What do any of us turn into?

A "generic" is the fan-coined, unofficial term for any unnamed background Transformer that is clearly not intended to represent any previously existing and named toy/character. Generics are frequently used to fill out crowd scenes and battles, and often employ repeated standardized designs (especially in the older material such as the original The Transformers cartoon).

It is rare that a generic gets a speaking part, but it has happened from time to time. However, if the character is given a name they cease to be a generic and become a regular character. Over time, thanks to fans-turned-pro and conventions looking for con-exclusive toys, quite a few generics have made this leap! (See below for a partial list)

Notable generics

The Transformers cartoon

I don't know how, but I'm pretty sure the Decepticons were cheating.

• Seekers - The comparatively low number of Decepticons in the early episodes of the cartoon led to the filling out of the ranks with numerous generics based on the existing cast, most notably the Seekers.
• Photons - In addition to the Seekers, early episodes also had duplicates of Reflector, though it is speculated that Reflector is just one guy who could clone himself...
• Decepticon Mini-Cassettes - Though rarer than Seekers and Photons, there would also be multi-colored Mini-Cassettes sharing the same body-type as Rumble and Frenzy. Just look at the picture to the right.
• Junkions - Hordes of generic Junkions tended to appear whenever the cartoon visited that planet. Sometimes Lithone character models were repurposed as Junkions.
• Paradrons - Aside from Sandstorm, the entire population of Paradron in "Fight or Flee" were generics, especially their medics. However, the Communication Autobot (later given the name Playback) had a distinct design, and even spoke a few lines.
• The "historic footage" from "Desertion of the Dinobots, Part 2" features a large number of generics with completely made-up character models. Some of these models later show up again in "The Key to Vector Sigma, Part 1", "The Burden Hardest to Bear", and even The Headmasters.
• Many generics appear during the flashback scenes in "Five Faces of Darkness, Part 4".
• Many Decepticons of various designs were seen running as Unicron is on the verge of destroying Cybertron. A few were later seen inside Unicron along with Spike, Bumblebee, Jazz, and Cliffjumper, with two onscreen dropped into the acid and melting. A few Autobots were seen too, including one who resembles Beachcomber. The Transformers: The Movie

Marvel Comics continuity

Optimus Prime? Who's that meant to be?

• The first issue of the Marvel comic featured a very high proportion of generic characters - probably more than any issue of a Transformers comic since. Many of these were recycled from existing character models and some may be simple coloring errors, though a generic that resembles a miscolored Optimus Prime leading the Decepticons' assault on the Ark may take more explaining. A number of the generics in battle scenes tote weapons like ion blasters and fusion cannons.
• A generic Decepticon technician of a standard design originally created by Will Simpson for issue #103 was forcibly upgraded into a clone of Megatron.
• Dan Reed drew hundreds of generic "zombie" Transformers for the stories "City of Fear!" and "Legion of the Lost!"

Beast Wars cartoon

Wheeeee, best slide EVER!

• In "The Agenda (Part 1)", numerous generic Predacons were seen being jostled within Predacon Command Outpost One when the station was struck by the transwarp wavefront.

Beast Wars II cartoon

These guys at least have a chance for upward mobility.

• In "The New Forces Arrive!", Galvatron's ship is crewed by Combatants, tokusatsu-style grey faceless Predacon grunts. The Autorollers are depicted as Combatants until they scan their alternate mode and get to be named characters with backstories.

Beast Wars Neo cartoon

• In "Unicron's Ambition", multiple generic Maximals appear in a flashback sequence, including three bearing obvious beast-mode kibble that hints at a bull, a fish and possibly a chicken as their respective alternate forms. These three also had character models drawn up for their one and only debut in the cartoon as well.

