McFeely's originals

McFeely's original annotations, with notes by me in brackets.

AllSpark Almanac 1:

Pg 9a – Sorensen and Forster hail from universal stream Quadwal -3760.925 Theta. Universal streams are a means of classifying the numerous Transformers universes devised by authors Greg Sepelak and Trent Troop, which first appeared in the Transformers Collectors Club story, “Withered Hope”. But what's it mean?

• The first part of a universal stream designator denotes the “continuity family” to which the universe belongs - Generation 1, Unicron Trilogy, and so forth. “Quadwal” is a term created for the book, which appears to denote the “real” world (“quad” from “four”, “wal” from “wall”, referring to the “fourth wall,” the barrier that separates fiction from reality).
• The numerical portion of a universal stream is derived from when the universe came into begin. For a fictional universe, this is derived from the publication date of the first comic, or the broadcast date of the first cartoon, or something along those lines. As this is the real universe, -3760.925 indicates 25th September 3760 BC, the date of creation according to the Hebrew calendar. Also of note is the fact that the only other universal stream thus far to have a minus sign in it is the evil parallel universe of Shattered Glass, so it may be a double meaning – after all, the Sorenson and Forster of our world are nice, law-abiding chaps, but those native to Quadwal -3760.925 Theta are incarcerated criminals!
• The final component of a universal stream designator denotes the media through which the story of the universe is told (“Alpha” for cartoon, “Gamma” for comic, and so forth). “Theta” denotes a live performance or spoken word – only fitting for the “real world”!

Pg 9b – The amusing Reverse-Pretender technology used by Sorensen and Forster is a reference to several 1980s Transformers toy commercials, which featured a child leaping into the air and transforming into Ultra Magnus. [Epsilon Holdings, the company that Powell bought out, was a front for the Machination seen in IDW's Infiltration.]

Pg 9c – The number on Sorenson's mugshot card, 214-782, is the Auschwitz concentration camp number of X-Men villain, Magneto. Forster's mugshot number, 356-325 was supposed to read “356-323”, the birth and death dates of Alexander the Great (356-323 AD), but got changed by accident. This was in reference to the Iron Maiden song, “Alexander the Great”; Forster is a huge fan of the band, and this was going to be the first of numerous references to them in the book. The snake looming over his shoulder is one of his real-life pets. [Named Charlotte]

Pg 15 – Optimus Prime's axe is identifed as a Solitarium ultra-axe. Solitarium is a mysterious and powerful element featured in the Japanese Robot Masters storyline.

Pg 20a – Ratchet is a Protihex Medical Mechanical graduate. Protihex is one of Cybertron's city-states, which first appeared in Dreamwave's original The War Within mini-series.

Pg 20b – Lockdown refers to Ratchet with the nickname “Cool Hand Lube”. This was an epithet coined for the original Generation 1 Ratchet by writer Bob Budiansky, who included it in his original Transformers Universe bio. While it didn't make it into the finished Universe profile, it did appear in an early version printed in Marvel's Transformers Comics Magazine digest collection.

Pg 33 – Ultra Magnus's hammer is here given the name Stormbreaker, after the hammer possessed by comic book super hero and Thor analog, Beta Ray Bill. Alas, both the toy's packaging bio and the cartoon itself would give the hammer different names: “Stormbringer” and “the Magnus Hammer”, respectively.

Pg 34 – Unnamed in the Animated cartoon, the alien planet visited by the young Optimus, Sentinel and Elita-1 populated by giant spiders is here given the named Archa Seven. Presumably, this puts it in the same system as Archa Nine, from the BotCon 2002 comic story, “Betrayal”.

Pg 35 – Sentinel Prime's shield is dubbed a Skyboom shield, after the Mini-Con weapon from Armada. It is described as being “nigh-invulnerable,” a term frequently used to describe the superhero, the Tick, upon whom Sentinel Prime was visually based. Check pg 135 for more Tickishenss!

Pg 37 – Jazz is a master of Metallikato and Circuit-Su, classic Cybertronian martial arts originally introduced in the Tech Specs of Generation 1 Bludgeon and Bugly, respectively.

Pg 44 – Ratchet recalls an old flame from Crystal City, a Cybertronian city that originally appeared in the Generation 1 cartoon episode, “The Secret of Omega Supreme”.

Pg 46 – Ratchet speculates that Wreck-Gar must have “27,000 gags” hidden in his trash bin. The number 27 is a running gag in the songs of Weird Al Yankovic, the parody singer who provides Wreck-Gar's voice.

Pg 55 – Omega Supreme's profile contains numerous references.

• The language describing Omega's strength deliberately harkens back to Generation 1 Omega's Transformers Universe profile, describing how he can pulverize “steel cubes” of impressive volume and hit diminutive items from a great distance with his head cannon. Numerous Cybertronian units of measurement are used in the process; Omega is said to be able to like 600,000 kilo-units (a measurement used by Bulkhead in the Animated episode “Rise of the Constructicons”); the dimensions of the aforementioned cube are given in mechanometers (used in the Generation 1 episode, “City of Steel” and mentioned twice more in the book); and the distance at which he can blast a small object is given in hics (from the Marvel UK 1991 annual story, “The Magnificent Six!”, and used once more in the book).
• Omega is also noted to be armed with concussion blasters (the personal weapon of Generation 1 Soundwave), pulsar bombs (used by the Predacons on two occasions in the Robots in Disguise cartoon), quasar beams (Generation 2 Blowout and Beast Wars Cheetor both wielded quasar cannons), friction cannons (G1 Runamuck was armed with a friction blaster) and aquasting missiles (weapon of choice of the Beast Wars Fuzor Injector).
• And finally, Omega has armour enhanced with rheanimum, a metal-strengthening gas which appeared in Marvel's Generation 2 comics.

Pg 60 – Mentioned here and restated on pg 127, Megatron's swords are forged from tironium, an extremely tough metal mentioned in the Beast Wars episode “Power Surge”. As noted in his tech specs, his armour can deflect anti-proton lasers; anti-proton weapons were wielded by Cybertron Unicron and Classics Megatron.

Pg 66 – As on his toy packaging, Lugnut is referred to with the nicknamed, the “Kaon Krusher”. Kaon is a Decepticon city-state on Cybertron, which first appeared in Dreamwave's War Within: The Dark Ages mini-series. Lugnut's explosive punch was nicknamed the “Punch of Kill Everything” by fan Beastbot X. Writer Marty Isenberg took a shine to the name and canonized it in the pages of The Arrival comic book, and The AllSpark Almanac carries on its use. Blitzwing calls Lugnut a “five-eyed, no-brained, flying purple people eater,” paraphrasing the 1958 Sheb Wooley song, “Purple People Eater”.

Pg 74 – Shockwave's cannon can fire blasts from anywhere in the electromagnetic spectrum, just like Generation 1 Shockwave could.

Pg 77 – Swindle's gyro gun and scatter blaster are named after the weapons of the original Generation 1 Swindle.

Pg 81 – Starscream claims to be the handsomest 'bot “this side of the Benzuli Expanse”, a region of space introduced in IDW Publishing's Spotlight: Galvatron.

Pg 82 – Starscream's first sycophantic clone is given the numerical designation 2716057, the serial number of hard-drinking robot Bender from Futurama. The first cowardly clone, meanwhile, is marked 3370318, the serial number of Bender's identical duplicate, Flexo.

Pg 83 – Thundercracker exults in the traits he got from Starscream by exclaiming “Aces High!”, after the song of the same name by Iron Maiden.

Pg 83-84 – Having gone unnamed in the Animated cartoon, Thundercracker, Sunstorm and Skywarp were all given names and powers derived from their Generation 1 counterparts when they were released as toys. The liar and female clones did not get toys, but The AllSpark Almanac carries on the trend; the liar clone is named Ramjet and is noted to have a reinforced nosecone for mid-air collisions, while the female clone gets the brand new name of Slipstream (which was previously revealed at TFCon 2009).

Pg 88 – Numerous weapons used by Lockdown in the Animated cartoon are here given the names of similar weapons from other corners of the Transformers multiverse. He is armed with sleep nets (from the Generation 1 coloring book, “Bumblebee to the Rescue!”), nova spray (from the 2007 movie Glu mobile phone game), and a lightning whip (the personal weapon of the G1 Pretender Cloudburst). His sonic javelins do not appear to be an obvious reference to anything (it was a weapon in the video game Legend of Legaia, but I'm not convinced its an intentional ref). His chainsaw is also described as being “micro-serrated”, language frequently used to describe the beak of Generation 1 Buzzsaw.

Pg 94 – Swindle plans to imitate Angry Archer's antiquated dialect to help facilitate his next deal with the Darkling Lords of Prysmos. This is a reference to the 1987 Hasbro toyline, Visionaries; Prysmos was the planet upon which that series was set, and the Darkling Lords were the villains of the franchise.

Pg 97 – Slo-Mo is here given the first name of Samantha, and on pg 143, the surname of Lomow. So hey, it turns out that her real name is the same as Hasbro Senior Vice President of Global Marketing Samantha Lomow, on whom she was based.

Pg 101 – The name of Prometheus Black's company is given as Biotech Unbound, referring to the Greek poem, “Prometheus Unbound”, which was also the title of a Beast Machinesepisode.

Pg 103 – In the Animated cartoon, the bat-monster is noted as having formerly been Meltdown's lawyer. Here, Captain Fanzone notes that the shark-monster was his stock broker. In addition, he calls it a “Seafood Louis creature”, after the crab salad notable among Transformers fans for having been served at several BotCons, and says it “kicks some serious fin”, one of the numerous catchphrases of the titular characters in the cartoon series, “Street Sharks”.

Pg 105 – Ming-Li is named after author Jim Sorenson's wife, Ming-Li Wang, and derives her nickname, “The Surgeon”, from the fact that the real Ming-Li is a real surgeon. Shana Story is named for a friend of author Bill Forster, Shana Storey, who is credited in the acknowledgements section of their previous book, The Ark II. Solon Kitakaze is named after Deathsaurus's cyborg son from the infamously kooky Victory manga. Roxy Sparkles is not one anyone could have easily figured out: the name was coined by Bill Forster several years ago when trying to remember the name of a deceased musician (Hanoi Rocks drummer Nicholas “Razzle” Dingley). It evolved into a running in-joke between him and a friend, and he slipped into into the Almanac as a gag.

Pg 106 – Porter C. Powell's limousine is branded as a “TUX model”, named for the Tonka GoBot it was designed to resemble.

Pg 108a – The events of “Transform and Roll Out,” Part 1, are given the timecode 9521.6. This was the stardate for the Star Trek movie, The Undiscovered Country.

Pg 108b - The space bridge being repaired by Prime's crew in the series pilot movie is given the designation RA-678, the same alpha-numerical designation as the E-Frame shared by Nara Burns and Marsala in the animated series Exosquad. The bridge is located in the Azazel Asteroid Belt, which you might think is a reference to something (beyond the obvious reference to the fallen angel), but the name is a pre-existing one, having been given to the belt in the first issue of The Arrival comic book.

Pg 108c - The symbol writing that decorates this and many subsequent pages is Cybertronix, the coded writing used in the Beast Wars animated series. In this book, as in the cartoon, translating it reveals many secret messages! This page, and all those presented as “Autobot incident reports”, use the “Maximal” font.

• Taken together, the header (the text surrounding the Autobot logo) and background text (behind the image of Megatron) translate as the opening blurb from the instruction manual of the 1988 video game, Wasteland. It reads: “The following is an excerpt from The History of the Desert Rangers, The Early Years, by Karl Allard, 2087, Allard Press, Ranger Center. Tensions grew with the coming of 1998. The United States' Citadel Starstation was slated to be fully operational by March, Soviet charges that the space station was merely a military launching platform alarmed a number of nonaligned nations. The right wing governments in the South and Central Americas, many of them set up by the U.S. during the Drug Wars (1987-1993), pledged their support to the U.S. The NATO nations, including the new African members also declared their alliance with the U.S. That move forced most of the remaining neutral powers to join the Soviet protest. In six short weeks, only Switzerland, Sweden, and Ireland continued to declare themselves neutral nations.”
• The page footer translates as “40 degrees 45' 53.39” N, 74 degrees 10' 2.75” W”, co-ordinates of latitude and longitude denoting the location of the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, where author Bill Forster used to work as Art Director.

Pg 109 – This page is Entry 1.21 from Isaac Sumdac's journal. 1.21 was the number of gigawatts of electricity needed to activate the flux capacitor in Back to the Future.

Pg 110 - “Transform and Roll Out,” Part 2, is dated to 46379.1, stardate of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Emissary,” Part 1. Cybertronix on this page translates as:

• The header reads “A society that gets rid of all its troublemakers goes downhill”, a quote from science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein.
• The two chunks of background text are taken from the instruction manual of the original Legend of Zelda video game. Together, they read: “A long, long time ago the World was in an age of Chaos. In the middle of this chaos, in a little kingdom in the land of Hyrule, a legend was being banded down from generation to generation, the legend of the "Triforce": golden triangles possessing mystical powers. One day, an evil army attacked this peaceful little kingdom and stole the Triforce of power. This army was led by Gannon, the powerful Prince of Darkness who sought to plunge the World into fear and darkness under his rule. Fearing his wicked rule, Zelda, the princess of this kingdom, split up the Triforce of Wisdom into eight fragments and hid them throughout the realm to save the last remaining Triforce from the clutches of the evil Gannon. At the same time, she commanded her most trustworthy nursemaid, Impa, to secretly escape into the land and go find a man with”
• The footer is another set of co-ordinates, this time reading: “40 degrees 34' .01” N, 74 degrees 11' 14.39” W”, the location of the Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island, New York.

Pg 111 – “Transform and Roll Out,” Part 3, is dated to 46423.7, stardate of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode, “Babel”. Cybertronix on this page:

• The header reads “Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane”, a quote from science fiction author Phillip K. Dick.
• The two pieces of text behind the image of the Crimson Angel jet are a pair of quotes from the TV series Max Headroom. They read: “You know how we said there's no future? Well this is it” and “You might care to call it the Phoenix, Mr. Bryce. My word, you could have all your politicians in little boxes. It's very handy.”
• The text behind the image of the dead Optimus is a list of the “Code of Virtues” from the video game Ultima V. It reads: “Thou shalt not lie, or thou shalt lose thy tongue. Thou shalt help those in need, or thou shalt suffer the same need. Thou shalt fight to the death if challenged, or thou shalt be banished as a coward. Thou shalt confess to thy crime and suffer its just punishment, or thou shalt be put to death. Thou shalt donate half of thy income to charity, or thou shalt have no income. If thou dost lose thine own honour, thou shalt take thine own life. Thou shalt enforce the laws of virtue, or thou shalt die as a heretic. Thou shalt humble thyself to thy superiors, or thou shalt suffer their wrath.”

Pg 112 – An observation of the events of the first issue of the Animated comic by the trans-dimensional Vector Prime, one of the original 13 Transformers, introduced in the Transformers: Cybertron series. He uses the aforementioned Universal Stream classification system to catalogue this manuscript, identifying the Animated cartoon universe as “Malgus 1207.26 Alpha”. The designation is later used again on pg 117.

Pg 113 - “Home Is Where The Spark Is” is time-coded 46461.3, the stardate of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Aquiel”. Prime's clash with the Angry Archer early in the episode is noted as being logged under a different file, dated 46424.1, the stardate of the Next Generation episode “Ship in a Bottle”. Cybertronix on this page:

• The header reads: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” a quote from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita.
• The text behind the image of the pocketbot is a quote from Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and reads: “Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”
• The footer reads: “Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement,” a quote from Ford Motor Company founder, Henry Ford.

Pg 114 - “Total Meltdown” is time-coded 46477.5, stardate of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode, “Captive Pursuit”. Cybertronix on this page:

• The header reads: “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield,” a quote from the Tennyson's poem, Ulysses.
• The text behind the image of the church bell is the opening monologue from the second season of the TV series, Bablyon 5. It reads: “The Babylon Project was our last, best hope for peace. A self-contained world, five miles long, located in neutral territory. A place of commerce and diplomacy for a quarter of a million humans and aliens. A shining beacon in space, all alone, in the night. It was the dawn of the Third Age of Mankind, the year the Great War came upon us all. This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2259. The name of the place is Babylon 5.”
• The footer is another set of co-ordinates, “29 degrees 47' 25” N, 31 degrees 12' 33” E”, denoting the location of the Bent Pyramid in Dahshur, Egypt.

Pg 115 – Cybertronix on this page, and all others rendered as various Decepticons' “internal logs” are written in the “Predacon” font. On this page:

• The header reads “Is the chemical aftertaste the reason why people eat hot dogs, or is it just some kind of bonus?” a quote from DC Comics character Death in her series The High Cost of Living, written by creator Neil Gaiman.
• The footer is a quote from Planet of the Apes. It reads: “I'm a seeker too. But my dreams aren't like yours. I can't help thinking that somewhere in the universe there has to be something better than man. Has to be.”

Pg 116 – Presumably, the trans-dimensional magazine Venus is named for Beast Wars Blackarachnia's voice actor, Venus Terzo. Whatever currency its cover price is in, its represented with a “B” in Predacon Cybertronix! In addition to the large illustration of Animated Blackarachnia wearing the crown, shoulderpads and cape donned by Generation 1 Starscream for his coronation in The Transformers: The Movie, the cover contains numerous references, many of them to some very obscure characters and concepts. Further, some of the page references on the cover leads to a related page within the AllSpark Almanac itself.

• “Sparkmate” is a term used in the N64 Beast Wars: Transmetals video game, to describe Tigatron and Airazor's romantic bond.
• “Chain of Command” is the title of a Beast Wars episode. [It leads to page 80, Starscream's profile; the reasons are obvious enough.]
• Clio is a Decepticon Powermaster mentioned by Blaster in the letters page of issue #315 of Marvel UK's Generation 1 comic. She is pitted against Lyzak, sister of Decepticon Breastforce warrior Leozack, who appears in the final issue of the Victory manga.
• Manta Ray is a Beast Wars McDonalds Happy Meal figure, who was established as being female by IDW Publishing's Beast Wars Sourcebook. She is up against the equally aquatic Scylla, from Beast Wars II.
• Flamewar and Nightracer are both BotCon exclusive female Decepticons, from 2005 and 1995, respectively. The match-up has a deeper meaning; Nightracer was created by notorious Decepticon fan Raksha, and some fans believe that Flamewar's personality is based on Raksha, though her creator Ben Yee denies it.
• Revenge of the Fallen's Pretender Alice teaches readers how to disarm a foldspace warhead, a weapon which appears in the second issue of the UK's 2007 live-action movie comic. [It leads to page 119, where "Everything Must Go" is summarized with a list of items of mass destruction sold by Swindle.]
• The magazine's gossip columnist is Freezon, the Decepticon car included with Tyco's Transformers Electric Racing Set released in the 1980s. She is dishing the dirt on Lugnut and Strika's relationship, which was established in Strika's profile, published in issue #24 of the Transformers Collectors Club Official Magazine.
• Beta Maxx is the partner of BotCon 2007 exlusive Alpha Trion, while Caliburn is partnered with 2004 exclusive, Megazarak. The cover identifies them as Mini-Cons, despite the fact that no previous writings ever done so (Caliburn is explicitly a Micromaster, while Beta Maxx has only been referred to as an Autobot). Funnily enough, in late 2008, author Jim Sorenson was involved in an argument on the Transformers Wiki about Beta Maxx being a Mini-Con... hmmmn. Anyway, they're talking to Cybertron Thunderblast!
• The magazine's (functional!) barcode reads 8757NC, the designation of an important Viper spacecraft in Battlestar Galactica.

Pg 118 – The events of “The Thrill of the Hunt” are timecoded 46531.2, stardate of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Q-Less”. Cybertronix on this page:

• The header reads “There's an angel on my shoulder, in my hand a sword of gold, let me wander in your garden, and the seeds of love I'll sow,” lyrics from the Led Zeppelin song, “Houses of the Holy”.
• The text behind the image of Ratchet is the first paragraph of the Robert A. Heinlein novel, “The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.” It reads: “I see in Lunaya Pravda that Luna City Council has passed on first reading a bill to examine, license, inspect—and tax—public food vendors operating inside municipal pressure. I see also is to be mass meeting tonight to organize “Sons of Revolution” talk-talk.”
• Yet another set of co-ordinates for the footer: “42 degrees 19' 53.76” N, 83 degrees 2' 51” W”. That's slap-bang in the middle of Detroit, setting for Animated.

Pg 119a – Most of the weapons Swindle sells Lugnut and Blitzwing, and the planets he gets them from, are established, if obscure, Transformers items and locales. Most of them were named in the comic story this page covers, “Everthing Must Go” but a few more things are named here, and they all get serial numbers that are references to other shows, movies and suchlike. The full list includes:

• An anti-gravity cannon (from the Find Your Fate Junior book “Desert Flight”) from the planet Andellor (from the second issue of Blackthorne's Transformers in 3-D comic). Its serial number is TOK715, the alpha-numeric designation of the character Cameron from the TV series, “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles”.
• A triple-crusher cannon (the personal weapon of the G1 Seacon Nautilator) from the planet Talos Four (probably derived from a mistake on TFWIKI.Net, which misspelled Taros Four from the Transformers Collectors Club story “The Dark Heart of Sandokan” in this manner for a time). Its serial number is VR-X9-4-M2, the full name of the character Aveeare from the comic strip SnarfQuest.
• A decompression pump from Torkulon (as seen in the Generation 1 episode “Webworld”). Its serial number is NDR113, the designation of Andrew, the central robot character of Isaac Asimov's “The Positronic Man”.
• Glass Gas (the personal weapon of G1 Cliffjumper) and a Digital Impact Mace (the weapon of choice of BotCon 2000 exclusive toy Apelinq) from the planet Dahros (a misspelling of the planet Darhos, from The Headmasters anime episode, “Find MegaZarak's Weak Spot”). The serial number of the gas is CPE 1704 TKS, (the missile launch code from the movie WarGames), while the mace's number is BZ2UH, the password to Bryce's lab in Max Headroom.
• Super glue from the Menonia (an other-dimensional world visited in the G1 episode “Madman's Paradise”). Its serial number is TTKR117, the license plate of robotic car KITT from Knight Rider.
• An omega bomb (from the G1 episode “The Quintesson Journal”) from Ganzvort (mentioned in G1 Rewind's Transformers Universe profile). Rewind's profile notes that there is a New Jersey on Ganzvort, and this book carries on the trend of the planet sharing city names with Earth, as Swindle notes that he “must visit Okayama” when next there; Sorenson and Forster both lived in Okayama for some time. The bomb's serial number is 2X4B-523P, the official designation of the mechanoid Kryten from the sci-fi TV series, Red Dwarf.
• Two nemesis shields (from the Armada Playstation 2 video game) from Garo and Com (both from the Beast Wars Neo episode, “Mach Kick Voluntarily Enlists?!”; “Com” is a misspelling of the planet's correct name, “Comb”). The shields are labelled Type 11A (currently [un]identified) and Type 2B (a brand of Star Trek: The Next Generation phaser), and their serial numbers are LV426 (the planet from Alien) and TK412 (the “codename” of noted Star Wars fan Arturo Delgado) respectively.
• A Chaosmaster bomb (from issue #4 of the Marvel Generation 2 comic) from Xeptos (a subatomic planet mentioned in the biography of the eHobby exclusive toy, Magnificus). Its serial number is 26517, the numerical classification of the USS Excalibur, a spacecraft from the Star Trek: The New Frontier series of novels.
• Circuitry repair patches from Cheyne (from issue #63 of the Marvel Generation 1 comic). Their serial number is N6MAA10816, the model number of Roy Batty, a replicant from Blade Runner.

Pg 119b – Optimus's evaluation form is rendered in the style of classic Transformers Tech Specs, but not any one particular design. The training exercise from the comic story “Survival Skills” is revealed to have taken place on Kaiba-5, a planet mentioned in the 2007 live-action movie video game as having been destroyed by Ironhide. The exercise is time-coded 8130.3, stardate of the Star Trek movie, The Wrath of Khan.

Pg 120 – The events of “Nanosec” are timecoded 46579.2, stardate of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “Birthright,” Part II. The apprehension of Nino Sexton from the start of the episode is noted to be a separate file, coded 46578.4, the stardate of “Birthright,” Part I. Cybertonix on this page:

• The header reads: “Oh my God, it's full of stars,” a famous quote from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• The text behind the Sumdac Systems technician (who is here named “Eddie” - check out page 200 to learn why!) is the first sentence of the Dan Simmons novel, “Hyperion”. It reads: “The Hegemony Consul sat on the balcony of his ebony spaceship and played Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-sharp Minor on an ancient but well-maintained Steinway while great, green, saurian things surged and bellowed in the swamps below.”
• Behind the illustrations of Nanosec's ageing head is an excerpt from the instruction booklet for the Metriod video game. It reads: “In the year 2000 of the history of the cosmos, representatives from the many different planets in the galaxy established a congress called the Galactic Federation, and an age of prosperity began. A successful exchange of cultures and civilization resulted, and thousands of interstellar spaceships ferried back and forth between planets. But Space Pirates also appeared to attack the spaceships.”
• Co-ordinates in this page's footer are: “35 degrees 52' 57” N, 76 degrees 30' 48” E”, location of the mountain K2.

Pg 121 – The events of “Along Came a Spider” are dated to 46682.4, the stardate of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Starship Mine”. Cybertronix on this page:

• The header contains three numbers: 136199, 134340 and 90377. These are the formal designations of the dwarf planets Eris, Pluto and Sedna, respectively.
• Together, the two text passages behind the images of Sari form the complete lyrics to the Duran Duran song, Electric Barbarella. I'll not bother recounting them here!
• The footer for this page reads: “Right ascension 05h 55m 10.3053s, Declination +07 degrees 24' 25.426”, coordinates denoting the position of the star Betelgeuse.

Pg 122 – Professor Princess's recollection of the comic story “Whatever Happened to Whatsisname?” is written on stationery produced by “Seventh Son Industries”, a reference to the Iron Maiden album, “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son.”

Pg 123 - “Sound and Fury” is dated to 46731.5, stardate of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “The Chase”. Sari and Bulkhead's clash with Professor Princess from the start of the episode is given a separate reference, 46729.1, stardate of the Deep Space Nine episode, “The Storyteller”. Cybertronix on this page:

• The header reads: “the majesty of Rock, the pageantry of Roll”, lyrics from the Spinal Tap song, The Majesty of Rock.
• Behind the image of the xylophone are some lyrics from the Electric Light Orchestra song, Mr. Blue Sky. They read: “Mister Blue Sky, please tell us why You had to hide away for so long Where did we go wrong?”
• More lyrics lurk behind the picture of the pinata, this time from the Blondie song, Shayla. They are: “Lost in space and down she came, Suddenly some subtle entity, some cosmic energy, brushed her like shadows.”
• Co-ordinates in this page's footer are: “63 degrees 51' 36.13” N, 149 degrees 24' 50.62” W”. These co-ordinates denote the location in Alaska where the body of wanderer Christopher McCandless was discovered. Go look up the book “Into the Wild” for some more info.

Pg 124 – The events of “Attention Surplus Disorder” from The Arrival #2 are rendered as an issue of the Detroit Powell Press, the newspaper which appeared in the Animatedepisode, “Three's A Crowd”. The lead story is written by Irwin Spoon, a journalist who appeared in a three-part story in Marvel UK's Generation 1 comic. The article contains several references to numerous other characters and concepts of varying obscurity.

• The Assisant District Attorney mentioned in the article, Harrison Schweiloch, is named for a friend of the authors, who is thanked for his proofreading help in the acknowledgements of the two Ark books, as well as this one. He's also a real ADA!
• Quake-Maker is a supervillain from the UK's Animated comic, later pictured on page 152.
• The Mechanic is a human criminal who battled the Autobots in two issues of the Marvel's original Generation 1 comic.
• The Jack Boys are a motorcycle gang from the Super-God Masterforce cartoon.
• Jake Lomax is a mob boss from issue #13 of Marvel's Generation 1 comic.
• Jacob Lee Bonaventure is an industrialist from IDW's Hearts of Steel mini-series.

The sidebar on the page also makes numerous references:

• Hannah and Sarah Rose Isenberg are (one would assume!) the real-life daughters of Animated writer Marty Isenberg.
• In addition to referring to the Generation 1 Protectobot combiner, “Defensor United” was the name of a “mecha-soccer” team mentioned in the letters pages of the UK Generation 1 Marvel Comic. The team is thrashed by real-life football team West Ham, included as another Iron Maiden reference, as it is the the favourite team of band member Steve Harris; it seems to be a complete coincidence, then, that it is also the favourite of Transformers comic book writer Simon Furman! The match took place at Tigatron Stadium, the venue named for the Beast Wars character which appeared in the Animated episode, “Five Servos of Doom”.
• In the Animated universe, the Generation 1 Decepticon ally, mad scientist Doctor Arkeville, is the surgeon general! He recommends Ding Dongs (favoured by the President of the United States in the live-action movie!) as a cure for the hate plague, a rage-inciting disease that appeared in the Generation 1 two-part episode, “The Return of Optimus Prime”.
• Racing queen Junko Shiragami is a human female from the Binaltech Asterisk toyline (who was in turn based upon Kelly from Robots in Disguise). Here, she is dating scientist Michael Avery, who appeared in the 2007 movie prequel novel, “Ghosts of Yesterday”.
• Street Demon racer Roxy Sparkles (earlier named on page 105) is here noted to be a member of the band Purple Fungus, who were a favourite of Buster Witwicky in the Find Your Fate Junior novel, “Attack of the Insecticons”.
• “Princess Ringo” was the nickname by which Kiss Players character Ringo Chikuma preferred to be known. Here, she has recently visited Mont Porte, the country that is home to the Super-God Masterforce Headmaster Junior Minerva.

