G1 Animal sidekicks - Sentient, Semi-Sentient or Drones?

[GoktimusPrime]

Ravage did speak in the G1 cartoon, although he could only do it in cassette mode and had to speak through Soundwave.

BigAngryTrev: just out of curiosity, how do you feel about other bestial partners or components for Transformers? Would you consider them to possess some level of sentience or simply as non-sentient artificially intelligent drones? Even if some of them are explicitly marketed as "drones," remember that the word 'drone' applies in nature to things like some male insects that were born from unfertilised eggs (e.g. bees, ants, wasps etc.) -- although insects aren't sentient.
So things like:
* Power Core Combiner Dinobots
* Depth Charge's shark
* BW Scorponok's Cyber-Bee
* BW Sandstorm's Cyber-Bee
* Polar Claw's bat
* Grizzly-1/Barbearian's bat
* TF Prime Laserbeak
etc.

[BigTransformerTrev]

BigAngryTrev: just out of curiosity, how do you feel about other bestial partners or components for Transformers? Would you consider them to possess some level of sentience or simply as non-sentient artificially intelligent drones? Even if some of them are explicitly marketed as "drones," remember that the word 'drone' applies in nature to things like some male insects that were born from unfertilised eggs (e.g. bees, ants, wasps etc.) -- although insects aren't sentient.
So things like:
* Power Core Combiner Dinobots
* Depth Charge's shark
* BW Scorponok's Cyber-Bee
* BW Sandstorm's Cyber-Bee
* Polar Claw's bat
* Grizzly-1/Barbearian's bat
* TF Prime Laserbeak
etc.

Well a few of those I am not familiar with but I'll answer those I am:

*PCC Dinobots (Wish I had'em!) - Na, drones
* Depth Charge's (the only Maximal I own) Shark - it's just a shark shaped gun isn't it? Not even a drone, more a tool
*Don't know the next 4
*TF Prime Laserbeak - oh how I wanted him to be sentient but it says specifically he's a drone so I have to live with it

[GoktimusPrime]

* Depth Charge's (the only Maximal I own) Shark - it's just a shark shaped gun isn't it? Not even a drone, more a tool

In the cartoon he could deploy it and it would swim independently and conduct reconnaissance - much like TF Prime Laserbeak, only aquatic. Scorponok's Cyber Bee could do the same thing, and also had a cyber-venom attack (it once infected Optimus Primal with a virus that made him extremely aggressive/violent). Having said that, the Maximals were able to hack into the Cyber Bee and use it, somewhat similar to when Wheeljack hacked Laserbeak.

Heh, all this talk of sentience makes me think of the Beast Wars episode "Transmutate" which deals with a Cybertronian who is sentient, but very mentally retarded and in possession of physically destructive capability; under such circumstances, should that being be allowed to continue living or should it be terminated for the sake of others? (i.e. does the needs to the many outweigh the needs of the individual?)

"Are we Predacons now? Do we destroy whatever does not fit our definition of perfection?!" - an outraged Silverbolt

[Sky Shadow]

From the very beginning - i.e. #1 of the US comic and the tech specs, the bestial cassettes were shown to have personalities and be intelligent. In every continuity the animal cassettes have been shown to be as sentient as the other Transformers. The real question is whether they're always as sapient as a 'normal' Transformer.

[Gouki]

Unless specifically stated otherwise, or clearly a weapon (like bee or shark guns/missiles), I consider them all sentient, because I view the different modes they has as no different to how people look different.

Just because Wingthing was an Action Master partner (or TargetMaster according to Dreamwave, which makes sense to me), doesn't make him less sentient; it just makes him like Soundwaves PA.

[GoktimusPrime]

Just because Wingthing was an Action Master partner (or TargetMaster according to Dreamwave, which makes sense to me), doesn't make him less sentient; it just makes him like Soundwaves PA.

So would you consider Wingthing and Catgut to be as equally sentient or sapient as say Turbo Board and Vanguard? If one were to accept the bestial moded AM partners as being potentially sentient or sapient, then why not those with vehicular modes? After all, Raindance and Grand Slam have vehicular robot modes and they're presented as being sentient/sapient Autobots. Is it because Grand Slam and Raindance combine to form a gestalt robot? In that case, what about Power Core Combiner limb components like the PCC Dinobots? They have bestial modes and can combine to form a gestalt robot.

[Paulbot]

I was thinking about it, and I don't think Soundwave's cassettes have spoken in the IDW comics. I know they were under Skywatch control for a little while. Ratbat sure did, but we saw his unique "origin" in Megatron: Origin. I think the only Transformer with a beastmode and no robot mode that we've seen treated as a "full" Transformer has been Sky Lynx.

Some others thoughts I've had on this topic:

The idea of the action master animals (and I too liked Dreamwave labeling them "Targetmasters") being pets raises another question. Does Cybertron have wildlife and if so why and what's it nature? I know the cartoon writers like to throw out expressions like "roboto-possum" and there's those "turbofoxes" and so on, but actual depictions of wildlife on Cybertron are very rare.

If Transformers life was the result of "intelligent design", did Primus also populate their planet with animals. Transformers don't eat robot animals (that I can recall seeing), so what was the purpose? Did the war's drain on energon reserves cause mass extinction to Cybertron's other, non sentient/sapient, inhabitants?

I think it makes more sense that any Cybertronian wildlife was artificially created by Transformers and let loose. (For example AHM and FOC seemed to depict Insecticons as a form of natural wildlife but artificially enhanced/expirements.) Some TFs (like Ravage and Laserbeak) may have adapted modes similar to the wildlife creatures for the advantages the form gave them and as disguise (disguises that got less useful as the wildlife died out). Or maybe they were just forged that way? Every shape serves a purpose afterall.