What Would A Fic With This Title Be About?

[classicdrogn]

(Feel free to imagine Peter Cullen narrating this, for obvious reasons.)

Optimus Prime wasn't expecting to come online again -- that was the reason for passing on the Matrix of Leadership to his trusted friend Ultra Magnus after all -- but online he found himself, with a new, foundry-fresh chassis and no idea what world he was on. The native sapient beings - humans like the ones on Earth, to the best he could determine - were less advanced, having only rudimentary tube-type electronics and relying otherwise on purely mechanical systems, yet they'd somehow also created piloted robotic weapons to use in their ongoing conflict among themselves. More curiously, he didn't seem to be the only one to have unexpectedly arrived here, though the first meeting with the one human who recognized him as a member of the Autobots was rough to say the least - it seemed being hit by the same model of truck as his new alternate mode was their last memory of Earth, and while untrained had gained a mysterious power in the transition. Still, having awakened together in the blasted No Man's Land between two hostile nations, assumed by both sides to be enemies, and with the few unaffiliated locals largely composed of deserters, bandits, and a few hardscrabble civilian survivors, the only advantage they have is each other as they try to find their way to a safer place, with the help of a traumatized but spirited tomboy they rescued along the way.

Known affectionately by fans as

Strictly Diesel

or by its full title, Another world of strictly diesel technology, and I am Truck-kun!? it's a somewhat rambling tale that wanders from action scenes to fluff while circling around the psychological horror of war, at first from their perspective as refugees, with others gathering around them as while Optimus can't fight two entire armies on his own he's perfectly capable of dealing with patrol squads from either side as long as they don't get time to call in too many reinforcements, and later while building a new settlement after both sides of the conflict were exhausted and agreed to form a border state as a buffer between them. There's also a helping of supernatural shenanigans, as both the other insertee and the local girl (and a handful of major antagonists) have psychic/magical powers that are explored and developed on, with some ghost and cryptid encounters along the way. Over fifteen hundred (short) chapters and still ongoing, with between two and five(!) added most days.

(Several of Bob's suggestions could be chapter or arc titles, I expect)