Ask Vector Prime has come to an end

o.supreme wrote:I thought ended when TF:Cybertron did ...like 10 years ago.

It’s Over... FINISHED!




It's Over... FINISHED!

At long last, the end of Ask Vector Prime is here. For about nine months of my life, I helped him answer questions about the magical and the mundane, the minutia and the magnificent. It was a project different from any I've done before. Sure, I've made more than my share of Transformers (and non-Transformers) books, comics, stories, and articles. But this, this was an unfiltered Q&A, a project that depended entirely on the interaction with the audience with a delay of not more than a few weeks, months at most. I got to see what really mattered, what fans were really interested in, and then observe the response to my nattering as it unfolded. [WARNING: Long ramble ahead]

I loved it.

Really, truly, I absolutely loved it. His voice is one that I've been dabbling in since the first AllSpark Almanac, when he penned the summary for a comic which was itself a retelling of the first three episodes of Animated and needed a way to "see" all the disparate POVs in the book. I love his wisdom, his warmth, his cluelessness, his majesty, his timelessness, his wit, even his willingness to occasionally shill some product for sale in the real world, and did my best to bring all of that to the table. Along the way, I decided that he, or some version of him, needed a happy ending, and so set up his incognito mission to Nebulos with Scorpia, his once and future romantic interest, and Safeguard, his longtime companion.

But it wasn't just Vector Prime, aka Vec-Tor, aka Vector Convoy, aka Vector Prima-Vectorum, that I loved. I loved the audience. Yes, even the once who asked annoying questions, and there were a few. In some ways I'm shocked by how much people cared. At our apex, we had a thousand subscribers, just north of ten thousand engaged users, and page impressions numbering in the 400,000 range. We inspired a discussion some five thousand comments long over on AllSpark.com, viewed well over 150,000 times. Ultimately, this was a fun little project with little side-stories told in very obscure corners of the Transformers multiverse. We tried to focus on continuities that had been all but forgotten, characters who had never received much if any fiction, and continuity disconnects that only those waving their geek flag the fullest and the proudest could be interested in. And yet, you came, and for that I will be forever grateful.

I also loved dabbling in different voices. Sideways was the first, and he was a hoot to be sure. Then, when Vector Prime went away to help Nexus end Singularities once and for all, I got to play around with Grimlock, Swindle, Animated Sentinel Prime, Movie Bumblebee, Cy-Kill, Sky-Byte, and a non-released toy with absolutely no fiction or history not penned by me, Spacewarp. They were all fun, in their own way, though I think the amazing work Kellen Goff did bringing Bumblebee to life as a series of audio files is underappreciated. If you haven't checked them out yet, go to Vector Prime's videos and listen to a few. Really, he caught lightning in a bottle. But what surprised me even more was that, when I conducted a poll as to which host the audience liked best, it was almost evenly split (with over 2000 votes total) between Cy-Kill and Spacewarp. And thus, both came back. Transformers: Spacewarp's Log, led to a new series of 30's style pulp encounters for Spacewarp, and Transformers: Renegade Rhetoric, allowed Cy-Kill to recount some 48 new 80's style stock cartoon plot misadventures.

Another aspect that made this project especially fulfilling was the many, MANY talented people I had the opportunity to work with and, in some cases, meet for the first time. There aren't enough words in the English language to properly thank Jesse Wittenrich and Pete Sinclair for giving me the chance to run this, start to finish. Jesse in particular provided invaluable editorial feedback and, in his own words, "kept me from going full Sorenson." He curbed my worst impulses and encouraged my best ones, and I could not have maintained the level of energy and quality and enthusiasm evidenced without his calm and steady feedback. He also provided some fantastic art, including the Vector Prime happy ending with Scorpia and Safeguard, and the profile picture for Spacewarp. (Not to mention profile pictures for Blackarachnia, Rook, Starscream, and some other Transtechies you'll be seeing in the not-too-distant future.)

