#rotr moonkiller

[riseoftheradiotrons]

Late-Night Rest

It was late at night on Pax-03′s largest city.

Four visitors were seated on a large blanket, and, invisible to all but them, four vehicles lay near them, cloaked thanks to an invisibility chip.

A small datapad carrying all Terraform had found on Cryogen’s medical records and spark signature laid next to Terraform’s holoform, who was lying down on the ground, looking up at what few stars the light pollution on Pax-03 didn’t blot out. Next to him was Pharma’s holoform, tors head also tilted up to the stars. Starscream’s holoform was sitting down on the ground, carefully nibbling away at a very bright pink cookie. Moonkiller’s holoform sat on a holographic blanket, legs stretched out, looking up at the night sky.

“Are there usually this few stars?” Pharma asked. Not asking anyone in particular. It was as if tor was simply asking the sky.

Terraform answered, “No, not really. Lots of light pollution here.”

“Oh.” Pharma tugged on tors hoodie. “Haven’t seen the stars in a while.”

It went silent again. The night was calm, and none of the four wanted to disturb it, not even the newest member of their group.

Starscream nudged half of a warm chocolate chip cookie over to Pharma.

“You don’t want this?”

“Nope,” Starscream shrugged, not admitting that he did indeed want that but knew that if he even looked at it for too long he’d feel guilty.

Pharma was quick to finish it off.

They stayed there, for a while. The war didn’t leave many places prospering, and this planet had too many organics for Cybertron to claim it for war purposes without violating all sorts of laws.

They’d found Cryogen’s medical records, and while a galaxy-wide scan could take a while, they had something on their side. The medical records of an experiment that was kept private until it committed various crimes was always an important thing to have.

But the stars, the lovely stars above...

Cryogen could wait, for just a little while.

     Even if the two men in the distance kept watching.

[transformers-fan-continuities]

Spotlight: Rise of the Radiotrons

Here it is folks, the first fan canon spotlight, showcasing Rise of the Radiotrons created by sleeveev! You can find this over at @riseoftheradiotrons and also on AO3! This is a long post, fair warning.

Q) Give us a run down of your cont! What's it about, what's it called, what's it like?

the cont, despite being called Rise of the Radiotrons, revolves around five main groups of characters, and the mystery that accidentally intertwines all of them. a lot of false identities, undiscovered pasts, mystery that you need to read all the way through to really uncover. it also takes place during the attrition phase of the Autobot-Decepticon war, and Megatron and Optimus are... dead. but... weren't they made immortal by the Eternal Surge? where are they?

Q) What characters take the lead here? Any personal favorites?

characters that take the lead? hoo, boy, there's a lot. and be warned, this is OC-heavy. Wavecrash, Blackarachnia, Sparkplug, Pascal, and Ness make up the Earth detective team, the first to investigate the Radiotrons: Nanotube, Quicksilver, Greenscreen, and [REDACTED] (that is not their name, you will learn it later!).

Starscream, Moonkiller, and Pharma investigate a series of rust-related murders, later with the help of Eclipse and Terraform. the two they investigate? two hulking beings that carry a rust of sheer destruction of anything metal, Turbulence and someone known only as The Crimson Doctor. the third part is mostly with just a few characters. Dial-Up and Absolute Zero are in a cat-and-mouse chase, Dial-Up attempting to capture Absolute Zero and return him to the prison he escaped from. other 'bots come into this story, including Pylon, Airachnid, Suture, and Cyclonus, but they are not the main focus.

Turbulence.  this motherfucker. this moldy bitch.

my personal favorites? i love Sparkplug, i love my little gaming PC gal. The Crimson Doctor has also grown on me quite a bit. i'm gonna make fat robots and you can't stop me.

Sparkplug above, Crimson Doctor (Crim) below

Q) I love how he isn’t crimson at all.

oh you'll learn why he's crimson

Q) Ominous! Is there a bigger point to this, like a theme or some catharsis? Or is it just fluffy fun?

a bigger point to this? well, i have quite my fair share of trauma for being in a military family - being on the home front of a war i never even learned about until i was like 12. i wanted to show the horrors of attrition above all, because attrition is the part of war that everyone seems to forget, but is possibly the most dangerous part of it. everyone's killing each other over resources, dying of preventable diseases, resources are spread thin among soldiers and thinner among civilians. it also lets new, perhaps worse groups arise from the dust.

war was never about who was right. it was about who could live longer. and RotR, with its rampant killings that people can't even begin to investigate until their leaders are toppled from their thrones and complete anarchy reigns among military sites, is a testament to that.

war was the cause for part of the namesake of the Radiotrons themselves - the Great Radiation Crisis. war was where everything went wrong

Q) How long have you been working on it?

now, for the slightly less dark - it varies from character to character! while the official plot of RotR was established on August 25 this year, some 'bots go much further back - Pascal's earliest concepts were made on May 8, Nanotube's were made on April 25, and The Crimson Doctor's roots go as far back as a character called The Crimson-Eyed Doctor, a character created on Dec 11, 2019 (happy belated birthday, Crim!).

