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I’m not a big Transformers guy like my friend Jive. He loves it. He had me front and center for Transformers One when it dropped. Even though, I only know a bit here and there about Transformers. Through all the different Transformer shows, reboots, and movies, the one thing that always peaked my interest is the backstory between Optimus Prime and Megatron. Who were they before they became the leaders of two warring factions (Autobots and Decepticons)? Transformers One answered this question for me in the best way by showing that before differing ideologies steered their paths. Megatron was a mining bot named D-16 that kept his head down, worked hard and followed the system. Optimus Prime was a mining bot named Orion Pax that kept dreaming big, breaking protocol, and pushing to do more. D-16 and Orion Pax were polar opposites, but they were friends.

Transformers One: A Story About Day Ones

Twenty-four years ago, I was sitting in math class when our teacher Mr. Rhymer introduced a new student. Beside him stood a dark-skinned Black kid that was entirely reserved. “This is Elvis.” Mr. Rhymer said, “are you serious?” A student shouted from the back of the class in disbelief of a Jamaican kid having that name. “Omar!”, Mr. Rhymer shouted, not in anger but as to say, at least try to act like you have some decorum. “Sorry!” I shouted back. Fast forward and a few days later Elvis joins the indoor track team and is the starting of our 4×400 relay. I was anchor leg. We had lost so many times before because we just couldn’t get or maintain a lead. I’m always prepared to lose but fight like hell to prevent it, and to this day I can still see Elvis coming around the corner hammering that baton in his hand running like hell. We won that race… and every relay race we ran together.

Elvis and I became fast friends (see what I did there). One day during practice Elvis was joking around with a thrower named Wesley just playfully talking shit. After practice when I entered the locker room, I saw Wesley towering over Elvis whose back was against the lockers (playfully) asking him about what he said before. Instinctually, I slowly walked up behind Wesley then suddenly felt a hand on my chest stopping me. The hand belonged to Clifton who was not only my senior, not only my pole vaulting teammate, but also Wesley’s best friend. Clifton said, “Ah-ahh-ahhhh. Hold on Omar. Where are you going?” I looked at Clifton, then Wesley, then Elvis and said, “Man, I’m going home. Elvis always be saying shit. He’s on his own.”

Elvis shot me the same look he gave me when I reacted to his name in class. “Omar! What the hell?!” he said as I walked away. I took two steps, turned around to see that both Clifton and Wesley took their eyes off me (as I expected). Clifton was now beside Wesley, and Elvis was trapped in a 2 on 1. I dropped my book bag, ran the fuck back, and jumped on Wesley back locking him in a sleeper hold while shouting at Elvis, “START SWINGING! START SWINGING! OH MY GOD, HE’S SO STRONG!” After the fight (which wasn’t really) when Elvis and I were walking back I asked him, “You thought I was going to leave you didn’t you?” I smiled and told him, “I had to make it look convincing.”

Twenty-four years later that man is still a best friend of mine. When I went to compete in poetry slams in New York and the transit back to NJ had stopped running, Elvis drove in and got me. When I had to go out of state, Elvis and Bri (his soon to be wife) looked after my mom. When she died, Elvis was beside me in the hospital room where the only thing I could say, was “she watched us grow up together” and when Bri and Elvis got married, the DJ was our teacher Mr. Rhymer who upon introducing me for the best man speech realized that Elvis and I had first met in his class.

Looking back now it’s funny how that’s something that came full circle. I’ve been friends with Elvis for almost 25 years. When you have a sibling, that’s a bond that’s given to you. When you make a friend, that’s a bond that you are choosing to maintain. Elvis and I don’t agree on everything but are core values, morals, and ethics are aligned. At our core, we know both know who the other is and trust that down the line, if we change, it won’t be for the worse.

Transformers One‘s depiction of D-16 and Orion Pax is about what happens when your best friend’s core changes and their value, morals, and ethics become unaligned with yours?

When They Reminisce Transform Over You

Orin Pax is the rebel with a cause. He is constantly searching for answers. What’s happening top side? What happened to the Matrix of Leadership? What can be done to help Sentinel Prime? Pax believes that he himself and his peers don’t have to be designated to pigeonholed to a role for the entirety of their lives. Whereas D-16 would have been perfectly fine living as a miner bot. D-16 had faith that Sentinel Prime was doing everything they could to find the Matrix of Leadership and make life better. D-16 took Sentinel Prime at his word because he idolized them. Whereas Orion Pax, had faith but knew something did not feel right.

This feeling is what drives Orion Pax and because D-16 is his friend, it often takes him out of his comfort zone as a miner bot but makes him better for it. These two bots have different approaches to how they live their life, but they are there for one another. Ever since they first met, they made a pact to watch each other’s backs.

When Orion tricked D-16 into participating in that grand race in order to show that even though miners couldn’t transform, they were just as good as the transformers. D-16 was mad, but then got into during the race but then was upset again afterwards when Sentinel Prime wanted an audience with them. Even during their adventure on the top surface of Cybertron, D-16 is taken from what he knows and thrust into the unknown. He is tentative to embrace all these new experiences and information, but Orion Pax has no issue taking it all in.

When what Orion has known to be true is challenged, he is able to deal with the reality of the situation. Orion is constantly able to adjust and go forward. D-16 moves forward while holding onto the past. This comes to ahead when Orion and D-16 learn of Sentinel Prime’s betrayal of the Primes, Cybertron, and his alliance with the Quintessons (their enemies.)

