Tarnish
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A dangerous combo of smart, stupid, crazy
[A1i:5]
Posts: 10
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Post by Tarnish on Jan 11, 2012 4:13:21 GMT -5
<"Well we reunite again so soon! I'll teleport there in just a sec!"> Tarnish glanced at his portal-generating device on his right arm as he worked on Goliath's chassis, the large maroon sleeping mech was almost complete! Soon he would have another to help him fight at his side should luck be against him and Bulkhead or the others weren't around. He was so proud of this project, the large mech was going to be one of his first successful artificially intelligent creations.
He pressed a flap open on the device merged with his arm and underneath that flap was a series of numbers on something that looked similar to a dial pad. The device sort of like a mini ground bridge generator (as well as the portal making devices seen in Portal!), Tarnish could teleport just about anywhere if given the coordinates. The downside was if he wasn't familiar with a location, he could end up just about anywhere. It was one of his prized, copyrighted creations since his arrival here on Earth.
A portal opened above Bulkhead's alternate mode, and having been oblivious to its presence, Tarnish's 26 foot tall form plopped right down onto the hood. Luckily Bulkhead's strength prevented his alternate mode from being crushed! "Oh hey Bulk, sorry about that." he said as he looked down at the holoform near his feet.
He eyed the human, Henrik, curiously as he stood up quickly and closed the portal. The portal-making device powered down with a faint sigh as he did so.
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Post by Dr. Josef Henrik on Jan 11, 2012 7:15:34 GMT -5
Henrik was sure he looked like an idiot, staring wide-eyed at the way this new arrival had transported himself, but he didn't care. It didn't matter that he was ogling that technological marvel the way most men looked at certain parts of a woman, and it definitely didn't matter that they were all standing along the side of the Interstate in California - not the most discrete place to be! All the telecommunications engineer cared about was the technology that must have gone into that teleporter.
"Wow! An instant transporter! That is awesome! ... Does it run off antimatter? Does it work by disintegration, or by transporting whole objects? 'Ay, if it works by transporting whole objects, does your body conduct the signal evenly 'cause you're made of metal? Is that how it works? Does it open wormholes? Does it tear the space-time continuum?! Hmm, maybe it just folds the space-time continuum... does it do that? Does it use nanotechnology? 'Cause I used to work in that field..." At that point, Henrik finally ran out of breath and had to stop blurting out every question that popped into his head. {"This is so cool..."}, he thought. {"I get to meet a real-life alien with highly sophisticated technology! Wonderful!"}
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Tarnish
Rookie
A dangerous combo of smart, stupid, crazy
[A1i:5]
Posts: 10
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Post by Tarnish on Jan 13, 2012 2:59:23 GMT -5
"Yer a curious one, ain't ya?" Tarnish grinned, transforming into his dark green and white garbage truck mode and activating his holoform so they'd be less distracting.
"My portral-making device is powered by Energon crystals. I could use other alternatives but using Energon is less complicated than trying to use some other energy source. As for making the portals, well, it does manipulate the space time continuum in a way. It creates what I call an 'event horizon', which is what channels you through the portal. The portal itself is kind of like a mini worm hole, it makes a projection to the location instructed by using a set of coordinates. Objects, generally just myself, are transported through it by disintegration. The process of re-materializing once entering the other side of the event horizon is actually quite fast, but it leaves even metallic objects rather cold. You get used to it though, at least Cybertronians do. This device is a signature device though, no other Cybertronian has one quite like it. As long as i have the coordinates I can go anywhere on this planet. The only downside? Sometimes I don't know where I end up/land. It's more effective using within a visual distance." the grin fades to a smile. "Very handy though."
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Post by Dr. Josef Henrik on Jan 13, 2012 4:01:56 GMT -5
The nanotechnologist nodded enthusiastically. There was nothing wrong with being curious, the way he saw it... after all, everything around him was built by some predecessor's curiosity! Without intuition, there could be no reality. "Oh, wow!" he exclaimed. So how do you pull off the disintegration? Down-scaled EM burst? Does it leave an electromagnetic signature behind? Without waiting for an answer, Henrik pressed a button on the gaussmeter and stared intently at the readout. There was definitely a fluctuating signal there, though whether it was from the teleportation or just from the amount of electricity needed to move a giant robot remained unclear. Not one to give up on finding answers, he unclipped his RF field meter from his belt and examined the reading from that as well. The same strange SLF signal he'd seen before was still there, along with another signal around the same frequency range. Obviously, Henrik's attempt to answer his questions were only going to result in more questions. He frowned and put the meters away.
