by Kranix-76 » Thu Jun 28, 2007 7:37 pm
Wow. I am always a bit perturbed by just the sheer number of Decepticon apologists that float around here...
Yes, it is likely that the Autobots are responsible for a number of injustices--some likely inherited from their role as the Senate's security force as seen in the Origins issue that's currently out there. But there are still a number of perspectives we have yet to see from that mini (as it seems it is one of two primary sources of evidence used here), so let's consider some other options.
First, unless "Senate" is being used purely as a facist tactic to ensure a faux-democracy, there have got to be those on Cybertron who oppose the unjust treatment of the working class; and though I wouldn't rule the "fake" democracy aspect out entirely, there must still exist some entity that would serve as some form of civic resistance. Similarly, who is to say that the Autobot Security Force we see Sentinel Prime leading in Origins #1 is the same group that would rise up as Autobots? Maybe someone--from within the organization, or perhaps a working class 'bot who joins in a time of crisis--rises to a position of leadership and tries to shift the organization around to rightly preserve the peace and freedoms of sentient beings; hell, for all we know, the current incarnation of the Autobots could be using the insignia as a bit of ironic justice. Even with the dismissive attitude Sentinel Prime has about the Senate, there may be a hint about a greater disillusionment with the Senate itself--perhaps acknowledging a strain of corruption which the Autobot Security Forces themselves are growing wary of.
The biggest point is: hell, we only have one issue out of four to examine, and though it sets-up a pretty huge case of unjust acts and classism, is it necessarily the cause of the Autobots who would later attempt to thwart Decepticon imperialism and conquest? We don't know yet, but I'm willing to wager that there's more going-on here than meets the eye.
As for the other issue here: is it possible that the Decepticon cause started out as a workers' rights movement against an unjust, Autobot-backed aristocracy? Very, I will admit. But the initial cause--if that, indeed, is what will transpire over the next three issues of Origins--gave way to a greater corruption of that idea, and the seeming identity inherent in such a notion vanished soon after: the Decepticons are not bound by the united identity of "the proletariat," but by the notion that "only the strong shall survive, so only the strong need survive." That is the same line of thinking that begat genocide after genocide in the history of our human history...and that is the same line of thinking that allows the Decepticons to lay waste and destroy innumerable worlds for their own self-serving ends.
If anything, I wouldn't think it'd be the Autobot "propoganda" that would be worthy of discussion. I'm more curious about how some who ally themselves with the Decepticons would be drawn to the movement; after all, a certain controversial study in the U.S. shortly after WWII revealed that a disturbingly high percentage of average citizens would follow orders from a person of authority, even if it meant another person's death...not to cheapen the study at all, but I wonder if it would translate to some of those "lower-ranking Decepticons" some have brought-up...
[ Click to attempt signal recovery... ]
