The Energon Pub

One of the most controversial Transformers TV series was Beast Machines. It was the darkest and most serious-toned series of them all (as well as the most "spiritual"), and left fans with mixed reactions towards its take on the Beast Wars characters and Planet Cybertron.

But what if the series were to have been pulled off in a different way? Like, you know how the series took place entirely on Cybertron, and Megatron had conquered the whole planet, stripping its citizens of their transformations and sparks, leaving only the Maximals of Optimus Primal as the only opposition to his domination? Well, what if it went like this...

Instead of being set on Cybertron, it were set on Earth in the present day. Megatron would have conquered the Earth (or most of it), enslaved all of humanity, and had his Vehicon drones and generals used as his military forces and law enforcers. The Maximals would still be his only opposition, but the humans would hate them just as much as Megatron, due to them being of the same race as Megatron: Cybertronian/Transformers. Meaning the Maximals wouldn't have any human ally characters helping them (any humans would just be background characters or extremely minor characters)

Humanity would be unable to put up any large resistance to Megatron's rule, as they would have already lost to him. Their militaries and weapons would have been destroyed, the world governments would have fallen to his tyranny, and countless lives would have already been lost during Megatron's initial takeover.

Basically, it would be in a post-apocalyptic Earth setting, where humanity is enslaved by Vehicons, Megatron is in global totalitarian control, and a small team of 4--7 Maximals are the human race's only (but unwanted) hope.

And to make it so Megs doesn't lose any generals like he did before, Jetstorm, Tankor, and Thrust would be their own characters, instead of being Silverbolt, Rhinox, and Waspinator. That way, Megs can have all five Generals (and we can see an epic fight between Silverbolt and Jetstorm ).

So, what if it were like this?

Interesting idea. Though I've never been a fan of the designs of the Beast Machines characters, especially the Vehicons whose animation models don't have the legs the toys have which I don't like. Same reason I wasn't enthusiastic about Demolisher in ROTF.

In addition, human characters in Transformers generally tend to be annoying. Leo in ROTF, Kicker in Energon and Carlos in Armada grate on the nerves something fierce. Human villains tend to be just childish like Lord Chumley or Professor Princess. The only good 'human' villain was Lord Zarak in the Marvel comics and he wasn't technically human.

That said, I did like Beast Machines the series. I warmed to it easier than I initially did with Beast Wars which is now my favourite TF series. It was a well written, dark series. My only real problem with it was the small, not too interesting cast. Beast Wars did characters so much better like the Spiders, Silverbolt, Rhinox, Inferno and Terrorsaur. In BM, Primal was kind of boring and having a gorilla-esque head in bot mode bugged me while Rattrap retained his annoying voice and personality. Silverbolt was stripped of the noble/naive charm of his BW incarnation. Even BM Megatron wasn't a patch on the BW version.

The convention and Universe sequels were great though if short lived.

I'm not by any means dismissing your idea, it would just be nice to get some good writers to execute it properly. Oh and give the Vehicons their toy legs back.

Windsweeper wrote:In addition, human characters in Transformers generally tend to be annoying. Leo in ROTF, Kicker in Energon and Carlos in Armada grate on the nerves something fierce. Human villains tend to be just childish like Lord Chumley or Professor Princess. The only good 'human' villain was Lord Zarak in the Marvel comics and he wasn't technically human.

IMO, the only series to ever get alll the human characters done right was Super-God Masterforce, where the entire cast of characters were human in some way (the only exceptiong being Godbomber, Sixknight, Blood, Gilmer, Dauros, the Seacons, the Decepticon Sparkdash, Devil Z, BlackZarak, and Browning). I can't quite explain it, but just about every main human character in that series (even the child characters) were portrayed competently.

Any humans in this idea, however, would just be slaves in the background whose screentime would be mostly taken up by showing their suffering. If any were to get any character development at all, it would be extremely mimimal and would not last more than an episode or two. The priamry focus would be on the Maximals.

I don't know if I like it or not, I like the story, but it sounds like the good guys are not going to win. The good guy always wins in Transformers even though the bad guys might win a few battles.

GEEWUN wrote:I don't know if I like it or not, I like the story, but it sounds like the good guys are not going to win. The good guy always wins in Transformers even though the bad guys might win a few battles.

Of course the Maximals would win in the end, it just won't be an easy victory.

One strategy would be for them to take out several Vehicon drone factories to slow down their production.

Megatron would only have his five generals as his sentient soldiers, while the drone armies would still remain as mindless bulk and fodder.

