The Energon Pub

Heya to all.

I know there's a seperate area for kitbashing but I want a more 'Living room' and less 'workshop' influence at the moment,if you get my meaning.I plan to post there later on for more fiddly technical matters.

My question:How do you believe,suspect,want or imagine an Autobot family would/could should look.In particular, how should/would/could Autobot children inherit qualities from their parents? I want any answers & influences right now,no matter how diverse, which is why I posted here, especially from people who have families of their own.

I want to expand an Autobot Tribe I've customed since 2007 from various releases I like, for display & to compliment the rest of my collection of TFs. Each member is a completely new, non canon identity from across the timelines.A number of the members are families or couples.

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The fluff,boxed(ish) in case you want to skip it:
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The core members are tied-in as having banded together during the Beast Wars period after crashing on a seperate continent from the bots in the BW story.They never called themselves either Maximals or Predacons and mostly hunted each other but started banding together after feeling the tug of the Matrix whenever it was used in the BW Saga.This resulted in an eventual cooperation of sub 'gangs' and 'packs' and finally an attempted migration to the general location of the Matrix's last detected surge- but since there were no Seagoers (some short distance flyers) they got there so late the actual BW canon characters were gone and the Beast Machines story was over.(More non canon beast Tfs were still around but mostly aggressive or solitary).

After a long time, TigerHawk (or someone associated) found this tribe and sent them into the pre-Armada era where they participated in the battles that the Autobots were defeated in after being betrayed by General Thrust.Most of the tribe survived (they knew about the betrayal from TigerHawk) and together with a few other surviving SPECOPS Autobot soldiers continued wandering the timelines until movie Optimus put out a call for Autobots to seek out Earth as a gathering point.

After more long delays, they're getting to Earth and are trying to communicate their presence to the N.E.S.T Autobots without letting the humans detect them at all,but the N.E.S.T Autobots keep travelling around the globe and the Tribe can't use high energy scans to find them because the Humans are advanced enough to detect these.So it's more travelling by foot/wheel,getting there late,and waiting for news on which way to go next.
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Borrowing the Lifemate and Lovemate ideas from the Elfquest stories,and the Spark Merging notion from TF Wiki,(plus the Spartan/Amazon template "Let's mate 'cuz ya kill good an' I like it, but don't talk to me 'cuz ya piss me off an' I'll gut ya!") there'll be several females,the first two of whom I am starting on now in the first family that I want to complete before moving on to the rest of my half finished pieces.

The first complete family will have 6 members-a Dad,Mum,Son and daughter,the Dads Brother and the Dads' best friend:

Shadowbolt, the Dad, about G1 Sideswipes' age, is an all black repaint of 07 deluxe Bumblebee,with a battle damage 07 Jazz head swap,painted to look like an undamaged Beast Wars head. He is a former G2 of spark-merged birth,his Ma was a Throttlebot and Pa was a Turbomaster.Due to inspiration from WFC, the interior,recessed areas of his vehicle panels have been painted blue,like the red Energon in the WFC TFs.He has a silver blower/bugcatcher built from legends the fallen on his bonnet and will get a turbo jet system similar to 07 Wreckages' combat blades when I am happy with the parts I want.This will be black with silver-blue blades, suspended over the back tyres.In Beast wars he was a Jackal.He has a Brother,Preypacer.

Preypacer,another 07 bb repaint,but white with black bot body and orange Energon,all terrain wheels,07 Landmines spotlights and Bullbar and a head swap with 07 Longarm.Preypacer was a fox and is a bit of a murderous,bloodhungry feral jerk,like Dinobot, and still occasionally forgets he doesn't Transform into an animal anymore.The two don't cooperate like brothers but Preypacer is ultra protective of Shadowbolts' children, and still Dens with Shadowbolts' family during leaner times.

Novadrive,Shadowbolts ex-Illuminator childhood buddy, is another BB repaint.The vehicle color is a two-tone red/gold with white stripes.The Bot body is white.The Energon is blue (same military food as Shadowbolt in the old days),as are his headlights.He bears combat blades stolen directly from Wreckage.The head is an old school g2 head.He was a pheonix in Beast Wars,and had a lifemate who was also a pheonix but who was killed in the betrayal of the Autobots by General Thrust.