"That's really fascinating, though, that the process makes things grow cold," the scientist stated. "I'd have thought disintegration would cause dielectric heating, which'd make things warm... Cold suggests it stops the movement of subatomic particles. 'Ay, that could make sense, though, if every individual atom is suspended in a field during the transport..." Henrik would have gone right on rambling about nuclear physics like the insane genius that he was, but at that moment, he leaned against his truck... apparently having forgotten that he'd charged it to transmit a radio jamming signal. His arm touched the side of the truck, and a 500-kHz burst of high voltage electricity shot through his body. "OI! I am not your ground wire!" yelled Henrik, whose hair was now standing straight up as if he'd walked out of a tornado.
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Tarnish
Rookie
A dangerous combo of smart, stupid, crazy
[A1i:5]
Posts: 10
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Post by Tarnish on Jan 19, 2012 2:15:18 GMT -5
"You're accurate on the latter, however, if the thing does leave behind an EM signature, it's not noticeable enough to cause me issues if I'm trying to avoid someone. The field is carried through the portal...and up to two portals can be used depending on your objective. I can go at multiple angles other than straight through a portal horizontally, as long as the field carrying my atoms remains. If all the atoms weren't suspended, I suspect they wouldn't know what their original composition was, and I would be miserably disfigured, or worse." Tarnish grinned briefly.
He raised an optic ridge as Henrik accidentally got zapped. Organics had some level of magnetism? He hadn't really thought much on physics and such from a human's perspective. But clearly the man had some level of magnetism if he too could get shocked by a vehicle's electrical flow. He'd heard about issues with lightning storms and such but hadn't seen it actually happen in front of him. Oh well, there was always a first for everything. "Does it hurt when that happens?"
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Bulkhead
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The Big Mech with a Big Heart
100th member, YAY!
Posts: 20
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Post by Bulkhead on Jan 19, 2012 2:19:38 GMT -5
Bulkhead however, just stared at Henrik. He hadn't been around humans like Tarnish, and he didn't do much hefty research so he was completely uneducated of things like this. He was wondering the same as Tarnish. "Well on the brightside at least yer not a giant magnet like we are." Bulkhead added, having stayed quiet and listening in on their scientific discussion. He couldn't summarize or retain any of that, it just didn't seem worth it to him and other than the portal stuff it was pretty irrelevant information to him. It wasn't like he needed to know how a portal generator worked because that was a customary, signature device. He had the liberty of using ground bridges, and he wasn't even that concerned with how THOSE worked. He guessed that there were both differences and similarities in how the two devices worked.
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Post by Dr. Josef Henrik on Jan 19, 2012 7:57:55 GMT -5
"Oh, I've been zapped with much, much worse than that..." the mad scientist answered Tarnish. "Electricity likes me a little too much. But it's okay, it's all in good fun! What's a few thousand volts in the name of science?" He grinned at Tarnish, while raking his fingers wildly through his hair in an unsuccessful effort to make it stay down. Getting shocked was a common thing for Henrik - he had some pretty big tesla coils in his workshop back home, and as such, had been shocked at nearly a million volts quite a few times. That was old news. The teleportation, though... that was more interesting!
"That is so cool! It's just like a particle accelerator..." he said excitedly. "Only difference is, the energy field is self-contained. I have a particle accelerator in my basement in Michigan... the things are made of huge, really thick metal tubes and there's superconducting electromagnets in them, which deflects the particle beam. And if you force excess electrons into the particle configuration, it does all kinds of cool things..." He paused briefly from his long-winded ramble about particles, just to remember how awesome it had been to watch that particle beam deliver an incredibly concentrated burst of thermal energy to a piece of glass as a test. After revisiting the past, he of course had to ask a stupid question: "'Ay, you got any antimatter to spare?"
