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Functionism, at its core, was a fundamentally sound and sensible philosophy, stating that “Function follows form, and form follows function”. Simply put, it was the belief that a Transformer’s role in society should be decided by their strengths and qualities, specifically with regards to alternate modes. So if a Transformer turned into a bulldozer, they would be best able to serve the community by working in construction, rather than a different position that they would not be as capable at that could be fulfilled by someone with a more suitable form. Likewise, ideally Transformers would choose alternate modes that would be useful, contribute to society and would fill gaps in the population; so if a community had a need for sanitation, then a street-sweeper alternate mode would be encouraged as an example.

For a long time, Functionism was simply regarded as common sense- after all, if you transform into a tank, you’re probably not going to be a particularly good mail-bot, and if the city needs welders then turning into a sports car is a bit selfish. However, it was not without a vocal minority of opponents; some believed it to be oppressive and restrictive, with Functionist governance pushing for particular alt-modes depending on requirements meaning ‘bots might have to take forms they didn’t want. There was also the argument that it would encourage discrimination against certain alternate forms (in spite of actual altmode-hate being something considered absurd even by the most vehement Functionist, as one of the mainstays of Functionist thought being that every form has a purpose).

This came to a head during what came to be known as “The Luna 3 Incident”. Cybertron’s third moon, Luna 3 was once a bountiful source of rare minerals and energon isotopes, making it vital for Cybertron’s industry and economy. As such, the “Lunabot” caste was established with the role of reaching, exploring, mining and generally managing the satellite. These ‘bots were well-respected, worked hard and considered essential for the wellbeing of Cybertron. Unfortunately, this all ended when Luna 3 unexpectedly disappeared under mysterious circumstances, if a moon disappearing can ever be considered anything other than mysterious. (This was later discovered to be due to a backroom deal in a rogue element of the Senate getting Luna 3 sold on the black market but that’s a whole other story…)

Not only was the entire satellite and its rich supply of materials now gone, but the Lunabots that hadn’t been vanished along with Luna-3 were now effectively obsolete, as the other two moons were mostly useless. Now equipped with highly specialized alternate modes for a role that no longer existed, and with compensation minimal due to the horrendous impact on the Cybertronian economy Luna 3’s disappearance had, the Lunabots were not very happy. Attempts to placate the angry astronauts with offers of free alt-mode conversion and priority given to their reassignment to other jobs only inflamed things further- the Lunabots viewed it as a rather paltry offering given that their entire way of life had just gone kaput, whilst other ‘bots felt that the offers being made to them were too great and that the Senate should have focused on finding a new way of solving the material crisis over soothing the tempers of disgruntled workers. This of course led to immense social friction, eventually resulting in a horrendous series of violent riots and borderline civil war.

When the dust settled and everyone had stopped punching each other, it was decided by the rather incompetent Industrial Secretary, one Proteus Minor, that clearly the problem was an over-adherence to Functionist rhetoric and that anyone should be able to pick any alternate mode they wanted and would be allowed to take up any profession they desired, regardless of how well their chassis suited their chosen role. This went about as well as could be expected, and with absolutely no attempt being made to encourage ‘bots to adopt actually useful alt-modes rather than just comfy/cool ones, combined with nobody wanting to do unglamourous jobs and the previously mentioned material crisis caused by Luna 3 vanishing, Cybertronian society quickly fell apart, entering the deepest recession in its entire history (ironic considering half the population were now sports cars). Scant records survive from this era, in part due to a lack of archivists and the data-slab altmode becoming highly unfashionable, but safe to say it wasn’t very good.

Something had to be done. So when Proteus Minor was replaced in his post by Zeta Minor, he decided he was going to fix the problem once and for all. A firm believer in Functionism, Zeta believed that if Proteus’ “Alt-Mode Freedom” had almost ruined the planet, then “Fundamentalist Functionism” would save it.

This effectively resulted in draconian laws being put into place regarding alt-mode and working classes. From this point on, he said, Cybertronians would be assigned their role and alt-mode by the “Functionist Council”, a selection of twelve Transformers (and their assorted Functionary underlings) whose job it was to try and excavate Cybertron from the metaphorical pit it had gotten stuck in.

This was not viewed particularly well. Whilst done with the best of intentions, the authoritarian implementation of the policies was extremely unpopular, even amongst a lot of Functionists. At first, in spite of vocal opposition to the programme, the project went quite well, and relatively quickly the Cybertronian economy was reasonably well healed, at least compared to the diabolical state it had been in. This was helped by Zeta Minor scrutinizing every part of the process, down to providing low-cost or government-subsidized reformatting so that nobody would be “left behind”.

Regrettably, Zeta Minor was really the one holding everything together. Against his wishes, Zeta was assigned to a higher-ranked but completely different post, and the entire programme was left in the hands of the Functionist Council. This would have been harmless enough, as the Council had been hand-picked by Zeta, but when multiple members were replaced under rather odd circumstances, and a thirteenth member (jokingly referred to as “Thirteen-of-Twelve”) was picked as the effective leader of what was supposed to be an egalitarian ruling body, things completely went off the rails. The replacement members of the Council were more or less useless, and the remaining original members soon resigned from what they saw as a lost cause. This led to the already controversial plan being badly mismanaged, with legal loopholes and corruption letting ‘bots get away with totally unsuitable alt-modes for their profession (the “ornament class” scandal being a particularly noteworthy mess) whilst others were unfairly punished for ridiculous infractions, such as having the wrong colour hazard stripes on an otherwise totally fit for purpose forklift mode. Eventually the poor handling resulted in “Functionism” becoming a dirty word, and things threatened to become even worse than they had been under Proteus.

Things were finally solved upon the invention of the Reformatting Optimizer Device (or R.O.D), which allowed for instant reconfiguration of a Transformer’s alt-mode simply by scanning the desired vehicle or device (within reason). This revolutionary device meant that costly and lengthy reformatting procedures were mostly a thing of the past, and with changing alternate mode now almost trivial, a huge chunk of the problem went away. This breakthrough, along with Zeta being made Prime after Nominus’ untimely demise and the dissolution of the Functionist Council, marked the end of the “Function Blues” as they were known, and with it the debate surrounding Functionism became something of a relic.

It is worth noting that certain elements of the Functionist Council era have been rather exaggerated or outright fabricated, usually either by radical anti-Functionists or Decepticon agent provocateurs (often one and the same). Claims that Transformers with “redundant” alt-modes were rounded up and destroyed were blatantly untrue, for instance- whilst it was required to maintain a state-mandated alternate mode, those who transformed into something obsolete were generally just assigned new ones. In fact the biggest problem was the difficulty of getting ‘bots reformatted quickly enough, and whilst not adhering to alt-mode mandates was technically illegal, the law was very poorly enforced, in part due to Functionaries not wanting to appear discriminatory against those genuinely unable to be reformatted for whatever reason. In any event, the idea that if you turned into an obsolete vehicle that you would be abducted and melted down during this period is complete fiction.

TulioDude wrote:

MaximalNui wrote: or, for those who live in Brazil, Recreio's first RockAnimal series.