Sorry for the lengthy title but I couldn't think of what els to call it Anyway, If Optimus was a the base (and wasn't a few minutes late like he was) with ironhide and sentinel, would sentinel have killed optimus instead of ironhide? Or don't u think sentinel would have attacked at that point if Optimus was there? What do u think?
Honestly in my eye I think it would've been more of like where Optimus saw Sentinel open the space bridge for the first time and some what give him a "2nd Chance". *Sentinel Kills Ironhide* "NO NO SENTINEL!! This isn't the way to save Cybertron!" - Optimus "Your Lucky I didn't kill you as well in time you will know" - Sentinel *Optimus looks down at Ironhides rusted corpse, and slowly raises his eyes to Sentinel walking away* "This isn't over..." - Optimus
Optimus would've tried talking him out of it thinking he could be reasoned or with or snapped out of it just like he did later at the Reflecting Pool, and holding back like that would've meant getting his ass kicked by Sentinel at NEST HQ, too. But, sure, if Sentinel would have thought of him as a serious threat to his acquisition of the pillars and therefore his plan to save Cybertron then he'd kill him without even thinking twice about it. Their fight at the end of the movie right before Megatron interrupts pretty much confirms that. The fact that Sentinel already had them anyway and the fact that Optimus was holding back too much to stop him earlier were all that kept him from getting killed by Sentinel at the Reflecting Pool, really. That and Sentinel's hope to convince Optimus he was right, of course, as hinted at with his subtle attempt to indoctrinate Optimus to his way of thinking during their little meeting about the Matrix. "Never mourn the past, young warrior, thanks to you our race survives," and all that.
Judging by the Washington scene, I think he would have done a quick, nonfatal takedown on Optimus and start killing/fighting off the others then try to talk Optimus into saving Cybertron. Considering how many humans he would then kill in his rampage, Optimus would then try to stop him, instead of walking away and would have gotten killed.
Considering Sentinel spares Optimus but then immediately afterwards has Starscream try to blow them up when they are leaving, I find his claim to want to spare Optimus dubious at best. Although I suppose he spared him to trick the Autobots into joining him in leaving so he could get rid of them all at once in which case he might have just stabbed Optimus and disabled him in a way that wouldn't kill him, rather than rust him.
As people said, he'd probably launch a barrage of attacks on everyone [like he did on the movie] and swiftly beat the lights out of Optimus in some way [like hitting him non-fatally on the chest], then do the Washington speech and walk away with the Pillars. Sentinel seemed to actually want his apprentice on his side in Washington, it was only after Optimus refused to join him that he decied to blow him up to smithereens.
Optimus is always late to something, before the last battle in TF1 he was like at the burger king eating a whopper (inspired by the BK commercial). In ROTF being dead. In DOTM he's 10 minutes behind Sentinel, likely eating a whopper again , and then he's stuck in cables. Forethought, it's completely opposite with Starscream, he always shows up first at the beginning of a battle/war. To your question, I think Sentinel would've killed Ironhide anyway, and that shocked Optimus to let Sentinel go in at the NEST HQ and taking the pillars. At the HQ, Optimus encounters Sentinel and asking him, "Why are doing this?", but Sentinel ignores, and he knocks Optimus down, so that he's injured enough to be lying on the landscape, while Sentinel is taking the pillars and drives away, after that Optimus finally stands op realizing he most see his mentor for an answer to what has been done.
Well the writers wouldn't allow Optimus to die like that. But if we are going from an in-movie perspective, I think Sentinel would have killed Ironhide, then threatened Optimus.
