Editing Speak, Memory: Part 1

{{Comicstory
|series=mtmte|issueno=48
|prev=The Lopsided Triangle
|next=Speak, Memory: Part 2
|image=MTMTE48_regcvr.jpg
|title="Speak, Memory: Part 1"
|caption=
|publisher=[[IDW Publishing]]
|date=[[December 23]], [[2015]]
|coverdate=December 2015
|written by=[[James Roberts]]
|pencils by=[[Hayato Sakamoto]]
|colors by=[[Joana Lafuente]]
|letters by=[[Tom B. Long]] & [[Chris Mowry]]
|editor=[[John Barber]]
|continuity=[[IDW Generation 1 continuity|IDW continuity]]
|chronology=[[IDW timeline|Current era (2015)]]
}}

'''Rung's attempts to help Skids safely recover his lost memories are threatened by the unexpected return of Froid.'''

==Synopsis==
In session with [[Rung (G1)|Rung]], [[Skids (G1)|Skids]] helps the psychotherapist rebuild one of his model kits while trying to recall more of his missing memories. With Rung's aid, he is able to remember the time when an "[[anti-personal mine]]" he was attempting to defuse—a landmine built out of a living Transformer—exploded and knocked him offline, allowing him to be captured by the [[Decepticon]]s and taken to the legendary [[Grindcore (prison)|Grindcore prison]]. He recalls the gruesome installation of a transformation-inhibiting "[[inhibitor spike|mouth flower]]", but his memories begin to sputter out just before he can remember the identity of his cellmate. Rung congratulates him on a job well done and calls an end to the session, replacing the completed model kit on his shelf; Skids suggests that he should get some ''new'' models, but Rung explains that he only collects models of ships he has served on (justifying his model of the ''[[Ark (G1)|Ark-1]]'' by noting he was recalled from the crew by the [[Senate]] at the last minute). Just before Skids leaves, [[Riptide (G1)|Riptide]] knocks on the door to inform Rung he has a ''very'' unexpected visitor: his old rival, [[Froid]], who Rung believed to be dead! Skids compliments Froid's set of [[Primal Beads]], and leaves the two to get reacquainted.

In the ''[[Lost Light]]'' medibay, the surprisingly-still-alive [[Cyclonus (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Cyclonus]] receives a report on [[Tailgate (G1)|Tailgate]]'s condition from [[Velocity (G1)|Velocity]], who explains that the little 'bot has been left comatose after his spark sent a wave of energy throughout the ship, which has succeeded in awakening [[Thunder Clash|Thunderclash]] from his own coma. [[Megatron (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Megatron]] offers his apologies for lashing out at Tailgate, while [[Hot Rod/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Rodimus]] tells him that they have arrested [[Getaway]] and [[Atomizer]] for their crimes. Cyclonus is puzzled as to how they learned the pair were responsible, and Rodimus reveals he had [[Chromedome (G1)|Chromedome]] [[mnemosurgery|mnemosurgically]] obtain the information from the unconscious Tailgate—something that both Megatron and Cyclonus question the ethics of.

A tense conversation between Rung and Froid establishes that the last time they spoke was on the day [[Sunder (G1)|Sunder]], a rogue mnemosurgeon turned serial killer known as the "Tetrahex Ripper", was arrested, along with his brother [[Sceptre]]. Fascinated by the case, Froid had been aboard the prison ship taking Sunder to [[Garrus 6]] when the two brothers escaped their cells and took him hostage, fleeing the vessel in a shuttle. The shuttle was destroyed and Sceptre died, but Froid escaped and settled on [[Scarvix]], where he has allegedly become something of a local celebrity. Tiring of his passive-aggressive remarks, Rung demands to know why Froid has come to the ''Lost Light''; Froid requests to look through Rung's case files, but Rung refuses, citing both doctor-patient confidentiality and Froid's tendency toward plagiarism. But Froid doesn't take no for an answer, insinuating he knows a secret about Rung's past that ''might just'' come to light if Rung doesn't acquiesce...

