#catharsians

First of all, I’ll touch on the mechanical species a bit more. Aside from what’s been already said about them and their interactions with cybertronians, that is.

We know, for instance that the combined efforts of the stentarian and cybertronian civil war, the galaxy as a large is so technophobic that the black block consortia got away with wiping out an entire colony of minicons. Nickel being explicitly the sole survivor of that.

As far as we know, nobody’s really done anything about that. Unless any civilians or something did protest and we just haven’t heard about it.

The Galactic Council also shot down a Camien ship too, pursuing it right into Solstar Territory to do so. This is despite the fact they must have known themselves that this would have caused a diplomatic issue.

So it should be noted that the war also caused tensions between organic species too, in regards to how to handle it.

Anyway, point is: general galactic consensus is anti-mechanical being.

So I have to say, I cannot help but think the mechanical species that have not been involved in a massive intergalactic war, like the Catharsians, ought to be angry at those who have been.

It’s painted a massive target on their backs too for a galaxy not likely to bother to try distinguish that not everyone in this image is even the same species:

And about those stentarians: transformers ended their war!

Wiped out billions of the ammonite faction. Just about all of them/ How do the stentarians feel about that?

The terrodores may be grateful, as we know the species isn’t above going for external help but...the ammonite survivors? There won’t be much with what happened, but there’ll be those like Paddox who for ever reason would not have been able to make it to the siege on Cybertron.

And the survivors will be going through the same sort of war -> peace adjustment period as the cybertronians are.

But in turn, cybertronians may also be angry about that siege a lot of them participated in. So who can say what general reactions would be like?

I won’t get into the spies again here though, since I’ve already talked about it before, but that in itself is a huge topic!

Now, about those wars that made mechanical beings so unpopular: a lot of worlds during the cybertronian one were cyberformed by the decepticons, wiping out the organic life residing on them.

But a thing is, not all of those species who were living on those worlds went extinct as a result of that! There were survivors who obviously either got off world before the phases came to their conclusion or were already off before they started.

For example, Megatron explicitly lists the Torkuli as one such people who the decepticons “wiped out”.

But here we see one in the background, modern day, as the Lost Lighters go visit a bar:

So it seems there are rare survivors.

And the status of the Nebulan people is ambiguous too.

Their world was rendered in such a state by Thunderwing it had to be abandoned entirely by the surviving members of the infiltration team, such as the Scavengers’ Crankcase. But they were definitely an advanced enough species to certainly have some members off world and there is a chance that some on-planet could perhaps survived, even if very, very few.

So where do these survivors go once there planet is turned uninhabitable for them?

Are they on their own or do the Galactic Council help with reallocation/refugee camps or something like that? Do they band together even, survivors of these genocides becoming an intergalactic community themselves?

Also, now that the war is over and worlds aren’t getting shiny-fied anymore, are these guys going to want compensation?

I mean, Optimus Prime has been trying to make it up to Earth for what happened to them, but what about these guys? What happened to Earth still needs to be addressed and reparations made for of course, but it’s not the only or worst planet hurt by the war.

The fact it’s still even habitable speaks for itself in that!

If these survivors of decepticon occupation were to demand compensation from transformers they’d be fully in their rights to.

Now, it does bear mentioning that not all encounters between species during the war have been strictly hostile.

Some species also had more “mixed” encounters shall we say. Like that incident on Mir. Positive and negative representation I guess there? It never escalated much so opinion likely wouldn’t have been staunchly negative of the guys (although I do suspect Scorponok went back there some point but that’s a different topic).

There’s also how folks like Swindle would trade technology with some species and there have been dotted cases of scientists from Cybertron and a different species interacting for joint experiments.

Ethical? No. At least, not any of the examples we’ve seen so far.

But not the same level of bad that we’re talking about above and that might have tipped at least some guys’ opinions more towards the positive. Guys such as scientists, warriors and those in the black market who found such arrangements beneficial.

Post-war, with their being less risk, could any of them be interested in trying to mash technologies together again?

