In the years following the Great War of Cybertron, many things happened to that system and its client-systems of Nebulon and Earth. Few of these events are recorded in galactic history at large, due to the lack of interest in Cybertron's affairs. Thus, historians find it difficult to trace the progress of the planet Earth from its roots as technologically backwards planet to the current power it is today. It is generally agreed that without the migration of the Cybertronian Great War to Earth in the form of the crashed Ark, Earth would have entered the self-destructive phase common to young star-cultures and not have exited it.

- "Roots in Metal: How Cybertron Influenced Earth" by Branwen ni'Carra

Sitting just behind and to the left of Captain Sassanid, the alate Anahita folded her middle and upper limbs over each other. She was attempting to look non-threatening, but suspected she wouldn't succeed unless someone surgically removed her mandibles. The captain was giving off 'all clear' pheromones, though, so she didn't have to look like she could leap forward suddenly and sever someone's head from their bodies. Given that it took a few bites for her to actually do such a thing, she was thankful.

As the strongest of Sassanid's nieces, her mother apprenticed her to the merchant captain so she could learn how to deal with aliens. Perhaps she could get her own ship someday and do merchant-work, or perhaps, as a breeding female, she could go into politics. Either option would please her mother.

Those options remained in the future, and she had to focus on the present. Right now, her function was to sit still, be quiet, listen, and learn.

They sat in a room with a ceiling high enough for a Class Four being to sit comfortably. Xenerans themselves barely rated a Class Three, but this wasn't strictly a Xeneran meeting. Every third stellar cycle, the captains of the merchant vessels in the Shipping Consortium (it had a flashier name, but not anything either Sassanid or Anahita cared about - the scent cues in the name defined it as 'Shipping Consortium' so that's what they called it) gathered to exchange reports on the planets they traded with.

The last of the Consortium captains finished seating himself ( a frigid-blooded poison-breather that looked vaguely lizardfish, ) and the large blue crystal that acted as the interface for Captain Cerulean rotated ninety degrees. Its translation matrix flared, "Greetings, brethren. We are gathered, as always, to note the state of reality. Normally we would start with Captain Xlishl, however Captain Sassanid brings some disturbing news from Cybertron."

Cerulean's translator gave him an calm, business-like voice with absolutely no inflection whatsoever. Given that it was translating for a sapient color, it was doing a very good job.

Attention shifted to the Xeneran captain. She lightly tapped her mandible tips together, fuzzy antennae wavering in the circulated air. Her titanium exo-skeleton gleamed in the light. "The cursed out-hivers-" (a common insult for aliens among Xenerans; barely worth breath to bother complaining about) "-have gone isolationist."

Clamor immediately broke out.

"We knew they were xenophobic-"

"That was when the Decepticons were in charge, low-processing moron!"

"Control your tongues, Cevulba! Have not the Cybertrons conquered the Destrons?"

"They have. There's no reason-"

A blinding pool of blue light washed over the room. "Brethren, be at peace. The Decepticons have indeed been defeated by the Autobots, and it is indeed the Autobots and their descendants who rule the planet now. Yet they have taken the route of isolation, which is most irritating to those who trade with the planet. Sassanid has more to say on the matter."

The Xeneran captain clacked her mandibles together. "I was making a run to deliver my regular cargo. When I entered system, I got hailed by the system defense force …"

He wasn't one of the usual Seekers who had landed the job of hailing incoming ships. In fact, Sassanid thought, judging from the size of his surroundings, he was only about two-thirds her own size. Way too small for even a cassette-transformer. He still had undeniable Transformer characteristics, however, like the wings.

"Interstellar travel is forbidden within the Cybertron system-" he began, only to be interrupted by a hearty clack of Sassanid's second's mandibles. As Ardashir was soldier-caste, her mandibles were much more impressive than Sassanid's own. The Transformer rallied himself gamely after catching sight of her in the background. "As I was saying, interstellar travel is forbidden within the Cybertron system-"

"Cybertron's not a system," Sassanid informed him. "It's a roving planetoid with artificially-held satellites."

The Transformer's optics flashed in the mechanical equivalent of a mammalian blink. "Um. Be that as it may be..."

She decided to take pity on him, since this was obviously the first time he'd been on hailing duty and no one had bothered to supervise him. Besides, this was her first visit to Cybertron post-Autobot occupation. "I know isolation is what the Decepticon government says goes on, but the Autobots are in charge now. Even if they weren't-" she plowed over the protests he began to make. "Even if the Autobots weren't in charge, nymph, my ship is on the Do-Not-Block list."

