#primacy

[steelthroat]

Alright time to make some Propaganda

[ELITA ONE, BETWEEN PRIME AND HIGH PROTECTOR: An Essay]

So we know that the (Lord*)"High Protector" is an actual canon title in the transformers franchise.

As seen here

The title is canonically held by Megatron in the bayverse continuity (concept introduced in the idw tie-in comics). And as you can see in the notes of the tf wiki article there have been similarly held titles in the rest of the hasbro-owned franchise(s)

Quoting the wiki:

• In Marvel Comics continuity Straxus had a similar title, Lord High Governor. • According to the Challenge of the GoBots cartoon, Leader-1 and Cy-Kill both had the same title in the distant past. • In Transformers: Defiance, Megatron seemed to outrank Optimus, despite them being heads of their respective fields, as Optimus called him "sir." However, in Transformers: Foundation, Optimus offers no such respect, even before becoming the next Prime

Also: In real life, a Lord Protector was a British term for those who ruled the country while the monarch was still too young to rule. The title was used by the ruling Cromwells when Britain became a republic following the English Civil War.

Anyway, I now find myself asking. Is Elita-1 a more of a Prime or a High Protector?

Because looking at G1, she:

Underwent a frame overhaul (same thing as Op and Rodimus, but Op and elita did so after Alpha Truon's intervention while Rodimus changed due to the Matrix only)

Changed name (same thing as Op and Rodimus. Op and elita had their names chosen by Trion tho, while Rodimus' name was technically chosen by Optimus' so make with this information what you will)

Has a "superpower" (she can stop time) (technically speaking Op also has superpowers* that randomly appear in some episodes and are never mentioned again(or aknowledged at all). But elita acrually HAS a superpower/special ability she did NOT possess before the frame overhaul and neither did Op. In the g1 Rodimus does not appear to have powers at all)

Op's superpowers: laser eyes/energy beams from his hands/Empathic Manipulation, Healing & Existence Erasure (With the Matrix of Leadership, could erase the hate plague. A plague which cause anyone infected by it to violently attack anyone who was infected by it, and the Matrix destroyed the plague by unleashing its accumulated wisdom[had to look this one up)/Weapon Creation & Energy Manipulation (Capable of creating energy constructs such an axe, made out of pure energy[not everyone can do it, another one is Megatron tho])

But also often represented as a military leader more than whatever the tile of "Prime" means in G1. Yet the only difference between her and Op is that she's technically stronger because having time powers (at the cost of your own life but these are details... like. She survived so she COULD technically do it again yk) is like... magnitudes more overpowered than everything else Op or Rodimus have got going on

So you can see my problem with this. Because she's somehow fitting in both categories but recognized as neither.

Okay but what about Dion/Ultra Magnus?

Good question. Problem is in the G1 continuity he technically speaking does not really... appear again after his demise. In the cartoon Ultra Magnus appears to be a completely different entity from him. The dion/magnus thing has been implied/semi-canonized years later and it rarely happens.

Due to its ambiguity i choose to ignore it. Ultra Magnus does not appear to have any special ability whatsoever (being alive after getting dismembered is a thing that happens too often in G1 to be considered special. Although he is the only one to survive such a brutal treatment in the movie specifically while op dies for much less... still looking at the cartoon and the marvel comics it does not appear to be THAT special. Sorry)

Were it not so ambiguous and the lack of powers I could say that everything I said about Elita would apply to him as well.

ALSO the name choice does play a role in this. While Ultra Magnus (magnus means big ultra means extremely so his neme is literally Extra Large/Big if we wanna make a dick joke out of it) is more of a highlight of his power and strength and Optimus Prime on his being "the first and the best" (Prime/Optimus)

Rodimus is... a play on Hot Rod and Optimus names but if we wanna get to the meaning well it's quite self explanatory? Hot rod-> is an automobile altered to be more powerful. (SO MAKE WITH THAT WHAT YOU WILL 👀)

Elita-1/one now: lemme quote the wiki real quick again:

Elita One's name is one of the most troubled in all of Transformers history. As it is intended, her name mirrors her male counterpart's in both spelling and root meaning as "Best First". Furthermore, "Elita" is derived from "elite", which comes from the Latin electa, meaning "chosen". So her name also translates as Chosen One. It seems simple enough, but after her debut in 1985, the actual spelling and thus meaning of Elita One's name was the subject of much fandom debate for several years. The MC Axis kit was the first product to reveal an official spelling for the name, which was later confirmed by the episode scripts[4] and the production bible.[5] Despite this, younger canon continues to feature the name in alternative forms, most commonly as either "Elita-One" or "Elita-1", names by which her "namesakes" from other franchises are known. In addition, more contrived varieties such as "Eleta-1"[6] and "Aleta-1"[7] have also occasionally shown up.

