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thanksjro · 4 years

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Last Stand of the Wreckers PsyOps records- Can we PLEASE Hire Some More Mental Health Specialists?

Rung gets a lot of play in the Last Stand of the Wreckers bonus materials. He was still more of a play-on-words as opposed to an actual character at the time, so I suppose it makes sense.

Rotorstorm walked into his appointment with Rung and immediately started hyping himself up. That’s very telling. When Rung asked about his time at Simanzi, he sort of shut down and wasn’t able to hide behind his defense mechanism of being the funniest, coolest, bravest, all-around-bestest guy in the room.

Rotorstorm was basically born, then thrown into the Aerial Program, where all that awful stuff with Jetstream happened. Dude was beating up an infant.

Motherfucker’s got some trauma, obviously, but apparently that’s not enough to disqualify him from Wrecker duty. Wrecker duty that he didn’t even want, I should add.

You gotta sign up for the Wrecker roster; he’d been on it before, but had dropped out to teach instead. Either someone set this poor guy up to die, or Jetstream was wrong this whole time and he really just is that good. Not that it mattered much- the damage is done. Rotorstorm has crippling self-doubt, and is also dead.

Pyro suffers from a programming disorder known as primus apotheosis, identified by the sufferer’s need to emulate the great Optimus Prime. Many Autobots are afflicted with this disorder, and even a few Decepticons have been known to have it. The fact that Pyro had primus apotheosis makes panels like this:

-all the more sad. This is a guy who’s had his own personality overwritten- by his own hero worship- in an attempt to be greater than himself. Pyro is by no means a slouch when it comes to saving the day- he saved an entire platoon of Autobots as a member of the Resistance.

Then Simanzi happened.

There isn’t a ton known about the Simanzi Massacre, only that it was so bad, the Cybertronian population was halved by the time it was over. Pyro would have been just another statistic, had it not been for Optimus Prime’s intervention. Does survivor’s guilt have some part in his disorder? It’s certainly possible. All that can be said for sure is that nobody got out of Simanzi unscathed.

Pyro was approved for the Wreckers with reservations, seeing as primus apotheosis sufferers can and will sacrifice themselves for others if given any wiggle room in which to do so. The Wreckers were just lucky that Pyro wanted to go out in style. It didn’t really work for him, but points for trying.

Guzzle isn’t his legal name. Much like Chromedome, he’s called what he’s called due to meddling with the war. Originally Pneumatix, and a forklift of all things- the name being a play on the word “Pneumatic”, because forklifts work by using compressed air to lift things- he entered the Body Augmentation Program. This turned him into something called a ruination tank. That’s why his turret accounts for nearly half of his height- they basically turned a Mini Cooper into a weapon of mass destruction. Because he’s meant to be actually very tiny, his body compensates for the added stress by being so insanely fuel-inefficient, he has to constantly eat. Thus the nickname.

Guzzle didn’t exactly impress Rung at his appointment, coming across as a rather cold, distant individual when it came to his own emotions, describing his own near-death experience at the hands of the Decepticons in terms of what weaponry was used to try to kill him. Still, he was approved for the Garrus-9 mission.

It’s at this point that you have to wonder just how many people are actually on the waiting list for this group.

First Aid about had a panic attack when he thought Springer was inviting him to join the Wreckers, so it’s obviously a known thing that members don’t last terribly long, or at least, it’s something that can be inferred through reading about them.

Looking at past members, it’s rather telling what sort of person is attracted to the Wrecker lifestyle; Whirl is an emotional powder keg that’s constantly trying to light his own fuse, Impactor defied wartime sanctions to murder the his rivals, Roadbuster is a hardcore drug abuser who ripped someone’s spine out, and Kup can only function in polite society if he’s smoking medicinal marijuana at all times. These are not stable individuals. Springer is the odd exception, and I’m counting Perceptor as a borderline case, because he went through a massive personality shift that led him to where he was within the group. He may appear “normal” when compared to the others, but that guy’s for sure got some issues that he keeps close to his chest.

Given all of this, it’s not really much of a leap to say that Rotorstorm got thrown back on the list because they didn’t have anyone else who wanted in on this madness. It’s also not much of a leap to say that the only reason any of these guys got approved to join was because there weren’t any other options. The psych-screenings were probably just done as a professional obligation at that point. Rung, for all his faults, was likely working with what he’d been given.

