Dear, Vector Prime.
Could you tell us about this color Autojetter and Autolauncher?
Dear Autoroller Assistant,
I believe you may know about these two Cybertronians already, though perhaps not in these body-forms—they are, of course, the legendary Autobot generals Obsidian and Strika.
These two warriors were among the first to join the Autobots before the outbreak of the Great War, and the pair quickly rose to the highest of ranks among their forces; Sentinel Prime appointed Strika as the head of Autobot Ground Command, while Obsidian was placed at the head of Autobot Air Command. While both were accomplished commanders alone, it was not until the Asphalt Wars—in which Turmoil and the Decepticon Heavy Brigade threatened to take control of the Tri-Torus Loop—that the two worked together for the first time. With Obsidian's strategic insights complementing Strika's tactical genius, the Decepticons were dealt one of their most devastating losses in the entirety of the war; I believe that Megatron was so angered by this humiliating defeat that he personally hurled Turmoil into the smelting pits of Darkmount.
Strika's frame was heavily armored; initially designed for travel through hazardous environments such as the Rust Sea, her alternate mode proved well-suited to frontline combat during the Great War. Though her twin roof-mounted null-beams and handheld magna-harpoon were invaluable tools for disabling enemies, she was most notorious for her kinetic strike-disk launcher: incorporated into her chassis, this weapon was capable of absorbing energy from impacts on Strika's armor to charge it up, before releasing it in a destructive blast on contact with a target. The recovery of the Alpha Trion Protocols, during which Strika willingly weathered a storm of laser-fire to eliminate a battalion of rogue Centurion Droids with a single disk, is one of the most-mythologised moments of the war.
Obsidian, by contrast, was less-inclined towards direct conflict—his chassis, though by no means fragile, would not stand up to a direct barrage from Decepticon artillery. Instead, he used his high-altitude jet fighter mode primarily for reconnaissance and battlefield analysis; with lightning precision, he could take in the ebb and flow of battle and use it to make complex strategic decisions in a matter of moments, directing the conflict like the conductor of an Andurian choir. That's not to say that he was helpless in a fight, of course—in fact, he was considered intimidating enough that few Decepticons would risk engaging him in combat! The source of this fearsome reputation was his finger-mounted compressed gas missiles: compact rocket-propelled shells filled with highly pressurised chemicals that would explode on impact. While these missiles could be filled with anything from blackout powder to mycopropelene, Obsidian's favored payload was a specialised form of glass gas; in seconds, it could convert a Decepticon's very superstructure to easily-shattered black glass, a fate which no 'bot would welcome.
Your comparison of these two to Autojetter and Autolauncher is indeed fitting, as the Autorollers—who held a deep respect for Obsidian and Strika's military skill—chose to wear scaled-down versions of their bodyframes as a tribute to them. If you wish to know more about Strika and Obsidian, be sure to watch Beast Machines: Transformers, available for streaming now on Tubi!
