As much as I love DPax and Oplita,Low-key can we talk about these three though? Because tf One gave a lot of potential for StarWaveWave.
It's just simply how they are always together,in every single scene they are present throughout the movie,they are always together the only time they were separated was when Starscream got captured and even then Soundwave and Shockwave were always together,when they finished the rescue attempt alongside Orion and Elita the three of them immediately reunited/regrouped and continued to fight alongside eachother,they were thrown aside in different directions when Optimus fought them but not even a few minutes later when Megatron orders the High Guard to follow him they are once again standing next to eachother. Implying that literally after they managed to get back up they immediately ran back to eachother lol.
Literally don't separate them.
Even in the storyboards when they helped D-16 restrain Sentinel,and when they fought Optimus they are coordinated in the sense they don't pause for a minute,after one gets taken down the other immediately follows up with an attack,no one really forces them to always be next to eachother nor does Starscream yell at them to do that they just naturally choose to stand by eachother out of choice whenever given the opportunity, their battle movements are also pretty coordinated as they have eachother's back during the palace attack scene in the background Soundwave takes down a drone trailing Shockwave and Starscream follows up by shooting down one following Soundwave.
It's these subtle hints of camaderie that's what interesting about them as a ship/ot3. In the sense they will always have more history with eachother than they do with Megatron.
Since Alpha Trion outright said the war against the quintessons has been going on for thousands of cycles, even if we assume the three are not THAT old, they should atleast be around a couple hundred cycles old, as to be regarded as legendary warriors who are still remembered for their feats by Bee even after so many cycles. Which meant to get as high as in their ranks they've likely been working in the High Guard for a LONG time and have known eachother for so many cycles.
Shockwave also tried to interfere during Dee and Starscream's fight but Soundwave stopped him as much I believe he did that because he found it funny and enjoyed a brawl like any other Guard, I think it's also so because Soundwave kind of gets where this is going, Starscream at the time was not really trying to kill D-16 so he was holding back, trying to boast infront of an audience to give off a show of strength for their enjoyment,Soundwave has likely seen him do this a million times when he gets battle hungry before so he doesn't see the need to interfere if they get a good fight,that is before Dee took out the cannon.
One thing that I like about this continuity is it's Megatron who is the newer one to already pre established dynamics within the High Guard,which adds interesting potential for storylines, he's the one who needs to integrate himself and form a completely new dynamic around his new army.
They are girl failures, I tell you.
Soundwave appears to be the most reasonable out of the three of them he's low-key one of the reasons why they've survived this long,and Shockwave has a temper and gets irritated quickly (although that is understandable to an extent )but since he's not by this point devoid of any emotions there are many instances which shows he really does care and given how his reaction to Elita and Soundwave he doesn't have a problem following orders if it makes sense,and Starscream is well Starscream enough said but he does have competent strengths as a leader since he did keep them alive for 50 cycles and there is also the detail that in the storyboards the High Guard only made the move to follow Megatron out of Iacon after Starscream told them to follow their new leader same as in the movie he's the first one to hail Megatron, there is room for some fun interactions.
Just a short post about why I love this ot3. Although I really do just ship them in the qpr way rather than the romantic way, because of my aroace hcs for all three of them but really I need to see their relationship more,and I need to see them trying to have a weirdly twisted mentorship with Megatron since he's still pretty inexperienced in war even if he has the qualities of a leader.
Alternately three girlfailure dad's and their teenage leader/son.
