Sentinel Prime (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
chinderella) wrote2018-07-31 08:46 pm
chinderella) wrote2018-07-31 08:46 pm
Entry tags:
CHARACTER INFO
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Sentinel Prime
SERIES: Transformers Animated
CHRONOLOGY: The end of “Predacons Rising”, nearish the end of Season 3.
CLASS: Hero, but an asshole
BACKGROUND:
Once upon a time, there was a planet called Cybertron, and it was home to a race of giant robots that transformed into vehicles. These were Transformers, or Cybertronians. Note that things that are not robots or mechanical are known as “organics”, which includes humans, animals and plants. Cybertron was completely inorganic – and organic worlds were distrusted and considered dangerous. This is important later. Moving on.
Each and every Cybertronian had a bodytype and a special ability that was only theirs. Some of these giant robots were workers and repair bots, smaller robots built for good solid work. Some of them were bigger and built with weaponry, meant for war. These two groups eventually had a war and split into two factions: the former became the Autobots and the latter became the Decepticons.
In order to win the war, the Autobots had a few advantages: they kept the all powerful AllSpark (creator of all mechanical life and general do-everything macguffin) out of Decepticon hands, the Space Bridge network (basically the ability to teleport people around space a la stargates) and Omega Supreme which was an even more giant robot. Eventually the Autobots won and exiled the Decepticons, and a shaky peace was kind of kept for a long time. Until Optimus Prime and his misfit-filled space bridge repair crew stumbled upon the AllSpark and ran into Megatron, glorious leader of the Decepticons, ended up getting crash-landed on Earth and disappearing for a while and blah blah blah THE SHOW HAPPENED.
This story is not about the heroic, yet misunderstood, Optimus Prime – it’s about his old friend Sentinel Prime. Who was a jerk. (Note that in Transformers Animated, “Prime” is a high but normal Autobot rank – the supreme commander is the “Magnus”.)
Way back when they were just Sentinel and Optimus with no Prime in sight, they trained together in the Autobot Academy (think like, military school version of Harvard aka a Big Deal – training for the Autobot Elite Guard which is also a Big Deal – special forces, law and order type deal). Together with Elita-1, they were a close trio of friends.
Then Sentinel got the bright idea to go to this planet called a forbidden organic planet looking for Energon (an important energy source) that was supposedly still on a crashed Decepticon ship from the war.
Which would have been all fine and good except Sentinel, Optimus and Elita-1 got separated after discovering it was populated by giant freaking spiders. Optimus and Elita-1 found the ship in the chaos, and the energon, and the spider’s nest. They fought the spiders, and during the fight the energon got unstable and was going to explode. Sentinel and Optimus managed to escape – Elita-1 didn’t. She was left behind, but Optimus deemed it too dangerous to go back for her and instead saved Sentinel. He refused to go back for her.
Sentinel and Optimus thought Elita-1 was dead. Turns out she wasn’t. Her special ability was power absorption – it wasn’t meant for organics, and attempting to use it on the spiders turned her technorganic (exactly what it sounds like) part-robot, part-spider freak. Neither Optimus nor Sentinel knew that, and wouldn’t for a very long time. As far as they were concerned, she was gone.
The two of them were dragged in front of Ultra Magnus, leader of the Autobots. Sentinel blamed Optimus for leaving Elita-1 behind. Optimus shouldered both the blame for that and the responsibility for going to the planet in the first place (even though it was Sentinel’s idea) and was kicked out of the Autobot Academy.
Sentinel continued his training without him, was eventually promoted to Sentinel Minor, and became drill sergeant for the boot camp for trainees, the step before stuff like the Autobot Academy or Elite Guard. There he trained a lot of people, including other important characters: Bumblebee, Bulkhead, Wasp, and Longarm. Bumblebee continually humiliated Sentinel through various failures, but eventually proved his worth briefly by proving to Sentinel Minor that Wasp was a Decepticon spy. Problem was (and this was ALSO not discovered until much later), Wasp had been set up by Longarm who was the real Decepticon spy. Bulkhead was there that episode but with little relevance to Sentinel’s story considering Sentinel forgets he ever taught Bumblebee or Bulkhead. Sentinel is a classy robot.
After that, Sentinel joined the Elite Guard and was promoted to Prime, and eventually became second in command, under Ultra Magnus. It was a pretty snazzy gig!