Then there’s also what Skids addresses here:

“I persuade other races to support the Autobot Cause”

This is a pretty big thing to just throw in there! 

How did it go?!

The way it’s phrased gives off the impression at least some were successfully roped in. 

What other races? How did it go for them, are they okay? How did they contribute? How did you do it Skids? How did you convince them to be Team Autobot? Promising them things? Saying it would be bad if they didn’t help? The power of friendship?

Where are they now, now that the Autobots have won the war? They still team Autobot? Are they going to want to try re-establish a friendly relationship with Cybertron forces? Are there interspecies friendships still being maintained that resulted from these alliances?

That statement provides a lot of questions.

There’s also the more individual scale we have to address too. 

Like this here:

I mentioned earlier a Camien space craft being shot down in territory of the Solstar Order. The sole survivor of that was a protoform who would become Stardrive, seen here with her teacher who I also suspect to have essentially been her Guardian.

In here, through what is essentially an “interspecies adoption”, we see an example of a transformers fully immersed in another alien culture, one Stardrive in fact grew up in and new nothing else but for several years.

Which is also a fascinating concept in and of itself. 

How would a transformers turn out growing up in a non-transformers culture?

It very clearly had an effect on Stardrive, who wound up identifying much more with the organic dominated Solstar culture her guardian raised her in as opposed to any mechanical one she belongs to by birth. Although it also had a very detrimental effect on her self-opinion too.

The question would also be quite intriguing flipped too.

An alien growing up on a planet with influences from transformers, which in a way I guess technically could count a bit more for Earth now, it being made a colony world.

Seeing how these different cultures intersect is something I think would be great to see explored more. I genuinely think it would provide more insight to cybertronian culture too, getting to see in what ways it clashes or is even similar to others.

Now, the last things I’d like to try address in this post are some misc post-war things, that didn’t really fit anywhere else:

First off, the Lost Light while not engaged in disaster after disaster have been helping out other races, organic ones included such as the Milarians here:

“It’s already made the galactic bulletin”

So they’re gaining some positive PR. Doing good deeds instead of wrecking things. The Milarians certainly seem to love them for that, despite the fact their planet is almost certainly in either Galactic Council territory or very near it, which would usually suggest quite a different opinion. 

Which is nice to see!

Then there’s this little matter here:

Soundwave here, to provide context and put it mildly, is very unhappy with the general approach the Space Knights have to Dire Wraiths. That being kill on sight.

He wants something done about it then and there, the only reason he holds off being because as there is a more immediate threat going on. Which is also strongly implied to be the reason OP is not wanting the matter pushed further too.

I would definitely like to see the Dire Wraiths, the in-verse termed “biological transformers” interact with these guys more. 

We’ve seen it in passing. Along with hostile interactions, there’s been the more positive too: interspecies Crankcase/Cons4eva boyfriends and a handful of other friendly members popping up too.

But there’s the matter that Soundwave addressed above, as well as why it’s only a handful of friendly members seen.

The Wraiths have a strict hierarchy. From what I know of it, there’s sub-groups and all sorts but I’ll put it as simply as I can: Sorcerer -> Soldier. The powerful magic users and the brutes.

The soldiers are very much treated and viewed as disposables by the sorcerers, something directly stated in the Rom vs Transformers series. Their being the bosses is in fact enforced as a divine rite too, the soldiers referring to them as “Your Holiness”.

Those who do disagree with them and the way things are done cannot afford to stick around. Simple as. The Sorcerers have the ability to “break” people from within so that or being killed is likely what happens. Conformity is priority.

It's telling that all the nice ones are either hiding or in Cons4eva’s case, legitimately being in such despair about his differences he initially wants to hop dimensions.

Now, I do feel that transformers should have something to say about an enforced caste system. 

So yes. With all this in mind, I would definitely think it fascinating to see these guys interact more!

Even Cons4eva and Crankcase touching upon these commonalities more would be great.

