Cartoon Viewing Club: Zob's Thoughts on "The Key to Vector Sigma" parts 1 and 2

[Zobovor]

"The Key to Vector Sigma" parts 1 and 2 are episodes #56 and #57 of the original Transformers series, both penned by David Wise.  They represent the beginning of a dramatic shift in the focus of the show; the final ten episodes of the season focused on showcasing the Scramble City teams, and to this end, this two-part episode features the first appearances of the Aerialbots and Stunticons.  Both episode were penned by David Wise, first airing on November 25 and 26 back in 1985.  This features the first episode with Vector Sigma, and also includes a return appearance of Alpha Trion, who had previously appeared in "The Search for Alpha Trion."

After Hasbro had exhausted most of the readily available Diaclone and Microman toys for use as Transformers, they started digging through the Takara archives to see if there were any other robot toy designs they could appropriate.  They evidently came across an unused Diaclone concept called Scramble City, which consisted of smaller-scale vehicles that could connect to each other as well as a city playset.  All the mini-vehicles were interchangeable, but Hasbro never really promoted this idea as a play feature.  As luck would have it, there was a team of all cars (which fit nicely within the existing Autobots theme) and a team of all jets (which would obviously make fine Decepticons), but somewhere along the way, somebody decided to swap the teams around.  What if the cars were actually Decepticons, and the planes were a team of Autobots?  This was a simple but brilliant idea that really shook things up and really made the Stunticons and Aerialbots a novelty.  

Oddly, this two-part episode never aired during Transformers: Generation 2, despite heavily featuring the Aerialbots, who had G2 toys in stores, and the Stunticons, who were planned to be included in the G2 toy line before somebody at Hasbro changed their mind.  

"THE KEY TO VECTOR SIGMA" PART 1

Our episode begins with the Autobots guarding a convoy of tanker trucks filled with a new experimental super fuel, which the U.S. government is providing to the Autobots to test out.  One wonders how this is going to work, since all indications are that all Transformers are powered by energon.  The Autobots would have to convert the fuel into energon before they could use it.  Of course, we've seen that different types of fuel result in different types of energon (witness the "super-energon" made from Carbombyan oil in "Thief in the Night") so perhaps the Autobots can evaluate it based on the grade of energon it results in.  

Optimus Prime seemed to think that Prowl, Smokescreen, and Warpath would be sufficient to guard the fuel, and Prowl doubts whether Megatron even knows of its existence, but Megatron probably has cameras hidden inside flip-top rocks all over the world, so of course he found out about it.  He orders Thrust, Ramjet, and Dirge to attack, and they all reply "With pleasure, Megatron!" as if they shared one brain.  That's kind of weird.  The Autobots try to evade their pursuers by taking a road that leads right through the mountainside; Thrust and Dirge are deterred as they hit the rock face ("I knew I'd never make it," Dirge moans pathetically) but Ramjet, the only Decepticon who could probably survive such an impact, manages to make it through unscathed.  Prime calls for them to all drive into a tunnel, and Ramjet is unable to pull up in time, crashing.  Dirge and Thrust recover him and take him back to the base for repairs.

Megatron is incensed that the Autobots are escaping.  "So?  We can't exactly drive after 'em!" Rumble says.  He's stating the obvious, of course, but it's the first of several comments that are going to resonate within Megatron's consciousness, culminating in a decision to do something about the Autobots' dominance on the ground.  Megatron is getting a little desperate and flies to the end of the tunnel, intending to intercept the Autobots as they emerge.  He threatens to blow up the tanker truck, resulting in a huge fuel-fueled explosion.  Prime bravely calls him on his bluff, practically daring Megatron to do it.  Megatron gets as far as crying "Die, you miserable...!" and bringing his fusion cannon to bear before Smokescreen intervenes.  Was he going to actually fire?  We may never know for sure.  In any event, Smokescreen does his famous (and only) trick, covering Megatron with a thick coat of his trademark sticky smoke.  Megatron flies off, swearing revenge.  This could be the end of a fairly typical episode, albeit a very short episode.

In the aftermath, Rumble is still stating the obvious.  "Whaddaya gonna do?  They practically rule the road!"  Megatron realizes he needs to do something about this.  Also, Megatron has one entirely black arm and one entirely white arm.  The smoke completely stripped off his paint!  Anyway, Megatron's decided it's time to collect some toy cars.  What follows is a montage of Rumble stealing various vehicles, because he's pretty much the only Decepticon small enough to actually drive them off.  Rumble interrupts a Formula One race and finds himself a nice yellow Tyrell P34 six-wheeler.  (In real life, the six-wheeler was blue in color and was only used in the late 1970's.)  He grabs the driver by the neck, rips him out of the car, and throws him off-screen, probably killing him.  Cut to a bank robbery where a couple of hoodlums make their escape in a sexy Porsche 928.  Did Megatron give Rumble specific instructions on what types of cars to steal, or does Rumble just have a taste for high-end performance vehicles?  Anyway, as before, Rumble opens the driver's side door, yanks the bank robber out, and throws him out of the cabin.  Mind, this is while the guy is fleeing the scene of a felony, so he's probably not going the speed limit.  That's at least two murders under Rumble's fanbelt.  Next, he sets his sights on a big, black tractor trailer truck.  Rumble jumps right through the passenger-side window, shattering it (that's fine; Megatron's going to replace the windows with something more Decepticonesque) and sending the tucker tumbling down the road.  How rude.  We don't see where Rumble found the Lamborghini or the Ferarri, but we can assume some drivers got thrown to their deaths.  

So, five vehicles later and Megatron is ready to do some customizing.  He starts cutting the cars apart and stuffing them full of new components.  This has always kind of bothered me a little, because everything we know about Transformers up to this point suggest that they're normally made out of alien, Cybertronian metals.  Modern cars are made of plastic and fiberglass, certainly not tough enough for a Decepticon warrior.  (Also, this episode does not address whether or not the Stunticons require cybertonium, which was previously established as an element that's inside every Transformer.)  When everything is said and done, the tractor trailer truck has some snazzy new purple windows and they're all adorned with Decepticon symbols.  Megatron activates the controls, and the cars rev their engines and venture into the world.  (The Decepticons evidently built a mechanic shop or something, because there's zero indication that they were building the vehicles at their underwater base.)  

Now, I don't recall precisely whether this episode aired before or after the Challenge of the GoBots episode "Auto-Matic," which featured the six-member Puzzler combiner.  Puzzler was arguably one of the coolest GoBots toys, but the episode presented them as mindless remote-controlled machines (who were destroyed by episode's end).  By this point in the episode, the Stunticons were shaping up to be the exact same thing.  Yeah, their vehicle-mode abilities were pretty impressive.  They had forcefields that basically made them indestructible, able to crash right into trees and rocks without taking damage, and they had anti-gravitational abilities that allowed them to fly limited distances in car mode.  That's great.  But they still didn't really seem like Transformers.  It was kind of disappointing.  (By this point, I was already aware of the existence of the Stunticons because they had been playing the toy commercials for a while.  I had always heard the name as "Stackticons," which made sense to my ten-year-old mind inasmuch as they stacked together when they combined together.)

Rumble is impressed.  "Not even the Autobots can do that kind of stunt driving!" he proclaims.  Megatron takes his inspiration from this comment and christens them the Stunticons.  So far, everything Megatron has done has been based entirely on random remarks made by Rumble.  Perhaps Rumble is the true Decepticon master, and Megatron is just a puppet.  Anyway, the Stunticons finally transform to their robot modes.  It's just because Megatron pushed a button on his remote control, but it's something, at least.

Elsewhere, the Autobots are watching an instant replay of the theft (and murder!) at the Formula One race.  Optimus finds himself wonder how Megatron is planning to bring them to life, since, in his own words, "There's no way here on Earth to give them cybernetic personalities like we have."  In some ways this is kind of retconny, but it's got enough qualifiers that it can technically stand as a correct statement.  The Constructicons were supposedly built on Earth in "Heavy Metal War," but they got a new Cybertron-based origin in "The Secret of Omega Supreme" so we have to accept that the Decepticons were merely rebuilding the Constructicons into Earth vehicle forms, not actually creating them per se.  Then there's the matter of the Dinobots, who, too, were built on Earth.  They're all complete idiots, though, so maybe that's the distinction.  According to this episode, only the supercomputer Vector Sigma can give "life" to Transformers (whatever that means in this context).  If that's the case, though, then that means the Dinobots aren't really "alive" because Vector Sigma had nothing to do with their creation.

Anyway, Megatron takes his little remote-controlled robots to Cybertron over the space bridge.  Shockwave reminds Megatron that Vector Sigma can't be used until it's activated by the circuit key, which is guarded by Alpha Trion.  Megatron acts like he was never told any of this.  This episode, along with episodes like "Five Faces of Darkness" and "Surprise Party," supports the idea that Transformers have a limited long-term memory recall.  At various points, characters like Rumble and even Optimus Prime claim to not recognize or remember Vector Sigma, despite the fact that Vector Sigma should have given them all life to begin with.  Megatron's ignorance about the key further suggests this.  If Megatron knew about the supercomputer, surely he would have tried to use it to create new Decepticons at some point previously.  If it was millions of years ago, however, he might have simply forgotten about it.  Just like Optimus Prime forgot that Alpha Trion was his creator, or how Blitzwing had forgotten about the Quintessons, or how Ultra Magnus forgot his own birthday.  

I just want to say that Frank Welker's delivery of Megatron in this episode is much higher pitched than I'm accustomed to hearing him.  Compare his voice in this episode to earlier installments from the first season.  It's almost a completely different voice characterization.

Anyway, the Autobots realize they must travel to Cybertron to stop Megatron from giving birth, because there's nothing more evil and diabolical than bringing new life into the world.  The Stunticon abortion team consists of Optimus Prime, nurse Ratchet, Ironhide, Wheeljack, Blaster, and good ol' Moist, on leave during a production break of filming Son of Revenge of the Evil Alien Robots II: the Sequel.  

Alpha Trion is digging through his messy old workshop, looking for a misplaced tool, when Megatron and crew arrive and demand the key to Vector Sigma.  Alpha Trion stalls for time, reaches for a ceiling-mounted blaster apparatus, and lets loose.  Soundwave ejects Ravage to tackle the old geezer and hold him in place while the other search for the key.  Soundwave locates it after blasting away some junk; it's hanging on the wall on a charger, like a 1980's-era cordless phone.  How quaint.  The first commercial break doesn't come until ten minutes into the episode, but we're finally here!

So, Omega Supreme launches his rocket module from Earth to Cybertron, while his rocket base remains on Earth.  When he lands on Cybertron, though, he's still able to transform to robot mode.  How is this possible, when his rocket consists of his arms, and the rest of his body forms the rocket base?  Does he shunt his entire rocket base into subspace and teleport it?  Or does he have two identical bodies (one on Earth, one on Cybertron) and his arms just shuttle back and forth between them?  Does that mean Omega Supreme's consciousness is, in fact, inside his arms?  (Answers below.)

The Autobots go to see Alpha Trion, who can teach them all about Vector Sigma.  When they find his damaged body, however, Prime orders Hoist and Ratchet to fix him up.  Nobody mentions how this delay is going to give the Decepticons a huge head start.  Once he's up and functional, Alpha Trion explains how Vector Sigma is still operational, so all it needs to give the Stunticons life is the power circuit key.  There is evidently only one possible route to the Vector Sigma chamber, in the form of a tunnel on the surface of Cybertron that leads into its depths.  

Sometimes, a writer would submit a story premise to be turned into an episode, and some executive at Hasbro or Sunbow or Marvel Productions would go, "This is great!  Can you make it a two-part episode?"  The problem that seems to be endemic to most of the two-part stories is that there is so much filler.  An example of this, in my opinion, is the clash between the Decepticons and the centurion droids.  It's explained that they were programmed to guard the Vector Sigma chamber, but ironically, they don't have any life of their own.  They're just these homogenous ugly green robots with domes for heads, who don't speak and don't have toys on the shelf.  I think that's one of the reasons I'm so bored by them.  This was an episode that introduced the five Stunticon toys, so when I was a kid, I wanted to see Stunticons in action.  I wanted to learn their names and get to know their individual personality quirks.  I wasn't interested in watching Soundwave and the tapes fight off an army of Mysterio knockoffs.

So, the droids just shrug off the Decepticon counterattack.  They grab Ravage by the tail and throw him aside; Rumble gets his just desserts when one of them grabs him by the neck and throws him out of a moving vehicle.  Well, okay, not really, but they should have.  Soundwave even breaks out his shoulder cannon, which he rarely uses as a weapon, but to no avail.  Megatron finally figures out that if he brandishes the Vector Sigma key, the centurion droids will recognize that he has legitimate business down in the lower levels and the droids will stop attacking.  What's more, he can use the key to issue them orders, telling them to head towards the planet's surface and destroy the Autobots up there.  

"It's a miracle we survived that blast," says Optimus Prime, apropos of nothing.  Clearly, there was a planned scene that is completely missing from the finished episode.  Perhaps it has something to do with the sabotage of Omega Supreme, as seen later in the episode.  In any event, this random non sequitur just makes Optimus seem like he's gone senile.  Naturally, the other Autobots humor him by not arguing with him about there not having been an explosion of any kind.  (The Metrodome DVD release from 2004, for the British market, included some early dialogue scripts for several episodes.  The script for "The Key to Vector Sigma" indicates that Prime orders Blaster to do a scan for booby traps before Blaster cries out in surprise, so evidently this is the blast Prime is referring to.  If the Powers That Be decided to cut that scene, though, they should have also cut the line of dialogue that references it!)

The Autobots stop long enough to observe some old-timey maintenance robots , who at this point are just strewn all over the ground.  They also take note of some ancient Cybertronian shuttles, and Alpha Trion remarks how he used to ride them to school when he was a youngster.  Well, not really, but close enough.  Blaster, always the master of tact, points out that this must have been one hell of a long time ago.  Blaster also proceeds to remark that the Autobots are "el losto," because as we all know, all you need to do to translate English to Spanish is add an "o" to the end of every word.  Alpha Trion explains that they're definitely heading in the same direction the Decepticons went, because who else would have sent the centurion droids to kill them?  (This line must have slipped past the censors, because typically this show used words like "destroy" instead of "kill."  It's extremely rare when this word actually makes it into a finished episode.)

Megatron, Soundwave, and Rumble have made it into the Vector Sigma chamber.  I would venture that one of the reasons Megatron's actually been successful up to this point is that he didn't bring Starscream along this time.  Typically, Megatron always had Soundwave and Starscream at his side, whether it was a good idea for Screamer to be there or not.  It's possible he was still recovering from his Megatron-inflicted injuries from "Hoist Goes Hollywood."  It's also possible that Megatron deliberately excluded Starscream from this mission.  He tended to punish his troops by not inviting them along after particularly egregious incidents.  (Witness how the ever-loyal Cyclonus tried to get therapy for Galvatron in "Webworld," and by the very next episode, "Carnage in C-Minor," it was Soundwave at Galvatron's side instead of Cyclonus, who had always been a fixture at Galvatron's side up to this point.)  Anyway, Vector Sigma is activated, and only four minutes later, we cut to our next commercial.

Vector Sigma (voiced by Corey Burton, doing a sort of constipated Brawn voice) seems to be neither good nor evil, doing merely whatever its current user requests of it.  It doesn't make judgement calls.  "Fill them with hatred for the Autobots, and all the Autobots stand for!" is Megatron's instruction to the computer, and it responds by zapping them all with purple lightning, ostensibly imbuing their bodies with pieces of the extradimensional AllSpark.  (Obviously, that term wasn't in use until Beast Machines, but according to Optimus Primal, every Transformer has a piece of the AllSpark inside him, and their life force returns to the AllSpark when they die.  Beast Machines establishes that Vector Sigma is essentially a gateway, and that the afterlife for Transformers is also where life begins for them.)

Elsewhere, the Autobots are still fighting the centurion droids, and are having no better luck than the Decepticons did.  (The animators get away with reusing some animation of laser fire bouncing off the droids unceremoniously, only the colors have been changed from purple Decepticon weapons fire to orange Autobot laser bolts.)  Hoist gets tossed by one of them like a rag doll, and silently wonders where the hell his stunt double is.  Optimus tries to head-butt another, who bounces off a wall and just keeps right on coming.  There are over three dozen of them in evidence and the Autobots are forced to withdraw.

