Pretender

"Pretenders hide the Transformers inside."

Disguise has always been a key component of Transformer operations on other worlds. Pretenders attempt to take this concept to the next level. Pretenders are Transformers fitted with special external armor shells that can disguise their very nature as robots. Rather than hiding themselves as the machinery or vehicles of a world, Pretender Shells can alow a robot to take on the appearance of a native lifeform itself.

On top of their exploration and infiltration uses the shells can also function as powerful battle armor, aid in self-repair, and even function independently of their robot as a second combatant mentally controled by their "wearer." The major drawback of the technology is that the core robot will feel whatever pain is inflicted on the shell, sometimes even more strongly than pain inflicted on the robot itself.

The most common style of Pretender is an inner robot with a single humanoid shell (usually resembling a monster for Decepticons or a human in battle armor for Autobots).

Fiction

Marvel Comics

(The disguise aspect of Pretender shells emphasized by the toy promotion was established in the comic book, but as the Pretenders in this continuity remained giant-sized in these shells they were odd and rather dubious disguises at best and only really functioned well in that aspect in one story involving Femax. When Simon Furman took over the book he instead emphasized the shell's capabilities as advanced super power-boosting armor.)

Pretender technology was created by Lord Zarek to help his troups operate semi-annonymously on an Earth that had become (partially due to his influence with the Z Corperation) openly and publically hostile towards giant alien robots. The idea was that giant organic-looking alien monsters would somehow attract less attention.

This technology was stolen by Optimus Prime (at the time reduced to a computerized personality) and replicated by the Autobots. The Autobots fasioned their shells after the humans, with the stated rationalization that the Decepticons were rather unobservant and wouldn't notice that these humans were many stories tall.

Masterforce cartoon

Autobot Pretenders were stationed on Earth long ago in human disguises. (Unlike other continuities, the disguised Autobots did shrink to human-sized in the Japanese continuity, and could make their armor disapear to become indistinguishable from ordinary humans. Nice someone worked that out.)

IDW comics

In it's most gruesome variation Pretender technology here was the invention of the Decepticon Thunderwing, and used living robotic tissue painfully culled from live (quite possibly unwilling) subjects to create a powerful symbiotic, living carapace. The goal of this technology was to allow Transformers to survive an impending environmental collapse on their home planet Cybertron. Even Megatron rejected the concept as unnatural and repulsive. Both cases where the technology was implimented ended in disaster as the melding of the robots mind with the shell was improperly alliened or hastily executed. Subjet one, Thunderwing, became unfathomably powerful but totally insane and destructive. Subject two, Bludgeon, tried to rush the process and ended up comatose inside his new shell. It is unknown if reserch will continue further (but it seems rather unlikely given the moral issues and planetary-level threat posed by Thunderwing).

Known Pretender Types

Pretenders

(The default. Single robot with a single humanoid shell.)

• Bludgeon
• Bomb-Burst
• Bugly
• Bumblebee
• Cloudburst
• Doubleheader
• Finback
• Grand Maximus
• Grimlock
• Groundbreaker
• Iguanus
• Jazz
• Landmine (G1)
• Longtooth
• Metalhawk
• Octopunch
• Pincher
• Skullgrin
• Sky High
• Splashdown
• Starscream
• Stranglehold
• Submarauder
• Waverider

Pretender Beasts

(Pretenders with quadropedal Earth animal-based shells.)

• Carnivac
• Catilla
• Chainclaw
• Snarler

Pretender Vehicles

(Pretenders whose shells are vehicles that transform into combat decks for their inner robots.)

• Gunnrunner
• Roadgrabber

Mega Pretenders

(Both the inner robot and the humanoid shell transform and can combine their alternate modes into a larger vehicle.)

• Crossblades
• Thunderwing
• Vroom

Ultra Pretenders

(The ultimate. Double Pretenders whose outermost shell is a large vehicle. This contains another secondary humanoid Pretender shell that is itself able to transform into a vehicle, and that can be piloted by its inner robot. Both suffer from Gold Plastic Syndrome}

• Roadblock
• Skyhammer

Pretender Monsters

(Smaller pretenders with super-deformed rubbery monster shells. Their inner robots can combine to form Monstructor.)

Crossformers

(SPACE MAFIA!! Japanese counterpart to the US Mega Pretenders, the shells were remolded to be less organic.)

• Black Shadow
• Blue Baccus

Dinoforce

(Can combine to form Dinoking)

Double Pretenders (unproduced)

(Prototypes for "Double Pretenders," two small robots in one shell, that splits into top and bottom at the waist, were designed but never put in production.)

• unnamed Spider-monster duo.
  
  
  From Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki, a Wikia wiki.