic scouts, who seemed to be able to dodge everything and moved faster than lightning. Meanwhile, the hostiles were taking extremely accurate fire from Lightning Dust, SolarTempest, and several others. When they fired back, they found that the glider-trailers provided surprisingly good cover. The attackers, on the other hand, had brought nothing that provided that sort of cover. They had intended to steal the CBA's transports, so they didn't think they'd have any use for glider-trailers of their own. Now, it seemed, their oversight would lead to a CBA victory and several newly-deactivated bodies for the CBA to somehow hook up to their glider-trailers for the rest of the trip back to Cybertron.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Little Equestria

Here in what was still known as the Stadium of Kings, most who took to the field seemed like dots. Megatron and the other Decepticons, however, were so large that the entire building had to be remodeled in order to fit them into their proper positions. Even after the remodeling, Megatron took up much of what had been the field space, and just one Priest could fit on each side. One was Loyal Star, who as the Acting Head Priest of the planet, got a position of honor. On the other side was one Loyal Star had never seen before; perhaps he would be taking over once the missionary/setup phase was complete. Other Decepticon Priests sat in the remodeled parts of the stands. The only unremodeled areas held the pony acolytes, who were, of course, the size the stadium's seating had originally been built to hold.

Megatron looked over the entire audience, inwardly cringing a bit at the active antsiness of the ponies with their ever-twitching tails. If those were made with regular linkage, Megatron thought silently, they'd wear them out in less than a year.

"Decepticons and Decepticons-in-Spirit!" Megatron said in a strong voice that needed no microphones to carry through the entire stadium, "This is a historic time, not only for Little Equestria, but for the Decepticon Empire as well! Today marks the early days of a first - the bringing of an entire planet to the Empire without the use of the Decepticon Military! This shows that unlike most other biologicals, you have the RAM needed to see the superiority of the Decepticon Way, not only in small cult numbers, but en masse. For this, you shall be rewarded: My extra blessings will be upon the Megatronists of this generation, who made that leap not only without looking down the barrels of my Military's Blasters, but also while going against what had been a very hostile government."

"I applaud your guts and your victory over the factions that has promoted inferior forms of government. All of you who are here right now had sided with me even when it was far from clear that you would have that victory, and as such, you shall always hold a superior position to those who only came over after seeing that the other groups had futile positions. That said, the others will not be entirely rejected like they usually would be. Their masses allowed the opposition to be crushed. However, while it is not a good idea to tell them so, always remember that the opportunists are your inferiors. They will get minor non-war blessings, while yours will be notably better."

"Once this planet's physical structure is rebuilt, and upgraded where necessary, it will be time for Little Equestria to come into proper glory as a Planet of the Decepticon Empire. I will set up educational programs that not only teach the standard essentials like math and Equestrian, but that also teach how to be proper Decepticons-in-Spirit. Education in Megatronism will also be mandatory. In just one generation, there will be millions of ponies who know how to wage effective raids, defend themselves and their loot against repossession attempts, and who have the mindset needed to actually DO these things." Megatron was smiling, and his head tilted upward as he envisioned what he believed would be a glorious future.

"The first thing I am ordering right now, though, is a change to the name of this planet. You cannot allow your subconscious to be infiltrated by the idea of being 'Little' - or subordinate - to a planet that was absolutely crushed. That seemingly-simple thing will hamper you in all of your interplanetary raids, business deals, and everything else. Instead, you shall have a properly-Decepticon name for this world from now on: Glorious Equidae. As long as you remain Decepticons-in-Spirit and a willing part of my Empire, you are Glorious!"

Megatron paused for a few moments and looked over the crowd, which had eagerly cheered at all of the appropriate moments.

"Now, on to practical matters."

"As your God and Dictator, I shall first order a special branch of the Decepticon Military here, NOT to enforce laws or raid things, but to ensure the speedy repair of all buildings and infrastructure damaged by the war that has just come to an end. This branch of the Military is little-known because it never appears on the battlefields. Instead, its purpose is to fix and maintain infrastructure - typically, on Cybertron. By using soldiers, I am able to order repairs done and get an instant and effective response. On your world, I believe you had a division with a name like the 'Corps of Engineers' that did this sort of thing. In the Empire, it is known as Decepticon Military - Infrastructure Maintenance & Civil Engineering. You'll know them because they are one of the few Military divisions that is uniformed. Look for troops with steel-colored background paint and green stripes. A symbol with a steel beam and a single wrench appears under the Decepticon Seal, as well. If you have any projects that need doing but were ignored by the incompetent False Alicorn, such as dike building or dam placement, be sure to tell the Division members about them. Just remember to always be polite and respectful, for even IM & CE will assert its status if it feels challenged."

