Raymond T. wrote:Fact:
Writer of the episode David Wise wrote the episode before the script for the movie was made public.
Fact:
Writer David Wise had no knowledge of the chracter that would become Ultra Magnus while writing the story of War Dawn.
Since Wise never addressed Dion's fate in the first place, whether or not he knew of Ultra Magnus really doesn't mean anything. Dion's fate and Magnus' origin are still unknown.
Fact:
No mention of Dion being rebuild was ever made. There was made mention of others being back at the hanger, but only Aeriel was mentioned to become Eltia One.
Probably because Alpha didn't seem to act like he'd ever rebuilt a female before...old perv.
Fact:
Orion Pax never showed his alt-mode in the cartoon, so there is no basis to believe that he shared his alt-mode design with Dion.
This also means nothing, IMO, especially if Orion were rebuilt. As I stated before, if Alpha were being stacked up with robots to repair, his time and resources probably would have been limited in order to deal with the Decepticons. And with the 'Cons practically beating down his door, it's doubtful that he would have put a lot more time into generating a different body template if he did rebuild Dion; Alpha's character was established as such that he would do what was absolutely necessary at any given moment to resolve an immediate crisis, and THAT's evidenced by "The Key To Vector Sigma".
Fact:
There is aprox. 9.000.000 years between War Dawn and the "present day" of the cartoon, between which a lot can happen. Even if Dion was rebuild, or reformatted as we say these days, there is no hard evidence he would still be around after all this time.
Well, Alpha and Optimus and Elita were all still around by 1984, so even without hard evidence to support it, the ground for just the suggestion is still solid.
Subject:
Ironhide's comment of "fighting the decepticons as long as we have", could suggest that in an earlier draft that this was the set up to later reveal he was once Dion. Most stand alone story do have a payoff like that within them. Editing of the story may have cut the pay off from the story.
Possible, but of course, there presently is no copy of that earlier draft to be seen, only what's in the finished episode to go on. Besides, even if Wise intended Dion to become Ironhide, the fact that that's not in the final script is open to all sorts of speculation. For all we know, Dion may have become a minibar in Alpha's flat, seeing how fascinated the old perv was with females.
Subject:
Dion's use of 'chums' towards Silverbolt ("Go get your circuits checked, Chum"), is very similar to the use of how Ironhide directs his conversations with people, calling them pals and soforth. Ultra Magnus never displayed that type of effection.
True, but then if you had blind admiration for somebody who later ends up popping round after round into you and you manage to survive it, you're likely to be a bit changed by the experience, too. Orion seemed to be a bit obnoxious and thick-necked till Megatron shot him up a couple times.
