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I've always viewed the 13 lore as alternate reality stuff. It's not because I care about religion either way, but to me it seems like it's an amendment for the sake of adding it. Like, whoever wrote it (and whoever at Hasbro approved it) thought TF lore as it was didn't have enough detail. And maybe it didn't, but I think it would have made more sense to expand on already-known origins such as the Quintessons (as much as I loathe them and that entire concept) and Primus and Unicron (the origin story I prefer). I understand that the 13 get tied in with Primus, and IDW even took it further in MTMTE, but in general, I don't put a lot of stock in the 13 Primes, because it also makes some events further down in history (as well as present day) kinda hard to fit. Maybe if we had a series/continuity that focuses strictly on the 13 from the moment they were born (made?) to where their power faded or was given away.

I write all of the above without having read The Covenant of Primus, so maybe some of those answers are in there. But as far as the 13 lore itself as part of the franchise as a whole, for me they're on a pretty low level.

For unknown thousands of years, we humans have been indoctrinated with religions. It's not surprising that we still make up quasi-religious stories today. It's in our genes and our souls. Epigenetics: if a person trains in a certain subject, their genome changes to make the training easier. These changes are passed down to the person's children, who may take those changes further in their own lifetimes. Many generations of following religion leads to a current generation predisposed to follow religion in one form or another.

The 4-million-year war. It's simply too long. Cybertron's resources would be utterly exhausted long before 4 million years passed. The only reason for such a war was so that the 1984 Transformers could completely miss out human evolution by remaining inactive for that long. As we saw in Beast Wars, the TFs could have changed human evolution and history, or even wiped out the species. The new Image comics have shortened the war to a few centuries.

Gender swapping. I just looked on TF Wiki and I found a list of female TFs. Many of those were gender swapped, male to female. This is to try to please some fans and also SJWs. TBH, the majority of fans weren't that pleased. (Ref. the IDW lost licence for TFs. 'Lost Light' - 'Lost Licence' - hahaha!) Gender swapping makes very little sense in the stories themselves. For organics, gender is crucial. For TFs, it is role play. In war time, TFs need plenty of muscle to survive. That means masculine body plans. In peace time, TFs can indulge in feminine body plans and even behaviour patterns. However, this is purely optional and might be obstructive to daily life.

Excessively large TFs. When TFs increase in size, they require stronger and stronger metals to hold up their body weight. There comes a point where the available metals are too weak to hold up super-sized TFs. They require special help such as force-fields and anti-gravity. The power requirements would be too great. There wouldn't be enough power for other TFs or other machines in the area.

Over-powered TFs. Leaders tend to be given far too much physical power. It wouldn't work in reality. For example, when Prime becomes as strong as a Titan, he puts his body under far too much strain. He would overheat, melt and even explode. The same goes for weaponry. The Requiem Blaster is a good example. There's so much power in it that it would explode before it could be used.

Action Masters. NO!

Headmasters, Targetmasters, Powermasters. They are too vulnerable and organic people don't live very long. They should be inside TFs for greater protection.

Pretenders. They either look hideous or out-of-scale. Either way, they're too conspicuous. They don't blend in. Synthetic skin isn't as good as strong armour in a war. The character 'Alice' in Revenge of the Fallen was the best Pretender that I've seen. She was really vicious so our heroes had to kill her.

Mass shifting. I suppose the live-action movies wisely refused to use mass shifting, except for the Allspark as the incredible shrinking cube. If some characters are allowed mass shifting, why can't it be used more widely? It could be used as a weapon, with small objects being put inside people and then expanded, causing fatal injuries. How do we explain mass shifting? It must use other dimensions. Does mass shifting require large amounts of power? We don't know. Mass shifting can be used for other things, such as excavating caverns and then refilling them when they are no longer needed. Watch the Ant Man movies for other ideas.

Embarrassing names. Horri-Bull? Clench? Thrust? Vroom? Gas Skunk? Drill Nuts? Huffer? Erector? Hot Rod? Breast Force? Please stop!

Tech specs. Someone needs to review all these numbers and correct them. 'Strength 10 (Metroplex)' is not the same as 'Strength 10 (Rodimus Prime)'.

Cassette decks and tapes. I'm sorry but these are no longer good disguises except in specialist museums. There have already been many alternative alt modes used for former cassettes and decks.

In future, it would be nice if fiction writers could explore further what happened to TFs who refused to fight in the war and instead went to other worlds. We've already seen the Nebulos sagas and a few other stories of TFs wandering through space. Then, in IDW, there were millions of non-combatants who came back to Cybertron from the 'colonies'. They were ignorant of the war but angry that Cybertron had been ruined.

'A 4 million year war would be such an insignificant a timeframe to an essentially nigh-immortal race. The human race, in contrast, hasn't even existed that long.'

You may be right. However, consider the levels of resources and personnel available. Stamina only lasts as long as energy.

In fact, Transformers could annihilate each other quickly since they have WMDs. Humans have fusion bombs. Transformers could destroy Cybertron with even worse weapons. We know that some Transformers can produce anti-matter, which explodes with extreme violence upon contact with matter. We also know that they have hyperdrive, which can be weaponised. Imagine an object accelerated to tremendous speed and then smashing into Cybertron. Also imagine Cybertron being teleported across the galaxy in small pieces, scattered, never to be rebuilt. To be honest, the war as shown in fiction has been rather restrained and gradual.