Functionist Council

The Functionist Council are the twelve Cybertronians who regulate functionism: the social practice and religious belief that a Transformer's class and job should be dependent on their alt mode. From their headquarters, the Council discuss any changes and oversee the Grand Cybertronian Taxonomy that explains how everyone fits into the social order. All twelve of them can combine to transform into the Key to Vector Sigma.

Their political and social power is definitely not abused. (Look, just nod and agree, I think they're watching.)

Members

Questions are a burden to others, answers a prison for oneself.

• One-of-Twelve: Convener
• Two-of-Twelve: Auditor
• Three-of-Twelve: Authenticator
• Four-of-Twelve: Moderator
• Five-of-Twelve: Enumerator
• Six-of-Twelve: Enactor
• Seven-of-Twelve: Curator
• Eight-of-Twelve: Disseminator
• Nine-of-Twelve: Inquisitor
• Ten-of-Twelve: Evaluator
• Eleven-of-Twelve: Mediator
• Twelve-of-Twelve: Castigator

Fiction

2005 IDW continuity

Under the Council's edicts, the rare Transformers were the elite and the most ubiquitous were the disposable class (Few of the D-class had rights until Dominus Ambus challenged the system.) Before & After "Every shape has its purpose", they claimed, How to Say Goodbye and Mean It and this meant you had to do the job that your alt-mode 'implied'. The Council sold this as the best for everyone's peace of mind, asking who'd want medical care from an artillery Transformer or if workers would feel comfortable mining with a data stick. This was defended as part of the Guiding Hand's grand plan. Births, Deaths, and Interventions If you were an "outlier" with abilities that had nothing to do with an alt mode? Better make sure the Council never heard about you. Patternism For a time, the Council were even quietly pulling the Senate's strings. Oh, and empurata? Their idea. Stet

If you were intellectual class, you could be alt-mode exempt. Post Hoc If you performed a service that really made the Council happy, you were declared alt-mode exempt by them (as happened to Senator Momus). A Functionist Calls

Rung was a major threat to the Functionist Council's ideals as he didn't turn into anything they could identify. After a barrage of tests, they gave up, put "Ornament" in the Taxonomy, and told him to wear a fake wheel so as to "reassure" people. Little Victories

Another major threat was when Whirl switched jobs from soldier to watchmaker, thanks to a moderate Functionary. The Council arranged for him to be an example, all with their hands clean: they'd arrange for the mob to smash up Whirl's workshop under the pretense of a protection racket, and for the Senate (still under their control) to find an excuse to put him through empurata so he could never make watches again. Stet

They were a particular bugbear of Megatron, who wrote that the Council had pulled the Taxonomy out of their arse and were using it to keep Cybertronians divided and stratified. This message spread wildly on Cybertron: many Transformers, especially the manual class, had become sick of alt-mode segregation. Births, Deaths, and Interventions Patternism The first Decepticon activists were arrested outside the Council's building in Iacon. Post Hoc

Despite all that power and influence, the growing secularism on Cybertron was threatening their position and they knew it. (It's probably not a coincidence that when the Senate killed two Decepticons so they could 'solve' the murder, the killers were framed as pro-Functionists.) Patternism This meant that when the Senate discovered a spark hot spot in the shape of a hand in 1st cycle 502, specifically the legendary hand of Primus that shaped the planet, they covered it up for fear that the Council would seize on it as proof of Primus. They knew that given the chance, the Functionists would stage a takeover and bring back hardline functionism. All Our Parlous Yesterdays

The Functionist Council survived into Zeta Prime's reign, issuing datapads that helped body-transplanted Cybertronians adjust to their new forms. Omega's Conundrum They eventually met their end during the Great War, The Custom-Made Now and in the present day, their main contribution was when Rewind ironically repeated their slogan to defend his choice to stay a memory stick. How to Say Goodbye and Mean It

After receiving a life sentence, Starscream defended his reign to Bumblebee by stating that, unlike the Functionists, he hadn't suppressed the population for eons. Surfeit of Primes