Then he heard Bulkhead's comment about the magnetism. That gave him an idea! "'Ay! 'Ay, you know something? I've got a perfect use for a human magnet!" he said, grinning like a lunatic and practically jumping up and down. "Take the telecommunications network apart, piece by piece... I've been doing it with magnifying transmitters and intruding wave deflections, but imagine if I had a magnetic human at my disposal. The guy could walk along the telephone wires and the cell phone towers and scramble the signal, and nobody'd pay the slightest bit of attention to him!" Henrik finally stopped talking, caught his breath, and calmed down. It was such an exciting idea, the challenge, the potential...
"When I get back to Michigan, I need to work on that!" he added.
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Tarnish
Rookie
A dangerous combo of smart, stupid, crazy
[A1i:5]
Posts: 10
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Post by Tarnish on Jan 24, 2012 3:33:41 GMT -5
Tarnish's holoform (also dressed in something of a lab coat) glanced over at Bulkhead and grinned. "Slaggin' straight, 'Cuz! Looks like the human as a different opinion on the matter." he chuckled. His holoform shifted his attention back to Henrik. "Antimatter, I s'pose I could spare you some, I don't use it for most of my projects, been more focused on nanotechnology with my current drone." he replied. "We could strike a deal if ya want, maybe I can show ya a thing or two and let Bulk be on his way. Are you sure a magnetized human is a reasonably safe idea?"
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Post by Dr. Josef Henrik on Feb 1, 2012 17:52:02 GMT -5
Henrik grinned, and crossed his arms over his chest. "If we'd only stuck to reasonably safe ideas throughout history, we'd go around in circles and never get anywhere!" he said dramatically. That was a philosophy that he never failed to live by - Progress first, safety later. The antimatter was more interesting to him now, though.
"Well, I'd offer to pay you for the antimatter, but I wouldn't know what currency an alien robot would use..." said the telecommunications engineer. "Whatever I can do, though. I'd love to experiment with antimatter. That beats nuclear fusion any day!" Henrik did realize that anything a race of advanced aliens thought of as a good offer would be difficult for him to get, but the challenge excited him. The thought of finally getting a larger amount of antimatter than he'd been able to obtain in his own experiments excited him even more - all the things he could do!
He continued, "Ah, yes... Nanotechnology. I used to work in that field," he said. "It's a lot of fun, making individual particles move around on chips of silicon... talk about a good way to get hidden messages around!"
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Tarnish
Rookie
A dangerous combo of smart, stupid, crazy
[A1i:5]
Posts: 10
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Post by Tarnish on Feb 1, 2012 18:28:43 GMT -5
"Yeah no kidding, it's a highly practical field to get into...you can indeed do all sorts of stuff with it. My current project is all about nanotechnology, I stopped working with antimatter for the most part when I made 'this'." Tarnish replied, pointing at the Portal generator. "So perhaps we'll be on our way eh? My lab location is rather classified so I'll just use a portal. I'm sure Bulk needs to get back to his home." Tarnish transformed and randomly tackle hugged the slightly smaller green mech's alternate mode, yeah as if that wasn't weird. Bulkhead transformed to return the hug, chuckling. In truth neither were in a hurry so they could sit around and talk about whatever popped into their head. They felt like they had all the time in the world...and they liked that.
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Post by Dr. Josef Henrik on Feb 1, 2012 18:59:13 GMT -5
Henrik nodded in response. "Well, I came out here tracking a massive energy surge on the power grid," he said. "I've been looking for an incredibly powerful energy source for years... Not had a lot of luck so far. But this might be the one time something actually turns up, so I'd better get back to looking for it!" He walked the few feet back to his truck, climbed into the bed, and began setting up an antenna, several feet tall, connected to a field-strength meter. "'Ay, don't forget about the antimatter, okay?" he shouted over his shoulder to the Cybertronians.
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Tarnish
Rookie
A dangerous combo of smart, stupid, crazy
[A1i:5]
Posts: 10
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Post by Tarnish on Feb 1, 2012 20:41:22 GMT -5
"I'll just return to this spot and track your vehicle, it shouldn't take long at all. I shall return! Later Bulk!" Tarnish replied and disappeared promptly after that, getting a decent sized box that would fit in the back of Henrik's vehicle. He had to scrounge around a bit for a decent metal container, and after tossing around a bunch of junk and tools in the main part of his lab, he finally found one. The electromagnets were easier to find since he kept a good stock on those. The animatter was usually only dealt with when he was working with teleportation and transportation devices. It wasn't exactly something he could easily keep stock on but since he had little use for it these days, he figured he could sacrifice some to a fellow scientist, especially a human one who seemed to know what he was talking about.
