Work Text:
Transform and MARP
Intro
The Great War, the millions of years of battling between the Autobots and the Decepticons. The war has changed everything for the cybertronians and those they meet. Their relationships with each other as well as other groups is fraught at best. The Autobots, Decepticons, Humans, and Neutrals, who has the right idea about the war? Is direct involvement the best thing or is abstaining from the conflict entirely the right way to go? This is a question that can never be definitively answered, as there is no winner or moral high ground in war, the point of this essay is to examine all sides involved in this conflict and see who has committed the fewest atrocities. So who is in the right, Autobots, Decepticons, Humans, or Neutrals? Let's see.
The Transformers is a complex and dense franchise at this point. 38 years old and still pumping out content on the regular. In 38 years the transformers have seen many changes and many, many reboots and spin offs. In this essay, in order to make it more digestible I’ll try to keep my focus and examine the four versions I am most familiar with; Transformers Prime, The IDW comics, the original Transformers show, and Transformers Animated. In all these versions there are quite a few constants that I will be addressing in the rest of this paragraph, so for the uninitiated, consider this a mini crash course on the very basics of Transformers.
The Autobots are the main characters in all versions, they are heroic and work with the humans to protect earth and defeat the Decepticons. The Decepticons are the antagonists in all versions, in some they are more sympathetic but most of the time they are villainized or painted as villain of the week monsters for the Autobots to beat. The Humans are usually partners to the Autobots and, in the shows, are kids who teach the autobots about Earth and human customs, sometimes however, humans work with Decepticons in order to develop weapons derived from Cybertronian technology and biology, the only reason I included Transformers Prime in this is so that I could talk about M.E.C.H. In some continuities there are neutral groups of cybertronians who either chose not to join the war or defected from their side. Generally speaking the only neutrals we ever get to see exist in the IDW comics, because at the end of the day Transformers is a toy brand and no kid will understand the moral complexities of war and why some would choose to not take part. It's also a lot harder to market a toy that doesn’t have a faction you can group it with as either a hero or a villain.
The Autobots and Decepticons are at the center of the conflict and have been fighting for millions of years. Their battle usually reaches its climax when they crash on earth as they fight over the planet and it’s resources they get the humans involved in their war. Humans become a nuisance to the Decepticons and a great asset and upper hand to the Autobots while also sometimes serving as a weakness, since humans are a lot easier to kill than a Transformer. Meanwhile the neutrals are out on the fringes, presumably planet hoping and watching the war from afar. Some “neutrals” work as bounty hunters or arms dealers for both sides but usually more for the Decepticons. So now that you have a basic understanding of the world of the Transformers as well as the different stances we have to cover, let's get into it!
Autobots
When you hear the name Autobots a few things should pop into your head. Maybe well known characters like Optimus Prime or Bumblebee or maybe Optimus Prime’s own catch phrase; “Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.” While these are all fine and good things that might pop into your head, the very first thing to jump at you should be the words: the good guys. The Autobots are the good guys, the protagonists of every version of the brand, they heroically fight the decepticons and protect the humans from them. They are friendly and transform, mostly, into cars and other non combat oriented vehicles. They uphold peace and justice throughout the galaxy. Classic 80s good guys stuff. The autobots and decepticons have been fighting each other for millions of years, but are, seemingly, never any closer to their goal of retaking cybertron for the Autobots.
The autobots are driven by the idea of peace and freedom for all, they look for any peaceful solution they can find but usually are driven to fight back by the decepticon’s more aggressive approach. This leads a lot of Autobots to have a lot of bias and anger towards the decepticons and generalize their behavior even if they’ve never met a decepticon before. They see decepticons as purely hostile and dangerous no matter what. While this way of thinking isn't too far off base, they have the word deception in their name, it is very biased and close minded. They are driven by this negative perception of the decepticons to fight them tooth and nail, to keep them from taking over the galaxy and destroying anything in their wake.
