Punch Defcon and Prowl discuss Tarn

Transformers 2K5 - Prowl - vendredi, août 15, 2014, 9:52 -

 Shiftlock says, "So how did the race go?"

 Prowl says, "Well enough. That crooked cop was faster than I thought however."

 Shiftlock says, "Crooked cop?"

 Prowl says, "Disturbed or Discord."

 Shiftlock says, "Con, I'm guessing."

 Prowl says, "Of course. There are no crooked cop among the Autobots."

 Shiftlock says, "Are you sure?"

 Prowl says, "Pretty sure."

 Shiftlock says, "We probably don't have any, but vigilance is always a good policy."

 Prowl says, "Of course. I always keep watch."

 Shiftlock says, "You know, I kind of wish you had been around when I joined the Bots."

 Defcon says, "That's a creepy thought. Deadman's got his eye on you."

 Fathom says, "I dunno', judging by Tarn's state I'm sure there's a few... law enforcers with less-than-pristine morals."

 Shiftlock says, "Yeah. I've been there."

 Prowl says, "Because I use the abridge version of the Autobot code instead of the full thing like Ultra Magnus?"

 Shiftlock says, "No, because I like the way you do business."

<Autobot> Wreck-Gar says, "I have two guns, one for each of you."

<Autobot> Prowl says, "Quite possible Fathom, but those guys are not mine. If we take back Tarn, I will lead the cleanup effort."

<Autobot> Shiftlock says, "Define cleanup."

<Autobot> Shiftlock says, "If the local government is oppressive, the citizens should rebel. Doesn't matter what badge is doing the oppressing - it's wrong no matter who is holding the whip over the slaves."

<Autobot> Prowl says, "Gather evidence, find the crooked cops and either jail them or alternative therapies."

<Autobot> Prowl says, "Also Defcon...drop the nickname."

<Autobot> Fathom says, "It's all very exciting! I want to go out there and protest with everyone."

<Autobot> Shiftlock says, "If we can't get the citizens to listen to Autobots anymore, we should at least steer them away from agreeing with Cons."

<Autobot> Powerglide says, "Having people listen to you is way overrated. They'll listen just fine when the lasers and missiles start flying."

<Autobot> Powerglide says, "Er, because the Dececepticons are shooting them, I mean."

<Autobot> Shiftlock says, "Y'know, that's not really going to make us look better, Peej."

<Autobot> Halo says, "As the extremist minority we're 'oppressing' would turn Tarn into a new Crystal City, I suggest we oppress away."

<Autobot> Shiftlock says, "Are you serious?"

<Autobot> Fathom says, "Interesting point."

<Autobot> Powerglide says, "No no, that came out wrong! I meant when Decepticons start shooting, then the citizens will listen to us."

<Autobot> Powerglide says, "Trust me, happens every time."

<Autobot> Shiftlock says, "You think the Decepticons wouldn't spin our reputation into being fuel-thirsty monsters if did that?"

<Autobot> Powerglide says, "Uh...what do you mean? They can spin whatever they like, the first time they blow up a building full of civilians or carpet bomb a street in Tarn to get at one Autobot car, all the spin goes out the window right?"

<Autobot> Halo says, "They'll spin our reputations no matter what we do. I'm more concerned with keeping these 'Masked Megatrons' under heel."

<Autobot> Powerglide says, "What?!"

<Autobot> Powerglide says, "Man I really need to start flying lower."

<Autobot> Prowl says, "Maybe such sensitive informatio should not be broadcasted."

<Autobot> Powerglide says, "'Masked Megatrons'...I thought that was just a rumor."

<Autobot> Fathom says, "Oh, er... Where's our encrypter?"

<Autobot> Powerglide says, "...our what?"

<Autobot> Fathom says, "A comm officer!"

<Autobot> Springer says, "Wouldn't that be.. Blaster?"

