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I seriously dont get it.

G'Day All,

I'm responsible for the piece you're currently looking at. Allow me to give some background on the story, as it needs it to be fully comprehended.

The idea is that it wasn't G1 Megs that encrypted the Message on the Golden Disk, but instead it was Soundwave. So if the plan worked, which it almost did in Beast Wars, with BW Megs almost killing Prime, Soundwave would have woken up in 1984 with all the rest of Decepticons to find Optimus dead.

The story takes place in a larger Universe I'm writing, a mix of G1/2, Furman's Alignemt Story, and ultimately leads to the Cybertron that we find 300 years after the end of the war and the signing of the Pax Cybertronia.

The Autobot/Decepticon Assault on the Hub and the Liege Maximo has occurred not long before this, and in that battle, Megatron was killed. With him, any hope of a Decepticon victory in the war faded. So Soundwave sets out to attempt to rewrite history.

He leaves an encrypted message on the disk in the hopes that Megatron's image might inspire a descendant to travel back in time and alter the future. Soundwave knows that his own image wouldn't be enough to convince someone to do it - it had to be Megatron's image and voice.

After Soundwave has encrypted the message, he kills himself. I've always seen Soundwave as supremely loyal to Megatron. I know that changes in the different TF media, but with the Decepticons about to loose the war anyway, why would Soundwave want to stick around? But if the plan works, history will be rewritten anyway, so he wouldn't have died!

I realise the artwork is quite poor, but then I'm not an artist. If anyone would like to do a more convincing version of Soundwave's reflection in the surface of the Golden Disk attached to the Voyager Probe, please do! I'm looking for artists to do other collab work with in the future!

I'll answer some of your criticism individually, to help explain it.

Mindmaster wrote:Soundwave going suicidal?

Eh, interesting to read, but certainly not what I think Soundwave would actually do.

I knew this was something I was going to come up against with the piece. Soundwave has been around since the beginning of TFs and as such has been interpreted and reinterpreted quite a lot, but I see him as loyal, and when looking at the larger picture of the Universe, in which the Autobots are about to win the War, death is perhaps a more favourable outcome than living as a Decepticon after an Autobot victory.

Stormrider wrote:Interesting perspective but I have trouble imagining Soundwave killing himself over Megatron's death. Soundwave seems opportunistic.

It's not just about Megatron's death, there is a lot going into his decision. And if the plan works, he won't be dead anyway!

Turbomagnus wrote:So much potential as an idea... yet wasted in execution. The artwork looks like it was done in MSPaint - the blocky drawing and the rather pointless squiggles and circles and such, the numbering of the dialogue boxes makes it seem childish, and considering this is Soundwave we're talking about; master blackmailer according to his tech specs and TFU profile, one of the challengers for leadership after Megatron's demise in the movie (Starscream nominated himself, the Constructicons opposed, then Soundwave countered that 'Soundwave: Superior. Constructicons: Inferior.')... the suicide to stay with his leader is a bit unbelievable.

The artwork was done in MS Paint I'm not an artist.

And I think you missed what the pointless squiggles are actually the etchings in the surface of the Golden Disk. And it looks like you're not alone. That's entirely my fault with the poor artwork. But I hope the story made more sense to you after realising what it actually was. And as for the numbered boxes, I showed a draft to a few friends, which also contained more writing. They said it might be a bit confusing without the numbers, so I covered all the bases and added them, poorly But I was trying to avoid confusion.

As mentioned above, I've always seen Soundwave as loyal, and the word appears no less than 9 times on his TF Wiki page.

There's a lot more to the suicide, as I've also mentioned above.

Skyfire77 wrote:Wait. So the comic is saying that Soundwave recorded the message on The Golden Disk (as Megatron), then killed himself, hoping it'd change history/reality (at some point)?
Trippy.

Good trippy or bad trippy?

I acknowledge that the story takes the foundation of Beast Wars and turns it on it's head, but as we've never seen G1 Megatron actually encrypting the disk (all we got was BW Megatron's assumption) I figured it was fair game to mess with!

xyl360 wrote:I recognized it as the Golden Disc the moment I saw the small thumbnail for the news article, but then again I'm a total Beast Wars FANATIC so that likely has a lot to do with it (seriously, I need help !).

