Cultural Appropriation

"Cultural Appropriation" is the ninth Beast Wars: Uprising story, and the second of the four-part finale, released just a little over three weeks after the previous story, "Not All Megatrons", on December 9th, 2016. It's been a little under a year in-universe since the last story, putting it at the fifth year of the Grant Uprising. As part of the finale, it begins to intersect several threads that have been building up throughout the series, and brings together several characters introduced in previous stories, with the main cast -made up of Overshoot, Stiletto, Rampage, Snapper, and Buckethead - fighting against the threat of the otherworldly menace posed by the Monster GoBots, as they attempt to trick humanity with the long lost Rosetta Stone and steal their technology to conquer Cybertron. The story was written by Jim Sorenson and David Bishop, with art by Josh Burcham and Christopher "IKY" Colgin.

The term "cultural appropriation" originated from academic discussions in the 1980's about colonialism; it refers to an inappropriate adoption of elements from one culture by another; for example, the use of Native American imagery stripped of its context or presented in a stereotypical manner by American sports teams. In this story, it refers to all three species at play: the theft of the Rosetta Stone by Cybertronian hands, humanity's use of Cybertronian technology to restrict the Transformers to their world, and the use by the GoBots of Cybertronian forms and their attempted theft of human technology in the pursuit of conquest.

The cover by Christopher Colgin depicts the Monster GoBot leader Vamp holding a scale, with Cybertron on one end and Earth on the other, the latter weighing down heavier than the former. The text on the Rosetta Stone serves as the background of the image. The Rosetta Stone is a chunk of a granodiorite stele, created in Egypt in the Hellenistic period in 196 B.C. Transcribed with a decree issued by priests confirming the royal cult of Ptolemaic Egyptian King Ptolemy V in Ancient Egyptian (in both hieroglyphic and Demotic script) and Ancient Greek, it was believed to have been moved around before eventually being incorporated into Fort Julien by the Ottoman Empire in 1470 A.D., in the port city of Rosetta. In 1799, it was found by French military officers during Napoleon's campaign in Egypt, and later taken by the British after the French's defeat in Alexandria in 1801. The stone offered a chance for the Egyptian writing scripts to be translated to modern languages for the first time, opening the door for a better understanding of Ancient Egyptian culture and writing, and it was eventually translated by Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion in 1822. The use of the scale calls to mind the weighing of the soul from legends of the Egyptian afterlife, where the death god Anubis would weigh a deceased person's soul with that of a feather, to see if they were worthy for the afterlife. The detailing on the scales, meanwhile, are based on the Renegade monster Scales from GoBots, a Formula 1 race car who transforms into reptilian monster with the push of a button; Chris Colgin notes that when given notes for the cover, he didn't realize that Jim and Dave wanted a literal scale until they explained it to him, so he decided to work it in as a little in-joke.

The story is divided into three acts, with an interlude between each section, along with a prologue and epilogue. We'll go through the prologue first, as usual.

Prologue:

Section 1: This scene is a flashback to the early days of the conflict on Earth after the Autobots and Decepticons wake up in 1984 after the volcano the Ark crashed into erupted. This whole thing is something of a pastiche on the original Sunbow The Transformers cartoon, featuring the Decepticons doing something dastardly, the Autobots being there to stop them, and the little quirks of dialogue emulating the memorable phrases inserted by Ron Friedman in the first two seasons as part of his "additional dialogue" edits. The Acton family (mother and father Gary and Judy, with children Noah and Leah) were characters seen in issue #23 of the Marvel The Transformers comic, where they were created by Bob Budiansky and Don Perlin. There, they were taking a trip around America, and Noah's attempt to amuse himself by spraying graffiti on a store wall attracted the attention of the Decepticon Battlechargers, who followed the family around and sprayed their own messages on famous US landmarks. Here, they're on vacation in England. Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument made of a ring of standing stones on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, while Oxford Castle is a partially ruined Norman medieval castle located in central Oxford in Oxfordshire, England. Notably, at the time this story would be taking place, Oxford Castle was serving as a prison, and wouldn't really become a tourist attraction until the prison closed in 1996; perhaps the Actons just saw it from a distance. The British Museum, of course, is the United Kingdom's foremost museum, focusing on human history and culture. Presumably, it's not unintentionally chosen for its role in this story, as in recent years the Museum has faced controversy in its refusal to return artifacts in its collection to their original peoples; in particular, both the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles of Greece have consistently been denied repatriation.

Noah Acton just finding Soundwave's tape mode and taking him along with him is something that occurred several times in the cartoon, most notably in "More than Meets the Eye, Part 2", where Spike Witwicky finds Soundwave's tape mode outside Autobot Headquarters and takes him along with him, despite his prominent Decepticon symbol. Noah Acton, at least, has no reason to recognize it yet. Duran Duran was an English new wave band formed in 1978, famous in the 1980's for their 35 mm filmed music videos, brought into the mainstream by the decade of MTV. "The Wild Boys" was their twelfth single, released on October 26th, 1984 in the UK, and on November 3rd, 1984 in the US; presumably, this story takes place later in November, placing this only a few months after the Ark came back online, with most of humanity still unfamiliar with the Transformers. "Hungry Like the Wolf" was Duran Duran's fifth single, which saw much airtime on MTV; "Is There Something I Should Know?" was their eighth, and "Save a Prayer" was their sixth. Abbott and Costello were Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, an American comedy duo famous in the 1940s and early 1950s; in 1955, they appeared in the comedy horror film Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy, having appeared in several other horror comedies where they met famous monsters before that.

The Decepticons that attack are Starscream, Thundercracker, and Sky Warp, having followed Soundwave in. Notably, Sky Warp's name has been changed from "Skywarp" because the Maximal eagle Skywarp from Beast Wars II had already appeared in "Broken Windshields" with that name; Jim notes that if he were to go back, he would swap it the other way around. Amenhotep III was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt; a colossal red granite statue of the pharaoh dating to around 1370 B.C., of which only the head and left arm are known, is held by the British Museum and seen here, having been found in 1817 in the temple enclosure of the mother goddess Mut at Karnak in Upper Egypt. The idea of it having magical powers is just a general sort of superstition and fear about ancient artifacts that exists, the kind you'd see 1980's television cartoons use as a plot device. Notably, Starscream and Soundwave are the ones calling the shots in opening, with no mention of Megatron to be seen; it would seem that, at least for now, Jim and Dave would sort of follow the supposed origin story of "A Change to the Agenda" and having Megatron either dead or offline, which I've talked about in past annotations...but that will eventually be challenged in stories down the line...

Cobra is terrorist organization who are the main villains of the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero franchise, a fellow Hasbro property whose origins are interconnected with The Transformers, and whom they often crossover with. The series began in 1982, so at this point, Cobra is a well-established group. Simon Le Bon is the lead singer and lyricist of Duran Duran; "Union of the Snake" was the band's ninth single. Notably, in the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero episode "Cold Slither", the Cobra Dreadnoks posed as a band under that name, using subliminal messages to brainwash their audiences into following the Cobra cause. The Autobot Mini-Vehicles (also known as Minibots, as Starscream calls them) - Brawn, Huffer, Cliffjumper, Bumblebee, Windcharger, and Gears - arrive to fight the Decepticons. Cliffjumper uses his glass gas (mentioned as green here) on the Decepticons, his special ability as recounted in his original tech specs. He does so by retracting his fist for a nozzle, something many Transformers did in the cartoon, most notably among them Ironhide. The description Sky Warp's teleportation also matches the cartoon, with him glowing bright purple, phasing out, and phasing back in elsewhere. Brawn picks up the Rosetta Stone and throws it at Sky Warp, which ends up being the size of his fist. Notably, Soundwave's speech patterns here are much closer to his comic counterpart, speaking in complete sentences. Windcharger is the one who saves Noah and Leah, using his magnetic powers. Saint Peter was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ and one of the early leaders in Christianity, who is often seen in popular culture as the keeper of Heaven's gates, though such imagery is generally not found in actual religious art.

The first section break is reached here; it's monitor seen in the Monster GoBots base later on in the story. Sort of derived from the aesthetic details of the Monster GoBots, the writing on the monitor is in GoBotronic, a language created by Jim Sorenson based on symbols seen in various ancient locations on GoBotron and its moons in the second five-part mini-series from the Challenge of the GoBots cartoon, "The GoBotron Saga"; it hasn't seen any official use before now in any Transformers media (or GoBots media, for that matter). They list off the name of various other GoBots, which we'll get into later.

Section 2: The Victory was the ship the Decepticons attempted to build to return to Cybertron in the three-part The Transformers cartoon mini-series opener "More than Meets the Eye", which crashed in the Pacific Ocean in the third part due to Starscream and Megatron butting heads and Mirage sabotaging the Decepticon's equipment; for the next two seasons, the ship would serve as their underwater headquarters, with a massive elevator to the surface as seen here; the tower is combined with the space bridge, which was seen in the cartoon as a purple ring built in various locations on Earth. The ship would not be given a name until Jim Sorenson and Bill Forster's 2009 artbook, Transformers: The Complete Ark. The Rosetta Stone is composed of granodiorite. Hook and the Constructicons have evidently been brought online by this point, whatever their origins may be; by the time of the present, Hook will be one of the deceased Constructicons. Here, he serves his occasional role as a surgeon for the Decepticons, being the Surgical Engineer of the Constructicons. Internal self-repairs are a standard idea in various Transformers stories. Sky Warp doesn't have the inscriptions on the Rosetta Stone in his linguistic banks because the languages are ancient, no longer in use; translator subroutines are another standard sort of Transformers idea. Sky Warp rattles off the text on the stone; Gorpiaios is the eleventh month on the ancient Macedonian calendar, roughly analogous to August. Pert, or Peret, was the Season of the Emergence, the second season of the lunar/civil ancient Egyptian calendar. Ta-Mert, as I understand, is an ancient alternative name for Egypt.

The Egyptian Incantation / Autobot Destroyer takes its initials, EI / AD, from "Evil Invention / Alien Device," an older fan term that saw most of its use back in the 90's to describe the various device of the week used by the Decepticons in their attempts at conquest. Again, note that Soundwave is depicted as the one in charge, with Sky Warp referring to him as the "slagmaker"; the "Slag Maker" was a nickname for Megatron, according to his profile from Marvel's The Transformers Universe. "Always bet on the leader" was an old Cybertronian adage said by Skywarp to Ramjet in IDW Publishing's Spotlight: Rampage. Rumble and Frenzy are obvious, being Soundwave's mini-cassette buddies. "Tacto-film" doesn't appear to be a reference, just a fancy way of saying "tactical film" or whatever.

Section 3: We return to the present day here, around 2389; a little under a year since the previous story. Packrat re-appears after his stint in the last story, now having undergone the Beast Upgrade; I imagine that he would have his "Transmetal" body from the 3H Productions The Wreckers comics, which was repurposed from the blue Wal-Mart exclusive version of the Beast Wars Transmetal Rattrap toy. This heist he goes on was originally supposed to be the one that he was mentioned as going on in "Not All Megatrons", but due to the timing, it doesn't quite work out. Sky-sleds are personal transport vehicles first seen in issue #75 of the Marvel The Transformers comic. I've gone over Kaon before; this is the first time, though, that it's actually appearing in-story. The Museum of Decepticon Heritage was previous mentioned in "Identity Politics". Smelting pits are analogous to smelting pools, which I've gone over before. "UCT" stands for "Universal Cybertronic Tracker," a device able to monitor the location of any Cybertronian within a galaxy. In the aforementioned Spotlight: Ramjet, it was part of Ramjet's plans to take over the Decepticons, which ended when Megatron unceremoniously ripped him apart. Personality components were first seen in the Sunbow The Transformers episode "Starscream's Brigade", where Starscream stole the Combaticons' personality components to make his new army. In the episode "B.O.T.", Brawl's personality component ended up in the hands of high schoolers building their own robot after Swindle sold parts of the other damaged Combaticons elsewhere; I'm willing to bet this damaged one is Brawl's. Legendiscs were mysterious objects from the Japanese-exclusive cartoon Transformers Go! which, among other things, were used to seal away the evil Predacon Dragotron. The Decepticon Clones were a pair of the Decepticons from the 1987 range of the original toyline, who had identical robot modes, but different beast modes: Pounce turned into a puma, while Wingspan turned into an eagle.