After Vector Sigma is done programming the Stunticons, they introduce themselves.  Vector Sigma must have taken some serious liberties with Megatron's instructions.  Unless Vector Sigma is just pulling sparks from the existing AllSpark pool at random, it's odd that it would have given the Stunticons such specific personality defects.  It's not fully evident from this episode alone, but we'll see later that Dead End is a manic depressive fatalist, Drag Strip is obsessed with winning, Wildrider is a psychotic reckless driver, and Breakdown is a nervous wreck who stammers and garbles his words.  Motormaster is arguably the only one of them without some crippling personality defect.  For storytelling purposes, it's great that the Stunticons aren't just clones of one another, and it's great that they're finally alive (sixteen minutes into the episode), but this isn't exactly what Megatron ordered, is it?

The introduction of the Stunticons required some new voice talent to be added to the existing cast.  Drag Strip was voiced by Ron Gans, who also played Eeyore in a puppet version of Winnie the Pooh, and would provide the voice of the alien oil slick Armus (the thing that killed Tasha Yar) in an episode of Star Trek: the Next Generation.  Phillip Clarke was already a mainstay on G.I. Joe by the time he was cast as Dead End, and also played another transforming Porsche, Dr. Go, on Challenge of the GoBots.  Wildrider was Terry McGovern, who later enjoyed the long-running role of Launchpad McQuack in DuckTales and, later, Darkwing Duck (he also did a voiceover in George Lucas' absolutely horrible film THX-1138).  Roger C. Carmel was cast as Cyclonus for The Transformers: the Movie before this episode was produced, so he was recruited to play Motormaster (and Bruticus, a couple of episodes down the line).  In this episode, Breakdown is voiced by Jack Angel (previously cast as Smokescreen and Ramjet), but in later episodes the character would be recast and played by Allan Oppenheimer (Warpath, Beachcomber, Seaspray).  

The Stunticons all put on a show of feigning utter and extreme loyalty to Megatron, though in later episodes we'll see that it was largely an act, telling Megatron to "blow it out his exhaust" when they're summoned for a mission.  For the moment, though, Megatron is satisfied and takes them with him back to Earth.  Elsewhere, the Autobots, in full retreat, have found their way back into the room with the oldskool shuttles and dilapidated maintenance drones.  Prime orders Hoist and Ratchet to get them running again.  They already put Alpha Trion back together, so how hard can it possibly be?  Apparently, all it takes is for Ratchet to jumpstart them with a zap of electricity, and they're all up and running again.  They all look a little bit like Pretender Waverider to me, at least in terms of color scheme.

What follows is, to me, the most boring and pointless filler scene in the entire episode.  Nameless, faceless maintenance drones square off against the nameless, faceless centurion droids.  Why should I care?  These aren't toys Hasbro wants me to buy.  The centurions absolutely mop the floor with the drones.  I guess it's interesting in that we're not usually afforded this kind of wanton destruction on the show (the drones are, in turn, punched to death, beheaded, and knocked into pieces—something they could never do to named characters).  The next group of maintenance robots walk right off a cliff, and like robotic lemmings, the centurions stupidly follow, right to their doom.  

The Decepticons arrive on Earth and Megatron orders the Stunticons to go crazy with it.  (There's a scene when the Stunticons seemingly interrupt the flow of traffic, but the oil tanker and three random cars who are forced to swerve are colored just like Motormaster and Breakdown and Dead End and Wildrider.)  The designs for the Stunticons, especially their robot modes, are really pretty far removed from their Hasbro toys.  I understand that the cartoon designs are always going to be stylized to some extent, but the Stunticons take it to a new extreme.  Like Red Alert, Breakdown has a car spoiler on his back, when on the toy the spoiler is on his legs.  Dead End seems to be drawn with a thumb-slider to push his head up for robot mode, when the toy doesn't have anything like that in evidence.  Wildrider has spikes jutting out of either side of his helmet that would have been impossible for a Scramble City toy, when their heads are usually used as connector pegs for the combiner form.  One theory that I've seen floating around online is that the models were based on some poor black-and-white photography or line art of the toys, and that's certainly possible.  They wouldn't have pre-existing box art to copy from, which was where most of the 1984 models came from.

Too late, the Autobots make it to the Vector Sigma chamber and see that the computer has already been activated.  "We've got to do something, Optimus!" implores Blaster, placing a hand on Prime's shoulder.  Prime responds by yanking Blaster's hand away.  "Don't touch me, Blaster," he says.  Well, not really, but he may as well have.  Too bad Rumble wasn't there to plant a subliminal suggestion about what Prime's next move should be.  Something like, "See you later, Autobots!  We gotta JET!  It's been ARIAL fun time!"  Prime still has the Matrix of Leadership in his chest, so perhaps his next move was being suggested by the ancient Autobot leaders of the past.  (Of course, given what we know about the Aerialbots and their tendency to time-travel to historically significant moments in Cybertron history, there really was no way the Aerialbots could NOT get created.)

So, Prime suggests the ancient shuttles that they found earlier, asking Alpha Trion if they could be rebuilt into Earth-style jets.  If Prime really is bent on creating a new team of Autobots, why not just let them all be ancient shuttles?  At least they would have plenty of transportation.  Alpha Trion balks at the idea at first, until Prime points out how easy it was to restore the maintenance robots (because THOSE worked really well).  However, Prime is determined to see this thing through.  "Megatron's been battling us on the roads.  We'll fight HIM in the SKIES!" Prime promises.  Which, I guess, is somehow different than what they've been doing with Swoop and Skyfire and Powerglide and Tracks.  With that said, it really is a great cliffhanger.  Cut to a scene of the Stunticons terrorizing the U.S. military, who have beefed up security to prevent another attempt on the super fuel.  The Stunticons arrive and wreak total havoc.  "There's nobody driving those cars!  That can mean only one thing... they must be the AUTOBOTS!" the army general realizes.  To be continued!  Granted, the whole "cars without drivers = Autobots" assumption has been used a couple of times already (and by 1985, people expression shock and amazement at a self-driving car was already a tired old trope that had popped up in Knight Rider countless times) but it really does make you want to tune into the next episode.

Interestingly, Vector Sigma never got an official toy of any kind until an opaque plastic version was offered as a souveneir freebie at BotCon 2007.  There was also a translucent yellow version offered with the MP-10 version of Masterpiece Optimus Prime.  The first official Alpha Trion merchandise was in the form of the three-inch SCF ACT-8 figure from Japan.  (There was also a redeco of Vector Prime available at the aforementioned BotCon 2007.)  Impossible Toys unveiled a third-party action figure in 2011, but I don't know if they ever released it.  There was a KRE-O figure about two or three years ago.  Also, an officially licensed EX Gohkin figure of Alpha Trion, with interchangeable hands and A-3 face, was sold in 2014 by Fewture Art Storm.  Notably, the Takara Legends version of Combiner Wars Ultra Magnus turned the Minimus Ambus figure into Alpha Trion using an alternate paint deco.   Finally, there's a Titans Return version of Alpha Trion coming, which transforms into a lion in homage to a proposed BotCon toy (a planned redeco of Beast Machines Snarl).

Still no toys of any kind, official or unofficial, for the maintenance drones or the centurion droids.  Because nobody loves those losers.

"THE KEY TO VECTOR SIGMA" PART 2

After a brief recap, we find the Autobots hard at work, converting the old-timey shuttles into modern Earth jets.  Now it becomes clear why Wheeljack, Ratchet, and Hoist just happened to be among the Autobots selected for this mission.  (It certainly would have strained credibility if it had been, say, Cliffjumper and Brawn and Bluestreak who built the Aerialbots.  It's debatable whether Ironhide or Blaster contributed much, but I guess any robot monkey can weld two pieces of metal together.  Look at all the unskilled laborers who helped assemble the Dinobots.)  

When Wheeljack points out that Megatron still has the Vector Sigma key, Alpha Trion assures them he has an emergency back-up key.  Optimus Prime balks, "What are you doing?!" before Alpha trion even flips open a fingertip to reveal a hidden key.  He explains that as a first-generation product of Vector Sigma, he is compatible with the computer and that his own power circuits can reactivate it.  How is it that Alpha Trion can remember this (other episodes establish his age as over 12 million years) but Optimus Prime (who is only nine million years old) cannot recall anything about his own creation?  Anyway, Alpha Trion does the deed, and there is a surge of energy before his body drops to the ground, lifeless.  Optimus Prime realizes that Alpha Trion is now merged with the computer.  There is no talk of interring his body (and we know from "Five Faces of Darkness" that Autobots do this); from all indications, the Autobots simply leave it there to rust.

The history and canon involving Vector Sigma is so convoluted that it's hard to make sense of it all.  We know from "The Rebirth" that the Matrix of Leadership also functions as a substitute key to Vector Sigma.  We also know from "Call of the Primitives" that the Matrix was, seemingly, the life force of Primacron's assistant.  I tend to think that the Quintessons found the Matrix floating through space, tried to figure out what it was, and built Vector Sigma around its design to serve as a Game Genie of sorts, in the hopes of accessing its secrets.  What they might not have counted on was that the Matrix itself opened a gateway to the AllSpark, and when they began using Vector Sigma to program their mass-produced robotic product line, it was imbuing tiny bits of the AllSpark within each robot.  This is why they developed unexpected personalties and emotions (as seen in "Five Faces of Darkness" part 4), because the living AllSpark was corrupting them.  It stands to reason that the Quintessons might have originally used the Matrix to dump the personalities of the robots who attempted rebellions or uprisings (former Autobot leaders, in other words).  When the Autobots finally exiled the Quintessons from Cybertron, they were left with the former rebel leaders still trapped within the Matrix.  They may have had no choice but to safeguard it, relying on their wisdom from beyond the grave.  That's my theory, anyway.  

Blaster balks at Alpha Trion sacrificing himself, but Optimus Prime recognizes the necessity of the deed.  "One Autobot gave his life so that six could be born," he says.  Careful viewers will note that there are only five Aerialbots present.  A simple arithmetic error, or a hint at events to come?  (There's a scene from the original script in which Ratchet actually calls Prime out on this supposed error, and Prime simply reassures him that he didn't make a mistake.  This in itself strains credibility, since Ratchet was right there during the Aerialbots' assembly.  He certainly would have known about their ability to combine into Superion because he would have helped design their bodies to reconfigure into gigantic arms and legs and such.)

Anyway, Optimus Prime's Aerialbot recipe is as follows:  "Let them think for themselves; to grow in knowledge and wisdom; and let them always value freedom and life wherever they find it."  Vector Sigma is almost like a sinister genie in a lamp who deliberately misinterprets its master's wishes for its own amusement.  The Aerialbots end up valuing freedom, all right... to the point where, as we'll see, they eventually abandon the Autobots and go off on their own.  As with the Stunticons, the four small Aerialbots seem to be defective, with only Silverbolt maintaining some sense of maturity and responsibility.  Actually, Slingshot ends up being the spokesman for the Aerialbot mini-vehicles, with the other three following him like sheep.  There isn't really any character development for Skydive or Fireflight or Air Raid at all in this episode.

With a flash of yellow light, the Aerialbots are brought to life and all transform to robot mode.  (Preposterously, Shockwave just happens to be strolling past the Vector Sigma chamber to witness their creation.  Because this is a place that he would be likely to visit.)  The Aerialbots all introduce themselves, and strangely enough, they all seem to have some recollection of their former existence as ancient Cybertron shuttles.  Silverbolt recalls that he used to be a low-level cargo ship.  He's also apparently come up with his own name right on the spot:  "Now, I think I'm... Silverbolt?" he ventures uncertainly.  Slingshot is aware that he was once a speed shuttle.  Skydive, Fireflight, and Air Raid don't offer commentary on their former existance.  Skydive can fly like any aerial vehicle, so maybe he was a multi-purpose shuttle.  Air Raid loves to have fun, so perhaps he was the equivalent of a clown car.  Fireflight might have been the Cybertron version of a short bus, because he sure seems like he belongs on one.

(I wonder, does this mean the Stunticons also have an awareness of their former existence?  Does Dead End dream about robbing banks?  Does Drag Strip sometimes play hooky and go back down to the race track looking for his former driver?  Does Motormaster sometimes absent-mindedly break into trucker CB lingo and not quite understand why?)

The Aerialbot designs aren't quite as far-removed from their Hasbro toys as the Stunticon animation models.  They're all pretty recognizable as themselves, although they took some major liberties with the design of Fireflight's face (the toy wears a pointy mask but the cartoon Fireflight has a plain-looking face) and Skydive (he's got trapezius muscle-cables that would interfere with his functionality as a Scramble City leg, and he's got strange, rounded gauntlets and arms).  Also, this isn't a design problem necessarily, but Slingshot's head is almost identical to Leader-1 from Challenge of the GoBots (the biggest difference is that Leader-1 was a chain smoker with nasty yellow teeth).  Silverbolt's cartoon design perhaps takes the biggest liberties, positioning his jet-mode stabilizer fin on his back and playing fast and loose with his color mapping.  (Indeed, all the Aeriabot color schemes are pretty homogenous, all varying shades of red with white or red with grey.)  Perhaps most egregiously, though, is the fact that cartoon Silverbolt is already wearing his Superion chest plate in robot mode.  (The Silverbolt toy is very plain-looking without it.  Even his 1986 box art shows him with the chest shield in place.)  Oddly, Superion's chest is drawn completely different than Silverbolt's.

As with the Stunticons, new voice actors were recruited to play the Aerialbots.  Charlie Adler, who would gain prominence later as Buster Bunny on Tiny Toon Adventures, portrayed Silverbolt (and, much later, voiced Starscream in the live-action Transformers films).  Rob Paulsen, at the time a newcomer, played both Air Raid and Slingshot, and would eventually be cast as Raphael in the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon (and plays Donatello in the current Nickelodeon TMNT series.  Laurie Faso (Tunnel Rat in G.I. Joe and the voice of Raphael in the TMNT II: Secret of the Ooze film) voiced Skydive, and a bit-part character actor named Jeff MacKay played Fireflight.  

So, with the introductions out of the way, Alpha Trion makes his presence known, from within the annals of Vector Sigma.  Having merged with the computer, he has learned the secrets of time and space, and will proceed to manipulate future events to ensure that the Aerialbots go back in time to save his life in the past, and will provide Galvatron with the secrets of the plasma energy chamber in "The Rebirth."  For now, however, he is content to warn Optimus Prime that the key to Vector Sigma has magical powers on Earth and that Prime had really better get there before it substantially lowers the real estate value for the entire planet.

This episode establishing that every Transformer is created with Vector Sigma creates a major problem for writers of future episodes, since Vector Sigma cannot be reactivated without the key (which is destroyed by the end of this episode).  All characters introduced after this point have to be either characters who always existed but we just never saw them before (Autobots from The Transformers: the Movie), or were imprisoned somewhere (Combaticons), or were created by the Quintessons (the Predacons and Terrorcons, arguably), or had no discernible origin at all (Protectobots), or their creation completely flew in the face of this episode (Trypticon, the Technobots).  

The Decepticons have secured the formula for the super fuel, so all that remains is to start mass-producing it at their base.  We don't see the end result of this plan, but the Autobots never recover the formula, so we can only assume the Decepticons were able to manufacture it at some point.  So, that's a win for Megatron.  It's around this time that Shockwave contacts Megs and informs him of the Aerialbots' creation (and Shockwave's voice seems uncharacteristically deep... has every actor on this show just forgotten what their characters sound like?).  The Aerialbots will continue to be a major pain for Megatron, and later Galvatron, at least until Sixshot shows up and blows them all to smithereens.  Shockers also lets him know about what Alpha Trion said about the Vector Sigma key having some kind of special power on Earth, so Megatron decides to divert from the super fuel manufacturing idea to conduct some impromptu tests in the forest.  (Also, there is a particularly egregious coloring error here where Breakdown is shown flying alongside Megatron, but is colored like Silverbolt.  Maybe he was an extra Stunticon who transformed into Menasor's gun, Piranacon-style, but he didn't have his force field turned on and got quickly destroyed.  A gun shaped like a Lamborghini would be pretty cool, admittedly.)

"Now, all we gotta do is hope that Shockwave didn't get the better of Omega Supreme," remarks Ironhide as the Autobots emerge on the planet's surface, a comment that will turn out to be portentous.  Outside, there are centurion droids posted as guards all around.  The Aerialbots spring into action, finally getting a chance to strut their stuff.  (In the Sci-Fi Channel version of this episode, all the Aerialbot action was edited out for syndication, and it was edited badly so that we jump to Prime in mid-dialogue saying, "--cket mode, Omega Supreme!  Fast!")  For anyone who thinks that perhaps Omega Supreme's on-screen transformation doesn't correspond precisely to his Hasbro toy, watch as he literally launches his forearms into the sky, which connect together into his rocket mode.  Evidently Omega Supreme, sans arms, remains behind to deal with the centurion droids while the other Autobots escape.  The centurion droids just shake their fists in consternation, though, suggesting that Omega Supreme's body might simply have been shunted back into subspace.  (There is one episode, "Blaster Blues," in which Omega's rocket lands on a barren surface, kicking up a cloud of dust.  We hear some kind of energy sound effect, and when the dust clears, his rocket base is visible!)