SO IT LITERALLY MEANS THE SAME AS OPTIMUS PRIME AS IN BEST AND FIRST I AM NOT CRAZY YOU SEE THIS!?

But also another thing from the wiki i want to note here:

Writer David Wise did not intend for Ariel to be rebuilt as Elita One when writing "War Dawn".[8] In fact, he did not even know who Elita One was at that time! Ariel was originally supposed to die as a way of adding weight to the episode, her eventual survival being the result of other writers noticing the similarity between her and Elita One.[9]

Which doesn't change much but is interesting nevertheless. Just showcases how similiar orion/optimus and ariel/elita are alike in dying and coming back from death.

So.

What am I trying to say?

That Elita can work both as a Prime figure than a High Protector figure and it is kind os supported by canon so I wanted to highlight this and bring it to everyone's attention and if i start seeing more fanworks depicting Elita in such roles I will be very happy and i will kiss everyone on the mouth/hj

Now. This mainly works if you lookat the g1 continuity alone and A BIT if you work with the idw one. But i often see that the element of the lord high protector gets used in fan-works even when belonging to the bayverse continuity so...

And as we know it is common to make comtinuity salads and or add elements from other continuities to the ones you are mainly working with... so, again, it is fair game.

Also i want to highlight how many characteristics Elita has gotten over the years from MEGATRON’S characterization so if one want to draw parallels with that I think it would be incredibly interesting too.

[theoldspark]

A criminally overlooked fact of the Transformers is that they do not have a childhood.

Cybertronians, once born, are thrown into their world already conscious; already aware of what they are. They are created with an apparent purpose—their alt-modes often define their use in society and become who they are as a consequence: an ambulance a medic, a telescope an archeologist, a truck a deck worker, et cetera. These are their jobs and they do not get to grow, experience and learn before they are pressed to choose what their contribution to society will be.

Transformers do not have one to call a parent. They do not have a caretaker or guaranteed guidance. They don't have a period of their life in which the responsibility of their existence and actions falls on another. Some may be lucky and find a mentor, but this is not the rule. It is all on them. Their principles, the lessons they learn, their interpretations of the latter. It is all up to them, and they have no assurance there will be someone to assist them for it.

It is why Primus and the Prime/Primacy is such a crucial piece of their culture.

Primus, their creator, is their referent for good. Primus, all powerful and knowing, is, as well, their literal parent. But he is not more than a legend and a rock of alloy within an endless space of stars and galaxies. The Prime, on the other hand, is their true guide. The Prime is the personification of all that is good (Primus) and his wisdom. They are who will lead them to greatness and who will bring peace and order to their race.

The Prime is a figure entrusted to bear the responsibility of protecting, leading and caring for its fellow Cybertronians. Thus, for the ones who read Optimus Prime as a father figure (or as fatherly figure coded), you are not really that far fetched. He is not parent of his soldiers or enemies, but he is, to the general consensus, the one to fill a role of authority and guidance.

The Matrix is the only real connection a Cybertronian has to Primus (excepting the Allspark, which should reunite them with Primus and everyone whose spark has extinguished). The holder of such an artifact is naturally the closest to their god father, hence the next in line.

Their severe lack of a close and warden figure at the beginning of their development might explain, in part, the mess and chaos in their overall community. There are socially constructed morals, but they are only learnt by exposition and not education. If one wishes to learn and differentiate right from wrong, they need a closer look to these concepts, and with experience as their sole teacher, their conclusions will vary and greatly depend on what they've learnt until then.

One who isn't benefited by their society’s values will more than likely reject them and consequently follow an opposing path. One who hasn't been fortunate to learn these morals will find their own, and nobody can say which way they'll go. One who doesn't understand these rules will be tempted by concepts they do understand and that often ends in disaster.

These are the consequences of being part of a civilization that does not have a warranted figure to give sense of direction in their early lives or a period which provides them with time to discover themselves and truly have a choice on who and what to be for their future.

