#Mini-Cons

[askvectorprime]

Where do the names "Autobot" and "Decepticon" even come from? Are there any sort of root words that go with them?

Dear Etymology Enthusiast,

This answer is complicated by language barriers that span galaxies. As Galvatron alluded to—albeit in tones I would never use—Cybertronian words can be very linguistically dense; a translation that conveyed every nuance of our equivalent for "Autobot" would take over seventeen minutes for a human to say! As such, "Autobot" and "Decepticon" are only approximations of the neocybex names of these factions.

In many universes, my faction is named for the ideals of freedom and autonomy—hence, "Autobot" is derived from the term "autonomous". Sometimes this reflects a casting off of Quintesson rule or triumph over a caste system, but in other contexts—sometimes simultaneously—it reflects a darker facet of Cybertronian history. A famous bot once said that autonomy was a gift, a spark of sentience kindled by Primus himself. That bot's name was Nova Prime, and he used that belief to justify the subjugation of hundreds of alien worlds.

The suffix translated as "-bot" encompasses ideas such as "person", "individual", "independent agent". It could be considered an adaptation of the common English-language "man", of course—you might be familiar with the Aerialmen, the Dinomen, and the Sparkamen—but "bot" conveys that it most commonly refers to mechanical lifeforms. While typically used in the names of teams and factions, occasionally an individual might be called "Dinobot" or "Dreadbot"; such sobriquets can be seen as similar to a human being carrying a family name as their first name, such as "Jackson".

As for "Decepticon"… much has been said of the phrase "you are being deceived." In many universal clusters, this is indeed the earliest origin of the term. "Decepticon" suffers to a greater degree from the imperfections of localization. In many universes, Cybertronian language uses nuances related to subject and object that fail to translate, especially when neologism is concerned; "Decepticon" principally suggests "deceptive" in English, but in its original Cybertronix, the waveform can simultaneously be read as "the deceived".

The "-con" suffix is not dissimilar to "-bot", though it carries subtly but significantly different implications. "Person" is an adequate translation, but its meaning is much broader, not being restricted to living creatures; you may know of data-cons, information storage devices commonly used in my home reality. The closest equivalent to the suffix in your language would be "entity"—or, more bluntly, "thing". As such, the translation "-con" is derived from your language's "construct", a created object or idea.

The reasoning for the use of this suffix varies across the multiverse. On versions of Cybertron where Functionism took hold, Cybertronians of lower labor castes, or with alternate modes considered fit only for use by others, were more likely to have "con" names or be assigned categories like "Constructicon", "Agricon" or "Recordicon". Conversely, in universes where the Decepticons originate as a military junta, the use of "-con" carries the suggestion of component; all Decepticons are considered to be a part of Megatron's war machine. These implications, of course, carry over to the Mini-Cons. While I am proud to count Safeguard as a friend and partner, for much of my world's history, Decepticon and Autobot alike treated his kind as "smart tools", as mere objects to be collected. Regardless, the Great War created extreme political polarization of the "-con" suffix, and nearly no self-described Autobot adopts it; even as Decepticons freely use "bot" to describe themselves, "con" is almost exclusively used by Autobots as a term of animosity.

One more suffix you may have heard of is "-tron"; here, the root is "positron"—which, before the introduction of microscope alt-modes, we simply understood to be the stuff of sparks. The Cybertron factions of realities like the G1 World and BT World draw their names from a well of indigeneity; unlike the invading, colonizing Quintessons, the Cybertrons are the true sparks of the planet and derive their name thus. The Destrons, then, are destructive sparks who oppose the planet. Naturally, "-bot" and "-con" recur in these worlds too, following similar etymological patterns.

[prince-toffee]

The Never-Ending-Battle Begins Anew | Transformers: Armada (2002) | #1 | Foil-Cover Art by Don Figueroa | Colours by Ramil Sunga

[siphersaysstuff]

FORTY YEARS!

As we reluctantly trudge into 2025, that means we've had FOUR DECADES of Transformers toys released globally with no breaks. So for January's Patreon-backed @tfwiki picture update, let's check out some toys from each of the major franchise chunks across TF history! Strap in!

I know it's an odd choice, but G1's representative is 1993's Europe-only Lightformer DEFTWING. But I think it's a fine example of TF's subteam gimmicks, the franchise's longevity even before the nostalgia boom, global reach, and its ever-evolving aesthetic.

