The Energon Pub

PLZ don't laugh at me....

Can actually TFs have "kids"?(If no,why there are male/female bots?)
They only get to life by some divine force
(allspark,primus/unicron etc)?
They can only be constructed(eg by the quints)?

I am aware of most of the TF origin stories but I still don't get it...

Changes from continuity to continuity. In G1 they can be built, and then their personality is pretty much up to whoever wrote the episode or comic issue, either it can be completely fabricated, or it needs to be given by Vector Sigma or a wizard did it. Most of the groups of Transformer were shown being built in the fiction, including at least three of the gestalt groups and the dinobots.
G2, however, introduced budding which is awesome. With budding, a transformer gets all melty and full of liqud metal lesions, and eventually pops a new transformer out of it. It led to the creation of the MASSIVE armies of the Cybertronian Empire. It's the closest you get to being 'born'.
As for anything past those, I'm not an expert. I know Beast Wars had something called protoforms but I don't know how they were created.

Beast Wars indeed had protoforms. Those are the "black slates" made of liquid metal that be shaped into anything desirable, done by "reformatting" (reshaping of the body). The very first example of reformatting came from the first Transformers movie of 1986, when Unicron reformatted Megatron into Galvatron.

The concept of Transformers "being born" was never touched upon after G2 (or even Beast Wars) untill the live action movie. But there are some guidelines to "making a transformer" in all continuities:

1. The body, when hit by the energy of a life giving object (AllSpark or Vector Sigma), instantly changes form to accommodate the transformation process.
2. A Spark (or at least a basic sentience) is created or inserted at the same time. Where it comes from nobody knows.

An exception concerns the G1 Combaticons and Dinobots. In the G1 cartoon, they were criminals and had their personalities (read: Sparks) extracted and stored away as punishment. The exiled Starscream, needing an army of his own, retrieved them and inserted them in some army vehicles, which instantly changed shape and transformed.
The Dinobots were constructed by Wheeljack to transform from the very start, in the cartoon that is. In the comic however, they all were original crew members of the Ark when it crashlanded during the Dinosaur era. Teletran 1 gave them the Dinosaur forms they have now.
Bear in mind this all happened before Vector Sigma was introduced

That's basically what I know and theorize.

Thanks a lot guys.
But I still don't get a couple of things:
1)How could TFs who were actualy built by other TFs(such as G1 Dinobots & Constructicons)have a spark?
2)Why TFs have gender & which is the diference between male-female TFs?

DIDICOS wrote:Thanks a lot guys.
But I still don't get a couple of things:
1)How could TFs who were actualy built by other TFs(such as G1 Dinobots & Constructicons)have a spark?
2)Why TFs have gender & which is the diference between male-female TFs?

1) The idea of a spark wasn't introduced until Beast Wars, so we can only assume that they, like all Transformers, were intended to have very advanced Artificial Intelligence.
2) That has been a very tough question over the many years, as many things don't make sense. From the producers' point of view, there were no females in the very beginning but the need of one was apparent once a "girly" type of character was to be introduced. In short, it was more for enhancing character traits than for reproduction.

DIDICOS wrote:Thanks a lot guys.
But I still don't get a couple of things:
1)How could TFs who were actualy built by other TFs(such as G1 Dinobots & Constructicons)have a spark?
2)Why TFs have gender & which is the diference between male-female TFs?

Well, as JelZe said, sparks were added in Beast Wars, which is a full 11 years after Transformers came about to begin with. Before that there were various ideas about personalities and essences, the most memorable being the supercomputer Vector Sigma having the ability to create new personalities for newly-constructed Transformers.
As for gender, it's really just a visual and possibly social-hierarchy thing, there's no anatomical differences between male and female transformers (in fact, Tentakil, a male, and Scylla, a female, use the same toy mould).

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote: In the comic however, they all were original crew members of the Ark when it crashlanded during the Dinosaur era. Teletran 1 gave them the Dinosaur forms they have now.
Bear in mind this all happened before Vector Sigma was introduced

That's basically what I know and theorize.

Your a bit mistaken.