He stared at her for a time, and Sassanid wished once again that scent-cues and pheremones could be sent through viewscreens. Not that it would do much good, since the accursed machines didn't have proper scent cues. At last, he seemed to find something in her speech to latch onto and attempted to go back to doing his job. "About that... The translator seems to give your ship name as a string of chemicals-"

"That'd be the chemical formula for my pheremone-of-possession, and thus the name of this ship."

"... Oh." He glanced off the viewscreen, possibly at the exit, possibly at a superior officer. Whatever he saw caused him to straighten up from what would on a Xeneran be proper posture to what most bipeds preferred. "There is still the fact that interstellar travel to and from Cybertron is forbidden, Zzahzzahnid."

Sassanid's antennae snapped back against her head, and the second reached for her pistol automatically at the sight of that threat-display. "You will give me the respect I am accorded as a ship's captain, larva."

The insult didn't really translate well to a race that was made not born, but it was recognizable as an insult. The Transformer's optics brightened significantly and every word came out as if he was biting them off a zinc-moss tree. "Captain Zzahzzahnid, you are forbidden to further enter this system by the laws of the Maximals. If you wish to lodge a complaint, you may speak to Prefect."

"Transfer me to him, then." Sassanid cut the audio input. She'd cut the output, too, but the Transformer might say something important. "Kheir, transfer this to my meeting room. Ardashir, you have the watch."

The second saluted with both upper arms. "I have the watch."

Sassanid dropped to her lower four limbs and left the bridge in Ardashir's capable hands.

"... This was the first I'd heard about the artificial stupids-"

"01!" The optic band on the tripod-drone belonging to Captain 67sd39d8 spun rapidly. "Watch your vocalizer, Sassanid."

The Xeneran captain tapped her upper-limb fingers against her middle-limb fingers as a calming gesture. "I meant the Transformers, not your own kind."

"Hnh." He settled into binary whistling and didn't interrupt again.

"This was the first time I'd heard about the Transformers actually enforcing isolationist policies," Sassanid said after a pause. "You all know that my hive-line has traded with Cybertron for roughly two million years, so I've got a large amount of data on that subject. The Decepticons were xenophobic stench-dwellers, but they at least knew the value of interstellar trade."

"What about before those two million years?" A sibilant hissing came from Furiza, the lizardish captain.

Sassanid glanced at him. "We didn't have ships capable of interstellar flight at that range then."

Anahita's antennae wiggled at the pheromones Sassanid gave off. Cold and minty, like the leaf-juices from plants that grew off the Tuscaran Glacier on the seventh planet of the red giant Parthian-750. The captain did not like him, not at all. His people had been an interstellar force for over five million years, and he liked to find subtle ways to remind her of it.

Cerulean's uninflected voice spoke, "How did the talks with the prefect go?"

"Prefect's a name." Sassanid waved her antennae vaguely in the direction of Cybertron. "Transformer names have more to do with function and personality than anything else. You've got a chewy time trying to explain to them that 'portmaster' isn't a high-ranking boat-transformer." She tapped her mandibles together again. "When I got to the meeting room, this Prefect had been transferred to my screen there …"

This Transformer didn't have wings, but he was still too small for an Autobot or a Decepticon. He did have wheels and what Sassanid vaguely recognized as rank-symbols seared into his armor. He probably transformed into a good-looking piece of merchandise, but selling Transformers was more trouble than it was worth.

"Ah, Captain Sassanid." He smiled, mouth peeled slightly back to bare his mandenta. That, Sassanid recalled, was a threat display. Only the naked ape unversal species subtype had the custom of baring their teeth as a friendly sign, and most of those races tended to lose the habit after a few centuries of space-faring. "My subordinate informs me that you wish to register a complaint about the new laws."

"Since when did Cybertron close itself off from interstellar travel?" Sassanid could be polite. She tended towards utterly exquisite politeness when dealing with Decepticons, as they liked to randomly kill people. She saw no reason to be polite right now; she knew bureaucratic pit traps when she smelled them.

"That law was passed roughly five years before the present, in an effort to prevent any innocent bystanders from getting dragged into a war that no longer exists. It was absolutely terrible what the Decepticons did to the rest of the galaxy and the number of innocent peoples that were brutally slaughtered-"

"Just as much the Autobots as the Decepticons dragging other races into your little war." She shrugged. "Still, the cursed war's over. Why close the system now?"

A flicker-flash of non-expression crossed the Transformer's faceplate. "It is to protect people from us and from those who believe the war is not, in fact, over."

"I never had any stake in the war when it was going on, and neither did any of the merchants I know who dealt with Cybertron. We gnawed out a deal with the Decepticons; we can certainly deal with you Autobots."

