Yup! And, on the Autobot side, there’s the irony that a lot of Autobots, like Prowl, are devoted to fighting for order, but their entire faction is a chaotic mess of Leeroy-Jenkins-style meteoroid-surfers and loose cannons with their own agendas, without an actual ordered vision of the world they want after the war.
Mmm. I had thoughts about this a day or two back.
Being a good (ideological) Autobot is “heroic nonsense before following orders”. See; everyone who doesn’t listen to their superior and ends up saving the day. Ironically enough, Getaway is doing just this (though through less heroic means to a heroic end) and he is a schemer. Being a good literal Autobot is doing what’s good for everyone, Prowl.
Meanwhile ideological Decepticon is “be your goddamn self wake the fuck up” and honestly, Starscream is perfect. He questions, has ambition, and sticks out. But being a good literal Decepticon is fitting the hell out in the war machine. You’ve got your role, stick to it or you’re repurposed.
Autobots also have thought police, Shadowplay, Institutes, binary guns, idea bullets. Decepticons have thought police that kills or harms you to make you change your mind. Overlord and Trepan fascinatingly show off these differences, and play off each other well. Overlord manipulates and scares mechs because of what he does to the outside, that affects the inside. Trepan is feared because what he does on the inside, affects the outside, everything.
Just, Cons and Bots, man. Cons and Bots.
Okay, I LOVE this. I think this split between being a good ideological fit with your faction and being a good literal fit with what your faction needs to win is perfect, and really well explained! It makes a lot of sense that for both sides, the ideal is more independent and more individualistic than the actual level of cohesion needed to win a war.
I’m also struck by the fact that Megatron actually calls Starscream the “Decepticon ideal” in All Hail Megatron. He’s strong, fierce, ambitious, and has clawed his way almost to the top. It supports the suggestion that there’s a division between the kind of Decepticon Megatron wants to foster (liberated, individualistic, free to pursue their ambitions as far as their strength and talents allow) and the kind of Decepticon that the pressures of that particular military culture tend to produce (are you actively challenging for leadership? No? Then get back in line!). See also: Megatron’s decision to spare Deadlock after he was sentenced to death for rebelling against his commander. Megatron likes ambitious, independent people, but the faction’s structure does not naturally reward those things.
My only quibble, really, is that I see Getaway as falling much more into the good (literal) Autobot category – he’s trying to do something he sees as a small sacrifice for the greater good, in a very Prowl-like way, in contrast to Rodimus’s “heart over head, every time” heroism.
The differences between the Autobot and Decepticon thought police are also pretty striking, because I think it’s very fitting for the Autobot focus on community that if you’re doing something that’s not for the good of the community, they’ll change you to fit in. It’s really chilling. Whereas the DJD don’t actually try to “fix” people who are being “bad” Decepticons. They punish them, brutally, yes, but in a very weird way, there’s a certain respect for Decepticon individuality in that. “I understand that this is what you have chosen to do/be, and you will not change, and both of us cannot coexist, so prepare to die.” Yes, part of the point is to scare other Decepticons into not trying it, but they never attempted to, say, reprogramme Overlord or Black Shadow.
The Decepticons use mind control on their enemies, but only the Autobots use it on their allies.
imagin a Transformers animated based puzzles/ stealth horror game in with you make character and investigate an “abandoned” Decepticon lab under Cybertron.
The basic plot would be that resent energy has been pick up in a long abandoned Decepticon lab that appears dangerous and your character is sent to investigate but upon entering you find that it’s sole purpose was to make sparkeater’s for the war, only none seem to be there.
In it you can choose a class to be in and each would have it’s straights and weakest, as well as give slightly different stories.
As an intell-bot, you get advantage on investigation and have more knowledge going into the lab then others, but you are not a fighter and have little defense or strength and have average stealth. The reason your there is you where sent by the ultra Magnus.
As a soldier/fighter, you of course have better self defense than the others as well as having better survival skills and have experience in Long rage fighting. But you are weaker in the intelligence and your stealth is below average and can only hide in certain places. You would be sent there to after the disappearance of an Intelligence agent.
As a cyber ninja you are better at sealth and survival the others and have average strength and intelligence as well as experience in close range weapons. But are weaker in puzzles solving and navigating. You are there for almost the same reason as the fighter.
As a repair bot you have an average in most things but are better at puzzles solving and fixing you can use both short and close range weapons. You are there on your own will after your friend went there on a mission and didn’t come back.
But all the classes have a fear bar as well as health and if the fear meter runs out you run away getting farther from the objective and depending on your class it’s higher or lower.
