Megatron's black hole power
Grebo
Been away. In grad school. Anyway, I drop in every now and again, as
some of you may've noticed. In any event, I'm back with another of my
fanwanky "connections" ideas.
I was thinking about Megatron, and his somewhat-less-than-useful
pistol altmode, and the fact that for a LONG time I misunderstood his
techspec bio (due to its poor sentence construction):
"Can link up interdimensionally to a black hole and draw antimatter
from it for use as a weapon."
For the longest time I (and probably most people, including TFG1
writers) understood this to mean Megatron could use the antimatter
itself as a weapon. But I now think that the above sentence was meant
to be understood this way:
"As a weapon, can link up interdimensionally to a black hole and draw
antimatter from it for use."
In other words, Megatron's gun mode can fire antimatter -- I imagine
this was supposed to be VERY powerful. Meg's altmode would've been SO
much cooler if it'd been as badass as your anime-typical "almighty
weapon" (such as the Wave Motion Gun, the Macross' Main Cannon, Vash
the Stampede's Angel Arm, the Wing Gundam Zero's Twin Buster Rifle,
etc). I can see it now: the Bots & Cons are in a heated gunfight. Megs
transforms and locks in to Soundwave's hand. Seeing this, Jazz shouts
"scatter" and Bots scramble away in every direction. Soundwave fires
Megatron, missing the panic-spread Bots but obliterating a mountain in
the background. Oh hell yes... Megs' gun mode wouldn't have been so
useless then!
Anyhow, all this is actually just preamble. What I'm really thinking
about is that black hole. Which black hole is it, and how come Megs
can draw antimatter from it? Well, what black holes have we seen in
TF?
http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Black_hole
There's the one from The Killing Jar, which was a dimensional portal;
RiD Axer similarly treated a black hole as a dimensional portal. In
Masterforce BlackZarak used one as a magnetic trap. RotF Devastator
creates artificial mini–black holes to suck things up. There's also
the one in which Convoy discovered Nucleon, and of course there's the
Unicron Singularity. Well, I'm currently fascinated with the idea of
Megatron's antimatter black hole, the Nucleon black hole, and the
Unicron singularity all being the same thing.
Or at least aspects of the same thing. Each one seems to manifest
differently, so I imagine that as the Unicron Singularity grows it
starts "bleeding" into other universes. In one (or more) universe(s),
it manifests as a black hole from which Megs can draw antimatter. In
another (or more) universe(s), it manifests as a black hole from which
Convoy retrieves Nucleon. Heck, in other cases it might even manifest
as a rip between universes, giving us the dimensional portals seen in
the Killing Jar and Axer's bio.
What also fascinates me is how Megatron's weaponized antimatter AND
Nucleon both share some traits with Dark Energon... the "blood" of
none other than Unicron. Dark Energon can "power up" a Transformer
(like Nucleon) and can generate powerfully destructive energy blasts
(like Meg's weaponized antimatter). Connections, connections! In
addition, Dark Enegon can revive dead Transformers much like the
Marvel comics Rheanimum can, and it has a lot in common with BW The
Ascending's Angolmois. Neat!
So, the way I'm seeing things these days is that toy Megatron's
weaponized antimatter, Nucleon, Rheanimum, Angolmois, and Dark Energon
could all be energetic derivatives of Unicron's life force.
I've got more, but for now... What do you think, sirs?
Grebo
Zobovor
> "Can link up interdimensionally to a black hole and draw antimatter
> from it for use as a weapon."
>
> For the longest time I (and probably most people, including TFG1
> writers) understood this to mean Megatron could use the antimatter
> itself as a weapon. But I now think that the above sentence was meant
> to be understood this way:
>
> "As a weapon, can link up interdimensionally to a black hole and draw
> antimatter from it for use."
Well, the tech specs were, as you may know, just truncated versions of
Bob Budiansky's original character treatments, which enjoyed
unabridged publication only after the TRANSFORMERS UNIVERSE mini-
series was published. It explains his abilities thusly: "His fusion
cannon can convert any small amout of matter into large quantities of
explosive nuclear energy. Megatron can use his internal circuitry to
connect the cannon interdimensionally to a black hole, where it can
draw on anti-matter as its power source. The blast from this is far
greater, but it creates a tremendous strain on Megatron to do this for
even one blast."
It doesn't say anything about Megatron only being able to do this in
gun mode. In fact, it's arguably a function of his robot mode, since
his fusion cannon is his primary weapon as a robot, whereas it
functions as a scope when he's in gun mode (and is removable, so
obviously isn't a vitally integral component). I'm really not clear
on the distinction you're trying to make, though—whether or not the
truncated tech specs are describing Megatron as the weapon in this
context or the anti-matter, isn't it pretty much a given that the anti-
matter is going to be used as a weapon, regardless? In your rewritten
passage, isn't he still using anti-matter for use in gun mode? What
else would a gun do with anti-matter except shoot it? Isn't that
still "for use as a weapon" in this context?
> Well, I'm currently fascinated with the idea of
> Megatron's antimatter black hole, the Nucleon black hole, and the
> Unicron singularity all being the same thing.
You and your nutty fanwankery. Welcome back, Grebo.
Zob
Irrellius Spamticon king of the Potato people
> It doesn't say anything about Megatron only being able to do this in
> gun mode. In fact, it's arguably a function of his robot mode, since
> his fusion cannon is his primary weapon as a robot, whereas it
> functions as a scope when he's in gun mode (and is removable, so
> obviously isn't a vitally integral component). I'm really not clear
> on the distinction you're trying to make, though—whether or not the
> truncated tech specs are describing Megatron as the weapon in this
> context or the anti-matter, isn't it pretty much a given that the anti-
> matter is going to be used as a weapon, regardless? In your rewritten
> passage, isn't he still using anti-matter for use in gun mode? What
> else would a gun do with anti-matter except shoot it? Isn't that
> still "for use as a weapon" in this context?
