Dear Vector Prime, what was the reason for odd Cybertronians that seemed to take on characteristics of Earth Fauna, such as Buffaloids, Amphibots, Corvicrons, or other individuals, such as Thunderhoof, Steeljaw, Silverhound and Polarclaw?
Dear Fauna Fawner,
Beastformers had always been a part of Cybertronian existence. From the very earliest days of the Age of Origins, Cybertronians coexisted with Insecticons, Predacons, Buffaloids, Arachnicons, and many others—thanks to the Triptych Mask that my brother Onyx carried with him as he ignited the Well, the AllSpark scanned and replicated the strongest and most successful organisms across the galaxy.
But as Cybertronian civilization continued to develop, as villages grew into towns and then into cities, Cybertronians began to consciously shun the beasts, dismissing them as archaic throwbacks ill-adjusted for the rigors of “true” Cybertronian civilization. By the reign of Sentinel Prime and the rise of the function-based caste system, these beastformers had become an oppressed underclass. Some stuck it out—toiling away in the mines, mucking out sewer pipes, or taking their chances in the criminal underworld—but many more simply went off the grid and established small communities out in the wilderness or set up shantytowns in the tunnel networks that divided the Cybertronian surface from the dangerous underworld beneath.
This all changed when the war came, when Shockwave grew increasingly fascinated by the beast mode and the potential it offered. His earliest experiments were upon the swarming Insecticons, who dwelt beneath Cybertron, but his first true success was when he turned the members of the Lightning Strike Coalition into Dinobots—a Cybertronian subspecies on the brink of extinction. Not long afterwards, he turned members of the Forged into Predacons, an extinct Cybertronian subspecies, and then advanced his work even further by creating new lifeforms from scratch. Using test subjects both willing and unwilling, swelled the ranks of pre-existing variants like Predacons, Skunkticons and Corvicons, then began hybridizing CNA samples together to create genetically-engineered monsters like the Chompazoids. Each new “creation” pushed the limits of their physiology even further—whether it was debilitating toxins, incredible strength, or even telepathic abilities, Shockwave found and amplified whatever unusual powers each Cybertronian subspecies possessed to extreme levels.
Shockwave’s experiments ranged from cruel to depraved, but sometimes Primus works in strange ways. In the years after the Great War, the Well began birthing more and more beast-formers. Many possessed the same massively amplified powers that Shockwave had imbued upon his test subjects, and even those that owed their existence to rigorous genetic experimentation—such as the Predacons and Chompazoids—freely emerged from the Well… until there came a day when Cybertron belonged to the beasts and the beasts alone. Did Primus plan this all along, working through an unlikely vessel to push through an evolutionary crisis? Perhaps—after all, this is not the first version of Shockwave to have an unlikely association with beasts.