Bulkhead
Rookie
The Big Mech with a Big Heart
100th member, YAY!
Posts: 20
|
Post by Bulkhead on Dec 8, 2011 22:26:49 GMT -5
((December 01, 2027 // somewhere near Tranquility // Time: 3:00 PM ))
Bulkhead was bored, he was out in California where Tarnish’s hidden lab was located. They had a lot of time to catch up on each other and he was thrilled to have spent some quality time with his cousin for the first time in a long while. He was driving along a main road inland, blasting metal and hard rock.
He loved how energetic music made by the humans could be, often times he found himself stopping in his tracks and wanting to rock out.
Things were peaceful these days, and he liked that. But he was also a little restless, and wouldn’t mind blowing off some steam if the chance came. At least he had been able to hop around with Tarnish per se, using his fancy teleporting device checking the most random locations out he could possibly imagine. ”That Bot has way too much time on his hands.” he muttered with a chuckle as he drove along.
{”I like it here…shame we don’t have a base around California. It’s nicer than DC.”} he thought as he gazed out towards the direction of the West Coast. It was hard to see from where he was at, but even from here, he could smell the water and he felt the dense cold air on his form as he drove at a steady speed.
|
|
|
Post by Dr. Josef Henrik on Dec 9, 2011 6:52:37 GMT -5
It was a sunny day in central California, and Dr. Josef Henrik sped along the interstate in a dusty Dodge 4x4 that he'd hijacked from some hapless farmer's driveway back home in Michigan. Eighteen hours ago, he and his master robot had been scanning the power grid for anomalies, looking for anything remotely close to an extremely powerful energy source... and, apparently, a nearly 500% surge in the electrical distribution system had come from this general area. Henrik was skeptical, though, as he looked around and saw nothing but boring, everyday life going by. "If something doesn't come up this time, I'm gonna' seriously think about a heist at CERN!", he shouted out loud in frustration. {"So tired of the big researchers always getting the good stuff..."}
Henrik almost didn't notice that he had accelerated past 90 miles per hour, as he was monitoring the equipment he'd attached to the dashboard: gauss and voltage meters, an ion field detector, a thermal scanner, something he'd cobbled together which had wires sticking out of its sides like a giant metal spider... anything he could think of to find an extremely powerful energy source. At that moment, the display on the oscilloscope flickered and cut out. "What! Stupid piece of crap oscilloscope!", the scientist shouted as he sped past the green armored vehicle that, unbeknownst to him, was actually a Transformer. "'Ay, that is a nice auto... real sturdy!", he commented to himself. As he was admiring the vehicle, the oscilloscope screen displayed static, then came back on. "Ah... Finally!", Henrik shouted as he sped away, nearly running a Toyota off the road.
|
|
Bulkhead
Rookie
The Big Mech with a Big Heart
100th member, YAY!
Posts: 20
|
Post by Bulkhead on Dec 10, 2011 5:18:32 GMT -5
Bulkhead didn't hear the human's comment about his alternate mode, he was more caught up in the sheer speed at which the truck was moving at. It was moving abnormally fast. It was definitely not a Cybertron since it seemed to lack a signature. Some humans were just stupid and/or reckless when it came to driving. This human was likely no different.
This one was going way faster than the speeders he'd encountered of late, however, so he sped up and followed just to be sure the driver of the Toyota was okay. Bulkhead wasn't particularly thinking about this at the time, but the Dodge truck was emitting some interesting signals - just ones that were rather unusual for vehicles. The typical signals that came from vehicles were ones from cell phones or laptops. Bulkhead didn't know much about it and the signal wasn't strong enough to pique his interest.
He focused on the license plate and continued to pursue Henrik in case he acted more recklessly enough to cause the Autobot to be concerned about the people around him. He hoped he wouldn't have to deal with that but who knew, some humans could be quite reckless.
