The Energon Pub

To me, the only Autobots that show an actual good example of realistic friendship is Prime and Ironhide. All the other Autobots just were so nice with each other because they all depended on each other to the point that they had to act all lovey-dovey.

Most of the Decepticons, on the other hand, see themselves as powerful and think that they would do ok on their own, but, at the same time, know that they will all do a lot better working together and, hence, do so. Kinda like the old saying, "You scratch my back and I'll scratch your's."

I'd say the Battlechargers are genuine friends to a decent extent, Runabout being the "dominant" partner. I kind of like their relationship; Runabout's a performer looking for an audience, and as long he's got Runamuck around, there's always somebody who appreciates what he does.

The Constructicons are an excellent team, and generally seem to get along well enough (though Scrapper, I'd say, is the only one who's actually friendly).

I'd agree that Skywarp and Thundercracker are pretty close, though that's probably got a lot to do with a shared grievance with Starscream.

I think Darkwing and Dreadwind are pretty close - closer than they'd admit even to themselves. Darkwing's stated that he mostly sticks with Dreadwind out of pity, but I think the duo kind of get a kick out of out-glooming each other.

I don't think most of the Cassetticons are as close as some of you seem to believe. Rumble and Frenzy are certainly tight, and all of them are loyal to Soundwave (particularly Rumble, who idolises him). But I think most of them are pretty much out for themselves; Ratbat's certainly pretty independent, Buzzsaw doesn't give a stuff about anyone but himself, Ravage is pretty much a loner, and Slugfest doesn't trust anyone.

The Stunticons I'm not sure about. Their hatred of Motormaster is well-documented, but less tends to be made of their relationships with each other. To be honest, I don't think they follow the same pattern as the Seekers, ganging up on their boss. I think that their individual pathologies and insecurities would make them too self-centred to be able to relate to each other as friends.

As for Megatron and Soundwave, I think "friendship" is a bit strong. I think Soundwave is one of the few mechs that Megatron can truly trust to get the job done and not stab him in the back. But I think in many ways, Soundwave sees Megatron as an insurance policy. Because of his blackmailing, backstabbing ways, everyone (with the notable exceptions of Megatron and the Cassetticons) hates Soundwave. But as long as he's in Megatron's good books, he knows he's safe.
I always think of him in relation to the alternate Spock in the Star Trek mirror universe ("Mirror, Mirror", et al). In that, you advanced in rank by killing your superiors, and obviously Kirk, as the captain, was the prime target for everyone. Spock could easily have killed Kirk and taken over the Enterprise any number of times, but as long as he's second-in-command, there's a lot less potential assassins to fend off.

I think Megatron and Skywarp were kind of friends. Skywarp seemed to suck up to Megatron from time to time, and if Megatron favoured any 1 seeker, it would be Skywarp. That's also why I prefer to think Skywarp was refomated into Cyclonus and Thundercrack into Scourge. Cyclonus often defends Galvatron. So even though they were reformated into different characters, that friendship is still there, even if it's gone 180. Same for Cyclonus and Scourge. I also think all the seekers are friends to some degree. They were all Cybertronian Gladiators. They all had basicly the same alt mode. It's had to believe they're not friends.

Just for the record, UP, Skywarp wasn't reformatted into Cyclonus, he was one of his minions. Bombshell is Cyclonus.

Oh, and...

UltraPrimal wrote:They all had basicly the same alt mode. It's had to believe they're not friends.

Does that mean Sideswipe and Air Raid were bestest buds with Breakdown and Thundercracker..?

Obviously the Cons can make friends as both solemn relationships and random shoddy allegiances, it all stems from their respective social makeup.

At some point the Decepticon element was the smaller of Cybertronian populace, thus at this time period everyone was pretty Transformers/Autobotish YMCA as aforementioned.

However, as the Cons became more active I am sure the early strike teams, splinter groups were indeed close friends, I am sure this is what led to the general disenfranchising that most Cons have against making friends due to the fact that many of their “true” friends had to be crushed or betrayed in order for their missions to succeed.

When the Cons began subjugating Cybertrons populace and the Autobots and other rebel groups formed I am sure this formed tight bonds between the small "Undergroud" to combat the Con threat, not necessarily even friendships just the common goal of preserving Transformer society as they think it should be.

Also, the bonds of friendship that would form between some Cons would have probably been forged through the fear that if they had no allies they would be crushed under the Decepticon war machine or informed on as an Autobot spy.

I like to think the Decepticons can form friendships for many of the reasons stated in other posts.

Emperor Primacron the 1st wrote: Octane and Sandstorm seemed to be good buddies, and they were on opposing sides.

I think the reason for their friendship is that they've both unfairly lost their home due to an unfit leader. Octane was booted out of the Decepticons for far less than many others had done, and as for Sandstorm... I don't care if they're from a peaceful world the Paradronians should've linched Rodimus there and then.

Remember the G1 "Star of Cybertron Episode"? When all the 'con got over energized with energon (i.e drunk),now that's what I call drinking buddies.....hehe. As for the Autobots,, it was charisma and not fear that bound them all to Optimus. They even constructed a throne for him, out of their own bodies, remember?

