Day 15
We are set to arrive on Fendaar in two cycles. As we are currently stuck on the SIIR Noxos, I have concluded that the passages of time that I am free of duties would be best spent continuing to observe the human. The human, on the other hand, seemed to have different plans in that matter, as it took me an unusually long amount of time to locate her.
As I eventually found her, she seemed to be working on one of the control panels in the main control room, so I may excuse her absence with duties she had to attend to. As she saw me, although, she seemed rather…excited (this is obviously mere speculation, as the study of the Terran so far has provided far too little evidence to prove such theories)?
As she rolled out from under the control board and sighted me, her face once again split into a wide opening revealing her horrifying amount of teeth.
"Hey! Dude!", she said, raising to her full height and stepping towards me, still baring her teeth, although I did not recoil, as I did not want to seem impolite. She raised her arms, each pointing into a different direction, away from their connection to the human's body.
"Human Quinn. How are you?"
"Me? I‘m fine, the whole 'wandering around in space' thing just made me throw up, I honestly don‘t know why they insisted on keeping me there for two whole days."
The ends of her fingers, studded with claw-like (rather short and rounded instead of sharp, perhaps they were not meant to function as claws at all, or perhaps the beings on Terra were far different from what I knew, and therefore a shape like this was far more useful to hunt) protuberances, scraped over the back of the connection between her head and her upper body. If I interpreted her facial expression correctly, she seemed to be thinking.
"Maybe I got a light concussion too, I’m not entirely sure. But it's improbable, because I’m fine now."
I decided to focus on one piece of information at a time. "Well, this "throwing up" can certainly not be a healthy nor normal process, otherwise, it would not seem so violently painful and involuntary, would it?"
"Well it‘s not…unnatural, it‘s just something that can happen. And about health, it‘s not unhealthy, it usually helps us to get rid of stuff that is bad for our bodies!", she eludicated, moving one of her arms in a rather random manner.
"The scientists have concluded that this fluid is highly acidic. If this 'stuff' is so harmful to you, wouldn‘t it just dissolve in this fluid before being able to cause any further harm?"
Quinn seemed to think about that.
"Well, just because it gets dissolved, doesn‘t mean it‘s gone, you know? It's still in our bodies, and we have to get rid of it somehow. And if it needs to be fast, we throw up. Honestly, I‘d definitely explain this further to you, but Biology‘s never really been my strongest subject, ya know what I mean?"
I did not, in fact, know what she meant, but I decided against questioning her further.
After a pause the Terran spoke up again: "So, this planet we're landing on..." "Fendaar.", I clarified. "Right. So, this planet that we‘re going to, it‘s a desert, right?" "That is correct." "So, is it a sand, an ice or, I guess you could also count rock desert? 'Cuz on my planet, we‘ve got all of those types."
"Fendaar‘s ecosystem is mostly made up out of sandlike landscapes with rather scarce vegetation and biodiversity. Most of the planets in system 36-54 have rather extreme temperature ranges, and Fendaar is no exception.", I eludicated.
"Alright, cool.", she spoke, rolling back under the underside of the control panel she had been working on previously. She seemed to be sitting, or rather lying, on a piece of metal with four small wheels attached to it, allowing her to move it around.
"Your planet.", I initiated.
"Yeah?", she responded, while continuing her work on the wiring.
"Am I assuming correctly that your planet has a far bigger biodiversity?"
"Oh, yeah.", there was a small spring in her voice, as if she had let out air in the middle of speaking. "Big biodiversity. We‘ve got deserts and rainforests, coral reefs and permafrost - although perhaps not for that long anymore - mountain ranges and all that stuff."
"Interesting.", I supplied, for lack of a better response. If Terra had such differences in temperature and landscapes, it was a logical conclusion that the humans had evolved to survive under such circumstances.
"Yeah."
It was unusually quiet for some time. That was, until Quinn rolled out from the underside of the control panels.
"Alright, I‘m done." She took a deep breath before opening her mouth once again. Then, all of a sudden, the muscles of her face started contracting as if she was plagued by an invisible pain. Her eyes squeezed shut and she let out horrifying noise, holding an arm angled in front of her nose and mouth. The noise itself was not particularly loud or long, but I recoiled either way, as a measure of safety. I could not be certain if this gesture was meant to harm me, after all.
Quinn‘s arm sank down again as her other hand rubbed at her nose. She huffed, a sound far less threatening than the one she had produced a moment ago. One of the hair patches above her visual organs raised itself, prompting the question to arise if human hair was controlled by muscles or if it had a mind of its own, although this was a question that could be further investigated later. One of the corners of her mouth raised, revealing the seemingly sharpest teeth in her mouth.
