Well first off, +rep to anyone who gets the thread title. Secondly, and while it's been established that the Vehicons (at least some of em) have their said personality chips, do they have sparks? If so, where do Megatron & friends get em from, and do you think this'll be addressed in the next season?

 

What I like to believe is that the Vehicons have sparks, but ones that were artificially manufactured as opposed to being created via whatever natural process that brings actual TF sparks into being. Hence, the Vehicons are, in fact, 'alive' and 'conscious', but do not have the full gamut of emotional and mental qualities that make their actual TF counterparts fully 'human' (or 'Cybertronian' if you will), on account of their sparks being ersatz examples of such. Subsequent events may, of course, prove me wrong.

 

Well, I think some of em have been shown to have personalities (aka, things non essential to instinct & their duties such as the one who wants to bone or rather get boned by Airachnid), but there also looks to be multiple kinds of Vehicons, namely in the case of classes & which ones Optimus Prime deems fit to slag. Granted, this could simply be a case of fighting the soldiers instead of the women & children of sorts, but maybe there's something to it.

Also, and this could come back to/involve your theory of artificial sparks, but maybe they're linked in some sort of collective (likely controlled in part by a parent mind such as Soundwave), rather than existing as complete individuals?

 

A Vehicon who wants to bone Airachnid? I must've missed that one, lol. Maybe the longer a Vehicon has been kicking around, the more 'human' (again, 'Cybertronian' if you will) its primitive Spark becomes - an effect perhaps unforseen by their creator (presumably Megatron). That might explain why some Vehicons display more of a personality than others do. If so, it would be interesting to see just how developed these 'advanced' Vehicons become, and what they might do with their burgeoning free will.

I don't think developments to date support the existence of a hivemind. They seem somewhat more autonomous than that. What I won't rule out, however, is that a controlling individual such as Soundwave may be capable of viewing the world through their eyes. I'd go so far as to extrapolate that the Vehicons themselves are unaware that they are being used in such a fashion. As for Soundwave being able to out and out manipulate like puppets on strings, I'm leaning towards 'not really'. The Vehicons would have displayed far higher efficiency if Soundwave could directly influence them, plus such a phenomenon would preclude the requirement to issue them orders, which we see Starscream et al regularly doing.

 

I was going to do some painting to differentiate some of them, as described
here: http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/trans...-tf-prime-eradicon-commander-torvek-crew.html

But then they became poseable gold....

 

Such a pity you've apparently shut down this effort. As a StarCom fan, I would've totally supported such a project.

Funny you should make the Robot Drone comparison, in light of the speculation I made about higher ranking Cons being able to use the Vehicons as 'eyes and ears'. If I recall correctly, Emperor Dark did that very thing with his Drone army.

 

I've just been thinking of them as being similar to Stormtroopers: a bunch of individuals wearing the same identical "uniform". They'd have probably gotten a new, more unique chassis following a promotion to a higher caste/position in the Decepticon army. However with Cybertron having gone dark, they're stuck with the same mass-produced body.

Stronger, Faster: Breakdown's briefly seen chatting with one of the Miner 'Cons about Airachnid.

 

Vehicons alternate mode is the plane mode,looks like we will be looking forward to that

 

The Well of Allsparks. They are ordinary Cybertronians. The animators just animate them with the same body to save time and effort instead of designing 200 new character models every time a new guy turns up in the background for five seconds.

Imagine if a film was filming in a street and they needed random people to pass by but the film crew have to build those people. Why build tons of different bodies when they're just going to appear once, for a few seconds. They're still meant to be different people but the film crew give them all identical bodies to save time and effort designing tons of different ones. That is the case of the Vehicons. They're meant to be individuals but are animated with identical bodies to save time.

 

This is pretty much my thinking about it.

Personality chips? maybe. I personally think it's more how each unit's A.I. has adapted to the experience's that each drone has been subjected to. I.e some will have more combat experience, some more technical (ship operations) experiance.

 

Reference to the title: *Vehicon immediately starts running away, arms flailing*   love ReBoot.

Well, I'd say they do, remember the smartass Vehicon Ratchet interrogated in Stronger, Faster? No where near the puddy patrol if you ask me. They could be bots who followed Megatron before the war broke out on Cybertron.


jD001

 

I really would like at least one Vehicon to become a recurring character, with a personality and everything. Possibly a unique, but not completely different paintjob. Still black and purple, but different.

 

I really like the idea that Vehicons get 'promoted' into named Decepticons. They're fully alive, fully intelligent, with full personalities, but until they distinguish themselves in battle, they're functionally identical (after all, to someone like Megatron, someone who hasn't stood out from the ranks is essentially cannon fodder, so they don't deserve individuality until they earn it. Seems perfectly Decepticon thinking to me.) They make a name for themselves, they get named and upgraded. Perhaps there's a hierachy: Vehicons promoted to the Jet version (Seekers? Eradicons?), and then to a Decepticon proper. And then you get 'cons like Knockout who miss driving around and having wheels, so 'downgrade' to a wheeled ground vehicle, earning sneers from the elite decepticon flyers. Sort of like a knight who decides to sod the horses and get stuck in leading a mob of peasants would get laughed at by his mates.  

It makes sense to me, and I'm keeping it until proven otherwise.  

 

So like a Vehicon general?

 

... exactly. Beast Machines had that right, at least. And with designs that awesome, it would be a waste.

 

In my personal fandom. there is only 1 vehicon and all the vehicons you actually see are quasi clones of this main guy. they're all connected to him too. Thats why some of the vehicon drones have personalities. Those vehicons, for whatever reason, have more of the originators actual personality and stuff inside of him, while others dont. Think sunstreaker from IDW if you don't understand where my mind is going.

 

I do think of them as being somewhat similar to the clones featured in the Star Wars universe. I think it's specifically in the their programming (not necessarily in the sparks) to be obedient and follow orders as soldiers. When the show first stared, I thought that maybe they didn't have sparks (like in Beast Machines).

 

Pretty much how I imagine it being as well.

 

I'm thinking Nachtsider's idea.

 

This is my own theory, and is actually one I developed independently as well for some of my own stuff where I have a bunch of generic troopers. It certainly does fit the Decepticon mindset.