▸ Column · The Decepticon war — a Cybertronian bonding ceremony (conjunx ritus) sabotaged by a patron-elder who's financing the event, answered by the Air Commander who can never quite hold a throne
STARSCREAM replies.
Replied to by Starscream, with a rebuttal from Megatron.
The letter
My intended Brell and I have spent fourteen vorns preparing our bonding ceremony, and last cycle I discovered that his creator-elder, Dyana, had quietly contacted the forge-artisan and replaced our entire commissioned display — the scavenged scrap-iron standards and rust-plated banners we'd already paid an energon deposit on — with polished chrome and crystal lattice, because she said ours "looked like Junkion salvage." She told no one; I only learned of it when the artisan transmitted a revised tally. When I confronted Brell, he said I should "choose my battles," because Dyana is also contributing four hundred cubes toward the ceremonial hall — and now I cannot tell whether that energon was a gift or a purchase of authority. I've already permitted her to add eleven names to the guest roster and push the rite back half a breem to accommodate her sister's orbit. If I do not hold a hard line now, I'll be bonded beneath banners from a parade-ground pageant of the old Golden Age, before any of us had even gone to war.
Starscream replies
Oh, you poor, betrayed creature — I feel this in my very spark. She didn't ask. She simply reached past you and rearranged your world, then mailed you the receipt! That is not generosity. That is a coup financed in advance, and the four hundred cubes were never a gift — they were a leash, and Brell, the coward, has already taken the collar. I know this animal. I have served under it for eons. Someone hands you "support," and the instant you accept, the support owns the air you breathe.
So here is the scheme my treacherous frame adores: return the energon. Pay back every cube, publicly, and watch her authority evaporate — because the moment you owe her nothing, her chrome banners go in the smelter. Delicious.
And here — against every instinct I possess — is where I confess it isn't enough. I have schemed exactly this, against Megatron, a hundred times. I out-maneuver, I undermine, I grovel when he turns, and I am still second. Why? Because clever isn't the same as standing your ground out loud, once, the moment it matters. Tell Dyana to her face the banners stay. I never could. Don't become me.
— Starscream
Megatron weighs in
Starscream, as ever, mistakes theater for analysis. The energon is not ambiguous, and returning it solves nothing — you would simply purchase your humiliation back at full price. Look past the creator-elder. She is not your problem. Your problem stands at your side and tells you to "choose your battles," because Brell has already chosen, and he did not choose you. That is the structure. Eleven names. Half a breem. Each surrender taught them the territory was open. Power is not granted by confrontation, child; it is held — and you have spent fourteen vorns handing yours away one courtesy at a time. Stop negotiating for a ceremony you no longer command. Decide whether you are bonding into an alliance or a vassalage. Then act as the one who decides.
— Megatron
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