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Exactly as the title says, where the Decepticons of Generation One Transformers, true evil?

Thier actions showcase them as a uncaring force, devoted more to thier goals than worrying about the "fleshlings" which crawl underfoot. Thier mission is one of exacting nature, "find new sources of energy, convert them to Energon, and bring them back to repower Cybertron."

While thier efforts of course, show no concern for the native lifeforms of the planet thier on, they have a truer cause than the Autobots at times.

We see later, in the Dreamwave "resurrection" of GenOne comics, that Megatron doesn't immediatly go after Optimus to kill him, but indeed, tries to show Optimus the error of his ways, at how the humans are afraid of them all, and are more than willing to betray the Autobots in a heartbeat. He's proven true, somewhat, when the head of the Division for Development of War Technology tried to kill the Transformers, first by dropping a bomb on them in the Artic Circle, then again when he authorizes a nuclear warhead to be launched against the Transformers while they battle in San Francisco.



So, are the Decepticons truly evil? Let us discuss this.

Discuss.

Depending on the series and 'verse in question you can argue for or against this.

In the original TV series I would say no. Megatron was typecasted into that role by neccessity of the writers. But, if you look carefully at the missions and actions of the decepticons in the series very rarely was the intentional destruction or harm of humans or the planet the primary purpose. Going after oil derricks in the ocean was to get the oil to convert to energon. The harm of the humans was more by accident and that they were in his way as opposed to the direct target. Hydro-electric dam was the same situation. The air field for the jet fuel, same thing. All through the series you see him going after goals of gaining energy for energon to escape Earth and return to Cybertron. The humans were rarely even thought of, much less the direct target. These were the actions of someone who believed himself to be so far above the humans that they weren't even worthy of the nanosecond required of their well being. The only real comparison I could make to this is the gods from the Cthulhu Mythos. They were amoral. They weren't evil. We view them as evil in the series based on their actions and the consequences thereof. To them they did nothing wrong for we as a race are so low on the preverbial totem pole that we're not even worthy of consideration.

Hell if you look at it in most of the comics and series it was like that. The Decepticons were trying to get the energy to go back to cybertron to finish the war. They didn't want to be on the planet and just wanted to leave.

It was actualy argueably more evil for the Autobots to keep foiling the plans of the Decepticons then to let them leave. I argue this point based on this: The autobots were able to see the damage that the Decepticons did every time they attacked a resource point. The deaths of the humans and the destruction to property. They were made aware of all of this. Instead they foiled the plans of the 'cons time and time again. The space bridge allowed a viable way to get them all off world and the 'bots destroyed it. Time and time again through Prime's actions the 'cons were foiled in their attempts to leave the world. All this resulted in was an extended war on Earth itself, instead of taking it back to Cybertron. Which was more evil? The 'cons for trying to get the resources to leave, or the 'bots for making them stay and forcing their hand in the war to lead to more destruction.

Yes, you can argue in this case that the 'bots were preventing the 'cons from coming back later to harvest the resources of the world, but the bots were equally able then to go back to cybertron to stop them from returning. Instead as soon as they get the upper hand they turn the earth from a resource planet to be contested over to a full out military target with the Ark, Ark II, Fort Max, Metroplex(Autobot City) Buster Whitwicky as the last Autobot, etc.

After debating this point with DS on AIM I'll make a few points here.
The decepticons would have came back to Earth after regrouping on Cybertron to finish the job of raping the earth of resources. This is true. But if the Autobots had gone back and stopped them it wouldn't have mattered. To believe that the autobots would have been stranded had the 'cons left is foolish. They had more or less repaired the Ark after the initial OVA. They obviously worked out some form of energy agreement with the human government for Autobot City. In the movie Autobot City was ran on hydroelectric power conversion. A renewable clean source of energy. So they obviously had the means to leave the planet with the 'cons. But they didn't. They instead chose to fight the battle on Earth and brought the humans into it, thus casing more death destruction and devestation then EVER would have happened had they gotten the resources they needed and both sides gotten off planet and back to cybertron.

....excuse me, am I the only one who remembers the whole "we'll conquer the universe!!!!" schtick from Megatron? *looks at posts* Oh, I see, that's just being swept to the wayside and trumped up as "writer's necessity".

