insecuriosity

When it comes to fanfiction, oftentimes the Spark is the most important aspect of a Transformer’s existence. Without it, they would die. It is insinuated to be the source of a Cybertronian’s sentience/sapience/intelligence, and it is often compared to the human Soul.

At the same time, there’s been instances of reprogramming ( in both fic and canon ) which forever altered the mech in question. The destruction of a brainmodule has been shown to be almost the same as death.
Rung, with his brainmodule having gone through some trauma, was completely unresponsive and near comatose. Nautica held onto Skids’ brain module, in the hopes that his spark could be rekindled in some way.

So, even though the details are never explained in canon ( how wonderful, plenty of room for headcanoning!) we know that the brainmodule is at least equal to the spark in importance.

My personal headcanon, is that the spark is what generates emotion, attachments, and feelings. And that the Brainmodule is necessary to interpret the signals of the spark, and to translate outside events to signals that the spark can understand.
They work in tandem, and develop set patterns and ‘shortcuts’ so as to say, as the Cybertronian grows older and has more life experience.

With that thought in mind, I wondered… What would happen if the sparks were swapped, but the brainmodules were not?

Say, perhaps, a Pre-War Jazz and Prowl?