Way back earlier, I mentioned that the plot started because Optimus and his crew of maintenance misfits stumbled on the AllSpark, giver of life, plot macguffin, etc etc. Through various shenanigans the AllSpark turned up again, and pinged Autobot sensors or whatever. So a group from the Elite Guard - Ultra Magnus, Sentinel Prime and Jazz (resident cool Elite Guard ninja dude) came to Earth to look for it as well as Optimus and his missing crew.
Problem was, the AllSpark was kinda shattered and its pieces flung all future-Detroit. This went over really well with the Elite Guard, with Sentinel finding it hilarious how badly Optimus screwed up – particularly since Optimus claimed it happened in a battle with the Decepticons but whoops, Sentinel found no proof of Decepticons on Earth.
This is also when Sentinel scanned Earth vehicles in order to find a “subtle disguise”. He turned into a large snowplow. In the summer. I don’t even know, roll with it.
So Optimus ran around escorting the Elite Guard and Sentinel was entirely mean to him and insisted that Optimus destroyed the AllSpark and should be court-marshaled, until they found a broken shard of the AllSpark. Ultra Magnus ended up believing that part of Optimus’ story and that the AllSpark could be eventually returned.
After that, the Elite Guard stayed on Earth for a bit and was introduced to the locals of Detroit in a press conference so Sentinel could be condescending to them. But a guy called the Headmaster watched the press-conferenced intrigued by this new giant robot. He had this machine called the “Headmaster Unit” that would laser off the heads of transformers and replace them, allowing the Headmaster to control their bodies.
Headmaster set a trap, Sentinel fell into it and became a head with his body controlled by the Headmaster and with only one person to turn to (since anybody else would be entirely embarrassing) – his old friend Optimus. Optimus graciously helped him find his body, fight it and beat the Headmaster, if enjoying getting to beat up Sentinel’s body a bit too much. So Sentinel got his body back, discovered that Optimus could still be counted on in embarrassing crises and even thanked the guy.
Sometime later, Sentinel and the Elite Guard got a call from home that said there were Decepticon uprisings so they decided it was time they headed home – and they were going to drag Optimus’ crew back to Cybertron with them. Sentinel didn’t believe that there were Decepticons on Earth, and Ultra Magnus didn’t want either the Decepticons or Autobots to think Megatron was still alive. Sentinel tried to bribe Optimus to tell Sentinel and Ultra Magnus’s version of the story – that there were no Decepticons on Earth and Optimus got the AllSpark broken on its own.
Meanwhile, the Decepticons on Earth decided they wanted to call home, but were stranded without the technology – and decided to steal it from the Elite Guard. And the traitorous Decepticon Starscream discovered that the AllSpark fragment stuck in his forehead keeping him alive (don’t ask) could find other pieces of the AllSpark. He found one and used it to set a trap for the Decepticons – but the Elite Guard’s technology picked up the AllSpark shard’s signal too. They headed off, leaving Optimus to be watched by Sentinel.
But Optimus suspected a trap and escaped after an argument with Sentinel and locking him in Stasis cuffs. Sentinel somehow got out of those and caught up to them later, and halfway through yelling at Optimus about attacking him and that there were still no Decepticons on Earth, Starscream showed up. Whoops. The Autobots fought Starscream and eventually (with Sentinel going along begrudgingly with Optimus’ plan), they beat the Decepticon and captured him. Optimus’ story having more evidence, Ultra Magnus decided that him and his crew could stay on Earth, and the Elite Guard would go back to Cybertron.
So all’s well that ends well, except the Earth-bound Decepticons had successfully stolen the Elite Guard’s communication technology so their glorious leader Megatron could then contact the rest of their people – basically starting up the Decepticon-Autobot war again. Welp.
To top it off, Starscream later escaped the Elite Guard ship and flew back to Earth. They didn’t go after himbecause he needed to be a recurring antagonist on Earth for some reason. They did download Decepticon flight specs (since Autobots can’t fly) off him before the escape, though. The Elite Guard and Autobot scientists then used the specs to upgrade a pair of Autobots, Jetfire and Jetstorm – who then were trained by Sentinel and put under his command.
So anyway, do you remember the last time when Sentinel trained new recruits? And one of them, Wasp, was supposedly a Decepticon spy? Well, Wasp escaped the stockade and Sentinel attempted and failed to capture him. Wasp ended up on Earth – and Sentinel and his crew (being Jazz, Jetfire & Jetstorm with Ultra Magnus being too busy and therefore leaving Sentinel in charge which is a terrific idea, really) followed him. Sentinel insisted on going after Wasp even though Optimus tried to explain they had info that Longarm was the real spy. Shenanigans, misunderstandings and general Autobot infighting happen, and in the end it turns out that Optimus & co were right once again and Sentinel was wrong and WHOOPS Longarm? Happened to be Longarm Prime, head of Autobot Intelligence. As well as a Decepticon spy. Yep.
