An Exploration Mission (Closed; Att'n Vallermoore)

[Victorious Decepticons]

Changeling Hive

The changelings stood silently for a moment, and then began to talk among themselves. They already knew that Megatron had ways of showing up in places suddenly, and they figured that this was done with technology, so asking him to show himself wasn't really worth doing. Healing, they knew, could temporarily seem to work due to the placebo effect, and they didn't want to have to wait for months to see if it was more than that.

Finally, one had an idea. He disappeared down a tunnel, and soon, came back with a table carrying a dead changeling body done up in funeral garb. The creature appeared to be rather old and to have died from some disease.

"Turning a biological back on should be no problem for a GOD," he said smugly.

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

Decepticon-Controlled Foreign Afterlife, Rock Mine #1593

Thousands of changelings toiled here without stopping, producing the rocks used in the asphalt that was put down as runways for cargo-bots and other afterlife-dwelling Decepticons who had a base here. No rest nor food was provided, and the supernatural nature of the area allowed this to work. New arrivals soon gave up hope as they were, ironically, run like the robots some of them had worked with while alive.

On this day, the unheard-of happened: One of the newer workers dropped dead. His soul was immediately gone, and nobody knew to where.

Changeling Hive

The sound of thunder was heard, and the dead changeling suddenly jumped up with a scream. "No more! No more work!!" He yelled in desperation. This went on for several minutes, until finally, he realized that he was back in his hive. He might have thought it was a nightmare if it wasn't for the special funerary garments he had been dressed in. For some reason, he also seemed to feel about a year younger. Then, still mentally exhausted from so much time awake in the other realm, he passed out.

Soon, the others woke him back up (to his dismay) and started grilling him about the afterlife. He finally told them of a world where Megatronist Decepticon troops had total dominion over everything, and mercilessly worked "worthless heathens" to force them to provide all of the resources the Megatronists wanted. "The entire place is run by Decepticon troops, and under them, everyone else toils forever without rest or food or water. And since everyone except the troops is already dead, we can't even escape that way. The troops are mostly dead Decepticons from either their Realm of Pleasure or their Neutral Realm, but some are alive and come from Cybertron. The Cybertronians sometimes come with cargo-bots and take things, though it is said that those things just turn intangible after leaving the realm. A few rumors say that the Bureau of Paranormal Research has some way to use them, but I don't know anything about that. All I saw firsthoof was the landscape between where I arrived and the mine, and then nothing but the mine."

The others then asked what the landscape was like. The resurrected one didn't know how it once was, he said, but now, it was nothing but bulldozed ground. "It's been completely strip-mined. If anything was ever there, it's not now."

After everyone had their answers, they moved away to give the returned one some peace. That's when he finally got to see something other than his fellow changelings. There, filling his vision, were two
Decepticons who looked much like the ones he'd seen before, only these had fancy paint.

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

Smoothsteel Street

Pesticide's quick glance at the body revealed little that he hadn't been able to see before. One thing he did notice was that it had teeth, indicating the likely presence of a Human Food Processing Module in the high upper chest above the motion-boards. These modules weren't put where a stomach or intestines would go since those places were already occupied by boards, an engine, a transmission, an Energon tank, and other parts that were actually important to Decepticon bodies.

Figuring that the mansion's official doors would be locked, Pesticide began to walk back down the escape tunnel looking for a hatch. Soon enough, he found what appeared to be it, but near that square attic-style door, there was another door just like it. He realized that this meant that he had at least a 50/50 chance of walking into a trap...and that it was even possible that both of these doors were booby-trapped fakes.

Meanwhile, the commander had already gone back to Cybertron's surface, where he showed the tiny little faux-changeling to the cameras. It looked quite pathetic as just a head and a torso, and so small that it hardly seemed worth bothering with. Even so, no viewer complained at all when the commander announced that the execution would take place at the nearest foundry - a surprisingly small, but well-appointed place that typically only handled old parts. It was almost unheard-of for "whole body scrap" to be generated in this high-class area.

A few other troops were ordered to remain behind in case there were any bad surprises for Pesticide. One of these backups happened to be Coin...

[Vallermoore]

Smoothsteel Street

From the quick look Pesticide got at the body, it showed he had teeth and most likely an Eating Module, but the only other interesting thing was that it was designed to look like a Decepticon size Changeling Queen. Shaking his head and resisting the temptation to loot the jewels from the crown, he set off to do his duty. He decided to blast both the hatches open after using his heat vision to check noone was on the other side. Meanwhile the commander showed the tiny faux-changeling to the camaras before melting him down-and in the Decepticon Afterlife, a little faux changeling appeared and saw the three screens. Not long afterwards, a Demon bot grabbed the fake changeling and said to a couple of other Demon bots "This is a turn up-a Decepticon who wants to be a Changeling! Before we send you to be punished for at least the next thousand years-why? What could make you want to be a biological for??"

Coin, at least for now, did not know who Pesticide was, luckily for Pesticide.

Changeling Hive

After much talk amongst themselves, the Changelings decided upon something that would be a miracle, the resurrection of a Changeling who had been dead for more then seven hours and was dressed in a funeral shroud awaiting burial. A clap of thunder was heard and the dead changeling leapt up in a panic and very much alive.
"No more! No more work!!" he shouted in a panic. After the other changelings talked to him and found out about the afterlife, he saw the two Decepticons, turned into a falcon and flew into the Hive as fast as he could in fear. The Queen then spoke to her scared swarm. "Changelings-if we convert to Megatronism and don't act badly enough to be condemmed to Hell after death, surely we will not all end up suffering in the afterlife. And Megatronism and the Changeling Way are closer then you might think. We raid and steal love-they raid and steal oil. We keep prisoners in coccoons to feed on, they use theirs as slaves. Both of us spy, neither of us likes narks. They are not asking us to be like our food the pony race, or never to change shape again. They are not here to kill or enslave us. I for one am going to swear alligence to Megatron and His religion and I strongly advise you do for a good chance of saving your souls."

She flew almost within arms length of Loyal Star. "How does one go about joining Megatronism? Do you have Holy Books for us that are our size?" Most of her Hive was clearly convinced she was right.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Smoothsteel Street

Pesticide thought about the Food Processing Module for a moment, and guessed that the traitor had installed one since there was no known way to really replicate the love-raiding of Changelings. He would have had to settle for a more common form of eating to come close to replicating a biological type of operation. Even with that, though, he would have had to drink plenty of Energon. The modules were meant to replicate the "look and feel" of eating, and while they did produce a bit of biofuel, they were not able to fulfill the massive energy requirements of a Decepticon engine.

With one last look at the crown and its deceptively-tempting jewels, he turned back to his next task. He opened fire on the hatches, using one blaster on each...and immediately blew a hole through the bottom of a giant vat of sulfuric acid. In one giant splash, he was covered with the highly corrosive material. As long as his layer of anti-corrosive coating was fully intact, he would be fine - but if there was a scratch, rust would instantly start in that spot.

Fortunately, he was new enough to the military that the body's coating of mil-spec anti-corrosive was, indeed, still intact. It was one of many layers of specialized coatings that were applied underneath the paint. His paint, on the other hand, wasn't meant to handle this sort of assault. Within a minute, he became a dull gray as that paint came off of him in big, goopy sheets.

At least now he had his answer, he thought with an internal sigh. The proper hatch was the one on the right.

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

Decepticon Afterlife

"What's the point of telling you!" The traitor demanded in response to the demonic-looking administrators' query. "You intend to torture me for a thousand years either way!" With that, he clammed up.

The administrators, who were actually more like angels since they were following the will of their god, gave each other a glance. There really wasn't anything to say to that. Their orders were indeed to take him to the Realm of Punishment, where plans had already been made to show him why being a biological sucks - in very painful ways. In fact, a hot meal made of salmonella-filled, insufficiently-cooked eggs was already waiting for him.

The three angels shrugged, grabbed the new prisoner, and chucked him full-force through a portal to the Realm of Punishment.

~~~~~~~~~

Immediately, the traitor became biological. However, to his dismay, he was not a Changeling. Instead, he was a mangy dog. A starving, thirsty, mangy dog. Almost immediately, he felt things crawling on him and automatically scratched the spot with his back leg. When he turned to look at the spot, he saw that he not only had the mange, but a large collection of fleas.

Soon, his hunger drove him to look for food. His dog nose, being just as sensitive as those attached to natural hounds, soon picked up the smell of fresh-cooked eggs. After a short trot, he found them, sitting on someone's private picnic table behind their house. It wasn't but a few hours after that he got a lesson in just how touchy a biological system could be.

As he was busy upchucking the eggs and already feeling starved again, a net came down over him. He was roughly taken to a truck marked ANIMAL CONTROL and thrown into a cage. It seemed that his destination would surely be a yes-kill "shelter," but his luck wasn't that good. Proper Decepticons being how they were, the animal control officer was soon hailed by a shady character, and the traitor was sold off for just 10 Cubes. He was then transferred to another truck, this one marked "Pfizer Laboratories."

At the animal research lab, he would play an important part in helping the Decepticons discover many new diseases and cures, mainly by being inoculated with whatever engineered viruses the scientists cooked up, and then having to suffer until they figured out how to get the disease to go away again. Most of these viruses were actually meant for weaponization in the physical world, and by using the afterlife-condemned as test subjects, the scientists didn't have to keep replacing their stock. It also meant that it was years before his body was finally allowed to expire, only to result in his "rebirth" as some other parasite-ridden or otherwise miserable creature. Over time, he was eaten by other "wild animals" (actually AIs placed there just to do that), kept in bad zoos, dismembered by poachers, and suffered other terrible fates. Sometimes he would get to be a human, only to find himself macheted to death by marauders; or a pony, stuck pulling some carriage for some heavy and arrogant "human" that bought him. But never once would he get to be a Changeling, not even one in the worst of health, for this was the Realm of Punishment - and in this realm, dreams were actively prevented from coming true.

The traitor was indeed miserable, but he was convinced that Divine Leader Megatron would never understand. He had become obsessed with the idea of feeling this "vitality" some biologicals spoke of. This "blood running through his veins" thing. The Changelings had been close enough to Decepticons, culturally speaking, that he'd figured that they'd be the best type of biological to become. But he would never tell any government agents that. They could die wondering.

Now, he felt blood alright, but usually as it was running out of his veins, or full of germs, or otherwise sending error signals. Perhaps the other Decepticons had been right. Maybe there really was nothing good about being a biological after all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Changeling Hive

Loyal Star and Fire Eater were quick to answer that all they needed to do was declare loyalty and follow the Decepticon Way. Simultaneously, they also got stacks of Books of Megatron out of their leg panels and set them on the floor. Compared to a Changeling, the pile of copies was huge once it was stacked up, but it only reached up to the upper calves of the Decepticons. There were enough copies for the entire hive, plus several extras to put in a bookstore in case someone needed a replacement or wanted to give copies to someone in another hive. The books had low-capacity trackers hidden in their hard covers, just so the Temple would be able to find out if any did indeed make it to new hives. If any did, and more followed, that hive would be considered for a future priestly visit.

With the queen officially converting, the next step would be to build a temple here. Then, once it got established well enough, a non-missionary priest would come in to serve as the permanent clergy, and the two missionaries would get their next assignment.

[Vallermoore]

Smoothsteel Street

Pesticide cursed aloud. If he were still a pony, not much would be left off him now, but as it was he felt a lot of pain and lost his paint. The pain he could turn down to just a light ache, but he would need new paint. He realized that as it were a rich mansion he was entering, there might well be more booby traps and he might even end up in the Main Save Vault if he were not careful. He entered, deciding not to loot for fear of booby traps, finding himself in a bedroom full of Decepticon sized swords, chips of various kinds, and a few books. When he opened the door he jumped to one side in case it triggered a fusion cannon or some other trap. He found a holovision room and watching a cartoon for very young bots that had only just stopped randomly taking things apart was what appeared to be a normal sized changeling but was in fact a very unlucky offspring. For the Coder to put an offspring in that body, was classed as child abuse. Pesticide, although he was a would be Genocider, felt sorry for the young Decepticon and sneaked up to try and catch the little thing to take it to a Debugger, his camouflage turned on.

Changeling Hive

When the Queen and indeed, most of her Hive, converted to Megatronism, Fire Eater and Loyal Star started making a temple, calling in the needed bots to make it. Loyal Star decided that unlike a bot such as Jackboots, his sermon would not be one about how dreadful biological life was but about how good Megatronism was. He was determined to be a success again and a credit to Megatronism. Unlike shelters, Megatronist Temples needed to be made in a certain way which was why the two Priests needed to call in for help. Soon enough bots would come in and set up a Temple that could fit a whole Hive of changelings as well as full size Decepticons inside. Whilst the building was going on, Loyal Star asked Fire Eater how things were in Vallermoore.

Decepticon Afterlife

The traitor would have a thousand years to get to know why being a biological was bad, and another thousand years at least in the Neutral Realm making parts on top of that. If he had gone far enough away in the first place, he could have got away with his treason, but he had done it on the Metal Planet where it could never be overlooked. Never would he get to be in even a sick or captured Changeling body since he had wanted it enough to commit treason for it.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Traitor's Mansion

Almost immediately, the faux-changeling put his visual cloaking on, and a transformation noise was heard right after he disappeared.

Pesticide slammed the door closed, hoping his quarry hadn't made it out before he did so. It was most likely that he not only was still in the room, but that he would now be disguised as something quite different from his original form. Pesticide checked his military data pack, and found a file that went over the types of custom bodies that were the most readily available. There was one line about Changelings, and it mentioned that the very latest ForIntel bodies made to imitate them typically had either 3 or 4 modes. The chances were best that this fake one would be a "Triple Changer," with 2 alt modes + the standard, since it was much easier to engineer than one with 3 alt modes. In this case, the Changeling mode would be the standard one.

"As if I couldn't smell your stinky robot exhaust! Or hear that engine making a racket!" A young voice suddenly taunted. Pesticide jerked his head in the direction of the sound, only to see a holovision speaker. Or was it really a speaker at all? It looked legit...

Whether or not it was just a speaker carrying the voice, or the actual quarry, remained to be seen. What was more important now, Pesticide remembered with some dismay, is that it was possible that the Coder of this kid had included an automated self-defense routine that would trigger if he managed to get close enough to be seen as a threat. Traitor or not, most Coders did want their offspring to live, and being able to fight was pretty much essential to survival on Cybertron.

