21 - Dead Metal and Living Metal / Cries and Screams

[Grand Moff Muffin]

LIVING METAL: CALLING ALL AUTOBOTS

In the late 20th Century, a few of the Autobots had flying car modes. It was a neat trick, but it did tend to blow the whole disguise thing whenever they utilised them.

A hundred years later, that was no longer a problem.

Camshaft, Downshift, Hotspark, Overdrive, Prowl, Red Alert and Wildspark negotiated the heavy drone and computer-controlled traffic over Oslo, crossed the border into Sweden and descended towards a forest clearing, where Landfill, Quickmix and Scoop were busy putting the finishing touches to the new, temporary base of operations of the last of the Cybertronian Autobots not to downsize to Micromaster or human Pretender form. The seven flying cars - some of them of modern design, the others in the likeness of vintage automobiles - both equally acceptable for blending into the skies of late 21st Century Europe - folded up their wings, lowered their road wheels and touched down on the short, recently constructed runway currently guarded by Hardspark and Warpath in their tank modes.

Optimus Prime was waiting for them with Godbomber, Inferno, Nightbeat, Powerglide, Seaspray, Siren and the recently recovered Beachcomber, a rare early success story in their desperate quest to locate and reactivate their many lost comrades. Several humans and members of related species were also present, including the Asgardian Ginrai, the half-Titans Minerva Witwicky and Shuta Go, and four of Minerva's uncle's grandchildren, who like her possessed the power of the Creation Matrix.

"Thank you all for coming," said Optimus Prime, as the current Battle Beast partners of the two newly arrived Sparkdashers disembarked and all seven car Autobots transformed to robot mode.

"Why the secrecy?" demanded Prowl. "What couldn't you tell us via inter-Autobot radio that was so important that you called us back from searching for our missing friends?"

"My fellow Autobots, we are all in great danger," Prime replied. "From this point on, we must continue our search in secret rather than openly in partnership with Earth's governments."

"What do you mean?" protested Red Alert. "I've just spent the last two days establishing connections with the world's top intelligence agencies. They're just waiting for us to give them their assignments, and it will be all systems go!"

"Break all contact with them," snapped Prime. "We can't trust them."

"Red Alert and I have received nothing but full co-operation from our allies to date," countered Downshift.

"Let's just say I have eyes inside a lot more of Earth's computer networks than I previously admitted to."

"And?"

"Humans see our current situation as an opportunity for technological advancement and profit. You remember that race to secure fallen Decepticons at the end of the war? It's happening again."

"Why? Didn't they get enough tech from us back then?"

"The major western democracies did. But there were a lot of other players who missed out - dictators, arms dealers, terrorists... And unlike those fallen Decepticons, the Autobots who are currently missing are scattered across the globe, unsecured. The moment we tell any human agency where to start looking, some corrupt official will leak that information to the highest bidder, and by the time we arrive, any deactivated Transformers will be long gone."

"So what's the plan, boss?" asked Hotspark.

"We'll have to conduct the search alone, in secret. It will take longer, but the chances of recovering more of our comrades will be far greater this way."

"What do we tell the humans?"

"I've got it," said Prowl. "We'll cross the Space Bridge to Lithone or Nebulos, ostensibly to search for our missing friends there. Then we return to Earth in secret via personal warp gates."

"Good," said Overdrive. "We'll come back with different Earth disguises so that we can't be recognised. Leave Bumblebee and Jazz where they are now in their Pretender forms as ambassadors to the League of Earth, to keep the humans advised of our off-world progress. Jetfire's Earthforce will also have to stay in place to avoid arousing suspicions. But there are enough of us here to get the job done. It will just take time."

"Many years, by my calculations," agreed Optimus. "Are we all agreed to this course of action?"

There was no dissent.

"Then, Autobots and friends... it's time for us to disappear."

THE END

[Andy Turnbull]

I do so like it when we get a nod to Optimus in his days as Floppy Prime.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

LIVING METAL: LIBERATED

"You don't understand! Where I come from, there are no men, no women..."

