I know that hypothetically, gendered mechanical life could "work"... hell, it's so easy to imagine how... why, it could be just like us!  

But size and complexity don't really have anything to do with whether an alien species should have a dual-gender biology like ours.

Your analogy falls apart here... there really isn't a substatial shift in "complexity" between the design of a large truck and a car, between a cat and a person.

Also, considering how much larger TFs are than people, your proposed logic would suggest that TFs must be much more "sophisticated" than humans... which is not necessarily the case. But even so... isn't it possible that their "complexity" also means that they can operate at an even higher level, and have no need for gender-based evolution... that they might consider our means of evolution primitive or wasteful?

Again, I'm not sure if your analogy here helps your case...

I don't believe anyone has said that. On the other hand, one of the specific appeals of Transformers, I believe, is the fact that they ARE in fact rather similar to our own industrial-built machines. It would make sense to perhaps imagine them as a giant colony of nanomachines, capable of remaking themselves as they please, but no... they are pistons and gears and combustion engines and such... which is part of why they're neat.

I realize you're just spitballing here, throwing out ideas and such. I can respect that. I agree with the above. I think that a case could be made for gendered TFs, but overall, I still just find it too much... too far in the direction of being "easy" when it could instead be "interesting" and "challenging".

zmog

 

At it again eh SMOG? I wanna respond to a massive amount of stuff earlier but I don't feel like it at the moment.

But I will. I love how both discussions about this subject I was involved in were effective hijacks of almost unrelated topics. It makes it all the more fun.

 

There are a variety of definitions for the word "alien". These are the closest ones to what is used in this discussion.

Source: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/alien

If you use the definition of "from another world", then I would say concepts and ideas from this world can be applied to finding out how these organisms are.

If you use the the definition "unfamiliar; strange an alien quality in a work of art". Then you can't apply your measure of how alien an organism is to other people.

Your measure of how alien or strange something is depends on only yourself, they are how you feel. You can't apply it to others because those ideas may not feel "remote" or "not normal". The ideas of "Prawns" aren't totally original, their concept are still based on ideas and creatures found on earth.

Proof of this is the fact that your "Prawn" isn't really alien to me. The creatures from avatar, and district 9 have the same measure of strangeness to me, because I have encountered similar ideas before.

And regardless of of not having language and culture, mix and matching ideas isn't really anything new. Mix the idea of a man and a horse, you get a centaur, birds and men to gain the concept of angels etc.

District 9 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As you see above the "Prawns" themselves were designed to be insect like. So Prawns are still based on earth insects. In the story, they are alien as in from off world. Sure. But their concept is still based on life on this planet.

Even imagination comes from elements found in the real world. So regardless of what you see as more important, fact is important enough to take into account in regards to make assumptions on life in other worlds.

Also conditions here are also far more diverse and changing, that they can simulate many other worlds.

Proof of this is already in the article links I have shown.

Arctic expedition will investigate alien-like glacier | Earth Today


Aliens may have already reached Earth The Big Bang to Now

Scientist: Alien life could already be on Earth // Current

And using what is known about life on this world is better at getting closer to the truth than just making brash assumptions.

The term parallel evolution means:

Parallel evolution is the development of a similar trait in different not closely related species (that is in species of a different clade), but descending from the same ancestor. Source: Parallel evolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So in your usage of the term itself shows that Transformers are similar enough that human ideas on technology can be applied to them.

Even if you say that the progression of their technology diverged from the path human technology human technology is taking, they still came from the same path previously. And hence their technology would still hold the same building blocks.

They also have laser weaponry, armor, electrical components amongst others. Many of which are found in human technology again proving that human ideas on technology can be applied to them.

So I will include more of the article

Source:Non-humans - District 9 Wiki



So I have included more of the article. "They have both male and female reproductive organs". So they are both male and female, hence their species had sexual evolution.


My examples prove that the earth, its life forms and its environments is a good a basis on which to speculate on how alien life could evolve. And is a good example of how sexual evolution can evolve in other worlds, providing a viable reason on why Cybertronians would undergo that type of evolution.

 

"should" imo is a stupid thing to think about in a universe ruled by chance and odds. Our very own bodies have things that they shouldn't. Like wisdom teeth.

I don't know why someone would hold a cartoon to higher standards than our own DNA holds us. "Well that shouldn't be that way" Well, we shouldn't be the way we are, either.

Trust me, they are both are designed from a different perspective. When people design a large size truck, they go in asking questions like "how do we make this haul the biggest load." With a car, it about speed or being fuel efficient. They often don't even have the same form of motion or ignition system. Complexity can also change greatly depending on what year.

Not a substantial difference in complexity between cats and humans? Give a cat a math test. Go jump off a two story building and see if you land on your feet. Just because there is a huge similarity between human and cat DNA because they are mammals doesn't mean there isn't a huge difference between the two things when they are fully grown.

I never suggested any such thing. I only suggest that we can't expect something so complex and alien to be governed by the same laws of science that we currently know. We can't assume they are big walking computers.

No one has said it directly, but the undertones of it have been presented many times. Either A) someone didn't think the idea of fembots was logical as a child based on their own biases of how robots should be built, or B) the idea of fembots ruins some personal fantasy of what transformers were or wanted them to be.

I've seen more than a couple times in this thread and in the last, sentences that started 'Man, I thought fembots didn't make since even back then..."

It is funny that you find it to be too much, when many would consider your request for the story to go completely into left field and be much more alien, to be "too much."