Pg 125 – Adverts on this page refer to:

• Dancitron, a musical event named for a dance club from the Generation 1 cartoon episode “Auto-Bop”. It is located in St. Nick's Hall, location of Iron Maiden's first concert. The Irons theme is continued in the location of the hall - 22 Acacia Avenue, the title of an Iron Maiden song. The phone number of the hall is “KL5-3226” (the number of Homer's Mr. Plow service from The Simpsons). Musical acts attending are all fictional groups from other shows, comics, books and so forth, and include: The New Originals from This Is Spiral Tap, Vitaly Chernobyl from Neal Stephenson's “Snow Crash”, Dingos Ate My Baby from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Shag Carpeting from Ben 10, King Thunder from Quantum Leap, Jerrica Benton from Jem and the Holograms (misspelled – perhaps deliberately? - as “Jessica”), Josie McCoy of Josie and the Pussycats, Scrantonicity fromThe Office, Mystik Spiral from Daria (misspelled “Mystic Spiral”), Billy and the Boingers from Bloom County, The Lords of the Underworld from South Park and The Electric Insects from Life on Mars. Most significantly for Transformers fans, Cold Slither are also on the playlist; Cold Slither are a band from the G.I. Joe cartoon episode of the same name, created as part of an evil Cobra plot. The piece of music composed as their signature tune was used as incidental music in several Transformers episodes.
• Wyatt Toys, the toy store named after Animated art director Derrick J. Wyatt which appears in several episodes of the cartoon. The store is located on the “corner of Winslow and Arizona”, a reference to the Eagles' song Take It Easy, which includes the lyric: “Standin' on the corner of Winslow, Arizona”. The advert notes that the store sells Diacloneand Microman figures, the two toylines that were Transformers' progenitors.
• Roadhog Horton's Motorcycle Show, named after Randy “Roadhog” Horton, a member of the bounty-hunting motorcyclist Roadjammers from issue #46 of the Marvel Generation 1 comic. His show also features autograph signings from Rorza, a reference to the Rocket-Cycle Racer from Rigel III of the same name from issue #44.
• A horror movie named “Monster From Mars!”, an elaborate reference to the movie of the same name that was the central plot element of “Monstercon From Mars”, issue #45 of the Marvel comic. In said issue, Decepticon Pretender Skullgrin starred in the titular role; this poster features a monster designed to look like Skullgrin in the style of Meltdown's fusion creatures, in reference to the fact that Skullgrin's fellow Pretenders Submarauder and Bomb-Burst were the base for the two fusion creatures in the cartoon. In both the original comic and this version, the movie is directed by Rollie Friendly and stars Jake Colton and Carissa Carr; this version also adds Karen Fishhook, an actress from the Generation 1 cartoon episode, “Hoist Goes Hollywood”. The movie's soundtrack is by the High Rollahz, a band featured in the “Keepers Trilogy” novel, “Hardwired”.
• Also playing at the theatre showing “Monster From Mars” are other fictional movies, including “Happy Scrappy Hero Pup” from Clerks, “The Flower That Drank the Moon”from Ghost World, “Jack Slater II: Above Reproach” from The Last Action Hero, “Who Dat Ninja?” from 30 Rock, “Colonel Dracula Joins the Navy” from The Simpsons, “Where Apes Fear to Tread” from King of the Hill (misquoted as “Where Apes Dare to Tread”), “Bikini Party Summer” from Futurama, “Coupon: The Movie” from Mr. Show, “Shao Pai Long” from Macross (perhaps better known to Western readers as “Little White Dragon” from Robotech), “Exploder: Evacuator Part II” from Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, “Tinfins” from Sealab 2021 and “Prognosis Negative” from Seinfeld.

Pg 126 – Cybertronix on this page:

• The header is the opening sentence from Mary Shelley's “Frankenstein”: “You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.”
• The text behind the images at the bottom of the page is from the opening monologue from Quantum Leap. It reads: “Theorising that one could time travel within his own life time, Doctor Sam Beckett led an elite group of scientists into the desert to develop a top secret project known as "Quantum Leap". Pressured to prove his theories or lose funding, Doctor Beckett prematurely stepped into the project accelerator...and vanished. He awoke to find himself in the past, suffering from partial amnesia and facing a mirror image that was not his own, fortunately, contact with his own time was maintained through brain wave transmissions with Al, the project observer, who appeared as a hologram that only Dr. Beckett can see and hear. Trapped in the past, Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life”

Pg 127a – Cybertronix in the summary of “Stiletto” includes:

• The header reads “watch out for snakes,” a quote from the 1962 horror movie Eegah!, made famous by Mystery Science Theater 3000's lampooning of it.
• Sticking with the theme, the text behind the image of Stiletto is the original theme song to Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Pg 127b – Unnamed in the original comic that debuted it, “Bots of Science”, Ratchet here notes that he has dubbed the cure for Cosmic Rust “Corrostop”, which was, of course, the name of the cure invented in the Generation 1 episode that originally introduced the disease. Its ingredients include Ingredient X (also a component of Corrostop in the G1 episode in question) and razon gas, from the Kid Stuff storybook “When Continents Collide”. [The hazard symbol here comes from Beast Machines.]

Pg 129 – The events of “Headmaster” are dated to 46778.1, stardate of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “Frame of Mind”. Cybertronix on this page:

• The header reads “Mars is wild, untamed. I'm forming a cadre of Martian knights charged with enforcing Martian law,” a quote from Sealab 2021.
• Get ready for this one... behind the image of the warbot are the lyrics to the theme tune of Neon Genesis Evangelion... in ROMANIZED JAPANESE! Zankoku na tenshi no you ni...
• The footer carries on the theme started by the header, offering up the co-ordinates “51.2 degrees S, 30.9 degrees W,” the location of the crater Galle on Mars.

Pg 130 - “The Insincerest Form of Flattery” is time-coded 46830.1, the stardate of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “Suspicions”. Cybertronix on this page:

• The header reads “Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth” lyrics from the Rolling Stones' “Sympathy for the Devil”.
• Behind the image of the Bulkhead in Powell colours are the lyrics to the opening theme of the Adult Swim show, Saul of the Mole Men.
• While most of them are not visible on the page, the text behind the other Bulkheads translates into the lyrics for the Doors' song, “Land Ho”.

Pg 131 - “Nature Calls” is dated to 46844.3, stardate of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode, “Progress”. Cybertronix on this page:

• The header reads: “The future is not fixed, there is no fate but what we make for ourselves”, a quote from The Terminator.
• Below the header, rather than as a footer, are another set of co-ordinates: “0 degrees 40' 0” S, 90 degrees 33' 0' W,” denoting the Galapagos Islands.
• Largely obstructed on the bottom left of the page are lyrics from Supertramp's “The Logical Song”: “But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible, Logical, responsible, practical, And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable, Clinical, intellectual, cynical.”
• In the bottom right on the page is the opening monologue from the first season of The Twilight Zone: “There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone.”

Pg 132 – Cybertronix on this page:

• The header reads: “What do you mean I ain't kind? I'm just not your kind”, lyrics from the Megadeth song, “Peace Sells”.
• Behind Megatron's damaged body are the lyrics to the Bob Dylan song, “All Along the Watchtower”.

Pg 133 – The events of “Megatron Rising, Pt II” are time-coded 46853.2, stardate of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode, “If Wishes Were Horses”. The events of Pt I are noted to have been logged in a separate incident report, dated 46852.2, stardate of the Next Generation episode, “Rightful Heir”. Cybertronix on this page:

• The header is a tricky one, as only three words are legible, but it reads: “Whether wholly heartened life fades away,” lyrics from the Beach Boy's Feel Flows.
• Behind the image of Megatron is a quote from the Egyptian Book of the Dead: “I am the Lion-god who cometh forth with long strides. I have shot arrows, and I have wounded my prey. I have shot arrows, and I have wounded my prey. I am the Eye of Horus, I traverse the Eye of Horus at this season. I have arrived at the domains. Grant that the Osiris Ani may come in peace.”

Pg 134 – The events of “The Elite Guard” are dated to 46910.1, stardate of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode, “Dax”. The Elite Guard ship is here given the name the Steelhaven, after the craft commanded by Fortress Maximus in the Generation 1 Marvel comic. Cybertronix on this page:

• The header reads: “My son, ask thyself for another kingdom,” the spoken line which begins Iron Maiden's song, “Alexander the Great”.
• The footer is another set of co-ordinates, “13 degrees 7' 0” N, 122 degrees 32' 0” E”, resting place of the Japanese battleship, Musashi.

Pg 135 – All three pieces of Cybertronix on this page translate into quotes from The Tick. This is, of course, nothing if not fitting: this page is from Sentinel Prime's private journal. The quotes are, from top to bottom:

• “You're not going crazy. You're going sane in a crazy world.”
• “You know why super villains are so unhappy, Arthur? They don't treasure the little things.”
• “I hate broccoli, and yet, in a certain sense, I am broccoli.”
• And tucked away almost unnoticeable in the bottom left: “Spoon”, the Tick's catchphrase.

Pg 136 – Sari's notebook paper is decorated with an illustration of “Hello Nekomimi Pop-Star”, a chibified, “Hello Kitty”-style version of Nekomimi A from the Energon episode, “Distribution”. Nekomimi B appears on pg 147 in a similar fashion.

Pg 137 – Cybertronix on this page:

• The header translates to lyrics from Eric Clapton's Tulsa Time: “So there I was in Hollywood, Thinking I was doing good, Talking on the telephone line.”
• The text behind the image of the Tachyon Transmitter and rapid-transit system translates into Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.

Pg 138 – Garbage-O's are a product of Extensive Enterprises, the evil corporation run by Cobra operatives Xamot and Tomax in G.I. Joe. Also, check out the brand of tyre used for the “O” in Garbage-O's – Wheeljack Tyres! Most of the garbage in the illustration is either a model from Animated or an original drawing by Forster, but snuck in on the left of the page is the cover of the Derek and the Dominos album, “Layla”.

Pg 139 – References on the back of the Garbage-O's pack are copious.

• In the “fueltritional facts” box alone, there are references to mercury sauce, a favourite of the Mechcannibals from the Marvel Generation 1 comic; Rarefied Energon, introduced in the Transformers Collectors Club magazine storyline, “Crossing Over”; Energon Z from Zone; several types of Vibranium from the world of Marvel Comics; Morbidium from Bablyon 5; Kryptonite from the pages of Superman; Tillium from Battlestar Galactica; Dalekanium from Doctor Who; Dilithium from Star Trek; Molecular Acid from the Alien movies; Impervium from Star Wars; Bassnium from Mega Man; iron filings, another treat enjoyed by the Mechcannibals; scrith startch (referring to Scrith from Larry Niven's “Ringworld”); chakan oil from Farscape; budianskium basil (referring to Transformers writer Bob Budiansky); protocultured yeast (referring to Protoculture from Robotech); grated gears (a serving suggestion for ants by Beast Wars Rampage in “Transmutate”); chemical x from The Powerpuff Girls; janick jaAm (“janick” from Iron Maiden guitarist Janick Gers; see below for “jaAm”); m'kraan crystal salt (referring to the M'Kraan Crystal from Marvel Comics); heinlein honey (named for sci-fi writer Robert A Heinlein – anyone picking up on a recurring Heinlein theme here?); melange from Dune; and lastly, aluminum mallard (referring to a space ship from the Space Quest video games).
• The little arrow and the “GO!” beside it at the beginning of the maze are lifted from a sticker on the inside of the original Generation 1 Optimus Prime toy's trailer.
• The word jumble unscrambles to read “You lived a warrior ans died to an hero”, an infamous quote from the late-1990s fanfic by MG-Dinobot, “Dinobot's Old Technology”, which was itself a misquote from the Beast Wars episode “Code of Hero”. The quote went on to become one of the most famous online memes from that era of Transformers fandom. The answer at the bottom of the page, however, claims it actually says “WhY mY ShOuldErs hUrT?”, a tortured quote from British fan Blueshift's famous re-scripting of the first Armada pack-in mini-comic. This was also the source of the above-mentioned “jaAm” line, which was since been immortalized on the license plate and packaging bio of the 2009 Universe Hot Shot figure.
• Illustration B in the “spot the difference” puzzle is, of course, Generation 1 Grimlock's character model lineart.
• The barcode (also fuctional like the Venus barcode before it) reads BP1729, the serial number of the starship Nimbus from Futurama.

Pg 140 - “Velocity” is dated to 46915.2, stardate of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “Second Chances” (note the gaffe in which Bumbleebe gives the wrong timecode for “Nanosec,” instead giving the code for “Total Meltdown”). The sole piece of Cybertronix on this page is part of a quote from Exosquad; in full, the quote reads: “Gravity is the responsematter makes to the loneliness of space.”

Pg 141 – The events of “Rise of the Constructicons” are time-coded 46925.1, stardate of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode, “The Forsaken”. The skirmish with Blitzwing and Lugnut at the start of the episode is coded 46922.3, stardate of the DS9 episode “Dramatis Personae”. Cybertronix on this page:

• The header is part of a quote by George Carlin. The complete quote reads: “Honestly may be the best policy, but it's important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.”
• The large block of text behind the image of Bulkhead is part of a quote from Exosquad's Phaeton. In full, the quote reads: “Of all the creatures who have occupied the Earth, it is we, the Neosapiens, who have proved most fit to rule. The door to our future is opening, and beyond that door lies the road to greatness! Life is a journey. Every action we take, every decision we make, large or small, is a step on that journey! Only when we take the last step is the final destination revealed.”

Pg 142 – Cybertronix on this page:

• Spoiler alert! The header reads: “Soylent Green is people,” the famous twist revelation of the movie, Soylent Green.
• The text in the bottom-left of the page is the opening text crawl from Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. “Turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic. The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute. Hoping to resolve the matter with a blockade of deadly battleships, the greedy Trade Federation has stopped all shipping to the small planet of Naboo. While the Congress of the Republic endlessly debates this alarming chain of events, the Supreme Chancellor has secretly dispatched two Jedi Knights, the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy, to settle the conflict...”

Pg 143 – The evidence reference number X-LN247 is another reference from Max Headroom, where it appeared as a project code on a video tape. This particular bit of information is nowhere to be found on the internet, and eluded me until Bill Forster coughed up the goods! The scrawled-out note below, meanwhile, isn't an easter egg, and just refers to where the machine was found.

Pg 144 – This entry from Shockwave's personal log notes that he created his Autobot persona using data stolen from historical files, a fact originally established by the toy's on-package bio. Cybertronix on this page:

• The header reads: “He is the Kwizatz Haderach He is born of Caladan And will take the Gom Jabbar,” lyrics from Iron Maiden's “To Tame a Land”, which are in themselves a reference to Dune.
• The text behind the devices is the opening monologue from the first two seasons of Farscape. “My name is John Crichton, an astronaut. A radiation wave hit and I got shot through a wormhole. Lost in some distant part of the universe on a ship, a living ship, full of strange alien life forms. Help me. Listen, please. Is there anybody out there who can hear me? Being hunted... by an insane military commander. Doing everything I can. I'm just looking for a way home.”

Pg 145 – Ultra Magnus's memoir is prefaced with a haiku from “Sky-Byte, Decepticon poet”, referencing the loveable haiku-writing Predacon Sky-Byte from Robots in Disguise. He has to be Decepticon here, of course, because there are no Predacons in the Animated universe. In the course of this page, Magnus mentions mitotic sparks, a term from Magmatron's Beast Machines toy bio, the Angarix Sector, a region of space introduced in the Generation 1 episode, “The Quintesson Journal”.

Pg 146 – The events of “Black Friday” are time-coded 47025.4, stardate of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “The Descent,” Part II. Cybertronix on this page:

• The header reads: “I'm not a number, I'm a free man, Live my life where I want to,” lyrics from the Iron Maiden song, “The Prisoner”. The entire song (and these lyrics in particular) are in turn a reference to the 1960s cult TV show, The Prisoner.
• The co-ordinates hidden in the footer are “34 degrees 39' 54.65” N, 133 degrees 56' 9.79” E”, the location of Okayama Castle (the second reference to Okayama in the book).

Pg 148 – Megatron refers to the act of branding the Constructicons with the Decepticon symbol as the “Rite of the Deceptibrand,” after the Autobot equivalent, the “Rite of the Autobrand”, from issue #14 of the Marvel Generation 1 comic. Cybertronix on this page:

• The header reads “Don't forget to drink your Ovaltine.” This is a terribly meta reference to the movie A Christmas Story, which features a subplot that involves a kid using a decoder ring to translate a secret message, only to find, much to his displeasure, that it is a commercial for Ovaltine.
• The text behind the Rite of the Deceptibrand paraphernalia is a quote from the robot Box from Logan's Run, which reads: “Welcome, humans! I am ready for you! Fish, plankton, sea greens and protein from the sea. Fresh as harvest day. Overwhelming, am I not? Are you, too, startled? Am I too removed from your kin? I'm more than machine or man. More than a fusion of the two.”

Pg 149 – The events of “A Bridge Too Close, Part II” are dated 47182.1, stardate of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode, “Invasive Procedures”. Part I is dated 471711.2, stardate of the DS9 episode “Cardassians”. Cybertronix on this page:

• The header repeats the lyrics from Blondie's Shayla featured on page 123. Bill Forster notes that these were supposed to be lyrics from an Iron Maiden song that got lost in the shuffle.
• The text behind Sari's damaged arm, and the final piece of Cybertronix in the book, is the closing narration from the final episode of Robotech. It reads: “Convinced that he will be able to find Rick Hunter's lost battle fortress in the vastness of space, Scott Bernard abandons his homeworld and his past, as he sets off toward the unknown, and his rendezvous with destiny.”

Pg 161 – Starscream uses the expression “a few lipoles short of a nest”, referring to the metal-eating bat-creatures native to Jupiter's moon Io, from the Generation 1 multi-part episode, “Five Faces of Darkness”.

Pg 164 – Lockdown's spaceship is named the Death's Head, after the bounty hunter from the Marvel UK Generation 1 comics, for obvious reasons, given Lockdown's profession. It used to be an “IG-2000” class ship, referring to the Star Wars ship that bore that name (piloted by another bounty hunter, 1G-88) but has been upgraded using parts obtained from the planets Jormungandr (from the Beast Wars Neo manga issue, “A Battle Fought Alone”) and Taxxon (a world of alien centipedes from Animorphs), and the Jabbi-Ko (aliens mentioned in the Marvel Generation 2 comics). It is outfitted with Deckard cannons (named for Rick Deckard from Blade Runner, yet another bounty hunter), Samus-blasters (named for Samus Aran from Metroid, our fourth and final bounty hunter reference), Vandarian holographic technology (from the same planet as the Vandarian fuzz-worms mentioned in a “Mini-Mayhem” strip on the Transformers Collectors Club website) and cybertitanium cables (made from the metal introduced in the Japanese Generation 2storyline). The ship has isomorphic controls preventing anyone other than Lockdown from piloting it, as does Doctor Who's TARDIS. Lockdown rounds out the paragraph by saying “a bot's got to know his limitations”, paraphrasing Clint Eastwood in Magnum Force.

Pg 165 - “A three hour tour!” cackles Blitzwing, quoting the theme tune of Gilligan's Island.

Pg 170 – Bulkhead describes candy as being like Ultra-Energon for kids, referring to the super-charged form of the Transformers' customary fuel that first appears in IDW Publishing's Infiltration series.

Pg 171 – Halloween costumes seen on this page include G.I. Joe characters Cobra Commander, Destro and Flint, and an incarnation of Strawberry Shortcake, albeit with a cherry theme, rather than a strawberry one. While I'm only really listing references that are created for this book, rather than ones that originated with the show, these designs don't appear to have made it into the finished cartoon, so they're debuting here, and worth making a note of!

Pg 174 – Newscaster Lester Black is revealed to be the great-nephew of Hector Ramirez, the news reporter created by Sunbow writer Buzz Dixon, who appeared in G.I. Joe, The Inhumanoids, Jem and the Holograms and the Transformers episode “Prime Target”.

Pg 178 – Mayor Edsel is revealed to be the nephew of famous actor Harold Edsel, who appeared in the Generation 1 episode “Hoist Goes Hollywood”.

Pg 183 – The Sidney Biggles-Jones Memorial Solar Fusion Plant is named after the scientist from the Marvel Comics G.I. Joe storyline that led into the Generation 2 comic. Scientists named as working on solar fusion are Brian Jones (from Energon), Daichi Onishi (the Japanese name of Doctor Kenneth Onishi from Robots in Disguise), Peter Morris(from the Marvel UK Generation 1 comics) and Felix Adle (named after Professor Adle from the Stargate Battles manga, who did not have a given first name).

Pg 185 – In the top right, an Animated version of Bobby Bolivia from the live-action Transformers movie appears, in another example of a design that was created but never implemented before this book.

Pg 189 – Jeff Litvack is a friend of Jim Sorenson's, who he credits in the acknowledgements of this book. Krista Kohlhausen is Bill Forster's “favourite person,” according to the acknowledgements of The Ark.

Pg 200 – The generic Sumdac Systems technicians are named Eddie Fairchild and Matt Conroy. These are the names of two prototypical characters who existed in the development phase of the Generation 1 cartoon, who eventually evolved into Spike Witwicky and Chip Chase.

Pg 203 – Noted architect George R. Apple. G.R.Apple? Anybody? Anybody? C'mooon!

Pg 206 – The Nemesis is equipped with a Grand Mal class force field, named after the Grand Mal, the giant fortress-cum-giant head occupied by Beast Wars Megatron in the latter stages of the Beast Machines cartoon. It has a cybertroid alloy star drive (just like the Generation 1 Nemesis, as mentioned in the G1 episode “Microbots”), and has the most sophisticated sensor array this side of the Eshems Nebula, a region of space introduced in IDW Publishing's live-action movie-based Defiance series.

Pg 207 – To escape the damaged Nemesis, the Decepticons used Devolan escape pods. The planet Devola was the site of a huge victory for the Decepticon Tidal Wave in the Armadauniverse.

Pg 211 – The crashed Decepticon ship on Archa Seven is named the Twilight, after the flagship from the Marvel Generation 2 comics.

Pg 219 – In his “thanks to” section, Bill Forster declaures “Up the Irons!”, another reference to Iron Maiden. All of his thanks, meanwhile, are anagrams. Most can be solved by consulting the acknowledgements section of the two Ark books:

• A Bipedal Glitter – Brigette Padilla
• Shank Author's Lake Inn – Krista Ann Kohlhausen
• A Glacier Ax – Alex Garcia
• Ace Circle Gun – Gene Carlucci
• Am. Roadway Ten – Andrew Yamamoto (one M short...)
• A Data Memory – Marty Amodeo (an O instead of an A there...typo?)
• Rancher Chilli Swoosh – Harrison Schweiloch
• A Red Minion – Iron Maiden

Unsolved anagrams:

• Baron Ye Gult –
• Friar Ilia Tote –
• Dankly Woolens –

Front cover – We've got Bumblee and Sari playing with real Animated toys: Voyager-class Wreck-Gar and Optimus Prime, Deluxe-class Prowl and Ratchet, Leader-class Bulkhead, and Roll-Out Command Optimus Prime. Bulkhead's buzzsaw is on the wrong hand, however, and the packaging lying beside Bumblebee is for Voyager Prime, not Roll-Out Command Prime.

Back cover – The silhouetted figure that takes up most of the back cover is a mysterious figure of evil from the new opening sequence created for the Japanese broadcast of the Animated cartoon. And speaking of Animated in Japan, that Japanese quote reads: “When I was a kid, Super Robot Lifeform Transformers' books were nothing like this book. Those were the days... But this new book is really fun, too! I didn't think I'd be surprised at the humongous size of this book!” The quote is attributed to Hiroyuki Otoboto, the Transformer-loving patriarch of the Otoboto family, stars of new live-action segments attached to the Japanese broadcast of Animated. The final part of the quote in particular is lifted from Transformer manga artist Naoto Tsushima's Twitter feed, where he made the comment in regard to the first Allspark Almanac. In the first of many non-Transformers references to come, mirror-universe Swindle's quote mentions a minimum security orphanarium; it was in such a facility that Futurama's Leela grew up.

Pg 9a – Jim Sorenson's Decepticon alter-ego is an Animated version of Octus, a member of the Decepticon Triumverate from the UK Marvel Comics story, “The Fall and Rise of the Decepticon Empire”. Creator Lee Sullivan designed Octus to transform into a Dalek from Doctor Who, and that alternate mode intention is faithfully carried on here, with it being referred to by its technical name, a Mark III Travel Machine. Bill Forster's alias, meanwhile, is Megadeath from the UK annual story “The Magnificent Six” (no doubt a choice based on Forster's propensity for heavy metal), but he has been redesigned from his original hideous appearance into a form based on Beast Wars Neo character Big Convoy. His alternate mode is a Guylos EZ-038 Assault Craft, an appropriately elephantine mech from Zoids.

Pg 9b – Reference is made to Alignment, a novella produced by Simon Furman for the UK convention Transforce in 2001 to end the story of the Marvel Comics universe and lead into the Beast Era. Produced without Hasbro's approval, it was a non-canon endeavour... until now, as the introduction refers to it as “true and accurate”! This is also the book's first use of the “universal stream” classification system introduced in the Fun Publications Transformers Collectors' Club exclusive story, “Withered Hope”. We'll be seeing a lot more of this as we go on.

Pg 11 – Hidden away in the bottom right of this page is the first frame of a flip-book style animation that runs through the Almanac. It depicts pencil-sketch versions of Optimus Prime and Megatron's transformation stock footage.

Pg 13 - “Bakapor” is Russian for “dumbass”.

Pg 15 – Safeguard's powered up form (which appeared only in the “First (and Second) in Flight” comic that came with the Jetfire and Jetstorm toys, not in the cartoon itself), is referred to as Burning Justice, a pejorative nickname used by TFWIKI.Net for the “burst of super-power brought on by intense emotion” that is a popular trope of anime.

Pg 16 – Yoketron's bio refers to numerous Cybertronian martial arts: Crystalocution (originally mentioned from G1 Banazi-Tron's bio), diffusion (from Dreamwave's More Than Meets the Eye handbook), Tekkaido (from the BotCon 2001 exclusive Arcee's bio) and Circuit-Su (from Bugly's bio, also mentioned in the Animated cartoon itself). Two new arts are introduced here: Tahtib-tron and Laser Lathi, named for Tahtib and Lathi, types of cane-fighting from Egypt and India, respectively. To close out the bio, Jazz quotes a song lyric: “I believe the protoforms are our future,” a paraphrased vesion of Whitney Houston's “Greatest Love of All”, which contains the lyric “I believe the children are our future”.

Pg 17 – Here we learn that Kup (designed for the Animated cartoon but not implemented; finalized specially for inclusion in the Almanac) gave Optimus, Sentinel and Elita-1 their names, as we saw Sentinel do for Bumblebee, Bulkhead and their classmates in “Autoboot Camp”. Kup is puffing on a cy-gar, as his Generation 1 counterpart did in IDW Publishing's “All Hail Megatron”.

Pg 18 – Shockwave uses the measurement of mechanometers, which originated in the Generation 1 cartoon episode “City of Steel” and saw use in the previous Almanac. He also refers to Cyber/Nano Algorithms, or CNA, the Transformer equivalent of DNA introduced in IDW Publishing's “Spotlight: Arcee”. Operation: Doppelganger is explained on page 61; it's a pretty generic name, but I'm going to guess it's a reference to a similar operation that went down in BattleTech.

Pg 19a – Numbers on Wheeljack's page:

• 16432 (?)
• 15.71976% - 15/7/1976 is author Jim Sorenson's birthday
• 65483-2483-32 – don't know yet, but very similar string of numbers appears on page 34 referring to another body type, and I have identified its source, so that may help point us in the right direction for figuring out Wheeljack's. [65483-2483-32 is a casefile (parsed slightly differently) from the show FlashForward.]

Pg 19b – Mainframe's profile refers to the Software Wars, a conflict mentioned in Generation 1 Guzzle's packaging bio. It also name-drops Extempaxia, a Quintesson from theTransformers Universe Presents: The Wreckers comics, and Spanner, the Autobot technician responsible for building the space bridge in the Generation 1 Marvel comic.

Pg 20 – Kup refers to Animated versions of Generation 1 characters Skram and Blaster, and Fun Publications' Cybertron creation, Quickslinger. Blaster is fond of Quarian thrash, music mentioned in the previously-discussed Alignment, and Ragnarok & Roll, the title of an episode of The Real Ghostbusters. Kup also name-checks The Fallen, one of the Original Thirteen Transformers introduced in Dreamwave Productions' The War Within: The Dark Ages comic, and the Pit, the analog of Hell in the Transformers' belief system, first mentioned in the Beast Wars animated series. We also learn that Animated Rodimus was previously known as Hot Rod, like his Generation 1 counterpart.

