FACTIONS
Some call them gods. Some call them criminals. Some call them chaos incarnate. Most call them a menace to Iacon and a threat to public sanity. Though their numbers may be small, the four vigilante factions are more than capable of changing the world, if they ever stop squabbling with one another. Huge, superpowered, and possessed of radical convictions, these so-called heroes appeared out of nowhere to protect the city from paranormal threats and try to inspire revolution against the injustices of functionism. Their political goals may be more convincing if they weren't causing just as many problems as they claim to solve. After awhile, their magical antics are more irritating than awe-inspiring. Given the relics they weild, their claim to the legacies of the ancients, some have taken to calling them The New Primes Of Cybertron.
What the general public doesn't know, however, is that these uncoordinated, overdramatic vigilantes are all secretly younglings. They're taking time off from homework to power up and save the world before rushing back to class, hoping nobody noticed their absence. What the rest of the world sees as street gangs engaged in a turf war is actually the unsupervised rowdiness of children given anonymity, superpowers, and a lot of opportunities to mess up. Even in their immaturity, they're making enough of an impact to earn the ire of a shadowy monster trying to eliminate them once and for all.
Origins
Autobots & Decepticons
With the opening of the Jhiaxian Academy of Advanced Technology, the seven younglings who would form the original two factions were drawn together as students. Orion Pax, Minimus Ambus, and Windblade meet at the first school assembly as new roommates. Megatron, Starscream, Skywarp, and Thundercracker had all known each other previously and reunite on campus as dorm neighbors. Despite getting their relics at approximately the same time and resolving to protect their school and city, the two groups had wildly different origins. The Autobots were given their relics in the middle of a crisis by the Academy's librarian Alpha Trion after making a good impression on him, with explicit instructions on the nature of the supernatural calamity. The Decepticons barely survived a collapsing building, discovered mysterious objects of power thanks to the interference of a secret onlooker, and proceed to stumble their way into protecting people through passion and panic alone. [s1e01]
Ostensibly, the Autobots are at an advantage, knowing where their relics came from and why they received them. But Alpha Trion is a notorious drunk, antisocial recluse, and infuriatingly obtuse academic, and he seems to deliberately worsen whenever they try to ask him questions about who he is or what's going on. It doesn't take them long to strike out on their own. As the Decepticon ranks swell and the Elite Guard appears, they start feeling the pressure of being only three people, even after the Torchbearers are created. [s1e07] Orion, Minimus, and Windblade collectively decide to accept Hot Rod as another member when he shows promise after assisting them in a crisis and share their civilian identities with him. [s2e11] After doing some investigation into the factions on his own, Blurr discovers a relic and jumps in to help without sharing his identity, a fact which the others are leery about but accept nonetheless. [s3e07]
The Decepticons have no context for their relics or what they should do with them, but that leaves them free to blaze their own trails. They get to define their own purpose and accept people's allegiances on their own terms. It's thrilling, but it can lead to some rather stupid shenanigans, like Scourge's creation of the Sweeps. [s1e06] That radical energy motivated Makeshift to work with the faction, [s1e09] but it also ended up driving them away after some secrets came to light. [s2e15] Attracted by the power and individualism of the Decepticons, Nightracer seizes an opportunity to join them in their open rebellion, a move which the original four did not expect but accepted regardless. [s1e12] Blitzwing too felt called to the faction after Galvatron's impassioned defense of triple-changers. [s2e08] Originally, Deadlock's surly, defensive tendencies made the Decepticons look like the perfect opportunity to lash out at society like he wanted to, [s2e11] but his experiences as a vigilante start a change in him. It takes awhile, but he finds he may fit better with the Autobots after all. [s4e04]
Elite Guard
Before attending the JAAT, the Elite Guardsmecha were all complete strangers. Only Arcee lives on Cybertron. Chromia and Firestar are Camien, Moonracer is Velocitronian, and Ariel is Carcerian. The five of them are roommates and quickly struck up a friendship within the first schoolvorn. When Ariel finds a strange object in a cafeteria supply cart, she brings it back to show to her roommates, which lets them all bond to it at the same time. As an already established tight-knit group, none of them felt any desire to join the Autobots or Decepticons. The former may be more agreeable, but they miss a certain aspect of community that the five of them prefer to emphasize. They're the best and they know it, and while they'll cooperate with others, they don't need anyone else to join them.
Ironically, their improved communication doesn't help them discover one of their greatest collective powers until a few vorns in. Their relic can turn people into combiner teams by merging them into a gestalt form, but it turns out the Elite Guardsmecha themselves have also been a combiner this whole time! It's dangerous, and thrilling, and no other faction can compete when Elita Infin1te appears on the battlefield. [s4e09]
Predacons
Makeshift began as a Decepticon, but that faction didn't focus on the issues they felt drawn to. Their defection led to a lot of introspection and lone wandering. They knew they didn't want to go it alone, but they weren't sure who would work with them. After a specific encounter with Predaking and Blackarachnia, they knew these two shared their values and might just make good teammates. [s3e05] The three of them are much more deliberate than the other factions, approaching this not as a fun jaunt around town or an opportunity to pick a fight but rather as life-saving activism. It sets them apart from the rest in a palpable manner.
