I was making my friend a “cheat sheet” of Cybertronian vocabulary and…things got way out of hand. Maybe it can benefit someone here too? It’s not an all-inclusive list and some parts are probably inaccurate or just my personal opinion. I tried to keep it open to interpretation, because honestly that’s my favourite thing about the TF fandom. Seeing all different takes on Cybertronian biology and culture is the best!
Welcome to the fandom, here’s your information brochure:
– aft – butts
– audial, audio receptor – ear
– berth, recharge slab – bed, a place to recharge
– bond – marry. Involves "spark merging" and possibly a ceremony, or at least personal vows of devotion.
– cables – muscles. Sometimes refers to an interface cable.
– calipers – (look up a diagram) a channel of internal “muscles” inside of intakes and valves.
– chassis – main body, torso
– CPU – attention span, memory capacity
– coolant – runs through fuel lines (or something?) to reduce overheating. – cooling fans activate when flustered, like blushing. Used to expel excess heat from the frame and moderate internal temperature.
– circuits/circuitry – circulatory or cardiovascular system
– communication link (“comm link” or “comm”) – wireless communications system in which mechs choose a specific radio frequency and use it like a phone line. Can be privately or inclusively broadcasted.
– cord – a cable with a jack at the end, used for interfacing.
– digit – finger
– dentae – teeth
– derma, dermal plating – skin, outer armor
– electromagnetic field (EM field) – (definitely research this, its cool stuff!) An aura. Simply put, it’s the charged particles (electrons) surrounding an object which conducts electricity. When different EM fields come into contact, they slightly alter each other, causing interference of sorts. Using your imagination, you can presume Cybertronians use fields to communicate. Different levels, intensities, amount of charge etc are likely associated with different moods and emotions. EM fields likely expand and contract depending on social and emotional situations. They are essentially someone’s “bubble.” One can feel disturbances in the air around them if another mech brushes against or stands in their field. In a way they are like whiskers, judging spacial awareness and reading energy currents/air currents. It’s fun to make them into a method of emotional communication akin to body language.
– engine – will rev when excited. Can also growl when angry, sputter when exasperated, etc.
– frag – v. or n. (opposite of “defragment”) Crude word for “interface.” Also an interjection.
– frame – whole body
– frame type – overall shape and style of the Cybertronian’s model. Examples include jet, race car, truck, helicopter, etc
– fuel pump – Pumps fuel throughout the body the same way a heart circulates blood.
– glossa – tongue
– helm – head
– host/carrier – a frame type which relies on a symbiotic relationship to other mechs (i.e, Soundwave and Blaster).
– intake, fuel intake – throat
– interface – v. Two or more mechanisms connecting either physically or mentally, in a manner that is generally perceived to be sexual. (Depends on personal interpretation!)
There are 3 main categories for interfacing, “sticky,” "plug n’ play,“ and “tactile”.
Sticky interface uses concepts analogous to human anatomy (spike, valve, fluids)
Plug n’ play focuses on a cord/port connection, along with the transfer of energy, files, emotions, and memories.
Tactile interface focuses on physical (and sometimes electrical) touch
Personal suggestion: combine all three!
Colloquial terms for interface include: jack in, plug in, link up, fileshare.
– interface housing – an area of the body (your choice!) that houses interface equipment, be it cables/ports or spikes/valves). Generally the equipment is kept safe behind separate panels (one for spike/cord, one for valve/port)
– olfactory sensors, chemoreceptors/chemosensors – sense of smell. Detects chemical stimuli in the environment.
– optics/optical sensors – eyes
– offline – unconscious, asleep. Sometimes means “dead.” (I don’t use it that way).
– online – conscious, awake, alive.
– oral cavity, oral component – mouth
– oral lubricant – saliva
– overheating – body becomes uncomfortably warm, possibly to a harmful degree. Causes of overheating include embarrassment, anger, arousal, etc
– overload – the climax of interfacing (orgasm), achieved by excessive electrical charge within the frame. May involve shorted circuits, being knocked offline, systems crashing, blacking out, temporarily shutting down, rebooting in some form.
– panel, interface panel, interface hatch/manual hatch – the panel behind which lies the interface equipment. May be automatically or manually operated (or both!)
– pede – foot, leg
– port – receptive end for an interface cable.
– processor – brain
– recharge – sleep
– sealed/factory sealed – Essentially a virgin. One who retains the protective seals over their interface equipment they were constructed with. Most will agree that seals should be medically removed, but some mechs romanticize “breaking their lover’s seals.”
– sensory input modules – nerves (things that relay information to the processor)
– slag – basically “shit”.
– spark – heart/soul/lifeforce. Located in the chest.
– spark merging – a profusely intimate act in which mechs open their chest compartments, revealing their sparks, and press together until the sparks resonate at the same frequency, pulse in synchronicity, etc. Likely this leads to overloading. Generally spark merging is an act reserved for bonded mechs, as it involves one to expose themselves to absolute vulnerability.
– spike – phallus component utilized in sexual interface. Upon arousal, spikes will “come online” by heating up, extending from interface housing, stiffen by means of magnetism or hydraulics (probably?), and likely will self-lubricate. Connecting to a valve forms a circuit between mechs and energy can be shared in a feedback loop. Thrusting in-and-out movements stimulate internal tactile and electrical sensors, accumulating electrical charge.
