#than to just accept canon's overly simplified depiction of ambulon just unilaterally hating pharma

[lord-squiggletits]

Okay another instance of "fuck canon" that's not just Pharma-related, but Ambulon related. I keep thinking of Luna-1 where Ambulon called Pharma "Doctor DJD" and I feel like that's such a total "he would not fucking say that" moment. Obv JRO controls the characterization so what's in the comics is canon/right, I just think that it doesn't make sense for someone in Ambulon's position with his backstory to be that petty towards Pharma?

Ambulon's a Decepticon traitor, he's on the DJD's List. Moreover, he's stationed on Messatine which is the DJD's home planet and is (was?) still an active battle front until very recently.

Proof that Messatine being the DJD's territory is common knowledge: not only First Aid, who's stationed at Delphi, but also at least three Autobots on the Lost Light, know that the DJD make Messatine their home. And this is long before Pharma does his monologue to Ratchet about his t-cog blackmail with Tarn.

Proof that Delphi/the nucleon mines were in an active warzone at least until Pharma started his plague: Pharma wouldn't have had any t-cogs to harvest if there wasn't a continuous stream of soldiers/war-dead coming in to use as his supply.

So then, Ambulon knew fully well that he and all of the rest of them were right next to the DJD's home base, and as an ex-Decepticon he knows he would be on the list. Probably not very high on the list, since Ambulon was a mere MTO who got turned into a failed combiner experiment, but he IS on the list; just because the DJD only proceed through the list in order of importance, doesn't mean that Ambulon wouldn't know that they'd come for him eventually.

And this is a really fucking neat idea to play around with! We don't ever get a canon/explicit explanation for why Prowl decided to station those three medics on Delphi, especially one who's an ex-Con on an execution list. Did Ambulon have a choice? Or was he told to go there with no argument? Either way, I think Ambulon deserves some major kudos, because he must have ball (bearings) of steel to be an ex-Con in DJD territory without constantly being on the verge of a mental breakdown or panic attack. I could honestly write a whole post on the question of "why were these three stationed on Messatine" in itself, but that's for another time.

The point I'm trying to make here is basically that Ambulon of all people should've been sympathetic to the circumstances that drove Pharma to do what he did: they were ALL stationed in the DJD's territory and they knew it, they ALL knew that the DJD's playbook is horrific torturous murder, they ALL knew that Ambulon was a former Decepticon. It wouldn't take a genius for everyone at Delphi to piece together the fact that the DJD would come for Ambulon eventually if either he wasn't evacuated or Delphi as a whole wasn't evacuated. But I mean, this is wartime, right? Every soldier is risking their life, everyone could die at any moment. They can't close down Delphi or evacuate all of the personnel in an active war front battling over a mine just because a medic or three might feel unsafe. Nowhere in war is safe. If High Command let everyone abandon their posts who was afraid of being killed, nothing would ever get done because war comes with inherent risk of death that all soldiers accept by participating, as well as accepting the obligation to follow orders on threat of punishment. (Almost as if Pharma couldn't have just evacuated or run away like Ratchet suggested, but JRO clearly isn't a military expert so I'll digress/chalk it up to "wasn't plot relevant to bring up".)

We got all of like, two pages that showed Pharma and Ambulon's working relationship, and the best we have besides that is JRO's word of god that Pharma and Ambulon had 'mutual reluctant respect' for each other. It's highly unlikely that the two were best buddies regardless, but I don't think you need to be friends with someone like Pharma, while sharing the same situation as him, to be a little more sympathetic to him? Like I get that Ambulon would be offended by the idea of his boss trying to frame him for murder to cover up his own murders, but the "Doctor DJD" line always seemed weirdly callous and petty to me. "Doctor DJD" implies that Pharma was some sort of willing collaborator or servant to the DJD which clearly wasn't the case. And I find it hard to believe that Ambulon, who knows exactly what kind of people the DJD are, would have an opinion of Pharma that was just "oh he should've tried harder/been less of a coward and resisted." Hell, Ambulon's reaction to Sonic and Boom showing up at Delphi asking for refuge was to instantly take pity on them and offer them shelter immediately; if he feels protective/sympathetic towards literal random nobody Decepticon soldiers, shouldn't he have at least as much feeling (if not more) for another Autobot who he worked with and supposedly had respect for?

Assuming that Ambulon got the full details of Pharma's blackmail deal. I mean, there's no reason to assume that Ratchet would've lied to First Aid and Ambulon about what Pharma told him (unless??? conspiracy theory!!!!) , so Ambulon should've heard about the t-cog deal and how it was the only reason the DJD didn't raze Delphi to the ground so long ago. Then again, maybe Pharma's story got explained to him and First Aid via Ratchet's extremely judgemental take on events, so who knows how much of Pharma's side of the story Ambulon would've actually known.

But wouldn't it be so much more interesting if, instead of sneering at Pharma as "Doctor DJD", Ambulon had a more conflicted perspective of Pharma's face-heel turn? Would he wonder how it is that someone who he had such respect for could've been so despicable? Or, more sympathetically, would Ambulon ever wonder if Tarn threatening Delphi was his fault for being there? Would Ambulon wonder what he would've done in Pharma's position, being forced to bargain to postpone his own horrific execution? Would he be angry at Prowl or the higher-ups for stationing them all in such a dangerous post to begin with?

I mean, the answer is that Ambulon was a tertiary cast member at best, to the point that half of his appearances on the Lost Light literally are shown in retrospect after he died, so there would've been no room to explore this in the plot, and Ambulon and Pharma were way lower priority compared to other, more important protagonists. I just think it would be interesting to explore these questions in other metas and fan works.

And yes, I do think Ambulon would not fucking say that ("Doctor DJD") regardless of what canon actually says lmao.