Beast Machines cartoon

• Generation 1 character models created for the Beast Wars episode "The Agenda (Part III)" were modified to represent various generic Cybertronian citizens who were infected with Megatron's transformation lock virus.
• A Soundwave character model appears in Nightscream's flashback in "Forbidden Fruit"
• A Prowl character model shows up as a corpse in a Vehicon factory in "Revelations Part I: Discovery".
• The Soundwave and Prowl character models were later stumbled upon by the Maximals in "Sparkwar Pt. II: The Search".

Soundwave? Never heard of that guy.

And at long last we have found Bluestreak!

Unicron Trilogy cartoons

"I had a bigger role than Overload!"

• In Transformers: Armada, both Autobot and Decepticon forces were filled out using Generation 1 cartoon character models, creating several odd instances of classic characters getting remarkably awkward (and often randomly-colored) cameos. Notable examples include a Hound-type Decepticon and a purple Powerglide.
  • When Transformers: Energon came along, the robot cast got upgraded into CGI. And due to the nature of this technique, the Autobots and Decepticons employed generics assembled from parts of other existing or unused character models. Wing Saber's original "Wing Dagger" form is one such example of a mixed-and-matched generic character model.

"Absolutely, positively not made of the corpses of other more important characters, SIR!"

• Depending on who was animating the episode, the masses of Mini-Cons in Armada combined toy-characters with either randomly-colored toy-based models or entirely-new designs. They even made a Wheelie-type Mini-Con!
• Many of the civilian Transformers featured in Transformers: Cybertron were also generics. At least two of them were based on Longrack and several others were based on Blurr. Others were more varied, featuring alternate modes used by characters in previous series with a few new things (such as a bus and jetliners) being thrown in. It is noteworthy that none of these were ever seen in robot mode, save as silhouettes in "Fallen".
• Most of the Ancient Decepticons were generics, using slightly varied models. Nearly all of these clearly seen looked like their alternate modes were jets or starfighters of varying sort, and almost certainly Cybertronian in origin. However, they were not seen in vehicle mode, save perhaps for a few brief glimpses. They mainly served to be beaten up, and some possibly slagged, by the Autobots, but they did prove helpful in the final struggle.
• In a flashback shot in "Honor" and in a present-day scene in "Challenge" various generic Jungle Planet natives were shown in beast mode. These beast modes included various dinosaurs, a lobster-alt body type shared by at least two, and another shared body type that transformed into an owl.

G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers

I don't know who I am, but apparently I'm awesome.

• After the events of G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers left the Decepticons short on troops, in G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II artist E. J. Su padded out Shockwave's Cybertronian forces with nameless, but intricately designed generics. Sadly the Dinobots arrived, and Dinobots vs. generic Decepticons is always going to end badly for the no-names.
• Also notable is the generic "future Decepticon" composed of a mix of Energon Scorponok, Armada Megatron, and topped with Sky Garry's head, who appeared on the cover of #3 (as seen to the right). Part of him was shown in the cliffhanger of issue 2, but despite his appearance on the cover, he did not appear in the following issue at all. Instead his place was filled by hordes of generic Ravages, Sweeps, and Insecticons. Though multiple Insecticons and Sweeps have been previously seen, this is the first time we have seen clones of Ravage. In 2015, an entry of the Facebook edition of Ask Vector Prime would name this "future Decepticon" as Ragnarok and provide an in-universe explanation for his absence from the story.
• At the series's conclusion, Shockwave is tended by a generic Decepticon medic, who has a similar design to Soundwave.

2005 IDW continuity

Main article: NAIL

• Artist Andrew Griffith populated the early issues of The Transformers: Robots in Disguise with a variety of recurring background characters representing civilians and other non-combatant Cybertronians. Some of these were based off other fictional properties, such as characters based on Tonka's Rock Lords, but most were original creations, many of whom sported inhuman features such as extra heads or arms.
• Many of the background Cybertronians who inhabit the parallel Functionist Universe are based on characters from the Unicron Trilogy.

Animated cartoon

Many unnamed generic Decepticons appear at Megatron's funeral in "Dispatches".

Because of the AllSpark Almanacs, we didn't stay unnamed for long.

