How do you view the Transformers as? Aliens or just machines?

I ask because lately I've been viewing Cybertronians as alien robotic organsims rather than just mere machines that were built by an alien race for labor, entertainment, and soldiers. I dunno why I view them as alien beings because, well, they technically are aliens that are robotic in appearance, but they are much more than that. They are not machines. They have feelings, souls, religion, myths, legends, animals, gods, they can cry, they are practically ageless, they even have organs which most people would see as just some mechanical parts.

If one remembers correctly, Ratchet explained that vocal processors or even transformation cogs cannot be repaired that easily because they are biology. You cannot even find them in a scrapyard! If you'd view it as an organ term, Bumblebee was subjected to organ theft.

I can understand that some people wouldn't want to let G1 go. But really?

Transformers are more than that now. I've stopped calling them Transformers, but rather what they are really called: Cybertronians.

So tell me: are they merely machines of labor to you or are they well and truly aliens?

 

Alien robots.

 

I view them as machine-like aliens.

 

Intelligent mechanical beings

 

This is a hard question to answer because of how incredibly blurred the line between 'alien' and 'machine' is when it comes to Transformers...and it seems the answers here so far are fairly vague.

I'm gonna go with aliens. They're not just machines.

 

Machines. For me they're truck or jet or cars that walk and talk

 

Extra terrestrials.

 

Definitely alien life forms that happen to be robots. "Intelligent mechanical beings."

 

Well they're both, aren't they?

But, in my mind, they're fully mechanical. No liquid metal, no nanobots, no vaguely defined and nonsensical "biology", but circuitry and cybernetics. They're machines, with fuel pumps and pistons and cogs. But they're fully sentient. That's kind of the whole conceit, yeah? They're living robots. That's part of the fun.

 

Both. Neither term invalidates the other. One is a word for an inorganic animated body of matter, the other is a subjective viewpoint by a second party.

 

Going with alien beings that just happened to be mechanical myself. That always made more sense to me since they act way more like people then most robotic characters with a few exceptions not to mention the idea of them being robotic carbon based organisms makes them be more interesting then them just being machines that are intelligent. That said I'm not opposed to some characters being mechanical or at least be way more robotic looking and feeling as a way to make them different and interesting from the rest.

 

Autonomous/Sentient Robotic Beings which are not from Earth.

Alien and Robotic.  

Not really both, because they are not mere machines.

 

Cue the .GIF of the little Mexican girl from the commercial.

 

In all seriousness, if I had to pick one, I'd pick aliens.

 

you know that this question is borderline on close to racism, judging an intelligent forms of life that is similar to or the same as us by their appearance, not just lifeforms like the Cybertronians, heck they could be civilized talking jellyfish, potatoes, living balloons who had a p.h.d. degree, beings that look like glowing lighting bolts, to whatever the U.S.S. Enterprise met along their journey will probably join as a member of the U.F.P. (& had fun with Kirk on the bed)

this is made worse in A.O.E where that KSI staff lady saying that the Cybertronians are just mere machines that has no soul just because they look like robots in the same vein as a Terminator which our intruder hero Marky Mark tries to correct that misconception, who is a robotics engineer himself, it sucks to be those guys from District 9 who got stranded on earth if those people are still around........

 

i like to think of alien spark monsters inside of machines in order to get from a to b quicker.

 

Aliens that have a robotic physiology

 

Sentient machines from an alien planet. So I voted machines of course.

 

Transformers are versatile. They can be alien machines, mechanical aliens, fusions of organic and technological matter, balls of mystic life-force inside metallic armour, crafted by gods or cubes or squids, whatever.

I'll go with aliens, 'cause they're aliens to Earth regardless, but they can be pretty much be whatever they want to be.