Down in the ship's [[oil]] reservoir, Skids tries to recall more of his time in Grindcore. With a little effort, he is able to remember that his cellmate was [[Quark]], and recalls how he removed his "mouth flower" thanks to his super-leaning abilities. Quark warned him against publically displaying such skills and told him a little about the prison and how they used to pipe music in, at which point they discovered that the prison's commandant had been listening at the door...

Rung continues to refuse Froid's request and escorts him back to his ship in the shuttle bay, where the two guards [[Kindle]] and [[Fervor]] are only too happy to see Froid leave. Rung is puzzled by their remarks, but soon discovers the reason behind them: Sunder is a prisoner aboard Froid's ship! Froid delights in explaining that he has been helping Sunder work through the loss of his brother, but Rung fears that Froid is too close to his patient. Froid scoffs at the accusation: who is Rung to talk about such things, given the secret Froid knows about him—the fact that, while serving aboard the ''Fateful Archetype'', ''Rung'' became too close to a patient and was disbarred from practising medicine by the ship's tribunal. But then the ''Archetype'' was shot down, leaving Rung as the sole survivor, able to pretend the verdict had never been given—something he had once confessed to Froid back when they were still friends. At Froid's instruction, Sunder lifts his head up to look at them, revealing a pair of eyeless sockets; Froid explains that he has removed Sunder's eyes because he is capable of remote mnemosurgery via eye-contact. Sunder feeds on repressed memories, and Froid hasn't just been helping him deal with the loss of his brother... he keeps him ''fed''. With Rung having refused to let Froid see his files so he could select some new victims, Froid intends to make Rung himself Sunder's next meal. Fortunately, Skids arrives at just that moment, having been sent a message by Rung via a remote upload of Skids's case notes. Froid rips the "Primal Beads" from around his neck and tosses them toward Sunder: in truth, they are not beads, but the murderer's plucked-out eyes! Sunder inserts them back into his sockets, and turns his unholy ability against the two Autobots, starting with Skids...

...whose memories race back to Grindcore once again, right where they left off, and the door of his cell opens to reveal that the prison commandant is [[Tarn (DJD)|Tarn]]!!

==Featured characters==
(Characters in ''italic text'' appear only in flashbacks.)<br>
{{featuredcharacters
|c1=
*[[Rung (G1)|Rung]] (1)
*[[Skids (G1)|Skids]] (2)
*''[[Heavy Tread]]'' (3)
*[[Riptide (G1)|Riptide]] (14, voice only)
*[[Velocity (G1)|Velocity]] (16)
*[[Tailgate (G1)|Tailgate]] (18)
*[[Hot Rod/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Rodimus]] (19)
*[[Megatron (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Megatron]] (20)
*''[[Getaway]]'' (21)
*''[[Ultra Magnus (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Ultra Magnus]]'' (22)
*''[[Atomizer]]'' (23)
*[[Kindle]] (26)
*[[Fervor]] (27)

|c2=
*''[[Charger]]'' (4)
*''[[Glit (KP)|Glit]]'' (5)
*''[[Dreadwing (G2)|Dreadwing]]/[[Dreadwind (G1)|Dreadwind]]''? (see Notes, 6)
*''[[Wingthing (G1)|Wingthing]]'' (7)
*''[[Skyquake (G1)|Skyquake]]'' (8)
*''[[Ruckus (G1)|Ruckus]]'' (9)
*''[[Octus (G1)|Octus]]'' (10)
*''[[Take-Off]] (11)
*''[[Flywheels]]'' (12)
*''[[Stalker (G1)|Stalker]]'' (13)
*''[[Tarn (DJD)|Tarn]]'' (28)

|c4=
*[[Froid]] (15)
*[[Cyclonus (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Cyclonus]] (17)
*[[Sunder (G1)|Sunder]] (24)
*''[[Quark]]'' (25)
}}

==Quotes==
"No one loves the '''moral high ground''' as much as you. Wouldn't it be '''awful''' if you had to '''vacate''' it after all this time?"
:—'''Froid''' threatens Rung