Q) You’re very meticulous with your dates!

i lose track of all time otherwise

Q) Give us a behind-the-scenes look! Show us a secret ;))

behind the scenes.

this is a mystery cont.

THERE'S A LOT BEHIND THE SCENES.

i will start with some no-context spoilers, here.

and, now for something a bit more genuinely secret.

whether this is a crimson doctor or a red herring, you decide.

Q) Where did you draw inspiration from? What canons, what other fiction, what parts of real life?

this varies from subtle to shameless.

my cont would fit best in an comic format, so it makes sense that i was inspired by IDW - and that it was my entry into the TF fandom! there is also some TFA bits in there, but the majority of it is personal robot worldbuilding, with a couple sprinkles of headcanons and OCs taken from Afterburn, a cont made by a longtime friend of mine.

other fiction i took inspiration from is mostly in the character designs. Blackarachnia was loosely inspired by Tawna from Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time (you went through such a good revamp sweetie. neon lesbian.). if you can't tell that Turbulence took inspiration from Cioccolata from JJBA: Golden Wind, i don't know what to tell you. Crim took less inspiration from a character and more from a trope - the "ever-obedient villain subordinate". i just sucked all of the homoeroticism out of it, and also decided to give him more of a self than just someone who serves the villain.

here's Tawna (specifically Crash Bandicoot 4), one of the big inspirations for Blackarachnia's design! we don't talk about your past sweetie.

and Blackarachnia headshot to compare, because her fullbody is still in progress.

i am sharing this specific image of cio, one of turb's inspos, because i BASED A TURB PIECE OFF OF IT.

real life? RADIATION, RADIATION. i have radiation and radioactive things and the PERIODIC TABLE as a special interest and it SHOWS. it's all radiation. even the names. Quicksilver comes from mercury, Starborn comes from all elements being created from stars in space, Nanotube comes from carbon nanotubes, and [REDACTED] comes from... well, you don't know yet. there's also the whole attrition war thing, for real life inspiration, too.

Q) Show off something you're really proud of, a particular favorite part of your cont.

this piece of Eclipse and Turbulence('s hand), for one

(the image is at the end of the post under a readmore, as it contains eye trauma, eye touching, and roboblood)

and another thing i am particularly proud of are all my worldbuilding posts! they look like textbook entries kinda but i really really love em. here's one of them, though there are many more on the blog!

lastly, my favorite character introduction post. if you know Afterburn, you may be pleasantly surprised seeing this.

Q) Ah, that guy.

fun fact about RotR Absolute Zero! his color palette is taken from a diagram of a human heart. here is the motherfucker in question,

Q) What other fan canons do you love and why? Would you like to see them interviewed?

Afterburn. my best friend made this i can't just NOT advertise it. go look at it there's murderers and there's an OC that's actually very inspired by not one but two of my creations (the original OC he was a fanformer of, and his altmode - I'd had thoughts of various greenhouse 'bots like that). @transformersafterburn​. please don't simp for Abzero. or maybe do. he's a better option than Turbulence.

Mirror Mirror. found at @transformers-mirror-mirror​, it's got so many epic character designs and realistically sized altmodes despite not having realistically sized altmodes this makes me go happy flappy and is also inspiring a future project of mine, also Shattered Glass!

NEW PRIMES OF CYBERTRON. RITO I LOVE YOUR CONT SO MUCH. i summed it up in "transformers ungunned" but THERE IS MUCH MORE GO CHECK IT OUT AFTER YOU FINISH READING THIS INTERVIEW @thenamesblurrito​

Q) [insert flattered keysmashing from me, creator of New Primes of Cybertron, otherwise known as TF:SNAP]

Thank you very much veev! Everyone go check out Rise of the Radiotrons! Stay tuned for next week, when we’ll get to see some Shattered Glass...

(aforementioned image under the cut, warning for eye trauma, eye touching, and roboblood)

[riseoftheradiotrons]

A Discussion Around A Shitty Picnic Table With Popcorn Shrimp As Refreshments

Moonkiller was the first to speak up once the other Autobot sat down. “What is your name?” 

