Dear Vector Prime,where do Cybertronians that have animal auto modes or non vehicles auto modes fall in the Functionism cast system?
Unfortunately, most ‘bots with animal forms fell quite outside the bounds of Functionism! Following the disappearance of “Onyx Prime” from Cybertron at the end of the First Cybertronian Civil War, those beast-formers who had already not left the planet wound up largely excluded from the Grand Cybertronian Taxonomy, disparaged as little more than “throwbacks” from a primitive age. Initially, most beast-formers simply rejected Nova Prime’s burgeoning society and left to continue their life in the wilderness as they always had—hunting turbofoxes, foraging for natural energon deposits, and marking their territories. Elders who had lived through the reign of the Primes passed down traditional knowledge to younger ‘bots, who raised cairns and mounds to memorialize an era of peace and prosperity they’d never known.
With the passage of time, however, Cybertronian society continued to urbanize, pushing these last holdouts into smaller and smaller tracts of untamed land. When it became clear that these hardliners would not surrender their territory, Nominus Prime and the Senate passed legislation that would formally recognize a number of beast-form genera into the growing Grand Cybertronian Taxonomy—a legislative tactic that quite annoyed the Functionist Council!
Unfortunately, most beast-formers occupied a very low rank on the Functionist hierarchy. Within the bounds of “polite society”, the best that most beast-formers could hope for was a job at one of Cybertron’s many research and development firms, where beast-formers would be regularly used as test subjects for new surgical techniques, various addictive drinks, or new forms of electronic paint. A few, such as Krok, deliberately removed their transformation cogs and joined the Militant Monoform Movement in an attempt to distance themselves from their origins.
However, other beast-formers found lucrative jobs in Cybertron’s criminal underworld—some, like Scorponok, became frightening enforcers. Others operated black-market relinquishment clinics, catering to those rare Cybertronians who wanted to experience the forbidden thrill of experiencing life as a cybercat or lupinoid.