Sfdebris.net

Since no one made a thread for it.

We meet Tigatron. Who honestly ends up doing very little in show's run.

ya tigertron and the falcon girl are criminally under used in the series. we could probly postulate at length as to why that happened

On the plus side, at least they showed where he came from unlike G1 where new guys just turned up from nowhere (save for a handful like the Dinobots where their creation was a major part of the episode).

On another note, how the hell did they all get to India from the middle of sub-Seharan Africa? We know that they crashed there due to the alt-modes of Optimus, Rhinox and Chetor (and from the pilot we know those were local animals to the Axalon's crash site not random animals from across the planet) and the pod must have come down in Asia considering there was a snow tiger nearby to it (so again it scanned a local animal no a random one elsewhere on the planet and tigers are only found in Asia, not Africa, and a quick google search says that white tigers are found in Bengal, not Siberia). We don't see any vehicles in this episode or any other they couldnt have ridden, so shouldn't it have taken days to get there at a minimum. Anyone know how early on in production they decided that it was Earth, not an Earth-like planet? Maybe this episode was written/made before then where they wouldn't have had to worry about such things and could have put those animals on the same continent.

Although on the other hand I suppose it might help explain why he only showed up infrequently - makes it easier to explain why he's not around so much if he's off on another continent, so he can show up enough to fill the 'push that particular' toy quotia but he's far enough away that the audience don't keep asking "why don't you call Tigatron in?" for every episode and they don't have to answer "We didn't want to pay for the additional voice actor every time or have him completely silent in the background all the time".

It is kinda funny that when the Preds get a new member that new member is more or less always around and integrates into the team dynamic

while with the Maximals new members at first pretty much act more like special call ins so the core doesn't really change... I mean the new members get spot light episodes to cement their relationships with the team but... effectively you don't see the same type of interaction that Rattrap and DinoBot have or Optimus and Rhinox.

Tigatron they try to atleast explain this with the whole thinks his more apart of nature thing ergo he prefer to stay in the wilds... This comes up in a later episodes

I suppose the reason the Preds kept there new guys around while the Maximals let them go their own way could have something to do with the tyrrany-freedom dynamic their Decticon/Autobot ancestors had. The Preds/Cons are about crushing your opponents and enslaving them while the Maximals/Bots are all about individual freedoms (heck, Optimus Prime's catchphrase is all about freedom), so it's probably natural that Megatron would force new guys into line while Primal is willing to let them go their own way. There's probably also a trust issue - Megs doesn't trust his underlings fully so wouldn't want them going their own way while Primal trusts them to come when called if he really needs them; to back this up, remember in the very first episode Dinobot tried to rebel and otherthrow Megs, over the series Tarantulas' independent projects were a constant source of annoyance for Megs and Rampage was only kept in line because of the whole Megs holding his spark hostage. The only ones Megs could rely on really were Scorponok (who was too stupid to go rogue), Inferno (who glitched and had his beast mode override his programming making him unswaverlingly loyal to 'The Royalty') and Dinobot II (who was purpose built to be loyal). Also letting them go introduces a wild card into the Beast Wars - while Primal would probably have accepted that as a necessary complication, I can't see Megs accepting it and any he couldn't force into line he'd probably slag.

Dînadan wrote:On the plus side, at least they showed where he came from unlike G1 where new guys just turned up from nowhere (save for a handful like the Dinobots where their creation was a major part of the episode).

On another note, how the hell did they all get to India from the middle of sub-Seharan Africa? We know that they crashed there due to the alt-modes of Optimus, Rhinox and Chetor (and from the pilot we know those were local animals to the Axalon's crash site not random animals from across the planet) and the pod must have come down in Asia considering there was a snow tiger nearby to it (so again it scanned a local animal no a random one elsewhere on the planet and tigers are only found in Asia, not Africa, and a quick google search says that white tigers are found in Bengal, not Siberia). We don't see any vehicles in this episode or any other they couldnt have ridden, so shouldn't it have taken days to get there at a minimum. Anyone know how early on in production they decided that it was Earth, not an Earth-like planet? Maybe this episode was written/made before then where they wouldn't have had to worry about such things and could have put those animals on the same continent.

Although on the other hand I suppose it might help explain why he only showed up infrequently - makes it easier to explain why he's not around so much if he's off on another continent, so he can show up enough to fill the 'push that particular' toy quotia but he's far enough away that the audience don't keep asking "why don't you call Tigatron in?" for every episode and they don't have to answer "We didn't want to pay for the additional voice actor every time or have him completely silent in the background all the time".