Side question too about these wraiths: We’ve seen at least one is capable of passing himself of as a cybertronian, even if his choice in which one to mimic resulted in that going poorly. The general rule is that most wraiths seem to be technophobes because of the Xetaxxis incident, but are there any others who are doing just that?

Just...hanging with some transformers. Pretending to totally be a transformer too.

So yes! Point of all of this long rambling thing is: there really is a lot of potential for interesting interspecies interaction.

First of, let’s discuss the matter of the gestalt Paddox himself.

It’s not hard to conclude that the relationship between him and Thunderclash was close. After all, he was the first officer of the Vis Vitalis, a position that by it’s very nature requires a lot of working alongside the captain, who in this case was Thunderclash.

Who also said himself that he’d saved Paddox’s life a total of 14 times:

As well as how they’d known each other for several years.

But what’s up for debate here is how much of that would actually have been genuine on Paddox’s side?

Well, the best lies are those that contain a bit of the truth and from what little we’ve been given I certainly don’t think it was entirely fake.

For one thing, even looking at that face he doesn’t seem happy at all about having to be doing this.

He also stresses to Hot Rod that things don’t have to get “messy” and that everyone can go safely on the Vis Vitalis if he just gets the Lost Light.

Him wanting the Lost Light for it’s engine because he and the rest of the ammonites are panicking over the terradores going to the “dark cyclops” and thinking they and their planet might be on the verge of getting wiped out.

So the attempted coup with those circumstances is quite understandable and even then he explicitly didn’t want to have to kill anyone, despite his threats.

Adding to my assumption that it wasn’t entirely fake is this little display:

Unprompted Paddox starts gushing about how great Thunderclash is, when staying quiet would really not have been of any detriment to his cover.

On top of that, there’s his paintjob. It might not be significant, this depending on whether the alias faked a belief in or even genuinely came to believe in spectralism with it being a known and discussed thing on the Vis Vitalis, but it does bear worth mentioning that Paddox is purple and blue. 

And purple and blue are associated with, according to spectralism, not just violence but also grief. If he does follow it, genuinely or not, this would back up the belief that while Paddox is willing to turn violent traitor, he’s not happy about it. Pre-emptive feelings of grief.

There’s also how Thunderclash is Thunderclash, and everybody but Hot Rod likes Thunderclash.

So while he was willing to and did ultimately betray the Vis Vitalis for his people, I do think that the Paddox gestalt wasn’t faking caring.

I do wonder what happened to him though? After all, they wouldn’t have executed him and even if he was exiled rather than imprisoned, there’s still no way he could have made it back to the rest of his people in order to participate in their siege on Cybertron.

Now, onto the implications of this reveal.

Because they are significant.

Because Paddox was not the only ammonite spy.

It’s explicitly said that there were a few ammonite gestalts like Paddox within cybertronian ranks, acting as spies, even if he is the only one we see.

So did all of them turn on whoever they were with, people they may have known for years, once the recall order came through, or did any decide to stay loyal to the friends they’d made and stay put?

And were the ammonites even the only people who put in some spies?

The cybertronian civil war was catastrophic and very wide-spread after all, so those who could keep an eye on it for the sake of the welfare of their own people are very likely to want to enact whatever methods they can to be able to do so.

For example, the rival stentarian faction of the ammonites - the terrodores- could have done it and the fact that their enemies the ammonites are doing it is even more motive for them to do so too, to prevent the ammonites gaining an advantage over them.

And how about the Catharsians?

While stenatarians like the ammonites and terrodores usually need to form a gestalt to be able to pass as a transformer, as we can see here with Nautica, Velocity the Catharsian beside them really could pass as the same species unless told otherwise.

Their being monoformerrs could also be excused, as some genuine cybertronians like Krok are also monoformers.

The only thing that could catch them out is likely if someone tried to use a spark detector and found nothing.

And the same goes with them as it does with the stentarians- those who do pretend, who do become spies- do any of them become attached? Attached to the people they now know and the lives they are now living?

And with those questions, there is also the question of: could there be Stentarians and Catharsians still pretending to be cybetronians? Still on Cybertronian ships and even now living on Cybertron itself?