((I actually have a headcanon about that – it has to do with what each of them understood about Dark Energon and how it works, how they chose to use it, and how it affected them. Megatron fully understood that this was the blood of Unicron, and that he was placing himself in Unicron’s service in exchange for power. He took Unicron’s power into himself and it fully bonded with him. Starscream, on the other hand, always kept Dark Energon at arm’s length and didn’t want to know what it truly was.
Starscream’s whole thing with Dark Energon was “if this made Megatron powerful then I want it too.” It was superficial, and even though he knew it’s Unicron’s blood, I don’t think he was fully down for the soul-selling aspect of using it. He didn’t seem to understand that aspect at all, didn’t know what it would do, and was thoroughly freaked out by it, but then he saw it work for Megatron and decided to go for it after getting the shit beaten out of him. He got briefly enflamed with power, but that power never took hold. Notice when he actually tried to use it, his eyes went from purple back to red, resulting in him getting his arm shot off:
The shard is still sitting in his Spark chamber at that point, but Unicron isn’t going to mess around and waste his power on some guy who just wants a zombie to murder his boss. Starscream is out for himself, and wouldn’t place himself in thrall to Unicron to command an undead army the way Megatron did. He doesn’t want to dive that deeply in, so he doesn’t get the full “benefits” as deeply as Megatron. I think there has to be an element of free, informed choice if you’re selling your soul to Unicron. So basically what I’m saying is Starscream is too self-centered and also not crazy enough to be a good servant of Unicron, so his experience with Dark Energon is more of a flash in pan (or a burst of flames), while Megatron shudders as his whole essence is bonded with Unicron’s. It’s why Megatron can control zombies and Starscream really can’t even though he can sense that Skyquake was re-animated. Starscream is an amateur when it comes to the ways of Dark Energon, which is ironic, considering he spent so long trying to keep it out of Megatron’s grasp to begin with. Then again, he did that because he didn’t know what it could do and frankly didn’t want to know. He still used it once Megatron got ahold of it though, because he can’t let Megatron have something powerful that he doesn’t also have.))
((It also might be because they are too different styles of extra, and Starscream is the least subtle person ever ))
How's it hummin'? 