The Energon Pub

[Bradimus]

and speaking of prime, I have this little headcanon going that he volunteered for the scramble city upgrade to be able to better help some of his team. unbeknownst to him however the matrix following a similar pattern to the late marvel G1 run, decided to assert itself through the gestalt Personality. if I felt confident in my fanfiction skills I'd probably be writing some of this.

I think in my personal cannon Alpha Bravo will be Slingshot rebuilt similar to Goldbug being Bumblebee rebuilt.

[NuclearConvoy]

I'm actually loving the aesthetician of Offroad

So you guys go to the same place to get your nails and hair did?

You should see how swag I am.

[Primeultimus]

Leader Class Combiner Wars Ultra Magnus Boxed

[Sabrblade]

Leader Class Combiner Wars Ultra Magnus Boxed

That's a lotta white.

[Thadicon]

I see where you are coming from. Like say the Devastator personality is made up by those limbs so if one of those limbs was taken out and replaced with another would the personality change abit or a lot.

When you mention fit together are you meaning physically like one has to be the right arm and on has to be the right leg?

Kind of... My main feeling against the 'extra members' concept is that it takes away the importance of anyone. If someone dies or gets incapicated... it doesn't really matter, ANYONE can be that leg/arm...

Is superion just Silverbolt on steroids? or is he something special in his own right?

One thing I noticed in the Bay movies was that the transformations weren't so... specific. The alt modes could be shifted a dozen times over and transformations worked just fine. I liked it better in the old days when it was at least implied that the bots were BUILT this specific way and that they were designed to be combined. Such a thing wouldn't naturally be easy to overcome the loss of a team member...

Of course that concept started getting left by the sidelines with the mini-con cartoons and Prime Combining with all sorts of people/things... took a lot of the 'specialness' away from the combiners for me.

Ah I see. I supposed it would suck if you were a limb and knew that you were expendable. i guess I do like the fact that every team member in the G1 fiction had a cool function like saboteur, scout etc.

In my view Transformers are robots that change and I guess that factors in to their everyday lives and society. And when you are at war you don't want to rely on that one team member gets killed then there goes your advantage (giant combined robot) over the other side and I think that is where the comics and fiction is taking it.

But that's just my view I could be wrong though.

[Editor]

In a war situation where Gestalts clearly are a huge tactical advantage, you can absolutely expect should one of the limbs lose their spark that if another could take their place that it would happen as soon as the situation would allow. Say Wildrider was KIA and Blot was there, you can guarantee they would be ordered to merge. It may have a negative effect on the gestalt-mind but if the sum of the parts give you a better chance at victory than the parts on their own... You use it.

In that reality, the introduction of Offroad, Alpha Bravo, Rook, the inclusion of Blackjack, Powerglide, the Autobots who will combine with Prime, all make complete sense. You try to take more bullets than you need to a fight, this is no different.

[phantom1592]

Sure, it would make sense IF it were possible. By this mentality (and the direction that CW is going) EVERYONE should be able to combine. The tactical advantage is worlds above ever fighting solo and there isn't any disadvantage at all...


I just prefer the older stories were creating new bots with actual personalities and functions was insanely difficult and the ideas of 5 becoming one was such an elite function that NOT every one could do it.

But, yeah... if the option is available, then every Autobot/Decepticon should download the combiner program and be ready to pinch hit in case someone drops... It's logical, it's tactical, but it does push up the expendableness of the tradional characters and makes for poorer stories in my opinion. less drama, less excitement, and the possibility that five battles later you'd have a completely unrecognizable Superion or Defensor or whoever...

It's really why I can't even look at Bay's version of Devastator... I love Devy, but.. that wasn't it....

[phantom1592]

On a separate note... Reading the techspecs for Devastator and Superion, the original combiner teams were pretty much failures...