Though, I'm thinking that, what might be interesting would be if Optimus were to get his Optimal body back near the end, and Megatron would also get his copy of said body as well (minus the ape beast mode), and have the two Optimal dopplegangers duke it out towards the end.

I liked Beast Machines, although i was sad to see Cybertron so bloody empty. I like you idea, maybe to sway the tide the Maximals could be fighting to wake the sleeping Autobots, maybe wake G1 Megs by accident in an episode, and have him take on BM Megas for leadership, and maybe they somehow merge into a super megatron...Galvatron?

SEXFIGHTER wrote:I liked Beast Machines, although i was sad to see Cybertron so bloody empty. I like you idea, maybe to sway the tide the Maximals could be fighting to wake the sleeping Autobots, maybe wake G1 Megs by accident in an episode, and have him take on BM Megas for leadership, and maybe they somehow merge into a super megatron...Galvatron?

Well, seeing as how this would be an alternate telling of Beats Machines, I'd like to think of it as taking place on an alternate Earth so as to not need to bring in any of the Autobots and/or Decepticons.

I wouldn't want either of these teams to be brought in for mainluy one reason. Bringing them into this story would be really "deus ex machina" for both sides, and things would get far more chaotic than they'd need to be. And if they were to be brought in, the roles of the Maximals and Megatron might be diminished and I really wouldn't want them recieving any assistance from their giant ancestors. If Megatron were to conquer the Erath, I'd want it to be of his own doing. If the Maximals were to eventually defeat Megatron and liberate the Earth's population, I'd want it to be their own victory. The focus of the story might even shift away from the Maximals and Megatron and towards the Autobots and Decepticons (it would appear that Autobots and Deceptioncs are more popular and widely known that Maximals and BW Predacons/Vehicons).

beast machines would suck no matter how you dish it out.

Not that it isn't a good Idea but the character models would make it suck no matter what the story was like.

Nathimus Prime wrote:beast machines would suck no matter how you dish it out.

Not that it isn't a good Idea but the character models would make it suck no matter what the story was like.

That's the thing, though. The hideousness of the Maximals's appearances would also play a role here. The humans would not only despise the Maximals becuase of their common origins with Megatron, but also because the Maximals would be viewed by the humans as freaks and monsters (like how the mutants are discriminated by the humans in the various X-Men media).

Though, I did have another idea that relates to my previous idea about Optimus regaining his Optimal body near the end. The idea I'm about to state stems from the fact that the transformations of the Beast Machines Maximals bear more of a resemblance to a metamorphosis than a conversion of body parts. The idea is that, through the power of the Oracle, the Maximals would all gain the ability to metamorphose transform into all of their previous body forms. Meaning, Optimus would be able to turn into his:

• Gorilla beast mode
• Gorilla robot mode
• Transmetal beast mode
• Transmetal flight mode
• Transmetal robot mode
• Optimal beast mode
• Optimal vehicle mode
• Optimal jet mode
• Optimal robot mode
• Technorganic beast mode
• Technorganic robot mode

The same goes for Cheetor, Rattrap, Blackarachnia, and Silverbolt (Nightscream's and Botanica's previosu forms weren't seen very well, so... yeah).

While this idea may sound strange (and wacky, crazy, zany, insane, deluded, and like multi-changing on acid ), it would mainly be used to confuse and irritate Megatron, as he'd be puzzled to see them going from one body into a another at will, and their earlier forms looked very organic and more organic than their technorganic forms (and by this point, Megs hated organics, so he'd be pretty ticked off to have a bunch of "ordinary-looking animals" kicking his butt ).

As a way to counter this, Megatron might somehow steal this ability and regain all his old forms as well as his current ones too. So then he could access his Optimal copy body at will and duke it out downtown with Optimal Optimus. Though, the Grand Mal wouldn't be one of his forms he'd turn into, as it would be a separate, non-sentient ship that would serve as his base of operations.

I doubt I would like it.

One of the reasons I love Beast Machines and why I think it's still the BEST Transformers TV series was because it wasn't set on Earth and no humans were in it and it was focused solely on the Transformers and dealt with their culture, society, mythology and lore.

Putting it on some future Earth would have weaken and robbed the series of all it deep and wonderful themes and intelligent storytelling for a what basically sounds like a brainless action series.

Cyberstrike wrote:I doubt I would like it.

One of the reasons I love Beast Machines and why I think it's still the BEST Transformers TV series was because it wasn't set on Earth and no humans were in it and it was focused solely on the Transformers and dealt with their culture, society, mythology and lore.

