This is series one of 3 because it was weird and decided not to make it just three season?? Anyway there is a lot to chew on considering it's relatively short runtime. It's a series focused on how war breaks people and how noble ideals twists and yet how it persists.

Starscream and Jetfire are clear parallels with Jetfire is loyal with a clear code of conduct while Starscream is scheming and bloodthirsty yet is the former not the later who betrays Megatron. They can very much be seen as representation of Megatron losing his grip of whatever limits he had because Jetfire doesn't just hold back Megatron from killing Autobots he also stops him from killing his own men in anger. If Jetfire hadn't lost hope in the Decepticon cause because of Megatron's execution of Ultra Magnus he would have told him where the Autobots were hiding.

Impactor is also important here because he mirrors Jetfire in showing what the Decepticons used to be, the noble foundations that broke. They surrender to the Autobots so that they will be able to help people; which is the actual thing that seems to separate the factions ideologically nowadays.

Megatron needs to control the narrative, the people, who lives and dies, while Optimus controls very little.

Ratchet and Elita-1 are people who question and challenge Optimus' judgement. For Elita-1 she sees the desperation in him, the growing need to act that drives him feverishly forward, and questions if he truly is fighting for the Autobots anymore. Meanwhile Ratchet questions if Optimus is truly different from Megatron, that if he would force him to make weapons instead of giving aid.

Optimus doesn't as much pass these trials as compromise, something that breaks him and Elita-1 apart. He didn't slow down to think what throwing the allspark away would do. He made Ratchet leave his post as a medic and cost him a patient. But he didn't force Elita to come with and he didn't make Ratchet make him a weapon.