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Sentinel Prime had been an ordinary mech, unexpectedly thrown into the highest and most powerful position on Cybertron. It made sense that he wouldn't know how to communicate with his new staff at first. At least, that was how Prowl was justifying Sentinel Prime's behavior.
"They tell me you have the most advanced processor of all candidates," was the first thing the new Prime said to Prowl, not even looking at him.
He did not, because everyone was built the same. He had simply been the last one of his batch to refuse the offer from the Primal Office. But the strict ban from ever contradicting the Prime was well anchored in his processor.
"I only aim to serve the Primacy to the best of my ability, sir," Prowl said automatically, repeating the sentences that had been drilled into him as soon as the assignment had been known.
Sentinel Prime then asked what his credentials were, what he had worked on so far, what his capabilities were. For the entire duration of Prowl's answer, the Prime kept looking at the datapads on his desk, never once even throwing a glance at him. It was normal, Prowl told himself. The Prime is the busiest mech on Cybertron, it only made sense that he would need to multitask. There was no offense in this.
"Whatever," Sentinel said when Prowl was done, immediately shattering Prowl's social analysis. "I need these done for tomorrow. Get on it."
He pushed the pile of datapads towards Prowl. A quick look showed that they were reports on almost every subject that fell under the Primal Office's purview: energon production and future projections, diplomatic relationships with independent city-states, housing and employment statistics in Iacon, crime rates, everything.
"Sir?" Prowl asked, blowing up a small processor thread in his non-understanding of the assigned task. He had been trained to answer any question and fulfill any task, but surely the Prime understood that he needed to know what the task was…?
But the Prime simply dismissed him (quite rudely, another little processor thread pointed out, but this one was immediately shut down by broader processes).
So Prowl got to work, not knowing what the work was. He compiled every statistic in the reports, every expert conclusion, into easily readable and understandable format. He mercilessly aborted every processor thread that wanted him to have an opinion on what he was reading, or that was doubting that he was even doing what the Prime had wanted him to do. He went without recharge, for his report to be ready before the Prime's deadline.
"Huh," Sentinel Prime just said when Prowl gave him the reports' conclusions the next day. "That's your opinion on it?"
"Those are the facts, sir. It is not my place to form opinions on facts."
"Hmm," Sentinel Prime said again. "They're wrong."
"…Excuse me, sir?" Prowl battled the obedience process.
"Your numbers. They're wrong. Change them."
By the end of the day, Prowl's processor had began integrating the new fact that "wrong" meant "disliked by Sentinel Prime". It was grating against all his previous processes, and he kept having to input it again because his logic center refused to acknowledge it. But that was how the Primal Office worked.
Sentinel Prime wasn't pleased with Prowl's work. This was a fact.
This was because Sentinel Prime expected the numbers, reports, and conclusions to align with his own view of the world. This was another fact.
Conclusion: Sentinel Prime's view of the world wasn't aligned with reality.
Fact: the Primal Office medic had to manually defrag Prowl's processor after he reached that conclusion. His workload didn't lighten in his absence.
Sentinel Prime, Prowl learned, could be worked with, if one was to very carefully tread between the Prime's wants and the Primacy's needs. It was both an exercise in improvisation and an incessant balancing act between conflicting inputs and outputs. It also required constant awareness of what Prowl said, who he said to, what the other bot understood, and what they would actually do.
It was hell.
But it was working. The Prime's demands were sometimes nonsensical, and often contradicted actual facts, but there was some little room for maneuver if Prowl was careful about it. Subcontractors could be paid regardless of Sentinel's moods, enforcers could be deployed both where Sentinel wanted them and where they would be of use, funds could be allocated both to Sentinel's preferences and for the betterment of the general people's lives.
If Sentinel ever noticed, he didn't say anything about it. But Sentinel also had bigger techno-fish to fry.
"I expect nothing less than perfection from my staff," Sentinel said one day at the end of Prowl's presentation on the potential solutions to the increasing crime rates in Kaon and Tarn. Potential solutions that he knew Sentinel would ignore, in favor of sending the Primal Guard, extended under his rule. And then Prowl would compile all the ways those actions will have worsened the situation in Kaon and Tarn, and Sentinel would ignore those too.
"Of course, sir," Prowl agreed out of habit, because Sentinel often repeated the same sentiment, and it wouldn't do to point that out to the Prime.
"That includes your tone."
"Sir?"
Prowl had learned quickly that Sentinel Prime didn't actually mind clarifying his words. Sometimes. When Prowl's lack of understanding didn't irritate him, but Sentinel's irritation wasn't easily predictable. So in the end it was often a gamble, and Prowl hated gambling. Especially when he couldn't know whether he would be gambling or not.
