Source: Page 111 of White Noise Keywords: "Derivative," "wastes," "go," "kind"

From: : ReGenesis0@aol.com (Derik Smith) Subject: Re: Great War question Date: 28 Apr 2005 Newsgroups: alt.toys.transformers

Gustavo Wombat wrote: >O&S are described as legendary generals, but no specific faction is >given -- why not Maximal? They've fought a thousand wars, so they >definitely have the elder part down. The Ultimate Guide confirms that Obsidian was a Predacon general. (Meshing badly with his theoretical backstory in Beast Machines, but going well with Primal's reaction to him.) Obsidian's TFU profile says he was an Autobot general. But that's 3H, who knows fuck-all about their own continuity. Besides- this is describing an AU Obsidian. (We've had 3 Obsidians released, as a Vehicon and 2 Decepticons. Yet- he's theoretically either a Pred or an Autobot. I hate Hasbro. Also, we never got Rotorbolt. Hate2.) IMO? 4 million years of war- he was courted by both sides and switched sides a few times. (I always had a romantic vision of him as a Decepticon General and Strika as an Autobot General, and courting one another from across the battlefield with playful battlefield strategies. "How sweet, he sent me a tank battalion in the shape of a fuel pump!" Strika defects to be on Obie's side- which would fit Primal's decidedly UNIQUE reaction when Obsidian mentions her in Sparkwar.) Evil Ash wrote: >That was my original interpretation of it for the longest time and I >woulda been happy with that until, as Kil already mentioned, Primeval >Dawn had to go and call Tarantulas "Unicron's Spawn" : ( Not just called him that- but explicitly said he was Unicron's spawn in 3rd person narration. Of course, sicne then we've seen Tarantulus bopping around inside Unicron in TFU, and mini-Tarray's used as Unicron's defensive system in Energon? I think that train has sailed. Bite the bullet and admit he's Unicron's spawn. Which means- so are the Tripredicus Council. (But not necessarily the Predacon Alliance over all- they were just the most powerful of many councils, operating their own agenda.) Gustavo Wombat wrote: >One of the more ambitious things that Beast Machines did >(albeit rather poorly), was to explore the relationship >between the immortal soul and body that it is placed in, >using the first three Vehicon generals It also cemented the move from Sparks being this demi-mystical belief that only religious nut-heads took seriously-to a very real practical physical thing everyone knew about, that could be yanked out and slotted into a new body like a Headmaster. By Armada, you have Red Alert removing Smokescreen's spark to perform surgery. By Energon- "Inferno was destroyed-but we saved his spark!" Sparks were a great addition to the mythos- horribly marred by what's been done with them by zip-head writers who are either contractually obligated to not research them enough to use them properly (Bob Skir) or are Japanese-and thus can't write. Gustavo, stop tantalizing Grebo. >Wow. Well, it makes sense, especially when put in that >context. And you're right, BM really does take strong cues >from Rebirth. Im amazed that I never noticed that ?you didn't notice that Beast Machines has the Plasma Energy Chamber and Vector Sigma all over, with VS pulling the strings to foster TF evolution? ?what show were you watching? >Heck, I'll go even further and say that Im not real >keen on Primus and his goddamn all-encompassing and >overpowering Grand Plan has become in TF stories. >Its like the TFs have been robbd of any and all self- >actualization. Thanks a load, Furman! (Grumble, growl, >gripe.) I have a long planned fanfic I've never found a character or scenario that it works for, about a TF who sets out to kill the sllspark and forever sever the TF's connection to their creator so that they can have self-determination. It's terribly meta- it's nto that he HATES Primus-but he's like a meddling father who won't let you order lunch without telling you to eat the pasts- BECAUSE IT IS FORETOLD! Also- he's done many creepy and awful thigns to TF over the years in the service of his grand plan. It's not that TF's would necessarily do better WITHOUT him? so much as they'd at least be succeeding or failing on their OWN merits. "Besides, how hard is it to do better than a nine million year war?" >I probably am voicing an unpopular opinion when I say >that I really don't like Furman's big-scale "contributions" >to TF lore: Primus, the Liege Maximo, Alignment, J'nwan... >I think those are all crapola. I like his smaller-scale >stories very much, however. For instance, "Perspective" >(the Energon story from the Dreamwave Summer Special) >was a hoot! Furman's been crapped on in writing TF. He did Unicron in finishing off G1, which actually spun out of two years of much smaller personal stories taking place under its banner. For G2 he did this cosmic revelations/swarm thing? which made sense for what it was. (I dislike it too, but it made SENSE when pitching G2, had the series continued I think you'd see neither hide nor hair of it come #13?) then for Botcon, he was writing a BW story, and everyone wanted something BIG and special and G!'y? "Well, no one's done Unicron for 7 years?" Then comes Dreamwave- Unicron is IN the Armada/Energon toyline. He can't not use him if he wants to. The G1 comic is ramping up to a 3 year buildup to TF:TM. And then some IDIOT (shall I name names?) decided to make TFU all about Unicron? I think Furman WANTS to do his more personal cute stories, but he's been shat on both by requirements to use Unicron- and Dreamwave's 6 issue arc edicts. >>BW's intermezzo has