Sentinel and his crew stayed on Earth for a bit, first involving an incident where Sentinel “captured” a bunch of Decepticons – but he was so sneaky about how that got accomplished that resident ninjabots Prowl and Jazz investigated. They found out that Sentinel had hired the bounty hunter Lockdown to capture them. Lockdown betrayed him, Sentinel ended up being used as a hostage and saved by the ninjas and everybody went home sulky. Including the Decepticons who were still captured – but Sentinel had to give the credit to Prowl since the dude saved his sorry butt.
Wasp turned up again, and despite being innocent, Sentinel chased after him anyway, intensely suspicious about someone who was in the stockade for so long. Even though Sentinel helped put him there. Optimus tried to get to Wasp first, but Wasp ended up being captured by one of the three robots called the Dinobots. Robots that turn into robot dinosaurs. Sentinel, Jetfire and Jetstorm pursued Wasp and the dinobot. Optimus objected but was a bit too late to warn Sentinel about who the Dinobots worked for.
Sentinel found the laboratory of their boss, Blackarachnia, who was doing an experiment on Wasp. At which point Blackarachnia recognized Sentinel – and revealed she was his old friend Elita-1, turned into a part giant spider, part robot mutant. Completely revolted by her state, Sentinel was briefly sorry but soon angry at both her mutation, the fact she had turned Decepticon, and that she was making Wasp into a technorganic freak like her. He decided Blackarachnia was no longer Elita-1 and was better off dead.
But then Wasp emerged from Blackarachnia’s experiment, changed into the horrific Waspinator. He attacked them – Sentinel was saved by Optimus’s timely arrival. But the technology that made Wasp into Waspinator caused him to explode with the fancy macguffin energy. Blackarachnia contained the explosion and it ended up half-blasting, half-teleporting them somewhere else, never to be seen again for the rest of the series.
This is the point from which I’m pulling Sentinel! Notably, sometime before that when Sentinel was faffing about on Earth, Ultra Magnus had been attacked by the spy Longarm-turned-Shockwave, and so Sentinel was about to go head back to sort things out on Cybertron.
More stuff happens, but being Acting-Magnus or basically interim leader while Ultra Magnus was indisposed basically made his ego grow three times that day, so let’s not and say we did. Basically shenanigans happen when he tried to finally bring the Decepticons back to Cybertron (and when he was a prisoner on his own ship, who does he call? Optimus. And then yells at Optimus the entire time about how he should listen to his orders!! But was nice to him afterward), and then basically went back and was a bit Big Brother on Cybertron in the name of safety (and almost blew up Cybertron) until the season finale. Spoilers, with power he’s even more of a jerk.
The point, however, is that he is imported just as he’s about to board his ship and head back to Cybertron, after finding out about Blackarachnia! So yes.
PERSONALITY:
The most important person to Sentinel is himself - he’s an egotistical, arrogant, self-absorbed, hypocritical, ambitious jerk who puts his own goals above others. His job, his standing, means everything to him. There’s nothing Sentinel would like more than be in charge of all those lesser bots, because clearly the one who should be running things is him.
Sentinel’s a bit insecure, to be honest. He’s prone to jealousy, since he views himself as so great, so deserving of award and acclaim. He worked to get to his place in the Elite Guard, one of the most important people on Cybertron, and yet he doesn’t seem to get the respect that Ultra Magnus or be the hero that Optimus is considered. Optimus, to Sentinel, is just an elite guard washout (among his numerous hang-ups with his old friend) and underserving of respect – and yet Optimus seems to effortlessly one-up him, particularly on Earth. Similarly, he doesn’t like anyone one-upping him, and always strives to be the one on top of things.
So Sentinel lords over his higher rank and position– something he does to anybody, not just Optimus. When Sentinel has an advantage, he flaunts it. He boasts and makes everybody aware of how great he just was, or that he’s the one in charge, etc etc. Whatever brings him above others, he clings to. Because there’s a little part of him that’s in denial about how often he’s wrong. And he insists on always having his orders followed, even when his orders suck. He has a hard time listening to reason sometimes, especially when “reason” seems to him more like “insubordination”.
