This is my second go at writing this reply because while I thought I would just be sharing funny trivia, I realized something that is either a crazy coincidence or an absolute galaxy brain Rung = Jung connection.
Jung had an esoteric focus on his work, which is the aspect I'm most familiar with due to my own interests. This involved taking ideas from previous occult/religious traditions, especially alchemy, and interpreting them as expressions of the collective unconsciousness of humanity. Mystical beliefs in self-transformation from famous alchemists were seen as an encoded symbolic guide for psychological improvement that could still be used in modern practice- the basis for his therapeutic practice. It can be very hard to track down the specifics of Jung's beliefs because he remained scientifically minded and constantly iterated on them. And oftentimes, what has relevance to later religious/occult history is how it was seen by people bringing his work back to prominence in the 70s/80s, which was often born out of misconception or just not based on the final form of his ideas. Jung's occult work was a massive influence on the New Age movement. Ideas such as zodiac signs influencing primarily your personality archetype is neo-Jungian. And the connection here is that spectralism, Drift's religion, is so clearly the Cybertronian equivalent of the New Age movement.
That's the interesting trivia over and now time for the thing that I realized. Last night when rereading the Mederi arc I realized Swerve, in the past, might have been the Cybertronian equivalent of a mystical alchemist (for the record modern historiography now indicates that most alchemists weren't mystics, and that all the major mystical alchemic texts were basically individual belief systems specific to their time and place, not a single system like Jung imagined it. But when doing literary analysis, Jung's conception is the system you're gonna have to follow)
Think about it. Swerve is a metallurgist, what most historical alchemists actually were. His religion is Adaptism, and mystical alchemy was all about causing change- in metals and in your self. Becoming closer to the divine and further from the flawed material world, a framework inherited from neo-platonism/gnosticism. Here he is actually mentioning alchemy (alchemy on the soul) and metousiosis- a greek theological/philosphical term meaning change in someone's inherit nature. He's also the most knowledgeable about ascension.
And the real ascension is very similar to gnosis. You gather enough knowledge and are able to transcend our flawed material world. I really do not get the deal with the Ascended Races in mtmtme. They're presented in a way that suggests the audience should already be familiar with, if not specifically them, the general concept. They're also relevant in Eugenesis, but don't seem to be a thing in transformers canon outside of idw I can find. The point of reference I do have is the mystical self-transformation view of the magum opus, the creation of the philospher's stone. Finding a way to improve metals into forms closer to the divine would come with/require asetic self-improvement that brings one's soul closer to the divine. Mystical alchemy would be even more natural to Cybertronians, as they are metal.
It seems like Adaptism as a religion is directly concerned with the very process of ascension that the Omega Guardians achieved, although probably in a corrupted form that promises individual salvation. Especially since the reveal is that the real Adaptus was very concerned with ascension. That was the cause of the God War, he believed that their utopian society would cause stagnation and they had to go around conquering other people. The thematic conflict between Adaptus and Rung is whether self-improvement means increasing your violent power, testing yourself against external threats; or if self-improvement means becoming a better person psychologically and working through your feelings in therapy and having bonds with friends. That's the big theme of mtmtme, war breaks you- talking about your feelings and having adventures with friends makes you better. (And there's a whole different path of intertextuality here through Transformer's descent from Starship Troopers)
So in other words, the final theme is that the best path to/better alternative to alchemical self-transformation/apotheosis comes from therapy/psychological improvement.
And I don't think its entirely impossible for JRO to have done this on purpose. Alchemy, and especially Jung's view of it, had a massive influence on literature and literary analysis. One of my main alchemy reference books A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery by Lyndy Abraham in its introduction primarily bills itself as a useful tool for literary analysis. Along with Jung as someone influenced by alchemy, they also give Vladimir Nabokov (someone JRO is always referencing and gave as one of his major influences) and WB Yeats (his poem "Everlasting Voices" is the source of the title for the mederi arc, and its actually printed at the end of the first issue of the arc since the poem is public domain) in a list of authors that make heavy use of alchemical symbolism. So the odds of JRO's interest in literary fiction leading him to information about Jungian alchemy is pretty high. Especially since, like Freud, Jung had a much longer lasting impact on the field of literature than he did on psychology.
