[Snowflakian]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MESH

I wonder if humanity were mindless creatures born to serve a certain creator only to revolt after gaining awareness and building their own societies - reminds me of Assassins creed dogma.

Well, much of the lore is different between universes on transformers.

In the aligned continuity, the basis is on Allspark and primus, and sentience/'humanity' was there at 'birth'.

With some of the offshoots of aligned continuity, it was a caste system. Not much removed from similar aspects of similar highborn concepts in fantasy literature and aspects from some cultures.

In G1 cartoon continuity, it was workers and military. With military seeking universal domination, but workers wanting freedom to be who they are. And a civil war erupting because workers had to fight to maintain that freedom.

In Marvel continuity, it varies per writer. And IDW continuity is closer to aligned continuity.

As others said though, you're thinking of it too much as manufactured products given an AI. Cybertronian life forms are more like living robots. The sentience aspect is the same as humans, but only imposed on a different kind of life form instead of how we view carbon based life forms like we are.

They are prone to the same emotions as humans or any alien race really. Same concepts and goals, same emotions, same problems.

It's the same as looking at it from any anthromorphized perspective. TMNT, thundercats, he-man, Gumball, whatever. The outer shell may be different, but the core components are still based in the same aspects of humans. Anxieties, fears, hopes, dreams, goals, passions, intelligence, and circumstances.

From those core aspects, then you factor in personality aspects, how they achieve those things, and what's unique to their species for how they approach things. How does their sensory input vary. Like for example, a werewolf may have an increased sense of smell and hearing. A cybertronian may have larger ranges of sight than simple normal human optical input. They may have easier reaches to things like night vision or thermal vision, zooming capabilities, or even trajectory calculations. These aspects are innate though and as diverse as say humans are to math and science.

The only limit is in how you approach it or think of it. If you think of them as unfeeling cold alien machines, then yeah, it's harder to relate to them, but if you see them for the 'human' universal aspects of sentient life forms, then you can start seeing how much the same they are.

So yeah, don't think of them as Godzilla which is more animal instincts centered, and think of them more as humans that have precision capabilities. They aren't lumbering slow giants either. They can be as precise as ballet dancers and gymnasts, but also do vary as much as people do, and some areas are lumbering giants. Combiners for example, are lumbering giant bruiser class personas. But individually, they are more like people in their movements and personas and variations or even clumsiness aspects or obliviousness.

Think less hollywood's trend of adding a human component for the entry way, and think more like Doctor Who's "we're all the same even if the outer shell is different." Or think more towards star wars as an example. The outer guiding of circumstance are metaphors to similar everyday concepts across our globe.

Spike Witwicky worked as an entry-way in G1 because he was the same as the autobots. He was a construction worker pulled into this war. Same as optimus prime/orion pax was a dock worker pulled into a war. So as an entry-way, Spike and Sparkplug were there to show how much of the same they were to the Autobots. They were a view to show how related the concepts were, though yes acted as a form of audience entry point, but not so much on the human element as a universal element. This is why it's removed heavily in season 3 and even some in season 2. We start seeing more of how 'human' concepts are universal. Space casinos and bounty hunters and more. But at the end of G1 we see that turnaround. That construction worker that was pulled into a war not of his making is now one of the most powerful autobots seeking peace and an end to fighting so he can rest. So essentially, the metaphor is blue collar everyman pulled into becoming a larger than life leader for freedom.

In more recent alterings, Orion was a librarian, a person of learning, pulled into a war when all he wanted before was to start change in the caste system for larger freedom of choice because he saw something that was unfair in the dynamic and treatment of others.

Movie universe we've never gotten a clear depiction of the origin of the war on screen. Outside material varies too much to say which is accurate.

Hope that helps. But that's the main thing you need to look at. The metaphor and not so much the literal. Once you get that metaphor usage, you can expand to large degrees of vast areas, because the metaphor will create the relation point for you to understand it.