<Autobot> Shiftlock says, "I'd rather find out why these people are doing what they're doing, and try to get them to be patient and reason with them. Help them see less violent means of getting things done. We have our own part to clean up, but if we just work within the system, we can separate the agitators from those with genuine grievances."

<Autobot> Fathom says, "Right! He must be away..."

<Autobot> Fathom says, "I imagine Intel has a case open for the whole topic of Tarn... right?"

<Autobot> Prowl says, "That's not for public airwarves"

<Autobot> Powerglide says, "Hm, Prowl's got a good point guys."

<Autobot> Powerglide says, "If we talk about this stuff over the radio, why, anybody could be intercepting the transmission."

<Autobot> Powerglide says, "Those Decepticons could hear everything we say!"

<Autobot> Powerglide says, "Man it's nice to have you back Prowl."

<Autobot> Prowl says, "Thanks Powerglide. It is good to be back."

<Autobot> Fathom says, "I should like to go picket the surveillance. So exciting! There amongst the revolutionaries standing up for what they believe in, and chanting with purpose!"

<Autobot> Shiftlock says, "You realize revolutionaries tend to have very short life spans, right?"

<Autobot> Shiftlock says, "And signs make you a nice target."

<Autobot> Fathom says, "Invigorating!"

<Autobot> Shiftlock says, "... Yeah, call me and tell me how the bullet wounds feel later."

<Autobot> Fathom says, "Well... Hopefully they will be /peaceful/ protests."

<Autobot> Fathom says, "Not that I'd be permitted go to that anyhow."

<Autobot> Fathom says, "Hot Spot has us on that poor Retoris wall constantly."

<Autobot> Prowl says, "I might have a more exciting project for you soon."

<Autobot> Fathom says, "Ah, cool!"

<Autobot> Blaster has encrypted this channel.

<Autobot> Prowl says, "I stopped by Tarn to check on things. It's allright but could be better."

<Autobot> Fathom says, "There's a lot of cameras..."

Amplitudes Nightclub <A> Amplitudes - The club that never closes. The signal that you can't stop.

The inside of the club is dark, lit with neon hues of blue and green. There's a station at the doorway where weapons are checked, a maglocked interface neutralizing the weapons systems of Cybertronians. Three very large mechs with stun batons stand security making sure no one goes in without locking their weapons to safe, and signs of security drifting around the club are easy to spot.

Walking in to the club proper, the club's main area is a huge, circular room. In the exact center of the room is the DJ station, surrounded on all sides by the wall to wall dance floor, it's black surface gleaming. Numerous circular recesses in the dance floor contain round tables, their black surfaces backlit beneath with a soft green or cool blue glow. Benches set into the side of the recess provide seating in two half circles, with sets of steps leading out of the pits. A simple interface on the tables can deploy a sound dampener, lowering or shutting out the sound of the music for those at the table. The tables are also equipped with holoprojectors, with a number of programs available.

To each side of the entryway are curved stairs, leading up to the metal meshwork balcony which circles the room. There are numerous tables, equipped similarly to those below, settled around the balcony. It is up on the balcony, on opposite sides from one another, where the clubs two bars are situated, mirrored behind the bar stations. The surfaces of the bars are lit, one glowing a cool blue the other a soft green.

The pulsing rhythms make the floor seem to thrum with an uncontained life of it's own, and the dimness of the club is forever slashed across by the weaving and strobing of hundreds of laser lights, weaving complex patterns. Numerous waitress mechs assist the two bartenders, keeping the customers happy.

The Amplitude is a really hip if not the hippest nightclub in Altihex. Odd choice of place for Prowl to setup an informal meeting but maybe he had a point to make. Upon entering, the bouncer gives direction to Prowl's private booth he rented for the evening. Second floor on the far left.

Defcon is at the entrance to the club. He's bee there for nearly 10 minutes, apparently stuck at the security check point. There seems to be some dispute over the Bounty Hunter not being able to shut every weapon in his arsenal into a "safe" mode, namely because most of the safe modes were disabled personally. By himself. He's been arguing his case for several minutes now.

