APP
CHARACTER
» Name: Sunstreaker
» Fandom: Transformers, IDW Continuity
» Reference: Transformers Wikia
» Canon Point: “All Hail Megatron,” Issue 8, post-death.
» Gender: Mentally Male / Physically Female*
(* This is post-death and after he has been separated from Hunter O’Nion, physically. Sunstreaker is reverting to his first, and default, holomatter avatar, which was canonically that of a woman. Sunstreaker, or Bumblebee another “male” Autobot, has never complained about using the opposite sex as a disguise. Gender in their race is a rather disjointed and often ignored concept in the IDW line. Transformers are usually hand-waved as sexless with little acknowledgement of gender past pronouns. )
» Age: Cybertronians do not age in a biological sense and live up to and possibly over millennia. Sunstreaker is easily a few million years old, if not more, but is considered “younger” than such characters as Optimus, Iron Hide and Kup, who are seen as varyingly aged by their species’ standards. He also seen as older than characters like Bumblebee, who are “young.” Living long enough to see the start of the war, but young enough to have not enlisted in the military prior to, than by now it would be assumed he’s in the dawn of his middle-aged years.
» Orientation: Asexual; Cybertronians are a synthetic race with no sexual dimorphism past pronouns and do not reproduce by way of sexual intercourse. Although capable of feeling nearly everyone “human” emotion from love to hate, the concept of sex between two Cybertronians of either “gender,” to use the term loosely, has never come up in canon and is non-existent. They are simply not equipped that way, and Sunstreaker is no exception.
» Personality:
“C’mon…it’s me- I never lose!”
Since the days when a Cybertronian’s personality was limited to a blurb on the back of a toy box, one defining characteristic about Sunstreaker has always remained- he is an arrogant prima donna out to let everyone know that he is unquestionably, the best there is. His pride knew no bounds, to the point where he had even looked down on his own twin brother as a green-horned rookie, as evident by how he was a harsh training officer towards his brother back when the pair still worked under war hero, Kup.
Despite the fact Sunstreaker is not all talk, and actually is a very capable and intelligent solider, his abrasive personality and near-sociopathic tendencies have successfully alienated him from just about the entirety of the Autobot army. Not that a ‘bot of his caliber needs friends or meaningful relationships.
However, the fact that he is a rather nasty piece of work has not affected his military career much at all. Prior to his arrival on earth, Sunstreaker operated as a unit commander on an unknown planet, actually garnering praise and a hero-like status among those under his command. Content with his career and standing, it was then the unit commander received orders to be part of an infiltration unit on a small, out of the way planet called Earth. It was then everything went to hell and Sunstreaker was, in every sense of the word, changed forever.
Four years after he was deployed to Earth, Sunstreaker met by complete accident, three human civilians that were caught in the crossfire of a battle. It is here we first see Sunstreaker’s initial attitude towards the species. Dismissive of the noisy creatures, he resents having them loiter around the base. His attitude towards humanity does not improve over time. However, one particular human deserves special mention when describing Sunstreaker’s personality.
The affable, albeit blunt, Hunter O’Nion was one of the three humans to first come into contact with the Autobots. A scruffy ginger that ran a website that discussed evidence about the possibilities of extra-terrestrial life, he didn’t even ping on Sunstreaker’s give-a-damn-o-meter, until a rather tragic escort mission that tied their lives together.
When the Autobots made to escort the three civilians back to safety, Sunstreaker, in charge of escorting Hunter, was ambushed and captured by Machination, an apparently human organization that had learned of the Cybertronian presences on Earth and were hell-bent on researching it for their own ends. Both Hunter and Sunstreaker were subjected to horrific experiments made to clone Sunstreaker and make it possible for humans to be able to transform into the heads of these clones- and control them. The experience destroyed Sunstreaker’s psyche, so much so that when a conscious Hunter finally found him, he first begged for death from the human, only to change his mind, opting instead to work with Hunter, something he would have never done before.
This was only the beginning, now mentally connected to one another, Hunter and Sunstreaker now worked as one being in order to find Sunstreaker’s real head. The two, despite Sunstreaker’s initial disdain, began to form a cohesive unit, and even something like a partnership. This was not to last. When Sunstreaker’s head was finally recovered and Machination destroyed, the Autobot physician, Ratchet, was able to separate the two to the best of his abilities- but not without a serious toll on Sunstreaker’s mental health. Shaken and tormented even more than when he first underwent all of this, he abandoned Hunter, despite the heavy implications that without him, Sunstreaker, like Hunter, would feel as if half of himself was missing.
Falling into a deep depression, Sunstreaker became more estranged to his fellow Autobots, hardly even speaking to his one confidant- his brother, Sideswipe. Despair quickly turned into hatred, for humanity and the world in which they inhabited. Starscream, the traitorous second-in-command of the Decepticons, somehow, caught wind of this and exploited it by promising that if Sunstreaker would lead the Autobots into an ambush, they could kill Megatron and Starscream would return the favor by destroying Earth. Sunstreaker, in his unhinged state, agreed. It, of course, backfired horribly and the Autobots were forced to retreat back to Cybertron.
Sunstreaker, now a shell of his former self, was getting worse. Back on Cybertron, suspicion on who was responsible for the faulty intelligence was pinned on the wrong Autobot and Sunstreaker, so closed out from everyone with guilt and anguish, said nothing as one of his own took the blame.
His worsen condition was in some ways the fault of what was going on back on Earth at the time; because unbeknownst to him, Hunter had been captured from the Autobots by the Decepticon, Bombshell. Hunter, still a part of Sunstreaker, undergoing horrific tortures was driving Sunstreaker insane as a result, even though he was not aware Hunter had been taken. It was then the suicidal thoughts returned.
During an assault on their base by a Swarm , it was decided a bridge needed to blown up as a choke point to win the battle. While one of the other Autobots, Preceptor, had planned to safely detonate the charges, he was overrun and had to be rescued from the bridge. Sunstreaker, not in his right mind took action and turned the mission into a suicide run as he manually set the charges, but not before confessing his betrayal. He perished slowly, the traumas he endured playing through his head in his final moments. Back on Earth, Hunter was also killed when Sideswipe found the poor boy’s mangled body and mercifully pulled the plug- killing any part of Sunstreaker left.
Arriving on Atia will be a trauma for Sunstreaker, especially now that he’s human. Full of regrets, he will most likely avoid his brethren and harbor still a hatred and deeply-seated mistrust of humanity. Unhinged and depressed, his arrival will be a recovery of the horrors he endured, but also a torture in and of its self as he will undoubtedly struggle to cope. Sunstreaker may well again be his arrogant, but happy, self once more, but it’ll take a lot of work.
In short- Break the Haughty, in fucking spades.