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Sabrblade wrote:

BeastProwl wrote:Couldn't Knockout be considered "gay"? Im serious, there is inuendo and jokes aplenty but when you scratch the surface (not his new coat of paint, hopefully) it makes sense. He seems like more than just an auto-enthusiast in certain scenes, especially in Thirst. Starscream isn't a car...at least not in the Prime continuity

No moreso than G1 Tracks, who was equally given a vain personality and an exaggerated campy voice. Yet, people adamantly defend Tracks as not being such.

Except that those things are not are not even remotely indicative of sexuality.

I think, by way of his character and as BeastProwl said his innuendo and jokes, Knockout is much closer to being a homosexual character than Tracks, who thinks he looks good as a car.
If it's a voice thing, then why not G1 Hook? Same-ish voice as Tracks.
Plus, for someone who is as versed in the lore as you are, surely you can't have missed or forgotten the minor uproar that happened when people started to see that relationship between Knockout and Starscream develop into something that was more than met the eye.

(I'm sorry, I really am)

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:Let's switch genders around, and go further in time to Beast Wars. Specifically Waspinator, Inferno and Tigatron. Their bodies are actually of female animals: Male wasp drone have no stinger, male ant drones have wings, and Tigatron got his beast form from Snowstalker, a female tiger.

Let that sink in for a while.

Not for their entire lives.

When a male TF loves a female TF he injects her with a small part of his spark. If it combines with a small part of her spark she ejects the news spark which grows in an egg.

There...that's the cyber birds and cyber bees.

SentinelA wrote:When a male TF loves a female TF he injects her with a small part of his spark. If it combines with a small part of her spark she ejects the news spark which grows in an egg.

There...that's the cyber birds and cyber bees.

Well, the combining of sparks is a theory I've considered possible for a while and the egg-formation is also acceptable.

Joking aside, that's one of the more rational theorizations. As long as we don't go into details...

Sabrblade wrote:

Optimizzy wrote:The only problem I see is from a story telling point of view. Relationships and 'love' stem from a need to biologically reproduce and produce families. There are exceptions, but that is the evolutionary basis.

In my own personal fanon, I see Cybertronians as a biological life form that evolved a form that mimics machines for all intents and purposes. We see them as "robots" but really they are living, growing things, capable of reproduction and thus, evolution. Like we are biological 'machines' they are mechanical 'biologicals'. That's my own particular take on it.

But they ARE "biological" in the Aligned continuity. Optimus calls them "Autonomous Robotic Organisms", and Starscream refers to T-Cogs as a part of their "biology".

They can still express love and desire without wanting to sexually reproduce.

The race is born from the AllSpark within the Well of All Sparks.

True, but it was mating that gave raise to romance. I do believe there's a way they can sexually reproduce without being too human or organic. If Cybertronians don't or/and can't mate, then they can't or don't feel romance love. They can feel other type of love, but not eros. You can have a sexless romance, but remember, it was sex that gave birth to romance.Cybertronians probably can reproduce in a biological way ( including sexually), but prefer not too. Maybe that's why they have romance and way before they met any organics. Another one that they mated in the past, but no longer need to. Anyway, as a verb, romance does mean to woo, to court. If they don't need to woo or court anyone, then why have romance. I don't undersatnd why some people have a problem with Transformers sexually reproducing? I mean they're not mammals, so I doubt it will be like that. The first sex was cells conjoining together and cell A passing on it's genes to cell B. Cell B will slipt apart and create cell C. Why can't it be something like that? Plus the whole romance thing will make a whole lot of sense.

Also as an individual, you don't need to reproduce to be consider as a life form, but as a whole, you do. One of the seven critera of life includes reproduce biologically. To be a life form, an organism as a whole must follow all the scl. However, TFS is fictional, so they don't need to follow all the scl.

Ps. There's no universal law that states the scl is only for carbon base life forms.

Oh boy, I'm a bit late to this one but this IS an interesting thread.

I've said this before and I'm not going to reiterate my essay on Transformer reproductive methods in full again to spare everybody's sanity, but to cut a long story short, one method Transformers would reproduce would be, well, the old-fashioned way, with the exception that instead of producing a full baby, instead they produce a spark which must then be implanted into a constructed body, and also would possess some "passed on" knowledge rather than being completely childlike. Boom, there's your reason for TF sexual dimorphism.

