I’m a big fan of the G1 Cartoon (specifically, Five Faces of Darkness) origins of the Autobots and the Decepticons, that is:
Both of them were created by the Quintessons. The Autobots were a the civilian product line, basically robots servants. The Decepticons were war robots.
The reason I like this so much – and of course this was never explored explicitly in G1 – is that it explains and problematizes the tendency for Autobots to value other species’ lives and interests over their own.
They were built to serve other species, so of course they protect human lives above their own. Whether or not this is a more ‘moral’ choice objectively, it’s a bias wired deep inside of them. So you get things like Skyfire, seeing humans for the first time and coming to a screeching halt – he can’t hurt them even if Starscream tells him they’re the enemy.
Meanwhile, Decepticons were built to fight other species (and probably different factions of Quintessons as well) so their relative xenophobia – and tendency to fight for what they want rather than negotiate or make friends – makes perfect sense.
In IDW the ruling body took away Megaron’s words because they feared what he had to say.
All he had left to create the change he sought was his fists.
They feared the effects of his thoughts, his speech so much that they went into his mind and erased his ability to put certain thoughts into a communicatable form.
In doing so the Functionalists erased any chance to avoid a war.
By taking Megatron’s ability to put his ideas into words the Functionalists took those words away from the rest of the Cybertronian race.
Countless millions of lives lost, planets rendered sterile, unfathomable damage to the universe because THE FUNCTIONALISTS WERE AFRAID OF CERTAIN WORDS.
Covering the mouth, covering the ears will free the fists.
Forbidding discussion makes violence and suffering inevitable.
I wonder how much differently things would have gone if he had been allowed to speak? There would still have been conflict but I doubt it would have reached the galaxy-spanning levels of genocide and scorched earth devastation that it did.
We’ve seen this in history so many times.
To divide and destroy all you need to do is remove the ability to communicate.
If you can’t talk with or listen to someone it’s very easy to turn them
into an boogeyman who can’t be reasoned with and must be stopped at any
cost. It becomes impossible to see them as another human being just like you.
You will believe anything that is said about them, because any ability
to put anything else into words has been taken away from you.
If people can’t or won’t talk then it’s down to violence and only the most ruthless uses of force will win.
Shit, this theme figures in myths and legends from all over. It’s archetypal.
To me it’s one of the most important and overlooked details of IDW Transformers lore.
They took Megatron’s words, so he had to use his fists.
Which Megatron do you think is better? TFA Megatron or TFP Megatron?
and no, i’m not talking about art style. I’m talking about personality. Who’s smarter? Who’s stronger? Who is a better leader?
And if you haven’t watched BOTH TF Animated or TF Prime, please don’t comment because your views are biased if you’re only basting it on what you’ve read or heard.
*breaks hands*
this is an interesting question (that i found late and then saved to my drafts while typing out a cartoonishly long response) ‘cuz they’re similar in some ways, but different in others (and wow what a vague description; that could apply to anything)
like! take the way that they get people to do what they want. tfp megatron favours brute force. like the way he treats starscream… and when orion pax doesn’t do what he wants, he basically just tells him to shut up—and when that fails, he threatens to beat him into submission. tfa megatron, meanwhile, is still willing to be violent: he’s needlessly rough when he grabs starscream’s wing in the first ep, and he makes an example out of starscream for his other troops upon revival, but his go to is manipulation. a particular case i will bring up bc it’s similar to the orion pax deal is the constructicons. when they start questioning him, megatron starts with force by pinning them to the wall, but he turns on the sweet voice the second he finds out what’s ailing them. and ofc there are all the other earthborns he lied to and manipulated as well.
i mean… both of those strategies work to get ppl to do what they want?? but tfp megatron is also surrounded by far more disloyal subordinates than tfa megs bc he tends to keep them around instead of just Killing Them Instantly. tfa megatron is excellent at making ppl think that helping him will get them exactly what they want, or that he is in the right. tfp megatron might have difficult with that luxury at the time of the show though, because what could he possibly offer when their planet has already died?
but hey! at least tfp megatron SORT OF listens to his subordinates, unlike tfa megatron who Never Takes Their Suggestions Into Account Unless It Means He Can Manipulate Them More. and he surrounds himself with yesmen anyway, lol. what kind of leader doesn’t listen to their people?? aaaand tfp megatron actually goes out and does things, unlike tfa megatron who sits on his throne and makes everyone else do the hard work.