A close-up of the exterior of Omega's rocket suggests something is amiss.  It's drawn indistinctly, like a spider's web or perhaps a small hull breach.  In the original script, there was a whole sequence in which Shockwave and his "old enemy" Omega Supreme engage each other until Shockwave manages to secretly tag Omega with a cyber-bomb.  We see Omega at various points patching up the damage he took during this battle.  All of this was cut from the finished episode, leaving the indistinct hull fissure and Ironhide's strangely ominous comment as the only remaining evidence of why Omega Supreme's time is running out.

Evidently, Prime spends the journey back to Earth getting the Aerialbots up to speed on current events (because this must be done orally, apparently, and cannot just be preprogrammed into them).  He concludes with, "...and that, Aerialbots, is why we Transformers left Cybertron for a new world....Our new home, the planet Earth!"  This isn't exactly right, since the Autobots never set out to colonize another planet.  They were originally searching for energy sources, as seen in the pilot, and got knocked out for four million years.  The only thing stopping the Autobots from leaving Earth is the fact that they still feel the need to protect it from the Decepticons.  That's not the same thing as "leaving Cybertron for a new world."

Watch Omega Supreme carefully as he touches back down.  The area around the volcano base is completely empty.  The rocket lands in a big cloud of dark exhaust, and when the smoke clears, the rocket base is suddenly there.  Tricksy Hobbitses.  Omega detects that his rocket is about to detonate, so he warns the Autobots to quickly evacuate.  Seconds later, the rocket module erupts in a fiery, billowing explosion.  Commercial break?  Sure, why not?

Well, you wouldn't think the destruction of the rocket would be that big of a deal.  Worst-case scenario, Omega Supreme would just have to sit there without arms for a few days until the Autobots constructed him some new ones.  For some reason, though, the rocket's destruction affected Omega Supreme in his entirety.  When next we see him, his entire robot body is in ruined pieces, on the floor of the volcano base, with his limbs are connected together only tenuously by wiring and his head connected to some kind of cybernetic life-support device.  (Interestingly, the inside of Omega Supreme's head is made entirely of green-colored metal.  You know whose machines tended to use a lot of green metal?  The Quintessons.)  Ratchet explains that the life-support machine won't keep Omega Supreme alive long enough to put his body back together, but Ratchet continues ahead with the repair work anyway.  (I'm reminded of the scene from a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode where Data is trying to replace all the Enterprise's isolinear chips so they can warp away from a sun before it explodes, and he calmly replies, "This will take slightly more time than we have left," even as he shoves them back in their slots as quickly as inhumanly possible.)

The whole business with Omega Supreme being close to death bothers me.  Why can't they just rebuild his head first and let it sit there disembodied for a while until his body is ready?  We've already seen countless instances of robots having their heads separated from their bodies (Optimus Prime in "City of Steel," Powerglide in "Desertion of the Dinobots") and they've been able to function just fine.  Also, why is Ratchet the only one working to rebuild Omega Supreme?  What about Wheeljack and Hoist?  What about the unskilled laborers?  If laymen like Blaster and Ironhide can be trusted to bring new life into the world, surely they can be recruited to weld some of Omega's armor panels back together?  It's an artificial plot contrivance just for the sake of generating some suspense.  (And I don't think anybody watching this episode for the first time seriously believed that Omega Supreme was going to die.)

The Autobots have other business to attend to, however.  They travel to the military base where the super fuel is being stored, and Blaster and the Aerialbots all pile out of Optimus Prime's trailer.  (Here's a weird mental exercise.  I have always regarded Optimus Prime's trailer as grey and Air Raid's wings as black, but they're both the exact same color as Air Raid exits the trailer.  The dark grey color to indicate shading inside Prime's trailer is the same paint used to represent black.)  The army personnel observe the Autobots' arrival, and the army general shouts, "Get them!" because this is standard military terminology.  (We also can indirectly infer just how quickly the Autobots are able to travel from Cybertron to Earth and back.  The general claims the Stunticons attacked the military base "a few hours ago," so either Omega Supreme's rocket module is preposterously fast, or else Cybertron is still really, really close to the Earth following its orbital relocation in "The Ultimate Doom.")

Slingshot is the voice of dissent for the Aerialbot team, dismissing the military personnel as "bird brains" and wondering why the Autobots are sworn to protect such idiots.  Ironhide assures the youngster that the humans are merely confused.  Thus begins a short-lived rivalry between the old guard and the new regime.

What follows is a great little scene when Blaster identifies incoming Decepticons approaching fast.  Naturally, Optimus Prime assumes it's Starscream and the jets, but it's an incorrect assumption this time.  "Wrong-o!" Blaster proclaims in perfect Spanish.  "They're coming at us from the ground at three hundred miles an hour!"  (Megatron must have seriously suped up the cars he used to build the Stunticons, since the land speed record in 1985 was the Ferarri GTO, at 188 mph.  Even as recently as 2014, we are only able to build a production car that can hit 270 mph.)

The Stunticons are pretty much unstoppable, as is just about any new toy in his first appearance.  Ironhide climbs onto Dead End in an attempt to subdue him, and gets a collision with a boulder for his troubles.  Blaster tries to subdue Wildrider with some sonic signals from his leg speakers that open up a fissure in the ground (his threat, "Eat ashphalt, chump!" was cut from the Sci-Fi Channel, perhaps because it sounds naughty) but Wildrider just leaps over it and collides with Blaster.  It's around this time that the Aerialbots finally decide to enter the fray.  Sometimes the Stunticons use their antigravitational powers to engage the Aerialbots in the air.  Other times, the Aerialbots race along the ground and crash into the Stunticons on their own turf like they were in a demolition derby.  It's positively bizarre to watch.

The nature of Motormaster's transformation has always bothered me.  We see in this episode and others like it that in vehicle mode, he's a tractor trailer and the same size as Optimus Prime.  Prime's cab forms his entire robot mode while the trailer sits just off-screen and enjoys a bagel and coffee with Moist.  Motormaster's truck cab forms his feet, with the rest of the trailer forming his robot body.  If that's the case, though, then either Motormaster should be tiny in vehicle mode, or else he should transform into a gigantic robot.  (The Hasbro toy of Motormaster actually is disappointingly tiny compared to Optimus Prime.)

After Motormaster climbs on board Slingshot's vehicle mode and begins pounding away at him, Slingshot beckons for help from Silverbolt.  Poor Silverbolt tries to ascend to a sufficient altitute to render assistance, but he seems unable to do so.  Luckily, Fireflight comes to the rescue, and Motormaster is forcibly dismounted.  When Megatron observes that the Stunticons are engaging the Aerialbots, he remarks "I gave no order to attack!" and has them recalled.  How convenient!

In the aftermath of the encounter, Slingshot demands an explanation from Silverbolt, who is at a loss to explain his sudden panic attack.  Ironhide shows up wearing a skirt.  (Sometimes the animators would fail to finish the drawing of a character if they knew that part of the cel would not be visible on television.  Obviously, somebody badly misjudged how much of Ironhide's body would be appearing in the scene.)  Ironhide and Slingshot exchange words, with Ironhide calling Slingshot a "little punk."  (The theme of the Aerialbots being young, impressionable newcomers will be explored in more depth in "War Dawn.")

Back at the base, Wheeljack and Sparkplug Witwicky have finally seen fit to start helping with the work on Omega Supreme, with Hoist still nowhere in sight.  Funny how the Autobots are okay with employing humans to repair their wounded but there are barely any actual Autobots doing any of the work.  (Also, is this the first episode where Sparkplug appears without Spike?  I think it might very well be.)  The Aerialbots are largely unconcerned about Omega's fate and decide to give themselves the guided tour of the volcano base.  They all pile out of the room, wearing their cute little jet modes on their backs.

Prime is concerned over Silverbolt's performance and asks about it.  Silverbolt replies that he was once a low-flying cargo shuttle and is unaccustomed to heights.  Prime's brilliant solution is to give Silverbolt even more things to worry about, so he elects him the Aerialbot leader.  Was there ever any doubt that Silverbolt was going to be the team commander?  Doesn't the guy who forms the body always get to be the head honcho?  (Yeah, Scrapper turns into Devastator's leg.  Shut up.)  Seriously, who else was going to be the team leader if Prime hadn't come up with this idea?  Fireflight the dumbass?  

Also, I really hate Silverbolt's lips.  There, I said it.

Elsewhere, the other Aerialbots are watching typically stupid American television until they turn it off in disgust.  Slingshot launches into a rant about what a waste of time humans are, and the other Autobots, for that matter.  "Most of 'em can't even fly!" he balks.  (At least there is some acknowledgement here that there have been other flying Autobots.)  He goes on to denigrate Omega Suprem for not even being able to survive a single trip from Cybertron, when Ironhide finally steps in.  "Shut yer trap now, or I'll reprogram some humility into you with my fist!" he threatens.  There generally isn't a lot of infighting amongst the Autobots (there's the occasional squabble between Cliffjumper and Mirage, or Brawn and Perceptor, but for the most part everybody tends to get along).  The difference seems to be that the Aerialbots are youngsters, and are not seasoned enough to recognize the seriousness of war.  

Anyway, the Aerialbots run off, leaving Silverbolt in the proverbial dust.  He promises Optimus Prime that he'll convince them to return somehow and heads off after them.  Why is it that Silverbolt, alone, demonstrates the maturity not to abandon the Autobots?  It certainly can't be because he's the leader, becasue Vector Sigma didn't make that decision; Optimus Prime did.

The Decepticons have set up operations to analyze the Vector Sigma key.  Soundwave is carrying it when he trips over a tree root, causing him to drop the thing.  In a rare moment, Megatron chastizes him, calling him a "clumsy fool."  When he drops the key, though, it leads to an amazing discovery.  The surrounding area, including the dirt and vegetation, is instantly turned metallic.  Megatron's assessment is that the key "de-energizes matter" and changes it into metal.  I'm not sure how scientific this is (plants are made of carbon and dirt is made of tiny rocks and clay; you cannot transmute either into metal without some serious hand-waving and lead-into-gold type alchemy) but, okay, let's roll with it.  Megatron realizes this means he could theoretically use the key to just turn Earth into the next Cybertron.  He totally abandons all plans to duplicate the super fuel or use the Stunticons to dominate the roads.  Now, suddenly, his number one goal is to turn the Earth into a big, metal ball.  Megatron is completely bipolar.  This is his manic side asserting itself.  In five minutes, he's going to forget all about the circuit key and tell the Decepticons it's time to go to Baskin Robbins for ice cream.

Cut to commercial, and when we return, Megatron reiterates his plan for the benefit of the attention-defecit kids who couldn't remember what had happened two minutes and thirty seconds ago.  Or, maybe he's explaining it for the sake of the Stunticons, who appear to have arrived in the interim.  Anyway, Teletraan-I notices what Megatron is up to (Megatron's not the only evil genius with cameras all over the world!) and reports to the Autobots.  "Good grief," says Optimus Prime, channeling Charlie Brown.  "I'm doomed," he adds, and then he screams "AAUGH!"  Okay, not really.  Ironhide correctly points out that Megatron could transform Earth into a metal wasteland.  Isn't that exactly the sort of place Ironhide would like, though, being from Cybertron and all?  Wouldn't he think of it more like a metal paradise?  Think of all the times Transformers have referred to Earth as a "mudball."

Anyway, Teletraan reports Megatron's location as 20 miles west of Seattle-Tacoma.  This is an incredibly imprecise description.  Seattle and Tacoma are, like, 30 miles apart from each other.  Assuming perhaps Teletraan means the international Sea-Tac Airport serving the greater Seattle-Tacoma area, twenty miles west from that would be maybe Gig Harbor.  I can't really get Mapquest to give me as-the-crow-flies distances because the roads are all swervy.  Anyway, if Megatron really is in Liane Elliot's backyard, why not just say that?

Elsewhere, Silverbolt has caught up with the Aerialbots and is trying to convince them to return.  When he fails to persuade Slingshot with logic and reason, he tries a different tactic.  He pretends to have a change of heart and offers the Aerialbots the chance to return to the volcano and just take charge.  This is enough, at least, to convince the others to come back with him.

So, as Megatron is gleefully turning trees and rocks and things into nice, shiny purple-colored metal, Prime arrives with six Autobots in tow to stop him.  I know the contention from the early days of the show is that some Autobots are out on patrol or on various missions, but isn't turning the Earth into metal (and presumably killing all life in the process) important enough to summon more than six Autobots for the job?  

Megatron sends the Stunticons into action, and because they're new toys, the Stunticons hold the advantage.  They plow into Smokescreen and a blue-colored Windcharger like they weren't even there.  Blaster shouts "YOU!" at one of the Stunticons angrily and shrinks down to his boom box mode.  He uses some sonic waves to make one of the metal trees fall, but Breakdown just drives up it like a ramp.  Drag Strip forces poor Jazz to crash into a metal tree.

At the Autobot base, Silverbolt shows the Aerialbots these goings-on over Teletraan's monitor, explaining that even if they took over the base, they would still be forced to fight the Decepticons for control of the planet.  When Slingshot remains skeptical, Silverbolt shows the others how the progress on Omega Supreme is coming along.  Ratchet is out of power and needs to go recharge, but Sparkplug is willing to keep toiling away.  The Aeriabots are sufficiently impressed.  (The original script includes a scene where Sparkplug spells it out for the Aerialbots, that Omega Supreme risked himself to shuttle the Aerialbots to Earth and could die as a result, and it's this realization that realls does it for Slingshot.)  In any event, the Aerialbots are sufficiently humbled and are now ready to kick some Decepticon stabilizier fins.

Back on the battlefield, Megatron is about to reach a populated area.  I'm not sure why the Autobots are so concerned, since Megatron's pretty much forgotten about his first two major schemes.  It's only a matter of time before he gets bored with turning things into metal and decides to build a gigantic purple griffin or something.  Anyway, Optimus tries to intercept Megatron but is cut off by Motormaster, who plows right into him in truck mode.  (Given his nature as a semi-truck, Motormaster makes a natural rival for Optimus Prime.  We don't get much of it in this episode, but we do get to see it later in "Masquerade.")  

It's around this time that Megatron finally gets around to revealing that "my cars have a secret!"  It wasn't really a secret to anyone, of course, the way they advertised the existence of the toys on TV.  Furthermore, the episode was winding down by this stage, the animators were getting tired, and the first appearance of Menasor just isn't especially impressive.  The first time we see the Stunticons combine together, it's interrupted by a reaction shot of Optimus Prime's visible shock.  It would have been a more effective scene (read: toy commercial) to just keep the camera on Menasor.

Menasor went through a few variations before he arrived at his final cartoon incarnation.  I think the Stunticons were originally planned to be Autobots, as evidenced by the early model for Menasor floating around with an Autobot symbol on his chest.  Originally, Menasor's legs were drawn to look a little more like cars, with Wildrider and Breakdown's vehicle cabins serving as the fronts of his legs (and this design is in evidence from the toy commercial).  By the time of the finished episode, Wildrider and Breakdown are flipped 'round the other way, making Menasor look a little less like a big pile of cars stacked together.  

Well, Optimus responds with a surprise of his own, and the Aerialbots finally combine.  We're nineteen minutes into the second episode so you know there's barely time to showcase the new combiners and wrap up the story.  I'm not sure what it is about the combiner forms that makes the writers hesitant to use them.  "Aerial Assault" is structured the same way, with the combiners only showing up at the very end.  It's like an episode of Voltron: Defender of the Earth.  Invariably, some robeast goes on the rampage.  Voltron Force tries to defeat it with the individual lions, but fail.  It finally occurs to them to combine into Voltron, try a bunch of different approaches, and finally resolve to just cut it in half with the blazing sword... which really should have just been their very first move to begin with.

