#functionists

Because anyone back then who tried to fight the system, who wanted to make things better, who wanted to believe Cybertron could be more than it was... the Senate, the Council, the Knights killed them all. "

literally everyone else: you fucked up a perfectly good god is what you did. look at him. he’s got anxiety.

Functionists my be evil but damn, look at that bod. And the cape? Stunning. Gorgeous. Magnifique.

Guardian Prime's ascension found it faced with figuring out to how to forge a world-state out of collection of squabbling city-states united only by an often token adherence to a common ideology. At the same time, Guardian had to rebuild a planet that for eons had known nothing but constant warfare, the most recent bout of which had left a full quarter of in ruins. But like its predecessors, the new Prime faced these challenges head-on, and conquered them. Guardian organized a three-branched system of government consisting of the the Senate, chosen by popular election; the Council of Elders, each member appointed by a different city-state; and of course, the Prime. On paper, all three were equal, and the power of the Prime was thus relatively limited. In practice, Guardian's charisma, moral authority, and political skill meant that it almost always got its way. This was not necessarily a bad thing. Under Guardian's leadership, Cybertron experience a Golden Age, 55 million years of peace and prosperity. The Cybertronian race expanded beyond their homeworld, colonizing not only the planet's moons, but far-flung worlds across the universe, along the way making contact with other forms of life. Throughout the cosmos, the name "Cybertron" became a byword for advanced science and high culture. Still, it was not a perfect utopia. Crime and corruption, poverty and prejudice inevitably crept in at the edges; granted at a far lesser degree than that of any human civilization, but it was there. As time passed and Cybertron's natural resources began to wane, these problems increased. Fortunately, as Guardian pointed out, as an interstellar civilization, resource shortages were easily solvable through trade with other species. Unfortunately, not everyone was so sanguine. There were those who didn't care for interacting with other species, especially those that were organic in nature. These people suggested a different tack; instead of going out and harvesting resources from the universe at large, they said, Cybertronians should withdraw and cut back, rationing energon and other resources by apportioning them to those who who were most functional. Though inherently tainted with xenophobia, the Functionists initially started out with some good points, but the movement was quickly hijacked by less savory elements, who declared those with Built bodies or Cold Sparks or common altmodes or gender or Destron ancestry to be inherently less "functional" without any real reason. Guardian Prime wasn't having any of this nonsense, and ensured that even though a number of Functionists were elected to the Senate, most notably Proteus of Dodecahex, none of their proposals went anywhere. Then, while negotiating mineral rights with an alien species, Guardian's deputy (and designated successor in the event of something going wrong) was killed saving some of the locals from a natural disaster. Guardian immediately set out to retrieve the body itself, but to compound the tragedy, its ship suffered a malfunction and was destroyed, along with everyone on board. Absent a Prime, government came crashing to a halt. A period of fear and confusion ensued, which ended only when the Senate declared that it would simply designate a new Prime, and that would be it. The question of whether the Senate actually had the authority to do this was brushed aside, and a great debate ensued over who would be so honored. In time, a candidate was found to whom no one objected; author, artist, architect, engineer, scientist, philosopher, poet, and all around smart guy Zeta of Simfur, Cybertron's favorite public intellectual. In a grand ceremony, Zeta proclaimed that henceforth he would be known as...Zeta Prime. This rather anticlimactic moment was soon followed by the discovery that, while brilliant and well-meaning (and being good at interviews), Zeta lacked the charisma and political skills of his predecessor, and was almost immediately outmaneuvered by Proteus and cronies, who got a slew of Functionist legislation passed under the new Prime's nose. As Zeta struggled to to turn back the Functionist tide, a med-student from Tarn and an archivist from Iacon were unknowingly building the future...

...Anyone else screaming...? ...Because what if the Functionists needed, oh, I don't know...a forcefield...?

Even as Functionism became more popular, a backlash against it began to form. Ironically, it was in Kaon, a city once synonymous with tyranny, that that backlash was strongest. It was not unexpected though. Kaon had a fairly large Destron population, who were Functionism's primary targets; it was also home to the Colossus Institute, and thus a large chunk of the population had the education to realize that Functionism's claims were bunk. Most importantly, Kaon's economy revolved around the spaceport, so more than half the city would've had their livelihoods damaged by Functionist isolationism. As a result, when Orion Pax's bar-room discourses on the failures of Functionism and the awesomeness of the Autobot Code hit the local nets, they caught on quickly. People were impressed by his passion for the subject, by the eloquence with which he expressed it, and by his ability to back up his rhetoric with hard facts and quotations from an assortment of great thinkers (with a notable preference for Alpha Trion and the various Primes). Many of these folks were so impressed that they started showing up at the local watering hole Pax and his buddies hung out at to hear him in person. At first Orion tried to ignore them, but more and more of them started showing up, disrupting the bar's routine and making it difficult for the ordinary patrons to have their drinks in peace. So, Orion agreed to start giving actual speeches, in increasingly large venues. And instead of just talking about how Functionism was destroying Cybertronian civilization, he began doing something about it, forming a group to formally protest against Proteus' policies. In honor of his beloved Autobot Code, he called the organization the Autobot Alliance. As the group grew, it's members started referring to themselves as Autobots.