As all Decepticons know, the scene in Transformers: The Movie, where all the cons are ejected from Astrotrain, just doesn't sit well; it seems very out of place. But as I contemplated the Decepticons, their culture, and Cybertronians in general, it occurred to me that whole scene wasn't nearly as brutal and cold hearted as it first apeared.

First, I must remind myself of a few things with regards to Cybertronians. They can exist quite well, if not always happily, in a vacuum. Similarly, they have displayed a very wide tolerance range of temperatures, being unphased by most anything short of melting point to temperatures approaching absolute zero. Their joints may freeze up at lower temperatures, and circuits may become inactive at extremely low temperatures, but they do not permanently fail.

With this in mind, I propose that what they did up until that point was standard protocol: Deposit a selected group in a known location in space, then retrieve them at a later point in time, when things have cooled off a bit. This would fit in with leaving Skyfire in the ice until such time when 1) they could safely go after him or 2) they really needed reinforcements. So, using this hypothesis, accepted Cybertronian culture includes leaving your wounded in a known location, where they remain relatively safe until such time as they can be retrieved.

The Decepticons most likely had no problem dumping the wounded in that spot, as space is such a vast place, and Cybertron was still a fast-moving rogue planet. It would have been highly unlikely the Autobots could have accurately gone after them; it was unlikely they would choose to do so, as it would require knowledge of the dump in the first place. It would also be very unlikely that anyone else would happen across them in the vastness of space.

I also propose Unicron's close proximity may have caused an unforseen gravity well which was slowing up Astrotrain, which is why he needed a mass reduction. Otherwise he would not have had the fuel to break free of Unicron's pull. After all, how were they to know Unicron was a sentient planet? For all they knew, their dumped comrades were in a stable enough orbit to come after at a later time.

Starscream's dumping of Megatron was a clever ruse. Many fans have proposed that the whole Megatron/Starscream thing was an act, done to help spot dissention in the ranks and deal with it before it became a problem. If this is true, and we think further on this matter, then Starscream's actions, though sudden and probably quite startling and dismaying to Megatron, were taken to put Megatron into a safe location, where another might not have tried to usurp and destroy him. The fight that ensued exposed a suspected desire for command on the Constructicons behalf, which Starscream and Soundwave then worked to squelch, resulting in a brawl between Constructicon supporters and Starscream supporters. This not only relieved tensions after having lost the battle, not to mention dumping their friends and comrades, but also helped re-establish the pecking order among the rank and file.

When Megatron was reformed into Galvatron by Unicron, he seems to have lost some of his own mind and free will. In all likelyhood, had Megatron made it back to Cybertron, he would have severely reprimanded Starscream, but not destroyed him, and Soundwave probably could have argued on Starscream's behalf. But Galvatron, being more Unicron than Megatron, was unable to recognize Starscream's intentions, and merely eliminated an apparent threat (a foreshadowing of his insane wasting of his own troops in uncontrolled fits of paranoid rage to come).

So, now I ask myself, if it's not as fatal a practice as it would seem, then why were the wounded being ejected so adamant about not being ejected? Well, heck, would you want to be thrown out, even if you had a limitless air and sustinence supply? It's lonely out in space, and cold (and though we've seen Cybertronians have a wide range of temperatures in which they can survive, they have a much narrower comfort range). If your com-link is fried, how are you going to hold conversation with the others floating nearby? Worse, who knows how long you're going to be floating out there before someone bothers to come by and pick you up? And depending on the damage levels, it may be a while before you shut down and just cease being aware of the passage of time. Even if you do manage to shutdown everything, and cease to be aware of the passage of time, so that the next thing you know you're picked up, who knows how much time has passed? How much has changed? How much catching up will there be? Will any of your old comrades still be recognizable, or even functional? Will your faction still be around? Or, worse, what if, by quantum chance, someone other than your buddies stumbles across you just floating out there and picks you up, which is what happened in this case?

From a statistical and practical point of view, it's not entirely a bad, fatal practice, but probably not the most pleasant and anticipated of experiences. However, in the movie, the Decepticons just managed to beat all odds and get picked up and reformed by an external force.

Xiphos Fuhr can be E-mailed at xiphos@rahul.net. And be sure to include Altered States Magazine in your response; send a CC: to asm@skyjammer.com.