There are some really weird coloring artifacts of Superion's color model.  The way he's drawn, Air Raid and Skydive form the arms, but the arms are actually colored like Slingshot and Fireflight.  Further compounding the problem is that both of Superion's legs are drawn identically to one another, despite the fact that no two Aerialbot toys are identical.  The rear-view drawings of Superion's legs seem to depict two more Skydives, according to the shapes of the wings, only with lightning bolts on the wings of one (which would indicate Skydive) and silver stripes on the other (indicating Air Raid).  Because Superion's transformation model shows Air Raid and Skydive jumping up into the air to form the arms, those two characters actually switch colors with Slingshot and Fireflight every single time Superion is formed.

http://www.zmfts.t15.org/superion_combines.jpg

Superion was voiced by Frank Welker in this episode (doing what was basically his Sludge voice), but in later episodes Ed Gilbert (Thrust, Blitzwing) took over the voice duties.  Menasor was also voiced by Frank Welker in this single episode (doing his Tyrannix voice from Robotix), though his voice was pitched down to the point of being completely unrecognizable.  I discovered this during the course of writing this review; I don't think anybody ever knew this before!  In later episodes, his (permanent) voice actor was Rege Cordic; much like Roger C. Carmel, his talents were originally tapped for The Transformers: the Movie (playing the Quintesson Judge) and was cast for the second season later on.

http://www.zmfts.t15.org/menasor_pitched_up.wav

So, Superion and Menasor go at it, and they're fairly evenly-matched.  There are a host of questions I find myself asking, but probably shouldn't.  (How did Menasor and Superion get their personalities from Vector Sigma when neither Megatron nor Optimus asked for it specifically?  How can Menasor, made up of fiberglass Earth cars, withstand a fight with Superion, made of superior Cybertronian metals?  Does Menasor use the same forcefields that the Stunticons do?)  Superion throws Menasor off a cliff and they continue to fight.  Seemingly out of nowhere, Menasor find a building and throws it at Superion.  A mountain crumbles on top of Superion, trapping him.  Then he uproots some kind of cylidrical thing with a gold and white checker pattern on the top.  I literally have no clue what it's supposed to be.  A rocket?  A radio antenna?  A grain elevator?

Just as Menasor is about to seemingly impale Superion with this thing, a familiar orange claw intercepts the attack.  Yup, it's Omega Supreme, who has been restored just in time.  "Repairs complete: Omega Supreme!" he bellows.  Superion instantly recognizes him, despite never having met him before.  (I know, I know.  The Aerialbots knew who he was.)  Together, Superion and Omega unfairly gang up on Menasor and give him a good toss.  Megatron teaches Menasor the finer points of when a Decepticon should retreat (protip: it's all the time, in every episode, for any reason or no reason at all).  He separates back into the Stunticons and they all go catch a double-feature at the local drive-in.

Silverbolt realizes that Megatron still has the Vector Sigma key, so in a rare move, he actually pursues Megatron following the retreat.   He colides with Megs, causing him to drop his keys, his wallet, and his favorite comb.  Silverbolt tries to blast the thing to smithereens but he can't target something so tiny when he's in jet mode.  For some reason, he has to transform to robot mode to make the shot.  Two things really bother me about this sequence.  For one, Silverbolt doesn't make any transforming sound effect when he switches to robot mode.  Maybe the absence of the sound effect is what draws my eyes to the actual transformation sequence, and it makes no sense.  When he's in jet mode, Silverbolt is just this skinny little cylinder with wings poking out of either side and a couple of engines.  Not really a lot of room for robot parts to begin with.  When he switches to robot mode, though, the first thing that happens is that his entire nosecone telescopes into his tail section.  Seriously, no exaggeration, two-thirds of his jet mode is just sucked up into the tail, and it's the tail that actually changes to a robot.  I have no idea how there are any robot parts in there at all, given that the tail should be stuffed full of the other two-thirds of the jet mode at this point!

http://www.zmfts.t15.org/silverbolt_transformation.jpg

As a robot, Silverbolt makes the shot, but then he just resigns himself to the fact that he's going to die, rather than transform back to jet mode and zip away.  I don't know why this isn't possible.  Worst-case scenario, though, he takes a tumble when he hits the ground.  We've seen Transformers survive this, certainly (like Optimus Prime in the pilot episode).  Instead, though, he just allows himself to continue plummeting while he utters, "so long, cruel world!"  (Apparently, this is a very Aerialbot thing to say, since Air Raid says the same thing in "Thief in the Night.")  Of course, Slingshot arrives just in the nick of time and scoops Silverbolt out of the sky, seconds from his maybe-death.  "Nice shootin', kid!" he remarks.  This is an excessively odd thing to say, since Slingshot and Silverbolt are the same age.  You don't call someone "kid" unless you're older than they are.  The ending of this episode is just so odd in so many ways.

The trees all make transforming sound effects as they change from metal trees to wooden trees.  Well, that's probably just the sound of the Aerialbots reverting to robot mode just off-screen, but it still seems weird.  Optimus Prime passes judgement upon them, granting them the much-coveted title of "worthy Autobots," just as he did with the Dinobots.  This means, of course, that the Aerialbots will be relegated to a closet until they are needed.  Ironhide utters a forced apology.  It just doesn't feel very heartfelt, not like it was with Brawn and Perceptor in "Microbots" or with Inferno and Red Alert in "Auto Berserk."  I definitely don't get the sense that Slingshot and Ironhide are best buddies now.  I think they're both overcompensating in the extreme.  Look at that goofy smile on Slingshot's face.  There's no way that's sincere.

As the other Aerialbots fly off, Silverbolt turns down their offer to fly with them, and says that he'd prefer to walk back to the base.  A jokey sort of ending, but given the circumstances, an understandable one.  From this point onward, there is no remaining second season episode that does not feature the Aerialbots, or some other Scramble City team, in a major role.  Indeed, Hasbro specifically requested that the last ten episodes of the season be reserved to showcase the newest 1986 toys.

Overall, the ending was kind of anticlimactic, with the final confrontation between Menasor and Superion feeling rushed and ending way too quickly.  It seems like we could have gotten a lot more of ther fight if some of the filler with the centurion droids and maintenance robots was eliminated.  Also, despite supposedly being arch-enemies, Superion and Menasor will only clash once more in the entire show (at the very end of "Cosmic Rust").  Superion gets to fight Bruticus in "Aerial Assault" and a headless Guarian Robot in "War Dawn," but his rivalry with the Stunticons, such as it is, will be fleeting at best.  Seriously, the fight between Superion and Menasor in the toy commercial was more exciting.


Zob ("ONLY THE STUNTICONS!")

[Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats]

Sort of almost on time...



Our story opens with some tankers going down a highway, and then pans into the cab of one truck, where two truck drivers are providing exposition. They are dressed almost identically, with brown jackets and yellow hard hats. Indoor hard hats are an intriguing fashion choice, and one of the things that separates the Transformers universe from our own. These hard hats have external ridges, which provides a greater structural integrity than the hard hats worn by the Witwickys.

I think we have to conclude that the human male in the Transformers universe had a particularly weak skull during this period, and would seldom go out without a hard hat, unless they were practically assured they would not receive a sudden blow to the head. I think it affected Sparkplug's generation, and that Spike just followed along, as father and son dress alike in this universe.

Father and son dressing alike is another weird aspect of this universe.

The Autobots are surrounding the tankers, adding to the exposition, and basically tempting fate. Was there some point at which Megatron captured Optimus and inserted a transmitter that activates every time he says "Yes, but if Megatron..."?

Anyway, "So much for your security, Prowl". The leak is never explored or exposed. Megatron and the Decepticons attack in a highly contrived battle where the Autobots win because they are cars. Typically, air power is what you really need in a war, except when your enemy darts into canyons and tunnels.

"I knew I'd never make it!" Dirge exclaims, after he fails to make it. It's this lack of can do attitude that puts the Decepticons at a disadvantage.

There's a very lovely Dirge with Thrust's deco who recognizes that Ramjet is down. He veers to intercept his fallen comrade, but Thrust gets there first. It's a nice display of concern from Decepticons for their injured comrades, and teamwork in helping them.

"He's looked better," Dirge says as he joins up with Thrust to drag Ramjet away.

Megatron laments that the motorized morons are getting away, and Rumble seems to think Megatron means the Autobots. Megatron ignores him and flies to the other side of the tunnel to confront the Autobots.

"If it weren't for those accursed Autobots, that superfuel would be mine now!" Megatron laments after his inevitable defeat. There were a few moments of tension before this, with Megatron threatening to kill everyone and Optimus explaining that he didn't have the nerve, but it ends as we expect -- Megatron fleeing, with a weirdly light left arm. Rumble points out that the Autobots rule the road, which is something Megatron cannot abide.

So, the Decepticons start stealing cars. Dragstrip from a F1 race (driver wears helmet), Dead End from a bank heist (bank robber wears hard hat), Motormaster from a high speed chase (driver wearing hard hat), and the others from somewhere else (drivers probably wearing protective head gear)

Megatron rebuilds the cars into vehicles of total destruction, showing a mechanical aptitude we seldom see from him. I always wondered whether he personally made the giant purple griffon. The automatic force fields make the proto-Stunticons' hulls impenetrable, which is excellent.

Rumble and Megatron name them... Stunticons!

Ratchet and Optimus are watching a news report of Rumble stealing an F-1 racer, and Optimus remarks that there is no way on Earth to give them "cybernetic personalities like we have". Offscreen, Dinobots weep. "Unless...: Optimus continues, before being alerted to the Decepticon spacebridge being reactivated, and Optimus knows what Megatron is up to...

Decepticons go to Cybertron. I love the animation of the space bridge in operation. Just weird, and Megatron continues speaking as they are hurtled through the space bridge.

Shockwave greets them and says that he has plotted a course to -- dum, dum, DUM!!! -- Vector Sigma. He then sheepishly points out that a path to Vector Sigma is useless since they need the key.

This shows a bit of initiative on Shockwave's part. He could have let Megatron go find Vector Sigma, and then discover he needs a key, but Shockwave is anticipating Megatron's needs. It's not a lot of initiative, though. Shockwave knows where the key is -- Alpha Trion has it -- and they all apparently know where Old Alpha Trion is -- and Shockwave doesn't get it for Megatron.

Meanwhile, various Autobots board Omega Supreme's rocket mode, and and blast off.

Alpaca Trion -- an excellent autocorrect -- has become a hoarder since we last saw him. He's looking for a drill amongst piles of wreckage, 10.2 Ultra Drills, toe nail clippings, newspapers, jars of old fluids, and the heads of all the female Autobots he once loved. And then the Decepticons show up.

The Decepticons know exactly where Alpha Trion lives, and just hadn't bothered getting rid of him before now. In fact, after dropping by and roughing him up, they continue to let him live. I don't understand the Decepticons sometimes -- do they even want to win? I mean this as a serious question -- the Decepticons do such a bad job of trying to defeat the Autobots that I wonder if there is some other goal.

I really do wonder about the status of Cybertron. The Decepticons control it, it's pretty empty, and they know where Alpha Trion is and just ignore him.

Megatron finds the Key in a very nice Key Holder on the wall, behind Alpha Trion's collection of fingernail clippings, announces his plan in case anyone didn't know it, and then we have a commercial break.

Bumpers: Omega Supreme and Grimlock. Is there any significance to these?

The Autobots hand in Omega Supreme and immediately go off to visit Alpha Trion. The Decepticons blasted a hole in his wall, so they enter easily, They find Alpha Trion bashed and battered, but alive.

Hoist and Ratchet repair Alpha Trion. Alpha Trion explains that Megatron wants to use Vector Sigma to give his new car group personalities, and Optimus asks, dumbfoundedly, "is that possible?" Alpha Trion takes a while to say "yes".

The entire reason the Autobots followed was a belief that the Decepticons could use Vector Sigma to give the Stunticons life, so Optimus's question seems absurd. It could have been delivered as a weary question -- Optimus and the Autobots arrived to stop Megatron if his plan was even possible -- but it was not. Instead we have Optimus arriving with a set reason, and then being surprised by that very same reason.

Autobots jump down a hole. Decepticons play with drones, and then uses the key to control the drones. As Soundwave opens a door, there is a combination pad with 9 buttons. Do the Transformers naturally use a base 9 number system? One could be a return key, which would make it base 8 (far more reasonable), but if you add a delete and/or cancel we are at base 7 or 6. So odd.

And off to the Autobots -- "It's a miracle we survived that blast", Optimus says, alluding to some offscreen adventure. They see an old underground shuttle hanger -- Cybertron has apparently been rebuilt many times with different layers.

Blaster thinks they are lost, and Ratchet says this cannot be the way those Deceptigoons came, but Alpha Trion reassures them by pointing out the legion of drones that are about to kill them.

Meanwhile, in the Vector Sigma chamber, Rumble is disappointed by Vector Sigma's appearance. Megatron puts the key in, and turns it a couple of times before the starter motor kicks in, and Vector Sigma rises for a commercial.

Bumpers are Shockwave and Astrotrain. Maybe just the first one is relevant in each set.

"I am Vector Sigma. Before Cybertron was, I was. Who reactivates me?"

"I, Megatron, one of your own creations."

"Why have you done this thing?" Vector Sigma calls out, possibly in pain.

"You must give personalities to the Stunticons. They're cybernetic creations like ourselves. Fill them with hatred for the Autobots, and all that the Autobots stand for!"

This is a chunk of dialog that will be picked apart for decades.

What I found most interesting about it this time around was the pained voice of Vector Sigma -- very similar to Cerebros begging to die at the end of The Rebirth. Vector Sigma, for some reason, cannot refuse any commands, has seen what the creation of Transformers has led to, and wishes he had no part of it.

Also, given the opportunity to define what the Decepticons stand for, and the values these new Decepticons should embrace, Megatron can only define Decepticons by their opposition to, and hatred of, Autobots.

The "Before Cybertron was, I was" has kind of been discussed to death over the years. We have little knowledge of Cybertron's history, and it is entirely possible that Vector Sigma was brought to Cybertron from somewhere else by the Quintessons.

As an aside, the Quintessons really did make some excellent products -- Transformers are still running strong after millions of years of activity. People don't appreciate the quality of Quintesson products.

"Present them to me." Vector Sigma says.

The Stunticons are presented, and Vector Sigma shocks them with pink bolts of electricity or something.

Meanwhile, Autobots are shooting and fighting with drones, and then fall back.

And now Vector Sigma descends after adding personalities, Megatron tells the new Decepticons that he is their leader, and they immediately bond to him.
Motormaster swears loyalty to Megatron.
Dead End declares that he guesses he will have to do what Megatron says.
Breakdown says he will obey too.
Dragstrip lives to obey.
Wildrider just wants to bust something up.

Well, most of them immediately bond. But, what's Wildrider ever going to do without his posse? Nothing, that's what.

Megatron puts Vector Sigma into park, and takes the key with him as he leaves.

Optimus orders Ratchet and Hoist to get the drones in the hanger operational again, so they can fight the drones attacking them. It's a very good thing the drones attacking them are so very slow.

Meanwhile, Megatron and the gang take a shortcut out, and they go back to Earth.

Autobot controlled drones and guard drones skirmish, until the Autobot controlled ones walk off a cliff and the guard drones follow.

On Earth, Stunticons are given dominion over Earth, and told to tear it apart.

Autobots finally get to Vector Sigma, and Alpha Trion says "looks like she gave Megatron what he wanted -- hoo ya." Optimus wants to go back and build Aerialbots from the shuttles.

Meanwhile, on Earth, Stunticons steal Superfuel and are mistaken for Autobots.

TO BE CONTINUED.

There are some weird time dilation issues in this episode -- events seem to be progressing much faster for the Decepticons than the Autobots. Other than that, it's an excellent episode, with a great cliffhanger -- will the creation of evil car Transformers confuse the people of Earth and turn them against the Autobots?


Episode II: The Second Part

The Autobots are all hard at work building earth planes out of Cybertronian spaceships. I really don't understand why they don't just make a combiner team of Cybertronian spaceships -- they would be more versatile and the whole thing would have been easier.

Once completed, Optimus says that they have to take the Aerialbots to Vector Sigma for personalities, and there then follows a discussion of keys. Alpha Trion enigmatically claims to have a key on him, so they all go to the golden disco ball.

Alpha Trion gives a rousing speech on doing what needs to be done when Optimus learns that Alpha Trion is the key. Alpha Trion emphasizes his points by bending his elbow in impossible ways.

VS: "I am Vector Sigma. Before Cybertron was, I was. Who reactivates me?"

OP: "I, Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots."

VS: "Why are you here?"

OP: "To give life to these machines."

Blaster: "Did he just kill himself so we could get some jets? That's nuts!"

OP: "No, one Autobot gave up his life so that 6 could be born. He made a choice -- the kind of choice I hope they will be able to make when the time is right. Vector Sigma, give these machines personalities worthy of him who created me. Let them think for themselves, to grow in knowledge and wisdom. And let them always value freedom and life wherever they find it."

