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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jan 14, 2020 18:00:33 GMT
To celebrate Hub Science Week, here is a thread to celebrate the practitioners of Evil (and sometimes Mad) Science in Transformers stories. I will begin with a few, who will inevitably be from the Marvel continuity, but feel free to add your favourites from any medium. The same character can be nominated for multiple initiatives. Criteria against which Evil Science should be judged include: - Original/creative thinking
- Level of ambition
- Level of evilness
There may be a poll at some point. I'll start the list: 1. MEGATRON'S COSMIC DREADNOUGHT Jumped straight in at the deep end by announcing he was going to build a rocket engine to fly his 'Saturn-sized' planet around space and conquer the universe. Original/creative thinking - 5 (super-massive spaceship blowing things up - kind of obvious) Level of ambition - 10 (full points for ambition) Level of evilness - 8 (pretty evil, but wasn't trying to kill everyone just for fun) 2. RATBAT'S WASH AND ROLL Brought us alien car-washes that used flashy lights to hypnotise drivers into giving the Decepticons all the fuel in their tanks. Original/creative thinking - 7 (no-one saw it coming) Level of ambition - 4 (could have been quite profitable) Level of evilness - 2 (it was kinda tame) 3. SHOCKWAVE'S SONIC SIPHON Attempted to turn the sound of Brick Springhorn and the Tenth Avenue Band into energon cubes. Original/creative thinking - 6 (unconventional, but hardly the best use of his genius) Level of ambition - 1 (sound waves contain very little energy) Level of evilness - 4 (he stole Brick's music  ) 4. GALVATRON'S VOLCANO Science met religion as Galvatron set out to use science to become a living god. Original/creative thinking - 2 (not the first loon with delusions of godhood) Level of ambition - 8 (OK, living god but then what?) Level of evilness - 8 (prepared to wipe out cities to achieve his ends) 5. THE LIVING NIGHTLIGHTS Mindwipe set out to hypnotise the world with his telepathic bedside lamps. Original/creative thinking - 7 (unexpected) Level of ambition - 6 (enslave all the humans, not bad) Level of evilness - 6 (wasn't planning to kill us, just make us his mindless servants) What else??? Martin |
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Jan 14, 2020 19:48:07 GMT
Flame? An army of killer zombie robots to cover his Cosmic Dreadnought tracks?
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jan 14, 2020 19:59:38 GMT
6. FLAME'S ARMY OF THE UNDEAD Flame? An army of killer zombie robots to cover his Cosmic Dreadnought tracks? Original/creative thinking - 7 (fooled everyone into thinking the dead had risen) Level of ambition - 8 (ambitious, but more concerned with proving himself right than conquering the universe) Level of evilness - 7 (killing people wasn't his goal but he didn't care if it happened - extra evil point for theft of Megatron's idea) Martin |
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Post by The Doctor on Jan 14, 2020 20:41:57 GMT
AUNTIE going mad and trying to kill everyone, this ending the war on Earth early?
-Ralph
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jan 14, 2020 20:50:36 GMT
AUNTIE going mad and trying to kill everyone, this ending the war on Earth early? How is that scientific innovation? Martin |
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The Huff
Thunderjet
Hufferlover
Posts: 4,243
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Post by The Huff on Jan 14, 2020 20:57:11 GMT
Scorponok. Turning Skullgrin into a Pretender so he can earn an honest wage in fuel as a movie star.
Not very evil at all.
The best evil scientific scheme was in the Attack Of The Autobots cartoon episode when Megatron sneaked into the Ark to brainwash the Autobots. To achieve this, he had to create an invisibility spray which in effect could have been used for a much better scheme than the original brainwash plan.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jan 14, 2020 21:04:20 GMT
7. SCORPONOK'S PRETENDER PROCESS Scorponok. Turning Skullgrin into a Pretender so he can earn an honest wage in fuel as a movie star. Not very evil at all. Original/creative thinking - 4 (first to think of disguising Transformers as carbon-based life-forms, but not native species, oh no, that would be boring) Level of ambition - 2 (monster employed in film industry) Level of evilness - 0 (perfectly acceptable arrangement) Martin |
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jan 14, 2020 21:13:10 GMT
On the other hand...
8. SCORPONOK'S BUBBLE-BLOWING MACHINE
Scorponok planned to rid Nebulos of the Nebulans by encasing them in bubbles and letting them rise into the upper atmosphere.
