#this is just me rambling while comparing and contrasting diff transformers media but it would NOT leave my head

[classychassiss]

I think the Quintessons are such a dark, integral part to the fabric that makes up Transformers lore, in multiple continuities or in a mix, and its not often addressed in great detail but like, not just by us, but also Cybertronians themselves? I could be bugging and it could be because past G1, their role as their ‘creators’/oppressors has been underplayed as a note in history for those who remember or just as ‘an invasion’ because the focus is obviously on Autobots v Decepticons. And yet they STILL carry a huge weight in most of the media, whether they are there or not. Er cut because a bit long and rambly

Functionalism is directly tied to the Quintessons in Aligned, as is the implication that they went in and modified their very code and bodies to have cockpits and space to be used as transportation. So much trauma they inflicted that the Well of Sparks started to spit out bots that had no name, just a streamlined function, the Quitessons laid out the blueprint for the caste system down the line and later on in the novels, they are STILL hell bent on getting both revenge and copying the very holy code of the Matrix and Vector Sigma. Cybertronians apparently were SO scarred by this that they just straight up repressed it like some kind of collective amnesia ( which 1-800-Come-On-Now writers, I know you can do better than that ) I don’t think they explicitly ever state if the Quitessons were driven out before any Cybertronians were taken off planet to be slave labor or no, but that was the goal.

I think there is one continuity or two that has Quintessons use the Matrix/Primus/Vector Sigma specifically to create and control Cybertronians and isn’t THAT a horrifying thought?

G1 is the most in depth obviously, Cybertron their home planet was a FACTORY, they were made to be sold and used as manual labor on Cybertron until they gained full sentience and rebelled, and the after they had to both rebuild AND deal with the after shocks of their coding and divide, with lots of the War based mechs unable to cope beyond fighting amongst themselves before things got heated between their commercial Autobot counterparts, again because of practices kept around from Quintessons times (the Gladiatorial pits etc ) did things get nasty and the fighting turn into a full blow Civil war

Do you ever think about any efforts made post Quintesson rule to like...get Cybertronians back? There are outposts and colonies/communities of bots out in space with no knowledge of modern Cybertron beyond a very primitive understanding of either being an Autobot or Decepticon, and while some seem to know about the war, others like Paradron existed by themselves for a long time. That at least implies that yeah, many bots were brought or sent around the universe before any sort of rebellion happened. Do you think they had to go and get back the ones who were used as War Tools and like...just seeing what sort of damage that did to them, slowing growing sentience without the support of their own kind? Or how in attempts to branch out to meet new planets, there were some races who saw friendly Cybertronians and cowered because all they knew them as were potential war tools? Or the reverse where Cybertronians had to run the gambit that they might make contact with a planet that actively brought and used them? Do you think they lashed out during that Golden Age and these things were just...not talked about? Bots coming back from strange places, carrying a kind of trauma not really well understood against whatever mainland trauma was already happening?

IDK theres a lot of stuff in there, the colonization and exploration I know has been touched on in IDW I think so I’d have to go read that but like, just purely me talking through the lens of Quintessons and invaders and what that did to their psyche, whether that manifested in outright Xenophobia or if the need to expand outwards rather aggressively was like, a very strong reaction to what felt like a Reclamation of their autonomy more or less, because they wanted to separate themselves from whatever image the Quintessons had painted of them and WANTED to have the right to explore space and meet new planets as this new, free race....

It feels like in most of the media, none of these ideas are brought up or addressed and this isn’t me saying they SHOULD be (though I think it would be great, the bits and pieces we get are just a lot to chew on) but rather, just like in a meta sense, I wonder if they really actually weren’t fully addressed in-universe, y’know? Like its NOT a pretty time in their lives among the many interplanetary conflicts going on, I wouldn’t be surprised if much of this WAS just lost or shoved away into textbooks and tomes and old bots who told stories, and if those survivors were just....forgotten in the midst of whatever Functionist or Caste based system was going on on Cybertron. Would ANYONE be surprised by that given what ends up happening down the line? What lessons were gleaned from that time, bot by bot? A collective push to just straight up forget that they were ever involved in this?

I just think its interesting and sad and depending on what universe we’re talking about, how much that plays into the morals and ideas of Cybertron in a very meta sense