Seriously, Megatron is a power-mongering tyrant who wants to conquer everything he can for the sake of gathering more power. The Decepticons are a rabble of squabbling, aggressive warriors who can only be controlled through acts of extreme force and the threat of suffering that Megatron engages in.

About the only exception to this was the Shockwave from the Dreamwave comics, who had greater concerns that transcended the Autobot/Decepticon paradigm. And he still imposed a dictatorship on Cybertron.

The Decepticons are thus objectively evil by their actions. Their only possible defense comes from the possibility that they were programmed to be violent, and thus the moral onus lies upon their programmer and not them.

Humans are a side note, an accidental problem of the main goal?

I don't know about you, but when I decide I want something and don't care about what happens to things that get in my way, especially when those things are sentient organisms, that's evil.

Look, those bank robbers just wanted the money in the bank. All those people that got shot were just collateral damage. Clearly if they didn't get in the way of the robbers, nothing bad would have happened, and if the cops hadn't shown up, the robbers wouldn't have had to use the bank patrons as hostages to escape. It makes perfect sense!

You might be able to argue that Megatron didn't give a damn about humans and as such wasn't particularly interested in their continuation as a species or interfering with it directly, but you can't seriously make the argument that they're not bad people because "all they wanted to do was go home." These guys aren't freaking E.T. here, they wanted to go home so they could CONQUER THE UNIVERSE and rule it with an iron hand, and they were willing to kill humans to do it.

If I walk up to you and beat the living hell out of you and steal your wallet, is the act made less evil by the justification that I needed the money to get a bus ticket home so I could murder my wife and force my children to become slaves?

Ahh, excellent! Discourse!

Steve wrote:....excuse me, am I the only one who remembers the whole "we'll conquer the universe!!!!" schtick from Megatron? *looks at posts* Oh, I see, that's just being swept to the wayside and trumped up as "writer's necessity".

No, I didn't forget Megatron's overriding goal, conquest of the Universe and all sentient life it contained. We were simply revealed more of his character in the Dreamwave comics than we were allowed to glimpse during the run of the cartoon. We get to see Megatron's overriding goal, clear of any Autobot bias (and yes, the cartoon did have a Autobot Bias, seeing as they were the good guys..), the reason he started the war upon Cybertron all those millions of years ago.

I throw nothing away as writers nessecity, I merely desire, upon these further facts (I just obtained the comics myself, most recently, so never had a chance to review them before), to discuss some of the great implications we discover.

Seriously, Megatron is a power-mongering tyrant who wants to conquer everything he can for the sake of gathering more power. The Decepticons are a rabble of squabbling, aggressive warriors who can only be controlled through acts of extreme force and the threat of suffering that Megatron engages in.

If we follow Dreamwave's premise as disclosed in the "War Within" series (Vol 3 Issue 10 Page 18-20), Megatron's original reason for gathering the Gladiator Robots which eventually formed the core of his Decepticons, then later the likeminded Cybertronian's who flocked to his banner, was because of a deception being perpitrated by the Council of Ancients.

They were attempting to hide the true reason for Cybertron and the Transformer's exsistence. A a mobile fortress-world, and the Autobots and Decepticons meant to be defense and exploration forces respectively. (the true reason for Cybertron was spoken of first in Transformers Volumn 2 by Shockwave as he spoke to Optimus, then again by Megatron in Volumn 1 of War Within as he and Prime fought beneath Cybertron).

Now, after his plans were stopped, he continued the war so that he could eliminate the autobots as they stopped his plans, and continued to meddle.

Granted, none of this PROVES Decepticon Innocent, infact, it damns them even moreso, seeing as megatron planned to use Cybertron as his personal Warworld in conquest of the universe.

About the only exception to this was the Shockwave from the Dreamwave comics, who had greater concerns that transcended the Autobot/Decepticon paradigm. And he still imposed a dictatorship on Cybertron.

Even Shockwave was one of those original Gladiator Robots, and even his goals were sinister after they were revealed in the comics. He was no less noble than Megatron, infact his methods may have been more insidious than Megatron's brute force tactics.

