[A laugh gets caught in Minimus's throat.] "Young" - I was alive longer than humans existed when the war began. It's our nature as Cybertronians to stagnate for eons and change in a matter of years. You've done better than most of my kind.
Who knows if we would be enemies? If we agreed upon the rules of what is right and wrong, we could have become friends. Some laws are consistent across cultures. [Murder, theft...but the details differ.] Actually, no, we might not have.
How old are you? [Wait.] Are you an immortal then? [It would make sense, he supposes, considering his non-organic nature. Still, he's never known this about his friend before and he's delighted by the knowledge.]
Regardless, age is relative. What is young for me might not be young for you, but you were still young once.
[He grows quiet then, thinking on the rest of Minimus's words.]
We'll never know. What I do know is that no matter the mistakes I've made, or your difficulty making friends, we are friends, and I'm glad for it. We met exactly when we were meant to exactly how we were meant to.
No, not immortal. We can die of age-related illness if we aren't killed. [Even if he hadn't experienced it, Drift notified him of Ratchet's funeral not too far in the timeline. Not even a great medic can stop old age.] I'm over five million years old. Some of my colleagues were only a few hundred years old. Few remain from the earlier days of Cybertron. But compared to many organics, it does seem like immortality.
[Unfortunately, this does not translate to maturity and many Transformers are stuck in dramatic teenager and young adult mindsets.]
Better that we met now than earlier, I take it? Or could we have changed knowing each other?
Most humans tend not to judge us by our age, so we don't tell them. [But he supposes the same could be said of Wei Wuxian.] Speaking of ages, how old are you? I assume that your are a young adult, but I have trouble with the exact year. We Cybertronians mature quickly.
Me? [He laughs and shakes his head.] Certainly not five million.
I'm twenty years old. [He pauses.] Though I'll be twenty one soon.
[Which is weird as hell considering he'd died at nineteen. It's always felt strange counting the time that passed after, but it's still time lived isn't it?]
I'd be considering an adult where I'm from, if a younger one as you guessed.
And at 15, a teenager is considered not to be fully independent. How quickly things change for humans. [Makes sense, for how short their lives are.] For years, I traveled with a runaway of that age who I believed was mature enough to live on her own. It was quite a surprise to learn later that her stowing away on my ship should have been cause for alarm.
[But they became good friends anyway, and Minimus misses Verity dearly centuries after her death. How quickly humans age.]
[He raises an eyebrow at that. It's true that fifteen is still young, but it's not that young. Plenty of people that age struck out on their own and he'd been on the front lines of a war at sixteen years old. Then again, Gwen seemed to have different ideas on age so perhaps that sort of thing was perceived differently in different places.]
I didn't know you'd met humans before! Is your world shared between Cybertronians and humans?
[She seemed very mature, if brash, but the adults around her were concerned for her safety and expressed how she should have had a guardian for more of her life. That, and she was in the middle of an Autobot-Decepticon warzone. So, she picked Ultra Magnus to look after her.]
We share the same universe, but not planet. Earth is just another inhabited planet, like those the Ximilia encounters. Whether Cybertronians are friendly or hostile to smaller organic life forms depends on the individual. From what I can see, humans are a constant across all of our homes universes. Odd, since they inhabit only one planet.
Ah, I see. [Like some of the others whose worlds already incorporated space or universe travel. It's a concept he can picture a lot better now but one that is still very difficult to imagine for his own world.]
Definitely odd. [He agrees.] Of all the lifeforms and sentient beings out there, that humans should be the most common...I wonder why that is.
They aren't the oldest life form in existence, nor are they the most powerful. Humans haven't mastered interstellar travel in my universe, they were just fortunate enough to live on the planet where our war ended.
[Perhaps the war was about to end anyway, and the abundance of Ore-13 on Earth sped up the dissolution of the army structures. Perhaps it was a coincidence that so many parties converged onto the same place.]
Perhaps this ship picks up life forms with with is is familiar - particularly human.
It does make walking the halls and blending in on most mission easier I think. [He throws Minimus a sheepish smile, aware that the man often has to disguise his true form like he's doing now.]
Practically speaking, it makes sense.
You know in my time on Earth, we don't even have automobiles yet. We use horse pulled wagons. [He chuckles at it, a strange idea now that he's been exposed to so much more.] They're slower but I can't say I mind very much.
