Azale

Before the war, Starflare was the first of three war-recon seekers cold constructed for the military of Vos. He was the trial run, in a sense, before he proved his use-ability and his brothers, Silverbolt and Solarwind, were then constructed to form a full unit. The blueprints for their frame type were later destroyed in an attempt to gatekeep them.

More about their frame type: the three were made specifically to gather information and infiltrate enemy territory. They were built for speed and altitude, making them the fastest and highest flying Cold Constructed Cybertronians without any outlier abilities. They do not have any advanced armor nor any weapon systems. However, the three of them have height on their side and thus, strength. Starflare stands at about 45 ft. Solarwind at 47 ft. and Silverbolt at 49 ft. Like most seekers, their wings are the most sensitive part of their external frame.

Additionally, they have advanced processors made to take in sensory data to draw conclusions about other mecha, actions, or their surroundings faster than nearly any other type of processor, except for a TacNet. Unlike a TacNet, their processors do not take in all data to calculate probabilities and predictions. Their processors are focused more on in the moment calculations of their surroundings and deal more in absolutes. At times, this can make them appear more impulsive, acting quickly as soon as their processor spits out its conclusions. They also have a larger long-term memory cash, advanced internal data organisation, and advanced firewalls.

Starflare and Solarwind each also developed outlier abilities. Solarwind's will be expanded on in another post.

As for Starflare, he has the ability to manipulate energon. In a practical application, he could drain another mech of their energon reserves, draw energon from the ground, or locate energon. Later, when the war begins to set in, he will use it to burst mecha's energon lines as well as to feed on energon.

When it comes to personality, each of the recon seekers vary. Here we will focus on Starflare and I will expand on Silverbolt and Solarwind in separate posts.

Starflare, at first was very quiet, pliant, and seemed void of any real personality. It was not until he had time to be on his own that Starflare really grew into himself. Rather than quiet, it is more accurate to describe him as reserved. He rarely spoke unless it was necessary or for his own entertainment. Starflare was dry, snarky, sarcastic. With his brothers, he let this side of him remain on full display, often exchanging quips with Solarwind. To his commanders, he remained cold and professional. To outsiders, he would appear much the same until his boredom kicked in. Starflare took great joy in confusing civilians, not in outright mean-spirited ways, but he loved to keep people guessing. It could be childish at times, but childish traits often resided in a cold constructs. Regardless of who he was around, Starflare held himself high. A quiet confidence always clung to his frame and in combination with his quiet and intimidating presence, he often garnered the attetion of civilians, which he would later be directed to use as a way to 'seduce' information from mecha. Though, Starflare is not particularly charismatic. It is his air of mystery that did most of the work in those situations.

Starflare remained in Vos's military up until just before the Decepticons really started to mobilize. His missions mostly involved gaining intel on political opponents and at times, from other City-States. Later, he and his brothers also were sent on various assassination missions and capture-and-interrogate missions (which also often ended in death for the capturee(s))

For Starflare, this was all their was to his life and while he was not necessarily content, he had made peace with the fact that this was what he would do until he offlined.

That did not stop him from having desires.

With the amount of parties, clubs, and bars that the recon trine would frequent for their missions and later as a part of their wind-down routine, they had seen various music scenes. From more classical music to the experimental sounds of bands and DJs in the club, Starflare began to fall in love with music. The sound, the expression. In his rare free time, Starflare sought out recordings to (illegally) store in his data banks. Orchestral/Concert music really caught his spark and he eventually developed a strong desire to play. He researched how to play various instruments but he never owned an instrument to truly learn, not that he truly had the time.

If Starflare were to do anything else with his life, he would play music, for a packed audience, for one mech, for films, anything, he just wanted to play.

But his life would never offer that chance.

Until he met Starscream.

When Starflare and his trine met Starscream, the prideful seeker was hustiling for a living. To Starflare, this was baffling. Seekers easily obtained cushy jobs either in the military or sometimes even within government despite prejudice against cold constructs. Starflare and his brothers had fun messing with Starscream though. He tried to scam them and the three easily saw through it. When they had their fill, they blasted off, leaving Starscream to cough from the dust they kicked up with their take-off. That was not they last time they encountered Starscream, however.

There were a few more time when Starflare crossed paths with Starscream again while he was still scamming mecha. These encounters left Starflare with a few off-handed lines from Starscream about the latter's disdain for their system that Starflare brushed off but sometimes during late lunar cycles, Starflare would think about. This is when Starflare's dissatisfaction for his lot in life really started to form. If someone like Starscream could forge his own path in life, even if it was scummy, why couldn't Starflare.

These thoughts remained private, not even shared with his brothers.

Then Starscream became a senator of Vos and the recon trine found themselves crossing his path more often. At the parties that Starscream could be found drinking his boredom away, Starflare went out of his way to talk with him. Mere curiosity on his part. This led to Starflare asking various careful questions about Starscream's beliefs and past. For anything particularly deep, Starflare always waited until Starscream was too drunk to be able to remember properly later.

Starflare really began to despise functionism around this point. He wanted to pursue his desires, to live his life as he made it, not what he was designed for.

When Starscream ran off, abandoning his position as senator, Starflare was upset. It took him some time to realise that he was upset because in a way, Starscream was a confidant, perhaps even a friend. Starflare had told Starscream things that he still had yet to voice to his brothers. A twisted sense of abandonment settled in Starflare's spark. Though beacause of it, he and his trine eventually did discuss how they felt about their lives. They all were dissatisfied but also stuck, so they kept trucking along.

It was a while after that that the recon trine met with Starscream again. This time, Starscream was recruiting mecha for Megatron's revolution. The recon trine had merely happened across Starscream with he was trying to recruit other mecha. They listened in and to Starflare, this was their chance to finally take control of their own lives. The recon trine left quickly to take care of the mission they were supposed to be doing. It was only afterwards that they fully discussed the idea of joining the Decepticons.

Starflare was the one to approach Starscream some time after their eavesdropping. Starflare requested upfront to join Megatron, but first, he wanted an audience with the leader of the revolution.

Starscream arranged that audience and the recon trine went to meet Megatron themselves. They asked various questions, many of them somewhat cryptic in nature. Starflare particularly was concerned with the safety of his brothers. While revolution was just what they needed, the recon trine were not made for actual fighting. Low-risk assassinations, sure, but anything that put them on the front-lines was a no-go. When Starflare was assured that they would be put to use via their strengths, not just as bodies, the recon trine pledged themselves to Megatron's cause.