Birth

From Cths

Birth really is exactly as it sounds. (It's also called Sparking.)

The birth of a Cybertronian is absolutely nothing like the birth of a human. It starts with the extraction of a spark from Vector Sigma by whomever the current caretaker is at the time. Very little is known about the process as it is steeped in ancient knowledge and ceremony, and public access to the chamber is strictly forbidden. However, once a spark is acquired and contained, the prospective parent or parents may watch as it is installed in a small and mechanically simple chassis.

This chassis, also called a protoform, is small and somewhat egg-shaped, with a distinct head and small pair of arms. All protoforms look more or less the same, the only variation being in dermaplating and optic color. These things are seemingly generated at random by the spark itself and usually take about an orn to fully appear.

The reason that sparks are housed in such small and simple chassis at first is because the spark must essentially program itself and its body, synchronizing the two systems and produce the code line by line. This process takes some time, even just to synchronize the most basic of functions like energon processing, sensory nets, vocal units, kinetic systems, and most importantly, learning centers.

When a spark has generated as much programming as protoform technology will allow, it's time to transfer the spark and core processors to a second, more complicated chassis.

The time it takes for a protoform to fully develop is about a decacycle.

Birth is part of a series on Growing Up. Birth • First Phase • Second Phase • Third Phase • Fourth Phase