The Energon Pub

As far as I know, from watching G1 and Cybertron, TFs are obscenely powerful. No human weapon should scratch them. Which makes me wonder at how the humans were a force of their own when dealing with the Decepticons in the movie. All that it took on the humans' part was a small group of commandos and a strike force of F-22s. I have a feeling that if the President called in the entire U.S. army, they wouldn't need the Autobots at all. Which rings wrong with me. The Decepticons are hurt more easily, unlike the missiles bouncing off them in G1.

I always envisaged Cybertronians as being completely impervious to the primitive weapons of the humans, which is the whole point of the war on Earth - Autobots protect the humans from the Decepticons because they're the only ones who can. Problem is, if this is the case, then it definitely makes the movie TFs weaker than previous incarnations. Either that, or assimilating Earthen vehicles actually makes them weaker than their Cybertronian forms, which sucks.

"his armor is weaker at the top!", that was just stupid.
and no one could kill megatron (because he didn't pick up an earth mode) except for the allspark itself.

But there's another thinkg. Have you seen how gigantic the decepticons were in the movie? The only normal-car-sized one was Barricade, but that's all!
Bonecrusher, Devastator, STARSCREAM! GIANTS. And autobots were midgets, even prime was SMALLER than megatron.

That's right. Prime was the biggest Autobot yet he was smaller than Bonecrusher, Brawl, Blackout, Starscream, Megatron... hmm...

Mind you, I don't think size = power, nor do I think size means a fighter is automatically better - I think the audience got the misconception because Prime is the biggest and most powerful out of all the Autobots. If only we had a bigger Autobot, maybe like a Concord Autobot in the movie, there wouldn't be this problem of good guys being excessively smaller overall than the bad guys. Then again, we got a new movie coming up, and you have to set up the main characters like Bumbles and Ratchet first - and to make Ratchet an airplane is just silly.

The only Transformer I remember being killed by humans before the movie was Bumblebee being mistaken by the G.I. Joes as a Decepticon and them attacking and destroying him, and he was later rebuilt/ressurected as Goldbug. Other then that I can't think of any other time.

Raymond101 wrote:As far as I know, from watching G1 and Cybertron, TFs are obscenely powerful. No human weapon should scratch them. Which makes me wonder at how the humans were a force of their own when dealing with the Decepticons in the movie. All that it took on the humans' part was a small group of commandos and a strike force of F-22s. I have a feeling that if the President called in the entire U.S. army, they wouldn't need the Autobots at all. Which rings wrong with me. The Decepticons are hurt more easily, unlike the missiles bouncing off them in G1.

I always envisaged Cybertronians as being completely impervious to the primitive weapons of the humans, which is the whole point of the war on Earth - Autobots protect the humans from the Decepticons because they're the only ones who can. Problem is, if this is the case, then it definitely makes the movie TFs weaker than previous incarnations. Either that, or assimilating Earthen vehicles actually makes them weaker than their Cybertronian forms, which sucks.

I dont mean to sound rude and if it seems like I am being rude I'm sorry in advanced...but you cant just look twards the cartoon when looking for things related to Transformers and their abilities.

Comic book wise TF's have been knowen to be injured very baddly and have their bodies destroyed by human weapons.

Bumblebee's body was destroyed by GI Joe.

Megatron's G2 body was created by Cobra and with it he destroyed a few differend Autobots and some of the Cybertroinions as well as Blugen.

Althou in the comics is almost impossible to kill a TF forever.

It took an airstrike just to knock off the tip of Scorponoks tail. Sounds pretty powerful to me. Until the humans broke out weapons designed from studying Megatron for half a century, standard ordinance was pretty ineffective. In this case the Autobots weren't there to protect the humans. They were simply trying to retrieve the Allspark. Humans were innocent bystanders.

Weapons in 2007 are better than in the 80's

yeah i mean weapons that just it u and dont do any thing aint that power ful

Raymond101 wrote:If only we had a bigger Autobot, maybe like a Concorde Autobot in the movie, there wouldn't be this problem of good guys being excessively smaller overall than the bad guys.

Well, I certainly wouldn't mind any excuse for seeing a movie version of Silverbolt. Though I don't think size differential is that big a deal; it's always been sort of a theme that the Decepticons fight *tough* while the Autobots fight *smart*.

As for the topic at hand, I don't have a problem with humans being able to hurt Cybertronians. If you're going to base the story on Earth at all, then I find it far more interesting story-telling wise that Earth and humans actually have a purpose/usefulness. The whole "humans run around like scared cannon fodder" bit has been done in countless monster B-movies over the decades and I find it very boring at this point.

And it's not like the Autobots aren't still needed, anyway. It took a concentrated effort from many humans just to take down one Con, while the Autobots were able to take the others down on their own. The fact that they were in a confined space and the Autobots were distracting most of the other Cons was also a big help.

I highly doubt that the army could take down a whole ton of Cons on their own... I mean, look what one Con did to an entire military base. So, I think on the whole it's a very good balance between the humans not being helpless but still needing the Autobots to help protect them.