Sentinel does have some positive traits. Somewhere in there. He’s devoted to the Autobot cause and really does try to uphold law and order, even if he’s misguided about how he goes about doing that, and dismisses things like freedom of choice and fun over safety. He usually insists on following regulations and tries to uphold his standards, even if he sometimes plays dirty in order to get the job done, or uses the rules to bully people. But while Sentinel might put people in danger or make deals with bounty hunters or the like, he does want to save lives and defeat the bad guys. Notably he almost always captures the enemy alive and takes prisoners. And then bragging about it. Although when things get REALLY hot, he’s not afraid to try to kill an enemy or even sacrifice an ally if it means saving Cybertron/the many.
Sentinel’s name refers to the fact that he instinctively wants to guard people, particularly his friends, and he always keeps watch out for threats. This can be one of the aforementioned positive traits, allowing him to be willing to sacrifice himself for others and do his best to try to keep others from danger. He’s protective. At Sentinel’s best, he’s very good at defense – both in combat and practicality. On the other side of that, this can be a problem when he tries to “protect” Cybertronians at all costs – putting up a curfew, firing on Omega Supreme, violating rights, not listening to the council. This is combined with the assumption that he knows what’s best for everybody, and people who are not him are dumb.
Just as Sentinel views himself as better than others, he also views Cybertron and Cybertronians as better than other planets and their people. And he also views Autobots as better than Decepticons. Sentinel is xenophobic and an organic-phobe. He has some major hang-ups with organics, even beyond other Cybertronians. Contact with an organic planet means he obsessively decontaminates himself, and he initially had some… strange ideas about what organics can do (he had to learn that humans do not in fact spit acid, fyi). At his most calm, he’s just intensely patronizing to organics, but Sentinel’s distrust and dislike of organic species sometimes goes to downright fear, especially where spiders are concerned, thanks to the incident with Elita-1.
Sentinel has a lot of residual problems resulting from that trip. He was still a jerk back then, but he had friends. Good ones! People he trusted to watch his back – and then Optimus watched his back and left Elita-1 behind, and Sentinel took all of his guilt about what happened to Elita-1, put aside that going to that planet was his idea, and shoved it onto Optimus. Sentinel often puts the blame for his own mistakes on others, and tends to hate whenever he’s called on it, but there’s more to it than that. He hasn’t really had anybody he’s been close to since Elita-1 (he outright rejects “Blackarachnia” later) or Optimus (see also: blaming him for the whole thing). He felt betrayed, and while he’ll work with people, he doesn’t show anybody the respect or trust they may or may not deserve. The only person Sentinel really feels he can truly rely on is himself, and his narcissism feeds that feeling, so he assumes that he can because he is just. That. Great.
He hasn’t completely abandoned trust – he almost trusts certain people (cough Optimus cough) to help when things get really bad for him – but at the same time letting his insecurities show through and try to control and berate the person helping him. Under stress he tends to get even more insulting, patronizing and tries to get everybody to follow his orders – but he does appreciate people lending him a hand and he will thank peopleat the end of the episode when the situation is resolved.
POWER:
1 | SNOWPLOW (canonish)
Regardless of whether or not he’s human or robot (see below), Sentinel Prime can transform into a futuristic snowplow. If Robot > Snowplow, it has the telltale ksh ksh ksh sound and all transformer-y. If Human > Snowplow, he transforms magical girl style. Fight me.
We can all ignore size issues if his current form isn’t the size of a snowplow, the snowplow is always about the size of a large truck. IT’S MAGIC OKAY.
2 | SOMETIMES ROBOT (well he’s a giant robot in canon you might have gotten that impression by now)
If Sentinel Prime is nice to or compliments someone he can turn into his robot form. Beneral insincerity, blatant sucking-up, and sarcasm technically counts, but turns him into a miniature human-sized version. If he’s actually 100% sincere with no immediate personal gain (and not indoors), he can transform into his full-sized (about a couple of storeys) version. He stays a robot until he insults somebody, at which point he turns back into a human. (Note that nothing will happen if he’s a snowplow at the time.)
His robot form is super-endurable and strongish. He can still be injured if enough force is applied and can’t exactly lift anything twice his size, but still much stronger than an average human. And obviously much, much stronger at his real size. Also he bleeds (sort of) and drinks oil in that form, though if there happens to be energon somehow he can consume that too.
3 | ENERGY LANCE & SHIELD (canon!)
Sentinel comes equipped with (1) lance and (1) “Skyboom” shield. They’re made of metal and a glowing blue energy. Both are very strong as the energy cannot be broken without a very, very powerful force. The Lance doesn’t really do anything, it’s a lance. Sometimes it gets slightly longer? It can’t even cut things, but can be used as an effective weapon.