This one almost makes sense to me, as I always did see Soundwave as being the most loyal of Decepticons (him and Shockwave, though that's entirely based on the show as I never read the comics). In fact, when Soundwave allows Starscream to cast out Megatron in the movie and quickly jumps up to try and become leader (after Rumble and Frenzie nominate him), it always seemed way out of character to me and I figured it was just so they could have a plot device with little conflict (though it does lead to the death of Starscream) to turn Megatron into Galvatron and get Unicron directly involved in the Autobot vs Decepticon war.

You and I seem to be on a similar wave length!

Beast Wars is the GREATEST!

ILL-Star wrote:But doesn't Soundwave live in J'nwan with Megatron after the Autobot\Decepticon war alongside Optimus and Grimlock.

I've never read that anywhere. I'd love a citation though.

Rated X wrote:I seriously dont get it.

I hope my explanations have cleared it up for you a bit. If not, I'm happy to answer any questions!

Verno, heres the link mentioning J'nwan and Soundwave. I myself am not too familiar with any of the comics, so if this is accurate or not I don't know.http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Authority

i dont think soundwave would kill himself, not only does that just not seem like him but he has minions that would probably fall apart without him. Soundwave is loyal to Megatron sometimes to a fault but hes also loyal to his minions as well and thats the main reason why i dont think he'd kill himself.

ILL-Star wrote:Verno, heres the link mentioning J'nwan and Soundwave. I myself am not too familiar with any of the comics, so if this is accurate or not I don't know.http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Authority

Haha! Furman, up to his naughty tricks again! He just can't leave well enough alone.

I've personally never never had much time for the Convention stories. If larger TF series' like G1 and BW are created just to sell toys, Convention stories are written for an even lesser purpose - to make the convention toys run around for a few pages to try and make them seem important enough to buy!

Interesting take on a Transformers afterlife though. Cheers for the link!

Megatron Wolf wrote:i dont think soundwave would kill himself, not only does that just not seem like him but he has minions that would probably fall apart without him. Soundwave is loyal to Megatron sometimes to a fault but hes also loyal to his minions as well and thats the main reason why i dont think he'd kill himself.

But if the plan works, history is rewritten, and he doesn't end up dead! When he wakes up in 1984 he'll be happily alongside his minions and Prime will be dead and it'll be clear skies all the way back to Cybertron!

And the story is part of a larger Universe I've written. With the Decepticons a spent force after the Hub Assult which resulted in Megatron's death, I've written what happens to the likes of Laserbeak and Ravage. Ravage has quite a charmed life, as he ends up as the Tripredacus Agent. I've written his journey through the remainder of the war, it can be read http://rh1n0x.deviantart.com/gallery/37163098 there for anyone interested.

At the end of the day, Soundwave doesn't see it as a final death, he's not killing himself out of sadness or remorse. He's removing himself from the Universe, hoping that it will be rewritten. It's all part of the plan.

Verno wrote:

Mindmaster wrote:Soundwave going suicidal?

Eh, interesting to read, but certainly not what I think Soundwave would actually do.

I knew this was something I was going to come up against with the piece. Soundwave has been around since the beginning of TFs and as such has been interpreted and reinterpreted quite a lot, but I see him as loyal, and when looking at the larger picture of the Universe, in which the Autobots are about to win the War, death is perhaps a more favourable outcome than living as a Decepticon after an Autobot victory.

Stormrider wrote:Interesting perspective but I have trouble imagining Soundwave killing himself over Megatron's death. Soundwave seems opportunistic.

It's not just about Megatron's death, there is a lot going into his decision. And if the plan works, he won't be dead anyway!

Turbomagnus wrote:So much potential as an idea... yet wasted in execution. The artwork looks like it was done in MSPaint - the blocky drawing and the rather pointless squiggles and circles and such, the numbering of the dialogue boxes makes it seem childish, and considering this is Soundwave we're talking about; master blackmailer according to his tech specs and TFU profile, one of the challengers for leadership after Megatron's demise in the movie (Starscream nominated himself, the Constructicons opposed, then Soundwave countered that 'Soundwave: Superior. Constructicons: Inferior.')... the suicide to stay with his leader is a bit unbelievable.

The artwork was done in MS Paint I'm not an artist.

And I think you missed what the pointless squiggles are actually the etchings in the surface of the Golden Disk. And it looks like you're not alone. That's entirely my fault with the poor artwork. But I hope the story made more sense to you after realising what it actually was. And as for the numbered boxes, I showed a draft to a few friends, which also contained more writing. They said it might be a bit confusing without the numbers, so I covered all the bases and added them, poorly But I was trying to avoid confusion.