THIS fundamental problem: >> -Everyone is gone. >> -The BW-era guys are all new. >> -Lots of old guys are running around. >> -Many of the BW-guys predate the BW era. >> Resolving these 4 basic tenets has caused mass >>anguish among fans. >Indeed! Myself included. However, Derik, I'm curious how >much of your third and fourth tenets comes from BW itself? >(As opposed to BotContinuity and DW and such.) Nothing in BW or BM really violates 3 and 4. But the TOYLINE and all the ancillary stuff does in SPADES. I think it's pointless to try and discuss BW/BM in a vacuum without their supporting materials- they exist in a bubble, with very vague statements that could mean almost anything when it comes to past continuity, lines fans have spent years rationalizing and building on, etc. The universe BW/BM present is one where EVERYONE except Ravage got recycled- period. And we know NOTHING about modern Maximal society. But EVERYTHIGN non-toon doesn't just shit on this, it shotguns it. Sticks a firecracker up its ass and watches it blow to pieces. They're almost separate universes. I find it SO pointless to discuss BW/BM without any encapsulating material? I don't. (Because, really, that's not what anyone wants to discuss anyway. They want to discuss which G1 characters are still around and having sexengs!) >And also, Derik, your summary of the Predacon Alliance's >political policies are the coolest, most stimulating >conjecture on TF lore I've read in a while, man. (And >the best part is, there's no Primus nor Unicron in sight!) *shrug* I just tried to put together the hard references that were there, generating as little connective tissue myself as possible. I think they paint a clear picture- but as I said elsewhere on this thread- no one actually cares what the stories REALLY say, they get all hot and bothered about what they WANT them to say. "This is what BW era should be like!" (And the ensuing description immediately contradicts at least 3 o the very few explicit statement we have about what BW-era IS like.) Fanboys. I blame them for Unicron. Shadowwing wrote: >It's not just a lack of energy resources, though. It's also >>the apparent lack of population. Going by the cartoon universe, >>it seems like there was hardly anyone left living on Cybertron >>all that time. >Looking at the Japanese version, some Transformers >left Cybertron (Seibertron) to avoid the War. There are >also other Transformer colonies that we see in the US show. >How many Transformers left the planet? That would contribute. I think frankly, the energy situation on Cybertron became SO dire, everyone got blown back to the equivalent of Stone Knives and Bearskins. (Or at least Max Max.) If all anyone can scrape up power for it a couple of blaster pistols and some basic self-repair-you could do THAT kinda low-scale conflict for a million years, easy. And Cybertron apparently experiences an energy shortage for FOUR MILLION YEARS. The situation was already desperate at Arklaunch. >I can't understand a lot of Omega Point's finale, but >J'nwan is hard to follow. Is it some form of Transformers >afterlife, or a rest home. If the latter, I really don't >see Megatron being so cordial. Afterlife, plus a dimension you can access through a blasted out portion of Cybertron's wastes. Think of it as a 'realm of the dead' you can actually journey to- (Like Hercules visiting Hades!) People get really worked up about J'nwan. It was meant to be at least partly metaphorical on every level- and you cant' separate it from it's metaphor like you can most things-so don't' try and just take it at face value. Grebo replied: >How many Transformers left the planet? That would contribute. >True indeed! An excellent point. But then the question is >begged - why didn't THEY evolve? (The ones who left, I >mean.) Of course, in the case of Fortress' crew, the answer >is that they did -- into Headmasters. Except the Headmasters thing wasn't' an 'evolution' in Japan. It was just thing? thing. Brainmasters aren't an evolution. Even GODMASTERS weren't an evolution. They were just toy-schtick with no cosmic significance to them at all. 'Evolving' is part of the US Transformer mythos (dating from early 1987, IIRC) and it's wormed it's way into everything else. Japanese Beastformers are the size of G1 TF's. They didn't' downsize like Micromasters-because Microtransformers weren't an E'EVOLUTION,' they were just TF's whose toys were SMALL. The only time (AFAIK) the whole 'evolution' thing really comes up for Japan is the reissue Micromaster storyline- and they're riffing US-continuity there. >So anyway, yeah -- The Great Shutdown. Dreamwave's major >contribution of TF lore that is neither derivative nor kewl. Well, we agree that it's not cool anyways. I have a bug up my butt about people who're all- 'but a war CAN'T last for 4 million years!' -To BEGIN with, it's 9 million and these people are ignorant fanboys who want to harp about their PET ideas about what TF SHOULD be like (probably Gundam) without being inconvenienced by the facts. Thus- the 4MY thing is nicely symbolic of their problem. -Alpha Trion is 11 million years old, going from young and spunky (and voiced by Spike) to old and Crotchety in the process. That gives us a decent upper limit to TF ages. On Earth we've had wars lasting more than two centuries. The 'Great War' of G1 hlastes less than a single Transformer generation-about 40 years, relative. Wars are perpetuated by people and cultures. Long wars are won when a culture, having fought for literally generations, wither loses, or decides they no longer care about that which their ancestors 3 and 4 generations back started this war over. In TF, the guys who started the war (and are most strongly invested in it, emotionally) aren't just still AROUND, they're IN POWER. France's response to WW2 was shaped because during WW1, they sent all their young men off, and got them killed. So instead of that generation ascending to power, the exact same people were running things during WW2. >I'm sorry, I simply can't buy the G1 Predacons forming a >movement, nor can I see them signing the Pax Cybertronia. >No way. I mean, they're Primitives, for pete's sake! 