The Cybertronian Class System in Transformers Prime
We know very well about the class system in IDW Transformers and how that contributed to the societal tensions that led to the rise of the Decepticon movement, but what about the Aligned Continuity?
Novel: Exodus
We know there is a dual caste and guild system in place.
The caste system referenced in Exodus is directly stated to be determined through a process in which a new spark is encouraged to take its most natural alt-mode form as soon as it is able. The alt-mode is then used to rank them in society.
Guilds are less well defined, but appear to be structured around further classification of bots by their relative position within their caste.
The scientific/academic guilds are stated to be of a very high rank, whereas labourers and manual workers are towards the lowest rank.
There isn’t much more detail than that, so that is almost all of the information we have to work off of in terms of the TFP Cybertronian social structure.
However, it is worth noting that Functionism in the IDW Transformers comics was developed prior to TFP’s writing, and TFP borrowed the concept of alt-mode determination from the comics. So we can assume that many elements of Functionism are shared one to one between these continuities, although the Functionist Council does not exist in the Aligned Continuity.
Interestingly, Megatron and the beginning of his social revolutionary efforts are based around the same similar initial core beliefs in both IDW and TFP:
I talk more about how class differences between Orion Pax and Megatronus are largely what caused the war in TFP in this post.
TFP: Deus Ex Machina
The episode opens with Miko in trouble at school, when she is picked up by Bulkhead after detention is over. He takes her back to base, and they have a discussion about Miko’s future.
Here’s the relevant dialogue:
Bulkhead: “Look, Miko. Before I became a warrior, I was a labourer. Construction. I can build stuff, I can break stuff. And that’s it!”
Miko: “I love breaking stuff! I wanna be just like you, Bulk.”
Bulkhead: “Ugh… Why would you wanna be like me, when you could be a… A medic, like Ratchet!”
Two things here stick out to me, the first being that Bulkhead thinks very little of himself, and has class related trauma that likely resulted in his generally low self-esteem. He always claims he isn’t smart, isn’t clever, and so on. But building and construction takes significant skill and knowledge on a material and conceptual level.
The second thing is that he immediately jumps to using Ratchet as an example of what Miko should aspire to be. Ratchet, of course, is a medic– Remember the guild system in TFP, where scientific class bots were deemed amongst the highest in social capital and relative value.
The Wreckers and the Class System
I get the feeling this is why Wheeljack doesn’t like Ratchet very much (at least at first), and why Wheeljack resists Ultra Magnus outright. They are both higher class/upper guild bots who would have been a part of the system that likely kept Wheeljack down.
We don’t know what Wheeljack’s background is in TFP, other than the fact that he’s a Wrecker, but I get the feeling that the reason why he’s not first and foremost a scientist/engineer in this continuity is because he was likely prevented from joining the scientific guild because he was ranked into a lower class due to his natural alt-mode.
There’s nothing that supports that in canon, but it makes a lot of sense.
We also know that Bulkhead and Breakdown know each other, and we don’t have all the details there, but it seems likely their relationship to each other may pre-date the factional divide and they may have been from the same class/caste or guild.
TFP: One Shall Fall
The episode opens with the kids erasing photos of Bumblebee from the internet; Infamously, this leads to Jack asking Optimus if he wants to see the cat gif that made Ratchet laugh, to which Optimus replies with a flat no.
This leads Ratchet to mention that Optimus wasn’t always like this, and he was very different before becoming a Prime, leading to the following dialogue:
Raf: “Optimus wasn’t always a Prime?”
Ratchet: “On Cybertron, one isn’t born into greatness; Rather, one must earn it.”
I think it’s interesting that as he says this, he takes the posture above: Looking up, even though the kids are all far below his line of sight and off to the opposite side of his gaze here. Like he’s repeating it from memory. And that’s possibly exactly what this is; He’s repeating what he was always told.
Of course, that statement contradicts nearly everything we know to be factual about Cybertronian culture, but it makes sense from Ratchet’s point of view.
We know Ratchet is old, walked across the Cybertronian continent to reach Iacon to study and train as a medic under Remedy, who was the CMO in Iacon at that time.
Ratchet, while his spark originated in an undeveloped village, had to travel and work hard to become a medic.
What he doesn’t seem to grasp, is that he’s quite possibly old enough to pre-date the caste and guild system on Cybertron.
While we don’t have any definite dates, we do have eras for Cybertronian civilisation which I explore further in this post, and it is entirely possible Ratchet simply became a medic before he would have been defined by his alt-mode. Or perhaps his alt-mode was always some kind of Cybertronian ambulance, and it didn’t make any difference in his case because he wanted to become a medic anyway.
It’s easy to see why his attitude might grate on bots like Wheeljack or Bulkhead; He’s either very old or very lucky or both, and while from his own POV he did have to earn his place to study in Iacon by way of having to get there first and prove his potential, that is a very far cry from experiencing systemic oppression.
In Pre-War Cybertron, Ratchet had social privilege above every other Autobot we see in TFP.
I think in light of that, it’s very interesting that he yearns for Cybertron so severely. We know Ratchet cares about others and would not have supported the Functionist society if only because he feels all bots should have equal access to healthcare and a right to be well.
But we also know he wants Cybertron restored, so much so that the destruction of the Omega Lock nearly causes him to collapse. (I might talk about that scene in a future post, too.)
What we don’t know, is what Ratchet’s vision for an idealised, restored Post-War Cybertron actually is.
Do I think Ratchet is a Functionist? No. He cares about his people, and believes in the Autobot key tenant that all bots are autonomous and should have the right to individual choice. (Something Megatron also believes, or believed in the beginning– He is the one who first put the thought into Orion Pax’s mind.)
But do I think that Ratchet has been heavily indoctrinated by Functionist beliefs due to his long-standing high ranking position in an intensely classist society? Yes. And I think he’s repeating something that used to be said in his pre-war social circle in the scene above, because surely, he knows better.
