TF Procreation

[Sparky Prime]

Each bot can live essentially forever unless they are fully destroyed, trapped in a societal limbo as factions battle for supremacy of philosophy, but as their numbers didn't diminish notably, they didn't need to make more.

I think it's worth noting here that Transformers have been shown to age, albeit very slowly over the course of millions of years. With out upgrading bodies or at least replacing parts over the years, potentially they could die of old age. IDW's Kup as an example of that, they say he lived for so long and refused to upgrade to the point he became obsolete technology, incompatible with modern Cybertronian technology. If they hadn't adapted Pretender technology to save him, he would have died. Also, in RotF, Jetfire makes it sound like without Energon a Transformer would eventually age and die as well, such as himself, although that would imply with a constant supply of Energon a movieverse Transformer could potentially live forever.

Anyway, the issue we keep running into in the consideration of this is just what Sparks *are*. I’ve always been under the impression that they were, like, fragments of Primus’ essence or somesuch. This would imply that there’s a finite amount of the things, unless Sparks can split somehow,

Yeah, most continuities I believe goes with that idea that a Spark is a tiny fragment of Primus himself (and/or Allspark), although a few have a different take on it. The Dreamwave MTMTE series calls Sparks an "as-yet-unclassified energy", although it also mentions that according to mythology a Spark contains a bit of Matrix energy that in turn comes from Primus. The Botcon storyline takes a different approach in that they say Sparks are made up of "Rarified Energon", a form of Energon that is in limited supply across the entire multiverse.

[138 Scourge]

You do make me think of an interesting point. Only during peace-time do we see Cybertronian children. Any other time an external device is used to bring new TFs to life, it's during war time and the 'bots coming online are fully grown and with adult personalities.

Oh, yeah. Forgot about this. We don't see exactly Transformer kids during wartime, but you get "younger" characters. Hot Rod. Cheetor. Hot Shot. All of these guys end up in leadership roles at some point, too. Maybe not Hot Shot, but the bios in the DW thing talk about how Prime sees leadership potential in him. So kids, not exactly, but "Turbo-revvin' young punks", yeah.

And I dunno if you could say that new TFs come to life fully grown and developed. I mean, the Dinobots are dumb as bricks in their first couple episodes. And the Airelbots are more-or-less adult I guess, but with the exception of Silverbolt, those guys are almost dumber than the Dinobots when they first show up. This isn't just my dislike of those guys, either. I recently caught "War Dawn" on the Hub, and man, the four other Arielbots are seriously a bunch of absolute dumbshits. They're all like "Man, those Decepticon jets are SO COOL! Maybe they're right!" Seriously. Retards. So there's something to be said for a character getting some time to learn a thing or two.

[Mako Crab]

Which do I prefer *now?* I prefer not to think about it, actually. I've never needed a story where a character had to be "born," so it's like...why bother?

Because it’s *interesting* dammit!

I think so too! I'd like to hear what the writers' motivations for including female TFs into G1 in the first place was. Were they told by Hasbro to include them in a bid to get girls interested in their product or was it just something they did because they wanted to? Whatever the case, it seems they didn't really take into consideration the questions that arise by having female *robots* in their show. What other kids' franchise out there has had to go into so much detail, so often, and with so many different takes on how new members of a society are born? I can't help but think all these external devices are an attempt to try and avoid the topic of male/female interactions altogether. They opened the can of worms and then realized they didn't want to talk about it.

S’yeah, that’s my thinking on it. Sparks enter and leave the Matrix in a reincarnation-esque cycle, via some avenue like Vector Sigma or the Creation Matrix of Leadership. And any ships that leave Cybertron carrying potential colonies of robots are equipped with a link back to the Matrix, allowing their creator’s essence to birth new sparks to populations, even off-world.

The implication of this theory would be that, much like Optimus carrying the Creation Matrix program in the Marvel comics, the ruling Prime of a distant world has the only say as to whether or not new Transformers are going to be brought to life. Not saying that your theory is necessarily wrong, but it does paint a different picture of Cybertronian society than what we might expect. And there are examples of such a method of production being used in the mass media.

* Master Mold from the X-Men franchise
- the only source of new Sentinels. Creates and rules supreme over them.

* The Queen Alien from the Aliens movies
- Lays hundreds, maybe thousands of eggs and rules the nest of Xenomorphs.

