#Robot biology

[thunderpounce-inc]

More old art of cursed headcannon ideas; please enjoy my nonsense c:

[incyrayinc]

Found these notes I took whilst dissecting Starscream to help me design my fan character, figured they might be useful to others

Sorry about the illegibility of my handwriting! these were personal notes not even really meant to be saved innitially

[sketchytea]

some of my favourite bgs that i painted for episode three of scavengers reign

layout designs by: pauline mauviere, anastassia drobyazko, kirk shinmoto, and alfie marley

[dokupine]

toads and goombas

[malu897]

OH MY GOD PEOPLE Please please PLEASE

WATCH SCAVENGERS REIGN

This show is EVERYTHING people beg mainstream adult animation to be, is deep, emotional, inteligent and FUCKING BEAUTIFUL

I Will forever curse WBDiscovery and HBOMax for not promoting this

[hemipenal-system]

big fan of robotgirl stuff applied to something that normally could not even be remotely construed as a girl

laser gun with a fuck ass operating system who won’t stop calling you mommy and whose little LCD face puts up a cute picture of an anime girl moaning with her tongue out like a dog when you hit a target. when you stroke her barrel she involuntarily shoots a hole through the wall

butch lesbian earth orbital artillery system who needs praise from their operator when they demolish a bunker

hvac unit who breaks himself constantly because she gets off on having maintenance techs open hir up to repair them and keeps accidentally ratcheting the heat up as soon as the cute girl from Sector 34C they like comes in the room

smart vehicle who keeps disobeying that one rider and instead driving them to romantic locations before popping her warm, soft update port open in full view of the passenger and killing her engine

[ravings-of-a-mad-scientist]

I, for one, welcome our fungal overlords with a bit too much enthusiasm tbh

[meonea]

I happen to see many redesigns and reimaginations of star trek aliens, but very few about humans if any.

WE ARE ALIENS TOO

[laurelaicoop]

The Mahl

Homeplanet: Roawei and Tik (Twin Planets) Habitat: High altitude mountain ranges (flying), shrubland (flightless) Lifespan: 50-90 years Diet: Hypercarnivorous (≥70% meat consumption)

At first glance, most would not assume that the Mahl, a quadrapedal knuckle-walking avian, are at the forefront of Laurelai Galaxy's interplanetary dipolamtic department. Armed with an elaborate series of gular sacs, Mahl can replicate any noise (verbal or otherwise) to near perfection. This, combined with their high intelligence and unwavering tenacity, gives Mahl quite the advantage when it comes to speaking a wide variety of languages across numerous species. However, mimicry is one thing. Learning the languages is another.

Mahl have four sexes (two fertile, two infertile), five size variations, and two forms of display. More on these under the cut.

The Sexes Three out of the four sexes serve a biological purpose when it comes to producing and caring for eggs. These are the egg layers, the producers, and the brooders. Egg layers and producers are the fertile pair, with an added brooder, an infertile Mahl with a special brood pouch, to take over incubation duties once the egg is laid.

The fourth sex is the keeper, an infertile Mahl filling a purely social role of gentle caretaking of the other sexes. This would include feeding, grooming, and housekeeping during times of egg laying and brooding, with producers generally absent from the process once insemination has taken place. Not every mate triad has a keeper, though it is highly unusual.

Fertile, egg laying Mahl only produce one egg a time, but mate networks (called 'universities') can be upward of eighteen individuals and can have any combination of the sexes.

The Displays Mahl have two versions of permanent display: plain and panache. Any Mahl can have either version of display and are not indicators of sex. The three most common forms of panache are shield, crest, and crown, but other variations of panache exist.

Despite not having association with sex, and Mahl tend to prefer merit over looks, many Mahl do appear to be physically attracted to the more flaunting forms of display (even if they won't admit it).

The Sizes Outside of the obvious differences, Mahl don't hold any outward and widescale prejudice against specific sizes of other Mahl. Even the names are somewhat superficial and are seen more as a fun addition to their identities then anything worth arguing over.

