To understand where I’m going, you needs to know I’m currently buying an electric car. 100% electric, not an hybrid. And you would be surprised by the amount of “what??” I used while learning about EV (electric vehicle).
And to bring hear differences to Cybertronians wasn’t hard, because they certainly don’t use fossil fuel!
Are you aware EV don’t have a radiator? They don’t overheat! They produce so little heat, in fact, a heat pump or a resistor (like a toaster) is required to heat the passengers!
Which to bring to the second difference: no grill! No need of a radiator means no need for air to reach the inside of the hood.
The third one, they’re soooooo silent. All you hear is the small rocks being moved around by the tires. It’s a bit scary when they drive right by you and you don’t realize a car is coming before its right next to you. So silent, in fact, the car comes with a chime gently telling you the motor is on. Because there’s no starting noise, no “vroooom”, nothing. Noise-wise, there’s no difference between off and on.
I wouldn’t be surprised they don’t have breaks. No, that’s not a typo. It’s quite technical, but some EV have such efficient system, people had breaks problem… Because they never use them.
Oh, and if you’re a fan of the stick shift, well, sorry… There’s no transmission in an EV. From 0 km/h to cruising on the highway, no need to change a gear. EV comes only with D R N P.
As for the torque and the power, I tried the Hyundai Ionic. Oh my! There’s power in that one, something I wasn’t expecting at all! I’ve always think they were sluggish. They’re definitively not!
Knowing Cybertronians uses a fuel thousand times more efficient than gasoline, it it’s not hard to imagine they share a lot of those differences I just mentioned. In my mind, it makes them more aliens. Can you imagine Optimus moving around almost perfectly silent?
Doesn’t that mean that it’s possible that those who took Earth vehicle modes might only be REPLICATING the car noises? Not only that, those sorts of noises that come with a gas-fueled engine/transmission may in fact mean something entirely different to a mechanical species that does not generate them as a part of natural movement? For example, fanfiction talked about “engine reving” all the time in different contexts, but if your engine doesn’t need to make that sound in alt mode, what does it MEAN when you DO make that sound? O.o
@warlordenfilade, @cavalierconvoy, and whoever else knows more about cars and has thought more about Cybertronian anatomy: THOUGHTS? I don’t regularly put enough thought or research in to give really educated input.
Clearly the engine rev “raring to go” sound at the start of a race means something incredibly suggestive on Cybertron.
So what you’re telling me is that Cybertronians probably say “vroom vroom” out loud whenever they want to drive around undercover
Want to read an almost 500-page pdf analyzing the (first three) bayverse Transformers movies, about the creeping fascism of the autobots, bizarre symbolism, and Megatron being the secret hero of the piece? OKAY HERE YOU GO
(Full disclosure, most of the length is pictures mixed with short paragraphs. It’s not 500 pages of text.)
The “bayverse is actually good” analysis is a firmly tongue-in-cheek bit of fun that came out of Something Awful’s Cinema Discusso forum circa 2012. I’d heard it referenced but never bothered to read the thing until now. A lot of it is “wtf, Michael Bay?”, but there’s weird stuff going on in the background, from Megatron’s design and role becoming gradually more feminine as the movies progress until he’s letting his children eat his own body, Starscream the last loyal decepticon, Optimus’ deliberately-misleading narration, Shockwave-as-the-red-scare, and the decepticons’ working-class coding before IDW Megatron came along. If you enjoy reading too much into media as much as I do, it’s worth a look.
It’s no secret that I’m a Megatron fan. Hell, if you look at my tumblr for more than half a breath, you’ll see that. But there’s things that niggle at my brain, and trickle down my spine like fingers of frost. The most important saying of Megatron, that rings true in every continuity is not that he’ll beat Prime, not that he’ll be back, or that he retreats.
But that he still functions.
Pushed beyond all limitations and expectations, he’s kept going no matter what. There was never any rest for him, never any excuses to stop, or to not keep going.
Simply because those were never options for him.
Getting up time, and time again- devastation after devastation, ruination after ruination- because you have to, because there IS no other recourse. I think that’s what truly terrified the Autocratic bots the most.
No matter what is thrown at him, he still functions and he will continue to do so until he decides to do so no longer.
But, I would think after eon after eon, there is exhaustion that is strut deep, and so vast that not even a Prime would understand. Imagine being so paraonoid, so alert for all of your life- simply because resting was never an option. What everyone sees as arrogance is the knowledge of that he can go past their limitations. What everyone sees as cold indifference is the shield he’s always had around him.