It makes sense that humans can hurt TF's.

I never thought they couldn't. They just didn't in the cartoon because it was a cartoon for kids. In more realistic thinking, it would make sense for weapons of a certain caliber to be effective.

Think about it. Joints = weak points. Lennox shot Blackout in the "balls".

~Windcharger~ wrote:It took an airstrike just to knock off the tip of Scorponoks tail. Sounds pretty powerful to me. Until the humans broke out weapons designed from studying Megatron for half a century, standard ordinance was pretty ineffective. In this case the Autobots weren't there to protect the humans. They were simply trying to retrieve the Allspark. Humans were innocent bystanders.

I'd say, that is incorrect.

Humans didn't develop weapons or learn how to defeat Cybertronians by studying Megatron.

In fact, humans see NBE-1 as a science project, with absolutely no threat to humans at all. (Which differs from the prequel concept. Weird.)

The concept and method on how to bring down a Cybertronian was learned impromptu in the desert attack. Different air strike packages were called in to neutralize Scorponok. Until the military "accidentally" hit the bullseye when they tried the high-heat "saber rounds". After which, they made it a priority to immediately inform higher commands on what kind of weapons can hurt the aliens.

With the theme or idea in the movie that "Autobots were here to protect the humans", or "Only Autobots can defeat the Decepticons"... I'd say this is a fallacy.

As we can see in the ensuing action, it was actually, "The humans are protecting the Autobots whimps", or "The Autobots got no fighting chance without the help of humans".

And this is even considering the humans were ill-prepared. Imagine if they were fore-warned, and given several decades to prepare. Megatron will surely be a thousand pieces of scrap Cyber-metals, way before any other Decepticons shows up as blips in the radar screen. And Decepticon won't survive half an hour of human onslaught. And that's not calling the entire US military into the game yet. Much less, calling the entire UN-mandated Global Defense Force, so to speak.

We don't even have to touch the nuclear weapons issue.

Auto Bot wrote:

~Windcharger~ wrote:It took an airstrike just to knock off the tip of Scorponoks tail. Sounds pretty powerful to me. Until the humans broke out weapons designed from studying Megatron for half a century, standard ordinance was pretty ineffective. In this case the Autobots weren't there to protect the humans. They were simply trying to retrieve the Allspark. Humans were innocent bystanders.

I'd say, that is incorrect.

Humans didn't develop weapons or learn how to defeat Cybertronians by studying Megatron.

In fact, humans see NBE-1 as a science project, with absolutely no threat to humans at all. (Which differs from the prequel concept. Weird.)

The concept and method on how to bring down a Cybertronian was learned impromptu in the desert attack. Different air strike packages were called in to neutralize Scorponok. Until the military "accidentally" hit the bullseye when they tried the high-heat "saber rounds". After which, they made it a priority to immediately inform higher commands on what kind of weapons can hurt the aliens.

With the theme or idea in the movie that "Autobots were here to protect the humans", or "Only Autobots can defeat the Decepticons"... I'd say this is a fallacy.

As we can see in the ensuing action, it was actually, "The humans are protecting the Autobots whimps", or "The Autobots got no fighting chance without the help of humans".

And this is even considering the humans were ill-prepared. Imagine if they were fore-warned, and given several decades to prepare. Megatron will surely be a thousand pieces of scrap Cyber-metals, way before any other Decepticons shows up as blips in the radar screen. And Decepticon won't survive half an hour of human onslaught. And that's not calling the entire US military into the game yet. Much less, calling the entire UN-mandated Global Defense Force, so to speak.

We don't even have to touch the nuclear weapons issue.

Obviously I missed something. I thought the whole point of having the Sector 7 guys was to develop weapons to fight the Transformers. That's how it seemed in the movie. Does the novel say otherwise?

Nope. The whole point of Sector 7 was to study NBE-1 and the cube. And develop protocols of contact with the aliens.

There was nothing about any alien threat. As stated by the S-7 big-shot mustache guy. They initially didn't even believe Sam, when told that NBE-1 is a bad guy.

At least in the movie, there was absolutely no preparation for any threat. I don't know about the prequel comics.

I watched the movie again while I was away. I'm not sure what made me think S7 had developped those weapons because it was quite clear that the Army used sable rounds long before S7 showed up. I guess I was distracted by the coolness of transformning robots.

It seems, in the movie, that the humans did kill or helped kill some of the Cybertronians.

But if all or some of these dead metals are brought to life again, then this argument will not hold.

Auto Bot wrote:It seems, in the movie, that the humans did kill or helped kill some of the Cybertronians.

But if all or some of these dead metals are brought to life again, then this argument will not hold.

I suppose one could state that the humans are capable of causing a catastrophic deactivation to a cybertronian. If the machines can just be rebuilt and reactivated, then they are essentially immortal. Talking of death is then irrelevant.

So far, all these Cybertronians are immortal.