I’m not exactly sure where these profiles were meant to reside within Last Stand’s timeline, given that Rotorstorm and Pyro are classified as being probably alive, whereas Ironfist is not.

Ironfist spends a good portion of his appointment with Rung fanboying over the Wreckers, as he is wont to do. When he actually gets around to talking about himself, he’s not nearly as eloquent or organized. Rung did not approve Ironfist for the mission, based solely on his lack of experience in the field of busting heads. He only got on the team due to Prowl’s interference, as has been established before.

Fisitron is revealed to have been a writer of many talents, publishing articles for all ages and reading levels. He was an author you could grow up on.

Impactor’s profile was written at the time of his probationary hearing, and it seems to imply that Rung may be a bit of an idiot. He had dismissed the guard who was present, in an attempt to get Impactor to be more open with him. This went about as well as that sort of thing usually goes for the only mental health specialist on all of Cybertron.

Looks like someone’s got a fear of mnemosurgery. With this little event in his past, it’s very surprising that Rung tried to offer it to Fortress Maximus in MTMTE #6.

Maybe Rung accidentally stuck a really big magnet to the side of his head at some point, thus erasing his memory files, because I know that I sure wouldn’t be offering that sort of thing if this was the average reaction to it.

After Impactor had had his moment, he shared some of his war stories with Rung- apparently his lack of a right hand was inspired by meeting Death’s Head.

Though Death’s Head isn’t directly named, it’s pretty obvious that’s who it’s intended to be, given that he’s mentioned as “ricocheting from universe to universe after leaping through an exploding time portal.” This is in reference to the events that took place in the Marvel UK storyline “The Legacy of Unicron!” This is also what happened to him prior to the events of Eugenesis.

Rung is aware of these events due to having read Wreckers: Declassified. I’m not sure how I feel about Wreckers: Declassified being a valid resource for Rung to pull from, considering Fisitron self-described with the word “dramatist” in “Bullets”.

The session had to be ended when Rung tried to psychoanalyze Impactor in a way he wasn’t ready for, as the man threatened to crush his brain like a grape between his fingers.

Lot of Eugenesis vibes in this entry.

We don’t get any history on Impactor, as it’s been scrubbed from the record at someone’s request. Is it related to his relationship with Megatron? The events that would eventually be revealed in Sins of the Wreckers? Maybe it’s just left like that to create intrigue for the eventual sequel series, Sins of the Wreckers. Who knows? I certainly don’t.

That’s the end of Rung’s reports, but we still have a couple more characters to get through.

Rotorstorm, Snare, and Swindle must go to the same body shop, because they’re the only guys who have eyes/visors that aren’t a primary color. It’s an interesting little character design choice, and I can’t help but wonder if there was some sort of reason for it.

…I genuinely wasn’t expecting an answer for that. Neat!

Snare’s kind of a loner, which works out pretty well for him, since he’s usually on surveillance duty. He’s also a sadist, having developed some nasty ways to keep prisoners in line. “Morphcore stimulation” is mentioned, and it’s less fun than it sounds, not that it sounds terribly fun in the first place. The fact that even Snare thought Overlord was a bit much is very telling.

If you’re unfamiliar with the term “morphcore”, don’t feel bad about it, because it’s only ever been used in one piece of media up until this point. Morphcores were a small bundle of nerves at the base of the Cybertronian brain that controlled transformation, as explained in Eugenesis. This term would quickly be switched out for the more well-known “transformation cog” for brand cohesion. The really funny thing is that that this section is attributed to Nick Roche. It would seem that TMUK is a hard state of mind to shake off.

This won’t be the only time Roche and Roberts team-up to completely miss the mark on how the IDW continuity functions- the Dire Wraith in The Revolution oneshot they wrote together was running off of the Marvel UK iteration of the species.

Overlord doesn’t have a profile, per se, but rather a transcript of a correspondence between Megatron and a guy named Gorelock.

Gorelock apologizes for not getting in contact sooner, explaining that the reason he’s been radio silent is because Overlord fucking showed up out of nowhere, after cutting and running from the Decepticause years prior. Whether Megatron had actually heard Overlord’s message or just figured it out from context clues isn’t clarified.