In a few continuities, Prime and IDW, the autobots and decepticons came from the same roots. Having a corrupt and unfair government they were mostly working together to try and overturn their sentates. They ended up going about it in two opposite ways however, Orion Pax (aka Optimus Prime), a scholar and achrivest in the Prime continuity, wrote speeches and worked with Megatron to spread their ideas and garner support as more of a political party. However, their paths diverge, Megatron seeking violence against their oppressors for one reason or another and Orion turned Optimus left to stop him from spreading his destruction. Something interesting in the G1 show is their set up of the war and why the autobots and decepticons are fighting. It vastly differs from the newer interpretations, the Decepticons simply seem to crave violence against the peaceful Autobots, Meagtron is made as a weapon to kill the Autobot leader, they are purely evil and violent, more equipped for combat while the autobots are not. They are almost always at a disadvantage in terms of fire power and raw strength. In shows like Transformers animated, the Autobots are tiny in comparison to the Decepticons, who tower above even the largest of them. This furthers the power disparity between the two, the autobots however always seem to come out on top in the end.
Both the Autobot and Decepticons are heavily biased against each other. Millions of years of constant conflict have led them to draw many conclusions about each other, some of which are true and some of which are not. The autobots are strong believers in the concept of justice and do whatever they can to preserve the concept during their battle. This leads to the just world hypothesis as the autobots never seek to truly understand their enemy and assume they are doing bad things simply to do them. Most Autobots see the Decepticons as a menace that can't be reasoned with anymore. While Autobots like Optimus Prime are still open to negotiations and peaceful resolutions he still seems to firmly believe they are in the wrong and evil to an extent.
Another bias the Autobots suffer from in many iterations is the in group bias. There are bad eggs on both sides of the conflict but in many continuities it feels like the autobots unfairly excuse their own of wrong doings. In the IDW continuity the character Prowl is excused of his actions time and time again by Optimus Prime himself. While he always seems to have the best intentions in mind for “the greater good” he still does awful things, such as, but not limited to, placing self destructing chips in the heads of Decepticon post war prisoners, blowing cover on a post war earth and attacking recklessly both humans and Decepticons, as well as forcing fellow Autobots, Optimus Prime, Ironhide, Mirage, and Sunstreaker to combine with him to form a giant Transformer, named Optimus Maximus, against their wills. This last aggression seemed to shatter the last of Optimus’ faith in him as he was arrested again, with Optimus disappointed in his friend.
Prowl isn’t the only Autobot to do questionable things and get away with it however. In “The Death of Optimus Prime” from the IDW continuity, Autobots Sideswipe and Whirl attempt to assault a neutral and later in the same issue, Prowl issues and order for Autobots and Decepticon prisoners to attack and quell a protest by the Neutrals. This kind of bias isn’t only limited to the IDW comics however. In Transformers Animated the Autobot Sentinel Prime repeatedly put himself and others under his command in harms way to further his own political standing until he becomes the ruler of Cybertron after Autobot commander Ultra Magnus is attacked by Decepticon Shockwave and temporarily decommissioned and in critical condition. During his time in power he pumps out propaganda to the people of Cybertron, fostering distrust among them as he repeatedly warns of Decepticon spies living among them. While in canon, basically no one likes or trusts Sentinel Prime he is still allowed to do harm and get away with it relatively unskathed because of his high standing in the Autobot Elite Guard.
The Autobots and Decepticons have a long history between them. They have battled for, as I said before, millions of years and on countless planets without an end in sight. Their fight drove even their fellow Cybertronians away and forced them to flee the conflict destroying their world. The conflict only got worse when the groups left Cybertron though. Fighting on multiple planets until they land on Earth. The planet usually has an abundance of resources that both sides wish to exploit to an extent. The Autobots want to protect the organic life on the planet more than anything though. They often find themselves partnered with Humans toward this goal and their goal of defeating the Decepticons. The Autobots usually develop a huge soft spot for the humans, becoming friends and sometimes even family to the humans they meet and partner with. They have the most influence on humans because of this, they inadvertently drag them into their conflict and put them in danger time after time.
