It would be so funny if i made Prowl be vehemently anti-cop in my fan continuity, he’s already a union liaison for the energon refinery he works at + is an assistant manager in. The thing i imagine is that he thinks the government has a very specific role and that they should Stay In That Role, he respects civil servants but does NOT fuck w enforcers. He tolerates security at the barest minimum. He’s devastated when the earth modes that are best compatible with his specs are used commonly as law enforcement vehicles with the black+white color combo really not working out for him in the slightest. TFHD Prowl is like if he had G1’s general kindness, a little of IDW1/2’s attitude (and i mean A Little. More reserved than anything and some of the adverse and mildly explosive emotional reactions when he’s Stressed The Fuck Out. Closer to IDW2), lots of Cyberverse, and some of Earthspark’s lack of social skills.
I’ve been thinking of my Jazz and Prowl dynamic in TFHD andit’s making me feel a little crazy
Jazz has a lot of history with the guy who is effectively part the most ancient lineage of Cybertron (Optimus) and there’s already a sense of trust and dependability between them when Jazz joins (he does so after the war began because he had to be in hiding as a refugee for a while). It’s immediate and steadfast in the way they interact with one another and it directly conflicts with Prowl’s new position as Head of Tactical.
Prowl is by all means a foreigner to this kind of dynamic between these two, and the palpable difference in how Optimus acts is instantaneous, something he only saw before with Optimus and Elita (even then with more constraint and with an authoritarian hand looming over them, both being essentially equals as the leader of the Autobots). More than this, he doesn’t trust easily, so Jazz’s presence despite being a friend of Optimus is immediately suspicious and strange to him, especially when Jazz is almost immediately taken into the highest inner circle.
The ease in which Jazz conducts himself is strange. How he talks to people is strange. Jazz is strange.
Prowl also isn’t adjusting well to the change in command. The rest of tactical is in rough conditions, not enough mechs to fill the spaces and all worked to the bone, including Prowl. The previous head of tactical was Elita, and she had to go guide a splinter group of Autobots on another planet and establish a second main Autobot base. He was underprepared because of the time limits of his training, and really, people didn’t like him all that much. He was too quiet, like he was always thinking about something else at any given moment (he usually was), and didn’t talk to people much outside of directing people and giving orders. There was a little but growing tension due to stress and the change that division underwent.
Jazz was smart. Incredibly so, actually, having a keen eye for detail without losing sight of the bigger picture. Jazz was on temporary rotation within multiple Autobot divisions, including tactical, and it was clear to both Prowl and those working with Jazz that he was good at this. Why was he good at this? As far as Prowl knew, Jazz had no formal training for tactical or even half the other things he was involved in. Why did he know those codes? Those maneuvers? Some of them were exclusively a Praxian practice that Prowl himself had implemented.
It all changed when tactical was split in two. The Autobot forces began to spread to thin that there were tears in their defenses where tactical presence was little to none, so the main tactical division at the First Autobot Headquarters (Elita’s being deemed the Second once established) was being divided between multiple outposts around the immediate star systems outside their own, including Prowl and Jazz. They were to head to an auxiliary station where tactical alongside some foot soldiers would be sent off their separate ways to go to their assignments. However, on the way, they were sent off course by a small Decepticon fleet of ships (which held a significant percentage of probability of happening).
None of the contingencies for the scenario worked. They were sent further off course, eventually reaching a sector that was cordoned off because of it being a wall of superheated gas clouds, acting as a natural buffer to the star system beyond it. They were sent through it, the ship they were on being more or less ripped into shreds alongside multiple of the Decepticon ships burning up in the gas. In a small pocket of the gas clouds was a fresh little planetary system, one fully formed planet orbiting around a small but hot star, young. It was their only chance of anybody surviving, and Prowl, as the highest ranking officer onboard, sent them to the planet in hopes of some chance of survival, no matter how bleak.
This planet, twice the size of Earth, hot, the only water on it being deep below the crust in small, cavernous pools. Seemingly uninhabited by any intelligent lifeforms. Grey sand deserts surrounded the entire surface of the planet, and in clusters, towering spines of glass protruding from the ground. Cool air from the caverns mixed dangerously with the hot surface-level air, so highly intense sandstorms were frequent, ones that created a lot of friction and a lot of lightning. By all means, it was barely inhabitable.
