#nominus prime

[tailgateonrollerskates]

Tf character requests I did in a server I’m in!

[planetformer-central]

I wish I thought of this sooner, but Optimus being followed by all the baby Primes like their ducklings.

(Yes that includes Bumblebee, I take no criticism)

The Baby Primes have a chokehold on me, and I shall fully embrace it.

Low quality because I am tired, but I 100% love this mental image. I too am consumed by the baby Primes, so we can suffer together.

[askvectorprime]

Why would anyone come up with the Functionist caste system?

Dear Caste Castigator,

As many ideas do—be they dangerous or benign—it began as innocent curiosity. Every generation inevitably asks itself the same question: “What is my purpose? For what reason was I created? What part do I have to play, in our society?” Our alt-modes are important to us, and throughout history, many have looked to our forms for the answer. “Why do I turn into this, and not that? If I was designed this way, then what for?” And as we find that our own bodies have precious few answers to give us, we turn to those around us: “Why are there more cars than particle accelerators?” At the dawn of our civilisation, even my siblings wondered about these mysteries.

It was during the rise of Nova Prime, in response to the war of the Primes, that these philosophical questions morphed into the ideology of Functionism. Nova Prime decided that the tribes had gone astray—that each had their own divine purpose to fulfill, which they had forsaken. He recruited twelve bots—one from each of the original tribes, excepting Onyx's—who formed a council to comprehend and expand this list of functions, forming the first Grand Cybertronian Taxonomy.

Having arrived at what they believed to be a complete set of categories, they thus set out to fit the planet’s population into these categories. At its basis, this meant that Solus’ followers were assigned to work in the forges; Alpha Trion’s followers to the archives; the Darklanders to the barracks. Few at the time considered this societal structure to be asserted unnaturally. Rather, it was seen as codifying the existing cultures of the tribes, unifying them in its view of Cybertron as a single people collectively working to a divine mandate. The dissenting voice of the Beasts was easy to disregard, given their defeat at the Citadel of Light, and most abandoned Nova’s society to live in the wilderness.

As the Golden Age continued, the Taxonomy grew more and more complicated. The original set of castes was expanded, coinciding with the introduction of ratioism: the more unique your alternate mode, the more important you were believed to be. Castes believed to be “important for society” were heavily subdivided into hyperspecialized classes, allowing the Prime and his followers to be seen as blessed. Meanwhile, laborers remained in larger, more generalized castes, where they were treated as interchangeable.

Naturally there were objections to this—but with the weapons held by the newly-formed military classes, the rebellion was halted in its tracks, and society was forced to accept the caste system wholly, even as it grew ever more byzantine and oppressive.

It may be surprising, given his later reputation, but Nominus rose to become Prime mostly on the back of his promises to loosen the caste system. This was supposedly implemented through the introduction of the intellectual classes—those who were judged to be valuable for their minds, not their alt modes. This was a huge development at the time, bordering on heresy... but in truth, this progress proved to be a fantasy.

[cherrytimemachine]

Tidbits of Cybertron and the culture.

[transingthoseformers]

One idea I came up with: Nominus Prime gets returned to life, feels terrible about everything that happened during his administration, and hits up Swerve’s and starts drinking first chance he gets.

Ohh?

Interesting

That's gotta be such a sight

[halenhusky309]

idw2 Nominus Prime and idw2 Sentinel Prime are so funny is that while they are quite tyrannical to their own peoples, but it comes from the place of worrying about their own brethens would potentially become the worst colonizers/expansionists/imperialists to other alien civilizations. I don't know but as a non-cybertronian, I have to stan them.

[singingcicadas]

Just realized that I'd gotten Nova and Sentinel's alts mixed up the the Functionism post. Nova is the third one there with wings.

Front view; his wings are really impressive too, wish we could see what he looks like after transforming

the idw1 version of Sentinel's normal mode doesn't seem to have wings. There's this 🔽 version with wing panels (which are more obvious after Megatron turned him into a chair) but that's after he put on the Apex armour.

