AUTHOR'S NOTE: The transformer's universe is an alternate one of my own creation, and hopefully won't be too confusing.
Basically: Autobot/Decepticon war happened on Cybertron, and (supposedly) ended there. The Allspark was sent into space to prevent it being abused early on in the war, and it has yet to be found. Megatron was (supposedly) destroyed when his SIC (Soundwave) betrayed him. Starscream disappeared, and it is suspected he is leading the still surviving cells of the Decepticons.
There's more to it than that, but it will be revealed over time.
Also, for the technical questions:
1) Yes, it's Cybertronium Mesh, but I have my own take on how the armor and internals are constructed, and it will be revealed soon how it works.
2) Vitam, as a sparkling is roughly human sized. If she could stand, she'd be approximately four feet and eight inches tall. Cybertroniums age slowly, and thus she will be short for a long time.
3) When stated she was 'similar to the geth', I meant in appearance only. When Cybertronians are young, their armor is more fluid and compact so that they don't get injured. It helps prevent dust in their systems, and adds some extra shielding to their already (relatively) fragile frames. Also, seeing as how Sparklings are usually curious and rambunctious, it makes it easier for them to slip out of small places they really shouldn't be in. Thus, it is similar in that it has a relatively 'organic' appearance.
I enjoyed talking. Or rather, I enjoyed possessing the ability to communicate. Data code was pretty much universal, and if it wasn't, it quickly adapted. Organics had a strange habit of developing guttural sounds as a means of communication. Then again, Cybertronians communicated in such a way from a long-standing habit dating back to the days of creation.
"So this... program-"
"Function."
"... Function... It can translate any language?" The purple being... Telly? Tally? Bah.
I'm just gonna think of her as Purple. Just for now. I mean, she is working on repairing the circuits in my helm and-
Whoa... When'd the room start spinning?
"Yesss..." I affirmed, watching the room move while staying still. "Before the Cerberus messed with my helm, and the function still worked, it gathered their sound patterns and probable meanings together and stored them in a data file."
"So it's like an advanced translation program..."
"Function." Primus, this was weird. Everything was moving. Or maybe I was moving. No... sensors said I was still immobile.
Purple hummed, then asked, "So, if you have such an advanced pr-function... Why use titanium metals? I'm not begruding them, but why would such an advanced race use such simple materials? I mean, my ancestors used a nickel-iron-cobalt alloy* (making stuff up now) with the geth because it's more reliable than titanium, but I can't figure out why a race appearing as advanced as you would use such a simple metal."
Soaking that in a second, I processed the words, compared them with known meanings, then asked, "What's titanium?"
Purple paused a moment, then said, "Err, it's an element with an atomic weight of approximately forty-eight. Low density, silver-ish, almost ninety percent of your armour is made of it."
"My armor isn't made of an element with the organic designated atomic weight of forty-eight." I replied, shuttering my optics a moment when green lights flared to life in front of me.
"But... I'm going to assume we can't communicate in elements until your processor is fixed, but scans Cerberus took of your armor show it's a single element with a hardness and density equivalent to titanium." Purple argued, and I watched as the green lights shifted to yellow and began dancing to the right. Fascinating.
"First," I replied, feeling my body tingle oddly, "My armor is made of Cybertronium. My protoform and internal components are composed of Cybertronium Mesh."
"So it's an..." Purple paused for a moment, then continued, "Alloy, of sorts?"
Rooting through my spark memories, unable to access my memory unit at the moment, I searched through my time with Magnus and all the educational datapads I had been given. Recalling some parts, I replied, "No, not exactly. It is different... coded elements added together in varying amounts, but that's the thing: they vary." And now everything was yellow. Strange. Wait, does that mean I'm blind?
"What do you mean they vary?" And purple sounded... Curious?
"Cybertronian frames prioritize internal functions over external armor." I recited. That, Ratchet had drilled into Magnus, so he could drill it into me. I honestly knew that by spark. It was actually a bit touching, since it meant I had a bit of Ratchet with me still.
"How do they do that?"