Pg 21 – Kup refers to turbofoxes, Cybertronian wildlife first mentioned in Generation 1 Mirage's bio, and swears by Xal, a deity sworn to by the second generation Cybertronian Mindset in issue #9 of Marvel's Generation 2 comic. He notes that Rodimus has become known as the chosen one, an epithet borne by Generation 1 Rodimus and first mentioned in the episode “Five Faces of Darkness, Part 1”. Rodimus's team are here given the name Team Athenia, named for the planet introduced in that same episode (and later actually namedin the Japanese dub of the episode), paralleling the Decepticons' planet-named Team Chaar. The two teams were seen in the Animated episode “TransWarped” where they battled in an asteroid belt, here dubbed the Magnokor belt after the magnetic-powered character from Inhumanoids. The Cosmic Rust infection that claimed Rodimus in that episode was named on-screen, but for the sake of completeness we'll remind you that's a reference to the Generation 1 episode that introduced the disease and bore its name.

Pg 22 – Dyson Cube is a webcomic. [Or at least it was. I can't find a single thing about it online 9 years later.] The Tower of Pion is a structure in the Autobot capital Iacon, introduced in Dreamwave's The War Within comic books. Ballobots are used in the Cybertonian sport of basketrek, mentioned in issue #21 of Marvel's Generation 1 comic. Ironhide's chant of “Brawn get mad! Brawn smash!” is, of course a reference to the Incredible Hulk. Cybertronian watering holes Maccadam's Old Oil House (first introduced in the UK Marvel comics, but has since made the leap to most every continuity going, including the Animated cartoon) and Widow's Cafe (an establishment that debuted in the Fun Publications story “Gone Too Far”) are also mentioned. Finally, Ironhide uses batch proto-initiator as a substitue for “mother” (as in, “brother from another”), a term first used in issue #3 of IDW Publishing's Infiltration series.

Pg 24 – Red Alert uses a Transfer Interlink, like BotCon character Apelinq. Like Ratchet before her, she trained at Protihex Medical Mechanical; the Orbital Torus State of Protihex was first introduced in Dreamwave's The War Within comics. Red is famous for inventing a cure for Gold Plastic Syndrome, a fan-coined nickname for an unfortunate condition that blights many Transformers toys made from swirly metallic gold plastic that causes them to crumble with age.

Pg 25 – The song on this page is titled “The Iron Baron”, the pre-production name of the original Generation 1 Grandus. It is sung by Rosanna (who will appear in a couple of pages), and appears courtesy of Twincast Productions, Ltd, named for Twincast, the upgraded form Blaster took in the Japanese series, The Headmasters. It refers to Belzone (a cancelled Generation 2 Autobot Power Master), the Void (the nothingness left when Unicron consumes a universe) and the Stonehenge Kick (Grandus's special attack, shared by his Generation 1 predecessor). I imagine its probably a parody of an existing song, but can't suss out what. [Bill Forster thinks it was inspired by the original Ultraman theme song.

Pg 26a – Among the Cybertronian drugs Beachcomber indulges in are syk (from the UK Generation 1 Marvel comic story “Secrets”), simultronics (from IDW's “Spotlight: Blurr”), Angolmois (Unicron's life-force, from the Japanese Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo series) and crysmag (from the Headmasters two-parter, “The Final Showdown on Earth”). Rattletrap supposes Beachcomber's sensors would be work a few shanix, a kind of currency favoured by Death's Head in the UK Generation 1 comics.

Pg 26b – Highbrow met his end in the Manganese Mountains, a Cybertronian locale introduced in Marvel's Headmasters comic-book mini-series.

Pg 27a – Diablock Rock is named for Takara's LEGO-like building block line, Diablock. We also get our first mention of Trypticon prison, named for the Generation 1 city-bot Trypticon, just as the other Cybertronian structures from Animated, the Metroplex and Fortress Maximus, are.

Pg 27b – Dug Base should be recognisable as sharing a body design with Grandus. That's because he's based on the Brave toy of the same name, who was a redeco of the original Grandus toy. He appeared in vehicle mode in the Animated episode “Decepticon Air”.

Pg 28a – Dai Atlas is training Drift, a samurai Autobot introduced in the pages of IDW's “All Hail Megatron”.

Pg 28b – Animated Sky Garry shares the same attack as his Generation 1 predecessor, the Mystery Circle Punch. He was second to Big Bang, an Autobot commander designed to be the star of the 1991 Takara Transformers toyline, who was ultimately shelved and never produced (until Fun Publications revived the concept nearly twenty years later); Sky Garry was also a member of the '92 toyline, hence the reference. The translation of his name is a bit of a crack at the fact his name makes no dang sense. Here, it is given a meaning in an old Destron dialect; “Destron” was the traditional Japanese name for the Decepticons until recently. Page 222 sheds a bit more light on this reference.

Pg 29a – Illegal services Rattletrap is known to provide include shock pop datatrax (shock pop is a type of music enjoyed by the 2007 live-action movie's Grindcore; datatrax are a form of data storage introduced in the Beast Wars animated series), prismaball tickets (a sport played by the Generation 1 Nebulan Recoil) and forged S.T.A.R.S. indento-cards (S.T.A.R.S. was a “club” of sorts back in the mid-1980s, advertised through flyers packed in with Transformers toys full of exclusive stories and mail-away offers, including just such a card). He is in a relationship with a “botanist”... more on this on the next page!

Pg 29b – Allicons are creations of the Quintessons, who first appeared in The Transformers: The Movie. They were unnamed in the film, and were later named by Dreamwave Productions. Seaspray fought some during the War of the Waves on Antilla; the War of the Waves was the name of a Transformers Universe action figure two-pack containing Air Raid and Storm Surge, while Antilla was a planet introduced in the Generation 1 cartoon episode, “Cosmic Rust”.

Pg 29c – The Autotroopers' body type is 256-OZU-004, the ID number of Jake Sully from the James Cameron movie, Avatar.

Pg 30a – The aforementioned botanist! Animated Botanica began life as an April Fool's joke of sorts by character designer Derrick J. Wyatt, when he put her and several other characters into an image posted on his blog and challenged readers to figure out which characters were real and would be appearing in the third season, and which weren't. Botanica was a fake-out, but she's canon now, baby! She is noted to be in a relationship with Rattletrap (a callback to the original Rattrap and Botanica hooking up in Beast Machines), and she once rid the planet Daffodil II (mentioned in the letters page of issue #326 of the UK Generation 1 comic) of an infestation of Morphobots (from the Generation 1 cartoon episode, “Quest for Survival”).

Pg 30b – Like Kup before him, Wheelie was designed for the Animated cartoon, but not used, then finalized for the Almanac. He was found on Zeotopia, named for the world of the Hasbro toyline Xevoz, by the Silver Guardians, named for the security force from Power Rangers: Time Force.

Pg 31 – Pipes was another “April Fool's” character, designed to look like Huffer in reference to Generation 1 Pipes, who was a remold of Generation 1 Huffer, and both characters have the same special powers as their G1 progenitors. Huffer and Pipes are also designed after Nintendo's famous brothers, Mario and Luigi; their dialogue here is written with Italian accentuations. [Pipes and Huffer's personalities were inspired by the fact that without Earth, the main personality points of their Generaton 1 counterparts wouldn't exist-thus, a Pipes with nothing in his quarters, and a happy Huffer.]

Pg 32 – While describing Tracks, Beachcomber refers to two types of Cybertronian fauna: glitch mice (from the Generation 1 cartoon episode “S.O.S. Dinobots”) and nano-fleas (from issue #2 of the Transformers Universe comic). [He also mentions Swerve, an Animated version of the Generation 1 Mini-Bot.]

Pg 33 – Cliffjumper not trusting Mirage is a reference to their Generation 1 ancestors going through the same clash in the Generation 1 cartoon episode “Traitor”.

Pg 34a – Glyph graduated from Drouhard University, named for Brianne Drouhard, the character designer who created her. She is an Archaeometrist like her Generation 1 counterpart, and is known to have studied Gorlam Prime (introduced in IDW Publishing's “Spotlight: Nightbeat”). Her closeness with Tap-Out is a reference to the fact that both their Generation 1 counterparts were BotCon exclusives in the same year.

Pg 34b – Tap-Out's body-type is a 65356 9292 346 shell, the barcode number of the Animated Bumblebee toy. As an Archaeometrist, Glyph uses several fictional languages while describing Tap-Out.

• The Fantoman giants are the Zentraedi from Robotech, who hailed from the planet Fantoma. Their in their language, “Dentalla” means “ally” or “friend”.
• “Too doo nakotae” means “To life immortal” in the language of the aliens from the War of the Worlds TV series.
• The Tenctonese are the alien race from the TV series Alien Nation.
• The final language used is Klingon from Star Trek. “Ql'yaH” is one of the foulest words in the Klingon language, which defies translation. “pujwl'” means “weakling”. Apparently, Klingons would say Tap-Out has “batlh”, honor.

Pg 35 – Dude, Searchlight is basically Batman. He once beat up the criminals responsible for Operation: Burning Sky (named after a Generation 1 UK comic story) and deposited them in front of the Forum of Enlightenment (introduced in Dreawave’s The War Within comics).

Pg 36a – Volks is based on a Brazilian recolor of the original Generation 1 Bumblebee toy. Tap-Out calls him a LadiesBot217-type, in reference to the screenname of live-action Transformers movie character Sam Wiwicky, “LadiesMan217”.

Pg 36b – Carrera is based on a Brazilian recolor of the original Generation 1 Cliffjumper toy. In describing him, Bumper refers again to syk (see pg 26) and the Iacon 5000, a race name-dropped in the letters page of issue #326 of the UK Marvel comic. The measurement of weight, the kilo-unit, is used; this originated in the Animated episode “Rise of the Constructicons”. [Carrera's personality and voice was based off Ted Close, a friend of Jim and Bill's. According to Bill, "He was a guy who could eat 20 burgers at a sitting and never gain weight. He also was interested in being a sports caster, but had a scratchy voice."]

Pg 36c – Furao is the name given to Generation 1 Bumblebee in the Brazilian translation of the Generation 1 comics. It means “Ferret” in both Portugese, and as this entry notes, “Old Malignus”; “Malignus” was the evil faction from the Brazilian version of the Transformers toyline, but see page 222 for some expanded meaning of this. Also referenced are the Flash Frenzy (personal spaceship of Cybertron Skyfall), Elba (a prison planet from the Challenge of the GoBots episode, “Escape from Elba”), cyber-ducks (mentioned in the Generation 1 cartoon episode “The Rebirth”, Part 1), a solar sail (a feature of the Armada Mini-Con Oceanglide) and the Blot Nebula (from the on-package bio of Classics Jetfire). [The story Chase tells is actually based off a real event from WWII-" It was on the USS Intrepid, where I served as Art Director. The rudder was disabled, so they made a makeshift sail to allow the ship to sail the direction they wanted it to go. It's the only aircraft carrier to ever sail."]

Pg 37a – Hubcap is friendly with an Animated version of Generation 1 Action Master Jackpot; their Generation 1 counterparts are good chums too, as seen in the Fun Publications story, “Gone Too Far”. Shanix are mentioned again (see pg 26), as is Aquillian crystal (a form of currency from issue #44 of the Marvel Generation comics), a protocol droid (a type of droid from Star Wars) and a paranoid android (Marvin, from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy).

Pg 37b – Searchlight is definitely channelling Frank Miller’s Batman! He mentions Bhul, a planet introduced in IDW’s “Spotlight: Arcee”. [Bumper is the Robin to Searchlight's Batman.]

Pg 38a – Autosanrin was the winning entry in a Transformers character design contest held by Japanese magazine Comic Bom Bom in 1986.

Pg 38b – Lightbright appeared in the Animated cartoon twice, but like most of the crowd fillers, went unidentified. She gets a name here for the first time, based on the Hasbro toy, Lite-Brite. [Dug Base speech paterns are based on those of sci-fi robots from the 60's.]

Pg 38c – Lickety-Split has the same story behind her as Lightbright, and also gets a name from another Hasbro toy, in this case, My Little Pony. Her entry references a Golden Disk (a Cybertronian artefact introduced in the Beast Wars cartoon), Orgenon and the Galactic Olympics (both from the Generation 1 cartoon episode “Five Faces of Darkness, Part 1”), and Buzz Lightyear (from Toy Story, also immortalized as part of Takara’s Disney Label Transformers sub-line). The popular measurement of time, the nanoklik, introduced in Beast Wars, is also used. [Monzo, another TF Fan, had ideas for Lickety Split and Lightbright's names, different of that from Jim and Bill's. They compromised on Lightbright (Jim and Bill's) and Lickety Split (Monzo's).]

Pg 39a – As previously intimated on page 25, Animated Rosanna is a singer, just like her counterpart from the Kiss Players series. She’s Cybertron’s number two star next to Windy (a female Micromaster from Takara’s final Generation 1 series, Operation: Combination, who was indeed a popular singer), and was formerly part of the Velocitron Band (a band from the planet Velocitron, as seen in the Cybertron episode “Champion”) with the Rock Bots (an unproduced idea for Transformers that transformed into musical instruments). Her songs include “Alive a Soldier” (a song from the Japanese version of the Animated cartoon), “Principle of Badness” (from Beast Wars II) and “There Is No Border in the Universe” (from the Japanese Generation 1 cartoon, Super-God Masterforce). Her hometown is Ky-Alexia, first mentioned in Dorling Kindersley’s guide to the live-action Transformers movie universe, which is just off the Mithril Sea, an ocean mentioned in the bio of Universe Rook. Her model number is 09262 8765 001, the secret agent number of Brock Samson from The Venture Brothers.

Pg 39b – As Transformers wouldn’t know the names of Earthly animals, Ramhorn is here called a Nosoron, the Polish name of Beast Wars character Rhinox; Steeljaw is a Cybercat, a species named in the Cybertron episode “Challenge”; and Zaur is a Brontobot, one of the preliminary names for Generation 1 brontosaurus Dinobot Sludge.

Pg 40 – Mega-dronex is not a Transformers term, but it’s got to be a reference to something. [UPDATE: "Dronex" is a unit of measurment mentioned in Robotix.]

Pg 41 – Exo-frame is a fairly generic term, but given the references to it found in the first book, I’ll bet this is a specific callout to the mechs of ExoSquad. Tutorbot 2.0 replaces the original, based on the Diagnostic Drones from Beast Machines. Reference is also made to a Project: Powermaster, named for the original Generation 1 toys with transforming engines; the toy design section towards the end of the book sheds a little light on this!

Pgs 42-43 – Sari’s powers include a Hyperspace Mallet (a joking name given to the popular anime trope that involves little girls pulling huge mallets out of nowhere), a Master Blade (the personal weapon of Generation 1 Fortress Maximus from the Headmasters series), a Skyboom shield (named for the Mini-Con shield weapon from Armada; the previous Almanac also gave Sentinel Prime’s shield this name), azusa skates (named for the Azusa Skatepark in California) and Micron Boosters for enhanced jumps (named after the series of blind-packed Mini-Con figures released by Takara; “Microns” is the Japanese name for “Mini-Cons”).

Pg 44 – “Single Green Robot” refers to the movie, Single White Female. [Captain Fanzone's car getting destroyed was a running gag in the series.]

Pg 46 – Blackarachnia calls Waspinator a “circuit-glitched diode-blown dimwit” the same string of epithets hurled at Generation 1 Hot Rod by Kup in The Transformers: The Movie. She also notes that his stingers are “cranked up to eleven”, a popular term from the movie This Is Spinal Tap.

Pg 48 – Strika’s title, General of Destruction, was previously noted in the bio for her included in issue #24 of the Official Transformers Collectors’ Club magazine. It’s a reference to the typical Japanese title for Decepticon leaders, “Emperor of Destruction”. Her being armed with reciprocating cannons is a call-back to the original Beast Machines Strika toy, which was also equipped with them. She also has a small reserve of Forestonite, the mysterious energy source from the Japanese Generation 2 manga, “The New Battle!!” It is also clarified that her Team Chaar is named for the planet the team is stationed on, which was introduced in the Generation 1 cartoon episode, “Five Faces of Darkness, Part 1”.

Pg 49 – We’ve already covered Cosmic Rust (see pg 21), which was one of Oil Slick’s creations in the Animated universe, per the comic story “Bots of Science”. Here, another of his creations is named: the reverse evolution virus, which originated in the Micromaster Collection storyline. The remark about him training with an Autobot motorcycle refers to his on-package bio, which claimed he trained with Prowl as a Cyber-Ninja, something the show didn’t touch on. Cyclonus concludes his description of Oil Slick by saying “over, finished”; this is what you call a “Furmanism”, one of the many popular repeated phrases in the works of Transformers comic book writer Simon Furman.

Pg 50 – Cyclonus’s backstory heavily hints that he shares a similar history with his Generation 1 counterpart, coming from a future where Megatron has been rebuilt into Galvatron. He has transwarp circuitry (used for bending space and time, introduced in the Beast Wars cartoon and later played a big role in Animated) in his reactor linkage, a part of Transformer anatomy that it wouldn’t be pleasant to stuff anything up, according to issue #57 of the Generation 1 Marvel comic. Cyclonus is armed with an oxidizing laser, like his G1 counterpart originally was, and blades that can generate waves of blinding, corrosive black light, like the black beam gun that G1 Cyclonus upgraded to when he became a Targetmaster. The comment about Starscream's circuity and self-preservation algorithms seems to suggest Cyclonus is a rebuilt Skywarp, who was last seen floating in space in “TransWarped”, just as G1 Skywarp may or may not have become G1 Cyclonus (but let's not open that can of worms).

Pg 52 – Blackout is armed with four zander cannons, named for IDW Publishing writer Zander Cannon. Beast Wars Rampage and Scavenger and Beast Machines Che all had galva-conductors, but Blackout has them in his particle-blasters, which makes them feel like a reference to Generation 1 Galvatron, who had a particle cannon. His astro blasters are named for the Mini-Con weapon from Armada. His seismic energy dischargers are noted to be reverse-engineered from an “oddly misplaced Cybertronian” named Crasher, a reference to the Challenge of the GoBots character well known for her seismic stomps, along with an indication that she might have somehow wound up in the Animated universe. Further, the specific name of these dischargers comes from the bio of Fracture, the live-action movie toyline’s own Crasher homage.

Pg 54 – Spittor mouth tendrils are given the name Legion Tentacles, after the hideous appendages that sprout from the mouths of the monstrous Legion in Takara’s creepy Kiss Players series.

Pg 55 – Many fans were reminded of Generation 1 Bombshell and his mind-controlling cerebro-shells when Dirt Boss was introduced, and the Almanac doesn’t let them down, officially giving Dirt Boss’s devices that name. The Generation 1 homages continue as the Constructicons are hinted to be building something called Devastator.

Pg 56 – Soundwave’s black and red avatars are referred to both as electrostatic copies, named for the toy redeco they represent (“Electrostatic Soundwave”), and Soundblaster duplicates, after the upgraded form Soundwave took on in The Headmasters, to which these avatars are coloured in homage. His primary avatar is called a sonic white version of himself, after the “Sonic White” coloration of the Music Label Soundwave toy that its colours are based on. The virtual world he trapped the Autobots are in is called both Realvision (from issue #48 of the Generation 1 Marvel comic) and a makeshift InfoCore (after the massive computer system from Beast Machines).

Pg 57 – Ratbat and Laserbeak are both describing as having the vampiric and cowardly characteristics of their Generation 1 predecessors, respectively. The Scraplets, tiny robots from issue #29 of the G1 Marvel comic, are mentioned, as is the measurement of distance, the hic, from the UK annual story “The Magnificent Six” and used in the previous Almanac.

Pg 58 – Reflector has a Photon T-34 cannon, named after the live-action movie Real Gear Robot. Their hard-light hologram powers are a reference to a strange scene in the Generation 1 cartoon episode “Divide and Conquer”, in which the original Reflector’s components disappear in a flash of light. The measurement of time, the megacycle, is used: it originated with Beast Wars, but has since become widely used.

Pg 59a – Smelting Pools and a personal pickaxe weapon were the hallmarks of the original Generation 1 Straxus, who first appeared in issue #17 of the Generation 1 Marvel comic.

Pg 59b – Slapper is another of the aforementioned “April Fool” characters posted to Derrick J. Wyatt's blog, a redeco of Spittor, just as Robots in Disguise Slapper was a redeco of Beast Wars Transmetal Spittor. Energon Discharge Powder would be the Transformer equivalent of sneezing powder; when afflicted with a fit of “sneezing” in the Beast Wars episode “The Low Road,” Rhinox would involuntarily discharge energon. It is Vrobian in origin; Vrobians were psychic vampires from issue #63 of the Generation 1 Marvel comic.

Pg 60a – Porter C. Powell’s limousine was designed to resemble the Tonka GoBot Tux, and the Almanac follows through with this idea in designing a robot mode for it, giving him the GoBot’s characteristic top hat. The robot is named Stretch, which was the alternate name the GoBots cartoon gave to Tux; his banishment across the dimensions seems to hint that Animated Stretch and GoBots Stretch could be the same character. Furthermore, the reference to quantum-string vibration levels appears to hearken back to the GoBots' method of cataloguing alternate universes, which they refer to as “levels”, as seen in the Challenge of the GoBots two parter, “Invasion from the 21^st Level”, and revisited in the Fun Publications story “Withered Hope”.

Pg 60b – Flip Sides is another April Fool character, an Animated version of a Decepticon sleeper agent available exclusively through online retailer eHobby, and a redeco of the cassette mold also used to create the original Rosanna. Fans noted that unfortunate similarity in colors between Flip Sides and Rosanna, who were not released terribly far apart, but the Almanac has played with that similarity here, with Blurr’s report suggesting that Animated Flip Sides and Rosanna could possibly be one and the same.

Pg 61a – Scalpel is an Animated version of the Revenge of the Fallen character, having started life as a piece of fan art Derrick J. Wyatt drew for his blog.

Pg 61b – While the original Generation 1 Magnificus was not a clone in his bio, he was made into one by Dreamwave Productions in issue #1 of their ongoing series, and that idea is carried on into Animated Magnificus. Project Doppelganger is explained and CNA is mentioned again (see pg 18 for both); CNA is also referred to by another name, hard-coded design schematics, a term from issue #2 of Transformers Universe Featuring the Wreckers. Magnificus’s knack for dealing with organics is presumably a reference to the closeness between G1 Magnificus and the organic alien Ga’mede. Reference is also made to the planet Ijurn, mentioned in passing in Dreamwave’s Micromasters mini-series.

Pg 63a – In describing his part in the events of “TransWarped”, Shockwave name-checks several Decepticon leaders who did not appear in the series: Straxus (seen earlier in the book), Gutcruncher (a high-ranking Generation 1 Action Master), Skystalker (Generation 1 Micromaster with aspirations on leading the Decepticons), Deathsaurus (leader of the Decepticons in Japan’s Victory series) and Clench (European-exclusive Decepticon leader from the interstitial period between G1 and G2). Clench is noted to command Team Kaon, named for the Decepticon city on Cybertron introduced in Dreamwave’s The War Within comics. It appears to break the format of teams being named after planets, until you remember that Animated has a lot of the Decepticons living on a planet they have named “New Kaon” after being exiled from Cybertron. In the same breath, Megatron’s team is noted to be “Team Earth”.

Pg 63b – As in the first Almanac, the text which appears in the headers and footers and behind the numerous illustrations on many of the episode guide pages is Cybertronix, a symbol language developed for the Beast Wars cartoon that hides hidden messages to be decoded. The font on this page, and that used on all Decepticon internal logs, is the “Predacon” font. Messages on this page include:

• The header contains the first of several Ask Vector Prime questions. “Ask Vector Prime” was a segment that Hasbro ran on its Transformers website when the Cybertron series was current, allowing readers to pose questions for the ancient Transformer Vector Prime, which he would often give obtuse, vague, point-missing or silly answers to. This question reads:
• Q:Who is the mysterious figure in the Animated opening credits in Japan?
• A: Which one? A:There are a lot of characters in there, like Optimus Prime and Blitzwing.
• The question refers to a bizarre cloaked figure of shadow seen in the new opening sequence created for the Japanese version of Animated, and also seen on the back cover of this very book. Vector Prime gives one of his characteristically unhelpful answers.
• Hidden behind the crushed Blurr cube are the lyrics to the Johnny Mandel song, “Suicide is Painless”, best known as the theme tune of the TV series M*A*S*H.
• The footer contains another Ask Vector Prime:
• Q: Does the ship used by Scorponok in the Marvel Comics have a name?
• A: It was called the Semper Tyrannis.
  • [from the Latin phrase "sic semper tyrannis"]

Pg 64 – This partial episode summary for “TransWarped” takes the form of the Headmaster's account on Yatter, the Transformers equivalent of Twitter introduced in the Collectors' Club exclusive story, “Eye in the Sky”. Yatter is copyright Alternate Reality, Inc, the computer programming company from issue #40 of the Generation 1 Marvel comic. The Beast Wars II Moon toy appears in the title bar, as does the Japanese ID number for Raiden, C-131. The page prompts users to post with the order “Report to me at once!”, the command Optimus Prime gave Ironhide in the opening scenes of The Transformers: The Movie. The arrow-shaped Start box is taken from Generation 1 instruction leaflets. Headmaster's screen name ends in 42, which is both the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and a nerd cliché so tremendously tired that the Headmaster's use of it unsurprising. He has 26632 followers, after the Star Trek vessel, the NCC-26632. He follows 137 people; there are entirely too many possibilities for me to figure out what this is referring to! [137 refers to the number of seconds of the vision from the aforementioned FlashForward.]

The lists of top trackers and trending topics are, of course, full of references:

• The top four trackers all post replies to the Headmasters Yatts in the main body of the article, with userpics screencapped from episodes or other media that depicted them. These four are in_your_face_furg (Furg was the doorman at Dancitron in the Generation 1 cartoon episode “Auto-Bop” [his profile picture is screencapped from that episode]), SJ2Sweet (Sally Jones from Energon [her profile picture is a scan of her character model from the tenth volume of Superlink (the Japanese name for Energon) DVDs]), President_for_Life (one of the many titles of Generation 1 Arab dictator Abdul Fakkadi (the profile picture for him is creencapped from the episode "Thief in the Night"]) and Maggie_M_999 (Maggie Madsen from the live-action Transformers movie [rather than a screencap from the movie, her profile is taken from the cover for issue #3 of IDW Publishing's Transformers: Movie Adaptation, with lineart by Alex Milne and colors by Josh Burcham]). The other trackers are ravagekitteh (the actual in-fiction Yatter account of Shattered Glass Ravage; also exists in real life on Twitter), SacredPalutena (Palutena from the Kid Icarus video games), Where_am_I_Hibiki (“Where am I now?” was a question often asked by perennially lost Ranma ½ character, Ryuga Hibiki), triffid_venom_stings (referring to the titular carnivorous plants from “Day of the Triffids”),Wallace_Enoch (Enoch Wallace from the Clifford D. Simak novel “Way Station”), HeecheeTechGuy (the Heechee are aliens from the works of Frederik Pohl) and Ignignokt108 (Ignignokt is one of the Mooninites from Aqua Teen Hunger Force; 108 is a number with great significance in many Eastern religions and has as a consequence become another of those “nerd numbers” like 42. You might be most familiar with it as the sum total of the mysterious string of numbers from Lost).
• Trending topics include Digital Doom (from a 1987 Generation 1 pack-in leaflet which depicted a battle known as “Digital Doom on the Highway to Destruction”), Ear Fungus (an infection often detected in visitors to the Sector 7 mobile command unit, part of the “alternate reality game” promotion for the first live-action movie), #TFARP (the hashtag of the real-life TransFormers Animated RolePlay), WrecknRule (catchphrase of the Wreckers), Shortpacked! (webcomic of Transformers fan David Willis), #FIRRIB and#FIBRIR (an ancient fandom debate revolving around the colors of Generation 1 Rumble and Frenzy; they mean “Frenzy Is Red, Rumble Is Blue” and “Frenzy Is Blue, Rumble Is Red”), I Risk My Life For Earth (the title of an episode of the Japanese Transformers series, The Headmasters), Darque Chocolate (the villain of the murder mystery dinner from the Official Transformers Collectors Convention 2004), Battle Protocol (the title of the first episode of Robots in Disguise), #ertd (the nonsensical acronym for the Extra-Terrestrial Response Division from Panini's Armada comics), ThisManThisMayonnaise (Donny Finkleberg's proposed “Potato Salad Man” graphic novel from issue #15 of the Generation 1 Marvel comic) and Rotate Blade (a fandom nickname for Beast Wars Dinobot's spinning tail-blade weapon, derivied from an infamous fanfic).

Pg 65 – Xal is referenced again (see pg 21), and the Autobots' ship is finally revealed to have a name: the Orion, after the spaceship captained by Generation 1 Bumblebee in Dreamwave's ongoing series. This begins a trend that will be developed fully later in the book!

Cybetronix on this page, like all the others presented as Autobot records (this one is a page from Bumblebee's private journal) is in the “Maximal” font. This is not alone, however: also present is the “Ancient Autobot” font, which was created by author Jim Sorenson in the late 90s, based loosely upon some characters seen in the Generation 1 episode, “Cosmic Rust”. This font was later used in the “Allspark Wars” online game that was part of the promotion for the live-action movie. These passages are:

• The Cybertronix in the header are the lyrics to the opening theme of Underdog. When criminals in this world appear...!
• The Ancient Autobot in the middle of the page reads “Help me Cortana”; Cortana is a character from the Halo video game series.
• The Cybertronix behind the images of damaged Bumblebee is an excerpt from the instruction manual to the video game The Bard's Tale, dealing with wizardry.
• The Ancient Autobot in the bottom left reads “animalia arthropoda insecta hymenoptera apidae apinae bombini bombus” the kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, subfamily, tribe and genus of... the bumblebee. See what they did there?

