Science Secrets Made Simple

 Monstereo says, "KNUJ, where the ressurection is nye.... "

 Monstereo appears on screen wearing a tarp that used to be white but is now sort of dusty grey and beige at various spots, all stiched together in the form of a lab coat. His back-mounted monster truck wheels are, ofcourse, detachable just like with his fully articulated action figure in stores now. He waves a hand in front of the camera lens...

 Monstereo says, "Good evening boys and girls. And welcome back to Science Secrets Made Simple. I'm your host, the ever curious Doc Monstereo. Tonight we're going to delve into the mystery of where 'new' Transformer life comes from."

 Monstereo makes a follow me gesture with a hand and strolls over towards a blackboard with a few stick figure drawings of happy-happy people here and there. He picks up a piece of chalk. "Now, as some of you may know, we Transformers are a machine-race. Whereas on Earth, and many other world in this Galaxy, a lot of species are what we call organic." He picks up a hand puppet that looks like the upper body, head and cute little arms of a Sweep with a scowl on his face. "Or as our grumpy friend Mr Sweep here calls you, Squishies. Now, the more intelligent mechanical beings out there do not use this word, as it is full of negative meaning." He makes the Sweep-puppet shake an arm angerly up at him before throwing it away off camera.

 Monstereo raises the chalk to the blackboard and starts drawing a sketch of your basic Autobot next to your basic Decepticon. and then next to that he draws a basic human shape, and next to that he draws a basic fish shape and next to that he draws a cute little potted daisy. He lowers the chalk. "Now, as you can see here, Transformers are big and blocky and as you can see looking at me, we're made of various materials, the bulk of which is metal. And over here you can see humans being smaller, rounder, and as you can see, no wings or wheels. This is because humans, or any of the other organics shown here, are made of living materials. Transformers are not... now hold your horses there, I know what you're thinking. And no, you can't have that cookie before dinner."

 Dee-Kal says, "Aaww...!"

 Monstereo continues. "Yes yes, after dinner. Now. The other thing you might be thinking is, if Transformers are not made of living material, how can they be alive? Good question I'm assuming you're asking. Well, let me demonstrate what I mean by non living material." He smiles, reaches one hand over to his shoulder and pauses as on the screen flashes ~DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME~. He then detaches his arm from his body, holds it up limply, waves it, and then reattaches it to his shoulder with a few ratcheting sounds. His reattached arm then waves to the camera. "My arm, though not a living thing, was attached to the rest of me, and thus my thoughts and my energy were a part of it's working. Just like if you take off a wheel from your bicycle, the wheel itself does nothing. Putting it back on, it becomes part of the whole bicycle, and a working component in the machine."

 Monstereo rotates his shoulder a few times. A few bearings fall out and roll across the floor. "Ahem... well. With organics like humans, though there are a few exceptions elsewhere in the Galaxy, seperating a part of the organic tissue from the whole living organism means that tissue loses life support. The air you breath. The blood pumped through your veins by your heart. The signals your brain sends through your body making it do what you want. Detached tissue, just like mechanical parts of a bicycle, will no longer have the benefit of the whole to make it work. And with rganic tissue, permanent damage occurs over time. This is called decay. Many things experience decay, even I do! You know those ugly brown holes in your dads Trans Am? That is a form of decay that occurs in metal that we call rust. Say that with me. Rust." The word RUST flashes on the screen a few times. "So, concerning life in Transformer bodies versus life in organic bodies, please remember. I am Monstereo, a robot. I can put my arm back on. You can't. So play safe."

 Monstereo shuffles over towards a laboratory countertop now. "Ahem, now, let's get down to the nitty gritty. How am I alive even if my body is not? I'll show you." Again, a warning flashes on screen reading DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. Monstereo removes his chest plating revealing a large tape deck port. Below this he swings open a panel between his chest and abdomen. It sounds like a squeeky woodstove door. Inside is revealed a lasercore. "This, boys and girls, is where my 'life' is. Everything else you see of me is just an elaborate tool to sustaint my life and let me experience all the joys and wonders the universe has to offer. Now, like your home computer, I am made up of lots of programming information. Only unlike your home computer, I am a billion times smarter. Now, you may have played video games in which the game has adapted or learned from how you play it in order to become harder to play. That is called artificiall intelligence. That's what you'd find a Sweep has. Now for the rest of us Transformers, since we are far far far more advanced... our lasercore is more like a housing of not only memory and decision making skills, but also emotion and ambition. Just like you, we have complex thoughts and feelings. He wish to learn. We wish to laugh. Just like you."