In this exchange, Vector Sigma seems more angry than pained -- has merging with Alpha Trion soothed him a bit?

The Aerialbots get hit with a flash of yellow light. From the different light colors, we know that Vector Sigma can distinguish programming good from evil, and from the fact that he programmed the Stunticons anyway, we might assume that he has either no concern in the matter, or no choice in the matter.

I'm going to go out on a limb here -- when activated with the key, Vector Sigma has no choice. He had free will, but no choice, which is why his voice was so pained. Merging with Alpha Trion, he either has a choice, or just does not object as much. The pained voice was him trying not to do as programmed.

And that takes us back to "Before Cybertron was, I was." Vector Sigma was enslaved by the Quintessons -- possible created into slavery, possibly found and enslaved -- sometime before Cybertron became their factory world. Optimus Prime, Mr. "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings" doesn't even notice.

Also, this makes Optimus's "let them value freedom and life wherever they find it" line kind of particularly offensive. Vector Sigma would cry, if he had robo-tear-ducts.

You will also notice that Optimus refers to 6 Autobots being born, and yet we see only five Aerialbots. This could be a reference to Superion, but it might also mean that Alpha Trion's withered old corpse is going to be reanimated -- I prefer the latter.

Shockwave walks in on this scene, like a cuckolded husband walking in on his wife with another man, and then shrinks back so he doesn't have to deal with the consequences of what he has seen.

Vector Sigma whistles to himself, and then floats higher -- he had settled down after creating the Stunticon's personalities, but now he remains active.

We are then treated to a scene where the Aerialbots introduce themselves, and where the Optimus keeps getting in the way of the camera. We don't even see Fireflight.

Silverbolt mentions he was a courier ship. It's odd that they have knowledge of their existence before being given personalities.

Fireflight wants to know what this place is, and who these guys are, but Optimus answers none of these questions, and demands the newly born robot identify himself. He complies.

Optimus announces they should go back to Earth. From within Vector Sigma, Alpha Trion starts speaking and mentions that maybe the key to Vector Sigma will do something else in the later parts of the episode.

Shockwave, hiding out of sight, is listening. Also, Alpha Trion's body remains lying on the floor. Whoever now resides there is just taking it all in.

Alpha Trion explains "On Earth, it's energy may have a different effect. More I cannot say." Note that this is not "I don't know more". Alpha Trion is a wily old man with his own agenda.

The Autobots begin to head back, and Vector Sigma keeps whistling, now apparently active forever.

Shockwave calls Megatron, and lets him know about the recent events, including the unknown power of the key.

Exciting battle between more guard drones and the Aerialbots. Flight really is an advantage.

"Rocket Mode, Omega Supreme, fast!" Optimus declares, so the massive robot fires his arms into space and leaves his body behind. There's a weird spot on the rocket. Also, the drones are shaking their fists at the departing arms.

"... And that, Aerialbots, is why the Transformers left Cybertron for a new world, a world the Decepticons have sworn to plunder, but which we have sworn to protect. Our new home, the planet Earth.

Omega Supreme lands, generating a large cloud of smoke, and pulling the rest of his body from somewhere as a base. The Autobots then depart as Omega Supreme gives vague warnings of explosion eminent and destruction inevitable.

Omega Supreme then explodes. The base that forms his body has vanished for the explosion -- some kind of problem with subspace?

Commercial, with Omega Supreme bumper, pulling himself back together. And then Grimlock.

In the medical bay, Ratchet explains how close Omega Supreme is to death, and robotic life support won't last long enough, etc.

The Autobots go to a cliff overlooking the military base with the Superfuel. Optimus carries Blaster and the Aerialbots in his trailer. Hilarity ensues as the humans try to kill them. Slingshot wants to kill them back, but Optimus says no.

Optimus and the General yell at each other, and Slingshot continues to want to kill the humans. Blaster detects incoming Decepticons very fast, and Optimus assumes it is Starscream and The Jets. Blaster politely informs Optimus that he is wrongo, and points to the Stunticons racing towards them.

There is a very exciting battle.

The General realizes it wasn't the Autobots who attacked them after all, but I'm pretty sure Slingshot still wants to kill the humans.

Breakdown surrounds the Aerialbots, who then resort to flight. Stunticons can fly too though.

But, Silverbolt can't... ha ha ha.

Megatron orders the Stunticons to return to base, since he never ordered them to attack in the first place.

And then the Aerialbot limbs make fun of Silverbolt for being afraid of heights. Ironhide says something, so they mock him for being unable to handle the Stunticons.

Optimus breaks up the fun, and says that they have to get back to see how Omega Supreme is doing. This begs the question -- why did they drive out to the cliff overlooking the military base anyway? They do nothing while there, they just drive out, turn around, and drive back. Sure, there's a battle, but the whole little adventure serves no purpose for the Autobots.

Ratchet explains that they cannot reconnect Omega's brain until his body is together, since limbs are the things that keep the brain functioning.

Slingshot suggests the Aerialbots look this place over. Optimus has Silverbolt stay behind, and then gives him responsibility. "It will give you something else to worry about, besides your fear of heights... like failing people who depend on you because of your fear of heights."

Megatron is using a tiny purple microscope to examine the key to vector sigma. I believe the microscope is the G1 incarnation of Movieverse Scalpel, except we just never see him transform.

The Aerialbots are watching TV, and Slingshot still wants to kill the humans, or at least not protect them. Silverbolt makes an impassioned speech about judging when you don't have enough information, which Slingshot counters with the clever retort "Well, what do you know, Mr. Scared Of Heights".

So, they go to the medical bay, where Slingshot demonstrates his ignorance. "Humans are a waste of time, and these guys aren't much better. Most of them can't even fly. And this big one ... all it took was a one way trip from Cybertron to make him fall apart."

It was a round trip, and if Slingshot wasn't so full of himself, he could have found out and not made such a damned fool of himself.

Ironhide polite offers to reprogram Slingshot to add humility subroutines with his fist, and Slingshot says "you wouldn't dare. You need us, but we don't need you. Come on, guys let's get out of here."

Silverbolt tells Optimus that he will get them back. He'll do something. He promises.

Optimus gives him a look that says "Am I going to have to give you even more responsibility you aren't ready for, to take your mind off this responsibility? How about an anxiety llama?"

Ironhide looks like he needs a drink.

Meanwhile, at the Decepticon mobile lab in the woods, Soundwave trips, and Megatron calls him a clumsy fool. But the clumsy fool discovered the power of the key, which Megatron had failed to figure out for hours.

Megatron starts turning live Christmas trees into aluminum Christmas trees. Now, Christmas can last ... FOREVER!!! Bwa ha ha!

Commercial -- Shockwave and Astrotrain again.

At the Autobot base, Teletraan I announces "Detecting unusual energy readings. Possible Decepticon activity." Optimus asks for a visual, and Teletraan provides a picture of Megatron turning more live Christmas trees into aluminum ones.

In "The Master Builder", we learn that the Decepticons had a camera in a fake rock in a random canyon. I assume the Autobots have similar technology, and now I wonder how much of the Earth is under Transformers surveillance.

Also, Teletraan I clearly cannot recognize Megatron, or "possible Decepticon activity" would have just been "Decepticon activity."

And so the Autobots head out -- no Omega Supreme, no Aerialbots. Blaster thinks it would be a suicide mission, but I'm really not sure what the Key would do to Transformers as they are already metal.

Slingshot and Silverbolt are debating the finer points of abandoning humans to their own fate, or taking over and running everything. Obviously, Silverbolt is creating some kind of trick. Also, it is nice that Slingshot doesn't really think Optimus putting Silverbolt in charge matters.

Optimus and the Autobots confront Megatron and there is a glorious battle. Is that a blue Windcharger I see?

Silverbolt shows Slingshot around the Autobot base, and they watch the Autobots and Stunticons play roller derby. They then watch Sparkplug keep working attaching Omega Supreme's hands while Ratchet recharges -- Silverbolt explains he gets his energy from his wellspring of concern for an autobot, but I bet Sparkplug needs more rest than Ratchet, and they just walked in at the right moment.

Why can't Ratchet charge and work at the same time? Just walk around with an extension cord sticking out...

"Are you getting the point yet?" Silverbolt says, "We owe the Autobots our lives!"

This convinces Slingshot, despite it being a conclusion that comes from nothing they have just seen. Slingshot might not be the brightest. But, the Aerialbots will fight.

Exciting fighting continues. Aerialbots to the rescue, etc. Stunticons unite into Menasaur. Aerialbots transform into Superion. More fighting. Omega Supreme to the rescue. Decepticons retreat.

Silverbolt overcomes his fear of heights long enough to destroy the key. He knocks it out of Megatron's hands and then he and the key plummet. He keeps shooting at the key as he comes closer and closer to the ground, and finally destroys it. He says "so long cruel world" at the prospect of being smashed to bits on impact, but Slingshot rescues him.

It would be a dumb sacrifice. No reason the key needs to be destroyed in mid air rather than on the ground. It might not even need to be destroyed at all.

Slingshot and Ironhide exchange apologies, the limbs fly off to base, and Silverbolt says he would rather walk. The camera avoids showing the large chunk of Washington state that is now metal.

Also, Vector Sigma is presumably still turned on. Someone could just keep animating robots.

Overall, I think this is the best of the two-episode stories. Good pacing throughout, and the plot holes aren't super obvious.

[Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats]

On Friday, July 15, 2016 at 6:06:53 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
> "The Key to Vector Sigma" parts 1 and 2 are episodes #56 and #57 of the original Transformers series, both penned by David Wise.  They represent the beginning of a dramatic shift in the focus of the show; the final ten episodes of the season focused on showcasing the Scramble City teams, and to this end, this two-part episode features the first appearances of the Aerialbots and Stunticons.  Both episode were penned by David Wise, first airing on November 25 and 26 back in 1985.  

Thanksgiving was the 28th that year, and since Christmas shopping starts the day after, this was an especially well timed episode.

> "THE KEY TO VECTOR SIGMA" PART 1

> Our episode begins with the Autobots guarding a convoy of tanker trucks filled with a new experimental super fuel, which the U.S. government is providing to the Autobots to test out.  One wonders how this is going to work, since all indications are that all Transformers are powered by energon.  The Autobots would have to convert the fuel into energon before they could use it.  Of course, we've seen that different types of fuel result in different types of energon (witness the "super-energon" made from Carbombyan oil in "Thief in the Night") so perhaps the Autobots can evaluate it based on the grade of energon it results in.  

Or the Autobots would examine it for safety, etc. Lots of things they could do, even if the fuel wasn't meant to be used by them.

> Optimus Prime seemed to think that Prowl, Smokescreen, and Warpath would be sufficient to guard the fuel, and Prowl doubts whether Megatron even knows of its existence, but Megatron probably has cameras hidden inside flip-top rocks all over the world, so of course he found out about it.

Totally. The Autobots have similar technology.

>  Dirge and Thrust recover him and take him back to the base for repairs.

And some unnamed character briefly wanted to help out.

> Megatron is incensed that the Autobots are escaping.  "So?  We can't exactly drive after 'em!" Rumble says.  He's stating the obvious, of course, but it's the first of several comments that are going to resonate within Megatron's consciousness, culminating in a decision to do something about the Autobots' dominance on the ground.

This is such a wildly contrived battle though...

> He grabs the driver by the neck, rips him out of the car, and throws him off-screen, probably killing him.  

Necks are tough. Plus, he had a helmet.

>Cut to a bank robbery where a couple of hoodlums make their escape in a sexy Porsche 928.  Did Megatron give Rumble specific instructions on what types of cars to steal, or does Rumble just have a taste for high-end performance vehicles?  Anyway, as before, Rumble opens the driver's side door, yanks the bank robber out, and throws him out of the cabin.  Mind, this is while the guy is fleeing the scene of a felony, so he's probably not going the speed limit.  That's at least two murders under Rumble's fanbelt.

He also had a helmet. And we never see him get rid of the bank robber in the passenger seat, who didn't have a helmet.

> Next, he sets his sights on a big, black tractor trailer truck.  Rumble jumps right through the passenger-side window, shattering it (that's fine; Megatron's going to replace the windows with something more Decepticonesque) and sending the tucker tumbling down the road.  How rude.

He's fine, he has a helmet.

> We don't see where Rumble found the Lamborghini or the Ferarri, but we can assume some drivers got thrown to their deaths.  

They probably had helmets.

> So, five vehicles later and Megatron is ready to do some customizing.  He starts cutting the cars apart and stuffing them full of new components.  This has always kind of bothered me a little, because everything we know about Transformers up to this point suggest that they're normally made out of alien, Cybertronian metals.

Dinobots are made out of Earth materials.

> Now, I don't recall precisely whether this episode aired before or after the Challenge of the GoBots episode "Auto-Matic," which featured the six-member Puzzler combiner.  Puzzler was arguably one of the coolest GoBots toys, but the episode presented them as mindless remote-controlled machines (who were destroyed by episode's end).  By this point in the episode, the Stunticons were shaping up to be the exact same thing.  
>

> Rumble is impressed.  "Not even the Autobots can do that kind of stunt driving!" he proclaims.  Megatron takes his inspiration from this comment and christens them the Stunticons.  Anyway, the Stunticons finally transform to their robot modes.  It's just because Megatron pushed a button on his remote control, but it's something, at least.

This was also not long after Triple Takeover, with Astrotrain's army of trains.

> So far, everything Megatron has done has been based entirely on random remarks made by Rumble.  Perhaps Rumble is the true Decepticon master, and Megatron is just a puppet.  

Reminding me of Triple Takeover again... Blitzwing unable to do anything and needing the coach.

> Elsewhere, the Autobots are watching an instant replay of the theft (and murder!) at the Formula One race.  Optimus finds himself wonder how Megatron is planning to bring them to life, since, in his own words, "There's no way here on Earth to give them cybernetic personalities like we have."  In some ways this is kind of retconny, but it's got enough qualifiers that it can technically stand as a correct statement.  The Constructicons were supposedly built on Earth in "Heavy Metal War," but they got a new Cybertron-based origin in "The Secret of Omega Supreme" so we have to accept that the Decepticons were merely rebuilding the Constructicons into Earth vehicle forms, not actually creating them per se.  Then there's the matter of the Dinobots, who, too, were built on Earth.  They're all complete idiots, though, so maybe that's the distinction.  According to this episode, only the supercomputer Vector Sigma can give "life" to Transformers (whatever that means in this context).  If that's the case, though, then that means the Dinobots aren't really "alive" because Vector Sigma had nothing to do with their creation.

I always assumed the Dinobots were just machines because of this.

> Anyway, Megatron takes his little remote-controlled robots to Cybertron over the space bridge.  Shockwave reminds Megatron that Vector Sigma can't be used until it's activated by the circuit key, which is guarded by Alpha Trion.  Megatron acts like he was never told any of this.  

He might never have been told this.

> This episode, along with episodes like "Five Faces of Darkness" and "Surprise Party," supports the idea that Transformers have a limited long-term memory recall.  At various points, characters like Rumble and even Optimus Prime claim to not recognize or remember Vector Sigma, despite the fact that Vector Sigma should have given them all life to begin with.  Megatron's ignorance about the key further suggests this.

Or that something happened to their memory... Some Quintesson plot.

>  If Megatron knew about the supercomputer, surely he would have tried to use it to create new Decepticons at some point previously.

Transformers don't revisit plans or come up with plans that make a lot of sense. Here, Megatron's actions are all sparked by Rumble's comments. If no one gave him the idea to create more Decepticons, he might not have.

> If it was millions of years ago, however, he might have simply forgotten about it.  Just like Optimus Prime forgot that Alpha Trion was his creator, or how Blitzwing had forgotten about the Quintessons, or how Ultra Magnus forgot his own birthday.  

Alpha Trion did grow a longer beard. Quintessons may have messed with Blitzwing. And Ultra Magnus just doesn't celebrate birthdays -- he knows when it is, he just doesn't want to be bothered.

> Anyway, the Autobots realize they must travel to Cybertron to stop Megatron from giving birth, because there's nothing more evil and diabolical than bringing new life into the world.  The Stunticon abortion team consists of Optimus Prime, nurse Ratchet, Ironhide, Wheeljack, Blaster, and good ol' Moist, on leave during a production break of filming Son of Revenge of the Evil Alien Robots II: the Sequel.  

> So, Omega Supreme launches his rocket module from Earth to Cybertron, while his rocket base remains on Earth.  When he lands on Cybertron, though, he's still able to transform to robot mode.  How is this possible, when his rocket consists of his arms, and the rest of his body forms the rocket base?  Does he shunt his entire rocket base into subspace and teleport it?  Or does he have two identical bodies (one on Earth, one on Cybertron) and his arms just shuttle back and forth between them?  Does that mean Omega Supreme's consciousness is, in fact, inside his arms?  (Answers below.)