As mentioned above, I've always seen Soundwave as loyal, and the word appears no less than 9 times on his TF Wiki page.

There's a lot more to the suicide, as I've also mentioned above.

Skyfire77 wrote:Wait. So the comic is saying that Soundwave recorded the message on The Golden Disk (as Megatron), then killed himself, hoping it'd change history/reality (at some point)?
Trippy.

Good trippy or bad trippy?

I acknowledge that the story takes the foundation of Beast Wars and turns it on it's head, but as we've never seen G1 Megatron actually encrypting the disk (all we got was BW Megatron's assumption) I figured it was fair game to mess with!

xyl360 wrote:I recognized it as the Golden Disc the moment I saw the small thumbnail for the news article, but then again I'm a total Beast Wars FANATIC so that likely has a lot to do with it (seriously, I need help !).

This one almost makes sense to me, as I always did see Soundwave as being the most loyal of Decepticons (him and Shockwave, though that's entirely based on the show as I never read the comics). In fact, when Soundwave allows Starscream to cast out Megatron in the movie and quickly jumps up to try and become leader (after Rumble and Frenzie nominate him), it always seemed way out of character to me and I figured it was just so they could have a plot device with little conflict (though it does lead to the death of Starscream) to turn Megatron into Galvatron and get Unicron directly involved in the Autobot vs Decepticon war.

You and I seem to be on a similar wave length!

Beast Wars is the GREATEST!

ILL-Star wrote:But doesn't Soundwave live in J'nwan with Megatron after the Autobot\Decepticon war alongside Optimus and Grimlock.

I've never read that anywhere. I'd love a citation though.

Rated X wrote:I seriously dont get it.

I hope my explanations have cleared it up for you a bit. If not, I'm happy to answer any questions!

Thanks for explaining. Very interesting and I could see Soundwave sacrificing himself if there is a chance to come back in a rewritten history.

A one-shot comic perhaps wasn't the best medium to deliver such a non-straightforward story, but I'm just delighted I got to be part of the Mosaic Project before they shut their doors.

Once it was clearly revealed that it was the Golden Disc everything dropped into place fairly easily. The one shot works as a nice teaser for a larger piece to come but not knowing about that ahead of time did make for some confusion. Very well thought out premise though. Very logical, almost to the point of Shockwave logical but without the lust for power buried underneath the calculating exterior.
I have a couple of great visions for Soundwave being poised to "off" himself but, like you, I lack the necessary talent to translate that mental picture to paper or computer. I would love to see the whole story once it's finally done up. This would make for an intriguing mini-series.

T-Macksimus wrote:Once it was clearly revealed that it was the Golden Disc everything dropped into place fairly easily. The one shot works as a nice teaser for a larger piece to come but not knowing about that ahead of time did make for some confusion. Very well thought out premise though. Very logical, almost to the point of Shockwave logical but without the lust for power buried underneath the calculating exterior.
I have a couple of great visions for Soundwave being poised to "off" himself but, like you, I lack the necessary talent to translate that mental picture to paper or computer. I would love to see the whole story once it's finally done up. This would make for an intriguing mini-series.

Thanks for your kind words mate!

As I mentioned above, the story is a side story of a larger Universe I've written to help bridge the gap between G1 and BW, and also give an end to the Great War. I've called the over-all story TransWarp.

http://rh1n0x.deviantart.com/gallery/

That's a link to my DA Gallery, which has the 3 TransWarp stories up and ready to be read.

Csirac - A Maximal scientist, kidnapped by the Predacons.
Ravage - The Decepticon. With his faction now defunct, what role does he have in the ongoing war between the Autobots/Maximals and the Predacons under razorclaw?
Primal - Follows a young pilot and his fellow 'bots as they try to hold off an onslaught of Predacon fighters from destroying the TransWarp test ship Xelor.

From those that have read it all (and I warn you there is quite a bit) I've had some very positive comments. I'm getting the 1st (of a planned 4) Issues of the Csirac story developed into a comic book with the help of some very talented artists. I've got one page of pencils done: http://pika.deviantart.com/gallery/36500360#/d51ytz0 which will give you an idea of the standard of quality the comic will be, hopefully along the same lines of the Lost Seasons and Seeds of Deception stories.

If any artists here reading this art interested in lending their talents, I'd love to hear form you!