The Shield, however, can expand to protect Sentinel and about two others side by side (proportional to his size). However, when fully or mostly expanded, Sentinel needs to concentrate to keep it that way – he can’t keep it up forever. Otherwise, it’s basically a small, round shield.
CHARACTER NAME: Sentinel Prime
SERIES: Transformers Animated
CHRONOLOGY: The end of “Predacons Rising”, nearish the end of Season 3.
CLASS: Hero, but an asshole
BACKGROUND:
Once upon a time, there was a planet called Cybertron, and it was home to a race of giant robots that transformed into vehicles. These were Transformers, or Cybertronians. Note that things that are not robots or mechanical are known as “organics”, which includes humans, animals and plants. Cybertron was completely inorganic – and organic worlds were distrusted and considered dangerous. This is important later. Moving on.
Each and every Cybertronian had a bodytype and a special ability that was only theirs. Some of these giant robots were workers and repair bots, smaller robots built for good solid work. Some of them were bigger and built with weaponry, meant for war. These two groups eventually had a war and split into two factions: the former became the Autobots and the latter became the Decepticons.
In order to win the war, the Autobots had a few advantages: they kept the all powerful AllSpark (creator of all mechanical life and general do-everything macguffin) out of Decepticon hands, the Space Bridge network (basically the ability to teleport people around space a la stargates) and Omega Supreme which was an even more giant robot. Eventually the Autobots won and exiled the Decepticons, and a shaky peace was kind of kept for a long time. Until Optimus Prime and his misfit-filled space bridge repair crew stumbled upon the AllSpark and ran into Megatron, glorious leader of the Decepticons, ended up getting crash-landed on Earth and disappearing for a while and blah blah blah THE SHOW HAPPENED.
This story is not about the heroic, yet misunderstood, Optimus Prime – it’s about his old friend Sentinel Prime. Who was a jerk. (Note that in Transformers Animated, “Prime” is a high but normal Autobot rank – the supreme commander is the “Magnus”.)
Way back when they were just Sentinel and Optimus with no Prime in sight, they trained together in the Autobot Academy (think like, military school version of Harvard aka a Big Deal – training for the Autobot Elite Guard which is also a Big Deal – special forces, law and order type deal). Together with Elita-1, they were a close trio of friends.
Then Sentinel got the bright idea to go to this planet called a forbidden organic planet looking for Energon (an important energy source) that was supposedly still on a crashed Decepticon ship from the war.
Which would have been all fine and good except Sentinel, Optimus and Elita-1 got separated after discovering it was populated by giant freaking spiders. Optimus and Elita-1 found the ship in the chaos, and the energon, and the spider’s nest. They fought the spiders, and during the fight the energon got unstable and was going to explode. Sentinel and Optimus managed to escape – Elita-1 didn’t. She was left behind, but Optimus deemed it too dangerous to go back for her and instead saved Sentinel. He refused to go back for her.
Sentinel and Optimus thought Elita-1 was dead. Turns out she wasn’t. Her special ability was power absorption – it wasn’t meant for organics, and attempting to use it on the spiders turned her technorganic (exactly what it sounds like) part-robot, part-spider freak. Neither Optimus nor Sentinel knew that, and wouldn’t for a very long time. As far as they were concerned, she was gone.
The two of them were dragged in front of Ultra Magnus, leader of the Autobots. Sentinel blamed Optimus for leaving Elita-1 behind. Optimus shouldered both the blame for that and the responsibility for going to the planet in the first place (even though it was Sentinel’s idea) and was kicked out of the Autobot Academy.
Sentinel continued his training without him, was eventually promoted to Sentinel Minor, and became drill sergeant for the boot camp for trainees, the step before stuff like the Autobot Academy or Elite Guard. There he trained a lot of people, including other important characters: Bumblebee, Bulkhead, Wasp, and Longarm. Bumblebee continually humiliated Sentinel through various failures, but eventually proved his worth briefly by proving to Sentinel Minor that Wasp was a Decepticon spy. Problem was (and this was ALSO not discovered until much later), Wasp had been set up by Longarm who was the real Decepticon spy. Bulkhead was there that episode but with little relevance to Sentinel’s story considering Sentinel forgets he ever taught Bumblebee or Bulkhead. Sentinel is a classy robot.
After that, Sentinel joined the Elite Guard and was promoted to Prime, and eventually became second in command, under Ultra Magnus. It was a pretty snazzy gig!