Once the box was ready to go, he glanced around and then checked over the box once more in satisfaction, opened up a portal and hopped into it.
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Bulkhead
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The Big Mech with a Big Heart
100th member, YAY!
Posts: 20
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Post by Bulkhead on Feb 1, 2012 20:44:55 GMT -5
Once Tarnish disappeared, Bulkhead transformed back into his alternate mode and deactivated his holoform. Eying the man, he said: "Ya know whatever yer tracking COULD possibly be alien, right? Just sayin'. It's kind of a fifty fifty chance but we Bots have been on Earth for a while now. Anything's possible." Maybe Henrik already knew what he was going after and Bulkhead didn't know. If that was the case, well all the more power to him.
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Post by Dr. Josef Henrik on Feb 29, 2012 20:55:48 GMT -5
Henrik ensured that his antenna was connected properly and jumped down from the bed of the pickup truck, sparing a moment to look over at Bulkhead. "If it's alien, I guess I'm gonna' have lots of fun in the lab, trying to figure out how it works! Or, even just how to turn it on!" he exclaimed. With that, he climbed into his truck, turned on the ignition and his scientific equipment, and sped away, taking less than a minute to get well over the speed limit once again.
"Well, well, a real encounter with aliens... cybernetic ones at that! It doesn't get much more scientific and awesome than this!" he said out loud to no one in particular as he sped along the Interstate. The telecommunications engineer swerved to avoid a white Buick in front of him, maintaining his excessive speed, all the while pondering the great things he could accomplish with that antimatter. {"Thank you, Carl Anderson,"} he thought in reference to the scientist who had first proved the existence of antimatter.
Before long, the readout from the field-strength meter on the oscilloscope spiked wildly, and Henrik took the nearest exit so fast that he almost flipped off the ramp. Not thinking much of his reckless behavior, he adjusted the pattern of the meter to a rotating directional sweep, which allowed him to quickly pinpoint a 431% surge in energy coming from somewhere to his right. The scientist followed the steadily increasing readout - 437%... 438%... Finally the display surged above 500% and he turned onto an obscure dirt road, which led to an electrical substation. As he approached the substation, the massive sparking and electrical arcs going between a group of transformers and the energized frame of a transistor bridge became obvious. There was a constant hissing, sizzling, zapping sound, and the occasional loud *BANG!* when a particularly high voltage arc formed. "Aw, so that's all it is... Just a transmission-to-subtransmission station that's shorting out," Henrik said sadly. Then an idea struck him: "At least I can get some free electricity!"
Being the madman that he was, he pulled over, jumped out of the truck, and took two large 400-farad capacitors out of the bed. {"High powered capacitors... Never leave home without them,"} he thought as he crawled under the barbed wire fence, ignoring the sign that read "DANGER - High Voltage" as he was bent on stealing electricity from the substation. After all, no one should have to pay for electricity!
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Tarnish
Rookie
A dangerous combo of smart, stupid, crazy
[A1i:5]
Posts: 10
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Post by Tarnish on Jun 21, 2012 19:36:32 GMT -5
Tarnish transformed and disappeared through a portal, relocating himself near Bulkhead. Before either could say anything more, Tarnish and Bulkhead exchanged glances at each other when Tarnish realized Henrik had zipped off. The two sped after him. Primus he moved fast for a human. At least his signature was easy to track!
It would be rather amusing sight seeing a garbage truck drive at abnormally high speeds, but Tarnish didn't give a care in the world. He could smell the scent of the overworked truck easily too, not to mention the massive signal it gave off was easy to track. He inwardly shook his head at the thought of the poor overworked vehicle, and kept up his speed. "Humans still confuse me, then again I don't get out that much." he muttered, hearing Bulkhead chuckle behind him.
Tarnish didn't mind sharing some antimatter with a curious, determined scientist - all the more power to humans if they could come up with things to do with it, after all. So long as he hadn't made a mistake and given it to one of the bad ones - that wouldn't help his standing reputation any.
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