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So I rewatched Transformers: Prime recently with a friend who'd never seen it before. It was his first venture into Transformers besides the movies, and while he enjoyed it quite a bit, he raised a lot of questions while watching that made me think.

As a fan of Transformers (the TV shows mainly, I could never sadly find a jumping on point for the IDW train)I've just sort of come to accept certain things, like how Optimus and Megatron will always recite the classic "One shall stand, one shall fall" mantra, and that Optimus will always die at least once before remarkably returning in the nick of time to kick Megatron's butt, etc.

But there's always been one thing that's sort of bugged me a bit, and my friend brought it up time and again while watching, and that's "Scanning".

Scanning is the process in which a transformer scans an alt mode, we all know that.

But what's a mystery to me, and my friend as he pointed out nearly every other episode, is why the autobots tended to choose ground-based alt modes, and the decepticons would fly (with the exeptions of Breakdown and Knockout, who I view as Stunticons, so that at least makes sense in my mind.)

The decepticons always seem to have the advantage in the air, with the show's writers even going so far as to give the Autobots two ships, the Jackhammer, and Magnus's ship later, along with Optimus's flight upgrade, in which he STILL transforms into a truck!

He was reforged by the forge of Solus Prime and yet his alt mode of choice is still a truck!

I understand being "in disguise" but when the majority of your fights are in deserts or on board the decepticon warship, that shouldnt matter, right?

My way of explaining this was that certain robots on cybertron were designed to have certain roles in society, like I believe the books say they were. So they are only compatible with certain vehicle types, with Decepticons being more military in nature, while the Autobots are more civilian.

I feel this is cemented by the Vehicon's existence, as each one is either one of two modes, a car and a jet, of similar design.

Is there some official explanation of how scanning in general works somewhere? Can an autobot just choose a jet mode and fly off if his car suit doesn't feel up to snuff? Or are they locked into a certain range of alt mode types?

Nobody? I'd kinda like some insight on this, if anyone has any

Personally, i was never a fan of integrated scanning. I prefer them being locked in unless something like teletraan 1 modifies them. In the original shows and even bw, yes they were locked in. They needed their ships to change alt modes. But these days, nothing is stopping them from scanning a jet and flying off. It's as easy for them as changing clothes for us. But that takes away the uniqueness of that character being associated with that alt mode.


As for the sky ground thing, i view it as air superiority. Easier to get arpund a d a.bush people. Autobots play it more defensively. Ground vehicles are more agile, easier to control and make sudden evasive moves and blend into the local population far easier.

I guess I didnt view it that way considering that in Prime, Starscream was able to fly through the Nemesis's hallways with just as much precision as Arcee could drive through them.

I like your "air superiority" vs "defensive" argument though.

Makes me think of Animated Blitzwing...I liked Animated, but Blitzwing...He was able to scan a Jet, and a Tank, and turn into BOTH.

I wonder if a transformer could scan a hundred alt modes and have one for every occasion

True about the hallways, but that is mostly straight lines and turns. By more agile, I was thinking combat. It's easier for ground vehicles to make sudden stops, turn sharper and quicker and be able to pull handbrake turns. A jet would have to overshoot and circle back. Hallway turns can be predicted so he can easily angle his flight path to make the turns.


Haha. I think so many alt modes would put too much strain on them. Multiformers are a rare thing because it strains them too much. It takes a strong spark to be able to handle multiple modes.

Animated was a special case. There was only one multiformer if I remember right. Blitzwing. And that was because he had multiple personalities. Each personality used a different mode, which actually was used against him. Bee got him so angry, his angry persona took over and he unwillingly transformed from jet to tank in mid air and crashed. Animated re-wrote much of the established 'rules' into it's own universe and lore (one of the reasons I love it so much) so in Animated, I guess you could have 100 alt modes, if you had 100 personalities in each body.