The Energon Pub

OK guys, I posted this on Michael Bay's forum but wanted to share it with you too and hear what you think.

Yesterday we got a little hint from a SFTE member who claims that he is working on the movie. I myself believe this guy. Now let me quote him what he said about Shockwave:
"Shockwave does have slight purple in him in his original render, however Decepticons in the movie have always been dark. His bio and origin in the movie is pretty cool. All I can say is google the date 1908"
I've made a quick search and found out that during that year was the famous Tunguska event. After that I connected the other bits of rumors that we've heard and here is my theory:

You guys remember this from ROTF:



There was a newspaper with an article named "Mysterious Robot Spotted" with the picture of Shockwave. This shot was considered an Easter egg but what if the writers decided to connect this with the DOTM plot. What if actually Shockwave was on Earth during ROTF. And now with the explanation "how". I'll shortly quote WIKI about the Tunguska event:
"In 1908 the Tunguska event, or Tunguska explosion, was an enormously powerful explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. The explosion is believed to have been caused by the air burst of a large meteoroid or comet fragment at an altitude of 5–10 kilometres (3–6 mi) above the Earth's surface. Although the meteoroid or comet burst in the air rather than hitting the surface, this event is still referred to as an impact. The explosion knocked over an estimated 80 million trees covering 2,150 square kilometres (830 sq mi). It is estimated that the shock wave from the blast would have measured 5.0 on the Richter scale."
So, what if actually Shockwave was the cause of that incident, what if he was that meteor or comet that landed in Russia in 1908. We all heard the rumors that in DOTM the Russians also discovered a Transformer. So maybe they retrieved Shockwave and kept him frozen like the US did with Megatron.
Another rumor supporting that theory is the side mission led by Prime, Ironhide and Lenox that we've heard about. What if they go to Russia to retrieve Shockwave from the hands of the Russians.
Another thing - these days there was some info released about the DOTM Game. One of the battle grounds revealed was Siberia. Well guess what - the Tunguska region is in Siberia.
So pretty much that's it. I don't know if I'm right, after all this came just from one unconfirmed year but it really makes sense. And now I begin to understand why all the DOTM crew repeatedly tell us that this time they have a great story. The Apollo mission the Tunguska event - both real history events that would make the story more plausible.
So what do you think?

If you haven't heard about the Tunguska event, here is the full article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event


Update:

Told ya!

http://www.seibertron.com/transformers/ ... iew/21176/

Sounds good. True or not, we'll see. And Corey Burton always made Shockwave sound a bit Russian anyway, so it fits.

You know, this is one of the things i love about the TF fandom. Using small little tit bits of info and atempting to conect everything together! I never knew the newspapar in the desert Devestator scene contained Shockwave! That would be preety cool if they were linked to DOTM. However, the news article seems to suggest that Shockwave was spotted and not in Russian custody. So i would say that maybe the autobots go to Russia to find Shockwave rather than bring him back from Russian hands. Alittle over 4 months to go! Thanks Albershide!

Very interesting plausible theory!

Albershide wrote:And now I begin to understand why all the DOTM crew repeatedly tell us that this time they have a great story.

A great story comes from being original, and using Tunguska is in no way an original idea. It's on par with Roswell as "Real life event overused in sci-fi."

Come on, can't we get some original ideas once and a while? How about blaming aliens for the Year Without a Summer or the Philadelphia Experiment or the Roanoke Colony?

Shadowman wrote:A great story comes from being original, and using Tunguska is in no way an original idea. It's on par with Roswell as "Real life event overused in sci-fi."

Well if you ask me it depends on the movie genre. When you have a sci-fi movie about alien robots that transform in cars I think it's better to link their alien and unknown history with something that we know for a fact that is real and exists. It makes the strange story easier to digest.

5150 Cruiser wrote:You know, this is one of the things i love about the TF fandom. Using small little tit bits of info and atempting to conect everything together! I never knew the newspapar in the desert Devestator scene contained Shockwave! That would be preety cool if they were linked to DOTM. However, the news article seems to suggest that Shockwave was spotted and not in Russian custody. So i would say that maybe the autobots go to Russia to find Shockwave rather than bring him back from Russian hands. Alittle over 4 months to go! Thanks Albershide!

