It's the Japanese term for Decepticons and Predacons up until 2007 when Takara started using the Anglophone term "Decepticon" (beginning with the Japanese translations of Bayformers).Originally Posted by Dan
Hhmmm... even in G1 who was the authority shifted. In the G1 comics the Autobots were originally the authorities on Cybertron until Megatron led the Decepticons to conquer each Autobot city-state except for Iacon. At the behest of Councillor Xaaron, Supreme Chancellor Traachon vetoed himself out of office, allowing Commander Optimus Prime to gain supreme executive command over all Autobot forces. This allowed Optimus Prime to mobilise the Autobots without needing permission from the Council and he was no longer held back -- and this in turn led to the Autobots not only successfully defending Iacon, but also liberating the other city-states from Decepticon occupation. But something that the IDW comics have touched upon is that this level of supreme executive command in the hands of a Prime makes them a tyrant, and in the eyes of some, a practical god (absolute power corrupts absolutely). We know that in the IDW universe that Megatron was initially more like Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. in that he believed in peaceful non-resistance and demonstration to achieve equality for the masses who suffered oppression under the Cybertronian regime. Other species saw how brutal the oppression was among the Transformers and had come to mockingly refer to them as "automated robots," or "Auto-Bots" for short. This came to be used as an insult for those who supported the regime.
Back to the G1 Marvel universe and we know that power shifted quickly after Optimus Prime's crew left Cybertron aboard the Ark (and likewise Megatron's 'Cons aboard the Nemesis). The Autobot Council reformed itself but was brutally executed by the Decepticon Warlord Trannis (except for the Council's sole survivor, Xaaron). Trannis was then overthrown by Straxus and Xaaron went all John Connor and became leader of the Autobot underground resistance. The Decepticons ruled Cybertron from their capital of Darkmount. In the G1 Sunbow cartoon we know that the Autobots initially ruled during the Golden Age and it was Megatron who led the Decepticon uprising. Eventually neither side gained control and Cybertron was nearly depleted of fuel, forcing Optimus Prime and his Autobots to seek a new source of energy, followed closely by Megatron's Decepticons and thus the war came to Earth. In Megatron's absence Shockwave was left in charge... over a pretty dead and barren world. He didn't seem to do much other than... shoot at corners?Later the cartoon showed us that Alpha Trion was leading an underground resistance of female Autobots who, uh... did hit-and-run fuel heists. Nothing significant like Xaaron's resistance who had missions like Operation: Volcano and attempted to destroy the Decepticon Space Bridge etc. Oh, and Xaaron's resistance had the Wreckers.
Alpha Trion's elite squad (his only squad?) couldn't even sneak out of a building without tripping the alarm.
Paramilitary police can still be considered emergency rescue, such as if there's a hostage crisis. These police are far more likely to stop acts of terror than outlawing imitation firearms (or the theatrics of airport security). Most terrorist plots are thwarted by special police before the bad guys can even execute their plans. So yeah, while Groove and Streetwise are your regular civilian police, Rook is the cop who stops buildings from being blown up before it ever happens and you'll never hear about it. He's the unsung hero.
The Auto-Scout toy that we saw in the G1 cartoon never existed as a Microman toy, and obviously the first year of Transformers was about Hasbro trying to make as much money as possible while investing as little as possible.There were no new moulds in the first year, and even the 2nd year had very few (if any - it's possible that the new Autobot Mini-Vehicles were unused designs from Microman).
I suppose the alternative would be to include the Battle Bike with Soundwave, but a rider-less motorcycle is, quite frankly, a really lame robot mode and hard to pass off as a sentient 'bot to kids. Yeah, I know that they actually did this with Grand Slam and Raindance... and let's face it, that was lame! Do they have a robot mode or 2 alt modes? We all hated on Mutant Beasts for lacking a robot mode. The only reason I even got Grand Slam and Raindance was because of their pretty forgettable role in the Underbase Saga (if you're opening a new tab/window to Google it, then it just proves my point about how forgettable they were
Here's the tricky thing, and this is just looking at the first year alone...
Herbivores
Rhinox
Carnivores
Terrorsaur
Snapper
Optimus Primal (bat)
Megatron (croc)
Megatron (T-Rex)
Dinobot
Cheetor
Wolfang
Blackarachnia
Buzz Saw
Tigatron
Polar Claw
Scorponok
Tarantulas
Waspinator
Yeah, one herbivore against fifteen carnivores! Where are the rest? Well, we would also have a third faction...
Omnivores
Iguanus
Rattrap
Razorbeast
Armordillo
Insecticon
Optimus Primal (gorilla)
6 omnivores. Even you lumped all the non-carnivores together, they would still be outnumbered more than 2:1!
One really cool thing about Beast Wars was how they made the goodies and baddies are evenly split. Looking at the first year alone we can see that straight out of the gate, Beast Wars gave us 11 Maximals vs 11 Predacons. A perfect 50:50 split of goodies and baddies. And we know that Takara released their Beast Wars toys either individually or in Versus Sets. A far cry from the first year of G1 which gave us 18 Autobots vs 10 Decepticons!The Beast Wars cartoon never had to resort to random repaints of characters to flesh out the vastly outnumbered bad guy ranks. We didn't see every colour of the rainbow repaints of Terrorsaur as nameless generic Preds.
Brawn
Cliffjumper
Gears
Hound
Huffer
Jazz
Mirage
Trailbreaker
Windcharger
So while all the Decepticons have been done, there are still9^8 Autobots remaining. And in TakaraTOMY's defence, the remaining Autobots are relatively harder and costlier to do since they're all new moulds. In terms of number of moulds we only had SIX Decepticons (gun, walkman, robot cassette, condor cassette, jaguar cassette & jet). Except for the Datsun Fairladies and Nissan Cherries, none of the Autobots are repaints. You could argue that parts of Bumblebee could be reused for Cliffjumper, but it'd be less than what some people might think because I reckon if Porsche ever does come to the table and allow HasTak to purchase the vehicle licence, a condition of that licence would be a realistically scaled vehicle mode, not a super-deformed Penny Racer style car. We've already seen this with MP Bumblebee who is a realistically proportioned VW Beetle, not a cartoon-accurately super deformed punch buggy.
But yeah, with Beast Wars I think it was "warm and fuzzies" vs "creepy creatures." I suppose 'warm bloods' vs 'cold bloods' more in a metaphoric sense rather a biological one. It gets even more confusing considering that the bloodedness of dinosaurs is still a contentious issue with paleontologists - some believe that they were endothermic (warm blooded) while others believe that they were ectothermic (cold blooded), but yet others think that they might have been mesothermic (warm and cold blooded!)
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