It’s been part of my personal fanon for this ‘verse since “Operation: Breakdown” that there are certain components of Cybertronian anatomy that can’t just be rebuilt and replaced time and again. After all, why else wouldn’t Knock Out have just given Breakdown a new optic? Why the eyepatch?
But they never came out and said as much in show— until now, anyway, and I am just writhing with glee.
I call the process of creating universally compatible components as pureforging, and I suspect it has something to do with the way mechanical components integrate with protoforms. I haven’t hammered out all the details on this particular bit of worldbuilding for my fanon yet, but I’m feeling a lot happier about expanding on it and using it now that the basic concept has been canon-confirmed.
The episode contained a wealth of information on Cybertronian biology and medicine and I am just so happy. THIS is the kind of worldbuilding I’ve been wanting to see out of this show!
(Wow, I suddenly want a GIF of the bit from Tron saying YESYESYESYES cuz that’s how I feel about this)
I wanted to babble about this so much earlier but I had to run out for dinner. But I am so happy about this for a multitude of reasons. Hubby and I have had extensive conversations on the nature of “irreparable damage”, based mostly off Bee’s lack of a vocalizer, (though Breakdown’s missing eye has always made me wonder if they couldn’t replace it or if he chose not to as a reminder of his mistakes. The way his dialogue is it’s hard to tell.)
It’s of particular note to me because my OC Flashpoint has a bit of early war history involving irreparable damage and I’ve had a hard time being satisfied with my explainations for it since there so little canon to work with.
There were several bits of incredible information in this episode. Aside from there being a stated differentiation between obviously interchangable/repairable parts and biological organs/anatomy that can’t be recreated/repaired, we also get the notion that those irreplaceable biological structures can be harmed/damaged beyond the ability to “heal” them.
When Raf and Ratchet are conversing about how Bee’s voice box was damaged, Ratchet’s last comment, “Though the medic could have done better” sounds very much like skill/knowledge/experience come into play when trying to tend these kinds of injuries, and I would guess timing and resources (energon?) as well, much as it does with human medical emergencies.
I am seriously giddy of all this info. It’s making me want to expand my head canon now too. In fact…
I’m going to create further conjecture and say that since there already exists the notion that nanites existing in the living metal (likely making it living in the first place?) is what allows Cybertronians to transform (splitting and reforming metal, re-configuring to a new altmode, a certain amount of self healing, etc) then I’m going to jump to several conclusions:
- Such nanites are produced internally by the protoform, perhaps by a specific organ that is part of it.
- These nanites must assimilate any new parts, upgrades, etc that are added so they can properly function and mesh with the rest of the Cybtertronian they are added to. Effectively going from an inert “part” on a shelf to a living portion of their new owner.
- One could then assume there’s a “breaking in period” as this assimilation occurs, of undetermined length.
Hmmm, now comes the interesting speculation/decision of what the biological protoform generally consists of (core systems and structures) versus what is part of the mechanical exostructure.
LOOK! Meta word puke again. You people do this to me. (It’s quite fabulous)
Headcanon convergent evolution is happening! Pretty much all of your speculations above are also conclusions I’d drawn myself in terms of headcanon Cybertronian medicine and such— although in my case nanite self-repair systems have been part of my headcanon since I started RPing out of Bayverse aaaages ago.
The more they reveal of the way Cybertronians work in this show, the happier it makes me. I know that through basically all of S1 I was actually really annoyed by the way the writers kept using human/organic terminology in reference to robot anatomy, because I parsed it as worldbuilding laziness on their parts. Especially coming out of Animated, which was rich with Cybertronian slang and jargon, Prime’s insistence on using “eyes/ears”, “heartbeat”, etc was totally underwhelming.
But now I see that it’s purposeful and I am just utterly full of squee. After all, one of the things that’s kept me so very interested in TF since TF2007 first got me into the franchise is the ability to play around with the perception and definitions of sentience, sapience, and life itself in living creatures. Primeverse is now presenting us with deliberate cyberbiological Cybertronians and my worldbuilding little heart is primed to explode with the possibility of it.
Sooooo with that in mind, here’s some more of my own headcanon on cyberlife, specific to TFPverse!