Then there was the fact that Bulkhead had nothing else to do after a leisurely visit...so he gradually accelerated, trying to not be noticed as he did so, attempting to maneuver around traffic in a less alarming manner.
|
|
|
Post by Dr. Josef Henrik on Dec 10, 2011 12:33:50 GMT -5
Henrik continued to speed along recklessly as if he had no cares in the world. He needed to find that energy source - it was driving him crazy, dammit! {"God knows what my robot is doing to my factory while I'm out driving around aimlessly..."} He almost didn't notice the green vehicle he had previously admired now following him, and he wouldn't have noticed at all if he hadn't picked that moment to look out the window at a huge radio transmitter nearby. As the scientist turned his head to get a better view of the transmitter, he noticed the large armored form in his peripheral vision. {"Weird... Is that thing getting closer and closer to me?"} Henrik had no time to finish this thought - just then his RF meter beeped, alerting him that he was approaching an electromagnetic field. "Ay, finally! Some progress!" shouted the maniac as he picked up the RF meter and looked at the display. SLF on Z axis, 70 Hz ± 20% Seeing this, he frowned. "What... why are submarines transmitting out here?!" he said in frustration as he checked the gauss meter. Sure enough there was an abnormal SLF field, though it could be measured in microgauss... Since Henrik's attention was so intently focused on the abnormal readouts, the truck began to slow down, thus lessening the distance between him and the Transformer. As this happened, Henrik noticed the readouts surge exponentially - the signal strength could now be measured in milligauss. This perplexed him, but he had little time to think about it as he nearly lost control of the truck and was forced to drop the meter. It hit the cup holder, and the batteries flew out of the back. "Scheiße!" yelled the scientist.
Suddenly he had an idea. The best way to find out where that strange transmission signal was coming from was to create another, equally unexpected signal that would interfere with or diffract the source... Henrik took his handheld surge gun out of the pocket of his lab coat and held it out the window. He flipped the switch, and an electrical arc connected the aluminum tip of the device to the exterior of the truck, charging the metal body to a resonant frequency of 500 kHz - just below the frequency of AM radio. {"There, that interference should get somebody's attention..."} thought the mad scientist. He looked out the window and noticed the driver of the car next to him already futzing angrily with the radio, unable to get a signal without interference. Oh yeah, this was working great!
|
|
Bulkhead
Rookie
The Big Mech with a Big Heart
100th member, YAY!
Posts: 20
|
Post by Bulkhead on Dec 14, 2011 5:47:08 GMT -5
First and foremost, the batteries flew in Bulkhead's general path, snapping him out of his focus for a bit from the loud series of dings that hit his grill. They didn't hurt of course, but they were loud. Some of the batteries probably wedged into the grill, but if they did, he didn't notice because of the thick green armor.
Unfortunately, Bulkhead happened to be listening to his music on the radio and the channel got affected by the disturbance caused by the waves transmitting from Henrik's vehicle. He had been listening to some random song by Between the Buried and Me when the static kicked in. "Heeey, not slaggin' cool, I was enjoying that song!"[/i][/color]
His holoform, a very large, dark-skinned dude thin cut hair (military-ish) and a clean hygene looked rather irritated, further expressing his inner grumblings as he drove along. When he passed a vehicle between him and the vehicle Henrik was driving, he noticed the music came back. He moved the opposite direction of the now-overtaken vehicle, and noticed the music cut out again. After he did this a couple times, he accelerated a little more and finally approached Henrik's vehicle on the right side, his holoform appearing solid like it usually should. At the time Henrik had used the 'gun' to mess with the frequencies, another vehicle was blocking his line of site from seeing him do so, thus Bulkhead was still unsure if Henrik's vehicle was the one causing the trouble until he was on the left side. It was affecting a fairly wide radius around them on the Interstate, so he couldn't prove fully it was him since he wasn't very observant. Bulkhead didn't think to study the interior of the vehicles around him just yet, particularly while he was focused on just keeping up with Henrik to make sure he didn't do anything reckless around the other drivers.
Of course he wouldn't speak up yet since there was no need to, and neither would the holoform, he would just pretent he wasn't trying to figure out the cause for the static. He would just try to look like another irritated driver on the road. And, he was a tad surprised to see he was slowing down. So maybe he wasn't in a hurry for something. Weird. Bulkhead didn't quite understand humans and their driving mannerisms yet. Some were very good about their etiquette on the roads, some were horribly rude and inconsiderate.