Shortround was an Earth colonist turned Decepticon from the Cybertron toyline, who turned a hovercraft. Continuity imported as a Generation 1 character here, his position as curator of the Museum of Decepticon Heritage is a nod to his counterpart's secret Cyber Key Code bio, where it was noted that he was a toy collector whose prized collection was the unreleased Generation 2 Menasor and Defensor toys. Vorter, meanwhile, is an interesting case. "Vorter" is the Japanese name for the Combaticon helicopter Vortex. In 2009, a Japanese exclusive version of Vortex, redecoed from the Classics Mini-Con helicopter Divebomb, was offered for those who signed up for a Transformers-themed Visa credit card through Pocket Card Co. Ltd; specifically, he was for the Decepticon themed card, with Aerialbot Slingshot/Sling being the gift for the Autobot-themed one. Here, he's repurposed as a separate Micromaster named Vorter. Squawkbox was the combined form of the 1988 Decepticon Mini-Cassettes, Squawktalk the bird and Beastbox the gorilla. The Siege of T'Muk was mentioned in issue #1 of IDW Publishing's comic book mini-series Last Stand of the Wreckers, and was named in homage to Transmasters UK, a long-running unofficial British Transformers fanclub. Primus and the Pit are ones I've gone over plenty by this point. Macromasters, again, are standard-sized Transformers, a term first used in "Head Games". "Keys" are Cyber Planet Keys; it's been established for the last few stories now that CPKs, the mystical objects from Cybertron, are used as currency on Beast Wars: Uprising Cybertron and are based on the collector's coins included in the Hasbro Asia release of the various Masterpiece figures. I'll go over the Antares Eight in more depth later; they're the Monster GoBots disguised as Predacons who've shown up several times in past stories, though they were only given the "Antares Eight" moniker in "Not All Megatrons".

Act the First:

Section 1: Overshoot and Stiletto were introduced into the world of Beast Wars: Uprising in "Burning Bridges", as a pair of Maximal Command Security Force officers who had been partnered together to protect the Melpomene Bridge, with Stiletto struggling to work with her new partner due to the repressed traumas of her past. At the end of that story, while her PTSD still haunted her, she became closer to Overshoot after saving his life during a Resistance attack on the Bridge. They are off on their own now, having abandoned the corrupt MCSF three years ago (which would be 2386) and working odd jobs as security officers or mercenaries; "Burning Bridges" took place in 2384, so it has been about five years in-universe since we last saw them.

Proximax was a city on Cybertron first mentioned in the Collectors Club's Classics prose story, "The New World". "Freelance peacekeeping agent" is the term that Marvel Comics character Death's Head, introduced in the Marvel UK The Transformers comic but who is owned wholesale by Marvel, prefers to use to describe his occupation, detesting the term "bounty hunter." The Beast Upgrade was introduced last story; Megatron swore to ensure that all sides would use it, so that he could benefit from the profits, and it's obvious he's succeeded. I don't think the fortress is a reference to anything, despite its fairly specific description as "squat" and "octagonal." This is the first time we see Overshoot use "Knives" as a nickname for Stiletto, something that will become important later. We've talked about cy-gar-ettes before. The "old colleague" that Stiletto speaks of is Wolfang, who died hunting down the killer of the secret Targetmaster Twirl in "Trigger Warnings"; we saw Stiletto work with him in flashbacks in "Burning Bridges". "Howlinger" was the Japanese name for the Maximal Wolfang when Beast Wars was released in Japan (see "Trigger Warnings" for more information on Wolfang). Dandelion Protocol is a new term, referring to how the dandelion flower will reproduce by sprouting a puffball-like seed head structure, which are blown away in the wind and settled somewhere new. We'll find out later why the MCSF has abandoned Proximax.

We know what the Darksyders logo is from previous stories (or "Darksyders, Incorporated," which is presumably their "legal" name). DeathEagles might be named after Death Eagles, a variety of Space Marine from the miniature wargame Warhammer 40,000. As we'll see in the art later, Stiletto's new form is a virtual redeco and retool of the Classics Mini-Con hawk Dreadwing. The armodrillo, the Cybertronian equivalent to an armadillo, is named after the alien of the same name from Ben 10: Ultimate Alien. Overshoot is a virtual redeco and retool of Beast Wars Maximal Armordillo. I don't want to give it up too early, but the things that Overshoot experience here are nearly identical to what happens to Optimus Primal in the first episode of Beast Machines. Grapple Boulevard is named for the 1985 Autobot Car, continuing a trend of place names on modern Cybertron being named after early characters in the franchise, who presumably fell during the Great War.

Section 2: Here, we're introduced to the modern version of the Constructicons; we learned back in "Micro-Aggressions" that they had followed Hot Rod's footsteps and became Micromasters. The team is repurposed from the Universe Constructicons Micromasters, sold in individual packs and able to combine into "Constructicon Devastator." The team was a redeco of the 1992 Operation Combination Micromaster combiner Sixbuilder, who was made up of the six members of the Build Team: Crush-Bull the bulldozer (redecoed into Bonecrusher), Digger the excavator (redecoed into Scavenger), Gran Arm the payloader (redecoed into Buckethead), Iron Lift the crane (redecoed into Hightower), Mixing the cement truck (redecoed into Quickmix), and Treader the dump truck (redecoed into Long Haul). Ask Vector Prime established that the Universe guys were Mini-Cons from a world in the "Unicron Trilogy" continuity family, who underwent upgrades turning them into Micromasters. Here, though, they're repurposed as a new, upgraded version of the Generation 1 team, though with a few replacements: Hook, Mixmaster, and Scrapper all apparently died in the war. Of note, Bonecrusher and Scavenger are given new names to distinguish them from characters who already were given those names in Beast Wars: Uprising, a practice that's happened for the last few stories now, as Bone Crusher and Skavenger. Bonecrusher was already given to a Micromaster version of the Armada Mini-Con who showed up in "Head Games". Scavenger, meanwhile, is an anomalous case; a Predacon version of Beast Machines Vehicon Scavenger was one of the servants of Shattered Glass Alpha Trion in the "Transcendent" and "Reunification" storylines that introduced the early concept of the Beast Wars: Uprising world, but the Beast Wars Predacon named Scavenger would later show up in "Broken Windshields", before the naming conventions of the universe were properly established. Hook has been replaced with Hightower, an Autobot who now leads the team; he's a Generation 1 version of the Robots in Disguise Hightower, an Autobot crane who was the marksman of the Build Team, who could combine into Landfill, with Hightower forming either one of Landfill's legs or both of his arms. Quickmix, meanwhile, is another Autobot addition to the team; he is an upgraded version of the 1988 Autobot Targetmaster, a cement mixer and chemist, partnered with the Nebulans Boomer and Ricochet. If he was a Targetmaster in this universe, they're long gone by now, as we know from "Trigger Warnings"; Buckethead, being the only one who doesn't have a pre-existing character or personality to latch onto, is naturally given the biggest role of any in the story, and a character: she's established to be a female Decepticon, a surly but dependable former construction overseer who was a member of the final full-sized generation of Decepticons brought online during the war before eventually undergoing the Micromaster upgrade; she also speaks in a Cockney accent.

We'll learn who "Prisoner N626BG" is in a bit, though it's hinted at by him being a "traitor" to the Resistance and Hot Rod being rumored to be soft on him. His prisoner number is a registry number seen on the helicopter Blade Ranger from the 2014 animated film, Planes: Fire and Rescue, a sequel to Disney's 2013 film Planes, and a spin-off of Disney and Pixar's Cars franchise. Jim Sorenson's son James (a young toddler at the time of this story's publication) loved the franchise, and according to Jim, was playing with a Blade Ranger toy while this story was being written, which provided the prisoner number used here. Uraya was a city-state on Cybertron first seen in Dreamwave Productions' The War Within mini-series. "Not All Megatrons" had established that the last two leaders of the Decepticons during the Great War were Overlord, followed by Thunderwing; "Not All Megatrons" and "Trigger Warnings" established the experiments that Thunderwing had undertaken, and here it is noted that he was responsible for the creation of Micromaster technology; in the Marvel UK The Transformers comic, it was shown in issues #232 and #233 that the Micromasters were the creation of the Autobots, but Thunderwing reverse-engineered the technology using captured Autobot Micromasters for the Decepticon side. I've already gone into both his and Overlord's origins, so see previous annotations for details. I've also gone into what "forging" is as a type of reproduction for Transformers. Lucifer was a Decepticon-controlled planet see in The Battlestars story pages and manga accompanying the Return of Convoy toyline. Lucifer was the name given in Roman mythology to a son of the goddess Aurora but is far more famous for being subsumed by Christianity as one of the names for the Devil. Following from that, the place where Buckethead oversaw construction, Port Ronove, is named for a Marquis and Great Earl of Hell, mentioned in the 17th century grimoire known as The Lesser Key of Solomon, derived from the earlier work known as the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum by Dutch physician Johann Weyer. Lucifer is a former colony of Cybertron, presumably among the many sterilized by the Human Confederacy.

The sonic chasm separating northern and southern Proximax is part of Cybertron's Sonic Canyons, first mentioned in the tech specs of the 1988 Autobot Headmaster Siren. The Hoist Metrospan is named for Grapple's fellow 1985 Autobot Car Hoist and is presumably close-by Grapple Boulevard. Bonecrusher's original toy had a concussion bomb launcher as a weapon for a vehicle mode, made up of the left arm of Devastator that came with him and a missile inserted into the fist hole. Quickmix's sensors were mentioned in his The Transformers Universe profile, published in issue #61 of the Marvel The Transformers comic. We'll learn more about the Sights and Sounds casino later. Another mention of CPKs, specifically in the form of "'Waves," as in the Soundwave coin; personal subspace storage pockets have appeared a fair few times now in the last few stories.