Shifting through the vague memories, I answered, "Before my self-repair system was shut down, it tried repairing damage done by the Cerberus by taking required metals from my armor. It only got so far before the Cerberus noticed it and removed it. I can't remember why."
Purple paused for a long moment, and I watched the new blue dots swirling around an area of yellow. It was when the blue dots turned white in my left optic that she spoke again.
"It would explain the metal density... If heavier metal elements were removed, and certain light ones remained, it'd seem like it had the same strength and density as titanium. But it doesn't make sense. Wouldn't you just... shut down until critical repairs were made?" And purple raised a good point. It suddenly occured to me that, in all my time of captivity, why hadn't I fallen into stasis?
Sending an internal request to one of the geth to investigate my stasis function, I answered, "Well, I don't know. I mean," Thinking back to the hazy memories in my spark, I dredged up, "When Cybertronians are in critical condition, they're supposed to fall into stasis. All but critical systems shut down, and even critical ones are slowed dramatically." Ignoring the now purple dots on a white background, I tried recalling any plausible reason my systems hadn't shut down. Then again, there were a lot of things wrong with me that I couldn't reason out the cause for.
"So this kind of damage isn't considered critical to you?" And she honestly sounded curious. Did this make my kind seem like a violent type to her?
"Actually, this is beyond critical for my kind. I should've fallen into stasis long ago." And I should have. I hadn't really thought on it until now, but my condition was... abhorrent. I could scarecly believe I was functioning at times.
"Maybe Cerberus damaged your sensors? I haven't had a chance to get to them yet." Purple proposed, and briefly, I wanted to believe that, but I knew that wasn't right.
"I know I am damaged. I can see the readouts, the registered injuries, the non-functioning parts." A memory called itself up from my spark, and I felt my optics twitch before saying, "My core-coding should've had me fall into stasis the klik my energon levels dropped." Feeling another memory call itself forward, I felt my confusion increase as I said, "I shouldn't be functioning with the amount of energon I do have."
"What's this 'energon'? Is it a fuel?" Purple asked, and I felt a small shock in my helm before my vision abruptly returned, tinted a pale shade of blue, though.
"It's like..." Thinking of a way to describe it, I explained, "It's a lightly hued, red colored, semi-viscous liquid that provides the energy I need. Coded energon has a faint glow to it. I guess it is a type of fuel."
"What's it coded for? And how?" Purple asked.
Watching the world change hues from blue to purple to green and back, I replied, "Our systems code it, and... Well, coded energon is... unique to each bot. If a bot were to get injured, and you found energon on something, you could trace that energon back to the bot."
Purple seemed to pause for a very long moment, and the world wavered until she went back to the circuits in my helm. "And what if it was purple?"
Recalling some things from the datapads, I answered, "If it's a bright purple, it means there's probably lubricant or coolant in a bot's energon lines, and they need flushed. But it's really bad if it's a dark purple. I can't quite remember, but I think that means there's a contaminant in the lines. Or it's severely de-energized. Or both. I can't recall."
"What happens then?" Purple asked, sounding oddly timid.
"Then the bot's put into stasis while their lines, tank, and pump are all replaced. De-energized energon is extremely damaging. It corrodes all the metal it touches." I replied, noticing a ping from one of the geth. Specifically, the geth I had sent to check my stasis function. Following it, I heard purple muttering something unintelligible. Or in a different language. Who knows.
Finding myself a my core stasis coding, I began scanning it to look for-
-ealing as my helm thumped against the table, I quickly turned and pinned Aura Tracer below me, accidently digging my knee into his side. He retaliated in fair game, and elbowed my shoulder before we ended up rolling around.
I quickly realized Uplink, Ratchet and Uncle Jack's sparkling, was sitting hesitantly outside our impromptu sparring ring. He was the youngest of us, and Ratchet and Creator had repeated to me a lot that he was still developing. He still couldn't walk yet, but he could crawl well enough.
Trilling, I banged my helm off of Aura's, stunning him for a moment so I could untangle my limbs and go over to Uplink.
