I would like to see the Autobots and Decepticons treat each other as if they were semi-different ethnicities or at least nationalities and that the war has blurred between being a civil war to a race war.

 

I think tribalism is the last thing we need on our fictional entertainment. I’ve tolerated my limit of such bullshit in real life.

 

Transformers may be a pretty imaginative, almost fantastical setting with a bit of an escapist feel by consequence, but personally I'm not interested in escapism in the slightest, especially if it brings down what could have been an even better story. Bring on the emotionally, morally, and spiritually testing and introspective stories that shake us to our core, I say.

That said, Autobots and Decepticons being separate races at war because of race just... no...

 

G1 cartoon had them as different production lines, Not too different when you think about it

 

I can't fully explain why the idea of the Autobots and Decepticons being separate races feels so iffy to me, but I think it mainly comes down to overly simplifying the causes of the conflict between them. They clash because they have different beliefs, not because they were built differently. There can be some physical differences, like Decepticons being more inclined to flight-capable/military alt modes and Autobots going more for civilian vehicles, but I really don't like the idea of them being different races from the start. Cultural differences within the same species, yes. Flat-out race war, no.

 

Same. There is no such thing as "too close to home" or "too political" in my book. I'm very much willing to be made uncomfortable for the sake of a good story.

 

I like to say that the Decepticon faction was formed as a military rebellion against the existing government, with Megatron, a well-established general forming it, explaining the more militaristic alt-modes of the Decepticons.

 

I find it a little ironic that you simultaneously wish for Transformers to bring on the emotionally, morally and spiritually testing and introspective stories yet you also claim "But this... they shouldn't do this." The entire point of making a story that challenges the viewer is to not have limits on what can and can't be told, that means you may experience something that will make you uncomfortable, and that's okay!

Personally as long as it's well written I wouldn't care either way, even though I don't really consider them separate 'races', just different hardware. This kind of discussion and kneejerk reaction to a concept sort of present in the cartoon and comics reminds me a lot of how the discussions revolving around Tolkien fiction has been ruined by pseudo-intellectuals and race hustlers who think it's appropriate to draw parallels between a race such as the Orcs and real life ethnicities with nothing in common while at the same time calling other people racist.

 

That ship already sailed, didn't it? I'm pretty sure TFA was enough of a race war. I'm not as uncomfortable with the scenario as some of us are, mostly because I think Astolat did beautiful things with it in her fiction which I can't link to here because the Megatron/Optimus relationship is not platonic. But it's already been done.

(Then again, Astolat made the warmechs and civilian frames not genders, but biological sexes, in at least one of those stories, so idk.)

 

I agree, bring on the depth. If WFC has proven anything, it’s that even transforming warring robots aren’t sufficient to rescue tepid, shallow storytelling. But I don’t want Transformers to utilize racism even if the goal is to demonstrate its offensiveness.

 

I don't think Transformers is the kind of story that should explore something so foreign to them, besides most people alive today know that 'racism bad' so they don't need a TV show to tell them that it's bad.

I'm much more interested in TF tackling concepts like sentience, free-will, and other machine / A.I. based concepts rather than beating a long dead horse.

 

I think Hasbro definitely moved away from the 'Autobots and Decepticons are different races' due to the oh so obvious issues it would generate. That said we still see artifacts of this today, with Decepticons-as-caste existing as a concept or the two subraces having different abilities. Generally speaking, legacy Decepticons lean toward military hardware even to this day, being tanks and jets primarily and Autobots tend toward being civilian vehicles. There's been a lot more blurring these days thanks to characters who exist beyond this paradigm, even going as far back as G1 itself (Stunticon and Aerialbots come to mind, as do Battlechargers and the likes of Warpath or Dogfight). It may not be addressed in the lore much today but this idea of miltary hardware versus civilian hardware remain hardwired in the legacy designs.

That said I don't think this need to be a clear cut. The rules of human biology do not apply to a mechanical species: if an incarnation of Transformers says that Decepticons are physically different from Autobots then its perfectly justifiable. Being warriors and conquerors, it make sense the Decepticons have the means to be bigger and rebuild themselves with advantages such as flight (including space flight for the like of Astrotrain), robot mode flight and built in weapons in either or both modes. Recent Transformers incarnations have leaned more and more toward making them like living beings who just happen to be made of metal but it make sense for Decepticons to rebuild themselves as bigger, stronger or even reprogram themselves to be innately more aggressive and ambitious. Essentially, under this model you can reconcile the old G1 lore and modern takes. Its basically a form of trans-cybertronianism. Bigger, tougher, stronger, nastier and bristling with weapons. This also ties well with the Seekers all being recolors as no doubt the Seeker body type would be well suited to their cause and is likely one of their best designs.