Another illustration by Colgin pops up here. Normally, I would skip over this an image with cipher text and come back to it at the end, but here it's actually part of the story and the illustration, showing Bazooka aiming his sights at the Constructicons. It's not said in the story yet, so I won't go into full details here, but the Constructicons are being stalked by Magmatron's crew from "Intersectionality", who have since returned to Cybertron and joined up with the Resistance. In the sights, we can see Quickmix and Long Haul flanking the prisoner transport, which is drawn as a Micro Trailer, little spring-loaded carriers that could launch a Micromaster from the Return of Convoy toyline. This is specifically Micro Trailer #12, which came with the Super Car Patrol Team (the one that serves as the main image for TFWiki's entry on the Micro Trailers); it's had the Arabic number "12" and the English word "Cybertron" replaced with the ciphers for them in the Maximal variant of Cybertronix, first seen in the Beast Wars cartoon. Additionally, the Autobot symbol has been replaced with symbol representing the combined Builders, a combined Autobot/Decepticon logo that was seen on ancient structures and artifacts from Dreamwave Productions' Generation One ongoing. Another additional detail is the detailing on top of Quickmix's cab; these are taken from the stickers of his original toy, placed roughly on where they were in his original body's vehicle mode. Everything else on the sniper HUD is in Predacon Cybertronix; radiating out from the scope are the numbers "10," "20," "30," and "40," presumably indicating distance. Identifiers are put in place over the characters and objects in the scene, with red text underneath an Autobot symbol that says "Quickmix," purple text underneath a Decepticon symbol that says "Long Haul," and orange text that says "Micro Trailer." Outside of the scope is a sort of video game-esque HUD for Bazooka, showing his energy readings, weapons status, GPS location, and other such things. At the top left is an internal media app. The text accompanying the pause button symbol (⏸) indicates that Bazooka has been listening to "Love Forever - To Protect You", the opening theme to Beast Wars Neo, which is the series he comes from. Below that is text indicating the artists: "Nekomimi A/B ft. Stage-Dive"; in the real world, the song is by M.C.R. (which has no connection to My Chemical Romance as far as I can tell). Nekomimi A and Nekomimi B were gynoid catgirls that showed up in the Energon cartoon, most prominently in the episode "Distribution"; "nekomimi" is Japanese for "kitty ears." Stage-Dive, meanwhile, is a fan character of Evan Gauntt, a long-time colorist and artist for Fun Publications Transformers output. A Shattered Glass Decepticon who shared a body-type with the original Soundwave's minions Rumble and Frenzy, he showed up in the 25th Recordicons strip as a singer in Shattered Glass Soundwave's band. Below that, the page symbol indicates a book that Bazooka is reading: "A Whole World of Pain" by "Furmanator." Furmanator is named after long-time Transformers writer Simon Furman, and "a whole world of pain" is one of the phrases that commonly crops up in his works, known by fans as "Furmanisms." The final icon on the top left indicates messages; the red number indicates he has "5" unread images in his mailbox, and the two contacts next to it read "Crazybolt" (his lover and Conjunx Endura) and "Magmatron" (his leader). In the bottom left corner is a sort of health bar, with his shields at full percent, and his health/energon level a little over half-full. The number to the left indicates that it's "113" units full; 113 is a number that crops up in the work of Transformers writer James Roberts, as Marvel UK's The Transformers issue #113 was the issue that hooked him on Transformers. On the top right corner is a Predacon symbol, with the text to the left reading "D-38 Bazooka" (D-38 was Bazooka's toy's identification number). Towards the bottom right of the scope is an ammo meter for Bazooka's gun (drawn here as his "Axe Buster"); the number on the top indicates he has "8" shots in his current clip, and the bottom indicates he has "6" clips left. The bottom right corner has a map, with "N," "S," "E," and "W" direction symbols at the 4 quadrants, and "Protimax" in the white text outside the map.

Back to the story now. Buckethead's Gran Pistol is named for Gran Arm, the aforementioned Autobot she was redecoed from. Buckethead encounters Rampage, formerly Protoform X; stranded on LGC-8803 with Trans-Mutate in "Alone Together", he joined up with Magmatron's Predacons in "Intersectionality", and has joined up under the Resistance with them, though as we'll find, it's not particularly because he believes in Lio Convoy. He's noted to be quite big for his status as a (former) Maximal, something that matches up with his depiction in the cartoon. "Nanoblade" appears to be a fairly generic term. "Make like Blurr" should be obvious. Rampage's undergone the Beast Upgrade into his original Beast Wars form; his king crab alternate mode is named as a "decapodian," named after the crab-like species to which Zoidberg from Futurama belongs to, itself coming from the real-life term relating to crabs and lobsters, decapod. Retractable hands that could be replaced with tools or weapons were a mainstay of the original Sunbow The Transformers cartoon. The prisoner is obvious from his description as being Snapper, one of the toys released in the first year of the Beast Wars toyline, a Predacon with a snapping turtle alternate mode. He showed up in "Micro-Aggressions" as a former member of the Resistance in a unit led by Grimlock, who turned against his commander when Grimlock's intent to unleash the G-Virus and turn a crowd of civilians into copies of Galvatron was revealed to him by Hot Rod, who Snapper would surrender to after destroying the weapon. We also get our first idea of what exactly pre-Beast Upgrade Snapper looks like, with "Micro-Aggressions" having simply described him as having a tank alternate mode: he's a virtual retool of Generations Fall of Cybertron Decepticon Brawl, with a new head based on his original.

Section 3: Jurassanoids are Cybertronian dinosaurs, taken their name from the Jurassic Period, the middle point of the Cretaceous period and the age of the dinosaurs; it also, of course, owes something to the Jurassic Park film franchise. They are the former crew of the Dinosaur from "Intersectionality", who returned to Cybertron to aid the resistance; there's the leader Magmatron (who turns into three separate dinosaurs: a Giganotosaurus, an Elasmosaurus, and a Quetzalcoatlus), Guiledart the Triceratops, Bazooka the Euoplocephalus, and Crazybolt the frilled lizard; we'll learn later that they've since been joined up by two additional members. Mindwipe was one of the 1987 Decepticon Headmasters, transforming into a bat and with the ability of hypnosis. We've gone over hics and microhics before. Stiletto has returned to using her energo-blades after starting to work through her trauma in "Burning Bridges". Cyberdroids are another concept we've gone over. Bumble-puppies were genetically-engineered creatures seen in the 1932 dystopian science fiction novel, Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley; Antilian bumble-puppies were mentioned in the toy bio of Cybertron Thunderblast.

Section 4: This section mostly serves to recap Snapper's story up to this point. Mechanometers, I've gone over before. Tesarus was where the events of "Micro-Aggressions" took place; it was first mentioned in issue #4 of IDW Publishing's More than Meets the Eye ongoing. Optimus Prime's weapon has come to be called an "ion blaster," though I'm not sure where, as it was simply called a laser rifle in classic media.

Section 5: Stiletto is described as yellow and purple, reconciling her conflicting appearance in "Burning Bridges"; the text described her as purple, as she was originally depicted as in "The Razor's Edge", while Josh Burcham, the artists for the story, depicted her as being yellow in color. Mechannibalism is an obvious enough term, but I feel like it could also be derived from the species of robot-eats known as the Mecannibals, first seen in issue #52 of the Marvel The Transformers comic. We've seen most of the Resistance figures Rampage mentions fairly prominently in previous stories; Cybershark only appeared in "Head Games" before this, where he tricked Buzzclaw into a suicide mission that saw prisoners from Fortress Maximus, such as Cheetor and Preditron, freed. In the original Beast Wars cartoon, Rampage was a Maximal protoform that went rogue, only forced into joining up under the Predacons when Megatron removed one of his sparks and forced him into service, with his disembodied spark placed in a device that would cause him pain if he disobeyed. In this universe, Rampage is unaligned entirely these days, even if he was brought online as a Maximal. We know from "Head Games" that Preditron was usurped by the Tripredacus Council; the Predacon Manifesto calls to mind The Communist Manifesto by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and we'll learn more about it in the next story. "MeshWeb" doesn't appear to be a reference to anything, nor does "fractal-latticed feathers," just ways of describing how a Cybertronian bird would feel/look. Durabyllium was first mentioned in issue #19 of Marvel's The Transformers. Luponoids are Cybertronian versions of wolves; the taxonomic name for wolves is Canis lupus, and the Maximal symbol, of course, resembles the face of one. Overshoot's cry refers to the end of "Burning Bridges", when the Melpomene Bridge collapsed, only this time, he's on it as it happens.

Interlude 1: Our attention returns to the "Antares Eight," the Monster GoBot Renegades who have infiltrated Beast Wars: Uprising Cybertron as disguised Predacons. Their story begins with e-HOBBY's release of the "G1 GoBots," a set of Generation 1 Mini-Vehicle redecoes as characters from the former Transformers competitor line, Tonka's GoBots, which had been acquired by Hasbro after they bought out Tonka in 1991. Their tech specs described how they were a coalition of Guardians and Renegades (the GoBots equivalents to Autobots and Decepticons), who traveled to the world of the Transformers after GoBotron, their home world, was threatened by a strange cataclysm that would destroy them. Fun Publications really ran with this idea, making a new Classics toy of Renegade Bug Bite (one of those chosen to be one of the G1 GoBots) for BotCon 2007, with his journey into the Transformers universe, hoping to kill Megatron in order to stop his world from being destroyed, serving a major plot point of that year's convention comic, "Games of Deception." The following year the TransTech prose story, "Withered Hope", would provide even further information. In it, it revealed that the universe of the Challenge of the GoBots cartoon (or rather, a variant of one, as later retcons would indicate) was being erased from existence due to it sharing the same frequency with the new Classics universe, a splinter of the Marvel The Transformers comics timeline. The G1 GoBots were sent to that world to investigate and find a way to save their world, but after most of them were delayed in Axiom Nexus on the Cybertron of the TransTechs, the story ended with the revelation that the GoBots had begun sending others out as well. This would remain a cliffhanger for quite some time; five years after its publication, a sequel series of prose stories, Spatiotemporal Challengers, was teased, where the original G1 GoBots would be joined by some others in their quest, with them ending up in the mirror universe of Shattered Glass thanks to the event of BotCon 2012's "Invasion". However, the series would not begin publication until earlier in 2016. Nonetheless, Jim Sorenson picked up heavily on where "Withered Hope" had left off; his and Bill Forster's book, The AllSpark Almanac II, revealed that GoBotron was a version of Cybertron, and that the GoBotrons were organic versions of Transformers; the plot of Spatiotemporal Challengers would also be seeded in 2015's The Complete AllSpark Almanac and the Facebook column Ask Vector Prime, including the Diaspora that lead these Monster GoBots to the world of Beast Wars: Uprising. They too have been seeded ahead of time: Creepy showed up in "Broken Windshields", while Vamp was mentioned in "Head Games", both seemingly Predacon versions of the GoBots one. However, Ask Vector Prime indicated that they were infiltrators from the dying GoBot world, and when Bladez and Pincher delivered the G-Virus to Grimlock in "Micro-Aggressions", they revealed that they were more than they appeared, and had plans for both Cybertron and humanity in this universe...

The Monster GoBots were eight Renegades, with strange, animalistic vehicle forms, with most of them originally made as the alien Devil Invaders from Bandai's Machine Robo line. Their depiction in the Challenge of the GoBots cartoon was comparable to the Insecticons of the Sunbow The Transformers cartoon; loosely aligned with Cy-Kill's Renegades, sometimes serving directly under him, and sometimes striking out on their own or under the Master Renegade. As Vamp notes, there were three waves of Monster GoBots in the cartoon; as seen in "The GoBotron Saga", Vamp (the group's leader, a female GoBot with a vaguely-insect or bat-like car mode) and Scorp (who turned into a scorpion-like vehicle) were the servants of the Master Renegade, who resided with him on Antares III, from which the "Antares Eight" moniker for the group derives. Pincher was a civilian GoBot brainwashed by Cy-Kill and reformatted into a new monstrous spaceship form, who served as a diplomat between Cy-Kill and the Master Renegade. For most of the cartoon's run, they were the only three Monster GoBots to appear. However, near the end of its run, a few more began to show up, though, due to some late-run continuity errors, it wasn't always clear where they came from; since I've gone into it elsewhere on this site, I'm just going to go into the major places they appeared and ignore the more contradictory ones. Three of them showed up as Renegades who served under Zero when he was Renegade leader in the distant past, as seen in the episode "Et Tu, Cy-Kill", before appearing under Cy-Kill's command in the theatrical film. GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords: these were Klaws (who turned into a strange sort of arrow-shaped spaceship), Hornet (who turned into a vague sort of gunship), and Bugsie (who turned into a weird monster car-like thing). Notably, Bugsie was credited as "Klaws" in the film's credits, leading them to be sometimes mixed up in the fandom, vaguely similar to the Rumble/Frenzy debate. Creepy, who turned into a spider-like creature, showed up as a servant of the Master Renegade in "Quest for New Earth"; Bladez, who turned into a crab-like tank, was the only of the original eight Monster GoBots who did not show up in the show, though a separate version of him did appear in the fictional "season 2" of Challenge of the GoBots as seen in Jim's Renegade Rhetoric Facebook spin-off. Each of them has been modified to have a Cybertronian body as part of their disguise, and all of them are virtual redecoes/retools/whatever, with specific bodies to match their alternate modes, and specific heads to match their original ones. Rather than go through them as they're described by text, I'll just go through them all here in order to save the headache. Vamp is a virtual retool of Cybertron Megatron, with the head of 1985 Deluxe Insecticon Chop Shop, and Megatron's car mode serving as her alternate mode. Scorp is a virtual retool of Energon Scorponok, with a modified head to resemble Scorp's less humanoid face. Pincher is a virtual retool of Energon Slugslinger, with the head of Beast Wars Manterror; specifically, based on how artist Don Figueroa drew him for IDW Publishing's miniseries The Gathering and The Ascending. Klaws is a virtual retool of Energon Sharkticon, with the head of 1985 Deluxe Insecticon Venom. Hornet is the odd one out, not being based on a toy; instead, he's based on Animated Slapper, modified to have Hornet's small wings. Bugsie is a virtual retool of Beast Machines Scavengers, with the head of Beast Wars Retrax. Creepy is a virtual retool of Cybertron Scrapmetal, with the head of Beast Wars Tarantulas (specifically, his first toy's mutant head). Bladez is a virtual retool of Cybertron Unicron, with the head of Beast Machines Thrust, and with the spikes on his armed modified to be to the sides of his fist, rather than covering them when transforming.

