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He was taking things in as quickly as he could, not showing any outward sign of his internal distress. This...this was bad. He was missing not just a day or two, as sometimes could happen with rattled processors, but literally eons of time? How many more had he lost in that time and forgotten? How many more, like the poor femme he hoped he hadn't insulted, had joined their ranks and earned their place? He'd forgotten 'bots, forgotten allies. It trouble him deeply to realize these facts.
At least he remembered right that Elita and her femmes had escaped the war at one point, even if it had been a long time ago rather than only a few short weeks that his memory told him. And there were more than just this one femme here, the ranks filling up with both frame types. Had something happened? Most certainly. He wasn't going to panic about it however. He trusted Ratchet to know how to fix this.
Ratchet was at least explaining to him the here and now, and he just dipped his helm slightly to acknowledge he understood. He could adapt to this place and time if he had to, but hopefully he'd just recover his apparently missing memories. "So we've established ourselves on this planet and the war continues even after all this time." Statement rather than question. He doubted his medic would have mentioned the Decepticons if the war were over.
He vented, settling himself as he crossed his arms across his chassis and considered things. "I trust your judgement Ratchet. Do whatever you think is best to sort this matter. I'll cooperate fully, of course."
It was then he noticed that he seemed to have made the femme uncomfortable somehow, maybe even upset. Which hadn't been his intention. He forgot his own troubles then and reached out to gently palm her helm. "Be at peace, Rotor. I have no doubt that you have done just as you spoke of. I am only sorry I don't recall your efforts." He felt guilty now for doubting her trustworthiness. It simply made him uncomfortable to have to show any form of weakness in front of his people. He dropped his hand so as not to make her feel trapped.
"Could this matter be something viral?" As in could someone have exposed his systems to a virus that ate through his memories in order to perhaps keep him otherwise occupied? That Ratchet felt this was a larger problem did not bode well. He'd need to find out what all he'd missed and try and absorb as much of the information as possible. Not to mention get ahold of the roster and find out who all was here on this planet with him and what part they played.
"I would like to know why it is my second refuses to answer his comms." He bit out, slightly irritated with the entire situation and trying to move the focus onto another topic if he could. Like his rule abiding tactician not answering when he'd called him first.
Last Edit: Jan 14, 2018 4:32:24 GMT by Optimus Prime
Perceptor placed his servo on the scanner. The door started opening, and he could glimpse Optimus Prime through the widening gaps. Ratchet was fussing over him, which means Prime was suffering from some sort of condition. There were no obvious scratches, dents, or wounds that weren't present the last time he saw Prime, unless the wounds were on the other side of Prime's chassis. It was unlikely that Prime escaped a battle with injuries or other telltale marks on only one side of him, so it was likely not a physical injury. The infrared range showed no signs of stress or fatigue either. That leaves one possibility: something to do with his brain module.
The door finally opened fully, and Perceptor asked, "What ails you, Optimus? Hallucinations? Retrograde amnesia?"
"Speaking of amnesia, Ratchet," Perceptor turned to the medic. "I've been having a few problems with my memory, and I've never had memory problems, save when it is tampered with. The problem is that I know my memory hasn't been tampered with."
Perceptor then addressed his next target. "Jetfire, I've been looking for you." Which was technically true. He narrowed Jetfire's location down to a few possibilities and concluded Jetfire was most likely in the medical bay after observing the various alternative paths. "I have a few choice astronomical anomalies that I would like to discuss. I've brought them up with Brainstorm and we've come up with several hypotheses, which we can't narrow down. We were wondering if you could contribute."
Perceptor's arrival only complicated the situation further, but Jetfire would be lying if he didn't think the walking telescope couldn't be of any use. He was tossing out greetings not to the entire group assembled, but actually in the order he'd seen them, individually. Jetfire was many things, but he wasn't nearly as weird as Perceptor. "Remind me to hop on that once we've determined what's happened with Optimus..."
Then Optimus changed the subject for a moment, asking about his second in command. Jetfire wasn't in Ratchet's position, but he had been looking over medical files all day to pass the time. "Prowl? He's been on medical leave for the past few months; he's carrying, I believe."
"That is correct, Optimus.. Even to this day, the war continues."
It wasn't a statement Ratchet was proud of saying in the least, but if Optimus truly didn't remember then lying to him would do much more harm than good. They needed a leader, and Optimus needed to be up to the task if and when Megatron made his next move. There was no telling what could happen in the future, but an amnesiac Prime would be more of a hindrance than anything.