"Look. Class A Galaxial Bounty Hunter." He's been waving a digital ID card for quite some time. "Don't you realize this card is good /everywhere/ ?? I'm like a Super Cop. Galaxy Cop. I'm Defcon!" The large bouncers just seem confused by it all. As Prowl walks past a nearby entrance, he points to the Autobot, in mock outrage. "Oh, /he/ gets to just waltz in nonchallantly??"

One of the bouncers finally grunts out something at the Bounty Hunter. "It's uh, like you's said. You's Devcon."

"Defcon." The Bounty Hunter says flatly.

"DEVcon."

"No no. DEFcon." Apparently he goes through this alot.

"DEFcon? Oh." The bouncers look at one another. "Well. Ok. But no troubles." They finally let him pass, and he walks in grumbling. He shoves his helmet down, lower over the top of his blue optics, and heads towards Prowl's private booth.

Punch enters the Amplitude. Waving the staff out of his way, after his recent big spending included becoming a friend of all those who matter, bouncers, owners, locals of influence he walks on to the booth that Prowl's booked. He's an operative! Of course he knows which one. Prowl picked the only one not wired. See? Easy.

Prowl is sitting in his booth with a datapad and a drink (not the hard stuff however). He has that look on his face when he gets a decent plan or makes a good realization. He nods at both his comrades. "Glad you guys could join me. This is about having your input on a side project that I am working on."

Defcon inclines his head politely to Prowl, sliding into the booth. "Anytime, anytime." He says off-handedly, looking around for someone to hail for a drink. He sits down, idly drumming his fingers on the table with one hand, optics slowly scanning the surrounding area and people assembled within.

He looks back to Prowl after a moment. "Side projects can be good." Of course, to Defcon, /side project/ tends to mean /without CoC approval/ so he's probably thinking something very differently from Prowl.

Punch already signaled for a Name Redacted. Time away from Iacon suits him well. "Prowl, Defcon . . . always a pleasure." Punch says as he slides into his seat and, without looking, takes the approaching drink. "Also, gentlemen? You want anything . . . on me. The staff have taken a shine to me here. What have you got for us Prowl?" Punch asks getting the business in motion.

Prowl punches some stuff on his datapad and a small holo of Tarn appears. "The situation in Tarn is getting nowehere. Birthplace of Megatron (says the name casually like some douchebag he shot at in the past. Oh wait he DID!) so there is a strong undercurrent of Decepticon sympathizers, energon refinery, residential quarters and the now totally useless arena. We have more officers there per square meters than anywhere else on Cybertron. Weapons are outlawed, searches and checkpoints are very common." He leans back in his bench. "Does this sounds like a nice place?"

"Anyplace where weapons are outlawed and arenas are useless sounds like a horrible place." Defcon says straight-faced. He waves down a server, ordering a drink on Punch's tab. Then he turns back to the matter at hand. "Though sympathizers would explain why the supply convoys were traveling through Tarn, disguised as merchant caravans. They may have been getting help resupplying their forces in Retoris."

Prowl casually points at Defcon as he answers to his points "Exactly. Horrible and why is that? Because you are being repressed. You have nothing to do except work, recharge and think of the past as you cross the notorious arena." The Autobot's audios perk up and is curious as to what Punch has in store. Probably very different then what Prowl was about to discuss. "Go ahead Punch, I am listening."

Defcon flashes a glance to Punch then flips out a box of e-cigs, one extending out the front of the box. "My sympathies." He says, mourning the loss of Punch's cigs. The Bounty Hunter takes one for himself as well but doesn't light it right away. Prowl is right, of course. Oppression is a lesser form of slavery in itself.

Punch's initial proposal is interesting, but he says nothing for the time being. Defcon normally does things which are a bit different than the way Autobots normally do things, so this could be very interesting or very boring. Jury's still out.

