The Power of the Dream

For the citizens of the lowest rungs of any society there is really no such thing as good and evil. There is only survival; the instinct to live overrides sentiments such as fair play and the greater good. There is no greater good. These pathetic creatures do not even exist to those who stand above them. They are unseen, unknown, and generally unwanted by their "betters." They are untouchable, because they are merely ghosts in the machine of society.

In the Cybertronian civilization, the "untouchables" were not even gifted with real names.

Well, unless you consider D-16 a name.

~~~~~xXx~~~~~

D-16 was one of these untouchables. He worked in one of the numerous factories of Kaon, and he lived in one of the slipshod tenements built to house a transient population. He could reboot one morning to find a stranger living in the next cramped apartment because the original occupant died the day before. Perhaps, he mused once, that is why we do not have names. Why name something that will be gone before it's lived?

D-16 had many thoughts like this. When he worked he could divorce his mind from his task and think. No, not think. Dream. As he welded together industrial parts that would be used to build better cities for the upper crust and senators in Iacon, he would dream of what it would be like to have a name. To not live in squalor, wondering if he would live through the day. To be able to walk outside and not see a low-lying layer of smog hazing the skyline. To be able to enjoy the life the Allspark had given him. He worked, and he "lived" and he dreamed in a world where dreaming was strangled by the bonds of caste.

It wasn't until he saw a gladiator out on the streets of Kaon that it occurred to him that he could do better.  D-16 knew that gladiators died even quicker than factory workers, but he was willing to take the chance. The day before he had watched as two other workers were crushed by a falling beam. Only the most stable building materials were shipped to Iacon, Praxis, and the Crystal City. The dregs were used to build Kaon. The accident and the sight of the gladiator had spurred something in D-16, some latent knowledge that he could change his fate. Yes, gladiators died quickly, but at least he would die on his own terms rather than waiting for an accident or general system degradation.

D-16 was a dreamer, but he didn't dream anything beyond the pits that fateful day. He thought he would die there. He didn't know that he would rise through the ranks, that he would soon become the boss of the arena circuit. In his climb to power he thought he'd lost his dreams, but as he was able to access more and more information he simply dreamed bigger. He dreamed of a Cybertron without castes, without restrictions on what you could be. He dreamed of the Golden Ages when it was free will and raw power that determined who ruled and who didn't. As he dreamed he took a name. Megatronus.

He became vocal, determined to spread his ideas to the very stars. He was proud of his accomplishments, no matter that to most Cybertronians he was simply a thug. He had risen above being a nameless factory drone to being an important person, to being a force to be reckoned with, to simply being. He was also proud that others began to join in his outcry. He began to enjoy the feelings brought on by the regard of others.

Unfortunately, these feelings were the seeds of his fall from grace.

Megatronus's ideals grew stronger when he met a curious librarian from Iacon. He felt a bit of kinship with this librarian. Though Orion Pax had been given a name, had never known what it was to struggle to survive, he was trapped in the same way that Megatronus had been. Like Megatronus, Orion was simply a tool for the aristocrats and the Prime, a sentient cataloguing machine asked to listen to others, to organize and catalogue the thoughts of others, but never asked to think on his own. But there was a mind there, a mind that heard, and thought, and dreamed. The flow of ideas between the two strengthened the newly dubbed Megatron's resolve to manifest a planetary revolution. Even if he had to go to war over it. His time as a gladiator had taught him many useful things, including how to strategize and how to fight.

And most useful of all, how to kill.

~~~~~xXx~~~~~

It is impossible to guess what Cybertron could have become if events had played out differently. What if Megatron had supported Orion - now Optimus - instead of breaking away? What if he had become the new Prime? What if he had been placed in a higher caste? What if he'd never met Orion Pax? What if he had never become a gladiator?

What if he'd never learned to dream?

For it isn't a who that started the war, it's a what. An idea - a dream - that took root in the minds of the oppressed and the aristocratic alike. It's the thought that self-determination is not a privilege of caste, but a right. A right of all sentient beings. A right that would lead Megatron further into believing that the only way to peace was through tyranny. A right that would lead Optimus Prime to believing that he must stop Megatron from becoming what he had reviled only a short time before. Autobots and Decepticons alike, fighting for the same reason, veiled as two sides to a coin that doesn't exist.

And it all started with an untouchable dream.