You refer to the episode Microbots and triple takeover.

fenrir72 wrote:Remember the G1 "Star of Cybertron Episode"? When all the 'con got over energized with energon (i.e drunk),now that's what I call drinking buddies.....hehe. As for the Autobots,, it was charisma and not fear that bound them all to Optimus. They even constructed a throne for him, out of their own bodies, remember?

Funny that we never see the Autobots do that, could it be assumed that they aren't heavy drinkers?

they don't drink... they gamble

Octane and SandStorm seemed pretty good mates in season 3.

Cons are better mates than bots.

cons can have more fun dare to be a bit rebelious and get into mischeif. Bots would probably tell you not to do things... or that's not nice.

Sunstar wrote:they don't drink... they gamble

Yep, and the money is payed to the cons for protection

The dinosaur force are all pretty close friends too, willing to lay their lives on the line for each other. They're got the best teamwork even if they are the worst fighters.

I get the feeling from Beast Wars that Megatron and Dinobot used to be good friends until their falling out when they crashed on Earth.

Unchrasimatic wrote:

fenrir72 wrote:Remember the G1 "Star of Cybertron Episode"? When all the 'con got over energized with energon (i.e drunk),now that's what I call drinking buddies.....hehe. As for the Autobots,, it was charisma and not fear that bound them all to Optimus. They even constructed a throne for him, out of their own bodies, remember?

Funny that we never see the Autobots do that, could it be assumed that they aren't heavy drinkers?

Maybe they energize in private. In Beast Wars the second, Apache, Lio Convoy's buddy, was a steriotype of the drunken native american.

Basically, it doesn't matter how the friendships started, weither its occupying the same position, having similar mentality, lifelong comrades or a shared hatred for superiors. There are alot of Decepticons that have close friendships. What about Dirge and Ramjet. Those two were always together. They even fled Charr and hid on Earth together (FFOD) which meant they were more likely to be discovered as 2 jets are harder to blend in than 1.

As for my Stunticon statement, I was going off the toon only. The fear of Motormaster, though well documented in the bio's (and comics?) never came across in the toon. They were always shown to be like a group of rowdy but well knit team. (masquerade and Starscreams brigade come to mind. Yes, they didn't do alot in the second one, but when they were shown, they seemed really good friends having the inane banter between them)

As far as the Stunticons go, I'd say they were pals united in their hatred of Motormaster. But the nature of a gestalt warrior does require some kind of ability to get along, and getting along is a major element in forming friendships. If we want to look at this as an issue of teaming up in order to accomplish certain goals or out of some commonality then I think we get more into business relationships. The Terrorcons, Seacons and Predacons all have the same core group of traits and interests, and they are three of the more effective gestalt warrior units.
If we wnat to define friendships as two or more individual units being able to offer each other something they need, then the Battlechargers, Dreadwind and Dark wing and Soundwave Inc. are great examples. Also a groupd like the Constructicons are usually working towards some common goal, be it con- or destruction, whereas the Predacons being hunters more or less would be united in the hunt and oneupmanship.
The Decepticons are probably more easily characterized by their crazed loner types like Sixshot or Shockwave. Being so logical, Shockwave makes what amount to be buisness alliances, since friendship and comraderie are essentailly 'illogical' relationships.
Far as the alt mode link for a bunch like the Seekers, I don't know how well that would hold them together as friends. I agree that the Seekers and Coneheads seemed pretty tight, but then there are groups like the Triggercons who all serve different functions in military terms but to my limited knowledge were never shown (if at all) as being all that close personally, despite their common abilities. The Triple Changers were probably close because of their being different from everyone else, but in contrast Flywheels and Battletrap, if you read their MTMTE bios would probably be completely incapable of working together because of their being different from other Cons, each other and their component parts.

Yeah I think decepticons can make friends; true combiner teams were more likely to stick together because they quite litterally had to. Still the insecticons were definately quite close...in the episode with the morphobots (i think it was a plague of insecticons or something) Kickback actually helps Bombshell get away from the morphobots. Again in the nova power core episode Bombshell helps Kickback up.

That and Kickback nearly has a spark attack when Bombshells 'stomach' rumbles...hehe I like the heart burn bit in that episode.

True they might just be together because no one else likes them so it's stick together or die but it always seemed more to me than that. Or it could just be I'm an insecticon fangirl

The cons do make make friends Starsctream and his fellow seekers are pretty close nit so are Blitzwing and Astrotrain. Most of the combiner teams their members are a close nit bunch of course with the merging of both their minds and bodies they would have to be. Megatron and Soundwave are very close. Just because most Decepticons are brutal in nature and are considered evil doesn't mean they are not capable of Friendships.

I just recalled this, in "Fire in the Sky", just in the opening scene, the Autobots did get into the thick of fun in a snowball fight, same with Atlantis Rise, a football game with the Dinobots. They aren't quite stick to the mud as we think they are.

fenrir72 wrote:I just recalled this, in "Fire in the Sky", just in the opening scene, the Autobots did get into the thick of fun in a snowball fight, same with Atlantis Rise, a football game with the Dinobots. They aren't quite stick to the mud as we think they are.

Both times were started by Spike. Perhaps they just wanted to learn about Earth sports. And both featured nearly the same bots.