Both teams had mental capacity drop severely due to the conflicting personalities and pretty much resulted in simplistic engines of destructions... instead of a true combination of all the skills and knowledge of it's parts

[Editor]

On a separate note... Reading the techspecs for Devastator and Superion, the original combiner teams were pretty much failures...

Both teams had mental capacity drop severely due to the conflicting personalities and pretty much resulted in simplistic engines of destructions... instead of a true combination of all the skills and knowledge of it's parts

You think those are bad, read Menasor.

[Jelze Bunnycat]

On a separate note... Reading the techspecs for Devastator and Superion, the original combiner teams were pretty much failures...

Both teams had mental capacity drop severely due to the conflicting personalities and pretty much resulted in simplistic engines of destructions... instead of a true combination of all the skills and knowledge of it's parts

You think those are bad, read Menasor.

And Computron shows that the opposite end of the spectrum is equally as bad.

[NuclearConvoy]

Damn that ultra magnus looks sexy. Have we seen anything about a Takara release? Anyone care to venture a guess on the odds for a Powered Convoy repaint?

[Editor]

Moral of the story:
Combiners look cool, but not smart to try.

My guess is that they need to make the combined personalities so fractured in order to explain why it would be better to have the Characters not stay combined all the time.

[Thadicon]

Sure, it would make sense IF it were possible. By this mentality (and the direction that CW is going) EVERYONE should be able to combine. The tactical advantage is worlds above ever fighting solo and there isn't any disadvantage at all...


I just prefer the older stories were creating new bots with actual personalities and functions was insanely difficult and the ideas of 5 becoming one was such an elite function that NOT every one could do it.

But, yeah... if the option is available, then every Autobot/Decepticon should download the combiner program and be ready to pinch hit in case someone drops... It's logical, it's tactical, but it does push up the expendableness of the tradional characters and makes for poorer stories in my opinion. less drama, less excitement, and the possibility that five battles later you'd have a completely unrecognizable Superion or Defensor or whoever...

It's really why I can't even look at Bay's version of Devastator... I love Devy, but.. that wasn't it....

That's fair enough. I think I might have read in the Dreamwave MTMTE books that a Transformer had to have certain qualities and attributes to be eligible to be included into a combiner program. Similar to what Shockwave did in that canon to the Triplechangers and Duocons.

I kind of disagree with you when it comes to making the stories boring. In the Wildriders case in the combiner wars story he has bailed so where did he go? and what is he doing? Is he coming back? and if so what is going to happen with Offroad when he does? I haven't kept up with what happened to Slingshot as I am trying to play catch up so I cant really comment on him at the mo.

Oh in my opinion Bayverse Devy was not cool at all

[King Kuuga]

I kind of disagree with you when it comes to making the stories boring. In the Wildriders case in the combiner wars story he has bailed so where did he go? and what is he doing? Is he coming back? and if so what is going to happen with Offroad when he does? I haven't kept up with what happened to Slingshot as I am trying to play catch up so I cant really comment on him at the mo.

Slingshot was killed when Prowlestator ripped Superion apart during his first rampage on New Iacon.

[Thadicon]

I kind of disagree with you when it comes to making the stories boring. In the Wildriders case in the combiner wars story he has bailed so where did he go? and what is he doing? Is he coming back? and if so what is going to happen with Offroad when he does? I haven't kept up with what happened to Slingshot as I am trying to play catch up so I cant really comment on him at the mo.

Slingshot was killed when Prowlestator ripped Superion apart during his first rampage on New Iacon.

So he was. Thanks for that I did read that event but I wasn't sure about the aftermath.

[Bradimus]

I kind of disagree with you when it comes to making the stories boring. In the Wildriders case in the combiner wars story he has bailed so where did he go? and what is he doing? Is he coming back? and if so what is going to happen with Offroad when he does? I haven't kept up with what happened to Slingshot as I am trying to play catch up so I cant really comment on him at the mo.

Slingshot was killed when Prowlestator ripped Superion apart during his first rampage on New Iacon.