~~~~~~~~~~~

New Temple of Megatron, Changeling Hive

"Ah, Vallermoore..." FireEater almost sighed. "It seems to have come to the attention of the ICC, and I see a lot of 'pharmaceutical distributors' coming through the Temple nowadays. I hope it doesn't draw cops. I keep telling them that the Temple is not to be a drug store, but I find them out back all too often anyway. It seems like I will have to use these to get them to move along, since it's against the Way to call in a tip." He rubbed his blaster, but he seemed a bit sad instead of angry. "They're Megatronists too, you know. But we can't have that part of the Way being practiced so close to the Temples, at least not yet, and not there. Those people just aren't ready for things like that to be totally deregulated yet."

Soon enough, the two got the okay to return to Cybertron for new orders.

First Temple of Cybertron

Warfire met them with a smile. Though he was friendly, he was not overly effusive. There was new business to take care of. "Once you change back into your regular bodies, I'll tell you about your next mission. Both of you will be going on this one, too. It'll give you more practice (he indicated Loyal Star), and help you avoid becoming too isolated from the rest of the universe (he indicated Fire Eater)."

Soon, the two were back in their normal forms, and both commented on how great it was to be back to their full sizes and weights. "Now I know what a biological kid must feel like," Fire Eater said. "We might have towered over the Changelings, but I still felt tiny in that form."

Back at the Temple, they were quickly briefed on a human planet that had been discovered. "Right now, their main nation is doing what humans do best: warfare. There is a civil war, hot on, and the entire country is engulfed. It's fascists vs. communists. Right now, the commies are winning in this area here - " Warfire waved his hand, and a map appeared on the wall with a mountainous area circled. "And they've taken all of the lowlands. The fascists are hiding in the mountains and won't be easy for the commies to get at, but they also can't come down or else they'll be slaughtered. So they're desperate. They're so desperate that they feel abandoned by their local gods, and have been praying for ANY GOD to come and give them victory. In exchange, they've been promising their loyalty, and to teach future generations the way of that god."

"So we're going to go there and kick commie asses?" Loyal Star asked.

"Not quite yet. The deal has to be locked in first. You two are to go there and make sure that the majority of the fascists in the mountains there are in agreement with the idea, instead of it just being a few outliers that they think are lunatics. You also need to educate them on the Decepticon Way. Fascists often seem like they should be on our side, but when they find out that the Way thinks in terms of species rather than mere races, they often back out. Not all fascists are racists, though...only those that follow the pattern of what Earth called the National Socialists.

However, all fascists ARE highly nationalistic, and they will immediately catch on to the fact that Cybertron is a physical place and that it's not only another nation, but another planet entirely! This often scuttles deals with fascists. They have a really hard time bringing them to accept the vassal position to 'a bunch of inferior foreigners,' at least not unless convinced by the Genocide Battalion that they ought to rethink their position, and that's when we're talking regular politics. For a religious conversion, it will be a huge sticking point. Make sure your lie detection scripts are running perfectly, because this doesn't mean that they won't LIE to get you to delete their enemies for them." Warfire gave some time for this to sink in.

"So, your job as missionaries is to sell them Megatronism - even though Divine Leader Megatron is, from their perspective, a complete foreigner whose idea of the ubermensch involves the Decepticon Parts Company and Ultimate Mods. As long as you are not under direct threat, you are not to fire one little blast at the communist side until the fascists have converted. Favors are not for the infidel."

The High Priest went on to explain that if they did convert, Leader Megatron had said that he would send a couple of squadrons to the relevant area to reclaim the valleys. "Even that's overkill for the area in question," he added. "Just one of us could sweep the commie detachment out of that space in a few hours at most. However, a big show of force will strongly deter the main group from trying to take it back."

"One last thing: We are NOT claiming that we'll win the entire civil war for them or take over the country. Only one small group of the fascists made that prayer, and we will only be helping their immediate region - and only if the vast majority of them convert. Anything less than 80% conversion, and you two simply take off and leave them to their fates."

After this synopsis, a few fine details were gone over. They would have one month to win the supplicants over. This could be done with bribes, blackmail, or even violence against the fascists, or a large number of other methods - including simply talking. The promise of victory in that area was already on the table, so Warfire figured there was no need for any other substantial promises. Fire Eater would have the authority to make the final decision, and Loyal Star was to run any ideas by him before acting.

Finally, there wasn't enough food in the mountains to sustain the group. They had planned to hunt, but being used to just getting food from the local store, they didn't have enough of the needed skills. Therefore, Loyal Star and Fire Eater were to go to Earth and get untreated food from Carjack Ag before going to the target planet. "Remember, the bio-food stores here only sell biocide-treated stuff. That'll kill any biological that tries to eat it. You need to get it before it has hit that step in processing. Then have C.A. package it up for easy transport, and to keep it from going stale on you."

A transport, they were told, would follow along and provide enough Cubes of Energon to sustain them for the duration of the mission, as well as to pay any bribes to outsiders that might be needed.

"The other nations on the planet have set up a blockade for both land and sea in an attempt to contain the war and the danger it presents to the country's neighbors," Warfire suddenly remembered. "So if you want anything from outside, you'll have to evade that." He looked at Loyal Star. "SEDP Module 10: International Relations the Decepticon Way." A quick check showed that this module explained exactly how to circumvent all of the popular blockade methods. It also noted that practice would increase success rates.

The country, it turned out, was named Bangbar. It was a large nation with several ethnicities present, and had suffered a very long period of political polarization. The first shot in the war had been fired at its biggest airport, where the communists had opened fire on a bunch of protesting fascists. With that, hostilities had ignited all over the countryside. So far, the war had been going on for a year, and many of its bigger towns and cities showed signs of having been burned or bombed.

[Vallermoore]

Traitor's Mansion

Pesticide decided to try and trick the young Decepticon, whilst knowing that it probably would not work and thinking of alternatives like trying to blast him without killing him. Even young Decepticons that were only a year or so old like this one were a lot harder to trick then young biologicals were. They needed to be to stay out of a foundry. Whilst Coders normally loved their own offspring, (without that it would be hard for the Decepticon Nation to reproduce properly) many were happy to send other bot's offspring to the foundary. "Your Coder is waiting for you at Debugging." He readied himself for battle and took a step forward. This was the first fight he was in since he was a foal that he didn't want to outright kill his opponent. Not only had he been ordered to take him alive, but he thought the bot deserved a better life then the one he had with such a Coder.

New Temple of Megatron, Changeling Hive

"If the ICC see you as a threat and send a problem solver after you, he'll soon find out what happens when he clashes with a Priest who is just protecting his Temple according to his duties. Holy fusion fire is not something a bot wants to face twice." When the Megatronist Priesthood had begun, many bots had thought the Priests would be weak and unwarlike like most biological priests were, and their Temples would be easy looting targets. That belief had only lasted a day, during which many would be looters ended up in their spares after their bodies were incinerated by the holy fire granted to Priests who had not started trouble and were just doing their clerical duties. After that the attempts to loot the Temples had stopped.

Bangbar

The two bots flew to the country and came under attack on the way there from five warplanes from the Communist side, but were easily able to dodge their machine gun fire and shoot three of them down in self defence, which as the Communists had started the fight was fine. Soon enough they located the camp of the fascists with a swastika flag flying in the centure, and transformed, careful not to squash anyone. Loyal Star decided to let the more experienced Fire Eater do the talking at first. He had great respect for the Priest who had accepted him back when he was just a defrocked pony priest with no apparent future career, and who had guided him and helped him become what he was now.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Traitor's Mansion

"Tee hee he! Liar!" The voice still came from the small speaker. Then, after an ominous pause, there was a tiny little rev. Tiny as it may have been, there was no mistaking it: The child's engine had just kicked into battle mode. The detected lie had apparently triggered his automatic self-defense routine after being perceived as an attempt to trap him.

In less than a second, Pesticide didn't have to wonder where his quarry was. A transformation noise was heard again, and a hail of thin blasts hit the back of his head with surprising force - enough that, if he didn't stop the assault or at least protect himself, it would indeed eventually chew through his armor and cause some serious damage. Apparently, the traitor had not been stingy when it came to buying high-powered miniature blasters for his abomination.

When he turned around to defend himself, Pesticide saw that the youngster actually did have a robot mode, and that it had just been designated as an alt-mode instead of the main. It was with this alt-mode that he was firing away, using what looked like a scale-model version of Standard Blasters. Their power, of course, was nowhere near that of actual Standards, but he used them in the same way.

Right about then, Pesticide realized that a child of only a few days old was not yet sapient. Perhaps if he could figure out the pattern it was running on, he could capture it. With its relative lack of power, he might even be able to just grab it now that it was in attack mode - though that could also lead to unexpected and unfortunate results...

What Pesticide didn't remember from the minutae of his Immigration Data Pack, and that his commander apparently forgot as well, was that Debugging wouldn't bother to even try to recode something that was this heavily misprogrammed and that was not yet sapient. Due to the lack of sapience, it was believed that nothing of value was lost if such a "program" was simply deleted outright, so was the course of action the Center would take.

Despite this, the commander had, for some reason, ordered that the errant machine be taken in a functional state - and now, said machine was blasting away with all the force its little body could muster.

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

Bangbar

Fire Eater hid a scowl when he saw the swastika flying. Actual Nazis - they would be hard to convince! Not only that, their historic leader was known for doing things like making convenient alliances and spinning past it by giving the outsiders "honorary white" status - only to go and backstab them as soon as they were considered no longer necessary.

Once they landed, he went ahead and introduced himself and Loyal Star, and stated that they were sent by Divine Leader Megatron to check the worthiness of the group as well as to make sure that the group was even interested in serving a new god in exchange for the "removal of the garbage in that valley."

After some initial chaos caused by the unexpected arrival of giant war robots, Fire Eater also asked how they, a group of humans on another planet, even knew that Nazis existed, let alone what their flag looked like and what their major tenets were. Earth, after all, was just over 270 light-years away!

In response, one took out an old shortwave radio and cranked a handle on its side. Its rechargeable battery soon gained enough juice to pick up a signal, and he turned up the volume. There, over the radio, was the voice of Adolf Hitler himself, apparently being broadcast live - and claiming that Germany was winning the war and that soon, the entire planet would be under Nazi dominion!

Fire Eater would have groaned, but figured it was better to hide his emotions. Inside, his mind swirled. How would he tell them that Hitler had gotten stomped, and after that, his country divided by a wall for decades? How would he break it to them that all that had been left just 70 years after that were sickly, beer-drinking neo-Nazis who Hitler would have thrown into the furnaces as defectives? And finally, how would he tell them that now, 270 years later, Earth was the property of the Decepticons, and that no Aryans were left at all...replaced by the ultra-mixed humanoid products of the Cloning Centers, which did not even respect species boundaries when writing its Approved DNA Codec, let alone racial ones~?

Finally, he decided to start with the basic facts: The broadcasts that had inspired them were not only NOT live, they were actually over 270 years old, that they came from a planet very far away, and that they were mostly cooked-up propaganda...

Right away, the mood hardened. One of the toughest-looking ones charged up, bull-like, and demanded an immediate apology for calling it "propaganda." The others stood back as if they thought this guy would actually demand, and get, a fight with the huge robot as if he stood some kind of a chance.

To Loyal Star's absolute shock, Fire Eater responded by reaching his foot out and smartly crushing the angry human underneath it to death with a sickening crunch. It was very obvious to those with the direct view - the other humans - that no amount of personal resistance would have saved that man.

"HOW DARE YOU QUESTION AN OFFICIAL MESSENGER OF A GOD!" Fire Eater roared terrifyingly, as he willed his paint to swirl faster and a little darker. His blasters now aimed directly at the rest of the group, and deep in their barrels, a hint of energy could be seen. It even seemed as though the sky darkened a bit. Loyal Star copied the change in his own paint swirls and took on Fire Eater's general body language.

Immediately, most of them got on their knees and showed full respect to the superior force - exactly as Fire Eater expected. Nazis, he knew, were all about physical superiority, master race vs. slave races, and similar concepts. By immediately showing his strength in the way he did, he put the Decepticons in the position of Master Race and now had a much higher chance of getting what he wanted - perhaps even without any serious opposition.

