Robot-fleshling romance

"We don't have to be the same outside to share the same feeling inside."

- Alana speaks words every Autobot Commander dreads, "Sea Change"

Sapient alien robots and humans can be friends, once they are able to communicate with each other. There is no reason this should not be, if we are to assume the existence of sapient alien robots; beings with the ability to reflect on "life, the universe, and everything" would have a lot in common.



One definite lack of commonality, however, is the ability to reproduce together. Metal robots and flesh creatures just can't have babies, no matter how hard they try. The physiology is simply not compatible. (Several authoritative works have been written on relevant aspects of human biology. Readers are advised to seek them out for further reference.) Since the urge to engage in sex is often a major contributor to romantic interest, it may seem unusual for this attraction to exist between a robot and a fleshling -- and yet, throughout Transformers fiction, such examples do exist.

To write them off as silly plot contrivances is easy. It is, however, also easy to write off large sections of the fiction as silly contrivances, which leads us down a dangerous path. Therefore we must assume that, impractical and absurd as it may be, these incompatible species must be similar enough mentally to make romantic attraction, even in the absence of sexual compatibility, possible.

A list of notable Transformer-fleshling pairs where an inter-species romance was either hinted at or outright stated, is given below.

Cartoon G1 continuity
 * Powerglide and Astoria Carlton-Ritz
 * Seaspray and Alana

The fact that all of these pairings are between nominally-male robots and apparently-female fleshlings can in part be blamed on the scarcity of female Transformers. (The default assumption of heterosexuality is also part of it; the day when we have a canonical gay robot-fleshling romance in Transformers is probably still a long way off...)