#Jazz's whole clade

[spymeister]

Trying to keep ahead of three growing bitlets is tiring on a relatively sole Polyhexian these days. His programming has him missing the bustle of his creche, and the flurry of voices and help that should have been there.

He's not a mechanism that is given towards regrets, or even towards sorrow. One learns early that life is not fair, and that to Live, instead of just surviving is the ultimate goal one should strive for. Still, even he has his moments of profound sorrow.

He thinks of the silken-smoke voice of his sire, harmonious with the rough, sultry one of his carrier. He can hear his elder sibling's dark honey voice, the boisterous laughter that had been Rico's signature.

The high, delighted chittering of Sonata's excitement at finding another cousin.

These sounds are recorded in his processor, and onto databanks hard-coded and hidden deeply in his archives. He plays them from the speakers at his hips, and on his shoulders. It soothes the ache in his spark to hear their long-ago presences.

And to let the bitties know, that even while they are something of an endangered species these days.

As long as he's there with them, they'll never truly be alone.

[skidblast]

So, where are you from?

While this is not the first Transformers media that goes into making Transformers coming from other planets than Cybertron, this is the first media that really goes into making the Transformers from Earth into a very distinct clade of their own, instead of being born of sparks that were brought down to Earth, or were literally built by other Cybertronians.

This is not just to make this more down-to-earth series, to make the kids connect with the characters even more and feel closer to them than if they would be were they aliens. This is not just from tapping into the childhood playground theatres of the Gen X and Millennial writers of the series.

This is a story born out of trauma that all of us experience in one form or another.

This is a story born out of history. Not just the list of events and what year they happened as we learn in school, but also of the little histories. Folktales, fables, bedtime stories.

Transformers Earthspark is about Culture. And how fragile it is.

Let's start with the obvious one. We all know about the Transformers, the lore behind it and all that jazz. Heroic Autobots versus the dastardly Decepticons. Led by Optimus Prime and Megatron respectively.

But the first time we see them in Earthspark, something has changed.

The first thing people noticed, even before Earthspark aired, was that Optimus Prime and Megatron were now on the same side? And neither of them kept their Autobot and Decepticon insignias? Well, it is still there, but such a minuscule and easily overlooked that one would be forgiven to think it part of the GHOST insignia to begin with. The Cybertronian factions have existed for so long that it would be so ingrained into everyone so losing it in such a way would be a big blow. And in fact, anyone not part of GHOST still has their insignias intact.

Apparently for the war to end on Earth, both Optimus Prime and Megatron had to give something up. A part of their identity, a part of their culture.

It looks like the war between the Autobots and the Decepticons has finally ended. But it looks like the victor was Earth.

But it doesn't mean that they gave up everything.

There is still something happening which GHOST is not privy to, and if they were, it would most likely be incorporated into their whole. While there are Decepticons roaming around, and still some Autobots as well allowed to still carry the insignia and apparently not work for GHOST, Bumblebee is somehow the exception. It is very likely he played a big part in the war on Earth, thus not be given whatever immunity the others have.

All of this might sound like a new and exciting story, and we're eagerly waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the relevation why Bumblebee's visage is heavily marketed while his death was apparently faked, and why his existence is very inconvenient for Optimus Prime who is apparently playing both sides, Autobot and GHOST, and why exactly Megatron joined GHOST as well despite the treatment the Decepticons are receiving.

The thing is, this is an old story. In war, it is easy to have a victor. It is however very hard not to have someone who lost. And wars have many different forms to them. In this series, we're seeing two different wars being played out. There is the Autobot and Decepticon conflict, which seems to be over now, and then there is the secret war that's going on. As I said before, Humanity seems to have won the war, and they are on the winning side of the other hidden war.

Transformers Earthspark is about two Earthborn Cybertronians bonding with a family of humans, an African American woman and a Filipino immigrant man, and their two kids.

Dot, whose ancestors were taken away from their birthplace and brought across the globe as slaves, losing their connection and familiarities to their culture and ending up as a regular American like so many that have the same roots as her.

Alex, immigrant from the Philippines, still retaining some part of his stories but having to retell them through a book.

