Chapter Text
"This is Blaster, reporting from Iacon Tower."
"After some significant delay due to the discovery of Delphi Protoform Storage Facility and the subsequent investigation of Sublevel 45, the Iaconian Truth and Justice Tribunal is back in session again."
"And today’s testimony is from none other than Dr. Cogwheel, a survivor of Chief Director Pharma’s last-ditch attempt to wipe out all incriminating evidence along with the staff members of Delphi."
Medical Trial - Crime Against Cybertronians - Cog Removal
Ultra Magnus: With the agreement of the Tribunal and the ruling Prime, I now call the witness to the stand.
(The witness, a silver Arachnicon, was helped to the stand by guards. Most of the limbs on her back were missing, and the remaining ones were twitching faintly as she leaned against the stand.)
Ultra Magnus: State your full serial number and designation.
Cogwheel: ACNC-8080, Cogwheel.
UM: Witness, your statement will have far-reaching consequences. With over half of Delphi’s staff deactivated and Pharma still MIA, you are perhaps the only one who can throw some light upon Sentinel’s hidden crime against generations of innocent Cybertronians.
UM: Will you swear by Primus and the Well that you will speak the pure truth, and will withhold and add nothing?
CW: I will.
Optimus Prime: Thank you. Ultra Magnus, will you kindly put questions to the witness?
UM: Yes. From Cycle 7 to 50 of Sentinel’s regime, you have worked as a department head at Delphi, Sublevel 45, under Chief Director Pharma. Is that true?
CW: Yes.
UM: And during that time, you are aware that the entirety of Sublevel 45 is built on the Ring of Hot Spots around the Well, and its function is to collect all new protoforms and put them into stasis, as soon as they enter the pre-alt stage of development?
[Some context for newly-cogged viewers: the natural Cybertronian life cycle is divided into three stages - protoform, pre-alt, and post-alt.]
[A bot’s processors, personality modules and base root mode are fully formed at the start of the pre-alt stage, the point where they officially "come online".]
[For a cogged bot, the pre-alt stage lasts 2-4 cycles, and ends when they settle into a single alt-mode.]
[Cogless bots are forever stuck at the early pre-alt stage after surgery. They are also unable to use the built-in weapons and tools available to cogged pre-alt meches, and their subspace capacity is extremely limited. However, commlinks can be established via an add-on chip.]
CW: Yes, though I didn’t know I was on Sublevel 45——I don’t think anyone knew which level we are on, aside from Pharma and a select few.
CW: We basically lived inside the facility after our employment, and weren’t allowed to leave the compound without special permission.
UM: Are you aware that the majority of protoforms in storage will be subjected to cog removal surgery?
CW: Yes, but only in the abstract sense. No one in our department has ever seen or conducted a surgery.
UM: What work does your department perform, then?
CW: CNA and Spark Signal Analysis.
UM: And how is your work relevant to the overarching goal of the facility?
CW: There are…priority targets when it comes to cog removal. Certain frametypes. And our job is to try and pinpoint those targets through CNA analysis, then mark them for the surgeons.
UM: Please elaborate.
CW: Well, first and foremost, we are looking for warframes. Which is not a real frametype you can determine in the pre-alt stage, by the way. More of an umbrella term for "Any protoforms that may have enough firepower to be a potential threat after entering their post-alt stage”.
UM: Can you give us some examples?
CW: Cyber-tanks, Weaponformers, large Beastformers, all Triple Changers, any grounders that have too many lines of targeting or weapon-related coding for Sentinel’s liking…
CW: Oh, and Seekers.
UM: Pardon me, but "Seekers" is the colloquial term for mechs with tetrajet alt-modes. Didn’t you just state that you could not pinpoint future frametypes with that much accuracy in protoforms?
CW: That’s exactly what we told Airachnid! There are no "Seeker" protoforms, only Aerials at the pre-alt stage, and the CNA of any Aerials that isn’t a copter are notoriously difficult to entangle.
CW: I can tell you it will have wings based on the gyro codings, conformal fuel tanks, and neural net layouts at the back of the chassis, but not much else.
UM: What was her response?
CW: "Just label all the Aerials you can find and mark 75% of them for surgery.”
(The camera drone zoomed in on one of the Seeker guards behind her, who was grimacing heavily.)
UM: Do you know where all the cogless bots are sent to post-surgery? Are there preferred destinations for cogless bots of a certain frametype?
[Previously on the Iaconian Truth and Justice Tribunal, the Head Conductor of Sublevel 46 revealed that cogless bots were also shipped to other cities by rail to replenish their labor forces.]
[Tarn appeared to be a major destination, second only to Altihex. However, the Tribunal is unable to gather further information due to the breakdown in diplomatic ties.]
CW: No. Sorry. That’s completely outside my jurisdiction, but…
CW: Now that I think about it, we did get regular scan requests from Altihex Protoform Storage Facility P1. And in rarer cases, Tarn.
UM: P1? But only protoforms from Facility P2’s hot spot are subjected to cog removal. Are there any specific things they want you to scan for?
[Altihex has two hot spots, P1 and P2, one of which only "produces" cogged meches, and the other, cogless ones.]
[As of now, the new governor of Altihex has shut down Facility P2 and put all the staff under arrest. The Tribunal is still pruning the list of released records from the two facilities for more evidence.]
CW: Yes, for Deployers and Combiners, who are the second group of priority targets.
CW: All Deployers are marked for cog removal upon discovery. Our protocol for Combiners is…slightly different, though.
UM: In what ways?