"After his arrest, Sunder took his skills to the next level: '''remote mnemosurgery.''' He can access your memories just by '''looking at you.'''  He says memories have a '''flavor'''—the '''darker''' the memory, the '''sweeter''' the taste. And the sweetest ones are the ones we lock away. The ones we '''bury.'''"
:—'''Froid'''



"'''Look''' at you all! So '''young'''! So thin-winged and bow-legged and blood-warm and '''new.''' And me... a mess of '''angles''' and '''frequencies''' of '''sour light''' and '''brown noise''' and—oh! The '''smell''' you! You '''stink of sin.''' You '''reek''' of what you've done—and what you'd do '''again''' if only you could overcome the '''shame''' of it all."
:—'''Sunder'''

==Notes==
===Continuity notes===
*Skids notes that his capture occurred not long after the oft-mentioned [[Simanzi Massacre]]; he is able to recall this fact because he can remember that "the ground still burned [his] feet." Among the many tidbits we've learned about the Simanzi Massacre was that it caused the planet to become superheated, and that it took years for it to cool back down, as recounted by Megatron in [[The Becoming: Dark Cybertron Chapter 10|issue #27]].
*There's a 'bot among the Decepticons at Grindcore who is drawn with the body design of [[Dreadwing (G2)|''Generation 2'' Dreadwing]] from [[Drift issue 1|''Drift'' #1]], but colored like [[Dreadwind (G1)|Generation 1 Dreadwin'''''d''''']]. With the similarity of their names, it's very easy to imagine a mix-up happening, but it's impossible to tell whether he's supposed to be the former character mistakenly colored like the latter, or the latter character deliberately sharing a body-type with the former.
*Most of the Decepticons at Grindcore who have previously appeared in present-day stories in IDW continuity are ones who died in those stories. [[Skyquake (G1)|Skyquake]] and [[Stalker (G1)|Stalker]] died in ''[[The Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers|Last Stand of the Wreckers]]''; [[Ruckus (G1)|Ruckus]] met his end in [[Stormbringer issue 3|''Stormbringer'' #3]]; and [[Flywheels]] ate it in [[Scavengers (Part 2): Who's Afraid of the DJD?|''More Than Meets the Eye'' #8]]. [[Charger]] and [[Take-Off]] have only appeared previously in the set-in-the-past ''[[The Transformers: Drift|Drift]]'' mini-series as [[Turmoil]]'s troops, where Dreadwing first appeared (conversely, if he's supposed to be Dreadwin''d'', he's also dead in the present day, as of [[All His Engines|issue #7]] of the [[The Transformers (IDW)|2009-2011 ongoing series]]). It was also in the ''Drift'' mini-series that a corpse that ''might'' have been [[Glit (KP)|Glit]] showed up, but that was an easter-egg reference to [[Ravage (SG)|''Shattered Glass'' Ravage]] and might not count for much. [[Octus (G1)|Octus]] and [[Wingthing (G1)|Wingthing]] have not appeared in the IDW continuity before.
*Grindcore prison makes its first on-panel appearance after being mentioned in several previous issues.
*Flywheels has a set of Primal Beads, in-keeping with the religiosity he showed during his previous appearances in the series.
*As pointed out in a footnote, Chromedome discovered Skids's repressed memories and refused to unearth them in issue #8. The one thing Skids learned in that issue was that the song stuck in his head was "[[The Empyrean Suite]]", which is about to take on greater meaning...
*The ''Lost Light'' now has a [[transwarp|subspace]] hatch in medibay, which is how Skids suggests Rung get some new models sent over. The existence of this hatch was concurrently established by ''[[The Transformers Holiday Special]]'', released the same day as this issue.
*Froid's rise in popularity and the accompanying dwindling of Rung's reputation were previously remarked on in the prose story, "[[Signal to Noise]]", as was Froid's apparent death. 
*Back in [[The Sensuous Frame|issue #41]], [[Nautica]] related how Rung had made a comment about the authorship of Froid's work "Conflict of Interest: Psychotherapy and Perpetual War" which she interpreted as an inference that Rung had ghost-written it. Given Rung's remark here, it seems much more likely that he was actually implying that ''Froid'' had plagiarized it from ''him''.
*We learned that Quark was incarcerated at Grindcore in [[Elegant Chaos Part 3: Predestination: An Expert's Guide|issue #38]].
*Quark tells Skids that music used to be played in Grindcore, at which point Tarn arrives and mentions that is it only played when they have something to celebrate. With these twin revelations, it becomes apparent that the music must be the "The Empyrean Suite", "theme song" of the [[Decepticon Justice Division]], and that his experiences in Grindcore are the reason that Skids had the song in his head. The tune had already implied a connection between Skids and Tarn that [[The Permanent Revolution|issue #39]] confirmed... looks like the puzzle is about to be solved! 

