Why is Cheetor considered "the kid"?

[VelociBerg]

I was going to post this in the Where do baby transformers come from? thread, but decided this was more of its own topic.

As we all know, Cheetor is essentially the "kid" of the Maximal group. Why then are other, younger, transformers (like Silverbolt for example) looking down at him for his youth, even though Cheetor is older than every TF to come out of a stasis pod. Well, except Rampage/Tigatron/Airazor.

So why, then, is Cheetor less mature than Silverbolt, Black Arachnia, or Inferno?

[Blazemane]

Weren't stasis pods robots that had a history on Cybertron, then went lights out for a while? After all, Tigatron mentioned identity circuits. Or am I just confused? Well, maybe this works. Silverbolt came out of his pod with pre-concieved nobility that showed up nearly if not all the rest of the maximals. But if that's just because he's a maximal, then what about Quickstrike with his pre-concieved tendencies towards combat and destruction?

Ooo, that confuses me even more. How was Quickstrike even a maximal protoform in the first place? Anyways, Blackarachnia came out of the her pod, and immediately showed a skill for martial arts. Doesn't it seem like she studied it? And Inferno? I... I... got nothin'. But I guess my point is as mentioned earlier. The protoforms had a history and for one reason or another went into stasis form. If I'm wrong, then I'll be embarrassed, since I relied on this assumption for my next fiction.

As for Cheetor, he was kinda' immature. Still, I don't see why he gets picked on/tossed aside so much. For example, look at the episode "The Spark". Tigatron gets beat by Blackarachnia with one shot after she had dodged one o' his shots. But Cheetor, the inexperienced, gets kicked around, and still manages to defeat the same device that felled Big Cat. He then proceeds to beat Waspinator in his beast mode, even though he had Waspinator and Terrorsaur on his tail (granted, Terrorsaur had stopped chasing him by the time Cheetor beat Waspinator, so Terrorsaur could sneak attack Cheetor. Still...). Then there's the part where he crushes my doggy 'bot (my favorite character unfortunately) at the begginning of Coming of the Fuzors Part 2. Then there's Gorrilla Warfare, Equal Measures, Dark Voyage, Call of the Wild, Feral Scream Part 2, etc.

[Jagna]

coz he is!

i love him to bits but, come on really...

i cant go into an in-depth answer to this right now coz im off somewhere, but i think Ian did a good job with the voice at the very least (Ian Corlet, that is)

from the very beginning i could tell he was youngest, followed by his actions, hehe, but one thing tht always confused me was why he was the one sen in everyone's eyes as immature, and yet theu would not always make level-headed decisions. like he said, "and they call ME the immature one"....tht told me at least he knoews what he others thought and maybe was trying his best to cmbat it, and he was lets say mature enough to realise dinobot's and rattraps behaviour was not grown-up, but his eagerness and impulsiveness just gets in the way a bit most of the time. like optimus' trusting nature (nothing against it, Big O) and Rattrap's compulsiveness to be a wise guy

o slag, i gtg now but ill be back!

[edtheman]

because he is the youngest!

[Renegade_Artist]

Well, he doesn't appear young in the biological, human sense but he shares many personality traits with human adolesents. Theres the genral lack of experinece; he would often make rash, foolhardy desisions and tended to act on impluse rather than asess situations. Also, he'd often try and impress his peers with his actions, (especially Prime, who became more like a father figure within thier relationship as the show progressed) At adolesence one wishes be accepted and treated like an adult.. in Cheetors case, a capable member of the Maximal team. Thats how I see it.

[Energon Chloride]

Well, as proof for what Blazemane said, I think Rattrap mentions to Tigatron in Victory that he had some hole in the wall back at Cybertron that he was gonna take the barbarian to (and that Dinobot wouldn't be there =P), which makes perfect evidence that these protoforms all (or at least some) had pasts in their forms before scanning local life. But then it would make little sense in The Spark for Rhinox to be given the line repeated a few times about great joy when a spark is broguht to life. That could just have been there for the fanbase to know, or else it could mean that some of the protoforms are new transformers while the crews of the Darksyde and Axalon just got new forms. I'm getting off topic now...

Well, Inferno having a personality to begin with is somewhat arguable (unless there are sinister dog lovers here, everyone can probably agree that most aimals do not have personalities, especially insects). His logic circuits gave his beast form more prominence, and I don't think 'soldier', 'royalty', and 'defending the colony' leave any space for any immaturity. Same with Quickstrike and Silverbolt p'raps even, since I cannot remember what it was but they had some damage in their crashing. Blackarachnia also seems to have a lot of knowledge of history, or at least as shows up in Possession, which again, points to her having had a form beforehand and going against my theory a paragraph up...I do not know x.x...

