For milliways_bar.

[not_toothfairy]

Sometime after this, Ironhide returns to Autobase in a towering mood. Somewhere, someone is laughing at him, and whether it's Primus, the universe in general, or even just Bumblebee sniggering the way he always does, he'd really like to punch 'em.

Since that's not gonna happen any time soon he's just gonna see if he can't find Prime. You don't let this kind of thing wait.




(Yes, the icon is the LilFormers version of G1 'Hide. I needed a facepalm from somewhere. G1 sufficed.)

Comments

[autocommander.livejournal.com]

Prime is in his office, going over reports - mostly logistics. (He's also reviewing the psych evaluations of a Laser Tag stadium owner, just in case.)

Thus he is in his office when Ironhide comes by.

[not-toothfairy.livejournal.com]

Well. That was easy.

This part,on the other hand, is gonna be hard.

"Hey, Prime? Something's come up...."

[autocommander.livejournal.com]

It makes sense for him to be in his office.

"Morning, Ironhide. What's going on?"

[not-toothfairy.livejournal.com]

The humans seem to find rubbing at the back of their neck a reassuring gesture when they've got complicated news to deliver. Ironhide, alas, doesn't seem to be wired for that to work.

"I just got a lesson in a human concept I really wasn't expecting," he says instead. "You know about this 'hereditary rule' thing some of them have?"

[autocommander.livejournal.com]

"Yyyyyyes," Optimus says, having an odd feeling about this. "Why?"

[not-toothfairy.livejournal.com]

Huh boy.

"Lissar's people seem to put a lot of stock in it," says Ironhide, and then, very carefully, adds, "And in gender. Her father's position and responsibilities don't go to her when he dies, because she's female."

The tone of his voice clearly indicates that he thinks this is moronic even by the standards of a largely moronic species.

[autocommander.livejournal.com]

Optimus nods. "That's fairly standard in many of these cultures, especially the gender specificity. That's why, when they had daughters, the royals would try to marry them quickly, in order to insure there was a male in the family to inherit. Of course, if after that was done a direct male heir was born, that could cause some trouble..." Then he pauses.

"...and this means?"

Here comes that feeling again....

[not-toothfairy.livejournal.com]

"Apparently," says Ironhide, wishing he had teeth so that he could speak through gritting them, "I'm male enough. She says under her world's laws and customs, I qualify as her father's heir."

Someone, somewhere, is going to get a boot to the tailplate for this. He doesn't know who. But somebody will. Somebody really deserving.

[autocommander.livejournal.com]

If they were human, Optimus Prime would probably look like Harrison Ford in one of those movies they made of Tom Clancy novels. So being that he's sitting at his desk going over paperwork, you can get the idea of things.

So with that in mind, imagine him taking off his glasses before saying, "Can you repeat that, to prove my processor core isn't sending me spurious faults?"

[not-toothfairy.livejournal.com]

In that case, one may safely assume that Harrison Ford is being addressed by Sergeant Kilgore as portrayed by Keith David, down to the thoroughly disgruntled squaring of shoulders and deliberate focus of the optics on a point in space a little bit short of the wall behind Prime's head.

"According to the laws and customs of Lissar's world, I've become her country's crown prince by default."

[autocommander.livejournal.com]

We wish we had a facepalm icon for Prime, we really do.

Imagine him doing so. Thank you.

"Do you need some... assistance? you know I'll help you as much as I can. This is a very delicate situation, after all."

Inside, he's thinking 'oh god, how many diplomatic issues will this cause?'.

[not-toothfairy.livejournal.com]

"I need," says Ironhide, "some simulators, as soon as possible, that can help me figure out what to expect from human civilization and technology as it develops, and how the neighboring peoples are likely to behave. I understand the humans make them available to the public."

"And then I think I have some research to do."

He's trying very, very hard to think of this as a drill instruction group, of having a bunch of shiny* recruits who've got to be brought up to speed and trained to handle themselves without the bigger bots there to keep them from getting squished.

It's almost working.


*"Green" means very little in terms of newness when you're dealing with a totally mechanical population. "Shiny", on the other hand, means you're still new enough not to have lost your initial polish.

[autocommander.livejournal.com]

Optimus takes a moment, then reaches over and touches the interface plate on his data-storage unit. Bits shift, accesses change.

"You've got access to one of my private stores now. Take care - Civilization IV is not the most forgiving of diplomatic errors."

....oh god, this is a disaster waiting to happen, isn't it?

[not-toothfairy.livejournal.com]

"Beats the alternative," Ironhide mutters. "Thank you."

This is, to put it bluntly, Hoban Washburne levels of interesting.

[autocommander.livejournal.com]

"If you need any assistance at all - advice, someone to talk to about this, anything - my door's open. You know that, Ironhide."

Optimus has one of those 'I'm missing something here' processes going on inside his core. It hasn't quite hit surface, though.

[not-toothfairy.livejournal.com]

Ironhide nods. "I have a feeling that there's gonna be a lot of that involved," he says. "I'll be in here whenever I need it. You can count on that."

"Permission to go for target practice before I get started on that research?"

[autocommander.livejournal.com]

"Permission granted."

Ironhide's gonna need it.

[not-toothfairy.livejournal.com]

Ironhide nods, salutes, and head soff to go shooting.

He might be at it a while.