There was a break from traffic on this part of the long stretch, they were in the lead for now, so it was open for little oblivious critters to dart cross the road. A lone male deer was on the road up ahead as the road curved slightly. Having been focusing on Henrik's vehicle, he was a little slow to spotting the deer. He was forced to skid with a squeal of heavy duty tires, transform in mid motion and flip himself by the hands off to the side of the road in efforts to avoid the deer. How embarrassing for such a burly Bot as himself. Ooooh well. "Slag. Cover's blown now." he grumbled as he got up and transformed again, watching the deer move off the highway safely before more cars behind them got to their point.
(his holoform, as shown in his profile, is The Rock xD)
|
|
|
Post by Dr. Josef Henrik on Dec 15, 2011 10:00:54 GMT -5
"Ah, scheiße! Scheiße!", yelled Henrik as he swerved around the deer and his oscilloscope crashed to the floor on the passengers' side of the truck. Upon avoiding the flustered animal, his main interest was making sure the oscilloscope hadn't been damaged and, as such, he was paying very little attention to the traffic - or lack thereof. However, the sight of a large armored vehicle turning into a giant robot in one's rearview mirror is rather hard to miss... especially for such an easily distracted person as Henrik.
At this interesting new revelation, Henrik stared into the mirror so intently that he barely noticed himself allowing the truck to slow down, then spin out of control and come to a stop right there in the middle of the intersection. "Heiliger Strohsack! Such incredible precision in this technology!", exclaimed Henrik as he watched Bulkhead turn back into a vehicle. The eccentric engineer, who had only ever seen a Transformer once before and didn't understand them at all, barely noticed that he was speaking with a strong Austrian accent - something which he rarely did anymore. He also barely noticed that he was sitting in the middle of the highway, around a curve where nobody could see him... until an 18-wheeler came around the curve, heading right toward Henrik. The scientist stared transfixed for a split second before hastily grabbing his gauss meter and ion field detector off the dashboard and jumping out of the truck.
|
|
Bulkhead
Rookie
The Big Mech with a Big Heart
100th member, YAY!
Posts: 20
|
Post by Bulkhead on Dec 16, 2011 19:52:00 GMT -5
{"Woah, I hope they get out in time."} Bulkhead thought as he bounded forward to literally snatch the Dodge truck off the ground like it was Tonka Toy then side stepped away from the 18 wheeler as it passed. Unfortunately, the Dodge truck would still get damaged from Bulkhead's gripped, but it was certainly better than being totaled into a metallic cube. "Umm, oops." he muttered to himself, kneeling down and peering inside to see if the person had left. His optical sight wasn't that good at times, but he had a pretty good sense of smell. No human in this vehicle -- he turned to look across the street.
"Hey I got yer vehicle!" Bulkhead shouted as he saw a human in a white lab coat stick out on the other side of the road as the semi passed. When he glanced to the left down the Interstate, he noticed the brake lights go on and slow considerably. Obviously the driver had seen the big army green mech randomly yank a car away from him and it had surprised them considerably. Seeing more cars approaching, the driver hurried on, figuring the human was going to be okay.
|
|
|
Post by Dr. Josef Henrik on Dec 17, 2011 13:53:10 GMT -5
Henrik darted quickly across the street, then stood still, watching as the green armored vehicle turned into a robot, and the robot effortlessly picked up his truck. "Yes, I... I see you have my auto. Thank you...", he answered Bulkhead, speaking slowly with a dumbfounded expression on his face. He was trying to decide what to do. The engineer has been looking for these robots for a while, since he had first seen one. Something that big, with such a precise control system, must have a very powerful energy source. But while he was eccentric and disorganized, Henrik was not an idiot - he realized that it was nearly impossible to take down a huge robot, right here and now alongside the Interstate, without the equipment in his lab or even a proper method of containment. Knowing this, he looked around wildly, trying to think of some kind of plan... at the very least, to learn more about these mechanical marvels! The scientist reached into the pocket of his lab coat and rested his hand against the surge gun... just in case he would need it. It was then that he noticed the black dust from the road all over his normally perfectly white lab coat. "Ah, damn! My lab coat is all dirty!", Henrik shouted in clear exasperation, using his other hand to attempt to brush the dirt off his coat.
|
|
Bulkhead
Rookie
The Big Mech with a Big Heart
100th member, YAY!