Then there are my fellow writers. Hirofumi Ichikawa in particular wrote some amazing entries, tying up some of the Binaltech / Alternity loose ends and expanding some other areas of JG1 that I otherwise wouldn't have had the confidence or knowledge to tackle. He either wrote or at least edited (nearly) every entry that touched on the tangled mess that is the OG World and all that flows from it. His Air Attack Optimus Primal entry was a masterpiece, to be sure, but I personally cherished learning the Alternity designations for several new continuities. Then there's my long-time friend Chris McFeely, who provided feedback on a number of entries (and also, like Jesse, filed off some of my rougher edges) and wrote some terrific stories for Renegade Rhetoric. I feel fortunate that this forum has allowed me to get to know Alexis Carlo better, and afforded her the opportunity to write several entries, one of which (concerning transgendered Transformers) became our single most shared post. Likewise, I got to meet Louis Sun, who provided much Universe War expertise and became our unofficial copy editor. He has easily eliminated a few hundred typos and parsing flubs, giving the project a polish that was difficult for us to otherwise maintain given the frenetic pace. Christopher Colgin became our unofficial artist towards the end, drawing up some nifty Hanna Barbara style designs, and I'm glad to have his boundless enthusiasm in my life.

I could go on. Matt Karpowich, AKA Monzo, helped sanity check some of our early work. Vivian AKA Gearshift wrote up an entry or two and inspired one of the best episodes of Renegade Rhetoric. Andrew Hall, another long-time friend, shared some of his thoughts on Scrash, a character which he basically discovered and is uniquely qualified to write for. Professional creatives Dan Khanna, Matt Kuphaldt, Trent Troop, Glen Hallit, Simon Furman, and James Roberts all lent me their expertise on at least one answer. Bill Forster recolored Dominus Trannis from Rail Racer. Liam Shalloo made some awesome human versions of the GoBot main cast. Betsy Blackie and Brandy Dixon shared their beloved Rainmaker bios and art with the world. Matthew Reinhart shared some characters from his fantastic Transformers Pop-Up Book and some thoughts on what the design inspirations were.

And then there are the actors! Peter Spellos, Richard Newman, and David Sobolov all generously shared their time and talent, reprising the classic characters they helped create for various Transformers shows. Daniel Ross, Abby Collins, Jon Bailey, Shane Morrison, Marissa Meizel, and Laura Knapton each helped bring our videos to life. Jon was particularly a treat to work with, as I've been bumping into him at conventions for years, so allowing him to voice an official Optimus Prime felt very right. And I'll never be able to write for Rook without hearing Daniel's snide delivery in my head. Oh, so perfect.

Sorry, I know, long wall of text thanking a bunch of people. TL;DR version, I couldn't have done it alone, nor would I have wanted to. But with the help of all these people, not the least of which were the hundreds (thousands?) of people asking questions and the tens of thousands of people reading the answers, there wouldn't have been an Ask Vector Prime.

Thanks to all of you for engaging with me in this unique forum. I know I stumbled occasionally, and that a small but vocal number of people didn't enjoy it; I respect their position even if it's not one I share. But, stumbles aside, I am incredibly proud of the work, both the caliber we managed to produce and the sheer length of it. Just for fun I cut and pasted the entire thing into a Word document. It clocked in at well over 500 pages. Holy crap! I mean, that's a good-sized novel worth of free Transformers content, delivered daily. Among all that, we managed to significantly expand on gender diversity with the Transformers franchise, including creating the first female Optimus Prime. We explored Vector Prime's ancient history. We created a whopping 65 new schemes for Cy-Kill to spring on the Guardians--alas, each one ultimately ending in failure. With lots of help, we filled out the ranks of the Multiversal 13 just in advance of blowing them up. Jesse and I finished off the ranks of the Convoy. With Bill Forster's help we provided a little fiction for all of those weird but cool Human Alliance characters. I got to indulge in my yen for Mini-Cons, sorting many many more of them into teams. With a little guidance from Simon Furman, we were able to detail the future of forgotten splinter timelines like Rhythms of Darkness and Twilight's Last Gleaming. And let's not forget all of the masterful, painful, groan-inducing puns that we dropped along the way to dodge the questions we didn't want to (or weren't allowed to) answer.

What's next from me? Well, expect more from the Axiom Nexus News crew, albeit sporadically. Beast Wars Uprising still has a few tales left. I expect I'll be writing up a special BotCon retrospective in a few months. And look for a couple of non-Transformers books from me from IDW Publishing before the end of the year. But for the next few weeks, I'll take some time to relax with my family, play some table-top RPGs, catch up on some superhero tv, and enjoy a slight break from Transformers. But only a slight one, for I do love the richness of the mythology, the intricacy of the tapestry, the depth of the lore. I believe Ask Vector Prime added something new to said mythology, and hope you do to.

