Autobots and Children (edited to fix facts)
This is a long, teal deer of an essay I started a couple months back; it was inspired by a rant at fanficrants about a story where the Autobots adopted a little girl
I'd really like to know where people got the idea that the Autobots would just jump at the chance to take care of a human child. And, in addition and probably more importantly, where they got the idea that the Autobots would be capable of taking care of a human child for an extended period of time. Short-term babysitting, waiting for either a parent or the Red Cross and/or Child Protective Services to show up, sure -- especially if someone told the Autobots what to do beforehand. But long-term child care? Raising an infant/toddler? Seems unlikely at best.
It seems like a lot of people want to go for the Tarzan of the Apes/Mowgli the Wolf Boy scenario -- the child of one species being raised by another, coming to know their ways and generally being one of them while still being of another world. It's an idea that's common throughout the world. As you can see if you visit FeralChildren.com for real and fictional examples of children supposedly raised by animals and/or in isolation.
But the difference between Mowgli being raised by wolves and Tarzan being raised by apes and Mary Sue being raised by the Autobots is that baby gorillas, wolves and humans are all fairly similar to each other -- all are mammals for one thing. For another, all of them are born helpless and are dependent on their parents to care for them. A puppy, a baby gorilla and a human infant all go through fairly similar stages of development -- the main difference is that humans develop much more slowly in comparison to puppies and gorillas.
The upshot of all this is that even without special training, a human being can be expected to know that a wolf puppy or a baby gorilla needs to be fed, watered and given a place to sleep and a place to pee and poo because humans, large or small, need those basic things.
Transformers, on the other hand, are not mammals. More importantly, they're not an organic species so they do not have the same understanding of How Life Works that organics would. The chances are slim to nil that any Transformer would be able to take care of a human child the same way a human parent would -- not without a LOT of help from other human beings. Not because the Transformers aren't smart enough but because there is no reason for them to have the same kind of inherent understanding of how to care for an organic child that a human would have.
Part of the problem is that Transformers, at least in G1 and Beast Wars/Beast Machines, are created as independent adults who do not need to be cared for the way a human child would be. We don't see newly created Transformers in the 2007 movie (or at least not for long enough to find out what stage of development they're at), but in the G1 cartoon series that seems to be the basis of many Transformers fics, the Stunticons, Aerialbots and Technobots were all capable of engaging in battle almost immediately after being brought online as were new creations Black Arachnia, Quickstrike, Silverbolt, etc. in Beast Wars.
(Side note: at least one of the Japanese series (the manga version of Transformers: Victory) does have child Transformers but I'm not counting them because usually when people have Autobots adopting human children, they're using US/UK G1 continuities or the current movie continuity. That and I don't know anything about those children other than that they allegedly exist.)
The closest we come to child-robots in the G1 cartoon series are the smaller, child-voiced Lithonians running around at the beginning of Transformers: The Movie (1986) and Wheelie, 'wild-boy of Quintesson' who also first appears in TF:TM. The Lithonian child-robots are destroyed along with the rest of their planet during Unicron's opening attack, but Wheelie survives the movie and appears repeatedly in Season Three. While Wheelie is clearly meant to read as 'young' due to the tone of his voice and his mannerisms, he is also just as clearly not helpless. Part of his backstory is that he crash-landed on Quintessa and managed to survive on his own until Hot Rod, Kup and the Dinobots show up in need of a ride. Even then, Wheelie is their ticket off the planet -- he knows where to find a ride and talks the Autobots into taking him along with them.
In Season Three, Wheelie hangs around with Daniel, but while the two of them get into all kinds of whacky, kid-style hijinx, Wheelie is also shown to still be a soldier of sorts to the Autobots. In Five Faces of Darkness, Wheelie and Blurr are the ones responsible for delivering Metroplex's transformation cog to Earth. When they're attacked by the Decepticons, Wheelie not only holds his own in the fight, he also manages to take out one of the Sweeps. Wheelie might be an Autobot 'youth' but he's pretty clearly not a helpless child and the 'adult' Transformers around him don't seem to treat him as any less of a combatant.
