Starscream is disillusioned by his leader Megatron. It took a while for Starscream to come to grips with Megatron's faults, but there's no turning back. Megatron doesn't respect him, doesn't appreciate him, and would casually toss Starscream's life away if it got him something he wanted. If following Megatron is the school of hard knocks, then Starscream is the valedictorian—but not without a few scars. Starscream may have once been compassionate, he may once have known what true friendship is, but all that has been replaced, scab for scab, with the lessons of Megatron's abuse. Unwittingly, Megatron may have created a monster even he cannot ultimately control. Ultimately a friend to the humans, and honorary Autobot.

Dinobot is a former Predacon ruled by his sense of honor. He lives to die gloriously in battle. When he aided Megatron in the theft of the Golden Disk, Dinobot believed he was in the pursuit of endless glory. But when he and his Predacon peers crashed on what seemed to be the wrong planet alongside a Maximal exploration vessel, he rebelled against Megatron and joined the Maximal team. It would be an uneasy alliance, fraught with turns of loyalty and turns of Shakespearean phrase. But it also led to strong friendships and even the salvation of all humanity.