Posts: 20
|
Post by Bulkhead on Dec 30, 2011 2:13:54 GMT -5
Bulkhead made sure the vehicle was well out of the way as well as himself before he spoke to the human. "No problem. Sorry if the vehicles is a little dented, it's hard to pick up some of the smaller vehicle, obviously this body ain't meant fer much precision." he said with a chuckle. "Hey, better a lab coat then a smashed truck and human corpse right?"
He wasn't catching onto the fact that Henrik was a scientist, even with the device he carried (the gauss meter). He was pretty unfamiliar with humans and their occupations. While he was aware they had similar jobs as Autobots but in a different sense, he didn't know how to tell them apart or identify the common cliques. He folded into his alternate mode again and activated his rather large, muscular holoform dressed in jeans and a muscle-tight t-shirt so that way future vehicles passing wouldnt get distracted. "There, I can get used to this thing." he said, studying the arms of his holoform, not really having used it before.
|
|
|
Post by Dr. Josef Henrik on Dec 30, 2011 21:33:04 GMT -5
The telecommunications engineer stopped fussing with his lab coat momentarily to look up at Bulkhead and nod. "Long as it still works, why would it matter if the truck's a little dented? It isn't even mine," Henrik answered. "And I can certainly agree with you there, my friend. Much better to have a little dust on my coat than blood and bone fragments. Much better..."
He watched, transfixed and fascinated as the robot shifted back into its vehicle form. The display of mechanical precision involved in that system was truly amazing! Henrik knew robotics, and he knew how complicated it was to make component parts move in unison with each other, relative as well as in the system. The intricacy of such a system was so immense, observing it momentarily distracted him from his thoughts of obtaining a very powerful energy source. As soon as the transformation was finished and only the vehicle and human holoform remained, Henrik returned to his original state of thought. "So... who builds you robots?" he asked, hoping to get information that would lead him to the energy source. "I know you aren't military... hmm. Festo, maybe? I don't think FANUC is doing anything remotely like this..."
|
|
Bulkhead
Rookie
The Big Mech with a Big Heart
100th member, YAY!
Posts: 20
|
Post by Bulkhead on Jan 2, 2012 20:37:34 GMT -5
Well, this was odd. Now he was finding himself on the side of the Interstate talking to a random human about how he was created. "I have NO clue as to what acronyms you're using there, but the way we were created is probably a little hard for you humans to grasp. I don't know how you guys were created, but a large life force that took the form of a large -- *pauses as he looks for a word to use* - artifact called the All Spark made us. The All Spark was brought to our home planet by our Ancients. Obviously we are not flesh and blood like you, we are created by an entirely different means, empowered by the All Spark itself." In regards to the All Spark being brought to Cybertron, Bulkhead had explained in that way figuring it would be easier for him to understand.
He stopped there, figuring that was all the man should need to know and if he asked more, well, he saw no reason to hide the information for now. Bulkhead had been told that most humans knew about the Cybertronians and were no longer taken surprise by their inhabitance.
((In TFP Primus was Cybertron's core of course but I'm not sure if that applies here *shrugs* - i think in this case we're just dealing with the AllSpark))
|
|
|
Post by Dr. Josef Henrik on Jan 3, 2012 14:48:51 GMT -5
{"Wow... just, wow!"} was all that Henrik could think. Great, big robots from an entirely mechanical world somewhere in outer space! He'd dreamed about making a discovery like this since he was a boy... it was what had inspired him to study telecommunications and nanotechnology. He did know, though, that he obviously wasn't the first person to make this discovery. A massive robot running around is hardly something the government would miss - as usual, those horrible bureaucrats had gotten to the awesome revelation first. {"Verflucht! I hate those government officials... all they do is sit around on their bureaucratic arses..."} Only when he was done mentally swearing out the government did he remember the disguised alien in front of him, waiting for a response.
