How will the civil war on Cybertron end? Ever wondered?
If you listen to the "official party line" from Hasbro and
Marvel, you'll be told that the Autobots will eventually win because
"good always triumphs over evil," or some other such bigoted nonsense.
This is nothing more than pandering to society's accepted standards, of
course -- standards that are merely a reflection of this place and time,
with nothing absolute about them -- but we can't really expect anything
better from Hasbro and Marvel.
Unfortunately I think it's also the general consensus among
most fans ... most of whom seem to be Autobots, but then, we
Decepticons have been outnumbered from the beginning, whether in
terms of numbers of toys and characters, or in terms of fan support.
That's okay. Outnumbered but never outclassed. Part of what it means
to be a Decepticon is to stand up and survive against overwhelming
odds.
What really disturbs me, however, is that I find a similar
notion among some Decepticon fans, in fanfic and in personal
communication. Much as these people may like the 'Cons, there is still
the idea that the Autobots will, and even should, eventually win the
war. And whenever I run into that attitude, it makes me wonder to
what extent people are letting society spoon-feed them their values. I
always want to shout, "You know, it's okay to be on the 'evil' side,
and it's okay for the 'bad guys' to win. You know you want them
to, but you don't dare go through with it. Because somewhere in the
back of your mind, you still consider it 'wrong.' And that is a
completely arbitrary and subjective label! Break loose from the
constraints of your upbringing and do your own thing!"
(ahem, okay, get hold of yourself, Raksha....)
A subset of the "Autobots will win" theory is the idea that both
sides will eventually make peace and join together in harmony. There's
an intuitive appeal to bringing a long, tragic war to an end and
replacing relentless hostility with long-sought peace. Even the most
fuel-thirsty warmonger on either side surely thinks, at odd moments,
that peace would be kinda nice; certainly those who were dragged into
the war by necessity would wholeheartedly wish for its end. And I
know I am always intrigued by those stories that show both sides
teaming up in temporary alliance against a greater threat. The cartoons
did this well in more than one episode, and it was great fun. That's also
what I was expecting from the Movie, and one of the reasons I felt so
cheated by it -- because it promised something it didn't deliver. I still
maintain that G1 issue 75 was the way the Movie should have been
done. But the key word in these team-ups is: temporary -- because
such a thing cannot and should not last.
Do I have something against peace, you might wonder? No,
not at all. But I have something very definite against compromising
one's ideals, and a joining of Decepticons and Autobots would force the
Decepticons to do just that. In almost every story that depicts resolution
and peace, it's the Decepticons who agree to live by more Autobot-like
rules -- the Decepticon leader who defers to the "greater wisdom" of his
Autobot counterpart ... and this is simply unacceptable. Why should
the Decepticons change their ideals? Why shouldn't the Autobots
change instead? It gets back to the strongly-ingrained concept that,
well, the Decepticons are evil, so they're the ones that have to
change. And that's culturally biased bullshit.
One of the things I admire about the Decepticons is that they
are uncompromising individualists -- that they do not cater to anyone
else's opinion of who or what they should be. The supposed final peace
at the end of the G2 comic is doomed to failure for just this reason; once
the danger has passed, Megatron would never sit still and allow Prime
to dictate to him how he should live his life from now on. And there is
absolutely nothing 'wrong' or 'evil' about remaining true to oneself.
But, will the war eventually end? Oh yes, that much is
certain. There will be peace on Cybertron some day. And it will come
about by the total annihilation of the Autobots, or by driving them so far
away that they cease to be even a minor nuisance. I mean, we know
they're not going to win -- and we're damn sure not going to join
them!
Watch the Shadows,
and
Never, Ever Compromise Yourself.
--Raksha the Plumed Serpent
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