I mean. Ratchet's apparently treated every Prime since Nominus, who took office somewhere between six and four million years ago (he ascends directly after Nova, but we don't know how much time passes between "Nova fucks off on the Ark" and "the Senate decides 'no, really, we need another Prime around'"). Assuming they don't let some random nobody treat the Prime, Ratchet presumably has a good chunk of experience before he takes Nominus as a patient, which puts him also at questionably-old-but-at-least-6-million. Iirc Ratchet specifies his robo-arthritis as being caused by old age, which-- if we take this as honest medical assessment and not grumpy "I should be perfect Always" fronting-- puts him at late-middle age or older. So I'd say, without replacement parts or new frames, Cybertronian natural lifespan is probably somewhere around 7 or 8 million? Not including the surviving Thirteen Primes (who may or may not be built differently) or the metrotitans (who live on an entirely different scale). Unfortunately we don't have any information on how quickly (or, really, if) Rossum's Trinity degrades, so we have no way of knowing if a Cybertronian could just... body-hop their way to immortality.
Lore wise.... I mean the Cybertronian Deathbringer, Mortilus, is dead. That's what is used as the (religious) justification for why they supposedly don't die of old age. (ty tfwiki.) IF Primusian theology is based in reality (arguable) then a cybertronian's spark, without intervention, Does Not Die. Transformers, therefore, have no "lifespan" and are functionally immortal (barring outside intervention), bc Primus killed Death.
Spoiler: MTMTE 41 liveblogging eyyyyy the Camien visitors! ...are those fuckin star trek communicators on the bottom row of Countdown's medals Nautica is darling Also ridiculous science crew hangouts ftw Sweeeeerrrrve D8 now that I know what's coming I am intensely worried everything he's onscreen. It's okay, baby. Oh look, they managed to clean the banner! They've achieved two things! I love Rodimus, look at my ridiculous son Roddy. Roddy just admit you wanna jump Megs's struts, all this innuendo is making it hard to breathe for all the laughing. Introvert corner party, wooooo Snrrrrk nerds Nerdsquad adventures best adventures
Well, you say that as a joke, but straight from the Quenya etymologies... So, confirmed? (They also both worship gods whose names translate as One, and if you go right back into the lore the Eldar have a strict population limit based on the number of souls floating around)
.......... i don't know if I'd rather believe this is entirely accidental or that this is on purpose and there is just a ton of nerds who have conspired to bring tolkien elves into space as giant robots.
I don't know and honestly it has been bothering me a bit for a while. I'm thinking accidental because apart from the Eru = 1 bit it's really obscure lore ...but Tolkien fans get really obsessive about obscure lore. I want an LotR AU where Legolas is a giant robot now.
....... 1) I have a TF OC named Refractor and 2) one of his scary scraplet daughters is named Reflecta so this made me laugh way harder than it should
It's sort of dicey, because in most continuities, Unicron was a direct opposite and equal to Primus, but in LotR, there's no direct opposite and equal of Eru Illuvatar. Melkor was one of the Ainur, one of the children of Illuvatar, which would make him closer to Mortilus. Sauron could be a lot of figures, probably either Megatronus Prime or Liege Maximo.