Gorelock super-duper promises that he and his guys didn’t just stand there pissing themselves in fear as Overlord strolled through their ranks, and they super-duper totally fought him until Gorelock decided to hear the guy out. For sure. Absolutely.

It turns out, Overlord was never actually dismissed from the rank of the Decepticons, which means that he outranks Gorelock, and Gorelock was therefore compelled to grant him a favor.

The favor is wrecking an entire empire’s shop. Gorelock complies with this request, purely due to being outranked. Absolutely. For sure.

Once the contract was completed in full, Overlord fucked off into space.

You know, not enjoying your hobbies anymore can be a sign of depression.

And that’s why Gorelock hasn’t kept in touch! I’m sure Megtron will be very understanding about this whole thing.

Or not!

#transformers #jro #last stand of the wreckers #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #prose writing #wreckers trilogy

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thanksjro · 4 years

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Before We Begin

Full disclosure: I’m not working off of a physical copy of this story, but rather a PDF download. I live in the United States, and don’t think I’d be able to find a copy of this book if my life depended on it.

When I was looking at the download packets, I chose the one with as many extra materials as I could, so I’d have the best chance at understanding the story without having to rely on the internet too much.

As you can see, there’s a good amount to work with here. I’m especially happy to have the notes- also known as the Story So Far. Thank god for this, because this would be an absolute slog to get through otherwise.

Eugenesis takes place within the Marvel comics continuity, which includes both the American and UK comics published at the time, and The Transformers The Movie. The guide summarizes the millions-year long war between the Autobots and the Decepticons over control of the planet Cybertron. Pretty basic stuff, things anyone who’s ever heard of the Transformers ought to know. The notes assume that the reader knows absolutely nothing about the franchise, which is good, because it means nothing gets left out.

This is already an interesting contrast between Eugenesis and MTMTE/LL, which didn’t need very much extra reading to be understood, if any at all. A rarity in the comic industry. Sure, there were things you could read to get a deeper understanding of certain character motivations- Last Stand of the Wreckers, for example, giving one a better grasp of why Fort Max is so messed up and angry.

But this is about the notes right now, not the comics. So, let’s dive right into:

That’s right, baby, this novel takes place in the far-flung future of 2012, and you better believe the date 12/21/12 comes up at least once.

There’s a lot of stuff that’s covered in the notes, and I’ll bring it up as needed as I progress through the novel. It’s helpful to have, but let’s move on to the juicier stuff.

…Is what I would say, if the notes weren’t completely batshit insane.

It starts out innocently enough, describing the beginnings of the war, establishing that the Transformers didn’t always, well, transform. Transformation technology was developed by Megatron in order to make the Decepticons more combat-effective, and the Autobots followed suit. They fought so hard that Cybertron was knocked out of orbit and got lost for a little while, eventually coming under the rule of a warlord named Trannis while Optimus and Megatron are busy being unconscious for four million years on Earth.

Trannis is a massive technoist, who believes that mechanical beings are the bee’s knees, so he starts cyberforming other planets, until he gets offed by the resistance. He’s quickly replaced with Jhiaxus, who’s basically more of the same, and the Decepticons of Cybertron split up, one team heading into space to do evil robot things, the other guarding Cybertron from the resistance. The Beast Wars are mentioned. The cartoon continuity is mentioned. Shockwave shows up for a bit, gets thrown in a swamp a couple times.

Things go on like this until 1985, when the Earth-based Autobots reestablish contact with their homeworld.

Galvatron shows up- y’know, Galvatron. The revamped Megatron from the movie, which takes place in 2005. He time-hopped from the future to build a weapon to kill Unicron. The Autobots try to stop him. Why they don’t just let him kill Unicron, who is blatantly evil and a threat to anyone around him, isn’t stated, but they eventually trick Galvatron into going back to the future, with a little help from Kup, Blurr, and Hot Rod, who are also from the future.

Galvatron comes back a year later. He causes a bunch of time-travel nonsense to happen, and is basically the worst until the Time Wars happen.

