Imagine smaller bots with their huge partners walking through a busy shopping center when it starts to rain. The smaller bot hates the rain so they climb aboard their partner and hide in armor/plating gaps close to their partner’s spark so they stay dry and warm.
Maybe they pop out just enough to angle an umbrella over their partner’s head. Maybe they pop out from time to time to hand their partner a snack or complain they need to take better care of their plating/offer to help them clean up when they get home. Maybe they’re a little troublemaker and they pop out sometimes to startle shop keeps. Maybe they pop out to steal a bite of their partner’s food. Maybe they pop out to steal a kiss >:3c
Yes, transformers have a subspace, but can they also have smaller secret compartments for snacks? Miniature subspaces they can hoard rations away in for long missions, some complete with some sort of refrigeration unit so that their energon stays chilled?
In G1 – both comic and cartoon – you could restore a Transformer to life just by rebuilding their damaged body, even after the introduction of the Matrix. Check out one of the very earliest examples of Transformer death and resurrection, from issue #3 of the Marvel comic:
Not that it was always this easy, of course; only the advanced skills of a Quintesson could bring Optimus Prime back to life in the cartoon, while in the comic, Ratchet had a real tough time of it repairing the many Autobots who were offlined by the cosmically-empowered Starscream:
It ultimately took the use of highly-advanced Pretender technology to repair a few of them, and infusions of the rare and powerful Nucleon to restore the rest.
It was with the introduction of sparks in Beast Wars, and their continued use in media after that, that resurrecting a Transformer has usually come to require some “mystical” intervention, to one extent or another. This generally makes it a bit tougher to resurrect someone, as it usually requires that a ‘bot actually voyage into the afterlife and essentially “guide” the spark of the deceased back to the material world – as Rhinox did for Optimus Primal in Beast Wars, the Mini-Cons did for Optimus Prime in Armada, Sam Witwicky did for Optimus Prime in Revenge of the Fallen, Alpha Trion did for Ultra Magnus in the Transformers Legends manga, or Scarlett did for Optimus Prime in G.I. Joe vs Transformers:
That usually – but not always – requires access to some kind of sacred implement like the Matrix or Vector Sigma, which can’t be used by just anybody; and in the cases where these items don’t come into play, it’s usually some even more complicated and arcane way of doing things (like Rhinox’s use of a fortuitous transwarp explosion, or Scarlett using the brainwave scanner to induce transcendental mania.) The resurrections you mention in “Heart of Darkness” were done through the power of the titular object, so they were really “undead” rather than alive again. It was only thanks to an energy surge from Vector Sigma/the Matrix that Cyclonus was fully restored to life.
Flying upside down will fry your neural circuits. Don’t walk backwards when both moons are visible. Don’t think about touching your spark while travelling through a tunnel, and if you have to fly over a body of water during the dry season, by all means don’t hum to yourself. Eat silver dishes around the middle of the year if you want credits to come your way; gold for good health; quartz if you want to reunite with old friends. An itch in a seam you can’t reach means someone is talking about you.
Spit on your tires for good luck. If you’re in Tesarus, spit on a friend’s tires.
This is gonna be geared towards Transformers but I tried to make it closer to general robot stuff and also it got long but then I forgot some of the stuff I was gonna write
I mean of course there’s the human like stims (flappy hands, rocking, leg bounce, pen click, etc)
Tapping on hollow body parts! Makes a good echo-y sound and the drumming probably feels good too.
Shifting and clicking moving components, or getting extra bits installed specifically for that purpose!
Got a wheel? Spin it. Spin the wheel.
Get an analog clock so you can listen to it click
Have a tinted HUD so it filters out bright lights or supplies stimmy stuff like goop videos to help calm the bot down
Listen to your buddy’s engine rumble
Record Good Sounds and play them back
More extreme echolalia than in humans, to the point of only communicating through recordings or having a massive database of just… sounds
Driving or flying if the robot turns into something
Cybertronian caste is an enormously complex system, one which grew up over the course of millions of years and was tweaked to suit the needs of society’s leaders as they saw fit. Under this system, social status is determined by three identifiers: clade / caste / caste tier.
CLADE is one’s extended family, a group of tens to hundreds of other mecha to which one is assigned upon emergence from the Well, and usually caste and occupation-locked; for example the Iaconian Record-keeper’s Clade are the singular group which caretake and staff the Iacon Hall of Records ( the parts of it specifically relating to the information contained therein, that is; maintenance and cleaning are staffed by lower-caste mecha not considered part of the Record-Keeper’s Clade ).
