Does it seem to anyone else that the Autobots morals, are a little contradictive, and come off as a little higher than thou. One example being Starscream it seems he was being sincere in wanting to switch sides but he was shackled and treated like dirt, Arcee find out about Cliffjumper and beat the crap out of him which drove him away and playing for no faction, afterword they never tried to get him back and continued to treat him crudely even when he wasn't doing anything actively against them, it wasn't just having nothing that drove him back to the Cons, but the bots treatment of him, because like Animated-BlackArachnia said "at least you know where you stand with them".

Most recently was blowing up the Predacons tubes, in Beast Wars when Cheetor tried to destroy a blank protoform that Megatron was going to revive(Dinobot II), Optimus actually reprimanded him because at the time the protoform was innocent and had done nothing to no one. So the Autobots in Evolution committed the act of genocide of innocent beings.

 

Arcee at the time was going through a struggle of not letting her personal struggles with revenge control her and hearing Starscream blab out Cliffjumper didn't help. She felt bad about it in the end and Optimus did tell her that wisdom needs to be earned so that things like that don't happen again. And I doubt that Starscream would be willing to stay with the Autobots for long even if she didn't find out.

 

As far as Starscream goes, Starscream brought his treatment upon himself. Of course the Autobots had to chain him up, up until a while before he had been a key commander for Megatron. His history of treachery was well known too, and Arcee didn't lay a hand on him until he stabbed her in the gut.

As far as the Predacons go, the Autobots had no idea they were sentient beings at this point; until they met Predaking in robot mode they thought the Predacons were all just beasts, and dangerous ones at that. Killing them off was logical. Had they known the Predacons could transform, it may have ended up differently.

 

I think the Autobots' love-affair with the human race is inexplicable and just kind of weird. Okay, I get that we-the-viewers are human and it's supposed to cement them as "the good guys", but . . . really, trading the entire future of Cybertron for the lives of three allies? If this were a full-blown Autobot versus Decepticon war, I'm sure Prime wouldn't have thrown away the future of his home planet for three Autobots . . .

On that note, a helpful hint for the Autobots: the best way to prevent humans from becoming targets is to stop buddying up to them. Man, they might as well have spraypainted "PLEASE KIDNAP ME, I'D MAKE A GREAT HOSTAGE" on those kids.

 

Cause, you know, buddying up with three kids won't bring any trouble...Oh wait!

 

They totally do, and the show is rife with examples such as Optimus getting on Ratchet for attacking a miner who are "servant class" and "non-combative" except for that time the Autobots steamrolled through an entire pack of them, Arcee even ruthlessly beheading one.

And of course who can forget the biggest bullshit claim of them all, when Arcee leaves Megatron who's buried and momentarily helpless instead of killing him and ending the horirble struggle that took two of her partners because it wasn't the right thing to do, except for that time she totally shot a comatose and helpless Megatron's life support in an attempt to kill him. But, see, when Megatron was buried in the rocks he was completely helpless and unconcious and basically braindead wheras when they snuck aboard the ship he was alive and well and totally capable of causing widespread destruction and chaos once he dug himself out and oh wait...

Prime's Autobots are kind of stupid when you get down to it. They're hypocrites, they don't act when they need to, they just all around make dumb mistakes and only succeed through plot contrivance.

That's no excuse.

I'm not saying they should have been BFFs, but she kind of fumbled the whole thing. THEN AGAIN that was back before her "MAI PARNTAARRRS" was of truely insane proportions so I still chock it up to actual character developement.

Oh well that makes it better.

You don't know that. He's stayed with Megatron so far, afterall. He could have proved a valuable ally, his personality was certainly sympathetic at that point.

 

^ And yeah, there's that.

 

Except for that one time when he did said "I came for Megatron and him alone..." and told them to surrender. Their response?

Draws their guns upon him.

They kinda walked into that one by themselves, competence not withstanding.

 

The Predacons were not innocent--they were engineered to serve Megatron. The current Predacon their battling had already shown that Megatron had the beast under his control.

Moreover, prior to making his exit, Shockwave had his systems ejected amniotic fluid in the birth tubes, waking the Predacons from their sleep. Allowing them to live would have been a colossal mistake.

EDIT:

Haven't seen Dark of the Moon, huh?

 

On Cybertron it did not matter who revived it. It is as said politics thus the lives of the kids are far more important.

Megatron being a dick chose to Cyberform Earth instead. Of course Optimus would save it over Cybertron as billions of lives are at stake. Cybertron's state was the mistake of both Autobots and Decepticons why make Earth suffer?

But then Optimus did not completely give up on Cybertron he knew the Forge was their last hope. That choice was taken from him by Smokescreen who chose Optimus' life over it.

On the Predacons Magnus and Wheeljack chose to blow them as they would not be just a threat to Autobots but to the Humans, as pointed out by Ultra Magnus.

Thus they played perfectly to the Decepticon scheme of eliminating the Predacon threat to the Decepticons.

 

I haven't seen any of the live-action movies. NO REGRETS!

 

That movie just shows what Optimus is willing to sacrifice for the livelihood of sentient beings.

 

The most jarring example to me is when Optimus claims that he "does not condone the termination of any defenseless life form" (referring to Starscream of all people) and then, within the same episode, he goes to kill a defenseless Megatron. Whether Megatron 'deserves' death or not is completely irrelevant, Optimus is quite blatantly a hypocrite in that regard, and the show doesn't at all seem concerned about it.

Justified or not, I fight it incredibly odd that you can count the number of bots killed by the bad guys on one hand, but the number of bots killed by the good guys numbers into the hundreds!