"Meanwhile, the Temple shall continue building more branches. It shall also increase its focus on teaching the young, who are currently complaining to me that Wednesday School is 'boring.' First, you shall take the simple step of no longer calling these educational sessions 'school.' The very word is tainted in the minds of biological children, and for good reason: It is associated with work, being cooped up for hours, putting up with people who we Cybertronians would blast without a second thought, and more. You must get rid of this association immediately. Start with the name. It is no longer 'school.' It is the Pathway to Greatness Program." The Decepticon priests were not at all surprised to hear the Bureau of Propagandish name come out, but the ponies were all amazed. The new term sounded so much better and more motivating!

"Next, change the format of the program. Many of you have been having foals stand there while you have some 'teacher' drone on and on. That's boring and activates an average of 9% of a youngster's total RAM. How can anyone learn anything that way?! Since that's how schools do things, I'll be mandating a change in those systems as well. For now, you will fire those teachers and replace them with what are essentially basic order-keepers. I will be distributing 'gamified' educational disks and consoles that bring the highest possible virtual reality experience to biologicals without the use of invasive methods. You have the foals play those. They will, unfortunately, have the unavoidable taint of being 'educational games,' but they'll still be far more exciting and immersive than any dull school experience. Who can say the Program sucks when what you did for an hour was raid stuff and then find the legal loophole that lets you get away with it with a smile?"

The Decepticons cheered, but a few of the ponies looked like they had some misgivings. Megatronism was to deliberately teach foals to be a bunch of system-working conniving thieves who worship Leader Megatron?!
While they all knew what Megatronism was about, and weren't against the general concept, they were still a bit wobbly-legged about not only openly, but blatantly, ramming its concepts home like that. Just a few months prior, trying that would have brought death squads from the former government. The ponies also worried that there could be a big societal backlash.

It turned out that yes - this was exactly the intention. Megatron began to glower and leaned slightly toward the pony parts of the stands. "FEAR OF THE WORTHLESS OPINIONS OF LILY-LIVERED AUTOBOTTISH FOOLS HAS NO PLACE IN MEGATRONISM!" The Divine Leader roared, clearly sensing the hesitancy on their faces. "We will use the most effective methods known! Any un-Decepticon scum who don't like how we do things can tell it to Domestic Intelligence!"

The Decepticon priests - and some of the ponies - cheered wildly at this, while most of the biologicals responded with just polite applause. The looks on their faces showed that they now wondered just what they had really gotten themselves into, but that they weren't ready to defect, either. Megatron really did go all the way about things and wouldn't use any nerfed methods to please those he considered too inferior to care about (such as anyone who'd object to changing the format of the religious education program to make its values crystal clear and provide practice at the same time).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Soon, he closed this part of his speech and opened the doors to the public. The stadium quickly filled, and the reporters filed in. Now, he gave a much shorter speech in which he went over his points about repairs to buildings and infrastructure, mentioned a "far more exciting" educational program for the Temples, and that he would renovate the general educational system as well. Unlike his prior speech, he made sure to keep things high-level and upbeat, leaving a feeling that only greatness - under Megatron - awaited what was now renamed as Glorious Equidae

[Vallermoore]

Little Equestria

In the largest stadium, the Stadium of Kings, Loyal Star (who like the other Priest was using his wings as a chair) wondered idly to himself if those Priests of Ponyism who had before the destruction of Equestria had been close to the alicorns had felt the same way as he did now. He was next to a God who even had he not been divine could still have killed him with one blast in the right place of his fusion cannon, and yet at this moment he felt perfectly safe. His clerical career was doing well-as the Acting Head Priest of the planet, he was the closest equvilent to what in Christianity or Ponyism would be a bishop or a cardinal. When he was a pony and a Ponyist he had despite his then loyalty to Ponyism never risen higher then a parish priest-not like now. Everyone within earshot of Megatron was very interested in what he had to say. He praised the ponies for overthrowing their deeply unpleasant and hostile government and joining the Decepticon Empire, announced that an engineering Division would be sent in to repair the busted dams and other serious damage done by the brief civil war, and renamed the planet Glorious Equidae, a far better name for a Decepticon pony planet. Although he didn't say so, privately Megatron thought given enough time, some ponies from here might desire and earn the Ultimate Upgrade. And if they are as loyal as Loyal Star, they would be an asset to Cybertron.

The reason why Megatron knew that the foals thought Wednesday School was boring, was that several of them had prayed to him and a few of these prayers were allowed to reach the right section of his mind boards. Some of the adult ponies who had foals looked a bit worried which was when Megatron leaned a little closer.
"FEAR OF THE WORTHLESS OPINIONS OF LILY-LIVERED AUTOBOTTISH FOOLS HAS NO PLACE IN MEGATRONISM! We will use the most effective methods known! Any un-Decepticon scum who don't like how we do things can tell it to Domestic Intelligence!" Many of the ponies were so nervous they sat on their tails. Loyal Star was very pleased that the anger was not being aimed at him as it had been when he had his body parts set on fire and was very nearly outright killed, likely only spared because he had freed Megatron from the afterlife earlier.