'toon centrist. In the comics Razorclaw was one of the savvier faction leaders attached ot Shockwave. (And last seen, he had a copy of ol' one-eyes scheming logical personality on him, actually.) I tend to agree BTW- they're not connected except possibly spiritually. (There has to be a REAOSN we've seen so many Predacon kids named Razorclaw.) (But for me to concede this, you have to concede that BW Rampage is G1 Rampage-at least in DW continuity.) >(Word has it that if the OVA series not been cut short, >{Violenger] was planned to have a toy -- and it was going >to be a three-insect combiner. As I understand it, VJ is >so described in the TV Magazine text stories that wrapped >up TF: Zone.) Two of his three individual robot modes appear in the Zone credits sequence. http://members.aol.com/regenesis0/zonecredits.jpg They're not toy friendly. At any rate- I agree Violenger is one of the more sensible explanations I've heard for the Tripredicus Council. But-t hat in mind, you have to bear in mind that Tarantulus is a Spawn of Unicron,a nd the TPC share his origins. Ergo- Violenger would be related to Unicron. (Which I have no real problem with, and it would also ground them as being TF-related, not just some whacked-out insect-god that took a shine on resurrecting dead Decepticons.) At any rate- even if that be the case, I see the TPC, Spawn of Unicron though they be- as being very much cut loose at the point BW takes place, no longer actively connected to Unicron. (Be he their creator, their master, or merely a source of their powers? all undecided.) >>Some of the first generation of Maximals, the >>founding members who are as such elder than >>everyone else and have shaped the development >>of the new Pax Cybertronia-era society from >>the beginning, would be my theory. >Bah. >I still think it's Magnaboss. Well, Magnaboss is the head of the High Council post-BM, but I don't' think that's representative of the pre-BM membership. (Also, it's appellation-mission 'High Council,' not necessarily the Maximal HC. 5 o9f the members are Maximals- the 6th may or may not be Predacon to represent their minority on Cybertron in some sort of post-BM political rearrangement.) >I agree wholeheartedly. I think the very name "Maximal >Elders" implies this... However, I was wondering more >specifically of WHO the Elders are. All new characters. 'High Council' that meets in Orbit and speaks directly for Vector Sigma (yeah? I hate it too, but it's how BM's backstory works) and a Maximal Council of Elders that met in a Citadel on Cybertron. Possibly 2 houses, possibility state vs. Federal, possible religious vs. secular. Head or the Orbital council (which I think is the High Council) is Great Convoy- who runs around and gets himself hilariously killed aboard his Maximus-class flagship in Neo. (I, clearly, think this is Beachcomber's Great Maximus who rode out of the sunset at the end of the great war like King Arthur returning in his people' greatest hour of need. Or, you know, Prester John.) Grebo wrote: >Oh... my... God! This is friggin BRILLIANT, Gustavo! >War is the natural state for Transformers. It explains >so much!!! It always struck me as odd that Primus's >creations, ostensibly created to fight Unicron, could go so wrong and be locked in civil war for millions of >years, but...you're right! If they fight all the time, >they're dying all the time, and Primus gets the "intel" >he needs from the mortal plane! One possible interpretation. That, or Primus has them battle to grow stronger to fight Unicron. Or Unicron sowed the seeds of dissent early in Cybertrons' pre-history making Primus's creation flawed. Of course, Al-Badur was kind enough to give us a clue. He recognized the Wreckers as being of Cybertronian manufacture- and Apelinq corrects him that the Maximals among them (and JUST the maximals) are the first generation to have the distinction of not being called Quint product. That makes no sense (since virtually EVVERY TF except Alpha Trio and Beta were created post-overthrow?)unless Apelinq means something else. The Maximals are the first generation not to be loaded with the Autobot Code. Legacy code, that stretches all the way back to the Quintessons? and embedded in the Autobot and Decepticon codes was the protocols that locked them in eternal useless war if they ever rebelled. (Presumably so the Quints could retake Cybertron.) But the Maximals come along? No more legacy code- and the first peace Cybertron has known. Grimlock was RIGHT to want to toss out the Autobot code- but then Furman always wrote him as knowing something more than he was letting on. No1 wrote: >I agree completely. As a rule, when the writers >strart bringing in prophecies and predeterminism, >I start losing interest. Destiny, not Predestination. Primus has a future in mind he's trying to shape everything towards (The One IMO) but not a vision of the future- things go off-course fairly often and have to be corrected. He's TRYING to make this happen? not very successfully. -Derik

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