The Decepticons are thus objectively evil by their actions. Their only possible defense comes from the possibility that they were programmed to be violent, and thus the moral onus lies upon their programmer and not them.

Agreed, they are Evil, thier stance and goals perpitrates them as being evil. And they never sought to rise above this station. Even if we lay blame upon thier programming, Shockwave reveals to us the Decepticon's original intent in thier design anyway, during Volumn 2 of the Dreamwave Transformers comic run - the Decepticons were meant to go into the Universe, and find new planets to conquer and set up colonies/outposts upon, the Autobots were meant to stay behind and defend these outposts.

Hotfoot wrote:Humans are a side note, an accidental problem of the main goal?

I don't know about you, but when I decide I want something and don't care about what happens to things that get in my way, especially when those things are sentient organisms, that's evil.

Look, those bank robbers just wanted the money in the bank. All those people that got shot were just collateral damage. Clearly if they didn't get in the way of the robbers, nothing bad would have happened, and if the cops hadn't shown up, the robbers wouldn't have had to use the bank patrons as hostages to escape. It makes perfect sense!

You might be able to argue that Megatron didn't give a damn about humans and as such wasn't particularly interested in their continuation as a species or interfering with it directly, but you can't seriously make the argument that they're not bad people because "all they wanted to do was go home." These guys aren't freaking E.T. here, they wanted to go home so they could CONQUER THE UNIVERSE and rule it with an iron hand, and they were willing to kill humans to do it.

If I walk up to you and beat the living hell out of you and steal your wallet, is the act made less evil by the justification that I needed the money to get a bus ticket home so I could murder my wife and force my children to become slaves?

Humans were indeed a sidenote to most of the series, both show and comic. With very few exceptions were the decepticons ever after as a primary goal, hurting or killing humans. Had say a dam or oil refinery been unmanned no humans would have been hurt in the process. They weren't the main goal, they weren't really even a thought unless the humans were stupid enough to try to actually do something to them. And yes, I say stupid. Because if I'm looking up at something that's 50x bigger then me, weighs probably a few hundred tons more then I do and has weapons capable of obliterating buildings with a single shot I'm sure as hell not going to try to stop it or get in its way. I'm running my ass off. Now stupid ass humans like Sparkplug, Spike, Daniel and Buster...those dumbasses and more of the random generic humans were stupid retards who obviously didn't have the common sense Primus gave a petrorabbit! Here's two sides in a war that's millions of years old who are impervious to any but some of the highest caliber weapons in the world. And you're going to get involved in that? You're gonna sit there and go...wow a giant robot, lets hang around this intergalactic war and see what goes on. We'll have wacky and zany adventures riding along in them when they transform! And it'll be perfectly fine, it'll be alright! Spike nearly died... twice and had to become a fucking cyborg just to live after his body was fucked all to hell. Daniel was critically injured and was converted to a cyborg and binary bonded just to stay alive. Sparkplug was killed because of them. Buster became an emotional and psychological wreck and tried to drown himself in alcohol. And didn't Carly die too? Yeah...and if you, regardless of your fandom towards the show, seriously and logically believe that hanging around or involving yourself in any minor way whatsoever is a great idea in this war, I'll call you an idiot too.

Humans were injured and did die. There was massive loss of human life throughout the various series. I will not deny that nor will I say that it was a good thing. But you're trying to make it out like it was a purposeful thing. It wasn't. It was an incidental thing, collateral damage, causalties of war. Shit, unfortunatly, happens.

What I don't think you're realizing is that, again, except for a very few specific cases the 'cons didn't give two shits about human. They weren't evil, they're amoral. Humans to the cons for the most part were insects, or less then. Ants to be stamped on without a thought. Germs to be cleared. Hell, even some of the autobots thought like that! Do you get upset and go to church, confessing and repenting your evil and wicked ways for kicking over an anthill running across the yard to snatch up a $20 laying there? Why not? You just accidently killed possibly hundreds or thousands of innocent creatures who just happened to be in your way when you went after something you wanted. Chances are you don't give those ants a second thought and if you're like me or most people, the world is probably better off without those useless insects. Now instead of ants think humans and instead of you think big giant mecha of mass destruction that's millions of years old, thinks on scales grander then Iain banks' cultureverse and is involved in a war of attrition. Getting a picture of the situation here? They weren't evil for killing humans, they were amoral. I'm not saying that killing humans was a good thing, it probably sucked enormously for them, but it wasn't an evil act.