In the comics the Ark did not crash land durring the Dinosaur era

sto_vo_kor_2000 wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote: In the comic however, they all were original crew members of the Ark when it crashlanded during the Dinosaur era. Teletran 1 gave them the Dinosaur forms they have now.
Bear in mind this all happened before Vector Sigma was introduced

That's basically what I know and theorize.

Your a bit mistaken.

In the comics the Ark did not crash land durring the Dinosaur era

Correction: The Ark did not crash land during the Dinosaur era in ANY form of media. It's pretty consistent that it crashed 4,000,000 years ago, about 60,000,000 years late if they were aiming for the Dinosaur Era.

However, in the comics, the Dinobots were still brought online to fight Shockwave a short time after crashing.

Shadowman wrote:

sto_vo_kor_2000 wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote: In the comic however, they all were original crew members of the Ark when it crashlanded during the Dinosaur era. Teletran 1 gave them the Dinosaur forms they have now.
Bear in mind this all happened before Vector Sigma was introduced

That's basically what I know and theorize.

Your a bit mistaken.

In the comics the Ark did not crash land durring the Dinosaur era

Correction: The Ark did not crash land during the Dinosaur era in ANY form of media. It's pretty consistent that it crashed 4,000,000 years ago, about 60,000,000 years late if they were aiming for the Dinosaur Era.

However, in the comics, the Dinobots were still brought online to fight Shockwave a short time after crashing.

Thats not much of a correction to what I said....its more of an additional information.

sto_vo_kor_2000 wrote:Thats not much of a correction to what I said....its more of an additional information.

You said "In the comics" and I kind of took that as if you were saying that the Ark crash landed in the Dinosaur era in, say, the cartoon. Just a misunderstanding on my part.

Though it raises the question, why would Teletraan 1 have the Dinobots try and blend in...millions years before any being capable of comprehending alien robots came to be...by making them turn into extinct animals? I mean, Shockwave would probably catch on when he sees a set of robotic animals the likes of whom are found no where else on the planet. (Either that, or "Hey, giant metal lizards? I wonder how they became endangered and also Cybertronian")

Shadowman wrote:You said "In the comics" and I kind of took that as if you were saying that the Ark crash landed in the Dinosaur era in, say, the cartoon. Just a misunderstanding on my part.

Though it raises the question, why would Teletraan 1 have the Dinobots try and blend in...millions years before any being capable of comprehending alien robots came to be...by making them turn into extinct animals? I mean, Shockwave would probably catch on when he sees a set of robotic animals the likes of whom are found no where else on the planet. (Either that, or "Hey, giant metal lizards? I wonder how they became endangered and also Cybertronian")

Well before we have an other misunderstanding....

I'm sure you are aware that Dinosaurs were extinct in the real world 4 million years ago...

But in the Marvel Universe they were not.....

And the G1 comics in question are from Marvel comics......

Basicly around 4 million years ago [after the Ark crashed] Shockwave came to earth and ended up on an island [in the Marvel U] called "THE SAVAGE LAND".And Dinosaurs were not extinct in the Savage land at the time.

The Ark awoke [and not fully functional] revived Grimlock and the others and out fitted them to appear like the dominate life forms inside the Savage Land.

So the only real issue is that they were "Robotic Dinosaurs".

And BTW in the Savage Land of today Dinosaurs are still "NOT" extinct in the Marvel Universe.

So you can have the Hulk fight a Dinosaur if you like

That's not a misunderstanding; I just didn't know the Savage Land was also a part of the comics continuity. I mean, DC published Watchmen, but then those are separate entities. I figured the same applied to the Marvel TF comics...you know, despite the repeated appearances of a handful of Marvel characters.

Shadowman wrote:That's not a misunderstanding; I just didn't know the Savage Land was also a part of the comics continuity. I mean, DC published Watchmen, but then those are separate entities. I figured the same applied to the Marvel TF comics...you know, despite the repeated appearances of a handful of Marvel characters.

I just wanted to avoid a misunderstanding.

Anyway the TF comics took place in a seprate Universe then the mainstream Marvel U [616] but this sepraye Universe also had a "Savage Land" as it did a Spiderman and other Marvel characters.

No less the savage Land is specificly named in the issue that ratchet finds the Dinobots and re-awakens them.