The Ma,unnamed yet, is a pink & black vehicle repaint of Armada Blur.Her own Ma was a Cybertronian musician who moved to the Speed planet where her music was most popular.The girl was accidentally concieved in concert when her Ma and one of the other musicians in the group accidentally merged sparks during a really dynamic twin solo.(Not embarassing by Cybertron social standards).The girl was treated as a child of the music and had therefore been hugely popular even as a little starlet,and fans totally smothered her in speed upgrades.Her BW mode was a Bird of Paradise but her name during the BW era was a memory-concept of her past life,like Vverb,Vvibe,Echovolt or something thataway, (something combining thrash music with an electronic bird call weapon system).I am experimenting as to whether I will give her Rotf Soundwave legs,Airazor legs or Deluxe Deep desert Brawl legs. I like the Brawl idea as a leftover from a Beast Machines mode (because of the tank treads,which she would hate being a speed planet celebrity)but she missed out on Beast Machines, so,your thoughts?
Also I need an Energon color and Bot/protoform body color for her.I'm thinking green energon and white bod,but green strays from metal to punk,and I've done white over and over.As a mother figure and the only tribe member to have more than 1 child (she's the most fertle due to her mums' lagacy)I don't want her to really have red or Energon at least "war red" energon colors.She fights, but it's not her path. Any preferences from your point of view?

The son,unnamed yet,but maybe Arrowbolt or Autobolt, is a white car,shadow grey body, repaint of 07 vintage Camaro deluxe Bumblebee.The head is sculpted with greenstuff&bits to have a Jazzlike visor and Blurlike earpipes,so he looks like both his parents. Before I made him the son,the Energon color was yellow,as were his racing stripes.What should I do now? Give him his own colors or choose from his parents?If he was born during the Beast wars rather than just after,then he either never had a beast form (i.e: remained protoform) or I haven't decided yet. Amongst the kids of the tribe tho,he's quite old, about debut Hot Rod's age. Most of the rest of the Kids are scout class or smaller, tho I plan on giving him a roughly same aged lovemate.
I'm thinking about giving him a robopet like superdog,that could turn into a blower or something,but that would mean they met and befriended a Mini-Con who didn't go to the final battle with Unicron like all the rest did. Of course,thanks to time travel,maybe they met a minicon before the rest left, and it was a sick or somehow left-out Minicon that the group adopted.How would you prefer to explain this?

I haven't decided on the daughter yet at all but am thinking she should get an up to date HftD or Generations body,like maybe even Cybertron BB or one of the larger Power core combiners.I'm thinking if the Ma gets Green Energon the daughter should get a green vehicle body.I'll give her and her best friend (the brothers' lovemate) the slimmest arms and legs I can find to insinuate the younger age.Any ideas please?

I know it's a long post.I'm sorry. Thank you for reading and thank you for any replies.

This really should be in Transtopia or somthin'

JetOptimus23 wrote:This really should be in Transtopia or somthin'

Thanks, little Dude, you're right.
I know,and was reserved about posting here but I guessed Transtopia is for people who want to read expanded fic.I gambled on the idea they won't read there with predisposition to talk about Autobot babies and beast-bots getting jiggy.
I assumed there'd be more acceptance of an out-of-nowhere topic in the General forum. I'm looking for ideas about how TF children might take after their parents.It's my assumption that more people in the General discussion forum will have a non-'workshop' angle and just comment based on their own life views and experiences,giving me a lot of 'earthy' feedback as opposed to 'techy' feedback.
P.S: 'Little Dude' is is a compliment.If it offends or bothers you,let me know.

orriezaros wrote:Thanks, little Dude, you're right.

I OUTRANK YOU!!! But no, i don't take offense.

orriezaros wrote:I know,and was reserved about posting here but I guessed Transtopia is for people who want to read expanded fic.I gambled on the idea they won't read there with predisposition to talk about Autobot babies and beast-bots getting jiggy.

Yeah, stay as far away as possible from that subject.

JetOptimus23 wrote:

orriezaros wrote:Thanks, little Dude, you're right.

