The reason some Cybertronian’s visors are restractable and some aren’t is because that the one’s who never/rarely ever have their eyes showing actually have poor eyesight. So basically the visors work as stylish glasses.
And it’s something they usually have to be born with, unless their optic sensors are damaged beyond repair.
Jazz for instance has always been almost completely blind, and the visor does help him see a little bit but his eyesight is still pretty bad. It’s barely noticeable though, because he’s able to rely on his hearing so well, which is part of the reason why he enjoys music so much.
Self-indulgent headcanon of the day is that sparkbonded mechs can eventually learn to “ride along” each other’s sensory feed, even over long distances. It’s most likely to occur when one of them is in recharge (lack of other input), and the other one awake, so most don’t realise that’s what’s happening b/c at first the differences in sensory input parsing leads to an incoherent, dreamlike experience.
Over time, sparkbonding causes various subsystems to synch up, which will make the sensory experiences easier to parse, and may even lead to “phantom limb”-like sensations whle awake, especially between bonded pairs of different frame types and classes. The sensation source is rarely aware of the connection – for some people it can lead to feeling like they’re being watched, but even that is usually hard to distinguish from the general mutual “awareness” typical of a sparkbond.
Sensation transfer while awake is rarer, but it’s known to occur with sudden spikes in sensory or system activity, and the frequency at which they happen has a rough correlation with the percentage of system synch-up the bonded pair is experiencing. Data compression artefacting and junk data synch while in recharge (”dream sharing”) is considered a separate phenomenon from sensory transfer, and is a lot more common even among newly-bonded pairs.
Just sitting here thinking about the implications of it being G1 canon that red optics are a sign of starvation, which is brought up once and never mentioned again
For everyone going “what”, in S3 (The Dweller in the Depths, which is about the previous slave race the Quintessons made that didn’t quite work out… There’s a lot going on here, okay), there’s a monster that sucks all the energy out of tfs, leaving them as shambling zombielike empties and instantly turning their optics red. Apparently that’s what happens when you run out of fuel.
tbh it probably wasn’t intentional worldbuilding (most of G1 is a fever dream held together with paper clips and string), but since this is the season that keeps trying to convince us the Decepticons are a huge evil force when most of what they’re doing is hanging out on a crappy asteroid without anything to eat… ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Okay one way to jury rig G1’s worldbuilding back into something sensible would be to say the Decepticons artificially give themselves red optics as a political statement about the cause
Yeah, it doesn’t make too much sense that all of the Decepticons are actively starving all the time, except for Swindle, Dirge, and the Stunticons. But I’d believe it as an aesthetic thing. “We are hungry and we are here for your fuel! (and then we will take over the universe!)” is pretty much the G1 Decepticon mission statement a lot of the time.
(It’s been a bit since I’ve seen the relevant scenes, but I believe the red optics go back to the original Quintesson military hardware line, though. Which, you know, G1. It does tie into my grand unified G1 theory that the ‘Cons overall have greater fuel needs than the ‘Bots, to power their flight and weapons systems and such. The Quints might have been underfueling them as well, deliberately or not.)
Semi-Related but I like the idea that optic color is determined by a lot of environmental factors when the Cybertronian is first being forged or is developing out of sparkling-dom.
This is pseudo-science but longer wavelengths have lower energy. So maybe, when being forged, if there’s less energy/resources available in the area red optics are developed to save energy.
So maybe it’s not so much that the cons are always starving, just that the majority of them underwent their short developmental years without access to surplus energon.
(Side note: I think the ‘symbolic red optics’ are totally metal, but I also can’t see the cons having the resources to switch everyone’s optic color just for that reason. I can see it being a mix of reasons, like if you’re a con and your optics aren’t red and yellow you get them switched to save energy, make a statement, and be better accepted by the troops)
Yeah, to be clear I don’t think the cons were actually starving all the time (except in season 3, when that was the plot, and they even joined up with their old masters the quintessons for a while because the quints showed up like “we’ve got fuel” and the Decepticons went “seems legit!”. wtf, season 3). It’s just a weird little implication along with the whole 80s energy crisis subtext. But! On the topic of fueling military hardware, let’s compare, say… Starscream and Powerglide.