A book that is literally part of a series called "Tales of the Obscure". What does that do to a person? Knowing that their culture is being reduced to near nothing or worse, novelty, when moving? What happens to their identity? Is Alex trying his best to tell his kids the stories of his youth to explain where he came from, or is he clinging onto one of the few things he has found in his new life that has something of his old life?

And then we have Twitch and Thrash. The two new Cybertronians who are not from Cybertron, but were born from the Emberstone while on Earth. How will they fit into the society and culture of Earth? The series up until now seems to be about just that. About these two new individuals trying to figure out who they are and how they're going to fit in. And this is a big conflict for the two of them. On one hand, they're going to be learning about themselves and learn about others and try to go their own way into being who they are.

And on the other hand -

They can be conquered, be it by Mandroid, GHOST, or Earth in general, not allowed to be who they want to be or go in the direction that might benefit them the most, defeated in the war that the Autobots and the Decepticons have already lost, the war over their identity and their right to carve out their destiny, their own way, and the way they want to live.

[plokoonsdisapprovingeyebrows]

fuckit im posting some Cybertronian caste system rambles now. copypasted from discord bc im lazy, names redacted except for mine.

THIS IS THE OLD DIAGRAM. IM GONNA SHIFT SOME SHIT AROUND IN THE NEW VERSION LOL

also note: this is historical worldbuilding, i.e. the shit megatron and optimus got rid of. just wanna make that clear xD

catboy orion pax — Today at 6:50 PM

ok so to start with i wanna get rid of the summary words

theyre like loosely applicable in terms of how social organisation went but there's enough variation that it was never a guarantee

like for example, the guard castes that work around the well of all sparks and at the palace of the primes were more like T3  than T6 and sometimes higher

and sometimes different places had different priorities so you might get a scientist in, like. kaon or some shit who's T4 at best

jhgfgdfds — Today at 6:54 PM

Jazz is a chronicler, right?

catboy orion pax — Today at 6:55 PM

yep, he and orion are both in t4

buuuuuuut the chroniclers rank sliiiightly higher

there are internal ranks within the tiers (but it’s less like a ladder of rank than a vaguely-defined cloud of midges jockeying for position tbh)

my headcanon is the chroniclers are the ppl writing down history and life as it happens, and the archivists - their caste name is 'record-keepers' - are the ones maintaining and working with that data

the hall of records also has a guard clade that rank about t4 bc they have to, and a clade of cleaners/maintenance workers who rank about t6 and dont interact with patrons. both of these are ranked higher than they would otherwise, and are pretty well off compared to castes that do similar jobs in, say, the global undercities, but they still get kind of a shit deal in comparison to everyone around them. it’s all relative.

red alert is somewhere in that general T4 data handlers' area too

i made a joke about, if you're using the Grid (the part of the Datanet that isn't a complete dumpster fire), you have like a 1 in 3 chance of red alert being ur own personal FBI agent meme

hgfdgg — Today at 7:08 PM

so is Prowl lower ranked than the rest, at tier 6?

catboy orion pax — Today at 7:09 PM

i think prowl might be admin caste level, tbh

the enforcers are like, the vast majority of them are t6 because that's all they need to be to interact with tiers 6, 7 and 8, who are most of cybertron

there will be t6 officers and then there's be higher-caste officers

probably local command structures vs regional

in rise, prowl is in a regional commander sort of position, trying to run an anti-cartels unit of sorts, and it isnt going well

ultimately they fall under the ministry of justice, which is headed by T1 mecha

tbh the main thrust of this system, as it applies to my fic, is that it has like bureaucratic bloat out the wazoo

there are a lot of castes that just fuckin exist?

they do the same job as some other caste or few but somehow they ended up in separate castes, with the different legal status and restrictions that implies, and the caste system as a whole just shrugged and moved on because fuck dealing with all that shit

absolutely nothing about my cybertronian government is an efficient system lmfao

jhgfjgdf — Today at 7:14 PM

I blame the quints

catboy orion pax — Today at 7:14 PM

[cackles]

tbh it sort of came from the quints but it wasn't ultimately their fault

there was like... the quintessons tried to take over cybertron and add it to their colonial empire three fuckin times

they failed every time but it was a close run thing that wreaked an apocalyptic level of destruction and disruption on cybertron

the ppl who finally beat the quintessons the third time were scared to shit of them coming back for a fourth go, so they did everything they could to turn cybertron into a unified state for the sake of better defense

previously it had been fragmented, kinda like europe in the middle ages? in theory the kings paid homage to the prime and took his thoughts into account but in practice they mostly got left to their own shit

i want to say there were like five large-scale social reorganization tactics that the empire used to try and make a centralised single state but i can only remember three of them rn

