AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Beast Wars: no humans - Proof they were not needed at all. Transformers could only kill each other.
Proto-Humans still count as humans even if they were not super prevalent.
Regardless if the Transformers were going to be on Earth and do things like fight in a populated human city it's a no brainer for the military to get involved to uh do it's job at defending civilians from giant alien robots, while they definitely became too good by DOTM at doing so I don't think there's anything wrong with military killing some Transformers, I mean their the damn military with weapons of mass destruction, the Transformers used bullets and explosive stuff more than lasers or other sci-fi weapons so there isn't any reason why a Transformer weapon bullet should not be about equal to a tank or jet missile.
2007 I think did a relatively good job at making a balance, very few things worked on them with handheld weapons with only sabot shells doing anything meaningful while the rest of the damage was from jet missiles in the final fight and even then they only killed Blackout who notably god absolutely bombarded with them while Lennox took a few shots under his armor, they kept Starscream distracted but otherwise did little damage to him while he took out a few of the jets himself, Megatron got focused fire but he didn't really seem that damaged by them before Sam shoved the cube into his chest, Scorponok earlier on got his tail damaged but he was a small-guy who was probably the weakest Decepticon besides Frenzy in the movie which is notable in ROTF when Jetfire easily destroyed him despite them getting the drop on him.
ROTF I think wasn't too bar in this regard either with the final fight, their fighting alongside Autobots from afar and although Sabot Rounds don't seem to be prelevant the Decepticons are still not shown to be killed by small-fire only missiles which could of come from either the tanks and rocket launchers or the Autobots who were there.
DOTM is where it's bad and probably at it's worst in this regard with the use of standard assault rifles and whatnot but at least they also had Que/Wheeljack's boomsticks.
AOE didn't really have military besides the Cemetery Wind guys and although it's implied they killed Decepticons too which isn't great but we only see them go up against Autobots although Ratchet, Leadfoot and whoever else very likely didn't want to hurt humans at all because their Autobots with Ratchet notably focusing on escaping, only fighting back once he was cornered but even then he still had Lockdown shooting at him with the Bounty Hunter implied to have helped Cemetery Wind with other targets so even then it's not a pure human effort.
TLK is sorta on-par with DOTM since while TRF isn't shown killing Decepticons as much like DOTM they do capture a few Decepticons alive which might be more impressive a feat since it's probably harder to keep Transformers imprisoned rather than killing them, although the Final Battle in that film had them supporting the Autobots with non-specialized weapons from what I remember although the only Transformers I recall them killing on their own was Canopy via jet missile and that Skullitron guy although he was simply shot-up before he fell down a chasm plus that guy was rusting and falling apart anyways.
Bumblebee was fine since the only Military fighting going on was with Sector 7 against Bumblebee with the first him trying to run away while the second time he had Charlie with him, the only other individual that got into conflict was Blitzwing who effortlessly bombarded them before he started fighting Bumblebee, it's very likely Shatter and Dropkick would of been able to hold their own for a bit but Shatter definitely saw it wiser to deceive them into working with her and Dropkick.
Anyways bit of a rambling tangent apologies, but I don't think the Military being involved should automatically be seen as a bad thing, it depends on if it makes sense for them to get involved so as long as their used sparingly and only being able to hurt Decepticons with things that make sense like a bombardment of missiles or other effective things against their metal whether it's Sabot rounds or some sci-fi gun then it can work as long as their not winning effortlessly like what ended up happening with DOTM, regardless if the Transformers are going to be on Earth in the modern day there's gonna be humans their not gonna go crawl under a rock or abandon the planet just so Transformers can do their thing alone plus the franchise is built around them turning into Earth vehicles so...
Thankfully with what we know Rise of the Beasts apparently has little to no military involved at all with the only 2 important humans bein Noah who's getting that exo-suit to fight and the Elena character who probably won't be taking down any Decepticons herself.