"I guess dust is an inter-galactic thing, huh?"
I did not respond. Her face muscles contracted, causing the skin above her visual organs to crease.
"Hey, you okay? You‘re looking a little spooked over there."
"Human, I do not wish to cause you discomfort, but, if I may ask, what was the purpose of the noise you just uttered?"
She did not respond for a moment, blinking with both of her eyes as she stared at me. It was quite unsettling, considering her previous explanation, that most humans preferred not being stared at.
"I…sneezed?" The creases in the skin above her eyes deepened.
My front pliers uttered another rattling sound. "What is this 'sneezing'? What purpose does it serve?" I admit, I was quite curious. Terrans seemed much more complex than I had previously assumed.
She paused, seemingly to think of an answer. "Well, it‘s like…if something is bothering us at or in out nose, like dust, for example, it‘s kind of the natural response to that. To keep things out of our bodies that don‘t belong there."
"Human bodies seem to require a lot of defense mechanisms.", I commented.
She raised and lowered the connection of her arms to her upper body, baring her teeth once again while raising herself to her full height, using one of her arms as support.
"Y’know, it’s surprisingly hard to explain something you’re so used to to someone who’s never heard of it. I guess I still have to work on the whole 'awareness that I‘m around aliens' thing. S‘ kind of surreal."
She patted off her clothing, as if to remove non-existent filth once again. I had noticed the past few cycles that most of her clothing seemed to consist of several, usually differently-coloured, pieces of fabric.
Her clothes usually covered her body from the connection between her arms and torso to the connection between her legs and, presumably, her feet. Her feet were usually also covered, although I could not determine the purpose it was supposed to serve in the environment we are currently in, although the theory that the conditions on Earth are vastly different compared to the ones on the SIIR Noxos is gaining more probability, based on the Terran's narrations.
The human seemed to evaluate a question she wanted to ask (this is, of course, a mere speculation based on previous observations: her face muscles were contracted to form a crease over her visual organs, which could so far most likely be interpreted as confusion, thoughtfulness or discomfort; her head was both slightly raised and tilted to one side at the same time, a gesture that was most likely supposed to convey an ongoing thought process).
Although, before she could utter a noise, V-7 informed us of a request from the Vitrichl to gather for a matter of importance.
The purpose of his summoning was to divide the crew into several smaller groups that were to be assigned with different tasks to fulfill once we sucessfully landed on Fendaar.
I was grouped with the Terran, which was unsurprising, as well as Tkzt, a member of the species that is widely known across the galaxies as Ctzas (it is to note that the Ctzas have not evolved any form of written language and communicate exclusively through clicking and chittering sounds. The written forms of, for example, names of this species, are written by other species to produce approximately the same sound as the Ctzas make when recited verbally).
Tkzt, as a member of the unit controlling supply chains and keeping a list of the stock of the SIIR Noxos, would make a helpful addition in our task of seeking out the nearest settlement in order to stock up on supplies.
After all matters of importance were settled, the crew dissipated, continuing their respective tasks. The Terran was ordered to stay and to assist the Vitrichl in another matter, which is the reason I did not cross paths with the human again for the rest of this cycle.
Despite this, I am positive that accompanying the human on an foreign planet will give me a further insight into the species' mannerisms and interaction manners with foreign species, which will prove to be helpful further on in studying the human.
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OMG, I’VE BEEN WANTING TO SHARE THIS AU FOR A MINUTE—
Meet my Magnificence Reforged AU Connie!
Though Scorponok only ever referred to her as Experiment: A9-2416 (usually in Decepticon dialect).
Her story is that Scorponok created her as an experiment to see what would happen if an organic was able to produce a set of chemicals that are deemed somewhat powerful, yet common, by organic standards but emphasized to a certain degree with the help of Cybertronian technology. Entirely inspired by the mere Earth-Human conceptual myth known as the—
Indomitable Human Spirit.
What Scorponok was able to take away from eight years of properly caring for the experiment is that these chemicals that fuel basic organic functioning can be utilized exponentially to a degree where a full grown one of these things could even rival some of Cybertron’s strongest warriors. Maybe even the galaxy’s toughest warriors wouldn’t be able to stand a chance.
It became labeled as Adrenalineregon.
(dope naming skills I know)
It turned out to be some crazy-powerful stuff once injected into a strong enough specimen.
Now why would Scorponok need to make something like this? Power? Recognition? Fun? All of the above honestly. But it’s also because in this Alternate Universe the Decepticons won the war for Cybertron, and Megatron has already built his perfect Decepticon Army to conquer the rest of the known universe, and he and the Grand Architect thought their Army of Tarn clones needed a little more pep-in-their-step.