In Season 3 many generics flesh out crowd scenes. Normally these generics are just randomly colored characters, but sometimes they have new heads and posture, or sometimes even a new gender! This is especially noticeable in "Decepticon Air", "This Is Why I Hate Machines", and "Endgame, Part II".

Live-action film series

Those who didn't fancy fighting nude had to borrow others' clothes.

Optimus Prime, Ironhide, Jazz, and Ratchet all share the same generic protoform appearance before scanning their Earth alt modes in the very first film.

Perhaps as an homage to the franchise's long history of generic background characters, or just to save time, ILM added many re-used and re-colored characters into the backgrounds of the larger battle scenes featured in Revenge of the Fallen and all subsequent films.

• A protoform army with heads resembling Blackout appear in the second and third films, and are succeeded by Lockdown's Shadow Raiders and Galvatron's KSI Sentries in Age of Extinction and Quintessa's Infernocons in The Last Knight.
• The Constructicons Mixmaster, Long Haul, and Scrapper appeared in more than one place simultaneously, creating generics. Copies of the latter two are seen in Dark of the Moon when Optimus Prime charges down the street on his killing spree.
• A Buffalo MPV Decepticon resembling Bonecrusher from the first movie appears during Operation: Firestorm, engaging Ironhide.
• There are hundreds of Prime lookalikes during the battle of 17,000 B.C.E.
• Three giant duplicates of Hatchet appear in the battle on Cybertron that Dark of the Moon opens with.
• An M1 Abrams Decepticon resembling Brawl in his Deep Desert toy colors and an Audi R8 Decepticon resembling Sideways also appear in Optimus' killing spree.
• Multiple duplicates of Scalpel are repairing Megatron's head wound in Africa.
• A police car Decepticon is among the Decepticons who arrive in Washington, D.C., while a pickup Decepticon takes part in the invasion of Chicago.
• The Steeljaws and Stupid Drones also serving aboard Lockdown's ship all share single character models. And they may or may not even be Cybertronians.
• Galvatron's commandeered army of KSI drones additionally consist of multiple KSI Bosses, some Two Heads resembling Shockwave, a McLaren Decepticon, and an Aston Martin Decepticon.
• The opening montage of The Last Knight features partially recolored copies of Junkheap as both Decepticons and Autobots.
• Much like their counterparts in Generation 1 and Cyberverse, there is a colorful assortment of Seekers and coneheads amongst the Decepticons forces in the Cybertron scenes featured in Bumblebee. There are also some colorful generic soldiers on the side of the Autobots, based on the Ironhide/Ratchet design, to get shot by the Seekers.

Aligned cartoons

Steve is the one on the right. Or is it the one in the middle?

• The Decepticons employ generics in the form of Vehicons which come in two flavors—jet and car.
  • In season 2 and 3, white versions of the Jet type appeared as Seekers, though they were just as generic as their purple brothers.
  • The Decepticon Miners all use the same model, which is very similar to that of a car Vehicon. This model is later altered for the bounty hunter Shadelock.
  • The Vehicons featured in season 2 of Robots in Disguise reprise their Prime models. This time, their color schemes vary amongst themselves.
• The Insecticons also shared a character model, with Hardshell, Bombshock, and Razorhorn being the only distinguished ones.
  • There is also a black, bright-green and teal Insecticon amongst the inhabitants of Decepticon Island. The colors match Bombshock's Cyberverse toy, but are laid out entirely differently (dangit).
• The good guys in Prime also have generics, as virtually all of the human soldiers seen use the same model. Mind you, all those squishies look the same to us anyway.

How is it that these guys are on the Alchemor, but are not on the Alchemor?

