#functionism

[sleepisapriviligethatidonthave]

Pharma haters: Oh he's a functionist and all he cares about is himself and his hands-

He literally used his own laser scalpel to etch words into his hand to communicate with Ratchet and the others when he was in the isolation chamber. He could have used any other place on his body, but he chose his irreplaceable one of a kind hands.

Proof:

And there's still people who view him as this selfish irredeemable asshole.

It's almost 1 am so if apologies for any mistakes.

[askvectorprime]

Where do the names "Autobot" and "Decepticon" even come from? Are there any sort of root words that go with them?

Dear Etymology Enthusiast,

This answer is complicated by language barriers that span galaxies. As Galvatron alluded to—albeit in tones I would never use—Cybertronian words can be very linguistically dense; a translation that conveyed every nuance of our equivalent for "Autobot" would take over seventeen minutes for a human to say! As such, "Autobot" and "Decepticon" are only approximations of the neocybex names of these factions.

In many universes, my faction is named for the ideals of freedom and autonomy—hence, "Autobot" is derived from the term "autonomous". Sometimes this reflects a casting off of Quintesson rule or triumph over a caste system, but in other contexts—sometimes simultaneously—it reflects a darker facet of Cybertronian history. A famous bot once said that autonomy was a gift, a spark of sentience kindled by Primus himself. That bot's name was Nova Prime, and he used that belief to justify the subjugation of hundreds of alien worlds.

The suffix translated as "-bot" encompasses ideas such as "person", "individual", "independent agent". It could be considered an adaptation of the common English-language "man", of course—you might be familiar with the Aerialmen, the Dinomen, and the Sparkamen—but "bot" conveys that it most commonly refers to mechanical lifeforms. While typically used in the names of teams and factions, occasionally an individual might be called "Dinobot" or "Dreadbot"; such sobriquets can be seen as similar to a human being carrying a family name as their first name, such as "Jackson".

As for "Decepticon"… much has been said of the phrase "you are being deceived." In many universal clusters, this is indeed the earliest origin of the term. "Decepticon" suffers to a greater degree from the imperfections of localization. In many universes, Cybertronian language uses nuances related to subject and object that fail to translate, especially when neologism is concerned; "Decepticon" principally suggests "deceptive" in English, but in its original Cybertronix, the waveform can simultaneously be read as "the deceived".

The "-con" suffix is not dissimilar to "-bot", though it carries subtly but significantly different implications. "Person" is an adequate translation, but its meaning is much broader, not being restricted to living creatures; you may know of data-cons, information storage devices commonly used in my home reality. The closest equivalent to the suffix in your language would be "entity"—or, more bluntly, "thing". As such, the translation "-con" is derived from your language's "construct", a created object or idea.

The reasoning for the use of this suffix varies across the multiverse. On versions of Cybertron where Functionism took hold, Cybertronians of lower labor castes, or with alternate modes considered fit only for use by others, were more likely to have "con" names or be assigned categories like "Constructicon", "Agricon" or "Recordicon". Conversely, in universes where the Decepticons originate as a military junta, the use of "-con" carries the suggestion of component; all Decepticons are considered to be a part of Megatron's war machine. These implications, of course, carry over to the Mini-Cons. While I am proud to count Safeguard as a friend and partner, for much of my world's history, Decepticon and Autobot alike treated his kind as "smart tools", as mere objects to be collected. Regardless, the Great War created extreme political polarization of the "-con" suffix, and nearly no self-described Autobot adopts it; even as Decepticons freely use "bot" to describe themselves, "con" is almost exclusively used by Autobots as a term of animosity.

One more suffix you may have heard of is "-tron"; here, the root is "positron"—which, before the introduction of microscope alt-modes, we simply understood to be the stuff of sparks. The Cybertron factions of realities like the G1 World and BT World draw their names from a well of indigeneity; unlike the invading, colonizing Quintessons, the Cybertrons are the true sparks of the planet and derive their name thus. The Destrons, then, are destructive sparks who oppose the planet. Naturally, "-bot" and "-con" recur in these worlds too, following similar etymological patterns.

[tym4spex]

I wanted an excuse to draw my favorite show but as robots,

so here’s tf Raine Whispers!

[cityzenshark]

You know what else would be a gut puncher to the Terrans? Them finding out that Cybertronians in general are extremely racist to organics and segregate bots based on their alt-mode and function.

Since Earthspark tried to make itself IDW1-ish lets assume their Cybertron is similar to it.

The Terrans excitedly talk about wanting to go to Cybertron and meet all these cool stuff that were mentioned in the comics and history books. But whenever they ask Bee, he gets uncomfortable. Bee asks OP, Elita & Megs what should he tell them if they ask if Cybertron would accept the new sub-race.

Telling the truth will be hard, but it had to be him. Bee is their teacher after all.

"Bumblebee, would Cybertron like us Terrans?"

"... No. No, they won't."

Bee had to tell them how bots as small as Twitch and Thrash were once considered as "property", how bots who had Hashtag's ability are "valuable assets", how mechanimals like Nightshade and Jawbreaker are belittled and ridiculed. If they know the Terrans are techni-organic, some might want to "study" them and many couldn't care less about their wellbeing because anything organic are not sentient -- let alone alive -- in their optics.