1) enshrinement of caste system (didn't have an 'untouchable' equivalent at the time, that came later); 2) creation of a state religion out of the bits of the previous religions that played nicely w each other, and 3) imposition of a global language of government

oh yeah and there's a thing called rank-exempt

cause sometimes the Govt acknowledges that the caste system just makes shit Kinda Annoying so if ur sufficiently useful the ppl ur useful to can apply to have ur restrictions temporarily or permanently lifted so u can be even more useful to them

but ultimately the system is just Bad For Society in a variety of ways and nobody’s been brave enough to admit it, so it stumbles on with a chokehold around the Empire’s figurative neck.

[silverxenomorph]

The whole UV marking HC stuff that @adhesivesandscrap​ and I have been blogging about led into this 3 page nature journal style mess. I had to leave it where I did because it would literally turn into a whole journal.

The scans are for readability and the photos because the fluoro copics didn’t scan, the pink being the worst to face out.

Jazz has one ugly sleeve tat going on. Good thing it’s not permanent. Though with Prowl being the only one of the command staff who can see the UV stuff (The rest would need mods and only Jazz has them) morning meeting of the Command clade be very painful.

These are all very loose and not very defined but I’m happy with them as they are. Rung’s tats are based on that one pic done by Anna Malkova from a few years ago.

[spymeister]

🌸 - for Redstrike pls and thank you

Ask Meme:

🌸 - He enjoys Red's sense of humor. It might seem like a major cop-out, but Jazz genuinely enjoys talking to Red. There's a scathing wit there he appreciates, along with the other's adorable dorkiness that just sort of charms the spy despite himself.

🌸 - Red's pragmaticism. They've both lived in some harrowing times, and in some not-so-great circumstances. However, both of them can figure out how to use it to their advantage, but also know when to step back and let things happen accordingly.

🌸- Red's affection. Again, it may seem like a cop-out, but Red has NEVER been stingy with his tactile affection around Jazz. The saboteur comes from a clade where touch is just as important as speaking and eating. It's a whole form of speaking without words, and a form of reassurance. The fact that Red has NEVER shied away from touching him, even when he's showed up at his absolute worst and covered in energon means the WORLD to Jazz. The mech has unwittingly garnered quite a lot of the Polyhexian's loyalty.

And until the day he betrays Jazz utterly, he'll keep it.

[spymeister]

What parts of canon do you like about Jazz, what parts are different for yours and which ones are your favorite aspects to write him with?

Depends, really- on which canon you go with. Be warned tho, this might turn into a damn essay.

I tend to pick and pull what I like from different continuities in order to kind of make a cohesive character. Jazz has been kinda done dirty since 1986, to be fair- even in the comics. The Headmasters were something else, and the UK run was a dark horror-show that had some interesting lore. I sat down and read the series over a few weeks.

And let me tell you, I needed a few drinks after that- particularly the whole Ratchet/Megatron fusion thing that's the stuff of nightmares. If you want an interesting variation of Ratchet, tho'- that's the series for you.

So, the stuff I like- in basic bullet form:

Jazz is, by and large- no matter which part of the canon you pull him from a reasonably cheerful individual. He's the one that looks at the new cultures, looks at the resident species and figures out how to reside within them. He's extremely adaptable, and nothing much appears to get him down.

He is the second in command to the Prime. In several continuities he's the first lieutenant, which puts him right below Optimus and sharing rank with Prowl. The difference is that one is the CTO, and the other is the CSO. Prowl runs the tactical division, while Jazz runs the special operations division- which happens to REPORT to the tactical division before it gets to Optimus in more sanitized forms. You don't get this rank without extreme skill, and hard work. It shows, that despite Jazz's apparent care-free attitude, he's also extremely dedicated- and holding a certain amount of the devil's luck.