I think that the thing with the newspaper is really an Easter egg. I'm sure that when they did it they had no idea that Shockwave will be in TF3. So I don't expect that to have a huge impact on the story.

Shadowman wrote:A great story comes from being original

Like Seven Samurai in Spa-...er, Star Wars? I'm sorry to say this, but your statement is wrong. A good story comes not from what you use but how you use it.

Albershide wrote:

Shadowman wrote:A great story comes from being original, and using Tunguska is in no way an original idea. It's on par with Roswell as "Real life event overused in sci-fi."

Well if you ask me it depends on the movie genre. When you have a sci-fi movie about alien robots that transform in cars I think it's better to link their alien and unknown history with something that we know for a fact that is real and exists. It makes the strange story easier to digest.

And I just explained that linking to Tunguska and Roswell is overused. A cliche is a cliche, regardless of genre.

For instance, in Resistance: Fall of Man, the Tunguska event was the result of the Chimera landing on Earth. (Though they know the Chimera were responsible for Tunguska, even in-game no one knows their exact origins) Tunguska was also the landing point of the Blisk in Destroy All Humans. In The X-Files, the meteorite that caused the blast contained Black Oil (a type of mind-controlling bacteria), in Hellboy it was the site of a monolith crashing to Earth sent by the Ogdru Jahad. In the predator comics, it was caused by a Predator ship self-destructing, in Atomic Robo, it was caused by Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower.

You see what I'm saying? No matter what you write as the cause or effect, that doesn't make it new. It's as much of a cliche as Roswell at this point.

Capt.Failure wrote:

Shadowman wrote:A great story comes from being original

Like Seven Samurai in Spa-...er, Star Wars? I'm sorry to say this, but your statement is wrong. A good story comes not from what you use but how you use it.

You're half right, but I was talking more about use of cliches as backstory. "Aliens from Roswell" and "Aliens caused Tunguska" are, in fact, total cliches. Link it to something that hasn't been used a billion times.

The problem Shadowman is you immediately write it off as bad because it's cliched. Hate to burst your bubble but that would be approximately 99.99% all stories every written, ever. As a writer I find the implication that using cliche is an automatic mark of low quality more than a little insulting.

If shocky was allready on earth i would have thought he would have an alt mode which is more of a disguise than an alien tank

whipslash wrote:If shocky was allready on earth i would have thought he would have an alt mode which is more of a disguise than an alien tank

Maybe he was like Megatron at first: He didn't want to disguise or hide himself.

But then he would have enslaved Northern Europe by now...

Or he thought that he was "Above Earth's Altmodes", and choose not to scan something he saw as "A Lesser Form"

Or he really was in sort-of "natural Cryostasis".

Capt.Failure wrote:The problem Shadowman is you immediately write it off as bad because it's cliched. Hate to burst your bubble but that would be approximately 99.99% all stories every written, ever. As a writer I find the implication that using cliche is an automatic mark of low quality more than a little insulting.

And as a fellow writer I find it more than a little insulting that you don't know what the word "cliché" means.

cliché (ˈkliːʃeɪ)

— n
1. a word or expression that has lost much of its force through overexposure, as for example the phrase: it's got to get worse before it gets better
2. an idea, action, or habit that has become trite from overuse

You're probably confusing the words "cliché" with "trope."

Tropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations. On the whole, tropes are not clichés. The word clichéd means "stereotyped and trite." In other words, dull and uninteresting. We are not looking for dull and uninteresting entries. We are here to recognize tropes and play with them, not to make fun of them.

Now, in a sense you are right, a cliche does not a bad story make. However, a cliche does not a good story make, much less a "great" story like they're claiming.

In the end, it's better to try something new than reuse plot elements we've seen a hundred times in the past.

Also, I haven't actually seen The Seven Samurai. What was reused in Star Wars?

As always 70% of the talking on this forum is OFF TOPIC. Damn!

I was going to say this earlier, but in the RoTF shot, we see Shockwave's G1 robot mode on the newspaper page. DoTM Shockwave is definitely NOT G1-esque at all. So either they're not connected, or he just went through a serious systems upgrade. As with all things movie (except RoTF Prime) I prefer G1.