On Loyal Star's internal radio, he heard a secret message. "Now we can write our own ticket. It's a lot like on Cybertron: Rank goes to the Strong. And now, I am the Strong. It cuts through all of their racialist oil sludge and gets right to the point. For now, you wait - they're currently cooperative. But when someone acts up to you - and it WILL happen - you just crunch him flat like I did to that guy. Then you will be recognized as the Strong as well, and after maybe one more challenge, it will be settled." Outside, there was no sound - everything was over the internal radio systems of the two priests.

Out loud, Fire Eater addressed the momentarily-cowed group. "You had asked for a god to save you from those worthless Commies, and one has responded: Divine Leader Megatron, who is, in this realm, also known as the Leader of the Decepticons. In exchange, you had promised your worship and obedience, and to teach the rescuing god's religion to your offspring. We are Decepticons and Priests of Megatronism, and we have come to teach you the Official Religion so that you can make good on that promise. Or would you rather tell us to go, making it so that we came all the way here for nothing?" He rubbed his blaster very much intentionally, and very much as a direct threat.

Fire Eater had no intentions of hanging around on this hard-to-walk-on, mountainous, humid terrain for the officially-allowed 30 days. These Nazis would have more like 30 seconds to make up their minds - and the answer had better be "yes sir," or he would wipe them all out.

"Sometimes, it's best to just spread the Religion by the barrel," Fire Eater instructed secretly, over his internal radio. "People like this don't listen to talk. They're even worse at talk-diplomacy than we are."

One of the Nazis who hadn't knelt down said, "we'll convert right after you wipe out those dirty commies!" He seemed bold, but had subtly scooted over so that it would be hard to step on him without also stepping on a few who had already conceded.

"Favors are not for infidels." Fire Eater said simply, crossing his arms. After a few seconds, he began to tap his foot impatiently. "Well? Do you humans want to convert, or shall I bring this situation to its alternate conclusion." His eyes narrowed and darkened.

With some hesitation and stuttering, the group present began to declare its submission to Leader Megatron.

It was anything but a solid loyalty. A few had even just pretended to agree, mouthing the words while mentally maintaining loyalty to local gods. Then, out of the blue sky, lightning bolts began to crash down into the bodies of these fakes. They were fried on the spot, but miraculously, the electricity did not travel to those nearby.

"This is what happens to those who try to fool me and my agents!" Came Megatron's voice from all around. "As for the rest of you, learn well from the Priests I have sent, lest you lose my agreement to defend you! If you become my enemies, or the enemies of my Priests, you will be dealt with accordingly and immediately!"

There was a crash of thunder, and then silence. The acrid stench of fried human flesh filled the now-still air from the newly-lightning-blasted corpses.

Megatron may not have allowed himself to be called a certain type of god as part of his religion's canon, but there was no doubt in the now-terrified new converts' minds: This was a war god. Terrifying though he was, his power and willingness to use it also strengthened their faith. Once his wrath was unleashed against the commies, a Nazi victory would be a done deal.

[Vallermoore]

(OOC-sorry for the reply delay.)

Traitor's Mansion/Debugging

Pesticide turned his blasters down but left them still strong enough to punch through Decepticon Steel, and blasted away at the annoying little bot. If it were not for the fact that the bot he was blasting was so young he would have been firing to kill. After a while he blasted the bot enough that he could blast off it's blasters and capture it, wishing by now that he had been allowed to kill it. However, in the Decepticon Miliitary orders (unless they were to commit treason) were to be obeyed. He radioed to his commander that he had indeed captured the bot alive, and marched it off to Debugging since there was where he was told to send it. Thinking it would soon be ok again, he told the bot "Debugging will fix you and you'll go to an orphanage to be properly brought up so you don't act like your Coder did." If the bot was sapient, this would be the case-rather then be declared traitors, bots like this were generally considered to be abused children. This non sapient bot was almost certainly going to the afterlife where it's fate would be determined. He handed in the bot and explained the situation and the bot was taken first for a sapience test to decide what to do with it.

Bangbar

When Fire Eater explained what had happened to Hitler, one of the Nazis got aggressive. Back when Loyal Star had been a pony, Fire Eater had been kindly to him, guiding him on the true and orthodox path to Megatronism, but he now showed he had a harder side, put out a foot, and squashed the human flat, killing him. "HOW DARE YOU QUESTION AN OFFICIAL MESSENGER OF A GOD!" Fire Eater's eyes darked and his paint darkened and swirled faster, and Loyal Star did the same with his eyes and paint, terrifying the humans who quaked below them. Fire Eater silently radioed Loyal Star. "Now we can write our own ticket. It's a lot like on Cybertron: Rank goes to the Strong. And now, I am the Strong. It cuts through all of their racialist oil sludge and gets right to the point. For now, you wait - they're currently cooperative. But when someone acts up to you - and it WILL happen - you just crunch him flat like I did to that guy. Then you will be recognized as the Strong as well, and after maybe one more challenge, it will be settled. "

"You had asked for a god to save you from those worthless Commies, and one has responded: Divine Leader Megatron, who is, in this realm, also known as the Leader of the Decepticons. In exchange, you had promised your worship and obedience, and to teach the rescuing god's religion to your offspring. We are Decepticons and Priests of Megatronism, and we have come to teach you the Official Religion so that you can make good on that promise. Or would you rather tell us to go, making it so that we came all the way here for nothing?" He told Loyal Star privately Sometimes, it's best to just spread the Religion by the barrel. People like this don't listen to talk. They're even worse at talk-diplomacy than we are." One of the Nazis asked for the Communists to be killed first but Fire Eater made it clear that infidels would get no help at all. They declared loyalty but it was anything but solid, which was when Megatron showed them just what he thought of traitors. Lightning bolts fried the secret traitors and Megatron spoke. "This is what happens to those who try to fool me and my agents! As for the rest of you, learn well from the Priests I have sent, lest you lose my agreement to defend you! If you become my enemies, or the enemies of my Priests, you will be dealt with accordingly and immediately!" There was a loud crash of thunder. After that the Nazis that were still alive genuinely converted and it was time for Loyal Star and Fire Eater to clear out the valley and aboout a mile around it of the Communist foe. This was set the seed for whildscale Nazi conversions to Megatronism.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Bangbar

Despite Fire Eater's strong desire to blast the commies and go home, he remembered that Megatron had wanted to send in two entire squadrons as a show of force. He would have to wait at least until they arrived.

When they did, the two priests joined them in destroying the nearby enemies. As promised, the valleys were now clear of hazards, and enemies within easy traveling distance chose to stay away from the alien forces. As those enemies watched through binoculars, they couldn't miss how insignificant their side was in comparison to the robots. They also took note of the two with the glowing, swirling paint.

"Obviously those two are something special," they said to each other. "They're probably the generals. Let's send some spies over to assassinate them and throw their camp into chaos!"

While it was easy to come up with that idea, it was not at all easy to get someone to agree to try to infiltrate. In fact, nobody who saw the battle was willing to come anywhere near the area. A report was sent over to the main communist command center, and now, it would be up to their leaders to come up with a way to act on it...if they chose to do so at all. There was a high chance that a report of "giant robots from the sky" would be summarily dismissed as baloney meant to hide a defeat caused by something far more mundane.

Back on the Nazi side, Fire Eater's face suddenly drooped. He had just gotten a message from the Main Temple informing him that his mission there would not be complete until he had built a First Temple of Bangbar and begun to hold services. Only after it was done would a permanent priest be dispatched to take over the duties. He passed the message on to Loyal Star, who wasn't all that surprised. After all, if they went away before another priest arrived, and before there was even a Temple up, it was likely that the Nazis would apostatize almost immediately.

The two decided that, even though the valleys were preferred by both them and the humans, it was best to put the Temple at least somewhat up the side of the mountain. This would make it harder for the commies to come and raid it during a service - a time at which it would be seen as vulnerable. "They won't just eat that loss," Fire Eater said of the communists. "Those who were close enough to know of the battle may have the sense to stay away, but backup troops will surely make their way here at some point. Putting the Temple on the side of the mountain will give our side the tactical advantage of being able to shoot from high ground, and it'll make it harder for the enemy to reach it."

Fire Eater drew up plans for the construction. They would need several hundred blocks, or several thousand bricks - and since there was no metal mine nearby, they were to all be made of stone. His first order to the new converts was to quarry the required rock from the mountain itself. As they went to work, Fire Eater got out a couple of Cubes of Energon, and the two priests sat at the edge of the valley drinking it as their new labor force got to work.

All of the Nazis could see the massive power advantage of being a full Decepticon, and one of the biggest long-term selling points of Megatronism was that it offered a path to become one. This fact solidified the conversion of a great many of the Nazis who had previously been barely above lukewarm about the idea. Right now, however, they didn't yet know that. They would only find out after the Temple was built and Fire Eater gave the sermon that would give a more in-depth introduction to the religion.

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

Debugging Center

A Debugger took the captive, who was still trying to fight his way out of this jam. Since he had no blasters now, as soon as Pesticide opened his hand to give him to the Debugger, he started punching and kicking as well as transforming from one mode to another. The Debugger quickly bound him up with a bit of command cable wiring to make sure he didn't get away.

"He was coded as a CHANGELING?!" The Debugger was horrified. "Well, let's see if he can actually think yet..." It was clear that this Debugger hoped that the sapience test would come back negative.

In the back, as expected, the faux-Changeling completely failed the sapience test. Just to give him the test at all required the Debuggers to hack him and turn off his automatic self-defense routine - an act that resulted in several bites to the hand of the one assigned to the task before he managed to get the kid's head panels open. Still, despite the robustness of the defense program, it was finally done and the test was given.

A few minutes later, Pesticide got the news. The youngster was 0% sapient, and therefore, had been permanently deactivated as hopelessly defective. "It is better this way," he consoled the soldier. "Someone programmed so heavily as another species would essentially be deleted anyway if we changed his Code enough to make him one of us. The problematic scripting goes all the way to the Base Code - the root of someone's personality. Just remember, he wasn't 'killed' by this, because as a non-sapient, he was never alive to begin with."

Sure enough, no soul appeared in the Decepticon Afterlife. In Machinism, the prior religion, it had been believed that a Decepticon's self-awareness and sapience were actually the result of ensoulment, and this turned out to be true. Sentience - the ability to react to stimuli - was just the result of the running of mindless code before the sapience aspect kicked in. Alas, no one who existed solely in the physical realm could prove this, so beliefs among the living still varied. The issue did not come up often, and no one had asked Megatron directly, so it had never been addressed by Megatronism.

Later, after Pesticide had left, a copy of the faux-changeling's code was sent to the forensics department for full examination. This code would never be run since it was still Code Intended to be Sapient (and would therefore gain sapience after a certain amount of hours of operation), but it could safely be read. Within it, they found a hard-coded desire to reproduce more Changelings and even to turn all of Cybertron's population into more Changelings. Fortunately, no specific was to actually do this was included, showing that his Coder didn't know how and was hoping he would figure it out on his own at some point. After fully reading the Code, the copy was destroyed, ensuring that nobody who thought of themselves as Changelings could arise from it.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Military Outpost

The Commander locked himself in his office and made out a report. "The Soldier has proven his ability to both eliminate a fully-armed foe, and to restrain himself from killing a weak one upon the issuance of direct orders, even when those orders had no obvious reasoning and when the target took more effort to NOT kill than it would have to engage it in lethal battle. I believe he will make a fine addition to your Battalion..."

Outside the office, Coin mopped the floor with a waterless cleaning fluid.

Soon, Pesticide returned, looking a bit disturbed that Debugging had deleted the youngster after he'd gone to such efforts to bring him there alive. His mood, however, was brightened by the sight of Coin with a mop.

[Vallermoore]

Bangbar

Soon enough another sixty Decepticons arrived, enough to totally pacify the area for miles around. Loyal Star and Fire Eater joined in, blasting the foe. The humans they were fighting were not utterly defenceless and had weapons capable of doing damage; three bots were sent back to the Main Save Vault with powerful missiles before the area was totally cleared of Communist forces. Fire Eater suddenly looked unhappy. High Priest WarFire had told him that they needed to stay a bit longer, get a Temple built and give one sermon each before another Priest would be sent to take their places. After spending a long time in Vallermoore, Fire Eater wanted to be back amongst the metal streets of Cybertron amongst his fellow bots, dangerous at times though they might be. Soon enough the Nazis were put to work in building the new Temple as their Priests watched, drank Energon and chatted in Binary to each other. They were not technically slaves, but they didn't get paid either. "So, how much are you looking forward to setting foot on good solid Cybertronian metal again?" Loyal Star asked Fire Eater.

Debugging Center/Military Outbase

A Debugger took the captive who was still fighting desperately, tied him up and hacked him to give him the test. It turned out that the tiny changeling-bot was not sapient at all, so he was painlessly euthanized. "Someone programmed so heavily as another species would essentially be deleted anyway if we changed his Code enough to make him one of us. The problematic scripting goes all the way to the Base Code - the root of someone's personality. Just remember, he wasn't 'killed' by this, because as a non-sapient, he was never alive to begin with." the Debugger told Pesticide.

"How strange and how vile that traitor was to make a Changeling-bot as an offspring with Base-Code like that." Pesticide left, wondering to himself why he was ordered to bring the Changeling-body in alive in the first place. In fact, General Carjack had ordered it, to see how good Pesticide was at obeying orders not to kill someone. Very rarely, a faithful Megatronist might be found amongst those targeted for death and in that case he or she needed to be rescued. After he left, the Changeling code was studied, and it indicated a desire to turn other bots and indeed all of the Decepticon Nation into Changelings. They were glad to destroy that program with fire, as it disgusted them. Just the thought of Cybertron as a huge Hive of robot-changelings was unpleasant, even though the Changeling Way was quite similar to the Decepticon Way.