Meanwhile, Megatron heads back to Cybertron to see what’s happened while he was taking a dirt nap. Straxis- who was left in charge by Jhiaxus- isn’t doing so hot, and decides he’s going to steal Megatron’s body for his own. He gets killed for his troubles. Megatron decides he’s just going to head back to Earth, feeling pretty paranoid at this point- which, fair enough. I don’t think I’d feel very safe after someone tried to steal my body either.

Later on, Optimus Prime dies in a video game. Optimus Prime is killed by a human child in a video game. In fact, let me just show you the whole paragraph that covers this, because I don’t know that I’m able to do it justice.

It just blows my mind, and I knew that this happened before I even attempted to read the notes. These notes are eight pages long, and this is on page three.

Now Fortress Maximus is leading a group of Autobots, but he’s really not feeling the fight so much, so he, Kup, and Hot Rod just kinda… leave. They end up on Nebulos and become Target/Headmasters, just in time for the Decepticons to track them down and fight some more. Back on Earth, the Autobots launch Optimus’ corpse into space and elect a dinosaur as their new leader. This goes about as well as one would expect.

Over in London, G.I. Joe finds out that Megatron’s been living in the sewers. Actually, it isn’t Megatron, but a clone, housing the personalities of both Megatron and Straxis. They kill him and throw him in the river. Shockwave catches wind of this and has the body brought to him so he can use it to kill Galvatron. He brings the body back online using a ‘psycho-probe’, and uses the power of suggestion to have Megatron do his dirty work.

Megatron decides to kill Cyclonus and Scourge first, since they work for Galvatron, and through a time-travel mishap, ends up killing one of them before they were created. This displeases the space-time continuum, which promptly rips, and will continue to do so over the next few months.

Are you starting to see why I needed to break this down?

Optimus Prime is brought back from the dead. Hooray.

Starscream finds the Underbase- an ancient storehouse of Cybertronian knowledge so vast it will literally melt your brain- and wrecks shop until the moment it kills him.

Meanwhile, clone-Megatron has decided he’s not going to kill Galvatron, but rather join forces with him. Everyone agrees that this is a terrible idea, and so the Autobots and Decepticons living in the year 2009 join forces to get Galvatron back to the future. The space-time rift swallows him, Scourge, and Cyclonus’ corpse, solving the problem pretty cleanly. Clone-Megatron finds the original-flavor Megatron, and promptly kills himself.

With the original Megatron back in play, he kidnaps Ratchet and forces him to resurrect Starscream as a Pretender- a robot in a protective shell. Ratchet decides that he’s going to fuck the warlord over as thoroughly as possible, instead bringing back a few of his friends and then exploding the Decepticon base. Both Ratchet and Megatron are presumed dead, but when has that ever stopped anyone in this franchise?

The newly resurrected Autobot Pretenders wind up in the center of the planet, Decepticons hot on their trail, and find themselves face-to-face with Primus, their creator god. Someone shoots the poor guy in the face, and he screams loud enough for Unicron, Bringer of Chaos, Vorer of Worlds, to hear him. So, that’s a thing they’re going to have to deal with in a few months.

Unicron finds a Galvatron from a parallel universe and takes him along for the ride, as the Autobots spend the start of the 90’s looking for the original Optimus’ dead body, which they never bothered to get the Matrix out of for some reason. They better hurry, because space is pretty big, and that Matrix is the only thing that can stop the Chaos Bringer.

Ratchet and Megatron are found- alive- in a pocket dimension, though they probably wish that they weren’t, seeing as they’ve been fused together so hard their brains have to take turns piloting their horrific, melty, shared body.

Unicron shows up in ’91 and kills, just, so many people. Optimus Prime sacrifices himself to save the rest of the population, flinging his body and the newly-recovered Matrix into the World-Vorer’s mouth. This kills God.

Optimus names Grimlock as the new leader of the Autobots- because that worked out so well the last time- and then dies. Prowl does all the heavy lifting to actually get the planet back in shape, seeing as the fight with Unicron wrecked Cybertron so hard its trying to tear itself apart via earthquakes.

Cyberquakes?

Anyway, Prowl works out a deal with the new leader of the Decepticons, Bludgeon, only to get sabotaged for his efforts, the Autobots being left to die as the 'Cons fly off to find new worlds to conquer.