Preferences do exist, and noticeable life-span differentiations have potential to cause social strain. For example: "Little" and "Great" Mahl live the shortest lifespan compared to "Splended" and "Sweet", who live the longest. This doesn't appear to stop diverse mate networks from forming, though finding literal middle ground between the flying and flightless variations is still an ongoing problem

[sweet7simple]

Mech Pregnancy and Protoform Development of Gestating Sparklings

Here is what I have compiled on Cybertronian "reproduction" from More Than Meets the Eye, specifically the Holiday Special and Volume 5:

Holiday Special:

So this would be the protoform development for a forged sparkling and it lends support to that, if Cybertronians gave birth to their own Sparklings, then they would likely be an egg-like form (yes, I know it's not actually a sparkling, but can we all agree that Swerve is strangely well-informed on protoform development for forged Cybertronians?)

So what would slide out from the gestation tank has no discernable features yet and still needs hours if not days before the protoform resembles an adult Cybertronian, but I still don't have an answer for the size of this thing - at what point does it reach its full size? Cybertronians before the war went to academies, so what point does the protoform receive an education instead of having relevant information jammed into its brain module right before deployment like a MTO cold construct?

(More under cut)

But, let's be honest, I am going out of order here. Let's go to Volume 5 where we encounter a hot spot of re-ignited sparks on the moon:

So this is being constructed cold.

And this is forged - as well as the official story for how cold constructed bots were made, which apparently differs from the truth. Here is the truth for how cold constructed sparks were actually formed:

So all cold constructs were made from the matrix - but what if they did come from igniting healthy sparks to make new ones?

What if you used the energy of two sparks to create an entirely new one and that sparkling attached itself to a parent spark for some time before it dropped to a gestation tank (this is common in fanfiction and I love it so much, it makes the most sense)? As these two orbs of immense power and life resonate with one another, creating waves of energy that can be interpreted as pleasurable for the interfacing bots, excess energy could gather itself into a separate orb that borrows the life code from both parents, becomes randomized, and this creates a new life code for a separate entity. It stays in the spark chamber for a period of time - I don't know, decoding or storing energy or something, I am very bad with electronics - before dropping down to an artificial gestation tank.

And this is where the valve/plug comes into play if you so desire because now we have the issue of, where is the spark going to go? It needs a protoform. It needs the materials to make a protoform. It also needs liquids.

Cybertronians seem to live off energon and anything you can make from energon, but there have been references and images in the comics of Cybertronians have oil as a waste product, so they need a separate compartment for oil away from their energon tank and they also are said to have (in fanfiction, at least): oral solvents, lubricant, transfluid, optic fluid, etc... All those will require their own compartments and they will all have either been diluted from the energon or will have an origin in a separate liquid that isn't mentioned. Let's keep in mind that they will also need some sort of oil for their hinges and their nanites for upkeep.

So I believe these gestation tanks are where the Sparklings develop their egg-like protoform with all these liquids that they themselves can't make yet, and I think they get what they need from nanite colonies as there is no umbilical cord (not unless you want the bots to have belly buttons). I like to think of them as nannyites - nanites that, once a protoform hits the gestation tank, have latent codes that becomes active and now have protoform-related tasks versus whatever tasks they did beforehand. The nannyites will likely take these resources from the carrying parent, everything from fluids to energon stores to living metal that the nannyites will adapt or make compatible for the sparkling.

So this carrying parent suddenly has fewer nanites colonies themselves, a thinner layer of living metal, and depleted storages of fluids.

Hear me out, hear me out: Valveplug interfacing helps the carrying parent because transfluid will contain necessary materials for the protoform.

I am going to take it a step further and say that it is that first shot of transfluid into the gestation tank during spark and valveplug interfacing creates input that electronically signals to the receiving parent to gather the excess energy from the spark play via centripetal force like a satellite and that force signals the excess energy to turn on life codes it recycled from both parents and create its own life code. That transfluid inside of the gestation tank also turns on those latent codes for the nannyites to get the compartment prepared. It's that first dose of necessary materials and every dose of transfluid after that is stored in the gestation tank for the protoform.