After talking to the media, Megatron turned to Loyal Star and spoke in his mind "Follow me to that nearby lifeless moon, it'll only take us one minute to get there in FTL." After saying goodbye to the ponies, he took off into the sky and Loyal Star followed him, wondering what his God wanted to say to him. Whatever it was it was unlikely to be something bad.


Halfway to Cybertron

The CBA were feeling very pleased with themselves until they dropped out of FTL due to a bigger mini-syndicate of no less then 40 bots in their way, who intended to rob them. However, the CBA fought back and gave as good as they got. Lightning Dust put his military targeting skills to good use, and every blast of his hit the foe somewhere where it hurt. SteelHard's armour was very strong indeed and SolarTempest was an expert fighter. Not one of the CBA even thought of backing down, and although some were damaged and others were sent to their spares, by using the gliders as cover they could pick off more of the foe. When two thirds of their foes were scrap metal and eight of the CBA were left, the rest of the gang left. Before they left, one tried to spitefully explode the Energon with a parting shot, but Lightning Dust got in the way, taking quite a bad leg wound to protect the Energon. "It looks like we might have a new gang war on our hands," Lightning Dust said, his eyes dark and his engine growling with anger that a gang thought they could rob the CBA.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Glorious Equidae
Temples of Megatron

The population here thought the new name was too ostentatious for the reality of the place, but they were also glad not to be named after a planet that had been all but wiped out due to following gods who had essentially committed suicide-by-Decepticon. The priests and acolytes, on the other hand, were all for the new name and were certain that one day, the people would live up to it.

In the Temples, the foals had plenty of misgivings about the new program. It would still be school, they figured, no matter what name was put on it. They also groaned when they were told that they'd have to play games for an hour after every service instead of listening to a teacher like usual. "Educational 'games' aren't games," they grumbled as they positioned themselves in front of the new screens, "and they're usually used by teachers too lazy to come up with anything of their own to say." The looks on their faces, at this point, showed a complete lack of any enthusiasm for any part of the concept.

To their amazement, they weren't given the usual lame "perfume-on-a-pig" dud kind of educational games at all. Instead, they found themselves suddenly looking at a perfect-resolution version of a planet from the vantage point of space. Before they could stare at that for too long, though, they saw an enemy space fleet headed their way and closing fast. That's when they noticed that their characters had Decepticon bodies, and that each of them were part of a team made up of themselves and four AIs - their virtual raid gangs. A quick look around revealed that all of them had the newbie position of their separate groups, in the back of the flight formation and hitched up to a glider-trailer.

A commanding voice gave orders through their headsets: "Disconnect from the trailer now! Assume battle position!" The battle position was then announced as the enemies, thanks to dramatic license, paused to wait just long enough for the player to complete the command. Those who were too slow about it, however, were blasted off of the screen in balls of fire and had to replay the segment.

By the time the hour was up, most had completed three or four of these scenes. Those who completed four had their "class" end for the day with the message: Basic Space Raiding Tactics Module 1 of 20 Complete. The others would have to finish their segment the next week before starting on Module 2.

They put their headsets down as the monitors turned themselves off, and turned to see their local temple priests/acolytes standing there with their tails flicking happily. "These aren't any lame educational games, are they!?" Priests in the various temples enthused to their new classes. "Leader Megatron has willed that being a Decepticon - and by extension being a Megatronist - isn't ONLY about being the best you can be. It's also about enjoying doing it!"

What hadn't yet been announced, but soon would be, was that the adults would soon have to go through the Pathway to Greatness program themselves. Though they would be segregated from the foals so that they all didn't get stomped once the PvP segments started, they would be playing the same games. People of all types, Megatron had learned, were typically quite willing to play games all the time and quite eager to learn the concepts in those games in order to do better at them. Despite some planets' incorrect beliefs to the contrary, this remained true at all ages.

One thing that was quickly fixed about Temple operation was the practice, which had been found at several of them, of running Wednesday School while the adults listened to the "grown-up service." Now, everyone had to listen to the service, even those young enough to find it boring, and then do Pathways to Greatness after it ended. "We can't have the foals getting their messages second-hand like that." Megatron stated bluntly when he gave his religious decree on the matter. "Parents will filter my message through their own worldview and opinions of 'what foals should hear,' and this will add the bad kind of corruption to my religion. Have everyone listen to their temple leaders directly, and eliminate the chance of this happening."

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Moon of Glorious Equidae

Megatron and Loyal Star soon found an area of this moon that appeared to be decently solid and landed there. A foot or two of dust poofed up from the impact, but under that, it was indeed bedrock and held the big robots easily.

"What is it you want to tell me, sir?" Loyal Star asked with great curiosity.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cybertron

When the CBA dropped back out of FTL outside the Zone of Control, the extent of the damages to the gang were clearer. Several of their side's bodies were now strapped to the outside of the Energon-filled glider-trailers, and others paused as they assessed whether their own forms were too damaged to handle the re-entry heat of the actual flight to the surface. Meanwhile, even more deactivated bodies were attached to tow cables and hung behind the trailers like empty cans in a stereotypical human wedding. These belonged to the other gang. All of the bodies, on either side, that were deactivated due to severe overall damage (rather than precise shots) would be sold at the same Raid Dropoff Point they intended to use to trade their low-grade Energon for one of the better versions.