both of their priorities are totally outta whack though!! tfa megatron keeps targeting detroit for no reason and that one time he waited for the defeated autobots to wake up is completely unforgivable. and heckin s/o to tfp megatron’s weird fixation on optimus prime where Nobody Else Is Allowed to kill him. in fact, the fact that they’re orbiting the planet at all and hunting down the autobots to their very last is completely wild, because there’s nothing to fight for anymore! it’s literally just his petty grudge! shouldn’t he focus on rebuilding somewhere else??
personally, i don’t think either of them should be in charge…
#WRITES SEVERAL PARAGRAPHS AND GIVES A COMPLETE NON ANSWER #megatron’s an bad leader put someone else in charge #tfa megatron’s just rly charismatic it makes him seem smarter than he rly is (via megarowboat)
It just occurred to me a lot of people look at TFA Optimus and go What A Cinnamon Roll lol. I do enjoy those posts but that’s someone who was ambitious to meet “the enemy,” was a trained soldier, handled danger stoically, and pretty much was ready to kill
Watch the first episode and you will see.
And last episode when he told Megatron he didn’t deserve death. (Death on the battlefield would at least be an honor wouldn’t it. He’s just as ferocious as Megatron.)
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.
So I was reading someone’s TFP fanblog and it was all “creation and destruction, Primus and Unicron, Optimus and Megatron, good and evil”
and, sure, okay, that’s canon
but just once I’d really like these things both to be natural processes that are supposed to be in balance, and the war to be a tragic misunderstanding
Also, if Earth is Unicron now, can we please please please have at least one continuity where the Autobots are predisposed to dislike humans and the Decepticons are predisposed to like us because we’re… basically the Chaos God’s sentient dandruff flakes?
Can that be a thing? Please?
Megatron being all “I find myself strangely fond of you revolting little pests” while Optimus is all “freedom is the right of all sentient beings, freedom is the right of all sentient beings, freedom is the–PRIMUS DAMN IT IF YOU LITTLE DUST MITES SNEEZE ON MY DASHBOARD ONE MORE GODDAMN TIME”
I’m just going to go ahead and throw up a warning that if you’re a Blitzwing fan, you might not want to listen to this one since its fairly critical, though I do praise the other Decepticons of TFA a fair bit. Anyways, I genuinely don’t want to offend anyone, and I’m very sorry in advance.
YES, someone who agrees with me on Blitzwing! Lovely day!
The thing that annoys me the most about Blitzwing is that there’s potential for him to be a great character, which the writers… really don’t live up to. I hate how the shows writers handled his character. Literally every single fanfic I’ve ever read with him in it I think handle his character better than the official writers handled him (granted, I’m pretty good at finding good fanfics, but still).
That’s the same problem I had with Sentinel, to be honest. There’s nothing to his character other than to be a nuisance, but there’s potential for so much more! AUGH, don’t like it.
This discussion is about Blitzwing, okay. Gonna tear into the character now. Random’s obviously the part of his personality that’s supposed to get us to laugh the most, which is a shame considering his jokes aren’t funny. They’re just random. Hothead is… there, I honestly can’t think of anything about him aside from ‘he’s angry and likes fighting’. Icy is- okay. I’ll admit I sorta like Icy. If Blitzwing were just Icy, I’d probably like him, if only because I got a weakness for calm, controlled villains.
But as it stands, yeah, you’re right, Blitzwing is a shallow character. Which is a dang shame, because he’s just jam packed with potential! He could have been a legitimately scary guy, because hey- you’re fighting a powerful dude with three personalities! One wants to tear you to scrap, the other finds it beneficial for you to stop existing, and the last would probably find it hilarious if you caught on fire. Can you imagine being at the mercy of such an individual?
One thing I sometimes see in fan fiction is Random acting more like a small, hyper child- he’s still dang dangerous, but it adds a level of vulnerability to him, and Icy and Hothead have to compensate. And the prospect of all three of them acting like brothers in the same body is great.
And Blackarachnia- wasn’t the whole reason she joined the Decepticons was because she’d get experimented on if she was captured by the Autobots? What if that’s the reason why Blitzwing is fighting the ‘bots, because they’d do the same thing to him? Or worse yet, they’d try to ‘cure’ him (another idea stolen from fanfiction. It was marvelous). And for crying out loud, if you’re going to use him so much, at least give him a backstory!
Apologies for the rambling, but I wanted to give a few examples for how he’d could be improved, instead of just saying what was wrong with him. Just some thoughts.