He's a confirmed musician. This is evident in G1, but is further expanded on in further verses, in comic form during the US/UK run with GI-JOE, and also with IDW. We didn't see it as much in other runs, but that's okay. He plays the bass, he can sing, and he enjoys dancing- this is all the hallmarks of a creative personality, which goes well when you're working Special operations and need to think on the fly.

He's incredibly fucking loyal. Optimus has been his friend for eons, and someone he looked up to- absolutely. He's bled for Optimus, worked to the strut for him, and kept him safe the best he could. It destroys me with how easily he was left behind on earth in IDW by OP. And it broke Jazz's heart too. It's something I don't think I'll get over for a little while.

He's also incredibly flexible- and well able to handle himself against mecha larger than him. I point to the All-Hail-Megatron comics for this, because he literally flips Springer onto his ass, takes out Blurr- and rounds the gun on Kup.

Okay, that's the canon things. The things I've added on are here:

I expanded his clade and something of his backstory. I felt like the barebones were there- but it needed a little extra rounding out. It’s not exactly canon about how Cybertronians come into being- but that’s also been wiffle-waffled back and forth depending on who picks up the series. So, I just inserted my own and was done with it. 

I gave Jazz actual trauma. Yes, the war is enough to send anyone screaming over the edge- and we saw pockets of it in AHM, but Jazz has always hid behind his somewhat joking persona, and the good nature we have a tendency to see. Underneath all of that is a mechanism that has been severely traumatized, and has formed (as @gowithplana​ has summarized) as maladaptive coping. He has some coping mechanisms that work well for him, that are actually positive- but by the whole and large he’s not dealing with things very well. So, we’re left with CPTSD (complex and combat-oriented), fear of abandonment (thank you, Optimus), lack of constructive and concrete support from the Autobot officer core, institutionalization from BEING a member of the military for so long, and whatever else style of trauma might have been incurred from working a variety of special operations mission. I don’t think I can even count the actual physical trauma he’s experienced. (Some of it, I’m sure- I could do damn well considering my own experiences.)

I tried to expand his culture and his story a little bit more- to give him an actual setting and reason for the way he is. I want him to exist, yes- but also exist within a space. To formulate reasons for the reasons he acts the way he does, not just because that’s the expected reaction. 

I changed up some of his physical features to make more sense to me, both as a cyber-evolutionary standpoint, but also with some world-building to explain why Cybertron has a variety of different frame types- some older than the other that didn’t just include with “Well, Primus put them there” or “Vector Sigma shat them out.”

I could just legit shove my whole headcanon list at you and be done with it at this point.

My favorite things about him:

Despite his history, Jazz is the eternal optimist. He’s the mechanisms that looks at the dark side, and sees the light too. He’s the sun Optimus needs now and again to remind him that the worst always ends, and the better is just around the corner. He’s kind, and sweet- and also terrifying, and cold. He’s a perfect duality of how war affects personality, but also how that personality reacts to triggers both inside and out of it. 

He’s smart, he’s flexible- and he’s always willing to lend a hand- even if the mechanism is questionable or uncertain. He admits his bad decisions, admits his defeats- but still looks for ways to turn it into a win. 

He’s also something of a gremlin, and I can respect that. 

I love writing all these aspects because I can do serious, but there’s something about Jazz that just makes you want to talk to him, makes him remarkably personable despite the fact you know he could crawl up in your plating and eat you from the inside out. He’s always had that edge of danger, but it’s covered by his affable personality. It’s what makes him the most brilliant spy, standing there where you can see him.

But not the plan he has in motion behind. 

[spymeister]

💥💥💥 (:<

Headcanon Meme

💥 - Jazz is actually the next oldest creation of Archipeggia and Darkstreak's clade. He was also one of the most curious, and often was the one missing from the area because he was off exploring. The Clade encourages curiosity, but they also encourage caution. Anything with a specific decal was warned against, and because all Enforcers used a similarly shaped decal- it was easy for him to avoid them. It's a reason why he took on the black-and-white scheme to mirror them.

If you looked like one, it was easier to get away with crime.

💥 - "Poly" versus Polyhexian

The term Poly is in reference to a specific frame type. (i.e: see Jazz, Ricochet, and other mechanisms with this body plan)

This frame-type is one of the most basal variations of Cybertronian frame evolution. There's speculation from several of the mechano-evolutionists on where it came from, but the most widely accepted theory is that they were created for the purpose of a ready-made workforce for the planet after it was commissioned.