His normal altmode's a tank:

Nominus Prime isn't in the first pic there so here's a concept art design from wiki. idk why he isn't included, his matrix was fake but so was Sentinel's

Zeta's whole wing/mask design after becoming prime just looks impractical and ugly

[mrfandomwars]

Reasons Why I Think IDW2 Sentinel Prime Was A Still Technically A Young Prime/New First Senator By The Time We Meet Him - a mini meta

We are told that Nominus not only oversaw the final push against Exarchon - which happened like, 2000 years Before canon events - but also that he was the one who was in charge when Bumblebee and Cliffjumper were built - and Iacon was already rebuilt by that point, or at least mostly rebuilt from what we could see

2000 years to a species who can live up to millions, at very least, is like. Not a lot. At most a month or a year, something like that; Meaning that Sentinel could have only become a Prime at least 500 years after the War of the Threefold Spark ended, and that is if we are being generous with how quickly the Constructicon's finished Iacon and of Bumblebee and Cliffjumper's age.

So like. Sentinel, although he probably had been trained to take up the mantel of Prime by Nominus, was probably a young Prime by the time we met him

At most, he was like. A newly elected president who may not have yet fully completed a year on the job (maybe even less, enough to settle in with a new president but to still be considered a New President), because even though a lot of time passed to us for Transformers, it isn't, again, a lot comparatively to their life spans.

Also also: what better time to try and start a revolution/civil unrest? with a new leader that people are getting used to and is currently away.

[quetzalpapalotl]

☕ (I don't really know what topic to give you XD I just want to hear your thoughts)

Well, okay, them I'm just gonna ramble about my Proteus and Nominus fics Your carefully laid plans and In Name Only, which may not be a good idea since they're so short spilling everything about them can ruin the point of letting them say what they want to say, but honestly, I think everyone who would read them and would say something about them has already done so.

(well this ended a longer-than-intended analysis)

I should put them in a series or something because I think they work so nice as companion fics and both are made under the same logic. I wanted to give depth to Proteus and Nominus, but not in the sense of giving them redeemable traits or complex motivations. They are bad people, but they're still people, so they have people-like reasonings and feelings, not just evil brain impulses (no disrespect to Sunbow Megs, we stan). And honestly, I'm proud of how they came out.

Originally, Proteus fic was going to be about how fun it would be if he had actually romantic feelings for Sentinel "romance is for the mentally deranged" Prime. That's still there in the fic, but you have to squint really really hard. It felt like Proteus derailed what this was about and I couldn't convey it properly because Proteus would never admit to something like that in his own head, not that it matters how Sentinel feels because either way he belongs to him. It's a pitty Proteus died without discovering Sentinel's true alligances dtasjgdh

Instead this became about how Proteus is so fucking full of himself dfsaghdsa. Well, I think he's interesting (pre-war politics, my beloved), he's not quite an hypocrite like the Functionist Council are because he doesn't really have an alliegance, he changes his public stance on the Decepticons and Functionism and whatever depending on what's useful to him, very realistic politician. But in my experience, these kind of people still feel entitled to what they have for one reason or another. Proteus deserves his place because he can get it.

And you know, canon makes it clear the Council was the one really calling the shots for most of Nominus reign, it wasn't until the trail end of it that the Senate started gaining more power. And given that Proteus is always scheming and pulling strings and Sentinel is explicitly called his puppet Prime, I really do think it was thanks to Proteus that the shift in power happened. But you know, you have to run as hard as you can to stay in the same place. Proteus must always be scheming, must always be sure that he's hanging onto that power.

It's implied in canon that Proteus used the anti-functionism sentiment to gain power over the Council, but allowing that to grow is going to be his downfall and he does not yet realize that. He's not dumb enough to think he doesn't have to keep an eye on it, but he still thinks he can control it. I like the sense of irony on the whole fic.

And with all that in mind, we get to Nominus who is... well, okay, he's lame. He has no speaking lines and everything we know about him in canon points to a lack of agency you wouldn't expect from the Prime. He's caught in the middle of the Council and the Senate's power struggle, he's just a figurehead. The Council has been the real power all this time, either Proteus and co. take over and kill him to put a Prime that better suits their needs, or the Council destroys the Senate and also kills him while they're at it. He has no power, no allies and not even a real matrix.