At least, that was their plan for the future. Right now, the 10 opportunistic bots coming at them were about to take priority.

"Looks like you've had a hard fight," one of them radioed over. "How about you keep the rest of your Metal relatively intact, and just hand over those trailers. They look so heavy to haul...you wouldn't want to overload your en~~"

The new group's leader didn't even have a chance to finish his sentence before the CBA opened fire. They had all known that getting to Cybertron with a huge haul was typically problematic for those who already looked battle-worn, so they were all ready for this sort of thing in this location.

It was a short but vicious fight that gave the CBA several more bodies to collect for refining. Some of these, however, still had some functionality left in them. The Raid Dropoff Point would not accept "functioning scrap" since it was not equipped for dealing with active physical resistance from the loot, and it didn't want the lines to be held up.

Since nobody wanted to split off from the real loot to take a few barely-living enemy raiders to a foundry, the group decided to just take these barely-running enemies close enough to Cybertron for gravity to kick in and then drop them. They quickly bolted for the Cybertronian atmosphere, mainly to avoid any more opportunists trying to raid them, and then did exactly that. The potential-threat enemies soon fell out of sight, and were sure to be blasted by those below so that they didn't hit anything important - at least, not while still in pieces being enough to cause any damage.

Soon enough, the gang arrived at Cybertron's biggest Dropoff Point, which was close to the Main Refinery. This actually was an unfavored Dropoff since it was always very busy and had long lines, but it was also the one that could properly handle the huge load of loot the CBA was bringing in. There, they took up positions in one of the many queues behind everything from lucky raiders to a 100-bot-strong ICC contingent that not only had glider-trailers, but a few full cargo-bots with them. Whatever they had raided had surely lost at least an entire oil field all in one go.

[Vallermoore]

(OOC-Sorry about the reply delay due to Real Life in the way.)

Cybertron

IC-When the remaining CBA reached Cybertron a raid gang tried to raid them and paid with their Metal for the attempt although another two of the CBA were sent to their spares. Once they made it through and were in the loot queue they were in one of the safest places on Cybertron. Anyone blasting or threatening to blast here would risk blowing up everybody's loot in a chain reaction and so would be dealt with using maximum force by every bot in the queue. Messages came in to SolarTempest from the other gang members in their spares and by the time it was their turn to pay the Raid Tax and get their loot refined the whole CBA had flown in to their location. The amount of oil they had was huge and there was enough to enrich every bot in the CBA. Now they could afford upgrades and with a possible gang war on the horizon, they would need them. There were of course other things to buy, such as music chips and games and that sort of thing. Like all intelligent life, Decepticons liked to have fun, but their upgrades needed to come first. SolarTempest silently noted to himself how Lightning Dust had deliberately taken a wound when the other gang tried to spitefully explode their loot, to protect it. That sort of thing was a plus in the CBA or indeed in any proper raid gang.

Moon of Glorious Equidae

"You have done well. Would you like to spend a few years in the easy post of Head Priest of Glorious Equidae, or do you want to just stay a relatively short time of a few days or weeks until it fully settles down and then go on new missionary adventures to other worlds that need to have the light of My religion shone upon it?" Megatron was smiling and his eyes were a warm red, whilst his engine was running smoothly, as he looked at Loyal Star.

Glorious Equidae

At first the foals thought the games would be dull, but they soon found them very interesting indeed as they played the parts of Decepticons raiding planets. At least some would start wanting to be bots when they grew up; of those, the very best would genuinely earn the privilege of the Ultimate Upgrade so far. Some pony customs were not normally interfered with-for example, the cutecenara that ponies got when they earned their mark. A very few symbols, unlikely to happen in any case, would very likely earn death for the pony and his or her family if or more likely when Domintel found out about them. These were the infamous Big Mouth mark that indicated a tell tale, the Autobot Seal, that indicated a rebel who hated Decepticons, and one or two others. The banned marks were hugely rare, occurring in maybe one in a million foals. A handful of other marks that indicated amazing skill in Decepticonish things were praised. The most common mark as time went on would be the Decepticon Seal that gleamed as if it were metal.

It was found that some Temples had adopted the minor heresy of running Wednesday School while the adults listened to the "grown-up service." Megatron personally put a stop to that, although he didn't feel the need to need to step on, blast or otherwise kill anybody in doing so. Such things, like snags in a newly build house, tended to happen in situations like this. He explained in his decree from on high "We can't have the foals getting their messages second-hand like that. Parents will filter my message through their own worldview and opinions of 'what foals should hear,' and this will add the bad kind of corruption to my religion. Have everyone listen to their temple leaders directly, and eliminate the chance of this happening."