As for the general decepticon "urge to conquer the universe" bit, that's sort of a misnomer. Not all decepticons were imbibed with the die-hard urge to blow the shit out everything, kill any sentient race other then themselves and fuck anything that got in their way. Quite a few were, throughout the multiple series, were not the stone-cold psychopathic murderers you suggest. On Cybertron there were thousands of neutral forces that were rounded up by both sides, bot and con. In some cases the manner of recruitment was akin to join or die.

Plus, not every soldier wants to conquer a nation or a world because their leaders do. Not every US soldier wants to slaughter every middle eastern inhabitant just because we're waging a war agianst some of them. Granted, some US soldiers do, however. Just like undoubtedly quite a few decepticons had no problem with the world or universal domination idea. But just as undoubtedly there were those who did disagree with the greater larger plan even if they agreed with the smaller plan. Maybe they just didn't like the autobots and thats why they sided with the cons. Doesn't mean they neccessarily want to conquer the galaxy.

Your statement as a whole of the decepticons is a generalistic statement and in my opinion a false one. Not every con was evil, not every con wanted to take over the universe. By the same token, not every 'bot was a good sameritan and a shining example of nobility, honor and virtue. Look at the dinobots. Hell Grimlock switched sides more often then some of the spies! Gears consistantly refered to the planet Earth as a mudball and loathed it and wasn't much fonder of humans in general. Brawn was another example of that one. Mirage was a traiterous bastard as was Magnus. First chance they got to get out of the war they bent over and took it up the waste disposal chute from the cons.

Not every con was evil, not every bot was good. So no, as a generalization of the decepticons, they were not evil.

But of course people are divided into two groups - the righteous and the unrighteous - and the righteous do the dividing.

If we look at it from the bot perspective, which everyone apparently wants to, the cons are all meglomaniacal sociopathic sparkless killers most of which are utterly without any possibility of redemption. Of course they're evil from that perspective. But it's also a biased perspective.

Isn't the rationalization of "Not our morals = amoral = not evil" how Walper tried to justify the Borg not being evil?

Let's go through the list here:

-Transformers, by and large, are sentient beings
-It is wrong for a sentient being to willfully murder another sentient being
-Humans are, by and large, sentient beings
-Decepticons murdered humans to get what they wanted by force
-Decepticons do have a sense of right and wrong. They know the consequences of lying, stealing, and cheating. They do so anyway.

The analogy of "considering us like ants" is a red herring. Mass murders think of their victims like ants, but we can objectively prove that is not the case, and thus, they are wrong.

If the Decepticons had no sense of right and wrong, you might have a point for amorality, but we clearly see that is not the case. If you'd like some proof, here's a clip of the show where decepticons talk about breaking a code of conduct, and how it would be wrong to do so. This is just one example of many I'm sure you could find, but then you're waffling between an amorality excuse and the "German Soldier in WW2" excuse. You can pick one or the other, either the Decepticons were amoral, excusing their lack of effective moral decisions, or they weren't ALL evil, and the non-evil ones were pressed into service against their wills by the evil ones.

In any case, amorality is just that, a complete and total lack of morals, not that they get to pick and choose which morals to follow. I refer back to beating the hell out of you and taking your wallet to fund my being able to kill my wife and enslave my kids. At what point would you say that's NOT evil? Because it seems like you're making excuses for why what the decepticons wasn't evil.

If I'm of the mindset or in a culture that believes that there is no such thing as "rape" because to resist undesired sex itself is a crime, and I rape every man, woman, and child I see, yet I still consider murder to be wrong, and so on, is what I'm doing evil? According to your logic, it doesn't seem so, but maybe there is some clarification you could make to help illuminate this position.

The whole waffling bit as you refer to it was based on two seperate parts of it. One was based on the rationalization or irrationalization of decepticons and their moral, immoral or amoral attitude towards humans. The second was the same towards the generalized decepticon philosophy of conquer everything.