Way back earlier, I mentioned that the plot started because Optimus and his crew of maintenance misfits stumbled on the AllSpark, giver of life, plot macguffin, etc etc. Through various shenanigans the AllSpark turned up again, and pinged Autobot sensors or whatever. So a group from the Elite Guard - Ultra Magnus, Sentinel Prime and Jazz (resident cool Elite Guard ninja dude) came to Earth to look for it as well as Optimus and his missing crew.
Problem was, the AllSpark was kinda shattered and its pieces flung all future-Detroit. This went over really well with the Elite Guard, with Sentinel finding it hilarious how badly Optimus screwed up – particularly since Optimus claimed it happened in a battle with the Decepticons but whoops, Sentinel found no proof of Decepticons on Earth.
This is also when Sentinel scanned Earth vehicles in order to find a “subtle disguise”. He turned into a large snowplow. In the summer. I don’t even know, roll with it.
So Optimus ran around escorting the Elite Guard and Sentinel was entirely mean to him and insisted that Optimus destroyed the AllSpark and should be court-marshaled, until they found a broken shard of the AllSpark. Ultra Magnus ended up believing that part of Optimus’ story and that the AllSpark could be eventually returned.
After that, the Elite Guard stayed on Earth for a bit and was introduced to the locals of Detroit in a press conference so Sentinel could be condescending to them. But a guy called the Headmaster watched the press-conferenced intrigued by this new giant robot. He had this machine called the “Headmaster Unit” that would laser off the heads of transformers and replace them, allowing the Headmaster to control their bodies.
Headmaster set a trap, Sentinel fell into it and became a head with his body controlled by the Headmaster and with only one person to turn to (since anybody else would be entirely embarrassing) – his old friend Optimus. Optimus graciously helped him find his body, fight it and beat the Headmaster, if enjoying getting to beat up Sentinel’s body a bit too much. So Sentinel got his body back, discovered that Optimus could still be counted on in embarrassing crises and even thanked the guy.
Sometime later, Sentinel and the Elite Guard got a call from home that said there were Decepticon uprisings so they decided it was time they headed home – and they were going to drag Optimus’ crew back to Cybertron with them. Sentinel didn’t believe that there were Decepticons on Earth, and Ultra Magnus didn’t want either the Decepticons or Autobots to think Megatron was still alive. Sentinel tried to bribe Optimus to tell Sentinel and Ultra Magnus’s version of the story – that there were no Decepticons on Earth and Optimus got the AllSpark broken on its own.
Meanwhile, the Decepticons on Earth decided they wanted to call home, but were stranded without the technology – and decided to steal it from the Elite Guard. And the traitorous Decepticon Starscream discovered that the AllSpark fragment stuck in his forehead keeping him alive (don’t ask) could find other pieces of the AllSpark. He found one and used it to set a trap for the Decepticons – but the Elite Guard’s technology picked up the AllSpark shard’s signal too. They headed off, leaving Optimus to be watched by Sentinel.
But Optimus suspected a trap and escaped after an argument with Sentinel and locking him in Stasis cuffs. Sentinel somehow got out of those and caught up to them later, and halfway through yelling at Optimus about attacking him and that there were still no Decepticons on Earth, Starscream showed up. Whoops. The Autobots fought Starscream and eventually (with Sentinel going along begrudgingly with Optimus’ plan), they beat the Decepticon and captured him. Optimus’ story having more evidence, Ultra Magnus decided that him and his crew could stay on Earth, and the Elite Guard would go back to Cybertron.
So all’s well that ends well, except the Earth-bound Decepticons had successfully stolen the Elite Guard’s communication technology so their glorious leader Megatron could then contact the rest of their people – basically starting up the Decepticon-Autobot war again. Welp.
To top it off, Starscream later escaped the Elite Guard ship and flew back to Earth. They didn’t go after him
So anyway, do you remember the last time when Sentinel trained new recruits? And one of them, Wasp, was supposedly a Decepticon spy? Well, Wasp escaped the stockade and Sentinel attempted and failed to capture him. Wasp ended up on Earth – and Sentinel and his crew (being Jazz, Jetfire & Jetstorm with Ultra Magnus being too busy and therefore leaving Sentinel in charge which is a terrific idea, really) followed him. Sentinel insisted on going after Wasp even though Optimus tried to explain they had info that Longarm was the real spy. Shenanigans, misunderstandings and general Autobot infighting happen, and in the end it turns out that Optimus & co were right once again and Sentinel was wrong and WHOOPS Longarm? Happened to be Longarm Prime, head of Autobot Intelligence. As well as a Decepticon spy. Yep.
