reapsthewind: (Default)
Christobel Starsky / Commander Starscream ([personal profile] reapsthewind) wrote2013-05-16 10:44 pm

DRAFT FOR PHYSICAL ECHO PROGRESSION

this is a draft/hypothetical plotting post ignore me

tw gore and body horror



> Flight Powers

Starscream's flight powers are primarily located in his legs; in this new Pretender form, there will by necessity be stabilizing elements in her hands and back. This is for steering in a humanoid form and maintaining altitude. Sort of like Iron Man. You've seen Iron Man rite. Kay.

You probably don't want to have to listen to me explain my theories as to how Decepticons in their humanoid form can hover (it's a long babbling story about quantum locking and repulsors and shit) but tl;dr -- she'll have a pair of jet engines in her legs with the intakes at just below the knee and the output in her heels. Her arms will have stabilizing fins and her hands will have stabilizing repulsors.

These pieces will be from the knee down and elbow down, respectively, like artificial limbs.

>> Echo Trigger: I'd like it to be a life or death situation involving unassisted flight. Like falling out of an airplane. Could happen. What if the enemy shoots down her plane? HMM

>> The Change: Will happen almost instantly, given the necessity of self defense. The pieces will transform out from under Chris' skin, as though they were there hidden deep within the bone. This will hurt like hell. Weirdly, she'll bleed, but the blood will be bereft of all iron particles, so it'll come out as a thick yellowish-orange fluid. She'll have enough energon in the newly created limbs to get out of whatever situation she's currently in

>> Aftermath: Because Chris at this point probably won't now how to synthesize energon, and won't have any conversion ports on the limbs, she won't have enough to CONTINUE flying. The limbs will be able to convert enough power from her body (from her ambient body heat) that they will still FUNCTION, so she can transform them from a normal human appearance to their robot appearance and they'll still function properly.


> Null Rays / Lasers

They're effing lasers. The Null Ray is an EMP laser that disables electronics for one minute up to an hour, depending on the episode how much power the thing is using, how well shielded it is, and how much juice Chris gives it. The standard laser is a confusing 80s particle beam weapon that probably does a combination of heat and kinetic damage. Woo.

Though Starscream can fire from his fingers OR his shoulder mounted canons, I assume that the generators for the device are in his upper arms, thus, that's the area that will get transformed. The INITIAL transformation will come with one or the other laser, then a second Echo will enable the other mode.

>> Echo Trigger: Situation where Chris would have to defend her life, either one similar to canon, or a situation that would normally cause an Echo (like police dogs).

>> The Change: The transformation would be similar to the one for the flight powers -- painful and gross, but quick.

>> Aftermath: Same as the legs, no power source, only enough shots to get the hell out of dodge.

> Body

I know the mods prefer Echoes to USUALLY be small, discrete things, but IN THIS CASE, it IS sort of one "power" (turn from human to robot) and from a practical perspective it doesn't make a lot of sense for Chris to be able to survive for long while missing essential organs. SO.

THIS IS THE FUN PART

>> Echo Trigger: No idea. This'd be LATE GAME though. After Chris knows she's Starscream, after she gets her other limb bits, after she gains back all her knowledge of ancient superscience and many of her memories, after she has an existential crisis of whether she REALLY wants to be this person or not.

>> The Change: oh god it's late so I can't be long but -- This will start with severe anemia. Chris will find herself abruptly tired and nauseated, and sometimes pass out. She'll simultaneously develop strong cravings for metal, sand, and energon (which by then she SHOULD know how to synthesize). As it gets worse, she'll develop flu-like symptoms and eventually begin leaking a thick yellowish fluid -- actually blood with the iron in it removed. At some point, she'll start vomiting this stuff up, along with bits of internal organs.

At that point she'll also want to get to a hospital, I hope.

As the change progresses she'll be wracked with horrifying pain and likely show rapidly fluctuating life signs. The organic part of her body will actually start to die.

While I think the Echo process itself would normally take care of this, by this point Chris would have enough knowledge of Cybertronian field medicine to know that as her body transitions she'll need material to keep it alive, and so recommend a suspension of various metals in stabilized low-grade liquid energon, to be fed into an induction port as soon as she, er, grows one (which will be after she goes unconscious, see below).

The first thing that will happen will be that her body will start to convert her skeleton into a Cybertronian metal skeleton, causing external deformations, especially in the shape of her skull. Once this process is complete, she'll have an induction port available on her sternum (The skin will have probably rotted off around there, YAY)

At this point, delirium will start to set in as the softer parts start converting into Cybertronian physiology, including the brain. As her brain starts to convert she'll go delusional and probably need to be restrained until her organic brain ceases function (her Cybertronian brain will, luckily for her, be in sleep mode for an extensive repair cycle). At that point it'd be a good idea to attach the induction port so she can power up and complete the process.

The conversion will continue from there, with her leaking blood and fluid and unconsciously vomiting/otherwise passing the liquefied remains of her internal organs and other matter.

At the end, her skin will finally split completely (it's probably ruined in several places by then) and fall off / need to be removed, as the remaining organic liquid is purged through the edges of the interlocking plates of her new "skin." At that point, if she HASN'T been given energon yet, she probably SHOULD be, to jump-start her new systems

CONGRATULATION UR A ROBOT