Role of humans in TF saga

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Spin-off discussion from Regeneration One thread.

There's no correct answer to this question as there are so many versions of the TF story, and (as we've learnt from the RG1 thread) different ways of interpreting them, but to what extent do you all consider the TF saga to be the story of two species interacting, and to what extent the story of just one species to whom humans are of minor significance in the grand scheme?

As stated in the RG1 thread, I have always considered it to be the former. I saw the Transformers as a relatively small number of individually powerful (and interesting) robots, representing the sort of technology humans haven't developed just yet but could see coming in the not-too-distant future, interacting with a much more populous and adaptable/creative race (humans) who were unsure whether the TFs were extraterrestrial or an advanced form of human tech as Robot-Master claimed.

Some of the earliest stories I read ('Plague of the Insecticons', 'I, Robot-Master', 'Heavy Traffic') conveyed to me that the Decepticons feared an Autobot-human alliance and benefited greatly from the humans treating the Autobots as enemies. Ratbat and Razorclaw ruined it all when they raided Triple-I to confirm the Throttlebots' deaths, and admitted to Forsythe that there were two opposing sides, leading to a highly significant (in my view) scene in issue #39 when Forsythe admitted to Barnett that he now had evidence that the Autobots were good and the Decepticons bad.

This resulted not long afterwards in Autobot Micromasters being allowed to appear on TV shows and even work openly with the police to catch crooks. I would have loved to see what an organised Autobot-human alliance could have led to. The natural ending I envisaged, which seemed far off when Circuit-Breaker had 13 Autobot heads on her wall, was the Autobots and humans defeating the Decepticons together. Perhaps this is why I'm not so badly disposed towards the live-action movies. Despite their crap scripts, they gave me the scenario that I felt I was being teased with in the 1980s, and was delayed so long by the humans failing to recognise the Autobots as potential allies - namely, Autobots and humans pooling their resources to beat the Decepticons.

Although it was never fully developed in the Marvel comics, I got tasters of it. In the G.I. Joe crossover mini-series, a combined Autobot/human air force overwhelmed the Decepticons' air force, and in the Headmasters mini-series, Scorponok's forces were forced to find human allies of their own or else lose every battle against the superior fighters of the Autobot Headmasters. But then came the Underbase, the Time Wars vortex and Unicron, and the Decepticons ceased to be the main threat of the comic. And the Generation 2 comic did indeed make any Autobot-human alliance something of an irrelevance, as the Decepticons now had limitless armies and spaceships willing and able to blast cities from orbit. In the G2 universe, both the Autobots and humans were at the mercy of the Decepticons, and my originally anticipated happy ending was off the cards. One of the many reasons why I didn't care for the series!

The only other TF series I've really admired and enjoyed besides the original 1984-1991 Marvel comic is the Masterforce cartoon, and it's no coincidence that it too is most definitely about two species and the alliances they can form together being much more potent than either of the two species acting on its own.

But I'd love to read in greater detail about completely different perspectives on what the TF saga should be all about, and the role of squishies in it.

Martin

[Death's Head]

I enjoy seeing Transformer-human interactions, but to take it further, I also enjoy seeing the Transformers interact with a variety of races. From our perspective we see it as "Heroic Autobots" and "Evil Decepticons" but I like getting a broader view of the Transformers place in the galaxy and how they are viewed by others.

The trouble I think a lot of people have with humans in Transformers stories is that the humans can often come off as rather dull compared to the big old robots smashing stuff up, but that's really down to the quality of writing rather than the concept itself. Personally speaking I love stories like Man of Iron, In the National Interest, and even the early Furmanation series where, alongside characters like Verity we also had some less-than-helpless humans in the form of Skywatch and the Machination. It's nice to see these huge killer robots being impressed by what we're capable of!

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Sept 13, 2012 10:38:11 GMT Death's Head said:

I enjoy seeing Transformer-human interactions, but to take it further, I also enjoy seeing the Transformers interact with a variety of races.

What sort of races would you like to see them interact with? Humans have a particular perspective on Transformers because, after millions of years of being on this planet, we are just starting to build robots and spaceships of our own. Other races could be a long way behind or ahead of us and the Transformers. To date, we've rarely seen them interact with species which are that different to themselves or to us. I suppose the Vok in Beast Wars is a good example of one quite different race/species. Scraplets were intriguing, as they viewed the Transformers simply as a food source!

Martin

[Marc Graham]

I think humanity is there to give scope and scale to the saga of the Transformers, these are huge hulking robots with massive potential for destruction an amazing ability to survive and incredibly long lived.

Humanity is small and fragile in comparison, but still desperate to be relevant.

I see Transformers as more significant in the grander scheme of things, but generally I see humans as being more sociable and likely to seek out pacts with other life across the universe, the Transformers are just living their lives on a massive scope and meeting other species is just a factor in that, whereas for humans meeting other species would be an end goal in itself.

[Death's Head]

Martin:

I realise that ultimately everything will be viewed through our humanistic lens since we're the ones writing the stories, but I suppose I've just got a weakness for stories with a larger scope. I like to see how the Transformers are viewed at a galactic scale (or, in the spirit of Furman, inter-galactic!), something we saw in the recent MTMTE annual. After all, if these giant killer robots have been at war for four-million odd years it's chance that the other civilisations of the galaxy will have noticed and I'm just curious what their reaction might be. It's a purely fictional fantasy but it's something I like to see.

I agree that a range of perspectives would be good; races that are both less and more advanced than the Cybertronians. Both the Vok and the Scraplets are great examples for the reasons you give (and, in science-fiction terms are rather interesting too). In fact, in your own stories you explored a similar path with the Nightstalkers and Mirage's changed perspective after his visit to another galaxy.

It may just be down to a slight boredom with the whole Primus-created sainted-Transformer-thing the official fiction has shoved our way these past few years - maybe I just like to see the Cybertronians put in their place?