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Starscream found the benevolent Autobots and their self-righteous leader tremendously irritating. Outwardly, he was wont to scoff at their compassion and pretentious moral grandstanding.
What he truly could not fathom was why Optimus Prime’s seemingly boundless capacity for forgiveness did not extend to him.
For eons, he had witnessed the old fool try and appeal to emotions Megatron plainly did not possess, out of some puerile hope that he could talk him into developing a moral compass. No doubt that in all that time, Prime had in turn borne witness to the way Megatron treated his first lieutenant. Why, then, had he never considered Starscream a potential candidate for recruitment?
It confounded him. Certainly, Starscream was no saint, but every action carried out by him that the Autobots would deem objectionable had ultimately been in service to Megatron. No matter how one looked at it, it was glaringly apparent that the Decepticon leader was the greater evil.
So why? What made him deserving of redemption in Optimus Prime’s eyes, but not Starscream?
That was the real nucleus of his ardent hatred for his master’s mortal enemy; the one he kept concealed within the depths of his spark. That even he, in all his virtuosity, looked upon Starscream and saw nothing worth saving.
What could he glean from it, if not that he would never, ever be good enough?