Chapter Text
Cyclonus killed Megatron, he was resurrected as Galvatron, then Optimus Prime emptied the Matrix of Leadership, using the Matrix’s power to overload Primus’s planet sized frame and condense him into a singularity that vaporized half of the ruins of Crystal City. The Prime had sacrificed his life in the process. A couple of his more loyal lackeys had also sacrificed their lives (somewhat unwillingly) to destroy Primus. Then Galvatron said he needed time to meditate and reflect on the secrets of the universe and set off on a “journey of self-discovery."
Starscream had begged him to stay, but Galvatron had simply smiled at him and said that Cybertron’s future was in more than capable hands.
Now Crystal City was a black hole contained on the surface of the planet, both of their faction’s leaders were dead or indisposed, and some Titan (probably drunk on high-grade that now flowed abundantly due to the end of the war and the planet healing itself through some mystic mumbo jumbo that Starscream didn’t buy but definitely would have studied if he weren’t in charge of Cybertron) declared Starscream the Chosen One that would unite Cybertron, and then there was an election, and somehow Starscream ended up as the High Chancellor of Cybertron.
He didn’t even know he was running for office until they told him he won the election. This has Soundwave’s fingerprints all over it. Not that Soundwave would tamper with the votes. But Soundwave did run the largest radio broadcast network on Cybertron, and he was really good at working a crowd. Starscream couldn’t really refuse. The people had asked for a leader, and it was him.
He looked at the Iacon skyscape through the wall-to-wall stained glass windows of the office, located in the newly-renovated Primal Basilica. As Cybertron’s sun set, light filtered through the windows of the office, dappling the white tiled floors with smoky shades of red and yellow. The office of the High Chancellor, while impressive in size, was mostly unfurnished. The only furniture in the room was a makeshift desk formed from pallets scavenged from construction sites stacked on top of each other and a wobbly bar-stool donated by Swindle, acquired from his renovations of Maccadam’s Old Oil House. He had requested the High Chancellor return it to him after his term ended so he could auction it off as part of his Pax Cybertronia merchandise line. Swindle assured Starscream that all proceeds would be donated to charity. Around these two pieces of furniture, the floor was littered with stacks of datapads, blueprints, and half-finished inventions.
As Starscream admired the view of the sunset, savoring a rare moment of solitude and peace his busy schedule afforded him, a short, stocky courier bot with a white paint job stood by him. Starscream observed him out of the corner of his optic. He yelled in shock, “How are you even alive?”
Goldbug shrugged. “I dunno. Primus works in mysterious ways. I died, and then I came back, although you’re the only person that can see me.”
Stranger things had happened in his life. He wasn’t so peeved by the fact that Goldbug was resurrected as an apparition only Starscream could see than by the fact that Goldbug still invoked the name of a being which had tried to wipe out all life on Cybertron. Starscream spat, “Why do you still worship such an evil god? Your leader sacrificed his life to save the planet from him.”
Goldbug held up his servos in a placating gesture. “Relax ‘Screamer, it's a figure of speech. I said it all the time before –”
Starscream kicked over a pile of datapads. “Yes, I know how it happened. Spare me the details on what got us here – I have a planet to run.”
“You should quit. I sense that you don’t want this burden.” Goldbug mused.
Starscream got on his knees to restack datapads he had knocked over in his fit of anger. He said, obstinate, “Never. I’m a Decepticon and that’s not what Decepticons do.”
“But the war is over now – isn’t it time to think about the wants and needs of Starscream?”
“Get out!” Starscream screamed. He drew one of his neutronic blade swords. They were the last gift from his most beloved Lord Megatron before he passed. Starscream swung angrily and cut the offending apparition in two. Alas, even though the blade had been honed to the width of an atom at its sharpest part, Goldbug remained unscathed. Looks like he was stuck with one of Optimus Prime’s most ruthless, calculating, and manipulative lieutenants.
“Can’t get rid of me that easily, Screamer.” Goldbug said with a grin, although there wasn’t so much grin as a baring of teeth in an attempt at aggression. Starscream might have felt cowed, but he wasn’t going to show it. The ghost of Goldbug wasn’t going to hurt him.
There was a long line of petitioners hoping to get his attention in the weekly open houses he had scheduled in hopes of maintaining government transparency. Before the war, Starscream was a scientist and not very skilled at governance, but he had stayed awake for the last couple of days reading all the classic datapads on theories of government, and so this seemed like a good idea. What he did not expect was that government transparency entailed faking polite interest in the petty squabbles and marital disputes of people he barely knew with names he barely remembered.
What was this bot’s name again? Coppertone? Verdigris? “I am really sorry that your conjunx vanished without a word, but my powers as High Chancellor are limited –” Starscream said.
“Just tell them to leave –” Goldbug hissed in his audial.
“Silence, you bug, I have a problem I'm trying to solve –” Starscream muttered under his breath.
Goldbug continued, undeterred, “What problem? His conjunx left him because he’s a cheating piece of shit. If this bot, Coppertone had any wits about him, he’d just do things the old-fashioned way and –”
“I’m not about to encourage domestic violence –” Starscream said, raising his voice.
