Less child soldiers than those eager teenagers who enlist underage by faking documents and the like, I say.

 

If you want an Autobot "child soldier" try G1 Wheelie.

 

Child soldiers???!!! Put down the crack pipe and think about what you are saying. This thread is nuts, I'm going to read a serious one.

 

OMG this thread is crazier than John Wayne Gacy! It's worse than 10,000 marauding Hitler clones going on a baby-eating rampage! Amusing picture of someone or something expressing shock and/or bemusement!

Now if only someone could just explain why it's apparently so unbelievably stupid/insane/crack-induced...

 

I don't see why people are reacting so negatively to the thread-it's an interesting concept. Do Cybertronians have a concept of "childhood" surrounding newly created bots? Do freshly created Transformers need to go through a period of leaning and gathering experience before the are considered to have come of age, or can a Bot be brought online and thrust instantly into the battle as a fully formed and responsible individual?

If the former is true (and one could argue that Mudflap and Skids are an example of young, recently created bots who seem to lack experience and maturity), do the Autobots have any moral qualms about using younger Bots in a war? Or do Cybertronians have a different view of who can serve as a soldier, thinking that if you want to choose a side and fight, that's fine, no matter how "young" you are?

It's an interesting talking point for those who like to explore the potential of Transformer fiction and its world building. 

 

Exactly. They might not look like Children in the physical sense, but it's not a big leap to see how a new Bot with no experience could be child-like in the sense of their personality and their mind.

And   at Baby-Killer Bee. Someone should re dub that scene to have Talking Heads "Psycho killer" playing on his radio when blasts the Kitchen Bots!

 

I think the former holds true. We've seen examples of 'young, inexperienced bots' throughout various other continuities (G1, Animated, and so on), so I reckon it's reasonable to believe that the same applies in the Movie-verse.

The Decepticons don't strike me as the kind who would care about how old their troops are. The Autobots probably would, but desperation and manpower shortages might spur them to close one eye.

 

Yeah, the Con's strike as me as the kind of guys who don't really care how old the hands the hold the guns are. (It might sound odd, but I wonder if you could explain the hardened, damaged nature of some of the Con's personalities by having their background be that of child solders who were shoved into war fresh from the protoform stage?)

I suppose it stems from the route of the franchise being a kids-toy show, therefore needing to have kids or "child-like" bots in the story for them to relate to (Wheelie, Sari, the Twins etc.) The more you take the TF franchise into a real world or "mature" storytelling context, the more the moral issue of involving kids in a shooting war rears it's head, but for 99% of the franchise this doesn't really apply I suppose.

Still, it's fun to discuss.

 

Very interesting theory. I agree that, while not the sole factor contributing to making these Cons such nasty pieces of work, it's very possibly a major stressor. Many real-life child soldiers exhibit such personality traits as a result of their brutal indoctrination/environment. Causes you to wonder just how many of Megatron's troops are on his side due to volunteering out of true belief in his doctrine, how many are on his side merely due to being forced to believe from their moment of 'birth' that fighting, killing and dying for the Decepticons is their only purpose, and whether any of the latter are redeemable (e.g. being capable of defecting/surrendering, or being capable of rehabilitation once taken prisoner).

 

At first I didn't have much to say about this thread, but this is an interesting movieverse theory.

 

This thread is deliciously geeky. Love it.

Without any reference to cybertronian society, it's anyone's guess.

You can't use our own set of values, since they're, y'know, alien robots from space. Maybe they're considered adults once they reach 3.5467 Cybertronian minutes.

 

... did some one think of this just because they thought allegations of racism were just not doing the trick?

I don't even think at any point they shown child like behaviour (that's not saying they were not childish)

any ways to throw my geek hat in the ring while I do think transformers have a child phase I don't think its on the same level as humans. And that age in transformers is more a case of how mature the character is and how wise they are.

As for Size=Age if that were the case how would that explain model T seeker?

truth be told I just think its easier to design a young character to be smaller then the wiser members of the same team as a child/young character being the same size as a wise adult would look odd.

 

Why? show me where they are portrayed as old?

So far all the bots explicitly designated as old are HUGE, all the ones explicitly designated as YOUNG are small and everyone else whose age is undisclosed is in between.

That is why I said 'some' evidence.

It may be true, it may not be, it is right now an unconfirmed aspect of the movieverse.

 

We don't have any indication of how old the model-t seeker is though.

 

So the Doctor is an infant?

 

Scalpel = Stewie

 

considering Jetfire commented about them being old freinds I'd say quite old. Now I will say that they could have changed their modes over time like I assume Jetfire did but since theirs no evidence of that logic says he's still that car.

 

So between the Model-T and The Doctor we can say the size=age holds no water?

 

Also, Wheelie said he was a 'drone'. It could be that there is a subclass of cybertronians.

The movie comics kinda show this where the 'fallen' was a specific race of cybertronians, and then the transformers became a 'worker' class that utilized energon differently.

It is all just guessing, but something that could be expanded upon in the next movie. It felt to me like The Fallen and his 'race' were kinda like Quintessons while the TFs were the worker bots and then there was a smaller race of scrap drones underfoot like Minicons.