Dirge

Dirge is a Decepticon Seeker distinguished by his unique wing design and a personality that is perpetually shrouded in gloom. As a member of the elite "Coneheads" squad alongside Ramjet and Thrust, he serves as a master of psychological warfare. His primary weapon is the eerie, soul-shaking drone produced by his engines, which vibrates at a frequency specifically designed to induce intense, paralyzing fear in any mechanical or organic being within earshot. He finds a grim satisfaction in the terror of others, believing that fear is the most effective way to control a battlefield.

Paradoxically, the master of fear is himself a bundle of nerves. Dirge is famously morose and obsessed with his own mortality, often spending his downtime contemplating the inevitability of destruction. This paralyzing self-doubt frequently makes him his own worst enemy, as his preoccupation with death can lead to hesitation at critical moments. Despite his formidable combat skills and terrifying sonic abilities, he is often viewed by his peers as a "professional victim" due to his high frequency of being shot down or destroyed in various conflicts across Cybertron and Earth.

Appearance: Dirge has blue and grey metallic skin. His eyes are a glowing yellow color. A tall, pointed blue cone-shaped helmet covers his head. His upper torso features a central silver metallic plate surrounded by blue armor. Two circular black turbine vents with visible internal blades are positioned on his upper chest. Large, blocky blue pauldrons cover his shoulders. His forearms are dark grey with silver rocket-shaped pods attached to the outer sides. These pods feature black, pointed tips. His hands are dark grey and feature segmented, metallic fingers. Two dark grey rectangular fins with vertical panel lines rise from his back. His midsection is a dark grey mechanical column. A blue segmented plate covers his groin area. Large yellow and orange wings are attached to the sides of his legs. His upper thighs are dark grey and rectangular. His lower legs are encased in large blue armor that tapers into a rectangular shape at the feet. Segmented dark grey panels are visible on the front of his shins.

Personality: In the hierarchy of the Decepticon army, Dirge is an outsider even among his fellow Seekers. He maintains a cold, silent distance from the more boisterous warriors like Starscream, preferring the company of his own dark thoughts. His relationship with Ramjet and Thrust is one of mutual necessity rather than friendship. They function as a unit of aerial terror, yet Dirge’s constant pessimism often grinds on the nerves of his more aggressive teammates. He views Megatron with a mix of awe and existential dread, following orders primarily to avoid the very destruction he spends so much time fearing.

His interactions with the Autobots are brief and usually violent. He does not take pleasure in the act of killing itself, but rather in the moments leading up to it when his engines have broken his target's will to fight. To his enemies, he is a harbinger of doom, a ghostly presence in the sky that brings a silence far more terrifying than the roar of battle. Despite his internal fragility, he remains a dangerous asset to the Decepticon cause, proving that even a coward can be a monster if he has the right frequency.

Dirge has 2 concussion missile launchers. He transforms into a modified F-15 fighter jet with a delta wing and front canard.

The Autobots usually find themselves defending both their own race and other species against the Decepticons and upholding justice and freedom throughout the galaxy. A generally heroic, honorable group, they tend to be dedicated to peace, and feel a need to protect other races from the Decepticons. As a result, they are usually Transformers who change into non-combat oriented alternate modes such as domestic vehicles, cars, trucks, or rescue vehicles. This is not always the case, however, as their ranks certainly contain ne'er-do-wells, malcontents, and unsavory types, and the necessities of war have led many to adopt more combat-oriented alternate forms. While the Autobots have usually found themselves outnumbered by the Decepticons, the Autobots have always had home-field advantage, having not only the humans' military support, but also having more places on Earth to fall back on, while the Decepticons are entirely unwelcome on Earth. Key concepts that repeat throughout most continuities are the use of the name Prime (or a variation thereof) to denote Autobot leadership, and the existence of an artifact of great life-giving power, usually referred to as a "Matrix", traditionally held by their leader.

The Decepticons are a faction typically concerned with such things as conquering Cybertron, defeating the Autobots, amassing large quantities of energon, developing powerful weaponry, and beating people up. Not necessarily in that order. Unlike the Autobots, whose leader is a Prime bearing a Matrix, the Decepticons are led by the most powerful of their ranks. This tends to cause some conflict, given how generally every Decepticon thinks that they're the most powerful. Also, the Decepticons are not exactly the most compassionate beings in the universe, but not all fight for greed. More than a few have a sense of honor, while others believe that Cybertron would be better protected by aggressive expansion. Ultimately, the Decepticons desire to protect their homeworld, even if it is at the expense of others.

The spark is the core of Transformer life, an electrically charged mass of positrons formed from the supernatural substance known as Rarified Energon. Sparks come in a wide range of colors—while most are some shade of blue, green, yellow, orange, white, and red sparks have all been observed. While their appearances may vary, every spark functions as a combined heart and soul for an individual Cybertronian: like a heart, a Spark "pulses" at a certain frequency to animate a mechanical bodyframe; like a soul, a spark is generally accepted to contain some part of a Transformer's immaterial being, which persists after death by transcending into the afterlife. Indeed, most Cybertronian religions hold that each spark contains an infinitesimally small portion of Primus's divine essence. To protect their sparks, which usually can't survive outside of a compatible body for very long, most Cybertronians possess a specialized "spark chamber" somewhere in their body.

Most forms of Cybertronian reproduction involves the creation of a new spark—in many realities, supernatural artifacts such as the Vector Sigma supercomputer or the AllSpark can generate sparks at will, which can be implanted into a suitable receptacle to create a new Transformer. These newborn sparks contain the hard-coded design schematics that act as a Transformer's "genetic code", which dictates a Transformer's appearance and sometimes even their alternate modes. Sparks can be safely stored in stasis pods, "frozen" within photonic crystals, or even transplanted from one body to another with no ill effects, but they are susceptible to weapons fire and exotic forms of radiation. When a Transformer's body can no longer support its spark, it is "extinguished" and the Transformer is considered dead. As long as the spark is intact, however, it is possible to repair a Transformer, re-implant its spark, and effectively bring them back from the dead.