Then, Starscream, “Your real name. We’re Cybertronians, too.” He showed the large Decepticon patch on the sleeve of his crop top hoodie.

“Oh! I’m Terraform, a medic... ex-medic.” 

Pharma sighed in relief, “Good. We need one of those.”

Starscream looked at Pharma, confused. “Weren’t you a medic?”

“Yeah, and I haven’t been able to touch or examine a single body other than my own for who knows how long? I don’t even think I could successfully patch up a coursing spark at this rate.”

Terraform glanced left and right, not exactly wanting to remain in this conversation. “Why did you call me over here...? Other than for being another Cybertronian, of course.”

“We are searching for someone.” Moonkiller popped a popcorn shrimp into her mouth, then slid the container of popcorn shrimp over to Terradome. “Would you like a popcorn shrimp?”

He carefully bit into one, and his eyes went wide. “Human food is amazing. How did you find currency here? I didn’t see any conversion areas, and I don’t even think the conversion ratio is measured here.”

Pharma shrugged, biting into a warm cookie. “Oh, you know.”

“Forget I asked.” Terraform finished off his popcorn shrimp. “You were searching for someone?”

“Yep. Cryogen.”

His eyes widened. “Cryogen? He’s moneycapped!”

Moonkiller raised an eyebrow. “And?”

“...fair. I guess a moneycapped killer is easier to follow than a capless one.” Terraform took his sunhat off of his head, letting the holographic hat dissolve into thin air as he tentatively reached out for another popcorn shrimp.

“Go ahead, you are allowed.” Moonkiller shrugged. “We cannot eat all of this anyway.”

Terraform gladly ate another shrimp. “Well... I don’t know how much I could help you with that. Except maybe Cryogen’s medical records, he is- was an Autobot.”

Starscream immediately looked intrigued. “Ooo. That’d be great, actually.”

“I can’t send medical records over digipad, I’ll just tell you when we’re... in a less crowded area.” Terraform gestured to the buzz of the glowing city around him and the others.

Starscream shrugged, “We’ll leave once the streets start to clear, and then we can discuss more Cryogen information. It looks like he isn’t in any of the Pax system’s larger cities, so he’s probably on a smaller planet, and Pharma will have to refuel tors shuttle.”

The four continued their conversations and human food experimentation late into the night.

     As they left, two men lingered on the streets.

One was a heavy, hulking man, and had bandages over his eyes, nasty scars peeking out from under them. Curly black hair fell over his face, and he was in a large grey parka and white pants. He held a cane in each hand - one shorter, for support, and one longer, to investigate his surroundings.

The other was nearly as tall, but much thinner, his green hair pulled into a small ponytail and a cross necklace resting over his hoodie. An unusual gold earring pierced each ear, and his sneakers were clearly new but sensory hell to even look at.

“That’s my father they’re trying to find, Crim.” The green-haired man looked at the black-haired man like he was roadkill. “Didn’t you hear them?”

The black-haired man was silent.

“We’re going back. We’re going back to find him.”

“...shouldn’t we bring Eclipse?”

“To the melting pot with Eclipse. He doesn’t even have any physical descriptions of you, what the melt can he do?”

The black-haired man nodded. Robotically, involuntarily.

“Tonight, we’re finding Cryogen.”

Turbulence and The Crimson Doctor walked off into the night.

[riseoftheradiotrons]

Investigations On Pax-03

This city on Pax-03 - Oxovi, the locals and the city entrance sign said - didn’t have as many light-up billboards as Serim on Pax-08, but there were thin strings and tubes of neon lights aplenty, forming arrows that pointed every which way amongst the city, which as a whole was very low to the ground. Pax-03′s harmful clouds meant lower structures, with heavily shielded roofs, and they all cast a shadow over the rest of the city, only brightening the neon lights.

This time, there was no trying to stop Pharma from hacking into a large Paxian company and robbing them of a couple thousand local currency units, and after that, little hesitation before they went to what locals called ‘the food plaza’.

After a particularly bold human started flirting with Moonkiller and only got the hint that she didn’t know what flirting was after three blatant attempts, Moonkiller decided it’d be better off to take a table further away from the buzz of the main part of the plaza, one a bit further off in the distance. It’s likely Cryogen wouldn’t bother with squeezing himself into these organized yet chaotic human street markets, anyway.

“Could you pass me a pretzel stick?”