- Marvel's Transformers #53
___

In the end, due to changes made by time-travellers from the future, Unicron attacked in 1991 rather than in 2005/6, and following the battles on Klo and Hydrus Four that same year, the war ended. So the controversial events of 'Prime's Rib', in the years preceding 'The Transformers: The Movie' in the original future timeline, never came to pass.

Now read on...
___

The not-too-distant future.

Bumblebee and Jazz detached themselves from the main flow of flying cars and descended to the street far below. They turned left, drove on a few blocks and parked outside an innocent-looking building that they were not supposed to know was a secret SHIELD facility. Jazz's driver hologram pretended to be listening to music, while Bumblebee's took a non-existent phone call.

Two women exited the building on their lunch break. The Autobots recorded their appearances, speech and movements, then pulled out and drove to a nearby car park whose security cameras suddenly suffered a random power cut. They transformed to robot mode, then phased down into their Pretender guises.

"I'll take the black one this time," said Bumblebee, adjusting his control bracelet.

"Are you sure?" Jazz paused in his own preparations. "Have you ever been black before?"

"No, but I've been watching you. First time for everything."

"Okay, but let me do the talking. I don't want a repeat of that embarrassing situation in Ireland."

"That was Bluestreak, not me, and I'm pretty sure the offence was caused more by her incessant rambling about direct-contact energy transferral processes than by her dodgy Irish accent."

Their programming complete, the two previously male Autobot Pretenders reformatted and took on the exact likenesses of the pair of SHIELD employees.

They jogged back to the anonymous office block and walked confidently past the security guards, repeating word-for-word the exact same banter that the two women had exchanged on the pavement outside.

While Jazz kept on talking, Bumblebee photographed the imprint on the fingerprint scanner on the wall beside the inner door, and adjusted the whorls, loops and arches on her own thumb to match. She pressed her thumb against the scanner, and the door unlocked to admit them.
___

Six minutes later, the two female Autobot Pretenders quickly left the building, the information they sought now safely in their possession. The humans they were impersonating were still on their lunch break.

They hurried back to the car park, phased into their robot modes, transformed and drove back the way they had come. They reverted their Pretender programming back to their registered human identities - male human forms officially recognised by the authorities as Autobot Pretenders, duly appointed as Cybertronian ambassadors to the United Nations' successor body, the League of Earth - and switched their vehicle I.D.s, licences and colour schemes to match.

They briefly parked above a heavy-duty Internet cable junction serving the entire east side of New York City, and Jazz extended an optic fibre to connect anonymously with the World Wide Web. He transmitted his coded information to a games server, where Formulak the Compuzoid passed it on through a sleeper program in the population of Metropipe to a Mechabot agent in a hub on another continent, who gave it to a digital copy of Optimus Prime, who dispatched the real-world cassette-tape-sized pteranodon Graphy to carry it in person to its ultimate destination.

Jazz disengaged from the Internet, and the two car Autobots headed back to their Pretender forms' respective apartments ahead of a busy afternoon of diplomatic functions.
___

Somewhere in Siberia, two more Autobots disguised as Earth vehicles approached a decommissioned nuclear test site. Their driver holograms gave the appropriate responses when challenged at the main gate, and they rolled inside, aiming for a drab military aircraft hangar and the secret underground complex that they now knew was hidden beneath.

Away from the security guards, the driver holograms vanished, and two real humans slid out from under the cars' rear seats to take their usual places behind the Autobots' steering wheels.

"Are you sure the technicians inside won't be thrown by the arrival of a pair of strangers?" worried Nightbeat.

"I'm certain," replied her human partner. "Moscow never sends the same inspectors twice, and they never announce their visits. We've cleared the perimeter fence, which means we've passed the tests."

Nightbeat led the way into the hangar. As expected, it was empty, save for a ramp heading downwards. The two Autobots followed it down into an artificially lit subterranean maze. Eventually, Nightbeat emerged into a large room where numerous other vehicles were parked - some military, others civilian in their outward appearance.

Suddenly, alarms sounded and the two Autobots stalled - Nightbeat in the main room, Siren twenty metres behind her, still within the tunnel.

"Jammers!" panicked Nightbeat, unable to move.

"New models, too!" yelled Siren. "Anti-jammers not working!"