Red 50 wrote:

whipslash wrote:If shocky was allready on earth i would have thought he would have an alt mode which is more of a disguise than an alien tank

Maybe he was like Megatron at first: He didn't want to disguise or hide himself.

But then he would have enslaved Northern Europe by now...

Or he thought that he was "Above Earth's Altmodes", and choose not to scan something he saw as "A Lesser Form"

Or he really was in sort-of "natural Cryostasis".

Yeah, none of it fits Shockwave's MO. He could have EASILY conquered the planet in 1908, we wouldn't have had the weapons technology to fight him off. Plus, he'd have figured out Megatron, the AllSpark, the Seekers and the Sun Harvester were all there. "How would be figure that out?" He's Shockwave, he used his logic powers.

Albershide wrote:As always 70% of the talking on this forum is OFF TOPIC. Damn!

Hey, I calls 'em like I sees 'em. I just wanted to point out that the basis for this was a huge cliche, and it snowballed from there.

Albershide wrote: I think that the thing with the newspaper is really an Easter egg. I'm sure that when they did it they had no idea that Shockwave will be in TF3. So I don't expect that to have a huge impact on the story.

I'm sure your right. Especially since the rendering in the newspaper is his G1 form. Just saying i had never seen it in the past and thought it was cool .

Shadowman wrote: A great story comes from being original, and using Tunguska is in no way an original idea. It's on par with Roswell as "Real life event overused in sci-fi."

Come on, can't we get some original ideas once and a while?

While i understand what you mean, I think it strongly depends on how the story utilizes the facts. In the case of the first TF movie; While they still used the "our current technology is based on Aliens" cliché, I appreciated the fact that Megatron was being housed in the Hover dam Rather than Area 51. It kept it familiar without over using the Area 51 debacle.

In the case of DOTM, i don't think its fair to say that the story can't be great without a completely original story. Especially since at this point we its all just speculation. If this is how you think your just going to go into the movie with a negative mind set.

nice job finding that pic!

Shadowman wrote:For instance, in Resistance: Fall of Man, the Tunguska event was the result of the Chimera landing on Earth. (Though they know the Chimera were responsible for Tunguska, even in-game no one knows their exact origins) Tunguska was also the landing point of the Blisk in Destroy All Humans. In The X-Files, the meteorite that caused the blast contained Black Oil (a type of mind-controlling bacteria), in Hellboy it was the site of a monolith crashing to Earth sent by the Ogdru Jahad. In the predator comics, it was caused by a Predator ship self-destructing, in Atomic Robo, it was caused by Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower.

You see what I'm saying? No matter what you write as the cause or effect, that doesn't make it new. It's as much of a cliche as Roswell at this point.

Don't forget in Ghostbusters Ray tells Louis Tully that he participated in the biggest cross-dimensional something since the tunguska blast of 1908 (though I think he may have said 1909)....

But what I don't get is why everyone is saying Shocky would have conquered europe. Siberia is cold like the arctic... perhaps he crashed and froze like megs following him in pursuit of the allspark....
Anyhow its an interesting theory....

GEEWUN wrote:Don't forget in Ghostbusters Ray tells Louis Tully that he participated in the biggest cross-dimensional something since the tunguska blast of 1908 (though I think he may have said 1909)....

But what I don't get is why everyone is saying Shocky would have conquered europe. Siberia is cold like the arctic... perhaps he crashed and froze like megs following him in pursuit of the allspark....
Anyhow its an interesting theory....

Not necessarily. Average summer temperature for the area near the Tunguska Event is about 68 degrees. But then the people who made these movies know absolutely nothing about science or geography. So I'll add this to your theory: After the event, Shockwave was basically destroyed because of the blast. (Comparable to a nuclear weapon) The Russians recovered what they could and began reverse engineering it much like we did with Megatron.