Starscream handed a cinnamon-sugar pretzel stick to Moonkiller, then shoved one into his mouth and looked out at the people around him. “If you see a Cybertronian symbol, you know what to do.”

Pharma counted the steps of the plan on tors fingers as tor spoke. “Wave them over under friendly pretense, I replace my Decepticon symbol with an Autobot one if they’re an Autobot, Moonkiller throttles them for information.”

“Moonie, you clear on that?”

“Do not call me Moonie. But yes.”

Starscream nodded, continuing his people-watching. There weren’t any obvious symbols here, but there were plenty of interesting humans to look at, and plenty of foods to try, if the stack of fried goods Moonkiller was guarding served as any indication. Some of them - fried potato wedges and something humans called “popcorn shrimp” looked tempting, and others - deep fried butter, deep fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich - were a result of the group’s collective lack of impulse control. Moonkiller heard something about butter tasting just like Energon, and wanted to give it a go, and so far... she really didn’t seem to be enjoying it.

“Oh, Watcher.” She grimaced. “This tastes like the mammal juice… what’s it called?”

“Uh… I don’t know.” Pharma put tors thumb and index finger to tors chin, thinking over the possibilities. “Sweat?”

“No, the other one.”

“Blood?”

“The- the white one, what is it?”

Starscream attempted to look ‘white mammal juice’ up in the Cybertronian database. “Oh, I don’t like these results.”

Pharma slammed a hand on the table. “Milk! She means milk!”

“Yes, that one! The one that comes from the hull. That’s what this human Energon tastes like.” She set the deep fried stick of butter back down in the red plastic tray it was delivered to her on. “I hate it. You can try it if you’d like, it’s not good.”

Pharma took a bite out of it, and tors expression told all the regret tor couldn’t put into words. “Disgusting.”

“Oh, let me, let me!” Starscream grabbed for the butter, and carefully bit on a crispy edge. And then, not a second later, “I regret even touching that. Can we throw that at Cryogen?”

Moonkiller nodded, taking the tray of popcorn shrimp. “Absolutely.”

Pharma pointed to a strange man in the distance. “Hold on - that might be it. That’s his ponytail.”

Starscream immediately noticed a long, silvery ponytail in the crowd - but no Autobot symbol in sight. And if Cryogen really was an Autobot, that was a false alarm.

“No symbol.” He shrugged in resignation. “Just a human, with a weird, long silver ponytail. But there is one other guy out there with an Autobot symbol... you think Cryogen might’ve switched his holoform?”

Starscream bit into a potato wedge. “He might know he’s being watched... Pharma, change your symbol. We’ve got an Autobot to question.”

[riseoftheradiotrons]

“I like this human disguise.”

Starscream admired his holoform in the camera of Pharma’s digital notepad. He liked this appearance - his thin face, the silver rings through his earlobes, his severe grey eyes and lean, elegant frame. The crop top hoodie detracted from the elegance, but it fit, he thought. This wasn’t a very high-class city, so carrying oneself like a king would be strange here.

“Why are each of our hood-sweaters missing something?” Moonkiller tugged at the armholes of her purple sleeveless hoodie. A bold tattoo of the Decepticon symbol was on her shoulder.

“I think it’s a human thing. They like playing around with these ‘hoodies’.” Pharma conjured an additional article of clothing for tors holoform - a pack of hairclips, the color of Bulb-Rust - and clipped them into tors bleached-blonde hair.

Moonkiller’s holoform leaned back against the body of Moonkiller herself, which was currently parked on land despite being an aircraft carrier. It was made invisible at the moment, so it looked like she was simply leaning on air.

“Pharma, half of your fuselage is out.”

“I don’t mind it. If the humans like it, I’ll keep it.” Pharma tugged at the side of the chest window in tors hoodie. It revealed a swatch of skin about where you’d expect.

Starscream finished his preening, tying his unusually cut black hair back into two ponytails, one above the other. “Don’t the humans have a different word for fuselage? And hull?”

Pharma shrugged. “Maybe.”

Moonkiller hoisted the holoform duffel bag onto her shoulder. “If it is a necesary term, we will learn it.”

“Well, there’s a city out there that we need to blend in with.” Starscream conjured one last item for his holoform - wireless earbuds, to block out excessive noise - and started off towards the flashing lights and towering buildings close by.

The city was teeming with life and artificial lights - no amount of stars in the sky could compare to the blinking yellows and flashing neons of every sign and building. The scent of fried foods was thick in the air, and conversation and chatter could be heard at every corner. Amongst the crowd of wildly varying humans, Starscream, Pharma and Moonkiller went unnoticed.

