That's not really the point I'm making here, and I'd have to disagree that the term used is simply a shortcut for us to think of our own government as the model here. There has been more then one system of government on Earth that has used the term "Senator". Some of which had more political power comparatively to ours. The Roman Senate for example, at least during the Roman Republic era. They were not elected officials like our Senators are, instead being appointed to their seats by other officials (whom were elected). Now, I'm not at all saying Megatron had the ability to establish changes on his own. Obviously, as a part of a Senate, anything he proposes probably has to be passed by a majority vote. But regardless, as a Senator, he has a great deal of political power, and how popular he is with the public will have an influence on the rest of the Senate. And being an alien form of government, we have no idea what differences they might have or just how much influence he might have compared to our system. But the point I'm making here, is that this is a Megatron already in a seat of great political power, possibly more so than our senators are considered to have, given past versions of the Cybertronian senate seem to have been influenced more by the Roman Republic Senate than our own Senate. Only with less checks and balances given the Cybertronian Senate is usually shown to be corrupt, without a means to remove those elements. And this Megatron is not the nobody miner, or the gladiator, as previous versions of Megatron have been. It's a very different interpretation of the character who is an influential Senator with the support of the public, as apposed to someone fighting the system from outside of it, leading a mob.Shockwave wrote:I think there's plenty of basis. The term "Senator" and the fact that there are obviously more than one implies that there is some sort of shared power structure where they all agree on a majority to get things done. And, Orion is obviously not on board with Megatron's movement. If we assume the other senators aren't either that definitely would limit Megatron's legal political power, probably enough for him to take it to the extent of waging war which is pretty obviously what we're seeing here. If their senate didn't have some sort of similar structure to ours then why would the writers bother using that term when they could just make up something completely alien and different. The terms are used because it's a shortcut that the audience is familiar with to establish that this is the way politics works in this setting.
And, I wouldn't say Orion is not on board with Megatron's goals here. I mean, he might be, but we don't actually know what Megatron is trying to change yet actually, let alone what Orion's position on it is. The reason Orion talked with Megatron was just to ask him to stop his demonstrations, as the "Ascenticons" rallies are becoming violent, with dozens of citizens injured in the last one. For whatever reason, Megatron seems to believe these rallies are the only way he can accomplish the changes he's proposing, what ever that might be.