The reproduction of Transformers does vary greatly from continuity to continuity. And Fan Fic to Fan fic if you decide to include those as well.

Given a general lack of female designs, the Vector Sigma / Allspark is the most logical answer. And they are mechanoids, so human or earthlike style reproduction wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. BUT - it doesn't go to say that in the fan-fic universes those means haven't been explored in some form or anouther.

It all depends on which storyline you read. I prefer G1 and the Vector Sigma theory. Transformers get their sparks mainly from Vector Sigma. The new live action movies Allspark is kinda interesting too - but for some reason the darn thing is set on Decepticon production. Guess they need to flip the switch eh?

Cybertron is also populated with many non-transforming robots as well. These are lesser robots/drones apparently, produced for specific, various purposes. They probably have sentience also, but aren't as high up the scale as the full Transformer types. The mechanoid species is very alien to us. But think of a hive of bees. They operate on programming for a purpose, a task.

A "spark" I think must be a collection of a super massive amount of digital data and energy. The data is computed, written, compiled and formed by Vector Sigma and then formed into the "spark" thing to be placed in the "Hull" or "Shell" or even "Protoform". In Beast Wars the protoforms apparently already had their personalities, it was just their bodies that needed formatting to whatever world they landed on. Kinda the same with the live movies. And apparently this super massive amount of data and energy can be transferred from form to form, hard drive to hard drive when a new body is needed. Kinda spiritual in a way.

I suppose that really doesn't answer the question really - but I guess it's kinda a really hard one to answer. At least I didn't go rambling on about Dinobots...

Robots have electrical systems (like our nervous system and brains), and personalities (like our, umm, personalities). Could the personality come *with* the electrical system? Meaning that the animating energy is the same that gives personality? This seems to fit with, say, Beast Wars--protoforms are inert. They get activated, they 'get' a personality. As to who builds the protoform, it almost doesn't matter, the same way that your genetic forebears don't really matter in shaping (any genetic component of) your personality.

So I say 50/50 in most cases. There's a part that's constructed, and a part that gets born. The body can be built, but it's the spark that gives it life/personality. I think TFA goes with this theory too--Yokitron? (Or however it's spelled).

The Bay movies seem to go more 'birth' with those protoforms in gelatinous sacs, but the question then turns into the distinction between drones and, well, non-drones. Lots of drones in Bay--they could just be protoforms that have split the electrical system from the personality system. I think the Bayverse (including Mowry's stuff) takes it that drones can 'evolve' and become individuals. So the Bayverse would have animated but personality-less drones 'born' but that last step in evolution...???? Mowry seems to think that that step in evolution just kinda happens if they stay alive long enough (I'm extrapolating A LOT from ROS).

HK, no more drinking caffeine and posting!

Since nobody has mentioned it, I might share my Armada knowledge with you on this:

In Armada, the TFs are not built, like humans build robots, or anything like that. The Minicons were born, or evolved from Unicron's cells. In one episode it shows them dropping from the roof of one of the cave-like structures in Unicron. At one point, Starscream mentions him being loyal to Megatron ever since his spark left a chamber, in Iacon if I'm not mistaken...

So in Armada, TFs are born, and also there are no females (except for POSSIBLY sureshock, although it's never confirmed since he/she can't talk). The only thing is Armada is supposed to be part of the same Universe as Cybertron, in which there are girls.

I geuss it just depends what Universe you're talking about. In the movie they're born AND built I think, there's a huge argument about that in the TF Movie forum (natural organic vs built machine or something like that). Jetfire mentioned having a dad, which I thought was stupid, yet we see on the Nemesis tfs are born from eggs (the hatchlings), as well as being brought to life from man-made appliances from the allspark. Even more, some people think the constructicons are not like the others, but are drones. It's quite confusing

YRQRM0 wrote:Since nobody has mentioned it, I might share my Armada knowledge with you on this:

In Armada, the TFs are not built, like humans build robots, or anything like that. The Minicons were born, or evolved from Unicron's cells. In one episode it shows them dropping from the roof of one of the cave-like structures in Unicron. At one point, Starscream mentions him being loyal to Megatron ever since his spark left a chamber, in Iacon if I'm not mistaken...