Sentinel and his crew stayed on Earth for a bit, first involving an incident where Sentinel “captured” a bunch of Decepticons – but he was so sneaky about how that got accomplished that resident ninjabots Prowl and Jazz investigated. They found out that Sentinel had hired the bounty hunter Lockdown to capture them. Lockdown betrayed him, Sentinel ended up being used as a hostage and saved by the ninjas and everybody went home sulky. Including the Decepticons who were still captured – but Sentinel had to give the credit to Prowl since the dude saved his sorry butt.
Wasp turned up again, and despite being innocent, Sentinel chased after him anyway, intensely suspicious about someone who was in the stockade for so long. Even though Sentinel helped put him there. Optimus tried to get to Wasp first, but Wasp ended up being captured by one of the three robots called the Dinobots. Robots that turn into robot dinosaurs. Sentinel, Jetfire and Jetstorm pursued Wasp and the dinobot. Optimus objected but was a bit too late to warn Sentinel about who the Dinobots worked for.
Sentinel found the laboratory of their boss, Blackarachnia, who was doing an experiment on Wasp. At which point Blackarachnia recognized Sentinel – and revealed she was his old friend Elita-1, turned into a part giant spider, part robot mutant. Completely revolted by her state, Sentinel was briefly sorry but soon angry at both her mutation, the fact she had turned Decepticon, and that she was making Wasp into a technorganic freak like her. He decided Blackarachnia was no longer Elita-1 and was better off dead.
But then Wasp emerged from Blackarachnia’s experiment, changed into the horrific Waspinator. He attacked them – Sentinel was saved by Optimus’s timely arrival. But the technology that made Wasp into Waspinator caused him to explode with the fancy macguffin energy. Blackarachnia contained the explosion and it ended up half-blasting, half-teleporting them somewhere else, never to be seen again for the rest of the series.
This is the point from which I’m pulling Sentinel! Notably, sometime before that when Sentinel was faffing about on Earth, Ultra Magnus had been attacked by the spy Longarm-turned-Shockwave, and so Sentinel was about to go head back to sort things out on Cybertron.
More stuff happens, but being Acting-Magnus or basically interim leader while Ultra Magnus was indisposed basically made his ego grow three times that day, so let’s not and say we did. Basically shenanigans happen when he tried to finally bring the Decepticons back to Cybertron (and when he was a prisoner on his own ship, who does he call? Optimus. And then yells at Optimus the entire time about how he should listen to his orders!! But was nice to him afterward), and then basically went back and was a bit Big Brother on Cybertron in the name of safety (and almost blew up Cybertron) until the season finale. Spoilers, with power he’s even more of a jerk.
The point, however, is that he is imported just as he’s about to board his ship and head back to Cybertron, after finding out about Blackarachnia! So yes.
PERSONALITY:
The most important person to Sentinel is himself - he’s an egotistical, arrogant, self-absorbed, hypocritical, ambitious jerk who puts his own goals above others. His job, his standing, means everything to him. There’s nothing Sentinel would like more than be in charge of all those lesser bots, because clearly the one who should be running things is him.
Sentinel’s a bit insecure, to be honest. He’s prone to jealousy, since he views himself as so great, so deserving of award and acclaim. He worked to get to his place in the Elite Guard, one of the most important people on Cybertron, and yet he doesn’t seem to get the respect that Ultra Magnus or be the hero that Optimus is considered. Optimus, to Sentinel, is just an elite guard washout (among his numerous hang-ups with his old friend) and underserving of respect – and yet Optimus seems to effortlessly one-up him, particularly on Earth. Similarly, he doesn’t like anyone one-upping him, and always strives to be the one on top of things.
So Sentinel lords over his higher rank and position– something he does to anybody, not just Optimus. When Sentinel has an advantage, he flaunts it. He boasts and makes everybody aware of how great he just was, or that he’s the one in charge, etc etc. Whatever brings him above others, he clings to. Because there’s a little part of him that’s in denial about how often he’s wrong. And he insists on always having his orders followed, even when his orders suck. He has a hard time listening to reason sometimes, especially when “reason” seems to him more like “insubordination”.
Sentinel does have some positive traits. Somewhere in there. He’s devoted to the Autobot cause and really does try to uphold law and order, even if he’s misguided about how he goes about doing that, and dismisses things like freedom of choice and fun over safety. He usually insists on following regulations and tries to uphold his standards, even if he sometimes plays dirty in order to get the job done, or uses the rules to bully people. But while Sentinel might put people in danger or make deals with bounty hunters or the like, he does want to save lives and defeat the bad guys. Notably he almost always captures the enemy alive and takes prisoners. And then bragging about it. Although when things get REALLY hot, he’s not afraid to try to kill an enemy or even sacrifice an ally if it means saving Cybertron/the many.
