Work Text:
Kindling requires a spark merge with the intent to create. It will work eventually. One side can force it, though it's not nearly as effective.
While the newspark is orbiting the carrier's spark any merge with someone not bonded to the carrier and not the sire will dissipate the newspark. Generally this is considered the most humane way to abort a newspark and it is definitely the safest.
Sticky provides coding (for frame and processor) in the form of nanites in the transfluid. Generally sire-coding has to be active for the nanites to be produced, so just because the carrier got transfluid in them doesn't guarantee that the sparkling will have influence from them. The more nanite-rich transfluid the carrier takes in during construction the more the sparkling will be like the contributor.
Carry time:
Microbot 5 metacycles
Minibot: 7 metacycles
Standard: 8 metacycles
Seeker: 8 metacycles
A convoy class (or tank): 10 metacycles (1 vorn +1 metacycle)
A shuttle (Skyfire) 15 metacycles (1 vorn +6 metacycle)
A metrotiatn: 160 vorns
Spark-only: 1/3
Frame construction/spark separate: 1/3
Newspark in frame: 1/3
Newspark forms
Newspark can send feelings to carrier.
Sire bond forms enough for them to feel.
Construction begins
Newspark can talk
Newspark migrates
Sparkling separates
Microbot 50 vorns to maturity
Minibot: 250 vorns to maturity
Standard: 300 vorns to maturity
A convoy class (or tank): 500 vorns to maturity
A shuttle (Skyfire) 1200 vorns to maturity
A metrotiatn likely takes several thousand vorns to maturity.
Grounder:
Sparkling: 25% of the total time
Youngling: 50% of the total time
Mechling: 25% of the total time
Flier:
Pre-kindling egg production: 3-4 decaorns.
Carried: 15% the time (1 metacycles for Seekers)
Egg: 85% the time (7 metacycles for Seekers)
First armor: 1/2 as long as the time carried (3-4 metacycles for Seekers)
Sparkling: 25% of the total time
Youngling: 25% of the total time
Mechling: 50% of the total time
Seeker reproduction cycle:
This is a standard cycle for any frametype that has eggs. While written with Seekers in mind, the gist of it also applies to Shuttles and sometimes Rotors, Spaceships and Praxians.
The trine agrees to create.
(if Seeker) The Action builds the nest. This in part is the first serious expression of the creator code, a display of the Action's ability to gather and how good their code is, it also serves the practical needs of protecting the grounded Vision, eggs and un-armored hatchlings. It is vary rare for anyone other than it's creator trine and possibly a medic to see the hatchlings before they have armor.
The merge that kicks the egg-creation process off.
Insatiable hunger for being spiked for 3-4 decaorns. With trined or mated fliers, the sire(s) are similarly affected and their frames/desires are geared to satisfying their carrier-mate. During this time the egg is mostly completed. During this time the carrier becomes grounded and unable to transform.
Second merge to create the newspark(s).
At least 2 more decaorns of heavy interfacing as the carrier's frame gets as much from the sire as it can and the eff is completed.
(if Praxian) the carrier builds a nest, usually in an enclosed room. It's less about spiky defense than the Seeker version, and more about fluff and walled protection.
The new spark migrates
The carrier won't want to move much and will want energon and supplements for the rest of the carrying time. This lasts until the egg is completed and the newspark(s) mature enough to enter the eggs.
The egg is laid. The carrier (and mates) will become hyper-aggressive about the nest. Close kin (coding standards, not legal) can come in and help, or just stay to protect the nest. The carrier *might* trust someone to watch the egg while he visits the washracks, but only maybe. Sponge baths are the norm for the time it takes for the eggs to hatch.
More psycho-protective fliers, only now their charge is mobile, sort of. It is custom that the hatchlings do not leave the nest until their first armor shows.
First armor shows on the hatchlings and they are (cautiously) allowed out into the world near the nest.
Symbiot creation. There are four methods to create a symbiot and all produce an adult frame.
1. Create from mechanimal. This is what canon Ravage and Laserbeak (among others) are. An adult mechanimal is acquired and converted into host-dependent mecha.
2. Vector Sigma. Same method as with other mecha.
3. Host carrying a symbiot newspark. The newspark can be created by the host by budding his spark, merging with intent to create a symbiot newspark or transferred from a symbiot who has merged and created a newspark. It's that last one that really endears hosts to symbiots. Symbiots can spark merge and create a new life but lack the internal structures to build a new frame/egg for the sparkling. That is where the host comes in. The same internal structures that allow a host to repair a symbiot can create a new frame/egg for the developing symbiot. the new hatchling's frame is typically influenced by the types of symbiots in the flock. The new spark "moves" into the frame inside the host (more room for it than in the actual creators) and hatches from there making most outsiders assume that the host budded off a new symbiot. They don't discuss it with outsiders because it makes symbiots sound like parasites and hosts even more different from normal mecha.