Optics widening, Uplink watched me hesitantly as I sat down beside him and began chattering uselessly. Uncle Magnus and Creator always looked important when they made a lot of noise quickly, so I figured it couldn't hurt.
Aura caught on and quickly joined in, flailing his arms around spastically as he tittered and chirred.
Uplink eventually joined in, and Aura and I encouraged him by paying attention to his chirrs. At some point, I think we were somehow figuring out how to create our own language. Aura's name was 'chirr-chirr-click-click-trill', Uplink's was, 'chirr-click-chirr-click-chirr-chirr-chirr', and I think I had been dubbed, 'click-click-trill-click-chirr'.
Ravage was nearby, keeping an optic on us, and, slowly, I believe we were making plans to get close to her tai-
-ail-ail-ail...
My vision fritzed as my optics spazzed, my systems hiccupping in an attempt to get the damaged components working. Corrupted data flitted through my processor, scrambling my senses and making an even bigger mess of my severely confused meta.
Pain reigned supreme as systems ran diagnostics and tried to calibrate-what I realized with a good bit of confusion-it thought was repaired systems.
Error after error clogged my vision as my systems realized that no repairs had been made. A grinding emanated from my pumps, screeching across my audials and creating a indescribable pain in my lower chest. The sensors of the scraped area burned, and my pump moved sluggishly, pushing something behind it. Another diagnostic ran and found the pressure wasn't right, indicating their was probably a breach in the seal.
Something bitter and acidic crawled up my tubes to my mouth, and with my lack of control at the moment, a good bit of it leaked out. Feeling it sting at exposed sensors on my faceplate, I tried prioritizing the errors so as to regain control of my systems.
Everything seemed like it was trying to remain beyond my control, as errors reset themselves without cause. Frustrated, I searched through the errors for something. Finding a geth, I latched onto it and transferred my idea quickly. Releasing the geth, I waited for a few kliks, ignoring the pain and trying to find any errors that indicated something new.
Looking through them, I suddenly realized, I actually remembered some of them. Not their cause, but I had seen a few of them before. Flicking through a few as I waited, I wasn't surprised when all the errors suddenly disappeared and the scattered geth reappeared.
The geth I had latched onto earlier presented a subfolder containing all errors reported, listed in an orderly fashion.
Acknowledging it with my thanks, I felt my vocalisor give a quiet keen as my systems sent their signals straight to me. That quickly tapered off as I found myself unable to unshutter my optics, and I could feel my meta slowing. Groggily, I tried finding what had happened, only to realise that nothing was responding.
The only thing I could feel was my pump straining to move, but unable to.
Observing this with a slowly fading meta, it took me a long klik to realize my systems had stalled.
Stalled...
What did that mean?
My memories didn't want to come to me, and I felt my meta slip into my spark to find an answer. Stalled... Stalled... Oh. Huh.
I was offlining.
Dying was a funny feeling. I thought it'd be fast, but, well...
It was really slow.
Creator had said it was something quick and painless. That Carrier hadn't suffered when she offlined.
True, it was painless, but this was so slow.
It felt like there was an echo from my frame; like its last moments were traveling through a signal dampener to reach me. Faintly, I felt the geth clinging to what little energy was left in my frame, and I felt sorry they'd die with me.
Feeling a strange sense of being less and more, I felt my meta meld to my spark, seeking comfort in the only functioning part of me.
The problem with that was there was no programs to hide behind.
Memories of everything that had happened surrounded me, and I felt my fear and sorrow of everything engulf me. It wasn't entirely clear, spark memories never entirely were, but I watched everything happen.
Magnus and me, just traveling through space. That odd ship. A spark deep pain. Physical pain. Cerberus. Physical pain. Cerberus. Physical pain. Cerberus. Pain. Cerberus. Pain. Cerberus. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pai-
Geth. Human. Purple.
Pain.
Talking.
Pain.
Repairs.
Pain.
Company.
...
Hope.
...
...
...
...It wasn't fair...
...
...
...
...I... I love Carrier...
...
...
...
...But I don't want to see her just yet...
...
...
...
...I don't want to leave...
...
...
...
...not yet...