synapse wrote:I know, that's what bothers me. Megatron's spark was modified for mass displacement, Prowl's wasn't (not that we know of, anyway). As it took Shockwave centuries to perfect the combiner tech, he could have modified the Constructicons' sparks before the AHM series, ok fine... but why do all TF artists seem to LOVE making the combiners ridiculously huge when there's no need? Only Figueroa seemed to deliberately draw Monstructor right (or at least, right size) in Spotlight: Optimus Prime.
Oh well...
Here's an explanation that doesn't require the 'artistic license' cop out:
Megatron's spark was modified for Mass Displacement, true. As were Soundwave, the cassettes, etc. The key here is "Displacement". The IDW authors have been fairly thorough, as far as I recall, in saying "Mass Displacement" and not "Mass Shifting", which to me means they want to clarify that shunting part of a robot's mass somewhere else ('subspace' I guess) is established Transformers tech, but that it's fairly rare and consumes a lot of energy.
Examples of IDW transformers mass shifting upward (growing larger than their default form) are few and far between, and often wind up being ambiguous. Early in the comics, Broadside and Astrotrain were depicted as enormous in robot mode. Likewise, in robot mode, the seekers were depicted as larger than the Autobot cars are in robot mode. In all these cases, the characters that turn into big vehicles are big in robot mode, but not as much larger as they should be (e.g., Starscream should be about three times taller than Bumblebee), which would require them mass-shifting upward to Transform.
I would say that the fact that the size distinction was made at all is significant (the cartoon, after all, always had the seekers and the cars the same height), and the fact that the distinction is not as drastic as it realistically should be, that is attributable to artistic
license pragmatism. In other words, I think IDW has wanted to emphasize 'mass displacement' as an exotic technology, and attribute any sort of apparent growth when transforming to alternate mode to an expanding or contracting structure that changes volume while maintaining a constant mass. Megatron actually displaces most of his mass when transforming into a gun, but Starscream only reduces his density by sliding around some plates when he turns into a jet fighter - like unfolding a box.
But then you have Devastator, who in his first appearance in All Hail Megatron is described as this super-special uber weapon. So, what makes him special?
It might be difficult to re-engineer a Transformer to turn into a body-part forcibly, but that was the case with Ambulon - he turns into a foot, but apparently the process failed on some other level.
So maybe it's difficult to engineer someone to link up with someone else? It'd be strange for humans, but Sonic and Boom did it in MTMTE, and while Ratchet was surprised, it wasn't like he regarded it as fringe crazy mad science.
So maybe it's the mental aspect, connecting all of those minds? Swindle tried his hand with Menasor, who was fairly intimidating one on one, but who didn't mesh mentally, with all of his constituent parts actively bickering over what to do - but that could have been resolved by using the process on five individuals who don't have diagnosable mental disorders. Given, that could be a stumbling block for the Decepticons, but if the secret of combination were just group therapy, I think they'd have had more success (or started lobotomizing their troops).
So what made Devastator (and we find out later his predecessor Monstructor, special?)
They both mass shift upward.
Really, five guys grabbing onto each other to make a bigger guy doesn't really mean much in a war. Like I said in another thread, if five large men combined into one guy, you'd maybe get a person the size of a small cow, and cows while formidable one on one against unarmed, intoxicated opponents, are not war machines. Five people merging their minds, that could be really useful, but by and large, that ends up being the combiner's weaknesses, not their strength.
Five normal guys combining and grow into something the size of Godzilla, though, now
that's a strategic asset.
When the Constructicons attacked New York, they plowed through the streets in vehicle mode, maneuvering between the buildings easily, and when they combined, the mass increase itself would have been like a bomb going off - except it'd be like a bomb that just kept going after it detonated.
So, I think the point is that it's not the physical act of combination that is special, or coveted, or difficult to master - the point is that when combination is done 'right' it somehow allows the combined whole access to something more, something that allows it to grow to literally mythic proportions. Maybe it requires five or six sparks to power the transformation, or maybe there's some sort of primal safeguard where the ability to grow is only unlocked when multiple Cybertronians work together.
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