Now, they were stuck on this planet, knowing for certain that the Decepticons weren’t far off, and Prowl was stuck with people who knew combat in theory. And Jazz, who knew it in practice, alongside foot soldiers with no particular expertise in anything but combat on Cybertronian landscapes.
Some more Transformers: HYPERDRIVE crumbs for y’all today. Again keep in mind that this is a fan continuity and not based off of one specific canon cont; i draw from many but ultimately these are a lot of my own ideas and the way i interpret/present characters will not align in some places with other versions of the characters. Enjoy
A popular way that the Elite Trine (consisting of Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp) are presented is through establishing them off the bat as a group of characters already tied together in some way or form. In IDW, the first appearance of them chronologically is in the Megatron Origins comics, already sporting the near-identical frame as well as traveling as a group of people to join up with Megatron. In G1, Skywarp and Thundercracker are Starscream’s direct subordinates. Fanon-wise, this can vary; I’ve seen them as friends, siblings, as well as romantically involved (which i may add is not my cup of tea and you will not be seeing these three having any romance between them in anything i write), but ultimately, they’ve known each other seemingly for a long time, having the same kind of origins or some similar story. While i do like some interpretations of them (both canon and fanon), i wanted to see what I could do with the idea of them being relatively separated and only forming a trine bind later on in their lives.
In TFHD, i’ve already talked about some of the significance that Vos holds within the plot, being one of the driving forces into starting the civil war (military presence, cold-construct technology, etc). I have purposefully only name dropped Straxus and Blaster, which i’ll get into their lore with each other in a different post. A handful of canon universes within TF (as well as having popularity within fanon) has had the Seekers being from Vos; I’ve taken it a step further by establishing Vos as a predominantly flightframe society with all different variations of flight-capable alt modes making up the majority of the population. Seekers as a frametype specifically refers to a fast, sleek, and oftentimes modded jet-like frames that serve in the Wing Guard; no one naturally emerges as having a Seeker frame, but rather it is the practice of modifying one’s internal components into being more fit for militant usage. This often means that they may have different armor outfitting compared to their natural external plating, or are altered to be more fuel efficient (flying for longer times on less energon, though this mod often results in the consumption of very nutrient-dense energon upon needing to refuel which can be expensive to produce at times).
Thundercracker and Skywarp are examples of classic Seeker frames, with the addition of having natural outlier abilities (meaning that they emerged with having a unique spark energy output that later manifested into different abilities). Thundercracker has denser, thicker armor than most other Seekers, so while he is slower, he is more resistant to anti-aircraft ammunitions and ground-based fire. In addition to that resistance, it also helps balance out and disperse the excess energy that his spark produces; his ability manifested as having a very intense energy signature due to a very rapid spark rotation, producing high amounts of electricity. The thicker armor is made of alternating conductive and insulated layers that absorbs the electricity and slowly releases it over time. A lot of it collects in TC’s wings and fills out energy channels that were built into them.
The “energy channels” looks like this IDW design for TC regarding his wings (which i’m very fond of). The potential energy just builds up in those grooves and can stay there for a while without hurting him. To expel it all in one go, he just flies around for a while to work it off essentially. Due to his armor and wing mods, Thundercracker is taller and heavier than most other frames classified as Seekers, along with a generally wider build (that accommodates the transference nodes in his back that directs energy into his wings).
Skywarp is a different story. They fit the classic Seeker archetype pretty well; very fast and streamline build, having some reinforced alloy armor that protects specifically against friction heat, which ultimately helps out with the effects of their outlier. Compared to TC’s outlier, which is relatively well understood by scientists, Skywarp is much more of a mystery. It truly isn’t every day that someone can naturally pop out of existence, and Skywarp does it on the regular. Their spark exhibits a number of the same symptoms that Thundercracker’s does, excess energy and rapid rotational period, but rather than that energy being built up, it’s somehow stored within their body without the need for modifications. Alongside that, they didn’t need any fuel-efficiency adjustments either, still flying as fast and as far as ones who do have it with ease. Their excess energy somehow refuels their body just the same as energon does, and using the energon as a means of travel, easily reaches all their major systems without a hitch. The only external physical evidence of them having such high energy readouts is that every time they teleport, they leave behind little trace particles in the air, little bits of static electricity that crackle and fade.
