Lessons Learned

The Fall of the Senate

The door to the classroom burst open, and through it stepped Whirl. "With a lovely set of hooks or pincers and a delightful new punum." He interrupted. "Often accompanied by a new disposition."

Arcee rubbed her optics. "Yes, they'd have their hands and faces replaced to look like Whirls'." She hadn't expected the Wrecker to gatecrash her lesson. "This was called empurata."

"That, is cruel." Allison said in disgust. "I gotta ask though, who did you piss off?"

"Almost the entire senate actually." Whirl replied with pride. "I managed to convince a more liberal member to let me leave the Air Force and become a watchmaker." He explained. "I was actually very good at making watches and clocks, and that infuriated the senate. So, one night, they sent some hired goons to burn down my shop and drag me in for a makeover." He finished, indicating his hooks and cyclopean face.

Whirl looked at Arcee. "Did you get to the part about the guy who let me change jobs?" He asked.

"I'm getting to that." Arcee replied as Whirl nodded and left. "There was one outspoken, empathetic member of the senate who tried to work both within and outside the law to help the lower castes. He was originally a student of Jhiaxus who served under Nova Prime and fought the Quintessons with D-16."

Arcee switched on the holographic projector to show a blue and white mech. "Among the laws he passed were exempt status, where a bot who proved himself could pursue any jobs they desired. He also fought to equalize the way energon rationing was being done and tried to get funding for alternative energies." She sighed. "The final straw that broke the metaphoric camels' back however was when he forced through a reform that required two mnemosurgeons to sign off on a mnemosurgical procedure before it could be done."

"What's mnemosurgery?" Raf asked. He'd only hear Ratchet mention it very briefly in regards to head trauma.

"Back in the day, it was called shadow play." Arcee explained. "Mnemosurgery allows a doctor to literally inject themselves into someone's memories. From there they can modify or erase whatever they choose. It could you could go from having a traumatic past to a happy one, or you could go from a genius to not even knowing your own name."

Arcee paused as she allowed her class to absorb that. "The senator passed that measure because D-16 had published a book called Towards Peace. It was a work of literature that inspired a type of peaceful resistance. It also became so popular that a political movement was born under the belief that the people of cybertron were being deceived. To the senate, D-16 had to be stopped."

"They attempted to rewrite D-16's mind and cut off his writings at the source. Our senator however, found out and called in every favor he had to have his reform passed. Ironically, it was Rung who stopped the procedure because the senator knew the he was enemies with Froid, the surgeon preforming the procedure, and wouldn't sign off on it." Arcee continue, surprising the class that they knew a bot who played a big part in this lesson.

"D-16 escaped after the aborted procedure and fled into the Kaon underground." Arcee continued. "Needing a scapegoat, the senate had their compatriot put through both shadow play and empurata." She looked at the Maximals, specifically Vince, Sierra and Allison. "Brace yourselves."

A moment later the senators' original image was replaced by a new one. The three she'd been worried about jerked away as they saw who the senator really was. Everyone else just stared in shock.

"Are you fragging kidding me?" Miko exclaimed. "That senator, was Shockwave?"

"Sadly yes." Arcee answered. "And as bad as the empurata was, the shadow play was far worse. Shockwaves' ability to feel emotions had been completely suppressed. The kind, empathetic senator was gone, replaced with a cold logical being." She lamented.