As a bonus you can have life lines for puzzles if you get stuck in the form of cannon characters and depending on your class, intells get Proceptor or Blurr, Fighters get Rodimus or kup, ninja bots get Springer or Dirft but as for the repair bot they get none do to not have any one on the inside and end up in which a date pad that is running low on power. Who you get on the line depends on the hardnes of the problem.
As well as a multi-player where you can each get a class and must work together to solve puzzles.
man i sorta noticed an interesting thing abt tfa comlinks?? the autobots press their fingers against the side of their helmets in order to talk, while decepticons can apparently just speak into the air and it will register
which i mean! fits really well if we go with the whole “decepticons are military” thing, ‘cuz you might not have a free arm in battle to call someone
but it also means that decepticons are voice activity scrubs who don’t use push to talk
Does that imply that “callers” could listen in on a Decepticon? Is their comlink linked with their brain or is it all the time turbed on? This also can be very useful when captured. They could let their comlink line just open and other ‘Cons are able to hear where they might be captured or who is holding them somewhere. The fact, that Decepticons don’t need to push anything to just talk through their comlink is pretty cool and helpful. Though, if it is possible to be hacked, Autobots could use this to listen to any conversation the ‘Cons will have.
That’s a thing in TFP too! The Autobots always put their finger on the side of their helm, but in the scene where Starscream gets his arm shot off and calls for a bridge, he just yells into the air while holding his arm in his other hand. I always figured the ‘Cons had more advanced comms, since overall they seem to have more stuff, and Ratchet is always so impressed with their science.
They can probably just activate it by thinking about it.
man i sorta noticed an interesting thing abt tfa comlinks?? the autobots press their fingers against the side of their helmets in order to talk, while decepticons can apparently just speak into the air and it will register
which i mean! fits really well if we go with the whole “decepticons are military” thing, ‘cuz you might not have a free arm in battle to call someone
but it also means that decepticons are voice activity scrubs who don’t use push to talk
He was originally a Decepticon, but it became apparent pretty early on in his life that he didn’t really “fit” with the Decepticons- he didn’t like violence, spoke quietly, showed lots of compassion and kindness towards his patients… For the most part, the other ‘Cons didn’t mind his more pacifistic tendencies. Any medic that won’t harvest your organs while you’re recharging is a good medic in most Decepticon’s books.
Ambulon, on the other hand, eventually has enough of the excessive violence and killing that comes with being a Decepticon, and leaves to join the autobots. And he lived happily ever afte- ahahaha no I’m just kidding this is where it goes to hell.
So it turns out that due to his “criminal record” (ie. Being born a Decepticon), Ambulon isn’t allowed to practise medicine on Cybertron or any other planet in the autobot commonwealth. So, when he’s offered the chance to volunteer for some “medical experiments”, he quickly agrees, figuring that if he can’t heal people directly, he can at least help further the study of medicine.
Oh, Ambulon. You really should have looked more into what you signed up for.
It turns out that the “Medical experiment” is in fact the early stages of the “Protectobot” combiner project. Ambulon isn’t there to be part of the combiner, however- he’s there to be a guinea pig. He spends the next few years being poked and prodded at, undergoing several surgeries, and overall just being treated poorly by the staff due to his Decepticon roots.
When it’s all said and done, Ambulon is left with a host of mental and physical scars. He’s stuck with a useless alt. mode, and somehow the reformatting process left him unable to scan a new one. He eventually joins up with the lost light crew during their jailbreak from Cybertron.
Arms dealing in TFA is often held up as a special kind of evil. Isaac Sumdac flat-out refuses to have his firm manufacture weapons; the fact that Porter C. Powell wants to do so helps cement his status as the villain. The Autobots themselves also seem to…
It’s more than ‘almost’ a point of pride, if I’m interpreting Ratchet’s opinion in the Almanac correctly. And now I’m wondering if their reason for the rejection is related to the formation of the Decepticons’ predecessors – TFA uses the ‘Cons were warbuilds’ backstory, so the use of traditional weapons would probably be a bitter reminder of their betrayal. Ratchet seemed really averse to the idea of Autobots using weapons, and I reckon it’s a long-standing thing from right back when the Malignus (military, so weapons!) caste tried to overthrow the Guardians.
Interesting! I haven’t read the Allspark Almanac, but I did know about the ‘Cons being warbuilds, and that makes a lot of sense. Almost a racial divide; we’ll wage war if we have to, but traditional weapons are symbolic of Them.
Cybertronian Database 