Their plating being reinforced with protective alloys helps the travel process when they spatially move; Skywarp in the early days of their ability manifestation suffered from partially melted plating every time they teleported, being ripped out of existence and being placed spatially somewhere else in a matter of mere moments. They still have some mild joint problems to this day because of it. With the plating, it reduces the amount of heat that reaches into their body and makes the process easier and safer.
The rarity of having two Cybertronians from the same harvest period is already rare enough, but them both being bonded together even rarer. You may notice by now that I haven’t mentioned Starscream alongside Skywarp and TC; that is because he is not from Vos as they are. Instead, he was raised by a Vosnian, but harvested from a little town called Centurion. Cryak (yes, IDW 2 Cryak) was a Vosnian scientist and part of the groundframe population that lived on the outside edge of Vos where there was a ring of grounder-friendly architecture. While Vos is predominantly a flightframe city, it is not without its ground-based alt modes. Cryak was a biologist and traveled around a lot for work, working under some major companies and significant figures as time went on. When she reached Centurion, it was only supposed to be a pitstop before moving onto the Nexian region of city-states. Instead, she found an aspiring scientist who was far more intelligent than people realized, his talents being wasted in the bare-program in the town he was interning at. The council back in Vos had been urging her to take on an apprentice for some years now, but she stubbornly refused until finding Starscream. At that time, however, his name was Ulchtar.
For some years, they travelled together, and Cryak raised him with the same ideals she had grown up with, that being Vosnian in nature. And him being an out-of-place flightframe took to it easily. Vos is a very structured and disciplined society, and the same ideals were passed onto Ulchtar; he could easily pass for a native of the city-state if he so pleased. Eventually, Ulchtar’s work with Cryak led him to take a job in one of the Primal States, and the two split ways (not long after, Cryak went missing). Here, is where Ulchtar first met Megatron.
I mentioned that Thundercracker and Skywarp were Seekers under the Vosnian Wing Guard, and in my other post about the Geniplex, I mentioned Straxus being Vos’ mist significant leader they’ve had. Skywarp and TC joined because Straxus himself had chosen them out of that harvest, knowing that their outlier abilities would benefit the Guard in the long run. Straxus was, essentially, a father to the two, and was the inly guardian they’ve ever known. Thundercracker and Skywarp never had an official third member to complete the trine, but Straxus had essentially closed that bond with them, having a mentor-mentee kind of bond with them.
Trine binds have take a number of forms, but always limited to three. They used to solely be military groupings, like how a squadron would be in human military standards. But that tradition since bled into general society and then took on more sentimental values, near-exclusive to Vosnian society and becoming very common over time. It can be a bind between three friends, lovers, a couple and a younger newbuild as a mentee/child, siblings, really anything you could think of. It is a strong relationship that translates into a lifelong tie with each member, and it is a tragedy to lose any of them. People rarely take on new trine members if any of the original had passed. Thundercracker and Skywarp never really had a full trine bond until Starscream came along, and that was a very rough time for the two.
Straxus is a conquerer and a warlord. His ultimate goal is to put Vos on the map as more than just The City of Heights, to make a statement of their power. Before Polyhex, he with the Wing Guard under his rule, expanded into other smaller surrounding cities/towns, with Polyhex being his first major target, being a large port city were a lot of business was conducted between corporation big-wigs. Prior to this, the Guard had been down a communications officer; this requirement resulted in the acquisition of a stereoframe who had originally been from Polyhex, having emerged in one of its hotspots (multiple, another reason Straxus wanted Polyhex. He wanted to expand the Vosnian Guard into ground corps as well, dominating both air and ground) but quickly shipped off to Vos to fill the position under Straxus. That stereoframe was Blaster (who i will probably make a separate post on later).