Look at the examples of how the Transformers deal with children/young adults in canon. Spike, when the G1 series starts, is approximately 14-16 years old. The Autobots think nothing of bringing him along to various battles and putting him in harm's way. Twenty years later? Daniel is roughly 12 years old when the Transformers movie takes place. Now, on the commentary track for the 20th anniversary release, Arcee's voice actress, Susan Blu talks about how much she enjoyed the motherly relationship that Arcee had with Daniel. And it's true, you can see that Arcee does have a certain amount of quasi-maternal protectiveness for Daniel. But when a group of Junkions Decepticons attack her, Daniel and Blurr, Arcee is the first one to tear out of the scene, leaving behind Daniel who still doesn't know how to transform his exo-suit that his exo-suit can transform (Blurr tells him to "Transform, transform, transform" and Daniel makes it out ok). (Edited to fix the facts I screwed up first time 'round; thanks to purajo for pointing out my goof.)
Even in light of getting certain details wrong, I still think that part of the reason Arcee takes off so quickly is that while she intellectually knows that Daniel is a child and needs protection, when it comes down to a fight she expects him to respond like any 'normal' person (i.e. a fellow Cybertronian) would. The young of her species are expected to be able to take care of themselves, and when it comes to a fight that's what Arcee expects Daniel to do.
Though, it could also just as easily be that Arcee is attempting to draw fire away from Daniel and Blurr and I could just be yanking all this out of my ass. That's always a possibility.
Yes, depending on the continuity, the Autobots do have access to humans who can tell them about how to raise a human child or they can look things up on the Internet, but the problem with that is that the Autobots have to know to ask for the information. In their own species being small does not automatically equal helpless, so it's unlikely that the average Autobot would consider a small human who can walk and talk to be incapable of living independently. They would probably, depending on how human savvy they were, be wondering why the mini-human keeps asking them to feed it.
Not to mention that with the exception of Sparkplug in the G1 series, most of the Autobots' human allies are teenage/pre-teen kids who might know the basics (which end to feed, which end to diaper) but who are just as likely to be complete novices when it comes to long-term child-rearing.
Also? If the human child was orphaned during a Transformer battle in the middle of a city, once the smoke has cleared, human first responders are going to be on the scene ASAP and will likely be more than happy to take charge of any human child who is running around unattended. Which brings me to another pet peeve: there are humans in the Transformers world other than the canon characters and the OC du jour. The Autobots are not the only individuals capable of dealing with a crisis and are not necessarily going to be the best suited for dealing with every situation.
Which brings us to a question: how likely is it that a small child could distinguish between the big scary robots who just killed his/her parents and destroyed his/her home and the big, scary robots who are just here to help. I know, the idea is that the child is young and innocent and inherently knows that the Autobots are Good Guys and that they're there to help but in reality? Young children frequently die in house fires because they hide from the firefighters who are there to rescue them. In the heat, smoke and confusion of the fire, the firefighter's uniform and gear makes them look scary -- particularly to a young child who is already panicking. Chances are if a kid is witnessing a battle, they're unlikely to have a scorecard to tell them that the yellow robot using a streetlamp to beat the blue robot into the ground is really a sweetheart..
In addition, since the Autobots usually have human friends around, why would they take in a human infant/child when it would be much easier to simply give the kid to the humans and have them find their parents or care for the child themselves? Not to mention the unlikely possibility of human welfare workers allowing alien robots involved in a shooting war on Earth to have custody of a child. Particularly if the Autobots are partly responsible for the kid now being an orphan.
One of my favorite episodes of the show Monk is "Mr. Monk and the Kid," where during the course of an investigation, Monk -- who suffers from OCD, numerous phobias and other mental and emotional problems -- finds himself caring for a two year old boy. Monk considers adopting him but eventually comes to the realization that because of his own psychological problems he is in no shape to take care of a child. Now, Monk? Is a human being, albeit a seriously messed up human being. Optimus Prime? I think he'd cop to the idea all the faster since he's of an entirely different species.
Now, all this isn't to say that I don't think the idea of Autobots adopting a human child can't work, it's more that I'd like to see more thought put into the idea. As well as some acknowledgement that sometimes the kindest thing to do is not keep the child.
Afterword: To be fair, I haven't read all the Autobots adopting a small child stories out there, if you know of some good ones, please recommend them in the comments to this piece. Extra bonus points if the fic features a boy instead of the usual adorable little girl.
And, in the interests of full disclosure, I've written a fic about Tailgate and Pipes having to deal with a lost human child, who is a little girl, which I wrote hoping to do something different with the idea. I like to think I succeeded but I know good and well that mileage varies.