Pesticide grinned when he saw Coin, an ICC bot in civilian life, with a mop and bucket. Coin saw the grin and guessed that this bot had probably had trouble with him at some point in civilian life.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Bangbar

"I miss Cybertron all the time," Fire Eater said, staring up into the sky as if he could see it from there. "In fact, I think I'm going to ask for a sabbatical soon. I love being a Priest, of course, but I'm just itching to go raid the hell out of somewhere. This little battle was the most fun I've had in a long time. There's nothing like seeing the humants scurry out of the way, acknowledging our superiority on the most primal of levels."

"Those Nazis will make good soldiers and loyalists, but I doubt any of them will attain the privilege of the Ultimate Upgrade," Fire Eater continued. "They like to position themselves as the Strong among humankind, but at their core, they are too eager to obey orders without question. It will be a good thing when the follow-up broadcasts from old Earth get here in 2-3 more years, so they can hear for themselves why Hitler was not a good leader. Speaking of that, I wonder how they understood German~? We should get the Bureau of Paranormal Research to check that out...maybe there's been some kind of contact other than one-way broadcasts over the radio. I did read somewhere that Germany was into UFOs and the occult when Hitler was in power..."

"So, are you enjoying being a missionary? You had a rocky start before, but now you see how we adapt our methods of spreading Megatronism depending on the audience. Are you still all-in?"

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

Military Outpost

Coin's eyes narrowed and his engine revved when he saw Pesticide's grin. He held his peace for now, not wanting to get in trouble for breaking military law - and knowing that he couldn't hide any violence in such a small base - but he recognized an enemy's reaction when he saw it. He was extra-curious about who this "Meltdown" really was, and would be listening closely to catch a name...but he wouldn't pass up an opportunity if he could attack and get away with it. The only safe enemy, he knew, was a dead enemy.

As it turned out, he wouldn't have to wait long to overhear the name.

"Ah, Pesticide, you've returned!" The Commander said with a smile, coming out of his office. "You did very well on this assignment. I've put in a report to the high command commending you. Not many would take the time to capture such a glitchy little thing as that new...construct. As a reward, you may have a Cube of Supreme..."

Coin's engine outright growled, and his eyes got very dim. That was the no-good chunk of hardened slag that had deactivated one of his bodies, and in front of the boss of the ICC of all people! Because of him, he had lost a rank in the syndicate, and would have to kick a lot of ass to gain it back once his stint ended! He immediately began to make plans to secretly kill Pesticide. He'd have to be very careful about it to avoid being caught by MilIntel - but he knew that if he didn't think of something before Pesticide's stint ended, he might never see the other bot again...or worse, Pesticide would go to a heavily-upgraded form that would be almost impossible to deactivate. He would have to strike soon...

[Vallermoore]

Bangbar

Fire Eater looked up into the sky, but this far away from Cybertron even Decepticon eyes turned up to full magnification couldn't see the "big ball-bearing in the sky."
"I miss Cybertron all the time. In fact, I think I'm going to ask for a sabbatical soon. I love being a Priest, of course, but I'm just itching to go raid the hell out of somewhere. This little battle was the most fun I've had in a long time. There's nothing like seeing the humants scurry out of the way, acknowledging our superiority on the most primal of levels."

"I'm sure you will be granted leave in time, you've certainly earned it. And then you can go on some satasfying raids and go and buy stuff in Cybertron's many shops," Loyal Star replied.

"Those Nazis will make good soldiers and loyalists, but I doubt any of them will attain the privilege of the Ultimate Upgrade," Fire Eater continued. "They like to position themselves as the Strong among humankind, but at their core, they are too eager to obey orders without question. It will be a good thing when the follow-up broadcasts from old Earth get here in 2-3 more years, so they can hear for themselves why Hitler was not a good leader. Speaking of that, I wonder how they understood German~? We should get the Bureau of Paranormal Research to check that out...maybe there's been some kind of contact other than one-way broadcasts over the radio. I did read somewhere that Germany was into UFOs and the occult when Hitler was in power...So, are you enjoying being a missionary? You had a rocky start before, but now you see how we adapt our methods of spreading Megatronism depending on the audience. Are you still all-in?"

"Most certainly-except when I messed up and got punished for it. But my punishment was fully justified. Not counting my unfortunate results-I really do enjoy being a missonary, serving the Faith, watching it grow from planet to planet. It's what I earned the Ultimate Upgrade for, not wanting to stay as a mere acyolte for the rest of my life. If " and here he curled is nose for a second as if he smelt something nasty "Celestia" he said the world with scorn "had not been stupid enough to challange our God over a nark, of all things, I would still be a sapient pony priest in Vallermoore. Don't get me wrong, there are many lower forms of life then sapient ponies, but being a bot and not just that, a Decepticon bot is amazing. I can fly to other planets with ease, enter gas planets if I'm careful and come out alive, do lots of things considered illegal on other worlds (although if I were to do that against other Decepticons I'd have to be very careful and conniving to avoid at least a huge blaster fight) and one either has to be a traitor, be very stupid, or be extremely unlucky to be perma-killed. I know there is a chance some day, however small it is, that death might be my lot, but I have faith that my afterlife would be a good one. And if when I am doing my duty as a Priest some other Decepticon attacks me, he'll end up feeling holy fusion fire from my very own blasters."

Military Outpost

Coin was annoyed, but knew now was not the time for violence as he wouldn't be able to get away with it. When the base commander thanked Pesticide, Coin had to force himself to stay under control. Pesticide had deactivated him right in front of Connect, the Boss of the entire ICC, and he had not only lost face but been demoted a rank, meaning a lot of fighting to gain it back again. In civilian life, he could just settle things with his blasters or hire a problem solver to do it for him, but here he was subject to military law and would have to work out a way to kill his foe without Milintel finding out and killing him for Weakening the Nation by killing a soldier on active duty.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Bangbar

Before long, the new Temple's rocks were quarried, cut into blocks, and the building went up. The roof ended up being made of slate tiles, which sat atop boards that were cut from the nearby trees. For something not made of metal, it was remarkably sturdy. At least, it was remarkable to Fire Eater, who had come of age hearing how non-metal materials were all junk that was destined to quickly rot. Loyal Star, on the other hand, fully expected a stone building to be strong and just quietly admired it.

The appearance of the building itself wasn't all that abnormal for the country of Bangbar other than looking more expensive than the houses in the valley. Soon enough, it would have its fascia complete. Alas, the Nazis wouldn't be the ones to finish this ornate work. There wasn't a high-quality sculptor among them, and after some discussion, Fire Eater and Loyal Star agreed that it'd be best to call one in from Cybertron. The two were nervous about hiring a civilian local since that'd leave an opening for the Communists to sneak a spy in.

"There is one thing I never tested out," Fire Eater said suddenly. "We never checked how our 'special power acquisition' devices worked. I say that we should take a little stroll near enemy lines with our cloaking on and see about that, do you agree?" The mechanical emotion-raiding units had been intended to be used on Changelings, but since the last hive had converted fairly easily - and the one who did try a raid got hit with the hacking device instead of the raiding unit - they'd never used them. Now, they would test them on human enemies, figuring that the technology should work on any species.

Changeling Hive of the Prior Mission

Over on the last planet the two had visited, the new priest was doing well at teaching the Decepticon Way. To his pleasant surprise, lingering malcontents were even being picked off one-by-one by an unknown assassin. It would be quite a while before he found out that it was one of the Changelings themselves, who seemed strangely distant when anyone tried to talk to him. Fire Eater's hack job was paying off, and since he was no longer anywhere around, only an advanced magic-user would suspect that this Changeling wasn't just a typical overzealous new convert.

Decepticon Military

There wasn't much to do after deactivating the one traitor, so for the rest of their Outpost duty, the soldiers mostly sat around and played cards. As the Commander had ordered, Coin was the janitor for a month. After that, janitorial duties went back to their normal rotation, with everyone being stuck with it for a week at a time.

Though it seemed like a long time to the bored troops, this set of duties was over in just a few weeks. Now, they would return to the Oilfountain Base for a couple of weeks of concluding drills, and the new arrivals would get to attend a "graduation" ceremony to conclude their stints. After this, they would have the opportunity to buy their Mil-Spec Blasters if they could afford them. If they couldn't, they would still get to keep one thing at the taxpayer's expense: Their Mil-Spec body. It was this great perk that made it so that some people, especially the poor, were very glad when their stints came up.

Though it cost the Military plenty, Leader Megatron kept this low-key benefits program going because he knew full well that it was a huge morale and loyalty boost. Of course, it also strengthened the Nation to have plenty of people around who were packing military-grade defense. Free blasters, on the other hand, were outside of what the Raid Tax would cover.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Coin's mind was spinning with lethal ideas as their Outpost placements came to a close. Perhaps Pesticide could suffer a fatal air crash? Or maybe he would fly into a building after not realizing it was there (due to Coin projecting a holograph of empty air)? Or maybe he would just outright blast him with his old body the very nanosecond the base commander said "dismissed" for this stint!! Pesticide, being a foreigner, probably wouldn't expect an immediate return to hostilities upon dismissal, before the two had even left the base! The only thing he couldn't do on a base, dismissed or not, was run jamming. Nobody wanted jamming on except an attacker, and most certainly not soldiers who could be doing dangerous drills at the time. But even if he only eliminated Pesticide's current body, he would at least have evened up the score...

"Careful," the Outpost commander warned, hearing Coin's engine rolling as he had a half-grin on his face. "I don't know what you're thinking, but I can tell just by looking at you that it's going to involve violence. Time it wrong, and you're slag..."

Pesticide also saw the clear conniving look on Coin's face, and suspected that he was thinking about ways to deactivate him. He went and cleaned his weapons, and tested his connection to the Main Save Vault, just in case such steps would be needed.

[Vallermoore]

Decepticon Military

After dealing with the traitor and his unfortunate offspring, things went back to normal at the Base, with Coin stuck for a month as the janitor for opening fire too early. During the rest of his stint, he brooded and thought of revenge. When they were nearly dismissed, the Base Commander warned Coin "Careful, I don't know what you're thinking, but I can tell just by looking at you that it's going to involve violence. Time it wrong, and you're slag..." Outside the Military, a bot could do anything that was not treason (although some of those things could attract vigilantes if the bot was not careful.) Inside it, the rules and regulations had to be followed-or else. And one of these was not to attack another Decepticon soldier. Pesticide had seen the look on Coin's face as well and mentally made plans to get away from there, having brought his blasters a few days ago. As soon as they were formally dismissed, he teleported to the front gate, intending to fly away before Coin could follow him. He was no coward, but didn't really want a high chance of losing a body. Just then he stopped, and bowed a deep bow of respect. General Carjack himself was standing at the door.
"Ah, Pesticide. I'm here to talk to you about joining my special battalion. You seem to be the right sort of bot that I'm looking for. You're tough, can obey orders even when they are to take somebody alive, and from what I have seen of you earlier, have what it takes, although of course you need to be trained just like everybody else."

Coin came charging out in his original body, his eyes dark with rage, his engine running loudly. "Pesticide, you hunk of junk, you humiliated me in front of Connect himself! I was a full capo, with several ICC crews under me, and now I'm a crew capo with just one crew under me. Revenge will be mine!" Pesticide made no attempt to beg for help from General Carjack-this would be unDecepticon. If he could somehow make Coin loose a body, or even lose his life again, despite Coin's currant body being far stronger then his own, he would probably impress the High General.

General Carjack got out of the way and battle was joined. Although Pesticide could keep far enough away to avoid being dragged into Coin's coin press and stamped into Vallermoorian coins, his foe had better blasters, a stronger body, and rage on his side, and also knew of Pesticide's lightning bolts. Both sides were taking damage, but Coin had earlier strengthened his Faraday Cage strongly. When Pesticide had taken 40% damage, he came up with an idea. Coin's off lever was firmly secured and could not be pulled, and his boards were strong and sturdy, but as a squadron was leaving the base on their way somewhere else, Pesticide used his magic to turn Coin's jammer on and keep it on. The response was immediate. The squadron landed and it's officer, revving angrily, strode up to Coin with his men close beside him. "You-turn that off NOW! Some of the soldiers in that base are undergoing dangerous military drills, and your jamming could get them killed." Coin tried to turn his jammer off, but was unable to. "You have three seconds to comply and then we will turn our jammers on and show you why using a jammer just outside a military base is a bad idea. One...."

"It's not my fault, it's..."

"Two...."

Coin tried his hardest to turn off his jammer, but Pesticide's magic had jammed it on.

"Three!" Pesticide got out of the way as a whole platoon of bots opened fire on Coin. His armour had only taken 20% damage in the earlier fight and was still impressively strong, but so many bots were blasting him at once that it was not long before his body was destroyed-and the officer turned his own jamming on for a few seconds as Coin died and found himself in the afterlife again. A few days later he was brought back as his skills were still considered important enough to the ICC that he needed to be brought back from a Save Disc. Connect himself was there, looking not furious but very disappointed. "I can explain," he said, but Connect pointed to his voice chip to indicate silence and then began to speak. Coin knew Connect wasn't going to kill him again or throw him out of the ICC, but expected that whatever Connect was about to say, it wouldn't be very good.

