The Decepticon Hierarchy

THE DECEPTICON HIERARCHY

ORGANIZATION

I've arranged characters within each division according to the general area of expertise they bring to the fold. There is less diversity here than we find within the Autobot ranks, but that seems proper to the Decepticons' general single-mindedness.

CLARIFICATIONS

I received criticisms of some of my choices for THE AUTOBOT HIERARCHY, so I want to enlighten visitors about the conditions I apply to my choice of arrangement and labeling. The primary condition: My work, in general, is based on the U.S. G1 continuity as shown in the original 1980s TV series. I usually consider any retroactive references added to later franchises, such as BEAST MACHINES and ROBOTS IN DISGUISE, beyond the purview of my output and consequently beside the point. If a BEAST MACHINES toy tech spec suggests the purpose of an obscure one-off G1 character was such and such, I disregard it because the original episode(s) didn't mention or display it.

Now, in rendering these avatars, I've relied upon the following three sources:

VISUAL REPRESENTATION: THE U.S. G1 TV SERIES (and a little bit of the comic book)

The TV series represents 95% of my visual references. In the few cases where a character's cartoon series representation is too limited to be used, I've drawn on THE TRANSFORMERS: UNIVERSE or appearances from the original comic book. I would've preferred all of my references to be intrinsic to the TV show, but I've accepted this source as the finalized character models were used for all of the G1 media permutations.

FUNCTIONS AND TITLES: THE TRANSFORMERS: UNIVERSE

THE TRANSFORMERS: UNIVERSE forms the basis of both the original comic book and TV series characters and the latter medium, though it tends to be less concretely stated, follows the functions and titles in the former. That's how I'm able to determine, for example, that TAILGATE is a scout and TANTRUM is a fueler.

FUNCTIONS AND TITLES: TOY TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

A time or two, a character was on the show but received no TRANSFORMERS: UNIVERSE profile. For their functions, I consulted their toy tech specs. That way, I could determine that WINGSPAN is a data processor.

So what of one-off characters that were neither made into toys nor featured in contemporaneous media?

As opposed to the Autobots, the Decepticons used forces of less emotional impact. Drones, sentinels, and other machines with little or no personality (even the hysterical Deceptitran wasn't actually a living robot) perform in place of an extended legion of proper Decepticons. (They even went as far as to "recruit" the Earth-made NIGHTBIRD, who is often regarded by fans as a Decepticon as well. But she isn't, so she will never be included in this diagram.) As for their roles, I've tried my best to classify and name them based on their actions in the episodes in which they appear.

I welcome anyone to disagree with my structuring and classification of the characters, but again, within the confines of the original 1980s U.S. G1 universe, this is as true an illustration as I can -- and will -- ever make.

That is all -- thank you!