Decepticons
The Decepticons, the bad guys of every version. Destructive, cold and uncaring about who they hurt to get what they want. They consist mostly of working class cybertronians and fighters from the gladiatorial pits. They are stronger and far more sturdy than their autobot counterparts most of the time. They tend to adopt more combat oriented alt-modes, things like tanks, fighter jets, and other heavy artillery. There are a few notable exceptions however, those like Reflector or Soundwave who, traditionally, transform into smaller things like cameras and cassette players. In most modern versions of the Transformers the Decepticons have distinct aerial superiority, having more jets and seekers, who rain fire on the ground locked Autobots. However they never seem to be able to pull out a concise victory over the Autobots. This is because of the inner power struggle within the Decepticons. They function on a ‘strongest leads’ mentality so there's almost constant in-fighting between them. Most infamously the constant back and forth between Decepticon leader, Meagtron, and his second in command, Starscream. Starscream, in virtually every continuity, is making constant grabs at power, repeatedly stabbing Megatron in the back to get it and failing almost every time. This inner conflict often benefits the Autobots as either way one or both of their opponents end up injured. This combined with their overconfidence makes it hard for them to achieve their goals of universal domination and control of cybertron, let alone defeating the Autobots.
The Decepticons feel as though they are above most other life forms. They feel like, since they are the strongest they deserve to have claim to everything. They detest organic beings and have canonically committed a few genocides in the IDW comics. They believe that mechanical beings, and Cybertronians in particular, should be the only forms of life to exist. In Transformers More Than Meets The Eye, issue 51, Megatron says he “thought the universe should be armor-plated” also saying how he used to think there were only differences between organics and mechnoids. This dialogue is from after the war and after Megatron disowns the Decepticon cause but still offers an insight into what he, and by extension his followers, thought during the war.
As I mentioned in the Autobot’s stance, the Decepticons and Autobots have similar roots. Both wanting to overthrow their corrupt government or rulers but going about it in very different ways. Megatron started out in many versions as friends with Optimus, working together and delivering speeches. Megatron however, gradually becomes more violent and bloodthirsty, usually doing something drastic, like killing a senator or something, and starting the war in earnest between the Decepticons and Autobots. Megatron rose and survived in the gladiatorial pits of Kaon so naturally he was a lot stronger than your average Cybertronian, in IDW it’s later revealed that he is a Point One Percenter, a rare and incredibly powerful spark type in Transformers.
The Decepticons are quick to blame their failures on others, whether it's the Autobots or fellow Decepticons, they’d all rather have a scapegoat while talking to Megatron about why they failed this time. Even Megatron has this self-serving bias, blaming Starscream’s incompetence whenever a plan fails and neglecting his own. This combined with their optimism bias, which comes from their near constant underestimation of the Autobots, often leads to their failure. They feel that since they are larger and stronger than the Autobots that they won't have any difficulties achieving their goals, but constantly get outsmarted and outplayed by the Autobots with the help of their human companions. On multiple occasions in Transformers Prime, the human kids sneak aboard the Decepticons warship and steal information right out from under them, delivering it to the Autobots and helping to thwart many plans. If the Decepticons were to take them more seriously and see them as more than Autobot “pets” maybe they would be able to win more, but their bias clouds their judgment.
The Decepticons have some interesting relationships to the other stances. They attack the human cities but don’t usually take interest in killing individual humans unless they are threatening the Autobots and using humans as leverage against them. Sometimes they even work with humans to further their own agenda. In G1 there are a few times where they team up with humans, the villains from G.I. Joe as well as mad scientist types, to help take over the world and enslave mankind to harvest energy for them. The Decepticons are also far from friendly to Neutrals, attacking any they come across. The Autobots and Decepticons are bitter enemies, the Decepticons despise the Autobots and see them as hypocrites and goodie two shoes. They fight in the name of conquest and see the Autobots as an annoyance and rarely as a threat to them since the Autobots aren’t known for killing Decepticons. They delight in the extermination of those they view as lesser.