One failed attempt at holding Pharma back from hijacking the cash register and three food cart visits later, Moonkiller was munching away at a churro.

“Human food may not be optimal for military supply, but it tastes wonderful.”

“I’ve visited other human-inhabited planets before! They... didn’t quite have this many humans, but they still had great food.” Pharma took a bite of tors birthday cake flavored ice cream, and a passerby looked on in disgust, as if biting rather than licking ice cream was akin to taking one’s pants off in public.

“We’ve still got someone to look for,” Starscream said between bites of eclair.

“Who?”

Moonkiller looked confused. “Did we not... discuss the mission with you, Pharma?”

“No. Maybe you just discussed it between you two, and forgot.”

“...ah. We might have. His name is Cryogen. He’s moneycapped, for 500,000 shanix. His alternate form is unnatural, a subzero exploration rover created by Perceptor.”

“Ohhh. Him. I think he likes Pax-03 a bit more than Pax-08, but there’s a good chance he could be here.”

“Do you know what his holoform looks like at all?”

“Kinda short, skinny. Long silvery-blue ponytail. Wears a cloak all the time. Creepy hands.”

“That’s a weird detail to notice.” Starscream remarked, licking the eclair filling off his fingers.

“He’s got creepy hands, though. Really creepy hands.” Pharma shivered. “First thing you notice.”

“...I’ll take your word for it.”

Moonkiller had finished her churro, and was now eating a second. “If Cryogen is not here, we can go straight to Pax-03, to finish off the city planets as quickly as possible.”

Pharma looked back up at Moonkiller, tors half-eaten ice cream cone in hand. “...could we set tonight aside for just trying human food? Learning a little more about human society?”

She looked back at Starscream. He was actually eating something, for the first time in days.

Well, they still needed to learn more about human society, and hey, maybe they’d find Cryogen trying to inconspicuously order food.

“...regrettably, I will allow it.”

[riseoftheradiotrons]

i have no idea what her colors should be

also yes she has a ship hull on the chest, don’t worry shockwave’s tits are bigger

but here’s Moonkiller! giant aircraft carrier lady. very blunt, speaks without contractions. also an entire-ass Decepticon general. i love her.

[riseoftheradiotrons]

The (False) Man of Bulb-Rust, Part 2

Stick-strips were a savior when it came to Pharma’s chaotic lab podship. Half the walls were covered in stick-strips, holding all the Bulb-04 samples they possibly could. Starscream had mentioned attaching the podship to his and Moonkiller’s to make things go a bit faster, but Moonkiller shook her head with disgust. So Pharma was stuck piloting this thing to the best of tors ability.

They were currently hopping from planet to planet in the Pax system. The Bulb system didn’t need to be searched - as far as the three of them were concerned, Pharma was the only life signal on Bulb-04. Cryogen liked staying in the Pax system during the month of Gold, anyway.

“We’re approaching Pax-12.” Starscream announced over the space-comm link. “Pharma, how many more times do you think your ship can land and take off?”

“I know absolutely nothing about ships.”

“How much fuel do you have?”

“62%.”

The sound of Starscream tapping a finger against his chin. “...You’ll probably make it through seven planet stops.”

“Is there any civilization on any of these planets?” Moonkiller added over the space-comm link.

“...Pax-08, and Pax-03, to my knowledge. I haven’t been on Bulb-04 for long, so I’m sure they’re still inhabited.”

“We alone will drop off on all the other planets, and you will hang in orbit until we approach Pax-08.”

Moonkiller’s voice carried too much of a commanding presence for Pharma to attempt to deny here, not even taking into consideration how easily she could crush tor. “Will do,” tor responded.

Tor watched, tors ship in a low orbit over the planet, as Starscream’s and Moonkiller’s pod flew down to Pax-12.

They’d be in for a long few Cybertronian days.

[riseoftheradiotrons]

Finally started coloring Moonie. I’m too tired to bother with finishing right now.

[riseoftheradiotrons]

Moonkiller, chest for Starscream?

“...small.”

“Everyone’s small to you!” Starscream objected.

Moonkiller shrugged, “I am sticking with small. Small, overdramatic... Small and overdramatic. Three completely accurate words. And a surprisingly good detective partner, but that does not fit three words.”

[riseoftheradiotrons]

The (False) Man of Bulb-Rust, Part 1

Sol-VI-I. The largest moon of this huge, ringed planet, with lakes of methane that would be just enough for Pharma to stave off of if tors near-infinite Energon supply from the bunker ever ran out.

