conbot | CHARACTER INFO

» CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character NAME: Swindle
Canon & MEDIUM: Transformers (IDW comics continuity)
Canon PULL-POINT: Robots In Disguise #20
Character AGE: At least 4 million years. Swindle was shown to be around just before the war started, so it's likely he's been alive for a little longer than that.
Character ABILITIES: He's slightly over twice the size of an average adult human in robot mode. Also happens to be a part-time SUV.
Character HISTORY: link

Swindle joined the Decepticons just as they started gaining notoriety on Cybertron, working mostly as a low-ranking lackey. As the war was just beginning, he began selling illicitly gotten arms to the anti-Autobot public, but was caught and essentially tortured publicly before the Senate by the corrupt Zeta Prime.

The next time we see him, Swindle is still participating in the war, no longer in Autobot hands. However, he was constantly hunted down by Ultra Magnus for his violations of the law, but he always managed to bribe his way out of imprisonment.

In more recent times, when the war moved to Earth, the Decepticons finally lost after four million years. Swindle was one of many who were left stranded on the planet, looking for a way to get off it and get back home to Cybertron. He made contact with Spike Witwicky, a member of a government black ops organization intended to investigate alien (thus, Cybertronian) presence on Earth, to secretly supply the organization with Cybertronian weaponry in exchange for resources Swindle could use to finally leave. He created a facsimile construct, an artificial copy of a human that he could control, in order to encourage further mass distrust and fear of all Cybertronians in order to attract more customers to buy the guns, as Cybertronians are resistant to bullets from most human firearms.

He was soon found by a small group of stranded Decepticons also looking to get off Earth; he used his skills as a fast talker to assume the role of their leader. With them, he spied on the giant Autobot Omega Supreme, trying to gauge the right time to attack and steal energy from him. However, upon noticing tensions within the Autobots and an easy way to manipulate the reckless and arrogant Hot Rod, his plan changed. He talked his way into an alliance with Hot Rod and the small group of Autobots following him. Together, they would build a ship to get off Earth. He inevitably betrayed them, attempting to kill the Autobots and steal the spaceship they helped his group to create, by modifying a group of stunticons to give them the gestalt ability to combine into one huge, powerful robot called Menasor. Unfortunately, that was the exact moment that Optimus Prime decided to reappear, directly on top of Swindles head.

He managed to slip away with the Constructicons while the Autobots were distracted by Menasor. Quickly, he came up with another plan to gain more energy, by taking advantage of tensions between the U.S. and North Korea to provide the services of the Constructicons as soldiers. As soon as he got what he wanted, he abandoned the Constructicons and slipped away again, back to America to continue his work with the facsimile. However, the Autobots were just starting to catch on that Spike Witwicky was up to something, and ended up following the trail back to Swindle, who they captured to interrogate. He ended up remaining in Autobot custody all the way back to Cybertron.

He was finally released, along with all the captured Decepticons, during a riot of the returned neutral-aligned Cybertronians who refused to be kept under Autobot rule. Afterward, he and the other Decepticons began to live about as normally on their home planet as you can after losing a four million year-long war.

As politics split between Autobot, Decepticon, and neutrals, Swindle got caught up along with Dirge in information about Prowl and Shockwave that could damn both the Autobots and the Decepticons in terms of public opinion. They both went to Starscream, acting Decepticon leader, who promised to protect them. Unfortunately, Prowl's agent Arcee found and kidnapped them, and Dirge decided to bring the information directly to acting Autobot leader Bumblebee, much to Swindle's dismay.

Bumblebee decided to take them to Prowl, but Swindle didn't quite make it as he was much too busy getting run over by a train, only barely surviving as Blurr attempted to push him out of the way. Out of a vague sense of obligation, Swindle moved the injured Blurr to safety.

After a huge riot, Starscream announced that the time for divisive factions between the Cybertronians was over, and that all Autobots and Decepticons that refused to renounce their factions would no longer have a place in the new city. Swindle was one of the Decepticons who stayed, removing his Decepticon brand and helping Blurr to rebuild his Oil House.

Character PERSONALITY:

Swindle is pretty much exactly what you'd expect of a guy named Swindle. He's a fast talker, a cheater, a con artist. He's good at telling people what they want to hear, and using them to work in his favor. He'll lie, cheat, and steal, and could probably find a way to sell you your own grandmother. He can pinpoint others' weak spots, and drive conversations straight to them as he sees fit.

Swindle's always got a bribe up his sleeve ready, tailor made for whoever he's about to encounter -- especially if that person happens to be Ultra Magnus, duly appointed officer of the Tyrest Accord, and possibly Swindle's least favorite Autobot in the galaxy. Him and law enforcement types don't do well as a general rule, really. They always know all the old tricks, though they may also be the easiest to bribe. They always want info on some bigger bad out there than Swindle, and if it means he still gets to go free, good for him. After the first time he was captured by police and used to test some new, line-toeing weapon tech... let's just say Swindle is always ready to assume the worst from the "good" guys.

There was a time that Swindle honestly did believe that the Decepticon cause was worth fighting for. It's obvious he'd seen what bad there was in society, and how easy it was for the weaker or less fortunately-constructed bots could fall through the cracks. At the start of the war, he believed in Megatron's words, that they could overturn the corrupt society of the Senate and achieve true equality under the name Megatron. But it's likely that the same thing that happened to Megatron happened to Swindle: idealism was beaten out of him. He may still believe the Decepticons are right, but it matters so much less, four million years later.

Now, what really matters? Is that cash money. Whoever said "money can't buy happiness" obviously didn't have the right amount on hand. The value of money is incredible in how much it can affect people, and Swindle is all about affecting people, working them in his own favor. He's not happy to sit back and let others walk all over him; if he's the one in charge, then he can't be the one getting taken advantage of.

Swindle often gets overlooked as a small threat, but that's part of what keeps him in business. Can't hustle someone if you're too notorious as a hustler. Unfortunately, though, that means that people often forget just how intelligent he is, both a good and a bad thing, depending on the situation. He invents the majority of the weapons he sells, many of them completely new ideas. He managed to throw together gestalt technology in a few days, something that had taken Shockwave, the big Decepticon thinker, millions of years to perfect. Of course, his rushed job wasn't perfect, but it still speaks volumes for his intelligence, which feeds directly into his big ego.

You have to be confident to really fool someone, after all. You can't expect someone to believe you when you don't even believe you. But Swindle's ego may be his biggest downfall; he never misses an opportunity to gloat. At the very least, though, he knows when he's beaten and is quick to retreat, though that make speak more for his cowardice than his self awareness. Swindle's always looking out for himself first, and will not hesitate to throw his allies under the bus if it will benefit him somehow. The fact that there are people who still trust him just goes to show how good he is at duping suckers.

Now that the war is over, Swindle is tired. He's gotten caught up in all the new politics on Cybertron and he hates it, preferring to stay low-key and under the radar. He's not quite out of business, but he prefers not to bring too much attention to himself anymore, as he's only ever regretted it. He no longer considers himself a Decepticon, a word he agrees has no more place in a post-war society.

» EXSILIUM INFORMATION
Chosen WEAPON:

A gun that starts out looking a little like one of the Megatron guns he was dispensing on Earth. As it evolves, it'll take on the various gimmicks of other weaponry Swindle's sold in the past. As very few weapons of his have actually been shown in IDW continuity, they'll be borrowed mostly from other continuities that Swindle exists in (especially Animated, where you see a lot of his stuff). Stuff like generating force fields, creating EMPs, and, eventually, something like the r-infinity accelerator.

Character INVENTORY: Plenty of shanix (robot money), paid to him by Rewind in MTMTE #1.