Ghost

tfmatrix:

When a Cybertronian dies, the spark doesn’t always dissipate like it should. Sometimes it stays cohesive for a time, a crackling, stabilized thing of energy and thought and memories that is trying to stay alive- or simply doesn’t know that it’s already died. Cybertronians are not just robots powered by energy cores- they are also energy beings residing in robotic bodies, they are two halves that form one living whole.

A cybertronian soul is a very real thing.

And stripped of it’s body, confused and scared and made of raw starstuff, it can be a very dangerous thing while it lasts.

While rare prior to the war, they were known and recognized as a possible side-effect of death- generally the faster and more destructive to the body the actual demise is the slightly higher the possibility of the spark continuing to survive without it- but this is ultimately temporary. A ghost generally couldn’t survive more than a few hours after forming- often times hours after the actual death has occurred. Spark energy tires to tie itself back together, to re-form, but without a body to house it…well, it cannot last.

Ghosts can pose a danger by trying to inhabit the bodies of others, burning them out or causing severe energy damage and sparkdamage, as well as creating gravitational affects that can damage their surroundings and burn out nearby technology as their spark tries to find a way to house itself again. Extraordinarily rarely, there have been situations where a ghost is aware of it’s actual surroundings and situations and capable of communicating.

Typically, a strong surge of electrical energy will destabilize a ghost further and force it’s spark to dissolve, destroying it, if one cannot wait around for it to dispel on it’s own.

While Cybertronians do have “ghost stories” and the concept of ghosts in horror, they seldom make fictionalized accounts, particularly for the purpose of entertainment, simply because ghosts were researched phenomena prior to the war- and during/after the war they were a very real threat to those who were scavenging on battlefields, as even a one-in-a-million chance becomes pretty impressive when you start having cybertronians dying by the billions.

These are horrifying. Pitiful and fractured and broken, but horrifying and incredibly dangerous.