Clones -Autobot vs decepticons

[botbrat]

Jetstorm and Jetfire are nothing like the Screamer's decepticon ones. They are more like offsprings than clones. The whole concept is strange considering that cloning is an organic thing. Robots are build the same, not cloned.

[Coraxonyx]

Well I'm not claiming to be an expert on this topic, but the references we have indicate that all TF's start out as protoforms which are imbued with a Spark to come to life (usually) and require a combination of programming and education to develop personalities. Presumably since Cybertron is not the war-torn wasteland of most of the other TF fiction as it remained in the possession of the Autobots throughout the war, this process continued in the standard manner until the AllSpark was lost rather late in the war. The twinning phenomenon is not the same as cloning, but rather the instance of a Spark splitting upon production and bringing life to two protoforms instead of one. And remember that JF and JS were simple farmbots until a tragic accident and the unwise application of Science made them into a special flying unit.

The cloning we witnessed with Starscream was a much more artificial process as the AllSpark fragments he used to activate the protoforms came from the one that was already animating his own "dead" body. Therefore the fragments conferred elements of Starscream's personality and programming to produce clones instead of brothers or twins with their own unique personalities. It is interesting to note that the clones started to develop their own ideas and agendas as time went on, so obviously TF's can all be considered truly "alive" regardless of their origins.