Tor could just barely fit all tors important records of the unusual life-forms of Bulb-04 inside tors chassis and tors ship. Tor had to set some sort of base up here on Titan, to properly protect materials, but the only structure on this moon was the ship tor came here with. So tor just about turned the ship inside out, creating a makeshift but surprisingly functional lab. Tors was completely intending to, and perfectly fine with, shutting torself away from the rest of the planet and studying tors Bulb-04 life samples as best tor could in this new environment.

Three Cybertronian days later, tor had visitors.

A loud bang on the side of tors ship.

“Oh! Come in, very carefully.”

Another bang. “I can’t fit.”

“You can’t? Oh, hold on.” Pharma carefully cleared a small space on tors desk, containers clinking and clanging against each other, creating a space just big enough to set down tors notepad. The door to the spaceship was close by, and Pharma tapped away at the separate codes, listening to the hiss of the airlocks as they opened.

Moonkiller was crouched in front of the ship, Starscream right next to her.

Pharma’s eyes widened.

“G- General! Generals! The Sol planets are- I thought they were uninhabited!”

“You will not be kidnapped. We just need some answers for some questions.” She scooted over to give Pharma some room to leave the ship, leaning against it.

“First question.” Starscream spoke up, now sitting down on the ground, “Are you the one who wrote all the information Cybertron has about Bulb-Rust?”

“My greatest achievement. No other records of it exist. I have samples you could take back to Cybertron if you’d like.” Pharma itched to get back in tors spaceship, get away from these very new, very dangerous presences. But this was the first time tor spoke with someone else since tor first landed on Bulb-04.

Starscream immediately perked up, “Yes! Samples! All of what you have!” 

“Half of what you have,” Moonkiller corrected. Asking a scientist to give up all their materials was outlandish.

“Half of what you have!”

“Alright. It grows very quickly, just feed it some metal if you want to increase the sample size. It needs to be stored in nonmetal containers for this reason, or else it will continue to spread...” Pharma’s monologue about how to take care of Bulb-Rust continued, Moonkiller and Starscream barely able to hear it from inside the ship. Starscream pulled out a digital notepad and tapped out [don’t touch it with anything metal].

After so much clattering and clanking that a cat’s panicked meow should’ve come after it, Pharma peeked his head back out of the spaceship, then held three plastic vials out to Starscream and Moonkiller. “Try not to grow more. Unless you want to.”

Moonkiller carefully took the vials, as Starscream asked the next question.

“Second question, do you know how any Bulb-Rust could’ve possibly arrived on any Decepticon outposts?”

“Decepticon outposts? Well, I’ve been trapped on Bulb-04 since before I even discovered the rust, so there’s no possible way I could’ve played any part in it. Someone else must have joined or pretended to join the Decepticon forces, bringing Bulb-Rust with them, most likely inside a-”

Moonkiller held up a hand. “That’s enough.” 

“No, let him go on.” Starscream kept his notepad out. “We need all the information we can get... and it looks like he loves talking about this.”

“Thank you generals. As mentioned, they’d most likely bring it along inside a vial, because keeping it outside the vial would kill them, without a doubt. It reacts with any and all metal, and this includes Metamechium.”

“Third question.” Moonkiller knocked on the side of the ship to get the attention of the others.

“Will you come with us in an investigation of a recently discovered killer who’s been using Bulb-Rust as their primary weapon?”

[riseoftheradiotrons]

Paying a Visit

“Well… it’s a planet.”

Starscream and Moonkiller were standing on Bulb-04, looking out at its vast expanse. The planet was primarily grey and rocky, with the occasional lake filled with orange algae.

No sign of any civilization lay on its surface.

It was quiet. Starscream liked the silence, far away from the deafening chaos on the battlefield and the late Megatron’s constant onslaught of disapproval, his constant demands that Starscream improve. He and Moonkiller could fall asleep here, under the yellow Bulb-04 sky, the gentle glow of its sun…

“There are investigations to conduct.” Moonkiller didn’t sound particularly irritated, but flicked Starscream on his back to snap him back to the task at hand. He immediately straightened his posture and nodded.

She picked him up, letting him rest on her head as she traversed the planet. There was a surprising lack of blue-green - plants here favored an indigo-blue color, the rocks were a sandy grey, the water didn’t have the tealy appearance that Cybertronian water did.

“Oh! There’s something bluish-greenish up ahead!” Starscream pointed to a cave that rest in the direction of the Bulb-04 sun.