And what is seen as inexhaustible stamina and simple unbeatable victory… is the tired knowledge that there is no other recourse. In the mines, as long as you functioned- you worked. In the gladiatorial pits, as long as you functioned- you fought.
And as a Decepticon, as long as you functioned – you survived.
Seriously, though, Ambulon could definitely use some more appreciation.
He’s a medic and an ex-Decepticon who joined the Autobots ten years ago. He can be a bit uptight at times, sure…
…but he’s a good doctor.
But his Decepticon past still haunts him. He was forced into becoming a test subject as part of a prototype combiner team, which left him stuck with a useless alt mode.
(Not that he lets that slow him down.)
And when he’s trying to convince Ratchet not to change form?
That’s his first reaction. Because that’s how the Decepticon hierarchy works.
I wonder how many times he’s had to do that before.
Even his paintjob betrays him.
And there’s no way he could have possibly known that the war was about to end, but there are probably some Autobots who still see him as just a ‘con who jumped ship when he saw which way the wind was blowing, and other such painfully mixed metaphors.
And even Drift still catches hell for his Decepticon past – you can’t tell me that Ambulon doesn’t.
Especially working with Pharma.
That probably didn’t make life very pleasant for Ambulon at all.
Like when Pharma’s trying to pin the blame for events at Delphi on someone? He picks Ambulon.
And oh, yeah. Where does he work? On Delphi. Delphi. Home of the D.J.D.
Y’know, the group of insane, psychopathic murders who’ve tasked themselves with hunting down traitors to Megatron’s cause and bringing them to “justice” in the most agonizing ways possible.
That D.J.D.
But Ambulon, haunted by his past, surrounded by those who have no reason to like him, on a planet that’s basically out to kill him, does his job, and he does it well.
This is a tricky one, and one that forces us to loosen up our thinking a bit. Because the Transformers are robots, and because the spark is a tangible concept, we expect their mechanical biology to be more explainable, but really – it’s not.
Think about a human being. It’s an endless and unanswerable philosophical debate over what the difference between the “mind” and the “soul” are, and if those things are, or are not, distinct and separate from the ideas of the “consciousness,” and exactly what relationship they have to the physical “brain.”
Well, Transformers are the same. The spark is the “lifeforce,” the animating energy that makes them actually living creatures and not just machines, which as a tangible concept is more “knowable” and “provable” than the ethereal concept of a human soul. But they also have brain modules that contain the programming that is their “mind,” called a “core consciousness” in Beast Wars that was a concept distinct from a spark, which made up who they are as a person.
And the relationship between the two is just as undefinable as it is for humans. Even in Beast Wars alone, seemingly contradicting what we were told about core consciousnesses, Optimus Primal’s disembodied spark was transferred from one body to another alone, taking his mind and all his memories with it – but that happened in the same story in which Rhinox was able to project his core consciousness – his mind, not his spark – out of his body and into the Matrix. And then later in Beast Machines, we’d see multiple sparks moved from body to body, consciousness travelling with them each time. So where does consciousness lie if both these things are possible?
Presumably, the spark is what “fills” the brain module with that personality programming upon a Transformer’s activation. But, it is just programming, and it can be overwritten – Beast Wars used shell programs, while in Energon, Megatron could do it himself, and did it to Inferno, who only escaped by destroying his physical body and having his spark – unaffected – moved to a new body.
And how connected the mind and spark are once that initial birthing is forever in question. If you can alter a mind without altering a spark, must they then be considered separate concepts? In Binaltech, for example, Wheeljack was able to “resurrect” the dead Prowl by loading the programming from his mind into a new body, and using the lifeforce of Chip Chase in place of a spark. And it’s possible to have robots who have “just” programmed minds – no sparks – who are totally indistinguishable from normal Cybertronians in all cognitive functions, appearing just as sentient and alive as anyone else (Beast Machines’ Diagnostic Drone, Afterburn from the Animated comic) – but who are just considered… not, purely because they don’t have sparks.
So you see, sparks and brain modules co-exist with these philosophically-intriguing overlapping qualities, and exactly which truly makes a Transformer who and what they are is…. open to interpretation. When Megatron transferred his mind into Bumblebee’s, he was essentially moving programming from one piece of hardware to another. Did he remain “alive” in Bee’s brain because of Bee’s spark, providing animating force to his body? Or was it because his own spark remained alive inside his own body, his intangible “soul” transcending any kind of physical limitation, in the more abstract sense we might think of if a human character were to do the same?