(And as an personal-type note, this completes the Lightformers/Trakkons on the wiki, toy-pic-wise. Finally, all user-provided pics rather than crunchy old book scans. I love it when I can complete a team/theme like that.)

Beast Wars was a drastic change meant to save a dying line. And boy oh boy did it do that. Toys like 1997's B'BOOM mix "realistic" animal styling with super-posability and play gimmickry. Oh, also? This guy, a bit bigger than a modern Voyager, was $15. How's that make ya feel?

Car Robots/Robots in Disguise translated BW tech into classic TF Earth-vehicle alt-modes... with varying levels of success. WILDRIDE, aka X-BRAWN, here in a con-exclusive clear "transitional" state from regular to "Super" mode, is one of the better attempts.

The "Unicron Trilogy" really pushed toy-play gimmickry, and Armada's Mini-Cons are easily the best representative of the era. And Armada BLACKOUT (here in Powerlinx colors) embodies the versatility of their play pattern, with dedicated interactions with Demolishor.

The live-action movies were also a huge change in TF toys, both refining complexity and working some interesting gimmick & design challenges. 2007's DROPKICK is from the tie-in video games, and is a fun angry dude. The Bumblebee movie guy too? Maybe! Why not?

Animated's radical aesthetic shift had BW levels of immediate rejection followed by sudden glowing (and deserved) praise. SAMURAI PROWL shows off the tight coordination between the show and toy teams, making a complex design into a dang fun toy!

Prime kicked off the "Aligned" era, a massive reboot that formed the foundations of TF mythology going forward. New bots kept coming like AIRACHNID, here in her TakaraTomy "Arms Micron" release. And like other newcomers, proved popular enough to jump to other series!

Cyberverse used "evergreen" designs in a further shift to more kid-aimed TFs, which had started after Prime with Rescue Bots and Robots in Disguise 2015. ALPHA TRION embodies this with a much chunkier, simpler, action-gimmicky toy.

And now it's EarthSpark, focused on a new generation of TFs... but not all of them are nice! Chaos Terran SPITFIRE embodies the increased number of female TFs in the line... and the longstanding practice of redecoed toys as new characters, being a recolor of Twitch.

40 dang years. And I'll keep on going through it to bring more toy pics throughout its wide history for as long as I can. If you like these explorations and want to help out, consider contributing to my Patreon! Every little bit helps. You can find it at

"gregstfwikipics" at patreon dot com

[pocoslip]

How I imagine Hot Shot and his Mini-Con Partner are like after reading Jolt's Bio

[bigangrytrev]

Transformers Collection - Armada

Big Angry Trev and his Armada (toys) And so the great undertaking of cataloging my massive collection continues! Armada was a really fun Transformers toyline.  It introduced a whole new race of Transformers – Mini-Cons, who could attach to larger Transformers to unlock new abilities.  It also gave fans what we had been waiting for for nearly 20 years – a Unicron toy!   Transformer Armada Autobot…

[driver270]

Mini Party 🤖☕️

I threw in every Transformers toy I had that was smaller than Legion/Legends/Core Class at the time. This includes Botbots, Siege Battle Masters, Siege Micromasters, Titan Masters, Prime Masters, Mini-Cons from RID2015, a Hello Kitty Q-Transformer, and Combiner Wars Minimus Ambus.

[shadowwingtronix]

Christmas Decorations 2024

The Clutter Reports' Christmas Decorations 2024, including another Transformers Christmas tale.

[waterthatsmoe]

"Yuu, do you think we'll be together in every universe...?"

"Every universe, except this one"

[checkadii]

too lazy to grab a ref whatever girl

[egophiliac]

HOLY COW??? thank you guys, that went. a lot faster than I expected. (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ✲ﾟ｡⋆ we'll see how this goes and, if all goes well, we might try this again at some point! (<- don't worry, if it becomes a longer-term thing it'll get its own place! this blog will still be 99% art/1% inane tag novellas about anime characters, never fear)

--

ice cream on a stick(er)! after having made a whole bunch of stickers for various other things, I thought I would see if anyone wants some of my art...stuck to their stuff???