"Maximals, captain, we are called Maximals now."

Sassanid gestured dismissively with her antennae. "You're not genocidal war-machines, are you?" She barely waited for him to signal the negative. "Well, then, I don't sense how forbidding interstellar trade is going to help your planet in any way, shape, or form."

"You may not, captain, as you yourself are, after all, a merchant. The illustrious Council of Elders, however, has determined that it was the influence of xeno-organics that led to the rise of the many socio-economic problems that were the cause of the Great War. Thus, Cybertron forbids interstellar travel. Good cycle, captain."

The Transformer cut off his end of the connection as Sassanid screeched, "False scent! False scent!"

"After that, I headed for-" She performed a complicated set of mandible clicks. "Or Xeneros 365, for a refuel. Nothing else of interest to the Consortium happened on that voyage."

Two bright sparkles appeared on each of Cerulean's facets. "Interesting."

"Seibertron has been a good port of call to me," Captain Linibh wheezed through his respirator. Small cleaner-insects skittered over his form, drinking the fluids he secreted and now and then nipping at his flesh before getting knocked away. "That the Cybertrons would close themselves off- mournful. We cannot but abide by their wishes."

Furiza snorted. "They're closed to honest trade. What about smuggling?"

"There is likely a market there," Sassanid allowed.

"What of xeno-mechanicals?" 67sd39d8 asked.

Sassanid shrugged. "I didn't ask. The Decepticons, if it's possible, disliked xeno-mechs even more than xeno-organics, but these new drones are a different breed." She closed her mandibles. "I did have my chief engineer do some investigating of their records, though, before we cruised out. They've got a branch of their government devoted to reprogramming people."

The reason the Xeneran had left that out of her report earlier was obvious. Hacking government records was illegal in the majority of star-systems. Just because this wasn't Cybertron didn't mean she should advertise what she had done.

67sd39d8 let out a stream of machine-code babble that not even the most robust translator could keep up with. As best, Anahita could tell it was saying something quite rude on the subject of reprogramming.

Captain Diamanti extended its left head towards the center of the gathered captains. His right neck twined sinuously around his left. "Isolation and reprogramming? We have seen that cycle before."

The other Consortium captains acknowledged the point with their own particular forms of body-language.

"As Linibh said," Diamanti continued with his right head. "We must abide by their wishes. However, does anyone know how this moratorium on interstellar travel effects their relationship with their client systems?"

"Nebula established a mutual-protection treaty with both sides of the Seibertron Civil War," Linibh wheezed. "Dirt … I do not know the treaty-state between the Cybertrons and the Dirt natives."

"Last I heard was, fifteen years ago, the natives traded fuel to the Autobots in exhange for protection from the Decepticons," Cevulba said.

"Protection racket?" Furiza hissed.

"You would interpret it that way."

Furiza half-rose from his hover-chair, tail raised for a strike. "Insolent-"

Cevulba pulled out three of his blasters, a clear protective sheath clipping closed over his eyes. "Stinking reptile-"

A blaze of blue appeared around Cerulean's crystal. "Stand down. Take it outside, if, and only if, you wish to face the consequences of attacking a fellow member of the Consortium as outlined in our charter."

The two captains settled down, though they continued to make small threat-displays at each other throughout the meeting. The other ship captains appeared to ignore the matter entirely, but Anahita detected a slight shift in Sassanid's pheromones in relation to Cevulba.

Xlishl, who had floated quietly in his environment bubble until that point, spoke up, "I did a swing-by of Earth two years ago, and the Cybertronians had a pretty good armada blockading the system. Weird one, though. I had a harder time getting out than getting in, though neither was a swim with the current."

"The Transformers should not be able to prevent us from trading with the Nebulons, at least," Diamanti pointed out. "I, for one, plan to pay a visit to that world when I am next in that part of the galaxy."

Cerulean sparkled brightly. "I myself have a minor interest in the planet Earth. I shall endeavor to discover the status of their treaty with Cybertron in time for our next meeting. Until then, we shall considered the matter of Cybertron set aside. Social engineering is not the goal of the Consortium as established in our charter."

Diamanti smirked with both heads. "No, the goal is to make scads and scads of money. I believe it is Xlishl's turn to speak on trade matters?"

Unfortunately, the records of the next meeting of the All-Planar Spiral Arms Shipping Consortium are unavailable to the public. As the Consortium has an ongoing lawsuit to retrieve the record displayed here out of the public datastream, it is not expected that the other one will be publicly available for several centuries, when the Assembly passes Bill 9x78sd.