I'd really like to know where people got the idea that the Autobots would just jump at the chance to take care of a human child. And, in addition and probably more importantly, where they got the idea that the Autobots would be capable of taking care of a human child for an extended period of time. Short-term babysitting, waiting for either a parent or the Red Cross and/or Child Protective Services to show up, sure -- especially if someone told the Autobots what to do beforehand. But long-term child care? Raising an infant/toddler? Seems unlikely at best.
It seems like a lot of people want to go for the Tarzan of the Apes/Mowgli the Wolf Boy scenario -- the child of one species being raised by another, coming to know their ways and generally being one of them while still being of another world. It's an idea that's common throughout the world. As you can see if you visit FeralChildren.com for real and fictional examples of children supposedly raised by animals and/or in isolation.
But the difference between Mowgli being raised by wolves and Tarzan being raised by apes and Mary Sue being raised by the Autobots is that baby gorillas, wolves and humans are all fairly similar to each other -- all are mammals for one thing. For another, all of them are born helpless and are dependent on their parents to care for them. A puppy, a baby gorilla and a human infant all go through fairly similar stages of development -- the main difference is that humans develop much more slowly in comparison to puppies and gorillas.
The upshot of all this is that even without special training, a human being can be expected to know that a wolf puppy or a baby gorilla needs to be fed, watered and given a place to sleep and a place to pee and poo because humans, large or small, need those basic things.
Transformers, on the other hand, are not mammals. More importantly, they're not an organic species so they do not have the same understanding of How Life Works that organics would. The chances are slim to nil that any Transformer would be able to take care of a human child the same way a human parent would -- not without a LOT of help from other human beings. Not because the Transformers aren't smart enough but because there is no reason for them to have the same kind of inherent understanding of how to care for an organic child that a human would have.
Part of the problem is that Transformers, at least in G1 and Beast Wars/Beast Machines, are created as independent adults who do not need to be cared for the way a human child would be. We don't see newly created Transformers in the 2007 movie (or at least not for long enough to find out what stage of development they're at), but in the G1 cartoon series that seems to be the basis of many Transformers fics, the Stunticons, Aerialbots and Technobots were all capable of engaging in battle almost immediately after being brought online as were new creations Black Arachnia, Quickstrike, Silverbolt, etc. in Beast Wars.
(Side note: at least one of the Japanese series (the manga version of Transformers: Victory) does have child Transformers but I'm not counting them because usually when people have Autobots adopting human children, they're using US/UK G1 continuities or the current movie continuity. That and I don't know anything about those children other than that they allegedly exist.)
The closest we come to child-robots in the G1 cartoon series are the smaller, child-voiced Lithonians running around at the beginning of Transformers: The Movie (1986) and Wheelie, 'wild-boy of Quintesson' who also first appears in TF:TM. The Lithonian child-robots are destroyed along with the rest of their planet during Unicron's opening attack, but Wheelie survives the movie and appears repeatedly in Season Three. While Wheelie is clearly meant to read as 'young' due to the tone of his voice and his mannerisms, he is also just as clearly not helpless. Part of his backstory is that he crash-landed on Quintessa and managed to survive on his own until Hot Rod, Kup and the Dinobots show up in need of a ride. Even then, Wheelie is their ticket off the planet -- he knows where to find a ride and talks the Autobots into taking him along with them.
In Season Three, Wheelie hangs around with Daniel, but while the two of them get into all kinds of whacky, kid-style hijinx, Wheelie is also shown to still be a soldier of sorts to the Autobots. In Five Faces of Darkness, Wheelie and Blurr are the ones responsible for delivering Metroplex's transformation cog to Earth. When they're attacked by the Decepticons, Wheelie not only holds his own in the fight, he also manages to take out one of the Sweeps. Wheelie might be an Autobot 'youth' but he's pretty clearly not a helpless child and the 'adult' Transformers around him don't seem to treat him as any less of a combatant.