“Screamer, I can’t see your hand.”

“Oh. Sorry. Just follow me!” he chirped, jumping off of Moonkiller and transforming in midair, speeding towards the cave he saw.

Moonkiller sighed, knowing she wouldn’t be able to catch up with him, and ran after him as quickly as she could.

The mouth of the cave was too small for her to fit through, so all she could do was watch from outside. Starscream was the only thing moving in the cave, other than various deposits of a green rust that seemed to grow as time went on.

Desperate wailing came from inside the cave. They weren’t Starscream’s - someone else was on this planet, trapped in this cave.

The screeching sound of metal scratching metal.

The faint glow of blue energon.

Moonkiller could tell Starscream wouldn’t want to stay here much longer.

She didn’t, either. 

[riseoftheradiotrons]

Disappearance Number Two

“Where in the Great Melting Pot has Chainlink gone?” Starscream sat on the bench directly opposite from Moonkiller.

“Wouldn’t be surprised if they were offlined. Nobody wants head torturer to become the leader of all Decepticons, especially after Megatron’s treated them like a heap of rust and the best way they know how to release anger is by crushing servos.” Moonkiller half-heartedly kicked what was left of a mechanical dummy. The other Decepticons knew Starscream and Moonkiller were training when the training grounds were in utter shambles.

“Falsehood still hasn’t found her way back. So Chainlink’s probably gonna drop offline with her.”

“You think it’s the same ‘bots who did the job?“

“The only trace both of them left behind was tealy-blue Energon. Falsehood’s Energon is yellow, and Chainlink’s is purple. I know it’s the same ‘bots who did the job.” Starscream’s cockiness was back again, even just after losing to the arm of a dummy catching him by surprise.

“And do we know literally anything else about these ‘bots, other than at least one of them has tealy blue Energon?”

“Well, we tried to trace back the Energon to some other source, of course. You got a wastebasket rattling around in your head?”

“In my defense, more than half the sciences team was captured and thrown around the galaxy so we couldn’t find them. And everyone else here is too lead-headed to work the machines.” She leaned her head against the wall. “But what did you find?”

“We didn’t find an Autobot, or a Decepticon. We didn’t even find a Cybertronian. We found a mine.”

“A mine?”

“Yep. It had some sort of weird living rust exclusive to these few deposits on the planet Bulb-04.”

“How did rust from Bulb-04 of all places get here? We haven’t visited that place in millenia. It’s been an empty planet for centuries.”

“You’re asking me? You just said, everyone here’s a bunch of lead-heads.” Starscream tapped a fist to his skull, as if to say ‘there’s nothing in here’.

“Well, we should knock this lead together and figure something out. A living rust that kidnaps people probably isn’t something we should ignore.”

“For once, I agree with you.”

A twitching mechanical dummy whapped Moonkiller’s leg with its arm. Starscream snickered, and Moonkiller just glared down at the dummy.

“But first, we need to clean up this mess.”

[riseoftheradiotrons]

Moonkiller... crush me in your strong arms

“...If you insist.”

She picks you up in one gigantic hand and crushes you like you’re one of those Halos nectarines.

[riseoftheradiotrons]

“Well, we haven’t found scrap.”

Moonkiller pinched the bridge of her nose, listening to Starscream complain on the stone he designated his ‘complaining rock’. Their lack of information had been painfully obvious, and she wasn’t even sure her latest lead would work.

“We’ve been at this for thousands of years and we’ve found absolutely nothing about the cause of Chainlink’s death.”

“Correction, I have found one lead. But I don’t know how helpful that lead will be.”

Starscream immediately perked up. “You have?!”

“Mm-hm. The only record we have of any green rust is Bulb-Rust, and we have two names from it. Pharma and Cryogen.”

“Isn’t Cryogen goldcapped?”

“Mm-hm. Half a million.”

“And do we have any idea of where Pharma is? I don’t think we should be interrogating a goldcap. His bounty would be more useful.”

Moonkiller nodded. “The Autobots might even steal him from us and take the money for themselves. But... I have a location for Pharma.”

“What kind of location? Planet? Continent? City?”

“On the entire planet, the only sign of civilization is one bunker.”

“What planet?”

“The one you nearly died on, years ago. I thought you would under no circumstances want to visit it again, so I recorded a fake message telling Pharma that the entire stellar system would be gutted for resources in one Cybertronian planetary rotation. He will probably head for Sol, most likely the methane moon that orbits Sol VI. Sol IV has been marked as Autobot territory, and Sol III is where the exiles go.”

