Of course they did. I just never questioned the hatchlings...or anything in ROTF...I was afraid of the tumor it might cause.
Didn't Hasbro say in the most recent QA that one of their goals for the next two years is to clear up HOW IS BABBY FO- where Transformers actually come from?
Ah shit, reminds me of a time... I don't care for the hatchlings, I'll let em slide. As for clones, it don't matter to me, we TransFans all know who they are. Like Blackout/Grindor and the Constructicons, etc.
I like your cloning-type explanation for the movie Decepticon hatchlings. Makes sense of the similarities between many of the foot soldiers and explains their drone-like qualities. Also might explain why many Decepticons seem to lack any personality compared to the Autobots in the movies. I think it's fairly clear now that there is more than one way for TFs to reproduce, depending on what universe you're looking at. It seems that protoforms are now the most common form of TFs reproduction, probably coz they seem to be the easiest way of mass-producing. The Allspark, the Matrix and Vector Sigma seem more like random sources of life that are harder to control to me. Now what i'm curious to know is how the movie hatchlings are matured into larger warriors? How long's it take for 'em to grow up? How do their bodies actually grow? Can they be artificially matured perhaps?
Personally I'd like to see a huge TF factory building bodies rather than squishy gel sacs with baby robots in them.
But i like cute baby robots...um, i mean, the breeding method of using egg-like sacs give these Cybertronians a more 'alien-like' organic quality, so it is easier to imagine them being a truly sentient race rather than just 'machines'.
I like their machine qualities more than their alien ones. I'm just thinking a live-action assembly plant where we see a TF body come into being before our eyes would be cooler than watching a throbbing gel sac with a squirming robo squid inside. Obviously several films have shown robots being factory built (Bicentennial Man and I,Robot for two, and Terminator movies for several more), but I'm thinking Transformers would have a more 'alive' type of factory construction, maybe with the body being assembed around the spark so the parts are alive throughout the process of 'birth' that doesn't involve something as organic as what is basically a mechanical womb shown in ROTF. I'd especially like to see a TF head being created in a sort of reverse explosion, as a myriad of parts come together and form the head, revealing the character. A flashback to Optimus being birthed would be cool as we watch the construction process and then it's revealed at the end this is the beginning of the great hero we all know.
I have a theory on it, energon not only sustains Transformers it creates them. Those shock waves that the Allspark puts out are energon, and if you expose a machine to enough energon it turns it into a Transformer. The hatchlings were created by the little energon the Decepticons could spare.
I believe that there are maybe two forms of reproducion. In wartime when mayn warriors are needed, they mass produce them. But i can imagine that there is also some sort of Natural Reproduction. Maybe Transformers have somehting like DNA in their Spark.
That sounds like a pretty cool idea actually. Could be something beautiful to watch if they could find a way to present the construction of TFs differently from other robots in other movies. The creation of the likes of Dispensor and the Kitchen-bots would seem to suggest that your explanation about energon bringing any technology to life is possible. And we do get the impression that the Decepticon hatchlings on the Nemesis were being sustained by the ship's limited supply of energon. It seems possible that energon can spark life as well as sustain it in the movie-verse. But i am not sure whether to think the life-giving energy of the Allspark is the same thing as energon? I've wondered about what effect a spark might have on the shape and form a TF body might take. I think BW and Animated suggested that a spark could guide the form as well as the personality a TF takes.
Since Cybertronians are composed of nanomachines, I can see them reproducing through budding, or mitosis. The nanomachines, having absorbed enough energon, begin to self replicate until enough material is available to form a basic protoform. In times of war, or just in a situation where reproduction isn't a priority, they may use this additional material to construct better weapons or armor, as opposed to sprouting a minicon.
I watched ROTF last night, and Starscream tells Megatron that he left him on Earth because he needed to "Spawn our new army, the Fallen decrees it!" and he tells Megatron that "without Energon, the hatchlings will die!" So clearly, Megs didn't know anything about this, this is the Fallen's work. So the Fallen ordered Starscream to "Spawn" a new army. Sounds like the slashfics need to be about Starscream and the Fallen! That's alot of "spawning!" On another note, it's clear that the Allspark is what made TFs, using concentrated Energon. They needed a shard to bring back Megatron. The shard brought the kitchen bots to life, and the stuff from the first film. The 'cons are using Energon to make the Hatchlings, but it's clear they have learned a new method other than allspark-infusion, and now that I think about it, I'll bet that's EXACTLY how the original Primes made their workers or the Fallen's army we see on BC Earth, and the Fallen has shown the cons how to make soldiers. And, in the comic adaptation, Rampage refers to Sam's parents as "protoform batch initiators." I thought that was interesting.
I just started thinking also about how Optimus is linked back to the Primes. He was suggested to be 'a descendent'. So that kinda implies he was born from them somehow. Did he start off life as a hatchling? Or was his form of creation a different one?
Oooo! I'll bet Primes can spawn but other TFs can't! That would explain the Fallen and hundreds of hatchlings as well as Prime descending, as well as the Autobots thinking that only the Allspark made life.
Hmm...I never thought of it like that. Cool ideas! I have my own perspective on Optimus's relation to the primes. In the movie, I perceived the deceased primes living within the allspark after they sacrificed themselves, and thats how they were able to communicate with sam after he touched the sliver. So if they were one with the allspark, perhaps they designated prime as their heir way back when ,when he was presumably created by the allspark. But thats just my perspective, its pretty cool how we can be creative and make are own little theories for stuff in the film....a lil geeky...but still fun lol
But if the Fallen 'spawned' all those hatchlings in the Nemesis, that would mean they are all technically Primes. I don't believe that's the case. I think it's more likely that the 'cons possessed lots of protoforms in the first place that could be utilised at any time provided that they had energon to feed them. I wrote a fanfic actually that delved into Optimus's relation to the first Primes (see link in my signature below for "Rising Sun"). My theory in that story was that Optimus' spark was basically split from one of the original Primes' spark with the help of the Allspark's energy. And i explained Optimus' difference in appearance from the other Primes (who all resemble the Fallen more) by having his spark be placed in a hatchling (i'm assuming the Primes weren't initally created as hatchlings, but were fully formed beings that rose from the ground via the Allspark's energy).