"Withered Hope" had established that the GoBots were unnerved by their fully mechanical counterparts, and the aforementioned Renegade Rhetoric especially leaned into this angle, as Cy-Kill, trapped for a brief time on Axiom Nexus, considered Cybertronians as disgusting "zombies" with primitive technology. The Erebos is named for one of the primordial deities in Greek mythology, the personification of darkness, alternatively known as Erebus. In the Challenge of the GoBots cartoon, Renegade ships were equipped with a stealth device that hid them from both visual contact and sensor scans. "Chopped Narly" is a goof on the classic phrase, "what am I, chopped liver?" used in older comedy routines, and derived from the Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine; the Narlies were part of Rock Lords toyline, Tonka's sister series to GoBots, and were sort of the odd ones out of the toyline; they had no real rock theme, and were instead little motorized animals with artificial fur on their backs. It's noted that more GoBots have begun showing up on this Cybertron; we'll find out more about that later, but we know from "Micro-Aggressions" that Monsterous, the Renegade combiner, was working with the Monster GoBots. Ser-Ket mentioned having a meeting with Vamp in "Head Games". When Vamp had encountered the humans of her world, it was the 1980s, albeit with the technological level of that world being more advanced that the real world was during that time, and they relied on the Guardians for protection from the Renegades; something that's undoubtedly familiar to many Transformers fans. The Monster GoBots had stolen the G-Virus in "Micro-Aggressions" in exchange for Grimlock providing them with information on the humans of this world. The Grand Mal appeared in "Not All Megatrons". You'll note that there's never an explicit mention here of the GoBots being from another dimension; the story is deliberately written so that, if someone was unfamiliar with GoBots, they would just assume they are aliens infiltrating Cybertron. Proximax's trans-hyperwave caster tower also appeared in "The New World". Creepy's speech patterns are new; many of the GoBots have been given a tic to distinguish them from one another.

Act the Second:

Section 1: Back to the main group, now. I've gone over magno-clamps before. We learned about Rampage's background and powers in the aforementioned "Alone Together" and "Intersectionality"; point one percenters are a concept from IDW Publishing's More than Meets the Eye ongoing, Transformers with extremely powerful sparks, giving them greater than average strength and capability. Stiletto notes that Rampage shares a name with someone else, going against the naming conventions of Beast Wars: Uprising; the Decepticon tiger who combined with his fellow Predacons to form Predaking. The term Ex-Bots derives from Marvel's team of mutant superheroes, the X-Men; the parallels between the two groups will become more evident later. I'm sure you know who Wheelie is.

Section 2: This whole section of journeying down through Cybertron again serves as an homage to the journey taken by Optimus Primal, Cheetor, Rattrap, and Blackarachnia in the first episode of Beast Machines, with the city backgrounds and set pieces seen in the journey sequence being explored slightly more here. The Age of Internment was a period during the war where Megatron kept the Autobots in internment camps, as seen in Dreamwave Productions' The Age of Wrath mini-series; here, this refers to a separate, pre-war period, indicating some sort of sinister implications...

The illustration running down the right side of page 22 is another image by Colgin, and directly homages one of the shots from "The Reformatting", where Cheetor, Blackarachnia, Optimus Primal, and Rattrap journey down one of Blackarachnia's web-threads to the Oracle. Rampage's galva-conductors were mentioned in his original toy's tech specs, and they showed up in "Intersectionality"; they're intended to allow him to release electrical currents to disable his foes, but they also allow him to serve as an electromagnet, as seen here. This whole bit also mirrors the discovery of the Oracle chamber in Beast Machines, up to a bit of thrown masonry revealing the Oracle hidden in the darkness. The Oracle was the super-evolved form of Vector Sigma from Beast Machines, a supposed mythical entity that had secretly been directing events from behind the scenes, to evolve Cybertron to a balanced state of organic and technological, planting the seeds that lead for the Maximals and Predacons to journey to Earth and come back with organic material, and manipulating Megatron and his Vehicons and Primal and his Maximals to fight in a battle that would reformat Cybertron into a technorganic paradise. It's description here is identical to its depiction in the cartoon, with the massive chamber and the strange images of sparks and planets that make up its spherical body. We know from "Head Games" that Vector Sigma was destroyed; we'll learn the origin of the Oracle in this universe in later stories. It requires a receptive spark to properly communicate to others; in the cartoon, it was Optimus Primal, and here, it's Overshoot. I thought maybe the font here was something more specific, but it's Mainframe by Blambot, aka comic letter Nate Piekos.

Section 3: And this section serves as a homage to the visions experienced by Optimus Primal in Beast Machines. "All of this has happened before, all of this will happen again" was a phrase stated by the narrator at the beginning of Disney's 1953 animated Peter Pan film, based on British author J.M. Barrie's play Peter and Wendy. The phrase was used throughout the entirety of the 2000's re-imagining of sci-fi television series Battlestar Galactica. Notably, it was used by the First Cylon in the television film, Battlestar Galactica: Razor, who was played by Campbell Lane, the actor who voiced Rampage in Beast Wars. Alpha Trion, we've gone over before; the Quill was used by the Aligned version of character, first introduced in the Exodus novel, an artifact that could literally be used to write the future, by Alpha Trion writing those events into the Covenant of Primus. The Gigatron mentioned here is an interesting case. In the early 2000s, Takara had released a line of PVC figures of various Transformers characters in the Super Collection Figure line, which Hasbro would import a few years later as part of the Heroes of Cybertron line. For the third wave of figures in 2003, a figure of Overlord, the Decepticon second-in-command and Godmaster warrior from Super-God Masterforce was among those imported. However, due to trademark issues, the toy could not be released under the name Overlord and was instead released as Powermaster Gigatron. Later that year, Dreamwave Productions guidebook, More than Meets the Eye, detailed how Powermaster technology (the Western counterpart to Godmasters) was based on ancient technology created by Gigatron, who intended to use the indigenous populations of planets the Decepticons would conquer as power sources. In the remainder of the decade, the proper version of Overlord as depicted in classic Japanese and European media would be imported via fiction, and eventually Hasbro would gain the Overlord trademark, and Gigatron was largely subsumed. However, in Ask Vector Prime, it would also be established that Gigatron was a separate character, seemingly with vague connections to Car Robots Gigatron, the Japanese version of Robots in Disguise Megatron. The "faceless alien presence" mentioned here is unknown; given Gigatron's ancient origins, it's possible it could be a vision of him conversing with Quintessons, who we know from "Burning Bridges" had some involvement in Cybertron's history. Optimus Prime launching the Ark is a classic and obvious image. We learned about Thunderwing's discovery of the Underbase in "Not All Megatrons".

The Oracle's claim of Cybertron being unique in the cosmos, an "axis upon which the universe rotates," calls back to Ramjet's claims about Primus and Cybertron in the Club's "Balancing Act" storyline; that the multiverse is based around the axis of all the various Cybertrons, rotating around Primus' sleeping form, and that without it, a universe would slowly begin to crumble apart. The Oracle only mentions "creators" who made Cybertron in order to protect from an unknown threat; whether it means Primus, who created the Transformers to defend against Unicron, as seen in the classic Marvel comics origin, or some other creator is unknown. Certainly, the link with Earth calls to mind IDW Publishing's Transformers vs. G.I. Joe, where Daiakuron, a being created by the Makers of the universe, created both Cybertron and Earth, along with other planets throughout the cosmos, and the Club's "Another Light" storyline, which revealed that at least one incarnation of Earth was really Gaea, the long-lost sister of Primus and Unicron who the Thirteen helped hide away. And of course, there is the classic Quintesson origin from the Sunbow The Transformers cartoon where they were the creators of Cybertron (unlikely to be the case here, but perhaps on some level related), and the Creators mentioned in 2014's Age of Extinction film. Whatever the case, Cybertron's origins are intentionally shrouded in mystery. "Beyond good, beyond evil, beyond imagination" was the tagline for 1986's The Transformers: The Movie. "That's just prime" was Optimus Primal's catchphrase in Beast Wars. Snapper recounts his former comrades' dealings with the Antares Eight/Monster GoBots from "Micro-Aggressions".

Section 4: Cybertron's Mass Transit System was originally seen in the Sunbow The Transformers cartoon episode "Desertion of the Dinobots, Part 2"; one directly based on its appearance was seen in "Head Games", but this version is one that is smaller, again fitting into the idea of the strange, small-scale environment below Cybertron seen in Beast Machines. The malfunction Rampage remembers here is something that ties into something teased at the end of "Intersectionality", as we'll learn later. Archadis and Sling are mentioned as the new members of Magmatron's squad, members of the Resistance who joined up under his team. Both of them are additional Predacons from Beast Wars Neo: Archadis was a narcissistic Archaeopteryx, while Sling was an unpopular and dweeby Dimetrodon. The Dinosaur was seen in "Intersectionality", secretly the spaceship form of the massive Decepticon Trypticon. Duraglass is a material from Star Trek. I'm pretty sure the yellow Maximal here is just some generic. Rampage's "bad memories" presumably refer to those of his experimentation that mutated him into the powerhouse he is now, referred to in "Alone Together". Trans-Mutate, Rampage's companion from "Alone Together", remained behind on Metascan Omega at the end of "Intersectionality". Cybertron's moon scarred appearance was established in Beast Machines, implied to be the result of Unicron's attack. "Transform and roll out" is, of course, the classic catchphrase of Optimus Prime in the original The Transformers cartoon. Restraining bolts are a technology from Star Wars; here, it's clearly used to disable Snapper's onboard weaponry, and is different from something like a mode lock or an inhibitor claw, as Snapper is still capable of transforming.

Section 5: The conical structure mentioned here just seems to reference the classic sort of structures seen on Cybertron, rather than anything specific. Tachyon logic gates were mentioned in "Intersectionality” and are a general sci-fi idea. Another idea copped from Beast Machines is the accelerated healing abilities given to Cybertronians by their beast forms; while there it was the result of their technorganic nature, this story shows that even when they're still fully mechanical, the proto-races are already beginning to evolve to that endpoint, coupled with the earlier visions from the Oracle of a merged Earth and Cybertron. ELINT stands for "electronic intelligence" and refers to intelligence gathered by electronic sensors. "Protimax Grid Nealed" (which should be "Proximax grid Nealed," but it's just a little error) follows the trend of naming grids after Transformers fans, something that originally occurred in the Beast Wars cartoon as a tip of the hat to the nascent online fandom, and which has occurred in Beast Wars: Uprising a few times before this; in this case, it refers to Neale Davidson, a friend of Jim Sorenson whom he often collaborated on fonts with, including the Cybertronix and other related Transformers fonts.

The two Micromasters defending the tower are 1990 Micromaster Combiners: Heave, a member of the Astro Squad who formed half of a lunar exploration vehicle, and Meltdown, a member of the Battle Squad who formed half of an anti-aircraft half-track. Their partners, Barrage and Half-Track, showed up as guards at the Cortex in "Broken Windshields". As befitting the Monster GoBots, their alternate modes are considered bizarre, not truly beasts but more animalistic than a normal Cybertronian vehicle mode would look. On the bottom of page 30, artist Josh Burcham depicts Stiletto going up against Vamp and Bladez; Cybertron's scarred moon can be seen in the background.