Sentinel’s name refers to the fact that he instinctively wants to guard people, particularly his friends, and he always keeps watch out for threats. This can be one of the aforementioned positive traits, allowing him to be willing to sacrifice himself for others and do his best to try to keep others from danger. He’s protective. At Sentinel’s best, he’s very good at defense – both in combat and practicality. On the other side of that, this can be a problem when he tries to “protect” Cybertronians at all costs – putting up a curfew, firing on Omega Supreme, violating rights, not listening to the council. This is combined with the assumption that he knows what’s best for everybody, and people who are not him are dumb.
Just as Sentinel views himself as better than others, he also views Cybertron and Cybertronians as better than other planets and their people. And he also views Autobots as better than Decepticons. Sentinel is xenophobic and an organic-phobe. He has some major hang-ups with organics, even beyond other Cybertronians. Contact with an organic planet means he obsessively decontaminates himself, and he initially had some… strange ideas about what organics can do (he had to learn that humans do not in fact spit acid, fyi). At his most calm, he’s just intensely patronizing to organics, but Sentinel’s distrust and dislike of organic species sometimes goes to downright fear, especially where spiders are concerned, thanks to the incident with Elita-1.
Sentinel has a lot of residual problems resulting from that trip. He was still a jerk back then, but he had friends. Good ones! People he trusted to watch his back – and then Optimus watched his back and left Elita-1 behind, and Sentinel took all of his guilt about what happened to Elita-1, put aside that going to that planet was his idea, and shoved it onto Optimus. Sentinel often puts the blame for his own mistakes on others, and tends to hate whenever he’s called on it, but there’s more to it than that. He hasn’t really had anybody he’s been close to since Elita-1 (he outright rejects “Blackarachnia” later) or Optimus (see also: blaming him for the whole thing). He felt betrayed, and while he’ll work with people, he doesn’t show anybody the respect or trust they may or may not deserve. The only person Sentinel really feels he can truly rely on is himself, and his narcissism feeds that feeling, so he assumes that he can because he is just. That. Great.
He hasn’t completely abandoned trust – he almost trusts certain people (cough Optimus cough) to help when things get really bad for him – but at the same time letting his insecurities show through and try to control and berate the person helping him. Under stress he tends to get even more insulting, patronizing and tries to get everybody to follow his orders – but he does appreciate people lending him a hand and he will thank people
POWER:
1 | SNOWPLOW (canonish)
Regardless of whether or not he’s human or robot (see below), Sentinel Prime can transform into a futuristic snowplow. If Robot > Snowplow, it has the telltale ksh ksh ksh sound and all transformer-y. If Human > Snowplow, he transforms magical girl style. Fight me.
We can all ignore size issues if his current form isn’t the size of a snowplow, the snowplow is always about the size of a large truck. IT’S MAGIC OKAY.
2 | SOMETIMES ROBOT (well he’s a giant robot in canon you might have gotten that impression by now)
If Sentinel Prime is nice to or compliments someone he can turn into his robot form. Beneral insincerity, blatant sucking-up, and sarcasm technically counts, but turns him into a miniature human-sized version. If he’s actually 100% sincere with no immediate personal gain (and not indoors), he can transform into his full-sized (about a couple of storeys) version. He stays a robot until he insults somebody, at which point he turns back into a human. (Note that nothing will happen if he’s a snowplow at the time.)
His robot form is super-endurable and strongish. He can still be injured if enough force is applied and can’t exactly lift anything twice his size, but still much stronger than an average human. And obviously much, much stronger at his real size. Also he bleeds (sort of) and drinks oil in that form, though if there happens to be energon somehow he can consume that too.
3 | ENERGY LANCE & SHIELD (canon!)
Sentinel comes equipped with (1) lance and (1) “Skyboom” shield. They’re made of metal and a glowing blue energy. Both are very strong as the energy cannot be broken without a very, very powerful force. The Lance doesn’t really do anything, it’s a lance. Sometimes it gets slightly longer? It can’t even cut things, but can be used as an effective weapon.
The Shield, however, can expand to protect Sentinel and about two others side by side (proportional to his size). However, when fully or mostly expanded, Sentinel needs to concentrate to keep it that way – he can’t keep it up forever. Otherwise, it’s basically a small, round shield.