Originally Posted by
bowspearer
Homosexual characters who are of a race that sexually reproduce isn't a cheap political statement certainly. Conversely, homosexual characters who aren't of a sexually producing race and where there is nothing in their psychology and and biology to suggest sexuality, is a cheap political stunt which cheapens the issues attempting to be addressed.
I wont address your point about G1 here, specifically because I'll deal with it when I respond to Trent's comments aqbout Dreamwave.
Howso. You're talking about chalk and cheese here. For starters, it's established in the Beast Wars series that the Maximals and Predacons are so affected by the DNA they scan that they gain animalistic behavioural traits. Black Arachnia as a Predacon, never had the behavioural block which she would have if she were a Maximal, while Silverbolt as a Fuzor had a malfunctioning statis pod, meaning that the programming block Maximals typically got most likely was too corrupted to ever be implemented. It's the same reason that Airrazor and Tigertron's relationship is credible as both of their pods, and theirfore their MAximal programming was also corrupted.
Furthermore, by the time you get to Beast Machines (and yes, I'm going there), you're not merely talking about robots with bio-organic exoskeletons and their behavioural influences; it's reasonable to postulate as the Maximals were actually technorganic, that they evolved to beings which could technically sexually reproduce (although some of the mechanics involved, such as with Botanica and Rattrap, would have been problematic).
Interestingly enough the Beast Wars and particularly Beast Machines cartoons are places where you could credibly have a homosexual realtionship.
Again, howso. The Vok fused two sparks and protoform shells together. It's no more out there than "Tuvix" (to bring up a Star Trek reference).
You mean the Dreamwave continuity which was based on the G1 animated series continuity? You know, where as "consumer goods", the Autobots were, in addition to being manual labour droids, essentially robot butlers and robot maids, developed to behave as male and female to appeak to the clients of the Quinessons before the Great uprising?
There is nothing out of place with that, because any "romantic" feelings, are quite literally what I would describe as "C3P0 Syndrome". To elaborate, Anthony Daniels has noted that C3P0 is programed to act empathetic, courteous polite and adhering to etiquette to a fault, yet he has no genuine understanding of what those things are.
Any "romantic relationship" in the G1 Cartoon Continuity can be dismissed as nothing more than superficially going through the motions and an evolutional throwback to the days when the Transformers were ruled over by the Quintessons.
Again, from simply a behavioural sense, a superficial (and yes, all the "romantic" relationships in the cartoon were superficial) homosexual relationship which "went through the motions", is possible. However having said that I'd question its likelihood as such interactions would be likely to be regarded as programming glitches. Then again, who knows, maybe some races which the quintessons sold Autobots to had large homosexual client bases and so "gay" male Autobots and "lesbian" female Autobots (I'm using inverted commas because it would have been most likely in terms of behaviours only based on what has been seen) could possibly been a "product subline" of the Quintessons.
The same cannot be said for the IDW continuity, where there is no rational explanation for sexual relationships of any kind; in fact it has been overtly established that when it comes to reproduction themselves, the Transformers are non-sexual and their reproduction system is actually best described as gaiasexual (ie it is the planet that gives birth to them).