Holy shit, that makes perfect sense.

> The Autobots go to see Alpha Trion, who can teach them all about Vector Sigma.  When they find his damaged body, however, Prime orders Hoist and Ratchet to fix him up.  Nobody mentions how this delay is going to give the Decepticons a huge head start.  Once he's up and functional, Alpha Trion explains how Vector Sigma is still operational, so all it needs to give the Stunticons life is the power circuit key.  There is evidently only one possible route to the Vector Sigma chamber, in the form of a tunnel on the surface of Cybertron that leads into its depths.  

There may be other routes that Alpha Trion doesn't know about.

> Sometimes, a writer would submit a story premise to be turned into an episode, and some executive at Hasbro or Sunbow or Marvel Productions would go, "This is great!  Can you make it a two-part episode?"  The problem that seems to be endemic to most of the two-part stories is that there is so much filler.  An example of this, in my opinion, is the clash between the Decepticons and the centurion droids.  It's explained that they were programmed to guard the Vector Sigma chamber, but ironically, they don't have any life of their own.  They're just these homogenous ugly green robots with domes for heads, who don't speak and don't have toys on the shelf.  I think that's one of the reasons I'm so bored by them.  This was an episode that introduced the five Stunticon toys, so when I was a kid, I wanted to see Stunticons in action.  I wanted to learn their names and get to know their individual personality quirks.  I wasn't interested in watching Soundwave and the tapes fight off an army of Mysterio knockoffs.

There are guard drones all over Cybertron. We've seen Sentinel robots, and various other drones. I think the two episodes are packed full and they were chopping things out rather than padding.

>
> The Autobots stop long enough to observe some old-timey maintenance robots , who at this point are just strewn all over the ground.  They also take note of some ancient Cybertronian shuttles, and Alpha Trion remarks how he used to ride them to school when he was a youngster.  Well, not really, but close enough.  Blaster, always the master of tact, points out that this must have been one hell of a long time ago.  Blaster also proceeds to remark that the Autobots are "el losto," because as we all know, all you need to do to translate English to Spanish is add an "o" to the end of every word.

Blaster's "Spanish" is a precursor to ROTF's Mudflap and Skids speaking in "Ebonics".

> Alpha Trion explains that they're definitely heading in the same direction the Decepticons went, because who else would have sent the centurion droids to kill them?  (This line must have slipped past the censors, because typically this show used words like "destroy" instead of "kill."  It's extremely rare when this word actually makes it into a finished episode.)

The droids are about ten feet away by that point. It always amuses me to think that Alpha Trion has been deliberately not mentioning them, and the rest were oblivious.

> Megatron, Soundwave, and Rumble have made it into the Vector Sigma chamber.  I would venture that one of the reasons Megatron's actually been successful up to this point is that he didn't bring Starscream along this time.

Very good point.

> Vector Sigma (voiced by Corey Burton, doing a sort of constipated Brawn voice) seems to be neither good nor evil, doing merely whatever its current user requests of it.  It doesn't make judgement calls.  "Fill them with hatred for the Autobots, and all the Autobots stand for!" is Megatron's instruction to the computer, and it responds by zapping them all with purple lightning, ostensibly imbuing their bodies with pieces of the extradimensional AllSpark.  (Obviously, that term wasn't in use until Beast Machines, but according to Optimus Primal, every Transformer has a piece of the AllSpark inside him, and their life force returns to the AllSpark when they die.  Beast Machines establishes that Vector Sigma is essentially a gateway, and that the afterlife for Transformers is also where life begins for them.)

Everyone other than the Dinobots and the Technobots. Maybe the Predacons too. And Galvatron, Cyclonus, Scourge and the Sweeps might have bits of unicron in them.

> After Vector Sigma is done programming the Stunticons, they introduce themselves.  Vector Sigma must have taken some serious liberties with Megatron's instructions.  Unless Vector Sigma is just pulling sparks from the existing AllSpark pool at random, it's odd that it would have given the Stunticons such specific personality defects.  It's not fully evident from this episode alone, but we'll see later that Dead End is a manic depressive fatalist, Drag Strip is obsessed with winning, Wildrider is a psychotic reckless driver, and Breakdown is a nervous wreck who stammers and garbles his words.  Motormaster is arguably the only one of them without some crippling personality defect.  For storytelling purposes, it's great that the Stunticons aren't just clones of one another, and it's great that they're finally alive (sixteen minutes into the episode), but this isn't exactly what Megatron ordered, is it?

4 out of 5 pledge loyalty, which is pretty surprising. Megatron kind of blew it with his instructions and is lucky he got anything nearly as good as he got.

> What follows is, to me, the most boring and pointless filler scene in the entire episode.  Nameless, faceless maintenance drones square off against the nameless, faceless centurion droids.  Why should I care?  These aren't toys Hasbro wants me to buy.  The centurions absolutely mop the floor with the drones.  I guess it's interesting in that we're not usually afforded this kind of wanton destruction on the show (the drones are, in turn, punched to death, beheaded, and knocked into pieces—something they could never do to named characters).  The next group of maintenance robots walk right off a cliff, and like robotic lemmings, the centurions stupidly follow, right to their doom.  

I always liked this. It shows the difference between the Stunticons that were just created, and what they would have been without Vector Sigma giving them life.

The droids are dumb -- they are supposed to be dumb, they aren't alive.

>

> Still no toys of any kind, official or unofficial, for the maintenance drones or the centurion droids.  Because nobody loves those losers.

Ouch. It's just because they aren't alive.

> "THE KEY TO VECTOR SIGMA" PART 2
>
> After a brief recap, we find the Autobots hard at work, converting the old-timey shuttles into modern Earth jets.  Now it becomes clear why Wheeljack, Ratchet, and Hoist just happened to be among the Autobots selected for this mission.  (It certainly would have strained credibility if it had been, say, Cliffjumper and Brawn and Bluestreak who built the Aerialbots.  It's debatable whether Ironhide or Blaster contributed much, but I guess any robot monkey can weld two pieces of metal together.  Look at all the unskilled laborers who helped assemble the Dinobots.)  

The team does make a lot more sense now.

> When Wheeljack points out that Megatron still has the Vector Sigma key, Alpha Trion assures them he has an emergency back-up key.  Optimus Prime balks, "What are you doing?!" before Alpha trion even flips open a fingertip to reveal a hidden key.  He explains that as a first-generation product of Vector Sigma, he is compatible with the computer and that his own power circuits can reactivate it.

What is a second generation product of Vector Sigma? Just let that roll around for a bit...

> How is it that Alpha Trion can remember this (other episodes establish his age as over 12 million years) but Optimus Prime (who is only nine million years old) cannot recall anything about his own creation?

Astroid storms, weird radiation, etc. His memory was mostly erased.

> Anyway, Alpha Trion does the deed, and there is a surge of energy before his body drops to the ground, lifeless.  Optimus Prime realizes that Alpha Trion is now merged with the computer.  There is no talk of interring his body (and we know from "Five Faces of Darkness" that Autobots do this); from all indications, the Autobots simply leave it there to rust.

No. There are other indications.

> The history and canon involving Vector Sigma is so convoluted that it's hard to make sense of it all.  We know from "The Rebirth" that the Matrix of Leadership also functions as a substitute key to Vector Sigma.  We also know from "Call of the Primitives" that the Matrix was, seemingly, the life force of Primacron's assistant.  I tend to think that the Quintessons found the Matrix floating through space, tried to figure out what it was, and built Vector Sigma around its design to serve as a Game Genie of sorts, in the hopes of accessing its secrets.  What they might not have counted on was that the Matrix itself opened a gateway to the AllSpark, and when they began using Vector Sigma to program their mass-produced robotic product line, it was imbuing tiny bits of the AllSpark within each robot.  This is why they developed unexpected personalties and emotions (as seen in "Five Faces of Darkness" part 4), because the living AllSpark was corrupting them.  It stands to reason that the Quintessons might have originally used the Matrix to dump the personalities of the robots who attempted rebellions or uprisings (former Autobot leaders, in other words).  When the Autobots finally exiled the Quintessons from Cybertron, they were left with the former rebel leaders still trapped within the Matrix.  They may have had no choice but to safeguard it, relying on their wisdom from beyond the grave.  That's my theory, anyway.  

Not bad. I don't quite buy the connection between the Matrix of Leadership and Vector Sigma though -- not without the helping hand of Alpha Trion inside.

> Blaster balks at Alpha Trion sacrificing himself, but Optimus Prime recognizes the necessity of the deed.  "One Autobot gave his life so that six could be born," he says.  Careful viewers will note that there are only five Aerialbots present.  A simple arithmetic error, or a hint at events to come?

Or, did they also reanimate the corpse of Alpha Trion! There's another brand new character right there! (who then never does anything of note)

> Anyway, Optimus Prime's Aerialbot recipe is as follows:  "Let them think for themselves; to grow in knowledge and wisdom; and let them always value freedom and life wherever they find it."  Vector Sigma is almost like a sinister genie in a lamp who deliberately misinterprets its master's wishes for its own amusement.  The Aerialbots end up valuing freedom, all right... to the point where, as we'll see, they eventually abandon the Autobots and go off on their own.

It's a good summation of the Autobots though.

>  As with the Stunticons, the four small Aerialbots seem to be defective, with only Silverbolt maintaining some sense of maturity and responsibility.  Actually, Slingshot ends up being the spokesman for the Aerialbot mini-vehicles, with the other three following him like sheep.  There isn't really any character development for Skydive or Fireflight or Air Raid at all in this episode.
>
> With a flash of yellow light, the Aerialbots are brought to life and all transform to robot mode.  (Preposterously, Shockwave just happens to be strolling past the Vector Sigma chamber to witness their creation.  Because this is a place that he would be likely to visit.)  The Aerialbots all introduce themselves, and strangely enough, they all seem to have some recollection of their former existence as ancient Cybertron shuttles.  Silverbolt recalls that he used to be a low-level cargo ship.  He's also apparently come up with his own name right on the spot:  "Now, I think I'm... Silverbolt?" he ventures uncertainly.  Slingshot is aware that he was once a speed shuttle.  Skydive, Fireflight, and Air Raid don't offer commentary on their former existance.  Skydive can fly like any aerial vehicle, so maybe he was a multi-purpose shuttle.  Air Raid loves to have fun, so perhaps he was the equivalent of a clown car.  Fireflight might have been the Cybertron version of a short bus, because he sure seems like he belongs on one.
>
> (I wonder, does this mean the Stunticons also have an awareness of their former existence?  Does Dead End dream about robbing banks?  Does Drag Strip sometimes play hooky and go back down to the race track looking for his former driver?  Does Motormaster sometimes absent-mindedly break into trucker CB lingo and not quite understand why?)

I assume the Stunticons have no knowledge of their past, because those were just plain machines. Cybertronian transport ships though... why wouldn't those be semi-sentient?

>
>
> So, with the introductions out of the way, Alpha Trion makes his presence known, from within the annals of Vector Sigma.  Having merged with the computer, he has learned the secrets of time and space, and will proceed to manipulate future events to ensure that the Aerialbots go back in time to save his life in the past, and will provide Galvatron with the secrets of the plasma energy chamber in "The Rebirth."  For now, however, he is content to warn Optimus Prime that the key to Vector Sigma has magical powers on Earth and that Prime had really better get there before it substantially lowers the real estate value for the entire planet.
>
> This episode establishing that every Transformer is created with Vector Sigma creates a major problem for writers of future episodes, since Vector Sigma cannot be reactivated without the key (which is destroyed by the end of this episode).

No one bothers to turn off Vector Sigma... he's still active when they leave.

> All characters introduced after this point have to be either characters who always existed but we just never saw them before (Autobots from The Transformers: the Movie), or were imprisoned somewhere (Combaticons), or were created by the Quintessons (the Predacons and Terrorcons, arguably), or had no discernible origin at all (Protectobots), or their creation completely flew in the face of this episode (Trypticon, the Technobots).  

Technobots have bits of Unicron in them.

> "Now, all we gotta do is hope that Shockwave didn't get the better of Omega Supreme," remarks Ironhide as the Autobots emerge on the planet's surface, a comment that will turn out to be portentous.

Sometimes you just gotta tempt fate.

> (There is one episode, "Blaster Blues," in which Omega's rocket lands on a barren surface, kicking up a cloud of dust. We hear some kind of energy sound effect, and when the dust clears, his rocket base is visible!)

We get that in this episode, sans sound effect.

> A close-up of the exterior of Omega's rocket suggests something is amiss. It's drawn indistinctly, like a spider's web or perhaps a small hull breach. In the original script, there was a whole sequence in which Shockwave and his "old enemy" Omega Supreme engage each other until Shockwave manages to secretly tag Omega with a cyber-bomb. We see Omega at various points patching up the damage he took during this battle. All of this was cut from the finished episode, leaving the indistinct hull fissure and Ironhide's strangely ominous comment as the only remaining evidence of why Omega Supreme's time is running out.

Odd. I really think this should have been a three episode thing, M-W before Thanksgiving. Flush out the explosion, the Shockwave and Omega Supreme bit, Alpha Trion 2 getting up and sneaking off... Lots of stuff was very short.

> Evidently, Prime spends the journey back to Earth getting the Aerialbots up to speed on current events (because this must be done orally, apparently, and cannot just be preprogrammed into them). He concludes with, "...and that, Aerialbots, is why we Transformers left Cybertron for a new world....Our new home, the planet Earth!"
This isn't exactly right, since the Autobots never set out to colonize another planet. They were originally searching for energy sources, as seen in the pilot, and got knocked out for four million years. The only thing stopping the Autobots from leaving Earth is the fact that they still feel the need to protect it from the Decepticons. That's not the same thing as "leaving Cybertron for a new world."

We also don't know that the reason he gave before that was accurate.

> Watch Omega Supreme carefully as he touches back down. The area around the volcano base is completely empty. The rocket lands in a big cloud of dark exhaust, and when the smoke clears, the rocket base is suddenly there. Tricksy Hobbitses. Omega detects that his rocket is about to detonate, so he warns the Autobots to quickly evacuate. Seconds later, the rocket module erupts in a fiery, billowing explosion. Commercial break? Sure, why not?


> Well, you wouldn't think the destruction of the rocket would be that big of a deal. Worst-case scenario, Omega Supreme would just have to sit there without arms for a few days until the Autobots constructed him some new ones. For some reason, though, the rocket's destruction affected Omega Supreme in his entirety. When next we see him, his entire robot body is in ruined pieces, on the floor of the volcano base, with his limbs are connected together only tenuously by wiring and his head connected to some kind of cybernetic life-support device. (Interestingly, the inside of Omega Supreme's head is made entirely of green-colored metal. You know whose machines tended to use a lot of green metal? The Quintessons.) Ratchet explains that the life-support machine won't keep Omega Supreme alive long enough to put his body back together, but Ratchet continues ahead with the repair work anyway. (I'm reminded of the scene from a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode where Data is trying to replace all the Enterprise's isolinear chips so they can warp away from a sun before it explodes, and he calmly replies, "This will take slightly more time than we have left," even as he shoves them back in their slots as quickly as inhumanly possible.)

>The whole business with Omega Supreme being close to death bothers me. Why can't they just rebuild his head first and let it sit there disembodied for a while until his body is ready? We've already seen countless instances of robots having their heads separated from their bodies (Optimus Prime in "City of Steel," Powerglide in "Desertion of the Dinobots") and they've been able to function just fine. Also, why is Ratchet the only one working to rebuild Omega Supreme? What about Wheeljack and Hoist? What about the unskilled laborers? If laymen like Blaster and Ironhide can be trusted to bring new life into the world, surely they can be recruited to weld some of Omega's armor panels back together? It's an artificial plot contrivance just for the sake of generating some suspense. (And I don't think anybody watching this episode for the first time seriously believed that Omega Supreme was going to die.)

I always think he's dead when he explodes for no apparent reason. Transformers uses words like "destroy" for "kill" all the time.

"Destruction eminent", he explodes for no reason, and it is the most surprising and least satisfying death in Transformers history.

Then I remember the rest of the episode. But for an instant, it is always "they killed Omega Supreme like that?"

Anyway, why couldn't they have pulled out his laser core and put it into a filing cabinet? And, if it is in one of his arms (can't really shunt his brain into subspace), why can't they rebuild his rocket and ignore the body?