Such a method of procreation is often portrayed as being used by the villains, I imagine, because it's so alien to our human-centric mode of thinking. It helps separate the bad guys from us and implies a social order where the sole source of new life is synonymous with the ruler supreme of that society. Scourge of the TF: Cybertron toon, I could see being portrayed in a villainous manner such as Master Mold. I'd be interested in seeing what a positive portrayal of this method of procreation would look like and the kinds of issues that someone like Optimus would have to deal with.
During peace time there might not be as many problems, but during war time, I don't see Optimus or any of his counterparts on other worlds granting life to the enemy. We then come back to the question of where do all these new Decepticons come from if Optimus (for example) is holding the only source of new life?
I'd argue that this can't be their only means of procreation for the simple fact that the Autobots should have won by now by sheer numbers. If the Autobots can constantly produce new soldiers using a Cyber Planet Key, the Creation Matrix, or whatever external device, and the Decepticons don't have access to that holy external device, then the 'cons should've gone extinct over the course of the millions of years that they've been fighting.

That's the problem with all of these external devices. They're either shown to be exclusive to planet Cybertron, which excludes all off-world colonies, or they're shown as being some holy relic that only one faction possesses (that faction is always, without fail, the Autobots).

[Mako Crab]

I thought someone here had mentioned the bit in "The Agenda" where Rattrap was making suggestive comments about Silverbot and Blackarachnia, finding "new positions." Can't find it now, but to add to that (as much as I don't like to inject the idea of robot genitalia), there is Rattrap's throwaway line in Aftermath where Rhinox is staring at his new Transmetal body and Rattrap asks, "What? Is my gearbox hanging out?" I always interpreted this as a Cybertronian coloquialism for, "What? Is my dick hanging out?" And Rattrap's just the guy to say it.
Not a big fan of the idea. Not a big fan of the fan-art that's based on this idea. But as long as we're discussing it, might as well toss it out there.

[Gomess]

Damn, where's Synjo where you need him.

In all seriousness, BW did more to humanise the TF characters (for good or ill) than any other series to my mind. They're basically not robots at all.

[BWprowl]

Can't find it now, but to add to that (as much as I don't like to inject the idea of robot genitalia), there is Rattrap's throwaway line in Aftermath where Rhinox is staring at his new Transmetal body and Rattrap asks, "What? Is my gearbox hanging out?" I always interpreted this as a Cybertronian coloquialism for, "What? Is my dick hanging out?" And Rattrap's just the guy to say it.

Eh, taken as a kid-safe robot equivalent of a human phrase, yeah, you could certainly see Rattrap’s comment like that. On the other hand, he just says what he says, and maybe he really is concerned about his gearbox hanging out. Indeed, maybe the gearbox is considered a lewd part of Transformers anatomy to end up having exposed, but that certainly doesn’t equate with sexual usage, much less an equivalent to genitalia.

As for the ‘new positions’ line (which I admit, I thought was funny as hell), it’s not unreasonable to assume that Transformers, coming in male and female flavors and having obvious attractions to one another, might have some sort of ‘spooning for pleasure’ activity or the type they can do for jollies. Whether it results in procreation is hotly debatable (remember, these are alien robots, their actions have no reason whatsoever to play by the same rules ours do), and as much as it leads to cringe-inducing fanfic, it only makes sense to assume that one reason two genders of TFs are attracted to each other anyway is because there’s something the two genders can *do* together for pleasure.

Curiously, BW also gave us the closest thing we ever saw to two Transformers ‘giving birth’ to a new one, with Tigatron and Airazor spawning Tigerhawk, but that was shown as something extremely uncommon, and wasn’t really like ‘reproduction’, on account of it taking both sparks just fusing together to create the new one. Kinda the opposite of procreation, really.

Of course, BW is also the series that showed Tigatron to be attracted to an *organic tiger*, which would make him a guy with a bestiality fetish at best, and a delusional deviant at the worst. ‘Law of the Jungle’ is just a terrible episode from any angle, so maybe BW isn’t the best place to go to for understanding TF ‘sexuality’.

There’s also IDW’s movie comics, specifically Foundation, which shows Megatron with big bunches of Cybertronian *hatchlings*, little baby robot critters that, presumable, would eventually *grow* into fully ‘adult’ Transformers. Now admittedly, the Movieverse plays by the least of the same rules as the other TF-verses, and the hatchlings are really just there to give some narrative weight to Optimus attacking Megatron, but it’s still something to be questioned. Given that it was mostly the implied that the Allspark Cube was the main ‘Matrix Avenue’ of its universe, and shown to be capable of granting life (though apparently mostly sparkless), maybe on Cybertron it does so in a more formal ‘birthing chamber’, creating robots from the body of Cybertron itself, which then somehow slowly ‘grow’ the sparks they need, becoming adults in the process? I dunno, the Movieverse is weird and inconsistent a lot of the time.