Pg 66 – As in the first Almanac, the timecodes for the Autobot incident reports correspond to Star Trek stardates. For this episode, it's the Deep Space Nine episode “Melora”. Cybertronix on this page:

• The header translates into lyrics from Rush's “The Spirit of Radio”.
• The text behind the damaged Bulkhead decodes as lyrics from the Kinks' “Come Dancing”.
• The footer translates to “34 degrees 57 S, 150 degrees 30 W”, co-ordinates of latitude and longitude denoting the location of the titular island from the Jules Verne story, “The Mysterious Island”.

Pg 67 – Starscream uses the swears frag and smeg; the former is a fairly common sci-fi swear that saw use in the Beast Wars cartoon, while the latter is from Red Dwarf. He call his teeth mecha molars (a term used in issue #41 of the Generation 1 Marvel comic), and refers to the SynthAxe, a rare real-life musical instrument from the late 1980s. His AllSpark-endowed weapon form is called a Targetmaster configuration, after the Generation 1 Transformers who featured transforming weapons.

Cybertronix on this page:

• The header is an “Ask Vector Prime”.
• Q: Is Classics Killzone the same character as Alignment Killzone?
• A: They come from divergent timelines but they are both aspects of the same being.
• This refers to a Decepticon character named Killzone, who cameos at the end of the Fun Publications story “Gone Too Far”, and who coincidentally had the same name as a character from the at-the-time-non-canon Alignment. Isn't it an amazing coincidence that author Jim Sorenson was involved in an argument on the TFWiki over whether or not they should be considered the same character?
• Behind Starscream's weaponized head are the romanized Japanese lyrics to “Night of Summerside”, the theme tune to romance anime Kimagure Orange Road.
• The text behind Megatron's head translates as the chorus from David Bowie's “China Girl”.
• The footer is another “Ask Vector Prime”:
• Q: Were the early Matrix bearers in FFOD 4 named?
• A: Yes. The first narrator was named Primon, the Alpha Prime. Next was Prima who fought Sentinel Major. The third was named Prime Nova, or Nova Prime. He was followed by Guardian Prime. Next was Zeta Prime, and then Sentinel Prime. The last narrator was Optimus Prime.
• This question refers to a long scene in the Generation 1 cartoon episode “Five Faces of Darkness”, Part 4, in which Rodimus Prime communes with past Autobot leaders inside the Matrix. They were unnamed but for some descriptors in the episode script (“ancient robot”, “brooding robot”, etc) and here, the Almanac has given them all the names of pre-existing past Primes from other continuities. Prima, Prime Nova and Sentinel Prime were first named in issue #65 of the Generation 1 Marvel comic; Nova Prime would later be introduced in IDW Publishing's comics, and is here connected explicitly with his old namesake. Zeta Prime was another IDW addition to the list, who went on to appear in the War for Cybertron video game, while the mysterious Primon was has only ever been mentioned once before, in the BotCon-exclusive “Reaching the Omega Point” storyline, as a predecessor of Prima. Alpha Prime is here given as Primon's title; it originates with Dreamwave's More Than Meets the Eye guidebook, where it was given as the name of the first Matrix bearer, who was succeeded by Guardian Prime.

Pg 68 – This final “TransWarped” summary is time-coded 47254.1, stardate of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “Dark Page”. The battle at the mine from “A Bridge Too Close” gets the same time-code as it did in the first Almanac, stardate of the episode “Invasive Procedures”, and other events from the three parter are coded with the stardates of “Interface” and “Phantasms”. In a non-Trek reference, Prime comments that Bulkhead “fastballs” Bumblebee, referring to the trademark move of X-Men Wolverine and Colossus, in which the latter hurls the former like a baseball.

Cybertronix on this page:

• The header translates into the English lyrics of the original 1960s Astro Boy theme tune.
• Behind Megatron's head are the romanized Japanese lyrics of the Ranma ½ theme, “Yappappa Yappappa Iishanten”.
• The footer is a set of co-ordinates, “48 degrees 51 32 N, 2 degrees 23 56 E”, location of the Pere Lachaise Cementary in Paris, where rock legend Jim Morrison is buried.

Pg 69 – The timecode for “Three's A Crowd” is the stardate of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode, “Necessary Evil”. Cybertronix on this page:

• The header is the opening narration of Xena: Warrior Princess.
• Just below the title is a set of co-ordinates, “38 degrees 58 4.58 N, 106 degrees 2 42.61 W”, which point to the basin of South Park, Colorado, where the titular TV show is set.
• A string of text is hidden down the left hand side of the page, almost unnoticeable in the page fold, which, when taken together with the smaller string beside the picture of the warehouse, reads: “Climb in the back with your head in the clouds and you're gone,” lyrics from the Beatles' “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”.
• Behind the images of Dirt Boss's components are the lyrics to the Pinky and the Brain theme tune.
• The text behind the disassembled cars is the first paragraph of Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's novel, “Footfall”. It reads: “The lush tropical growth of the Kona Coast ended abruptly. Suddenly the passionflower vines and palm trees were gone, and Jenny was driving through barren lava fields. "It looks like the back side of the Moon," she said.”

Pg 70a – The header and footer of the “Three's A Crowd” summary are “Ask Vector Prime” segments.

• The first reads:
• Q: Is the Challenge of the GoBots cartoon canon for Transformers? Alignment? How about G.I. Joe?
• A: GoBots are, yes, though in a very distant part of the multiverse. Gobotron is an aspect of Primus, and the Unicron defeated in Primax 703.02 Gamma hailed from that dimension. Alignment is canon for the Primax 984.0 Gamma universe. G.I. Joe is a complicated case. The events depicted in the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero cartoon are canon for Primax 984.17 Alpha. So are C.O.P.S., Inhumanoids, even Jem and the Holograms. The events depicted in the 155 issue Marvel series are canon for Primax 984.0 Gamma. Otherwise, it varies.
• Phew! This is a big one! It revisits the universal stream classifications demonstrated in the book's introduction; the streams referred to here are the worlds of the Devil's Due G.I. Joe/Transformers crossovers (Primax 984.0 Gamma; the Unicron who appeared in this world had a strangely organic brain, hence the retcon that he comes from the GoBots universe, where the GoBots share that feature), the Generation 1 Marvel Comics (Primax 984.0 Gamma) and the Generation 1 cartoon (Primax 984.17 Alpha). It also clarifies the complicated inter-relationship between Transformers and several other Hasbro properties from the 80s who had crossovers of varying degrees (some explicit, some of only the most vague implication) between each other.
• The second segment reads:
• Q: If a Mini-Con toy is repainted into a new figure and not called a Mini-Con, is he still a Mini-Con?
• A: Sort of. A toy with a Mini-Con symbol and a powerlinx hardpoint is always a Mini-Con, but the CHARACTER might not be. In other words, the Quadwal version always is, but the Primax or Aurex one might not be.
• Jim Sorenson continues to prod an argument he once had on the TFWiki over whether or not characters Beta Maxx and Caliburn (repainted Mini-Con toys not explicitly characterized as Mini-Cons) are actually Mini-Cons or not. The first Almanac said they were. We also get another reference to a concept the first Almanac introduced: the Quadwal universal stream, home of the “real world” that we live in.

Pg 70b – Several pieces of Transformer anatomy are named in First Aid's report on Ultra Magnus's injuries. Many of them are generic computer and machine terms that have been used regularly throughout Transformers history (like “struts”, motherboard” and “rotators”) but some of the more specific callbacks include motor relays (from the Generation 1 cartoon episode “City of Steel”), boron compressor (from the G1 “War of the Dinobots”), piston rod (from the Animated episode “Autoboot Camp”), manga fuses (from the G1 episode “Fire on the Mountain”) and fuel pump (first in issue #29 of the G1 Marvel comic). Magnus's armor is noted to be made of Cyberium, a metal mentioned in the Animated “chose your own adventure” book series, “Be The Hero”.

Cybertronix on this page:

• The header is a set of co-ordinates, “32 degrees 49 32 N, 117 degrees 13 41 W”, denoting the location of the Art Expressions Gallery in San Diego, address of IDW Publishing.
• The caption for Magnus's shattered shoulder reads: “We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants”, paraphrasing a quote from philosopher Bernard of Chartres. See how that works?
• The caption of Magnus's severed arm says: “IT'S ONLY A FLESH WOUND”, which was the reaction the Black Knight had in Monty Python and the Holy Grail when his own arm was chopped off.
• The final caption denoting a wound to Magnus's pelvis translates as the title of the Huey Lewis and the News song, “It's Hip to Be Square.” Grrooooan.

Pg 71 – The timecode for “Where Is Thy Sting?” is the star date of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “Force of Nature”. Bumblebee drops a reference to his laser core; this concept from the original Generation 1 cartoon (mentioned in the episodes “Divide and Conquer” and “The Autobot Run”) was analogous to what modern fiction calls a spark (the essence of Transformer life); Beast Machines Mechatron's on-package bio explained that the spark was part of the larger laser core, and Bumblebee's crack here seems to line up with that.

Cybertronix on this page:

• The header translates into the lyrics of the theme tune to the 1950s Zorro TV series.
• The caption beside the image of the alley reads “WE DID IT”. It also appears to have... the number 12 at the beginning and end of the sentence? I'm puzzled, but I'm going to assume it's referring to the song of the same name from Dora the Explorer.
• The footer is the co-ordinates “40 degrees 15 8 N, 58 degrees 26 23 E”, location of the “Door to Hell”, a crater in Turkmenistan where natural gas has been burning since 1971.

Pg 72 – The timecode for “Five Servos of Doom” is the start date of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Second Sight”. The second season episode, “A Fistful of Energon”, is given timecoded with the star date of the Next Generation episode, “Timescape”. Prowl credits Yoketron with the saying: “The seeds of the future lie buried in the past”, the mantra of Optimus Primal from Beast Machines, and restates the first Almanac's note that Lockdown's shop features cable made of cybertitanium, a metal introduced in the Japanese tech specs of Generation 2 Sizzle.

Cybertronix on this page:

• The header reads: “Here I come to save the day!”, catchphrase of Mighty Mouse.
• Down the right-hand side of the page is: “I know kung fu”, a quote from The Matrix.
• The text behind the signal beacon reads: “We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image; make it flutter”, an excerpt from the original opening narration of The Outer Limits.
• The footer hides the co-ordinates “35 degrees 53 N, 14 degrees 27 E”, which point the way to Malta Island.

Pg 73 - “Predacons Rising” is timecoded with the star date of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Parallels”. The events of “Where Is Thy Sting?” are given a different code here than on their own page, which is the star date of the Next Generation episode “Attached”. The timecode the first Almanac gave to “Megatron Rising, Part II” is used again to refer to that episode; it's the star date of the Deep Space Nine episodes “If Wishes Were Horses”.

Cybertronix on this page:

• The header is a quote from Aldous Huxley's “Brave New World”, and reads: “The greater a man's talents, the greater his power to lead astray. It is better that one should suffer than that many should be corrupted. Consider the matter dispassionately, Mr. Foster, and you will see that no offence is so heinous as unorthodoxy of behaviour. Murder kills only the individual–and, after all, what is an individual?”
• The text under the header reads: “Why don't you pass the time by playing a little solitaire?”, a quote from The Manchurian Candidate.
• Down the right-hand side of the page is “Yossarian Lives”, an anti-war slogan derived from the Joseph Heller novel, “Catch-22”.
• On the left side of the transwarp lab image, the text says: “Bandersnatch 7, Jubjub bird 4”, two creatures from Lewis Carroll's poem, “Jabberwocky”. I'm unsure of the reason for the numbers.
• On the right of the lab image is “MINDCRIME”, title of a concept album by metal band Queensryche.
• The footer contains the co-ordinates “38 degrees 52 15.56 N, 77 degrees 3 21.46 W”, location of the Pentagon.

Pg 74 – Poor Waspinator's note makes a few Beast Wars callbacks, in addition to those inherent in the episode itself. Waspinator claims the “universe hates him” (a lament the original Waspinator made in “Deep Metal”), and makes reference to a floating mountain and a set of standing stones, alien artefacts featured in “Power Surge” and “Chain of Command”, respectively. This adds fuel to the fire that Waspinator and Blackarachnia may have actually wound up on the Beast Wars planet, but as Derrick J. Wyatt said after “Predacons Rising” aired, Jim Sorenson clarified that this isn't the literal intent of the references. Meanwhile, the ammonite in the top right and the crab at the bottom are colored like the Beast Wars Neo characters Dead End and Rockbuster, again respectively.

Pg 75 - “Human Error, Part I” gets timecoded with star date of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “Inheritance”. Cybertronix on this page:

• Under the episode title is the dedication from Bram Stoker's Dracula, “TO MY DEAR FRIEND HOMMY-BEG”.
• On the right-hand side of the page, behind the header and the Sound Wave Toy image, is the first paragraph from the instruction manual to the video game Legacy of the Ancients.

Pg 76 – This whole summary for “Human Error, Part II” is, of course, written in homage to L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The snake coiled around the border in the lower left is one of Bill Forster's pets, named 1812 after a robot drone from Farscape. The critter in the bottom right, meanwhile, is based on the Transformers Device Label flash drive toy. This feline figure has been released in various colours as Generation 1 Ravage, and Beast Wars Tigatron and Cheetor; here, it's being rendered in the colour scheme of a lesser-known Generation 1 kitty, the Pretender Beast Catilla.

Pg 77 – Unfortunately, the people who pinned up these fliers won't be seeing these three dogs again, as they have all met their ends. Pis was killed by Wilder in the Super-God Masterforce episode “Rage!! Little Devils with No Need for Rules”, Patch (unnamed in his appearance) and his owner were slain by Shockwave in issue #65 of the Generation 1 Marvel comic, and the third, nameless dog was the victim of Decepticon super-science in issue #8 of the Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers manga. [The garage sale sign is from the film Ghost World.]

Pg 78 – The energy cloud from “Decepticon Air” is here called The Stone Place, named for a nebula from Fred Saberhagen's novel, “Berserker's Planet”. It has been given this name by “the squids”, a nickname for the alien Quintessons, who debuted in The Transformers: The Movie, and are referenced several more times in the Almanac. Sentinel compares Prime emerging from Swindle's transwarp storage to a "chest-popping Necronomian xenomorph," obviously referring to the titular creatures from the Alien films.

Coded writing on this page is all related to Sentinel Prime's voice actor, Townsend Coleman:

• The Cybertronix behind the Sonic Jammer 3000 is an extended original passage, which takes the form of a fictitious introduction to The Tonight Show, for which Coleman was the announcer for many years. It reads: “Coming up on The Tonight Show with David Endocrine, lobbyist Nick Naylor, actor Maxwell Donahue, and musical guests Dethklok. Also, stupid human tricks.” Endocrine is a parody of real-life talk show host David Letterman who featured in Frank Miller's Batman graphic novel, The Dark Knight Returns. Naylor is a tobacco lobbyist from the Christopher Buckly novel, “Thank You For Not Smoking”. Donahue appeared in the Remington Steele episode, “Stronger Than Steele”. Dethklok arethe stars of the Adult Swim cartoon, Metalocalypse. “Stupid Human Tricks” is a real Tonight Show segment.
• The Cybertronix on the left reads “Cowabunga”, catchphrase of Coleman's character Michelangelo on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
• The Ancient Autobot across the bottom of the page translates as “Animalia Arthropoda Chelicerata Arachnida Parasitiformes Ixodidae Ixodoidea”, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, subfamily, tribe and genus of... the Tick. Har har.

Pg 79 – Oh boy, here we go. This three-page summary of “This Is Why I Hate Machines” takes the form of an issue of “Alternity Today”, a multiversal newspaper named for the Alternity, the hyper-evolved Autobots of the future who watch over the multiverse, from the Japanese toyline of the same name. This page is absolutely busting at the seams with references. Let's take 'em as they come.

• The Cybertronix on the left of the header says “Bored now,” a quote from the evil vampire version of Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The price is also in Cybertronix: it's 1.00 Shanix (see page 26).
• The actor playing Shockwave in Sentinel's propaganda film is revealed to be an Animated version of Hoist, in reference to Generation 1 Hoist's stint as an actor in the G1 cartoon episode “Hoist Goes Hollywood”.
• Rosanna's concert was in the Rad Zone, an irradiated area of Cybertron from issue #78 of the Generation 1 Marvel comic.
• Nearer, My Spark, to Thee paraphrases the hymn, “Nearer, My God, to Thee”. This article mentions Zebres (Headmaster component of Cybertron Base from Takara's Robot Masters series), Aero-Bot (of the Playskool Go-Bots) and the X-Dimension (home of the Takara-exclusive repaints, the X-Dimension Mini-Cons). We also get a new universal stream designator: Yayayarst 201.11 Beta. This refers to the previously-unnamed Playskool Go-Bots continuity family, and appears to single out its starting point as the release of the 1-2-3 Transformer toy, Rescue Roy.
• Secret Agent Men is titled after the song by Johnny Rivers, “Secret Agent Man”. This article recounts an attempt by Mainframe (from the “Rise of the Chevy Autobots” online game) to capture the heads of the Los Bogos project (Los Bogus was a resort from the Robots in Disguise episode, “Commandos”) that was foiled by Sector 7 (from the live-action Transformers movie; the story continues on page S7, ho ho). The project leaders are Stuart G. Power from Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future, Doctor Braxisfrom Challenge of the GoBots (here named “Thadius”, but in the GoBots cartoon, his name was actually Zebediah), Amadeus Sharp from Bionic Six, Emmett Benton from Jem and the Holograms and Crystal Kane from Centurions. [Mainframe hails from Tyran 307.27 Zeta, the universal stream for the 2007 Transformers film prequel novel, Ghosts of Yesterday.]
• Across the Great Divide is the title of a 1976 movie. This article kicks off by establishing for the first time a universal stream designator for Robots in Disguise, Viron, when describing Decepticons Dreadwind and Smokejumper (whose universal stream of origin is traced to the release of their toy in April 2003). They have “locked the Lunar Battle of 2011 in a repeated time loop”, prompting the Autobots to invent the Challenge Blaster to intervene. The reference here is a deeeeep one. The Lunar Battle spoken of is the battle seen in the opening sequence of The Headmasters (it plays every episode, hence, repeating time loop, you get it?) The precise universal stream designator given, however, is the airdate of the Headmasters episode, “Explosion on Mars!! Maximus Is in Danger”, which was when the opening was modified to interact with the real-life Challenge Blaster light gun, which children could fire at the screen to gain points. The Autobot Science Harmonium comes from Dreamwave's The Dark Ages comic.
• Something Organic This Way Comes paraphrases the quote from Shakespeare's Macbeth, “Something wicked this ways comes.”
• The general plot of the “Unchained Memory” article (named after the song "Unchained Melody", originally from the prison film Unchained) is a parody of the Generation 1 cartoon episode “Starscream's Brigade”, but with Autobots instead of Decepticons. The story continues on page G2 (for Generation 2). Characters and places mentioned are:
• Ulchtar (the pre-release name of G1 Starscream) from the continuity of “The Energon Within”, the video game included on the free CD-ROM that came with the first wave of Universe toys (seriously!).
• The satellite penitentiary of the planet Zone (introduced in the Victory episode “Get Back Gaihawk”, when the planet was still known as Micro) from the continuity of the Super-God Masterforce, Victory and Zone mangas, which splinters off from the Japanese cartoon timeline with the publication of the first issue of Masterforce.
• Screechwing and Spiketail, unreleased redecoes of Beast Wars Sonar and Stinkbomb planned for the Beast Machines toyline.
• Nightprowler and Leatherhide, unreleased redecoes of Beast Wars Cheetor and Soundwave planned for the Universe toyline.
• Albitron, an aborted exclusive for the unofficial convention Transcon² who would have been a redeco of the alligator version of Beast Wars Megatron.
• This quintet's combined form, Toxitron, an unreleased redeco of Generation 2 Laser Optimus Prime. In case you didn't figure it out, the theme of the team is unreleased redecos!
• In the “@ALT2DAY.com” inset box, the Voltronic Multiverser (an amped-up version of the Voltronic Galaxer from the G1 cartoon episode “Blaster Blues”) is reported to have discovered a new universal stream: Xobitor 1085.06 Alpha, the world of the Robotix cartoon (which premiered on October 6, 1985). “Xobitor”, of course, is just an anagram of “Robotix”. More importantly, Alt2Day.com is a real website – click here for annotations for it!
• “Is That a Whig” finally gives a surname to Alexis from the Armada cartoon; in naming her “Thi Dang”, the Almanac realizes the Vietnamese ethnicity originally intended for the character. The illustration is of the character as she appeared in the Energon series, and she has finally begun moving towards her childhood dreaming of being President. The writing behind her is the language of the Visitors from V; translated, it is their tagline, “We are of peace”.
• Across the bottom of the page is an ad for “Ai-surance”, a parody of insurance company Esurance Inc, complete with Robots in Disguise T-AI (or “Ai”, as she's known in Japan) in the role of mascot Erin Esurance. Other insurance companies are parodied in the ad, primarily GEICO, which is represented by jokes based around their two most famous mascots: a gecko and a caveman. In reference to the gecko, the parody company is named after a breed of gecko, TOKAY, while a Generation 1 Sharkticon takes the place of the caveman in their famous slogan, “Even a caveman can do it”. Other companies spoofed include Kaiser Permanente (Kaiser Sozenente, named for the master criminal from the movie The Usual Suspects) and American Mutual (AllSpark Mutual).

Pgs 80-81 – The references just keep coming in this double-page newspaper spread.

• We'll start with the horoscopes on the left, named Astroscopes for the Armada Mini-Con of the same name. The map at the top of the column is the map from the movie Time Bandits. The signs are Xal (see page 21), Chronarchitect (an ancient god and overseer of time from the BotCon storyline, “Reaching the Omega Point”), the Void (see page 25), Shokaract (megalomaniacal BotCon 2000 exclusive; those born under this sign are “hunters”, which Shockaract was before gaining his power), the Core (the organic core of Cybertron from Beast Machines; the end of Beast Machines is referenced with the implication that Megatron is a Voidian [According to Jim, it's actually meant to be the sentient core of the universe seen in the Marvel The Transformers comic, although potentially, he could be mixing the concepts together here]), Serpent O.R. (an android version of the G.I. Joe emperor, from the Devil's Due G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers universe), Yggdrasil (a huge tree on the planet Greengard from the Beast Wars Neo manga), the Key (Sari's AllSpark key), the Golden Disk (see page 38) and Aquarius (a planet from the Beast Wars Neo episode, “Personal Combat in the Deep Sea!!” [According to Jim, though it's the Shattered Glass Quintesson introduced in "Reunification".]). Their respective Cybertronian months are Ferruneon (“Ferrum” is Latin for “iron”, but I'd like to think there's more to it than that), Navitaneon (perhaps from the Japanese Beast Wars NAVI computers), Primaneon (evidently from Prime, Prima, Primus...), Inrituneon (?), Chokoneon (from Chokon Power, the mysterious energy of Super-God Masterforce), Zetca- (a Godmaster warrior from Masterforce; the hyphen suggests this might have been supposed to be “Zetcaneon”), Boltaneon (from Boltax, guardian of the Underbase in the G1 Marvel comics), Rokuneon and Heptaneon (“roku” is Japanese for “six” and “hepta” is Greek for “seven”, but these are the eighth and ninth months – apparently, even Cybertron's calendar fell foul to a revision that left some of the months' names making no sense, like the Gregorian calender did with September onwards) and Bahneon (?). The illustrations of the constellations themselves are mostly self-explanatory, but in a particularly cute reference, the stars for Cronarchitect form the shape of a racoon with an hourglass: a reference to the time-manipulating Beast Wars Neo character, Heinrad. In the Beast Wars Neo manga, Heinrad served the “Ruler of Time and Space” - perhaps this being is the Chronarchitecht himself!
• The weather report below the episode summary mentions the Devastator Winds (for which Revenge of the Fallen Devastator is named, according to his bio), which are buffeting the Tri-torus area; “Torus states” is a term for the regions of Cybertron introduced in Dreamwave's The War Within comics. The report is given by Pipo of the Micromaster Rescue Patrol Team from Victory. The winds have brought all landcross service to a halt; Landcross is the combined form of Victory's Multiforce.
• NY6991 is the badge number of Officer Ricky Walsh in Die Hard: With a Vengance.
• The weather forecast reveals a few Cybertronian days of the week, all named after writers who have worked on Transformers cartoons: Wolsol (Marv Wolfman), Dixosol (Buzz Dixon) and Wisesol (David Wise).
• The article about the Robotix universe continues on this page, with the features of the universe being described; the planet from the show, Skalorr, is a version of Cybertron, and it's computer, Compu-core, is a node of Vector Sigma. It is noted that Cybertron was also once known as Skalorr in Primax 698.20 Theta, the world of the BotCon 1998 script-reading, “Visitations”. Mention is also made of Xobitor 286.0 Gamma, the world of Marvel's one-issue Robotix comic book. All of these discoveries were made by a synthoid Protector (synthoids are artificial humans from the G.I. Joe cartoon who also appeared in the Geneation 1 episode “Only Human”; the Protectors are the agents of the Alternity; Protector Elita Seven is also a synthoid) named Hacker X-9 (named after Real Gear Robot Hacker X-3) from the continuity of the 2007 live-action movie's “Capture the Cube” online video game. Additionally, X-9 was also the Japanese ID number of the Beast Wars incarnation of Ravage; could this Protector be Ravage in a synthoid body?
• Another new universal stream provided by this article is Gargent, the world of the Tonka GoBots. Streams mentioned are 984.08 Alpha, the Challenge of the GoBots cartoon, and -1084.22 Alpha, which is surely supposed to be the evil GoBots mirror universe from the episode “Transfer Point”, though the airdate doesn't line up. The Gargent cluster was discovered by Advenas and Silverbolt of the TransTech universe, which is here given the designator of Nexus for the first time.
• The stock ticker at the bottom begins with a chart for Dirk Manus Industrial Average; Manus was a con man from the Generation 1 cartoon episode “Money Is Everything”. [It also references the real-world Dow Jones Industrial Average]. References in the ticker are: ConSec (from the movie Scanners), GENOM (from Bubblegum Crisis), O.C.P. (from Robocop), Rearden Steel (from Ayn Rand novel Atlas Shrugged), Umbrella Corp (from the Resident Evil video games), Ziktor Industries (from V.R. Troopers), Rekall (from Total Recall), Veridian Dynamics (from Better Off Ted), Damage Inc. (the title of a Metallic song), ZikZak (from Max Headroom), Universal Exports (from the James Bond movies), TyrellCo (from Blade Runner), Gizmonic (from Mystery Science Theatre 3000), Asimov Fnd. (named for Isaac Asimov's Foundation series of novels), Biffco (from Back to the Future II), Rossum (from Dollhouse, itself named for Rossum's Univeral Robots, the Czech play that created the word “robot”), Summako (from the 2009 remake of The Prisoner), ウェイランド湯谷 (Weyland-Yutani, from the Alien film series), Yoyodyne (originally from Thomas Pynchon's V), Blue Sun (from Firefly), Spacely Sprockets(from The Jetsons), Extensive Enterprises (from G.I. Joe), SkyNet (from the Terminator movies), Curious Goods (from the Friday the 13^th TV series), Strickland Fuels(from King of the Hill), S-Mart (from the Evil Dead film series) and Sirius Cybernetics (from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, mispelled “Sirus”).
• If you can believe it, even the numbers on the stock ticker are references! Once divested of their decimal points, they represent certain issues of different comic books: the negative numbers denote an issue in which a character of note died (specifically, characters who have REMAINED dead, or at least, were still dead at the time the Almanac was published!), while the positive numbers are of issues in which someone made their first appearance. They are:

Deaths:

Spectacular Spider-Man #107 - Jean DeWolff

X-Men #108 - Moira MacTaggart

Amazing Spider-Man #121 - Gwen Stacy

Uncanny X-Men #136 - Jean Grey

Amazing Spider-Man #294 - Kraven the Hunter (who has since been resurrected!)