Gladly taking one, lighting it and puffing it into life Punch says, "Defcon. I owe you big. I might know just the thing. Prowl you have to understand Tarn isn't a location. Not a situation. Not anything other than this . . . it's an idea. Contrary to popular belief ideas can indeed be undone. In this case . . . I suggest we engineer an apocalypse play. We evacuate the area due to some threat, heavily implying Decepticon involvment. Then . . . we blow it to rubble. Rebuild a new city with a new name, new layouts, new everything. Meantime the spread out populace forget. About Megatron. They don't forget about the Decepticons destroying their city though. By the time the New Hope is built and gifted by us . . . after so much time has passed . . . the idea's forgotten. Good as dead.

Prowl is totally speechless...for about a quarter of a second. "That is one rather extreme solution...I am not sure command would go along with such a plan. That's pretty cold Punch. I will keep a note somewhere however." He quickly punches some more styff in his datapad. "I was thinking of something more insidious and that would minimize trauma on the local population."

Defcon listens, without saying anything, cig held in his mouth still unlit. It's a very interesting theory, but it's not the kind that Defcon would agree with unfortunately. He let's Prowl say his piece though, waiting. Thinking. He taps his fingers along the tabletop again. Finally, he slides his drink across the table, towards the center symbolically.

"I fold." He says simply, then leans back. "It's an interesting plan, and maybe it'd work, but it's not my way. Home is more than just a place to live." His voice, a bit softer than usual. "Entire planets have gone to war to defend their /home/. If there really was a threat, that's one thing. But to destroy the place in a ruse? Maybe it'd work." He shrugs, looking at his glass at the center of the table.

"But I've spent millions of years wandering the Galaxy. I've spent eons away from Cybertron in the cold void of space, in backwater planets full of jungles and storms and horrible places you can't imagine. All the time, keeping Cybertron in my heart. Knowing that she'd be there, /somewhere/. If I came back and found it was destroyed, for the greater good, and we lived on some new rock in peace? The first thing I'd be looking for is the guy responsible to put a slug in his head. And no illusion or lie would keep me from the truth." He shakes hs head simply. "I can't destroy people's homes. Besides, there's no way to be sure every single spark is safely out, because a lot of bots simply /wouldn't/ leave. Home isn't just where you hang your helm. Sometimes, it's where you make your last stand in the face of death, and die with dignity."

"I'm just saying. You're fighting an idea. The ghost of Megatron is so strong these fanatics don't care he relinquished his own ideals to become Galvatron. You need to kill the idea. A standard ply won't do it. That said you've a play in mind yourself . . . what is it?" Punch asks as he takes another draw.

Prowl takes a sip from his drink and begins "While Punch might have an interesting theory from a purely objective point of view, I think our friend Defcon here is closer to the population so he will be my test subject tonight." He says with a small smile "When you arrived in town up until when you came to join us up here. What did you see?"

While Punch and Prowl continue talking, Defcon nonchallantly reaches out and reclaims the drink he had previously pushed ceremoniously to the center of the table. No point in wasting good enerbrew. When Prowl asks him a question however, he pauses with the drink halfway to his mouth.

"W-Well, most of it was kind of a multi-colored blur because I came from the sky. But this place looks a lot more lively and energetic than Tarn."

He takes a long drink from his glass the sets it back down. "Don't get me wrong, Punch. I'm not the kind of guy who goes around saying what's right and what isn't. It's just not my kind of plan." He shrugs idly. The booth seems to get a little darker, and yet Defcon seems to glow a bit in the shadows, oddly dramatically.

"We're Autobots. If I could stop the war by acting like a Decepticon, I wouldn't do it. If I could save my life by acting like a Decepticon, I wouldn't do it. But that doesn't mean it's wrong. Maybe sometimes, some of us /have/ to sacrifice ourselves for the greater good." He takes another drink, and the lights seem to oddly return to normal. Or was it just your imagination. "Just not my preference, that's all." Though he doesn't know it, his words seem to almost carry a secondary, deeper meaning to them.

