Prime Nova

The first serious effort to create a functioning Cybertronian state with a separation of powers was made by Nova, after her Rebellion succeeded in driving the Quintessons away. Nova started by defining what she described as the key freedoms that laws ought to protect, and then used this framework to draft more specific laws:

Freedom from harm - every Cybertronian has the right to be safe from physical, mental and emotional harm

Freedom from productivity - every Cybertronian has the right to enough Energon to live and a space to recharge regardless of occupation or the lack of it; the production line does not determine a Cybertronian’s occupation

Freedom to protest - every Cybertronian has the right voice their disagreement with the government and its representatives, and be heard out; every Cybertronian has the right to voice their disagreement with other Cybertronians, be they professional and private, and be heard out

Freedom to disobey - every Cybertonian has the right to disobey orders if they threaten their safety or the safety of others, or will force them to harm others or restrict the freedom of others. 

In the end the body of laws was divided into more familiar categories such as criminal law, civil law, building codes, etc.

Eventually, she relinquished legislative power to the newly created Senate and passed executive and judiciary power to Guardian Prime. When needed, both Nova and Guardian would appoint a judge for a specific trial. Guardian then ceded executive and judiciary power to Nominus Prime.

This system fell apart during the first civil war - individual Decepticon warlords preferred to hold all the powers, though in effect even they would uphold some of Nova’s laws, mostly those concerning day to day function.

Sentinel Prime

Sentinel was the second Prime to attempt building a Cybertronian state. His efforts went into rebuilding the structure created by Nova, and returning her laws to full function, and adding new ones, in areas where Sentinel felt Cybertronians were relying on the Prime too much. 

His efforts were then thwarted by the rise of Megatron and the Decepticon Empire.

Decepticon Empire

Megatron held the executive, legislative and judiciary power in the Decepticon Empire. In theory, if Megatron had given it any particular thought, the administrators of the various colonies would have only been invested with executive and judiciary power. In practice, this was not something Megatron bothered himself with, and so the interpretation of what they could do relied on the administrators themselves.

A number of Nova’s and Sentinel’s (as well as those established by the senate) laws remained in effect, specifically those that governed day-to-day matters, such as building codes or traffic. He did abolish some of the rights on an ad hoc basis - whenever something came up and a law would prevent Megatron from doling out what he considered appropriate punishment (read: corporal punishment) or if it annoyed him (e.g. the right to protest).

Megatron never bothered to have formalized trials. The general “procedure” was simply Megatron deciding to hit/shoot/etc. whoever he found guilty the moment he made up his mind.

When it came to planetary governors, most of them operated similarly to Megatron, with only Shockwave (being Shockwave) having formalized trials and insisting on pesky things like evidence. Shockwave was also the only one who would pass a verdict based on existing precedent rather than his own mood.

Autobots

Given that Autobots have spent most of the Great War on the losing side and broken into cells of insurgents, their approach to criminal cases and personal grievances has changed accordingly. Combined with the strong social focus on maintaining social harmony (which also means that most crimes are minor and the grievances also tend not to reach truly epic proportions), this means that the preferred method of solving such is situations is mediation, with the goal being restoring social harmony through finding a method of restitution that is realistic and will satisfy the aggrieved party. 

A grievance is presented to a Prime or an Autobot considered to be an authority by at least one of the parties (e.g. Alpha Trion could be asked to mediate between Elita One and Chromia, if a conflict arose between them).

The mediator would listen to all sides, and any witnesses, as well as examine evidence presented by both sides. They might ask an external expert to perform an additional investigation, if they deemed the case required it, and such an expert were actually available.

The mediator would then advise both sides on potential resolutions: e.g. a stolen object to be returned with an appropriate apology, etc. 

The last Autobot murder trial had been presided over by Sentinel Prime, but if Optimus Prime or one of his lieutenants were to preside over one, it would likely be look something like this:

The aggrieved party had to be represented by someone else. This person might have been a close friend, or someone appointed by the mediator to stand in for the murder victim. Given that restoring social harmony was no longer possible and that Autobots had historically spent a lot of time on the losing side of civil wars where getting rid of potential soldiers was not an option, the restitution could range from the perpetrator undertaking a particularly dangerous mission or assuming the defense of a particularly dangerous outpost.

Autobots, as a rule, did not have the death penalty. Imprisonment was more a matter of containing POWs than a form of restitution. 

Present

And now we arrive at the present and the recent peace treaty, and change of upper management for the Decepticons. So what changed?

The obvious change for the Decepticons is that Shockwave now holds legislative power. Being Shockwave, he has busied himself with passing a number of laws concerning matters that didn’t cross Megatron’s mind (building codes, fraud, etc.). His next step will likely be reworking the sentences, as his own research conducted over the years and studies performed on organics indicate that a punishment-based approach has low long-term efficiency in decreasing the recidivism rate. 

He doesn’t plan on doing it very soon though, as the ability to mete out corporal punishment is part of his authority as the Decepticon leader.

Optimus Prime, meanwhile, is trying to figure out how to return to a state with a separate legislative body, and where a Prime best fits in into it, as well as finding out which pre-war laws still apply to the modern Cybertron. While Optimus has learned of the concept of separation of powers from humans, he thinks that between there being far fewer Cybertronians than humans and Cybertonians on average having less possessions, an elaborate judiciary system isn’t really needed.

Unlike Shockwave, Optimus is likely to accomplish this much sooner, since the Autobot focus on social harmony means they’re less likely to erupt into a riot - though grumbling is to be expected. 