"That is... amazing!" he finally answered. "So, this AllSpark... is that a perpetual energy generator? Impossible, nothing! I've long dreamed of finding a way to make perpetual electricity. That would be so... perfect... Did you know that perpetual electricity already exists in every conductor? Oh yes, the electrons are already there, it's just a matter of applying a voltage to those things to get them to move their subatomic rear ends..." The scientist didn't notice that he was rambling until a car came crawling down the Interstate, fifteen miles under the speed limit and blasting obnoxious rap music from its overly souped-up speakers. "Ah, Mist! This terrible music... It's more vibration than music with that subwoofer! And... and what, exactly, has made the singer think I want to listen to him speaking about his encounters with others of the opposite gender? How does anyone expect me to think?!" Henrik shouted in frustration, speaking with an Austrian accent once again. The offending car seemed to be taking forever to pass. "Excuse me a minute," Henrik said to Bulkhead before running back to his truck.
Standing in such a way that his body blocked Bulkhead's view of what he was doing, the telecommunications engineer once again removed the surge gun from the pocket of his lab coat and electrified the metal surface of the truck. Electrical discharges could clearly be seen coming off the antenna for a moment, and in an instant the repetitive rap music from the oncoming vehicle staticked and was replaced with a constant 500 kilohertz buzz. Henrik put the surge gun back in his pocket and ran back over to Bulkhead as the driver of the car tried to figure out what had just happened. "Ah, I can finally hear myself think!" he shouted over the oscillating buzz of the radio frequency jamming.
|
|
Bulkhead
Rookie
The Big Mech with a Big Heart
100th member, YAY!
Posts: 20
|
Post by Bulkhead on Jan 4, 2012 8:08:46 GMT -5
Bulkhead's receptors and optics twitched a bit when he heard the rap music start playing. Coincidentally, he HATED rap music and was passionate about rock, particularly heavy metal. "Oy...I was about to ask you to turn that slag off honestly." he shook his head. "Sorry, I have a huge distaste for rap and hip hop. I'm a metal guy, no pun intended."
Bulkhead was a bit lost after the term 'perpetual energy generator' was used. "But uuuh, sorry I'm not familiar with science, all though that sounds about right by the sounds of it. Honestly my cousin could tell you more than I could, he's the brainiac type. If you want to know more about it I could hook you up with him, easily. Was just hanging out with him for the first time in a long time earlier."
|
|
|
Post by Dr. Josef Henrik on Jan 5, 2012 2:33:16 GMT -5
Henrik nodded his head vigorously. "Rap music sucks! It sucks like a black hole, I tell you... Don't know why people like that guy have to blast it out of their overcharged stereo systems like that." He frowned in obvious disgust at the idea of his fellow human beings' antics. "So glad I'm a telecommunications engineer... know everything that's wrong with the system, so I can jam radio signals at will. It's a useful skill to have around people like that."
He took a few seconds to think about what Bulkhead had said. A perpetual energy generator... now that was something Henrik really needed to go after! It occurred to him that this could be the big breakthrough he was looking for in his nuclear research. Finally, he might have found an energy source great enough to power his machine! "That seems like an awesome idea to me," he answered finally. "It would be truly fascinating to know how an alien race's perception of science varies from mine. I might finally be able to solve some paradoxes; get an unbiased look at the ideas... At long last, after being restricted by the no-good education system!"
|
|
Bulkhead
Rookie
The Big Mech with a Big Heart
100th member, YAY!
Posts: 20
|
Post by Bulkhead on Jan 11, 2012 3:58:19 GMT -5
Bulkhead laughed briefly at Henrik's"sucks like a black hole" comment. "Haha, I'll get right on that then, if I were in yer shoes I'd probably be wantin' the same chances. I see nothin' wrong with it. I think Tarnish will be thrilled to meet a fellow engineer." Bulkhead's holoform grinned before he called on his cousin.
<"Hey Tarnish, I need your presence at 'these' coordinates if you're not busy. I have a human engineer and scientist here that would love to meet a 'Bot with similar interests."> He would certainly hang around for this interaction, just to see how they got along. Tarnish could be pretty unpredictable and distractable after all.
|
|