Sentinel: Back in my day, there was no such thing as “feelings”.
I realize that Sentinel Prime was a heavy-handed parody of racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic bigots who may or may not be orange, and that’s why he says most of the things he says—but ever since his issues have come out, I’ve been dying with curiosity about the implications for Cybertron.
He complains that “Conjunx endurae swap fuel in public,” and above he accuses Cerebos of being “one of those,” “those” apparently being the “terminally sentimental” who had sparkmates instead of peers, colleagues, and associates. Okay, the real-world parallels are obvious, he’s supposed to be a homophobe complaining about how The Transformers Are Gay Now, yeah yeah alright, but what does that mean to them?
Obviously, from Sentinel’s perspective, inside this universe, he isn’t complaining about Transformers being “gay"—this is a society that, outside of ancient history and recently-discovered colonies, only has one gender. It’s really unlikely that what he’s bothered about is a bunch of male-coded bots falling for other male-coded bots, instead of holding out for non-existent female-coded bots (which by the way he also thinks don’t belong on Cybertron). As far as we can tell, the male-coded-ness has nothing to do with it. So it’s not that (within the comic universe) he’s a homophobe; it doesn’t seem to be the “homo” part that he’s objecting to. It seems more likely he’s a romance-phobe. If so, why??
Was romance taboo in pre-war Cybertron? Was it considered proper to not feel romantically toward anyone, ever? He said Cybertronians had “peers and colleagues” but he doesn’t list friends—was even friendship taboo? Was that because most Cybertronians are naturally aromantic (someone DOES say in MTMTE that it’s rare for most mechs to ever find a conjunx—that might be a reason why) and those that are even capable of romantic love are rare, making it easier to stigmatize and oppress the minority? Or are they pretty much universally capable of romantic love and the apparent taboo Sentinel is demonstrating was a societal, political thing?
Did they have conjunx endurae before the war? Sentinel Prime clearly knows the term, so obviously, they did at some time. How does that line up with Sentinel’s apparent belief that only “peers and colleagues” are acceptable? Was it in the pre-war time seen as only a long-term business arrangement, and during the war was adapted (or reverted) to something more like what we consider spouses? Or was it something that was banned during Sentinel’s time, and was seen as a disgusting pre-Golden Age practice from when sentiments ran high and frame types mixed and people followed their passions rather than their duties? Why did conjunx endurae become taboo, and/or sterilized into something non-romantic? Was it something the Functionists or the Senate did to control the population further—a 1984-esque sterilization of people’s emotions, forcing them to turn their love and passion toward the state rather than each other? Did amica endurae follow suit, since Sentinel’s ideal world doesn’t seem to include close friendships? Or were amica endurae still permitted, as a “next best thing” substitute when conjunx endurae weren’t allowed?
How well did these policies go over? It’s probable that Sentinel, being a Prime who before that worked for the Senate, is espousing the official governmentally-sanctioned POV on the subject. But how widespread was it? Did people pay lip service to the “no romance” laws in public but hold hands and stare into each other’s eyes in private? Did lovers call themselves “associates” or “work partners” in public to hide their relationships? Did the upper classes—the nobles, the intelligentsia—subscribe to the same rhetoric as the Senate? Did the middle classes? Did the workers and disposable classes? Or did some castes reject the taboo on love? Was it easier to love in the lower classes when you weren’t subjected to the scrutiny of your peers and the power games that called upon you to present yourself with decorum? Or was it easier to love in the higher classes where you had the power and wealth to get away with illicit or disreputable actions without a police officer confronting and beating you on the street for it? Was the taboo more prominent in some cities than others—prominent in cities where the Senate had a stranglehold like Iacon, but less common or even foreign and bizarre in places where they had a weaker hold like Kaon? Was it more or less common in Functionist cities?
Was it law, or merely social convention? Could two mechs be arrested for “swapping fuel” in public? Could being caught with love letters send you to jail? Could you lose your job for being known to fall in love? Was it perfectly legal to be romantic or to take a conjunx for reasons of love, but it would get you ostracized from society and dirty looks on the street? Or would people admit to you under their breath that they really see nothing wrong with it, they just assume everyone else does, but more power to you for your courage?