I OUTRANK YOU!!! But no, i don't take offense.

Understood,Sir. Confirmed and accepted.

Don't you have any thoughts on Baby or Teenage bot what-ifs? You always have energetic feedback elsewhere!

Hmm. Well, uh. I got nothin'. sorry.

Ok, so I don't know exactly how to answer this question. But, I'm going to throw this out there and see where it goes for you. How should a family image flow off of the characters. Let's take my family as a example. You would take parts of the individuals or traits and pass some of them down to the others. My mom is very patient, cautious, and understanding. My dad is very logical, gruff, and headstrong. Some traits are more stronger then others in my case. Like being patient, cautious, and logical. But, I do follow more like my dad. I also have 6 ,in total, brothers and sisters. I also can see bits and pieces of them in me as well. One of my brothers is into computers and RC helicopters. A sister of mine is into art and music. But the one thing that we all have in common is that we all have musical ears, well except my parents as far as I know. We can hear musical notes and play them out. For example, some time ago I heard the song Seven nation Army by White Stripes on the radio. Thought it was a very easy bass line and sat down until I figured it out by just picking away at my bass. like I said, I don't know if any of this helps you. But I gave it a shot.

LesserZ wrote:Ok, so I don't know exactly how to answer this question. But, I'm going to throw this out there and see where it goes for you. How should a family image flow off of the characters. Let's take my family as a example. You would take parts of the individuals or traits and pass some of them down to the others. My mom is very patient, cautious, and understanding. My dad is very logical, gruff, and headstrong. Some traits are more stronger then others in my case. Like being patient, cautious, and logical. But, I do follow more like my dad. I also have 6 ,in total, brothers and sisters. I also can see bits and pieces of them in me as well. One of my brothers is into computers and RC helicopters. A sister of mine is into art and music. But the one thing that we all have in common is that we all have musical ears, well except my parents as far as I know. We can hear musical notes and play them out. For example, some time ago I heard the song Seven nation Army by White Stripes on the radio. Thought it was a very easy bass line and sat down until I figured it out by just picking away at my bass. like I said, I don't know if any of this helps you. But I gave it a shot.

Thank you.I'm honestly grateful for your feedback. (6 siblings! WOW!!!)

Since originally posting, I've been thinking of making the two smaller sisters twins,both based off the Backfire/Reverb/Knockout mould, the head of which lends easily to conversion to look like a descendant of Armada blurr with some Jazz traits.
Further, in my could-be-canon-someday-reality, I've decided the Autobot female anatomy has a subcomponent that can drain energon from the body and convert it into a tiny amount of Raw Energon, necessary to 'Spark a new spark'.

You've taught me to remember that siblings can take after each other,rather than just the parents-since they are of a newer generation they will have both a newer approach and a frequent pick of secondary sub-adventures.
From now on the big brother will have been the primary teacher of the two sisters and the littler kids, and I will create one other new persona who has just stepped over from youth to Warrior-adult, who will be the link that influenced the existing youths on 'pop culture' when they were still littler.

...and, since the reverb/knockout head mould already reminds me of Beast Wars Sonar, (the Bat) you've encouraged me, by way of telling me about your family's gift for music (which is awesome!) to have the siblings develop a mild Sonar style ability.Propably something mixing hunting talent (Dad) with detecting personality traits (mums' understanding of musical emotion spheres).You've suddenly made me remeber the 'Defenders of the Earth' Cartoon, which I loved but had completely forgotten, and will revisit now for brainfood. It featured the child of The Phantom, and I think of Flash Gordon. I forget.

NEVER be afraid to speak out.
Thank you.

That's great, I didn't think I was going to be much help. It's funny how you said the movie "Defenders of Space". I'm currently packing all my stuff up and ran across that movie and thought about watching it. I ran across Golion as well and began rewatching that series instead. I kind of had the same idea you had a long time ago. I was checking out some transformer online comics that some people did. They took a group of figures and had them doing funny stuff. My Little Transformers got me to thinking about stop motion video, but your taking things into a different venue by changing the characters completely to fit your needs. I started collecting figures so that one day I would start my own comic or video series, all I need is some space and time.