A feature in the 2013 run of the Hasbro Transformers Collector's Club magazine, Perceptor chronicles the various Transformers with animal alt-modes. While seemingly inconsequential at the time, it would introduce concepts that would be expanded upon in Jim Sorenson and David Bishop's excellent series Beast Wars: Uprising, although this series is set in FunPub's Wings Universe, based off the original The Transformers cartoon.
Issue 49: Cassettes.
The holo-slides on this and every subsequent installment have four faction symbols; the obvious Autobot and Decepticon, while the third is that of the Quintessons, first seen on the Overcharge e-Hobby toys, and the Earth symbol, from the Cyber Planet Key of Earth in Transformers: Cybertron. All the images are sourced from Studio OX and Ban Magami lineart from Japanese artbook Transformers Visualworks, and the holo-slide numbers are each specific character's Japanese ID number (although for this particular installment, Steeljaw's and Ramhorn's start with "D'" instead of "C"/"A"). Here, we have holo-slides for Laserbeak, Ravage, Ratbat, Ramhorn, and Steeljaw.
With that out of the way, Perceptor notes that animal-based alt-modes are termed "primitives," which was introduced in The Transformers episode, "Call of the Primitives". Recordicon is a term from a The Transformers: The Movie sticker book that has been popularized by David Willis's Recordicons comic strip. Laserbeak was revealed to be the first of the cassette Transformers in the Secret Files of Teletraan II from the third season of The Transformers cartoon. Cryo-Condors and Cougaraiders are new species introduced here. Datatraxes originated from Beast Wars-fittingly, the representation of a datatrax in the finale of Beast Wars was that of a cassette. Blaster's crew and Ratbat were revealed to be added later on here, roughly fitting the release orders of their toys in real-life.
Issue 50: Dinobots.
The origins for the Sunbow The Transformers cartoon version of the Dinobots, as seen in "S.O.S. Dinobots" are recounted here, in which the Autobots based them off of the fossilized remains of Dinosaurs. Additionally, Trypticon, along with other saurain Transformers, are stated to also have been modeled on dinosaurs, which, while obvious enough, is canonized here for the first time. Perceptor notes that the Dinobots were the start of a merger between the organic and the technological, which Perceptor would see in his time with the Headmasters and Targetmasters, and would eventually reach it's highest potential in Beast Machines. Dinosaur transform static comes from the The Transformers season 3 episode, "Thief in the Night". The line "Evolution-revolution" is a reference to the memorable theme from the Beast Machines Fox Kids promo commercial.
Issue 51: Insecticons
Another recounting of a The Transformers episode, this time "A Plague of Insecticons" where the Insecticons were part of the original Decepticon raiding party on the Ark, boarding an escape pod and landing somewhere in Southern Asia. Here it is made clear that the idento-computers on them didn't reformat them on their own, but interacted with their escape pod and scanned the most machine like life: insects. The Insecticons were eventually nearly destroyed by the Autobots and reformatted by Unicron in The Transformers: The Movie; they showed up as errors later in the film and in "Five Faces of Darkness". The expanding of Sweeps beyond the original 2 is attributed to leftover cloning abilities from their Insecticon origins. The Insecticon's origins here inspire Perceptor into looking for ways for other escape pods to have abilities to scan organic life, setting up the stasis pods of Beast Wars.
Issue 53: Terrorcons.
The term Scramble City comes from the name of the subline in Japan under which the 4 Special Teams (the Aerialbots, Stunticons, Protectobots, and Combaticons), Metroplex, and Trypticon were sold-it's mention here is one of the rare times in English media that it's used. Perceptor notes that it's possible they were built by the Quintessons (as implied in "Money is Everything" by their serving of the aliens), but also notes that they were first seen working under Galvatron, as seen in "Grimlock's New Brain". These events are cross-referenced in a report by Brainstorm about the Technobots, and Unicron's essence in their laser cores-essentially, saying that it was Unicron's life force that granted them laser cores (or sparks, as they're known today.) This idea would be seen again in Ask Vector Prime. Perceptor also uses the term "fusilateral quintrocombiners" for Combiners, a term seen in Marvel's Generation 2 issue 9.
Issue 54: The Predacons
The Predacons. as described here, first appeared in "Five Faces of Darkness", during the Quintesson-Decepticon alliance, first serving under the aliens. Japanese story pages for Transformers 2010 made it clear that they were creations of the Quintessons. The idea that Sharkticons, another creation of the Quintessons are fundamentally similar to Predacons and potentially reclassified as them owes to the fact that the Generation 1 Sharkticon toy, Gnaw, was sold as a Predacon in Japan. CNA was originally mentioned in IDW's Spotlight: Arcee, and has since gone on to see uses in other media, like the Transformers: Prime cartoon. This entry reveals that after the events of "The Rebirth"-also summarized here-Razorclaw and the Predacons took over the remains of the Decepticons left after Galvatron and Scorponok's exile, taking them off Chaar, where they were situated for most of the third season of The Transformers. This development ties into the idea that the Predacons of Generation 1 are the direct Decepticon ancestors of the Beast Wars era Predacons, as originally suggested by BotCon 2006's "Dawn of Future's Past". It also likely owes to the pseudo-canonical Alignment, which depicted the Predacons as a splinter-faction that was gaining control over the majority of the Decepticon ranks. Multiple planets are rumored to be the Decepticon's new base of operations; Beast (the home of the Beastformers in Headmasters, where the Predacons were shown to end up in the Dreamwave Summer Special), Animatron (the Jungle Planet from Cybertron, given that name by the AllSpark Almanac; additionally, Animatron is the Japanese name for the Predacons), and Chaos (presumably meant to be Dread, home of the alien Chaos from The Transformers episode of the same name). Perceptor theories on the future evolution of the Predacons ties in several attributes of the Beast Wars faction with Generation 1 technology-Micromasters, who, like the Cybertronians post-Great Upgrade, are a smaller, more fuel-efficient class of Transformers; the Transformers of the -master subgroups (Headmasters, Targetmasters, and Powermasters) binary-bonded with the organic Nebulons, the organic shells of Pretender technology, and the mechanical beast modes are tied into the beast modes of Maximals and Predacons. Perceptor wonders, "Can we Autobots afford to do less"-paraphrases one of Transformers author Simon Furman's "Furmanisms"; phrases used repeatedly throughout his work. The idea that Fortress Maximus is leading the Autobots into this new era would be explored further in Beast Wars: Uprising, which further linked the Maximals with Maximus.