When did it start to change? Did the change come more slowly in the Autobots than in the Decepticons, since the Autobots carried far more of the ruling parties’ legacy than the Decepticons did? Did the Decepticons consider romance a rebellious act, a political act—did some of them rush into really ill-advised conjunx ceremonies to prove a point? With the changing of times, were the Autobots happy to embrace the downfall of the romance taboo, or did they cling to it and the arguments in favor of No Sentimentality for half the war? Do war-built MTOs think the whole thing is stupid—were they the ones who pushed the shift from taboo to acceptance? Are there still mechs who think romance is disgusting, but they’re now in the minority and keep their mouths shut around mechs who are courting or dating? Is this lingering legacy why we never saw Rewind say “I love you” until he was about to die—is the reluctance a societal thing?
I have so many questions. And so many thoughts. I’d be very interested to see this explored in the comic, and to see if the authors thought it through as anything deeper than a one-time shallow homophobia metaphor.
If they didn’t, though, I’m pretty content to speculate on the potential implications myself.
Just an added thought to why it might not have been allowed, especially in Functionist Era, which if I remember, began under Sentinel:
Love is dangerous. Love doesn’t respect boundries, like class and caste and function and supposed ‘worthiness’. Look at Rewind and Dominus Ambus. Rewind was classed disposable. He wasn’t even allowed energon. Dominus literally hooked up to him, and fed him from his own systems. Keeping his ‘disposable’ conjunx alive. Now, think about that when Sentinel says they ‘shared fuel in public’.
Also, think about how hard Dominus and others fought against the classifications, for the poor mechs who were considered disposable or, stars forbid, obsolete. How hard would you fight the system to save someone you love? I mean, there will always be those good people who fight just because it is the right thing to do, like Orion Pax, but most fight for the ones they know and love. You aren’t going to let a friend or loved one just be walked into a smelter because they are ‘obsolete’ or ‘disposable’, no matter the difference in your class or caste.
Affection means those mechs are now, at least by Sentinel and the government’s point of view, compromised. Affection means breaking the rules, hiding affairs, secret liaisons between mechs in different castes, smuggling mechs and energon, defying the government- all for the sake of feelings.
@ckret2 makes a lot of wonderful points, and I would love to see them explored more. But this is what I thought of when Sentinel said that.
I think that close relationships were discouraged in functionalist society, from romantic partners to friendships. I’m gonna add a couple more possibilities that haven’t been mentioned so far:
1.) Loyalty: A good cybertronian’s first loyalty should be to the system instead of to each other (which is admittedly 1984esque). You can see this mentality get shifted from loyalty to the system to loyalty to the cause. This might be a reason why Cybertronians are so prone to war, they value ideology over personal relationships by default.
2.) Class: In human society, the higher classes tend to be the more reserved with each other. It could be that interpersonal relationships were considered ‘beneath’ anyone that Sentinel was expected to take seriously back in his day. Friendship/Romance could have been a marker of the common rabble or lower castes.
I really hope they go into this more. I think that this notion of ‘personal relationships are undesirable’ might be one of the reasons why Cybertronians are prone to these fierce, long wars.
I love
how Transformers: Prime treats gender and gender roles, both being subtly fair
in how it treats male and female characters, and how it also quietly
reconstructs gender roles. Sure, it has a clear majority of male characters,
but the writing or the language used doesn’t treat male and female characters
differently or enforce gender roles, and I appreciate that greatly.
Arcee is a
capable leader and a fierce fighter, and her arc is about learning to trust
again and letting go of bloody revenge before it destroys her. She
isn’t “overtly emotional” or scolded by her teammates even when her thirst
for revenge causes them harm, she’s a person who’s having a difficult time.
Everyone around her trusts her and she is both strict and supportive of her
friends.
Airachnid
is scary as hell and no one belittles her at any point. She is taken seriously,
and the thing between her and Arcee is also framed and treated like a truly
dangerous affair, not some silly girls’ slap fight. She is capable of terrible
things and they aren’t brushed off because of her gender.
Miko is a
tomboy, but this isn’t at any point brought up as an unusual thing, and her
gender identity is not put at odds with her behavior. The writing lets a girl
be gender non-conforming and still a girl without a question, and this is
hugely important. There is no one right way to be a girl, and Miko is allowed
to do that in her own way. And when her recklessness gets her or her friends in
trouble, the issue is putting others in danger, not how she needs to be more
girly.
June is a
mother and in a caring profession, a nurse, but she isn’t a one-dimensional
character slapped with a bunch of stereotypes. She is raising her son alone and
like any parent she simply worries. She also works a lot, and her skills are
valuable assets to the team. We also see the actual nature of nurse work
when she jumps into action in an emergency when Rafiel gets injured in the end
of season 1.