Look at the examples of how the Transformers deal with children/young adults in canon. Spike, when the G1 series starts, is approximately 14-16 years old. The Autobots think nothing of bringing him along to various battles and putting him in harm's way. Twenty years later? Daniel is roughly 12 years old when the Transformers movie takes place. Now, on the commentary track for the 20th anniversary release, Arcee's voice actress, Susan Blu talks about how much she enjoyed the motherly relationship that Arcee had with Daniel. And it's true, you can see that Arcee does have a certain amount of quasi-maternal protectiveness for Daniel. But when a group of Junkions Decepticons attack her, Daniel and Blurr, Arcee is the first one to tear out of the scene, leaving behind Daniel who still doesn't know how to transform his exo-suit that his exo-suit can transform (Blurr tells him to "Transform, transform, transform" and Daniel makes it out ok). (Edited to fix the facts I screwed up first time 'round; thanks to purajo for pointing out my goof.)
Even in light of getting certain details wrong, I still think that part of the reason Arcee takes off so quickly is that while she intellectually knows that Daniel is a child and needs protection, when it comes down to a fight she expects him to respond like any 'normal' person (i.e. a fellow Cybertronian) would. The young of her species are expected to be able to take care of themselves, and when it comes to a fight that's what Arcee expects Daniel to do.
Though, it could also just as easily be that Arcee is attempting to draw fire away from Daniel and Blurr and I could just be yanking all this out of my ass. That's always a possibility.
Yes, depending on the continuity, the Autobots do have access to humans who can tell them about how to raise a human child or they can look things up on the Internet, but the problem with that is that the Autobots have to know to ask for the information. In their own species being small does not automatically equal helpless, so it's unlikely that the average Autobot would consider a small human who can walk and talk to be incapable of living independently. They would probably, depending on how human savvy they were, be wondering why the mini-human keeps asking them to feed it.
Not to mention that with the exception of Sparkplug in the G1 series, most of the Autobots' human allies are teenage/pre-teen kids who might know the basics (which end to feed, which end to diaper) but who are just as likely to be complete novices when it comes to long-term child-rearing.
Also? If the human child was orphaned during a Transformer battle in the middle of a city, once the smoke has cleared, human first responders are going to be on the scene ASAP and will likely be more than happy to take charge of any human child who is running around unattended. Which brings me to another pet peeve: there are humans in the Transformers world other than the canon characters and the OC du jour. The Autobots are not the only individuals capable of dealing with a crisis and are not necessarily going to be the best suited for dealing with every situation.
Which brings us to a question: how likely is it that a small child could distinguish between the big scary robots who just killed his/her parents and destroyed his/her home and the big, scary robots who are just here to help. I know, the idea is that the child is young and innocent and inherently knows that the Autobots are Good Guys and that they're there to help but in reality? Young children frequently die in house fires because they hide from the firefighters who are there to rescue them. In the heat, smoke and confusion of the fire, the firefighter's uniform and gear makes them look scary -- particularly to a young child who is already panicking. Chances are if a kid is witnessing a battle, they're unlikely to have a scorecard to tell them that the yellow robot using a streetlamp to beat the blue robot into the ground is really a sweetheart..
In addition, since the Autobots usually have human friends around, why would they take in a human infant/child when it would be much easier to simply give the kid to the humans and have them find their parents or care for the child themselves? Not to mention the unlikely possibility of human welfare workers allowing alien robots involved in a shooting war on Earth to have custody of a child. Particularly if the Autobots are partly responsible for the kid now being an orphan.
One of my favorite episodes of the show Monk is "Mr. Monk and the Kid," where during the course of an investigation, Monk -- who suffers from OCD, numerous phobias and other mental and emotional problems -- finds himself caring for a two year old boy. Monk considers adopting him but eventually comes to the realization that because of his own psychological problems he is in no shape to take care of a child. Now, Monk? Is a human being, albeit a seriously messed up human being. Optimus Prime? I think he'd cop to the idea all the faster since he's of an entirely different species.
Now, all this isn't to say that I don't think the idea of Autobots adopting a human child can't work, it's more that I'd like to see more thought put into the idea. As well as some acknowledgement that sometimes the kindest thing to do is not keep the child.
Afterword: To be fair, I haven't read all the Autobots adopting a small child stories out there, if you know of some good ones, please recommend them in the comments to this piece. Extra bonus points if the fic features a boy instead of the usual adorable little girl.
And, in the interests of full disclosure, I've written a fic about Tailgate and Pipes having to deal with a lost human child, who is a little girl, which I wrote hoping to do something different with the idea. I like to think I succeeded but I know good and well that mileage varies.