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Description

THE AUTOBOT HIERARCHY
As of December 14, 2021

This is my idea of a military-style explanatory organizational Autobot chart. It includes every Autobot that made an appearance in the G1 cartoon series and I've done my best to find a logical spot for everyone. It's quite comprehensive, as the sheer number of extant Autobot characters would properly seem to demand. Most recently, my inter-character scaling finally seems to be falling into place, which needed to be reflected here as well. I'm also starting to understand better how light would affect these avatars if they were three-dimensional and have started to apply that insight to the shading. Some of the characters have been updated as such and more is to come.

ORGANIZATION

I've arranged characters within each division according to the general area of expertise they bring to the fold. The TACTICAL DIVISION subtitle, for example, hints at the sequence of abilities I like to sort them by. However, the need to fit everyone and keep certain sub-groupings natural does make for the odd exception.

CLARIFICATIONS

I've received some surprisingly critical remarks about the piece, so I want to enlighten visitors about the conditions I apply to my choice of arrangement and labeling. The primary condition: My work in general is based on the U.S. G1 continuity as shown in the original 1980s TV series. I usually consider any retroactive references added to later franchises, such as BEAST MACHINES and ROBOTS IN DISGUISE, beyond the purview of my output and consequently beside the point. If a BEAST MACHINES toy tech spec suggests the purpose of an obscure one-off G1 character was such and such, I disregard it because the original episode(s) didn't mention or display it. If an episode of ROBOTS IN DISGUISE says DION became ULTRA MAGNUS (a confirmed nod to a favourite fan theory incorporated into translated dialogue for an imported Japanese TV series, no less), I discount it because the original WAR DAWN episode ultimately left his fate unknown.

I've made a single exception to the rule, but I'll get to that a bit later.

Now, in rendering these avatars, I've relied upon the following three sources:

VISUAL REPRESENTATION: THE U.S. G1 TV SERIES (and a little bit of the comic book)

The TV series represents 95% of my visual references. In the few cases where a character's cartoon series representation is too limited to be used, I've drawn on THE TRANSFORMERS: UNIVERSE or appearances from the original comic book. I would've preferred all of my references to be intrinsic to the TV show, but I've accepted this source as the finalized character models were used for all of the G1 media permutations.

FUNCTIONS AND TITLES: THE TRANSFORMERS: UNIVERSE

THE TRANSFORMERS: UNIVERSE forms the basis of both the original comic book and TV series characters and the latter medium, though it tends to be less concretely stated, follows the functions and titles in the former. That's how I'm able to determine, for example, that TAILGATE is a scout and TANTRUM is a fueler.

FUNCTIONS AND TITLES: TOY TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

A time or two, a character was on the show but received no TRANSFORMERS: UNIVERSE profile. For their functions, I consulted their toy tech specs. That way, to name one, I could tell SWERVE was a metallurgist.

SINGULAR SERIES-ONLY CHARACTERS

So what of one-off characters that were neither made into toys nor featured in contemporaneous media?

Sometimes all there is to base functions on is the dialogue and action taking place in a character's episode. In some cases, obscure characters are mentioned and even enlarged upon in official latter-day media, but given my isolated frame of reference, I almost always ignore those backdated depictions, which are often made simply to appeal to fans with whom they originate. To reiterate my earlier point: If an IDW comic book were to claim that DEVCON used to be a Cybertronian mailman, it has no bearing on the way I choose to present the character, simply because it never came up in THE GAMBLER. But I've made one concession:

Because I like their look, I wanted to include the unnamed female Autobots from THE SEARCH FOR ALPHA TRION, but I hesitated because I didn't particularly want to use the names Jesse Wittenrich gave them for the 2010 FLAMES OF YESTERDAY online exclusive comic book. They're not bad, even if I don't see the "Auto-significance" of LANCER, but I was long adamant that I would only accept names made up by Beth Bornstein or others who worked on the original show. In the end, I decided to relent with these two and these two alone. I also accepted their functions as scientists, as they looked analytically involved with their Cybertron base. I did adjust one of their purposes to avoid duplication, but kept it in the realm of science.

Speaking of duplication: Some have also commented on the existence of both ARIEL and ELITA ONE in the chart, or both ORION PAX and OPTIMUS PRIME, to name a couple (or actually two couples). "Why are they both in there? They're the same character." I understand the question. But: They were very different types from one form to another and their old lives were "astro-years" apart from what they became. They were inconsequential entities with greatness in their futures. And it would be a waste not to show their designs!

Finally, the overview includes two "cheats" on my part. I've always felt the lack of robot modes for HAULER and SLAMMER. It just looks too odd having vehicular-mode avatars next to everyone else's proper face. So I decided to design heads for each of them and put them in there instead of their respective crane and tank modes.

I welcome anyone to disagree with my structuring and classification of the characters, but again, within the confines of the original 1980s U.S. G1 universe, this is as true an illustration as I can -- and will -- ever make.

That is all -- thank you!