He has to be aware of his own impotence and it must get to him. Especially when he's succeding a figure as shining as Nova, the hero of the Civil War, he who united Cybertron. How can he compare to that? He's just a phony. But is because of that that I think he's able to accept his death with grace. After so long, he's used to his own powerlesness, unlike Proteus, and at least now he can stop pretending and struggling to hold to an empty title.

But he has been holding onto it, so he must have learned something. He knows how these power games work, so he's able to figure out Proteus.

The fic makes reference to a person Nominus used to be close to. This is as off-shoot of me figuring the backstory for The One Most Worthy, because to be able to add a Lord Protector to IDW1 while the rest stays the same Nominus must have had a LP, he's not really important to TOMW's plot, but he must have existed and his choosing sets the precedent for how Optimus' candidates are selected, since Nova just made the title to placate Galvatron and Sentinel didn't have one because he's gay an homophobic.

So I gave Nominus a Lord Protector with whom he shared a vision (bigoted beliefs) and genuine affection. And it would tie nicely if the reason Nominus had so little power at the end was because was little he had, he lost while he was busy mourning his conjux while the schemers kept scheming, and now without his main ally, there's nothing for him.

Of course, Your Name Only is meant to be canon compliant, so Nominus didn't have a Lord Protector, but I liked the idea of Nominus still having a similar figure in his life. Again this is about the bad people looking like people. And fiction sometimes makes it seem like bad people can't genuinely love other people or is used as a tool to make them seems redeemable or have them do something heroic. But no, bad people still have loved ones, bad people still mourn.

I honestly really like how Nominus came across, he's actually pretty relatable to me and I love that, I love that people in the comments also found him relatable.

So there's a beautiful symmetry to these two fics. Proteus who is highly active losing it because he struggles to hold to his power, while Nominus who is quite passive accepts his end with dignity. Proteus disliking Nominus came as natural result of how I write him, someone who takes pride in all his hard work has no respect for Nominus who from his perspective, does nothing and doesn't deserve his title.

Anyway, I'm really happy with these fics, if nothing else because they do feel like something no one else but me would have done.

[maranigai]

Nostalgic sketches, 2019 was... a good year.

[planetformer-central]

Hear me out okay- Sentinel doing Orange Cat Activities (come on he looks the part) and/or all the little Primes sharing a singular brain cell

POV: Your kids found out you have cookies.

Or more specifically, Sentinel found out and roped his siblings into getting a treat from their dad.

[askvectorprime]

What is the story of stardrive in idw2019?

Dear Stardrive Seeker,

Not all newly-forged Cybertronians spend their early lives on Cybertron—always, there are those Cybertronians born with an instinctual thirst for adventure, who yearn to venture beyond the confines of their metallic homeworld. Thus, in the years following the War of the Threefold Spark, the Cybertronian government authorized the creation of a cultural exchange program between the Cybertronian commonwealth and some friendly galactic neighbors, an incentive program where newly forged Cybertronians could study abroad on a diverse range of planets, assimilating the local culture and language as part of a possible career in Xeno-Relations.

I should comment, briefly, on the history of the Solstar Order—it originated corewards of Cybertron, not far from the barricaded region of space known as the “Quintessence”, and expanded outwards not through conquest, but by carefully negotiating trade agreements and alliances with alien civilizations and gradually building a strong federation of many diverse species: Elonians, Intriessians, Karkans, and more. By the era of the Nominus Edict, the borders of the Solstar Order nearly bumped up against remote Cybertronian colonies like Velocitron and Omicron. Despite their proximity, the two star-nations had only ever enjoyed a strained relationship. The Solstar Order consolidated much of its recent power by absorbing the defeated remnants of other empires, smashed to bits by Cybertronian hegemony—in particular, a large contingent of Szorian refugees who’d seen their homeworld obliterated by the Titan Waypoint eyed the Transformers with a deep and abiding distrust. More recently, tensions flared when unscrupulous elements of the Cybertronian government conspired with the ambitious Natalus to abruptly declare that the planet Probat was a Cybertronian colony, despite the fact that no Cybertronians lived there—deliberately smashing years of careful accession agreements that would’ve seen the citizens of Probat join their galactic government.