• The Caretaker Mini-Cons featured in Robots in Disguise, including Toolbox and Cinch, all share the exact same model as Fixit.
• Likewise, the Cyclone Mini-Cons employ a common body-type, including Backtrack, Ransack, and Bounce. There is also a purple Cyclone and a black-and-green Cyclone residing in Decepticon Island.
• The Skunkticons all share the same model as their leader Malodor.
• The Autobot museum guards and proctors all share a common model in various color patterns. This model serves as the basis for RoughEdge.
• The High Council troopers and infiltrators each shared a common model, as did both the Cybertron Police officers and Autobot civilians. There was also a flying trooper and some heavy troopers.
• Besides Vehicons, Glowstrike's army of Alchemor escapees also includes a host of colorful Chompazoids with different jaws than Underbite that lack, well, underbites. For example, they've got a burgundy Chompazoid and a light brown Chompazoid as guard dogs. There are also several Sharkticons identical in design to Hammerstrike and Ragebyte, including one sporting a color scheme (and eyes) more in line with the species' Generation 1 counterparts that becomes a punching bag for Steeljaw.
• Also spotted walking around in Decepticon Island is an orange and blue look-alike of Airachnid (sans spider legs).

Transformers: Frontiers mobile game

In this game you can find a lot of Autobot and some Decepticon generics!

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Cyberverse cartoon

Voice actor: Additional voices (Ashleigh Chrisena Ricci, Haley Carter Chapel, Todd Perlmutter, or Ryan Nicolls, English)

Me NOT Grimlock!

• The Decepticons employ large numbers of generic Seekers in various colors and land-based soldiers colored monotone or purple. One of the Seekers even had two heads!
• The Autobots, meanwhile, have substantial amounts of generic soldiers in their employ, either in primarily blue coloring, or black and red.
• The Quintessons have a lot of Prosecutors in their army.
• The Quintesson Scientist has both an array of clone bodies and a collection of alternate counterparts of Soundwave in various different colors.
• In Megatron's gladiatorial days, he fought a familiar-looking generic lad in the ring. Megatron Is My Hero
• Many generics can be located as part of the Polyhex Cube teams and their viewers, as well as the security guard and mascot. Cube
• There were many generics located on Velocitron, which all succumbed to the Plague of Rust, thanks to a suspicious generic through the space bridge. Terminal Velocity
• There is a flock of Air Hammers sharing the same design. Perfect Storm The Scientist
• There are Sharkticons that have the tribal markings of the Snouts, the Tails, and the Fins. Wiped Out There are many more Sharkticons under the employ of the Quintessons.
• Many Monsterbots sharing the same body-type as Repugnus and swarms of Injectors are seen crawling around in the depths of Cybertron. Battle For Cybertron IV Journey To The Valley Of Repugnus
• There are Cybertronian birds who resemble Laserbeak in Cybertron's wilderness. The Scientist Thunderhowl
• The Decepticon supersoldiers that make up Megatron X's army all share the same Tarn-inspired model. Silent Strike The Other One

War for Cybertron Trilogy cartoon

The War for Cybertron Trilogy cartoon features extensive use of generics, with both sides using different character models as the base for their troops throughout the show:

• As per tradition, the Seekers and Reflectors Refraktors form the bulk of the Decepticon ranks. Some Refraktors have the belly dial from Viewfinder or feature a color scheme based on the Siege Refraktor Reconnaissance Team toys. The Seekers and Refraktors are joined by recolors of Barricade and Impactor.
• The Autobot ranks are filled by recolors of Sideswipe, Mirage, Ironhide, Hound, and Cog. Specific ones include the voice-credited Comms Officer and Security Offier from Cog, and a Sideswipe-bot with a color scheme later used for the War for Cybertron Trilogy Deep Cover toy.