In sharp contrast to the rest of the faction, Soundwave is neither deliberate nor possessed of any particular convictions. Rumble and Frenzy barely manage to function together on a good day. They joined the Predacons more as an easy way to get backup when needed [s4e01] and eventually get to the point where they'll follow Abominus's leadership... sort of. It also doesn't take them long to decide they need faction members to boss around themselves. Six siblings from the Tripredacus Den accept an offer to become a minicon: Ravage, Howlback, Lazerbeak, Buzzsaw, Squawktalk, and Beastbox. [s4e04] Together they make something of a faction within a faction, somehow exemplifying Predacon philosophy in a much more chaotic way.
Ideology
Despite what some people think, each faction has a general philosophy, a purpose behind their chaos. They're also distinct groups willing to cooperate with one another rather than one mass of chaotic anarchists or warring gangs claiming territory. No faction is synonymous with another. Each group exists because their members witness injustice in society, as well as the magical disasters that keep happening, and they all want to mitigate or prevent that. Repeated threats against the JAAT or Iacon in general give them opportunities to act on their ideologies to better Cybertron in the way they see fit. They go about it in different ways, which is a source of friction between both each other and the people they're ostensibly trying to help. Pity that their youngling immaturity and brand new superpowers means many disagreements end up escalating to violence.
- the Autobots are very independent and optimistic, wanting to inspire improvement in society through their own actions. More often than not, they want to cooperate with existing systems in the hopes that they can make them better without destroying anything.
- the Decepticons have a similar emphasis on a person’s responsibility, only to the opposite end, to get rid of the regime and start over. Galvatron in particular identifies as an anarchist, and the faction's general spite for the establishment fits that label.
- the Elite Guard is a team of people from many different colonies and upbringings, so they have a fairly well rounded perspective on what different governments and societies can look like, they just want to make sure everyone is considered and provided for within the current system.
- the Predacons have no love lost for any of it, and a lot of rage at the mistreatment of those considered lesser, but they understand the necessity of safety in numbers and a united front against those in power.
If the general public knew just who these strangers were before the relics, things might make more sense with how their backgrounds have shaped their philosophies:
- Megatron is actually from a fairly well-to-do family. His sense of social justice is still biased and heavily based on his own experience of what a single person in power can do, instead of the comparatively little that even a group of low-class mecha can accomplish. He’s grown up with the benefits of the system on his side, and it’ll take awhile for him to expand his view and realize that.
- Predaking, on the other hand, has been a beastformer all his life, and is well acquainted with the sort of flak that functionism will throw at his frametype. He’s experienced the prejudice and injustice firsthand, and has a lot of pent up righteous anger. Beastformers, toolformers, junkers, he’s not going to let any of them get left behind, not when all of them are oppressed.
- Ariel is from Carcer, where private property is optional, communities are closely knit, and even children are raised by the whole town. She’s got an outsider view of the injustice on Cybertron, but she has no particular ire towards it. All she wants is the ability to be herself, no matter where she is, and the same for everyone else.
- Orion, meanwhile, has something of a complex. Of all the heroes, only Orion, Minimus, and Windblade were specifically chosen by Alpha Trion, guardian of the relics. They’re the only ones with some semblance of understanding that these things are quite literally tools of gods long past. Orion has taken this the hardest. He holds himself to the highest standards. After all, he’s filling the role of ancient heroes still worshipped today, living up to the legacy of the ghosts still haunting the relic he bears. Could he allow himself to be anything less than individual, actualized, and perfect?
Ultimately, every faction has a solid point to make. The world is complex, and they're learning, and no problem has an easy, universal answer. They are passionate young progressives infighting about their preferred activism, enabled by the mask of secret identities and dramatic public response. It will take more than a few squabbling vigilantes to change the world, but millions upon millions of mecha have seen them at work, watched the news, or read commentaries on their actions. Maybe they'll end up sparking a revolution despite it all.
Even casual association outside of necessary interaction is frowned upon. Since sparkfields can affect each other just by regular close proximity, intermingling functions and classes are discouraged, though it’s not always possible to prevent it. But everything up to and including physical infrastructure is not geared towards interaction with a diverse crowd. Even furniture and every day tools like utensils aren’t universal, they come in different size classes. A place meant for one frametype or size class won’t have accommodation for others. A grounder’s restaurant won’t have open-backed seats for winged fliers, and a minibot library won’t have doors that could fit a size 2 adult, much less size 5.
The one area where this rigid boundary gives is with close family. Adults of one frametype can adopt children of a different frametype, and group homes can have multiple frametypes as long as they have the correct accommodations for them. For Endurae relationships especially, class borders soften a bit, but bond with someone too far removed from your place in society and the both of you become tainted. Of all the reasons mecha somehow change classes, higher or lower, Endurae relationships are the most prevalent, closely followed by adoption.