The Marauders—aka the Lordun Protectorate—knew just what tack to take with us Decepti-fans. Not like that’s a surprise; our blogs and forums go all the way back to the twencen. They didn’t try to snow us that they were “just like” the Decepticons, since we could sort of distinguish fact from fiction. They admitted they weren’t aliens from space—some of their robots had even used to be humans, how cool was that?

They played up the whole “fighting for the good of their race, with their own moral compass” angle that Decepticon fans loved—with the change that in this case, their “race” was all humanity, be it as giant robots or our squishy selves. They warned us that we’d be considered “terrorists,” but that all freedom fighters and revolutionaries were “terrorists” until they won.

And they pointed out that their main adversary would be an arm of the paternalistic, overbearing United Nations, casting them in a similar light to the “heroic Autobots” of the TV show.

What wasn’t to like?