They're charming, in a way. [A vehicle pulled by animals is unique when most of your kind can turn into vehicles.] You humans learned to adapt quickly despite the situation. We Cybertronians are stagnant beings. Perhaps that's why your kind survive in almost every universe.
Hmm maybe. Who knows. [From where he's sitting, humans don't have anything more going for them than any of the other people he's met know, but then he knows he's probably biased, what with all of the terrible ones he's met. In a way it's nice to hear that maybe they have something going for them after all.
His eyes fall to the books beneath his hands and he runs a hand along one of the open pages.]
Here I promised to actually work and all I've been doing is distracting you, isn't it? [He laughs.]
But distracting you with good conversation I hope. [He knows he's enjoyed it at least.]
Energon. [The same thing that the ship dispenses for all of the Cybertronians.] Or engex, if the aim is to be inebriated. It works the same way as your alcohol does.
[And they can get drunk the same way, unfortunately.]
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Who knows if we would be enemies? If we agreed upon the rules of what is right and wrong, we could have become friends. Some laws are consistent across cultures. [Murder, theft...but the details differ.] Actually, no, we might not have.
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How old are you? [Wait.] Are you an immortal then? [It would make sense, he supposes, considering his non-organic nature. Still, he's never known this about his friend before and he's delighted by the knowledge.]
Regardless, age is relative. What is young for me might not be young for you, but you were still young once.
[He grows quiet then, thinking on the rest of Minimus's words.]
We'll never know. What I do know is that no matter the mistakes I've made, or your difficulty making friends, we are friends, and I'm glad for it. We met exactly when we were meant to exactly how we were meant to.
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[Unfortunately, this does not translate to maturity and many Transformers are stuck in dramatic teenager and young adult mindsets.]
Better that we met now than earlier, I take it? Or could we have changed knowing each other?
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He exhales his shock and shakes his head, chuckling.]
Maybe we would have. I do know I'm better for knowing you. [He turns a grin on Minimus and then rests his head in one hand, shaking it again.]
Five million years old. I can't believe I didn't know that about you until now!
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I'm twenty years old. [He pauses.] Though I'll be twenty one soon.
[Which is weird as hell considering he'd died at nineteen. It's always felt strange counting the time that passed after, but it's still time lived isn't it?]
I'd be considering an adult where I'm from, if a younger one as you guessed.
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[But they became good friends anyway, and Minimus misses Verity dearly centuries after her death. How quickly humans age.]
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I didn't know you'd met humans before! Is your world shared between Cybertronians and humans?
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We share the same universe, but not planet. Earth is just another inhabited planet, like those the Ximilia encounters. Whether Cybertronians are friendly or hostile to smaller organic life forms depends on the individual. From what I can see, humans are a constant across all of our homes universes. Odd, since they inhabit only one planet.
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Definitely odd. [He agrees.] Of all the lifeforms and sentient beings out there, that humans should be the most common...I wonder why that is.
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[Perhaps the war was about to end anyway, and the abundance of Ore-13 on Earth sped up the dissolution of the army structures. Perhaps it was a coincidence that so many parties converged onto the same place.]
Perhaps this ship picks up life forms with with is is familiar - particularly human.
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It does make walking the halls and blending in on most mission easier I think. [He throws Minimus a sheepish smile, aware that the man often has to disguise his true form like he's doing now.]
Practically speaking, it makes sense.
You know in my time on Earth, we don't even have automobiles yet. We use horse pulled wagons. [He chuckles at it, a strange idea now that he's been exposed to so much more.] They're slower but I can't say I mind very much.
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His eyes fall to the books beneath his hands and he runs a hand along one of the open pages.]
Here I promised to actually work and all I've been doing is distracting you, isn't it? [He laughs.]
But distracting you with good conversation I hope. [He knows he's enjoyed it at least.]
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[It's a conversation with a friend, not an annoyance. Even Minimus needs a few minutes of social interaction each day.]
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Nevertheless, I'd be remiss if we didn't get anything at all done, especially when you received special permission to do this. [He pauses.]
But we should do this more often. When we get back, we'll make plans to share a drink, hmm?
What do you drink anyways?
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[And they can get drunk the same way, unfortunately.]
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Wine for me and Engex for you. [He grins.]
What do you say?
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