this is still pretty much an experiment, so I just made a few each of the head boys for now as a test set! it should all be set up properly (theoretically the cart and combined shipping should be working as intended) but this is still in (waves hands) stage, so. we'll see! how it goes! ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

shop link: [ link ]

if you hit any problems feel free to shoot me a message here or through canterlot@gmail.com -- once again, this is just kind of tryin' some stuff out, so I'll do my best to work out anything that pop up! thank you! 💚💜💚

[neonross]

Baby Dee is just so little. He’s so tiny. Whenever he doesn’t want to be held do they have to tie some sort of tree branch to him so they can keep track of him. Just a large stick bobbing along as he explores.

they proly installed a tracker on him at somepoint

[siphersaysstuff]

MAY MECH MARATHON

So for May's Patreon-backed @tfwiki toy picture batch, I got a wild hair. After last month's Exdimensions update, I realized that the wiki was missing Legend of the Microns (Armada) Exdimensions Twist (Makeshift), the only XD Emergency Team toy I hadn't done. So I did him up. Hooray!

Then the next day I was staring at the raw photos I took of Retro Hot Rod, which were in my Patreon "working" folder because I didn't have a "Retro" repository folder because I am almost certainly not going to get any others in this line, so I did his pic up... besides, it's the "flagship" toy of the line, it should get unique imagery. God he's gorgeous.

At that point I went " to hell with it" and decided that for each weekday in May, I'd do one toy pic from a random, whatever-I-felt-like selection. No overarching theme, and trying to hit a pretty broad swath of toylines and timeframes. Thus...

Not sure why I picked Universe Magna Stampede next. I actually had to dig him up to take these pics. I think I'd just chanced upon his stock imagery, which was craptastic and also showed the axe split in two, which I'm certain the toy is not supposed to do, and went "no, I'm'a fix this.

And this last week's updates...

I picked up Decoy Smokescreen for cheap at TFCon, and really, the wiki's Decoy coverage has been... lacking. Mostly in that they were sold in so many colors and different ways in Japan that the wiki barely touches on. Smokescreen's page is now the template for how Decoys should be, so I'll get to those in time.

There's not much story here with Animated Lugnut. Most of the wiki's Animated toy imagery is stock, and while stock quality had improved since 2003 (it'd almost have to), it's still not great. Taking pics of the real, final-release toy will almost always be preferable for a number of reasons.

Takara's Mega Super Collection Figure Starscream was part of the big early-2000s burst of G1 merch in Japan. A 5-inch fairly-posable soft-plastic figure with swappable parts, he and a handful of other big-name characters were made, plus several Legends of the Microns headliners.

Power Up VT6 is from the "Real Gear Robots" subline of the 2007 Transformers movie series, one of a large range of 1:1-scale toys that transform from personal electronic devices into robots. He's also one of the few whose altmode is not almost totally outdated. The Cybertron-based stickers on the early Real Gears led to the belief that these were canceled /re-assigned Cybertron toys, but nope! They were made specifically for the movie line, it's just that in order to get them into production, they had to get those decals out fast.

Remember Attacktix? No? Not shocking. Hasbro had an admittedly cool idea for an action tabletop game, started the line with Star Wars, and moved on to Transformers. Yes, officially, you could have Optimus Prime fight Darth Vader. Battle Ravage was one of the booster-pack common pieces (laughably officially "Rare"). You rolled his base forward a set number of "tix" (a clicky-thing in the base counted them off), then could use his spring-loaded waist to swing the mace-ball in the hopes of knocking over your opponent's pieces. There's other rules but that's the jist of it. Each booster-pack piece commonly came with a black base, but there was a roughly 1-in-8 chance of getting a silver-chrome base one, which had no gameplay differences but it was shiny. Sadly, the whole Attacktix line was cancelled after only one series of Transformers pieces were released, with several more based on Generation 1 shown off but doomed to never see release.

Next Saturday, I'll update with the pics done over the course of this coming week!

And remember, if you like these big pic jaunts, you can help make this bigger and better by tossing a tip via Patreon. Just look up "gregstfwikipics" at that site! You can even help pick a monthly theme!

[pocoslip]

YAY a Ramhorn Toy that Turns into a Cassette and Not some Blaster

(Its a Shame Ramhorn's Missiles and Tail does Not Store in his Cassette Mode)

[rombitzy]

🩵

[blossom-beast]

FREAK ARMY

[beeteal]

quick riso illustration i did for a convention! i'm considering this to be another riso test...would like to redo this comp again but to be more detailed. we will see