Arachnotrons were previously mentioned in "Trigger Warnings" and "Not All Megatrons", Cybertronian versions of scorpions; Energon Scorponok, who Scorp is virtually retooled from, didn't have a true scorpion beast mode, but a sort of construction vehicle that resembled one. Creepy's toy came in two color schemes: it was released in the standard toyline as purple and black (which was what his appearance in the cartoon was based on), and a special mail-away edition of it came in green and purple. Rampage's "this is why I'm leaning Predacon" quip is a play on "this is why I'm leaning left/right." Normally, GoBots don't use non-integrated weapons, as we'll see later; Vamp's Gatling cannon is part of her Cybertronian disguise. The Transformers: The Movie established that sometimes, when a Transformer dies, the color fades from their body, as seen in the film with Optimus Prime. The Modifier was a piece of technology seen in the Challenge of the GoBots cartoon, most importantly in "The GoBotron Saga"; the device was the one that turned a GoBeing into a full-fledged GoBot, giving them their alternate mode, and also capable of preforming repairs, similar to a CR Chamber. Every Gobot in the Challenge of the GoBots cartoon had the ability to fly, as opposed to the classic Sunbow The Transformers cartoon, where it was generally a Decepticon-only ability.

Interlude 2: Interlude 2 takes place onboard the Spooky Action at a Distance, a Confederated Terran Colonial Fleet ship previously seen in "Intersectionality". The ships crew is made up of Blix, the Beast Wars: Uprising version of the leader Neanderthal seen in the Beast Wars cartoon, this universe's version of Chak and Una, the young protohuman friends of the Maximals from Beast Wars, and the ship's non-binary second-born intellect ("artificial intelligence" is what they're known better as, although second-born intellects tend to dislike the term) Screwball. "Olfactory" refers to smell, while "tactile" refers to touch; human art has evidently changed in the 300 years of advancement between the modern day and this future time period. Centaurs are, of course, creatures from Greek mythology, human like creatures who, instead of a lower torso with legs, have the body of a horse as their bottom half. A mohawk is a type of hairstyle that sees most of the head shaved with only a thin strip of hair in the middle remaining, named for a group of indigenous Native Americans. The Napoleonic era lasted from 1799 to 1815, during most of which Napoleon Bonaparte served as emperor of France. "Kibble" is a term originated from the Transformers fandom; originally used to refer to the parts of a combiner toy not integrated into the individual members, such as the hands, chestplates, or heads, it has come to mean the parts of a Transformer in its robot form that are visibly left over from its vehicle form, such as Prowl's doors, Grimlock's body halves with his beast mode arms, or Starscream's jet-mode wings. A "kleptocracy" is a form of government that sees its corrupt leaders use their power to leech off the wealth of a nation. Highline, the Autobot wired into the Proximax Trans-Hyperwave Caster Tower, is a Generation 1 version of the 2007 Transformers movie toyline figure, Highline 1070. One of the Real Gear Robots, figures marketed as ordinary machines that had been brought to life by the power of the AllSpark like several monstrous creatures seen in the movie, Highline 1070 turned into flip-cover cell phone and was characterized as someone who kept tabs on everyone he ever met, using his communications system to track targets and place traps for them, making him a good fit for someone running a communications tower. Highline 1070 was the size of a cell phone, but the version of Highline here is full-sized, suggesting he, like Megatron and Soundwave, was able to mass-change back when he was able to transform. The original toy's head became the phone camera; it's stated here to be the result of empurata, a tradition seen in IDW Publishing's More than Meets the Eye. An anagram of the Latin word "amputare," meaning to cut away, it was a punishment for Cybertronian criminals that saw their heads and hands replaced, their new head generally consisting of a single optic sensor unable to emote, and their hands replaced with claws; out-of-universe, it served to explain why characters like Whirl and Shockwave were non-humanoid in their appearance. We learned back in "Intersectionality" that there were three branches of modern humanity: those who were fully biologic, those who were circuitry-enhanced, and those who had psychic abilities, known as "psychals." Screwball's cryptic response to Blix's order to "freeze frame" - "snapshot image froze without a sound" - is a lyric from the 1981 new-wave rock song "Freeze Frame" by American rock group The J. Geils Band. Evidently, humanity never found out Sky Warp ended up with the Rosetta Stone.

Act the Third:

Section 1: "Mumbo jumbo" is a term used to refer to confusing jargon, originating from the West African/Mandinka word "maamajomboo." The Proximaxian Plain is new, a part of Proximax's geography. Snapper's wireless control of his mangled arm is a new and neat idea. Again, the GoBots ability to fly in robot mode is a strange concept to the proto-races, most of whom do not have robot mode flight capabilities.

Section 2: The holiday that Stiletto is thinking of is Christmas, which is sometimes shortened to "Xmas." Stiletto thinks about how Overshoot is "another" dead partner; "Burning Bridges" revealed that she killed her old partner, Betabear, during an attempt to stop him from attacking a civilian in a drug-fueled rage. "Quixotic" refers to the 17th-century Spanish novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, about a noble who loses his mind and became a knight errant to revive chivalry in Spain. Some various Transformers stories have used "minutes," especially early ones, but after Beast Wars, most pieces of Transformers fiction have established that "cycles" are how Cybertronians measure the equivalent of a minute. Challenge of the GoBots never gave the GoBots an in-depth separate, "alien" system of measuring time. Similarly, instead of "stellar cycles," Vamp uses the term "years." As mentioned, almost none of the GoBots in the Challenge of the GoBots used handheld blasters; rather, they fired energy blasts via their clenched fists.

We'll get to Odd Ball and "his menagerie" in a bit; obviously, they're the "newer arrivals" mentioned earlier in the story. A rebus is a type of word puzzle, which uses pictures to represent a word in a phrase, or parts of a word that, when combined, form a full phrase/word. Notably, the fact that it is a type of puzzle gives a clue as to what its purpose is, along with the fact that we know that Monsterous is active in this universe; the main Renegade combiner was named Puzzler, and all of his components were named after various types of puzzles. Hellhounds are a form of Cybertronian canine, seen in issue #237 of the Marvel UK The Transformers comic. The reason that the sludge coming out of Bugsie's stabbed eye looks organic is because it is; GoBots are cyborgs, who replaced 90% of their bodies with machinery, leaving only a few vital organs such as their brain. That's also why the wound was more deadly than it would be on a Transformer; their core processors are smaller due to their mechanical nature, whereas Bugsie's brain presumably takes up the majority of his head. Scorp's quick return is presumably because, aside from the Modifier's capabilities of repair, it also quickens up a GoBot's own repair circuitry, which, when given enough energy, can regenerated warped and twisted metal in a matter of seconds. The bit with Scorp's wordless scream, accompanied by his pointing, is a homage to the 1978 sci-fi horror film, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, in which alien pod people masquerading as humans would shriek when they found a normal human among them, fitting for a story in which GoBots are masquerading as Transformers.

Probably not a specific reference, but just in case, Ladyhawke was a 1985 medieval fantasy film. A chelonoid is a Cybertronian mechanimal version of a turtle, derived from "chelonian," a term derived from Ancient Greek used to refer to turtles and tortoises. The three rooms for rest are set up for the three subgroups of the Monster GoBots: Vamp, Scorp, and Pincher; Hornet, Bugsie, and Klaws; and Creepy and Bladez. Recharge slabs were first seen in (I believe) IDW Publishing's More than Meets the Eye ongoing. The Modifer's description matches its appearance in the Challenge of the GoBots cartoon, extremely different from the modern tech of Cybertron with its more cartoon-y appearance. Getaway was one of the 1988 Autobot Powermasters, an escape artist who transformed (with the help of his Powermaster partner Rev) into a Mazda RX-7 FC3S. Snapper's processors have to work to translate GoBotronic, much like Sky Warp had to with the ancient human languages on the Rosetta Stone at the beginning of the story, because GoBotronic does not exist natively in his universe. "Base-three" is another name for a ternary numeral system, which uses three as its base. The "Levels" he refers to are part of the GoBot classification system for alternate realities, seen in the two-parter episode "Invasion from the 21st Level"; their home reality was Level 1, Level 21 was home to Queen Exor and her Insectoid armies, and, as seen in "Withered Hope", Level 22 was the world of the Classics reality, a splinter timeline of the Marvel The Transformers comic. The names mentioned here are various GoBot refugees. Fitor was part of the first series of GoBots toys, a Renegade with a GoBotic jet mode who served as Cy-Kill's second-in-command in the cartoon. Dumper, meanwhile, was also a series one toy, a Guardian with a dump truck alternate mode. The "Diaspora" was first mentioned in Ask Vector Prime in The Complete AllSpark Almanac as set-up for Spatiotemporal Challengers, as noted earlier.

For the first time in this story, Stiletto has one of her flashbacks, something that she's worked on controlling since "Burning Bridges". As we'll find out, this isn't just something that happens out of the blue. The flashback takes place around the beginning of "Burning Bridges", as Overshoot and Stiletto get to know each other while maintaining the Overcharge drones and guarding the Melpomene Bridge. "Unicron/Primus is in the details" is a reference to the idiom, "the devils in the details," which originated from the phrase "God is in the details." The latter phrase has an uncertain etymology; an early form was used by 19th-century French novelist Gustav Flaubert and was also used by German-American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and German art historian Aby Warburg. The former is more recent, first being found in a 1963 work on integration in post-World War II Europe. Stiletto only just began to open up about her past to Overshoot in the final pages of "Burning Bridges".

Section 3: Not much to go over in this section. It confirms that this story's taken place a little over one day. Let's wait a second to go over the Allspark. Magmatron's crew went up against Lord Imperious Delirious and his Destructons on Metascan Omega in "Intersectionality".

Section 4: Diamondoids are a real-life form of carbon nanoparticles. I'm not entirely sure what "ketons" are; they've been mentioned a few times before now, I think, but they don't turn up anything that would make sense for how its used on Google or Wikipedia. I think they're meant to be a unit of weight. The term "hopper" for Klaws' vehicle form is apt, as Animated Slapper (and Spittor, the Decepticon who he shares a body mold with) are versions of Predacons who turned into frogs. Oxide sharks were mentioned in online profile for Toys"R"Us' exclusive release of Revenge of the Fallen Constructicon Devastator in Generation 1 colors, as part of the Hunt for the Decepticons toyline; like Hornet, the description fits, seeing as how Klaws is a virtual retool of Energon Sharkticon. We'll get to quantumite in a bit.

Odd Ball was one of the Wendy's exclusive toys as part of a GoBots promotion in 1986. Described on his packaging as a "Renegade Robot Monster," he transformed into a little alien fighter craft. He appeared in Renegade Rhetoric as an actual Transformer, a Mini-Con who, while stranded on Axiom Nexus with his teammates Pow Wow and Breez, was recruited by Cy-Kill, returning with him to Cy-Kill's home dimension, and later falling in with Vamp and her Monster GoBots, in reference to his "Robot Monster" packaging label. This version, meanwhile, is a GoBot native to his universe; he's based on Rescue Bots High Tide, with the head of Armada Thrust. The team he's with, meanwhile, are the Renegades who make up the combiner Monsterous, toys from the mainline GoBots toyline that showed up too late to be part of the Challenge of the GoBots cartoon. He was formed by six GoBots with monstrous vehicular forms, though they were never specifically labelled Monster GoBots (though, as with Odd Ball, Renegade Rhetoric would later provide a connection, though unlike Odd Ball, they refused to fall under the Monster GoBots control). The team included: Fright Face, the team's leader who formed Monsterous' head and upper chest; Heart Attack, who became Monsterous' torso; Weird Wing, who became Monsterous' left arm; South Claw, who became Monsterous' right arm; Fangs, who turned into Monsterous' left leg; and Gore Jaw, who turned into Monsterous right leg. Like Odd Ball, Renegade Rhetoric depicted them as Cybertronians who were transported to Axiom Nexus recruited by Cy-Kill into his Renegades; originally, the were Predacons from the Beast Hunters portion of Prime, their strange forms retconned as being prehistoric Cybertronian reptiles. This version, however, is a native GoBot, as with Odd Ball. Monsterous Cybertronian form is based on the Pretender Monster combiner Monstructor, specifically his design by Don Figueroa for IDW Publishing's comics; in-keeping with that, Colgin intended for his head to be based on Don Figueroa's depiction of Beast Wars Tripredacus' head as seen in the 2003 art book Genesis: The Art of Transformers, though artist Josh Burcham, as we'll see, didn't quite follow through, instead depicting him with a mechanical version of the Tripredacus toy head. The individual members, therefore, are virtual redecos of Monstructor's components; Fright Face from Slog, Heart Attack from Birdbrain, Weird Wing from Wildfly, South Claw from Bristleback, Fangs from Scowl, and Gore Jaw from Icepick. We previously learned Monsterous was active in this universe from "Micro-Aggressions” when he stole the G-Virus from the Forever Vaults for Grimlock. Following on with the fact that they're masquerading as Predacons, their combined form is only slightly larger than the average builder; indeed, Monstructor's toy was quite small, the smallest combiner in the toyline.