Humans
Humans in the Transformers universe are basically the same as they are in real life. They usually fall in the middle of the Autobots and Decepticons war, discovering its existence and then either being killed by the Decepticons or protected by the Autobots. The latter of which is obviously more of what we’ll be talking about here. They are partners to the Autobots and help in any way they can, typically these humans are children put into the protection of the Autobots, I.e. Jack, Miko and Raph from Transformers Prime, Sari from Transformers Animated, and the Witwicky family from G1. The Autobots also often work with the government and military against the Decepticons and other alien threats. The Government can give them a place to stay in exchange for a certain amount of control over what they can and can’t do or certain status reports. In Transformers Prime the Autobots reside in a converted missile silo and make regular check-ins with a government agent, Agent Fowler. Human organizations, such as the government and terrorist organizations like M.E.C.H., are also very interested in Cybertronian biology and using them to create their own weapons to fight back against them and use against each other. To this end, some humans will team up with the Decepticons instead, in an exchange for technology and resources. While humans and Transformers have learned a lot from each other over their partnership, both sides would probably be better off having never interacted with the other. The Transformers, free to carry out their war without human interference on either side, and the humans, content with their everyday lives. Neither any the wiser to the others existence.
The humans traditionally have a very close relationship with the Autobots. They trust and believe in them without much doubt being presented. This is probably because of the moral ambiguity of war and also that the human partners to the Autobots are almost always children who can be a lot more trusting and quick to form attachments. This leads into their bias for the Autobots, seeing them as freedom fighters or heroes, instead of soldiers in a seemingly unending war started long before humanity even came to be. They also only get the Autobot perspective of the war, the stories of Decepticons maiming and killing Autobots left and right, only sometimes hearing or seeing how the Autobots too could be in the wrong or their shared origins. In Animated it's more understandable since the war had happened prior to the show, with the Decepticons “defeated” and essentially kicked off Cybertron. The only Autobot with actual combat experience against Decepticons in the main cast is the grumpy old medic, Ratchet, who tries to avoid talking about it. As for humans who are more concerned with the advancement of technology, they could care less about the Autobots and Decepticons fight. All they see is advanced technology begging to be developed, derived from the Transformer’s own weapons and biology. Humans don’t really care about who wins per say, they really just want them off their planet. Their world was turned into a covert battle ground and the government isn’t a huge fan after a while.
It’s natural for humans to fear what they don’t understand and needless to say, they would not understand giant transforming alien robots right away, if ever. Since the Autobots are more open to conversation they get to tell their side of the story and unconsciously pit the humans against the Decepticon, just like them. This helps to develop the genetic fallacy against both sides. The humans, especially the government, doesn't always feel like they can trust the Autobots because at the end of the day they are still very similar to the Decepticons. While they are more likely to have the idea more for the Decepticons, they can sometimes develop it in distrust for the Autobots. Earth isn’t always really their home the way it is for human’s. The Transformers don’t need air or water so they don't need Earth the way humans do.
Another misconception for most humans is composition/division. When the human partners meet another Autobot, they expect them to be like all the others they've met to that point, heroic or brave or nice, but this isn’t always the case. Some Autobots don’t care about the humans and some of them aren't as nice as the main cast members. Sentinel Prime, from Transformers Animated, is an Autobot who hates organics. Most Cybertronians are actually scared of organics in Transformers Animated, having never really met any before or thinking they're all gross and do things like spit goo that will melt through their plating. Team Prime, the main cast, quickly adapt to the humans and come to understand them over time, but Sentinel never really does, even after multiple trips to and from earth, he still views humans as gross organics. As such the main humans in the show don’t view him much better. There are also a fair amount of reckless Autobots who put human lives in danger more often than would be acceptable.
Humans and Autobots have a long history of being friends and even family for as long as the franchise has been around. Working together to thwart the Decepticons and helping each other come to a shared understanding of the other. The Autobots are their allies and they trust them to protect them and Earth from the Decepticons. They obviously really don't like the Decepticons in any version. They destroy their cities and repeatedly try to enslave or kill them. In Transformers Prime, the organization M.E.C.H. works with, then ex decepticon, Starscream to trick and lure Autobot Bumblebee to them so that they can study him and remove his T-cog, an organ essential for transformation, and use it to create their own weapons. When they are thwarted and the T-cog is destroyed they turn on Starscream and end up taking his. They don’t care about their war and just want the parts to make their own weapons. Humans and neutrals basically never interact. There is kind of one exception though, in the IDW comics, post war, Thundercracker lives with his dog, Buster, on earth and has human acquaintances and friends from the government. He just lives there and writes screenplays most of the time and they don't seem to care that he used to be a Decepticon too much. Humans have the most impact on the Autobots though, changing the way they view organic life and teaching them a bunch of things about Earth and organic life in general. Humans are a very broad group but for the most part they are firmly sided with the Autobots.
