Female Autobots? I thought they were extinct.The ever-observant Shockwave, "The Search for Alpha Trion"

Did they get killed off by some kind of Phage or were they killed off by the Decepticons, is this ever explained or elaborated on why Shockwave thought this?

 

My guess is that very few Autobots were left behind when the Ark left. Considering that the male to female ratio seemed to be about 95-to-1, the odds of females still being around were probably slim to none in Shockwave's world of logic. In fact, he always seemed surprised when Autobots showed up at all, male or female.

 

Good question. I wonder how many female Autobots there were to begin with?

 

In “Forever is a Long Time Coming,” the Season 3 time travel episode, there seem to be about as many female Cybertronians as male Cybertronians, (I think) but later, (earlier) in “War Dawn,” it seemed that there weren’t very many around. My guess would be that as the Cybertronian war (the first one that was robot vs robot) was going on, more males were built than females (because Floro Dery’s male designs are bulkier) for combat purposes. Also Shockwave in Sunbow was not very perceptive, so that would be the quicker answer.

 

"Shockwave obviously hasn't kept up to date on Cybertron's Discovery Channel"

 

Because there werent any fembots in the toy catalog shockwave had

 

Because there were like only 5 female Autobots in G1 Sunbow

 

Because most of them left for Caminus and didn't leave a forwarding address.

 

Authorial intent? Plus, in the manga of Victory, there were a lot of "Destron" female type civilians in Dezaras' satellite. So maybe most of the non military affiliated fembots left as refugees?

 

In my headcanon, maybe the female Autobots are deactivated in the attack of Iacon, as per the retcon scene, in Search for Alpha Trion. Punch/Counterpunch was able to store their bodies safely and say Alpha Trion had the Fembots reactivated a short time before the Search for the Alpha Trion episode. It is a bit elaborate but the fact that Optimus knows there are still Autobots on Cybertron, as per the Ultimate Doom part 1 (where Optimus allows Cybertron to moved into Earth's orbit) but I deduce he knows of no Fembots as per dialog in the Search for Alpha Trion episode.

 

Shockwave took his promise to have Cybertron remain as Megatron left it so literally that he never left the building he was stationed at, never saw a female Autobot during all that time, and came to the conclusion they had all been wiped out. 

 

Cartoon Shockwave wasn’t very logical at all

Uhh
I only remember 2 females from “Forever is a long time coming”

 

Might be right. Haven’t watched it in ... forever.

 

Me neither
But I just only remember Beta And I think a orange or peach colored female

There was what looked like a few kids or midgets LOL

 

If you mean "is it ever explained" in the show itself from decades ago and not in the many subsequent forms of media with their retro-active lore the answer is ......... NO.

It's just a throw away episode that doesn't really connect to things in the long term. When we got Arcee in the movie, there is also no mention of Elita-1, other fembots etc or why Arcee doesn't know of any of them either.

The real reason is that the writers and toy makers were selling toys to boys, so female characters were not a focus as they did not think female based toys would sell.
that can sound like a "cop out" answer to some, but it is the actual legit answer as to "why" for so many things in a toy based promotional show.

Personally I'd like a (non transfoming) Marissa Fairebone action figure myself as that was more of a significant female character in the show than Elita, Chromia etc etc.

It's fun to read people's theories etc here. It's really left up to writers many years later and fans to invent their own reasons as it just wasn't a consideration of anybody involved with the show.

*Ratchet was officially a "female" character as written and conceived, but once the show actually went ahead, they didn't like that idea and changed him to male. So maybe ask him "what happened"........ 
Hasbro were pretty insistent on downplaying any female characters (as in robots, not the humans) not to be sexist, but because there wanted to target their core demographic. If it was purely up to the writers it's more than likely they would have added in a whole bunch more female characters, but you can't go against company policy if they have a specific toyline coming that year, and your "fan" character is not getting made (as toy), well then they probably will never turn up again in the show etc.

 

      "Fembots? They sell those!? Since when!?"

 

During the time of the Empire in Star Wars, everyone thought the Jedi were extinct as well. But you had Yoda...Obi-Wan...force adepts in Luke, Leia and Chirrut Imwe...Anakin as a former Jedi...Ahsoka...all running around or hiding out. Not to mention The Emperor himself and Darth maul still running around as Sith and former Sith. In fact, the more the story expands, the more that Force users show up.

I kind of see it that way with early Transformers stories. Fembots were a rarity and were regarded mostly as such.

Beast Wars is regarded as the savior of the franchise. The honor is a little dubious in that I think the franchise would have returned, regardless, in some form or fashion but history is what it is. But I think the most important thing that Beast Wars gave us was Blackarachnia. Kenner took a stab at actually bringing a female Transformer to retail in the United States and, through the strength of the cartoon's storytelling, was able to break the glass ceiling for Fembots. Without her, Windblade and others wouldn't exist. Eventually, we might have gotten all the Fembots we have right now but it would've taken even longer, I'd argue. (The second most important thing Beast Wars introduced was the idea of Sparks, for better or for worse...but that's a whole different thread).

 

Iirc, MP Delta Magnus had a Marissa (dang, missed that one ).

 

Hahahahaha

 

perhaps they said that so we got the point what we saw is what we saw. in otherwords please dont ask us to make girls friends for every autobot.