Actually, I like that they included the Tunguska angle. To be honest, it really is pretty obscure on film, and more of a developemnt story wise then I would have given this Transformers film credit. I mean yeah, it's been used, but so has alot of historical events and landmarks for the sake of story. The Egyptian Pyramids, Stone Henge, Area 51 and the Roswell Incident, all these are more obvious plot mechanisms for a film about alien giant robots. More so that alot of them have already been used...in comparison...Tunguska is actually pretty obscure.

As for what happened, my 2 cents is that when shockwave landed he went offline...like Megatron. He was then used to spear head Russia's technological savvy, and without a doubt their weapons and space program..being they were the first to really launch organisms and such in space (We were the first to land on the moon...but after they had launched a few tid bits of their own). I'm guessing the Cold War will be pinned on the U.S. designated Sector 7 discovering the existance of Shockwave in Russia. And hence why Kennedy sent people to the moon in the first place. Along with this I'm guessing Shockwave came to earth for the same reasons Megatron did, and came online once Megatron and the Allspark were originally located in the first film. Once the Allspark and the subsequent Sun Harvester were destroyed, Shockwave did the next logical thing. Begin the colonization of earth hence the invasion fleet we glimpse during the Superbowl trailer.

Huh, not too bad of a plot. I just pray it's execution is done with the least amount of 5 yr old humor possible. It would be kinda great for Shockwave to have a Russian accent, but honestly I just hope he gets a heavily roboticised cold and emotionless voice. The more cold and calculating he is, the more effective I think he'll be as a true potential threat in this Movie-verse.

Albershide, once again- Way to Go!!!

I don't have too much on Shockwave yet, but of peripheral significance regarding the overall ancient inclusion to the films: it could be construed that a Feathered Serpent has prematurely returned to Earth after "the End of the Sun" was averted due to events in Rotf: That is, that the Might-be-LazerBeak-No-It's-a-Dragon Bot, via the Sun Harvester plotline, could be connected to the Ancient Americas with little trouble, especially when the Primes' knowledge of the presence of Sam and Optimus is available to them from Pre-History (*1), and a Prehistoric Panther shown during the Primes' flashback sequence clearly forewarns about the presence of (a bot like) Ravage, and therefore (a bot like) Soundwave(*2).

The idea that Shockwaves' low opinion of existing Earthen modes during 1908 sounds pretty right to me, especially the land based ones of the time. The seagoing stuff of the period was getting metalized and, for me at least, was impressive enough for a Cybertronian gun-addict to wanna play around with on his days off- as are the tanks of World War 1. Before that, his own Altmode, I agree, would have been a logical way to go-
BUT
does Shockwave arrive as a protoform comet-thing or a proper vehicle? Because, if he arrives as a comet-thing, which is one of two ways to explain the Tunguska event as his doing (the other being his name, propably associated with his Cannon) where does he find the Cybertronian Altmode to scan and then adopt?

Possible explanation: He came to Earth more than once, with different Altmodes.

Everything is speculation, of course, but it's my two energon points for now.

(*1)Allowing for them to pass an end of the Sun prophecy on to the Humans of their period that turns out almost exactly accurate datewise in ours, doubly so when the first attempt at activation is failed, allowing easier access to the now exposed Sun Harvester at another date closer to 2012 or 2014 depending on your preffered version of the prophecy)

(*2) Bearing in mind that the creature formed by the Altmode of the ballbearing-bots Ravage deploys doesn't need to be Earth'ling' at all, but could easily be a later Dinosaur type, native to Earth.

Edit: Attempt at humor: Buzzsaw, when combined with the revelation of the Moon Landing, could be read "An Alien that Buzz (Aldrin) Saw". Hyuk!.

Just for fun, considering kiddies are signing on to read all this stuff as well, here are some other educational 1908 events that could be relevant to Transformers (or not!!), then a once-over of 1907 and 1909:

1908
*The first model T ford is made.(Autobot:Clunk).
*A long distance radio message is sent for 1st time from Eiffel tower (France is in Rotf).
*The first round the world car race (New York to Paris).
*First Passenger flight.
*Frederick Cook claims to have reached North Pole (Potential relevance only to Witwicky expedition).
*First overseas scout troop formed in Gibraltar (the Tactical location of Gibraltar plus scout concept can imply a sector 7 style global search for Cybertronians falling from the skies and going offline).
*First commercial oil discovery in middle East (Tfs organizing an influx of Altmodes to mimick? Unlikely, but hey i'll mention anyway).
*Peary expedition to North pole sets out.
*Fisrt fully animated film, Fantasmagorie (ancestor of Trans(fantasmagor)mers-the movie).
*First death by plane Crash.(Damn you, Rotf Ransack!!)
*Earthquake & Tsunami in Sicily & other regions (potential relevance to Shockave).