Barring the main two warring factions, generics are used elsewhere:

• The silhouetted Guardians accompanying Omega Supreme use, shockingly, Omega Supreme. Siege episode 4
• The Mercenary Dome Guards are recolors of Impactor. Siege episode 4Siege episode 5Siege episode 6
• A pair of Sea of Rust birds pecking on a Refraktor corpse are recolors of Laserbeak. Siege episode 5
• The Sparkless are recolors of the above Autobots and Decepticons except for Cog and Impactor. Siege episode 5Siege episode 6
• The Quintesson Deseeus Army Drones are recolors of Ironhide. Earthrise episode 2
• A gladiator that Megatron duels with, and eventually beheads, in a grey-scale flashback uses Impactor. Earthrise episode 5
• The Predacon horde that attacks Airazor and Blackarachnia aboard the Nemesis use copies of Scorponok. Kingdom episode 5

BotBots cartoon

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Non-generics with common character models

Notable examples include:

Live-action film series

• Blackout for Grindor
• Demolishor for Scavenger
• Rampage for Skipjack
• Long Haul for Garagebot, Onslaught, and Canopy
• Scrapper for Scrapmetal and Trench

Cyberverse

• Shrapnel for Kickback and Bombshell

Generics gone pro

Before they became famous.

Dear Fun Publications, please make Ion Storm and Nova Storm toys. Hey, whaddya know! Hasbro pulled through!

• Sunstorm was retroactively identified as one of the generic seekers from one scene of the first ever episode. More than Meets the Eye, Part 1 As for the rest of the Seekers featured alongside Sunstorm, they became named Fun Publications characters with exclusive toys: Nacelle, Hotlink, and Bitstream. Similarly, the green Rainmaker was just like them until Hasbro identified him as Acid Storm and turned him into a toy.
• Two space-fillers in the Female Autobots were named Greenlight and Lancer by Fun Pub, which also decided two civilians in another episode were retroactively Glyph and Strika. Flames of Yesterday
• The AllSpark Almanac and its sequels named several of the generics who are not based on anything, giving us Lickety-Split and Lightbright.
• Chuffer was given a name in the Marvel UK letters pages, turning him from a random guy who gets killed into a specific guy who gets killed.
• Thanks to the Facebook edition of Ask Vector Prime, the following Autobots and Decepticons (as well as the aforementioned Ragnarok) have been retroactively named:
  • Ion Storm as the blue Rainmaker-type Seeker
  • Nova Storm as the yellow Rainmaker-type Seeker
  • Loader, a Decepticon stated to be killed during the Chicago battle in the opening of Age of Extinction, as the identity of the Superfund Decepticon from Dark of the Moon.
  • Endo as the Autobot from Transformers: Armada resembling G1 Wheelie.
  • Sentinel Minor as the arrogant Autobot officer from Armada resembling G1 Sureshot.
  • Peritus Maximus as "Christmas Maximus", the Armada Autobot resembling a Christmas-themed Fortress Maximus.
  • Dauntless Maximus as "Anonymous Maximus", Superion Maximus' older brother from Transformers: Energon.
  • Phreaker as the pay phone Autobot featured in Transformers: Cybertron.
  • Joyride as both Downshift's lifebond partner and the motorcycle refugee featured in Cybertron.
  • Tusks as the "Piano Transformer guy" from "Target: 2006".
  • Mattock as an Autobot who appears in the Marvel Comics story "Surrender!".
  • Cobrabreast as Deathcobra's Breast Animal partner.
  • Headcannon as an Autobot who appears in the Wings Universe story "Hoist the Flag".
  • Clockwise as the identity of Longtooth's friend.
• In the same vein as Ask Vector Prime, Robots in Disguise 2015 showrunner Adam Beechen has provided the names for the following generics:
  • Scratch as the cat-like Decepticon from the Robots in Disguise episode "The Buzz on Windblade".
  • Razorhorn as the Insecticon bounty hunter featured in the latter half of the RID 2015 post-Season 2 mini-series.
  • Goldgear as the Activator Mini-Con who successfully steals Strongarm's Decepticon Hunter after Hi-Test screwed up.
• IDW's Transformers reboot brought back a generic from issue #1 of Robots in Disguise and another from Optimus Prime #6 as Voxpop and Heavywait respectively.

External links

• Generics at the Obscure Transformers Website
• Armada Background Characters at insecticons.com

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