[enby-rodimus]

What will always kill me whenever I think about the IDW1 continuity is the potential of Autocracy!Hot Rod and how better writing for him (honestly, just better writing in general) could have made Autocracy and Primacy infinitely better. Because the idea of Rodimus being much older than he previously was portrayed as, a destitute insurgent, and someone who has so much blood on his hands not by choice but to spare his home and people of the pain that Zeta promised to inflict is so fascinating. He's neutral but more sympathetic to the Decepticons because of their aligned cause and beliefs. He and others are making deals with Swindle for access to resources to fight back and it seems like Nyon had a pretty good relationship with the movement itself prior to the events of Autocracy.

It's interesting because despite all this, Hot Rod hasnt' joined the war on the side of the Decepticons because he's focused on helping his home and community first. And in a story that's tackling the early days of the war, that is an amazing concept to introduce and explore further.

And yet it's squandered in favor of trying to adhere immediately to a four million year old status quo in the early days of the war. The early days when the Decepticons were still fighting back against a violent functionist government, which the Autobots worked for as a police/security force.

This is frustrating because they showcase Autobot crimes with Autocracy, revealing how they've been draining citizens of Nyon dry of their precious energon and in fact is not only limited to this city. It's happening all over Cybertron. Hot Rod is taking a gamble by exposing himself to Orion and his team to show the truth, something incredibly risky because Orion is still siding fiercely with the Autobots despite being confronted by Megatron with the truth and Hot Rod is a wanted domestic terrorist. Zeta wanted to make an example of him and it wouldn't have been pretty, likely in the lines of what was done to Shockwave or worse. He knew this and still risked it because he hoped that Orion had a shred of, for lack of a better word, humanity in him. But it was too late for Nyon. And they speedrun the social progression of the war to have Hot Rod immediately wary of the Decepticons, like the insurgents hadn't been making deals with them earlier.

Further into the trilogy, Primacy shows Hot Rod having graduated from the Autobot Academy after the events of Autocracy. Allow me to reiterate. Autocracy where the Autobots had been slowly killing the people of Nyon and is stated to have NUMEROUS facilities across Cybertron harvesting energon from people directly hooked up to the tanks. And they never do anything about it. Hot Rod apparently having gotten over that the faction he just joined has so much blood on their hands and was complicit in numerous crimes. Crimes he's a witness to.

To add to it, Slinger, an old friend of Hot Rod and member of the insurgency returns as a Decepticon and this is the first sign we see of the conflict of Hot Rod being a survivor of Nyon's destruction and yet a member of the faction that made it happen. Not much is done by it either because the writers were so focused on making the Autobots look like the actual good guys and the Decepticons the bad guys they killed Slinger off with his quick change of heart and forgot the explicit information they gave to us, the readers.

Hot Rod is destitute. He's an insurgent. The Autobots were committing horrific crimes in the name of their cause, draining innocents of their energon during an active energon crisis. All this to crush the Decepticons who were fighting back against their corrupt government. Hot Rod was actively fighting back with the resources given to them by the Decepticons. He's a victim of the Autobots. Enforcers helped round all these people up into the tanks to die. Optimus assumed his new position as Prime and never really did anything to fully dismantle the system because its sentiment is still alive 4 million years later.

Yet Hot Rod is there, as if nothing had ever happened.

The only reasoning we get is somehow the Decepticons are worse. As if the Autobots hadn't committed bigger crimes he was witness to or understood what made them. It's so frustrating because with his origins, it should've taken longer for him to fall in with the Autobots or an outside force forcing him in with them.

Because you don't forget or forgive an institution that ruined yours and others lives, that murdered them for daring to take a stand against them.

[ladymirdan]

Unhinged book review time!

Ok, not really a book but a flavour text to be honest.

This book does not stand on its own legs, this is very much just a little snack for someone who already loves the EC boys.

If you dont already love Eidolon and the gang of royal bitches this book will make zero sense 😂

But if you do, its pretty fun. I like Julius in this (no im not spelling his last name, fuck you 😂) and im usually not a fan of him.

And also, Who the actual fuck is Cyrus? He is cool as fuck. Is that someone who shows up anywhere else or did they just need a Lucius and couldn't use Lucius?

I would give this book 8/10 Dramatic boys. I kind of wished it was longer, but as short stories from GW it actually was on the longer side with 46pages.

Just give Eidolon a book series already!

[metalhawk]

screamers from transformers: primacy (2014), art by livio ramondelli

[navek15]

Transformers Covers - IDW Phase 2 (Part 7)

[blizzardinferno]

Remember: hot rod is currently like the transformers equivalent of like 6 years old according to smart people

[liaswritesrobots]