What people in the fandom are saying:but the Autobots are just as evil, if not MORE evil, than the Decepticons! It’s an abhorrence that Megatron now wears the Autobot symbol! How dare Megatron do that to the Decepticons!
What people in the fandom should realize:
–Megatron’s redemption arc isn’t about the Decepticons. It’s about him recognizing he was wrong. It’s about him removing himself from something which only enables his terrible behavior. The struggles the Decepticons are facing now will never outweigh the slaughter of BILLIONSwhich Megatron carried out with no remorse as the faction’s leader.
–Megatron was never what this fandom positively associates as a ‘revolutionist miner.’ He wanted to be a revolutionist, and at one time his ideas and writings were his protests, but his anger and hatred led to his own corruption. Instead, Megatron was a terrorist who used unlawful force and violence to coerce others and governmental powers to follow his social and political objectives. Destruction and murder became an appropriate way to get what he wanted. Megatron and his Decepticons didn’t attempt to liberate their species from an oppressive government;Megatron went beyond fighting for the freedom of everyone to instead wanting to punish, to destroy, to be the oppression and ruled as a tyrant. He didn’t fight for the rights he once thought Cybertronians deserved, and rather, rose to be a force nearly as bad as the Senate.
–The word ‘Autobot’ was reclaimed from off-worlders by Orion Pax and later again by Optimus Prime after Zeta Prime’s failed leadership. The true Autobot cause didn’t exist before the war; it came to be during the revolution as Optimus amassed an army large enough only for the sake of defeating Megatron’s Decepticon terrorist movement. Instead of being used as a slur referring to their species as ‘automatons’ because they seemingly never changed, it evolved to mean ‘autonomous’ as Orion Pax suggested it should mean. The word became unpopular because of Zeta Prime’s ruthlessness and neglect of the citizens of Cybertron. However, it was canonically established that Optimus Prime wasn’t corrupt like the Primes who preceded him. He turned the Autobots into a cause for morality and freedom, one which would ensure justice to those who threatened the sanctity of others, their world, and every other world. Optimus has never strayed from those ideals, even though others attempted to bring out the worst in him.
Most importantly, the choices and actions of a few do not represent the cause as a whole. For instance, Decepticons such as Thundercracker who opted to adopt a dog, spend his time writing screenplays, and gets along relatively peaceably with others do not lessen the atrocities of the Decepticon cause. And, the Autobots who slip up, who act more violent or make questionable choices do not lessen what the Autobot cause stands for or what it has accomplished in protecting the lives and freedoms of others.
Although this is technically correct, I think one of the reasons people like imagining Megatron as the revolutionist miner is because they might feel there is something wrong with the general message of the TF storyline. Protest coming from oppressed people? No, that thing is dangerous. Only the god-chosen leader and his followers can be good!
Because divine right!
Those common people can only turn to violence and evil.
Yes, in the transformers universe this is what happened. But the fact that it’s written this way can definitely lead to fans opposing this idea in their own way.
Personally I think the whole “Optimus reclaimed the Autobots from being the brutal police force of the Senate to being ~good and just~” is pure BS. It makes no sense in-universe. Why would someone join the secret police / enforcers of an oppressive regime if they sympathized with the people crushed by that regime? A group that would inevitably be full of Functionists?
Optimus is a noble character and an idealist. It wouldn’t make sense for him to even want to rub elbows with these assholes, and it wouldn’t make sense for them to agree “Gee golly, Optimus, you’re right! Let’s help the oppressed!”
The weird message of the comics canon seems to be that you MUST have the blessing of or a connection to the current government to be legitimate. Even when the government has a caste literally called “Disposables”, when it disappears and brainwashes political foes, when it is oppressive and unjust. And that is bullshit.
How it should have gone: Optimus and Megatron bro it up as Decepticons. But then Optimus thinks Megatron is going too far with violence, so he (and many other Decepticons) split off and create their own faction called the Autobots. Which has no relation to the Senate because the Senate’s army was never called the Autobots.
you know what completely, utterly self-indulgent and kinda silly trope thing i like??
in fic when somebody writes mechs as having like, frame/coding instincts. i love it. i eat it up. like when people write about enforcers/praxians (/prowl) having the ingrained instinct to chase and hunt?? or like, seekers having the urge to nest.
like yeah man give me that sweet, sweet stuff about different frames having different instincts and needs. give me shit about different bots coming from different cultures and how it reflects on their behaviors and how they perceive their environment. i love it. shove that stuff wholesale into my face hell yeah
Cybertronian Database 