Paddox being the first officer of the Vis Vitalis whom was revealed to be two ammonites passing themselves off as a cybertronian in order to spy on them.
Luckily he was stopped by Rung and Swerve after revealing his intent to steal the Lost Light for his people, but the incident does leave me with quite a few questions.
Both about gestalt Paddox himself as well as the implications of this reveal.
First of, let’s discuss the matter of the gestalt Paddox himself.
It’s not hard to conclude that the relationship between him and Thunderclash was close. After all, he was the first officer of the Vis Vitalis, a position that by it’s very nature requires a lot of working alongside the captain, who in this case was Thunderclash.
Who also said himself that he’d saved Paddox’s life a total of 14 times:
As well as how they’d known each other for several years.
But what’s up for debate here is how much of that would actually have been genuine on Paddox’s side?
Well, the best lies are those that contain a bit of the truth and from what little we’ve been given I certainly don’t think it was entirely fake.
For one thing, even looking at that face he doesn’t seem happy at all about having to be doing this.
He also stresses to Hot Rod that things don’t have to get “messy” and that everyone can go safely on the Vis Vitalis if he just gets the Lost Light.
Him wanting the Lost Light for it’s engine because he and the rest of the ammonites are panicking over the terradores going to the “dark cyclops” and thinking they and their planet might be on the verge of getting wiped out.
So the attempted coup with those circumstances is quite understandable and even then he explicitly didn’t want to have to kill anyone, despite his threats.
Adding to my assumption that it wasn’t entirely fake is this little display:
Unprompted Paddox starts gushing about how great Thunderclash is, when staying quiet would really not have been of any detriment to his cover.
On top of that, there’s his paintjob. It might not be significant, this depending on whether the alias faked a belief in or even genuinely came to believe in spectralism with it being a known and discussed thing on the Vis Vitalis, but it does bear worth mentioning that Paddox is purple and blue.
And purple and blue are associated with, according to spectralism, not just violence but also grief. If he does follow it, genuinely or not, this would back up the belief that while Paddox is willing to turn violent traitor, he’s not happy about it. Pre-emptive feelings of grief.
There’s also how Thunderclash is Thunderclash, and everybody but Hot Rod likes Thunderclash.
So while he was willing to and did ultimately betray the Vis Vitalis for his people, I do think that the Paddox gestalt wasn’t faking caring.
I do wonder what happened to him though? After all, they wouldn’t have executed him and even if he was exiled rather than imprisoned, there’s still no way he could have made it back to the rest of his people in order to participate in their siege on Cybertron.
Now, onto the implications of this reveal.
Because they are significant.
Because Paddox was not the only ammonite spy.
It’s explicitly said that there were a few ammonite gestalts like Paddox within cybertronian ranks, acting as spies, even if he is the only one we see.
So did all of them turn on whoever they were with, people they may have known for years, once the recall order came through, or did any decide to stay loyal to the friends they’d made and stay put?
And were the ammonites even the only people who put in some spies?
The cybertronian civil war was catastrophic and very wide-spread after all, so those who could keep an eye on it for the sake of the welfare of their own people are very likely to want to enact whatever methods they can to be able to do so.
For example, the rival stentarian faction of the ammonites - the terrodores- could have done it and the fact that their enemies the ammonites are doing it is even more motive for them to do so too, to prevent the ammonites gaining an advantage over them.
And how about the Catharsians?
While stenatarians like the ammonites and terrodores usually need to form a gestalt to be able to pass as a transformer, as we can see here with Nautica, Velocity the Catharsian beside them really could pass as the same species unless told otherwise.
Their being monoformerrs could also be excused, as some genuine cybertronians like Krok are also monoformers.
The only thing that could catch them out is likely if someone tried to use a spark detector and found nothing.
And the same goes with them as it does with the stentarians- those who do pretend, who do become spies- do any of them become attached? Attached to the people they now know and the lives they are now living?
And with those questions, there is also the question of: could there be Stentarians and Catharsians still pretending to be cybetronians? Still on Cybertronian ships and even now living on Cybertron itself?
Because with all this in mind there’s a very decent chance that there just might be.
MTMTE AU where the two Ammonites who are "Paddox" realize what an amazing and kind mech Thunderclash really is and instead of betraying him, support and love him and all of them form a happy - although very unusual - trine :)
Imagine Thunderclash falling in love with his first officer, Paddox - and it's not easy for him to actually meet someone since he's anchored to his ship. But finally there's a mech who makes his spark brighter and he's so close, so Thunderclash starts even fantasizing a little bit about having something he's never had: a partner, maybe even a family.
And then it turns out that Paddox is a traitor, and he's not even a Cybertonian, and now Thunderclash is again alone and heartbroken, mourning something he didn't even have a chance to have...