That's Crazybolt madly firing on Monsterous, since Bazooka is his spouse; his toy's tail becomes his rifle in robot mode. The Inferno is an alternate term for the Pit, used early on in Beast Wars before the introduction of the character named Inferno. Monsterous is larger than he would logically be as part of the mass-shifting most combiners undergo, something that's been pretty much standard since their first depiction in fiction. Devastator's combination sequence matches up with how he often was seen combining in the original The Transformers cartoon, complete with purple lightning flashing about; evidently, it's been a long time since he's been formed, and now with a partially different line-up, although he still remains mostly the same in personality. Devastator's acid rifle is new, I think. Devastator is noted to be the most famous of Builder combiners; in both the real-world and classic media, he was the first combiner ever. On the bottom of page 49 is another illustration by Josh Burcham featuring Devastator and Monsterous in battle, with Magmatron in Monsterous' fists. Cyberquake is a term that's popped up at least a few times in Transformers fiction; TFWiki only lists Ask Vector Prime, but I'm sure it's come up elsewhere before that. "Dull surprise" is a fan term, used to describe some of the expressions that were...less that successful in depicting emotion in the art of Dreamwave Productions Transformers comics; see the annotations on "Intersectionality" for more on that. Klaws appears to have survived the battle, something we'll come back to later. A little error pops up at the end hear; the paragraph about Snapper seeing the human ship should come before the section break, not after.

Section 5: It's mentioned here how a Transformers body will only sometimes turn grey upon their death; as with many things, it varies from story to story. The Allspark was introduced in Beast Machines as the afterlife for Transformers, and also their birthplace; a spark comes from the Allspark into the physical world upon being ignited, and when it dies, it returns, bringing all the knowledge accumulated in its lifetime. Its name has varied overtime; Beast Wars, for example, termed it as the Matrix, which Beast Machines also used; Animated called it the Well of All Sparks, while IDW Publishing's comics used the term "Afterspark." The columns Packrat sees are part of the Tree of Life; a structure through which a Transformers spark journeys through on various paths after they die, before rejoining the AllSpark, based directly on the Tree of Life and the sefirot from Jewish Kabbalah. It was depicted in the prose story "Singularity Ablyss" from 2004's Transformers Legends anthology, and was written by Bob Skir, one of the head story editors and writers for Beast Machines, and who is himself Jewish. The columns and the spheres of the Tree of Life are as such: the dull brown sphere known as Kingdom, which is reality as experienced by a Spark during the time it is alive; Foundation, a purple sphere that serves as the first gateway between reality and the Allspark; Splendor, the orange sphere; Eternity in green; Beauty in yellow; Severity in red; Mercy in blue; Understanding in indigo; Wisdom in gray; and finally, the bright white Crown, representing the Allspark itself. For a more in-depth look, read TFWiki's page on it here: tfwiki.net/wiki/Tree_of_Life. The "Ablyss" refers to the combination of Abyss and Bliss experienced by those who refuse to complete the journey, as Megatron did in "Singularity Ablyss", before he was brought back to full life, and vaguely hinted at in the text of the story, as the realm between Mercy and Understanding was never explicitly shown. The purple world he initially navigates towards is Foundation, obviously; following that, he enters Severity, the red tinted world, which, among other notions, represents the will of one to remain on their target, no matter what may obstruct their way, as with Overshoot here deciding to see his mission through despite his physical form's death. The exploding equations seen here match up with the description of Severity in "Singularity Ablyss".

As a spark, Overshoot sees the world in shades of light, the non-living parts being empty and dark, and the living beings, like Cybertronians and humans, shining in indistinct forms. His connection to the Allspark also seems to grant him limited omniscience, as he knows the names of people he has never met, along with intentions of others, such as the self-destruct sequence of the Erebos and Creepy's booby trap at the top of the trans-hyperwave caster tower. Like Monsterous, Devastator's components' Micromaster nature means that in combined form, he's only slightly taller than the average Builder. It's interesting that the Monster GoBots seem devoid of life; they are technically Children of Primus, but they hardly register as such. I would assume it’s because they are not native to this universe, but it could also just mean that whatever they had that made them truly alive, it died long ago, seeing as how monstrous they act in this story. Another hint at the intertwined nature of Transformers and humanity. Rampage's point one percenter nature makes him shine brighter than most. A fuel pump is the Transformer equivalent to a heart, first mentioned in issue #29 of the Marvel The Transformers comic. The riot that Stiletto has a flashback to is the one that caused her trauma, as seen in "Burning Bridges", with Overshoot taking the role of Betabear as he attempted to kill Sea Panic.

Quantumite was a crystalline element with powerful but unstable properties, seen in the Challenge of the GoBots episode "The Secret of Halley's Comet". In that episode, it was described as extremely rare, with its discovery on that universe's version of Halley's Comet being an exciting discovery; it doesn't seem to be capable of forming at all in the universe of Beast Wars: Uprising, and thus Transformers and humanity would have no defense against it. As we know from "Micro-Aggressions", humanity's response to aggressions by the Decepticons resulted in them sterilizing most of Cybertron's colony worlds. "Withered Hope" and Renegade Rhetoric heavily empathized how GoBot technology was very different from that in most Cybertronian universes, something that Creepy attempts to take advantage of here. Also, he never explicitly finds out Creepy's name, but nonetheless Overshoot thinks of him as a "creepy mech."

Chak and Una were the early human friends of the Maximals from season three of Beast Wars; they previously showed up in "Intersectionality", having been revived as part of the Eutychus Project, with Una staying fully biological, and Chak having undergone circuitry enhancement. Even for humans, they're small compared to Cybertronians; as early humans, they're probably only around four feet tall. Given the Star Trek homages of Intersectionality, I suspect that Una is meant to be carrying a tricorder and Chak a phaser. A checksum refers to a small sized block of data used to detect errors in a program, having been derived from another block and detecting any errors in transmission or storage; Chak tends to speak in these computer metaphors. Robo-minnows were mentioned in issue #47 of Marvel's The Transformers comics. "Astramech" was a term used in "Intersectionality" by Lord Imperious Delirious, his way of referring to Cybertronians, who he saw as energy beings animating mechanical bodies. The kernel is the core of a computer's operating system; a kernel dump consists of all the memory in use by the kernel at the time of an operating system's crash. Evidently, it's a derisive phrase, going off of Rampage's reaction. Here, we see humanity's hypocrisy, willing to stop a war by forcing Cybertron off from the rest of the universe, but unwilling to aid those suffering as a result.

Epilogue:

Section 1: Jackpot, the 1990 Autobot Action Master, is revealed to be the proprietor of the Sights and Sounds, a role befitting him, due to his incredible good luck and his name; he was showing to be something of a gambler in the TransTech prose story "Gone Too Far". The casino's name, meanwhile, is a reference to Sights, his Action Master partner, a bird who turned into a photo cannon for Jackpot. Porcineacons were mentioned in Ask Vector Prime, following on from the naming conventions of the animalistic Decepticons seen in the 2015 Robots in Disguise series; they are Cybertronian pigs, evident from the fact that their name is derived from the word "porcine." "In a pig's eye" is a statement expressing anger and disbelief. Snapper's been upgraded to a mechanical version of his original toy's body. Here, the Ex-Bots are made explicit expies of the X-Men, fighting to defend those who both sides of the war ignore in their fights. Crystal City was originally seen in the Sunbow The Transformers episode "The Secret of Omega Supreme"; Stiletto had, in her early days as a member of the Maximal Flying Corps, flown over the city, as revealed in "Burning Bridges". Overshoot had wanted to visit it, but it was destroyed in a Resistance-instigated antimatter explosion. Point-to-point communication refers to communication between two or more nodes, as in the case of a phone call. Evidently, only the higher ups were told about what Grimlock did in "Micro-Aggressions". And now, we learn why the MCSF abandoned their post. ICS is the Iacon Communication Service, first seen in IDW Publishing's Robots in Disguise ongoing. The Tagon Heights originally appeared in Dreamwave Productions The Dark Ages mini-series, as an important part of Cybertron's industrial output; it was spelled as "Tagan Heights" in the series, but The Ultimate Guide misspelled it as the "Tagon Heights," and a lot of media afterwards has used that misspelling. The Maximal Nation is a new idea here. The Maximal High Council (originally mentioned in the Beast Wars cartoon) was noted to be consolidating control over the MCSF in "Not All Megatrons".

Section 2: The entity in this section, while never outright named, is obviously Lord Imperious Delirious. We learned in the epilogue to "Intersectionality" that he had survived Rampage's destruction of his physical body by downloading his core kernel into the Predacon's shuttlecraft. In "Not All Megatrons", it was hinted that he had since transferred himself into the Grand Mal, manipulating Galva Convoy's actions. We know from earlier in this story that it was from the Grand Mal's database that the Monster GoBots learned about the Rosetta Stone, which is revealed here to be a deliberate revelation of information by Delirious; it also seems that he was responsible for the malfunction of Magmatron's shuttle, mentioned earlier in this story. In this form he currently inhabits, several analogs are made between him and Primus; his anger at the Monster GoBots' failure is expressed in a binary "primal scream", referring to the Primal Scream unleashed by Primus after being accidentally awakened in issue #61 of the Marvel The Transformers comic. Imperious is also referred to as a "unique digital entity"; the Armada cartoon mentioned a "unique digital entity" as being responsible for the Transformers' creation in its opening narration, and Primus would subsequently appear in the sequel series Energon and Cybertron. Following from this, an Ask Vector Prime section in The AllSpark Almanac II confirmed the identity of the unique digital entity as Primus.