You heard me. TARN. CLONE. ARMY.
(this isn’t a specifically cyberverse based timeline I just took the tarn army as inspo)
But what they didn’t expect was for the Tarn clones to go insane and turn on each other when being on mere drops of Adrenalineregon. Resulting in a mass extinction of Tarn Clones, with too many bodies to count, therefore being dropped on top of Scorpnok’s planet sized lab to remind him of the consequences of his actions.
EX: A9-2416 was, at the time, forever curious about the outside world, since she’s never been above the expansive laboratory planet’s surface. It always felt as if some unseen beings were trying to lead her to her escape every day since as long as she can remember. Small sign after small sign, guiding her to even bigger signs that kept getting her closer and closer to the way out. Of course, Scorponok always stopped her from getting too close.
A9-2416 always hated the amount of gruesome tests she had to do afterwards as punishment for misbehaving.
Until on her ninth birthday, A9-2416 finally made it to the exit, and Scorponok got exceptionally pissed off so much that in self-defense A9-2416 grabbed the nearest cannon she knew how to operate and blasted it through his spark. She cried a lot that day.
BUT HEY! Her life didn’t stay too depressing for long, because soon after she committed her very first act of murder, she became good buddies with the little voices in the walls that have been apparently guiding her throughout her life!
THE LOSTBOT BOTBOTS!!
(lol I’m nowhere near finished with every Lost Bot design, I just wanted to finish these couple few and make this post for the AU)
MEET THE LOST BOTS CLAN OF THE BOTBOTS!
They’ve been trapped on Scorponok’s Lab-planet-tory (im so funny) for decades along with the other Botbots who remained in hiding. But this clan was the only one brave enough to get anywhere near Scorponok’s main stomping grounds. What they didn’t expect to find was some weird sentient purple meat-potato in a makeshift industrial cradle. Turns out it was just a baby. And that baby turned out to be A9-2416. Who soon became known as Connie.
.
.
.
After A9-2416 escaped the inner dwellings of the lab and joined the Lost Bots on their little side quests up on the surface, she later changed her name to Constance, hence her more well-known nickname being Connie. The name change was suggested by her Botbot friends who knew a bit about Earth human culture and used their knowledge to help Connie have the most happy and carefree life that she could ask for.
.
.
.
Also the TEG Lost Light crew is there because I’m still obsessed with that fic 👍✨
@deepfriedhopesanddreams @viewer-of-many @celestite-caroline @asmoteeth @novafire-is-thinking @dragonsgirl572 @autistic-fool-with-ideas @mysticfoxdesigns @hyp3rfixation-h3ll
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Idk I feel like the people who Shamane, Kaalaa, and Kanjira are supposed to represent should get a say in if they think they are offensive in some way
This also will sound kinda off but I think there are way worse depictions in other media.
That isn't to say there shouldn't be a discussion this is just my opinion
Also just cause I am bad at paying attention but is Kanjira Indian or something else
I was looking at the description that gives her age and it just says unknown but I may have missed it in dialogue
(Oh and if you are one of the people that the characters "represent" then sorry if this came off as rude)
Kanjira's Indian, but the "fortune teller/thief" design is very much rooted in Rromani stereotypes and she plays a lot into those -- i'm honestly just thankful that the g-slur never got dropped as i was legitimately waiting for that to happen every single time she was onscreen, it's That Obvious. there's a long history of discussion of these tropes and how they're harmful -- while i am not able to find specific sources at the current moment, they are absolutely out there.
i'd also like to point out that she speaks in broken English nearly constantly. you could argue that this is "because she's a kid and English isn't her first language" but i would like to then point out that Matilda, who is two years younger than her, almost never does the same thing despite English also not being her first language (and her showing active disdain for learning it). that's... really not great!
Kaalaa Baunaa i think is... the least bad, having played the story? her design is still, to be blunt, rather sexualized, but there's at least been some amount of effort as far as i can tell (i do like her connections to astronomy, which is a very long tradition in India that dates back very far). i'd love to see her in actual traditional garb still, but she's definitely the one i'm least equipped to speak on.
Shamane though. oh boy, Shamane is a mess. i love him as a character, he's a delight, but there are a lot of reasons his design is a problem. when i talked about the "ear feather" thing i was more or less explicitly referencing this post, and his name is... questionable? more pertinently, though, he's using a hell of a lot of Native American aesthetics and stereotypes (he's a "shaman" with deep connections to nature, he has "native patterns" baked into pretty much all of his animations, i could go on it gets so much worse) for someone who is ostensibly the child of a regular Indian family.
so... yes, SWANA, Rromani, and First Nations people should get a say in if they think these designs are offensive. and they have been saying designs like these are offensive for years.
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