Cerebus the Aardvark #300 – The title character

Uncanny X-Men #486 - Corsair and D'Ken

Action Comics #601 - Katma Tui

Batman #673 - Joe Chill

Detective Comics #818 – Ventriloquist

Action Comics #870 - Jonathan Kent

Action Comics #871 – Doomsday

First appearances:

Flash #106 - Gorilla Grodd

Strange Tales #110 - Doctor Strange

Batman #121 - Mr. Freeze

Amazing Spider-Man #129 – Punisher

Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #134 – Darkseid

Incredible Hulk #181 – Wolverine

Batman #181 - Poison Ivy (181 appears twice)

Action Comics #242 – Brainiac

Uncanny X-Men #244 – Jubilee

Uncanny X-Men #266 – Gambit

Adventure Comics #283 - General Zod

Thor #337 - Beta Ray Bill

Batman #357 - Jason Todd

Amazing Spider-Man #441 - Mattie Franklin

Detective Comics #523 - Killer Croc

Pg 81b - And finally, the crossword. There are some mistakes present in it that impede solving it, which we will note as we go along. Many answers simply involve abbreviating the clue into an acronym (for example, the answer to 14 across, “Isotropic weight”, is simply “IW”). The answers are, in order and with notes on their origin where appropriate:

ACROSS

1. Transformation Lock Virus, employed by Megatron in Beast Machines.

12. Bic (a company that makes pens)

13. PI (Private Investigator) (Nightbeat's a detective, see)

14. IW

15. HP (Hit Points)

16. NRT (The Night Rescue Team is from the Classics toyline)

18. Meow (Ravage is a cat, see)

20. Vilna, capital of Lithuania

23. Subplot

26. Fermi, one of the scientists who worked with J. Robber Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project.

27. Her

29. ECG (Electrocardiography)

30. YA; Yuss is a province of Cybertron from the UK annual story, “The Magnificent Six”

31. HI, abbreviation for Hawaii, where the Aqua Raider Team battled in the Armada “Linkage” mini-comics

32. Novaroid, servants of Dark Nova from the Battlestars storyline

35. US (Notably, the US is said to have 53 states; the map of the US on the Burger Bot placemat indicates that Puerto Rico and Wales have become states, presumably making Washington DC the 53rd.)

37. AC (Alternate Current)

38. Ad

39. RN (registered nurse); Paradron Medics appeared in the Generation 1 cartoon episode, “Fight or Flee”

40. IX (nine)

41. Laos, where Starscream was spotted on March 12^th, 1982, in the “Hungry Dragon” alternate reality game that promoted the live-action Transformers movie

42. Attacktix – misspelled as “Attactix”

44. PSI

46. KC; another goof, this ought to be KK for “King Kong”. Rather than point fingers, though, let's pretend it stands for “King Con!”, issue #54 of the Marvel Generation 1 comic, in which Iguanus scales the Empire State Building.

47. Map

49. Yr (year)

50. RO (Routine order?)

51. EV (Extra-vehicular)

53. To

54. OO; “00 gauge” is the most popular scale of model railway, at 1:76 scale. How do we make the railway connection? The “Grandpa” mentioned in the clue was a train in the Robots in Disguise episode, “Secret Weapon: D-5”.

55. Mrs, a reference to Micromaster San D-Go’s failed plan to marry team-mate Discharge

57. Airs

60. Art

61. TV, a reference to the Generation 1 Junkions and the fact that their leader Wreck-Gar was voiced in The Transformers: The Movie by British star Eric Idle. Rubbish was one of the generic Junkions named by The Complete Ark. This clue is actually 61 DOWN, not across.

62. Cybernet Space Cube, the computer-generated addition to the Generation 2 cartoon

66. Vis, as in “vis-scanners”, and so forth

68. Ca (carbon)

69. La

70. AK, Alaska, where these two Mini-Cons were located in the Armada Playstation 2 video game

71. Cry

72. ET (extra-terrestrial)

74. Re

75. Jib

78. Frijoles, born of a silly little joke on the TFWiki, which gave an article to the “Frijoles”, after woeful Unicron Trilogy stereotype Carlos exclaimed “Holy Frijoles” in the Energon episode, “Cybertron City”

81. Ag

83. Ice; water is the cure for Scraplets (see page 57)

85. Ales

87. Knok, Autobot Powermaster partner to Doubledealer, who had a second bat-like Powermaster named Skar. Here, Skar is revealed to be a Nebulon bolt-bat; Cybertronic bolt-bats were mentioned in the Generation 1 cartoon episode “S.O.S. Dinobots”

88. BA

89. Ming, of Flash Gordon fame

91. NEBE

93. Zod, from Challenge of the GoBots

95. Wig, referring to the time Beast Wars Megatron donned a judge’s wig in the episode “Other Victories”

97. Etna

99. Lion, referring to Beast Wars II “father and son” duo, Lio Convoy and Lio Junior, who both transformed into lions

101. Virulent Clones, who were spawned on the planet Ceti Alpha Seven in the BotCon exclusive story, “Descent into Evil”

105. SD, South Dakota, location of Mount Rushmore

106. Dab

108. Lio, a misspelling of Victory Autobot Victory Leo’s name

109. PSA, referring to the public service announcements Bumblebee, Tracks and other Autobots starred in for the Generation 1 cartoon

110. Rou, from BotCon exclusive character Roulette

111. AZ, Arizona, location of the Grand Canyon

112. TAI, referring to T-AI, the Autobot computer from Robots in Disguise, who identified the Generation 1 computer, Teletraan I, as her father

114. NBE, from the live-action Transformers movies

116. sic

118. Syli. The Quintessons had no specific currency in past fiction; Sorenson admits he used this word, the currency of Guinea from 1971 to 1985, to make 90 down fit.

119. Armornecking, clearly drawn from the human term “rubbernecking,” used in the bio for Generation 1 Getaway

125. Nov (November)

127. Peal

128. TGO

129. Dine

130. OD (overdose)

131. Lair

134. DL (down-low)

135. Orbit Disruptor Cannon, from the Generation 1 episode “B.O.T.”

140. PR

141. Ace

142. Tarn, a Cybertronian city and Shockwave’s hometown per the UK annual story “State Games”

143. NJ, New Jersey, noted to exist on the planet Ganzvort in the bio of Generation 1 Rewind)

144. TOE (Theory of Everything)

145. Fuzors, the Beast Wars characters who were a fusion of two animals

150. IED (Improvised Explosive Device)

151. EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, whose agent Walter Peck bedevilled the Ghostbusters in their film

154. TN, Tennessee, though the Ark-19 was only crippled over Tennessee, and actually crashed in the Gulf of Mexico, in IDW’s Devastation series

156. NN

157. Gobotron, home planet of the GoBots. A controversial question, claiming Wheelie comes from Gobotronic parentage!

160. EA

162. Coda, the dropped sub-title of the final four issues of IDW’s All Hail Megatron series

164. Ambassador of Destruction, grandiose title of Super-God Masterforce Deceopticon Overlord

DOWN

1. TB

2. R Infinity Accelerator, from IDW’s “Spotlight: Ultra Magnus”

3. Acre

4. OPE

5. Rio, Portugese for river; this clue carries on the joke that the Cybertronian language “Malignus” is the same as Earth’s Portugese (see page 36)

6. III, the Intelligence and Information Institute, from the Generation 1 Marvel comics

7. Owled (groan)

8. Oh

9. CPS

10. Impactor, leader of the Autobot strike time the Wreckers, who first appeared in the UK Marvel Comics story “Target: 2006”

11. UFO; the Autobots wouldn’t believe Daniel Witwicky when he claimed to have seen a UFO in the Headmasters episode, “Return of the Immortal Emperor”

17. Try

18. Mini-Con

19. Whalers; Generation 1 Pretender Longtooth developed a fixation on a whale-like alien in issue #64 of the Generation 1 Marvel comic, while Jonagar was a ship Kup flew into the mouth of a space whale, per a story he told in the cartoon episode “Chaos”

20. Vroom; the Asphalt Wars were mentioned in his bio

21. DC

22. Agua

24. Byracrane, a bear Transformers cult from the Beast Wars Neo manga

25. Tad

28. Era

31. HRP

33. Ox

34. Isaac – Sumdac, that is!

36. Sty; Beast Wars Razorbeast transforms into a wild boar

38. Axe

43. True

45. Sob

46. Koraja, as named in the Marvel Comics Headmasters mini-series

48. Pie, an ancient fandom joke

52. Vase

55. Mt (mount)

56. Sparkdrinker, the axe wielded by Cybertron Metroplex

58. RCCL, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. Trypticon fired on a ship off the coast of Carbombya in the Generation 1 cartoon episode “Thief in the Night”, though that ship belonged to “Luxury Cruises”

59. Sure, as in Generation 1 Targetmater Sureshot

62. CC

63. EL (extra life)

64. Akin

65. By

67. Iran; Prince Jumal appeared in the Generation 1 cartoon episode “Aerial Assault”, but the Middle Eastern country he ruled was not named

73. Timaeus Project, the experiment that essentially transformed the Autobots of the future into the Alternity, from the toyline of the same name

76. IL, Illinois, saved by the Air Defense Mini-Con Team in the UK Panini Armada comics

77. Be

79. Jowl

80. Okie

81. Abel, killed by Sixshot in the Headmasters episode “Terror! The Six Shadows”

82. Gator; alloygators were first mentioned in the BotCon exclusive story “Games of Deception”, and Generation 1 Action Master Krok’s partner Gatoraider is here retconned into being one

83. In

84. Ebi, Japanese for “shrimp”. Like the Malignus/Portugese joke, the book present “Destron” as being the same as Earth’s Japanese (see page 28)

86. SZV

90. Godzilla, mentioned with this descriptor in the third issue of Marvel’s Generation 1 comic.

92. EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal)

94. Oil

96. GNP (Gross National Product)

98. NNO

100. NATO (Russia joined NATO in Titan's alternate "Twilight's Last Gleaming" movieverse comic.)

102. UOBI

103. TSS; the Toxic Sludge Swamp comes from Generation 1 Snap Trap’s bio

104. Cain, from Zone

105. Salad; lead sulphide crystals were a favourite of the Mecannibals from the Generation 1 Marvel comic

107. Bar; Maccadam’s has been covered already and will be seen again the book, but the Black Hole Bar and Grill appeared in issue #52 of the Generation 1 Marvel comic

113. INDD

115. EN (the letter n)

117. Colander (Strain-R is not an Allspark mutation who has appeared in any previous fiction)

118. Bit of a screw-up here: there is no 118 down. There is, however, a two-letter word running dowards one square right of 118 across, with no number, to which this clue is supposed to be attached. The anawer is “Ye”.

120. RGR

121. Mobat, a G.I. Joe vehicle

122. EII

123. CNS (central nervous system)

124. Got

126. Van

131. Dot

133. Inn

136. Icons

137. Teens; the Headmaster Teens were Japanese-exclusive Headmaster heads who came without a body of their own

138. Rains

139. CRE

140. PITE; Powerglide referred to Astoria Carlton-Ritz as a “pain in the afterburner” in the Generation 1 cartoon episode “The Girl Who Loved Powerglide”

145. FGD (flue-gas desulphurization)

146. UOO (University of Oxford). Heath Blaisedale appeared in the Generation 1 audio book, “Sun Raid”

147. ZBR; Zobovor is the screen name of Transformers fan Dave Edwards

148. OOO

149. RTF (rich text format)

152. POI

153. Ado, from the title of Shakespeare’s play

[155.NM, as in New Mexico, where the base was located in the Devil's Due G.I. Joe crossover, The Art of War.]

158. RD (red dwarf)

159. OE

161. Au

163. An

The word jumble unscrambles to read “neutron laser demagnetizer cannon”, the weapon of Screech, Action Master partner to European exclusive character Take-Off. Why is it a “good tool for an eagle scout”? Because that’s what Take-Off’s bio calls Screech!

Pg 82 - “Endgame, Part I” is timecoded with the star date of Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Lower Decks”. Prowl's shuttle is given the name Dawn Treader, after the ship from The Chronicles of Narnia.

Cybertronix on this page:

• The header reads: “Do not waste your time searching for those wasted years”, lyrics from Iron Maiden's “Wasted Years”.
• Behind the Dawn Treader are the lyrics to the opening theme of Speed Racer.
• The text behind the listening device is the opening paragraph of the instruction manual to the video game Mars Saga.
• The footer reads: “Second star to the right, and straight on till morning”, the directions to Neverland from Peter Pan.

Pg 83 – The final episode summary contains the following Cybertronix:

• The header is an Ask Vector Prime:
• Q: Was Dion rebuilt into anybody?
• A: Which Dion? Celine Dion? I loved Titanic.
• It refers to the Generation 1 cartoon episode “War Dawn”, in which Orion Pax is rebuilt into Optimus Prime. Fans have often wondered if Orion's friend Dion was similarly rebuilt, with Ultra Magnus and Ironhide being potential candidates. Vector Prime is... not helpful. :)
• To the left of the damaged Starscream is “As you from crimes would pardon'd be, let your indulgence set me free,” a quote from Shakespeare's The Tempest.
• Behind Starscream are the romanized Japanese lyrics of “Ano Hi Ni”, theme tune to the anime Video Girl Ai.
• The footer is the final Ask Vector Prime:
• Q: Is the unique digital entity mentioned in Armada Primus?
• A: Indeed.
• This refers to the opening narration of the first episode of Armada, which mentioned a “unique digital entity” responsible for creation the Transformers.

Pg 89 – Fans began calling the rock mosters from “TransWarped” Rock Lords as soon they appeared on the show, after the Tonka GoBots spin-off that featured the questionable concept of transforming rocks. Here, the name is canonized, and Tutorbot 2.0 pops in to tell us that the Animated Rock Lords are just another species native to the planet Quartex, where the Tonka Rock Lords live.

Pgs 92-93 – Ninja Gladiator appeared in “Where Is Thy Sting?”, complete with background featuring TORQ III (from the Generation 1 cartoon episode “Day of the Machines”) and fighters Antron (from Micronauts) and Snake-Eyes (from G.I. Joe). The Almanac expands massively on the premise of a video game starring characters from other franchises, and this naturally leads to a big ol' pile of references.

• Ninja Gladiator is produced by Flippy-Floppy Industries, the company that produced the Multi-World video game from issue #24 of the Generation 1 Marvel comic.
• [Snake-Eyes is fighting a monster on the cover that, despite being labelled as Ssslither, is actually the monster from underneath Destro's castle from G.I. Joe episode "Sins of the Father".]
  • The main plot of Ninja Gladiator involves the Inhumanoids, monsters who were the star of their own self-titled Hasbro toyline and cartoon, attacking Metro City, setting for Robots in Disguise. To the quartet of Inhumanoids from the series (Metlar, Tendril, D'Compose and Ssslither) is added Hojoni, a Godzilla stand-in who appeared on a billboard in the Generation 1 episode “Kremzeek!” The game's warriors have assembled because the Inhumanoids' traditional enemies, the Earth Corps, are busy helping Emment Bentonfrom Jem and the Holograms battle the Lunartix Empire, aliens from G.I. Joe.
  • The game's barcode is 91939, a secret code used by Batman in the Justice League episode “A Better World”, itself a reference to the publication date of Batman's first appearance in Detective Comics, September 19, 1939.
  • The game's playable characters are Hudson from Gargoyles, Big Boss from C.O.P.S., Felina from SWAT Kats, Slaughter Steelgrave from Starriors, Gizmo from Superbook (here given his Ukranian name Robik), Miles Mayhem from MASK, Brett from Turbo Teen and HGBG, short for Hideous Giant Brain Guy, the affectionate nickname given by TFWiki to an alien with a hideous giant brain from the Marvel UK comic story, “Deadly Games!” His attack, the Ego Whip, is a psychic attack from Dungeons and Dragons.
  • Each character's “special move” code is a real code from a real video game. Big Boss's is the super armor code from Megaman X4, Felina's is the survival mode code from Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo Revival, Steelgrave's is the infinite ammo code from Call of Duty: Finest Hour, Robik's is the invincibility code from the Sega 32X version of Doom, Mayhem's is the code for “Dark Metamorphosis” from Castlevania: Symphony of Night, Brett's is the combination for “Zelda's Lullaby” in Zelda: Ocarina of Time, HGBG's is the “Get the Tank” code from Grand Theft Auto III, and the “secret code” at the bottom of the manual is the ubiquitous “Konami Code” included in many of that company's games. Hudson's, however, eludes me (and seems very, very complicated!).

Pg 96 – The brand name of Sari's scooter, Secord, is derived from the real name of pulp comic hero the Rocketeer, Cliff Secord. Because it's also a jetpack, get it? The brand of turbines, Bader, appears to be a reference to famous WWII fighter pilot, Douglas Bader.

Pg 97a – “Thanatos-class” ships are named for the Thanatos, the ship commanded by the Generation 1 Predacons from IDW's comics. “Doomsday-class” ships, meanwhile, after named for the Doomsday, the Decepticon ship seen briefly in the opening of Armada attempting to stop the Mini-Cons fleeing Cybertron. Named Doomsday-class ships are the Nemesis (the Decepticon flagship from the Generation 1 cartoon, first named in Beast Wars) and the Darksyde (the Predacons' ship from Beast Wars). Thanatos-class ships are armed with omega whip cannons (from the manga “Full Throttle Scramble Power!”) and starblitz torpedoes (among the armament of the aforementioned Thanatos from IDW). Strika's ship is named the Kalis' Lament, after the starshpi from the Fun Publications story “The Dark Heart of Sandokan”, itself named for the Cybertronian city that was overrun by zombies in the UK Marvel comic story, “City of Fear!”.

Pg 97b – In addition to the recognizable Dai Atlas, the “avatars” for the Great War board game are Animated versions of Cybertron Wing Saber, Operation Combination's Scrash and Armada Sideways. The original Scrash was never actually seen; fans believe that had he been, he would have been based on the European-exclusive toy Skyquake, and this Animatedcharacter bears out that theory. Sideways is a particularly interesting one: the Armada character is a known dimension-hopper - every other character with the name Sideways is a variation of this guy, except for Revenge of the Fallen Sideways. A square on the board game overleaf confirms that Animated Sideways came from another dimension (indicating that he is the Armada character), while the body design he is sporting in the illustration on this page shares many similarities with ROTF Sideways, suggesting that they are the same character after all! More on this on page 144!

Pgs 98-99 – Hoo mercy! Guess we'll just have to go through this square by square!

• The Japanese text by Yoketron reads: “Musabetsu Kakuto Ryuu”, or “Anything-Goes Martial Arts”, from Ranma ½.
• The “new recruit” pictured is an Animated version of Generation 1 Bombshell.
• Vehicon is a planet mentioned in the Robot Masters storyline, home of Reverse Convoy.
• Antilla is a planet from the Generation 1 cartoon episode “Cosmic Rust” (see pg 30).
• Bk'n is a planet mentione in the UK annual story “Another Time and Place”.
• Zone is, of course, the planet from the series of the same name.
• Combatron is a world from the Fun Publications story, “Force of Habit”.
• Planet V is the Autobots' planetary headquarters from Victory.
• Velocitron is one of the colony worlds from Cybertron.
• Beta is a star system containing Beta 4 (mentioned in The Transformers: The Movie) and Beta 9 (from the Fun Publications comic, “Wings of Honor”).
• Animatron is a new name, apparently derived from Animatros, the Japanese name for Jungle Planet from Cybertron. Perhaps an attempt to give the planet a real English name?
• The Salvvatan system appeared in IDW's “Spotlight: Metroplex”.
• Gigantion is another of the colony worlds from Cybertron.
• The Vespa system was were Beast Wars Rattrap worked as a miner, according to the episode “Dark Voyage”.
• Pages 114-115 establish that Omnitron is the world of Energon's Omnicons, seen briefly in a flashback in the episode “Survival Instincts”.
• Paradron is a peaceful planet from the Generation 1 cartoon episode “Fight or Flee”.
• An Animated version of Beast Wars Inferno.
• Elba is a planet from Challenge of the GoBots (see pg 36).
• Goo is a planet from the Generation 1 cartoon mini-series, “Five Faces of Darkness”.
• The Underbase was a computer that was the focus a four issue arc in the Generation 1 Marvel comic, from issue #47-50.
• Let's take the right path here, and come back to the left one later! The text beside these Animated versions of Runabout and Runamuck is written in another font created in the 90s by Jim Sorenson, based on graffiti symbols drawn by these two characters in issue #23 of the Generation 1 Marvel comic. It reads:
• “This game sucks tailpipe.”
• “Hee hee, you said tailpipe.”
• The Vestial Imperium appeared in the Fun Publications comic, “Cheap Shots”.
• The Immobilizer was invented by Generation 1 Wheeljack in the cartoon episode “The Immobilizer”.
• Just under Wheeljack is the game's copyright info: it is copyright (with a C in Ancient Autobot) Butler Brothers, a game company from Robocop. The code 934-TX was a running gag in Adult Swim show Sealab 2021.
• An Animated version of live-action movie Frenzy.
• Devcon was a bounty hunter from the Generation 1 cartoon episode “The Gambler”. Both he and Cryotek, a repaint of Transmetal 2 Beast Wars Megatron, appeared the BotCon Universe comic.
• This is probably supposed to say Lithones, the inhabitants of the planet Lithone from The Transformers: The Movie, rather than Lithons.
• Carzap would have been a repaint of Generation 2 Windbreaker released by Takara as part of their LEGO-esque Block Town line, but he got cancelled. This Animated character is even sporting his white, pink and purple paintjob!
• Strike Force Alpha was a unit briefly seen in the UK annual story “And There Shall Come... A Leader!”
• We've covered Cosmic Rust plenty by this stage (see pg 21).
• Okay, let's go back to that left path. We start with Animated versions of Generation 1 Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, followed a few squares later by Hound and not-pictured Trailbreaker.
• The Divine Light of Archa IX appeared in the BotCon Universe comics
• Squadron X and the planet Pova both appeared in IDW's Last Stand of the Wreckers comic book mini-series.
• Straxus smelted Generation 1 Scrounge in issue #17 of the G1 Marvel comic. The text besides Straxus reads: “Victory points are not dispensed to Autobots... only death!”, paraphrasing Straxus's most famous quote about mercy from that same issue.
• An Animated version of Generation 1 Astrotrain.
• An Animated version of Generation 1 Repugnus.
• An Animated version of Super God Masterforce's Overlord. The illustration is based on Overlord's appearance in Zone, with his elaborate helmet, while his abandonment of the Decepticon cause is another reference to IDW's Last Stand of the Wreckers. The fact that he's drawn with Autobot-blue optics is probably tied into this.
• And now our paths are lined up again, and we get the aforementioned square that notes Sideways's arrival from another dimension.
• Tyrest is a region of Cybertron introduced in the UK comic story “City of Fear!
• Gygax is a region of Cybertron introduced in the Fun Publications story “Dungeons and Dinobots”, named for Dungeons and Dragons creator Gary Gygax.
• The Maximal Cybertronix behind Ultra Magnus in the top right is very small and mostly obscured, but what we can decipher of it tells us that it's a Transformers version of Winston Churchill's “We shall fight on the beaches” speech. It begins “We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in Vehicon. We shall fight on Antilla and Vespa...” and the majority of the rest is hidden behind Magnus. [Here it is in full]:
• We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in Vehicon, we shall fight on Antilla and Vespa, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in space, we shall defend our planet, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight in the canyons, we shall fight at the spaceports, we shall fight in the asteroid fields and on the moons, we shall fight in torus states; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this planet or a large part of it were subjugated and energon deprived, then our Commonwealth beyond the stars, armed and guarded by the Autobot Navy, would carry on the struggle, until, in sparks good time, the Expansion, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the homeworld.
• Gold Plastic Syndrome (see pg 24).
• The Eight Track is a ship from Fun Publications' “Wings of Honor”.
• Floron III is a planet from the G1 cartoon episode “Quest for Survival”.
• Animated versions of Moonradar (a Micromaster from Zone; the Japanese version of the American Countdown) and Gigatron (the Japanese name of Robots in DisguiseMegatron).
• The Atlas War on Combatron refers to King Atlas, ruler of the planet.
• Machine Wars was a small Transformers toyline from 1997.
• Pangea was the Japanese name of the starship on Gigantion in Cybertron. In English, it was the Lemuria.
• See the crossword on page 81 for the Asphalt Wars.
• The Vespa system and its mines again.
• [The "Energon Wars" was the name of an expansion pack to The Transformers: 3-D Battle Card game.]
• The desert planet Praun appeared in the Headmasters episode “The Four-Million-Year-Old Veil of Mystery”.
• The Lava Wars were also something mentioned in Last Stand of the Wreckers.
• Alpha IX was mentioned by Kup in The Transformers: The Movie; it is home to petro-rabbits, for whom the Petro Wars are named.
• Time Wars was the title of an epic serial from the UK Marvel comics.
• Data Wars was the name of a Universe action figure two pack containing Clocker and Hardtop.
• See page 30 for the War of the Waves.
• The Riker War is named after Governer Riker from Victory.
• I don't really have to explain Beast Wars to you, do I? Another reference to Animatron as well, furthering the notion that it's supposed to be a real name for Jungle Planet.
• The Beta system again. The Dust Wars refer to its exceptionally thick dust, as mentioned in The Transformers: The Movie.
• The Decepticon font beside Strika reads “Terminate”, the phrase her Beast Machines incarnation bellowed throughout the episode “Sparkwar Pt. I”.
• The Tyrest Accord is an agreement from IDW's comics.
• Now let's end by hopping over to the “Time Loop”. Here we see an Animated version of Revenge of the Fallen Skids falling victim to a Limbo parasite. Limbo was introduced in issue #100 of the UK Marvel comic; Generation 1 Skids met the same fate at the hands of its slimy inhabitants as his namesake here soon after.

Pg 102 – The sonic canyons are a region of Cybertron originally mentioned in Generation 1 Siren's bio. The first thing to be called a Matrix Chamber was, amusingly, not related to the concept of new Transformer life at all: it was an energy-generating device from the Robots in Disguise episode, “The Hunt for Black Pyramid”. “Sacred impliment”, meanwhile, is a term used on TakaraTomy's “World of Transformers” website to refer to the objects that give Transformers' life, like the Matrix of Leadership, the live-action movie Allspark, and Vector Sigma, the mega-computer from Generation 1 also mentioned on this page.

Pg 103 – The planet Fabricon appeared in the Challenge of the GoBots episode “A New Suit for Leader-1”.

Pg 104-105 – Lots of stuff!

• Most of the attacks and skills of the characters listed here are shared by the original characters upon whom they are based. Exceptions include Devcon's Goongala Staves(“goongala” is the battle cry of Casey Jones from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Heavy Load's Build Typhoon assault (that's the Robots in Disguise character's original Japanese name) and Road Rocket's Mach Speeder kick (when Generation 2 Road Rocket was re-released as part of the Microman toyline, that's what he was called).
• In the upper right are two “seals”, one featuring Cybertronix that says “baitsu”, and the other the Autobot Security Services symbol from the IDW mini-series, Megatron: Origin.
• The scroll in the upper left reads downwards, as if it were Japanese (though not right-to-left!). It reads: “You'll die as you lived/In a flash of the blade/In a corner forgotten by no one/You lived for the touch/For the feel of the steel/One bot and his honor”, paraphrased lyrics from Iron Maiden's “Flash of the Blade”.
• The seal in the upper right reads “Bakusai Tenketsu” (Japanese for “breaking point”), a martial arts technique from Ranma ½.
• That's Victory Star Saber's sword in the scroll at the bottom right. Just to the right of it are seals of the Shattered Glass Autobot Secret Police insignia, the Animated Autotrooper's insignia, and the “ancient Autobot” symbol that was seen on the forehead of the first Matrix spirit guide (earlier named by the Almanac as Primon) in the Generation 1 cartoon episode “Five Faces of Darkness, Part 4”.
• The Cybertronix in the lower scroll reads: “Fight for the the honor/Fight for the splendour/Fight for your life”, lyrics from Iron Maiden's “The Duelist”.
• The text at the bottom of the page is in Yautja, a font created by Jim Sorenson based on the symbols seen in the movie Predator. It's upside down to boot, and let me tell you, if I never have to translate f**king Predator again, it'll be too f**king soon. It reads: “What ho said da ting wid de tree bonce"and "Don't meddle wid tings you don't undahstand.” These lines, spoken in a thick Jamaican accent, were a hidden backwards message at the start of the Iron Maiden song, “Still Life”, intended to tell those who went out of their way to decode them in hopes of finding a Satanic reference they could use to persecute the band over to stop wasting their time. Whaddaya tryin' to say to me, Bill? :)
• The final piece of coded writing, on the right-hand side of the page, is Narn from Babylon 5. It says: “Spare your life and choose the destruction of time over yourself”, lyrics from Iron Maiden's “Journeyman”. The lyrics are whispered in the song itself, as if a secret message, hence why Forster chose them.

Pg 106 – Generation 1 Buzzsaw, Sundor and Garboil were all repaints of Generation 1 Laserbeak. Sundor was among the character's from Derrick J. Wyatt's April Fool image, though the Almanac has changed the spelling of his name (intended to parody Laserbeak's Japanese name, “Condor”) to the English word “Sunder”. Soundwave's description for Garboil, the ever-present wordsnatcher, was the name of a bird in the novel The Phantom Tollbooth. His Méliès-wave generator is named after filmmaker Georges Méliès. Wingthing was the bat-like partner of Soundwave when he was an Action Master, though she has been relegated to just a Ratbat repaint here.

Pg 107 – Matrix, “darkest hour”, yadda yadda.

Pg 110 – The transformation of Cybertron into a huge weapon was also the stated goal of Generation 1 Megatron in the first issue of Marvel's G1 comic. The three potential origins for Cybertron and the Transformers related here are also culled from different continuities: “natural evolution” from that same first issue (given the name atechnogenesis in Dreamwave's More Than Meets The Eye guidebook), “built as a factory” from the G1 cartoon's “Five Faces of Darkness”, and the “primordial titans” are, of course, Unicron and Primus, originally of the Marvel universe, but now the default communal origin across the multiverse. The two moon bases, meanwhile, were introduced in The Transformers: The Movie.