Now, onto the section breaks in GoBotronic. The symbols on the far left represent numbers, part of the self-destruct countdown initiated by Vamp. In the middle, meanwhile, is a list of names: the various GoBots who fled the Diaspora, and where they have ended up. Jim Sorenson hinted in a Q&A that this wasn't merely just a list, but a hit list...oh dear. In full, it reads as follow:

18 FROM THE FILES HACKED FROM GONG AND TIC TOC. LEVEL 11 -- FITOR, PSYCHO, STALLION, DUMPER, PUMPER, VANGUARD.

17 LEVEL 16 -- ZIG ZAG, CROSSWORD, RUBE, POCKET, JIGSAW, TIC TAC, JAW BONE, RIB CAGE, HIP BONE, TAIL BONE

16 LEVEL 22 -- PATH FINDER, REST-Q, TREDS, SMALL FOOT, ROAD RANGER, MAN-O-WAR, BAD BOY, BUGGY MAN

15 LEVEL 29 -- BULLET, APOLLO, HI-WAY, JACK-ATTACK, DECKER DECKER, VAIN TRAIN, LOCO, BREEZ, POW WOW

14 LEVEL 34 -- MAJOR MO, SUPER COUPER, BENT WING, RAIZOR, TAIL PIPE, MAGMAR, STONEHEART, BRIMSTONE, SPEARHEAD

13 LEVEL 39 – CHAOS, RE-VOLT, TRAITOR, STEAMER, WRECKS, TRI-TRAK, STAKS, TWISTER, SNOOP

12 LEVEL 44 -- PISTOL, SHOTGUN, RIFLE, SCOPE, SQUIRT, BLADES, WARPATH, TANK, SCREW HEAD, SPOILER

11 LEVEL 51 -- ACE, DART, NIGHT RANGER, BOLT, SPARKY, WRONGWAY, GUNNYR, SLICKS, CRAIN BRAIN

10 LEVEL 59 -- TOMBSTONE, SLIMESTONE, STONE HOOK, SABERSTONE, GOOD KNIGHT, ROYAL-T, DOZER, HANS-CUFF

09 LEVEL 63-- BEAMER, SKY FLY, GUIDE STAR, DEFENDOR, MACH-THREE, FLIP TOP, DESTROYER, WATER WALK

08 LEVEL 69 -- SOLITAIR, FLAMESTONE, SUNSTONE, ROCK ROLLER, STINGER, TAILSPIN

07 LEVEL 72 -- SKY-JACK, CLUTCH, VON JOY, BLASTER, DIVE-DIVE, SPY-EYE, STREET HEAT, SCRATCH

06 LEVEL 77 -- BULLSEYE, MOTOSAN, SCRATCH, SPAY-C, HEAT SEEKER, STICKS N STONE, ROCKSHOT

05 NOTE -- LARGE STOCKPILES OF DRONES REMAIN IN LEVEL ONE. BOOMERS (INCLUDING RUMBLE AND BLAST

04 MODELS) POWER MARCHERS (INC. RIDGE RUNNERS, HITCH HIKERS AND QUICK STEPS) ZODS AND DACTYLS. SCALES

We'll go through this section Level by Level. Firstly, Gong and Tic Toc were a pair of GoBots with watch alternate modes, licensed from Tonka to Impulse as part of the GoBots toyline. Gong was a Renegade, while Tic Toc was a Guardian; Ask Vector Prime depicted the two as dimensional travelers, with Gong seeking to create mischief, and Tic Toc serving as a guardian of space-time keeping Gong in check. Unlike most, it's not clear to me if they're actually meant to be separate from the ones that show up in Ask Vector Prime and Renegade Rhetoric, given their universe travelling abilities. The first group on Level 11 are all just normal Guardians and Renegades; some of the other ones have a theme to them. We've already gone over Fitor and Dumper. Psycho was one of the toys in the first series of Super GoBots, larger and more complex figures than the average GoBot; he transformed into a futuristic/GoBotic car. Stallion was part of the second series of GoBots toys, a Renegade who turned into a Ford Mustang. Pumper was one of the GoBots released in series one of the toyline, a Guardian with a fire engine alternate mode; one of the few toys from the first series to not appear in the cartoon, despite a model being created for him, and was characterized by Tonka's internal biographies for the toys as Dumper's brother. Finally, Van Guard was another series two toy, a Guardian with a Dodge Caravan alternate mode.

On Level 16, an assortment of combiner GoBots and Rock Lords have settled in. First are the various components of Puzzler, a Renegade combiner made up of various sports cars. Notably, his only appearance in the Challenge of the GoBots, the episode "Auto Madic", depicted the combiner and his components as non-sentient drones controlled by Cy-Kill; Renegade Rhetoric saw they brought to life as full-on GoBots, and presumably, something similar happened here. The components that make up Puzzler are: Zig Zag, a blue Nissan 300ZX, who forms Puzzler's right leg; Crossword, an orange Porsche 930T, who forms Puzzler's left arm; Rube, a black Mercedes 300SL, who forms Puzzler's left leg; Pocket, a yellow Lamborghini Countach, who forms Puzzler's right arm; Jig Saw, a white Toyota Celica XX police car, who forms Puzzler's lower torso; and Tic Tac, a red Chevrolet Corvette, who forms Puzzler's upper torso and head. The other four listed are the components for Fossilsaurus, a Rock Lords combiner with a saurian form, who would have been made up of the four Fossil Lords: Jaw Bone, who formed the head; Rib Cage, who formed the upper torso; Hip Bone, who formed the lower torso and legs; and Tail Bone, who formed the tail. Unfortunately, the toy was cancelled for its release in American markets, and only saw release (in the toy's original Machine Robo colors and not the unique color scheme for Rock Lords) in the European version of the line, Robo Machine, and without their planned names, only being labelled descriptors like "Head" and such. Only Jaw Bone showed up unnamed as the "Fossil Lord" in the Gobots: Battle of the Rock Lords film, but eventually, Renegade Rhetoric would use the team with their intended names in its various posts.

Level 22, as we know from "Withered Hope", is the Classics universe; however, it was destroyed in BotCon 2012's "Invasion" storyline, with Classics Earth ending up in the Shattered Glass universe. Nonetheless, the rest of the data here is accurate: it has (most of) e-Hobby's G1 GoBots, along with their reinforcements from Spatiotemporal Challengers. The G1 GoBots, as mentioned, were a team redecoed from several of the original toyline's Autobot Mini-Vehicles. As follows, they are: Path Finder, the team's leader, who was originally a Guardian starship from series one, redecoed from Cosmos; Small Foot, a Guardian Toyota Hilux pickup truck from series two, redecoed from Gears; Road Ranger, a Guardian articulated truck from series 1, redecoed from Huffer; Treds, a Guardian M1 Abrams tank from series three, redecoed from Warpath; and Bad Boy, a Renegade A-10 Thunderbolt gunship from series two, redecoed from Powerglide. Missing from this list is Bug Bite, a Renegade Volkswagen Beetle from series one of the Super GoBots, redecoed from Bumblebee. As seen in "Withered Hope" and "Games of Deception", he went rogue from the group, escaping from Axiom Nexus in an upgraded form (a redeco of Classics Bumblebee) and infiltrating Bludgeon's Decepticons, all in order to assassinate Megatron. After he failed in "Games of Deception", he was reunited with the other G1 GoBots at the end of "Withered Hope", but by the time of "Sunrise", the first chapter of Spatiotemporal Challengers, he had gone rogue again. The other three listed here are the G1 GoBots back-up from Spatiotemporal Challengers, who were based on prototypes of Autobot Mini-Vehicles (two from a Takara catalogue, and one from Hasbro's Toy Fair 1986 catalog). They include: Man-O-War, a Guardian Iowa-class battleship from series three, whose new form was based on a prototype of Seaspray; Rest-Q, a Guardian ambulance from series one, with a new form based on a prototype of Hubcap; and BuggyMan, a Renegade Meyers Manx dune buggy from series one, upgraded into a body based on a prototype of Beachcomber.

Level 29 is another themed group, mostly consisting of characters given time to shine for the first time in Renegade Rhetoric. The first six are a group introduced and created specifically for Renegade Rhetoric by Jim Sorenson, based on Machine Robo toys that were not imported by Tonka for the GoBots toyline. They consist of: Bullet, a Guardian Series-0 Shinkansen train, based on Shinkansen Robo from Machine Robo; Apollo, a Guardian Saturn V rocket, based on Apollo Robo from Machine Robo; Hi-Way, a Guardian GoBotic bus, based on Highway Robo from Machine Robo; Jack Attack, a Guardian Mini Cooper 1300S, based on Mini Cooper Robo from Machine Robo; Decker Decker, a Renegade Mitsubishi Aero King double-decker bus, based on Double Decker Bus Robo from Machine Robo; and Vain Train, a Renegade 200-series Shinkansen train, based on New Shinkansen Robo from Machine Robo. Loco is something of the odd one out of the group, as he appeared in the original toyline and cartoon, but Renegade Rhetoric had him work with Vain Train several times; he's a Renegade JNR D-51 steam train from series one. Breez and Pow Wow are the other two Renegades from the GoBots Wendy's promotion; like Odd Ball, they appeared as Mini-Cons recruited by Cy-Kill in Renegade Rhetoric, but are full-fledge GoBots here. Breez turned into a twin-blade helicopter, while Pow Wow turned into a camper van.

On Level 34, we have an assortment of Guardians and evil Rock Lords. The Guardians seen here were a group known as the Robo Rebels in Renegade Rhetoric, a group of new Guardians and their commander who were all toys who came too late in the toyline to appear in the Challenge of the GoBots cartoon. Major Mo, their instructor, was a Nissan 300ZX from series two; Super Couper was a Ford Coupe Super Gobot from series three; Bent Wing was a female Chance Vought F4U Corsair propellor plane from series three; Raizor was a VTOL-modified McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom Super GoBot from series three; and Tail Pipe was a Skyline 2000 RS Turbo sports car from series three. The evil Rock Lords, meanwhile, are Magmar, the evil Rock Lord leader from series one, who turned into a piece of igneous rock; Stoneheart, a series two Rock Lord who turned into a piece of slate; Brimstone, also from series two, who turned into (what else?) a piece of brimstone; and Spearhead, a toyline-only Rock Lord from series three, who turned into a piece of kyanite.

Level 39's refugees share a vague theme of either late additions to the cartoon, Renegades who infiltrated the Guardians, and cartoon-original characters. Chaos, Re-Volt, and Traitor were the Dread Launchers, Renegades who had a similar play pattern as the Duocons from Transformers; their top half became a flying alternate mode, while their legs became a launcher. They infiltrated the Guardians as cadets in the Challenge of the GoBots episode "Guardian Academy". Chaos turned into a Grumman X-29 experimental fighter plane and launching truck; Re-Volt turned into a hawk and a launching crawler; and Traitor turned into a fly and a launching platform. Steamer was a cartoon original character from the episode "Steamer's Defection"; he was a former Renegade who switched sides to the Guardians, disgusted with the way Cy-Kill treated prisoners of war and innocent civilians. He turned into a steam roller. Wrecks was also a cartoon original character, an ancient GoBot unable to convert, who lived in the Old GoBotron areas of GoBotron, training gladiators and protecting the mutants who lived down there with him, as seen in the episode "Lost on GoBotron". Tri-Trak and Twister were two of the Secret Riders, motorized GoBots with winch gimmicks who had a complicated history in the cartoon. As seen in the aforementioned "Guardian Academy", they were meant to be new Guardian recruits, who ended up proving themselves by saving the day when the Dread Launchers revealed their true allegiance. However, due to a number of continuity errors as a result of their late addition to the cartoon, they had already appeared in the episode "Et Tu, Cy-Kill" as Guardians in the ancient past, before Cy-Kill defected to the Renegade side and became their leader. In addition, their third member, Tork, showed up as a Renegade in the episode "The Gift". Additionally, their membership fluctuated; Staks, a Super GoBot from series one (mentioned here as one of the refugees to this dimension, so we'll come back to him) appeared as one of their number in "Guardian Academy", despite the fact that he had consistently appeared among the Guardians since the first episode of the cartoon. And in the episode "Quest for New Earth", Staks was nowhere to be seen, while Tork was replaced with the series three Super GoBot Throttle. In any case, they are as follows: Tri-Trak, a Honda ATC 200 three-wheeler; Staks, a Peterbilt 352H semi-truck; and Twister, a helicopter. Finally, the group is rounded out by Snoop, a Renegade Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, who was planned to be released in the GoBots toyline but wound up unreleased despite her appearances in the cartoon, released instead in the European Robo Machine and Australian Machine Men toylines. In "Cy-Kill's Cataclysmic Trap", she appeared as a Renegade spy who had infiltrated the Guardians.