>
I think he's trying to give megs a point to having others use his gun
mode. What's the point of even using your gun mode if your robot mode
fusion cannon has the power of a frackin black hole to back it up? why
would he ever use gun mode for anything? I higly doubt it's for
accuracy or precision. Do you think Megatron really thought on Earth
"I need to be super-precise and not accidentally hit anything else,
the collateral damage to the earth would make me feel so guilty!" No,
Megatron was a leader of power, and displays of said power would make
others fear him. Though in the comics and cartoon his robot mode gun
seems to have a much larger blast than his gun mode.
SteveD
Potato people <Ob1k...@att.net> wrote:
>What's the point of even using your gun mode if your robot mode
>fusion cannon has the power of a frackin black hole to back it up? why
>would he ever use gun mode for anything? I higly doubt it's for
>accuracy or precision.
Power density per square inch. If Megs went from a barrel two feet across
to one two inches across, but put the same power into the blast, the point
where the shot landed would receive 144x more punch.
It's possible that a fully-powered, fully-armored medium or large Autobot
hit by one of Megatron's cannon blasts might actually survive. If they
were hit by a concentrated gun-mode beam, it would punch straight through
their armor, through their internal systems, through the next five
Autobots behind them, and drill a hole through the mountain behind _that_.
Even if his gun mode had less raw power feeding into each blast, it would
still be worth it. One-tenth the power still makes for a
fourteen-times-more-powerful punch at the point of strike.
The question, really, is why he doesn't use gun mode all the time. I think
this comes down to the robot-mode cannon blast providing all the power he
needs in 99% of cases, and causing damage over a much wider area too. In
addition, when he's in robot mode, Megatron is in _control_. I suspect
that he'd only let someone else fire him when he was so absolutely coldly
homicidal that he didn't care who got to do the shooting as long as the
target was extremely dead as quickly as possible... or he just doesn't
give a crap about the target and doesn't want to give them the
satisfaction of having been personally targeted by the infamous Megatron.
-SteveD
Chad Rushing
>
> Power density per square inch. If Megs went from a barrel two feet across
> to one two inches across, but put the same power into the blast, the point
> where the shot landed would receive 144x more punch.
>
> It's possible that a fully-powered, fully-armored medium or large Autobot
> hit by one of Megatron's cannon blasts might actually survive. If they
> were hit by a concentrated gun-mode beam, it would punch straight through
> their armor, through their internal systems, through the next five
> Autobots behind them, and drill a hole through the mountain behind _that_.
>
> Even if his gun mode had less raw power feeding into each blast, it would
> still be worth it. One-tenth the power still makes for a
> fourteen-times-more-powerful punch at the point of strike.
>
> The question, really, is why he doesn't use gun mode all the time. I think
> this comes down to the robot-mode cannon blast providing all the power he
> needs in 99% of cases, and causing damage over a much wider area too. In
> addition, when he's in robot mode, Megatron is in _control_. I suspect
> that he'd only let someone else fire him when he was so absolutely coldly
> homicidal that he didn't care who got to do the shooting as long as the
> target was extremely dead as quickly as possible... or he just doesn't
> give a crap about the target and doesn't want to give them the
> satisfaction of having been personally targeted by the infamous Megatron.
Is it worth noting that Megatron was in gun mode during the one-sided
massacre on the Autobot shuttle at the beginning of TF:TM? Does that
scene support the theory that his firepower is much more deadly in gun
mode?
- Chad
Grebo
Zobovor wrote:
>It doesn't say anything about Megatron only
>being able to do this in gun mode.
I still think the tech spec bio was written was written with this in
mind, but of course determining author intention is almost always
futile.
Irrellius Spamticon, king of the Potato people wrote:
>I think he's trying to give Megs a point to having
>others use his gun mode.
Correct indeed, Irrellius. And to Megs having a gun mode at all.
SteveD wrote:
>Power density per square inch.
A cool idea, but I'm not sure TF energy weapons "work that way."
There's certainly (sadly) no evidence that Megs' weapon works that
way. Considering that his gun mode seems to have equal power as his
arm cannon, I'd apply your principle to the idea that in gun mode his
power source is smaller (because he shrinks) and so has less output
but sine his barrel is so much smaller, that lesser energy is more
concentrated and thus his gun mode blasts are roughly equal in power
to his arm cannon blasts.
Chad Rushing wrote:
> Is it worth noting that Megatron was in gun mode during the one-sided
> massacre on the Autobot shuttle at the beginning of TF:TM? Does that
> scene support the theory that his firepower is much more deadly in gun
> mode?
Considering that his blasts in gun AND robot mode appeared to be
equally effective as anyone else's blasts in that scene, I'd say no...
Grebo!
SteveD
wrote:
>Considering that his blasts in gun AND robot mode appeared to be
>equally effective as anyone else's blasts in that scene, I'd say no...
Gun-mode blasts: insta-kill on fully armored Autobots from across the
flight deck.
Robot-mode blast: insta-kill on heavily damaged Autobot from two feet
away.
Mmm. Doesn't really help, does it? We'd need to see a situation where one
of the modes achieved a result that the other one didn't in an equal or
similar situation.
-SteveD
Grebo
> On Mon, 16 May 2011 02:31:05 -0700 (PDT), Grebo <grebog...@gmail.com>
Yeah. The thing is, almost everyone's blasts were instant death in
that scene. The movie just operated on different rules, I guess.
Grebo