Putting it on some future Earth would have weaken and robbed the series of all it deep and wonderful themes and intelligent storytelling for a what basically sounds like a brainless action series.

Well, this idea is mostly for those who didn't like all of it. Personally, I did enjoy Beast Machines as it was. This idea is just a "what if" scenario. The way I see it, all/some of the events of the real Beast Machines series would take place, but would end differently in that the battle would somehow shift away from Cybertron and onto Earth, with Megatron getting there first and the Maximals arriving to late to stop him and finding Earth in this post-apocalyptic state.

The real story wouldn't be completely disregarded, just... set aside.

Cyberstrike wrote:I doubt I would like it.

One of the reasons I love Beast Machines and why I think it's still the BEST Transformers TV series was because it wasn't set on Earth and no humans were in it and it was focused solely on the Transformers and dealt with their culture, society, mythology and lore.

Putting it on some future Earth would have weaken and robbed the series of all it deep and wonderful themes and intelligent storytelling for a what basically sounds like a brainless action series.

I agree here, humans tend to ruin things. It was nice to explore Cybertron, i really enjoyed Beast Machines.

I agree with Windsweeper. Transformers + Humans, unless done right = terribad, bad, bad...

I liked the human components to G1 and even the TF live movies, but all the anime and kidsy, non-canon TF series really suffered from a bad writer trying to relate to kids by having kids as the focal point of the series.

Furthermore, Beast Wars/Machines was a great series and the only changes i would have liked to have seen would have been a present day Iacon and more of the traditional-type transformers in the story, like an episode or two about a resistance pocket that held out against the initial onslaught that meets up with Primal and dislikes the whole organic Cybertron movement, so conflict ensues, which leads to Megatron eradicating the pocket while the Maximals escape. Something like that to flesh out the exact events of Megatron's domination of Cybertron would have been pretty cool.

Actually, there WAS going to be a different story originally.

It was going to be called "Beast Hunters".
Story would be the Maximals got home and came home to see Cybertron having been turned into a technorganic world. Megatron, with the help of Tigerhawk (He was supposed to be in Beast Hunters, but the Hasbro suits, as senile as they always are, said they wanted Tigerhawk in Beast Wars so they can sell it eariler.), who was acting a a link between Megatron and the Vok...they joined sides.

Optimus Primal, Cheetor, and Blackarachnia get captured and are turned into technorganic beasts, and Megatron's technology is organic based as well. You'll remember in Beast Wars that Megatron was impressed with the Vok's organic based technology and his own beast form.

Rattrap, Silverbolt, and Rhinox were to be the heros of the show, and they were to gain vehicular forms to help them fight the cyber beasts. But Hasbro, once again, ruined it all, by saying the series was "not PC" and they ditched the writers, hired Skir....and the rest is history.

And while, perhaps, total coincidence, the Tankor prototype had a Maximal sperk crystal in it.

Beast Hunters would have been a neat series, I think.

Emperor Primacron the 1st wrote:Actually, there WAS going to be a different story originally.

It was going to be called "Beast Hunters".
Story would be the Maximals got home and came home to see Cybertron having been turned into a technorganic world. Megatron, with the help of Tigerhawk (He was supposed to be in Beast Hunters, but the Hasbro suits, as senile as they always are, said they wanted Tigerhawk in Beast Wars so they can sell it eariler.), who was acting a a link between Megatron and the Vok...they joined sides.

Optimus Primal, Cheetor, and Blackarachnia get captured and are turned into technorganic beasts, and Megatron's technology is organic based as well. You'll remember in Beast Wars that Megatron was impressed with the Vok's organic based technology and his own beast form.

Rattrap, Silverbolt, and Rhinox were to be the heros of the show, and they were to gain vehicular forms to help them fight the cyber beasts. But Hasbro, once again, ruined it all, by saying the series was "not PC" and they ditched the writers, hired Skir....and the rest is history.

And while, perhaps, total coincidence, the Tankor prototype had a Maximal sperk crystal in it.

Beast Hunters would have been a neat series, I think.

I am well aware of this, and my idea has nothing to do with that.

Sounds good, i would just be weary of the human robot interaction, it all depends on the balance of the characters and the characterizations.

ang3l3s wrote:Sounds good, i would just be weary of the human robot interaction, it all depends on the balance of the characters and the characterizations.

I was thinking that about 98.7% of the focus would be on the characterizations Maximals and Vehicons and only 1.3% on the characterizations of the nameless human slaves in the background.