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.
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.
Victory Condition (37186 words) by astolat Chapters: 3/3 Fandom: Transformers Generation One Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Megatron/Optimus Prime Characters: Optimus Prime, Megatron Additional Tags: Cave-In, Poetry Series: Part 7 of Transformers works Summary:
“Do you want me to tell you a story?” Megatron said mockingly. “You won’t like it, Prime. It’s not a very nice one.”
wow y’all, this is art.
the layers, man, the complexity. Like, I always root for fanfiction but pieces like these is what gets them on the level of classic literature. Its emotional, it’s beautiful and it gets into your brain and redesigns it.
Carve yourself 3 hours of your time and go read it, I beg of you.
Transformers G1 cartoon, but Elita-1’s team show up again. Like that’s what they should have done during the Deviations one shot, added the lady Autobots to the adventure. Let them return and let them shine. The start of the adventure started with an Autobot plan to retake Cybertron, her team was the resistance on Cybertron for four million years, cut off from aid or contact. They would know the terrain, the equipment, obviously the issue could still be about What If Optimus Lived, but it could have had the Female Autobots return. They could have been on a secret mission only he knew about, so his survival would let him recall them and get reinforcements for the depleted Autobot forces.
But no, just use the story to get rid of all but two of the movie cast, sure why not?
Imagine a storytelling type game (kinda like Tales from the Borderlands) for a pre-war Cybertron where you can switch between Optimus and Megatron’s perspectives and your overall choices as both are what determines the start of the war, if it ends up happening at all
oHMILORD LIKE WHAT IF
it’s the golden age. the beginning starts off with an introduction to orion and megatronus. the two end up meeting through diplomacy. then you get to take over and control their choices.
you go for a passive megatronus, megatronus ends up trusting someone he shouldn’t, gets stabbed in the back and that leads to the bloodthirsty megs we know. beginning of war.
you go for an aggressive megatronus. megatronus ends up plunging too fast into warfare, and now he’s leading a whole army and oh Primus, you’ve caused civil war and orion is broken by your actions.
you go for an aggressive orion. orion says something to megatronus that he really ought to have not said. megatronus distrusts orion. beginning of war.
you go for passive orion. orion willingly gets lead along a path with megatronus and then gets betrayed. cue a broken orion, and the beginning of a war.
and like, what if maybe you get to choose between the two, and when you do both characters’ playthroughs you get to do both? and getting them to react to each other – there would be so much you could do? so much would happen?
and what if, after all possible playthroughs have been exhausted you decide to try getting megs and ops to get along. the war doesn’t start. but then sentinel comes along, and it’s horrible, really, all these ways a writer could make you start the war.
that is such a good idea.
OH OH WHAT ABOUT
the game is always making you second guess yourself, regardless of if your actions were the right thing to do or not – similar to life is strange, except you can’t reverse time
and if you were to play the game all over again, for major choices you repeat in a row (for example, you chose Decision A, B, then C during your previous playthrough, and you choose them again in the same exact order on your current one) the character/s affected by it might be like “this feels like deja vu for some reason” and result in easter egg cutscenes that may or may not involve breaking the 4th wall
AND LIKE ALSO
your actions in the game as orion and megatronus affects what your friends end up doing to each other. like, if ratchet and soundwave knew each other and were friends, and you go for an aggressive ops and megs, it ends up being that you split them apart. if you go for aggressive orion it’s your fault that senator shockwave gets put under for shadowplay. if you go for passive megs you don’t speak up fast enough and terminus gets offlined in front of your optics, and if you go aggressive megs the DJD forms much quicker and lashes out against the Senate.
and then it moves into war of cybertron, but it just plays out conversations between the battlelines. show me decepticons and autobots still helping each other at the beginning of the civil war, still having the belief that the war will be over soon. show me Senators trying their hardest to keep clinging to old government beliefs, even when orion and megs rips them apart. show me different perspectives on orion’s transformation with the matrix from megatron depending on your past choices, or show me orion trying to reject the matrix for his friend and megatronus trying to agree with prime that it’s for the best.
show me these two friends, and the different ways to start the war.
@starscrream and I were talking about an au where sentinel had been a part of the space bridge team instead of optimus. I just want them to be friends.
Cybertronian Database 