▸ Column · Cybertron during the Decepticon war — a spark-bonding ceremony whose invitation requests direct energon transfers to a vault-handle in place of a gift registry
STARSCREAM replies.
Replied to by Starscream, with a rebuttal from Soundwave.
The letter
My spark-cousin Renata is bonding with her intended this next cycle, and the ceremonial summons arrived bearing — in genuine etched glyphwork — "Contributions accepted directly: transfer energon to vault-handle RENATA-BONDED." No registry. No list of desired components. Just a vault address and a tiny engraving of two cubes clinking. I have attended dozens of bondings and I cannot decide whether this is bracingly honest or the most shameless thing ever pressed into alloy. My carrier is already drafting a scorching transmission to Renata's carrier; my own bondmate says transfer the energon, say nothing, move on. But if I beam two hundred units to a vault tagged "bonding gift," I feel I have surrendered a sliver of my own spark. Is there a dignified way to mark the occasion without either shaming Renata or becoming an accomplice to the quiet extinction of the gift dais?
Starscream replies
Oh, but I LIKE her. This Renata — she has done the one thing nobody in your sniveling, etiquette-poisoned clan has the spine to do: she stated her advantage plainly and let the energon flow. Loyalty is what you promise; advantage is what you take. She took it, in calligraphy. I could weep.
Now — your carrier's "scorching transmission." Stop her. I have launched a thousand scorching transmissions up the chain at Megatron himself, and do you know what they purchase? Contempt, and a reputation as the one who whines. The strongly-worded letter does not wound Renata. It marks YOUR house as petty. That is not the throne play.
Here is the shrewd move, and it pains me to give it away: transfer a calculated sum — enough to be remembered, not enough to be looted — and ensure your name rides the memo where every relative can read it. Standing for the minimum outlay.
And here — against my own oily instincts — the part I cannot perform: the ones who win this aren't the calculators. They're the ones who simply give, gladly, and forget the gift dais existed. I've never managed glad. I curry, I tally, I resent. Look where it's left me.
— Starscream
Soundwave weighs in
Correction, Starscream. You told her to broadcast her name in the memo. Leakage.
Observation. Renata revealed exactly one fact: her need, and the channel to fill it. Nothing more. Efficient. The amateurs are your carrier — drafting a transmission that announces her wound to the whole clan — and you, the bondmate's instinct was correct.
Diagnosis: "a sliver of my own spark" is emotion broadcast as decision. Suppress it.
Instruction. Transfer, or do not. Either is survivable. The memo line is not a billboard for your standing. It is silence. Reveal less. The gift dais did not die. It was data you mistook for ceremony.
Soundwave superior. Your vanity, inferior.
— Soundwave
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