As the title says, assuming you needed humans (and I know there are lot of ways to not need them), how would you write them? How would they find out about the Transformers? How would they prove useful to their robot partners?

Being a productive host, I'll begin. I'm thinking that the paramilitaries of the movies made alot of sense. They would start out like Thunderbolt Ross' Hulkbusters; not very effective but still capable. They would follow the reportings of the Autobots and eventually catch up to them. When the Decepticons do something to prove they are against them (early on because this type 0f robot vs. man conflict is very onesided), the organization would be reformed into a team to help the Autobots in a supporting role. There would be a liason to the government who likes the bots, but is technically after America and NATO's interests (so he may act semi-antagonistical on occaision but still be an ally). The Thunderbolt Ross would be an agent and have a Fanzone like relationship towards the bots. In his mind, they might be the good guys of this war, but they're still responsible for bringing it here in the first place. The final main character (for now), would be a scientist who is very curious in these visitors. He'd be very intelligent (Why else would this group invite him?) but somewhat naive in practicality. Obviously, the Autobots have better technology, but he is chiefly for research and intelligence. Any other characters working for the Autobots would be the family and friends who get entangled into this mess.

Of course, any smart army knows you need insider info on foreign lands. Thus, the Decepticons, especially Megatron, also make human allies. Not having the same reservations as Optimus, I envision he'd be bartering technology towards weapon developers, mercenaries, and dictatorships for resources. I think I'll focus on the weapon developer angle who'd be the public face for said deals and would act sort of like a nonrepentant Tony Stark doing what he does in the beginning of the Ironman movie.

Naturally, this isn't a place just for me to blabber on, so come in and post your own ideas.

 

All in all, these are good ideas. I like how you recognized that the Decepticons should want to make human allies.

I started a similar thread way back when, and the main theme that I and the other posters agreed on is that whatever reason the humans in question are there, they need to be useful. NEST is a great example of this: they and the U.S. government provide the Autobots with logistical resources and intelligence capabilities, neither of which can be overstated. The Autobots and humans could trade technology, to give the humans an edge against the Decepticons, possibly all the way up to pilotable mechs (later on in the series). An MIB-type group, like S7, could work, with Autobots partnered with human agents as liaisons to human society. I could see Marissa Faireborn, Col. Lennox, Sgt. Epps, or Seymour Simmons filling the role (the last one with someone to moderate his insanity, of course).

Another way to do it would be for a group of conspiracy theorists to stumble on the conflict and ally with the Autobots, like in early IDW, only this part doesn't get tossed to the side with All Hail Megatron. I could see versions of Maggie Madsen and Glenn Whitman filling the role beautifully.

As for Megatron, I can see him going to various dictators or terrorist groups and using them as his point-men human ops, the way Dylan Gould was in DotM. If he wanted to keep his presence a secret, he could use said groups as cat's-paws, keeping his troops in vehicle form or some kind of Stealth Force and having the rogue organization take credit for his activities.

One thing I think we could do would be to list the human characters who were most successful and learn from them.

 

Thanks, I saw your thread before and it inspired me to make an updated one, (Kind of like how the 'Where's Wheeljack' threads keep popping up but hopefully I handled recreation better). Basically, I'm bored, didn't see any threads I wanted to post in, so I decided to make a new one that looked like it could lead to fun discussions.

On to what you said, I like the conspiracy angle and it seems like a good way to bring in an everyman. He might now about the Autobots, but he isn't some super competent military man. And I agree, if we're repeating humans, Maggie needs more limelight. I like your idea for Megatron using human counter groups as cover to keep the secret (leads to an image of my Stark-Gould figure selling 'smart-tanks' to South American geurilla fighters only for the Autobots to show up and the tanks to transform. Random terrorist: "We'll take ten!!"), just so long as there are humans helping who are more MECH than Carbomya. By that, I mean an anti-NEST. They might not be the robot's equals in any sense of the word, but they are legitimate threats and aren't second rate.

 

As humans.

Start from there. And ask yourself why this group or that is helping either faction of TFs. The why is the important question.

 

Young Milatary soldier and his worrysome computer tech girlfriend.

They'd be like 18/19 ish.

also I'd have a Russian Militant as one of the series villains. (Think Russian William Stryker).