So in Armada, TFs are born, and also there are no females (except for POSSIBLY sureshock, although it's never confirmed since he/she can't talk). The only thing is Armada is supposed to be part of the same Universe as Cybertron, in which there are girls.

I geuss it just depends what Universe you're talking about. In the movie they're born AND built I think, there's a huge argument about that in the TF Movie forum (natural organic vs built machine or something like that). Jetfire mentioned having a dad, which I thought was stupid, yet we see on the Nemesis tfs are born from eggs (the hatchlings), as well as being brought to life from man-made appliances from the allspark. Even more, some people think the constructicons are not like the others, but are drones. It's quite confusing

Thats all very interesting.

Not being a fan of Armada , or thew other 2 Unicron shows, I didnt know that.

But I did know that ultimately this was a debate with different answers depending on which series we were talking about.

There's no reason to assume that all TFs are born like the Mini-cons, especially since the Mini-cons were built inside of Unicron, and were vastly different from other TFs anyway. Likewise, Starscream mentioning his "spark left the chamber" that doesn't imply that either his body or his Spark was born, since he didn't state outright what the "chamber" was.

Shadowman wrote:There's no reason to assume that all TFs are born like the Mini-cons, especially since the Mini-cons were built inside of Unicron, and were vastly different from other TFs anyway. Likewise, Starscream mentioning his "spark left the chamber" that doesn't imply that either his body or his Spark was born, since he didn't state outright what the "chamber" was.

I suppose. But the way they talk about the spark and everything when Smokescreen's being rebuilt, and when the kids go back in time, it definitely conveys the whole "born" message over the whole "built robots" I think. You know what I mean? It just might be me though.

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

DIDICOS wrote:Thanks a lot guys.
But I still don't get a couple of things:
1)How could TFs who were actualy built by other TFs(such as G1 Dinobots & Constructicons)have a spark?
2)Why TFs have gender & which is the diference between male-female TFs?

1) The idea of a spark wasn't introduced until Beast Wars, so we can only assume that they, like all Transformers, were intended to have very advanced Artificial Intelligence.
2) That has been a very tough question over the many years, as many things don't make sense. From the producers' point of view, there were no females in the very beginning but the need of one was apparent once a "girly" type of character was to be introduced. In short, it was more for enhancing character traits than for reproduction.

Hate to disagree but eppisode six introduced sparks as a laser core.

starskream and the sweeps blast optimus and set of a computer bomb. Prime jumps on it to protect the humans. later ratchet is fixing prime and megatron order laserbeak to attack prime and exstingusih his laser core.

ebilly99 wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

DIDICOS wrote:Thanks a lot guys.
But I still don't get a couple of things:
1)How could TFs who were actualy built by other TFs(such as G1 Dinobots & Constructicons)have a spark?
2)Why TFs have gender & which is the diference between male-female TFs?

1) The idea of a spark wasn't introduced until Beast Wars, so we can only assume that they, like all Transformers, were intended to have very advanced Artificial Intelligence.
2) That has been a very tough question over the many years, as many things don't make sense. From the producers' point of view, there were no females in the very beginning but the need of one was apparent once a "girly" type of character was to be introduced. In short, it was more for enhancing character traits than for reproduction.

Hate to disagree but eppisode six introduced sparks as a laser core.

starskream and the sweeps blast optimus and set of a computer bomb. Prime jumps on it to protect the humans. later ratchet is fixing prime and megatron order laserbeak to attack prime and exstingusih his laser core.

The Jets are called "Seekers" (in the fandom), not Sweeps. The Sweeps are under the command of Scourge.

The concept of a Laser Core indeed precedes the spark. But the Spark proper debuted in Beast Wars and had quite an elaborate explanation, while the Laser Core was hardly touched upon as a life force. What exactly a Laser Core is is uncertain, but two toys seem to indicate it's some sort of housing for the spark:

- Beast Wars Tigerhawk: His Spark Crystal is housed within a translucent column or core. It's never named as such though
- Beast Machines Mechatron (Beast Rider): it's bio states it can rip the Laser Core right out of a Transformer's body.

Dang you retcons!