Auto Bot wrote:
Humans didn't develop weapons or learn how to defeat Cybertronians by studying Megatron.

I do not concur.

The "high heat saber" rounds they refer to are actually "Sabot" rounds, pronounced say-bo. The sabot is the plastic or ceramic insert that surrounds a depleted uranium or tungsten penetrator and is discarded upon firing. It's a common modern antitank round.

Now, after the gang decides to flee from Megatron they are seen wielding some six-cylinder grenade launchers. It was my understanding that these fire the similar sabot rounds (since we don't see any explosions when they fire).

I know of no weapon in the inventory that fires 40mm DU sabots. Therefore we can assume that these weapons were designed specifically to fight Transformers, along with the grappling hooks and nitrogen blowers.

-J

The Grappling Hooks are effective because Bumblebee is not allowed to fight back. If he were to resist, and free himself (quite easily) from the hooks, humans will die in the process. That's according to Master Jedi Optimus Prime.

If the Sabot rounds were specifically invented to counter Cybertronians, they wouldn't have to try an array of aerial attack packages on Scorponok, and then later on, discovered that it was only the Sabot rounds that can affect them.

With regards to the Nitrogen blowers, this part is terribly inconsistent and laughable. Megatron can break free from the still unmelted ice. Just because the power went down for a few seconds. So how would a few tiny puff of nitrogen freeze affect him or the others? Clearly, it can't. As you can see some guys using the nitro blowers just as he has broken free. Nothing happened. Also, when Sam was grappling with one of the nitrogen guys, you can see that the nitrogen puff was accidentally sprayed on a human. And yet, nothing happened. He didn't even catch cold, or momentarily weaken.

It was only the High Heat Saber rounds that hurt them. I think the humans being able to destroy them on their own is bad, but helping a bit, nah! That's alright with me. I like the movie because the humans are more useful to the plot. In the show, especially G1, 90% of the focus was on the Cybertronians. Some episodes didn't have any humans, especially sparkplug and spike, in it at all! It's a good balance. I think the Autobots and the humans need each other, both together.

Auto Bot wrote:
If the Sabot rounds were specifically invented to counter Cybertronians, they wouldn't have to try an array of aerial attack packages on Scorponok, and then later on, discovered that it was only the Sabot rounds that can affect them.

Um... The very first aircraft to attack Scorpnok were A-10 "Warthogs." The A-10 carries the GAU-8 Avenger, which fires DU Sabots in 30mm flavor. They followed this with a Spectre gunship, which carries the same 105mm rounds as an M1 series. They also threw in a few Hellfire missiles for good measure.

So yes, despite the fact that S7 had not yet revealed their existence, the Air Force was using DU Sabots from the very beginning. (Not because they knew about Transformers, but because they are among the most powerful modern antitank weapons)

And the fact remains that at the end of the battle the troops are using handheld DU Sabots in a grenade launcher. Again, I know of no such munition in the real world, and yet S7 had a table full of them and had mounted these weapons on dune buggies almost as if they had expected to have to use them one day.

-J

jboyler wrote:

Auto Bot wrote:
If the Sabot rounds were specifically invented to counter Cybertronians, they wouldn't have to try an array of aerial attack packages on Scorponok, and then later on, discovered that it was only the Sabot rounds that can affect them.

Um... The very first aircraft to attack Scorpnok were A-10 "Warthogs." The A-10 carries the GAU-8 Avenger, which fires DU Sabots in 30mm flavor. They followed this with a Spectre gunship, which carries the same 105mm rounds as an M1 series. They also threw in a few Hellfire missiles for good measure.

So yes, despite the fact that S7 had not yet revealed their existence, the Air Force was using DU Sabots from the very beginning. (Not because they knew about Transformers, but because they are among the most powerful modern antitank weapons)

And the fact remains that at the end of the battle the troops are using handheld DU Sabots in a grenade launcher. Again, I know of no such munition in the real world, and yet S7 had a table full of them and had mounted these weapons on dune buggies almost as if they had expected to have to use them one day.

-J

Essentially this is all correct and I agree. The A-10's delivered a hellstorm of 30mm DU rounds and either Maverick AGM or Hellfire AGM's (would have to watch again). The AC-130 showed up and started pelting Scorpy with all varieties of minigun/vulcan cannon munitions, then upon request released 105mm howitzer rounds. Definitely don't want to be down there.

For anyone that's still not up on Sabot terminology, here's what a 120mm DU sabot looks like after fired from a MBT(probably an M1A1).



The 40mm penetrator is the actual impacting portion of the round. It is a depleted-uranium long-rod kinetic energy penetrator round (APFSDS) capable of defeating heavily armored vehicles.

And I agree that the 40mm sabot launchers must have been meant to be special research weapons for S7 to be used against Transformers. Though I'd have been much more impressed to see a modified Javelin system then those little party popper handheld grenade launchers they used for the movie.

Coincidentally, I have what's left of a 30mm expended round from an A-10. Should anyone want a pic. I use it as a paper weight.