"Download a language package and cease with this monotone voice," Sentinel Prime ordered. "You're not a drone, are you?"
Prowl had long ago downloaded every language package available to the Primal staff, and he had applied them without issue. It wasn't his fault that the intonations didn't transfer through his voice box properly.
He still went through the whole process again.
The Prime was to be obeyed.
"Sir?"
"What is it?"
Sentinel wasn't in one of his moods today, so Prowl felt moderately confident in his next words.
"There seems to be a… A clerical error, maybe? The Primal Sculptor has sent an invoice for a gold statue, but there hasn't been any-"
"Accept it," Sentinel cut him off. Prowl's processor had long learned not to take offense for that particular habit.
"But that's an invoice of-"
"I said accept it."
"But expenses of this magnitude must be approved by the Senate and it has never been on the-"
Sentinel Prime's fist hit the table. Prowl tried his very best not to show any surprise at the sudden outburst.
"Accept the invoice and get out of my sight," the Prime hissed.
The golden statue in Sentinel Prime's image was adorning the main hall of the Primal Office.
Common opinions on it considered it gaudy, or a waste of space in such a busy hall. The most religious bots noted that until the statue, the Primal Sculptor had only been employed to sculpt statues of the Thirteen Primes, meant to occupy temples, and that none of any of Sentinel's predecessors had ever had a statue made of themselves.
The malcontent still seemed to keep their voices low, probably for fear of military retaliation, until the day that contestation appeared online. Megatron of Tarn had talked, or yelled, a lot about the Primacy, and about Sentinel Prime specifically, but the statue seemed to be the straw that broke the cyber-camel's back. It crystallized everything that the common bots were criticizing Sentinel for: the waste of money, the uselessness, and the Prime's very personality.
"They think you had the statue built because you consider yourself to be on the same level as the Thirteen Primes," Prowl, extremely cautiously, answered when Sentinel Prime asked why his more-extensive-than-ever network of spies reported discontentment about his statue.
"And why is that a problem for the populace?"
Sentinel Prime's were so often denigrating the very bots he was meant to serve, that Prowl didn't even register it anymore. It was just Sentinel Prime's personality.
"They think you consider yourself a god. It makes them afraid, so they rally behind the few bots who oppose that idea."
"They shouldn't be afraid," Sentinel asserted. "I'm benevolent."
Prowl's processor helpfully presented him with the statistics on the hundreds of peaceful protesters that Sentinel's Guard had sent to the hospital or the morgue, the thousands arrested, the ever-rising crime rates brought by the energon and housing crises. The word benevolent might be disputed by many bots, if that conversation was to ever get out.
"What is it," the Prime demanded, and that's how Prowl knew he had let something slip into his face. But now he had to answer. The Prime couldn't be disobeyed.
"You didn't dispute the protesters' conclusion that you see yourself as a god."
"So?"
"You are not a god," Prowl had no choice but to point out.
"No, I am not," Sentinel Prime finally said. "The gods made this flawed world and then they left it to degenerate into chaos. I am ridding us of this filth they left us with. I am better than a god."
"Excuse me? Sir?" Prowl added belatedly. Surely he had heard wrong, maybe his audial suite had been hacked, because there was no way-
Sentinel stopped him with a glance.
"Report to the medbay," the Prime ordered, and Prowl went.
Sentinel Prime's guest wasn't on the approved guest list. It was a glaring breach of security, and a betrayal of the security officers' hard work. It was Sentinel Prime's prerogative to invite whoever he wanted into his office.
Sentinel Prime's guest was looking at the golden decorations as if they were seeing it for the first time. He probably was, Prowl fought its processor to think once it had identified the bot as a lower caste bot. Why was Sentinel inviting him into his office?
Orion Pax's optics ended up on Prowl, who was quite logically standing at attention behind Sentinel Prime's desk, ready to provide any calculation or analysis as necessary. But only when asked to. Sentinel Prime asked very rarely. More specifically, Orion Pax looked disturbed to see it. Did the bot have some kind of objection to the hardline connections between Prowl's processor, its only redeeming feature, and Sentinel Prime's computer? Or maybe an objection to the level of obedience that the Prime expected from His staff? Didn't he know that Sentinel Prime was all-powerful and His will was law?
"Sentinel?" Orion Pax asked uneasily. "What is this?"
Sentinel Prime didn't even throw a glance towards Prowl before he answered.
"Ignore it, it's just a drone. Now, what were you saying about the Matrix?"