The chief medical officer let Rotor speak her peace to the Prime, preparing some tests to run on Optimus when Perceptor walked into the room. "I'm not certain as of yet what the trouble may be. I had pegged it as 'sleep walking' as the humans say at first, but.. Optimus doesn't seem to be making any progress. He ways that the last thing he remembers is being on the Ark, and now here. It doesn't add up. Something has to have caused this."
If it was something viral as Optimus suggested, they had a much larger problem than anyone ever could have imagined..
He nodded as Jetfire responded to the Prime's question in regards to Prowl. "Jetfire's correct. Prowl has been carrying and removed himself from active duty to focus on the carry. Because I know what your next question may be.." Ratchet sighed to himself, steeling his nerves.
"Jazz betrayed us. He kidnapped me and took my Synthetic Energon data and the Resonance Blaster, then brought me to Megatron. He's still on the Nemesis and.. I don't know what could have influenced him to do what he did."
To have your efforts forgotten was disheartening and helped the flier feel a bit less. Even the blades on her hip closed in on itself as she knew why it was such. Something was affecting his memory and maybe hers as well. Yet how could she know, it was utterly terryfing when you don't know what all you have done. Friendly fire? Countless kills that were too much enjoyed? Had she become a monster and the virus is acting upon her to keep such devilish attributes from ever showing?
It wasn't till a gentle palm to her helm made her breathing respirator kick in and she come back to reality, only to see Perceptor walk in, to which she greeted with a wave before giving Optimus a gentle nod, "J-just a memories deal. I am willing to make newer better ones."
The speaking of amnesia from not one but two Autobots had Rotor's hip blades shift and curl into a half skirt around her leg, protectively.
Hearing upon carrying did help her warm up a bit, until something cold was told. She began to rely on her engines to keep her warm from such news as Jazz... Maybe that Sparkling will be what will cheer her up.
"If.. if it is viral, should we keep known viral people.. ugh, infected together to not.. You know, spread?"
He gave his focus to the flier first, nodding at her comment. "It is something I will have to myself as well." As well as get himself caught up on what had already happened. The large Aubobot vented. There were now far too many 'bots involved in this. At the most he'd only wanted his command team to know at first, but it seemed that was impossible.
He looked as each new mech stepped in or he noticed then. Except for Rotor it seemed he knew who each one was so far. He may not know them as well as some under his command, but he did have memory of them. It eased something inside of him to realize that. He let himself process for a moment. And then he got not one, but two shocks one after the other.
"Carrying?" No one had felt safe enough for sparklings to be a thing in a long time, so this actually made him happy. That it was his socially compromised tactician, however did not. Carriers were hostile and oftentimes lethal towards anyone that they felt threatened their newsparks. Few had seen Prowl really have to fight, but he was pretty sure most of the mechs here had seen it at least once. "I may need to brief him on this anyway, though I wish no stress to he or his little one."
Jazz however...."That Jazz has chosen to leave us saddens me Ratchet. What could possess such a loyal bot to switch sides after so much time?" He shook his head, troubled all over again. "At least we were able to rescue you."
This entire matter was awkward for him. He wasn't certain how to react around mechs he'd known the entire length of the war, but for them it had been much longer. Had any of his other relationships changed? Jazz had been one of his friends, and now had betrayed that friendship as well as the trust of the Autobots as a whole And for what reason? As for his best friend....well he'd have to watch that situation and see how it was. If the botnapping had happened from the last point he remembered...Well first he'd have been on the team retrieving Ratchet, and second he'd have plunked a hand on the others shoulder and told him he was happy to have him back after the fact. Even if from his memory Ratchet would have either smacked his hand away and told him to stop fussing or thanked him, depending on his mood at the time.
Jetfire was far from a medic of Ratchet's caliber without question, but he wasn't helpless in such a field either. The seeker moved towards a set of diagnostic equipment, stride full of focus and purpose. While he liked to style himself more as a thinker, it were moments like these that Jetfire felt compelled to spring into action, enthusiasm coloring his spark. With Optimus being amnesiac, there could be no dawdling.
"Well, we've got at least three doctors specializing in diverse fields of study here, not to mention a state of the art medical bay. The way I see it, we'd best get down to business to find out why this is happening to Optimus, or if it could happen to anyone else.