The Terrans might think humanity's fear towards Transformers are bad enough, then they were told about Cybertron's prejudice towards their own natives, and rebelling that normality only lead to a fate worse than death.

Although the war had destroyed the oppressive laws, some still held on to them like their lifeline.

[blade-liger-4ever]

Transformers AU: Reproduction

Because I can

So, given my interest in Zoid biology and Transformers worldbuilding, plus my Catholic brain, I've (hopefully) cracked the case on how Cybertronian nuclear families work in TF - at least my personal take of it.

I see Cybertronians as human-like in many aspects, in part because they're rational/sentient like humanity, which also means that they're higher on the level of creation, same as us. When a male and a female Cybertronian share their Sparks, both when becoming Conjunx Endura (married) and after the fact, this can go on for a few moments. A certain period of time after this "Spark sharing", the female's Spark has taken in some Sourcecode/coding from the male's Spark and is merging it with that of the female's. As this happens, her interior nanites start forming small "buds" that accept this combined Sourcecode for the process of forming new bodies.

When this happens, the female Cybertronian goes underground to a "hot spot", which is a large cavern system of protective/nutritious metals and large pools of energon. She wades into the liquid and opens the "stomach" compartment, thus releasing the buds into the energon, where they float down and settle onto the metal floor. The females (and sometimes their male partners) often check in on the hot spots to make sure everything's safe. Beyond that, the buds grow larger as they absorb the protective/nutritionous metal and the energon around themselves into a gradually enlarging shell. Eventually, the shell gives way to the newly formed Cybertronian inside with a unique Spark given to him/her by Primus, who stumbles out and swims to the surface by natural instinct.

I view them as being about knee-high to a Cybertronian adult, but they physically grow quickly enough (a couple of centuries minimum) to their "adult" height and can then use their alt-mode. However, their minds still need to adjust and mature, so they need the correct academies and institutes around Cybertron to rectify that.

This changes when a version of Functionism (a little more like TFOne, but minus the Quintessons' involvement) takes place. After that, the reproduction still happen, but there's very few "half bloods" from parents of different castes. Furthermore, the females are to leave and not return for their offspring, leaving instead one of Sentinel's enforcers to watch over and retrieve the children. This means most of our modern day Cybertronians (relatively excluding Optimus and Elita, but various others from both factions are victim to this) are uncertain of who their parents are. There are marital records that the higher castes can look at, though even the "middle castes" have to dig hard to discover their family line. Meanwhile, others are "unwanted" due to being born of crossed castes, and so the names of their parents are struck - and the parents themselves likely terminated.

As for the War itself, it breaks out after much like a situation in TFOne, sans an outside involvement with the Quintessons and a bit of the one we had in the comics. Megatron wants to keep pushing for power and control after the revelation of Sentinel's betrayal, and Optimus seeks to rebuild from the ashes.

Because of this, the millennia long war drains Cybertron of all its resources, which leaves the planet essentially dead and the species as a whole stunted in terms of birth rates. Because of this, the War briefly comes to a standstill as they all abandon the planet for other worlds rich in energon - and somehow teeming with Cybertronian life....

Meanwhile, Optimus and the majority of his Autobot forces head to Earth with the Omega Lock, Megatron and his troops on the Ark's heels. Optimus has received a vision from the Matrix showing him a Cyber Planet Key on the small, blue world, though contact with his surviving forces across the galaxy is cut short when both factions blast each other so badly, the Nemesis crash lands on the moon, and the Ark breaks in two to land in what four million years later would become Alaska.

And, I guess, here starts my AU in full...

[sn0wsquall]

Just finished reading Lost Light volume one and wow. Functionism is such a great allegory for oppression. Usually scifi/fantasy plots that try to make allegories for bigotry stumble because they miss the fact that bigotry is irrational. For example, using humans versus robots as a racism allegory works poorly because all races of people are equal, living beings, and not fundamentally different and lifeless as robots are from humans.

Functionism as an allegory, though, avoids these traps because like real life bigotry, it is arbitrary and nonsensical, upheld by a minority upper class who are staunchly hypocritical in their action. Functionists are flat out *wrong*, unlike other scifi narratives where characters are often right for fearing what robots or monsters are capable of.

The idea that there is a plan determined by God for your purpose at birth and any deviation from it is a sin can be extrapolated to so many real life forms of bigotry. Such as gender-based oppression, where people are violently sorted into discrete categories at birth, told they have purposes inherent to said categories and that it is impossible to move from one to another, or reject the concept entirely. I think it is also a great metaphor for ableism with the way they dispose of anyone they deem 'useless', a 'burden' etc.

It's just really cool writing.

[poetnix29]

Blind fruit.

A fruitful future,

Yet as this apple falls,

We are only consumed and tortured,

Is this really the future that calls?

Tell me if this is the purpose of our creation,

If so, it is also to be wasted away,

We are merely play things for another's reason,

Lies are the words you they say.

Can't we be more?

A certain something to be found,

Don't you too wonder who your acts were for?

You, like everyone else, are not safe and sound.

This fruit cannot only be consumed,

If left for too long, it will rot,

Don't inhale their toxic fumes,

Let me repeat, is this the future we all sought?

(More info under the cut.)

Megatron tries to reason with Optimus about the purpose of their onlining.

The classic crop of pity.

Though, it seems both fruits have different intentions.