- Transformation is actually incredibly wearing on the mechanisms of Cybrtronians, but that’s okay! That’s what the nanites are for! Cybertronian self-repair operates via symbiotic nano-organisms controlled by the individual’s processor. Directed by the self-repair subroutines and microtransmissions that keep them organized, nanites zip around a Cybertronian’s body constantly, diligently filling in all the microscopic wear and tear caused by… well, just existing and moving around, really.
- Self-repair nanites are also capable of dealing with bigger, more substantial injuries. However, it takes longer, and their effectiveness and speed are directly proportional to several factors, including an individual’s knowledge of his own schematics and construction, the availability of energon, and the availability and purity of certain base alloys used as raw material in rebuilding. Yes, this means that doctors are literally better at healing themselves than other mechs, although any mech with a solid grasp of Cybertronian anatomy— or just his own build— will show somewhat accelerated self-repair capabilities. Yes, this also means that it’s theoretically possible for Cybertronians to regenerate things like limbs, with the nanites rebuilding amputated parts microlayer by microlayer.
- So if they can self-repair, why the need for doctors/medics at all? Well like I said, waiting for your self-repair is slow, and the majority of mechs can’t rely on their self-repair to do more than handle dings and scratches anyway. Doctors exist because when you’ve just lost an arm or a leg or half your exoplating, be it due to an accident or in combat, it’s much faster, easier, and resource-thrifty to have a doctor install a replacement.
- Medical grade energon is a special suspension of microscopic alloy particles in fairly high-grade/purified energon. Different varieties contain different ratios of metal to fuel, and probably different mixes of metals, minerals, and elements, too. I’m sure there are predetermined mixes that are generally applicable to certain categories of injury, and equally sure that one of the skills of highly qualified doctors involves mixing custom blends of medical grade for individual patients based on their specific needs.
- Back in the day, mechs who’d suffered serious traumatic injury did time in a regeneration chamber, which was literally a tube or tank filled with medical grade energon. The intervention of a regen chamber was necessary in cases of severe trauma, when the mech was in danger of dying before a doctor could intervene, and they were frequently used as the first step in recovery after major surgeries like reformattings. Regen chambers fell out of use during the war, partially because of their size and mostly because of energon shortages. They were replaced with the life-support system we saw on Megatron when he was still all dead-like in S1— as far as I’m concerned, those tubes and cables bathe the injuries that most need them directly with medical grade. This system is less effective and less therapeutic overall than regen chambers, but it also uses way less energon at any given time, which is why it still gets wholly preferential use in these days of wartime deprivation.
- In humans, aging is caused in part by failures of the body’s natural mechanisms for self-maintenance, and I can see the same thing happening with Cybertronians. While they are incredibly long-lived and I’m sure there do exist interventions to theoretically extend Cybertronian lifespans indefinitely, in the absence of those a Cybertronian will, eventually, begin to age. This is caused by a progressive failure of either the nanites themselves or the organs the produce and maintain them (which cease functioning effectively), or by glitches in the self-repair subroutines in the processor (which stop responding to injuries or inaccurately direct the work of the nanites). Inadequate access to energon and raw alloy can accelerate this process, which explains why so many mechs in Primeverse are scarred.
- I suspect there are also Cybertronian illnesses caused by nanorepair function going haywire. This would probably function as some unfortunate cross between cancer and an autoimmune disorder, where the self-repair system fails to recognize when to start and stop repair. In some forms of self-repair malfunction, the nanos start building randomly, without any injuries to trigger them; in others, they repair legitimate injuries, but then don’t stop when the injuries (or nicks or dings or whatever) have been taken care of. Both forms of the disease result in galls or cysts of useless metal that can interfere with proper function and have to be excised. Thankfully, unlike human disorders, the glitches that cause self-repair malfunctions can usually be isolated and fixed.
…WHOOPS A MAJOR TL;DR OCCURRED.
Wow, I guess I had more medical/biology factoids piled up in my head than I thought. I just love worldbuilding so much, I can’t help it!!
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Wow, headcanon getting canonized is a *really* nice feeling.
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