Shockwave and Starscream- that’s right baby, he’s back- steal the Ark, unaware that there were multiple other people aboard. It’s like they didn’t even check. Galvatron is stowed away, and both Megatron and Ratchet- freshly separated- are stored in stasis pods. Ratchet wakes up and immediately crashes the ship into Canada, hoping to kill the Decepticons aboard. Galvatron lives, only to be trapped under the ice by a nasty fight with Fortress Maximus, the last Autobot left on Earth.

Back on Cybertron, Gridlock has a show of competence and reveals that he had extra ships hidden away, just in case the Decepticons tried anything funny. They get off the planet and go to fight some ‘Cons.

Optimus Prime is brought back from the dead. Hooray.

The Matrix is recreated. Wahoo.

The Autobots fight the Decepticons, defeating them once and for all. Or do they?

No, they don’t.

See, even the notes know what’s up.

Not even a year later, Optimus catches wind of Decepticon forces gathering along the edge of the galaxy. He decides to make Grimlock leader of the Earthforce- because Optimus never friggin’ learns- and they face off against Megatron and friends a few times before the Decepticons abandon Earth altogether. At some point, Fortress Maximus gets killed off. Grimlock disbands the Earthforce to chase the ‘Cons across the galaxy, and finds a Cybertronian empire, which holds at its center Liege Maximo, who claims to have created Megatron.

Well, that’s not exactly right; he claims to be Megatron’s progenitor.

It’s at this point I broke out the TFWiki, because that could mean a lot of things.

Still vague. Hmm. I’m onto you, Marvel comics. Don’t be jumping on the mechpreg just yet, we still have three more pages of notes to get through.

…What did I just say, Marvel comics?

Did I say three pages? I meant two paragraphs. Holy hell, that hits like a punch to the face, it does.

Okay, so this isn’t exactly what you think, believe it or not. This is describing the form of reproduction that was established in the Marvel comics known as budding- some unlucky robot’s body runs away with itself and basically vomits out another fully-formed ‘bot. It’s like their chest was chewing a huge wad of gum, tried to blow a bubble, but did it just a little too hard.

Getting back on track, Optimus Prime finds out about budding from Vector Sigma, but pulls out of their little pow-wow before he can be told about the byproduct of this birthing process- the Swarm, an ink-black cloud of evil energy that left Cybertron ages ago to find something to feed off of.

The Swarm finds its way home, interrupting yet another standoff between the Autobots/Decepticons and the Cybertronian Empire. A lot of folks die, and Optimus surrenders to the Swarm in an attempt to save his compatriots. The Swarm gets introduced to, and I quote: “concepts of nobility, compassion, and sacrifice”, then goes back into deep space to seek enlightenment.

Can you imagine if human afterbirth did that? You just had a baby, and now you have to beat your placenta off with a broom? Then the god-king of the world introduces it to meditation and kindness, and it goes off to find inner peace instead of killing everyone? Comic books are wild.

Other than that funky little aside, it’s business as usual for the Transformers- war! From 1995 to 2003, they’re fighting nonstop. Then the UN decides that Optimus Prime’s allowed to build a giant robot city on Earth. It sure is a good thing Optimus is such a nice guy, because I don’t think they would have been able to stop him otherwise. Imagine telling the thirty-foot tall robot-Jesus from space he needs a permit to build a city in the middle of the desert.

They build the city- Autobot City, in fact- with Metroplex the Titan sealed inside, just in case the Decepticons decide to try anything funny.

They do- it’s called The Transformers The Movie. There’s a slight difference in plot, in that the notes remind us of the fact that Galvatron is a time-traveling ponce, but other than that the movie’s the movie.

To summarize that- though I’d be surprised if I needed to- movie goes like this: It’s the distant future of 2005, ‘Cons attack Autobot City, Optimus gets shot and dies AGAIN, traumatizing thousands of children in the mid-80s, Megatron gets shunted into deep space, meets Orson Welles who makes him a thigh-tastic new body, Megatron-now-Galvatron turns Starscream into a small pile of ash, a bunch of robots get vored, Hot Rod fulfills his destiny and becomes the new space-Jesus, Unicron explodes, YOU GOT THE TOUCH YOU GOT THE POWER-

So after all that happens, the Autobots take back Cybertron and tell the remaining Decepticons to kindly screw off. Hot Rod- now Rodimus Prime- decides he’s not taking any chances and hires a bounty hunter to find and kill Galvatron, who’s off galavanting somewhere in space. Both Rodimus and the bounty hunter follow Galvatron through time- of course- and land in 1987, but return to the future/present empty-handed. While they were gone, Shockwave and a group of Decepticons showed up on Cybertron, resulting in a stalemate between the two factions.