Through Blaster and his internal knowledge of the Wing Guard, the Decepticons had made their first global appearance as a militant presence, capturing Straxus and most of his command and resulting in him relinquishing control over Polyhex. Ulchtar was instrumental in this process through his industry connections to multiple scientific groups around Cybertron, and a Vosnian associate put him in contact with Blaster and together put the operation into play. Blaster would have likely joined the Decepticons if not for their actions following the capture of Command. Megatron publicly executed them, including Straxus, leaving the rest of the Guard with two choices; either reject their ways that had been taught to them under Straxus and instead find glory with the Decepticons, or end up like their command. While some loyalists refused to join, most had been absorbed into the Decepticon ranks under Megatron as their new General—including Thundercracker and Skywarp.
Ulchtar pegged TC and Skywarp with having outlier abilities fairly quickly, and convinced them to join the Decepticons because of it. The two were lost without Straxus, but, being brought up with Straxus’ ideals regarding power structure and pragmatism (not knowing that he himself would be defeated), joined. In reality, Ulchtar recruited them not only because of their abilities, but also because he was under Megatron’s instruction. At this point in time, Megatron and Ulchtar had trusted each other, with Ulchtar as his right hand and advisor. Megatron wanted TC and Warp because of their knowledge of the Wing Guard as well as to make an example of them; being so high up in rank and the two closest individuals to Straxus, Megatron believed that if they joined, much of the Guard would follow in their wake. Ulchtar was to act as their overseer essentially, making sure that once they joined the Decepticons, they would stay cemented in it. It was all a strategic ploy. A line that stuck with Thundercracker and Skywarp, taught to them by Straxus, was that “grief shall not be wasted on the defeated”.
Note that the Decepticons weren’t there to liberate Polyhex; they were there to eliminate a threat. In the process, however, it turned out to be in their favor, as Polyhex became Decepticon-aligned after the Wing Guard had been pulled from the city. It was a game of debt and favor.
Ulchtar was placed as the head of the new trine they found themselves in. In all aspects, Thundercracker and Skywarp were in the same scenario that they were before; they were their because of their abilities, there as some of the highest ranking officers in the system, but now with something new and unfamiliar. The closest thing you could call the relationship between the three was siblings in arms, just as wretched as the real thing. This was Thundercracker and Skywarp’s first personal introduction to what was a key aspect of Vosnian society, and unbreakable (or so they thought).
The war went on like this; Ulchtar (later dubbed Starscream) exercised his influence over TC and Skywarp to keep them in line and instill loyalty to the Decepticons. He took on a more tactician role and the other two became the primary commanders over the Decepticon flight corps. At the same time, Thundercracker slowly started to doubt his role in anything he’s ever been a part of, and Skywarp deluded themself into thinking this right where they were meant to be. Starscream started thinking bigger, beyond Megatron’s goals. His influence with Megatron didn’t stretch as far as it does with his trine.
Starscream tried something, but he came back (changed. Something was different.) and started ti be sent on more solo missions, leaving Thundercracker as sole commander in his stead. He became paranoid, started thinking too much, and got captured because of it. Everyone thought he was dead, never even tried to look for him. Skywarp took his place. Thundercracker came back, battered and bruises but still alive (something was different with him too; what did he experience under Autobot capture?) and Skywarp seemed to be falling apart by the day.
What it comes down to is exploitive power dynamics, manipulation, and deep down, buried under deceit and well placed lies, and doubt and fracturing conscious, is a bond of what could have been. They hurt each other, time and time again, and they come back to each other because this is all they have. This is the most they’ll get in war.
Uhh quick Jazz headcanon for TFHD that’s largely unimportant to overall plot but i like the idea of
He doesn’t have optics anymore because of a work accident pre-war. He and Orion Pax worked together as dockworkers who helped maintain the big ol transport vessels that stopped through Tyger Pax (Jazz’s home city and the place Pax was transferred to shortly after finishing his final upgrades into a “full grown” Cybertronian due to a labor demand in the area). The transport vessels (non-sentient, purely machine and artificially made) weren’t the most resource efficient and required frequent-ish fluid changes due to how extensively they were burned through by the vessel’s inner systems. All old fluids were filtered into a waste tank onboard and needs to be emptied once every few human months, all culminated into this concentrated solution that had qualities of acid (but was never classified as more than “industrial waste”).