*****
With Coin a pile of smoking metal, the officer ordered his squadron to it's duties, and said he would join them as soon as he had taken the body to a foundry. With the danger over, Pesticide turned his full attention back to General Carjack who with his own magic had sensed what was going on. "Deceptive and conniving...I like it, and I also liked it that you used our Way to deal with your foe instead of asking for my help," the High General said. "Let me tell you about what being a member of my Battalion would entail-the minus points as well as the good ones."

*****
Bangbar

With the Temple nearly finished, Loyal Star and Fire Eater cloaked and headed out to try their new devices on some Communist enimies.

Changeling Hive

The Hive was doing more direct raids to gather resouces and love, although it still was deceptive and conniving when it needed to be. Rarely, lings would be lost on these raids, but instead of their souls being enslaved, they went to a small metal room with three screens on the wall showing the Realm of Punishment, the Neutral Realm, and the Realm of Pleasure, where Decepticon angels would tell them their fates. Dying as a biological was not as big a minus as dying as a robot, since biologicals were unable to mind transfer.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Oilfountain Base

It didn't take long for the two enemies to leave - and for battle to begin. General Carjack was secretly pleased at this turn of events, for it would allow him to watch Pesticide in a real fight instead of a mere drill. DomIntel had provided him with recordings of Pesticide's earlier fights against the other ICC bots, but there was nothing like watching him in-person. This way, Carjack could move around to get a better view instead of hoping for good camera angles.

Before long, Coin's jammer came on. To Carjack's initial surprise, he saw that a magical energy beam coming from Pesticide was making it happen. Coin seemed to be oblivious to the cause of his "malfunction" when challenged by the squadron, and before long, was deactivated in the name of base safety. A quick scan by Carjack revealed that the leads running to the jammer's control circuit had somewhat old insulation that not only allowed a negligible amount of electrical charge to leak out, but allowed Pesticide's magical interference in. The General smiled smugly, knowing that all of his own internals were in perfect condition. One of the benefits of being a career military person was frequent free physical maintenance, or for those who preferred to do their own mechanical and electrical work, unlimited free parts.

Once the battle ended, Carjack complimented the winner for his use of connivery to get the guy blasted by an insurmountable force. He then had him come back inside the base for an interview.

~~~~~~~~~

Inside the office, which at Oilfountain was used by whichever general happened to need it at the time, Carjack began to describe life in the Genocide Battalion.

"Most of the time, we actually sit around and play video games," he said after a few introductory words. "Cards are more common among general soldiers, but I have made sure that everyone appreciates the pleasure of a great video game. Our games aren't the full-immersion sims that are so popular here, but instead, ones more like you're probably used to. We can't have a situation where a battle is lost because everyone was too immersed in a game to bother to deploy. Plus, using the old-fashioned format for games allows for direct competition."

"Of course, playing games all day isn't great for maintaining fighting form, so we also have drills. One big difference between the Genocide Battalion and the regular military is that along with drills, we have duels! These are to-the-body duels, and they happen once a month. This helps to maintain the proper mindset, and reinforces the idea that the 'other guy' is NOT supposed to leave an encounter with a Genocider alive. Needless to say, jammers are not run during these duels, or else it wouldn't be long before there was no Battalion. However, the exercise of going all-out against another fully-sapient being will keep you in good form. Oh, and sometimes we have some rather unique drills, too, such as ones where you have to eliminate 1,000,000 targets in the shortest possible time - on your own."

[Drill targets, of course, usually were not actual sapient beings. Instead, they could be anything from holographs to droids. Sometimes, though, there would be an exception, such as if there was a minor overly-rebellious town that needed to be deleted, or a bunch of refugees had shown up and there wasn't room for them in the mines (as had happened when Loyal Star had been temporarily drafted).]

"Then, every so often, we get to do what we joined the Battalion to do. We used to only be called in to stamp out rebel-infested cities, but our scope has been expanded through the years. Now, we may be called in to cull captured civilian populations, or..." Carjack's eyes began to glow more brightly - "Just wipe out an entire population so the Nation can seize huge swaths of land without any chance of opposition."

"The one thing that many people find to be a negative is that there's hardly any leave. Genociders have been banned from regular raiding - except for military-ordered raids - out of concern that we will cause enough casualties to start unwanted wars. It's also hard to get unsupervised leave, period, thanks to us having a bit of a reputation for causing death in the streets right here on the Metal Planet. For some, that reputation isn't as deserved as you would think, but for others, it's very deserved. Which reminds me, the Battalion is often where serial killers end up - and these killers made their marks on Cybertron itself. There will be times that you'll need that duel-training that you'll get. Serial killers and psychopaths aren't too concerned about the law, and that includes military law..."

"Speaking of that, the Battalion doesn't work quite like the rest of the military. Strength alone isn't king. What you want if you're looking for respect is a good score." He pointed at his blaster. "My current score is 6,974,893,003. Coming up behind me is Desertifier with 1,000,000,000. There's over 100 with scores in the tens of millions, 1,000 with scores in the millions, and 8,000 with scores in the thousands. Finally, there are 1,000 with fewer kills, and like you, they are considered to be newbs. So, we are very serious about what we do, and compete against each other to do it best. If you get it by strength, fine. But if you get it by sitting on your butt in the Main Base and hacking into an enemy's nuclear arsenal, and then causing the enemy to nuke itself, that works just as great - assuming we don't need their land to be radiation-free, that is."

Carjack tried to remain at ease as he discussed the Battalion's vast numbers of kills, but his face automatically hardened a bit. It was old human code in action...in that species, discussing violence one had perpetrated typically caused unconscious readiness for more, as if a target would pop up at any moment.

"Now - magic. I'm able to use and detect it, so I saw what you did with that goofy-looking enemy back there. Since you have a handle on its basics, you would be added to a special sub-program that teaches how to use it in war in the most devastating ways. This isn't the Military's Paranormal Division that I'm talking about. It's part of the Genocide Battalion. It's why sometimes when we descend on a target, all of the SAMs and junk suddenly stop even if the rest of the troops had been under serious bombardment. Your preference for using electrical energy is one of the reasons you've gotten this far on your goal to join us. Manipulation of electricity and related forms of energy can be quite deadly..." Especially here, Carjack silently thought.

"This is the quick overview. Before you can become a Genocider, you have to go through my special 8-week training and testing program. This program doesn't just test your physical abilities - I'm quite aware of those - but also tests your mindset and willingness to perform the duties of a Genocider instead of those of a simple soldier. Only after you pass do you get to bear the symbol that is one of the most feared on Cybertron: the Skull and Wrenches. Once you're wearing those, you'll find that very few people outside of the Battalion and the High Command will have any interest in messing with you." Carjack looked quite smug as he discussed his special Symbol. He quite liked the presumption of lethality that went along with it, and how it set a Genocider above the little gang battles and similar disputes so commonly found on the streets of Cybertron.

"So, are you still interested~? Or would you rather just go raid..." Carjack was clearly not too thrilled with the "go raid" option. That would mean the loss of a good candidate, and one who seemed more in control of himself than some of the serial killers he got stuck with.

~~~~~~~~~

Bangbar

The Communists weren't feeling very loving when the two went near them. In fact, there were large quantities of fear due to their loss, as well as frustration and rage from the same. Despite this, the two turned their devices on in hopes of testing the other-emotion raiding capabilities they had.

Immediately, the enemy combatants began to weaken, and before long, a few keeled over. Still, it was clear that one of the devices was working more efficiently than the other, since about half of the troops in the immediate vicinity took longer to pass out from the loss of energy.

[Vallermoore]

Oilfountain Base

Inside his office in the Base where they could talk without random civilians listening in, General Carjack told Pesticide about how life really was in the Genocide Battalion. A lot of the time the bots, wen they were not needed for drills or called into action for real, played non full-sim video games to avoid huge amounts of boredom. As well as that, there were to the body drills-obviously without jammers on. He made it clear that leave was very rarely given-it was not impossible, but not that likely, as members of the Battalion had a reputation for killing other Decepticons in the past. And many bots in the Battalion had huge kill scores. Also, unauthorized raiding by Battalion members was forbidden as it might cause unwanted wars with nations powerful enough to be a pain. He also told him about the Battalion's own tests and training regime to earn the right to wear the fearsome Skull and Wrenches. On the rare times when leave was indeed granted, most bots would hesitate to tangle with a Genocider. "So, are you still interested~? Or would you rather just go raid..."

Pesticide grinned, his eyes glowing like hot coals. "Of course I'm interested, the chance to serve under you in your Genocide Battalion was why I decided to immigrate with all it's dangers and the pain of being ported in the first place. Nothing would make me happier."

General Carjack smiled. "Oh, one more thing-the Battalion has a don't ask, don't tell rule about being a biological, as many of the bots who were built think biologicals should have no right to earn the Ultimate Upgrade. The only exception is me. It's no secret that I was a human once, but any bot who thinks they can hassle me about it or try to deactivate me very quickly ends up as a mere mark on my blasters. You don't have that deadliness level so keep your pony origins to yourself."

"Yes Sir."

"I want you to get the military mechanics to repair that body-if they refuse then tell them that I ordered it, and then I'll take you to the Battalion Barracks with the other trainees. Assuming you pass the training properly, then you will earn your Skull and Wrenches and join the Battalion proper. Our barracks for the fully trained members are a little more pleasant then most, as there is much more time spent within them, so making them austere and unpleasant would be punishing bots for no reason."

"Yes Sir, right away Sir."

When Pesticide went to the mechs at first they refused to fix him for free, until he mentioned the name of General Carjack. Soon enough he was fixed and gleaming and the General took him to the average barrack that was used for housing trainee Genociders, most of who would indeed earn their place in the Battalion. "Tomorrow the training will start in earnest, but today is your last rest day for quite a while. Feel free to talk to each other, trainees, but remember the don't ask don't tell rule," he told them. A large blue bot with flames painted on his wrists came up to Pesticide and introduced himself as Slaughter. "I go by the name of Pesticide," Pesticide replied.

*****
"I'm disappointed in you," Connect told Coin. "You tried to overcome Pesticide and failed again, so for three months you will stay as an ordinary Made Man before you can work your way up again. But I heard Pesticide won't be staying as a problem solver as he joined the Genocide Battalion. What a pity."

*****
Bangbar

Fire Eater's device worked better then Loyal Star's and afterwards Loyal Star asked Fire Eater if he was just better at using the device.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Oilfountain Base

Slaughter, it turned out, already had genociding experience. As his name implied, that experience was gained against biologicals, and in fact, he had 500 kills from one event alone.

"Years ago, before we took over Earth, there was this nation there called Rwanda. There were two main groups there - the Hutus and the Tutsis. Rumors were coming through the IOPC that the Tutsis were on the side of a rebel group, and that the Hutus were about to 'handle' it in a 'decisive way.' I knew what that meant." Slaughter's engine revved a bit, as if reliving the anticipation he'd felt back then. "I researched the people on both sides, and then I used 10 million Cubes to convince someone at Foreign Intelligence to make me a Hutu body. They had no trouble creating the simple android, which looked legit but would openly clang if it was shot at, macheted, or anything like that. And off I went, to the Rwandan Genocide, as a Hutu."

Slaughter gave a smug, self-satisfied look as he remembered the events. "As I expected, the puny humans were nothing compared to my android form. I rose high in the ranks of the Rwandan military after hacking my way onto their radar - through crowds of Tutsis, with a machete, that is!" He paused. "Alas, it's a myth that humans will keep on standing there like idiots and letting you kill them. Eventually, the Tutsis came up with an army from somewhere, and they rolled in and kicked Hutu ass. But before that, we'd wiped out about 70% of the Tutsis in the country."

Now, the killer chuckled. "Needless to say, that was my cue to take a flight back to Cybertron - but not for the reason you might be thinking. I made a quick stop at my contact's office, and a day later, I had my brand-new Tutsi-looking head covering. And I went back, joined the Tutsis, and quickly macheted all of the Hutus I had taken a dislike to...along with about a hundred others. Only then did the UN finally come in and spoil all the fun. After that, I came back here and became a problem solver, first for the IOPC and then the ICC. But those one-by-one kills were too boring, so I finally decided to make the big leap and join the Genocide Battalion."

"And what brings YOU to the deadliest group in the Decepticon Military?" Slaughter finally asked, through with boasting for the moment.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Later, the aspiring Genociders of Oilfountain Base would get their first order. It was to report to the Main Base, which had specialized drilling areas and dueling ranges, Carjack's permanent office, and better accouterments all around. This would be the base of operations for all of the training, though they might go to other bases every so often to make use of more-remote training facilities.

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

Bangbar

After causing what would be thought of as a "mysterious sickness" among the Commies, the two priests returned to the Temple and decloaked. Now, they could report their results to the Bureau of Paranormal Research. The data would then be used to make better versions of its raiding device. Replicator would also be told the results of the test of his version, and if he couldn't convince the government to buy it as-is, he would bother to improve it.

"Yours probably didn't work as well because it came from Paranormal Research," Fire Eater said. "Once they get something down, they can beat Replicator - but they tend to load their beta versions with a bunch of sensors and processors so they can collect more data. That slows down the early versions as well as making them bigger and clunkier. This is why Replicator is sometimes so important to war efforts. While he doesn't win out once Impossible Physics has a chance to study everything, he's pretty great at creating a well-working version in a hurry."

