#Men and Machines

[wolfwillowisp]

Strange Answers to Sensible Questions

And Other Conversations with an Alien Lifeform

On July 16, 2007, the alien being inhabiting the form of an F-22 Raptor sent out the first message since its arrival to the Groom Lake United States Air Force testing facility. The message was an encrypted radio signal that consisted of the following words:

“YOU MAY NOW ASK”

After a moment of deliberation, the first question asked to the being was: “What is your name?” The following is a transcript of the resulting conversation.

[Begin Transcript]

6:15[Alien Lifeform]: YOU MAY NOW ASK

6:17[NASA SETI]: What is your name?

6:17[Alien Lifeform]: ULCHTAR IT MEANS TO THROW ONES OWN HEAD BACK TO THE NIGHT SKY AND YELL

6:17[Alien Lifeform]: LOUDLY

6:18[Alien Lifeform]: YOU MAY CALL ME STARSCREAM

(Note: from henceforth the ‘Alien Lifeform’ will be referred to with the name it requested to be used for it, Starscream.)

6:20[NASA SETI]: Thank you for answering our question Starscream. We believe we have already received this information, but can you tell us where you came from?

6:20[Starscream]: YES I CAN

6:21[Starscream]: I AM FROM THE PLANET CYBERTRON

6:20[NASA SETI]: Can you tell us, in astronomical units, how far Cybertron is from Earth?

(Note: attached to this message was an image file visually showing the scale of a variety of human measurements in comparison to the size of an F-22 Raptor)

6:20[Starscream]: CLASSIFIED INFORMATION.

6:21[NASA SETI]: Classified by whom?

6:21[Starscream]: CLASSIFIED INFORMATION

6:25[Starscream]:NEVERMIND NOT AS CLASSIFIED AS I THOUGHT HEAD COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER DETERMINES CLASSIFIED STATUS OF OUTGOING INFORMATION

6:26[NASA SETI]: Can you get us in contact with your communications officer?

6:27[Starscream]: HES NOT MY COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER HES THE COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER HE DOES NOT HOLD COMMAND OVER ME

6:27[Starscream]: ALSO YEAH ONE MOMENT

6:32[Starscream]: SORRY NO DICE DO YOU HAVE ANY MORE QUESTIONS

6:34[NASA SETI]: How long have you been able to speak and understand the English language, and how many earth languages can you speak?

6:35[Starscream]: LONG ENOUGH AND NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS I AM NO LONGER TAKING QUESTIONS GOODBYE

[End Transcript]

This conversation was considered revolutionary by NASA but it was chastised by the CIA for not probing for more information of the alien’s homeworld or the identity of the communications officer. On August 2, 2007, Starscream covertly contacted a member of the United States Armed Forces on staff at the Groom Lake facility by interfering with their mobile phone. It sent the man, Agent Stanley Burns, the following message:

“HI HELLO IT IS I STARSCREAM CAN YOU DO ME A FAVOR I NEED YOU TO BRING ME 50 POUNDS OF PURE ALUMINUM AND ALSO A BURGER KING BURGER PLEASE”

Agent Burns then left the compound, and was later found in Las Vegas, in the parking lot of a Burger King restaurant with fifty pounds of aluminum sheet metal slabs in the back of his vehicle, purchased from a nearby Home Depot. When questioned, Agent Burns simply replied: “The man wanted his Burger! Who was I to deny him?” Agent Burns, as well as his vehicle, fifty pounds of aluminum sheet metal and one ‘Whopper’ ordered off of the Burger King menu were escorted back to Groom Lake. The items purchased by Agent Burns were then given to Starscream, and had disappeared by the following morning. When questioned, Starscream had only one response.

“WHAT A GUY ISNT ALLOWED TO GET HUNGRY ONCE IN A WHILE? I CANT HAVE A LIRTLE SNACK?”

On August 15, 2007, at 15:10, Lockheed-Martin engineer Alex Witwicky contacted Starscream using a personal ham radio, asking it quote: “Hey uh- A friend of mine over here wanted to know, uh, are you a dude alien or a lady alien?”

Starscream’s response, given on the same radio frequency, was as follows: “Your people’s preconceptions of sex and gender are alien to my own, for I, Starscream am a genderless being with no one clear sex, but if it makes you feel better I can be a ‘dude alien’. If you want me to be.” This radio transmission was the first recorded instance of Starscream’s voice, and was described by Mr. Witwicky and his coworkers as “screechy”, “effeminate”, and “kinda really loud actually”.

On December 12, 2007, Starscream was contacted by the Ohio State University Radio Observatory, asking him on the nature of the infamous “wow!” signal, speculating that it may have been Cybertronian in origin. This was Starscream’s response:

“I DONT KNOW. THATS SCARY. IVE NEVER HEARD OF THAT”

On February 17, 2008, Starscream contacted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with a request for data. The following transmissions are documented below.

[Begin Transcript]

7:24[Starscream]: HI HELLO IT IS STARSCREAM I HAVE A QUESTION IS THIS THE NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION BECAUSE I HAVE A QUESTION FOR THEM.

7:25[NOAA]: Yes, we’re receiving you Starscream, what is it?

7:25[Starscream]: DO YOU HAVE SATELLITE AND GEOGRAPHIC MAP DATA FOR THIS PLANET’S NORTH POLE AND ARCTIC CIRCLE AND CAN YOU SEND I AM LOOKING FOR SOMETHING

(Note: after receiving the request, NOAA contacted the CIA, the USGS, and the recently formed Department of Extraterrestrial Communications in order to assess possible security risks in sending the necessary information to Starscream. This lasted until 02/20/08 at 13:04, whereupon then president George W. Bush ordered NOAA to send the files to Starscream, noting, “We want a good relationship with these ETs, we want them to be our allies.”)

13:05[Starscream]: THANK YOU VERY MUCH

[End transcript]

This then ushered in an elongated radio silence from Starscream, who only ever replied once to a radio message from a United States Air Force officer with a simple: “I’m busy. Leave me alone.”

On May 27, 2008, Starscream finally broke his radio silence and sent a single message to NOAA. “Thank you. I didn’t find what I was looking for. You did everything you could.”

[takenoprizners]

Worker in a doll factory, Massachusetts, 1936

R. R. Donnelly Printing Letter Press. Photo by Torkel Korling, 1942

Men and machines_2 (vintage)

[plushtive]

when the hyperfixations hyperfixate

[holleringfromyourrooftops]

All the hilson edits do not come CLOSE to how homosexual they are on the show

[ak-schlampe-47]

[fvckuiloveu]

god i love pathetic men

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965)

[rowdy317]

Growing Muscle-Thanks to @stompskin for making these amazing men to morph with...

[roshambo05]

My favorite Cyclops characterization is when he's just an absolute dork of a man. Like, yeah, he's a brilliant strategist and competent leader but he's also eaten nothing but soup for the past five days, organizes his underwear by color, and acts either like a 40 year old man or a teenager with no in-between. Scott is an OCD/autistic man with everything together but his life and his brain is filled with nothing but battle strategy and Seinfeld reruns. Scott Summers is the world's smartest dumbass.

[wolfwillowisp]

Men and machines starscream/optimus enemies-to-rivals-to-situationship-to-lovers mood board bc I have so many of these types of images

[takenoprizners]

Men and machines_2

[n0ahs-ark]

ive been watching severance

don't tell the meatly but im kinda stealing his characters

[amagnificentobsession]

♥️✨

[ak-schlampe-47]

[kuuwo]

Love you!

[danskelly15]

Kiss kiss for the man of progress 💋