#starscream has experience with bad rust infections

[tyrantofthefirmament]

*Kneels* My dear luminous lord Starscream, I wouldn’t normally think to bother your sonorous self with such a tiny question, but seeing as other humans are speaking freely.. I wouldn’t dare throw away an opportunity to be in your stunning presence. Might I ask if rust is similar to human gangrene?

As I'm not extremely familiar with humans and their various ailments, I had to look that up. Thank you. It was revolting.

I suppose an extremely severe rust infection bears some similarities to gangrene, though there are key differences. Rust in general is an inexact match to how contaminants affect organic life, but it it does serve to talk about it as an infection. The result of bad rusting is similar to gangrene, but why it happens and how it affects our bodies overall are different.

Most rust infections are minor irritations caused by abrasion or acid damaging our surfaces and allowing our metals to oxidize (or even react with other chemicals, which isn't technically rust but we do call it rust infection outside of technical medical contexts, for the sake of simplicity). It only causes an infection if it happens faster than our self repair nanites can repair it. Once the injury is cleaned, our nanites are usually capable of restoring the damaged metal on their own. Any well stocked first aid kit has salves containing metals and blank, programable nanites to speed up the process. Your own nanites will assimilate the blank ones and copy repair instructions onto them, then break them down and recycle them once they complete their task. In a proper hospital setting, additional nanites can be programmed with your full specs to carry out more sophisticated repairs.

Sometimes a rust infection can get out of control, and that is similar to gangrene. It is possible to lose parts of your frame entirely, and it can be life threatening if it spreads to your Spark chamber, fuel pump, processor, or certain structures in between. However, nearly all of our parts are replaceable, unlike humans, and rust is extremely slow spreading (this doesn't apply to Cosmic Rust, which is not a true rust but a virus, and can disintegrate a bot in a matter of hours). It usually begins on the outside of our frames and takes so long to get to any vital components that it's rarely considered an emergency. We would certainly never chop off a limb to keep rust from spreading, and our Energon lines can't carry the infection to other parts of our bodies the way human blood can.

Gangrene is caused by either loss of blood or a severe bacterial infection, and there are analogous factors in rust infections, though they are not the root cause.

Lack of Energon flow to an area does mean repair nanites can't get there, thus making the area more susceptible to abrasion and chemical reactions, though in itself it can't cause a part of our frames to die. Energon is our lifeblood, but as long as we have a supply to our Spark chamber and processor, the rest of our bodies will still function using wiring, motors, and hydraulics. It must be said though, it feels off when you don't have Energon directly interacting with power systems and sensors throughout your frame. I'd compare it to the feeling when you get a limb replaced and it hasn't been fully calibrated.

Outside contamination is also a cause of rust infections, though there is nothing that infests our bodies like bacteria, causing our metal to die and rust (apart from viruses, again). It is possible to get a rust infection from being in rusty areas such as ruins or the Sea of Rust, especially in damp weather, but that is only because of the abrasive nature of that much powdered rust, which creates sites for oxidization and other reactions to start. Damp weather makes it worse because our precipitation is caustic if it touches you, and it also frees up oxygen that is normally bound into the metals that comprise our world. Cybertron normally has very little oxygen in the air since it has no oceans and was never infested with cyanobacteria and algae. It is ideal for robotic life.

Even with the comparable factors of Energon loss and contamination at play, it takes a very long time to have a surface rust patch develop into anything approaching gangrene, unless your repair systems are entirely comprised. Before the war, only miners in deep caverns and workers who processed raw metals in unsafe factories saw many bad rust infections. The Council and caste overseers never addressed the problem because those mecha were considered replaceable. Once the war started, many more Cybertronians got a taste of such conditions, once our civilization crumbled and armies lived and fought amongst the ruins in all kinds of weather. There were worse things than rust out there, to be sure, but it was a constant battle to keep our units well maintained.

One factor that can cause rust infections to worsen quickly but doesn't play a direct role in gangrene is malnutrition. Our nanites need a supply of dissolved metals and mineral in our Energon in order to repair our frames, and without it, we can rust even if Energon is making its way to all our extremities. Not consuming enough Energon, or consuming Energon that has been overly refined or else left raw, can all contribute to poor nanite production and utilization. Raw Energon also typically has a high acid content if it's liquid, which can wreck your filters and use up all your nanites just trying to repair that initial damage, exacerbating other rust patches that you would likely have if you were out in the wild drinking Energon out of the ground, presumably not in the best shape to begin with...