And from what I've read here, sometime after that Alpha Bravo just shows up out of nowhere to become the fourth limbbot. So if Alpha Bravo has a clean slate to work with, and he came out of nowhere, then it's possible the writers could reveal that he is in fact Slingshot reborn. If I understand everything correctly. So what would everyone think if they did that?

[NuclearConvoy]

It wouldn't change my mind on this.

[Bradimus]

It wouldn't change my mind on this.

IIRC you take issue with the aesthetic, right? Fair enough.

[RiddlerJ]

On a separate note... Reading the techspecs for Devastator and Superion, the original combiner teams were pretty much failures...

Both teams had mental capacity drop severely due to the conflicting personalities and pretty much resulted in simplistic engines of destructions... instead of a true combination of all the skills and knowledge of it's parts

You think those are bad, read Menasor.

That's why they had to add Blackjack. He keeps everyone nice and tempered (just pulling that out of my ass but I like the theory)

[Crosscheck]

I kind of disagree with you when it comes to making the stories boring. In the Wildriders case in the combiner wars story he has bailed so where did he go? and what is he doing? Is he coming back? and if so what is going to happen with Offroad when he does? I haven't kept up with what happened to Slingshot as I am trying to play catch up so I cant really comment on him at the mo.

Slingshot was killed when Prowlestator ripped Superion apart during his first rampage on New Iacon.

And from what I've read here, sometime after that Alpha Bravo just shows up out of nowhere to become the fourth limbbot. So if Alpha Bravo has a clean slate to work with, and he came out of nowhere, then it's possible the writers could reveal that he is in fact Slingshot reborn. If I understand everything correctly. So what would everyone think if they did that?

Given how Transformers come to life in the IDWverse, this is impossible. Both of the two methods for making a Transformer are gone. So he is a new character. We have only seen him in a couple of panels so far, but so far, from what I can tell, he has a lot of Slingshot's personality. He is hot-headed and brash.

One thing that has been demonstrated is that the combined consciousness of the individual members of a team stores deceased members and that newcomers show mannerisms similar to a deceased member. Prowl has been calling a lot of members of the Constructicons Scrapper by accident. It is possible that Slingshot's personality has latched onto Alpha Bravo and is starting to override his original personality. That would be a cool twist. Pretty much the only way he could become Slingshot-Reborn.

[Crosscheck]

On a separate note... Reading the techspecs for Devastator and Superion, the original combiner teams were pretty much failures...

Both teams had mental capacity drop severely due to the conflicting personalities and pretty much resulted in simplistic engines of destructions... instead of a true combination of all the skills and knowledge of it's parts

You think those are bad, read Menasor.

That's why they had to add Blackjack. He keeps everyone nice and tempered (just pulling that out of my ass but I like the theory)

Actually...
Blackjack is a plant by Starscream added to the team to destabilize them. He is a hot-head and adding him to an already unstable combines has severely damaged Menasor's capability.

[Bradimus]

I kind of disagree with you when it comes to making the stories boring. In the Wildriders case in the combiner wars story he has bailed so where did he go? and what is he doing? Is he coming back? and if so what is going to happen with Offroad when he does? I haven't kept up with what happened to Slingshot as I am trying to play catch up so I cant really comment on him at the mo.

Slingshot was killed when Prowlestator ripped Superion apart during his first rampage on New Iacon.

And from what I've read here, sometime after that Alpha Bravo just shows up out of nowhere to become the fourth limbbot. So if Alpha Bravo has a clean slate to work with, and he came out of nowhere, then it's possible the writers could reveal that he is in fact Slingshot reborn. If I understand everything correctly. So what would everyone think if they did that?

Given how Transformers come to life in the IDWverse, this is impossible. Both of the two methods for making a Transformer are gone. So he is a new character. We have only seen him in a couple of panels so far, but so far, from what I can tell, he has a lot of Slingshot's personality. He is hot-headed and brash.