Starscream looked the happiest he’d been since Megatron died, quickly standing up from his complaining rock’. “To Sol VI-I it is!”

Moonkiller was quick to follow Starscream as he transformed and flew off in the vague direction of the Sol system. He needed orders to follow to have any sort of motivation, that was clear. And now, he had a set path. This was the most order - and motivation - he’d had since petty squabbles completely dissolved Decepticon leadership.

She just hoped there was something to find.

[riseoftheradiotrons]

LOG: Beauty Standards

So, you may have noticed that my good friend Blackbird commented that Megatron looks like “unfertilized dirt” in the world of RotR, and you may be wondering what the fuck that’s about. Well, Rise of the Radiotrons has much different beauty standards than some other conts may have, and somewhat different beauty standards from humans, that’s for sure.

Purple is the most well-liked color in RotR. If a ‘bot has a lot of purple in their design, they are considered exceptionally beautiful. If someone changes their paint job, it’s likely the new paint job will have purple somewhere.

The most common optic color is yellow. There isn’t much preference among optic colors - except for purple, of course, since it is such a well-liked color. Turbulence has purple optics - beautiful eyes in the RotR world. But if you have, say, orange optics like Cyclonus, or pinkish optics like Moonkiller, they aren’t considered much prettier than Pharma’s or Pascal’s yellow optics.

A matte finish is strongly desired. Due to the gigantic radiation crisis going on right now, almost everything that didn’t have a metallic sheen before has one now, and keeping a matte finish is difficult but rewarding in the end in terms of beauty. Gold and silver in particular are considered ugly, with both metals being extremely common on Cybertron - the most common isotope of cybonium naturally splits into gold and silver when hit with radiation.Megatron consists mostly of white gold, gold, and silver, all of which are very, very metallic. Not very appealing to the RotR eye. Terraform looks very matte, with few metallic parts - a well-maintained sheen, and a beautiful one in the RotR world.

On different planets, different smaller features are favored. Cybertron - or Cybertron Original in the RotR world - is a rather small planet, only around the size of Kepler-22b, and only consisting of a select few cities - Iacon, Vos, and Kaon. On this main planet, deep purples and reds are most well-loved.

On the subplanet known as Cybertron-T, also known as Tarn, they prefer larger, wider frames, the heavier-set the better, as well as redder optics - purple, orange, pink, the like. On Cybertron-V, Velocitron, smaller people are favored, and greens and blues are the most popular. On Cybertron-CM, Caminus, they prefer long, sweeping kibble, like trains, skirts, or tailcoats, with the prettiest Camien Cybertronians sometimes unable to transform due to the length of untransformable kibble.

Despite some planets considering some frames and body types more attractive than others, there isn’t really much of a standard, and liking frames non-traditional to your planetary standards is normal. A born-and-raised Velocitronian who’s into hunks isn’t bullied for having terrible taste. They do, however, have morality standards, you can’t simp for just about anyone.

[riseoftheradiotrons]

Pointless RotR Fun Facts to Fill Your RotR Juice While I Sit in Front of Chapter 14 Unable to Edit

Exactly what it says on the tin.

Moonkiller may be absolutely gigantic, standing at just about 250 feet tall, but she’s only about a quarter of the size she should be! Aircraft carriers are about 1,000 feet long, but for convenience, and the fact that it’d be hard to sustain a 1,000-foot-tall sentient thing, she’s smaller.

Starborn shows who’s fronting via the colors of her biolights. When they’re blurry, they basically do the meme where someone’s laying on the ground as lights flash rainbow and Caramelldansen plays.

And, while on the topic of Starborn, Touchscreen being represented by green has absolutely nothing to do with Greenscreen. That was a coincidence. 

The two spider beastformers in this cont are wildly different sizes because of their origins! While Absolute Zero is fully Cybertronian, Blackarachnia is a weird mix of Cybertronian and organic matter, and needs much more mass to support both systems, hence her being over five times Zero’s size.

Only one robot in RotR has blue optics! Initially, I planned to forgo blue optics altogether, but since Terraform’s primary inspiration had blue eyes, I wanted to toss that in.

Crimson Doctor is officially the first RotR character to be full-on simped for by an actual person. He is the first RotR character anyone has wanted to smooch and he will forever have that achievement.

Turbulence’s human holoform’s name, and humanformer’s name, is Trevor Lenz, which is 100% a reference to Billy Lenz. They’re both twinks who cause problem, commit murder, and make weird-ass phone calls, what better option is there?