Pg 112-113 – In his opening narration, Cosmos mentions another earlier faction that existed on Cybertron, to go along with the “Malignus” and “Destron” mentioned elsewhere in the book. This race is the Guardians, the heroic faction from GoBots. As to the worlds that surround Cybertron:

• The Hadeen System is named after the “Hadean System”, a region of space mentioned in Alignment (see pg 9) that is intimated to be the home-space of Cybertron. Why they changed the spelling by one letter, we couldn't say.
• 221B was the Baker Street address of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.
• Thuvia is named for the title character of Edgar Rice Burroughs's Thuvia, Maid of Mars, while its moons Kerchack and Kala take their names from two apes in Burroughs's Tarzan.
• Frehley's Comet is the title of an album by former Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley.
• Aouda Fogg is named for the lead character, Phileas Fogg, and his lover Aouda, from the Jules Verne novel, Around the World in 80 Days. Its moon Ayrton is named for another Verne character, Tom Ayrton, from In Search of the Castaways and The Mysterious Island (see also pg 66).
• The Autobot Mausoleum is a floating crypt from the Generation 1 episode “Dark Awakening”.
• The planet Dread appeared in the G1 episode “Chaos”. Cosmos notes that you can see it through a telescope from Cybertron; Galvatron was able to see Cybertron from Dread in that episode. Its moon Westenra is named for the character Lucy Westenra in Dracula.
• Thrush is named after the secret criminal organization from The Man From UNCLE.
• Tsathoggua and its moon Eibon are named for a creature and a book, respectively, from the works of Clark Ashton Smith.
• Belegaer is a great sea on Middle Earth from the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.
• Botropolis is the home of the Playskool Go-Bots.
• Galleon appeared in the Challenge of the Go-Bots episode “Et Tu, Cy-Kill?”; it was the planet mined for ore that was used to build the GoBot's homeworld Gobotron, and Cosmos refers to its mining history. Like Westenra, its moon Mina is named after Mina Harker from Dracula.
• Thulsa Doom is the nemesis of Kull and Conan the Barbarian, from the works of Robert E. Howard. All of its moons are likewise named for characters and places from, or titles of, Howard's works: The Servants of Bit-Yakin, The Jewels of Gwahlar, the sorcerers Thugra Khotan and Thoth-Amon, the alien Yag-Kosha, and the king Numedides. Only Dun Scaith does not appear to be a Howard reference: it's a region of Scotland that many myths and legends are associated with.

Pg 114-115 – It was right about here that I figured Sorenson and Forster were deliberately messing with me. Oy. I guess the best way to do this is to do it a sector of space at a time. And we'll go alphabetically, rather than try to follow the splatter-pattern of the book. There'll be some repetition here, with planets that have already been named earlier in the book and identified earlier in these annotations, but I really can't face up to doing all the cross-references this page would entail so, hey, you get yourself some repetition. Let's begin!

We'll start with the worlds of the Decepticon Empire, denoted by purple markers.

• Ceti Alpha VII appeared in the Fun Publications story, “Descent into Evil”. It's named in homage to Ceti Alpha V from Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.
• Chaar was the Decepticons' base of operations after The Transformers: The Movie. It is noted here, as mentioned previously in the book, that Strika rules it.
• Dinosaur was Magmatron's home in Beast Wars Neo
• Garo appeared in the Beast Wars Neo episode “Mach Kick Voluntarily Enlists?!”
• Ijurn was mentioned in Dreamwave's Micromasters mini-series
• New Kaon is named after the Decepticon state on Cybertron, introduced in Dreamwave's The War Within comics. It was formerly known as Pyrovar, a world from Alignmentwhich was also made the capital of the displaced Decepticon empire.
• Intel featured in the Beast Wars Neo episode “Hardhead is Hardheaded”.
• Karn was seen in issue #9 of the Generation 2 comic book.
• Lucifer was the planet on which Optimus Prime was reborn as Star Convoy in Battlestars.
• Styx was a Decepticon penal colony seen in IDW's “Spotlight: Hot Rod”. The planet it orbited was not named there; here, it is dubbed Charon. Charon was the ferryman on the river Styx in Greek myth.
• Porcupine was where the Predacon Hydra was stationed in the Beast Wars Neo cartoon.
• Thrull apppeared in the G1 episode “Five Faces of Darkness, Part 2”.
• Zarak housed Scorponok's secret base in The Headmasters cartoon.

Next, let's look at the yellow-marked Vestial Imperium, introduced in the Fun Publications comic, “Cheap Shots”.

• Derut IV and Funghurus Six were mentioned in the UK comic story “Deadly Games!” Mil-Wal, meanwhile, was name-dropped on the cover of that issue, as the homeworld of the alien Hooligan, a reference to Millwall football team and the reputation their fans have for hooliganism.
• E'Brutoc and Tykos appeared in issue #7 of the Generation 2 comic.
• Edaps was mentioned in the online bio of Transformers Collectors' Club character Stopgap.
• Elaspos was introduced in the UK comic story, “Wanted: Galvatron – Dead or Alive!”
• Eskabar is prrrresumably the newly-named homeworld of the nomadic Esk clones, who appeared in issue #6 of the Generation 2 comic.
• Ethos appeared in issue #8 of the Generation 2 comic
• Ganzvort was first mentioned in the bio of Generation 1 Rewind. It shares a few city names with Earth.
• Ghennix is the homeworld of Hook, Line and Sinker, consumed by Unicron in issue #66 of the G1 Marvel comic.
• Golganath VII and its Niter mines were mentioned by Kup in The Transformers: The Movie.
• Gpii II is part of the Gpii system, mentioned in the Animated “Be the Hero” book, Web of Deception. Trobulum is an element found there.
• Hydrus IV was the point of origin for Nucleon, as seen in issue #70 of the G1 Marvel comic.
• Hyperion was mentioned in IDW's “Spotlight: Nightbeat”.
• Kol was seen in issue #9 of the Generation 2 comic book.
• Scarvix appeared in the UK comic story “Headhunt”.
• The Harvest Lords of Sigrath were the masters of the Recyclons from the story “Collect and Save” in the Transformers Legends anthology novel.
• Szoria, Karkas III and Jabbio-Koratus are the homeworlds of the Szorians, Karkans and Jabbi-Ko mentioned in issue #6 of the Generation 2 comic.
• Tau-Ursa appeared in issue #3 of Blackthorne's Transformers in 3-D.
• Vestum Major and Minor are newly-named here, created as an origin point for the Imperium's name.
• Yst was the site of Unicron's rebirth in the Fun Publications comic, “Revelations, Part 3”.

Next, the Autobot Commonwealth, marked in red. Apart from Cybertron, we've got:

• Antilla appeared in the G1 cartoon episode “Cosmic Rust”.
• Athenia appeared in the G1 cartoon episode “Five Faces of Darkness, Part 1”, but was only named in the Japanese dub of the episode.
• The Beta system, Alpha IX and Dromedon were first mentioned by Kup in The Transformers: The Movie.
• Bk'n was mentioned in the UK annual story “Another Time and Place”.
• Com appeared in the Beast Wars Neo episode “Mach Kick Voluntarily Enlists?!”
• Combatron is another Cybertron colony world featured in the Fun Publications story “Force of Habit”.
• Daffodil II was mentioned in the letters page of issue #326 of the UK Marvel comic.
• Deneb IV was mentioned by Kup in issue #39 of the G1 Marvel comic. Denebian stalkers appeared in the “Find Your Fate” book, Island of Fear, though their planet of origin was not mentioned.
• Elba was a prison planet from the Challenge of the GoBots episode “Escape from Elba”. Here, it is revealed to be the up-to-now unnamed planet on which Garrus-9, the prison complex from IDW's comics, resides.
• Floron III appeared in the G1 episode “Quest for Survival”.
• Gigantion, Velocitron and Animatron were the colony worlds of Cybertron (Animatron is a new name for Jungle Planet created by the Almanac).
• Goo was introduced in the “Five Faces of Darkness, Part 3”.
• Junk is the homeworld of the Junkions, introduced in The Transformers: The Movie. It's sometimes called “Junkion”.
• Master appears throughout the Headmasters cartoon, homeworld of the titular characters.
• Micro appeared in the Victory cartoon; it was later renamed Zone by the time of that franchise.
• Omnitron is a new name, but is explained to be the homeworld of Energon Omnicons, seen in the episode “Survival Instincts”.
• Opulus was introduced in IDW's Stormbringer mini-series.
• Paradon appears in the G1 episode “Fight or Flee”.
• Planet V is the Autobots' planetary headquarters from Victory.
• Praun appeared in the Headmasters episode “The Four-Million-Year-Old Veil of Mystery”.
• Regulon IV was another planet visited by Kup, as mentioned in the G1 episode “The Rebirth, Part 1”.
• The Salvvatan system appeared in IDW's “Spotlight: Metroplex”.
• Vehicon was mentioned in the bio of Reverse Convoy from the Robot Masters toyline.
• Vespa III would be in the Vespa system, where Rattrap worked as a miner according to the Beast Wars episode “Dark Voyage”.

Let's turn now to the orange Quintesson Pan Galactic Co-Prosperity Sphere, named for the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere of the 1930s.

• Alaxuu (misspelt here as Axaloo), Lanarq and Xetaxxis appeared in the G1 episode “The Quintesson Journal”.
• Andellor and Exton IX appeared in issue #2 of Blackthorne's Transformers in 3-D.
• Brobdingnag is a new name for the planet of giant aliens that appeared in the G1 episode “Child's Play”. It's named for a land off giants from Gulliver's Travels.
• Corata-Vaz and Rotan appeared in IDW's Revelation storyline.
• Fabricon appeared in the Challenge of the GoBots episode “A New Suit for Leader-1”.
• McColamo is not a pre-existing Transformers planet, or a reference to anything I can figure out. It is noted to be a Free Trade Zone; Dirk Manus from the G1 episode was a “free trader”, so perhaps this is intended to be a new home planet for him. He claimed to hail from “Epslion Airadne”, named for the real-life star Epsilon Iridani, which also appears here as part of the Co-Prosperity Sphere. [McColamo is the planet from Spotlight: Drift. It's named after the creative team on the issue- writer Shame McCarthy, artist Casey Coller, colorist Joana Lafuente, and letterer Chris Mowry.
• Menonia was among the planets mentioned in the G1 episode “Madman's Paradise”.
• Mirtonia is the homeworld of the alien Carcass, from G.I. Joe's Lunartix Empire. Fans have long assumed it is part of the Mirtonian constellation, mentioned in Generation 2Laser Optimus Prime's bio.
• Monacus appeared in the G1 episode “The Gambler”.
• Prysmos is the planet from the Hasbro series Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light.
• Quintessa, of course, was the Quintessons' home world, introduced in The Transformers: The Movie. The map also includes a New Quintessa, from the BotCon Universecomics. The name of the planet turned into New Quintesson is revealed here to be Ejoornus.
• Sandokan appears in the Fun Publications story, “The Dark Heart of Sandokan”.
• Skuxxos is the newly-named homeworld of the alien Skuxxoid from the G1 cartoon.
• Taxxos is the homeworld of the Taxxons from Animorphs.
• Tixlara was mentioned in the G1 episode “The Quintesson Journal”.
• Tlalak is the newly-named homeworld of the Tlalakans from the G1 episode “Sea Change”.
• Torkulon appeared in the G1 episode “Webworld”.
• Tyroxia's inhabitants appear in the UK G1 comic story, “Kup's Story”.
• Vrob is another newly-named world, homeworld of the Vrobians from issue #63 of the G1 Marvel comic
• Xeptos was mentioned in the bio of G1 Magnificus.
• Zamojin appeared in the G1 episode “The Face of the Nijika”.
• Zeotopia is the homeworld of the Xevoz, from the Hasbro toyline of the same name. In describing it, Swindle swears by the Vault of Eternal Destitution, the afterlife of the financially unsuccessful in Ferengi belief from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
• Zull appeared in IDW's “Spotlight: Ultra Magnus”.

Now the blue Nebulon Republic, named for the Nebulans and their world Nebulos from Generation 1.

• Andegea (misspelled here as “Andega”) appeared in issue #3 of Blackthorne's Transformmers in 3-D.
• Antares is a real star. Antares III was mentioned in the Fun Publications story “Gone Too Far”.
• Centaris VII (misspelled here as “Centarix”) appears in Fun Publications story, “The Dark Heart of Sandokan”.
• Delta Pavonis IV, Cygnus VII and Antar appeared in the G1 episode “The Big Broadcast of 2006”.
• Eurythma appears in the G1 episode “Carnage in C-Minor”.
• Feminia appeared in issue #5 of the Story of Super Robot Lifeforms: Transformers manga. It got blowed up real good in Zone.
• Hive appears in the Headmasters episode “Fight to the Death on Planet Hive!!”
• Ilixios is the newly-named homeworld of the Ilxian aliens from IDW's Generation 1 comics, first appearing in Spotlight: Blaster. It's prrrrobably misspelled, what with the extra “i” between the l and x.
• Klo appeared in issues #78-80 of the G1 Marvel comic.
• LV-117 appears in IDW's “Spotlight: Wheelie”.
• The Nalva system was mentioned in the G1 episode “Five Faces of Darkness, Part 1”.
• Paradise appears in the Headmasters episode “Head Formation of Friendship”.
• Regalis V was the planet which Botanica visited in Beast Machines. It wasn't named until the Fun Publications story “Wreckers: Finale, Part II”.
• Sandra appeared in the Headmasters episode “SOS from Planet Sandra”.
• Shi-La is the newly-named homeworld of the Shi-Lai race from the Fun Publications comic, “Cheap Shots”.
• Taros IV appears in the Fun Publications story, “The Dark Heart of Sandokan”.
• Twin Star appeared in the Headmasters episode “Battle for Defense of the False Planet”.
• Urtusk is the newly-named homeworld of the Urtuskians from issue #52 of the G1 Marvel comic. This was also the first appearance of the GCSS, the Grand Central Space Station, where a drink called an Abraxan Blue Fireball was served; evidently a beverage from the newly-named planet Abrax, also part of the Republic.
• Vandar is the newly-named homeworld of Vandarian fuzz-worms, mentioned in a Fun Publications Mini-Mayhem strip. The first Almanac named it “Vandaria”.
• Varas Centralus appears in IDW's Stormbringer mini-series.
• Zegris appeared briefly at the end of the Fun Publications story “Gone Too Far”.

Then the tiny little white spots that are the Vok Territory.

• Nexus Zero was the home base of the Vok as seen in the Beast Wars episode “Other Victories”. Swindle mentioned it by name in the Animated episode “S.U.V – Society of Ultimate Villainy”.
• Protos, moon of Methuselah, was the moon on which Primus created the Covenent in the BotCon “Omega Point” storyline. Methuselah is here noted to be the lab of Primacron, from the G1 episode “Call of the Primitives”.

And now.... the neutral and unclaimed planets, bathing these pages in green splotches.

• 10-11001-1110-1-10011-10101 is... quite a story. This binary string reads “2-25-14-1-19-21”. If you convert that to each number's equivalent letter in the alphabet you get “Bynasu”. Thus we can understand that what we've got here is a spelling mistake, that the code should actually read “10-11001-1110-1-10101-10011” (2-25-14-1-21-19) and that we're looking at the planet Bynaus, from Star Trek: The Next Generation, home to a race who spoke only in binary code.
• Airlandia is the planet from the 1980s Hasbro toyline Air Raiders.
• Alkalide appeared in the Beast Was Neo episode “Planet of the Ultimate Weapon”.
• Alpha Q's realm and all the worlds within it are from the Energon cartoon.
• Altair IV is the titular world of Forbidden Planet.
• Antiga Prime is from StarCraft.
• Aquarius appeared in the Beast Wars Neo episode “Personal Combat in the Deep Sea!!” [All the Beast Wars Neo planets are in order of visitation as seen in the anime.]
• The Archa System is home to the planets Archa VII (the spider-planet from the Animated episode “Along Came a Spider”, named in the previous Almanac) and Archa IX (from the BotCon Universe comics).
• Azure was seen in "Cheap Shots".
  • Barbarossa is a new name for the Pirate Planet from the Headmasters episode “Mystery of the Space Pirate Ship”, because it was the name of a famous pirate (it means “Redbeard” in Italian). It was also the name of a planet from the TV series Andromeda, but that might be coincidence. Furthermore, Swindle has relabelled the planet Pirate Moon, rather than “Planet”, in reference to the Cybertron action figure two-pack, “Search for the Pirate Moon”.
  • Beast is the homeworld of the Battle Beasts, as seen in the Headmasters episode, “Rebellion on Planet Beast”.
  • Bedlam seems to refer to the John Brunner novel, Bedlam Planet.
  • Bhul was introduced in IDW's “Spotlight: Arcee”.
  • Byer's Planet is from Robert A. Heinlein's novel Tunnel in the Sky.
  • Caldoon IV appears in IDW's Last Stand of the Wreckers.
  • Chronos appeared in the Beast Wars Neo episode “Planet of Time”.
  • The Coriakin system is named for a character from C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. Its planets Camazotz and Ixchel are worlds from Madeleine L'Engle's novel, A Wrinkle in Time.
  • Crystal appeared in the Beast Wars Neo episode “Break Is a Preadcon?”
  • Crystallium is the setting of 1980s Remco toyline The Saga of Crystar.
  • Cyteen features in the C.J. Cherryh novel that shares its name.
  • D'Hoonib is from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
  • Darhos appears in the Headmasters episode, “Find MegaZarak's Weak Spot!!” When it was name-dropped in issue #5 of the Animated Arrival comic, it was misspelled “Dahros” and the first Almanac carried that spelling over. It appears the intent with this map is to declare the first spelling a mistake, as Swindle has crossed it out on his map, but the replacement spelling is also a typo – this time, it's “Dharos!”
  • Dendron Beta [from Challenge of the GoBots episode "The Third Column".]
  • Devola was the site of a major victory by Tidal Wave in Armada.
  • Divine Wind is from Ender's Game.
  • Donovan appears in the Beast Wars Neo episode “Mirage in the Sand”.
  • Druidia is from Spaceballs.
  • Eberron is from Dungeons and Dragons.
  • Ellipsus, Adelbaran and Argus IV are from Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors.
  • Energoa was the name for prehistoric Earth in the Japanese dub of Beast Wars. Author Jim Sorenson noted that he thought about calling the planet Waspinator and Blackarachnia wound up on in “Predacons Rising” by this name, so this is probably what it refers to.
  • Eran is mentioned in issue #1 of the Great Transformer War manga. Swindle has evidently had bad dealings with the scientist from the planet who appears in that story, Doctor Dalton!
  • Eternia is the homeworld of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.
  • Exbar is from Blake's 7.
  • Fara appeared in issue #6 of the Generation 2 comic.
  • Femax appears in issue #53 of the G1 Marvel comic.
  • Fhloston is from The Fifth Element.
  • Flame appears in the Beast Wars Neo episode “Dinosaur Combiner Magmatron”.
  • Fleed is from the anime UFO Robot Gendizer.
  • Furnacia is the home world of the Firebug from the UK G1 comic story of the same title. When the Firebugs fled Furnacia, most of them wound up on Thessin, also seen here.
  • Giedi Prime is from Frank Herbert's Dune. It was also Jim Sorenson's screen name back in the 90s!
  • Godbless appears in the Beast Wars Neo episode “Chase the Mysterious Capsule”.
  • Gor is from John Norman's Chronicles of Gor novel series.
  • Gorlam Prime was introduced in IDW's “Spotlight: Nightbeat”.
  • Guard appears in issue #8 of the Victory manga.
  • H'lven is from DC Comics' Green Lantern.
  • Hala is the homeworld of the Kree race from Marvel comics.
  • Hyneria is from Farscape.
  • Jhi appears in issue #73 of the G1 Marvel comic.
  • Jiangyin is from Firefly.
  • Jion appeared in the Beast Wars Neo episode “Angry Magmatron”.
  • Jormungandr appeared in issue #5 of the Beast Wars Neo manga.
  • Kaiba V was mentioned in the 2007 live-action movie video game.
  • Kalkar appears in issue #3 of Blackthorne's Transformers in 3-D.
  • Ki-Aleta was introduced in IDW's “Spotlight: Hot Rod”. As the result of what is presumably a mistake, it appears twice on the map. Presumably, one of these was supposed to be a different planet.
  • Kinmoku is from Sailor Moon.
  • Kobol is from Battlestar Galactica.
  • Krankor is from the Japanese movie, Planet Prince, popularized in the west by its lampooning in Mystery Science Theatre 3000.
  • Leida appeared in the Beast Wars Neo episode “Waa! He Got Eaten”.
  • Luxor appeared in issue #4 of the Beast Wars Neo manga.
  • Macron, Xeres and Z'Gunn were all mentioned in the BotCon 2000 exclusive story, “Herald” (which was in itself a reworked version of a story from 1999 that lacked these planetary namedrops). The Almanac adds an extra “n” to the end of the last planet's name, which is spelled “Z'Gun” in the story.
  • Madelan appears in the Beast Wars Neo episode “Hang in there, Stampy”.
  • Magrathea is from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
  • Majipoor is from Robert Silverberg's novel series of the same name.
  • Marklar is from South Park.
  • Maxie's World was the title of a 1989 cartoon based on Hasbro's Maxie fashion dolls.
  • Melmac is the homeworld of the titular alien from ALF.
  • Merseia is from Poul Anderson's Technic History novel series.
  • МИР is a new name for the unnamed planet from IDW's “Spotlight: Cliffjumper”. It is Russian for “the world”.
  • Milton appeared in the Beast Wars Neo episode “The Seized Capsules”.
  • Mongo is the homeworld of Flash Gordon villain Ming the Merciless.
  • Moriturus was seen being destroyed in the Cybertron episode “Fallen”
  • The Morthrai System and its planets Mor-Tax and Qar-To are from War of the Worlds. [The system was an attempt to clarify up some errors from the second season of the show. From Jim: "I was attempting to, in my own mind at least, reconcile what we knew of them. We knew the planet was called Mor-Tax. We knew that the aliens in S1 called themselves Mor-Taxians and in S2 called themselves Morthren, from Morthrai, but they were supposed to be the same species. We knew they'd encountered the Quar-To before, but also that the nuclear explosions in Japan informed them for the first time that there was "life outside their system." I took those disparate facts and this is what I came up with."]
  • The worlds of the MQ System (Pz-zazz, Cameron, Pequod and Cheyne) were the setting for the “Matrix Quest” storyline that ran from issues #62-66 of the G1 Marvel comic. MQ, Matrix Quest, get it?
  • Mumu-Obscura appeared in IDW's “Spotlight: Sixshot”.
  • N'Aconda is a new name for the planet from issue #3 of the UK's live-action Transformers movie comic. It's inhabitants, the Thrall and A'ovan, were named in the story, but the planet wasn't.
  • An ambassador from Odessyx appeared in the G1 episode “Madman's Paradise”.
  • Necronom IV is the title of the H.R. Giger painting that inspired the look of the Alien movie series. Alien fandom has on occasion repurposed this name as a potential moniker for the hypothetical homeworld of the films' creatures, and the Almanac follows through on that.
  • New Avalon is from BattleTech.
  • New Texas is the setting of BraveStarr.
  • Nintenduu LXIV is from Futurama.
  • Nuliajuk is from Jerry Parnell's CoDominon novel series.
  • Orc is the homeworld of Mork from Mork and Mindy.
  • Orga, Duke and Vector were planets on which Armada Thrust scored major Decepticon victories.
  • P-0908 appears in the Beast Wars Neo episode “Duel in the Labyrinth”.
  • P-4376 (here mistakenly spelled with a D) appeared in the Beast Wars Neo episode “The Black Hole Crisis”.
  • Pangar is from Stargate.
  • Parthus and Zeeros appear in the Challenge of the GoBots episode “Et Tu, Cy-Kill?” Swindle makes reference to the Parthian raiders from that episode. Antaris III appears in the episode “Quest for the Creator”.
  • Pastal appeared in the Beast Wars Neo episode “Troubled DNAVI”.
  • Pern is from Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern novel series.
• [Pinea Omicron is a planet from the unofficial Transformers novella Alignment.]
  • Planet X is presented here as a combination of three different worlds to have gone by that name in Transformers fiction: the otherdimensional planet of techno-mauraders from Cybertron, the world from which the metal-eating Dorya insects hail, as seen in the Victory episode “The Death-Bringing Space Insects!” and finally “Energy Planet X”, from issue #6 of the Victory manga.
  • Ploor is from Edward Elmer Smith's Lensman series.
  • Pollux, Nemon, Oran, Doom and Arus are from Voltron: Defender of the Universe.
  • Pova appears in flashback in IDW's Last Stand of the Wreckers mini-series.
  • Pyrrus is from Harry Harrison's Deathworld series.
  • Quartex is the home planet of Tonka's Rock Lords.
  • Reptizar is from the Shadow Raiders cartoon (based on the War Planets toyline). Relevant fun fact? It was the final planet seen in the series, being consumed by series antagonist the Beast Planet, after it was teleported out of the galaxy in which the cartoon took place. That's why there aren't any other Shadow Raiders planets on the map!
  • Rimmerworld appeared in the Red Dwarf episode of the same name.
  • Sargasso appeared in the Beast Wars Neo episode “Sub-Commander Longrack”.
  • Sarpeidon is from Star Trek.
  • Skaro is the homeworld of the Daleks from Doctor Who. We get another reference to their Mark III Travel Machines.
  • Skriixos V is the newly-named homeworld of the mysterious Skriix aliens from the original Beast Wars video game.
  • Solid appears in the Beast Wars Neo episode “Burning Heart Below Freezing”.
  • Soror is from the original Planet of the Apes novel.
  • SR388 is from Metroid.
  • Stero appeared in the Beast Wars Neo episode “Survive the Hot-Blooded Instructor”.
  • Stroggos is from Quake.
  • Talos IV appeared in the first episode of Star Trek
  • Tarazed is a star system from Andromeda.
  • Tasmos appeared in the Beast Wars Neo episode “Bump the Physicist”.
  • TC², Qom-Riyadh and Hebron are planets in Dan Simmons Hyperion Cantos series of novels.
• [Telezart is a planet from anime Space Battleship Yamato, translated in English as Star Blazers.]
  • Tencton is the homeworld of the aliens from Alien Nation. The message below it is intheir language, Tenctonese, and says “Newcomers World”; “Newcomers” was the other name by which these aliens were known.
  • Thermia is from Galaxy Quest.
  • Thra is from The Dark Crystal (note Swindle's reference to valuable crystals!).
  • Thundera is the homeworld of the ThunderCats.
  • All the worlds of the Tiresian Union – Fantoma, Optera, Karbarra, Praxis, Garuda, Spheris, Peryton and Haydon IV – are from Robotech, or more specifically, it's unproduced sequel series, The Sentinels.
  • Triceti appears in the Challenge of the GoBots two-parter, “Renegade Rampage”.
  • Tube appeared in the Beast Wars Neo episode “Attack! Randy”.
  • Vhoorl is from the works of H.P. Lovecraft.
  • Wall appears in the third Zone story page.
  • We Made It is from Larry Niven's Known Space novel series.
  • Wendesday and Greengard feature in text stories printed in the graphic novel collection of the Beast Wars Neo manga.
  • X2 (?)
  • Yautja is the homeworld of the aliens from Predator, as confirmed by the simple message in Yautja beneath it: “Predator World”.
  • Zel Samine was the setting for Takara's Generation 1 Playstation 2 video game.
  • Terminus and Gaia are from Isaac Asimov's Foundation series of novels. [Gaia was actually meant to be a reference to Gaea, the future version of Earth from Beast Wars II.]
  • Z'ha'dum is from Bablyon 5.

Gasp.... wheeze.... and finally.... in addition to the above-mentioned Tiresian Union and Alpha Q's realm... the other named regions of space...

• The Benzuli Expanse was introduced in IDW's “Spotlight: Galvatron” and formed the backbone of their Revelation series.
• The Blot Nebula was mentioned in the on-package bio of Classics Jetfire.
• The Eshems Nebula first appearance in IDW's Reign of Starscream series. Aliens from this region later appeared in their Defiance series; in this map is anything to go by, they're the Ejoornians who were displaced by the Quintessons when they took over their planet. The Ejoornians were identified in the Marvel Robotix comic as the owners of the ship that attacked the humans on the Daniel Boone.
• The Falcon Nexus is mentioned in the BotCon 2000 story “Herald”.
• G Nebula 89 is from Super-God Masterforce
• The Galran Khanganete is named for the Galra empire from the anime Beast King GoLion, which was dubbed to become Voltron.
• The Kvi cluster was mentioned in the Animated “Be the Hero” book, Web of Deception.
• The Plait Expanse features in the Fun Publications Shattered Glass story “Do Over”.
• The Skeleton Nebula appears in the Cybertron episode “Warp”.
• The Stone Place is named for a nebula from Fred Saberhagen's novel, “Berserker's Planet”.

Pg 116 – Avalon Boulevard is named after high councillor Avalon from the Dreamwave Energon comics. Dolrailer Spaceport gets its moniker from the Japanese name of Robots in Disguise Mega-Octane. The hanger here is named after Shingo XXIV, a notable individual who wrote a letter that was printed in issue #38 of the Generation 1 Marvel comics.

Pg 117 – Eronus Way is named for a member of the Autobot Council of Autobots from Dreamwave's The War Within comics.

Pg 118 – Bricolo is the is the French-Canadian name of the Generation 1 Constructicon Scrapper. A character with this name was mentioned in the Fun Publications story, “I, Lowtech”.

