The Energon Pub

I remember seeing the Transformers using their comlinks every so often in the cartoon, and I was just wondering about them. I think they're interesting little devices, and I'd like to hear your thoughts on them.

I think i want one.

Well, you know. Most Sci-Fi shows had Comlinks in the plot. it was just a way to ease the plot along by not having the bots' drive all the way back to the Ark to give a report.

We used to buy comlinks in a Star Wars RPG I played in when I was younger. They were the cheapest item in the shopiing list (about 10 credits) but we had them doing anything a mobile phone can do,plus extra crazy stuff that the Dm/Gm had trouble controlling, such as:

*Contain a protocol/Translation program for the 20 most popular galactic languages.
*Have a little radar and up to 9 built in proximity alarms that would go off with different chimes (including mammal stun chime) that would go off if somebody snuck up from any particular direction.
*Remote control/summon the owners private speeder or Spaceship from its' parking lot to the owner (20km limit to take it easy on the GM).
*Built in stunzapper thingy for self defense.(Mine had little repulsorlifts too.If it got stolen it would electrocute the thief and come find me).
*Mini laser (counts as cigarette lighter and orange peeler).
*Built in mini microwave emitter for heating tiny snacks.
*Night/thermal/X-ray vision cameras.
*Heads up display of drivers /Bounty Hunters licence,family photos and so on.
*Mini analysis detector that could break down the mineral makeup of an alien object into a list (good for finding food on alien worlds).
*Extensive funny noise database.
*The 'Good morning, Orrie, You have 5 messages' voice could be set to Kinky chick, French Maid, Angry Feminist Boss, Cowboy, Batman, Papa Smurf, Darth Vader, and all sorts of other storyline complicating whims.


One time, my character was getting Force-interrogated by Vader and whilst I was being overwhelmed by his affect mind score (20+ versus my Padawan 3) and being forced to answer honestly to his interrogation, all the rest of the group were slandering him over the Commlink, making 'Ooh Padme, don't talk with your mouth full, Honey' commentary and generally risking my characters survival.

Whenever we met Ewoks, Jawas and other little guys we had to befriend, and needed to do the "Toronto Gosh, Tiklo Carbon" 3po routine to get their sympathy, we pulled out our comlinks instead and played home movies of our past adventures.

I think of them as "anything a mobile phone,personal organizer and laptop can do 50 years from now".

Oh: an old Starwars Comlink joke:
"Due to a book keeping error two Star Destroyers were accidentally reclassified as comlinks and sold off for 10 credits apiece".

I liked how they popped out of the robots forearms. Or anywhere else, as the story demanded.

orriezaros wrote:We used to buy comlinks in a Star Wars RPG I played in when I was younger. They were the cheapest item in the shopiing list (about 10 credits) but we had them doing anything a mobile phone can do,plus extra crazy stuff that the Dm/Gm had trouble controlling, such as:

*Contain a protocol/Translation program for the 20 most popular galactic languages.
*Have a little radar and up to 9 built in proximity alarms that would go off with different chimes (including mammal stun chime) that would go off if somebody snuck up from any particular direction.
*Remote control/summon the owners private speeder or Spaceship from its' parking lot to the owner (20km limit to take it easy on the GM).
*Built in stunzapper thingy for self defense.(Mine had little repulsorlifts too.If it got stolen it would electrocute the thief and come find me).
*Mini laser (counts as cigarette lighter and orange peeler).
*Built in mini microwave emitter for heating tiny snacks.
*Night/thermal/X-ray vision cameras.
*Heads up display of drivers /Bounty Hunters licence,family photos and so on.
*Mini analysis detector that could break down the mineral makeup of an alien object into a list (good for finding food on alien worlds).
*Extensive funny noise database.
*The 'Good morning, Orrie, You have 5 messages' voice could be set to Kinky chick, French Maid, Angry Feminist Boss, Cowboy, Batman, Papa Smurf, Darth Vader, and all sorts of other storyline complicating whims.


One time, my character was getting Force-interrogated by Vader and whilst I was being overwhelmed by his affect mind score (20+ versus my Padawan 3) and being forced to answer honestly to his interrogation, all the rest of the group were slandering him over the Commlink, making 'Ooh Padme, don't talk with your mouth full, Honey' commentary and generally risking my characters survival.

