novels I blogged abour earlier, has posted a fan-fiction "plot bunny"--a crossover between Transformers and S.M. Stirling's Draka novels. :)(That kind of thing seems to be his bag.)
The premise is that the Cybertronians arrive in 2007 or so during the Draka timeline, which would be after the Domination defeats the Alliance for Democracy in the Final War but before they've completely pacified the Alliance territories.
Here's what Keith wrote about the general world situation:
-Jetfire teleported to avoid the nuclear destruction of the DTL's version of the Smithsonian and, realizing that both sides were using Cybertronian technology, sent a distress signal which was picked up by both the Autobots and Decepticons.
-Megatron and the Allspark were dug out of the Arctic and hidden in the Hoover Dam as per TFTL, providing the US with its technological leg-up (some of which was stolen/acquired by the Draka).
-The solar harvester inside the Great Pyramid was dismantled and analyzed by the Draka long ago, and was responsible for much of their technological leg-up.
-The crashed Ark and Sentinel Prime were fought over secretly by Alliance and Draka forces during the Protracted Struggle; most of the technology was destroyed, but the Draka recovered Sentinel Prime and a few of the space-bridge components.
He then described what happened to the human cast members.
-Sam Witwicky survived the Final War (the movie trilogy indicates that he is clearly half-cockroach) and is part of a serf labour force excavating the remains of the Hoover Dam (which was deliberately demolished during the Final War to stop the Draka getting to the goodies inside). More specifically, he and his mother are hostages for his mechanic father's good behaviour. He has a crush on the labour camp commandant's bedwench (who can be either Mikaela or Carly, since the two characters are largely interchangeable).
-Most of the members of Sector 7 were infected with the Stone Dogs and died in the Final War. Agent Simmons is one of the few survivors, now somewhat (more) unhinged, and is making his way across the post-apocalypse US to try to stop the Draka excavating the Hoover Dam site.
-Lennox, Epps and some of their men make up a surviving fallback force that links up with Agent Simmons.
-The politicians, computer hackers and wacky ethnic comic relief characters were all killed or enserfed.
He then derailed from the Transformers movie canon considerably, giving the Transformers themselves big upgrades so they're stealthier and harder to destroy, including the ability to withstand tank fire. I think that goes a bit too far, since the movie-verse Transformers are much more destroyable with human conventional weapons than the Transformers from other media.
(I'm told a comic-book depicts Megatron being bombarded with human artillery and aircraft, not being damaged in the slightest, snorting contemptuously, and walking away and one of the Dinobots is damaged but not destroyed by a nuclear bomb. I used to watch the animated series religiously and I don't remember much human military involvement at all--maybe they were staying out of the way?)
Here's how Keith intends to begin his story:
The action begins when Bumblebee and two of Soundwave's subordinates (Laserbeak and Ravage) clash near the remains of the Hoover Dam. The battle is witnessed by a group of serfs including Sam who were on latrine/trash burying/whatever detail and their guards; the Decepticons massacre the group except for Sam after Bumblebee is seemingly disabled, but then he rallies and drives them off.
What happens next? Will the Autobots and Decepticons ally against the Draka? Will Sam get laid? How will the Draka react to physically superior opponents who consider *them* vermin?
Here're my thoughts on how the story would go if I were writing it. No, I'm not going to write it myself, howver cool that would be. I've got better things to do.
*The commander's "bedwench" would be Mikaela. Being British, there's a much larger chance Carly died in the Final War (Britain is densely populated and would suffer more in a nuclear exchange--plus in the Drakaverse, the Stone Dogs-addled British nuked London themselves) and if she did survive and ended up in Draka hands, she might have been given limited Citizenship or made higher-status serf than some mid-level officer's concubine.
(The Draka hate Americans, but being the descendants of loyalists and Napoleonic vets, might feel more kinship with Britain.)
Plus if the Witwickies survive the war and get enslaved by the Draka, chances are Mikaela would have survived as well. All of them lived in the same general area, so they'd probably get captured in the same Draka roundup.
*I liked the idea of Simmons surviving infection by the Stone Dogs virus but being more crazy than usual. He could actually be a source of comic relief (as he was in the later movies) or a somewhat darker figure (like in the first film--since the Stone Dogs drives its victims violently insane, him being a bit dangerously psychotic makes sense).
*I also liked the military characters being part of the Alliance fallback forces. In the Drakaverse, they wouldn't be deployed in the Middle East, since the Draka controlled that area since WWI. It's more likely they'd be in the Continental United States when the hammer falls.
*The politicians would definitely be killed--the novel Under the Yoke describes the leaders of defeated European countries being paraded through the Draka capital in court-jester outfits before they're publicly executed. Bobby Bolivia (the only "wacky ethnic comic relief character" who isn't anything else from the first film) would probably be killed or enslaved. Maybe he's a serf entertainer for the Draka commander who keeps Mikaela as his concubine.
However, I can definitely imagine the computer-hackers from the first movie being given limited Citizenship. The Draka lost a lot of their technical people during the Final War and the Alliance's superweapon--a computer virus their agents built into Draka equipment at the factory--gave the Draka particular trouble. The Draka leader Eric von Shrakenberg pushed through the deal to give as many Alliance survivors as possible Citizenship to ensure the Domination had access to their skills.
Given how one of the hackers is black, this could be kind of awkward. Eric's proposal gave Citizenship to people many Draka considered "racially totally unsuitable." The black hacker would be one of the very few free blacks in the entire Solar System and I can imagine Draka "mistaking" him for a serf and abusing him, counting on the fact he's an overweight nerd and they've been trained from childhood to be killing machines to win any resulting fights.
(Of course, since the Alliance had universal military service, chances are he'd be in a lot better physical shape. Still, the Drakas! anthology features American soldiers being told to avoid hand-to-hand combat with Citizens--they will lose.)
*As the discussion progressed, the concept of the two Cybertronian factions joining forces to take down the Domination of the Draka took shape. Optimus and Megatron both want to revive Sentinel Prime for different reasons, while the Autobots will be horrified by the abuses the Draka heap on everyone else and the Decepticons will want to show the "master race" who the real masters are.
(It was suggested that Starscream, being Starscream, might try to make some deal with the Draka. Given how one of the biggest things about the second two movies that sucked was that Starscream's desire to usurp Megatron was largely ignored, I'd love to see this.)
*With the Domination getting knocked around, the millions of Alliance survivors given Citizenship might remember they were Americans (or Britons or Australians or Japanese) before they were "Draka" and see opportunity. Although the majority of Alliance survivors would be slaves, the neo-Citizens are in the best positions to cause trouble.
*Given how the Draka by this point have extensive orbital assets and orbit-to-ground weapons, the Cybertronians will need space assets of their own to avoid being hammered to bits by Rods from God. Both the animated series and the live-action films featured the Autobot Ark and the Decepticon Nemesis, so I would imagine they and space-capable individual Cybertronians would make an appearance.
Keith said he might write a fake movie trailer like he did for his Twilight/Draka story, the one I posted here. If he goes through with it, I'll post it here.
I'm posting this here so that any of you fan-fiction writers out there can take the ideas for a spin. I'm officially retired from fan-fic writing now that The Revenge of the Fallen Reboot
is done, but that doesn't mean I can't sow ideas like seed and see what sprouts.
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