Basal forms such as the Insecticons follow a nearly universal constant in regards to certain planetary conditions. Early in it's inception, Cybertron had more of an atmosphere- something it's lost as more and more of the planet has become stratified and lost it's original center of gravity as well as primary orbit.

Because of this, certain types of frames were needed for different jobs- such as burrowing into nearby moons for supplies, transporting said supplies to necessary depots- and turning slag into useful material. Over time, as the planet began to gain more and more sentience- so too did the workforce drones it created.

Eventually, after Cybertron - ne - Primus, as he named himself gained its independence from it's original creators- so too did these basal forms. Eventually, different and more recognizable frames began to splinter from this basal group. Each new batch was more and more advanced and specialized than the last- which began to lead to whole new frametypes and code mutations.

Because most of these "primitive" and "basal" mutations are still found in a specific subset of mechanisms. Polyhex is one of the oldest centers on the planet and one of the oldest cities to boot. It has the deepest layers with the most amount of tunneling that spiders outwards. Because of this, the most varied amount of frame types can ALSO be found here- which includes the original Poly natives that now live deep in the subterranean tunnels.

These individuals are more insular now, their frames still acclimated to when Cybertron was darker and less bright, but also less confined due to colonization by these different frametypes. Polyhex, itself, is still something of a meeting spot and melting pot for every single type of frame there is on Cybertron. It's why you can have someone like Jazz walk down the street next to Whirl. Their frametypes are completely different- but both hail from the same city state.

💥- Echolocation

One of the primary reasons (besides his hidden doors) - that mechanisms like Jazz can find their way around in total darkness has a great deal to do with sound. His humming in the dark has a quantitive effect, allowing him to bounce sound around and get a measure of the space he's in.

It also helps when he's blind from other reasons- such as injury or coding loops.

It's not uncommon to see him standing still in a cell or room- humming to himself as he maps out the area- including weakpoints.

All based on sound and music.

[spymeister]

👿🙌🚪

👿- They see their worst enemy

There's a flurry of protocols and different programming coming online. Even if it's in a peaceful situation, Jazz is going to automatically start priming himself for one of three things: flight, fight, or interrogation either to himself or to them. A lot of times, his enemy is usually going to be Soundwave- considering the nature of their respective positions. When it's not Soundwave, it might be someone like Vortex- the Decepticon's best interrogator.

Even if there is no war going on, and there are negotiations- he has to forcibly turn them off or change the command structure on the coding so that it doesn't engage if someone moves too fast, or twitches too hard. It's so ingrained in him after so many years of warfare that it's basically as automatic as his venting and heat regulation. He really can't help his reactions sometimes.

🙌- They see their best friend

You know how you see dogs run at their human and fling themselves at them?

That's Jazz, especially if said friend is bigger than he is. He has literally transformed in the middle of a group of people and nearly ran someone over (not literally, of course- but good naturedly so) and will fling themselves at their chosen person. If he's missed them for a -while-, he goes nonverbal and just chooses to absolutely rub himself against them to trade nanite colonies and get them to feel like clade again. His engine rumbles, his systems start kicking into overdrive- and his field is just this tangle of joy.

For the most part, he's pretty even-tempered- but joy is one of those few emotions he absolutely can't NOT express when he feels it- and it's infectious since he tends to spread it around as much as he can. It's basically if Jazz is in a good mood, then the whole base will be in a good mood by the end of the orn. He's also extremely tactile, refuses to let go- and might sleep next to them until his coding and protocols settle. A good bit of IS his social programming, but it's also just straight-up affection.

🚪- They hear someone knock on their door

Immediate suspicion.

Most people that come to his hab suite either already have the code, which means he's allowed them in at any point, or have to use the chime on his comm- and that lets him know to let them in. If they have neither, he's going to look them over in the camera that leads outside- then immediately do research on them to check their ID codes and their frames.

He'll run that through the public database, then his PERSONAL database of Spec Op agent lists. First for the Autobots, then for the Decepticons- and then lastly for the NAILS. He is an intensely paranoid mechanism and has a series of traps for just about anything that comes in his house.

His door also has four kinds of locks that keep it shut.