Into this already-tense environment came Stardrive—already a model mentee with a rare triple-changing bodyframe, a knack for languages, and eying a possible career in Xeno-Relations—who announced that she would like to study abroad on the planet Elonia. The request, while highly unusual, went through, and before long Stardrive had arrived in Solstar space and enrolled in a xeno-linguistics program on the planet Ofsted XVII, with a minor in astro-navigation. Although she faced prejudice and even outright discrimination from many of her organic classmates—and indeed, more than one lecture hall had to be renovated so that she could fit into their classrooms—Stardrive persevered.

One day, Stardrive and her class were on a field trip to monitor the unique phenomenon known as the “Quintessence”, a seemingly insurmountable barrier of electrical energy that prevented the Solstar Order from expanding any closer to the galactic core. Suddenly, while monitoring the phenomenon aboard an orbital research station, Stardrive witnessed a bizarre astrological phenomenon: what appeared to be a nebula somehow shifted into a massive portal that crackled with arcane power, a gateway through which a new kind of shapeshifting lifeform came to attack their vessel! The creatures, their slug-like bodies immune to conventional weaponsfire, easily breached the station’s hull and devoured many of the beings inside. Those who survived were infected with toxic biomatter and converted into more of their kind. However, the invaders hadn’t prepared to deal with a Cybertronian, whose mechanical biology rendered her immune to their necrotic touch, and whose tight-beam plasma blasters could simply burn through their arcane biology. Fighting her way through the hordes, Stardrive piled as many students as she could—including their professor, Rom K’atsema—into her space fighter alternate mode, then beat a hasty retreat as the station exploded behind her.

By the time Stardrive limped back to Elonia, it soon became clear that the Solstar Order faced a grave crisis. The “Dire Wraiths”, as they were now called, had launched coordinated invasions of outlying worlds like Xeres and Buras, and lightly-armed planetary garrisons had already been overwhelmed. Although the Solstar Order’s celebrated diplomatic corps had long since assumed that they could defuse any problem with negotiations, it soon became clear that they were fighting an enemy that had no obvious means of communications, and would accept nothing less than total extinction. It soon became clear that the Solstar Order would need something new to combat the hordes… and, eventually, all eyes fell upon the one Cybertronian in their midst.

Before long, Solstar scientists had gathered enough firsthand testimony and video recordings to draw up a weapon capable of meeting the aliens head-on: a full-body suit of armor forged from artificially-synthesized cybertonium that would be cybernetically grafted to one’s skin, equipped with a plasma-blasting “neutralizer” powered by a miniature energon reactor. While the scientists referred to their creation as merely an “anti-Wraith battle armor”, it was Rom who joked that the suit resembled the knights of old—and so it was he who volunteered to become the first organic to undergo the procedure, and emerge as “Rom, the Space Knight!” Inspired by his example, other courageous members of the Solstar Order stepped up to undergo the process, and over time the efforts of these “Space Knights”, supported by Stardrive herself, gradually helped push the Wraiths back.

It soon became clear that Stardrive couldn’t fight alone; fortunately, the Cybertronian embassy on Elonia was able to pull the strings that would allow Sentinel Prime to authorize the deployment of the Wreckers on the technicality that the Dire Wraiths posed a threat to Cybertronian territory—namely, their embassy on Elonia. Supported by a hundred Space Knights, Stardrive and the Wreckers took part in the effort to take back Xeres, which had, by this point, been turned into a grotesque hive-world where billions of fast-breeding Wraiths reproduced. Their victory was pyrrhic; they were able to cut off the primary source of the infestation, but only by destroying the planet and scattering millions of Wraiths across their member worlds. The Solstar Order would have to prepare for a protracted war against the alien infiltrators, who'd already put down roots on dozens of planets—but Stardrive, honorary Space Knight, gladly agreed to support the Space Knights in their quest.

[zephyrrhiesfyrian]

some more of my MTMTE screenshots and sillies :D

HE'S SO SHORT

HIS FEET DON'T REACH THE FLOOR 😭 (i am also short, i understand)

disappointed dad

y'all seeing this shit?