The Functionist Universe

In an alternate timeline, the Functionist Council had overthrown the Senate after the latter sealed Vector Sigma behind an impenetrable ununtrium barrier. The Matrix of Leadership was seized from Nominus Prime and given to Six-of-Twelve. A World Misplaced The Council established totalitarian functionism all across Cybertron in short order: the intellectual class outlawed, the "knock-offs" deported, dissidents turned into flatheads with no ability to speak, and Functionary enforcers on every corner. Obsolescence chips planted in everyone's head so that when their theoconomists agreed an alt-mode had no further use, the Council could issue a "mass recall". At their peak, they wiped out the memory sticks (despite the theoconomist rulings) so nobody could use stored data against them and began having everyone's optics turned into cameras so that everyone would be watching everyone forever. The Custom-Made Now

The Council was not without its own internal power struggles however; when Councillor and Matrix-bearer Six-of-Twelve began violating the ideals of functionism by transferring Sparks into prefabricated military and construction bodies in response to supposed visions from Primus to prepare Cybertron for a coming war. In response to these acts, Nine-of-Twelve left the Council in disgust and joined the Anti-Vocationist League. The rest of the council did nothing to stop him, as killing him would eliminate the Council's combined form and render Vector Sigma inaccessible. A World Misplaced

Rung was locked in the Cog for study and regularly tortured for two million years as the Council tried to determine what exactly he was for. Eventually Sweep (the janitor), Predestination: An Expert's Guide figured out that Rung's purpose was to produce photonic crystals after he found some lying on the floor of Rung's cell. Though the Council was ready to kill Rung for being "the spawn of Mortilus", they conveniently decided had a moment of divine realization that Rung was proof that Primus endorsed cold construction. The Council attempted to tap the Matrix for new Sparks but failed - unbeknownst to them, it was a fake. Concocting a story that Rung turned into a massive drill tank (and constructing an actual ununtrium drill), the Council conspired to access Vector Sigma for the Sparks they needed while saving face. Modes of Production

On the "Day of Revelation", the Council unveiled Rung's 'divine' alternate mode while Luna 2, repurposed into a gigantic harvester unit, arrived at Adaptica to use the A.V.L. as the raw materials for the new generation of Cybertronians. (As they could now access Vector Sigma without the Key, Nine-Of-Twelve's protection was lost.) A World Misplaced Though the Council had reached Vector Sigma, they lost Rung to Luna 2 and Luna 2 to the universally displaced Team Rodimus. With their scheme thwarted, the Council returned to their previous roles with Cybertron none the wiser. This Machine Kills Fascists

Undeterred by the moon's loss, the Council utilized the photonic crystals at their disposal to construct a workforce to build them a set of planetary engines. While the engines were built, the councilors consulted the Book of Adaptus, deciphering the clues necessary to enter the Warren. The Anti-Vocationist League, now led by a dimensionally-displaced Megatron, followed the Council on their genocidal crusade, warning the wider galaxy of the threat and allowing whole planets to evacuate in time. In retaliation, the Council assassinated anyone they saw as close to Megatron, including Terminus, Orion Pax, Rung, and Impactor. After hundreds of years of war, only councilors One, Two, Three, Five, Six, Eleven, and Twelve remained. To counteract the issue posed by Cybertron's lack of mobility, the seven gave the planet a robot mode cast in the likeness of Primus, which they controlled via Vector Sigma, using their avatar to purge the galaxy of all alien lifeforms. When the Grand Architect's God Gun opened a portal between their universe and his, the Functionists entered, intending to enact their holy crusade on this universe as well, with their first targets being the duplicate Cybertrons necessary for the God Gun. The Return of the King The Unremembering

Once all five "graven images" had been destroyed, the Council began harassing the Lost Light before Luna 1 collided with "Primus's" neural cluster, reverting their avatar to planet mode. Though the Council desperately tried to revert the planet back to robot mode, they were unable to do so before Team Rodimus opened twelve Matrices of Leadership, one for each hot spot. The resulting surge of energy flowed down to Vector Sigma and overloaded it, vaporizing the Council and ending their tyrannical reign. A Spark Among Embers

Notes

• In "The Custom-Made Now", they have a floating base: The Cog. When this was built (and if it existed in the regular time) isn't yet known. In "Shadowplay", they just had a building.
• All of the councilors have the same bodyshape and blank, one-optic heads. This is interesting after we learned they created empurata, where a troublemaker's head is replaced by a blank, one-optic block.
• Although their exact fates were never revealed in-story, James Roberts would later state in a Twitter post that the main-universe members of the Functionist Council either perished during the prewar political upheaval or were hunted down and killed by Starscream.^[1]

References