 Monstereo points to the glowing sparkling flashy center. "Now as you see here, it looks kinda like Christmas or a night at the Roxbury. When this part is all flashy nice and vibrant like this, this means I am full of life and healthy. Pretty, huh?" He closes the panel with another heavy hinge squeek and then puts his chest plating back on. He rolls up his lab coat sleeves and picks up a small disembodied lasercore from the table top. He holds it up, showing it to look lifeless with no lights. "This is another lasercore. As you can see, no body. This one has been without a body for a long time and also suffered damage resulting in permanent shutdown." He leaves it at that for the sake of the kids. "Now moving on to our main topic. Thought I'd never get there, huh? Have faith in your old pal Doc Monstereo."

 Monstereo raises a finger pointing up. "How do new Transformers come to be? Yes... why is this a significant question? The answer to that is this. We, like your bicycles, are built from a factory, like your bicycles. Like your computers, we recieve programming, or personalities, and life energy. But! The problem is this. We no longer have those factories. So for a long long time no new Transformers have come into being. With organics, well you are your own factories. Ask mom and dad about that." He smiles brightly into the camera. "But every once in a while, we all seem to be introduced to a new Transformer. none of the rest of us has ever met. They're fresh. They've got that new car smell. And if you are someone who has met these new mechanical people, you may have noticed they seem to all be smaller than the rest of us. They transform into what resembles your antique Audio Cassettes. Kids, ask mom and dad about this one too." He gives a thumbs up.

 Monstereo goes on. "The reason for all this is thus: A few mega-smarty pants guys like myself, have dedicated much of our big brains in pursuit of repopulating our slowly dwindling numbers. What we do is study lasercores. The very foundation of Transformer life. Now, lasercores are still too difficult a thing for us to just make from scratch. We can't build whole new ones that work just as perfectly well as those that our long lost factories could make. What we can do, however, is restore life to lasercores that are not too badly damaged. Kind of like what uncle Ralph does as a hobby with old junked cars. He makes them spiffy new again and makes sure they run... and then sells them under the table to collectors without reporting the extra income."

 Monstereo raises the lasercore again. "Now this is one I'm hoping I can do just that with. If I can put things right inside and salvage enough programming stored, then I can restore the life of this lasercore and place it within a new body. Now there is almost always some programming lost through degredation with the lasercores that have been offline for a long time. So whoever the Transformer was before going offline, they're no longer that same exact person. Which is okay. Now, there is also the case where there has been a very large amount of programming lost. but the lasercore itself is still capable of hosting life. In this case, there have been some developments made by the originater of this lasercore science by the name of Soundwave. What Soundwave has done in place of not having sufficient programming within a lasercore to begin with is ... how shall I put this... in arts and crafts, you can make a 'collage' using pieces of pictures from all sorts of sources. You cut and paste what you want together to make the picture you want. That's what Soundwave has learned to do. He uses existing programming from another source and 'pastes' it into the lasercore. You know how funny and weird your collages turn out sometimes, kids? Same thing."

 Monstereo sets down the lasercore and walks out in front of the table now towards the camera. "So, in conclusion. what have we learned? We've learned that machine life form bodies work very differently from organic ones. We;ve learned that you should not try to disassemble yourselves, kids... very important. Bad booboos. We've learned that Transformers are sad because we're millions and millions of years old and we're hard pressed to make new friends to play with... we get bored of eachother. Heheheh... just kidding, Roddy. We still love you! ... and we've learned that when it comes to Transformer life... we're more than meets the eye..." He pulls a full length mirror into camera frame and reveals a Transformer Tape robot with a camera mounted in his forehead helmet crest waving his hand in front of the lens, seeing it also on the mirror reflection. It really is a camera-man! "Tune in next time when we will be learning to make Plutonium out of common household items. This has been Science Secrets Made Simple with Doc Monstereo saying... Goodnight!" ~end credits roll~

December 22, 2008 / 2029