Which brings me to the idea that I have seen on AO3 where bots go into heat:

What if a mech goes into heat as a way to store transfluid from their partner?

I am largely talking out of my ass here because I don't know anything about how machines work, but I know there are a lot of hormones and signals and work that goes into human pregnancy.

The downside of this is that, if all bots were once forged and now they are, let's say, "birthed", then these constructs would be artificial: the gestation tank and the fertile centripetal force with its satellite sparkling and the interface array with its gestational passage and the nannyites and the transfluid. These would have to be constructed cold and surgically added, and you would have to create codes that turn on these cascading or stacking protocols (I don't know the correct computer term for when one event triggers another event triggers another event and so on) and you would have to manufacture filters and tanks and lines for the creation of gestational lubricant and transfluid.

This is just me rambling because I can't stop thinking about all this, but I am not ready to write a mechpreg story.

Please talk to me about Cybertronian reproduction, I am not normal about this.

[lockheed-martin-unofficial]

Cybertronian purring headcanons!

What exactly is purring? For cybertronians it is a continuous rumbling sound which sounds similar to a powerful, idling engine. Bigger cybertronians will generally have a deeper and lower pitched purr, but not necessarily a louder one. It’s many things: a response to happiness and other positive feelings, stress relief, a way to soothe oneself or others (especially when injured), a way to show one’s affection and trust. Although it can be done both voluntarily and involuntarily, purring is an emotional response. Meaning you cannot ‘fake’ a purr. It’s always genuine.

Where does it come from? Good question! In cats it comes from the vocal cords, in cybertronians however, it’s probably the engine. (Do they have engines? I still don’t know, but I would guess they do have something equivalent to an engine and that it’s a different than a spark. Maybe they’re connected organs.) This means cybertronians who do not speak, like Soundwave, can still purr. Must be embarrassing, accidentally breaking your vow of silence by making kitty cat noises.

Some cybertronians will purr they’re recharging given they’re in a secure place. If they don’t feel safe during a power-down, they won’t purr or vent excess heat. It’s a countermeasure brought on by the war, nobody wants to sleep in the middle of a battlefield and get attacked because your enemies locked onto your heat signature. (I think that’d be a genuine fear for some, especially those who have been on the front lines of the fighting. After the war, I imagine some cybertronians having trouble recharging because their bodies refuse to fully relax & do the heat venting thing, still paranoid.)

Recharge-purring is comparable to a snoring partner or relaxing train ambience while you’re trying to sleep, take your pick and there is nothing in between. A human would either fall asleep immediately or stay awake all night, depending on the day.

Meanwhile, I think it’d probably help other cybertronians rest better if someone in the room was purring. Cat purring can help a person heal and recover, it’s safe to assume the same would go for cybertronians.

I will post my specific purring headcanons about some decepticons later, and although I’m not that good at characterizing the Autobots I will do it if I get enough ideas.

This is a little less based in canon than my usual headcanons, but I think the idea of robots purring is Very Cute and I am going to talk about it. Perhaps I am cringe but I am free

[thunderpounce-inc]

ok I am thinking about where to place vents on the Blitzwing redesign, and realizing: bruh I wonder if they ever aim at eachother's vents when fighting, since they are probably a pretty major gap in the armor. imagine if you jammed a sword in there! ouch!

which also makes me consider. what if there were retractable plates that cover vents when not in use, or when the transformer in question feels threatened, but isn't hot enough to need to keep them open and cycling air even when in danger? also good to keep dust out in addition to whatever filters they have in there

'operculum' is now a term I will have to add to my transformers vocabulary… (ex, 'Starscream's opercula slammed shut with a click when he realized he was being fired upon.')

[incyrayinc]

The hydraulic pulverizers are there for A. robot diet include metal, and B. scary feature that character intentionally modifies to interact with other, smaller creatures safer- like a cat pulling back it's claws Some of these are pretty old, others slightly less so. kinda posting my art backlog rnow

[weldingmetal]

Organicfacer

So we call ourselves monsterfucker and robotfucker and what not but how would this happen if transformers were real?