Neutrals
Neutrals are a very uncommon but interesting group of Transformers. Only really present in the IDW comics, they are groups of Cybertronian natives who chose to not join a side in the war. They left Cybertron during the early times of the war, fleeing and seeking refuge on other planets. They don’t like either side, feeling that both are equally responsible for the current state of their homeworld and other species' view of them.In the comics, after the war, all Cybertroninas are called by some mysterious force to “come home” and the Neutrals are less than happy with what they come back to. Cybertron has turned wild and the Autobots are occupying the planet as the winners of the war, trying to set up a government. The comic kind of devolves into a political drama at that point. The NAILS, as Prowl calls them, hold a protest against the Autobots, calling for them to leave the planet, since they feel it's their fault that Cybertron ended up like this and they view them as a symbol and constant reminder of the war. One neutral protester even goes as far as to transform himself to death.
In other continuities, the closest we get to Neutral Cybertronians are, very arguably, Swindle and Lockdown from Transformers Animated. Swindle is an arms dealer, selling weapons to whichever side pays the most, however, he does have a Decepticon badge and is more aligned with them. Lockdown however is a bounty hunter, working in his own interest and the interest of those who pay him. In one instance Sentinel Prime pays him to round up all the Decepticon fugitives on earth for him so that he can take the credit later. Lockdown also likes to hunt down bots who have special tech that he finds useful, i.e. Ratchet’s EMP generator and Optimus’ Axe and grapplers.
The neutrals in the IDW comics believe that both sides have their own faults and are equally responsible for the destruction of cybertron and their bad reputation across the universe. When they come back to Cybertron they feel like they have to serve Optimus Prime and the Autobots, upset that they came all this way back to their home only to find it in ruins because of the combined actions of the Autobots and Decepticons. Tensions only rise after the apparent combustion of an outgoing ship, the Lost Light ( a ship captained by Autobot, Rodimus, and occupied by hundreds of other Autobots seeking to get away from Cybertron and find the long lost Knights of Cybertron). While the crew and ship were mostly ok, from the ground perspective it looked like the ship had blown up instead of quantum jumping. This put the neutrals on edge, thinking the Lost Light was sabotaged by the new Autobot government as a warning to others looking to leave again. They don’t trust either side to rule over Cybertron and would rather they both left like they had to.
The neutrals are definitely guilty of being bystanders. Not wanting to commit to a side or get involved but still wanting the war to come to an end. They figure that one of the two factions will win but that in the end it doesn’t matter which side wins and that it isn't really their problem. They also believe that the Autobots and Decepticons are way too divided and that they let their divide affect them even after the war is over. They blame factionalism for the current state of affairs and they blame the Autobots and Decepticons actions for what happened to the planet. The neutral representative, Metalhawk, believes they can find a middle ground, a compromise for neutrals, Autobots and Decepticons alike, if they work together.
As I said before, when the Neutrals come back to Cybertron after the war is over, they are very upset with the state of the planet and those already occupying it. They want the Autobots, specifically Optimus Prime gone, banished off planet, and the Decepticons gone as well, but since the Decepticons are imprisoned the only ones to direct this anger and hatred towards are the Autobots. They hold protests outside their base, they vastly outnumber both the Autobots and Decepticons. They are met with violence from both sides, being attacked by Autobots and Decepticons during their protests. They dislike both sides but as I said before we see more of their disdain for the Autobots than the Decepticons. Decepticons would attack neutrals if they found them while Autobots left them alone. Their protests work more or less though as the Autobot leader, Optimus Prime, agrees to leave Cybertron if the neutrals allow for the rest of the Autobots to stay if they wish. He exiles himself and goes on his own quest, leaving Cybertron in the hands of Bumblebee, Prowl and Metalhawk. They are later joined by Starscream, who makes friends with Metalhawk and later backstabs him, taking over as representative to the neutrals and banishing the remaining Autobots and Decepticons to the Cybertronian wilderness. They avoid the other factions as much as they can during the war and never get to interact with the humans.