We’ll ignore fiction and go for real-world measurements. G1 Starscream is an F-15 Eagle, and Powerglide’s an A-10 Thunderbolt II. Unfueled, an F-15 weighs 15.8 tons to an A-10′s 14.5. An A-10 can carry 5.5 tons of fuel, about a third of its own weight.
A fully-fueled F-15 weighs 40.5 tons.
That’s almost double its own weight in fuel, holy shit. Multiply that by the number of seekers in the armada and the energy costs must be insane. I can see the Decepticons being hungry all the time on rations that would feed an Autobot nicely, just because being ‘full’ is a wildly different thing.
It depends on what type of modifications the wings on said flier have. Some have built in mechanisms that will warm and properly regulate the wings. Most have this to some extent but this can’t always account for the various extreme conditions we can face with environmental factors.
Medics can conduct these procedures but to my knowledge most of the time any flier with half a processor could self prep for the proper conditions. Metal fatigue and sensor malfunction due from extreme conditions on the other hand is more of a medical need.
They might need a help reaching their wings occasionally though either way heh heh.
If I may, Knockout, I will explain. Cybertronian fliers almost never need to de-ice our wings, but when required in certain extreme cases, we have ways of doing so. We also prepare ahead of time so we don’t get iced up to begin with. Ice is pretty rare on Cybertron – it is a very dry world with hardly any water. Our precipitation is mainly hydrofluoric acid, which freezes at -118.4 degrees Fahrenheit, or -83.55 degrees Celsius. However, Seekers specifically encounter ice when most Cybertronians have never even seen it, and then we also must account for other planets’ climates as well. I’ll get to that.
First things first. Earth planes need regular de-icing because they sit outdoors in the elements and they are inanimate objects with cold, hollow wings. Seekers live indoors like civilized people, and our wings are also quite warm. Even in cold, wet places like Earth, our own body heat is normally sufficient to keep our wings clear of ice, at least for the amount of time we can comfortably be out in icy conditions.
But let’s look at conditions where we would need to de-ice. I said before that Seekers actually do encounter ice from time to time, and that is because we operate so high up, and also because Vos is so far south. Our winters are very dark and very cold, and the wind through the towers could bring the temperature down enough to form frost. For those cold days we had spray coatings we would apply to our wings so ice wouldn’t form on them as we flew. Some were simply an adhesive carrying nanites with a simple ice-breaking program, while other, more expensive, brands were made of fluorocarbons and other plastics, and could last all winter if properly applied. They were a more slippery version of the sprays people sometimes used in the rainy season to avoid irritation from the caustic humidity. I can still remember the odd smell of those sprays. People who had to be outside for extended periods, such as law enforcement, had thermal sleeves they could slip onto their wings when they were in root mode. Usually they had someone help them put those on, but they were designed to come off with either a strong wing flick or a magnetic release, so they could fly at a moment’s notice.
Winter flying conditions could be hazardous if you weren’t careful about ice. As Knockout mentioned, acidic frost forming on your wings can lead to deterioration, and trying to shake it off our your control surfaces can cause metal fatigue. Ice forming over your sensors for even a short time can be deadly. At very high altitudes, there are thin, iridescent clouds that indicate ice, and flying near them, especially under them, can quickly place a layer of ice on your wings. Losing air speed data and having your control surfaces freeze up is not something you want to experience. Fortunately all of that is very unusual on Cybertron and only high altitude Air Command soldiers really had to contend with it.
Not so on alien worlds. I knew it would be an issue once we got to space, since I had read a lot of stories about the Golden Age when people went to exotic planets with other kinds of precipitation. Our patrols were outfitted with thermal sleeves for their wings, and we formulated wing sprays for ices made from all manner of unusual substances, such as ammonia, nitrogen dioxide, and sulfur dioxide. We spent a lot of time on Earth, and had to get used to ice because of its wet conditions. I trained the Eradicons for what to do if they did find their wings icing up when they flew.