Description

THE AUTOBOT HIERARCHY
As of December 14, 2021

This is my idea of a military-style explanatory organizational Autobot chart. It includes every Autobot that made an appearance in the G1 cartoon series and I've done my best to find a logical spot for everyone. It's quite comprehensive, as the sheer number of extant Autobot characters would properly seem to demand. Most recently, my inter-character scaling finally seems to be falling into place, which needed to be reflected here as well. I'm also starting to understand better how light would affect these avatars if they were three-dimensional and have started to apply that insight to the shading. Some of the characters have been updated as such and more is to come.

ORGANIZATION

I've arranged characters within each division according to the general area of expertise they bring to the fold. The TACTICAL DIVISION subtitle, for example, hints at the sequence of abilities I like to sort them by. However, the need to fit everyone and keep certain sub-groupings natural does make for the odd exception.

CLARIFICATIONS

I've received some surprisingly critical remarks about the piece, so I want to enlighten visitors about the conditions I apply to my choice of arrangement and labeling. The primary condition: My work in general is based on the U.S. G1 continuity as shown in the original 1980s TV series. I usually consider any retroactive references added to later franchises, such as BEAST MACHINES and ROBOTS IN DISGUISE, beyond the purview of my output and consequently beside the point. If a BEAST MACHINES toy tech spec suggests the purpose of an obscure one-off G1 character was such and such, I disregard it because the original episode(s) didn't mention or display it. If an episode of ROBOTS IN DISGUISE says DION became ULTRA MAGNUS (a confirmed nod to a favourite fan theory incorporated into translated dialogue for an imported Japanese TV series, no less), I discount it because the original WAR DAWN episode ultimately left his fate unknown.

I've made a single exception to the rule, but I'll get to that a bit later.

Now, in rendering these avatars, I've relied upon the following three sources:

VISUAL REPRESENTATION: THE U.S. G1 TV SERIES (and a little bit of the comic book)

The TV series represents 95% of my visual references. In the few cases where a character's cartoon series representation is too limited to be used, I've drawn on THE TRANSFORMERS: UNIVERSE or appearances from the original comic book. I would've preferred all of my references to be intrinsic to the TV show, but I've accepted this source as the finalized character models were used for all of the G1 media permutations.

FUNCTIONS AND TITLES: THE TRANSFORMERS: UNIVERSE

THE TRANSFORMERS: UNIVERSE forms the basis of both the original comic book and TV series characters and the latter medium, though it tends to be less concretely stated, follows the functions and titles in the former. That's how I'm able to determine, for example, that TAILGATE is a scout and TANTRUM is a fueler.

FUNCTIONS AND TITLES: TOY TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

A time or two, a character was on the show but received no TRANSFORMERS: UNIVERSE profile. For their functions, I consulted their toy tech specs. That way, to name one, I could tell SWERVE was a metallurgist.

SINGULAR SERIES-ONLY CHARACTERS

So what of one-off characters that were neither made into toys nor featured in contemporaneous media?

Sometimes all there is to base functions on is the dialogue and action taking place in a character's episode. In some cases, obscure characters are mentioned and even enlarged upon in official latter-day media, but given my isolated frame of reference, I almost always ignore those backdated depictions, which are often made simply to appeal to fans with whom they originate. To reiterate my earlier point: If an IDW comic book were to claim that DEVCON used to be a Cybertronian mailman, it has no bearing on the way I choose to present the character, simply because it never came up in THE GAMBLER. But I've made one concession:

Because I like their look, I wanted to include the unnamed female Autobots from THE SEARCH FOR ALPHA TRION, but I hesitated because I didn't particularly want to use the names Jesse Wittenrich gave them for the 2010 FLAMES OF YESTERDAY online exclusive comic book. They're not bad, even if I don't see the "Auto-significance" of LANCER, but I was long adamant that I would only accept names made up by Beth Bornstein or others who worked on the original show. In the end, I decided to relent with these two and these two alone. I also accepted their functions as scientists, as they looked analytically involved with their Cybertron base. I did adjust one of their purposes to avoid duplication, but kept it in the realm of science.

Speaking of duplication: Some have also commented on the existence of both ARIEL and ELITA ONE in the chart, or both ORION PAX and OPTIMUS PRIME, to name a couple (or actually two couples). "Why are they both in there? They're the same character." I understand the question. But: They were very different types from one form to another and their old lives were "astro-years" apart from what they became. They were inconsequential entities with greatness in their futures. And it would be a waste not to show their designs!

Finally, the overview includes two "cheats" on my part. I've always felt the lack of robot modes for HAULER and SLAMMER. It just looks too odd having vehicular-mode avatars next to everyone else's proper face. So I decided to design heads for each of them and put them in there instead of their respective crane and tank modes.

I welcome anyone to disagree with my structuring and classification of the characters, but again, within the confines of the original 1980s U.S. G1 universe, this is as true an illustration as I can -- and will -- ever make.

That is all -- thank you!