Pg 119 – Horsepower is named for an Autobot who appeared in the UK comic story, “The Big Shutdown”. Sparkride is named after the repaint of the Generation 1 Protectobot Groove who was a component of Guard City in Operation Combination. These two appeared, unnamed, in the “First (And Second) in Flight” comic packed with the Jetfire and Jetstorm toys.

Pg 122 – Photon pulse cannons were the personal weapons of choice of the Generation 1 Autobot Headmaster, Brainstorm.

Pg 123 – Powered Convoy is designed and named after the Diaclone toy that was repainted to become Generation 1 Ultra Magnus. [His head is based on Robots in Disguise Ultra Magnus.]

Pg 124 – Commandrons were a line of motorized transforming Tomy toys available through McDonalds in 1985. Meanwhile, Maladroids were a subset of the Select 1980s toyline, Convertors.

Pg 125 – This Maccadam's menu is full of fun stuff.

• The robots appearing on the menu are Animated\versions of (top to bottom, left to right) Generation 1 Sky Lynx (reimagined to transform not into an Earthly space shuttle, but a Cybertronian one, based on Generation 1 Jetfire), live-action movie Barricade, Generation 1 Chromia, Beast Wars Neo Stampy, Victory Hellbat, GoBots Cy-Kill, Beast Wars Antagony, Generation 1 Blaster, Beast Wars Tarantulas, Victory Clipper, Generation 1 Mindwipe, TransTech Cheetor (looking very much like Animated Blurr, whose design was based on his) and a monstrous makeover for Robots in Disguise Sky-Byte! Bonus points if you spotted Number 5 from Short Circuit squirrelled away in the bottom left, behind the bottle!
• Energon at Maccadam's comes in two varieties: Z (from Zone) and Ultra (from IDW's comics).
• I'm afraid I can't identify the source of any of the vintage years.
• Mebian Energon comes from Mebion, a region of Cybertron mentioned in Generation 1 Magnificus's bio. It includes theragen, a Klingon chemical from Star Trek.
• Nova Cronal Energon comes from Nova Cronum, introduced in Dreamwave's The War Within comics. It includes emphemerol, from Scanners.
• Ankmor Energon comes from Ankmor, introduced in the Fun Publications story “The New World” and named for Ankh-Morpork from Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel series. It includes Atroquinine, from the Ace Attorney video game series.
• Stanixian Energon comes from Stanix, a region of Cybertron from the UK comic story “The Magnificent Six”. It contains janquore, from Jann Nogra's novel New York 4012, and smilex, the Joker's deadly toxin from the Batman movie.
• Animatronian Energon is the book's third reference to a newly-created English name for the Jungle Planet from Cybertron. It contains phazon, from Metroid Prime, and terrazine, from StarCraft.
• The fuels on tap have various origins McGuirkness (from Guinness and Coach McGuirk from Home Movies), Panther Pilsner featured in the Three Stooges short “Three Little Beers”, Flat Tire is name for Fat Tire Beer ('cause Transformers have wheels!) and Budweiski (Budweiser and...?).
• “Oil can! Oil can!” is a quote from the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz.
• The oils by the can are also named for real beers, but have other meanings too: Heinleinkin (named for both Heinekin beer and sci-fi author Robet L. Heinlein), Black Tar of Thentis (Black Star beer and Thentis from John Norman's Chornicles of Gor), Corona Solar Lite (Corona beer, favourite brand of Transformers writer Simon Furman, and the Corona Solar Light lamp) and Michelobay (Michelob beer and Michael Bay, director of the live-action Transformers movies).
• Mudder's Milk is a drink from Firefly.
• The right column gives us more Cybertronian days of the week in addition to those seen on page 81. They're all still named after Transformers cartoon writers: Dillesol (Flint Dille), Gerbesol (Steve Gerber), Davisol (Paul Davids), Maleksol (Bryce Malek), Marxsol (Christy Marx), Glutsol (Don F. Glut) and Robbisol (Dick Robbins).
• This Island Iced Tea is a mash-up of the book This Island Earth and the drink Long Island Ice Tea. Fictional contents include Brekhov (named for Colonel Brekhov from G.I. Joe), D2rz (the code printed on Cybertron Cannonball's Cyber Key), Jipe (a Malignus from the Brazilian Transformers toyline), Aethelric (a character from the UK comic story “Man of Iron”) and Caf-Pow (a drink from NCIS). Other ingredients in this drink and the others are real chemicals and pieces of hardware
• Latta Collins is named for the cocktail Tom Collins, and the actor who portrayed Generation 1 Starscream, real name Chris Collins, union name Chris Latta.
• Manterror is named for the Beast Wars character of the same name.
• Bloody Z is named for the Bloody Zone, another name for the Blasty Zone from Robot Masters. Its ingredients include Worcestershire sauce, written in the Internationl Phoenetic Alphabet.
• Zero's fictional ingredients include tripledacus (the Jointron combiner from Beast Wars II) and Rose's Ethanol (Rose's is a brand of mixer drinks).
• The Metroplex needs little explanation. It's sole fictional ingredient is Matejka, named after Transformers fan Anastasia Matejka, who played Timelines Flareup in the BotCon 2008 Animated script reading, “Bee in the City”.
• The Metrotitan is named for Zone's Decepticon redeco of Generation 1 Metroplex. It's ingredients include an eye lag, a brand of screw.
• Kadomatsu is evidently the Transformer answer to karaoke. A kadomatsu is a traditional Japanese New Year decoration.
• The Vesper is a real cocktail, created and named in the first James Bond novel. Naturally, we don't need to draw the line between this and “stirred, not shaken” for you.

Pg 128 – The Emirate Xaaron Spacebridge Nexus is named for the Autobot leader from the Marvel comics, who first appeared in the UK serial “Target: 2006”.

Pg 134 – Lisa Kane is a friend of author Bill Forster.

Pg 135a – Unnamed in the episode they appeared in, Cancer and Hydra are based on the Super God Masterforce characters with whom they share their names. Vangelus, meanwhile, is another of Derrick J. Wyatt's April Fools illustration characters; he's a caricature of Transformer fan Chris Ho, and sports his screen name.

Pg 135b – The Burger Bot placemat has quite a few sneaky references in it.

• Buger Bot's mascot is B.O.T., the titular human-made robot from the Generation 1 cartoon episode, “B.O.T.”
• His purple pal Pickles is an anthropomorphic version of the griffin-shaped fortress from the G1 episode “Aerial Assault”.
• Did you figure out that the connect-the-dots puzzle was Mount Rushmore? The extra faces are those of G.I. Joe's Cobra Commander (who added his visage to the mountain in the Joe cartoon two-parter, “Worlds Without End”) and Tricky Dick himself, former US president Richard Nixon.

The fictional presidents listed on the mat include:

• Walter Barnett, head of I.I.I. From the Marvel Generation 1 comics.
• Elaine Nakamura, mentioned as one of the greatest presidents in the 1990s TV show Time Trax.
• Tommy Kennedy, Optimus Prime's little buddy from the live-action segments featured in the fifth season of the Generation 1 cartoon.
• Howard J. Nissen, from Frank Miller's Give Me Liberty comic book mini-series.
• Edward Augutter, real named of “Auger” from Inhumanoids. He was elected president in the final episode of the show, but as noted, never served.
• Benito Caruso, from the H.G. Wells novel The Shape of Things to Come.
• John Keller, the Secretary of Defense from the live-action Transformers movie. We also get another reference to the Los Bogos project (see pg 79).

Pg 136 – The Jekka Amphitheatre appeared in the G1 UK comic story “Deadly Games!”

Pg 137 – The gas station attendant's nametag reads McFeely, a reference to... well, me! Your humble annotator! Jim and Bill blew me away with this honor.

Pg 139 – Another reference to the Pit (see pg 20) and the Beast Wars standing stones (see pg 74).

Pg 143 – Since the body text makes a point of saying the Autobot workers are nameless, “Boost Hammer” presumably refers to the tool attached to the highlighted worker's arm. It's named after Wrecker Hook's solitarium weapon from Robot Masters.

Pg 144-145 - Hhhhhhookay, we're on the home stretch now, with these Omega Sentinels pages being the last big jobs. For the sake of my sanity, repeat references to planets and battles that have already come up in the Almanac wont be noted here. Note how all the file cards are written from a Decepticon perspective! [The file cards for the Omega Sentinels are based on the filecards for the original G.I. Joe toyline, with each Omega Sentinel's partner appearing in a little inset with an explosion in the background.]

Let's start with the evidence tag in the top left. Fictional numbers which appear on it are:

• 17 and TFC-10, the Japanese ID numbers of the original Generation 1 Soundwave and his TF Collection reissue.
• 369-09-JA43, the serial number of the G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra toy, Shockblast (which was a substitute name for Generation 1 Shockwave for a short time).

It also has some REAL numbers on it, which are all aspects of scientific and mathematical constants with their decimal points relocated.

• 66.7428 – 6.67428 x 10^-11 m^3 kg^-1 s^-2 is the Universal Gravitational Constant.
• 271.82818 – 2.7182818 is the the Exponential Constant.
• 31.41592 – 3.141592 is Pi resolved to six places.
• 161.80339 – 1.6180339 is the Golden Ratio.

And the rest:

• Gamma Supreme's ship mode is named the Gung Ho, after the craft from Beast Wars Neo, and is piloted by an Animated version of Beast Wars Neo Longrack.
• The font at the bottom of Gamma Supreme's file card is Zentraedi, created by Jim Sorenson based on the aliens from Robotech and their written language. It reads: “Shots now hurt other players”, a quote from the video game Gauntlet.
• Gamma Supreme's “tech specs” card is done in the style of the Japanese Beast Wars Metals line. The Cybertronix on the card reads: “The Ancient Autobot on the card reads, from top to bottom: “Gamma Supreme”, “Punk”, “Rock”, “Girl” and “If you dont got Mojo Nixon, your store come fixin”, the last being a bit of a mangling of a lyric from the 1988 Dead Milkmen song, “Punk Rock Girl”. The real lyric is: “If you don't got no Mojo Nixon, then your store could use some fixin'”. The label under his ship mode reads: “Eskimo”.
• The post-it note to the left of Alpha Supreme's file card reads “My rigid grill structure is bearing down on your unprotected cargo door”, a quote from Mystery Science Theater 3000, popularized in Transformers fandom when it became associated with Beast Wars Dinobot as the result of some unfortunate parsing in an alt.toys.transformers poster's signature. “Dinobot has spoken. My rigid grill structure...” became one of the most persistent memes of the era.
• Alpha Supreme's ship mode is named the Axalon, after the craft from Beast Wars, and he is captained by an Animated version of Beast Wars Optimus Primal. His file card continues the story of Animated Sideways begun back on page 97, further drawing the connections to the Armada character by noting that he too possesses Trans-Phase powers. The Chinese characters, meanwhile, mean Shangai, again making the suggestion that this Sideways could have gone on to become Revenge of the Fallen Sideways. The file card also mentions the Silvart War (a conflict touched on in the final episode of Victory) and the brainstormer (an interrogation device from Challenge of the GoBots).
• Alpha Supreme's tech specs card is done in the style of those packaged with Takara's Encore series of Generation 1 reissues. The tag BLKJCK refers to the original Optimus Primal's European market name, “Blackjack” while ODIM was his Cantonese name. The Ancient Autobot on the second card simply says “A3”.
• The map sandwiched between Alpha Supreme's two cards has lots of coded text on it, but some of it has apparently disappeared into the page fold, because the header that should obviously say Trypticon only says “Trpticon”. This is obviously Trypticon prison (see pg 27); prisoners named in Cybertronix include Cryotek (who's a gangster), Rampage (psychopathic serial killer of Beast Wars fame), Beta (Generation 1 Beta was a heroic freedom fighter, but Shattered Glass Beta was a crime boss), Zero from Challenge of the Go-Bots, and, er, ManBearPig from South Park. Other passages read: “Cell Block D63” (D-63 was Trypticon's Japanese ID number), “ya vas lyublyu” (“I love you” in Russian, a phrase that was the subject of discussion in classic prison movie The Great Escape), and “Brooks was here” and “So was Red”, messages from the prison drama The Shawshank Redemption. There is one obscured passage, the visible portion of which reads either “easer” or “eaker”.
• Epsilon Supreme's ship mode is named the Eclipse, a spaceship from the Fun Publications story “Force of Habit”, and he is commanded by an Animated version of Generation 1 Scattershot. The file card refers to an unseen ship called the Victory, after the name Sorenson and Forster's previous book, The Ark, gave to the Decepticon spaceship from the Generation 1 cartoon that became the villains' underwater headquarters.
• The text below Epsilon Supreme's ship mode is a Russian proverb that reads: “One person is gathering food, and seven others are eating”.
• Animated Omega Spreem first came into being when Derrick J. Wyatt recolored Animated Omega Supreme's model for his blog. Spreem was a European-exclusive Generation 1 Action Master. Power Plans were technical read-outs on Action Master packaging; all the pieces of tech singled out here were on the original Omega Spreem plans.
• Beta Supreme's ship mode is named the Battlestar, after the 1991 Takara Transformers series, The Battlestars; in honor of this, he is captained by an Animated version of Big Bang, (see pg 28). His file card has another message in Babylon 5's Narn: “Malem me pakeno”, a quote from King Kong which means “Woman of gold”.
• Beta Supreme's profile is done in the style of the data files included with Takara's TF Collection series of Generation 1 reissues. The Cybertronix on it translates into the lyrics from the Iron Maiden track “Mission from 'Arry”, while the Japanese at the bottom translates into the proverb “The nail that sticks up gets hammered down”.
• The Ancient Autobot on the map below Beta Supreme reads: “The Dude abides” (a quote from The Big Lebowski) and “Prupis” and “Dunsay” (for Bob Prupis and George Dunsay, members of the original 1984 Transfomers marketing team). The lowest line of text is in Rylodian, a font created by Jim Sorenson based on the language from The Last Starfighter. It says “You are here”.
• Images hidden in the background include a “Boxtron” comic strip by Donny Finkleberg (a comic book writer who masqueraded as the super-villain Robot Master in the Marvel G1 comics), the CGI cutaway of the Steelhaven seen in full on pages 154-155, and a WWII propaganda poster designed for the 2010 Doctor Who episode “Victory of the Daleks”, depicting one of the titular creatures. The episode aired less than three months before the publication of the Almanac!

Pg 146-147 – And it goes on!

• Eta Supreme's ship mode is named the Hyperion, after the Autobot ship briefly seen at the beginning of the Armada cartoon, and he is captained by an Animated version of Generation 1 Hot Spot. The Ancient Autobot on his file card reads: “No candy in your till, no cutie left to thrill”, lyrics from the April March song, “Chick Habit”.
• The red Ancient Autobot on the folder just right of Eta's card reads: “Silly rabbit”, part of the slogan for Trix cereral. Below that, obscured, are lyrics from the Animal's “Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood”: “Sometimes it seems that all I have do is worry, then you're bound to see my other side”. Tucked away just behind the folder is the Maccadam's menu from page 125.
• Delta Supreme's ship mode is named the Darkstar, after an Autobot shuttlecraft seen in the Generation 2 comics, and he is captained by an Animated version of Generation 1 Silverbolt. His file card mentions an unseen ship called the Revenge, after the name The Ark gave to Galvatron's ship from The Transformers: The Movie. The Cybertronix on the file card are lyrics from the Sandy Rogers song, “Fool For Love”.
• The Ancient Autobot on the pin at the top of Longarm Prime's reads “Vanting Ballog”, for Hasbro brand directors Michael Vibede Vanting and Michael Ballog. The badge itself is a S.T.A.R.S. Idento-card (see page 29), and its serial number, XΨ390 is the prisoner number of Sirius Black from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The badge is also a combined reference to The Fifth Element: it's labelled a multi-pass, after a kind of pass-card from the film, and the Cybertronix at the bottom reads “Leeloo Minai Lekarariba-Laminai-Tchai Ekbat De Sebat”, the full name of the movie's character Leeloo.
• There's a line of text in Arabic at the bottom left. If anyone can translate it, give me a holler! [The Arabic is supposed to read: "the sword may be waiting in the sheath," or "The sword may be shaken, and it is sheltered" or "The sword may be shaken, but it is sheathed." another proverb, but it's not really written correctly. Someone helped me out with this, and I wish I had written down who had helped me out to credit them-if you find these again, please hit me up!]
• Kappa Supreme's ship mode is named the Chromia X, after the ship piloted by Beast Wars Airazor in the Fun Publications story “Dawn of Future's Past”, and he is captained by an Animated version of Cybertron Override. The Decepticon Graffiti on his file card translates into lyrics from Johnny Cash's “Tennessee Stud”.
• Theta Supreme's ship mode is name the Tsunami, which does not appear to be a pre-existing Transformers spaceship. It's captained by an Animated version of Robots in Disguise Railspike. The Cybertronix on his file card reads: “Anyway, my eyes are not accustomed to this light”, lyrics from the Statler Brothers' song, “Flowers on the Wall”.
• Zeta Supreme's ship mode is named the Xantium, after the ship featured in IDW's Stormbringer mini-series, and he is captained by an Animated version of Marvel UK character Impactor. We also learn that the Autobot strike team from the UK comics, the Wreckers, existed in the Animated universe.
• The number on the star chart hidden behind Iota Supreme's image is CA JJZ 109, the license plate of the famous car from the 1968 movie, Bullit.
• Iota Supreme's ship mode is name the Iron Hope, after the ship from the Fun Publications' story “Force of Habit”, and he is captained by an Animated version of Robots in Disguise Wedge.
• The numerical code in the top left of the data read-out on Iota Supreme reads SSG-577, the hull classification of the submarine USS Growler, which is part of the Intrepid Air and Space Museum, where author Bill Forster used to work. The Japanese on the right reads Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, the anime which was dubbed to become Battle of the Planets and G-Force. The numbers above, HQ7886, appear to refer to 1978 and 1986, the years in which Battle of the Planets and G-Force premiered, respectively.
• The Ancient Autobot descending all the way down the left-hand side of Iota's read-out are the lyrics of Shivaree's “Good Night Moon”, while on the right are the nonsense lyrics from Vertigogo's “Combustible Edison”.
• The Ancient Autobot on the post-it note to Iota's left reads: “I always found it funny somewhere there's a kid playin' with a little figure of Earnest Borgnine”, a quote from the script for the movie True Romance (not actually in the movie itself).
• While the envelope behind Iota Supreme is a little tricky to read due to parts of it vanishing into the page fold, Bill Forster put up an unobstructed version of it on his DeviantArt account. Across the top, it reads: “Elite Guard. If over 10 envelopes accumulated at your workstation, return surplus to front desk receptionist.” The first user of the envelope was Alpha Trion, who sent a missive to Computron, an Animated version of the G1 Technobot combiner first mentioned here. Computron then used it to send something to Perceptor, who sent something to Blaster, who sent something to Kup, who sent something to new Animated character Punch, though he accidentally wrote Counterpunch and had to cross out the “Counter”, a reference to the faction-switching Generation 1 spy, Punch. The final recipient was Shockwave; the entry begins with “Sho” written in Predacon Cybertronix, before being crossed out and replaced with “Longarm” in Maximal. But this is in the From box, so what does this mean? Did Punch know Shockwave was Longarm?

Lastly, the evidence tag on the extreme right of this page is the same as the one on the previous spread, except for:

• The numbers on the side are now D-101 and TFC-18, the original and TF Collection Japanese ID numbers for Soundwave's upgraded form, Soundblaster.
• The Bin# is now 66.2606 – 6.62606 x 10⁻³⁴ is Planck's Constant.

Pg 148 – The Steelhaven was given its name in the first Almanac. It is named for the ship commanded by Fortress Maximus in the Generation 1 Marvel comics. [The specs here are based on the G.I. Joe blueprints from the 80's toyline.]

Pg 150 – Swindle mentions Planet Q, home of Energon's Alpha Q, seen in the star map on page 114-115.

Pgs 154-155 – References in the technical cutaway of the Steelhaven include:

• The Vanguard Booster was a Mini-Con weapon from the PlayStation 2 Armada video game.
• The Kurisama targeting system is named for Transformers fan Chris “Kurisama” Vera, who created the CGI model used on these pages.
• The DA5-ID Shield Generator is named for the character Da5id Meier from the Neal Stephenson novel, Snow Crash.
• The Vertias-class Hyperspace Engine refers to Chris Vera's own surname, in its original Latin form.
• 21-IX, a reference to Chris Vera's birthday, the 21st of September.
• The Steelhaven's brig is reinforced with gurunium, a mighty metal from Victory.
• TA-22, a reference to Chris Vera's dearly departed car, a 1974 TA22 Celica.
• The Roche-class engines are named for Transfomrers fan-turned-pro, writer, artist and all-round trouser-shattering bloke, Nick Roche.
• The Steelhaven's shuttle are all craft from other media. They include the Blue Nixie from Dungeons and Dragons, the Nautilus from Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the Poison Orchid from Scott Lynch's novel Red Seas Under Red Skies, the Weatherlight from Magic: The Gathering, the Black Pearl from Pirates of the Caribbean and the Alcarondas from the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Pg 222 – Even at the finishing line, the Almanac sneaks in a few last references to things we have not seen in the book before in the form of an Animated timeline. In addition to the previously-mentioned Guardians, Malignus and Destrons (explaining how they can be old dialects, as touched upon at various points in the books) we have:

• Cyberglyphics are the ancient symbol writing from the live-action movie universe.
• The Protectons were the heroic faction from Robotix.
• Zeemon Magnus is named after the GoBot politcal leader, Zeemon.
• [Ariex appears to be an all new character, the name having been previously used for a member of the Covenant in 3H Production's early BotCon comics]
  • Devron was a former Decepticon leader from the Generation 1 cartoon. He is only ever seen as one of the statues in the “Hall of Heroes” (the hall in which Starscream is coronated in The Transformers: The Movie), his name given by animation model sheets showing the hall's layout.
  • Megazarak was the Japanse name of Generation 1 Scorponok, and later used as the name of a Decepticon leader from another dimension in the Universe toyline.

Alternity Today

NEWS

Ulchtar was the preliminary name of Generation 1 Starscream, while his nickname, the “Red Spider”, is the literal translation of Starscream’s Cantonese name, “Hong Zhizhu”. He hails from Aurex 603.0 Kappa, the universe of “The Energon Within”, a video game included on the CD-ROM packaged with the first wave of Universe figures. The first paragraph of this article is essentially a summary of the events of the game and the characters featured in it.

It is suggested that Megatron obtained the technology to transport Ulchtar across the dimension from Sideways, the Unicron Trilogy’s notorious dimension-hopper. Ulchtar shrank the energon he stole with a transmat reduction beam, a miniaturizing device seen in the Generation 1 cartoon episode, “Microbots”. His Mini-Con partner is Spark Grid, which was the Japanese name of the powered-up form of Armada Starscream’s partner Swindle.

Ulchtar wound up in Primax 388.0 Gamma, the branching continuity of the various Japanese Transformers manga that splinters off from the regular cartoon timeline with the first issue of Super-God Masterforce. He evidently arrived some time into the future, post-2025, circa the events of Zone, since the members of the Micromaster Battle Patrol Team are named, Dai Atlas is the current Autobot Supreme Commander, and the planet Micro has been renamed Zone.

With the aid of Scrounge (an alternate version of the hapless Autobot surveillance expert from issue #17 of the Generation 1 Marvel comic), Ulchtar liberated the “Combatibots” from the Zone Satellite Penitentiary (first seen in the Victory episode “Rescue! Gaihawk”, when the planet it orbited was still known as Micro) in a parody of the G1 episode “Starscream’s Brigade”. The Combatibots are named in the Almanac, but not here; only their combined form Toxitron is name-checked, christened after an unreleased redeco of Generation 2 Laser Optimus Prime. The team is speculated to be fusilateral quintrocombiners, a complex term from issue #9 of the Generation 2 comic that refers to the standard five-bot “Scramble City” style of combination.

The whole “wanted” poster is a copy of the poster for Galvatron seen in the UK G1 comic story, “Wanted: Galvatron – Dead or Alive”, in which Shanix, the currency that the reward is offered in, first appeared. Those seeking it are advised to contact Rodimus Convoy (Rodimus Prime’s Japanese name) on New Cybertron, a reference to the unresolved story thread that saw Rodimus depart for space to look for a new homeworld for the Transformers in the Headmasters two-part episode, “Cybertron Is in Grave Danger”. Looks like he succeeded! Hurray!

The adverts on the left side of the screen are for:

• Sleepfast Nightlights, telepathic lights from the UK G1 comic story, “The Living Nightlights”. There, they were a ploy of G1 Mindwipe’s, hence the appearance of AnimatedMindwipe in the ad. The nightlight itself is recolored art lifted straight from the original comic.
• Garbage-Os, the cereal showcased in the first AllSpark Almanac. Reference to Wreck-Gar’s voice actor Weird Al Yankovic are obvious: readers are instructed to “run and get some scissors”, referring to Al’s album “Running With Scissors”, while 27 box tops are needed for the promotion, 27 being a running gag in Al’s songs.
• Wyatt Toys, the toy store mentioned in the first Almanac named for Animated Art Director Derrick J. Wyatt. The picture in the ad is from the cover of the second Almanac, of Bumblebee holding Roll-Out Command Optimus Prime.
• Cybermatch.com, a thankfully non-existent website promoted with an image of Marissa Faireborn and Optimus Prime from the Kiss Players toyline.

TRAVEL

Aero-Bot and his four allies are Playskool Go-Bots (sometimes called “Go-Go-Gobots” by fans). The coverage of this story in the Almanac is the first time their continuity family has been given a designator; Yayayarst certainly seems intended to mimic the cadence of “Go-Go-Gobots”. Their point of origin is Yayayarst 201.11 Beta; since the Playskool Go-Bots line didn’t start until 2002, this designator seems to be signifying the starting point of this universe as the February 2001 release of the 1-2-3 Transformers toy, Rescue Roy, since he was sold alongside the Playskool Gobots in Japan as part of the combined Kid's Transformers Rescue Heroes Go-Bots line.

Aero-Bot was found in the Eshems Nebula, a region of space introduce in IDW’s live-action Transformers movie comics, in Tyran 609.22 Iota, which is….the…world of Burger King’s online Revenge of the Fallen promotion? Really?

The scientists who help him are two versions of the same ‘bot, Zebres, from Robot Masters, a repaint of G1 Cerebros and part of Cybertron Base, that line’s repaint of G1 Fortress Maximus. One Zebres is from Primax 1204.0 Alpha, the world of the brief DVD-exclusive Robot Masters cartoon; he is a Headmaster in the American sense, partnered to a Nebulon named Master by way of Brainstorm’s Headmaster process (invented in the G1 episode “The Rebirth, Part 1”). The other is from Primax 704.0 Beta, the world of the Robot Masters tech-specs; he is a Headmaster in the Japanese sense, a diminutive Cybertronian named Master who is bonded to a Transtector like Fortress of The Headmasters. His Transtector is noted to transform into an emissary mode, a reference to the character of the Emissary from Robots in Disguise, who was the intermediate component of that universe’s Fortress Maximus. It is also claimed for the first time anywhere that Master, Fortress and the other tiny Cybertronians are Micromasters.

The X-Dimension is a bit of a mystery, but was apparently intended to be an alternate dimension from which Takara’s series of X-Dimension Mini-Con repaints hail (it would have been the subject of the DVD pack-in comics that came with the Japanese Armada DVDs, but the idea was dropped in favour of doing the Linkage story instead). The mentions made here of “horrors” and “higher-level intelligences” that dwell in the X-Dimension call to mind the ancient gods that tormented Universe Ramjet when he was trapped outside of normal space; perhaps, then, the X-Dimension is another name for that non-existence bit of unreality that exists between dimensions, also known as transwarp and subspace.

Also referred to during the article are hyper-frames (the physical bodies of the Alternity), the Alternity’s “cousins from the Nexus stream” (referring to the TransTechs, who also safeguard the multiverse like the Alternity do), and Botropolis (home of the Playskool Go-Bots, explained for the first time here to be a comet).

New ads that appear on this page are:

• Tyrest University, a facility mentioned in Shattered Glass Razorclaw’s bio. Classes include Ancient Malignus, continuing the Almanac’s joke that Malignus is an ancient language on Cybertron analogous to Earth’s Spanish, and Levitacan Crystal Sculpture, presumably in reference to councillor Levitacus from Dreamwave’s Energon comics.
• Wheeljack Tires, named for the Autobot inventor and seen in the first Almanac. The image of a baby (in this case, Sari’s protoform) and the “so much is riding on you” slogan evoke the adverts of real-life tire company Michelin.

POLITICS

Hey, it’s Alexis from the Armada cartoon! As in the Almanac, she is here given the last name of Thi Dang for the first time, realizing the Vietnamese nationality that was originally intended for the character. The symbol writing in the headshot of her (depicting her in her adult years as she appeared in the Energon cartoon) is the language of the aliens from V; it translates as their signature line, “We are of peace”.

Gabriella Costanza was the president of the United States in the future depicted in the Animated “Be the Hero” storybook, Time-Quake. It is implied here that the Unicron Trilogy incarnation of Gabriella is the female president seen in the Cybertron cartoon; Alexis is noted to be her Secretary of State, in reference to a brief scene in the final episode of Cybertron in which a figure appearing to be Alexis is seen standing on a stage next to the president. Barbara Larkin, meanwhile, is a senator who appeared in Marvel’s original G.I. Joe vs the Transformers mini-series.