– struts/spinal struts – back
– symbiote/symbiont – a mech smaller than a mini which lives on or inside its designated host/carrier mech. (i.e., the cassetticons)
– valve – interface equipment resembling a vagina. Internal components include calipers, a ceiling node, various tactile sensory nodes, various electrical nodes. Outer components include a rim and at least one external node resembling a clitoris. Valves will “come online” and start to heat and self-lubricate upon arousal.
– ventilation – breathing
When in doubt, look up car/plane diagrams, read other people’s fanfiction, or make stuff up! 8D Alien robots, yeah!!
Some bits and bobs of information I gathered from comics and such, hopefully they might aid with writing or reference.
MARBS– Mobile Autobot Repair Bays.
The Regenisis Progam- Created by Shockwave with the intent of seeding many planets with energon so that, in the distant future, he could harvest them.
Soundwave also organized a number of Anti-Neutral Programs
NAIL– Non Alligned Indigenioud Lifeform. I.E, A Cybertronian who is neither an Autobot or a Decepticon
I/D Chip- Inhibitor/Deterrence chips that freezes the transformation cog- among other things. (Created by Wheeljack)
Both sides hoarded sparks during the war
Ambulatory System– Self explanatory
Inhibitor Claw- Form of restraint used by security and law enforcement on pre-war Cybertron. More effective than handcuffs or leg restraints.
Underbase– a collection of knowledge that underlies all databases; the combined knowledge of the Transformer race.
Solar Pool– What is does is unknown, only that it contains destructive energies within.
Energon Lake– A reservoir of energon located in the Sea Of Rust. Possibly the only major source of energon left on Cybertron.
Pious Pools– Rung was from the Pious Pools, living near the Vinvissius Canals during his youth. The Pious Pools we’re wiped off the planet in the rebirth initiated by Vector Sigma.
Vinvissius Canals– Landmark
Other places wiped off planet by Vector Sigma: Mesmerica, Warriors Gate (also a saying, ‘What in the Warriors Gate), Fragmented Whole, The Vaulted Heights Of K’th Kinsere (also a saying, ‘By the Vaulted Heights Of-‘), Pess Pess, The First City, The Transeptum of Infinte Reach and Subterrania.
Hydrax Plateau– An island in the center of the Rust Sea. It holds Cybertron’s primary spaceport, where planetary visitors must check in first.
Sonic Canyons– Located on the southern side of Cybertron, the deafening sound of underground machinary wells up from their depths and echoes up from the surface. The noise causes the constant falling of scrap metal to come tumbling down, making the canyons direct environment inhabitable.
densely populated settlements do, however, live there, including the Autobot Siren. (People who live their often have loud voices)
The Canyons function as Primus’s sensory organs, their resonating structures allowing him to collect data from across the galaxy, which is then proscessed into a more meaningful format by the Vecta Sigma supercomputer.
Moon Alpha– The main spacesport of Cybertron’s moon Alpha.
Deterrence Chips– Usually used by Autobots with their prisoners. Administered to the head, and, when activated, blow up, killing the prisoner.
Electronic Jammer- composed of crystal rod wound with copper wire. Capable of interfering with Transformers circuits and incapting them.
Ion- Neautralisers– Autobots who wander into an ion-neautraliser will be disabled in a flash of green light.
Anti-Grav manicales–
Detention Sphere– when activated, creates a force field around the beings nearest.
Ultra Prison– A Decepticon invention for holding and killing Autobots. Creates an impenetrable domb of ultra-refined energon, which slowly wipes the mind of any Mech imprisoned in it.
Noisemaze– Mesothulas created the Noisemaze, a portal doorway that leads the prisoner with a ‘small pocket dimension assembled from harvested matter-gaps in the fabric of our universe’
Ethics Committee– any new weapon created by the Autobots must past a Protocal of the non conventional weapons act before it can be used in battle. Brainstorm liked to terrorise the committee with weapons so awful that ‘nothing short of the moment destruction of Cybertron and the universe would justify their use.’ He coined them ‘the unmentionables’.
Cerebro-sensitive-bullets– bullets that lock onto the targts neural processor when the bullet is fired. Anyone using them is gaurented a headshot.
The Clampdown– A time in Cybertron history when the planet was essentially put under martial law. Heightening security measures to protect its citizens and weed out potential terroists.
Milant Monofrom Movement- Monoformers who made a symbolic rejection of Adaptis by removing their t-cog
Solar Barge– either towed by a smaller ship or solar sails to move with its own power. Used to transport prisoners.
MAABs– Mobile Anti-Assault Battlesuit.
Grand Cybertronian Taxonomy– All Cybertronian life is classified in one great system, the Grand Cybertronian Taxonomy, determining the placement of transformers in its heirachy based on Alternate modes.
Rust Sea– Crystalline growths grow along the bayous edge from the Rust Sea’s energon particles
Five Dark Epochs– five significant periods of the Great War that almost brought the Transformers race to extinction. Includes: The Uprising, The Exodus, The Remote Age, The Cataclys and The Surge.
Omniglobe– Sphere shaped cells which can feed massive amounts of data to their occupants.
Cluster Bomb– Explosive Weapon
Data Slug– Small, rectangular object that stores significant amounts of information
Death Cloak– a medical scanning device that monitors the rate in which a Cybertronians spark is shrinking, allowing it to calculate time remaining before death. People like Drift aren’t fond of them.
Axis Cradle– Technology that allows Cybertronians to imprint their will onto another being.
Cybertronian Database 