1907:
*Earthquake in Jamaica.(Shockwave fooling around, or any Dotm Bot with Dreadlocks coming in for a landing).
*2nd Hague peace conference (potentail global alliance forming to deal with arriving Cybertronians).
*the triple Entente.
*Hague convention revised.
*2 seperate coal mine explosions in the U.S (Bloody shockwave again, or the tentacled tunneler from the Chicago fight?).
*Triode thermionic amplifier invented, starting the development in electronics.
*Moine thrust belt discovered in Scotland (caves can = crashed Cybertronians or in this unique case even Energon).
*Diamond Sutra of 868 discovered (earliest example of block printing, (no real significance unless connecting 'block' to 'cube' and also incorporating talk of spaceship references is Hindu mythology-note the text is 'Buddhist' and not 'Hinduist'.) (found in caves again).

1909:
*Shackletons expedition claims to have found the magnetic south pole.
*First short wave radio broadcaster.
*Lots of flying around.
*plenty of rearranging in the oil front.
*Earthquake in Zagreb area.
*A 40,000 year old Neanderthal boy skeleton is discovered (potential relevance only to Seven Primes backstory).

Hoof!That's that job done.

The problem with Shockwave getting up and taking things over after landing in Tunguska, is that the blast from the event hit with the force of a 10 megaton nuclear warhead, with a blast radius larger than the state of Texas. If Shockwave was at the center, he'd be completely obliterated.

Shadowman wrote:The problem with Shockwave getting up and taking things over after landing in Tunguska, is that the blast from the event hit with the force of a 10 megaton nuclear warhead, with a blast radius larger than the state of Texas. If Shockwave was at the center, he'd be completely obliterated.

Very true, I guess.

I was just researching the Wiki Tunguska entry: It says that when there was FINALLY an official govt. expedition in 1920-something, the Evenk (Tungus natives,officially named Evenki after 1930) guides accompanying the expedition stopped some distance away, refusing to go too near the site for fear of "The Valleymen". There's no real intel on "Valleymen" by article or photo search, so I'm guessing it was their local Yeti/Werewolf/Vampire/Dryad/you-name-it analog.
The Tungus/Evenk were/are basically Animist in tradition, so they treated nature the Shamanic way- that is, everything had a spirit self that could/can materialize if need be. Chances are low that Dotm writers could have researched the Tunguska event (provided that they actually did in the first place-just saying, no offense!) without coming across a reference to these Valleymen, so there's a possibility the Tunguska blast was (written up as) a group landing,thereby increasing the blast radius but keeping it safe for the newcomers (with a little imagination).Note the blast radius was butterfly shaped, not round,(tho nobody discusses whether it should have been round but got reshaped by intervening terrain) potentially allowing for a cluster of impacts if desired, and also that some eyewitness accounts refer to up to five seperate explosions (but only one tail trail, albeit a "tube" shaped one).

If not, then your observation about what the blast would do to Shockwave might turn out to be Iron Clad.

Possibility: Assuming Shockwave doesn't Transform into an actual Battleship, but instead a 'leader class' sized vehicle: Maybe he used another cometoid setup like a shell or pod around him to make the journey from Cybertron (as opposed to a mini-journey from a larger mothership located near Saturn). If so, the shell could have been destroyed on his behalf. Arguably, Shockwave could have deployed from it just in or outside of orbit and landed elsewhere, letting the actual assumed pod crash to Earth since he was done with it-hence Tunguska.

Something we still don't know is whether or not he is allied to Megatron (or Optimus, or Sentinel or Unicron) or nobody. This might help us get our heads around a couple more details...as far as we know he was a horrible criminal exiled from Cybertron in a Glass triangle-thing long ago a la vintage Superman villains.