Ah, a new addition to the forum section no one reads or cares about. I don't care. I have the flu (Yay!) and the meds are giving me some seriously demented dreams. So there were some things I was thinking of and I do not have enough wits about me to be constructive in a productive fashion. Capitalizing the letter i is proving to be a challenge tonight. Did i mention that I went to bed at 7:30 and woke up about the time I would be getting home from work? It's teh awesomes.
1. Transformers are cyborgs
Inside that giant sexy 10,000 piece CGI rendered body, there is an organic brain. Just a brain. The original Cybertronians were meatsacks just like the rest of us, but they found rather than cocking about with sentient computers and all that, it was easier to just hardwire an organic brain in a nanite built metal exo-body. The brain is sealed deep inside the torso, the most heavily protected section. The body is a form of self-image, like residual appearance as described in the Matrix. Why are there female robots (which makes zero effing sense) because the brain inside still labels itself female or male, or whatever gender. After a while, the brain looses the labels it applied to its fleshy body and the transformer in question becomes an androgynous 'male' type creation. The Mi-Go use human brains to operate their robots and machinery and I think this is a core concept from the movie Skyline (did anyone go and see that one?)
So the original transformers were split into peacetime operations (construction, mining, exploration, rescue, heavy industry) and military applications. Your transformer ambulance is going to get to the hospital faster and safer than an organic pilot driving it. Same goes for military applications, the self repairing sentient war machines are brutally effective and the tank-bot can go from long range combat with its main gun to CQC in a matter of seconds.
That is until things start going wrong. I imagine that criminals and volunteers would have gone first, the Cybertronian Elite Guard being decorated but maimed war veterans, and the mining and menial tasks being unredeemed criminals. This would last for a while, but as the ranks grow larger there is going to be dissidence and eventual rebellion. Given the cost of the procedure, once you join up, it is for the rest of your considerable existance and personal freedom is shot straight out the door. The Decepticons form from military bots that go AWOL, not hard to do when you can turn into a space capable fighter craft. The war escalates as more and more peacetime 'bots are pressed into defending Cybertron from rogue agents, while real rogues, operating in disguise as peacetime bots (hence that whole Decepti prefix) are promoting their anarchist agenda and liberated mind-slaved autobots.
Rather than join the Decepticons in slaughtering the Cybertronians, they fight to defend them. There are plenty who do join the decepticons, but not all of them. Plus the Decepticons have no qualms about bolstering their ranks by brain-stealing Cybertronians to make new Decepticons who are brain-slaved just like the original autobots. Your named Decepticons are sentient and self aware, while the nameless drones are just that, nameless drones that fight and execute orders as given by their masters.
The war takes on a huge scale as the Cybertronians control a vast network of worlds linked together via space bridges. one captured space bridge, and a Decepticon armada can invade in minutes. This shuts down commerce, and one by one, the world fall to the Decepticon onslaught. Many worlds survive with Autobot protectors, but these are the exception rather than the rule.
What does this mean in the long term?
Decepticons are warriors and destroyers. While there are groups like the Constructicons, there are not enough to go around to support dozens of Decepticon worlds. Like locusts, they can only survive on the pillaging of other established worlds. Hence, why they are interested in worlds as primitive as Earth. We can be their meat slaves, building things for them, as well as providing fresh meaty brains for more decepticons. Plus, they have discovered that a few humans have what it takes to become a named decepticon, not just another nameless drone.
So the Autobot worlds exist much like the Roman Empire, magnificent and massively built, connected with judiciously guarded space bridges, and often run in concert with as many organic races as possible. The Decepticons are the barbarians tribes, mostly milling about but becoming an impressive horde when a capable leader comes along and whips them into a semblance of order.
2. Transformer Eggs
The term is used loosely. The generative material (a packet of stem cell-nanites) is placed on a suitable host (aka a tank, vehicle, etc). The first order of business that the packet will create a shell around this object, and after ascertaining what it is and saving its pattern, breaks it down into a nanite sludge. After a while, an embryonic 'bot is formed, and the vesicle for holding the brain is created and extruded to the surface. The 'egg' will remain like this, dormant, near indefinitely. A fresh still living brain is then placed in the vesicle which is drawn back into the nanite core, where it is hard wired to the body and an energon based life support system. Once this period is complete, the new transformer emerges as either a low sentience drone, or a stumbling confused fully intelligent and self aware transformer. If they don't stumble and scream when they hatch, they are a drone. Autobots don't like to use drones, and prefer to make their new recruits from volunteers who are conditioned for the process. This means that while the Decepticons have the advantage of numbers, overall the quality of autobot forces is much higher.