War Crime Trials

As part of the peace treaty between the Autobots and Decepticons, Shockwave has agreed to extradite certain Decepticons to Autobot allies for trial. As contact has been recently re-established with the colony of Caminus, the Mistress of the Flame has agreed to take up the role of a neutral judge over such trials to ensure a fair outcome. 

Currently, some of the Decepticons awaiting trial are:

Motormaster: for killing humans on Earth 

Airachnid: unethical experiments and hunting sentient beings for sports

There is still an ongoing discussion as to how the trials should be conducted, given that various sides have different approaches to justice: Autobots favour a restorative approach, while Decepticons and for example the USA favour a retributive model, and that informs what the various parties view as necessary for Decepticons to be integrated back into the galactic political community.

Why do people want Every Transformers Primes to look like optimus WHY

Dear Fell Forgetter,

Long, long ago, when Cybertronians still reproduced by budding, a nameless bot had emerged. Restless from tedious preparation for some future battle with a Chaos-Bringer, he journeyed underground. Eventually he came upon an unbelievable sight: the great visage of Primus! In front of him were a sword and shield. Scoffing at the idea of needing wisdom, he chose the sword and returned to the surface, calling himself divine and demanding submission from the others.

Only one dared to stand against him: a bot named Nova. Because she stood first in line in battle, she was later called Prime Nova. After a long battle, she achieved victory, and the nameless one was cast back into the crust of Cybertron whence he came. Thus he became known as The Fallen.

He reactivated much later, long after the beginning of the Autobot/Decepticon conflict. He told many Decepticons about his ancient legacy of evil, but he was mocked and ignored, and eventually became a nameless grunt in various Decepticon detachments. As a guard at Darkmount, The Fallen met his end at the hands of Blaster, who sent him falling into the smelting pool.

What happens when I try to write a Transformers G1 cartoon AU? This happens - I start writing a whole bunch of worldbuilding notes trying to cobble something sensible out of the mess that is G1.

So, this is going to be the first post continaining worldbuilding for the Bird of Prey-verse - the history of Cybertron

I started off with Five Faces of Darkness, and then did various tweaks to fit in Optimus's and Elita's backstory from War Dawn and the Hate Plague, sparks, etc.

Dear Interregnum Interrogator,

Prima was born into a wild, desolate Cybertron. Primus instructed the young Prima to prepare for the arrival of Unicron, but was immediately beset by wild and dangerous metallic lifeforms. Prima had little time to wonder why he could not make peace with these demon-like creatures or where they had come from. Channeling the Matrix's energies into the Matrix Saber, he could hold his own easily against the metal beasts, cutting a swath of light through the dark Cybertron.

For thousands of years, he traveled the world, creating new Cybertronians while decimating the demons, who were eventually driven underground. As his foes diminished, the Matrix, which had taken on Prima's warrior traits, became restless and agitated. The Matrix Saber now glowed a dim green, its creative energies now stagnating. It betrayed Prima, calling out to a demon to wield it. The demons feared light, and so the Matrix Saber became the Dark Saber, and the demon who wielded it called himself "Primordial, First Lost Child of Primus".

Primordial bested Prima in a mortal duel, and claimed the Matrix for himself. He tried to shatter the Matrix, but could not. For an age, Primordial led the demons on an uprising, and Prima's Cybertronians warred with them. Hoping to use the Matrix as a weapon, Primordial overcame his fear of the Matrix, and was overwhelmed with pain as he tried to unleash it. As it opened, he was surprised to find the spirit of Prima emerging. Prima then told Primordial the true story of the demons' origins: they were the first race of beings created by Primus and consigned to oblivion.

Primordial angsted about how Primus could allow this to happen, but Prima told him that they were both better, newer than the flawed god who created them, and that those who came after them would exceed them as well. Primordial, seeing now the costs of war and the hope for peace, lay down his arms at last and thanked the spirit of Prima for the gift of wisdom. Guided by Prima, Primordial raised the Matrix over his head and was changed, no longer the "First Lost", but the "New First": Prime Nova.

The well of all sparks ignited a surge of Energon flowing through the lands. In time the other primes disappeared; some say they went into a celestial plane inside the matrix so they could be with their brother. In time new primes would emerge, ones who bore the matrix. The first one to bear the matrix was a fresh spark, Primon, under his leadership the planet slowly turned into groups, while still being united. Soon Primon died and another took on the matrix they soon became known as Prime Nova, their rule was turbulent as they forcibly united groups. Then came a young military leader Guardian Major before he took the name Guardian Prime, however, he soon was killed by the Quintessons and the matrix was tampered with. The next to bear the matrix was Nominus Prime, he tried to negotiate with the Quintessons but was killed in said negotiations by his subordinate. Stealing the matrix from Nominus, Amazon Prime became the leader and fully surrendered to the Quintessons becoming their puppet. Eventually, he was replaced by Regulus Prime, who continued the subjugation of Cybertron to their overlords. Soon Zeta Prime took leadership and stormed the capital killing Regulus, and driving away the Quintessons, his tenure as prime was extreme while he did save Cybertron from the threat he kept the caste system in place and focused heavily on expanding the Cybertronian empire. Upon his death, another warlord took the mantle and matrix becoming Nova Prime and during his leadership, a disease began to spread in the colonies forcing him to deactivate all space bridge technology. A revolution soon occurred led by Sentinel Prime he peeled back the caste system slightly raising many from the slums while in secret purposely taking transformation cogs from new sparks and then using them as forced labor.

unknown what Amazon and Regulus Prime looks like

However, a new spark has been born, one with the potential to be better, it needs only to be fostered.