//just a thought – but Blitzwing having much more mobile joints in his wings, but them being lowered is the default position. He most likely doesn’t move them much because it keeps them out of the way.
so there’s kind of a trope of non-fleshy beings like robots and idk glowy orb consciousnesses seeing fleshy beings as super gross because we’re made of meat and we poop and so forth
but
the very concept of ‘gross’ only makes sense if you are vulnerable to poison and contagion
if you don’t have flesh, there’s no real qualitative difference between blood and orange juice
robots shouldn’t even be able to be grossed out, or if they are, they should be grossed out by stuff like this
the wwires are just sticking out not even attached to anything ewwwwww
robots don’t really understand the intricate circumstances under which humans won’t touch dead things but god fucking help you if your passwords aren’t secure.
Say you’re a bot on the Lost Light and you wanna tell your friend something. Lucky you, you’ve got a lot of options!
Hook up a brain-to-brain cable and share info directly from your brain to theirs
this is a cerebrostream of supercompressed visual data
Meet up in person and talk – in Neo-Cybex, Old
Cybertronian (if your friend is Rewind, Cyclonus or otherwise super
ancient) or Hand (if your friend is Drift, Getaway or otherwise speaks
Hand)
Engrave your message onto your body and stand in front of them (character limit fairly low)
Send info from your brain directly to theirs over the internet (what could possibly go wrong?)
This is called a remote upload, but you’re gonna need to get your friend’s neuro-coordinates first.
Put your information on a datastick. Give it to your friend and have them plug it into their head. Problem solved!
Alternatively, they can take the data stick home and look at your message on the console in their habsuite.
Write them a memo. Send it. (This is basically email)
May seem kinda stodgy unless you’re sending official ship’s business. Rodimus never reads these.
Write them a message and send it. (This is basically texting)
Comm them. (This is basically calling, I think)
now with extra bonus communication method: acquiring paper and writing that shit longhand!
Program a message into one of your datapads and have someone deliver it. (Great option if you’re shy!)
Inter-Autobot Radio
Only gonna work if you and your friends are autobots, though. I think that all autobots within range who are monitoring the frequency will be able to overhear. What is the range? who knows
Subspace Messages – a great option if your friend is on Cybertron whilst you’re in space.
Upside: you get to wear awesome headphones that make you look like you’re a podcaster/professional radio host. Downside: subspace communicator frequently broken, you need their personal hailing frequency.
Just get some paint and write them a friendly note on their door! Note – you may be cited for vandalism.
yeah, a nice, friendly, fun message between pals. Just like the example below.
Assemble a video for your friend, give it to Rewind and ask him to project it for your friend. (you may have to buy Rewind a drink, he’s a busy guy. But if you’re talking history or old cultural shit he’ll probably do it for free)
did I miss a thing? I probably missed a thing.
things I haven’t seen evidence for in mtmte but come up in fics: actual telepathy (that’s only soundwave, right?), empathic field reading, transmitting messages via visual glyphs telepathically
weirder options:
You and your buddy join The Big Conversation, AKA Decepticon Reddit and pretend to be Cons. Talk there while doing your best Decepticon impression.
Become a mnemosurgeon. Inject into your pal’s mind and have a conversation inside their mindscape, just like pals do.
Is your friend Drift? Tell him a story by modulating your optic colors.
Is your friend Rung? Make a new edition of his favorite book with the words of your message selectively removed.
Is your friend Red Alert? Whisper to yourself what you wanted to tell him. He’ll hear you.
Have you considered coded messages on digital clocks?
Time phone.
Become DJ at the next dance party and use the playlist to send a message to your pal.
Sabotage your life-support equipment such that the medical readouts display your message.
Bang a gong.
New banner up in Swerve’s
Submit your message to the Lost Light Insider. However, first you must discover who writes the Lost Light Insider.
Tell Swerve whatever you need to tell your friend, but inform him that it’s a secret.
Cybertronian Database 