Many pegusai amongst who no doubt were a few disguised changelings flew at Decepticon arm's length from the Greatest Decepticon, scared to fly any closer, and most just in awe of their God. He said aloud for the benefit of any changelings there "We Decepticons have anti-changeling shielding now; we know how prized our rare love is , and we can't spare any for lings, as we don't have much and need it for ourselves to avoid crashing and losing perfectly good bodies. But there is a possibility of trading some if you have something we want." A purple-shelled changeling, either very brave or incredibly stupid, shed his pegasus form. Next to the Perfect Decepticon, he seemed very small and weak. Megatron could have vaporized him or just grabbed him and squashed or chipped him even without using his divine powers but he didn't, otherwise no changeling would dare to reveal himself or herself.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Moon of Glorious Equidae

Loyal Star was surprised to be asked such a non-classified type of question this far out, and if it had been anyone but Megatron, he would have given the other guy a few blasts for "dragging him into the middle of nowhere for nothing."

However, since it was Megatron, he simply answered that he'd like to stay for about a year - enough time to enjoy seeing things running in a well-tuned way for a while, but not so long that he'd get bored. He certainly didn't want to stay forever, even with his high position. It was missionary work that had called him, and he still wanted to spread the word more than merely maintain it.

~~~~~~~~~~

Glorious Equidae

It wasn't long before education in Megatronism was made mandatory, not only in schools, but in adult night schools all over the planet. Adults who were already in a Temple Pathway to Greatness program were exempted from the requirement, but foals had to take a one-hour Megatronism class every day, and so did adults who had not joined (or did not actually attend) a Temple. "Atheism, Ponyism, or any other philosophy shall not serve as an excuse to be ignorant of the official religion of Glorious Equidae," read Megatron's decree. "Only by truly knowing my religion can you make an informed decision about it!"

For now, unbelief would be tolerated since the religion was not only newly introduced, but still had to overcome a huge amount of anti-Megatronist propaganda and sentiment. Eventually, however, there would be enough acceptance to support an outright purge of the most stubborn elements of society.

Soon after that decree, classes in schools were changed greatly and in much the same way as the Wednesday School had been changed. These changes didn't just apply to the new Megatronism class, but to all aspects of education. While not all subjects lent themselves to full practice in the game environment, gamification was added to everything - including calculus and trigonometry.

One surprising subject to have a large segment done in sim format was physics. Though the change mostly affected the intermediate and advanced levels, and didn't quite approach the level of being a video game, no one could say it wasn't fun. In the new Physics Mastery Series, students had to design non-sapient machines, buildings, spaceships, and other objects based on what they'd learned in their previous and current classes on the subject. Then, the DomIntel Supercomputer would fully calculate exactly how the designs would work under various conditions. Instead of simply reporting "pass" or "fail," the programs would produce high-resolution sims of the results.

Many fiery explosions, collapsing buildings complete with earth ponies screaming and falling out of windows, bridges that fell down and left everyone swimming (or drowning), and more marked the efforts of those whose studies had been insufficient. On the other hand, successes were marked with virtual awards, very realistic crowds of applauding citizens...and for the VERY best students on the ENTIRE planet, invitations to compete in the student-level physics competitions on Cybertron itself. "Competitors are expected to solve the survival problems presented by the environment of the Metal Planet before attempting the trip, and use their solutions while on site," these extremely-rare tickets warned in a fine-print notice across their bottoms.

Megatron, of course, expected that all of these puny biologicals would get owned by proper Decepticon physicists, who would be placed in the category of those who had installed just one Advanced Educational Data Pack on the subject. The main point for him was to encourage greatness in his new followers - and let them know just how far they really had to go to approach the skills of the robotic race. Glorious Equidae's very best would not be discouraged by this ownage over the long term, but instead, would be busy taking mental notes of what could really be done even at what would be equivalent to a bachelor's level of college education.

Most public school students would never attend one of these or any other "best of the best - student level" events that would crop up. This, however, was no different than ever. Schools always had programs for their brightest, and these events just added more options. Later, however, there would be a school-driven drive to push the vast sea of mediocre students toward doing better, including a change in the attitudes that schoolteachers were allowed to display, the measures that could be taken against the obstinately ignorant, and the way class placement was done. "We will not be tolerating the acceptance of mediocrity and peasantry any longer," read part of Megatron's introductory letter to school board members and other administrators. "Anti-intellectualism on all fronts is to be stamped out with steadfastness and vigor."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Meanwhile, civilian life was also changing. The stores started to get steady supplies not only of apples and treats, but also general basics that had often gone short during the time of the False Alicorn. Prices began to drop thanks to the more-reliable supply, and while this wasn't pleasing to Carjack Agriculture - which quickly eminent domained a huge amount of acreage in order to get rid of interplanetary shipping costs - it was a big hit with the public. With more money for things other than food and bedding, the ponies were able to begin repainting their houses and taking care of other maintenance. The overall looks of the intact structures began to increase, and Glorious Equidae started to shed the slightly-impoverished look it used to have.

As this went on, the major damage from the war was being repaired at what seemed, to the ponies, to be miraculously-fast speeds. The Decepticon repair troops had no problems demolishing structures deemed too damaged to save, and instead of having to spend days or weeks bashing them down with backhoes and front-loaders, and then inefficiently putting the debris into roll-offs, the Decepticons just scooped the wrecked buildings up in their hands and dropped them into the roll-offs in single movements.

