We all know that the Autobots are more like a superhero team. Even the Elite Guard fights more like Superheros than an Elite military unit. I've always wondered what possible in-story explaination there could be for this and I think I came up with one that's somewhat reasonable: It's possible that the first cybertronians were created by an ancient alien race to act as the superhero guardians of the Universe, kind of like the Green Lanterns, and maybe some of them were exposed to something that corrupted their programming, creating the first Decepticons.

Shut up, Hornet.

This is meant to be a serious conversation so why don't you STFU?

Except that contradicts the nature of Cybertronian civilization in the Animated universe.

We know that the Autobots and Decepticons AREN'T two "races" of the same species.

Here's how the Animated universe breaks down; Most Cybertronians aren't affiliated with either faction, they're just civilians. The Autobots act as the Cybertronian military, while the Decepticons are a rebel faction/terrorist group/freedom fighters.

As in they aren't programmed to be Autobots or Decepticons. Each faction has a set ideology behind it, and IF a Cybertronian feels strongly regarding either of those ideologies he/she can join that faction. There's no inherent programming that makes a Cybertronian an Autobot or Decepticon.
Those groups are literally factions, you join them if you agree with what they stand for, but you aren't programmed/born into them. You can choose which side you're on, and you can even switch sides.

But my problem is if the Autobots are meant to be the military, why don't they use military weaponry? Why is it that even Ultra Magnus uses a superhero-style weapon(based on Mjolner) instead of a decent laser cannon? In Autoboot Camp, it felt more like the cadets were training to be superheros instead of soldiers. It makes sense if cybertronians were originally created to serve the same role as the Green Lantern Corps. but I am open to a better explaination.

Stop ripping off G1

The idea of Transformers being created by an alien race was done in the G1 cartoon (re: Quintessons) and the idea of the Transformers being created as galactic saviour against great evil was done in the comics (re: Primus, Unicron).

I've tried to give you as much constructive advice as I can about the threads you make, but it seems to fall on deaf ears. So I'm just gonna give up and join in with everyone else in just telling you just to shut up.

Well the thing is, you can claim that only your explanation makes sense, but the episode Autobot Camp pretty much confirms what I outlined in my first post.
It DOES establish the Autobots as a military organization, complete with boot camps, ranks, training drills, etc....
The superhero-ness of their fighting techniques have always been there since the beginning of Transformers fiction. The original G1 story was contrived by Marvel Comics. Which explains why there's a superhero feel to TF story, as everything since G1 has either been a continuation of that story or a reboot of it.

So the simple answer is that TFers have always fought like superheroes/villains, and probably always will. You can obsess over it, or you can accept it as a hallmark of the franchise, sit back, and enjoy the show.

But again, it's been pretty much established in the Animated-verse that the Autobots are a military organization and the Decepticons are a rebel faction. There's no "programming" that makes a Cybertronian one or the other. Again, this has been established as continuity, so anything you come up with needs to fit into the pre-established story.
'Cause what the writers say on the show > what a bunch of TF geeks say on a message board.

Yeah but it's never been so extreme that the Autobots don't even carry guns.

Now I'm seriously starting to wonder if I'm insane because a lot of the things that make perfect sense to me, come off as idiotic ramblings to other people.

It's a stylistic choice. The original name of the series was Transformers: Heroes, which pretty much references the fact that Optimus Prime and Co. act more like superheroes on Earth more so then they have in previous incarnations of the show. That was a stylistic choice on the writers' end of things, and that naturally carried over to the rest of the Autobots who weren't stationed on Earth. Again, it's just something you can obsess about, or accept.
I suggest that you accept it because that allows you to just sit back and enjoy the show.


If you honestly believe that Animated being set in Detroit will get kids shot in the RL Motor City, that Animated will convince kids to play carelessly in construction sites, and that Animated is sending a pro-outsourcing message because the Sumdacs are of Indian decent, then yes, I would call you insane.

That said, in your defence, this is one of your less "out there" topics/theories. True, it contradicts everything the writers have established, but as far as Hornet-isms go, it's not that offencive.

Are you people still clinging on to that? Those threads were total bullshot, just my means of ranting about the lack of realism when it came to some of the choices the writers made. I didn't like the idea of the cartoon taking place in Detroit because the real Detroit is a hellhole. The second was me complaining about how the Autobots were so reckless as to let a 10-year-old girl come along with them into dangerous situations and even considered her an official member of their team. The third was me complaining about how making most of the human characters minorities reeked of Political Correctness. I'm still annoyed that it seems like 95% of Detroit's population is dark-skinned minorities but 100% of their supervillains are white crackers.

You're looking at it from an Earthican point of view. Just because their weapons don't resemble OUR military weapons (and this is not always the case, see Blitzwing and Megatron) doesn't mean that they are not military weapons in nature.

There's a great book by Joe Haldeman, The Forever War. In it, mankind is at war with an alien race called the Taurans. In their first actual land battle, the Taurans use the only weapon they seem to have at their disposal...a building that opens up like a flower and belches bubbles in different directions. At first they seem innocuous until one bubble bumps into a human soldier's head and *pops*, killing the soldier. However, the bubbles are limited in that they hover a bout a meter off the ground, so all the humans have to do is stay low and use their lasers to cut the Taurans to pieces. The Taurans eventually wise up to the ways of ground combat and develop better weapons, including nuclear bombs. To counter this, the humans develop at generator that limits all molecular and atomic motion within a certain radius of the generator to something like 6 meters per second, which essentially renders all energy based weapons useless. An unshielded organism within the field would die instantaneously, so a special suit must be worn. In order to fight within the field, the humans resort to fighting with swords, bows and arrows, spears, shields etc. At first, the Taurans walk into the field and enter melee combat and get slaughtered. The Taurans develop a kind of throwing dart that they launch at the dome-shaped field). Once the dart enters the field, they slow to the limit allowed by the field, but are still lethal.

The point is, just because the weapons are not the kind that you point and pull a trigger, that does not automatically disqualify them as military weapons.

And, of course, it still is a tv show aimed at 7-10 year olds.

well hornet this is one of your more sane ideas but as we all know in established back ground material the transformers race were made by the quints as slaves or Primus now maybe those made my Primus had a justice league vibe going on but we don't know about that bar the very few we have seen being the Fallen and Victor Prime.

also in TFA two autobots did have guns Cliff Jumper he only had it for a bit but it was clearly a reference to the big gun he had in G1 once or twice and Omega Supreme who was a walking wall of missile bays and lasers . and as for the other special weapons in Autobot bootcamp they had them as tools before they joined the autobots and Ultra magnus is the commander of the whole army so its only logical he has some Super awesome thing.

Well I guess my main problem with all this is the "Bringing a knife to a gun fight" syndrome. Although if there were more Autobots like Omega Supreme, that would explain how they weren't completely overwhelm by the Decepticons in the Great War.

in the last episode I believe Ratchet did say if it were not for OS theirs a big chance they would not have won the great war

Aside from the "who says their weapons AREN'T military?" angle, I rather doubt that the average space bridge technician team carries around heavy weaponry on the off chance that, two million years after their defeat, the Decepticons attack them out of the blue and they're all transported to a distant planet teeming with organic life that the Autobots are honor-bound to protect.

He's talking more about Ultra Magnus, Jazz, Sentinel Prime and the Autobot Elite Guard, not Optimus Prime's repair team. But yes, 2 million years is a long time to wait.

It's best that we continue this conversation in PM now...