🌐The Overhumanized Terrans and the Suppressed Cultures of EarthSpark An analysis of identity disbalance, erasure, and unspoken trauma
In Transformers: EarthSpark, the Terrans are born not of a single world, but at the junction of two — Cybertron and Earth. Yet rather than embody a harmonious union, they are fractured, incomplete, and emotionally unanchored. They are not “children of both worlds” — they are orphans of two.
Their organic side, intended to connect them to Earth, is repressed. Their Cybertronian side, meant to give them cultural and spark-born identity, is hollow — they have no memory, no tradition, no voice in Cybertronian history. Instead, they are emotionally entangled with the Malto children, whose own identities are underdeveloped.
Terrans are overhumanized — molded around the Malto family rather than allowed to explore or develop autonomous selves. The series builds them into empathic mirrors, not persons. Their identities are shaped around human approval, particularly Mo and Robbie, rather than any internal spark or heritage.
They do not learn about Earth, or about Cybertron. Hashtag gets her knowledge from a chaotic internet — not from teachers, not from elders, not from experience. Twitch mimics combat. Thrash tries to anchor in brotherhood, but even that feels strained.
In their trauma and confusion, they reflect not children of hope, but victims of overadaptation. And here lies the danger: their trauma and emotional neglect, if pushed further, could turn them not into heroes — but villains. If the show truly followed its own logic, Terrans like Hashtag, who suffer identity loss, suppression, and emotional dissonance, would begin to question humanity itself — and potentially become antagonists, not sidekicks.
🔴 Disbalance and the Chaos Terrans
The Chaos Terrans make this subtext explicit: they are broken, chaotic, violent — and most importantly, unloved. They ask: who am I, and who has the right to shape me?
But the regular Terrans are not far from them. They are just more polished. They are no less disbalanced — they are simply more socially accepted.
So who is truly unbalanced — the Chaos Terrans, or the so-called “good” Terrans who never chose to be born and never learned who they are?
🗺 Cultural Suppression: The Maltos’ Filipino Identity
There is an uncomfortable silence in the show's handling of Filipino identity. We know Alex Malto is Filipino — but beyond the surface-level nods (a food here, a folk story there), the heritage is barely present. In fact, the Malto children show almost no awareness of Filipino history, culture, or spiritual practice.
Robbie and Mo are Americanized to the core — they show no connection to where they were possibly born or raised. The show never even tells us where they were born.
Even when a new family tradition is built, it’s in Ghost’s bunker in America. Even when legends are mentioned, they are background noise. The children do not speak the language, and we never see their extended family.
Back in the Philippines, it is said that Alex and the children used to hunt monsters of legend — yet that deep experience is discarded once they return to America.
Alex, who knows Filipino martial arts using sticks, has spiritual depth. He is rooted. But his children — and the Terrans who follow them — lack any of this grounding.
Twitch, for instance, would be the most dangerous Terran if she could learn Alex’s martial arts. But she cannot — because she has no soul. Not in the spiritual or cultural sense. Not one rooted in history or belonging.
🤨 Cultural Erasure or Narrow View?
Are the writers of EarthSpark simply lacking awareness of other cultures — or are they unconsciously suppressing them? If American authors write from a narrow, nationalized view, it’s possible other cultures — even Cybertronian culture — are treated as exotic, irrelevant, or optional.
There is no malicious intent here — but there is absence.
🧩 Final Note: Migrant Families and the “Fake Culture” of the Maltos
Though the show hints the Maltos lived in the Philippines, they seem to have grown up mostly in America. It’s unclear where the children were born, or whether they spent meaningful time in Filipino communities. Robbie has friends — but none of them seem to reflect multicultural bonds.
Instead of a real migrant family with a story of diaspora, what we get is an isolated, bunker-living group that mostly mirrors a fantasy of inclusion, not its reality.
This post was made with help from ChatGPT. I often struggle with expressing myself clearly, especially in English, and I’ve said before that I lack strong critical or logical thinking skills. ChatGPT helps me organize my thoughts and reflect on what I feel.