CW: Upon identification of a Combiner gestalt, we are to leave at least one individual cogged.
UM: Do you have any idea why that’s the case?
CW: No. Although I suspect it has something to do with spark links.
CW: Which is crucial to synchronization between gestalt members and, well, the very ability to form a Deployer-Symbiote relationship.
CW: Obviously, Sentinel cannot leave all members of a gestalt cogged, in case they manage to find each other and combine. But perhaps subjecting the whole gestalt to cog removal won’t sever their spark links either.
CW: Thus we end up with this protocol, as an attempt to confuse the spark links between Combiners and make it harder for them to recognize each other.
CW: It is just a rudimentary theory, though.
UM: Duly noted. Can you recall any information about the Combiner gestalts you discovered during your line of work?
CW: Yes. They are pretty rare, and I’ve only come across three in my entire career, two of which are born outside of Iacon.
CW: Do I have permission to project the data in my memory drives? It will be faster than reading them out.
UM: Permission granted. You may proceed.
[The following list has been edited and expanded with additional information from Altihex P1 and the Iacon Hall of Records.]
Combiner Gestalt S5500
Place of Origin: Altihex, Hot Spot P1
Online Date: Cycle 32 A.P. (After Primes)
S1-D-54
Status: MIA
Frametype: Grounder
Primary Nanite Color: Red/Black
Cog Removal: ✔
Assigned to: Iacon
S2-D-51
Status: MIA
Frametype: Grounder
Primary Nanite Color: Blue/White
Cog Removal: ✔
Assigned to: Iacon
S3-D-53
Status: Active
Frametype: Grounder
Primary Nanite Color: Grey/Red
Cog Removal: ✘
Assigned to: Tarn
S4-D-52
Status: Active
Frametype: Grounder
Primary Nanite Color: Yellow
Cog Removal: ✘
Assigned to: Iacon
S5-D-50
Status: Active
Frametype: Grounder - Heavy
Primary Nanite Color: Grey/Purple
Cog Removal: ✘
Assigned to: Altihex, Docking Bay 5
"You watchin’ the trials, boss? I thought only Dead End’s into that sad slag."
The footage was put on pause. Without a word, the hulking silhouette stood up from his desk, looming over the monitor like a grey mountain.
Behind him, the bright yellow mech took a step back, almost instinctively.
"Found’im."
"Who?”
"The last of our crew." A toothy grin briefly flashed across his faceplate, before it was replaced by the usual scowl.
"Go get Breakdown and tell him to quit cruisin’ around with his sweetspark. We are going to Tarn."
Combiner Gestalt C6900
Place of Origin: Tarn, Hot Spot Alyon
Online Date: Cycle 17 A.P.
C1-D-67
Status: Lost
Frametype: Grounder - Warframe
Primary Nanite Color: Green
Cog Removal: ✔ See Incident Report #217
Assigned to: N/A
C2-D-68
Status: Lost
Frametype: Grounder
Primary Nanite Color: Yellow/Purple
Cog Removal: ✘ See Incident Report #217
Assigned to: N/A
C3-D-65
Status: Lost
Frametype: Aerial
Primary Nanite Color: Purple/Brown
Cog Removal: ✔ See Incident Report #217
Assigned to: N/A
C4-D-66
Status: Lost
Frametype: Aerial - Copter
Primary Nanite Color: Grey/Blue
Cog Removal: ✔ See Incident Report #217
Assigned to: N/A
C5-D-64
Status: Lost
Frametype: Grounder - Warframe
Primary Nanite Color: Blue/Green
Cog Removal: ✔ See Incident Report #217
Assigned to: N/A
Combiner Gestalt PC076
Place of Origin: Iacon, Hot Spot Zetcaneon
Online Date: Cycle 48 A.P.
P1-C-73…
"Hey, look. C6900?" Swindle pointed at the makeshift projector. "That’s us."
"Cute. Am I supposed to care?" Hovering above him, Blast Off rolled his optics, as he made his way from stalactite to stalactite, sticking bundles of explosives onto their surfaces.
"What, ya’ think Screamer should’ve left you behind back then?" Vortex spun his blades threateningly. "Let you live out the good cogged life, while the rest of us get thrown to the Sharkticons?”
"Nah. But now we know Brawl’s theory about us being from five separate gestalts is totally, utterly, deal-breakingly, 100% wrong," Swindle said. "We just suck at combining cuz he’s dumber than all us, well, combined."
"THAT WAS CYCLES AGO!" A booming voice retorted from the other side of the cavern, "And you, Swindle, are a slimy lil’ scraplet——”
"Can you please stop squabbling for five kliks and focus on setting up the Tracker traps?" Onslaught ex-vented heavily. "You’ll have plenty of time to hate each other, once we rendezvous with the rest of the High Guards."
"Um, I think we are ‘Decepticons’ now, Capt’n."
"Ugh." Swindle made a face. "Terrible rebranding, if you ask me."
"Technicalities, technicalities. Hurry the scrap up, we don’t have all orn."
"How…how did they miss us?" Silverbolt stared at the monitor above his medberth. Cogwheel had long left the stand, and Optimus ended the proceeding with a list of official resources for newly cogged Combiners and Deployers.
"Probably by not checking for anything else, once a protoform gets the ‘Aerials’ tag." Skydive said, without glancing up from his data slate.
"Yeah, but how did all five of us somehow end up in that 25%?" Air Raid asked. "We were even assigned to the same Wing of the Academy, for Primus’s sake!"
"Sheer dumb luck, I suppose.” Skydive took a deep vent. "Sheer…dumb…luck."