AYO WHY HE GOT SHARP TEETH???

ngl nominus be looking kinda dilfy here

bask in my beauty orion

AYO HANDS TO YOURSELF ಠ_ಠ

[transingthoseformers]

Here are the oc primes for my bullshitted up prime lineage list!

Said list:

I noticed on the tfwiki that on the "prime disambiguation" that Nova was listed as both in marvel-g1 as "Prime Nova" and in IDWG1 as "Nova Prime" and while they're probably just two different iterations of the same character in canon, I thought it would be fucking funny if in a homeblend continuity there was two and the latter is more infamous than the latter.

Okay pulling up the wiki again I just saw "Primon" existed and that he apparently existed before Prima, even though Prima is considered the first prime to get the Matrix, but since it seems like tfwiki has goddamn idea what to think about him either for now I'm excluding him even thought this was explicitly the "add as many primes as possible to a lineage" list.

This is 100% inspired by "Nor Is He Early", which I need to check up on again because I've been letting it update a bit more before I started reading again so that we could have a sizable session. But it's also inspired by me sitting down and realizing in various continuities there aren't actually that many primes and that when you scale it up to their lifespans, cybertronian history seems rather short. Or who knows, maybe I'm wrong.

[singingcicadas]

idw Ratchet is someone who follows orders and respects authority. He might follow his conscience in spur-of-the-moment decisions that allows him the leeway/initiative to act on his own (e.g. setting up clinic on Dead End, breaking cover to save Verity and Hunter, going to look for Drift, voting against Rodimus in mtmte) but he's never openly defied the orders of an acting leader. Regardless if he doesn't agree with said order and thinks it's stupid. Or wrong.

Even when Ratchet thinks Rodimus' treatment of Drift is unfair, he never speaks up against Rodimus during the actual issue of the exile verdict. He only offers Drift silent support by helping him up on the way out, because Rodimus is the captain and you don't argue with the captain. Yes he thinks Rodimus is a crap captain and acts condesending towards him all the time but when it comes to rank and orders there's no ambiguity.

Voting against Rodimus in the crisis act is a legitimate expression of disapproval, made anonymously in private. He doesn't care about Rodimus knowing his vote, but in public it stays anonymous. He does tell Rodimus off about what he did to Drift, but again, he makes sure it's a private one-on-one appointment. He also doesn't make Rodimus formally revoke Drift's exile or sanction his search, he resigns his position as CMO and quietly leaves to look for Drift himself as a personal commitment.

Common stereotype of what Ratchet is not:

Medic ethics and commitment to patients comes first, factions be damned. I don't care if he's a Decepticon, he's my patient.

No he's not actually like that? When Megatron's in custody he's all lets dissect him awwwww why can't we dissect him why does mass murderers still get rights that's so stupid can't I just torture him a little?

Like he spent the whole war patching up Decepticon-inflicted wounds and witnessing Decepticon-inflicted deaths. He's not a saint. He has as much good reason to hate Megatron and his faction as any other Autobot.

In fact he was pretty eager to ask Optimus about what he's going to decide as Megatron's punishment after he heard about Optimus frying Megatron on the voltage harness.

Optimus has his heart on clemency. Ratchet's the one hoping for execution or something equally nasty. Even though their opinions doesn't line up, Ratchet's still 100% supportive of Optimus' decision.

He repairs Megatron only because of Bumblebee's orders, and makes his unwillingness known.

Later in mtmte Ratchet does save Megatron's life of his own volition and repairs him again, but that's after he's lived with Megatron on the same ship for six months (again something that he considers to be a colossally bad idea but is forced to live with because of orders) and got to know him as a person. Not because of bleeding heart syndrome.

Also Ratchet's not just a grouch all the time. He can be blunt but also knows when to be respectful as appropriate to the occasion. He reprimands Wheeljack for being disrespectful to Bumblebee because leaders should be treated like leaders.

The guy's been CMO since Nominus Prime, essentially the highest-ranking of his profession on the planet; you can't get to that type of position and hold it through consecutive leaders for millions of years without considerable interpersonal skills and knowledge of social protocol.

Prowl does have Ratchet on his little blacklist but the stuff on there really just refers to Ratchet saving Verity and Hunter back in Infilitration. I read it as more of a testament to Prowl's pettiness than Ratchet actually being a problem.