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Who: Megatron & Sollux
Where: THE CONQUEST (this is regrettably the name of Megatron's ship)
When: Around now, some time in the days following the collapse of Scary Jail
What: Sollux's ongoing quest to hassle every robot and/or Harry & Quix's ongoing quest for CR on every plausible axis
Warnings: rude kids evil overlords dim lighting

Megatron has been long unused to managing with so few underlings as he has here. If the Conquest was flight-capable, the skeleton crew of Decepticons on Earth would be scarcely enough to keep it in the air – as is, he's left to do far more things himself than he'd prefer.

Currently he's examining the damaged ship's logs for records that will help him ensure the cloaking field stays online, neither of which is anything he'd usually consider doing himself – but Starscream is laid up in the med bay, which in turn is keeping Knock Out busy, and Breakdown is on shift scouring for evidence of the missing Orion Pax. And that's it. There's no one else to pick from. It's almost enough to make him contemplate sending for reinforcements – but of course the fewer Decepticons know what he's up to here, the better...

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Sollux, for his part, has been in and out. The ship is large and empty enough that he finds he takes up very little space - he's nested somewhere in a mostly unused room, one of the ones with a big screen with alien words all over it, but no specific function for all he sees the other bots come in and out of it.

He's not entirely sure if robots sleep, but they haven't seemed to pay much attention to where he's set himself up. He grabbed a bunch of his stuff from the Trailblazer dorms before peacing out, and presently he just has it resting in a pile on the other side of the storage shelf he's taken up sleeping on. Presently, he's shoved an assortment of blankets and stray objects into what was apparently some kind of storage box and taken up sleeping in there.

He sleeps lightly and infrequently so far as trolls are concerned, but at least it happens sometimes. Now that he's settled in, though, he's starting to get bored.

He'd spent the first few days hassling the robots he already knew as much as possible, and then he moved on to Starscream after he'd woken up. Now though, it seems like the only bot he hasn't really spoken to is Megatron - which is sensible, considering who Megatron apparently is. But it also seems reasonable that if he's going to ask anyone for permission to do anything on their ship, it should be that guy.

Sollux comes upon him while he's doing some kind of maintenance business. He doesn't really know how to go about dealing with this bot one on one, and so he hesitates for a moment before speaking.

"Uh...Lord Megatron?" he asks, not intimidated exactly, but with at least reasonable caution.

Megatron turns, a little surprised to be interrupted – he'd almost forgotten the Alternian was on board. He doesn't seem particularly irritated by the intrusion, though, probably because looking through the ship's logs is both tedious and beneath him.

"Ah, Gemini." He leans back from the console he was working at, looking the little creature up and down. "How are you finding the Conquest?"

He thinks on that for a moment. Going by Gemini has become strangely comforting, for such a brief period of time.

"Spacious, mostly," he says, glancing around the room with a bit of curiosity. "I'm assuming you usually have more guys around here."

"Indeed," says Megatron. "My present crew is somewhat... depleted. There is good reason that your allegiance on this world is appreciated."

Sollux is quiet for a moment, not really knowing how reasonable of an offer this is. But after a moment, he tucks his hands into his hoodie and shrugs.

"I mean, I can try to help with some ship stuff, if you want. I don't really have anything else to do, and tech stuff is easy."

Megatron pauses, and raises an eyebrow.

"I'm afraid you'll find Cybertronian technology rather different from your own Empire's," he tells the troll, apparently amused by the idea of him trying.

Sollux makes a little bit of an exasperated face - not at Megatron's suggestion, but as if it's something he's already been dealing with.

"Yeah, I've already been dealing with figuring out human coding language, but it's not so bad. It all kind of starts looking the same after a while, like, just give me some time at the keyboard and I'll figure it out."

He gives the troll a considering look, trying to decide whether to believe him – and whether it's worth letting him take a shot at it if it turns out he's as good at it as he claims. On the one hand, if he does prove talented, it could be useful – but on the other it wouldn't do to have an alien delving into sensitive files...

Of course, it's hardly necessary to keep a great amount of sensitive information in this ship's system. If anything it might objectively be more useful to clear it out, in case of the ship being discovered while its sparse crew are elsewhere. And giving such access to their Alternian ally would certainly keep him busy, and could help to ensure his loyalty...

Megatron turns more fully away from his console.

"I'm sure you understand, Gemini, that the information contained on this ship's computers includes extremely sensitive data. Even simple ship schematics are more than we would prefer to allow to fall into the hands of our enemies. If you really believe that you can, as you say, 'figure it out' – we cannot allow simply any ally to dip his fingers into these files. While of course I do not believe you have lied to us... how can I be sure that the information gleaned from your forays into our systems will never find its way back to your Empress?"