[Onslaught Six]

There are heavy implications in the first film itself and its various adaptations that imply the AllSpark randomly imbibing things with life is the "wrong" way to use it--it's also presumably how Megatron would use it, creating an army of rabid crazy Decepticons. Presumably there's a "right" way to use it to create life that Prime plans to use it for.

[Sparky Prime]

They're basically not robots at all.

I guess with the beast-era introducing organic (or at least nanotechnology facsimiled) beast modes, they could technically be called cyborgs.

Curiously, BW also gave us the closest thing we ever saw to two Transformers ‘giving birth’ to a new one, with Tigatron and Airazor spawning Tigerhawk, but that was shown as something extremely uncommon, and wasn’t really like ‘reproduction’, on account of it taking both sparks just fusing together to create the new one. Kinda the opposite of procreation, really.

I'd say Megatron using half of Rampage's spark would be closer to the birth of a new Transformer. Although even that was unusual circumstances given Rampage's (semi)immortal spark, and Dinobot 2 being a clone.

[Shockwave]

Personally I like the G1 idea that they just build new ones and life comes from "somewhere" that's not really explained. It certainly makes the procreation easy without it being sexualized and leaves the mysterious "where does life begin" question as still a question.

It was shown in the G1 comic, Shockwave tapped into the power of Optimus Prime's creation Matrix to give life to the Stunticons. He had siphoned it when Prime was giving life to the Aerialbots, so there are ways for the Decepticons to use the Matrix without Prime knowing but they would only be able to do so while he was using it.

[Dominic]

An option that I have not seen mentioned in this thread was in the Dreamwave comics. Specifically, it is possible to create new TFs in a laboratory/manufacturing setting at great cost in resources. (Similarly, Bob and/or Larry described "The Matrix" and "The Pit" as the names of manufacturing facilities on Cybertron where new TFs were produced.)

Alpha Trion mentions to Ironhide that he built the new body for him as a back up "So that his spark would have somewhere to go".

This was shown to be a one-time process though. So, for the purposes of this, it would not actually count.

approach wouldn't account for non sentient drones.

Drones would not be considered alive.

And I would probably suspect that the various explanations we've gotten so far could be various TFs philosophies on the subject.

I like this in theory. But, god shows up every Tuesday in TF.

Why did Dinobot die in his epic last stand in "Code of Hero?" Was it to redeem his past transgressions? Nah, Hasbro just wasn't selling his toy anymore. It's boring.

I recall Bob Forward saying at BC89 (which I attended) that he made the decision to kill Dinobot independent of Hasbro, (though they did clear it). [edit: BC98]

that the AllSpark created when it zapped product-placement items were inherently evil because they had no true souls.

I put it down to them being newly created as members of an aggressive species. Given time, maybe Dispensor could have been a nice guy.

I think so too! I'd like to hear what the writers' motivations for including female TFs into G1 in the first place was.

Focus groups and marketing. Gomess nailed it.

Hell, Furman tacitly admitted as much in "Prime's Rib".

And there are examples of such a method of production being used in the mass media.

* Master Mold from the X-Men franchise
- the only source of new Sentinels. Creates and rules supreme over them.

* The Queen Alien from the Aliens movies
- Lays hundreds, maybe thousands of eggs and rules the nest of Xenomorphs.

Not sure I would say these qualify as "mass media". But, what the hell, I can bite and say "other media".

In 40K, (though oddly not regular WarHammer), Orks are actually fungal in nature.

Damn, where's Synjo where you need him.

Sulking in a jizzum soaked fur diaper?

and as much as it leads to cringe-inducing fanfic, it only makes sense to assume that one reason two genders of TFs are attracted to each other anyway is because there’s something the two genders can *do* together for pleasure.

Well, if you follow the logic of "Five Faces of Darkenss", (the Autobots were consumer goods....and there were few if any female Decepticons in the cartoon), then we have a whole new level of cringe-inducing. (I am uncomfortable even typing that.....)

Or, we have modern IDW (my personal favourite) which implies that Jhiaxus introduced the idea of gender differences...just because he wanted to see if he could.

‘Law of the Jungle’ is just a terrible episode from any angle, so maybe BW isn’t the best place to go to for understanding TF ‘sexuality’.

You know, before now, I never read it that way. I figured that Snowstalker was his buddy or his pet. I actually kind of liked the episode.....

Personally I like the G1 idea that they just build new ones and life comes from "somewhere" that's not really explained.

Which gets back to your point about it not being explained for us either. But, unfortunately, god shows up every Tuesday in TF.....

Dom
- not going to get in to the question of who had a female beast mode....