Crowdsourcing Autobot civilian jobs

[Jack Cade]

I don't know if anyone saw my original Prowl Log thingy, but I've got a hankering to go back to it and start afresh. The basic idea is that it borrows the structure of the Canterbury Tales Prologue as an excuse for some Transformers epic poetry (from the point of view of Prowl, natch).

The conceit this time round is to have Prowl commenting on a ragtag bunch of Autobot survivors, a long way into the war, and analysing how each has been altered by his experience by reference to their pre-war lives. This means I can add the nice Chaucerian/impersonal touch of Prowl calling each of them by their civilian profession, rather than their name (so just as Chaucer had The Miller, The Franklin, etc. I have The Architect for Grapple, The Courier for Blurr etc). Trouble is, going by my ancient Universe profile book, not everyone's civilian profession is described or even hinted at. So I need to think of some that are fitting or, perhaps, rather ironic (Blades as a surgeon, say).

I'm totally up for cherry-picking the best parts of every continuity out there for this, and adding in my own stuff to boot. I'm quite keen, for example, to run with Blurr's recent toy bio, where he's both super-fast and able to keep super-still in order to be an effective sniper. For Bumblebee, on the other hand, I think I'm going to make him a budding journalist pre-war, whose intrepidness, habit of nosing around (and maybe phone-hacking!) sets up a transition to the Furman IDW version of Bumblebee.

I'm also totally up for changing to sensible, modern, maybe even British alt-modes. Prowl himself is going to have fluorescent yellow and blue stripes, like our Met police cars. So good suggestions for them would be useful.

Here are the Autobots I want to feature - a fairly arbitrary selection - along with the professions/ideas I've got so far. Any help filling in the gaps would be appreciated!

Searchlight - nightwatchman
Blurr - courier
Grapple - architect
Wheeljack - engineer
Bumblebee - journalist
Red Alert - ???
Ratchet - paramedic??
Sunstreaker - athlete??
Blades - ???
Strafe - librarian??
Fireflight - photographer??

[Best First]

interesting stuff!

My thoughts;

Red Alert - Health and Safety inspector? - works in terms of his supposed finickity nature and also the paranoia - could tie into his supposed friendship with Inferno as well?

Ratchet - given his skills i'd have him as a high flying surgeon pre-war rather than anywhere down the pecking order (no disrespect to paramedics) plus that gives him the income (and maybe the pressure) to drive his partying in his freetime

Sunstreaker - i like the sporting idea - i'd be inclined to pick a sport that requires skill but also provids the limelight - the arrogance of a good looking Man U player - someone who thinks they have it all


Blades - given he's basically a bit of a psycho, i'd be tempted to have him do something really humdrum prior to the war - playing on the name - Air Conditioning salesman? Wind power specialist? I guess ideally something that is of little practical application once the war kicks off - anything medical would keep him from the front line i would have thought


Strafe - librarian - love it, be intrigued to see how he comes to dislike the quiet


Fireflight - i like photographer, the only other thing i could think of was an aspiring fiction writer? Probably a not very productive one

[Optimus Prime Rib]

Blades: Sculptor, direct competitor to Mirage

or
Cybertronian equivalent of a plastic surgeon

[bumblemusprime]

Wille et be en yon originalle Myddle Cybertroonian?

[Aaron Hong]

Animated core 5 'bots in an improv comedy show, with OP behind the desk.