His ears fold down at that question, his expression darkening with a well known resentment.

"Because I hate that bitch, mostly," he says, "and she probably wants to kill me and most of my friends." He pauses for a moment after that, before adding, "and before you say anything about me using the information to bargain my way out of that, it isn't going to happen. You probably already know how things go in the Empire for trolls like me."

Megatron relishes that resentment. He sees in it the same anger that birthed the Decepticons, the crucible in which his own destiny was forged. He does not smile, though, as Gemini speaks. He nods, slowly, instead, and says, "I understand it is not dissimilar to the fate reserved for those like myself under Cybertron's old rule – but there are always fools who hope they can buy their way into favour with those who despise them." Now he does smile: "I am glad you are not among them."

He furrows his brow at that, but because he's curious instead of angry. His ears lift, betraying the urgency of his interest and they turn forward attentively. He makes a weird clicking sound, with no immediate lingual purpose.

"I don't actually know a ton about Cybertron's rule," he says. "If the Decepticons ever did anything to overturn it, the Empire sure as hell didn't put it in the history books. They kind of try to avoid that kind of thing."

He allows himself a short, knowing laugh. "Of course. No doubt they would not want you following our example..." He draws himself up a little, obviously about to launch into something. "Before our war, Cybertron was ruled by a corrupt government, and its people poisoned by an unjust caste system – I myself was little more than a nameless slave, and the same was true of countless others ground under the merciless heel of those who profited by our exploitation – until we rose up against our oppressors..." Megatron's optics narrow. Having grown somewhat distant as he reminisces, he now looks back at Gemini with a deep frown on his face.

"We destroyed the old order at a great cost, and the war still rages. But the order was destroyed, and it can never be rebuilt."

There's still something slightly distant about him, for all that he welcomed the opportunity to talk about this. Orion Pax's recent presence has had some impact on how Megatron finds he is thinking about his own past, and it is proving a little uncomfortable.

Sollux doesn't know Megatron well enough to pick up on that distance - but even if he did, he's too distracted with the idea of the actual story to think of it much. Ever since first seeing Megatron, he's been generally impressed by the bots power and confidence, and having a story like that attached to it - one where the now leader of the Decepticons used to be someone like him, doomed to a meaningless life in a society built for other people...

It makes him more than a little emotional. It shows on his face, too - something like hope mixed with a sense of betrayal.

"Trolls tried to do that once," he says. "It didn't really go anywhere."

Seeing that it's possible elsewhere just makes that fact all the more depressing.

"Only once?" Megatron hums consideringly. He's never heard anything about Alternian uprisings, but he doesn't imagine the Empire's rulers broadcast their struggles with the lower classes. "Perhaps the right time has simply yet to come – the right leader yet to emerge..."

"Once that I ever heard of," he says, frowning. "But, like, I doubt that information is exactly open for public speculation. The stuff I know about is seditious as shit already."

He thinks about that last thing he said, wondering about Karkat. That's what he's supposed to do, right? Be some kind of leader for the revolutionary movements already out there?

But what good is it going to do if everything is exactly the same?

"That was pretty different from what it sounds like you did, though. Have you ever heard of the Sufferer?"

"The Sufferer...?" The name is unfamiliar except as far as the units that make it up, in Alternian, follow the pattern for a troll's title. He shakes his huge metal head. "I have not."

"He was the guy that started the one revolution I've heard of," he says. "He's got a whole religion centered around him now, even though it's really quiet and totally illegal to even know who he is. He was basically this troll from the very bottom of the castes who preached about equality and compassion between trolls. Really zen bullshit."

Megatron was with you up until 'compassion' there, little buddy.

"Compassion alone cannot bring justice," he says. Obviously he is an expert here. "And compassion for those you are attempting to defy can only be a hindrance."

Edited 2014-05-15 22:34 (UTC)

For good or will, those words do seem to resound with him. His ears push down as he glances away.

"Yeah, I guess," he says. "My ancestor was a part of that movement apparently and he just got completely fucked for his trouble, so I'm not super interested in trying the same thing again, anyway."

"Your ancestor?" He eyes the Alternian with some interest. "No... I would imagine not. But do you seek to simply avoid the fate of your predecessor... or do you desire revenge?"

"I want to kill the people that make this shit happen," he says, frankly. His claws press into the skin of his palms. "On both planets. I don't even really know this guy so I can't avenge him, but I can do it for myself. Because staying home wouldn't have gotten me any better."

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