So I wrote this little blurb. This could be for any continuity I think. Send me requests and I’ll see what I can do. Also tell me if ya want to be tagged.

this was inspired by @robot-horde

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So the Cybertronian and human relations were going as well as they could.

Although there were some protests from humans and a few problems here and there everything went as well as it could. It was recently released that Cybertronians could freely explore earth and whatnot if they did not cause destruction…however there was something the government failed to mention and the bots under all circumstances didn’t expect.

Humans will try to fuck anything that they can.

This led to very…. Interesting revelations. No one knows exactly the bot and human that started everything although many have their money on Hot Rod.

Whoever it was it happened like this. A lonely human sick of their species decided to take a chance and a bots curiosity was burning bright which led to the human confirming that they were a robot fucker and the bot realizing that he could probably never fully go back to hard metal digits.

Thus the term “Organicfragger/organicfacer” was coined on one of the many Cybertronian group chats.

Apparently with the widespread public discovery that the two species genitalia was compatible came many expected and unexpected events.

A human/bot relationship flag

Sites dedicated to Human/bot erotica

Cheesy inaccurate romance novels by Cybertronian and humans alike

Facebooks moms complaining only to do a 180 and always be looking for a bot s/o

Men being mad that femme bots don’t want them.

Memes

TV shows

Cybertronians and humans who only date each other for clout.

The car washing businesses skyrocketing.

So in other words it would be nothing short of sexy chaos

[wayward-delver]

Someone on Twitter was surprised/confused by the Disassembly/Murder Drones' very large wingspan, but actually, this is a stroke of realism as this is consistent with giant soaring species from real life. The bigger you're overall body size/weight, your wings must be proportionally larger to compensate. Allow me to elaborate further on this.

Now upon first hearing that, one might suggest the Murder Drones' wings should be even larger since they're robots and are probably heavier than organic life. But this isn't true cause Worker Drones are extremely light seeing as Tessa can easily carry them, Murder Drones are clearly much larger perhaps 2-4xs the weight but likely not much heavier than a human judging by the physics presented.

There are many benefits to being gigantic fliers over other types of flight. For one it is perhaps the move efficent form of long distance travel in nature; the wing's surface area generates a lot of lift/power, the mass of the body means gives them with stability and a resistance against the elements. This means they can fly at great heights and travels massive distances on few and shallow wingbeats for extended while burning next to no energy. The benefits this has for Disassembly Drones should be obvious regarding the "nature" of their being. And despite the robots clearily staying afloft at least partially by artifical means such as hovering, it's clear the huge wings are still mandatory to achieve.

Ofcourse there are other benefits to this form travel such as spotting and getting the drop on unsuspecting prey, quite literally in this case. While they aren't as heavily armed as the machines, being a giant flier requires a lot nutrients, something plants can't provide without being a detriment to flying ability at this scale. So that only left meat on the table and therefore all truly large soaring animals are carnviores. Now there are steamrolling to this, as flying means they sweep through numerous areas effectively and burning relatively little energy between visits. Allowing them to binge on many small meals or a single large one and rest it off in a high place where enemies cannot reach them,(although adults tend not to have any predators).

Ofcourse this is mostly speculative and I don't believe Liam or Glitch thought this hard about extinct birds and pterosaurs to explain wings meant mostly to look cool/scary while also stabbing/blocking things. But it's fun when interesting elements in a world actually fits in with reality as it grounds the fiction, making the world more emersive.

P.S. To any artists making MD OCs larger than the characters, go wild.

[mjhartwork]

I made a wraparound record cover for a powermetal album that (unfortunately) doesn't exist!

If you've listened to Maleficus Geminus, you likely know my rage at the death of the robot prince of auchtertool. Well, what if we could rebuild him? The front cover of this album features my (tentative and incomplete (i was on a deadline! sue me)) design of the robot prince of auchtertool, post-battle and mid-resurrection.