Dockworkers in Tyger Pax were in charge of refilling the vessels’ fluids as well as draining and disposing of the waste tank (some things were filtered through like energon (being usually a lighter substance that sat atop most other fluids in the tank) to be used in other industrial applications alongside some mineral extraction). There was an accident onboard the vessel that Jazz was emptying the tank of one day that, while quickly resolving, did leave Jazz’s optics burned through and practically useless, alongside most of the sockets; meaning that he couldn’t even get low-grade replacement optics because of the extensive damage done to the sockets (which provided optical feed back to his processor). Being a laborer, he was only paid what would keep him fed and somewhat healthy and didn’t have the spare money to repair his optical sockets and get replacements.
Since he couldn’t do physical labor anymore, he had to fully step into music as his primary income, busking on the streets and the occasional venue gig. Pax offered to set aside some of his own pay to help Jazz, but he’s the kind of guy who doesn’t take from others even if they’re offering because it means that they wouldn’t have much of anything of the same thing happened to them. He’s very stuck on the “if” factor. The one thing he did get however was a visor to cover up the damage on his upper face where it was most prominent, though there was still some mild warping a little further down on his face and on his helm.
He eventually got enough money set aside for an experimental procedure to be done to reroute the visual input sensors that would usually be in the optical socket to a place further up in his helmet where his visor connected to. The original glass visor was replaced with a silicon one that hooked up to the new sensor locations and acted as his “eyes”. The reason why he didn’t just spring for repairing the sockets and getting new optics was because it had been so long since his original injury that it’d would have either been too difficult to find a method to deal with such a unique injury or it would have to be done in stages, which would have still been far too expensive. The experimental procedure was risky but the cheapest option.
This is also how me met Ratchet!! Ratchet was a medical intern at the time, having just finished his schooling some time before. He was a little older than most other interns because he was originally working at a chemical recycling plant and realized he could be doing a lot more than what he was doing.
Anyways idk maybe some of y’all jive with this idea because i like it :) Also Jazz’s visor is very opaque so no one can tell if it’s just a really tinted glass or if it’s just not translucent at all. Meaning they can’t see that Jazz has no eyes at all. His field of vision also expanded because of the shape of the visor, giving him a wider “peripheral” view than most others
To me the Cybertronian war was largely a Cold War-esque campaign and a lot of psychological warfare rather than physical. In the beginning it was spurred on by internal revolutions, rebellion, and the collapse of organized government as society split so the early years were the hotspot of activity, and that catried over into the early years of the official war having begun. Lots of push and pull from either side. But eventually, it became more about strategy and tactics more than anything, and battles grew further and further apart as time went on, each more structured and bloodier than the last. That gave way to looong periods of time without activity, and the tactician branch of either faction became singlehandedly the most important people in the course of the war, in charge of analyzing past data and formulating responses and future actions based off of it.
During that time, a lot of “Red Scare” type propaganda popped up, framing the other fashion in increasingly negative light, fostering stronger alliance to the respected faction but more importantly, making people paranoid. If you put the “could” into a mind, the imagination takes care of the rest. These were the periods of time where paramilitary and special ops branches came into play, gathering and disseminating information, working alongside tacticians for maximum effect.
Most of the civil war consisted of nothing except for scare tactics, espionage, and resource stockpiling is my point here. But alongside this, i also want ti bring up bio/chemical warfare as well, because i think that would be MASSIVELY utilized.
We know that Cybertron is a highly advanced technological society, and I think that leads to a very large focus upon the sciences and academical studies. There is little that the Cybertronians don’t know about the biology of their species. Being so well-established as a society gave them the time to perfect this knowledge and even improve upon it. On the note of chemical warfare however, you may be wondering how it works considering their mechanical physiology. My answer is to look to ANY vehicle. Any at all. Everything breaks down at some point or another. And this is also where more propaganda is formed as well and also why it works so efficiently; the fear if not knowing and not expecting when something will come does inexplicable things to peoples’ minds.
Of course there is a grey area in this idea because we don’t know the full extent of Cybertronians as a species because A) fictional and B) we’re flesh and blood humans; the biological makeup is simply too different to make assumptions.
Anyway. Scientists especially become very important figures alongside tacticians, those are the two roles in highest demand (barring general soldiers). There’s climaxes to this war, but mostly, you can go years without hearing from either faction and suddenly they’re at your front doorstep. It’s all about timing, tactics, and technology. You’ve just gotta have the right people pulling the strings from the inside and the right people to be pulled.