Punch listens carefully. That's always been the problem with insight. It isn't always what people want to hear. However, one of the rare beautiful things about being Punch is that he doesn't pick the play made in the end. He has his say, people listen, and he achieves the objectives set out to him. Simple, easy, nothing personal. Speaking with two other trained operatives means he knows that, pretty much, they think the same way. "I do agree Defcon, Only way to win out this war is if we stay true to who we are. We don't need to act like Decepticons, frankly they're better at it than we are, but, in this case we need a ghost-buster. Prowl, I suspect, has found a way to do this though. Don't keep us in suspense anymore . . . what's the play?"

Prowl snaps his fingers as Defcon gets it right. "Yes more lively. Tarn has nothing to keep the population busy or distracted. Give them a bit of comfort, something to do and before long we do not need so many officers...and after that...maybe we do not have such a problem anymore. We get operations to start a plan for an entertainment district. Sports, races, clubs anything to give them something else to do besides work, recharge and brood." He waves off the first arguments "I know it will not solve ALL the problems with Tarn. There will always be an underground minority but by keeping the masses occupied and happy. We keep them on our side and off the Decepticon's. Obviously even if we scale down apparent patrols we will need to keep a very close optic on things to see if the plan is actually working."

He takes another sip "So...what do you guys in the mid-long term about this potential solution?"

Defcon looks at his now empty-glass. "I think I prefer that way to the aforementioned alternative. Increase morale. Spirits. Good feelings. Some of the better off-worlds I've been to were ones where people have had more freedoms and more ways to express it. Like Earth for example."

Nodding to the staff Punch aims for refreshed drinks. "It could help . . . but what kind of recreational activities did you have in mind Prowl? It's not really a field I'm too familiar with myself . . ." Well. Some things. Most of which aren't what this particular mission demands.

Prowl shrugs at Punch "I am no expert myself. It could be a racetrack so they can enter the racing league with Ibex. It could be sports or nightclubs. Anything at this point is better than what they have now which is a closed off arena where Megatron made his debut and we stuck an Optimus Prime statue in the middle of the arena before closing it." He finishes his first and only drink. "Maybe operations should take a census about what people want so we get things right. And if by some coincidence the Decepticon sympathisers want to sabotage our effort...they will need to come out of hiding and when they do..." He points to Defcon..."We pounce on them and mop up what we can of the underground."

Defcon listens, thanking the server when more drinks are delivered. "Sounds reasonable. Find out what the people want and give it to them. Surprised it's taken so long for someone to come to that realization. But if we can make some progress, it might make it easier to find the troublemakers at the same time."

Punch touches the side of his head, recieving a communication. "Gentlemen, excuse me, unavoidable incident, have to get on top of it. You know how it is." As the fresh drinks arrive he downs his and, swiftly, leaves.

Punch heads out of the club.

Prowl nods at Punch "Yeah I know. Do not let us keep you." He checks his chrono then back at Defcon. "I will have to get going as well. Patrol schedule to keep. The Olympics might be having all the attention right now but evil never sleeps." He stands "Glad I could have your input and if the project goes forward and we do get incidents. I would like you to take charge of the security for the building area."

Defcon raises his glass to Prowl. "I hear that. Evil never sleeps. And either do the sentinels. Take care Prowl." See you around, Deadman. The Bounty Hunter tips back the drink and finishes it.

Jazz enters the club.

Prowl mutters to Defcon, "... have... yet.... to..." You whisper "I don't even have my promition yet. It's kinda early to suck up." to Defcon.

You receive a radio message from Jazz: Hey man, I need your help..I'm gonna shift ya inta the CO role for Intel ta get things smoothed out..just one question, ya want the pomp and circumwhatnot or you jus wanna sneak in?

You send a radio message to Jazz: Just give the codes to the office door and safe. I will be fine. ***** *** *  *      *   *   *      *   ***  ***   **** *  * ***       *    *  *   *     ***  *   *     ***  ***  **    *  * ** * **      *   *** *** ***  *   * *** ***  *   * *  * ***   **** *  * ***  * * * * *