The locations of the Maximal and Predacon Bases actually seem to vary from show to show.

For example, it's early shown that Stonehenge is somewhere close to the Maximal Base, in way to the Decepticon base.

The Predacons would likely be in America, based on the presence of a T-Rex fossil (Megatron) and a Utahraptor (The show calls Dinobot a Velociraptor, but in addition to being way bigger, he'd not be found anywhere near a T-Rex). For extra luls, the Northern Sector where Tigatron crashed is revealed to be 100 klicks north of the Axalon, and 120 kilometers north of the Darksyde. Assuming that the characters meant "north" and not "north-east" or "north-west", and assuming that a 1 klick = 1 kilometer (as it usually does in English), the two bases are, at most, 156 kilometers apart, and possibly as close together as 20 kilometers.


Shots of the planet from space shows different landmasses (This would be explained at the end of season 1)

Dînadan wrote:I suppose the reason the Preds kept there new guys around while the Maximals let them go their own way could have something to do with the tyrrany-freedom dynamic their Decticon/Autobot ancestors had. The Preds/Cons are about crushing your opponents and enslaving them while the Maximals/Bots are all about individual freedoms (heck, Optimus Prime's catchphrase is all about freedom), so it's probably natural that Megatron would force new guys into line while Primal is willing to let them go their own way. There's probably also a trust issue - Megs doesn't trust his underlings fully so wouldn't want them going their own way while Primal trusts them to come when called if he really needs them; to back this up, remember in the very first episode Dinobot tried to rebel and otherthrow Megs, over the series Tarantulas' independent projects were a constant source of annoyance for Megs and Rampage was only kept in line because of the whole Megs holding his spark hostage. The only ones Megs could rely on really were Scorponok (who was too stupid to go rogue), Inferno (who glitched and had his beast mode override his programming making him unswaverlingly loyal to 'The Royalty') and Dinobot II (who was purpose built to be loyal). Also letting them go introduces a wild card into the Beast Wars - while Primal would probably have accepted that as a necessary complication, I can't see Megs accepting it and any he couldn't force into line he'd probably slag.

Though as we see later, Megatron allows Tarantulas some freedom (Such as his multiple off-site lairs). Though he wises up and spies on him as the show goes on.

Is it actually confirmed that that was Stone Henge? Iirc isn't it later explained as something to do with the Vok (think that was their name); if so it could easily have been a similar structure in Africa which got destroyed between the Beast Wars and now rather than Stone Henge.

To add to the location confusion, the Ark crashed in America, yet is still close enough for the Maximals to take a couple of protohumans to it in one episode even though such hominids are still supposed to be in Africa at the time (iirc one of the other episodes with the protohumans in it even implies the interference of the Beast Wars are why they left the only valley in Africa they lived in so unless there were centuries or even millennia between episodes they couldn't have gotten to the Americas). At least when the Nemisis showed up in the ocean they explained it as being repaired and crashing again where it was found in G1.


As for Tarantulas' freedom, good point; he's probably a special case. Megs probably considered it more trouble than it was worth to oversee him tighter and the benefits of giving him a looser leash probably (initially at least) outweighed the alternative and while he produced results it wasn't worth slagging him. Maybe he could even be why Megs kept a tighter reign on the new additions? Perhaps seeing what schemes he was getting up to made Megs wary of giving the others similar free reign (one loose cannon he could keep an eye on, but more would divide his attention and risk them teaming up and turning on him, in fact didn't that happen in one episode with Tarantulas and Black Arachnia?)

Dînadan wrote:(iirc one of the other episodes with the protohumans in it even implies the interference of the Beast Wars are why they left the only valley in Africa they lived in so unless there were centuries or even millennia between episodes they couldn't have gotten to the Americas).

You know... that strikes me as a really neat idea they could've used in the series. Imagine in the early series they see the primitive protohumans, then later on they see initial civilization (I can so see Egyptian half-animal gods being representations of the Predicons and Maximals), then more advanced civilization and then suddenly Victorian era exploration into Darkest Africa.

To beings as long lived and used to thinking in terms of millennia, seeing humans come from barely sapient hunter-gatherers into industrial age in a million years would seem startlingly, impossibly quick.

I am in a hurry so a quick, the earth in this show has not fully separated from its Pangaea form so all the continents are still connected, however there are early hominids which makes the timeline sketchy as hell

^ Only in season 1, later seasons have a more Earth-like Earth.

One could blame the Vok weapon for the change.