Which is exactly the kind of thing people CAN identify with.

 

Personally I'd avoid anyone who can identify with genocide, even a fictional one.
There's making mistakes and there's falling really low.

For certain levels of wrongness there's simply no justification, no matter how noble the intentions were at the beginning.

I can accept that some of the Decepticons were just guys who got dragged into this movement. Or that Autobots themselves may not be heroes, only a morally neutral faction. But I am unable to see Decepticon faction as anything more than an evil group. Sure, this time they were given a reason to be evil better than "RAWR, EVIL!!!", but still they're nothing to root for.

 

Exelent post. This fandom has gotten so used to mediocrity that when a good storyline appears, it dismisses i because it´s not what they are used to,

 

My reaction when people don't identify with the Decepticons:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b-sQuznwMo

 

It's called "morality".  

 

The thing is, I can partially identify with them and they don't seem so evil anymore. I'm glad there is Galvatron.

 

It´s like Star Wars fans that are Empire fanboys. It´s mind boogling.

 

Nor are the Autobots. IDW has been wonderful about pointing out what other continuities are largely silent or blind to- the Autobots are mass murderers of their own kind as well- among countless other worlds as well, certainly so to any other planet they stomped over while trying to stop the Decepticons. Just because they didn't start it doesn't make them any more innocent, all the way back through Marvel's G1.

I'm not entirely sure what your argument is. That the evil Decepticons aren't role models? No kidding. But they are given at least depth and reason in recent continuities over the older "evil because nyah-ha-ha!" cardboard we got handed.

The Decepticons might have gone off track and became mass-murderers because they thought things were wrong, but the Autobots did the exact same because they thought they were right. It's not a lot of difference.

 

Autobots are not mass murderers.

It's explicitly Decepticons who were wiping other species on purpose and gave Autobots no other choice but to fight them to the bitter end.
It's Decepticon ideology that explicitly states that other planets must be wiped and harvested. Not an Autobot one.

If someone puts you in a situation when you have to fight them or you will end killed, then you can't be blamed for fighting back.
The worst you can accuse Autobots of is being indifferent about what is happening to other species until they came to Earth, but it's still a far cry from actively trying to murder everything else that was a cornerstone of the Decepticon empire. That's neutrality at worst, not evil.

That people still are trying to fool themselves that there's a moral equality between Bots and Cons is mind-blowing. There is a lot of difference and IDW wasn't really trying to show that it's in any other way.
A few bad apples like Prowl, Dinobots and likes on the Autobot side can't equal the other side being composed in ninety percent if not more of bad apples.

 

So if it all just stayed on Cybertron, would the Decepticons be considered mass murderers for killing Autobots?

How many Decepticon lives would the Autobots need to take to be considered the same?

I'm not trying to argue that the Decepticons are better off than the Autobots. That's an idiotic statement. But they aren't all just psychopaths. Hell, even Megatron wanted to refuse violence and still feels remorse about his actions. They were wrong and most of them know it. But anyone can comprehend the escalation that they experienced over the course of their non-violent tactics in IDW's continuity, and it's much more interesting than the "evil and accept it" baddies we got in earlier versions.

 

So, Autobots should simply allow themselves to be gunned down?

You kill as many enemy soldiers as it's needed to win the war. They're soldiers. You don't wanna get shoot, don't go to war and carry the rifle.

And if it stayed entirely on Cybertron it would be just a war between factions that are the same... If not the one detail - one of them are aggressors who refuse negotiations.

 

Not an answer to what I asked, but I digress.

 

It was an answer to your question and you know it very well.

There's no numeric answer. Decepticons were offered a "Two States solution" and be free to live as they see fit, but Megatron refused any peaceful solution and carried the war.

At this point there's no "how many", they refuse to stop attacking, they need to be fought no matter how many of them will die. Untill they will stop attacking. It's a self-defense on a nation-wide scale, nothing else.

 

Autobots mass murderers? Not so sure about this one... even though the civil war involved morally gray decisions, I doubt the movement would advocate for genocide of the Decepticons, or even prop up those who supported the idea. Fans (and even Peter Cullen himself) disagreed with the idea of a bloodthirsty, savage Optimus Prime in the live action movies, because that runs contrary to what the character stands for.

Recall, the Autobots and Decepticons started out with the same goal, which was to move out of an entrenched caste system with no mobility. What they fought to replace it with, and how they went about it, were quite different. Optimus didn't have much problem with the idea of a former Decepticon being president, aside from personal misgivings about Starscream as an individual.

Adding depth and complexity to the reasons behind the conflict is one of the things I think IDW has done an excellent job with, particularly in how they have treated Megatron. However, blurring the lines with Optimus is a riskier thing to attempt since he is so iconic (see above for example), which might be part of why the characterization has been criticized lately as lacking personality.

 

In an ideal world the IDW Decepticons would have been spreading their revolution to the underclasses of the organic races rather than committing genocide against them.

 

I think the best example is that Prowl had to hide records about war crimes comitted by Autobot soldiers to not risk a massive hit to the morale of an entire faction, while amongst the Decepticons a general attitude towards the things like that is "no **** given, whatever, happends *shrug*".

 

That's because the Decepticons are secure in their beliefs but the Autobots have to lie to themselves about what they are doing in order to keep thinking they are the good guys.

 

Because Roberts himself says those things are meant to be direct parallels.

 

Also because that is how fiction works. Sci Fi in particular often uses future times, fantastic creatures, alien civilizations, robots, etc... To tell stories about us. This is not new. Fantasy as well can be used this way.

Sure some fantastic or speculative fiction is purely escapist fantasy, but any mentality that aliens/robots/cthulu can't reflect, directly, with intent, human issues. conditiins, or themes is a false and narrow ... Uh, word not coming to mind.

The argument that "alien robots" cannot or should not be used to ezlpore human themes is wrong. Decades of sf serve as audience.

 

I know that. That's what I think too. People who hide behind that explanation like people on this thread do it to hide and protect themselves and creators from criticism.