I assume the head is being used for life support, just because it was mostly undamaged and had compatible circuits to keep the laser core operational. Transferring it there happened off screen.

> (We also can indirectly infer just how quickly the Autobots are able to travel from Cybertron to Earth and back. The general claims the Stunticons attacked the military base "a few hours ago," so either Omega Supreme's rocket module is preposterously fast, or else Cybertron is still really, really close to the Earth following its orbital relocation in "The Ultimate Doom.")

Or the Stunticons keep attacking, just for fun. Which they promptly do again.

> Slingshot is the voice of dissent for the Aerialbot team, dismissing the military personnel as "bird brains" and wondering why the Autobots are sworn to protect such idiots. Ironhide assures the youngster that the humans are merely confused. Thus begins a short-lived rivalry between the old guard and the new regime.

> What follows is a great little scene when Blaster identifies incoming Decepticons approaching fast. Naturally, Optimus Prime assumes it's Starscream and the jets, but it's an incorrect assumption this time. "Wrong-o!" Blaster proclaims in perfect Spanish. "They're coming at us from the ground at three hundred miles an hour!"

You have to reach out to minorities...

> The nature of Motormaster's transformation has always bothered me. We see in this episode and others like it that in vehicle mode, he's a tractor trailer and the same size as Optimus Prime. Prime's cab forms his entire robot mode while the trailer sits just off-screen and enjoys a bagel and coffee with Moist. Motormaster's truck cab forms his feet, with the rest of the trailer forming his robot body. If that's the case, though, then either Motormaster should be tiny in vehicle mode, or else he should transform into a gigantic robot. (The Hasbro toy of Motormaster actually is disappointingly tiny compared to Optimus Prime.)

Well, there you go. Tiny. Like the tiny space shuttle that is Blast Off. And the giant motorcycle that is Groove (as big as a tiny space shuttle!).

> After Motormaster climbs on board Slingshot's vehicle mode and begins pounding away at him, Slingshot beckons for help from Silverbolt. Poor Silverbolt tries to ascend to a sufficient altitute to render assistance, but he seems unable to do so. Luckily, Fireflight comes to the rescue, and Motormaster is forcibly dismounted. When Megatron observes that the Stunticons are engaging the Aerialbots, he remarks "I gave no order to attack!" and has them recalled. How convenient!

Declarations of unswerving loyalty lasted... a few hours?

> In the aftermath of the encounter, Slingshot demands an explanation from Silverbolt, who is at a loss to explain his sudden panic attack. Ironhide shows up wearing a skirt.

It's so weird.

> Also, I really hate Silverbolt's lips. There, I said it.

So kissable.

> There generally isn't a lot of infighting amongst the Autobots (there's the occasional squabble between Cliffjumper and Mirage, or Brawn and Perceptor, but for the most part everybody tends to get along). The difference seems to be that the Aerialbots are youngsters, and are not seasoned enough to recognize the seriousness of war.

Wheelie does keep trying to get Daniel killed, but I guess that's different.

> Anyway, the Aerialbots run off, leaving Silverbolt in the proverbial dust. He promises Optimus Prime that he'll convince them to return somehow and heads off after them. Why is it that Silverbolt, alone, demonstrates the maturity not to abandon the Autobots? It certainly can't be because he's the leader, because Vector Sigma didn't make that decision; Optimus Prime did.

Air Raid might be very mature. We have no idea.

> The Decepticons have set up operations to analyze the Vector Sigma key. Soundwave is carrying it when he trips over a tree root, causing him to drop the thing. In a rare moment, Megatron chastizes him, calling him a "clumsy fool." When he drops the key, though, it leads to an amazing discovery. The surrounding area, including the dirt and vegetation, is instantly turned metallic. Megatron's assessment is that the key "de-energizes matter" and changes it into metal.

Where does the energy go? Megatron is missing one hell of a fuel source.

>I'm not sure how scientific this is (plants are made of carbon and dirt is made of tiny rocks and clay; you cannot transmute either into metal without some serious hand-waving and lead-into-gold type alchemy) but, okay, let's roll with it. Megatron realizes this means he could theoretically use the key to just turn Earth into the next Cybertron. He totally abandons all plans to duplicate the super fuel or use the Stunticons to dominate the roads. Now, suddenly, his number one goal is to turn the Earth into a big, metal ball. Megatron is completely bipolar. This is his manic side asserting itself. In five minutes, he's going to forget all about the circuit key and tell the Decepticons it's time to go to Baskin Robbins for ice cream.

It's like Optimus Prime driving the Autobots over to the military base, only to fight the Stunticons and then return to their own base without ever doing whatever it was he wanted to do at the military base in the first place...

> Anyway, Teletraan reports Megatron's location as 20 miles west of Seattle-Tacoma. This is an incredibly imprecise description. Seattle and Tacoma are, like, 30 miles apart from each other. Assuming perhaps Teletraan means the international Sea-Tac Airport serving the greater Seattle-Tacoma area, twenty miles west from that would be maybe Gig Harbor. I can't really get Mapquest to give me as-the-crow-flies distances because the roads are all swervy. Anyway, if Megatron really is in Liane Elliot's backyard, why not just say that?

Seattle-Tacoma is a town between Seattle and Tacoma, where people have no imagination, because of all the jet fuel they inhale. It's normally called SeaTac.

I've always wondered: Are there more or less Toyota Tacomas sold in Washington state per capita? Great name recognition, but it's Tacoma. With the aroma.

> Elsewhere, Silverbolt has caught up with the Aerialbots and is trying to convince them to return. When he fails to persuade Slingshot with logic and reason, he tries a different tactic. He pretends to have a change of heart and offers the Aerialbots the chance to return to the volcano and just take charge. This is enough, at least, to convince the others to come back with him.

I always wanted them to follow up on this, and have the Aerialbots try to take over for real.

> So, as Megatron is gleefully turning trees and rocks and things into nice, shiny purple-colored metal, Prime arrives with six Autobots in tow to stop him. I know the contention from the early days of the show is that some Autobots are out on patrol or on various missions, but isn't turning the Earth into metal (and presumably killing all life in the process) important enough to summon more than six Autobots for the job?

Meh. Those areas where Megatron isn't aren't going to patrol themselves. Besides, Starscream might be up to something somewhere.

> At the Autobot base, Silverbolt shows the Aerialbots these goings-on over Teletraan's monitor, explaining that even if they took over the base, they would still be forced to fight the Decepticons for control of the planet. When Slingshot remains skeptical, Silverbolt shows the others how the progress on Omega Supreme is coming along. Ratchet is out of power and needs to go recharge, but Sparkplug is willing to keep toiling away. The Aeriabots are sufficiently impressed. (The original script includes a scene where Sparkplug spells it out for the Aerialbots, that Omega Supreme risked himself to shuttle the Aerialbots to Earth and could die as a result, and it's this realization that realls does it for Slingshot.) In any event, the Aerialbots are sufficiently humbled and are now ready to kick some Decepticon stabilizier fins.

The original script sounds better.

> Back on the battlefield, Megatron is about to reach a populated area. I'm not sure why the Autobots are so concerned, since Megatron's pretty much forgotten about his first two major schemes. It's only a matter of time before he gets bored with turning things into metal and decides to build a gigantic purple griffin or something.

Oh, no. What if the Griffon was alive? It could have been sitting in the forests 20 miles west of SeaTac, and then... metal.

Also, what happened to the birds and squirrels and stuff?

> There are some really weird coloring artifacts of Superion's color model. The way he's drawn, Air Raid and Skydive form the arms, but the arms are actually colored like Slingshot and Fireflight. Further compounding the problem is that both of Superion's legs are drawn identically to one another, despite the fact that no two Aerialbot toys are identical. The rear-view drawings of Superion's legs seem to depict two more Skydives, according to the shapes of the wings, only with lightning bolts on the wings of one (which would indicate Skydive) and silver stripes on the other (indicating Air Raid). Because Superion's transformation model shows Air Raid and Skydive jumping up into the air to form the arms, those two characters actually switch colors with Slingshot and Fireflight every single time Superion is formed.

huh.

> http://www.zmfts.t15.org/superion_combines.jpg

> Just as Menasor is about to seemingly impale Superion with this thing, a familiar orange claw intercepts the attack. Yup, it's Omega Supreme, who has been restored just in time. "Repairs complete: Omega Supreme!" he bellows. Superion instantly recognizes him, despite never having met him before. (I know, I know. The Aerialbots knew who he was.) Together, Superion and Omega unfairly gang up on Menasor and give him a good toss. Megatron teaches Menasor the finer points of when a Decepticon should retreat (protip: it's all the time, in every episode, for any reason or no reason at all). He separates back into the Stunticons and they all go catch a double-feature at the local drive-in.

> As a robot, Silverbolt makes the shot, but then he just resigns himself to the fact that he's going to die, rather than transform back to jet mode and zip away. I don't know why this isn't possible. Worst-case scenario, though, he takes a tumble when he hits the ground. We've seen Transformers survive this, certainly (like Optimus Prime in the pilot episode). Instead, though, he just allows himself to continue plummeting while he utters, "so long, cruel world!" (Apparently, this is a very Aerialbot thing to say, since Air Raid says the same thing in "Thief in the Night.") Of course, Slingshot arrives just in the nick of time and scoops Silverbolt out of the sky, seconds from his maybe-death. "Nice shootin', kid!" he remarks. This is an excessively odd thing to say, since Slingshot and Silverbolt are the same age. You don't call someone "kid" unless you're older than they are. The ending of this episode is just so odd in so many ways.

The entire sacrifice makes no sense, other than to demonstrate that he would sacrifice himself.

Also, Slingshot was just quoting some Earth movie to try to make up for his comments about humans being worthless. I am surprised you don't point out the movie -- hint: a somewhat older character is pleased with the shooting of his younger friend, and would like to go home. Also, he has a wookiee sidekick to turns out to be an absentee father.

> The trees all make transforming sound effects as they change from metal trees to wooden trees.

The version I downloaded off the internet has a different sound effect... and trees becoming metal.

>Well, that's probably just the sound of the Aerialbots reverting to robot mode just off-screen, but it still seems weird. Optimus Prime passes judgement upon them, granting them the much-coveted title of "worthy Autobots," just as he did with the Dinobots. This means, of course, that the Aerialbots will be relegated to a closet until they are needed.

Poor Jetfire never got that title.

>Ironhide utters a forced apology. It just doesn't feel very heartfelt, not like it was with Brawn and Perceptor in "Microbots" or with Inferno and Red Alert in "Auto Berserk." I definitely don't get the sense that Slingshot and Ironhide are best buddies now. I think they're both overcompensating in the extreme. Look at that goofy smile on Slingshot's face. There's no way that's sincere.

> As the other Aerialbots fly off, Silverbolt turns down their offer to fly with them, and says that he'd prefer to walk back to the base. A jokey sort of ending, but given the circumstances, an understandable one. From this point onward, there is no remaining second season episode that does not feature the Aerialbots, or some other Scramble City team, in a major role. Indeed, Hasbro specifically requested that the last ten episodes of the season be reserved to showcase the newest 1986 toys.

It ends with a cringeworthy joke, like an episode of Star Trek...

>Overall, the ending was kind of anticlimactic, with the final confrontation between Menasor and Superion feeling rushed and ending way too quickly. It seems like we could have gotten a lot more of ther fight if some of the filler with the centurion droids and maintenance robots was eliminated.

It wasn't filler, it was just poorly done.

The two parter was a bit too tight. Stretching it to three-parts would have been nice, if they found a way to fill another 10 minutes after adding everything missing.

[Gustavo Wombat]

How were the Autobots expecting to get out of the giant pit they had to
leap into to get to Vector Sigma? None of the ones who leaped down could
fly. They were lucky they built the Aerialbots.

Also, the non-sentient droids were necessary. Look at the various states of
sentience that appear in this episode:
- Remote control stunticons that are clearly non-sentient
- Droids that attempt, and fail, to mimic sentience
- Transformers, who are sentient, but can only function within their limits
- Humans, who can push past their limits to keep working on Omega Supreme.

That's the heart of the episode right there. It might not have been done
well, but it was needed.

[Zobovor]

On Sunday, July 17, 2016 at 1:56:34 AM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:

> Our story opens with some tankers going down a highway, and then pans into
> the cab of one truck, where two truck drivers are providing exposition. They
> are dressed almost identically, with brown jackets and yellow hard hats.
> Indoor hard hats are an intriguing fashion choice, and one of the things that
> separates the Transformers universe from our own.

Well, you've got to figure that people's lives changed pretty drastically after they realized there were alien robots in their midst. I imagine wearing hard hats was one of those things that came about as a result of life on Earth suddenly being so dangerous. Would a hard hat protect you if Megatron blasted you with his fusion cannon? Probably not, but it created the illusion of security.

> Megatron and the Decepticons attack in a highly contrived battle where the
> Autobots win because they are cars.

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but Megatron did pick a fight in the worst possible place. You don't bring a knife to a gunfight, and you don't bring a bunch of planes to a car fight.

> So, the Decepticons start stealing cars.

They steal Pontiacs, and Lincolns too. Mercurys, and Subarus.

> Megatron rebuilds the cars into vehicles of total destruction, showing a
> mechanical aptitude we seldom see from him.

It's odd that sometimes Megatron builds things himself and other times he gets the Constructicons or somebody to do it for him. Maybe it depends on how busy his schedule is that day.

> In fact, after dropping by and roughing him up, they continue to let him
> live. I don't understand the Decepticons sometimes -- do they even want to
> win?

I tend to think that Megatron weighs the destruction and death that he could theoretically be causing against a potential Autobot response. He could have killed Alpha Trion, but then Prime would have been so incensed over his mentor's death that Prime would have done anything to defeat Megatron once and for all. As long as Megatron stayed his hand to some extent, he wouldn't have to deal with the full strength of a vengeful Autobot retaliation.

> Bumpers: Omega Supreme and Grimlock. Is there any significance to these?

If you are asking whether they picked the bumpers based on the episode... well, obviously yes. Omega Supreme, of course, because he nearly died in this episode, and Grimlock because he's just a pathetic loser who doesn't have a cybernetic personality like WE have.

> As Soundwave opens a door, there is a combination pad with 9 buttons. Do the
> Transformers naturally use a base 9 number system? One could be a return key,
> which would make it base 8 (far more reasonable), but if you add a delete
> and/or cancel we are at base 7 or 6. So odd.

No, it's probably base-five, what with the Quintessons having built Cybertron and all. The other buttons are Enter, Delete, Alarm, and Help (that last one summons a Guardian Robot).

> Bumpers are Shockwave and Astrotrain. Maybe just the first one is relevant in
> each set.

Astrotrain is there to remind us that the Decepticons COULD have used him to travel to Cybertron, but they took the space bridge instead. Mainly as a courtesy to Shockwave, who had been working on the technology for four million years and Megatron didn't want him to feel like he was totally wasting his time.

> What I found most interesting about it this time around was the pained voice
> of Vector Sigma -- very similar to Cerebros begging to die at the end of The
> Rebirth. Vector Sigma, for some reason, cannot refuse any commands, has seen
> what the creation of Transformers has led to, and wishes he had no part of it.

And yet, we will see in "The Rebirth" that Vector Sigma is orchestrating events, allowing Galvatron access to a highly potent and dangerous weapon on the off-chance that the circle of events might conclude with the revitalization of Cybertron. And, for that matter, the revitalization of Vector Sigma. Hmm. How self-serving.

> Also, given the opportunity to define what the Decepticons stand for, and the
> values these new Decepticons should embrace, Megatron can only define
> Decepticons by their opposition to, and hatred of, Autobots.

I wonder if this is even the "proper" way to program Vector Sigma? I mean, surely the Quintessons didn't do this with every single robot they created. It would have been so time-consuming and inefficient. "Let him be a soulless automaton who enjoys sweeping floors and dusting furniture, and may he embrace the values of cleanliness and good housekeeping."

> And now Vector Sigma descends after adding personalities, Megatron tells the
> new Decepticons that he is their leader, and they immediately bond to him.
> Motormaster swears loyalty to Megatron.

Motormaster really kept his word, didn't he? Flash forward to "Webworld" when he professes wearily that he's tired of getting beaten up by his so-called leader. He continues to tolerate it, though, because he swore loyalty all those years ago.

> There are some weird time dilation issues in this episode -- events seem to
> be progressing much faster for the Decepticons than the Autobots.

I never really notice stuff like this. I mean, they say that The Empire Strikes Back suffers heavily from this problem, because Luke is supposedly training for weeks or months with Yoda on Dagobah, but Han and Leia are only in Cloud City for hours or days. What I want to know is, how are people able to arrive at these conclusions? It's not like there's a time stamp after every scene.