Personal Stance
Now it's my turn to deliver my final verdict and spit some opinions out here. I’ll just be going over my opinions on every stance and sort of disproving them as we go in the same order that they are listed above. But before we jump in I’ll give a bit of background on myself and how I’m connected or qualified to write this I guess. I’ve been a Transformers big fan for a little over, maybe, two years at this point? I started with watching Transformers Animated and then just went from there. It's a really big and interesting franchise to dive into, there's basically a version of Transformers for everybody, not to mention the overabundance of characters that the brand has accumulated over the years as well. It feels like a well that never runs dry, they constantly put out new stuff and even if the new stuff doesn't satisfy or interest you there's always more stuff from the brands past to look into. Over my two years I’ve consumed a decent chunk of Transformers media and even more than normal thanks to the pandemic. From Transformers G1 to Beast Wars to the comics and obscure wiki entries, I’ve seen a lot of stuff. So when we were allowed to pick anything we wanted to write about for this essay, naturally I gravitated towards a franchise I knew but also wanted to learn even more about. So that’s why I’m here today, to answer that burning, controversial question. Who is in the right?
Autobots
The heroic Autobots, protectors, warriors of justice. They fight back against the Decepticons and protect Earth and humanity from destruction. They aren’t exactly in the clear though, in Transformers Prime, Optimus Prime throws the Allspark, an artifact capable of creating new Transformers life, through a space bridge, sending it to the Theta Scorpii system and essentially preventing the birth of new Transformers for the rest of the war. The fact that this happens in several iterations isn’t exactly the best look for our “heroes”. Not to mention the countless other worlds they've let be exploited and destroyed by the Decepticons. The Autobots aren’t clean on Earth either, causing serious property damage with every battle and destroying human artifacts and museums in the name of getting what they need from the area. In the IDW comics they don't even seem to help clean up their mess, cutting ties with earth and leaving as soon as they see the need, destroying anything they might leave behind and then coming back years later to act like nothing happened more or less. They act essentially in their own self interest before those they promised to protect. While their human allies may disagree they are also cray biased towards the Autobots. It's like when someone tells you something bad your friend did and you dont believe them or try to make excuses for that person. The way they tend to generalize Decepticons, even outside of war times, isn’t exactly helping them either. While they may be enemies, they should still try and give them the benefit of the doubt. Especially post war while they're trying to finally settle their differences and quell future conflicts. However, overall the Autobots are leagues better than the Decepticons. Speaking of.
Decepticons
The Decepticons are very objectively wrong in many, many ways, but we're still gonna talk about them cause I like them as a concept to a point. Specifically the IDW version of the Decepticons I think are really fascinating. They essentially started as an anti corrupt government group and were later granted the status of a political party. They rallied around Megatron for his words, they all could relate to what he wrote, unhappy with their current lot in life and wanting to do whatever they wanted instead of their roles and jobs being government assigned to them based on their alt-modes. His words resonated with so many and were so powerful that the government tried to covertly silence him through shadow play and mind manipulation. They were right to be scared of him and soon the rest of the Universe was as well. While the Decepticons actions are basically unjustifiable and unforgivable, they wiped out entire races and killed probably billions, they weren’t always like that. In the Lost Light comic series, a group of Decepticons called the Scavengers, reminisce about the early days of the Decepticon movement and the war, when they thought what they were fighting for was still right, before the mass murderers and sycopaths claimed the Decepticons as their own. While the Scavengers are by no means angels they certainly are better than a group like the DJD (Decepticon Justice Division, responsible for hunting down and eliminating anyone they deem traitors and deserters to the Decepticon cause) or even the Constructicons (combiner team, “committed atrocities on Varas Centralus”).