 

How is it a hypocrisy if he didn't actually pull the trigger? Thinking about it isn't the same as doing it.

How do we not know Optimus wanted to make Megatron cower in fewer like he made so many do before him before terminating them?

Optimus might have very well pulled the trigger--Ratchet ripped him a new during Stronger, Faster, arguing Optimus had plenty opportunities to end the war but didn't, but I don't think Optimus was going to do it--he could have cut Megatron down with the Starsaber after cutting off his arm, but didn't...

 

The Autobots aren't perfect. Arcee was angry that Starscream killed her partner, and she took it out on him. She did feel bad later and realized her mistake.

But seriously...why the hell would the Autobots want Starscream in their ranks? They have 0 respect for him. In season 1 and 2, he was a conniving, hypocritical, selfish, traitorous dick that only wanted to join them because his lies finally caught up to him and he needed protection. He'd betray them the second it would benefit him and they knew it.

Starscream explained why he wanted to go back to the Cons, and his reasons had nothing to do with the Autobots. He went back because he realized Megatron was the only one with a large enough army to control Cybertron once it was revived. He wanted his old position of power back. If he was with the Autobots at that point, he would have left them in a heartbeat.

And of course the Wreckers blew up project predacon. They're Wreckers- the black sheep of the Autobots. Not everything in life is clear cut into black and white. The Wreckers are the grey area of morality.

 

Well, they also knew that the Predacons were weapons that would be used to wipe them out--they were engineered to hunt down and kill the Autobots. I really can't see why some people take issues with Wheeljack blowing them up to be honest.

 

Except Megatron wasn't completely defenseless in that situation. He was tired, and he taunted Optimus, but he obviously wasn't defenseless as he was able to shoot and get away.

Being tired and weary =/= defenseless. You're defenseless when you can't defend yourself.

The ONLY time he's been totally defenseless around the Autobots was in Rock Bottom, when he was stuck under the rock slide. And in that situation, Jack realized it and therefore spared his life. (And when they were aboard the Nemesis for that psychic patch- and of course that was Arcee).

They're probably trying to play devil's advocate, I guess? Can you imagine how boring and one dimensional the characters would be if they stuck to an even MORE rigid black and white version of morality?

Not to mention sometimes you're technically a hypocrite no matter what you do. If Megatron is trying to kill 7 billion innocent beings that can't defend themselves, and Arcee sees a chance to kill Megatron while he's defenseless on the Nemesis (which would prevent the death of those defenseless beings), then no matter what she does, she's technically a hypocrite. People just need to get off their high horse and learn that life is a bit more complicated than "good and bad."

 

Wasn't that an armed Vehicon she beheaded? I clearly remember it firing on her as she leapt to its shoulders. But in any event all the Decepticons were clearly attempting to use violence to repel the Autobots. There's a difference between not targetting unarmed engineers who are fleeing the battle and actively ignoring the guys trying to run you down with a giant drill just because they are not soldiers. Had the miners run for it rather than fight, like any real civilian finding themselves on a battlefield would be expected to, it is quite likely the Autobots would have let them go. Now whether Megatron would have been okay with that or punished them all horribly for that is another matter, so they may have been caught between a rock and a hard place but then my advice would be don't join up with a madman who views you as expendable.

That was Jack who had Megatron dead to rights in Rock Bottom, not Arcee. Jack is not a soldier, and has not been at war with Megatron for billions of years, he barely knows the Mecha. Intelligent as killing Megatron then and there might have been, it would not be expected of Jack to nust blithely slam the drill into Megatron's helpless frame. In fact one could call it somewhat psychotic. By the time Arcee found Megatron was present and had been helpless, Megs was already free, and she knew the mine was now completely unstable. Her words to Jack were intended more to ease his mind. While she probably would have killed Megatron in the same situation, she is a soldier and has ample reason behind such an action, as well as experience dealing death. This, however, would not be able to be disguised as anything other than a cold execution, not a combat kill.

Wasn't that the point though? That she screwed up by letting her personal feelings get in the way of a potential ally?

He stayed with Megatron because until they had their breakout he had nowhere to go, but be honest, Starscream has a history of treachery, especially for his own gain. There's no doubt he'd be a powerful ally, plenty of fanfic authors have explored that, but being sympathetic does not erase the fact that he's an opportunist of the nastiest sort. Without some sort of titanic personal revelation on his part, the chances are he'd be back to his old tricks fairly quickly.

When has he refused to kill Megatron? He's stated he'd (once) prefer(ed) it if Megatron saw the error of his ways and came back from his madness, but that hasn't stopped him going full tilt when they meet on the battlefield. The case for Crossfire had more to do with he wasn't willing to kill all of his friends just to kill Megatron. Dreadwing clearly would have slaughtered the Autobots had Prime killed Megs, and even without Megatron there's no guarantee the war would end.

 

Um, the autobots really only attack the miners if the miners attack first i'm really tired if people bringing that scene up cause pretty much it was the miners shot first so yes the autobots are gonna kill them. Despite vehicon not being the most skilled combatants they still can do damage none the less. How were Magnus and wheeljack suppose to know the predacons were just innocent sentient creatures, they attacked and shockwave began to release what the hell? else would they do? stay there and be overwhelmed? leave them with the cons so the cons could have a powerful army of beasts? in any situation killing them made since to them at the moment. Yes Arcee was in the wrong and the characters in the show even acknowledge it, thing is you can never be truly black or white either way, autobots have done questionable stuff and in the end...they've been doing pretty damn well.