#can you imagine them mid shadowplay planting something in your brain that will exactly take it over step by step

[transingthoseformers]

Ik we've got the personality ticks and rust (would rust from cybertron count as a fungus like parasite? I've seen the term rust infections before that are contagious so there's that), but the way you're right

We need more cybertronian parasites. A cybertronian equivalent of a tapeworm would be so interesting because it means the eggs/larvae/source would have to be ingested and stick around in the fuel tanks. Which, honestly? Typically would be a lot harder to clear, so I think fuel tank worms would be a fairly serious issue. Naturally because they're cybertronians, these fuel tank worms (mechano-tapeworms? Cyberworms?) would be able to grow much, much longer.

You can argue some parasites would live in the actual energon lines and can easily be spread by energon(blood) getting into another mech's system. I can see there being parasites that function more like ticks that grow root like structures into the protoflesh or plating of a transformer (honestly it'd be such a task to remove them if they're attached to the actual protoflesh as typically that's in hard to reach places and you can't just scrape them off. This does follow the cybertronian fungus idea, mayhaps

I'm reminded yet again of the personality ticks, but specifically the one we see in rid15 which has much more control over his host (Grimlock) than the mtmte ones did. I am reminded of the term brainworms and how tapeworms can accidentally their way into your brain, and it'd be so horrifying if it also brought along a worm as in the computer virus with it.

With mind control often being very, very literal in Transformers, I'm reminded of mnemosurgery and well wouldn't it be horrifying if a wayward biologist were to join the institute and engineer a physical but small parasite that can absolutely rewrite you remotely.

I wonder if there are any cybertronian wildlife that isn't quite as mechanical as say the transformers, mechanimals, or the scraplets.

Like, we see an energon eater in rescue bots but I wouldn't say that's cybertronian wildlife, rather an extroplanetary organism finding energon in the vacuum of space (somehow?????)