> I really don't understand why they don't just make a combiner team of
> Cybertronian spaceships -- they would be more versatile and the whole thing
> would have been easier.

There is some value to the Aerialbots being Earth-style jets, because they can blend in unnoticed and can take to the skies without being obvious Transformers. However, we've seen that a) the Decepticons quickly learn to recognize the Aerialbots on sight, and b) the Autobots have plenty of teammates that don't blend in at all (the Dinobots, Cosmos, Skyfire, Omega Supreme, etc.)

> In this exchange, Vector Sigma seems more angry than pained -- has merging
> with Alpha Trion soothed him a bit?

Makes you wonder how much control Alpha Trion has at this stage. Consider that Vector Sigma doesn't talk after this episode... we see it again in "The Rebirth," but this time it's Alpha Trion doing all the talking on its behalf.

> I'm going to go out on a limb here -- when activated with the key, Vector
> Sigma has no choice. He had free will, but no choice, which is why his voice
> was so pained.

Well, Vector Sigma is always described as a computer (or a "mega-computer"), so it's not alive like a Transformer is. Its level of sentience would be more along the lines of Teletraan-I. Say, I wonder if Vector Sigma could imbue itself with life?

> We are then treated to a scene where the Aerialbots introduce themselves, and

> where Optimus keeps getting in the way of the camera. We don't even see
> Fireflight.

That's always bothered me so much. Just bad blocking.

> Commercial, with Omega Supreme bumper, pulling himself back together. And
> then Grimlock.

"Hey, kids! Me, Grimlock here! Stupid Autobot rocket blow up, but me, Grimlock, still alive! Locked up in closet, but alive!"

> In "The Master Builder", we learn that the Decepticons had a camera in a fake
> rock in a random canyon. I assume the Autobots have similar technology, and
> now I wonder how much of the Earth is under Transformers surveillance.

All of it. The whole damn planet. There are no natural rock formations left. Everything is a surveillance device. The mountains, the trees. The refrigerator. That thing in the drawer of my wife's nightstand. All hidden cameras.

> Also, Teletraan I clearly cannot recognize Megatron, or "possible Decepticon
> activity" would have just been "Decepticon activity."

But we know from "Attack of the Autobots" that Teletraan can detect evil. Therefore, Megatron is not acting with malice. He genuinely, sincerely, compassionately wants to turn Earth into Cybertron, because he knows how it would delight Autobots and Decepticons everywhere.

> And so the Autobots head out -- no Omega Supreme, no Aerialbots. Blaster
> thinks it would be a suicide mission, but I'm really not sure what the Key
> would do to Transformers as they are already metal.

Well, we saw what it does to technorganic Maximals in Beast Machines, but yeah, I can't see it affecting Autobots the same way.

> Optimus and the Autobots confront Megatron and there is a glorious battle. Is
> that a blue Windcharger I see?

Cool, huh? I need to give that guy a name. Any suggestions?

> Overall, I think this is the best of the two-episode stories. Good pacing
> throughout, and the plot holes aren't super obvious.

For my money, I would have to go with maybe "Megatron's Master Plan" or perhaps "The Return of Optimus Prime." I really, really liked the first part of "Desertion of the Dinobots" (Transformers are mysteriously malfunctioning! Why, Lord, why?!) but it all falls apart during part 2 so I can't really call it the best two-parter.

Want to pick something for next month?


Zob

[Zobovor]

On Sunday, July 17, 2016 at 3:53:43 AM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:

>> everything we know about Transformers up to this point suggest that they're
>> normally made out of alien, Cybertronian metals.
>
> Dinobots are made out of Earth materials.

It's possible they were salvaging metal from the Ark. Not like the ship was ever going to fly again anyway. It's possible they were using Earth metals, but then I think about the Decepticons swiping metals for Megatron's weapon in "Fire on the Mountain" and Thundercracker's contention that "no Earth-made steel is going to be strong enough."

The Dinobots are super-tough, but only in dinosaur mode. Their robot modes are vulnerable. So, maybe dinosaur armor is Cybertronian, but robot parts are Earth alloys?

> This was also not long after Triple Takeover, with Astrotrain's army of
> trains.

I kind of hated that. I mean, it makes Astrotrain out to be such a buffoon. He talks to the trains like they can understand him. Maybe they did, with their souped-up computer brains, but still.

> Transformers don't revisit plans or come up with plans that make a lot of
> sense. Here, Megatron's actions are all sparked by Rumble's comments. If no
> one gave him the idea to create more Decepticons, he might not have.

Usually, it's the humans and their creativity that compel the Transformers to innovate. It's like Megatron was so desperate for new ideas that he just glommed onto whatever came out of Rumble's mouth.

RUMBLE: Yuck! Their exhaust sure stinks.

MEGATRON: Exhaust? Yes...! BEHOLD, the EXHAUSTICONS!

> 4 out of 5 pledge loyalty, which is pretty surprising. Megatron kind of blew
> it with his instructions and is lucky he got anything nearly as good as he
> got.

On the other hand, the Stunticons never joined the Autobots, or tried to take control of the Decepticons, or tried to usurp Megatron. So, at least he ended up with some devoutly loyal troops. Moreso than the Constructicons or the Combaticons, certainly.

> What is a second generation product of Vector Sigma? Just let that roll
> around for a bit...

Shrug. Robots that are only eleven million years old instead of twelve million?

> Not bad. I don't quite buy the connection between the Matrix of Leadership
> and Vector Sigma though -- not without the helping hand of Alpha Trion inside.

If the Matrix can be used as a Vector Sigma key, then the two must be compatible technology. We know that Vector Sigma predates Cybertron, but we also know that the Matrix was not created by the Quintessons.

> I assume the Stunticons have no knowledge of their past, because those were
> just plain machines. Cybertronian transport ships though... why wouldn't
> those be semi-sentient?

What's semi-sentient? Is that like semi-dead or semi-pregnant? I guess the ancient shuttles could have had computer records of their flights, and it was those data that were incorporated into the Aerialbots' programming.

> Then I remember the rest of the episode. But for an instant, it is
> always "they killed Omega Supreme like that?"

I don't think I ever fell for it, if only because the medium is the message. I knew the unspoken rules that they couldn't "really" kill anybody on the show. Omega Supreme's so-calle death would have been much more believable in a third-season episode, when the rules had changed a little.

> > The nature of Motormaster's transformation has always bothered me. We see in this episode and others like it that in vehicle mode, he's a tractor trailer and the same size as Optimus Prime. Prime's cab forms his entire robot mode while the trailer sits just off-screen and enjoys a bagel and coffee with Moist. Motormaster's truck cab forms his feet, with the rest of the trailer forming his robot body. If that's the case, though, then either Motormaster should be tiny in vehicle mode, or else he should transform into a gigantic robot. (The Hasbro toy of Motormaster actually is disappointingly tiny compared to Optimus Prime.)

> Well, there you go. Tiny.

Except that Motormaster and Prime are always the same size as each other in truck mode whenever they square off. And yet they're both the same height in robot mode as well, despite Motormaster's feet using up as much of the truck mode as Prime's entire body.

I think that perhaps Motormaster's "normal" robot mode size is actually his Menasor configuration. Instead of growing in size when he combines with the Stunticons, he just shrinks in size when he changes to robot mode. It's the only explanation.

> I always wanted them to follow up on this, and have the Aerialbots try to
> take over for real.

Well, they essentially become the masters of time and space over the course of the show, with episodes like "War Dawn" and "Forever is a Long Time Coming." The Aerialbots had more of a hand in shaping Cybertron history as we know it than any other Transformers.

> Also, what happened to the birds and squirrels and stuff?

There's a reason why we never see squirrels in this cartoon. It's because they're all dead.

> It ends with a cringeworthy joke, like an episode of Star Trek.

It's practically David Wise's signature. He did it so many times in the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon that you could practically set your watch to it.


Zob (imagine if every episode of Transformers ended with the "oh no, here we go again!" ending from "Kremzeek!" and you've got the entire second season of TMNT)

[Zobovor]

On Sunday, July 17, 2016 at 11:04:40 AM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:

> How were the Autobots expecting to get out of the giant pit they had to
> leap into to get to Vector Sigma? None of the ones who leaped down could
> fly.

Makes you wonder if the Quintessons had to leap all the way down there every time they needed to make some new robot products.

> Also, the non-sentient droids were necessary. Look at the various states of
> sentience that appear in this episode:
>
> - Remote control stunticons that are clearly non-sentient
> - Droids that attempt, and fail, to mimic sentience
> - Transformers, who are sentient, but can only function within their limits
> - Humans, who can push past their limits to keep working on Omega Supreme.
>
> That's the heart of the episode right there. It might not have been done
> well, but it was needed.

It kind of makes sense when you lay it out like that. The episode really needs some lines of dialogue to cement those ideas together, though.


Zob (and then there's poor Grimlock, stuck in the closet for the entire damn episode)

[David Connell]

On Friday, July 15, 2016 at 9:06:53 PM UTC-4, Zobovor wrote:

> So, Omega Supreme launches his rocket module from Earth to Cybertron, while his rocket base remains on Earth.  When he lands on Cybertron, though, he's still able to transform to robot mode.  How is this possible, when his rocket consists of his arms, and the rest of his body forms the rocket base?  Does he shunt his entire rocket base into subspace and teleport it?  Or does he have two identical bodies (one on Earth, one on Cybertron) and his arms just shuttle back and forth between them?  Does that mean Omega Supreme's consciousness is, in fact, inside his arms?  (Answers below.)
>

I'd long ago decided that all there really is of Omega are the arm sections that form the rocket. The rest is just a solid light hologram or a Block Transfer Computation construct (watch Doctor Who: Logopolis for details). So while the rest of him might have reflected the damage to his real parts, Ratchet and Sparkplug were wasting energy repairing the rest of his body. The rest of him isn't real, so there was no point in repairing it. The damage affected the construct projector, resulting in a damaged appearance.

They should have just fixed the arms; once they were repaired, the construct projectors would have been able to generate a good-condition body for Omega again.

That's how he can jettison his arms to form the rocket for a flight, and then transform into his complete robot mode when he arrives - only his arms are real!

[Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats]

On Sunday, July 17, 2016 at 6:49:22 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
> On Sunday, July 17, 2016 at 3:53:43 AM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:
>
> >> everything we know about Transformers up to this point suggest that they're
> >> normally made out of alien, Cybertronian metals.
> >
> > Dinobots are made out of Earth materials.
>
> It's possible they were salvaging metal from the Ark. Not like the ship was ever going to fly again anyway. It's possible they were using Earth metals, but then I think about the Decepticons swiping metals for Megatron's weapon in "Fire on the Mountain" and Thundercracker's contention that "no Earth-made steel is going to be strong enough."
>
> The Dinobots are super-tough, but only in dinosaur mode. Their robot modes are vulnerable. So, maybe dinosaur armor is Cybertronian, but robot parts are Earth alloys?

Is this why they spend most of their time in dinosaur mode in Season 3? Are their robot modes just mashed to bits?

> > This was also not long after Triple Takeover, with Astrotrain's army of
> > trains.
>
> I kind of hated that. I mean, it makes Astrotrain out to be such a buffoon. He talks to the trains like they can understand him. Maybe they did, with their souped-up computer brains, but still.

"Triple Takeover" was always one of my least favorite episodes. I think it was you who explained that Transformers are simply missing imagination, and require a source of inspiration, which they can then wildly misinterpret, to be inventive at all.

This made the episode better, but still kind of painful.

> > Transformers don't revisit plans or come up with plans that make a lot of
> > sense. Here, Megatron's actions are all sparked by Rumble's comments. If no
> > one gave him the idea to create more Decepticons, he might not have.
>
> Usually, it's the humans and their creativity that compel the Transformers to innovate. It's like Megatron was so desperate for new ideas that he just glommed onto whatever came out of Rumble's mouth.

See, it was you!

Rumble adopts earth vernacular, and then bends it a bit for his own innate mannerisms. Megatron misinterprets, and then from the two of them, we have some creativity.

> > 4 out of 5 pledge loyalty, which is pretty surprising. Megatron kind of blew
> > it with his instructions and is lucky he got anything nearly as good as he
> > got.
>
> On the other hand, the Stunticons never joined the Autobots, or tried to take control of the Decepticons, or tried to usurp Megatron. So, at least he ended up with some devoutly loyal troops. Moreso than the Constructicons or the Combaticons, certainly.
>
> > What is a second generation product of Vector Sigma? Just let that roll
> > around for a bit...
>
> Shrug. Robots that are only eleven million years old instead of twelve million?

The key to vector sigma is described as being a circuit key, and part of his power circuits. And, first generation products of Vector Sigma are compatible, so they must have similar physical properties to his own power circuits.

Vector Sigma now only gives out personalities by blasting robots with the spark of life -- he doesn't create bodies, but at one point he must have, for first generation products to be compatible with the key.

Either Vector Sigma used to give out detailed specifications for the robots that should be created, or Vector Sigma once had hands to build them.

> > Not bad. I don't quite buy the connection between the Matrix of Leadership
> > and Vector Sigma though -- not without the helping hand of Alpha Trion inside.
>
> If the Matrix can be used as a Vector Sigma key, then the two must be compatible technology. We know that Vector Sigma predates Cybertron, but we also know that the Matrix was not created by the Quintessons.

We know that the Matrix isn't Primacron's assistant -- after P's A takes the form of the Matrix, he settles on the planet in Call of the Primitives, where he stays for a long time including TF:TM.

Primacron's Assistant may be *a* matrix, but he doesn't become *the* matrix.

The Matrix, Vector Sigma, The Key (which is just part of Vector Sigma), and Primacron's assistant may all be similar technology -- along with Unicron.

Primacron's Assistant is able to function from within his matrix-like-container better than any Autobot elders, because the matrix-thingy was built for him.

And poor Vector Sigma is just some unfortunate being -- probably related to Primacron and his assistant, given how much Transformers look like Unicron -- captured and enslaved by the Quintessons. He has been ripped apart in an effort to control him -- losing limbs, and eventually his power circuits so he is only active for brief moments.

This is why he is in horrible pain when awoken by the Decepticons. "Why have you done this thing?" really suggests that all things being equal, he would have preferred being left alone.

Vector Sigma has been brutally tortured. And everyone thinks he isn't sentient.

> > I assume the Stunticons have no knowledge of their past, because those were
> > just plain machines. Cybertronian transport ships though... why wouldn't
> > those be semi-sentient?
>
> What's semi-sentient? Is that like semi-dead or semi-pregnant? I guess the ancient shuttles could have had computer records of their flights, and it was those data that were incorporated into the Aerialbots' programming.

Semi-sentient, like the Dinobots. Built using designs similar to the Transformers themselves, since that's what was around to copy.

> > Then I remember the rest of the episode. But for an instant, it is
> > always "they killed Omega Supreme like that?"
>
> I don't think I ever fell for it, if only because the medium is the message. I knew the unspoken rules that they couldn't "really" kill anybody on the show. Omega Supreme's so-calle death would have been much more believable in a third-season episode, when the rules had changed a little.

But they never really use him after Season 2, and I remember that.

> Except that Motormaster and Prime are always the same size as each other in truck mode whenever they square off. And yet they're both the same height in robot mode as well, despite Motormaster's feet using up as much of the truck mode as Prime's entire body.

Fancy camera work. Like how they made Elijah Wood so much smaller than Ian MacKellen.

> Well, they essentially become the masters of time and space over the course of the show, with episodes like "War Dawn" and "Forever is a Long Time Coming." The Aerialbots had more of a hand in shaping Cybertron history as we know it than any other Transformers.

Did they, or was that the long hand of Alpha Trion rewriting Transformers history? He helped program them, after all.

[Zobovor]

On Monday, July 18, 2016 at 11:16:09 AM UTC-6, David Connell wrote:

> That's how he can jettison his arms to form the rocket for a flight, and then
> transform into his complete robot mode when he arrives - only his arms are real!

So, when he's in robot mode, what exactly is suspending his arms in mid-air?


Zob (intrigued)

[David Connell]

The solid light projection that makes up his body, of course. It's kind of a limited version of Green Lantern's energy constructs - more stable/permanent, but OS can only do that one configuration. And the construct can be damaged, but there's no real need to repair it since once the projector is repaired, Omega can just generate a fresh body (while shutting off the damaged one).

It would also explain why OS is the usually in the last line of defense - that solid light projection uses a LOT of power, similar to Trailbreaker's forcefield projector but proportionally larger. I'd imagine Omega is one of the costliest Autobots to fuel.