Whenever we met Ewoks, Jawas and other little guys we had to befriend, and needed to do the "Toronto Gosh, Tiklo Carbon" 3po routine to get their sympathy, we pulled out our comlinks instead and played home movies of our past adventures.

I think of them as "anything a mobile phone,personal organizer and laptop can do 50 years from now".

Oh: an old Starwars Comlink joke:
"Due to a book keeping error two Star Destroyers were accidentally reclassified as comlinks and sold off for 10 credits apiece".

Now that you mention it...do you think the TFs' comlinks would have any of these nifty features? Or even anything similar to those features?

craggy wrote:I liked how they popped out of the robots forearms. Or anywhere else, as the story demanded.

Yeah, me too.

Plaything wrote:
Now that you mention it...do you think the TFs' comlinks would have any of these nifty features? Or even anything similar to those features?

craggy wrote:I liked how they popped out of the robots forearms. Or anywhere else, as the story demanded.

Yeah, me too.

For sure, especially now with the expanded tech levels of the films and animated.I would at least anticipate them to memorize a map of a scanned location.
If there's one single thing a TF can't do, it's mimic something that hasn't been mimicked yet.Therefore, if there's a single thing a TF commlink is good for, it's to store info that needs translation, such as an alien language.

*G1 Wheeljacks' comlink could be an insane invention with bizarre features, whilst soundwaves' could be the most horrific of Megatrons' nightmares regarding who is spying on him and how.

*Swindle and Tarantulas would hand out booby trapped freebies and say they looted them from the battlefield, that every con should have one.

*Some Tfs, like Tigertron, might appreciate a commlink just because it's an amusing and clever piece of insight into somebody elses' creativeness- he was the zen one remember?

*Others, like Rhinox, might keep turning it off 'cuz it mostly generates annoying static, the young'uns only use 'em to talk static and he "can't understand how to program the damned things anyway".

*Trailbreaker, on the other hand would readily rely on lots of electrical devices to allow him to not waste energon.

*Grimlock would chew his to death and all the Dinobots would attack any nearby comlink the first time it buzzed, just because it didn't give notice it was about to interrupt their concentration on whatever they were listening to, which would propably be one of the leaders or strategists saying '...we should be getting a comlink message from the recon team any moment now'.

*Grimlock and Sunstreaker both would get into regular brawls with any other Autobots who had gay ringtones on their comlinks.

*Starscream would propably be written up to have a gay ringtone on his.

*Airazor,Beachcomber and Seaspray might have less of a comlink and more of a portable signal booster to let them wander further afield.They would treat HQ's input on what they found as the actual database to reference.

*Hound and Mirage would use theirs to record all sorts of stuff using non traditional cybertronian energyware and therefore potentially not get caught.

*G1 Prowl purposefully chose the police form to be able to infiltrate human 'no go' zones, and scanning police/fire/ambulance CB radio is something he already did.

*Jazz would rock up outside of mobile shops and be like 'Do you have the latest nokia a72-zillion-x? I want one to match my new FIFA mirror frills and Yosemite Sam hubcaps! Is that the one the Humans are into these days? The Nokia a72? Because the commercial says it's the one bringing the world togther like never before.I'm interested in learning about it so I can but the Samsung turboflow 33, but the commercial says the Samsung is only for when I know what I'm asking for."

*Ratchet and First Aids commlinks could go so far as to temporarily contain a spark whilst it's transferred from a demolished TF body to a replacement one.

*Smokescreen would go so far as to drop comlinks accidentally in mid battle or patrol, only they'd be loaded with false information. He'd even steal a comlink from an another Autobot to make it seem like a genuinely lost article, but give the Autobot another Commlink back later with all memory files of the original installed. Possibly months later, after the given mission was well and truly over.

*Punch/Counterpunch would somehow need two Commlinks or at least make sure he didn't get caught 'radiating' opposite faction frequencies by someone like soundwave.

*Blaster could potentially leak or project energy waves that act like Commlinks in some ways.He and Soundwave would have to make absolutely sure the other didn't know how the one was operating, regardless of external physical similarities.

I always thoughts of the darn things in the terms of Radio's used by the military. Each facation would have there own frequencies and transmissions would be incoded when transmitted.