"For this device, though, the government doesn't really need to be able to mass-produce it in a hurry, so it'll go ahead and allow a long lead-time for the project. After all, we don't NEED these devices in order to win - we can always just open fire the regular way. Therefore, Replicator will probably be able to sell his for a long time before the competing product is perfected, used by the Military, finally declassified, and then put into mass production by some place like the Decepticon Parts Company. Speaking of that, I wonder how these are made..."

Fire Eater went into the Temple, with Loyal Star following. "I think it might be a good idea to get to somewhere private and do some reverse-engineering of our own. Paranormal's version is classified, and it would be against our Divine Leader to hack it in defiance of that - but Replicator's has no such restriction. They probably meant for it to be secret, sure, but nobody SAID that, so..." Fire Eater opened his panel, removed the device, and then began to examine it to see how to open it up without it being obvious that he had done so.

[Vallermoore]

Oilfountain Base

"You have a great kill count, and I'm not being sarcastic. My own kill count is quite small. First I decided to use a sapient pony android to con some of those stupid ponies, poisoned one and killed another who was going to blow the whistle. I also joined the ICC as a problem solver and killed a few Mafia guys-and an ICC full capo bot who tried to kill me when I was trying to join. I killed him outright. Someone brought him back from a Save Disc and he came after me so I killed him outright a second time. Once I earn the Skull and Wrenches, I'll soon rack up a large kill count like a Genocider should. And I have, hopefully-an endless life to live in the Genocide Battalion unless I have very unfortunate results. I joined the Genocide Battalion because I want to be a Genocider." Due to their violent lives, whilst death was not certain like it was for biologicals, the chance of death was there.

"Everyone needs to start somewhere," said Slaughter.

Soon enough the trainees flew to the Main Base, where conditions were a bit better and it had the needed firing and training ranges. When Pesticide put his wedge under his door and defragged, he had a big smile on his face. He was eight weeks away from earning the prized Skull and Wrenches symbol and being where he wanted to be, doing what he wanted to do, what he abandoned his sapient pony life and his cutie mark for.

*****
Bangbar

Loyal Star watched with ease as Fire Eater worked out how to open the device open covertly and soon had it open. "What do you see?," he asked.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Main Base

Pesticide's defrag finished at some point in the morning, and he was a bit surprised to have heard no bells or sirens to get the troops all lined up for drills, a speech, or any other organized activity. He made his way out of his room and down the hall, and soon found all of the other newbies sitting around playing video games. Before long, he was challenged to a Mortal Kombat-like match that featured robotic combatants as well as magical humans, T-rexes, and other creatures. There were no ponies as those were considered too wimpy for anyone to ever want to play with as a character. All of the existing options were well-matched thanks to the miracle of game programming, so there wasn't a real downside to choosing to use one of the biologicals - other than being laughed at by one's opponent. Despite the laughing, Pesticide saw that many had indeed chosen humans and suchlike - perhaps to fool their gaming partners into underestimating their playing skills.

After several hours, Pesticide got another shock: There was no muster bell or alarm, nor did any trumpets sound when it was finally time for them to assemble outside. Instead, THIS blared through the barracks, and immediately after, an underling appeared in the doorway hollering: "That's the muster song! Everyone to the drill field, NOW!"

All of the games automatically lost power immediately - Carjack was well acquainted with how "one more stage" easily turned into "tomorrow" if a player was given the chance to keep playing, even with these screen-based games. After all, he was a game addict himself.

Soon, everyone was standing in rows outside, and the General appeared on a portable stage. He gave an encouraging speech and informed everyone that they would soon be starting their special training. Carjack's speech included several tidbits about himself. He noted that his actual preferred music was Earthian Classic Country, but Let the Bodies Hit the Floor was just too fitting of a Genocider theme to pass up. Then he told them that if there was ever a morning muster order, they were to prepare themselves for hot war. "I don't get up then unless it's a Code Red emergency!" He emphasized. Finally, he said that they did indeed get Supreme more often than the average soldier, but that it had been quite a while since the Battalion was allowed to have it 100% of the time. "The accountants were getting irked about the cost, and us doing that was making it so all of the other generals wanted Supreme for their special divisions, too. So now we can only have it under special circumstances, or on other short, pre-designated dates."

Before they could start training, Carjack said that they all would have to report to Military Debugging to get the special clearance needed to join in. "This mainly ensures that you won't use this training to attempt genocide against Decepticons except in the case of an attempted revolution, and if there is one, that you'll be using your skills on the worthless rebel garbage instead of citizens in good standing!" He informed them. A new psych test would also be given that would assess general suitability, just as another layer of certainty in the admissions process. Then, those who passed - which would be all but one or two, considering that even getting this far required a direct invitation of some sort - would continue on with their training. Those who did not might be given assignments in other divisions, or simply deemed to be too much of a security risk to be trained in any sort of "enhanced lethality" methods.

Unlike the regular Debugging Center, the Military Debuggers used for security clearance verification were authorized to divulge crucial information they discovered (such as a desire to stage a revolution, kill all Decepticons, work with enemy nations, etc.) to the relevant commanders. Those who were averse to this were given a chance to back out at the last minute, but MilIntel would then try to find the data some other way just in case. Here in the Military, security was far more important than on the outside. There was no special clearance needed to be a regular soldier, but anything that could make someone far more lethal than such a soldier had to be well-vetted. The Genociders, the Paranormal Division, a unit known as Military Sabotage, and other such specialized groups were all included in the high-security protocols.

This year, nobody backed out of the security clearance code-read and Debugging check, though it had happened in prior years. Everyone lined up at the Debugging office on base and waited impatiently for their turn. It would only take a couple of hours to check everyone since this was a scheduled event. Extra Debuggers had been brought in for the job.

After everyone was checked, the group was down one member. They saw him going to the barracks and getting his few things with a devastated look on his face. General Carjack himself approached this one.

"You'll be happier in the position they recommended for you, I'm sure," he was consoling the failed one. "We are a very efficient force...no time for making them scream...advanced interrogator..." The words trailed across the road, with many of them unintelligible. The other would-be Genociders who knew general Military procedures well were able to figure out what was happening, though. This soldier would be working with ForIntel instead of the Genociders, almost surely due to a strong desire to torture instead of just racking up kills. Torture was far too slow and inefficient for a force meant to wipe out millions or even billions of targets in a hurry. It was far more suited for the purpose of forcing foreigners in other countries to do what the Decepticon government wanted them to, or as a way to spread fear among the personnel of some alien place. Even though ForIntel was never mentioned directly, everyone knew that it was the division that would be the most likely to secretly field torturers.

Soon, Carjack left the area, and an underling came to bring the cleared soldiers back to the drill area.

"First, we will do a few boring flight drills," Carjack said, not hiding his unenthused opinion of this segment at all. "This just lets me know that all of you are in good form with what you should have learned well enough in the regular military, and if some of you need more training in this regard. We will go through Flight Patterns 5 through 8. Then you follow me and we'll go to our main drill range!"

The flight patterns were easy and were performed in a perfunctory way. Finally, after what seemed like forever but was really only an hour or so, the General took off across the base and everyone followed. Below, first-time soldiers looked up with somewhat awed and curious expressions, knowing that the people above them were attempting to get into the most notorious division and wondering what motivated them to do so.

At first, the drill range appeared to be quite big, but otherwise empty. "It will be full of holographic targets soon," Carjack announced. "But first, here is your first Genocider Training Data Pack." He began to pass out chips. "Once you've virus-checked and installed those, we will begin our specialized drills. You'll be deleting a billion 'people' tonight, so I hope you've all cleaned and tuned your blasters!"

In most militaries - including this one - it was all but unheard-of for a High General to handle introductory drills as the instructor for standard troops. However, when it came to special divisions and units, this often (but not always) changed. Generals typically wanted to make sure that such specialized forces were really up to snuff and that they got off on the right foot before passing the majority of the remaining training duties on to someone of the relatively low Trainer rank.

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

Bangbar


Fire Eater very carefully opened up the case, only to find a note from Replicator.

"So you managed to get into the device without triggering the bomb or the killswitch! Congratulations! Now you get to see the mechanism. But unless you have the full AEDP Series in Advanced Physics from the Institute of the Impossible, you might as well not have bothered!" The note taunted.

Sure enough, once the paper (surprisingly, made from actual wood pulp) was removed, there wasn't much in view that could be understood. A glowing quantum-computer-driven mechanism spun slowly, and there were 10 wires attached to it. These wires led to tiny soul gem-like flat items, two of which glowed dully. The rest of them were dark and empty-looking. All of them were, in turn, wired to a part that was completely enclosed in a tiny black housing. This housing had a wire leading to the socket that Fire Eater's battery had been connected to.

"I can get some of it, but not all," Fire Eater said. "This glowing thing is surely what draws the emotional energy, and somehow, it sends it out to these gems, which are probably just holding tanks for that sort of power. Then, this other thing most likely processes the energy into electricity, which then goes to the battery of the user through here. But I wouldn't be able to copy it unless I knew just what he used for those two mechanisms. I'm concerned that if I dismantle it further, I'll end up wrecking it..."

Loyal Star peered in as Fire Eater explained what he could. The draining mechanism was very clearly more advanced than most Cybertronian tech, or at least, that which was available to the public. Neither of them could see exactly how it hooked into a target's emotions to start the draw in the first place. They figured that it would be a product of the operation of the draining mechanism combined with the orders Fire Eater sent to its controller when he willed it to run on a specific target.

Fire Eater reassembled the device and made sure to put the note back exactly as it was. "No point in making it obvious that we looked in here," he said. "Make sure not to let on that we cracked the housing lock when we give it back!"

There were just a couple more days to wait until the permanent priest arrived, they figured. If all went well, they would soon be on their way to Cybertron for new orders, and for Fire Eater, to put in for a leave. If it was granted, he would still probably have to do one more mission with Loyal Star since it'd take a bit of time to juggle the staffing.

[Vallermoore]

Main Base

Pesticide woke of his own accord instead of being woken by a bell or a siren, a little surprised by that. He went downstairs and found the other bots were all having fun playing fighting computer games on large screens and he joined in. A few hours later a loud song called "Let the bodies hit the floor" played and a trainer came in and bellowed "That's the muster song! Everyone to the drill field, NOW!" Soon enough they were out there where General Carjack himself greeted them. Pesticide internally took notes and told his body to put itself into full battle mode if he was woken in the morning, as that meant full scale war, quite possibly with Cybertron under attack. If that happened, Pesticide would be revving to get at and blast the foe. The "big ball bearing in the sky" was his home planet, after all, and he would rather be outright killed then let that be destroyed. However big the Empire got, Cybertron would always be the favourite planet of the Decepticons. Soon they were checked by Military Debugging. Pesticide was not worried; he had not a treasonous thought in his mind boards, and although he had twice killed Coin, it was because Coin had messed with him twice. As it turned out just one bot failed the test, because he had a strong desire to inflict torture on his victims. He looked really unhappy, his eyes dim-if Decepticon eyes could cry, he would be crying. He was sent to Forintel to become an interrogator, a far better job for him.

The others did flying exercises-a trained pilot would have found them hard but for them it was just like a biological moving his or her body about. Then they virus checked and installed their Genocider Training Data Pack, Pesticide excited about what it contained. Soon they would be testing their blasters to their limit.

Bangbar

Fire Eater got the device open and soon closed it again, and a few days later a somewhat grumpy Priest bot by the name of Holy Cross-cross being his mood a lot of the time-showed up and they could go into FTL and once more see the gleaming beauty of the Metal Planet. The raiders let them go unchallenged. Soon enough they were congratulated by High Priest Warfire. "Domintel watched you and you both did well. Fire Eater, I want you to go on one more mission with Loyal Star and then you can have an entire year of leave to raid, buy things, play games and enjoy yourself in general. If you do get in fights with other Decepticons and it is your fault, remember your holy powers only work when on duty or if you were minding your own business and a bot or bots still attacked you. Loyal Star, you too are doing well."

[Victorious Decepticons]

Main Drill Range

As soon as he saw the header on the data pack's first module, he knew how he could use the information. "Evasion Patterns of Common Biological Species," it said, complete with a picture of a panicking crowd of humans on a city street. The module went on to explain, in great detail, the instinctual behavior of herds of biologicals under fire.

"Humans mostly run in one direction, away from the most obvious source of danger. However, some will scatter off in other directions, and a few will even just stand there. Most of those who are left standing in one place are oblivious, whether due to being distracted by their communication devices, being 'in their own little worlds,' or just out of stupidity. But some of them are brave. If the brave ones have no weapons, just steamroll them like you're doing with the others. If they do have weapons, though, be very careful - while most will just have little guns and a lot of delusions, some may actually have something that'll work!"

"Ponies are much easier to genocide. Their Base Code is that of a true herd animal, and they'll all bolt off in the same direction in a big pack."

"Vampires always run for the dark, but they have no herding instinct. This means they'll split up in a million different directions if there are a million different dark spots. It's always best if we can work with Sabotage to secretly set up lighting to direct their escape routes before we bother to attack. Oh, and that stuff about vampires being killed by sunlight is a myth for some types of them, though they do prefer the dark."

"Mixed-species planets are more and more common these days. This is a PITA. Generally, the planet's most dominant species will hold sway over the attempt to escape us, but not always. We rely more heavily on MilIntel's sociology reports when attacking these places, but there is still a higher chance of something unexpected happening. When there are humans and ponies together, however, we can pretty much be assured that the humans won't go in the same direction as the ponies. Humans see obvious 'herding' as a weakness and as being 'for prey,' even though they're also herd animals for all intents and purposes - especially when under fire."

