I'm gearing up to write some Robot Blasphemy
Tuesday, 12 May 2020 00:26![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
So I got to thinking -- it could be interesting if some of the negative bias towards flight frames we see comes from them having an implicit association with space and the orbit, which is directly opposing the planet (Primus) and is thus associated with Unicron.
Like, nobody ever really thinks about it, but maybe Unicron gets portrayed as having a aerial mode or at least suggesting one (and he's definitely portrayed as having a root mode reminiscent of Predacons, so there's that). We have a soft confirmation that Megatronus -- the closest Lucifer figure they have -- had a flying alt mode, since he was who Megatron was modeled after when he became a gladiator.
There's probably canon (including in-universe canon, because it is a religious matter, after all) over what the alt forms of the Thirteen were, although there's also probably plenty of debate which one of them even had alt forms, and plenty of debate over whether transformation originates from Primus or from Amalgamous Prime.
Hell, fringe opinions doubting the divinity of the Thirteen probably exist, too, if it's not even a settled matter over whether Cybertron is Primus or simply his creation.
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Date: 12/5/20 01:36 (UTC)no subject
Date: 12/5/20 10:22 (UTC)Then again -- I could see the Thirteen being sort of. Deprecated under functionism, reduced to just being "creations of Primus for the purpose of destroying Unicron", which would then nicely lead into talking about the War of the Primes as "what happens when you go outside of your function". Some Primes -- like Solus (engineering and creation), Amalgamous (transformation and shapeshifting) and Nexus (combination) -- are definitely figures that don't fit neatly into the power structures of the society. The narrative of the war of the Primes must have also gotten simplified quite a bit to get it to come out as "and so those who Followed Their Function survived and Megatronus and Liege Maximo were punished for their deviance :)"
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Date: 13/5/20 02:07 (UTC)It wouldn't work well with functionism initially, I don't think, but with a reinterpretation/simplification of the Thirteen and their history in order to make each member fit into a single use and form, I could see that slowly creeping in as part of the early development of functionism. Depending on how one looked at it, I could even see an early functionism argument being "well, look at how the Primes are separated by their relevant cities--our deities match our intended function" (even though that would definitely be an oversimplification and probably a bad-faith argument, it could be dressed up to sound good).
That definitely makes me think there would be various revolutionary movements cropping up around different members of the Thirteen, too, especially if people were around who still remembered the older Thirteen mythos (or had read/heard about it somewhere). There could easily be various small rebellions built up around the relevant Prime--the three you mentioned would make excellent symbols of rebellion for a populace living under functionism, even if they weren't considered strictly divine at that point. Things like the Forge of Solus Prime could plausibly end up as subtle symbols for a revolution.
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Date: 13/5/20 08:33 (UTC)Which wouldn't even be a problem, really, if the whole point wasn't social control. I intend to touch on it in a fic at some point, but it's pretty wild how nobody ever comments on how a species capable of such change and invention is so culturally static and inflexible, and how thinking about everything in neat black and white boxes is hilariously unsuitable when all of them literally have two natures. I feel like to even get to the idea of an individual mecha as just a singular frame, you have to take a very complicated trip through the ontology of the spark, and even then, if the ability to change is there, what is the argument for that not being the "function" a frame has, and everything else just being circumstantial? |D
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Date: 14/5/20 01:42 (UTC)I admittedly haven't done a lot of thinking about functionism, but I've been kind of subconsciously working from the assumption that that exact problem is part of why their social control is so extreme--because it really does go against the nature of their species, and even if you manage to completely take away the Thirteen and literally everything except "Primus created everyone for one use and one function", anyone who's inclined to think about that sort of thing will eventually get to "our Species Hat is literally transformation." I mean, the obvious solution is that nobody who says that out loud ever speaks again, but it makes me think they'd probably be playing whack-a-mole with tiny rebellions pretty much all the time.
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Date: 14/5/20 18:59 (UTC)Because I love the idea of the Primacy being something that's kind of been more of an interpretable thing, and it's only in the age of very strictly militaristic, Prima-inspired Primes who value order and control that the primary association with "Prime" has moved from being the kind of. Protective deity/saint of your particular profession or social class moreso than being something fixed, so you'd have people gravitate towards whatever "order" most spoke to them, allowing for a kind of non-hierarchical social mobility.
I guess I gotta put that on the meta b/c that seems like a thing that would build very nicely off my Unicron conspiracy theory.
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Date: 17/5/20 03:18 (UTC)The Primacy makes a lot of sense as an interpretable thing, I think, especially since the caste system seems like it invites its own different approaches and interpretations of the Primes and the Thirteen themselves are pretty distinct as far as abilities/associations go. I feel like it could play into regional rivalries/differences, too--especially if, building off the idea that Unicron was some type of flight-frame and maybe Liege Maximo was as well, there was an element of discrimination based on which Prime was associated with that profession/class/frametype/region.
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Date: 13/5/20 01:20 (UTC)But I'm a big sucker for — as you said — in-universe debate and confusion over which (if any) of the stories are true and which are conjecture. Whenever I write something where the primes or creation myth is relevant, I end up implying that whatever truth once existed has gotten muddled up so that it overlaps with fiction in societal headspace.
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Date: 13/5/20 08:17 (UTC)no subject
Date: 22/5/20 10:52 (UTC)I can see different versions of the story — maybe one like Aesops Fables that serves most as
a tale to ward against following the wrong person/people, one that sympathises with them both and sees it as a tale of tragedy and inevitability and mortal folly (like Eden's apple, yk), others that see it very much in black and white with Liege as the surrogate for 'evil'...
The Functionist government using cultural history and religion to control the masses by twisting stories to fit their message is chilling, but I can easily see it as you describe. I'd love to see this explored more omg.
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Date: 22/5/20 21:25 (UTC)I think ultimately I like the idea that Megatronus' patronage was typical of warrior class mecha -- civil protection, enforcers, soldiers -- and his tragedy is often folded into the narrative to provide a counterpoint to the idea that power and affluence are good for their own sake. Megatronus' downfall was at least partially from a lack of community, from being unfettered and not having a sensible goal in mind for all that power he was accumulating. Megatronus, ultimately, is a failed protector. It pairs nicely with the idea that Prima -- and under his patronage, the judges and courts -- is also tragic in his lack of flexibility and being too quick to assume the worst. The failure of communication between them is the result of valuing method over results, essentially. Prima loses his tragic furnishings and becomes more of a righteous vanquisher of deviance and greed in later retellings to fit better with functionist messages about how it was So Sad that the Fallen was not satisfied to serve his purpose as the sword-arm of Primus.
Liege Maximo is also just up and villainised in later retellings as an agitator and a collaborator and is seen as having gotten his dues when Megatronus turned on him, but the narrative probably wasn't originally that clear-cut? After all, self-interest is not inherently evil, and negotiation, strategising and social engineering are useful and necessary skills, not only because assuming that everyone is always acting in good faith means the ones that don't hold themselves to that standard can make a sucker out of everyone else. Liege Maximo going too far is more of a proper old-fashioned cautionary tale.
It might be interesting to envision Liege Maximo and Micronus Prime as sort of... counter-forces. Micronus is the angel to Liege Maximo's devil on one's shoulder, one of them advocating nobility, group-mindedness and principle and the other one gesturing towards self-preservation, utilitarianism and individualism. "Sometimes, it's good to think for yourself" is not a message a functionist high church would want to propagate, either :D