If you want to develop things a bit further, of course, that's possible too. Whilst reproduction requires a male and female, the actual functional process is entirely spark-based and thus the, uh, "interface" doesn't have to be standardized (helpful for Transformers with unusual body types/chassis configurations). The actual physical side of it could be as chaste as a kiss or some kind of hand-holding process, but could also be more, ahem, conventional or possibly much...kinkier. In addition, depending on the particular subculture (different colonies having different standards) the protocol regarding the whole affair varies massively; some might view it as a sacred act to be performed in ceremony, others might consider it a purely functional affair with no frills or niceties, but for the most part it's probably viewed much the same way as here- it's something enjoyable but to be done in private.

As far as dimorphism/gender roles go, as standard males and females look different to each other in much the way you'd expect. Gender roles are fairly non-existent as, being mechanical, strengths and weaknesses are generally determined by character and basic engineering rather than biology. Of course, being mechanical beings that can rebuild and alter their bodies as needed, technically speaking they can look like whatever they want (so a "male" Transformer might rebuild their body to appear totally female and refer to themselves as female because they feel like it, and if they get bored of it they might swap back or go for something "in between"). However, because reproduction is a spark based process, then there MUST be a male and female spark to reproduce- the body is irrelevant and no amount of retrofitting will change that. Of course, same-spark-sex relationships (and, uh, other stuff) do exist, but they can't reproduce.

...Well, that ended up being longer than I expected. But TLDR: Genders exist for similar reasons to on Earth, with the caveat that external gender (but NOT reproductive gender) is entirely cosmetic and can be tweaked more or less as desired.

Black Hat wrote:Oh boy, I'm a bit late to this one but this IS an interesting thread.

I've said this before and I'm not going to reiterate my essay on Transformer reproductive methods in full again to spare everybody's sanity, but to cut a long story short, one method Transformers would reproduce would be, well, the old-fashioned way, with the exception that instead of producing a full baby, instead they produce a spark which must then be implanted into a constructed body, and also would possess some "passed on" knowledge rather than being completely childlike. Boom, there's your reason for TF sexual dimorphism.

If you want to develop things a bit further, of course, that's possible too. Whilst reproduction requires a male and female, the actual functional process is entirely spark-based and thus the, uh, "interface" doesn't have to be standardized (helpful for Transformers with unusual body types/chassis configurations). The actual physical side of it could be as chaste as a kiss or some kind of hand-holding process, but could also be more, ahem, conventional or possibly much...kinkier. In addition, depending on the particular subculture (different colonies having different standards) the protocol regarding the whole affair varies massively; some might view it as a sacred act to be performed in ceremony, others might consider it a purely functional affair with no frills or niceties, but for the most part it's probably viewed much the same way as here- it's something enjoyable but to be done in private.

As far as dimorphism/gender roles go, as standard males and females look different to each other in much the way you'd expect. Gender roles are fairly non-existent as, being mechanical, strengths and weaknesses are generally determined by character and basic engineering rather than biology. Of course, being mechanical beings that can rebuild and alter their bodies as needed, technically speaking they can look like whatever they want (so a "male" Transformer might rebuild their body to appear totally female and refer to themselves as female because they feel like it, and if they get bored of it they might swap back or go for something "in between"). However, because reproduction is a spark based process, then there MUST be a male and female spark to reproduce- the body is irrelevant and no amount of retrofitting will change that. Of course, same-spark-sex relationships (and, uh, other stuff) do exist, but they can't reproduce.

...Well, that ended up being longer than I expected. But TLDR: Genders exist for similar reasons to on Earth, with the caveat that external gender (but NOT reproductive gender) is entirely cosmetic and can be tweaked more or less as desired.

Good headcanon.

Optimizzy wrote:For off-topic trivia, the seven life processes are:

Locomotion, Reproduction, Sensation, Ingestion, Excretion, Respiration, and Growth.

I'd argue that Cybertronians have displayed all of these in one form or another except perhaps respiration as that is gaining some form of energy from air. PM me if you can think of reasons why they could? Air intakes for engines perhaps?

I think if we actually encountered extraterrestrial races our definitions would be put to the test. If we find something without one of these qualities but all the others, would we still call it alive? Without locomotion but having all others, well that's a plant, so yes, alive. Respiration? If it ticks all other boxes, I'd still say it's life. I'd say these seven processes are more 'indicative symptoms' by which we can 'diagnose' a kind of thing as having life.