Construction was just as easy for the Decepticons. All of the panels, for new buildings, even those made of wood or masonry, were pre-cut so they could just be snapped together. The Decepticon preference for metal was still clear, and many of the replacements were openly made of it. Residential housing, however, was often made of wood at the request of many of the new converts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cybertron
First Temple of Megatron

The High Priest had a somber, but dedicated, look on his face as he read the latest decree. It was one of the few that Megatron had made concerning Cybertron itself, and like the others, it was very important and far-reaching.

Order to Begin the Purge of the Nonbelievers and Heretics from Well-Established Megatronist Planets

This was the headline, and from most people's perspective, it said all they needed to know. For the Temple and Domestic Intelligence, however, the details were also important.

• The Decree pertained to Cybertron, Coltan, Decepticon Earth, and some other long-held Decepticon planets
• DomIntel was to get a new division: The Religious Enforcement Arm
• The Temple was to test everyone brought to it by the REA to confirm unbelief or heresy
• The Temple test was to consist of forcing the suspect to kneel before the Great Face of Megatron. The Face's expression would determine the verdict.
• Tampering with the operation of the Face for this test would be blasphemy, and whoever did this was to be melted down.
• Any suspect who disputed the veracity of the first Face's reaction was to be tested at another Temple to confirm the results.
• Those who failed the test would be subject to meltdown
• Anyone who resisted being brought in for testing was to be assumed guilty and executed by death squad in battle, as per the usual protocol
• All foundries were to have all pits ready for full operation, to the exclusion of all other business, for the first 10 days of the Purge.
  

Though pretty much everyone expected this day to come - after all, harboring un-Decepticon ideals and letting anyone know about it was always fast ticket to the nearest foundry - it was still a sobering thing for the High Priest to read the foil-paper right there in his hand. Now, everyone in the Decree's coverage areas truly had to be a Megatronist, with no hint of unbelief (or worse, competing beliefs) - or perish.

[Vallermoore]

Glorious Equidae

As it turned out, the construction bots did not have to blast, stamp on or otherwise kill even a single pony as they allways got the needed respect. The ponies, some of them, ended up talking with the relatively friendly construction bots and were awed from what they learned of Cybertron. Whilst all Decepticons were dangerous if bothered, some, like Debuggers and construction bots, didn't really have an urge to kill or enslave biologicals. Others, like cargo bots, were notoriously grumpy, and if a biological encountered a bot from the Genocide Battalion, it was unlikely he or she or it would live to tell the tale.

As a brand new Megatronist planet, an Inquisition was not brought in yet as the execution level would have been high enough to panic all the ponies and make them think that death was to be their lot.

With the economy improving the ponies were very happy with their lot, just as Megatron had intended. These were not conquered ponies or rebels, but had joined willingly, so to suck their ecomony dry or worse would be very bad PR for any other planets considering joining the Empire willingly.

After going back from the moon, Loyal Star was surprised to get a radio call from what seemed like a pony, asking to be taken to Debugging as he had something wrong with his mind boards. Loyal Star gently scooped him up and took him there-as a Priest he saw it as a duty to do so. Some time later, the bot would come back in a full body and, in the privacy of Loyal Star's study, would thank him. "I am a Forintel bot and have spent many years undercover doing classified
Missions as a pony. So long that I started thinking of myself as a pony and needed to be Debugged. "
On the moon

One more thing, a little private gift that I didn't want to give you in public. For me it's nothing much, it is just a small Energon Cube from my private fountain outside my Mansion. You are a credit to My Priesthood. Megatron opened a panel and gave Loyal Star a single Cube of Energon Supreme. Soon afterwards Megatron went back to Cybertron.

Cybertron

Loyal Star, despite once being a Ponyist, was unlikely to end up purged. If he was put before a Face of Megatron, it would surely be positive. Many other bots however would be less lucky, which was why the Pits were being made ready.

[Victorious Decepticons]

On the Moon

Loyal Star was now highly pleased, though he wondered why Megatron didn't award it in a public ceremony this time. Still, he broke into a grin and thanked his Leader and God as he accepted the Cube and put it into one of his leg panels.

Soon, he would be back on Glorious Equidae, where a not-pony approached him and asked to go to Debugging. This was a really strange request since surely a ForIntel agent knew where Cybertron was! Loyal Star secretly radioed ForIntel before agreeing to give him a ride, just in case this was actually some enemy spy, or worse, a changeling. Only after getting clearance - which took waiting on the radio for about an hour as the agency went through the channels needed in order to declassify the information - did he provide the transportation.

Later, the agent came back as an open Decepticon and thanked him. "It turns out I had even more data corruption than I thought," he admitted. "I had even forgotten how to contact ForIntel myself. Now, the agency has me under watch to make sure I'm okay, but after that, I'll be undercover again. It's unlikely I'll get to be a 'pony' for a long time, though. There are other planets of interest..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As time went on, every High General managed to make it over to Glorious Equidae to see this place that the Empire had managed to acquire without swarming it in Decepticon troops or raid gangs. Along with them, many undercover con-bots arrived, setting up shop among the population as if they were regular ponies and even changelings. The changeling android body was especially hard to do since it basically required having one disguise on top of another disguise, and underneath those, a robotic shell. Still, whenever there was a chance to find a sucker, there was a Decepticon who would try to take him.

