Beast Wars - The Agenda

[Jexulus]

The irony of turning Optimus Primal into a huge quadruple changer who far outclasses the rest of the class in every meaningful combat capacity is that he had to be sidelined in almost every Season 3 episode after the premiere. What’s really strange is that no character named Optimus before or since (at least in the Western cartoons) had this happen to them to this degree.

Ironically, by making Optimus Primal so powerful and versatile, he had to be a weaker presence in individual episodes so that the plots could happen.

[Beastro]

Sometimes Beast Wars treats Maximals and Predacons like they're simply factions that you can defect from at will (see Dinobot joining the Maximals, and Quickstrike going all in on being a Predacon).

Other times, we'll be shown that Maximals and Predacons are literally programmed to think differently, that Predacons being ultra-aggressive and lacking in empathy is part of their fundamental nature (see Rhinox getting reprogrammed in Season 1, or anytime the two sides race to recover a protoform pod first).

I fee was a big missed point in Transformers that their deterministic programming wasn't emphasized enough to encapsulate the sad tragedy of their war and the crimes of the Quintessons for meddling with them.

[chaos42]

true but i wonder if its less nature vs nurture. Quickstrike was a complete blank slate as he had not programing other than the basics and a lot of elements of his beast modes i think made him act the way he did. also made him a moron. while black aracnia is influenced by her programing but when its removed she is still the same for the most part personality wise. The bit with rhinox being reprogrammed is just that reprogramming and it made him an unstable psycho. Personally i see it more of a choice between what you choose to be. dinobot showed that in both this and his other incarnations that he was a spark that was honorable, and my favorite character.

The agenda does make me think though about what megatrons plans were if we take everything into account.

He probably wasn't sure that they were on earth till after the destruction of the planet buster. Once he did he probably copied the location data and nothing else off the golden disk and when the back ups were destroyed after dinobot stole them he realized what he had and what he had lost. so he started trying to figure out plans as dinobot stated. Im wondering how much he knew and when did he know it.

[Fianna]

In the first episode, when it looked like they had landed somewhere other than Earth (what with the two moons), Megatron was like, "So what? There's still loads of Energon here. We gather that up, conquer the universe, and Bob's your uncle."

Trying to change the past seems to be something he only got interested in after the Season 1 finale. Partly because one of the moons going away shows this really was ancient Earth afterall, and partly because the massive energy given off makes it far more likely that someone from Cybertron will take notice and come to investigate, so Megatron has to secure power for himself before reinforcements come to render him and his ragtag group of ne'erdowells irrelevant.

[Megabob452]

In the first episode, when it looked like they had landed somewhere other than Earth (what with the two moons), Megatron was like, "So what? There's still loads of Energon here. We gather that up, conquer the universe, and Bob's your uncle."

Trying to change the past seems to be something he only got interested in after the Season 1 finale. Partly because one of the moons going away shows this really was ancient Earth afterall, and partly because the massive energy given off makes it far more likely that someone from Cybertron will take notice and come to investigate, so Megatron has to secure power for himself before reinforcements come to render him and his ragtag group of ne'erdowells irrelevant.

Also, the vok weapon detonated most of the Energon present, so the season 1 schemes were no longer viable. But, having seen the destructive power of alien weaponry, Megatron switches gears and decides that capturing the next alien weapon is the best course of action. When that fails, and the second golden disk is destroyed, Megatron is left with time meddling as his only means of victory.

It gives the impression that Megatron carried out his plans in the order of ascending risk to himself. Harvesting Energon is tedious but allows conventional victory. Using alien weapons could have revealed Cybertron to those aliens. Wiping out the humans would absolutely change the era Megatron came from. And then killing Optimus Prime could have led to Cybertron being eaten by Unicron.