Original/creative thinking - 8 (probably the first to carry out genocide in this manner)
Level of ambition - 7 (a lot of effort to go to, but he seemed serious about it)
Level of evilness - 9 (very evil indeed)
Martin
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The Huff
Thunderjet
Hufferlover
Posts: 4,243
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Post by The Huff on Jan 14, 2020 22:44:56 GMT
On the other hand... 8. SCORPONOK'S BUBBLE-BLOWING MACHINE Scorponok planned to rid Nebulos of the Nebulans by encasing them in bubbles and letting them rise into the upper atmosphere. Original/creative thinking - 8 (probably the first to carry out genocide in this manner) Level of ambition - 7 (a lot of effort to go to, but he seemed serious about it) Level of evilness - 9 (very evil indeed) Martin Spongebob would have approved. |
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jan 15, 2020 6:58:17 GMT
9. STRAXUS'S NEW BODY
Tried to steal Megatron's body, and when that failed his mind fled to one he'd made earlier, which makes you wonder why he didn't just create a body like his old one, and use that instead.
Original/creative thinking - 6 (quite clever, but an unnecessarily convoluted way to get a new Transformer body)
Level of ambition - 7 (he evidently had his heart set on being Megatron and not Straxus)
Level of evilness - 3 (Decepticon in-fighting not very evil from an Autobot perspective, but it was Evil Science as far as the poor Decepticon trooper whose body he stole was concerned)
Martin
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Jan 15, 2020 14:49:44 GMT
Possible it looked like Megatron's body but didn't have all its abilities. Like the black hole stuff.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jan 15, 2020 19:25:51 GMT
Possible it looked like Megatron's body but didn't have all its abilities. Like the black hole stuff. Or being able to transform and shrink to gun mode. Martin |
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Post by The Doctor on Jan 18, 2020 8:19:02 GMT
AUNTIE going mad and trying to kill everyone, this ending the war on Earth early? How is that scientific innovation? Martin AUNTIE is an AI. -Ralph |
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jan 18, 2020 8:27:42 GMT
Ah right, so you're not saying Auntie is doing Evil Science, but that she's the evil end result of someone else's science - whoever built her. I wonder if her creator was an Evil Scientist who planned it all, or a Misguided Scientist who intended her to be heroic? Martin |
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Jan 18, 2020 9:49:25 GMT
Are not all Transformers AIs then? Why are people picking out Auntie?
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Post by The Doctor on Jan 18, 2020 9:52:59 GMT
AUNTIE would have been created by robots using Science.
-Ralph
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jan 18, 2020 9:56:15 GMT
Was Auntie supposed to be alive in the Matrix sense or did she become sentient some other way?
Martin
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Post by blueshift on Jan 18, 2020 9:59:15 GMT
Oh wow guys
wow
Look
When a daddy AI loves a mummy AI...
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Jan 18, 2020 10:05:10 GMT
Stop layering organic standards on mechanoids!
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Jan 18, 2020 10:05:53 GMT
AUNTIE would have been created by robots using Science. -Ralph Auntie is to the Ark what Spanner is to Space Bridges. |
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jan 18, 2020 10:13:06 GMT
Auntie is to the Ark what Spanner is to Space Bridges. You mean a neutral rocket scientist captured and forced to build a spaceship out of their own body against their will? Do you have any evidence to support your theory? Martin |
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Jan 18, 2020 13:01:42 GMT
Why else would she hate both sides so much? And to think people called her mad.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jan 18, 2020 13:52:34 GMT
Why else would she hate both sides so much? And to think people called her mad. People called her mad because she revived both sides and then tried to kill both sides. Martin |
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Post by Pinwig on Jan 18, 2020 14:17:55 GMT
Was Auntie supposed to be alive in the Matrix sense or did she become sentient some other way? Martin Was she sentient? I can't remember what evidence there was for that now. |
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Jan 18, 2020 15:04:08 GMT
Why else would she hate both sides so much? And to think people called her mad. People called her mad because she revived both sides and then tried to kill both sides. Martin She had good reason! Imprisonment. Kidnap. Torture. Slavery. |
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jan 18, 2020 16:13:00 GMT
She had good reason! Imprisonment. Kidnap. Torture. Slavery. That doesn't explain why she would bring them back to life, wait a few months and then try to kill them. She could have left them all in pieces to begin with. I still await evidence to support your accusations. And I see no reason to doubt the word of the narrators and Optimus Prime that she was a heroic computer created by the Autobots to help them save Cybertron from the asteroids, until her computer brain got damaged by crashing into a planet, causing her to confuse friend and foe and behave erratically - first reviving both sides, mistaking Earth machines for living beings, then turning on them. We've seen other Autobots turn hostile when they got hit on the head or zapped - Brawn in 'The Enemy Within', the Dinobots in 'Dinobot Hunt', Jazz in 'Target: 2006', various in 'To a Power Unknown', etc. It's no reason to think they were all previously enslaved and now taking their just revenge for prior abuses off-screen. Martin |
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Post by Pinwig on Jan 18, 2020 16:46:21 GMT
I think Martin's spot on, going by how Furman basically used the info from Jim Shooter's original treatment to devise the plot for Raiders. Aunty was supposed to protect life, therefore if she's brought round in a damaged state and can't tell Bot from Con, she's going to hold all of them to account.