The Data Pack then went into much finer detail about all of the species the Decepticons routinely encountered, as well as some others that were included for as-yet-unknown reasons. After digesting it all, the Genociders-in-training had the knowledge needed to use the unconscious instincts that were the foundations of the escape route "choice" of targets of these species. For such targets, there was no real choice at all: By using this sort of knowledge, the Genociders could easily direct them to a quick and efficient doom.

"Always remember," the module concluded, "'free will' in biologicals is a myth. They believe they have it because they have evolved to think so, and under some circumstances, show enough permutations in their scripting that it might seem that they actually do think. However, when put under extreme stress, such as a deadly demonstration that proves that the giant hostile war robots are RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF THEM and have indeed come to KILL THEM ALL, they immediately show their instinctuality and run a much smaller subset of pre-programmed code. Their actions after this point are so predictable that they cannot be held to be sapient. Even those humans that end up just standing around are running code: A quick calculation of their numbers puts them at 1-3%, which is a common percentage range for variations in the human species. For more information on the point of having such variants in a species and why they can persist (until we show up), see the privately-produced overview educational data pack titled Evolution: The Reasons for Perpetual Beta in Biologicals, chapter 6."

~~~~~~~~~

After this module, there was one more: One with specific patterns of deployment tactics to use, and what to do after the initial assault had begun. These tactics would guide not only the initial assault, but what would be done once the main groups of targets had been destroyed. "Remember that in cities, much of the population is actually in the buildings instead of on the streets. Always flatten the buildings, stomp on or blast any buses, and mangle all subway or train tracks at key points. And don't forget to fill all subterranean tubing - subway tunnels, sewer/drainage tunnels, and the like - with your exhaust."

It included data on when to stop bothering to look for more targets. "Do not continue mission actions past the point of little return," it said. "Herd animals do poorly when they are solitary or can only exist in tiny groups, so we generally let them die out. If 10 or 20 manage to find each other, form a group, and then that group rebuilds itself into something bigger over the next 100 years or so, we can then send in the slavers to capture them. Usually these groups die off after one or two generations due to the rigors of living with no more amenities than wildlife has. Ones that keep their genes going under those conditions are generally pretty hardy, and with the help of an Enslavement Chip, make decent laborers. Of course, the ideal result of a mission is always 100% dead targets, but in a big city, this is rarely attainable in practice."

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

After everyone had fully installed their data packs and made the information accessible as if they'd learned it the long way, General Carjack flipped a switch. Immediately, a large holographic cityscape appeared. It was positioned as it would be if the troops had just landed outside of it, with the skyscrapers sticking up as tall (or taller) than the soldiers, and the visible population on the roads and sidewalks at the feet of the buildings.

The "city" was vibrant, with four-lane roads packed with cars and sidewalks covered with thousands of humans hurrying about their business. Above, however, were military jets. Right now, they were stationary since the sim wasn't yet in full operation, but once Carjack gave the command, they would be firing "missiles" at the attacking Decepticons.

"Okay, here's the scenario." Carjack announced. "This city is a very liberal one that thinks its cosmopolitan nature somehow allows it to transcend the laws of physics! That's why the people are acting like nothing is wrong; they delude that no one would dare to attack Their Pristine Example of How to Live! Note the hipsters and other losers..." He pointed at some outdoor cafes, and sure enough, whoever designed the sim had taken the time to add enough detail to easily see that hipsters were sitting at the tables as snobby, flamboyant waiters flounced around delivering fancy-looking alcoholic drinks and overpriced lattes. On one car, a bumper sticker could even be seen. It read, 'LA.'

"This city has been infiltrated by ForIntel, and the agency has reported that most of these losers haven't done a lick of physical work in their lives. While the whip can easily knock them off of their high horses and get them to give it a shot, Biological Labor has confirmed that they wouldn't last a month in the mines. Meanwhile, MilIntel has done its own studies, and has found that if the city were to be invaded in the conventional way, it would immediately turn into a hive of insurgency. Not only that, they would even be stupid enough to march openly, carrying signs and yelling chants against us. If only the marchers were killed, the others would then try to pretend that we were morally inferior, as if that somehow would bring their comrades back from the dead. This attitude would motivate yet more marchers, and the process would repeat until there wasn't anyone left."

"Done conventionally, that inevitable end result would take 10 years to achieve and cost the Decepticon Military billions of extra Cubes in combat pay. It, and cities like it, would also be constant distractions to our real goals on this planet, which are to set up mines and oil wells, and strip it of its resources."

"Therefore, the decision has been made to simply wipe the entire city off of the face of the planet in one single overwhelming operation. That's where we come in." Carjack stepped back pointedly, leaving a clear path to the simulated target.

"This city is populated by humans. Use Pattern One and cleanse the land." Carjack ordered, making sure to use the hardened, grim tone of voice he was likely to use in an actual battle. Immediately, some of the troops cloaked up and flew to the other side of the range, as the data pack had said, and took up positions where fleeing humans would end up running right toward them. Then, Carjack and the rest of the group came in from the front, being very obvious and scary.

Pesticide was part of the "obvious" part of the group. He would be one of the ones blasting at, and stomping over, the main freeway going into the city.

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

Bangbar

Not long after Holy Cross arrived, he got a delivery of a special envelope. After opening it and reading it, he was more cross than ever before. The letter's message was short and to the point:

By the Direct Order of the Divine Leader Megatron

You shall change your public name immediately. The current one is confusingly similar to well-established, competing, religious branding and/or iconography. Therefore I declare it to be blasphemy against my religion and warn that another offense will be dealt with at the Main Foundry of Cybertron, after which you will learn not to promote other religions by any means via 1,000 years as a 'Christian in the Arenas of Rome,' in the Realm of Punishment.

~Megatron [also stamped with official ID hashcode]

After Holy Cross was done reading it, he looked up, only to see the receding forms of Fire Eater and Loyal Star on their way back home.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Upon arrival at the Temple, the two missionaries were congratulated and told to take a couple of days off. They gladly did so, and used the time to get hot-waxed and then enjoy themselves.

When they next returned for orders, they were shown a map with three different planets. "You get to pick one of these," High Priest Warfire told them. "Each one has been designated for missionary work, and each has its own challenges.

- A planet that had no religious freedom and was heavily watched by its theological government
- An advanced, atheistic world that would naturally assume everything they saw was done by science
- A somewhat primitive planet with some established religions - one of which used, as its icon, a symbol suspiciously like that of the Autobots. This one was believed to have been contacted by the actual Autobots a few centuries prior, and at that time, likely mistook them for gods.

[Vallermoore]

(OOC-Yesterday's defrag was wrecked, hence the late reply.)

Main Drill Range

Pesticide took careful note of everything in the manual, particularly the line " If they do have weapons, though, be very careful - while most will just have little guns and a lot of delusions, some may actually have something that'll work!" Soon enough the bots got to go through a sim genocide-with some skyscrapers even bigger then some of the Decepticons. When it started, Pesticide stomped and blasted his way down one of the main streets. Almost all the humans screamed and fled in sheer terror but a couple stood firm. One was a policeman with a pistol-Pesticide pushed a building down on him, killing almost everyone inside the building at the same time. The other he blasted-and the human exploded with a blast that if it were the real thing was strong enough to damage a Decepticon foot. Relying on his fellow Decepticons to destroy the small number of military jets in the sky, Pesticide carried on stomping, blasting and destroying buildings with glee, leaving a trail of sim death and destruction behind him, driving the surviving humans onto the cloaked Decepticons who were waiting for them. Within half an hour the trainees had destroyed the whole sim city and they now sat on the sim manholes and other ways to the underground until they had choked any human or animal life inside. At last when they had got everyone they could see or detect through sound or body heat, the drill was over. Pesticide grinned, feeling pleased with himself. It may have been only a drill, but it was the sort of thing he had gone so far to do and hopefully he would be doing it one day for real.

Bangbar

Holy Cross soon had a special envelope for him-from his God-but the message was anything but pleased with him.

By the Direct Order of the Divine Leader Megatron

You shall change your public name immediately. The current one is confusingly similar to well-established, competing, religious branding and/or iconography. Therefore I declare it to be blasphemy against my religion and warn that another offense will be dealt with at the Main Foundry of Cybertron, after which you will learn not to promote other religions by any means via 1,000 years as a 'Christian in the Arenas of Rome,' in the Realm of Punishment.

~Megatron [also stamped with official ID hashcode]

He would change his name to Holy Anger and would escape that fate, luckily for him.

*****
Fire Eater and Loyal Star had a fun time of it and then decided to go to the planet that throught of the Autobots as Gods. That would be an interesting challenge.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Main Drill Range

General Carjack was smiling with great approval at the speedy destruction of the holographic city.

"That was nice and fast! It's always important to be fast when we're deployed during hot-war situations. The longer it takes us to do the job, the more time the enemy has to mobilize artillery and other weaponry that stands some kind of a chance of actually doing something. We want to get in, do the job, and be gone by the time they get anything serious near the target."

After saying that, he had everyone assemble back at the front of the range.

"Our next drill will involve a situation that we try to avoid, but sometimes have to handle. We will be attacking a well-guarded sim city. In this scenario, the enemy has correctly guessed where we're going to hit and have brought in mobile SAM batteries, rocket-firing troops, and have had a chance to put in a relatively small number of land mines. There are also stealth bombers in the air as well as 2 fighter wings. Our 'orders' are to 'show the enemy that they have no chance no matter what they do.' A successful mission will fill the entire enemy nation with a feeling of futility, making it more likely to surrender and accept mine slavery rather than have us destroy more of their cities."

"In this drill, we won't just have holographic targets..." Carjack pushed a remote control button, and artillery and such popped out of the floor. Cheap, expendable drone planes also deployed, in both stealth bomber and stealth fighter forms. For now, these circled lazily, but once the exercise began, they would fly like a real air force would do. "We will be using paintballs to mark hits on you. The range's dye-packet 'land mines' are now active as well." He gave everyone a chance to survey the situation.

This 'city' was a spread-out metropolis with suburbs attached. A few rail lines ran through it, and there was also a river complete with a couple of barges. The banks of this river were lined with factories and warehouses. It was clearly meant to be an industrial hub for the enemy nation, and likely produced some of its heavier military hardware. Despite this, its downtown featured old skyscrapers made of masonry - and a few, very incongruous, newer glass-walled ones - and large swaths of its housing were decrepit. The 'burbs were in notably better overall condition. It seemed as if the city had suffered a very long period of decline, with its factories only coming back online when it was clear that there would be war, and orders from its nation's Department of Defense had finally started coming in. Pesticide wondered for a moment which unfortunate nation the real city had belonged to, and whether it had been wiped out in real life.

"Watch out for that river there," Carjack said. "If you land in it, you will be considered a casualty due to shorting out. It's real-life equivalent dredged deeply to allow for big ships. That said, any watercraft in it are targets. There are no swimmers here, though - it's too polluted for that." Indeed, a few pipes that seemed to be spewing chemicals into the river were visible, as was a large sewage treatment plant. The stuff coming from its pipe didn't appear to be very treated at all, though whether this was a common thing or the result of a temporary malfunction couldn't be determined.

Carjack began to give deployment orders. They were going to be using Attack Pattern 3, which was made for cities where the population was more diffuse. Cloaked troops would land in the downtowns of both the city itself and its big suburbs, and un-cloaked ones would come in from the entire perimeters and drive the targets inward. "These people think it's safest to be downtown and to collect in large numbers, so it'll be easy to push them that way. You cloaked troops will have the challenge of NOT blasting until they have a chance to crowd in. This is one of the biggest challenges of operating in a place like this. If you jump the gun, they'll scatter into those abandoned houses and buildings and make it a lot harder on us."

This time, the order as to who would be cloaked and who wouldn't was switched. Pesticide would wait in the center of the big city, and not fire until at least 100,000 targets were right in the way of his blasters.

As he flew to his position, he saw a city limit sign for the main suburb, marking it out as "Southfield." However, there was none for the main city. After passing that area, he saw this:

His position was to be in a large park somewhere within that downtown area. A sign marked it as "Campus Martius Park." This, however, was not full of open greenery like one might expect. There was some of that, but most of it was full of things like skating rinks and stages for bands, and it had plenty of pavement. It was also relatively narrow, with big buildings on all sides. Pesticide would have to step on a few things in order to land, so he would have to be careful to make the resulting destruction look at least somewhat legit. Once on the ground, he would wait for city residents to flood into that very area before finally opening fire, stomping, and otherwise causing mayhem.

"Oh, one thing," Carjack warned. "In real life, there was a huge underground parking structure under the downtown, so you would end up doing this battle from about a waist-deep position. This range doesn't have that...but know that it wouldn't be quite as easy as this drill if we were actually deployed there."

With that, Pesticide knew that the scenario did indeed represent what had been a real city. By the looks of it, it was an Earthian one.

Carjack yelled the order, "Commence!" As the troops began to enter the area, a sim-blizzard started. Visibility was severely cut, and everyone in the air had to use air-to-ground radar to know where to land.

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

First Temple of Cybertron

At the appointed time, Fire Eater and Loyal Star met in Warfire's office. They told him they wanted to go to the more-primitive planet and see about converting this Autobot cult.

