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.
Comparing tfa and tfp always cracks me up bc you have this brightly colored teen titans-esque saturday morning cartoon in which tons of outrageous goofy shit takes place, and then you have a moody-lighting-filled serious series with gorgeous, intricate cgi in which a more grounded storyline and world-mechanics is portrayed and characters get graphically slaughtered on the regular and such…but even so the darker of the two is still decidedly not the second one
I mean it depends on your definition of “dark” I guess but tfp favoured “robot zombies and graphic murder” and tfa favoured a more “every single main character is guilt-ridden from some kind of awful failure and past trauma and as much as they all want to just go about their lives repressing it, its gonna show up sooner or later to haunt them and they’re gonna have to find a way to live with it and themselves otherwise it will destroy them” approach and like no offense but that second thing will always fuck with me to this very day
Another thing I think tfa did better than tfp was create the feeling of the heroes being the vastly outgunned underdogs. Tfp does better at creating the sense of “a war is going on” but tfa is a post-war series about a ragtag crew trying to upkeep safety and relations on a foreign planet, even if they dont have the full understanding or support of their home planet and its morally gray, bureaucratically-bogged down government. Tfp gives a sense of isolation and losing hope for the future, but its hard to take the idea that they’re underpowered completely serious due to the fact that each and every one of the main heroes wades through seas of vehicons almost every episode (until the predacon season that it).
Meanwhile, all of the main autobot crew in tfa are either half-trained or a older veteran medic, all of who are technically part of a maintenance team, and they have few weapons, all of which are ineffective most of the time. Every decepticon is at least two or three times their height and has far more fighting experience. you also get the sense that if something were to go wrong, the autobot government wouldnt exactly classify rescuing them as a priority, and you would be correct. Hell, you also get the sense that the cons themselves don’t see this team of janitors as any particular threat and are more annoyed than anything that they’ve actually been an obstacle for them at all. It creates a sense of vulnerability for the heroes I personally find very compelling (although tfp has plenty of it’s merits).
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.
Thundercracker has an amazing friendship going with Marissa, but Marissa lives for a significantly smaller amount of time than Thundercracker. So when Marissa dies, Thundercracker will have to lives thousands of years without her.
I can make it worse. Dogs live even shorter.
AH NO I DIDNT EVEN THINK OF THAT NO.
Noooooo.
WHAT DID YOU DO
OH GOD
DAD’S GONNA DIE
MARISSA’S GONNA DIE
BUSTER’S GONNA DIE
EVEN WORSE
ELEPHANTS ARE GONNA DIE
BOOM
DOUBLE SAD
WAIT A GOSH DARN MINUTE GUYS I NEED TO MAKE THIS HAPPY(ish)
What if Buster has puppies tho??
Thundercracker just raising generations of Buster’s puppies forever and ever and everything is fine.
Thank you for giving us all a glimmer of hope.
Now I’m imagining Thundercracker taking care of puppies.
And Soundwave making sure elephants stay off the endangered species list?
Of course. Soundwave would become a huge animal rights activist. Especially for elephants! No one would mess with elephants if they were guarded by a giant robot with sonic and psychic powers and his smaller companions.
i get real sick and tired of people being like “ah yes hufflepuff is the house for cutesy people” and “slytherin is the house of broody angsty people” because both of these statements are false and this is yet another post where i stand firm by the fact that Tailgate is the Slytherin and Cyclonus is the Hufflepuff in the Cygate Slytherpuff duo
Tailgate: will say and do anything to achieve the end of feeling liked and supported. Once he considers you his people he will justify anything you do to anyone who looks at you crosswise. does not take betrayal well and holds resentment/grudges for other people’s actions
Cyclonus: Super uptight about personal integrity to the point where it inhibits his ability to make friends. Or talk about feelings. Occasionally comes off as haughtiness. Super dependable –you didn’t ask him to be your champion, but he is, and good luck getting rid of him. Thinks burdening other people when you can do the work yourself is Wrong. Holds grudges if it has to do with honor, but otherwise it’s water under the bridge.
Cybertronian Database 