Then there are the functionists, who I would’ve loved to add as a Stance but they aren’t exactly around for the war. The Functionists are who Megatron and the Decepticons were fighting against at first. They believe that a Transformers alt-mode is, essentially, a gift from god and that it determines what you are destined to do in life and for Cybertron as a whole. Anything they see as a deviation from the divine plan will be punished. They did terrible things and would have continued to do them if not for the Decepticon movement and subsequent downfall of their power. In Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye issue 38, Autobot Rewind, an archivist with basically the entire Transformers timeline shoved in his head, shoots and kills Megatron (ok this is gonna sound stupid but I’m gonna explain here cause its important to my argument. SO, time travel shenanigans, the main group of Autobots from More Than Meets the Eye go back in time to stop their “friend” Brianstorm from (they think) killing Optimus Prime. Later though, they find out he actually intends to kill Megatron before he was properly put together (he's cold constructed which means that he's made in a factory, kind of, by other Transformers) so that the Decepticons never form and the war never happens. He does this all to save his crush but it doesn’t really work out), explaining that even though Cybertron will remain under functionalist rule, the rest of the galaxy won’t have to experience their war and countless races of aliens will be spared. We even get to see that world (cause time travel/alternate dimension shenanigans) in Transformers: Lost Light issues 1-6 and they come back again later in issues 22-24, and their world is not great. Alt-modes that they no longer see a use for get recalled and disposed of all the time, constantly putting people on edge, wondering if they'll be next. In short, they are the fun police and they are no good.
Humans
Humans are irrational and emotional beings by nature, and that's no different in the world of the Transformers. Might even be more true than in real life since it's a bunch of middle aged guys writing teens and children characters. The humans have a few of the same problems as the Autobots, being close minded and slightly irrational. When they meet the Autobots and the Decepticons they team up with the Autobots, mainly because they protect them from the Decepticons. They help the Autobots in their fight anyway they can, they see them as friends and even family, offering them a home when they have none left. I feel like the humans in the Transformers shows are kind of really stupid. They are super forgiving of the Autobots despite the property damage but obviously they'd rather have their lives than a building if they had to choose. However, The Autobots are really the ones responsible for dragging them into the war, humans get caught in the crossfire and just pick the side less likely to kill them on purpose. While their friendship is real and both parties clearly care for eachother I can’t help but feel like it’d be better for them both if they had never interacted in the first place. Their unwavering belief in the Autobots is also kind of misplaced, they never get the full scope of the conflict or an unbiased telling of the origins of the conflict. I feel like they simply don’t have the required information that a viewer would have. Not that it really matters though, since the decepticons are cartoonishly evil all the time so it's not like they would help them ever.
Neutrals
Neutral groups are also kind of boring to debate against just because of the lack of them and how middle of the road they are. They just don't do anything substantial during the war except staying out of it somehow. So, they see themselves as more free than the other two, not being bound by lofty ideals or the threat of war and death, they simply exist and drift through the universe. I’d love a series or comic focusing on a neutral group of cybertronians navigating the universe in the midst of the war, but unfortunately we don’t have that to my knowledge. What we do have however are a group who think they are above the crimes committed by their counterparts in the name of freedom. They think they are better for not doing anything to stop their corrupt government or fight the Decepticons, returning in the aftermath expecting a fixed world where they can seamlessly integrate again and start anew. They expect change for the better to just happen without their interference, they just want things but almost never stand up or work to make them happen. There are neutrals who were part of one of the two factions but decided to defect, probably due to being tired or disagreeing with the actions of their side. Those neutrals I can understand a bit more, they tried for change but that hopeless feeling or that disgust overtook that desire. At the end of the day though they come off as ungrateful towards the Autobots, who fought for them and their shared home, while doing nothing to benefit or hinder either side.
Conclusion
This might be a bit of a let down. I'm not gonna lie. Even after I’ve gone through all these different ideas and viewpoints I still feel roughly the same. The group that is in the right the most is the Autobots. Despite everything I think they still have the best morals and ideas, for the most part the Autobots are friendly and caring, they protect as many humans as they can whenever they can and work to understand the humans they live alongside better. Their main belief is freedom for all, how can you reasonably disagree with that? This is war though and nobody is one hundred percent right about everything, the Autobots just have the best approach to most things. They are the heroes and protectors and even if they don’t always do the right thing they are working for it and don’t let anything stop them, whether it's the Decepticons, the Quintessons, or Unicron himself. Finally, they have the most memorable catchphrase, so, Autobots, Transform and roll out!