Reality vs. Childhood concepts

I watched the original episodes of the animated transformers series the other day and I came away with a rather different appreciation of the whole situation.  As a child the Autobots were always considered the moral compass and would do the right thing in all circumstances often risking their life to protect the earth and its inhabitants.  After watching it again with a modern perspective it is a little less clear.   Here is what happened as seen through my matured eyes. The Autobots are a rebel group trying to assert the will of the people over a militia government that came into power via a coup.  In the course of the fighting the planets resources are severely drained by both sides and in a last ditch effort to win the war the Autobots set off to earth to regroup and attain the resources they require to bring down the government.  This is also a violent coup that the Autobots are attempting so I am a little unsure as to who is better or worse, but i do know that the war is the man reason for the problems the planet faces.  The Decepticon Government decides to handle the pursuit of the fleeing rebels personally sending the General and some top personal, but due to an accident they all crash and get stuck for a few thousand years in an non-operational state.  The ship they all went in is ruined and they are effectively stranded until a stroke of luck wakes them all and they repair themselves. 

During their absence the Decepticon Administrative body keeps the planet running for a few thousand years on minimal energy resources, suggesting that there is some real governing talent in the Decepticon ranks.

 

The first thing the Decepticon General does on reactivation is build a ship to go back home and take a small amount of energy with him.  The ship is built out of scavenged parts and some stolen power, causing momentary blackouts in small parts of the U.S while the energy is collected.  The real damage however starts when the Autobots decide to continue the war and the power stations become collateral damage in the conflict.  The Autobots destroy the Decepticon ship leaving them stranded on earth and effectively backing them into a corner.  Even when the decepticons decided to develop a space bridge to leave the planet they are still continuously attacked by the autobots until the General, Megatron finally decides that they won't get anywhere like this and decides to fight the Autobots more directly.   The resulting battle has a terrible impact on the earth and its inhabitants as the huge machines and their high powered weaponry destroy many important sites leaving homes without power and causing much hardship.  I can't help but thinking that letting the decepticons bugger off with the energy that they nicked from a Hydropower station (i.e. renewable energy) might have been a far better option.  Even if a deal was struck allowing them their own personal power generation equipment from a renewable resource that could be transported to Cybertron and revitalised the planed via the space bridge.  The interchange of information would have advanced the human race as the conquest for space could have reduced the wars over the finite land of earth.

Rather than helping the earth, I can't help but think the autobots robbed it of a golden opportunity through their single mindedness to further their own war effort.  I look at Zimbabwe and understand why they were so intent, but after a few thousand years cooling off their could have been a different strategy. 

Whether they were the better robots or not, I can't help but think that their moral standing has been some what eroded.

I guess round table peace talks mediated by the the Earth UN wouldn't have sold as many toys.