Quote Originally Posted by Verno View Post
No way. What if the protoform woke up and didn't want to be on an exploration vessel? They're stuck on it for 5 years. No way. They are volunteer positions.
Unless you can show me canonical evidence to support your claim, I'm going to go with the concept that protoforms are "unborn" Transformers - with the sole exceptions of ones which canon has exempted (e.g. Tigatron, Airazor, Rampage, Grimlock). I don't recall any canonical evidence that definitely indicates that Blackarachnia was a pre-existing Cybertronian prior to her activation on Earth. Simply being able to recall certain events from the Autobot-Decepticon War alone isn't enough as she could have accessed that from data tracks aboard the Dark Syde etc.

What if the Maximal protoform didn't want to be an explorer? Well what if a Decepticon was created that wasn't sure if he wanted to be a Decepticon? Or an Autobot who wasn't keen on being an Autobot? (or an Autobot who was just plain nutso evil?) Or a Transformer who was part of an army but deplored fighting? Or one of Megatron's Predacons who doubted their cause?

Not every Transformer _wants_ to be in the situation that they're in... but often they are, and in the case of war they have little choice. Rattrap made it very clear that he was less than enthused about being a combatant in the Beast Wars. At least as a civilian colonist I suppose they could apply for a transfer off their colony and request reassignment to Cybertron or wherever. It is possible for transfers to occur among Maximals - after all Big Convoy was transferred out of active front line combat duty to being a trainer for new recruits.

"Fate rarely calls us at a moment of our choosing."

Besides, one could argue that one advantage of colonising a world with "newborns" is that they're not going to be homesick for Cybertron; most of them would probably accept being colonials because that's all they've known... after all, when it looked like Ravage might help the Maximals return to Cybertron, it was Silverbolt who looked rather upset and remarked, "Cybertron... the home I've never known."

Quote Originally Posted by Verno
And you're overlooking the role of the Stasis Pod itself.

With a little bit of imagination: The Stasis Pod is dropped off at a planet, the Axalon would fly off to another planet, the pod would land, scan the environment, adapt a Beast mode most suitable for the terrain, and then the reformatted protoform in its new skin would search the new environment to see if it was suitable for colonisation. Then, after a period of time, the Maximal would climb back into the pod and fly back into orbit to meet the Axalon and move on to another planet.
Or they could just use a remote probe to do this. We have done this with Mars, and our technology is crude and primitive compared to theirs!

Besides, canonical evidence shows that stasis pods are incapable of flight. The stasis pod that Optimus Primal and Blackarachnia flew were heavily modified. Besides, if they could, then it would've been a silly idea to drop off Protoform X to some uninhabited world if he were capable of using that stasis pod to get off-world. Tarantulas and Blackarachnia were able to modify stasis pods for flight using parts salvaged from the Darksyde (e.g. stolen transwarp drive).