There are
also different versions of masculinity, and all of them valid. Sure, we have
our Megatron, our Dreadwing, our Breakdown, our Wheeljack, and to a certain
extend Bulkhead. But strong and sort of aggressive as they are, they are not
toxic. Their battle prowess, stoicism or aggression are not inherently tied to
their masculinity as they don’t use them to underline their identities, nor do
they lead to them looking down at others who are different.
In
Decepticons we have a clear majority of aggressive masculine types, but we also
have Knockout and Starscream. Knockout’s vanity and clear queer coding are not
issues to anyone nor is he a joke to other characters. The traditionally
masculine Breakdown is a close friend/coded partner of his, and Knockout is
also a skilled fighter, a good doctor and kind of scary as well (s2.ep19 Human
factor, anyone?). Starscream is the one everyone has beef with, but it’s
because of personal matters, and he isn’t mocked for his feminine attributes.
Traits like being scheming and cowardly are not linked with his effeminate
design but his ambition, and none of these are reduced to jokes.
As for
different masculinities, Autobots – our good guys, mind you – have vocally
pacifist and protective Optimus Prime who focuses on wisdom and defense, almost
like a maternal figure, but still the one capable of going against Megatron in
battle. I mentioned Bulkhead with the traditional masculine characters, but
additionally to his attitude and deeds before thoughts kind of way, he’s also
very empathetic. He hugs people and is very often the most openly emotional,
getting excited, angry and worried. Bumblebee is close to the action-y kind of
young male character, but his youth and inexperience are not ignored, and he
takes orders and advice from the older bots higher in the chain of command.
The
language used is also a part of this. The bots don’t refer to each other as men
or women. Troops is not synonymous with men. Not even the bad guys ridicule
anyone based on their gender or their ability to perform gender roles, which
would be a cheap jab and lazy writing.
There
isn’t one instance of “you’re a girl, this is dangerous!” or “but… but you’re a
girl, how do you know how to so this technical/brave/useful thing?”
Actually,
no one’s gender is brought up as a reason for anyone’s skills, be they male or
female. In the beginning I mentioned that the series does all of this “subtly”
and “quietly”, and by that I mean that no one ever makes a preachy speech about
this, which is something often seen when the show/movie/story wants to make a
point. But I’ve often found that when there’s a preachy scene about gender
roles or one scene of “girl power”, this is all there is, and the rest of the
show or a movie continues to do the very things it was trying to call out. I
prefer TF Prime’s way of never having that one scene or maybe an episode of
superficial textual critique, and just actually doing the reconstruction
consistently through the entirety of its run.
As a kid
I had a huge problem with gender representation in media, especially with how
girls in childrens’ shows seemed to come in two version: delicate, squeaky-voiced,
endlessly patient carers, or loud, obnoxious, bossy brats who need to learn a
lesson. I’m so glad things have changed for the better.
transformers animated optimus prime is one of the all-time greatest iterations of op because:
– listens to team and encourages working together
– tries to rectify mistakes he makes when brought to his attention
– his moral compass is stronger than obedience to orders from other autobots
– super indoctrinated by autobot high command and told he was worthless but still pushed through to defeat megatron by believing in himself and his team
So it’s close to 2 am in the morning and I’ve had the weirdest thought. Jetfire and Jetstorm were the result of a slip protoform so what if they were shorter then they were before they got their decepticon coding? I mean they were refinery bots and I highly doubt they were naturally around Optimus’ height. This is really funny to me cause now I’m imagining Jetfire and Jetstorm hitting their helms on doorways cause they’re not use to their height yet.
hello yes it is 5am and you have my undivided attention
lemme pull up the pre-upgrade twins in PS and use the help of guides (the little blue lines) to do some Science
before i load the upgraded twins into this, i just noticed immediately that grounder!jetfire is just a tiiiiny smidgen shorter than grounder!jetstorm, which is adorable and i love this (i imagine this was the subject of many a sibling squabble because i mean. who can resist bugging their twin brother that they are, no matter how small the margin, the taller identical twin)
resizing the flightframe twins as best i could while taking into account the fact that they would be more aerodynamic and light/skinny post-upgrade, this is what i ended up with:
they did grow a bit, it looks like! probably not enough for them to notice too much, but if they were barely able to squeeze into some doorways before they’re definitely in for a rude awakening post-upgrade ^^;
and wait for it… wait for it…
jetstorm is still the taller twin.
percy your attention to detail is astounding holy shit
Cybertronian Database 