Coppertone looked at Starscream like he had two heads. He perfunctorily thanked Starscream for the advice and left. Starscream checked the time. Thank goodness that the town hall had ended. He just prayed that this incident wouldn’t turn into a public relations disaster. He could just imagine the headlines which would be plastered in the news.
High Chancellor of Cybertron condones domestic violence.
As he had grown used to these past few cycles, Goldbug offered some helpful “advice.”
“You know, Blaster was the best Chief of Propaganda the Autobots ever had. You should consider employing him as the head of your public relations office.”
Starscream had dropped the pretence of civility all-together with this Goldbug. He was there at every meeting Starscream was at, he was there when Starscream was recharging, and when Starscream was refueling. Goldbug was a constant annoyance in his life. Starscream spat, “No, bug, this is all your fault. If you had just kept your mouth shut none of this would have happened.”
“I mean, is this incident really worth involving the mighty Soundwave over? If you hired Blaster as your head of PR, it would be a good PR move for you too. Think about it. The Autobots would see it as a show of good will and it would improve interfactional unity.”
Starscream sighed. Goldbug had a point. He didn’t want to involve Soundwave over this loss of composure. He was ashamed, he didn’t want the others to see him as weak. But Blaster was a former Autobot propaganda officer. How would he be able to trust him?
“I know all the blackmail to keep him in line,” Goldbug offered helpfully.
Starscream looked up Blaster’s public comm on the Grid and dropped him an offer. He was resistant at first, but then Goldbug told Starscream to make a cryptic reference to the “Altihex incident” and his demeanor instantly changed.
Blaster said, “Don’t worry, High Chancellor, the Prime had random outbursts of violence all the time and the Decepticons never found out about it until after the war ended!”
Actually, the Decepticons knew about the Prime’s indiscretions, but Starscream didn’t feel the need to bring this up. It would just serve to make this meeting even more unproductive and unethical.
Blaster suggested, “I can just run a background check on him and have him arrested by the Cybertron Defense Force. Everyone is guilty if you look hard enough.”
“No! That’s an abuse of power.” Starscream said. Why were the Autobots so willing to resort to dirty tactics?
Goldbug started gushing about how it wasn’t unethical, it was the defining Autobot entrepreneurial spirit and how Blaster was the epitome of that attitude. Starscream ignored him. The bug was just trying to tick him off.
“That’s what the Prime would have done if he were in charge of Cybertron.” Blaster said with a shrug.
“I’m not the Prime! And I will never be the Prime. I want you to take care of this without breaking the law,” Starscream said with indignation.
“That may be difficult if you want this to blow over.”
“Fine, just do it without hurting anyone.”
In the end, the incident was buried in page twelve of the newspaper. Hell, Starscream even got a nice keg of engex (which he immediately dumped down the drain because it could have been perceived as a bribe) and a heartfelt apology from Coppertone about attempting to use the High Chancellor’s authority to intimidate his spouse. Starscream had sent one of Soundwave’s cassettes to make sure all of Blaster’s actions were above the board and to his surprise, no one was hurt. A few bots were intimidated, but Lazerbeak had assured him that the intimidation was well-deserved.
Starscream decided to retain Blaster as his chief public relations officer for now.
Starscream’s optics drooped. When was the last time he had properly recharged? He did his best to listen as the council debated on the best course of action for rebuilding Cybertron. There was the issue of the Crystal City black hole. They needed to build a containment chamber around the singularity, but they also needed to rebuild Iacon after the planet’s reformatting had destroyed most of the buildings, and then there was the problem of rebuilding the space bridges. Cybertron had many colony planets which had dropped off the grid with the eruption of civil war on the mother world, but now that the war had ended, they were slowly reconnecting. The standard warp-drive suffered from extreme time dilation, making journeys between the colony planets and Cybertron impractically long. Quantum engines could bypass this issue, but were still in the experimental phase and not at all reliable. As such, the only way to ensure a steady connection between Cybertron and her colonies were space bridges.
Steel production had been throttled due to the destruction of the old industrial sites due to the reformatting of the planet. They only had so much steel to allocate to each of these construction projects, and the parties in charge of each project argued theirs was the most important. In addition to neutrals, former Autobots and Decepticons, the Council was staffed with representatives from the colony planets which had reconnected with Cybertron. Most of the delegates seemed to be there in good faith, but the delegate from Caminus, Windblade, always debated and negotiated with an undercurrent of sabotage. She was always helpful, offering advice and assistance and information. She sometimes seemed too helpful.
Was Caminus really the perfect society that Windblade claimed it to be? Starscream had spent some time familiarizing himself with all the cultures of the colony planets. The leader of Caminus was the Mistress of the Flame. The Mistress constantly talked in all the recorded speeches and interviews he watched about how there was no democracy without authority, no freedom without security.
It sounded an awful lot like the rhetoric of Optimus Prime. Freedom and security, in Starscream’s experience, were always at odds with each other. When Optimus spoke of increasing the peace, prosperity, and security of the planet, it usually resulted in his faceless goons patrolling the streets and pummelling whoever they thought looked guilty without any sort of fair trial or due process, forced labor working the mines, and the Primal Estate plundering the coffers of the citizenry via onerous taxation.
