Oh, how I wish I had gotten to this topic sooner, as I had just gotten through this very same conversation and email from Hasbro over at Unicron.com.
First of all, for those of you who are acting as if we are *just now* being told this information, let me make this clear to you: WE HAVE KNOWN ABOUT THIS INFORMATION FOR
MONTHS NOW! THIS IS NOT NEW INFORMATION!!!
Hasbro has already stated time and time again that the three are together in the same aligned continuity.
And, YES, there are a plethora of continuity errors in this concept. But let me ask you this,
are continuity errors anything new? NO!
Need I remind you that this is The Transformers? One of the most fictionally convoluted and varied franchises! It's not like this kind of retcon hasn't been done before. Look at all that's come about in past and recent incarnations:
- Forcing Cybertron in with Armada and Energon.
- Forcing Galaxy Force in with Micron Densetsu and Super Link.
- Relocating Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo to occur "tens of thousands of years" after Beast Wars Returns instead of before it.
- Forcing Car Robots into the Japanese G1 continuity
- Kiss Players... 'nuff said
- Forcing the Japanese dub of Animated to be a supposed "prequel" to the Japanese dubs of the live action movies
- Changing the Japanese version of the G1 episode "Call of the Primitives" to involve time travel
- Changing Primacron's assistant into being Primus, Vector Sigma, and the Oracle all at the same time
- Forcing the Beast Wars Diorama Story (which includes Movie characters crossing over into the Beast Wars) into the Japanese G1 continuity
- Making Alpha Trion into one of the Original 13 TFs, who are all Multiversal Singularites, when he has a Shattered Glass counterpart
- Claiming that Multversal Singularities do not exist in the WFC/Exodus/Prime continuity (when it was established that the 13 are indeed Mult-Sings), thus seemingly placing WFC/Exodus/Prime outside of the TF Multiverse (so, would that now make it an omniverse?)
And all this, and more, is official! Nonsensical blasphemy, but official, nonetheless. Is this case really any different?
As far the Dark Energon contradiction goes, let me turn your attention to something important. As Dead Metal said above, this Dark Eerngon could very well be a
different kind of Dark Eenrgon than what was seen in the games/book. A piece of evidence of this would be how the Dark Energon in the show is called the "Blood of Unicron", whereas the different substance seen in the games/book is called the "Sparks of Unicron". The "Sparks" variation could act as an addictive power-up, while the Blood variant would act as a reanimator of the dead.
As for the characters, how can we say that everyone is so different? We know nothing of the interluding period between the games/book and the cartoon. We know that they have been on Earth for at least 3 years, but we don't know how long it's been since they left Cybertron. And the show did say that war proceeded to continue on other planets after it was moved off of Cybertron. Earth could have only been one of them. Perhaps after they all left Cybertron at the end of the games/book, they headed for other worlds and continued to fight there.
And Optimus did say that his team of five were the *last* Autobots remaining on Earth, implying that there were others with him on Earth beforehand. Those other bots could have either been killed off screen or left to fight in the war on other planets prior to the first episode.
The characters that have appeared in Prime fiction who also showed up in the games/book are not all so different from before. Take a look at each of these characters for sec and think for moment:
- Optimus - practically the same as before
- Bumblebee - hard to say, as he wasn't given enough focus in the show for us to really explore his character yet
- Arcee - she wasn't in the WFC main story mode enough to tell for sure
- Ratchet - he could have grown into his gruffness, as he seems older in Prime than in WFC/Exodus. Wouldn't you get upset if you were trapped in some weird place far away from home for several years too?
- Cliffjumper - he wasn't in the 360/PS3/PC game (only the DS game, which I haven't played/experienced), so I dunno yet
- Megatron - I can see his WFC/Exodus persona still in him somewhat
- Starscream - he's still kinda similar
- Soundwave - like BB, he's not explored enough in the show yet to tell for sure
- Breakdown - the only one who seems thoroughly different. What did they do to him?
And while Optimus did say in the first episdoe that Megatron had turned on him during the war instead of before, this isn't exactly inaccurate towards Exodus. Even the war hadn't actually gone into full force yet, Megatron technically did already start warring with the caste system, by secretly establishing a militarized force under Orion Pax's nose, during the times when the two were debating about what should be done about Cyberron then-current social state. When Pax was appointed Prime, Megs turned on him, gave an offical decalaration of war, and then proceeded to unleash his underground militia across Cybertron. It wasn't so much as Optimus stating conflicting information, but ratehr, he wasn't being specific enough.
As of now, this is how the timelines of the modern aligned continuity family go (red arrows represent a forced retcon):
Timeline 1: WFC comic --> WFC console game
--> some "Movie-esque" events --> Prime graphic novel --> Prime cartoon
Timeline 2: Exodus novel
--> some "Movie-esque" events --> Prime graphic novel --> Prime cartoon
Timeline 3: WFC 'Cons DS game --> WFC 'Bots DS game
--> some "Movie-esque" events --> Prime graphic novel --> Prime cartoon
Timeline 4: Cybertron Adventures game
--> some "Movie-esque" events --> Prime graphic novel --> Prime cartoon
NOTE: I'm not certain, but the WFC comic may be able to occur before the WFC DS games and the Cybertron Adventures game as well as the WFC console game.