"The planet has 10 religions to speak of," Warfire said to introduce it. "The main one is a fairly generic 'love each other' type, but the second-most popular is actually a polytheistic one and it has a god for everything. This one is the one you'll have to watch your back with, for some of those gods are war gods and trickster gods, and they both have lots of followers. Down at #5 is the one we're actually the most interested in: Mekkanism." He pronounced it with the accent on the first part: Mecha-Nism. "Just the name alone tells you that it has a strong connection to machines, specifically, the Cybertronian variety. In some places, those like us, or the blasphemous biologically-driven versions, are generically called mecha or mechs..." Warfire was disgusted at the very idea that biologicals would have the chance to drive anything like this.

"Their Seal...well, see for yourself." He slapped down an image. It was very clearly a slightly-modified Autobot seal, only missing the two "tear lines" that came down from the eyes.

"Your official mission there is to establish Megatronism among the planet's many religions, and to try your best to recruit from the war-god followers of the polytheistic religion. But your REAL mission is to completely wipe out that disgusting little Autobot cult. We suggest fomenting a religious war against it, but secret assassinations are also fine, as are other unfriendly methods. We don't want to seek converts from them, because that type of scum will only SAY they're joining and then try to spread their heretical worldviews to our real followers."

"We believe we will have a better chance of gaining more converts from the REAL religions, and getting real loyalty from them, if we go about it this way instead of declaring war ourselves. However, if you are unable to eliminate them within a reasonable amount of time, the Divine Leader will use much more blatant brute force: He'll send in the Genocide Battalion to purge the Autobot-loving scum from this realm of existence."

Warfire now waved his hand, and a 3-D holographic movie began to play. It showed the planet, which seemed to have technology along the lines of Earth's 1950s. The people here were like none the missionaries had encountered before. They were covered in short brown fur and had long, monkey-like tails that looked like they could be prehensile. Their faces were like those of pug dogs; wrinkly, with short fur, big eyes, and little pushed-in noses. They were both ugly and yet strangely cute, all at once.

"Like most planets, there is just one dominant species, and it is these," Warfire stated.

The movie went on to show these people in a variety of situations. "They are prone to growling while angry, but when they're happy, they purr like cats," a caption said as it showed them in various emotional states.

Then, it showed the "Autobot cult" history. It had started out 400 years prior with just a small group of tribespeople. Originally, it had pretty much been a cargo cult that hoped that the "rolling sky gods" would come back and bring them things in exchange for worship. It hadn't taken long for them to realize that this wasn't working, but instead of abandoning their religion as a misguided failure, their single priest had converted the religious canon to say that the rewards would come later, in the afterlife. This actually sold better since it removed the need for immediate proof, and over the centuries, it grew to be a minor, but solid, presence on the religious landscape.

"Obviously," Warfire said after the movie played, "the most ironic thing about it is that it still exists only because of a Decepticon-in-Spirit. This guy obviously realized that he could gain command authority - and donations - by being a religious leader. So he spun it to explain away the lack of an Autobot return, and kept it going with himself in charge. He did so well at this that he is still revered as a prophet and saint among adherents. We would have given it an honorable mention at the Hall of Great Connivers if not for that one thing, and that is that the religion reveres our most hated enemies and practices a version of their way of living, though of course they don't have all of the Autobot Way right since they didn't have that much actual contact with them."

"As for their 'reward in the afterlife' for following a version of the actual Autobot Way? It is this:" Warfire bowed and said a short prayer, and soon, a one-way viewing portal opened right there in the room. Through it, Loyal Star and Fire Eater could see one of the afterlife realms that Megatron had taken by force. In this one, there was nothing but a giant car grinder with bashed-up cars endlessly being dropped into it. Rather than crushing the cars, the device ripped their metal apart at a steady pace that was still slow enough to be painful. Anguished, Autobot-like screams were clearly audible from the machine. Over the din, Megatron's voice could be heard on a loop: "You wanted to be Autobots, so now you ARE! And this is what happens to Autobots!"

"They are converted to disabled Autobot bodies and then run through that metal grinder," Warfire said firmly. "As soon as their metal is rent asunder, they re-form and are dropped in again. So it shall be for them, for 10,000 years."

The portal closed.

"Of course," Warfire added, "you are to gain us as many converts as possible while you work to eliminate all of the Autobots-in-Spirit so that they, too, may face Megatron's wrath in this part of the Afterlife that he righteously seized from the leader of that planet's main religion. Oh, and speaking of that main religion, they are having a lot of trouble with their youth now that Divine Leader Megatron rewrote the base code for biological souls. It would be good to show those youth a religion that is more in line with their inner leanings, which is to say, OUR religion. The main one is too wimpy to override Megatron's rewrite, so all you'll need to do is plant the seeds. Then within a couple of generations, we will have that entire planet..."

"Oh, by the way," he added, "The Autobot-loving cult has us as its devil. They never name us outright as 'the Decepticons,' but warn of flashy, flying, boastful, arrogant, devious metal men. So that's us." He laughed, not bothered by their description at all. "They at least got some of our traits right. Problem is, they forgot to warn their followers that we can also fight and win. And, of course, the fact that it's THEIR false god who should be considered the devil. Before you go - here's a chip with facts about the planet you're going to. Check it out; it tells you the differences between the countries there. You pick which country to operate in, but do make it a decently-big one so that our religion can piggyback on its cultural footprint in order to spread to the other ones on the planet..."

[Vallermoore]

Main Drill Range

General Carjack was clearly pleased with their progress. The next test would be harder, representing a defended city with weapons that if real were capable of damaging or even destroying Decepticon bodies. This time Pesticide cloaked, landed with the minimum of destruction and held fire and kept hidden until enough of the humans were right up close to the point they were about to touch him before he went into stomp and shoot mode. So did the other cloaked bots except for one that was so eager to attack that he decloaked prematurely. Another bot was stomping about with glee-so much glee, in fact, that he stomped his way right into the river as he wasn't paying attention properly to his surroundings. If it were not a drill, he would be flying back to the Main Save Vault as data packets, and if the foe had proper jamming up he'd be dead unless brought back from a Save Disc. Pesticide avoided making any idiotic mistakes and by the time the drill was over, the city was destroyed and the underground areas filled with exhaust gas, he felt that he had done very well for himself. Carjack looked a little less pleased at the end of this second drill.

First Temple of Cybertron

High Priest Warfire told them about the religions on the planet and which could be possible threats. One, Mekkanism, worshipped Autobots and mechs." The thought of robots being driven around by biologicals was clearly disgusting and blasphemous to the High Priest and he screwed up his face as if he was drinking water or something equally unpleasant. He showed the Autobot Seal and what the people and the Mekkan afterlife-which, however good it may have once been, was now truly hellish with the souls being trapped in inert cars that were torn apart endlessly. Megatron had a special hatred for Autobots and those who followed the Autobot way.
Loyal Star silently reminded himself that if the worst happened, he would not be ending up there. Soon enough they headed out to Ceridignon, the largest continent on the planet with the most aliens. As he was very much the junior Priest, he asked Fire Eater what would be the best way to announce themselves. He very much wanted another success for Megatronism, for himself and so that Fire Eater could have some much needed time off from his religious duties to raid and have some fun. From space, the planet looked impressive, with two large lifeless icy moons, but it was of course nothing like the Metal Planet.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Main Drill Range

After the last drill, Carjack got out a big, obvious, old-fashioned clipboard and quite pointedly marked on it with a red pen. While the cadets couldn't see what he was writing, they could tell by his expression that it was nothing nice for whoever he was writing up.

"Most of you performed adequately, but a few of you made major errors. One of you decloaked early - and, as you saw, that caused the humans to avoid your area and go running off into hard-to-reach places. Another of you managed to end up in the river! How the )(*&)*() !!! That's ridiculous! You two will be doing extra drills for the next 10 days, and if I don't see a big improvement halfway through, we will use live fire for the other 5 days to give you more incentive to do things right!"

"Now - everyone: This drill stopped at its preset time, but as you can see, we would not have the entire city wiped out at this point because of THAT IDIOT who scared the humans off into these old, but big, buildings. So, our next drill will be a continuation of this one. You will now eradicate the infestation out of these old structures. Simply destroying the buildings is quite acceptable, but it won't be quite as easy as it seems since your positions will be inside the city itself. This means that if you knock them over wrong, they'll fall on you. You'll also have to make your way over the rubble you've already created. Finally, some of these buildings have 3 or 4 levels of basement in them. If you land on that, and it isn't already full of rubble, you'd fall into a hole about half your height in a real-life scenario."

"Oh, and there'll be some IEDs waiting for you, courtesy of the Crips (gang) affiliates that call this city home. Some of these are stupid-weak, but a few will be powerful enough to make your foot unusable. For this drill, there'll be hidden dye packets to represent them. Black ink for the powerful ones; blue for the weak ones. Remember to use your detection systems to find these things so you don't step on them."

Carjack pushed a few buttons on his remote, and a bunch of droids came out with the dye packets. Then, a holograph of a blank area came up, hiding the droids - and where they were putting the "bombs" - from the cadets. After this setup was complete, the holograph returned to what they had seen at the end of the other drill.

"Ok, everyone - mop up!"

Now that the buildings themselves were targeted, the cadets found quite a few surprises. Most notably, some of the rooms blew up even though their scanners detected no bombs. Later, they would learn that these were illegal meth labs, and that the production of meth involved volatile chemicals that went off simply because their watchers had run away while they were still being heated.

They also had the displeasure of dealing with power lines that had been stretched across the roads on purpose and turned into high-voltage tripwires. Apparently, not all of the humans here were cowards, though whether they were naturally brave or hopped up on meth and crack was impossible to determine. As they learned, the bottom line was still the same: Not all humans would run away without leaving any surprises behind.

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

First Temple of Cybertron

Before leaving, the two priests checked the data packs they'd been given. The information mainly focused on 5 countries, two of which were large ones that occupied the planet's biggest continent. One was a massive socialist nation with a corrupt government that routinely skimmed off about 10% of the tax money for party members. Its people were poor since the skimming made it so that its wealth redistribution was inefficient, and they never got back all that they put into it. Because of this, there was a decent-sized black market, widespread tax cheating, and other compensatory effects within the general population. It was here that Mekkanism had its stronghold, for it was quite Autobot-like to spout socialistic ideals and then come up with some excuse to keep more for itself.

The other nation prided itself on its honesty and was financially better off, but it had pockets of anarchy, violent crime, and general disorder thanks to a relatively hamstrung legal system that made it very hard to convict anyone in a reasonable timeframe. The hassles involved with getting a conviction made it so that only the worst crimes were prosecuted. Here, Bahndyism - the polytheistic religion - had a large footprint. Most of the worshipers followed both the main trickster god and the war god, especially in the anarchic zones. It would be easy to get some of these people to convert to Megatronism.

Then, the chip gave a bit of information about the planet itself. As its icy moons implied, it was further from its sun than Earth was from Sol. Still, the actual planet was very massive, about twice the size of Earth, and this mass let it absorb more heat from its sun than a smaller one would. This allowed life, but it still had massive, lifeless ice caps at its poles. Most of its people were in a thick band at and near its equator, which was merely temperate in terms of climate. Colder, but still livable, regions supported plenty of forestry, mining...and illicit activity. These regions were marked by dirt logging roads, and the rivers here were used to float barges of both logs and ore downstream toward the processing factories near the equator.

Huge oceans separated the planet's continents, and there was plenty of merchant naval activity because of it. However, the relatively primitive diesel ships were slow and cumbersome, so most trade was limited to its continent of origin. Cargo planes had not yet made it to the efficiency level where they would be used on a standard basis.

The two decided that the best move would be to set up a Temple/base in the anarchic, capitalistic country, but to put it near the border to the socialist one. That way, they could both collect the easy converts and use the new Temple as a staging area to pull things against the Mekkanists across the line.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Soon, the two landed in a clearing in the woods to discuss the finer details of their plan. On their way in, they noted that there was a lack of fighter planes patrolling key areas, indicating that there had been a long period of international peace. They also noted the sign at one of the official border crossings. "Welcome to the United Confederacy of Ceridignon," it read. On the other side, it welcomed visitors to the "Democratic People's Republic of Benyay." Of course, the "DPR" was the totalitarian socialist country, while the "United Confederacy" wasn't really all that united (hence the anarchic zones).

In the clearing, they could talk better without yet making themselves known.

"I think we should set ourselves up in this area here," he said, while holographically projecting a map of the UC. "This border town is full of drug smuggling, and since this planet is known to us, there are surely IOPC members working their trade. If we make arrangements with them, they can pretend to 'convert' and form our seed membership. It's always easier to convert actual nonbelievers if they've seen others make the switch. Of course, since the IOPCers are already Megatronists, at least nominally, they won't really be converting as such. But nobody will know that."

"The smugglers also know who's who and what's what on both sides of the border, at least in the nearby towns. They'll be an excellent knowledge resource. On top of that, they can point out where the Mekkanist leadership is - and why they haven't already deleted it."

"Oh, and as for how to announce ourselves, we didn't switch to android bodies on the way here. That pretty much means we have to come in 'large and in charge.' Fortunately, there's a field outside of this town that will allow for an easy landing, and once we get official ownership of it, will provide a place to build the Temple. I figure it won't take much to get the owner to sign it over permanently - a large enough payment should do the job, and we have the backing of the Decepticon Interplanetary Bank for anything like that..."