The new ad on this page is for the Cybertron Elite Guard, with a slogan that parallels the Marines’ famous recruiting campaign.

GOSSIP

This column is written by Freezon, the Decepticon car included with Tyco’s electronic Transformers race track set back in the 1980s. The first Almanac established that Freezon was a female gossip columnist.

The Rosanna covered in the first item hails not from Animated cartoon continuity, but from Malgus 1008.0 Gamma, the continuity of the UK’s short-lived Animated comic (TFWiki’s resource is a bit incomplete on its publication date, hence this universal stream designator is also; it should be 1008.23). Her “ware-drobe malfunction” appears to have involved her involuntarily changing into Decepticon colors; in addition to obviously homaging Janet Jackon’s own infamous slip from 2004, this furthers the Almanac’s implication that she is actually the Decepticon deep-cover agent, Flip Sides, in disguise. The concert took place in Speedia Stadium on Velocitron (the Speed Planet from Cybertron, known in Japan as “Speedia”).

The Slamdance of the second item comes from Primax -408.1 Epsilon, the continuity of the Fun Publication’s Shattered Glass April Fool’s “Shattered Expectations” comic. He writes for Venus magazine, seen in the first Almanac, and explained here via its universal stream designator (Nexus 809.19 Zeta) to be a publication from the TransTech continuity. Also mentioned is Ego of C-Kar industries, from the Fun Publications TransTech story, “I, Lowtech”.

Governor Riker appeared in the Victory cartoon episodes “Planet Micro – The Mysterious Warrior” and “Rescue! Gaihawk”. This version of the character is from Viron 724.8 Gamma; presumably, this is a typo, and it’s supposed to be 704.8, which would refer to the Dreamwave Robots in Disguise comic “Ultra Magnus… To the Rescue?”, published July 8, 2004 in their summer special. Because otherwise it’s a non-existent RiD comic from 1924!

The next item refers to Shattered Glass Wheeljack and Ravage travelling to the real world. This happened in David Willis’s webcomic Shortpacked!, in reference to toys of the pair being available at BotCon 2010; Ravage went back, but Wheeljack stayed. “Slice” was the name that the Wheeljack toy was sold under, pulling double-duty as a new version of the European-exclusive Action Master, Slicer.

Optimus Prime of Nexus 208.0 Epsilon is TransTech Optimus. Atechnogenesis is the belief that Transformer life evolved naturally (introduced in the first issue of the Marvel G1 comic, named in Dreamwave’s More Than Meets The Eye guidebook), while swearing by Primacron, rather than Primus, was first seen in IDW’s Stormbringer series. Outside of these Transformer references, the whole article, referring to Prime’s reliance on a teleprompter and making claims about where he was born, are typical questions that opponents raise about Barack Obama, on whose personality TransTech Prime’s was based.

Armada Sideways might be Beast Wars Tarantulas? Well, they are both purple and yellow minions of Unicron who have had motorcycle alternate modes!

New ads on this page:

• A mobile phone ad featuring live-action movie Frenzy.
• Maccadam’s Old Oil House, the Transformer watering hole that’s appeared in most continuity families. Artwork is reused from the Almanac itself, featuring Victory’s Clipper and Stampy from Beast Wars Neo.

ENTERTAINMENT

This page takes the form of an interview with the actor who played Shockwave in Sentinel Prime’s propaganda movie from the Animated episode “This Is Why I Hate Machines”. As noted in the Almanac, he’s an Animated version of Hoist, in reference to G1 Hoist’s brief tenure as an actor in the G1 episode “Hoist Goes Hollywood”. He comes from Tyger Pax, a region of Cybertron introduced in Dreamwave’s The War Within: The Age of Wrath mini-series. Hoist is being interviewed by Bishop, the journalist who hosts the “Wings of Honor” version of the Around Cybertron news programme published in the Official Transformers Collectors’ Club magazine in 2010.

Real movies parodied include the Police Academy series (Autobot Academy) and The Man Without a Face (The Quintesson Without a Face). Also mentioned is the horror Night Over Kalis, which Hoist claims is based on a true story: a reference to the UK G1 comic story “City of Fear”, in which Kalis was overrun by zombies. Quint’s plot features a Paradron nurse (medical robots seen in the G1 episode “Fight or Flee”, more popularity known as Paradron Medics).

When he slips at the end of the interview, Hoist mentions ultra-energon (the super-charged brand of the Transformers’ regular fuel introduce in IDW’s Infiltration series) and pleasure-drones from Monacus (a den of iniquity featured in the G1 episode “The Gambler”).

TECHNOLOGY

Most of this article is covered in the main Almanac, and details the evil deeds of Robots in Disguise Dreadwind and Smokejumper (whose universal stream of origin is traced to the release of their toy in April 2003), who have “locked the Lunar Battle of 2011 in a repeated time loop”, prompting the Autobots to invent the Challenge Blaster to intervene.

The Challenge Blaster was a real light-gun style toy available in the late 1980s, which allowed kids to interact with their televisions by shooting at images the gun could detect. Among the television programmes who engaged in a co-promotion for the Challenge Blaster was the Headmaster cartoon series, which even had Daniel Witwicky regularly wielding the gun in battle in-show. Starting with the show’s fourteenth episode (broadcast on October 9, 1987, hence the universal stream Primax 1087.90 Alpha), the opening sequence (the aforementioned “lunar battle”) was modified so that the Decepticons emitted the flickering visual signal for the Challenge Blaster to pick up. This flickering, then, is presented as the work of Dreadwind and Smokejumper, who have encoded a MegaWing Beacon into the Decepticons (named for the fan-made combination of Dreadwing and Armada Megatron detailed in the first and only issue of 3H’s Collectors’ Club Magazine) that is the source of the time loop.

Scientists fear that if not stopped, the destructive effects of this time loop could erase Jazz from reality, a reference to the fact that this was, in fact, the last episode of Headmasters that Jazz appeared in. Dreadwing and Smokejumper are also blamed for the destruction of Primax 704.31 Epsilon, the world featured in the Official Transformers Collectors’ Convention 2004 live script-reading. It is noted that the Decepticon commander that they “found refuge” with disappeared; given that the pair have appeared in absolutely no fiction before now, this appears to refer to the above-mentioned set of fan-made instructions, which put them as subordinates of Armada Megatron, despite their origins as Robots in Disguise characters. Megatron, of course, disappeared at the end of the Armada series.

The sold new ad on this page is for Swindle, Swindle & Swindle, the business run by three versions of G1 Swindle from Fun Publications’ TransTech stories. They offer a free liquid shrapnel missile, a kind of weapon mentioned in issue #15 of IDW’s All Hail Megatron.

AND THE REST

“Disciples of Botax” links to Jim Sorenson’s blog. “The Arts” links to Bill Forster’s deviantart page. “Comics” links to David Willis’s Shortpacked! “Arkives” links to TFWiki’s page on Sorenson and Forster’s Ark books.

THE STUNTI-CON JOB

Page 1

• Phase displacement armor was mentioned, though not seen, in the Prime episode “Sick Mind”. It allows a wearer to become immaterial.
• Alpha Flux is a scientific term referring to “the number of alpha particles emitted from a surface over a period of time.” Feels like its probably a reference to something science-fictiony too, though! Perhaps the game mechanic of the same name from the RPG Gamma World? [Jim later confirmed this]
• The Transmetal driver was a prominent McGuffin from the Beast Wars animated series, featuring in the episodes “Feral Scream” and “Crossing the Rubicon”. That universe's version of Cheetor got a good tate of its power.
• The Aqua Saw was the personal weapon of the Decepticon Pretender Gilmer from Super-God Masterforce. His was really just a funnily-named sword, though!

Page 3

• Although hardly a Transformers-specific term, an omnidirectional relay played an important role in the Generation 1 cartoon episode, “The Big Broadcast of 2006.”
• Breakdown uses the swear “smeg”, from Red Dwarf, which previously saw use in the second Almanac.

Page 5

• The page header is written in Ancient Autobot, a font created by Jim Sorenson based on symbols seen in the Generation 1 episode, “Cosmic Rust”. It simply says “Police Report”. [It's also the actual transfer report from the comic-Depth Charge's holding it on page 2. See his fingers at the top?]
• Carrying on the dating system seen in the Almanacs, the events of “Moving Violations” are dated to 47603.3, stardate of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Shadowplay”.
• The rule Crumplezone and Ransack have broken is labelled 31422-6955, composited from two back-to-back episode titles from the TV series Fringe, “Amber 31422” and “6955 kHz”.
• The string of Ancient Autobot above Cheetor's head turnaround reads “Reelect Miguel Prado”. Prado was the villain of the third season of Dexter; the “reelect” bit comes from the fact he was a District Attorney.
• Below Cheetor's head is “Hello, Megan!” perpetually irritating catchphrase of Miss Martian on Young Justice.
• Cheetor's ID card reads “Cybertron Police Defense Command / CPDC / Adaptability/Honor/Integrity/Courage / This certifies that the signature and photograph hereon is an appointed TransTech Detective of the Cybertron Police Defense Command / Cheetor / The truth is out there”, the last line referring to the famous tagline of The X-Files. The red text says “TransTech Division”, and Cheetor has signed his name. [His ID Card is based on his toy packaging.]
• The note below the card says: “Such is charged with the duty of investigating violations of the laws of Cybertron, collecting evidence in cases in which the Autobots are or may be a party in interest, and performing other duties imposed upon him by law”. It is signed by Ultra Magnus, and labelled an “Order of the Magnus of Cybertron”.
• The caption for Cheetor's police paraphernalia reads “Rule 1: Cardio”, an important lesson for surviving the zombie apocalypse as taught by the movie Zombieland.
• The first block of Ancient Autobot text to the right of his reads is a quote from the Dr. Katz episode “Bystander Ben”, which reads: “No more than three shots, and possibly as few as none, were fired.”
• Below that is a quote from Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible: “Bad Horse still votes neigh.”
• And under that is one from online series The Guild, which tranlates as “Game over, Axis of Anarchy!” Both Dr. Horrible and The Guild star Felicia Day, but she wasn't in Dr. Katzso I'm not sure if there's supposed to be a link between these quotes.
• The symbol language above Cheetor's vehicle mode is the second “Alien Language” from Futurama. It's not a simple substitution cipher, being partially mathematical in its working, but it translates as “Created by Warren Robinett”. These words were one of the earliest video game easter eggs, included in the Atari 2600 game Adventure by programmer Robinett to ensure credit where it was due.
• The text below Cheetor's vehicle mode is the alien language from the movie District 9. It reads: “401 K 480180”. This is a reference to the FX animated series Archer, and the fact that according to the episode “Jeu Monégasque”, the title character has $480180 in his 401(k) account.
• The symbol just under Cheetor's bumper is an interrobang. It's inclusion is a nod to fan and regular Transformers Wiki contributor Interrobang, paying him credit for being the one guy who manned up and added all the information from the planetary star map from the second Almanac to the wiki.
• The writing to the right of Cheetor is in J.R.R. Tolkien's elvish. It translates as “Frodo Cuinar”, which is elvish for “Frodo Lives”, a popular counter-culture slogan from the 1960s and 70s, which you don't need to me to tell you refers to the protagonist of Toklien's Lord of the Rings.

Page 6

• As in the first two Almanacs, the symbol writing on this page is in Predacon cybertronix, from the Beast Wars animated series. The header is a new instalment of Ask Vector Prime, the Q&A session once held by Hasbro on their website during the run of Cybertron, previous editions of which also appeared in the second Almanac. This one reads: “Q: Was Cyclonus built from Bombshell or Skywarp?” referring to the longstanding fan debate over which robot Unicron reformatted in The Transformers: The Movie. The nice, safe, non-committal – but entirely true – answer is “A: It varies by universe”.
• Just below this is a set of co-ordinates, which pinpoint the location of the Pasadena Convention Center, location of BotCon 2011.
• The image of Sideswipe is, of course, in the colours of his original Generation 1 namesake. Note how, in his younger days, he shared a head with Rodimus, as well as a body-type! The cybertronix behind him translates into the lyrics of Iron Maiden's “Satellite 15... The Final Frontier”.
• The cybertronix behind Oil Slick is the lyrics to “Synchronicity II”, by the Police.
• The text to the right of Oil Slick reads: “You're so meta, you probably think this song is about you”. Not sure if that's a direct quote from anything, but it is of course a parody of the Carly Simon song, “You're So Vain”.

Page 7-8

• As written, the piece of text to the right of Reachout is in Maximal Cybertronix and translates as... um... upside-down-lower-case z, period, upper-case O, period, upside-down-lower-case z, period, and then a colon. However, Sorenson admits that's a mistake and that it should say “C.O.C.”, and that it's a clue for figuring out the new symbol language seen across these two pages. My very first thought was that this might be morse code – Mini-Cons, beeping and booping, and all that – but the presence of more than two characters saw me immediately throw that theory out the window without testing it. As it turns out, I really should have, because that's exactly what it is. A parenthesis, regardless of orientation, is a dash, while a circle is a dot. C.O.C, then, it turns out, stands for Cybertron Optical Code, the morse code style light-flashing message-transmission system seen in the Animated episode, “Decepticon Air”. In honour of the fact that this was a new cipher that had to actually be figured out, instead of a pre-existing fictional language, all the hidden words relate to famous uncrackable codes, unsolvable riddles and untranslatable languages. They are:
• Above Grindor reads “Quipus”, which were lengths of knotted lengths of string used by Incas to record information.
• Below Reachout is “Phaistos”, from the Phaistos Disc, one of the most famous mysteries of archaeology, a Bronze Age disk decorated with an unknown series of symbols.
• The text above Leader-1 says “Dorabella”, referring to the Dorabella Cipher, an unsolved coded message written by English composer Edward Elgar.
• Below Duck-E, we have “Voynich”, as in the Voynich Manuscript, “the world's most mysterious manuscript”, a book from the 15^th century written entirely in an unreadable language.
• Above High Wire is “Beale”, in reference to the Beale ciphers, a set of potential hoax ciphers that allegedly point the way to buried treasure.
• Beneath Sureshock, the text reads “Dispilio”, from the Dispilio Tablet, a neolithic tablet unearth in Dispilio, Greece, that bears an undeciphered symbol language of some kind.
• And below High Wire reads “D OUOSVAVV M”, which is the text of an mysterious inscription on a statue in the grounds of Shugborough House in Staffordshire, England.
• The text below each of the Mini-Cons' bios is also in Maximal cybertronix. They are each the name of a character played by Kurt Russell: MacCready from The Thing, Snake Plissken from Escape from New York, Jack O'Neill from Stargate, Stuntman Mike from Death Proof, Jack Burton from Big Trouble in Little China, and the King himself, Elvis Presley, as seen in the 1979 TV movie, Elvis.
• Cell Block 456 is named after a race of aliens from the Doctor Who spinoff series, Torchwood.
• Briefly glimpsed in “Moving Violations”, we get a better look at Mudflap here. His alias, Sawtooth, was a proposed name for the live-action movie redeco of the CybertronMudflap toy, on whom this Mudflap is based.
• Triple M, short for the Militant Monoform Movement, were mentioned in issue #23 of IDW's ongoing Generation 1 series, released just a few months before this addendum.
• Mudflap's associate being Skids is a reference to the live action movie universe's twins of the same names. Animated Skids himself was briefly glimpsed in the second Almanac, and actually was based on the live-action Skids, unlike Mudflap here.
• Simultronics are a virtual reality drug seen in IDW's Spotlight: Blurr.

Page 15

Most of the characters on this page of teasers for future Almanac profiles have appeared before, some in very obscure places, but a random few are new. From left to right, and top to bottom, they are:

• Evil parallel-universe versions of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, inspired by the evil mirror universe of “Shattered Glass” introduced at BotCon 2008. Had Animated gone to a fourth season, there were plans to include a Shattered Glass themed episode in which these characters would presumably have appeared. Prime's purple coloration is based on the Shattered Glass version of Generation 1 Optimus Prime, while Bumblebee's white paintjob is inspired by Bugbite, a character twice depicted as a white repaint of Generation 1 Bumblebee. Both characters officially debuted on a lithograph at BotCon 2011.
• Nemesis Prime, based on numerous evil clones of various Optimus Primes throughout numerous continuities. Specifically, Animated Nemesis Prime is an official repurposing of a Japanese-exclusive black repaint of Optimus Prime. He also appeared on the BotCon 2011 litho.
• A Transformer based on a manatee. It has previously only appeared as a piece of art posted on Derrick J. Wyatt's blog, with the name Manatronatee.
• Dark Rodimus, a Japanese-exclusive black repaint of Rodimus (there known as “Black Rodimus”) who made the jump to American when he also appeared on the BotCon 2011 litho.
• Shattered Glass versions of Sari and Isaac Sumdac. While both first appeared as artwork by Wyatt on his blog, Sari was the first to make the jump into canon when she appeared in an illustration Wyatt produced for the Japanese publication Transformers Generation 2011 Vol 1. Both characters were then included on the BotCon 2011 litho.
• Sky-Byte, Blot and Mindwipe, members of Team Chaar who all appeared on the final page of “The Stunti-Con Job”. Blot is directly based on the Generation 1 Terrorcon of the same name. A headshot of Mindwipe first appeared in The AllSpark Almanac II, but his character design is largely original, owing very little to his Generation 1 namesake beyond a pair of bat-wings. The second Almanac also featured a very different headshot for Sky-Byte, which had since been supplanted with this new head bearing much more resemblance to his Robots in Disguise progenitor. Bill Forster noted when commenting on the second Almanac that he envisioned Sky-Byte as shared a body-type with Lugnut, a design choice that is carried through to this finalized version of the character.
• Flashpoint, a new character appearing in “Moving Violations” who shares a body type with Animated Red Alert. She is broadly based on the live-action movie Inferno toy (because it was a redeco of Armada Red Alert), but isn't called Inferno because the second Almanac already introduced an Animated Inferno based on the Beast Wars character.
• Chromia, a blue redeco of Arcee based on the Generation 1 character of the same name. She first appeared in the bluntly-named Japanese trading card game, “Transformers Cards”. Virtually simultaneously with her appearance in this game, the second Almanac also included a Chromia headshot, but based on her Generation 1 self's head. This version continues the card game's used of the Arcee head, albeit with a blue face instead of the pink one her card uses.
• Road Rage, who sports a red version of Animated Tracks's body, in homage to Generation 1 Road Rage, who was a red redeco of Generation 1 Tracks.
• Grinder, a blue and white redeco of Blackout, who first appeared in “Transformers Cards”, and is an homage to Revenge of the Fallen Grindor (who was a repaint of moveiverse Blackout). The cards Engrish-ed up the spelling of his name, but this proved fortuitous, given the appearance of an Animated Mini-Con Grindor in “The Stunti-Con Job”.
• Venom, a green and orange redeco of Blackout based on the Generation 1 Deluxe Insecticon of the same name, simply because Blackout looks rather insect-like. He first appeared on the BotCon 2011 litho.
• Bugly, a blue and yellow Blackout redeco, and a brand new character making his debut here. He's based on the Generation 1 Pretender of the same name, again because the character was an insectoid.
• Stampy and Longrack, based on the Beast Wars Neo characters. Stampy debuted in “Moving Violations”, Longrack in “The Stunti-Con Job”.
• And the last run of characters all premiered as crowd-fillers in “Moving Violations”: Stungun (based on the character from Fun Publications' TransTech stories), Air Raid (a redeco of Animated Powerglide based on FunPub's Skyfall, but not named after him on the basis that Skyfall, as a component of Nexus Maximus, should be a multiversal singularity), Scrounge (based on the spy from the Generation 1 Marvel comics, and previously mentioned in the second Almanac), Jackpot (based on the Generation 1 Action Master), Excellion (a redeco of Animated Hot Shot, based on of the redeco of Cybertron Hot Shot of the same name), Strongarm (based on the Energon Omnicon) and Moscardo (an original character, one of many who sports the Bumblebee body-type, and christened with Generation 1 Bumblebee's Portugese name).
• Last but not least, tucked away in the bottom right, are super-deformed versions of Octus and Megadeath, the Transformer alter-egos of authors Jim Sorenson and Bill Forster, who previously appeared in the introduction to the second Almanac. Here, they appear in their alternate modes for the first time: Octus is a Dalek from Doctor Who (in keeping with Generation 1 Octus, whose creator Lee Sullivan design him to transform into a Dalek), while Megadeath is a mammoth, since he shares a body-type with Beast Wars NeoBig Convoy.

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• Little Miss Firecracker might be a reference to the real-life Miss Firecracker beauty pageant, or the movie that also went by that name.
• Tetrinite is a supremely durable metal mentioned in the Transformers Kids' Stuff storybook, "Jaws of Terror".
• Decimus Quadrillions is, one would presume, the suitably money-oriented full name of the Animated universe's version of Senator Decimus, a wealthy politician from IDW's Generation 1 continuity, first appearing in the "Megatron Origin" mini-series.
• Furnacia was the home plant of the Firebugs, from the Marvel UK Generation 1 story by that name.
• The Rescue Patrol name was previously used by a team of Generation 1 Micromasters.
• In addition to sharing various physical characteristics with Infernos from across Transformers continuity, Flashpoint has the same motto as G1 Inferno, and uses a Hydro-Pack, the same accessory the G1 character used when he was an Action Master.

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• The Choirs of Anduria were mentioned in issue #31 of IDW's ongoing Transformers series.
• Both the tickets and the fan club pass feature more Cybertron Optical Code. They continue to refer to unsolved or unreadable languages. I think Jim was taking a pop at me for not figuring this out first time round! They say:
• The top of the ticket reads "D'Agapeyeff", referring to the D'Agapeyeff cipher, an unsolved cipher written by cartographer Alexander D'Agapeyeff.
• The stub of the top ticket reads "Rohonc", as in the Rohonc Codex, an unsolved code found the city of Rohonc, Hungary, of unknown origin.
• The bottom ticket stub says "Byblos", after the Byblos syllabary, an deciphered writing system found in the Mediterranean city of Byblos.
• The top of the fan club pass reads "Tamam Shud", referring to the mysterious Tamam Shud case, in with an unsolved cipher was found on the body of a dead man in 1948 in Adelaide, Australia.
• The bottom of the pass translates as "Seraphinius", from the Codex Seraphinius, an illustrated fantasy encyclopedia created by Italian artist Luigi Serafini in 1981, written in an unreadable alphabet.
• JW 39 864 715 – Ah, it's another alpha-numeric string that I haven't a clue about. [JW 39 864 715 is from one of the Berserker short stories by Fred Saberhagen.]
• Rosanna's concert is a Synergy Production. Synergy was the holographic computer from Jem and the Holograms, also responsible for orchestrating music shows.
• The Fractyal Amphitheatre is named for the Beast Wars BotCon 1997 exclusive, Fractyl.
• Tomaandi was an Autobot Elder who made a few sparing appearances in a handful of very early Marvel UK stories. The street number, 1864, is a fairly vague thing to pin down, but I suspect it's a reference to the South Park episode “Super Fun Time”, in which the kids visit a “living history” Pioneer Village set in a perpetual 1864.
• Perihex is a region of Cybertron previously only mentioned on game board of the 2007 live-action movie version of RISK.
• A re-use of the Cybertronian day-and-month system seen in The AllSpark Almanac II - Marxsol is named for Beast Wars cartoon writer Christy Marx, while Zetcaneon is named for the Masterforce Warrior Zetca (a copy-edit error in the Almanac saw the "-neon" cut off this month's name, so this is its first full appearance in print).
• BBB-307DR is the identification code of a computer that appears in the Philip K. Dick novel, The Electric Ant.
• 0709215012 is the prisoner number of the character Brendon in the Home Movies episode, "Time to Pay the Price".
• 6548-32480-3321 is the number of Animated Wheeljack's body type, originally mentioned in The AllSpark Almanac II. If it has a hidden meaning (as Bumblebee's did), I still haven't figured it out. [As mentioned before, it's from Flashforward.]
• Could ticket number B5 be a reference to sci-fi TV series Babylon 5? B4 then would presumably not be a reference to anything, just the seat next to B5. [B4 is Data's twin from Star Trek: Nemesis.]
• The number on the tickets' stubs, AR81088587, is the name of a file mentioned in one of the epigraphs in the Frank Herbert novel, Dune.
• Concermaster is a play on Ticketmaster, similar logo and all. It of course calls to mind Headmasters, Targetmasters, Powermasters, etc.
• The CDs are cast in the image of the Golden Disks from Beast Wars, with the top one bearing the symbols of the Vok disk, and the bottom decorated in the symbols of the Voyager disk.
• The image on the cover of the CD case is the cover to the soundtrack of The Transformers: The Movie. The Ancient Autobot on the cover reads "Frozen Gold and Liquid", presumably an accidental cropping of "Frozen Gold and Liquid Ice", a fictional song from the Iain Banks novel Espedair Street. The red text at the bottom is Rosanna's name.
• I'll bet anything that the Generation 2 Autobot symbol radiating the "radar" waves was a sticker on a G2 toy, but I can't figure out which one offhand.
• Grandus was established to be a fan of Rosanna's in The AllSpark Almanac II. The strap on his backstage pass reads "BPCOM." Not sure what that could be a fragment of. Rosanna is playing a guitar that looks like Animated Laserbeak in the pass illustration - another nod to her potential double-life as Decepticon deep-cover agent Flipsides?
• Manatronatee is another of Rosanna's pets, which include Ramhorn, Zaur and Steeljaw - all established in The AllSpark Almanac II.

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• As noted above, these “evil mirror universe” versions of the Animated cast are inspired by the Shattered Glass universe introduced at BotCon 2008. The cast is expanded through references to the other mirror universe Autobots, who all seem to be cast as having the traits of the Animated Decepticons – Prowl has had a clone army like Starscream, Ratchet is known for his twisted experiments like Blackarachnia, and Bulkhead is noted for his power, like Lugnut. The only real reference here is to the Terrordome, Isaac Sumdac's battle fortress, named after the base employed by Cobra in the G.I. Joe franchise. It was previously named the Technodrome on the BotCon lithograph that introduced these characters, after the spherical war machine from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but that was an error.

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• This page is written in the same “diary entry” style as a few episode summaries seen in the two Almanacs, with the “Hello Nekomimi Pop-Star” stationery replaced with the appropriately mirror-universe-y “Goodbye Inumimi Rock-Star” (“inu” being Japanese for “dog”, where “neko” means “cat”). The entry summarizes “mirror” versions of the Animated episodes “Sound and Fury”, “SUV: Society of Ultimate Villain” and “Human Error”, introducing mirror versions of human villains Angry Archer, Nanosec, Professor Princess, Colossus Rhodes and Meltdown, who together make up “HYBRID” (nyuk nyuk nyuk). Sari uses the swear “frack”, from Battlestar Galactica (where it's spelled “frak”).
• Doodles scribbled on the page by Sari include “Stingers Rock” (referring to the nogoodnik band of the same name from Jem and the Holograms) and a My Little Pony character in the aesthetic of the newest version of the series, Friendship is Magic, which is named Rainbow Dark in a dual reference to FiM character Rainbow Dash and Hasbro girls property Rainbow Brite. What the “Poison Apple” doodle might refer to, beyond that obvious Snow White reference, I'm not sure.
• The polaroid of Sari with her chainsaw arms was originally a piece of art Derrick Wyatt produced for his blog. Mirror universe Sari has this weapons in place of regular Sari's sword blades.

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• Mention is made of Operation: Distant Thunder, an endeavour that takes its name from a time-travel experiment in the Binaltech story line, which was itself named for “Distant Thunder!”, the time-and-space bending adventure from issue #100 of the Marvel UK Generation 1 comic. No details are given of it here, but given Cyclonus's involvement in it and the hints in previous Almanacs that he hails from the future, one is left to wonder...
• Sky-Byte's reluctance to harm non-military targets hearkens back to his Robots in Disguise incarnation and his friendship with children.
• Blot and Mindwipe's profiles are pretty much straight lifts from their Generation 1 counterpart's.

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• The Maximal Cybertronix next to Blot translates as “Turd Ferguson. It's a funny name” - a quote from a Saturday Night Live parody of Jeopardy!
• Strika is armed with Reverse-Higgs Nitronium Missiles, weapons previously seen in in the Fun Publications text story Flames of Yesterday. That story noted they were prone to quantum jamming, but here, it is said they are less susceptible to it than Penetraror Missiles, the personal weapons of Generation 2 Roadblock.
• The Predacon Cybertronix behind Oil Slick is the lyrics to “Goodbye My Only Friend”, the closing theme from the video game Portal 2.
• Oil Slick's new weapon uses Giga-Techvolt principles, named after one of the weapons used by the Sixliner team from Return of Convoy.
• Ironfist is contemplating the use of Mini-Cons as partners, as seen in the Armada series.
• The hexadecimal code in the bottom-right corner of the page is from the TV series Sherlock, appearing in an illicit e-mail in the episode “A Scandal in Belgravia”. I can't take credit for this one, Abates of TFWiki.Net got there before me! Note that this continues the use of the hidden codes in the Addenum as being references to hidden codes from both fiction and real life.
• With that in mind, if anyone can suss out what the numerical strings by Blot and Strika's names mean – 69275754697 and 64672943 – speak up... [69275754697 is a code from the 1992 film Freejack. 64672943 is a door code from the short story "Patient Zero" by Tananarive Due, published in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighteenth Annual Collection.]