While I adore the widely accepted notion that Sire and Carrier are gender neutral equivalents to a mother and father in Cybertronian society, I also feel like the concept of robo reproduction and the typical nuclear familial structure makes them too culturally human to be a robotic alien race.
SO
I raise you this concept:
In Cybertronian society, the typical way a sparkling is raised is with the ‘It Takes a Village’ mentality. Since bots all come from hotspots and have no biological attachments like humans, it’s typically the group of grown bots that are most commonly in contact with a sparkling that raises them. These bots, however many there are, are considered ‘Sires’.
And a bitlet can have a LOT of Sires.
The easiest way to translate the term Sire into a human term would be ‘uncle/auntie’ but also simultaneously ‘mother/father’ as well as an honorific similar to ‘sir/ma’am’ with a deeper emotional connotation. A sparkling will differentiate the bots that helped raise them from others who didn’t by calling them ‘Sire (YourNameHere)’ or just ‘Sire’.
Now, Carriers. Carriers are comparatively much rarer and it’s entirely possible that a sparkling has no one they consider to be their Carrier. A Carrier is often one individual in particular who formed a particularly deep emotional connection with the sparkling and is the person the sparkling holds in the highest regard.
Carrier can be (very) roughly translated as ‘Mother/Father’ as well as ‘Mentor/Guardian/Caretaker’ and is called as such because they have, both literally and metaphorically, carried the sparkling with them in their life. Their bitlet is as much a part of their life as they have been in the bitlet’s.
An example of this social structure can be seen with Bumblebee.
He has Elita, Jazz, Moonracer, Chromia, Ironhide, and Ratchet who he refers to as Sires, but Optimus is his one and only Carrier.