===Transformers references===
*The Transformer in the anti-personal mine is (was!) named [[Heavytread (disambiguation)|Heavy Tread]], a name shared by several 'bots. It's hard to know if Roberts had a specific one in mind when he wrote the scene, but Sakamoto has drawn the [[Heavy Tread|Micromaster Heavy Tread]], though he has a different color scheme to his original toy.
*The Decepticons at Grindcore are all wielding the trident weapon that came with the 2010 [[Terradive (TF 2010)|Terradive]] toy.

===Real-life references===
*This two-parter takes its title from the {{w|Vladimir Nabokov}} novel, ''{{w|Speak, Memory}}''.
*Given that Rung served aboard it, the ''Fateful Archetype'' may take its name from the concept of {{w|Jungian archetypes}}.

===Errors===
*Both of Cyclonus's horns are intact in this story, when a chunk got blasted off one the climax of the previous issue. We wouldn't normally draw attention to something quite so inconsequential—it's just a product of two artists drawing the two separate issues and choosing to represent the precise extent of Cyclonus's damage differently—but it stands out due to fact previous story points have prominently focused on Cyclonus's horns and his [[Clavis Aurea|religious stance]] on replacing body parts. And yeah, it was his ''original'' horn that got damaged, not Tailgate's replacement!
*Froid's line to Skids about losing his faith on page 7 is repeated on page 8 in Velocity's dialogue to Cyclonus.
*Skids's Matrix tattoo is missing its "handles" on the final page.

===Soundtrack===
*"[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOBS0RNN-Sk Take Back the Days]" by {{w|East River Pipe}}
*"[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjs5vkX3JGg You or Your Memory]" by {{w|the Mountain Goats}}

===Covers (3)===
*'''Regular cover:''' The battered and bound Skids is led into the horrors of Grindcore, by [[Alex Milne]] and [[Josh Perez]]
*'''Subscription cover:''' Ten gets into body-painting, by [[Nick Roche]] and [[Josh Burcham]]
*'''Retailer incentive cover:''' Ultra Magnus, Swerve, Tailgate, Nightbeat, Getaway, and Velocity, by [[Alex Milne]] and [[Josh Perez]]; part of a series of variant covers "counting down" to the release of the 50th issues of ''The Transformers'' and ''More than Meets the Eye'' in February 2016.

<gallery>
File:MTMTE48 regcvr.jpg|
File:MTMTE48 subcvr.jpg|
File:MTMTE48 cvrRI.jpg|
</gallery>

===Advertisements===
*''More than Meets the Eye'' #49
*''[[The Transformers: Robots in Disguise|The Transformers]]'' [[Conquerors Part 3: Helden|#48]]
*''[[The Transformers: Sins of the Wreckers|Sins of the Wreckers]]'' [[Sins of the Wreckers issue 1|#1]]
*IDW ''Transformers'' Reading Guide
*IDW's 5-week "Holiday Specials" event, including ''[[The Transformers Holiday Special]]''
*IDW ''Transformers'' graphic novel library

==External links==
*[http://www.newsarama.com/27244-skids-goes-grindcore-in-transformers-more-than-meets-the-eye-48-preview.html Preview]