Sentinel: Back in my day, there was no such thing as “feelings”.
I realize that Sentinel Prime was a heavy-handed parody of racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic bigots who may or may not be orange, and that’s why he says most of the things he says—but ever since his issues have come out, I’ve been dying with curiosity about the implications for Cybertron.
He complains that “Conjunx endurae swap fuel in public,” and above he accuses Cerebos of being “one of those,” “those” apparently being the “terminally sentimental” who had sparkmates instead of peers, colleagues, and associates. Okay, the real-world parallels are obvious, he’s supposed to be a homophobe complaining about how The Transformers Are Gay Now, yeah yeah alright, but what does that mean to them?
Obviously, from Sentinel’s perspective, inside this universe, he isn’t complaining about Transformers being “gay"—this is a society that, outside of ancient history and recently-discovered colonies, only has one gender. It’s really unlikely that what he’s bothered about is a bunch of male-coded bots falling for other male-coded bots, instead of holding out for non-existent female-coded bots (which by the way he also thinks don’t belong on Cybertron). As far as we can tell, the male-coded-ness has nothing to do with it. So it’s not that (within the comic universe) he’s a homophobe; it doesn’t seem to be the “homo” part that he’s objecting to. It seems more likely he’s a romance-phobe. If so, why??
Was romance taboo in pre-war Cybertron? Was it considered proper to not feel romantically toward anyone, ever? He said Cybertronians had “peers and colleagues” but he doesn’t list friends—was even friendship taboo? Was that because most Cybertronians are naturally aromantic (someone DOES say in MTMTE that it’s rare for most mechs to ever find a conjunx—that might be a reason why) and those that are even capable of romantic love are rare, making it easier to stigmatize and oppress the minority? Or are they pretty much universally capable of romantic love and the apparent taboo Sentinel is demonstrating was a societal, political thing?
Did they have conjunx endurae before the war? Sentinel Prime clearly knows the term, so obviously, they did at some time. How does that line up with Sentinel’s apparent belief that only “peers and colleagues” are acceptable? Was it in the pre-war time seen as only a long-term business arrangement, and during the war was adapted (or reverted) to something more like what we consider spouses? Or was it something that was banned during Sentinel’s time, and was seen as a disgusting pre-Golden Age practice from when sentiments ran high and frame types mixed and people followed their passions rather than their duties? Why did conjunx endurae become taboo, and/or sterilized into something non-romantic? Was it something the Functionists or the Senate did to control the population further—a 1984-esque sterilization of people’s emotions, forcing them to turn their love and passion toward the state rather than each other? Did amica endurae follow suit, since Sentinel’s ideal world doesn’t seem to include close friendships? Or were amica endurae still permitted, as a “next best thing” substitute when conjunx endurae weren’t allowed?
How well did these policies go over? It’s probable that Sentinel, being a Prime who before that worked for the Senate, is espousing the official governmentally-sanctioned POV on the subject. But how widespread was it? Did people pay lip service to the “no romance” laws in public but hold hands and stare into each other’s eyes in private? Did lovers call themselves “associates” or “work partners” in public to hide their relationships? Did the upper classes—the nobles, the intelligentsia—subscribe to the same rhetoric as the Senate? Did the middle classes? Did the workers and disposable classes? Or did some castes reject the taboo on love? Was it easier to love in the lower classes when you weren’t subjected to the scrutiny of your peers and the power games that called upon you to present yourself with decorum? Or was it easier to love in the higher classes where you had the power and wealth to get away with illicit or disreputable actions without a police officer confronting and beating you on the street for it? Was the taboo more prominent in some cities than others—prominent in cities where the Senate had a stranglehold like Iacon, but less common or even foreign and bizarre in places where they had a weaker hold like Kaon? Was it more or less common in Functionist cities?
Was it law, or merely social convention? Could two mechs be arrested for “swapping fuel” in public? Could being caught with love letters send you to jail? Could you lose your job for being known to fall in love? Was it perfectly legal to be romantic or to take a conjunx for reasons of love, but it would get you ostracized from society and dirty looks on the street? Or would people admit to you under their breath that they really see nothing wrong with it, they just assume everyone else does, but more power to you for your courage?
When did it start to change? Did the change come more slowly in the Autobots than in the Decepticons, since the Autobots carried far more of the ruling parties’ legacy than the Decepticons did? Did the Decepticons consider romance a rebellious act, a political act—did some of them rush into really ill-advised conjunx ceremonies to prove a point? With the changing of times, were the Autobots happy to embrace the downfall of the romance taboo, or did they cling to it and the arguments in favor of No Sentimentality for half the war? Do war-built MTOs think the whole thing is stupid—were they the ones who pushed the shift from taboo to acceptance? Are there still mechs who think romance is disgusting, but they’re now in the minority and keep their mouths shut around mechs who are courting or dating? Is this lingering legacy why we never saw Rewind say “I love you” until he was about to die—is the reluctance a societal thing?
I have so many questions. And so many thoughts. I’d be very interested to see this explored in the comic, and to see if the authors thought it through as anything deeper than a one-time shallow homophobia metaphor.
If they didn’t, though, I’m pretty content to speculate on the potential implications myself.
Just an added thought to why it might not have been allowed, especially in Functionist Era, which if I remember, began under Sentinel:
Love is dangerous. Love doesn’t respect boundries, like class and caste and function and supposed ‘worthiness’. Look at Rewind and Dominus Ambus. Rewind was classed disposable. He wasn’t even allowed energon. Dominus literally hooked up to him, and fed him from his own systems. Keeping his ‘disposable’ conjunx alive. Now, think about that when Sentinel says they ‘shared fuel in public’.
Also, think about how hard Dominus and others fought against the classifications, for the poor mechs who were considered disposable or, stars forbid, obsolete. How hard would you fight the system to save someone you love? I mean, there will always be those good people who fight just because it is the right thing to do, like Orion Pax, but most fight for the ones they know and love. You aren’t going to let a friend or loved one just be walked into a smelter because they are ‘obsolete’ or ‘disposable’, no matter the difference in your class or caste.
Affection means those mechs are now, at least by Sentinel and the government’s point of view, compromised. Affection means breaking the rules, hiding affairs, secret liaisons between mechs in different castes, smuggling mechs and energon, defying the government- all for the sake of feelings.
@ckret2 makes a lot of wonderful points, and I would love to see them explored more. But this is what I thought of when Sentinel said that.
I think that close relationships were discouraged in functionalist society, from romantic partners to friendships. I’m gonna add a couple more possibilities that haven’t been mentioned so far:
1.) Loyalty: A good cybertronian’s first loyalty should be to the system instead of to each other (which is admittedly 1984esque). You can see this mentality get shifted from loyalty to the system to loyalty to the cause. This might be a reason why Cybertronians are so prone to war, they value ideology over personal relationships by default.
2.) Class: In human society, the higher classes tend to be the more reserved with each other. It could be that interpersonal relationships were considered ‘beneath’ anyone that Sentinel was expected to take seriously back in his day. Friendship/Romance could have been a marker of the common rabble or lower castes.
I really hope they go into this more. I think that this notion of ‘personal relationships are undesirable’ might be one of the reasons why Cybertronians are prone to these fierce, long wars.
Cybertronian Database 