Decepticons: Warriors for... GOOD?!?

I think it's a safe assessment to say that we all love rocks. Rocks are awesome and they bring a calming presence to a chaotic nature. It's not hard to see why one might chose to live under one of these cold, unmoving, behemoths. Just ask my ex-wife. And yet, there comes a time when we must leve the wombly shelter of our rocks and venture outwards, into a world that progresses faster with every minute. it is our duty to welcome those who have been living under rocks into our new world, and help them adjust to such a chaotic frenzy.  I write this forward because only someone living under a rock for 30 years could have missed the true heroism of the Decepticons from the Transformers Franchise.

The metallic, scowling, face of heroism, fresh from cleaning his teeth of baby skin

Let us examine the opposing philosophies of Megatron and Optimus. Megatron believes that it is the duty of the Transformers race to expand their power across the universe and amass all the energon available. Now, this may at first seem villainous and greedy, but by breaking down his mission statement, we may reveal the true kindness in his actions.

First off, in nearly any incarnation of the Transformers franchise, the Cybertronians are said to be a dying race. One that has lived far past it's prime (or it's Optimus Prime! I'll show myself out) and is struggling for resources. The most valuable of resources for the Transformers is Energon. Energon is a storage form of potential energy, which is used by the cybertronians as fuel for themselves, their non-sentient machinery, and their weaponry. Because of it's energy storage capacity, energy is highly volatile and may recreate scenes from a Bruce Willis movie at any given moment. While the decepticons have managed to store energon in a safer cubic form, energon is can also be found naturally in a crystal form, though the abundant energy of this unstable form is damaging to an unprotected Cybertronian body. Another crucial aspect of Energon is that unlike many energies that we use like coal or oil, Energon is found, in it's richest state at least, in naturally occurring crystals. These crystals are not formed from the death of organisms or the collection of sunlight. They occur naturally throughout the universe.

Energon is also clean-burning, leaving no exhaust or residue. Energon is also incredibly dangerous to a planet's eco-system. If Energon crystals build up as they had on prehistoric earth, a single earthquake could ignite an explosion that could level a continent. When the Decepticons extract Energon from a planet or asteroid, they are the opposite of British Petroleum.  When these guys extract the natural resources of an area, they actively make it safer and more hospitable for those who live there.

M-M-Megatron?

So we now know that the Decepticons are saving their dying race by taking dangerous energy sources out of unstable areas that could potentially blow up an entire planet. Pretty heroic so far. But a hero from a 60's animated show would be nothing without his villain, Optimus Prime.

In the many years of the Transformers Franchise, Optimus has had a bit of a habit of kidnapping children. I'm not sure it's wise for a children's cartoon to tell their audience "Hey, if a deep voice comes from a truck and asks you to follow him and then kneels over you as the voice commands that you tell no one what has happened here, it means you met aliens!".  But rather than take the easy route and talk about peadophilia, let us instead examine why Optimus Prime is one of the worst warlords of animated history.

First off, he's a massive hypocrite. Optimus will take any given time to espouse the profound words of "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings". And you know what? That's a good moral there. Sort of like an alien robot Joseph Kant. And yet, he clearly doesn't believe it himself. Take the minicons of Transformers Armada. The minicons are sentient beings, just like all other Cybertronians. While they can transform into tools and weapons for the bigger comrades to use, they clearly have emotions and thoughts of their own. Yet Optimus treats them as nothing more than a weapons, a means to an end. Clearly his ideals of freedom no longer stand when slavery benefits him.

Pictured: The right of all sentient beings

He's also maliciously violent for someone who believes that the autonomous rights of a moral agent should be respected. If the actions of the Decepticons aren't taking away the freedom of earthlings, why does he care what they do? Again, Energon is both an incredibly potent energy storage that could help solve many problems on earth if properly harnessed, and a naturally occurring crystal that could bring about planetary destruction of not safely removed with the tools the Decepticons have. Optimus may want to act as a diplomat between earth and the Decpticons if he stood by his values, but instead he declares Megatron and his kind war-criminals and dispatch the Autobot army against them.

The Autobots themselves show a staggering disregard for earth in choosing their vehicle forms. A hot-red truck, a race car, a neon-yellow jellopy just to name a few are much more conspicuous than a pistol, a cassette player, and a variety of jets that can sore above human eyes. While Megatron and the Decepticons chose their modes with stealth in mind, Optimus could clearly not give less of a shit. This also means that while Starscream and other flying Decepticons can take their fight to the air, far away from civilians, most Autobots are relegated to fighting somewhere with well-paved roads. In choosing these forms, the Autobots directly involved the civilians of earth whereas the Decepticons wanted to avoid this. 

So you see, Megatron is the scavenging hero, looking for an energy source that will sustain his people while also helping other planets reach the technological heights of Cybertron, while Optimus is the cynical, ignorant warlord, who scoffs at the ideas of freedom. While one seeks to improve the lives of those touched by Cybertronians, the other seeks to bring them into their own civil war. Truly, we can all look back on this longstanding television empire and recognize the true heroism of Megatron and the Decepticons.

Well, some Decepticons at least.
(That's Starscream by the way)
(Because Japan)