Whenever Windblade spoke of Caminus, Starscream shuddered. How long would this experiment on Cybertron last? Cybertron of the past had been led by a Prime, chosen by their god via the Matrix of Leadership. Their new government was the first one in Cybertron history with elected leaders, ruled not by one but a council composed of delegates spanning across their galaxy, dubbed by hopeful political pundits Pax Cybertronia and the more cynical ones the Age of Heresy.
The weight of the planet rests on Starscream’s shoulders. He couldn’t fail.
“Screamer, the meeting’s over.” Goldbug said.
The voice of Goldbug shocked him from his stupor. “What?”
Starscream looked around. The Council meeting room was located in the crypt of the Primal Basilica. It was lit from above by natural sunlight. The ceiling was designed so that the sunlight cast a shadow in the shape of the Prime’s seal. It was empty. He realized how much he hated the design of the room. He made a note to have the Constructicons come and renovate the place sometime this month.
“The meeting’s over!” Goldbug said again, but louder.
Starscream snapped, annoyed at being interrupted from his thoughts, “I’m a successful scientist, trained at the Crystal City Institute of Science, Megatron’s loyal second in command, and High Chancellor of Cybertron. Of course I know the meeting is over!”
“Okay, so what happened?” Goldbug said with a snicker.
“Well…” Starscream paused. He wasn’t really paying attention to what was going on in the meeting. But he wasn’t going to admit it to the bug.
Goldbug smirked. “If you weren’t falling asleep, you would know that the Mistress of the Flame is coming to visit in two weeks, that the spacebridge communication hub received a hailing frequency from the lost colony Velocitron so we need to organize a welcome committee which requires your presence, and Ironhide’s lodged a formal request to change the motto of the Cybertron Defense Force from ‘To protect and serve’ to ‘To enslave and punish.’”
“What the frag?” Starscream said. He missed out a lot that happened it seems. The first two items on the agenda were unpleasant, but unavoidable, but Ironhide’s complaint drew out his ire. What a terrible motto for a law-enforcement unit.
“I mean, I think Ironhide does have a point, you know? The police aren’t supposed to just walk around the cities and smell the flowers. They have to stop crime. Ironhide thinks that changing the CDF motto will help deter crime by showing that they mean business.” Goldbug droned on.
“No! That’s not what police are supposed to do. They’re supposed to act as a deterrence to crime as well as enforce the order of the law. And then when people break laws, they get arrested and then given a fair trial where they are given the chance to be rehabilitated.”
“Court-mandated community service is basically slavery, if you think about it.”
Starscream was more and more convinced that Goldbug wasn’t really the depraved Autobot, but rather a figment of his imagination revealing the basest of his unconscious desires. “Get out of my head, you bug! I know that you’re just a hallucination and I’m going to a medic right now to get rid of you.”
“Yes, but if you look at your schedule, you’ll see that you only have three hours of downtime between now and your meeting with Ironhide over his request. And surely the Cybertron medical system is burdened enough already with more serious ailments than a simple hallucination that is caused by a lack of sleep. You haven’t recharged for two weeks straight, by the way, ” Goldbug taunted.
Frag, it really was that dreaded bug. Even Starscream couldn’t remember the last time he recharged. The council members had all left and it was just him alone with his annoying ghost. Perhaps this wouldn’t be a terrible place to take a nap. He planted his face on the table, slumped over in his unnecessary extravagant chair that bore too much semblance to a throne, and blacked out.
He woke up groggily and checked the time. Slag, there was only twenty minutes before he had to meet Ironhide and tell him politely, what a slagging terrible suggestion he had and waste his precious time over something so trivial.
“You know, you could tell him that more pressing issues came up.” Goldbug suggested.
“Like what?” Starscream asked.
“Well, your office looks like shit right now. You could go and buy some furniture. Like a bed. You spend all your time living there anyways so if you recharged on a bed instead of faceplanting on the floor your productivity would be improved making your schedule more efficient.”
“But that would be a waste of government funds! Plus, isn’t that lying to Ironhide?” Starscream protested, but he was aware of how messy the office was. He could use a filing cabinet to organize the datapads, at least. And a shelf to make his inventions less of a tripping hazard.
“Well, he doesn’t need to know you’re going furniture-hunting. The Senate building is abandoned and they have lots of nice furniture free for the taking.” Goldbug buried his face in his hands. “For a Decepticon, you sure are bad at deception.”
“That’s not what the name means! You know how it’s short for Committee for ending Senate Deception!” Starscream said. “You really are uneducated about our history.”
“Not all of us went to the Crystal City Institute of Science, you know. Some of us weren’t afforded the opportunity for education because we were forged in the middle of a war started by certain war-mongerers and only taught how to hold a gun and enough vocabulary to comprehend and follow orders.” Goldbug said.
Starscream felt unreasonably guilty for that remark. Goldbug had a point. Perhaps Starscream would go looking for some furniture. Ironhide didn’t need to be told in the metal his motto was stupid anyway. A comm message would suffice.