Level 44 is the only other Level on this list that we know which dimension it matches up to; it's known to be a universe in the 2001 Robots in Disguise continuity family, as Gong recognized Sideways (in his Robots in Disguise form) as being from there in the prose story "Echoes and Fragments", published on the Ask Vector Prime Facebook page. The first five names here are the RoGuns, the name given to the toys licensed from Tonka to Hong Kong toy company ARCO by Renegade Rhetoric, a series of guns with robot forms and GoBots stickers slapped on them. Pistol, Rifle, and Squirt were created by the Renegades before they went rogue and defected to the Guardians, who boosted their membership with Shotgun and Scope. Pistol was based on the Cap Pistol, a cap gun; Shotgun was based on the Rogun Cap Rifle, another cap gun; Rifle was based (confusingly enough) on the similarly named Cap Rifle, yet another cap gun; Scope was based on the small-partner packed in with the RoGun Cap Rifle, named as the Robo-Scope, who became a scope for the larger toy's gun mode; and Squirt was based on the Squirt Gun, who became (whaddya think) a squirt gun. The other names listed here are all various Renegades. Blades was the name given to the series three Super GoBot Night Fright, a Renegade Mil Mi-24 "Hind" helicopter gunship, in the aforementioned Challenge of the GoBots episode "The Gift". Warpath was a series two Super GoBot, a Renegade AH-64 Apache helicopter; he showed up in Renegade Rhetoric as a Decepticon recruited by Cy-Kill on Axiom Nexus, but this version is a full-fledged cyborg GoBot. Tank was a Renegade from series one with a GoBotic tank alternate mode. Screw Head, also from series one, was a Renegade drill tank. Finally, there's the series one Renegade Spoiler, who turned into a Lamborghini Countach 500LPS sports car.

Level 51's GoBots are another mix of Guardians and Renegades, many of whom only showed up in the final quarter of the series. They include: Ace, a Guardian P-51 Mustang fighter plane from series three; Dart, a Honda VF1000R motorcycle from series three, who has a bit of a confusing history-he was sold as a Renegade in the toyline, and "Et Tu, Cy-Kill" followed that, having him appear as one of Cy-Kill's Guardians who defected alongside him, but the episode "The GoBots That Time Forgot" showed him as an amnesiac GoBot living on Level 17 of GoBotron, saved by Leader-1's team and becoming a Guardian, which followed into his appearance in "Mission: GoBotron" as a member of the Guardian military. Aside from that, there's Night Ranger, a Guardian Harley-Davidson Electra Glide motorcycle from series two; Bolt, a Guardian Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter plane from series three; Sparky, a female Guardian Pontiac Fiero from series two; Wrong Way, a Guardian Hughes AH-64 Apache helicopter from series two; Gunnyr, a Renegade MiG-21 "Fishbed" fighter jet from series three; Slicks, a Renegade Renault RE30 Formula-1 race car from series two; and Crain Brain, a Renegade Unic K-200B crane truck from series one.

Level 59's refugees contain a mix of evil Rock Lords and some Guardians. The evil Rock Lords include: Tombstone, a piece of quartz from series one; Slimestone, a piece of silver from series two; Stone Hook, one of the series one Shock Rocks, Rock Lords who had some sort of gimmick (in his case, Stone Hook was a piece of obsidian who had a retractable hook for his right hand); and Sabrestone, another toyline-exclusive Rock Lord from series three, a female Rock Lord who turned into a piece of garnet. The Guardians, meanwhile, consist of: Good Knight, an Excalibur Roadster from series two; Royal-T, a Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR.3 fighter jet from series one; Dozer, a bulldozer from series one; and Hans-Cuff, a Toyota Crown patrol car from series one.

Another assortment of Guardians and Renegades resides on Level 63. The first three listed here are the Guardians sold at Wendy's in 1986 as part of a GoBots promotion, of which we've already gone over the Renegade side; Renegade Rhetoric presented them as young, recent graduates of the Guardian Academy, and presumably the same holds true for them here. Beamer turned into a BMW 11 sports car, Sky Fly turned into a jet, and Guide Star turned into a space shuttle. Others on the list include: Defendor, a Guardian Alvis Saladin Mk.II armored car from series two of the Super GoBots; Mach-3, a Guardian McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Fighter Jet from series three; Flip Top, a Guardian Kaman SH-2 Seasprite rescue helicopter from series two; Destroyer, a Renegade Leopard 2A4 tank from series one of the Super GoBots; and Water Walk, a Renegade Cessna sea plane from series two.

Level 69 is the universe to which a group of heroic Rock Lords and Renegades have fled. The Rock Lords listed here are the three Jewel Lords, translucent Rock Lords with crystalline forms, and one of the Shock Rocks. They include: Solitaire, the Jewel Lord leader who was the only one to show up in the GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords film-she turns into a diamond; Flamestone, who turns into a ruby; Sunstone, who turns into a piece of Amber; and Rock Roller, the heroic Shock Rock from series one, who turns into a blue boulder of some sort, and who had a pull-back motor gimmick in both modes. The Renegades, meanwhile, are Stinger, a Chevrolet Stingray sports car from series two, and Twin Spin (accidentally labelled here as "Tailspin"), a Boeing CH-46 Sea Knight tandem rotor helicopter from series two.

Level 72 is a motley bunch of Guardians and Renegades. They include: Sky-Jack, a Renegade F-14 Tomcat fighter jet from series three; Clutch, a Renegade Chevrolet pickup truck from series three of the Super GoBots-he showed up with Warpath as a former Decepticon on Axiom Nexus recruited by Cy-Kill in Renegade Rhetoric, but this version is a full-fledged GoBot; Von Joy, a Guardian Porsche 930T from series one of the Super GoBots-his toy gave his name in full as Baron Von Joy, but the Challenge of the GoBots cartoon instead depicted him as a scientist named Professor Von Joy; Blaster, a Guardian M33 missile tank from series one; Dive-Dive, a Guardian Los Angeles-class nuclear submarine from series two; Spy-Eye, a Guardian RAF Panavia Tornado GR1 fighter jet from series three of the Super GoBots; Street Heat, a Guardian Camaro Z28 sports car from series two; and Scratch, a Guardian Ford Bronco van from series two. As we'll see in a second, however, this may or may not be accurate.

Level 77's refugees are a group of Guardians (maybe) and evil Rock Lords. They include: Bullseye, a Guardian B-1 Lancer fighter jet from series three; Motosan, taken from the name "Moto-San" on the model sheet of Mr. Moto, a Guardian Honda ATC 200 three wheeler from series three, who only showed up in the episode "Et Tu, Cy-Kill"-presumably, it's because "-san" is a honorific suffix in Japanese that means "Mr." or "Mrs.", and was from whoever had drawn up Mr. Moto's model sheet, having not translated it back into English. Following them is a second listing of Scratch; one of them (presumably the one on Level 72, as otherwise all the others on level 77 are Guardians or evil Rock Lords) is presumably meant to be Stretch, the name given to Tux, a Renegade Rolls-Royce Phantom VI limo from series two, in the Challenge of the GoBots. The AllSpark Almanac II gave an entry on Stretch, a Decepticon who appeared to be an Animated version of Stretch/Tux. As listed in the entry, he was human antagonist Porter C. Powell's TUX-model mega limo, who had accidentally been brought to life by a fragment of the AllSpark after Powell was accosted by the Angry Archer. With Isaac Sumdac's help, Powell managed to lure Stretch to Sumdac Tower, where Sumdac tricked him into falling into the tower's space bridge, sending him "seventeen quantum-string vibrational levels" away. Later in the book, it would be noted that the Gargent Cluster (the TransTech designation for the continuity family of GoBots) was seventeen quantum-string vibrational levels away from the Malgus Cluster (their name for the Animated continuity family), hinting that Stretch would actually become the Renegade seen in the cartoon. Renegade Rhetoric followed up on this, showing that Stretch had become a wealthy bot by selling information he had from Porter's databases on 20th century vehicles and incorporating them into the Modifier for GoBots to turn into (explaining why characters shown to have Earth alternate modes before ever journeying there), before falling on hard times and being recruited into the Renegades. This version, however, is again a full-on GoBot version. Following on from this, we have: Spay-C, a female Guardian Rockwell Orbiter space shuttle from series one; Heat Seeker, a Guardian General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jet from series three; Sticks 'n Stone, conjoined twin evil Rock Lords from series one, who became a fused piece of coal and magnetite; and Rock Shot, the final series one Shock Rock, an evil piece of Bauxite who had a throwable rock projectile in his chest.

Finally, the last few lines go over some drones still located on Level 1, where the GoBots call home. The two Boomers were original Tonka designs for the GoBots toyline, motorized six-wheeled vehicles who auto-transformed by popping up, and could shoot out small projectile balls that could store a message inside. They briefly showed up in the cartoon as generic vehicles, never appearing in their simplistic robot modes. There was the gray Guardian variant, Rumble, and the blue Renegade variant, Blast. The Power Marchers were two toys licensed to Tonka from another of Bandai's toylines, WalkingRobo, radio-controlled robots who did not transform, but instead had a motorized walk feature. There was the white, non-humanoid Guardian Power Marcher, Hitch Hiker, and the purple, saurian Renegade Power Marcher Quick Step. Intended for release but cancelled, the toys known as GyroBots were similar to the Power Marchers, and seemed to be original to the toyline, though whether it was Tonka or someone else who was responsible for designing them is unknown. Renegade Rhetoric cast the unreleased Guardian GyroBot, Ridge Runner, a boxy robot, as another type of Power Marcher drone, and Dactyl, the avian Renegade Gyrobot, as a monster created by the Master Renegade; "Echoes and Fragments" would feature them as a species controlled by the Master Renegade, along the lines of the Sharkticons. Zod, meanwhile, was a Tonka original figure, a motorized, reptilian monster owned by the Renegades, who was described as unstoppable, only be able to be stopped by the "Mighty Lazer Lance" (a stick that pressed a button that turned Zod off). He showed up regularly in the Challenge of the GoBots cartoon, and multiple copies of him were created by the enslaved members of humanity for Cy-Kill in the "Battle for GoBotron" opening mini-series. Scales (I mentioned him at the start, remember?) was another Tonka-original creation, a reptilian Renegade smaller than Zod, but still ferocious and able to convert into a Formula-1 race car (albeit with a very simple transformation). Notably, Scales name starts a new sentence, but the sections stop before the countdown is complete; Ask Vector Prime mentioned that Tusks (the name given to the piano Transformer who worked at Maccadam’s Old Oil House seen in issue #82 of the Marvel UK The Transformers comic, created by Simon Furman and Ron Smith) had, in some realities, downsized and became a Predacon, working alongside Scales, a cyborg who had fled his reality; obviously, the GoBots character. Presumably, it's not the Beast Wars: Uprising version of Tusks (who we'll eventually see in "Derailment") that Scales works alongside, as a Builder becoming a proto-race Cybertronian is a taboo, only done by Grimlock in an attempt to kill the Builder Assembly; however, it might be in a universe nearby that this occurred.

Finally, one more thing not present in the story itself, which you can see below: the image of Devastator versus Monsterous as done by Christopher Colgin, showing the same fight as Burcham's illustration but from a different, slightly more dynamic angle. Devastator is wielding his gun, made up of the parts of the jet that his combiner kibble helps form that don't become part of his combiner form; notably, you can see Hightower's Autobot symbol. The image also incorporates Colgin’s intended head for Monsterous. Also present in the night sky is one of the constellations in Cybertronian Zodiac, which previously showed up in illustrations from "Not All Megatrons"; the Zodiac was established in The AllSpark Almanac II. The constellation seen here is Serpent O.R., the android version of the Cobra emperor from G.I. Joe who showed up in Devil's Due Press' third crossover mini-series, G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers: The Art of War. He was a creation of the United States government, partially reverse-engineered from the corpse of Megatron, who considered himself the Decepticon leader's "son," and worked to steal the Matrix of Leadership from Optimus Prime. He eventually succeeded, becoming Serpentor Prime, but the spark the Matrix gave him caused him to feel regret over those he had killed, and he attempted to kill himself to atone for his actions; Cobra Commander took over his form, but G.I. Joe leader managed to take the Matrix from Serpentor, frying the nascent would-be Prime and Cobra Commander, and giving Hawk strange new abilities.