As each High General arrived, several ponies came to see him, mostly out of curiosity. Some, however, were already full fans and made a point of meeting each one. The stoic and somewhat boring Skywarp, the eager and loud Thundercracker (who made sure to show off his thunder-noise ability), and the inscrutable Shockwave were among the first to arrive. These were duly noted and people took pictures as they walked around surveying the area, but didn't make huge impressions. If the ponies had only known the importance of Shockwave's department to Decepticon technology, they surely would have paid more attention.

Next, General Soundwave came openly, and surprised the population by using his body that turned into a boom box. Even on Glorious Equidae, tape decks were obsolete, so this took them by surprise. "It's my favorite body," he said jovially. "It's big, it's bold, and I've had it for years." He did not mention what his other bodies turned into - that would remain a state secret (and ForIntel secret) until someone finally blew the covers of those forms. Everyone noticed that of all of the generals so far other than Megatron, Soundwave was clearly the proudest. The smartest ponies instantly got the idea that he was behind the sudden rise of Megatronism, or at least, the sudden demise of those who tried to enforce the prior government's opposition to it. When word got out that his "civilian" position was the Head of Intelligence, Foreign and Domestic, all who were above the 100 IQ mark connected the dots to realize he had at least something major to do with it.

Finally, General Carjack arrived. There was no missing his disdain for biologicals as he surveyed the crowd. He obeyed an order not to display his Battalion's skull-and-wrenches, but his finely-etched blasters caught everyone's immediate attention. In the way of biologicals, some foal missed his expression and body language, and asked him why he had "fancy barrels" while the others did not.

"It's micro-etching," Carjack explained. He leaned over to give the kid a very good look, and the youngster made out a few of the larger skulls that had been done before Carjack realized that he'd have to etch them much more finely in order to represent his entire kill count. "Each mark represents someone I have personally deactivated." He graciously avoided using the word "killed" when speaking to what was obviously a young child, not wanting to accidentally create a rebel who would think that the only way to be safe was to deactivate him.

While the foal did indeed miss some of the import of the statement, the adults and older children got it right away. Their now-tucked tails twitched nervously as they contemplated just how many kills it'd take to require micro-etching to mark them all on a pair of blasters that were each bigger than bazooka barrels.

"I and my Battalion step in where diplomacy is not an option or where it has completely failed," Carjack said. "Those who have willingly entered the Empire need not worry unless they become my personal enemies.

After this initial meeting, Carjack went off to a fairly secluded part of the city. There, in the middle of a main road that was still closed for repairs, he waited while smoking a Decepticon-sized cigarette with real tobacco from his Earthian farm. Sure enough, before he could finish it, a menacing-looking pony arrived. This pony, an all-black one with a battle axe cutie mark, carried many scars and had a brooding expression.

"So what does it take to be a legal mass murderer?" He asked bluntly, without introducing himself.

Carjack leaned back, took a hit of the cigarette, and dramatically exhaled. He knew he would attract at least one...and most likely, more.

"Deactivating one's foes will soon be legal for everyone, but the Divine Leader never allows that transition to take place too quickly in a society that has just recently been under full legal control. That leaves you with two options. You can move to a planet within the Empire, other than Cybertron, that has been under Decepticon control long enough for restrictions to have been rescinded. Or, if you think you can pass all of the parts of the Decepticon Citizenship tests, including the aspect where you have to survive on Decepticon Earth for three months without any special help, you can become a Decepticon and then go attack pretty much any planet on the Raid List as long as you don't cause us to get into war."

"If you'd like to join the Genocide Battalion, it requires more. You have to not only be a citizen, you have to join the Military, pass MY psych tests, AND be certified for suitability by the Military Debugging Center. I will tell you right now: To be a Genocider, you have to have more traits than the willingness to massacre entire unwanted populations. You also have to have the self-control needed to come to a place like this and not kill anyone. The latter is the hardest for a Genocider, and in fact, my Battalion has been ordered to stay away from here for now..."

Carjack didn't mention that, for full citizens, there was another way into the Battalion: A proven record of killing fellow robots and avoiding fatal retribution. Depending on how this was done, a position in the Genocide Battalion could open up. The other alternative was a gig as an Intelligence assassin.

As he talked to the first pony, another one sauntered up. This one looked more normal, but a burning hatred could be seen in his eyes. He beat around the bush for a while, but finally got to his point: "Every society I know of is shit, full of rage-inducing injustice, and is a general pain in the ass. I long to release this rage on some helpless planet! To see its cities laid waste before me! To see its people forever neutralized under my feet!"

Carjack gave him the same spiel as he gave the other one, and the other one left since he'd heard it already. Once he was alone with the second interested pony, who had a sawtoothed boomerang cutie mark that indicated his desire to pay back wrongs using lethal means, he did something different. He asked this one about his criminal record (none), his current "score" (3), and whether he was willing and able to restrain himself from violence when ordered to do so (yes, that's why he had no record of assaults and other such hostilities).

"Now YOU, you may get somewhere. Take this card to Immigration, and if you pass the citizenship test, you'll be fast-tracked through Basic and onto the path of joining the most feared military group on Cybertron. But do think about it. If you have any qualms at all of being part of a group whose purpose is to wipe out billions of biologicals as a mere 'infestation,' my Battalion is not for you."

The pony now introduced himself as Pesticide, and assured the Genocider he would have no trouble handling the weight of such actions. "Others assume the pests my name is talking about are aphids and such...but they're not..." he said with a toothy grin.

The card had one simple line written in Binary: Carjack sent me.