The interesting thing is the question of sentience. To me she comes across as an elaborate UI for a computer, I wouldn't have said she was sentient, just following her programming. Kinda like those holograms Superman always goes to talk to in the fortress of solitude. They can react and advise based on analysing a database of info and act like a real person but they're not 'alive'. The only thing that counters that is the line in the comic's treatment that says 'computer' is not the right word to describe Auntie, but 'brain' is. Even then, she seems more elaborate AI than sentient.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jan 18, 2020 17:28:34 GMT
10. THE ROAD-JAMMERS
Lord Zarak invented gadgets that can take control of Transformers' bodies and tricked human bounty-hunters into testing them on released Autobot prisoners.
Original/creative thinking - 8 (a real technological breakthrough, more efficient than Morris's machine or Galvatron's brainwashing method, easier and more reliable than Bombshell or Mindwipe's mind-control, and more precise than the P.A.R.D. - certainly a great stride forward for humans and Nebulans against Transformers)
Level of ambition - unknown (what were Zarak's ultimate intentions for these devices?)
Level of evilness - 5 (not nice for the Autobot test subjects, but arguably Zarak was doing this to give Nebulans a means to protect themselves from the threat of Transformers - could be of great benefit in the long run if used purely for defence)
Martin
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jan 18, 2020 17:46:24 GMT
11. CIRCUIT-BREAKER
Crippled genius Josie Beller invents technology from her hospital bed that enables a disabled person to walk and fly and control computers and generate force-fields and fire lightning bolts, but keeps it to herself for the single purpose of killing all Transformers. I like to think Blackrock got his hands on it at the end of the comic and began exploiting its potential more fully.
Original/creative thinking - 10 (possibly the greatest scientific genius in the TF comic)
Level of ambition - 6 (total genocide of a single species, but blind to what good the technology could do for society)
Level of evilness - difficult to rate (she was vengeful, unhinged and genocidal but saw all Transformers as a threat to humanity, and to be fair, some of them really were - and she spared Jazz, Wheeljack and Skullgrin and kept to her deal with Blaster and co.)
Martin
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Jan 18, 2020 18:22:57 GMT
I think Martin's spot on, going by how Furman basically used the info from Jim Shooter's original treatment to devise the plot for Raiders. Aunty was supposed to protect life, therefore if she's brought round in a damaged state and can't tell Bot from Con, she's going to hold all of them to account. The interesting thing is the question of sentience. To me she comes across as an elaborate UI for a computer, I wouldn't have said she was sentient, just following her programming. Kinda like those holograms Superman always goes to talk to in the fortress of solitude. They can react and advise based on analysing a database of info and act like a real person but they're not 'alive'. The only thing that counters that is the line in the comic's treatment that says 'computer' is not the right word to describe Auntie, but 'brain' is. Even then, she seems more elaborate AI than sentient. Tsk. Not sentient? Well, yes its easier to dismiss and abuse other beings if you place them in a whole other category 'beneath' you isn't it? We only have the propaganda Prime spouts about Auntie to go on. And as to the Autobots 'going bad' when they get a jolt on the head... perhaps when they go rogue they are actually going back to their own evil selves and temporarily throwing off the 'good' reprogramming Auntie had to do to them when she revived them in order to free herself. Clearly it didn't work on them all and we ended up with Autobots and Decepticons. and those halfway ones like Mirage and Grimlock. If it was even Auntie that revived them... |
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