The Autobot paused to consider something for a brief moment, before he looked towards the femme in the room. "And Rotor, we'll need you here as well. We've no idea what kind of problem we'll be tackling, and between myself, Perceptor and Ratchet, we might get carried away; it'll be good to have an unbiased mind here, too."
Ratchet nodded along to Optimus' words. "I'm.. glad to be back to be honest." He sighed, as if there was more that he wanted to say, but he would save it for another time. Right now Optimus' sudden memory loss was a bit more important than Ratchet's feelings regarding what had happened with Jazz. At least, that's how the medic had felt anyway. He'd save it for another time where they could just sit and talk. Catch up on the old times.
"If this is viral, we indeed need to contain it as quickly as possible." The CMO hummed to himself, thinking up an action plan.
"I want to run a scan on your processor, Optimus. If I can't find anything there, then we will check every last possibility we can think of. Jetfire and Perceptor, would you be able to bring the equipment over here and get it started so that I can prep Optimus? Rotor.. I should probably ask you what your skill sets are. That way I can find a more appropriate roll for you." There was no way Ratchet was going to make her feel left out. Besides, if they were all contaminated with a potential viral threat, they'd need to work together and quickly to reverse any prolonging damages to their systems.
She looked up to the big bot, then nodded some. Seems the two will be making new memories to look back upon. She even longs to give others the chance to remember even the stupid stuff during this war and laugh about it. A gentle nod came from the femme who watched as things began to turn over.
She learned of an Autobot betraying... Curses, if only she was there to prevent such a tragedy. Yet she can't blame herself for not being there and stopping it. It was out of her knowledge of even ability to get there. Still..
Her helm lifted when she was addressed. An outside opinion? Sure she can provide that as long as she could keep up with them. A gentle nod came from her helm as she watches the doctors and medics around Optimus, "I'll try and input what I think."
Her mind started to wonder to the possibility of new sparklings about. It would be very interesting to see such during this long war. Maybe they need to start making more members. Her helm turned to Ratchet as he asked for her roles. She stood straight and saluted him, "Sir, I provide aerial support for ground units. Ranging from attacking enemy ground forces with my heavy artillery, to reconning the area as swiftly as can be. I help pull the Decepticons from their hidey holes." Her arm fell to her side now.
Post by Optimus Prime on Jan 25, 2018 19:01:33 GMT
Though he hadn't wanted to worry anyone, it warmed his spark to see his mechs working so efficiently to come to a solution to this problem. And he gave the slightest dip of his head to Ratchet in thanks for including the only femme in their midst in this entire matter. She was involved now, no reason to shoo her off. And if it was viral, as he suspected might be the case, she was already exposed. So, the fewer that came into this now the better. He wondered if Ratchet would put a quarantine in effect if it turned out to be viral.
Optimus didn't mind their prodding, he'd do what he had to in order to get this matter sorted.
"Just tell me what you need me to do, Ratchet." He'd never go against medical advice from his CMO. Of all the medics he knew, it was this particular one that he knew would never lead him astray.
Perceptor grabbed the tools Ratchet needed and handed them over to him. This was one of his fears. He had been working on a way to exclude viral agents from affecting his mind but he hadn't been able to come up with an effective way of excluding all possible viruses, and programming resistance to every possible strain of every possible species would be too time-consuming and inefficient, not to mention it would be rendered ineffective as soon as a new strain mutated into being.
Once again there was a nagging feeling at the back of Perceptor's mind that this was related to those astrophysical anomalies he was going to show Jetfire. Brainstorm had said as much. But without sufficient evideence and such an astronomically low prior probability of such an inter-universal crossover, and the lack of a mechanism of action for such a connection, he wasn't convinced that this was the case. Perceptor, as a bot of science, would require more data and a demonstration of statistical significance between the two phenomena before jumping to the conclusion that they are related.
"What do we know about this virus? If it is a virus that is," asked Perceptor. "We know that it either has an extremely long incubation time, as the last time I've met Optimus before today was when I left the Ark, which was a few kilocycles ago, or that we are facing two separate incidences of memory loss. I would hesitate to classify the latter as a viral infection as the only evidence linking our memory loss to a virus is that Optimus and I both experienced memory loss within a short period of time. Ratchet, I think individual checkups for me and Optimus would be in order, as even if one of our cases is caused by a virus, it might not mean the other has the same origin. And be careful. We can't have our Chief Medical Officer forgetting things."
