#I know I sound petty but I dont like IDW and TFP being seen as interchangeable outside of a definite AU because people only ever import lik

[classychassiss]

Maybe this is a hot take but I’m always a bit disappointed when people read the part about Orion Pax lamenting about Six Lasers and not being allowed inside as only a 'haha' moment and use this to paint him as privileged and out of touch, and completely gloss over the fact that he’s openly talking about an arbitrary form of segregation he is beholden to.

Like this is a genuine plea: I would really like to encourage you all to approach the Aligned Continuity - the novels, the games, TFP and Covenant - all as parts of one big story and read about them, at least a basic summary, all in some capacity. Transformers Prime is only one part of a bigger story and its the one that deviated the most and I think if you engage with all the material with an open mind and DON'T import any ideas from IDW or other continuities, what you will get is a story that is distinct and tragic and rooted in Cybertronians being a colonized people and how they deal with the repercussions afterwards.

And listen, colonization, imperialism and slavery are in the fabric of Science Fiction: most stories you engage with in Sci-Fi, especially older ones, have elements of this and its not always progressive. I think its become so codified that people will gloss over it and not think about what that means. But I really want to encourage you to read the Aligned Continuity through a non-Americanized lens, and really think about whats going on. Because this isn't new to Transformers, but we rarely ever see them on other end, and I personally believe that their societal issues being rooted in Quintesson ideas is important. I think that their world slowly losing energon and stagnating and on the precipice of self-destruction is important.

And I want you to think about this, and this language, and the actions they take as a previously non-ultra violent race into who they become during their war, and think about which characters choose to perpetuate that same colonial violence. And I also want you to acknowledge that no one in Aligned is SO privileged that they were somehow untouched by any form of violence, there is NO ONE in this universe who doesn't, at the very base of their character, understand that something is wrong and that their collective choice to not face that trauma head on is a big part of that. That the layers of shedding those held ideas is a difficult and ugly process.

And I want you to think of the parable of the War of the Primes and how Alpha Trion laments that in the end, the notion that any Prime is somehow 'eviler' because of some arbitrary belief that some of them were 'closer in spark' to Unicron was, in fact, wrong, and that truthfully ALL the Primes had been traumatized by Unicron but they allowed themselves to become divided and didn't communicate their growing anxiety and apathy and rage and it resulted in all of them participating in some form towards their tragic downfall. And I want you to think about Cybertron and the Quintessons and the war they have later on