~~~~~~~~~~

Over at Immigration, the agents were surprised to get not one, but two, radio transmissions from Glorious Equidae with ponies wanting to become citizens and join the Genocide Battalion. Only one, however, mentioned getting a business card. "I can't read it since it's in Binary, but the General told me to make sure you get it," he said.

That one got an invitation to come and test. The other one, however, did not. Instead, he was warned that he might not be considered a suitable candidate and that he should only apply if he was sure he'd be happy in a different position.

As for the one with the invitation, it would be Immigration's job to determine just what he thought was "unjust" about most societies and whether that would be a problem in the Decepticon one. They also had to make sure he wasn't what some planets called an "SJW," which would be wholly incompatible with the Decepticon Way...

[Vallermoore]

With the agent

"I'm not trying to be insulting when I say that Debugging is important. Our data is us. If it gets damaged, we become mentally ill at best and dead at worst. Still, you must have been so deeply undercover that you couldn't debug. It is a good thing you didn't end up totally forgetting who you were.I wish you the best luck possible in your Forintel career." They parted on good terms. With biologicals even the suggestion that mental health care was important could be seen by some as an insult, but amongst Decepticons there was no shame in it. In fact in an otherwise hyper-capitalist society basic Debugging was free. Without it, given enough time the finest mind boards would start going wrong, and Megatron did not want the entire Decepticon race going insane.

***********
The ponies of Glorious Equidae were very interested in the Decepticon High Generals who came to see them. One of them, a foal without his Cutie Mark yet, asked General Soundwave if he was a god. The General shook his head. "Decepticons only die through violence or extreme stupidity or both, but only our Divine Leader Megatron is truly divine. Whilst it would be fun to be worshipped, Megatron would not be happy with me if I said I was a God, to say the least. So don't worship me. Respect me, yes." He spoke to them in Equish since he wanted to be understood.

General Thundercracker made a good impression and ended up telling some battle stories to his fans. One had once seen Celesta and been awed, but an alicorn was nothing next to a Decepticon General. He decided that he would become a military pony and one day would fight for the Decepticon Empire.

When General Carjack arrived he looked coldly at his pony fans. He clearly didn't think much of any biological life forms.Even the best and toughest of them were weak and fragile compared to even a run down Decepticon. A foal with no mark on his flank asked him about his blasters and the ponies tucked their tales in and lowered their ears when they found out about how deadly this particular war robot was. Not being rebels these ponies were fine. The bots of the Genocide Battalion had been banned from visiting on pain of incurring their General's extreme displeasure. As willing subjects of the Empire who had not come near revolt, Megatron didn't want bots slaughtering them just because they were made of flesh and blood and bone.

Later two ponies would come and ask to serve under Carjack. The first he thought was probably not suitable but the other one seemed interesting. Carjack first asked him about the cutie mark of the ninja star like boomerang.When he found out the pony had never been caught but had killed three other ponies and that he could excersise restraint and avoid getting caught, he had more interest then normal in this particular biological. Perhaps there was a Decepticon in this biological shell. He gave him a note in Binary. Pesticide asked General Carjack for advice on getting to Cybertron as spaceships were relatively rare on the planet. "I know Decepticons really dislike giving rides just as us ponies don't like having insects on them."

Some enterprising bots would end up passing as changelings to see what scams they could do or even out of curiosity. They would find that in many ways Changeling society was pleasantly Decepticon like, ruled as it was by Queens with near absolute powers and based on trickery, deceit and raiding for both love and other things. Love was the prime target for changelings like oil was for Decepticons but most changelings would steal other things too, and many changelings enjoyed acrobatics.And they absolutely hated informants and made it clear to their Changeling foals that grassing was against the Changeling Way.