One thing that has been demonstrated is that the combined consciousness of the individual members of a team stores deceased members and that newcomers show mannerisms similar to a deceased member. Prowl has been calling a lot of members of the Constructicons Scrapper by accident. It is possible that Slingshot's personality has latched onto Alpha Bravo and is starting to override his original personality. That would be a cool twist. Pretty much the only way he could become Slingshot-Reborn.

Very interesting. I did not know that. If I were reading the comics I'd definitely be interested the writers exploring this concept as part of fleshing out the new character. I guess that makes my question moot, however.

[Thadicon]

I kind of disagree with you when it comes to making the stories boring. In the Wildriders case in the combiner wars story he has bailed so where did he go? and what is he doing? Is he coming back? and if so what is going to happen with Offroad when he does? I haven't kept up with what happened to Slingshot as I am trying to play catch up so I cant really comment on him at the mo.

Slingshot was killed when Prowlestator ripped Superion apart during his first rampage on New Iacon.

And from what I've read here, sometime after that Alpha Bravo just shows up out of nowhere to become the fourth limbbot. So if Alpha Bravo has a clean slate to work with, and he came out of nowhere, then it's possible the writers could reveal that he is in fact Slingshot reborn. If I understand everything correctly. So what would everyone think if they did that?

Given how Transformers come to life in the IDWverse, this is impossible. Both of the two methods for making a Transformer are gone. So he is a new character. We have only seen him in a couple of panels so far, but so far, from what I can tell, he has a lot of Slingshot's personality. He is hot-headed and brash.

One thing that has been demonstrated is that the combined consciousness of the individual members of a team stores deceased members and that newcomers show mannerisms similar to a deceased member. Prowl has been calling a lot of members of the Constructicons Scrapper by accident. It is possible that Slingshot's personality has latched onto Alpha Bravo and is starting to override his original personality. That would be a cool twist. Pretty much the only way he could become Slingshot-Reborn.

Very interesting. I did not know that. If I were reading the comics I'd definitely be interested the writers exploring this concept as part of fleshing out the new character. I guess that makes my question moot, however.

That would be a really cool plot twist if that was the case. Hopefully we get a more in depth explanation of where he came from.

[mtma]

On a separate note... Reading the techspecs for Devastator and Superion, the original combiner teams were pretty much failures...

Both teams had mental capacity drop severely due to the conflicting personalities and pretty much resulted in simplistic engines of destructions... instead of a true combination of all the skills and knowledge of it's parts

You think those are bad, read Menasor.

That's why they had to add Blackjack. He keeps everyone nice and tempered (just pulling that out of my ass but I like the theory)

Actually...
Blackjack is a plant by Starscream added to the team to destabilize them. He is a hot-head and adding him to an already unstable combines has severely damaged Menasor's capability.

Nice info. I'm not following the comics, just getting bits of lore here and there.


One of my thoughts for the addition of Blackjack was that due to being extremely unstable and raging, they had added BJ to the team as some kind of armor enhancer or shield projector.

My logic was that adding more personalities to try and balance the other ones would cause even more harm, so insted of making Menasor more stable, they would simply make him more durable in combat by adding more armor, that's why BJ was added as a chestplate, he's a shield projector that also functions as an individual team member.

[Cobotron]

One of my thoughts for the addition of Blackjack was that due to being extremely unstable and raging, they had added BJ to the team as some kind of armor enhancer or shield projector.

My logic was that adding more personalities to try and balance the other ones would cause even more harm, so insted of making Menasor more stable, they would simply make him more durable in combat by adding more armor, that's why BJ was added as a chestplate, he's a shield projector that also functions as an individual team member.

I like your theory. It's cool!

I just wanna pull my nerd out to say, technicly he's not new or added. He has always been there. The G1 toy had him. Your theory works nicely there too. Instead of being a filler piece to cover up some empty space.

If your gonna fight with a sword, you gotta have an armor boost.