Personally I'd like to see the angle that, yes, the Decepticons are a 'separate race' but one they are becoming by choice. By embracing their nature as living war machines. In fact, early TFA concepts had the Decepticons as looking scarier, more monstrous and all patchwork. If Decepticons were to exist away from Cybertron for extended period of time and not be waging the Great War then yes, over time, I do think it would be appropriate to call them a different 'species' of Cybertronian. But, again, we have to understand that human logic and analogy need not apply here. Is a Junkion a 'proper' Transformers, for example? Depend on continuity. What about universe where Cybertronian sub species already exist, like TF Prime's Predacons? They are simultaneously a different race/species, so to speak and yet Predaking display the same baseline abilities of other Cybertronians once he learn to talk and transform. But would, say, his T-Cog be compatible? Or any other 'organ'? In my opinion Transformers 'biology' is so convoluted and variable between universes that its very difficult to even say what is and isn't the same species anyway. What about once-human Transformers, like Ginrai, who used to be humans-animating-a-robot-suit by the animating force got split and became its own fully self aware robot? What about TF Prime's Nemesis Prime or Silas+Breakdown hybrid organism? Or the fully organic but spark-animated Savage/Noble?

I'm not even sure we can debate if Decepticons can function as distinct sub species because we might end up unable to even agree to what defined the Cybertronian species.

 

...I'm just going to say that prior to the Captain America movies and the Civil War comics, I hated Captain America because there were a lot of portrayals of him when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s (especially the Reagan years, ugh) that were really quite grossly authoritarian.

 

Wow I really wish that was true.

 

Very well worded.

 

Not nearly enough.

 

I personally think nothing should be off-limits and sometimes the best fiction takes inspiration from real life and tribalism is as real as it can get.

I'm not saying it should be the new status quo, but we could stomach 1 adult cartoon or comic book series where the war was started over how (one side was born and the other side was cloned) or where (one side is from Cybertron and the other are from the colonies), or what the factions were born as.

 

Yeah, I suppose if you spend too much time in insular circles and not enough time with other people outside of your bubble, it can feel like it's more people than it really is.

This isn't a put-down, this is me saying that maybe you need to find new people to hang around because MOST people aren't as backwards anymore, some are for sure, but there's more non-racists out there. Or perhaps that's just my naïve optimism, willing to give most people the benefit of the doubt because even if someone says something off-color or makes a spicy joke I can't for sure say they're a racist or not because I can't read their minds because intent is what makes something truly racist.

We're getting into the weeds here, this isn't a place to discuss this kind of thing.

 

It's cool, understood.

 

By the way, another argument on how/why 'species' (race isn't the right term here, even if its used often in fantasy) argument and classification for Transformers may be moot: we define species as organism able to exchange genes and reproduce. But as far as I know, most Transformers incarnation use a form of asexual reproduction, from construction (bodily construction, protoform and the likes) to being at least partially born from the planet itself (Atechnogenesis, Well of Asllspark, Hot Spots). The closest we see to classical reproduction is G2's disgusting 'budding'. So yeah, I'm a bit lost in thoughts on "Can/should Decepticons be a different race/species" because so little of these terms and ideas truly apply. There is a case to be made for cultural identity existing in Transformers across various media, such as being associated with one's city to the Animated-verse having groups such as the Malignus having their own language.

So what's the closest Cybertronians have to 'race' or species, then? I'd say the closest are universes where transforming mechanimals exist as born of Cybertron and using Energon or derivatives but that may truly be as vague as saying humans are interchangeable with anything that is carbon based and use oxygen. You cold say alt mode but that only function in universes where alt mode is an innate part of their birth, not something simply influenced by body type. The more I think about it the less I'm sure where I stand on the matter. Even if you go for a 100% mechanistic approach to Transformers life, growth and birth you still run into the issues of different body type, different method of constructions and different abilities/limits.

I'd say the closest we can define to species/inside-and-outside group that aren't cultural would then be "Can you graft/install a body part from another Transformers?" Maybe? Thoughts?

Edit: Oh, right. Having a spark is definitely something I'd consider pre-requisite, but then again maybe not. Dinobot II for example was sparkless but has half the spark of another, separate being and Movie!Galvatron is a sparkless revenant. Yet both clearly have a consciousness, personality and mind of their own and are not dumb robotic drones. You also have IDW Springer this grey zone. Man, screw trying to define TF nature and 'biology'!