[Cheetor]

Its cause i'm young at heart that's why >P

[Unvereitletmann]

Most of the transformers have had a previous existence on Cybertron that´s a fact. What I believe is that they are transformed back to the stasis pod, as they do in much sci-fi stories, they get into stasis, so the ship doesn´t have to "support" all those guys at once. Instead they need a minimal spark-life support for the stasis ones, and life support for the active crew. The trips can be longer and more efficient due to less energy consume. This might explain why maximals had empty stasis pods in the axalon, maybe they were supposed to get into stasis as well and let the axalon´s autopilot take them where their exploration travel was headed.

As for cheetor, maybe he is young in age, like being the latest one to be constructed. And though must transformers may have basic programming to understand thier situation at Cybertron and become part of the society I think that like humans, they tend to take time to start acting like grown ups. Another thought is that probably he is the younger but in what I call the "War" way. I don't think of him as young in age, but maybe he never faced a war before, therefore that makes him act much more spontaneously or impulsively than the others. This theory might explain his vitality durign the first maximal - predacon encounter in the earth (with his leg getting caught in the stone and all that stuff, and how he tried to take Optimus place in the fight against Dinobot in that episode as well).

For inferno, he may have had a maximal past, but in the episode he arrives, Tarantulas removes that sort of identity chip. And replaced it with a predacon one. So in that way his loyalty was the only thing that remained maximal (talking about loyal predacons? well except for scorponok), but the rest is all predacon. However what about Quickstrike? his pod wasn´t altered at all by tarantulas.

[Baron Fel]

I can't answer Cheetor any more then the others have already but Quickstrike's pod malfunctioned (along with Silverbolt) and this malfunction erased all of their memories and so all that was left of Quickstrike was his gung-ho tough guy attitude with no temperament from experience. This was something Megatron was able to take advantage of, yessss.

[Zucca]

Here's my take on the whole thing...

They all have histories back on Cybertron. Silverbolt wasn't born on Earth, for example. He and Quickstrike have pretty clearly defined personalities.

Cheetor's personality blooms out during the course of the show. Season one, he was more the energetic, reckless kid. Season two, he was the young hotshot. Capable and reliable in his duties as well as wiser to the world. Season three, he's a more a young adult who's far more wise to the world, bolder, but mature.

It's also my belief that being more sophisticated and human-like than their Autobot ancestors who could be built and programmed with their personalities however the builder wanted, the Maximals and Predacons realized the value from observing humans, that allowing a personality to develop would make for a more fulfilling existence and more diversity in population and culture.

If you notice, many of the Autobots' and Decepticons personalities are highly similar. This reflects the fact that pre-programming a personality, while more efficient and fast, makes for a dull culture indeed. They were so geared towards survival of their respective races that they couldn't be bothered with developing culture.

Once the second great war ended however, and the Autobots and Decepticons called it quits on the hostilities, culture developed. In all their millions of years of existence, never had a race captured their fascination than humanity. You may notice that many Maximals and Predacons have more human-like personalities, accents e.t.c.

Anyway...

Cheetor acts like a kid because he's still maturing, and thus, everyone treats him like one.

Hope that helps ^_^;

[una]

well I think Zucca has a pretty good idea!



I agree with him. Because of the humans, Maximals and Predacons have a more cultural society since Rattrap kind of points it out to us in some episodes(a place with fembots minus their torso plates, hmm I wonder where he got that from)

Look at Cheetor! he is a kid because of the way he acts and speaks. he jumps the gun before asking or thinking. He is impatient, rash, and reckless.

[artemis-lady-warrior]

I read somewhere (wikipedia) that the protoforms were part of their crew and were robots beforehand (at least airazor was) so that might explain why most (except transmutate) were very mature when they came out. As for Inferno as he said. "Logic circuites cloudy..." his logic circuits were mucked up when Tarantulas reprogrammed him so we have no idea what he was like before then. lol.
As for cheetor. I think him as the "kid" is a good quility for him. it makes him a cute character and his voice is hot! lol. (not a very good arguement but whatever)
That's the best I could explain it. sorry.

this isn't really on topic but... since the transmetal2 dinobot came from a maximal protoform blank wouldn't that make transmetal2 dinobot a maximal?