Ben Simpson is a facsimile construct from the 2005 IDW portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

"Hey, he who smelled it, dealt it."

Ben Simpson is a facsimile construct created by the Decepticon Swindle to fuel the fire that is anti-Transformer sentiment on Earth. Acting as the spokesman for Earth's Children, a movement opposed to the presence of Transformers on Earth, he puts humans in the paranoid mindset that makes it so much easier to sell them weapons. Frequently appearing on television interviews, Simpson is the kind of word-wrangler who knows how to turn any argument back at you while wearing a smug smile on his face the whole time.

Because of how facsimiles work, there was presumably once an actual human being named Ben Simpson who was used as his template.

Fiction

2005 IDW continuity

Ben Simpson was created by Swindle sometime after he collected energon from North Korea. Through him, the Decepticon distributed mind-corrupting guns created from Megatron's body amongst humanity. A Second Chance at Eden Altered Carbon

In an interview, Ben Simpson was quick to disavow any link to Bumblebee's assassin, and even questioned the use of the term "assassin", as it was not clear to him whether the Cybertronians were even alive. The reporter followed up by pointing out that Joe Gladki's wife had already told the media that Gladki (the shooter) had been spending a great deal of time on Earth's Children's message boards in recent weeks. Simpson played it off, saying no one could hold his group responsible for who visited an open forum. When asked whether the somewhat reactionary rhetoric of the group could have been an influence, Simpson was unsure how non-violent protests of the US government colluding with extraterrestrial robots could be seen as reactionary. He was then questioned about allegations that Earth's Children was supplying powerful weaponry to its members, but stated that they were doing nothing illegal (though pending legislation that may change that). Finally, Ben asked what use the government was if it wouldn't let its people protect themselves from invaders from space. The Demolished Man

This seems normal.

Nina brought up the fact that people were trading weapons on the Earth's Children website, but Ben maintained that it was perfectly legal and useful in case of Cybertronian attacks. He then criticized the President, who had stated that having aliens as allies was considered the same as having weapons of mass destruction, only for it to be revealed that US organization Skywatch had been working with Cybertronians for some time. When Nina mentioned reports that Joe Gladki had heard machines speak to him after obtaining a gun via Earth's Children, Ben dismissed the connection as ridiculous. Hundreds of people had those guns, and they were perfectly safe! Altered Carbon Following the Autobot killing of a human in Albuquerque, Ben Simpson was gaining support in the eastern United States. Enemy Mine

Once most Autobots left Earth to return to Cybertron, Ben Simpson was asked to comment on this in another interview with Nina. He responded that a lot of the aliens remained last time they supposedly "left" and besides, they could just be preparing to attack from orbit. NASA might have said their ship left the solar system, but Ben knew not to trust a government agency on the matter. By this time, Prowl had begun to suspect Simpson of having connections to the Decepticons. Police Action #1

Later, Skywatch invaded Simpson's home due to "actionable intelligence" of a hostile alien presence on the premises. Simpson reacted by pulling one of the Megatron guns on them. He was shot multiple times when he refused to stand down, hence revealing that he wasn't actually human but a Decepticon-engineered facsimile. A Second Chance at Eden

Notes

• Ben Simpson is based on the real-life friend of IDW Publishing writer Mike Costa, who works for Paramount Pictures.

Foreign names

• Japanese: Ben Simpson (ベン・シンプソン Ben Shinpuson)