D-16 put so much faith into Sentinel Prime, he was praised by him, and now to see this person he believed in is actually a traitor? It breaks everything he knows. He even gets upset at Orion for taking him out of the mines and on this adventure. He’d have rather not known but that’s a lie. Finding out the truth doesn’t make you who you are, it’s the actions you take when you know the truth that comes to define you.

Now It’s Clear That I’m Here for a Real Reason

There’s something oddly poetic about knowing that there will be an inevitable divide. Some issue, some clash, some impasse that will make the time between two people, the last time as they are. I watched Transformers One with this in mind the entire time as I saw Orion Pax and D-16 start to grow apart. The divide was real, and it was raw. I said earlier the truth doesn’t make you who you are but the actions you take do. Power, however, has a way of revealing who a person truly is. Especially when you have the power to fight back.

D-16 and Orion Pax were powerless miner bots that were then granted the power to not only fight back against their oppressor in Sentinel Prime but to free their people. Orion Pax and D-16 were aligned on their people being free but when it came to Sentinel Prime? D-16 said, that bot had to go… When D-16 said go, he wasn’t talking Sentinel Prime going up north for a bid or on vacation. He meant a permanent trip from this plane of existence. He meant the scrap yard. He meant the recycling bin. He meant “the drastic change in production when cars were metal instead of plastic.” D-16 meant to dead that man bot. I mean, but is he really wrong to feel that way? Sentinel Prime not only lied to D-16 and the whole society of bots, betrayed the Primes, got in bed with their enemies, but took away the miner bots (and others) abilities to transform. Sentinel Prime a whole all-star war criminal. Jail ain’t good enough.

D-16’s dissent toward becoming Megatron may feel rushed but honestly, it be like that sometimes. When everything you known is a lie and the person you trusted most was perpetuating that lie and had hurt you unbeknownst to you for all your life? This was a breaking point for D-16, and when he was able to transform a gun onto his arm while fighting Star Scream, it felt like a choice had a change had taken place. Along with that change, a choice had been made.

The problem here is hurt people hurt people, right? Fighting to take down Sentinel Prime and his regime needed to happen. Violence was the answer there. I don’t say that meaning that it’s always needed to bring about change; however, to say that it is never the answer is a lie. When you are met with an person or a force that uses violence to do you harm, and knowingly continues to do you harm? Get your Duolingo sessions in because we bout to speak their language. There was no talking it out with Sentinel Prime (who wanted to keep up the lie). Which means this fight, this violence is what was needed to take this person doing harm out of power. We ain’t talking about revolution and people no longer being oppressed. That’s it.

Here’s the problem, deciding when violence is no longer the solution. Orion Pax had a better grip on this than D-16. I go by Kratos rules, the fight stops when the person is no longer a threat. D-16 was boxing with Sentinel Prime, he had Sentinel Prime defeated. Unarmed, down and out. If Sentinel Prime was fighting to the death, that’s an entirely different thing. He’d have been fighting to the death on a lie but it’d be understood. However, the reality is, Sentinel Prime was unarmed and surrendering. D-16 saw this… and was going to kill him. Though D-16 feelings were valid, the problem was the optics looked crazy. Orion Pax stopped him because he understood that. Orion Pax understood that the change they needed happened. Violence stopped being the answer once Sentinel Prime surrendered.

I never been a big fan of the “we gotta be better than our enemies” speech/trope. However, I understand where Orion was coming from here. The fight is over, killing an enemy that’s surrendering looks wild. We’ve won. Orion Pax was talking revolution, D-16 was talking revenge. Now don’t get me wrong, I think revenge can be a good thing. I love a story where revenge happens and a happily ever after follows. That wasn’t going to be the case with D-16 because he lost his trust in everyone else and only trusted himself. That only he had the right way forward.

That’s when D-16 became Megatron. It wasn’t when he took Megatronus’s transformer, it wasn’t when Orion Pax jumped in front of his kill shot on Sentinel Prime, or even when he let Orion fall to his doom. To me, it was the moment that he couldn’t bring himself to believe in anyone other them himself. To make matters worse, D-16 deads Sentinel Prime but it don’t do shit for him. The rage still there. If he deaded that bot then said, “Alright, let’s start rebuilding I guess.” this would be an entirely different discussion. It ain’t work out like that. So not only does revenge not satiate him, he then sees that Orion Pax has come back from the dead with the Matrix of Leadership.

The prime’s chose Orion Pax to be the new leader of Cybertron, to be inducted into their order, to be Optimus Prime. D-16 had to have seen and known that his way was wrong off the strength of this alone. He even said, “They chose you?” and the confusion, hurt, and wtf were so loud in his voice as he said it. D-16 and Orion Pax, now known as Megatron and Optimus Prime find themselves at a divide. This was the moment I had kept waiting for and knew was coming. This was an excellent retelling of the tale of two friends split on an ideology for their people. The harshest thing about this divide is that each person feels like the other is the one that betrayed them.

Megatron can’t understand why Optimus would let Sentinel Prime live, and Optimus is so hurt that Megatron can’t see how there’s a point where violence is a last resort and once it’s in use, there comes a point where it’s no longer the option. You heard it in Optimus’ voice, “we were supposed to rebuild Cybertron together.” That line hits so hard because losing a friend can feels like losing a sibling, a significant other, or a loved one. Friendship is a bond you are choosing to maintain. Optimus and Megatron were once great friends. Now, they are on opposing sides.

It’s heartbreaking to know where D-16 and Orion Pax started at and the events that lead them to become Megatron and Optimus Prime means that for them, things won’t be as they once were. They transformed into who they were meant to be, now there’s no going back.

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The post ‘Transformers One’: Considering Violence as the Answer appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.