And yes, you can rationalize all day long that a human and a transformer are both sentient creatures. I won't debate that and will acknowledge that point. They're both sentient creatures.

However, what you're seeking to do is to apply the moral code of one species to an entirely different species. A moral code is a thing of convictions and commonly held beliefs.

In this case the Autobots(for the most part) acknowledge humans as sapient, sentient creatures and defended them as such. In this case, however, we do not see the Decepticons acknowledging any such thing towards humans.

Decepticons, in some cases(though not all) did have a moral code of honor concerning themselves, their enemies and battle(Bludgeon was a prime example of this). This did not neccessarily transfer over to a species that they did not even deem sentient or worthy of having such a code applied to.

To give another example of cases where this has happened; Dragons in fantasy. Commonly held that they will kill a human, a dwarf, an elf, what have you without hesitation or remorse in most cases. They won't feel bad about this nor are they commonly shown to have any heartache or spiritual suffering due to this. Most of them akin this to swatting an insect. Though a dragon is capable of having a moral code in other aspects. It might(and seemingly often does!) feel very strongly about the theft of its horde or have moral outrage over another dragon killing its young while it's away from its roost. Are dragons evil because of this? Or are they simply amoral towards a lesser, inferior race that is not worthy of its attention or thought?

Sadly, however, Hotfoot, this particular arguement could go on forever coneivably since we're not longer discussing the absolutes of simply the decepticons, autobots and humans, but rather morality as a whole which inevitably leads us into the rather unsolvable Euthyphro dilema.

I will, however, attempt to rationalize this by my thoughts using not only transformers but other comparisons:

Do you or can you apply moral code to a god? No god in particular here mind you, but a god in general.

In comparison to humans, transformers were gods or nearly so. They were capable of bringing their dead back to life, crossing the very stars themselves, were damn near ageless in relative terms, some of them living for hundreds of millions of years depending on the 'verse you're discussing and none were ever listed as having died from "old age". They could harness the power of stars and black holes, create entire worlds and destroy them just as easily. Not even time was a factor to some of them. Some of them have witnessed the total sum of human history, the beginning and the end of humanity. 95% of them were around prior to the Earth having single-celled organisms. That is the level of being we are discussing. Beings that in comparison to humans are gods.

Humans, whether in comic, tv, or our own reality, are not even in the same book much less the same page as that. You made reference to the fact that serial killers view their victims as ants as well though it was proven that in the end this wasn't true. That could be contributed to the fact that the serial killer is a human as were his victims. Same species, same level of development and evolution.

I still hold with my statement concerning ants. Serial killers are human and subject to human laws and human codes of conduct and morality. A transformer is not a human. A transformer is a being that may or may not acknowledge a human as a sentient life form. After all where the hell are they? On a back water planet with patheticly weak soft flesh bodies that have barely managed to make it to their own natural orbital satellite(the moon) much less other planets in their system. Hell until the transformers they didn't even have more then redneck yokel reports on any sort of alien species. They can't efficently use the resources and energy they have, they can't colonize or visit other planets and stars, they can't even speak a single common language. Why would such a grossly superior species demean themselves to consider the species "equal" and thus apply their code of ethics to it?

You spoke of yourself on a planet where rape was not illegal or immoral yet you believed murder to be. You rape everything with two legs(and possibly four), probably die of a heart attack from the insane amounts of viagra you'd have to injest to accomplish this mammoth feat of sexual prowess, and you believe murder to be wrong. You question whether or not your orgy of carnal copulation is evil. Evil is being morally bad or wrong. If you apply your own moral codes and what you believe and what you were raised or taught to believe to the situation then to you it may very well be an evil and horrific act(as well as potentitally the world's best porn vid). But to them it may not be a horrific act at all. It may not be evil or immoral to them because they do not believe that act to be immoral. It may not be in their code of judgement or their ethos that rape is a bad thing and you shouldn't do it. Maybe to them rape is the world's best fucking(pun not intended) thing ever. Whatever the case you can not reasonably apply moral judgement to a creature that simply does not share those same morals.

