#streakline

Yes, the jet traitor is a trope (see: Pharma, maybe Brainstorm), but I wanted a true defector -- someone who has had a change of spark along with faction, driven by nature and conviction, not perceived necessity. Problem is, I'm not sure what brought about the change in the first place. The comic is me toying with the thought that SL's trine, along with all the fanon connotations of that, might have had something to do with it. Perhaps, after the deaths of their trinemates, SL in grief thought that the Decepticons could end the war faster through a more liberal application of violence, paradoxically decreasing the total number of casualties. Perhaps the others were lynched for being Seekers when Starscream's armada carpet-bombed yet another Autobot base. There never were many Autobot fliers.

Perhaps SL sold out their trinemates, when asked to prove their loyalty to the Decepticons. This would not be beneath SL.

A deep-cover agent in the Autobot forces, SL gathers and relays sensitive intelligence to the Decepticons. In the current timeline, though, they are living a decent life among the Autobots on a revitalised Cybertron as per RID, cover unbroken. Outwardly, SL is affable, talkative, and likes engex a bit too much. SL displays prejudice openly; they often make quips about fliers being vastly superior to grounders and forged Cybertronians being better than cold-constructed. This is a holdover from SL's pre-war occupation; their trine choreographed and performed aerial manoeuvres during festivals and for private audiences. One might consider them artists, i.e. rather high-class in the old society. SL's apologies, if called out on the quips, are often half-sparked and always insincere. However, SL insists that they believe in "equal rights for knock-offs," and has indeed fought in the name of the Autobots and equality.

Inwardly, SL does believe in equality of a sort -- the Decepticon sort. SL and trine joined the Autobots because it was what the people they knew did, the people who once served the Senate, the people they once performed for, the police and the scientists and the artists. SL joined the Decepticons while conflicted, trineless, and afraid. They discovered some of Megatron's old pamphlets, and found conviction again.

As much as I can imagine the Decepticons as Communists in Space (à la Megatron quoting Marx), I believe the ideologies differ at a fundamental level, even ignoring respective implementations. The famous "from each according to ability, to each according to need" was never a motto of the Decepticons. Instead, it was "from each according to ability, to each according to ability" since the very beginning. Almost Functionalist, but with the labourers on top. So hopefully you can see what kind of trash receptacle SL is, to believe in this system. SL has cunning in spades and is a very agile flier, so they think that they have what it takes to live the good life in the case of Decepticon victory. Moreover, that they will get the chance to lord it over others, feeding their superiority complex with abandon.