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kill. original below cut

Gifts for my friend on tfcf 2.0

I told you guys this was going to be worth it ahah, sorry for the wait i forgot to post on tumblr

Because it’s a totally fan-made concept, even if the canon provides proofs about it.

In TF universes, the fandom has the concept of “Seekers Trine” as some kind of brotherhood among the Seeker type TF. Basically a group of three seekers with a leader that tends to hang up together in battles and other activities.

In the original G1 TF series we have several samples about it.

The most notorious is the Elite Trine,  of course…

Also, we have the Coneheads Trine, which seems to get along with each other in nicer terms.

The RainMakers….

And other trine groups without a clear name…

So yeah, it seems to be canon. But even if in certain TF media they address each other as “brother”, there is not a clear explanation about what is a Trine.

So perhaps we need a little of  fandom history on how this concept was born, which I witnessed.

The concept was born just after G1 Cartoon (IDW comics weren’t a real thing yet, unlike nowadays) - At first, the most popular concept was “Wing Mate”, that means, Seekers that fly together in a similar fashion to Trines. However, at a certain point, some fans started to wonder about the nature of Seekers, and they also wondered if Seekers would be able to merge together like Aerialbots do and form a gestalt.

The Seekers Gestalt could be a cool idea, but it didn’t seem plausible. The Dcons jet seemed to be too individualistic to be able to merge like that. They almost behave like Prey birds and fly all alone, and not a flock of birds like starlings, for example… until the fact was pointed out that Seekers often fly and do other activities in groups of three, and those teams seemed to have a leader.

So, the final conclusion was Seekers weren’t able to become gestalts, but they were able to create some kind of similar bounding to other two seekers and become a Trine. The G1 Cartoon had plenty of those cases! And TF happen to be an alien species, so the nature of their relationships and bondings not always follow the same patterns than in humans.

And that’s how the concept was born. The idea was widely spreaded through the fandom thanks to fanart, and mainly, fanfics, even if in the canon those groups not always hang up nicely.

Hece, since it’s a fanmade concept, the whole issue is still open to interpretation.

In most cases, Trines seem to be somewhat a brotherhood, nothing like a romantic relationship, but something closer to a family relationship. (Of course, there are fans that want their relationship to be something else, but the common belief is not that).

In G1 cartoon, Dcons were Military Warframed Cybertronians; certain types that were built and activated with military purposes by default  (another question is how those military types become the bad guys, but that’s another story) in some short of massive production. It would explain why certain body types are so common. And, spark brothers like Sunstraker and Sidesway weren’t an usual thing.

The concept of Protoform and individual bodies weren’t introduced till the BW series, though. They belong to the same continuity at very least, so we can asume G1 bodies had a protoform, too; and it means the spark is truly linked into those manofactures bodies in some degree.

Later, in IDW comics, the concept of Cold Constructed bodies was introduced. Basically a spark placed in a manufactured body, and not a spark with its own protoform and natural body. Something similar happened in Alignated continuity.

This, literally, makes CC unable to have brothers or sisters, because their activation is created in a mass production system. So, Seekers aren’t… real seekers, because their body frames are unnatural, but artificial. 

As a result, how can a “drone” body own a real nature?

That’s why the concept of “Trine” doesn’t work in IDW continuity. Literally, a spark can change its body frame for another totally different, and the result is something different from a Seeker, which in the end, is a type of military flyer type, but a military rank. Under this light, Seekers Trines happen to be… fake.

In later years, the most common belief in fandom is that Seekers are CC bots that develop this kind of bonding. But these CC aren’t exactly like in IDW, but something closer to G1 cartoon, where the spark is placed in a manufactured body that means to be hosted by that spark, so the conflict between spark VS body is meaningless.

That helps to create the concept of Trine as something real.

But the problem remains…

Certain theories say Seekers Trine are created at the time of their activation. Seekers are activated in triplets, so that’s how a Trine is created.

Other theories say Seekers are alone, till they find other seekers to hang with and eventually the Trine is born. Since they have this kind of bonding, they hardly need to be mated with other people, outside of the trine, of course.

And finally it’s the “Lovers” theory. But that's a certain part of the fandom trying to sexualize everything.