Megatron smiled. "Mastery is, in and of itself, a powerful pleasure. Once your body has learned what to do, the action just flows through you, and it feels sometimes as though you succeed without effort. But I was a gladiator. Sadly, kill or be killed are far too often the only choices some people are given." His expression softens. "I am sorry that happened to you. It's happened to most of my friends. I knew nothing of privilege when I was young and all the education I have had, I sought on my own, and mostly learned on the fly. This is true of most of my friends; both Ravage and I were created as slaves, though Soundwave came from a family of privilege."
He thinks for a moment. "You mentioned shapeshifting. All of my people can change their shapes, but this is because of the way we are put together. There are only certain shapes that we can assume. To acquire a new alternate mode, one must either have one's spark transferred into the body of someone who has moved into a different body, or chosen to die; or go through exquisitely painful surgical procedures while conscious--which I have done. I can become a tank. With the use of matter displacement technology, I can also become a gun. But I cannot become a truck, or a jet, or a tree, or a bird. The components that make up my body, when shifted into a different configuration, can take the form of a tank."
Megatron stands up and points out the tank gun on his back, and the treads concealed in his upper arms and lower legs. "I fold myself into the other shape," he explains. "My transformation is more technically complex than most because I do make use of interdimensional pockets and mass displacement. But in its simplest form, Cybertronian transformation depends upon having body parts shaped in such a way that they can be folded in and out, latched together and separated, to take on the form of another object. If you look very closely at any of us, you can see clues as to what other forms we might be able to assume. I should, however, caution you that for many of us, this is a sensitive subject. Under the rule of the Functionalists, your alternate mode dictated the choices, opportunities and resources available to you, and changing it was difficult and/or illegal. This is no longer the case in many places, in large part because of the revolt that I led, and that Ravage and Soundwave helped me to lead."
He sits back down. "We can all capture images with our optics. Ravage is particularly adept at processing and editing images because one of his original functions was to record things. When he projects images, they are normally things he has actually seen. He does it in much the same way that humans use machines to record and project images. I don't know if you have ever seen that--the humans of the Earth I know have 'television' and 'movies' and 'video recording'. That is what Ravage was doing. He projects images from his optics--his eyes."
no subject
He thinks for a moment. "You mentioned shapeshifting. All of my people can change their shapes, but this is because of the way we are put together. There are only certain shapes that we can assume. To acquire a new alternate mode, one must either have one's spark transferred into the body of someone who has moved into a different body, or chosen to die; or go through exquisitely painful surgical procedures while conscious--which I have done. I can become a tank. With the use of matter displacement technology, I can also become a gun. But I cannot become a truck, or a jet, or a tree, or a bird. The components that make up my body, when shifted into a different configuration, can take the form of a tank."
Megatron stands up and points out the tank gun on his back, and the treads concealed in his upper arms and lower legs. "I fold myself into the other shape," he explains. "My transformation is more technically complex than most because I do make use of interdimensional pockets and mass displacement. But in its simplest form, Cybertronian transformation depends upon having body parts shaped in such a way that they can be folded in and out, latched together and separated, to take on the form of another object. If you look very closely at any of us, you can see clues as to what other forms we might be able to assume. I should, however, caution you that for many of us, this is a sensitive subject. Under the rule of the Functionalists, your alternate mode dictated the choices, opportunities and resources available to you, and changing it was difficult and/or illegal. This is no longer the case in many places, in large part because of the revolt that I led, and that Ravage and Soundwave helped me to lead."
He sits back down. "We can all capture images with our optics. Ravage is particularly adept at processing and editing images because one of his original functions was to record things. When he projects images, they are normally things he has actually seen. He does it in much the same way that humans use machines to record and project images. I don't know if you have ever seen that--the humans of the Earth I know have 'television' and 'movies' and 'video recording'. That is what Ravage was doing. He projects images from his optics--his eyes."