In 2008, the bounty hunter shoots down Cyclonus and Scourge- Rodimus put a hit out on them, too- over the planet of Junk, home of the Junkions. Who else is there? Oh, just Unicron. He’s got the Junkions brainwashed and building him a new body. He uses the bounty hunter to kill Shockwave, instates Cyclonus and Scourge as the new Decepticon leaders, then gets blown up by Rodimus and Wreck-Gar. Cyclonus, Scourge, and the bounty hunter all go through a time portal as this is happening, and the two Transformers end up in 15th century Cybertron, where they’ll become Targetmasters. Their resumes must be very impressive at this point. Nobody’s sure where the bounty hunter’s gotten to- we’ll get back to him later.

Although his physical form has been destroyed, Unicron’s essence lives on inside the Matrix. This can only end well, surely.

Back on Cybertron, Soundwave takes control of the Decepticon forces.

The Quintessons break free from Unicron’s control, just in time to discover that their planet’s about to be torn apart by the space-time rift Cyclonus’ dead body made.

Are you beginning to see why I felt the need to summarize these notes?

The leader of the Quintessons decides that now is the perfect time to attack Autobot City on Earth, as well as Cybertron. This doesn’t go very well for the Quintessons, or their planet.

The time-rift is still causing issues, so Rodimus Prime grabs some Autobots and heads to the past, to go grab everyone’s favorite time-traveling ‘Cons. What happened there we already covered, so I’ll leave it at that.

Rodimus and friends return to the present, only to wind up in a parallel universe, and the fact that this is only the second time I’ve had to write “parallel universe” for this section of the breakdown honestly astounds me. Rodimus gets possessed by the spirit of Unicron, who was hiding in the Matrix as we covered earlier, but he handles it pretty well and they head back home.

Back in their original universe, they find Galvatron, Cyclonus and Scourge, repaired by the space-time rift. Rodimus destroys any and all time machines he can get his hands on at this point- the notes say it’s to keep a promise he made to Optimus, but between you and me, I think he’s just gotten sick of Galvatron’s shit.

A couple years after that, Unicron’s got himself a hot new bod, and now he’s gonna tear up the town. By "tear up”, I of course mean devour with the sole intent of destruction, and by “town", I mean the entirety of Cybertron. Rodimus Prime manages to stop him, by containing him within his body, perhaps his mind? The notes are vague here, but the Wiki seems to imply that he’s trapped within the Matrix again, which Rodimus holds.

Now it’s December 2012, and things aren’t going so great for the Autobots. The Decepticons have control of Cybertron, the remaining Autobots being forced into hiding underground. On Earth, Autobot city is manned by a hundred ‘bots, Ultra Magnus acting as leader. They’re there to make sure Earth’s safe from the ‘Cons, but there hasn’t been an attack in quite a bit.

That’s where the notes end. That’s everything you need to know before reading Eugenesis. So, what did we learn?

We learned that Galvatron and his goons time traveled so frequently they broke the laws of physics. Optimus is just as incapable of staying dead here as he is everywhere else- multiversal constant, that one. Rodimus is smarter than Optimus about confronting the enemy, in that he intends for them to die, either by his hand or one that’s been hired. Good for him, I say. Get the job done, Rodders.

We also learned that the mechpreg really isn’t Roberts’ fault. I mean, yeah, he probably leans on the concept a bit heavily, but he’s just working with what he was given by the franchise. We’ll see how deep that rabbit hole goes later on.

But I think the most important thing to glean from this is that comic timelines are a nightmare. That’s the real lesson here.

Okay! Notes are done! That means we can start on the novel, right?

No.

No, it doesn’t.

We still have the prequel to get through.

#transformers #jro #maccadam #eugenesis #Hannzreads #text post #long post

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