This is in the same sense that you can not apply the laws of your own government to a citizen of another country. If it's illegal to have sex with a girl under the age of 17 in your country you can not reasonably apply this law to citizens of another country half a world away who's legal age is 16.

As for you kicking my ass and ganking my wallet for your spousal slaughter and son-slavery I don't consider it evil. I view it as illegal however, and as a personal wrong done to me, an insult rather then "OMG that is just so morally wrong you're going to hell!" I also would have no problem under the same situation and feel no moral heartache over finding you and kicking your ass in return. If I was in a really warped mood I might go as far as to enact some old school middle-east justice and go with the old choppy choppy to Rosey Palm and her five slim sisters.

Granted I'm not likely to go out and randomly beat the fuck out of someone for shits and giggles and play the ginsu infomercial game with their hand but somehow I equally doubt you're likely to go out and randomly kick someone's ass for their wallet then go home and murder your wife and self your kid to some south american kiddie slaver.


Now, in reference to my applying a code of morals towards decepticon universal conquest, I hold that not all decepticons desired it. Lower echelons may not even have been aware that that was in fact the grand final plan. Others(neutrals) may be in the war by force. Some cons may just have issues with bots(he married my sister and I don't like his chassis color!) and want to kick their skidplate across the tarmac a few times but have no real desire to leave cybertron to go on some massive multigalaxy war. Most transformers period seemed rather hostile towards the idea of permanently leaving cybertron. Hell some of the autobots didn't even want to go off planet for a short trip to Earth! Universal conquest? Sure...you want that buddy go right ahead, I'm gonna stay here and sip on my 40weight oil while that cute fembot feeds me energon goodies.

Oddly the only ones who really seemed bent on the whole complete domination of everything kick were the high echelon types. Megatron, Starscream, Shockwave, Bludgeon, etc. Low echelon cons didn't seem to give two shits about that. They were concerned with the actual war, not some cosmic holy crusade across the 'verse. Reflector for instance. He fought for the cons, he gathered intel, he didn't do shit to promote some cosmic conquest.

Therefore I state that the generalization that decepticons want to universally dominate is false.

So basically you're arguing for moral relativism, which I reject as a worthless philosophy and little more than solispism.

"It's not evil because it's not evil FOR THEM." It's a bullshit argument. According to this, nothing is evil.

It's not even that it's a species thing, you've got to prove that in fact, all transformers lack morals to prove a lack of morals across the species. They don't, as clearly shown with many Decepticons and Autobots.

Are you going to tell me next that the Nazis weren't evil for the holocaust? Or that the Inquisition wasn't evil for murdering heretics? If I do something that I don't consider to be evil, it's not wrong?

Well hell, let the criminals run free! Destroy society, let anarchy reign and may the strong survive, because according to your argument, that's all that matters - power.

You can't make any argument that the Transformers were somehow more sapient than humans, only more powerful on a physical and military level.

If you'd like to argue for moral relativism, why not bring it up directly in P&T, rather than prop it up with this silly argument? I could see a thread like this if someone were arguing if Xanatos from Gargoyles was evil, but the freaking Decepticons? This is a joke.

This is silly. The Decepticons are ruthless, power hungrey, amoral conquerers with no respect for innocent life. They're the poster boys for robotic evil. As for suppossed honour code, that's irrelevant. SS soldiers claimed to follow one and the honour code of a Samurai allowed him to hack down peasants for not grovelling sufficiently. It does not absolve them of their actions.

This boils down to the defination of evil. Evil is not solely doing desturctive deeds for their own sake, evil is not the sole domain of the old villian who ties the maid to the railroad and chackles at how dastary he is.

The main core of evil is merely not giving a shit. The Decepticons know that humans are sapient, they know that what they do causes massive damage and lose of life. They don't care.

They do not pursue other avenues of achieving their goals. Does anyone think the USSR wouldn't have given Megatron all the energy he wanted for some techie goodies? Or Iran? Or Iraq? Or even the US? They had plenty of other ways of trying for their goal. They just didn't want to, they went for main force. They choice to try and take without talk. Because they didn't give a damn about anyone else but themselves. That makes them evil.