ScottyP wrote:I respect the effort. Hopefully the rumblings about some of the material being literal trolling attempts are just that.

Q: Was Primus Cool?

A: Cool? As in cold to the touch?! Heaven's no! Primus is warm and full of life! Ha!

Q: Can you boogie down?

A: When I was a younger Transformer, I was able to participate in many more activities. We once had a mini-con that transformed into a disco ball, but that was a long time ago.

Q: How much do you weigh?

A: That depends on which planet I am living.

Q: Do you know Alpha Q?

A: Yes

Sabrblade wrote:But, one of the most controversial things about AVP's run was when Cy-Kill took over and then got his own Facebook page later, during which times people started to deliberately ask questions specific to things from the Challenge of the GoBots cartoon in an attempt to get that information onto the TFWiki since the Wiki had for years been adamant about not covering the GoBots franchise any more than necessary since GoBots isn't a Transformers property, but some people still really want the Wiki to cover GoBots. Since then, the Wiki has been trying to scale back as much newly-added GoBots information as it could to keep from letting it further clutter things up.

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:It doesn't help that Gobots is acknowledged as a legit universe for Transformers (Gargent cluster I believe),

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:but fans often don't realize Hasbro does not own Gobots outright. The characters and trademarks are Hasbro's, the toys belong to Bandai (except for the Tonka originals, but not the outsourced ones) and the cartoon belongs to Hanna-Barbera. Plus, separate franchises, separate wikis.

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:There is a Gobots wikia, but it's an incomplete mess that's best left forgotten.

Sabrblade wrote:Jim's a big GoBots fan and did what he did for fun. But a lot of fans took his work way too seriously and have tried to use what was supposed to be harmless fun as a means to force more GoBots coverage onto the Wiki.

ScottyP wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Jim's a big GoBots fan and did what he did for fun. But a lot of fans took his work way too seriously and have tried to use what was supposed to be harmless fun as a means to force more GoBots coverage onto the Wiki.

Yeah, see, this here is no big deal at all. Thanks for clearing it up. Rumors, you know?

Vector Prime: Hermes
Megatronus: Ares
Solus: Haephestus (Also built Poseidon's trident and the Aegis of Athena)
Alpha Trion: Athena
Prima: Zeus
Nexus Maximus: Hera
Onyx: Artemis
Alchemist: Dionysus
Liege Maximo: Aphrodite
Autonomus: Apollo
Adaptus: Poseidon (Responsible for the technology of Atlantis)
Mortilus: Hades
Epistimus: Demeter

#1 Signal Lancer fan wrote:Vector Prime's cyber planet key does not correspond to a planet, as many others do. It is an artifact called Zeonomicon crafted for Logos Prime, which Vector Prime confiscated after the fall of Logos. It manifests in the Unicron Trilogy universe as a Cyber Planet Key.

#1 Signal Lancer fan wrote:Planet X from the Cybertron Universe comes from a G2-adjacent Universe and its residents are descendants of Liege Maximo's forces.

In the Galaxy Force cartoon, which is an adjacent universe to the Cybertron cartoon. Planet X was created from the carcass of Unicron (specifically the Unicron from Marvel's TFTM comic adaptation).

#1 Signal Lancer fan wrote:There is an alternate Universe in which Optimus Prime fought Darth Vader.

#1 Signal Lancer fan wrote:In an alternate timeline where Starscream managed to hold on to Waspinator’s body, Waspscream and Megatron defeated the Maxmials before turning on each other. Waspscream defeated and captured Megatron and his loyalists, returning to Cybertron. Megatron managed to conquer Cybertron, just as in Beast Machines, with Inferno, Tanker (reformatted from Scorponok), and Jetstorm (reformatted from SIlverbolt. Eventually, Obsidian would overthrow Megatron before he, Tanker, and Inferno were recruited to Unicron’s service and sent to another Universe, leaving Waspscream, Rodimus Primal, Magnetron, and Icebird ruling Cybertron.