All this talk of viruses had Jetfire's mind spinning. It would be entirely possible for a virus to have an incredibly long incubation period, but being completely asymptomatic aside from memory loss was puzzling. He paced around while Perceptor and Ratchet got down to business, isolating himself from their conversation for a few moments.
He couldn't rule out anything, the more he thought about it. Overlooking any one possibility could lead them away from the truth behind this strange phenomenon, which was the last thing any of them needed. Then, an idea came to him.
"How would any of us know if we've forgotten anything? Apart from Optimus's more severe case, any one of us could be missing critical parts of our history that everyone else is unaware of..."
Jetfire took a few heavy steps forward, folding his arms in contemplation, "We need to make a comprehensive comparison between the histories of any two Autobots to test such a hypothesis, with a third party to fact check both of them. Only then, we'd have a better idea of what we're dealing with."
Ratchet thought to himself as he listened to Rotor speak. She was primarily skilled at fighting, but definitely not in medicine from what he could gather. While her fighting skills wouldn't be of any use here, maybe there were other ways that the femme could be of assistance. Jetfire had made that suggestion after all that she could offer fresh opinions when when they've all overthought things.
"I suppose for now you could help by handing over tools and operating equipment as needed. I definitely could use the help."
Once Perceptor handed over the tools he would need, the medic thanked him. There were many tests he wanted to run on Optimus, but if they couldn't find something quick, then who knew what sort of devastation this potential virus could bring. "All I need you to do for now Optimus is to lie back. That way we can run tests on your processor as well as the entirety of your systems. I should be able to find something. I hope that I can.. I'm going to start with your processor first if that doesn't bother you. I have the best chance of finding any sort of virus there before moving to other locations."
Switching his servo to a scanner, he listened to all the suggestions that Perceptor and Jetfire had brought to light. There were way too many questions regarding what was going on with the Prime, and now they were left with more.
"I believe for now I want to keep a quarantine on all of us. No one leaves the medical bay until I have completed all scans on Optimus. If I can't locate anything wrong, I see reason to believe that this isn't a virus, but I can't rule it out just yet either. Perhaps the Decepticons created a new disease or something to the effect. However, if this is a virus there is no guaranteed way to know the incubation period. As Optimus knew where he was until recently.. and now only remembers up until the Ark, he could have contracted this potential virus millions of years ago back on Cybertron! There would be no way for us to know who has and has not been affected. I'll have more answers after this scan of his processor and brain module hopefully, so we'll play by audial until then."
Combative experiences was what she was good at. Her old job long since forgotten due to the conflicts. Was she a transporter, constructor? Her eyes widened behind her helmet as her prewar memories weren't coming to!
From an outside view they could see her hip blades slowly splaying out while her respirator went from a gentle hum to a more picked up pace to help air in. She was getting more nervous.
Jetfire, who suggested something made her turn to him. She couldn't remember her far past but more recent events. "I...I was captured not too long ago and then had to be traded with relics for my safe return. M-maybe you can check with others from our side about that event?" Glorious! That was a bit of memory she remembers with other Autobots as witnesses! Then two prominent figures in that event. One of which was in this very room!
She scooted closer towards Ratchet, eager now to help the medic here. Still frantic as this was a major thing. Something virus like and she already had her run in with toxins. She doesn't want to lose more.
Though he was listening to each part of the conversation as it happened around him Optimus was still deeply troubled with what could be going on with him. Apparently, until he'd awoken from recharge today he'd had full memory of everything that had happened from his actual last conscious memory. He almost hoped it was viral, at least then something could be done about it before it progressed. Primus forbid it erase everything in his memory core. He shuddered as he laid back as instructed. He couldn't imagine trying to lead an army as a blank slate, learning to deal with the temperaments of his soldiers all over again. Not to mention his relationships. Personal and professional.
"I trust you Ratchet." He gave his friend a weak smile and settled himself for whatever the medic decided to do. "So it doesn't bother me at all." Yes it did. He'd never been comfortable with someone poking around in his processors, but since it was Ratchet and he knew absolutely he could trust the mech he would deal with it.
He tuned back in to the conversation at hand, not moving so that he didn't make this more difficult than it already was. That others were missing time like he was, if to a lesser extent, didn't reassure him any.
"If it isn't viral, then what are the other options on this?" And quarantine was in effect, which made him feel bad that he'd gotten so many of his people involved. The hard blow, if this turned out to be viral, was involving his CMO. The potential if this got loose on the base was catastrophic, but he didn't want to prepare for the worse just yet.