CASTE is the grouping of mecha assigned to particular jobs, locations, or functions, whether loosely or specifically. Castes can range from the low hundreds in membership ( location-specific craftsmecha and culturally-specific functions, for instance ) to thousands or even millions ( notably the Burthov dockworkers and the Cybertronian Defense Force infantry ). There are several thousand recognised caste groupings, the top forty of which account for nearly 80% of the Cybertronian population.
CASTE TIER is the Imperial government’s attempt at organising the sprawling caste network into a simpler ladder of superiority. There are eight caste tiers, seven of which are ‘original’━━devised by the creators of the caste system at the formation of the Empire━━and the eighth and lowest-ranked, known as ‘Untouchables’. The castes, many of which are based on groups outdating the Empire, do not fit perfectly into this model, but the Cybertronian government has never been one for admitting failure. Some of the larger castes span entire tiers, spilling over into those above and below: mecha belonging to a caste occupied in computer maintenance in large cities like Iacon, for example, may be assigned to Tier 4, but will have some clades working in Tier 3 on important or very complex, powerful systems, and others working in Tier 5 on very basic, low-importance systems.
At one point there were a plethora of laws governing the castes’ interactions, limiting social mobility to almost nothing, but since the middle Golden Age the practice of caste exemption has been on the rise. A mech who is ‘caste-exempt’ is not subject to laws limiting his interaction with those significantly above or below his own station. He may be fully caste-exempt ( the most well-known example being of course the Prime ) or only partially, which is commonplace among mecha of a higher caste working among those much lower. Caste-exemption can also be temporarily granted; Orion Pax was granted this for a time, allowing him to study History and Religion at a private Iaconian university.
Sometimes on the battlefield you see someone you might have become, if things had gone differently. You don’t hesitate when you see them. The difference between you and them is the badge on your frame and the fire in your spark, and you earn yours by forging your own future, not dwelling on what could have been.
I was thinking about Cybertronians the other day and how their body language would work, since they’re different from humans. I would imagine that eye contact isn’t something they’re big on for a number of reasons. 1) They spend a lot of time as vehicles and therefore don’t have eyes by our standards, 2) quite a number of them have visors, like Jazz, which would make eye contact rather difficult, and 3) the size difference would make it rather difficult for larger bots to look at little bots.
So eye contact would be something saved for things like face offs and persuasions/interrogations, when intimidation is important. Or maybe when they’re expressing extremely strong emotions. And this would mostly go for mecha without visors. Like Megatron and Optimus.
Soooo a coupleofsomethings inspired me to share a piece of Cybertronian headcanon I’d developed a while back, but never found a purpose to post.
Centrofaci Crustallinum; a cyberphage native to Cybertron. (Inspired by a very creepy and very real thing)
The main body of the crystal growth is both brittle and highly toxic, it tends to be given a wide diversion for this very reason. The crystal takes approximately ten decavorn to mature, upon which it will spawn a smaller seed-crystal a significant distance from the main growth. This small, silver crystal is quite brittle and can appear highly-tempting to the uninformed. Upon consumption, the seed will dissolve in the tank of its victim, remaining dormant as it slowly infects their system. During the period of dormancy, the victim behaves and appears completely normal, and only a specialized test will reveal the parasitic infection.
Within a breem of ingesting the seed-crystal, the host will seek out the highest perch they can find (preference is given to the naked frames for megastructures, hence the colloquial name given to the crystal of Constructicon’s Curse) where the host will perch, stationary and unresponsive.
Within three megacycles of entering this catatonic state, the host’s armor will crumble into dust, releasing a cloud of iridescent cryspores that will seed the next generation of Centrofaci Crustallinum. While these cryspores cannot infect mecha, upon physical contact they are just as toxic as the crystal itself.
Ok, but I really like the idea of Metrotitans being basically like a close to extinct species… having their own unique culture and everything, where they just carry their inhabitants with pride and care and are usually very still because yeah – they’re cities and such. They’re like SO heavy and moving most of the time just isn’t worth the effort.
But like, once every millennia or so one goes into season and they suddenly just stand up and go find a mate, and don’t mind who’s aboard – when they go they go. And it being like a very esteemed experience to witness the metrotitan mating rituals and everything, and especially see them carry, birth and care for their young, because it’s just SO RARE.
Can you imagine tiny baby cities. (or rather villages or towns, maybe??)
Cybertronian Database 