"We must find them, quickly!" cried his human partner, the half-Japanese Shuta Go, leaping from the disabled Autobot car, as three upgraded Centurions lumbered menacingly from a shadowy recess.

Shuta raced past the likewise stationary Nightbeat, and flew at an approaching squad of soldiers, scattering them and their weapons with the force of his attack.

Nightbeat's partner also got out, but before she could do anything to assist Shuta she found herself grabbed roughly from behind by an armoured canine Battle Beast, a descendant of the bizarre hybrid race supposedly created in the previous century by a being known as the High Evolutionary. Twisting to her right as she was pulled back into the tunnel, the young woman spotted a familiar shape silhouetted in an adjoining chamber.

"Surrender, or your girlfriend dies!" the Battle Beast yelled at Shuta.

Shuta snorted in disgust. "She's not my girlfriend, she's my half-sister," he retorted. "And she doesn't need my protection. Our father was from Titan, but it's her mother's side that should worry you. Do you know what the name 'Witwicky' means?"

Before the Battle Beast could respond, a blast door slammed shut, separating Shuta from his half-sister and his Autobot partner.
___

"What's going on?" the Battle Beast demanded angrily. Minerva ignored him and used the Creation Matrix to unscrew all the light-bulbs in the tunnel ceiling. They were plunged into darkness. "I invoke fire!" declared the Battle Beast, summoning a flame by which to see.

"Water puts out fire," countered Minerva, using the Matrix to activate the tunnel's sprinkler systems, bathing her supposed captor in fire suppression foam.
___

Back in the first hall, Shuta finished off the soldiers and found the primary jammer in the possession of their leader. He deactivated it, allowing Nightbeat to move once more, just as the Centurions came into firing range.

"Gotta make the best of what we got, Nightbeat," he called to the Autobot car. "Hope you don't mind engaging the old male-pronoun self-identification protocol for the duration of this fight?"

"As you wish," replied the Autobot detective, transforming to her/his headless robot mode as Shuta phased into his Titanmaster armour and leapt up to become the missing head. Nightbeat/Shuta warmed up his plasma blaster.
___

Minerva used the Matrix to rearrange the Battle Beast's armour so as to completely incapacitate him, and left him propped up against Siren as she went to investigate the shape she had glimpsed in the next chamber.

Yes! Here was Maximus, missing since the great battle with Zaraka Black and her Seacon drones, deactivated in his enormous battle station mode. Minerva raced towards the silent Autobot. Startled guards and technicians moved to intercept her, but she quickly deployed the diminutive Autobot Twincast's four dinosaur Cassettebots to keep them busy while she attended to Max.

Minerva reached the battle station's base, pressed her hand against the Cybertronian metal, and it instantly recognised her. A hidden door slid open in the giant Autobot's armour plating, and she slipped inside.

"Wakey-wakey, Max," she called, clapping her hands to activate his internal systems. The interior of the battle station was illuminated, and there, sure enough, were more of Minerva's own creations, which had also long been missing. In her FAB-1 pink car mode, Arcee, the Autobot Minerva had built with her mum when she was seven, based loosely on the Autobot from the future named Arcee who had appeared briefly during the Time Wars of 1989 never to be seen again. And behind Arcee's wheel, Alita-1, the girl robot Minerva had created when she was ten, inspired by a film she had seen. Her half-Japanese half-brother Shuta never forgave Minerva for not basing Alita-1's appearance faithfully on the original manga.

Minerva gave each of them a surge of Matrix nanobots to restore them to operational status, but Max was her main priority. She located the headless Cerebros, took a deep breath, phased into her Titanmaster armour and transformed.
___

Minerva binary-bonded to Cerebros, pushed aside the memories of the Nebulan Galen Kord, her own human great-uncle Spike Witwicky and the cybernetically/genetically enhanced Halfworld tiger Toraizer, and reconfigured the Autobot's identity to interface with her own.

Cerebra ejected from the bridge of the Autobot battle station, which transformed to robot mode, and she reconfigured and locked onto the giant's shoulders. What had once been Fortress Maximus, Grand Maximus and Toraizer Maximus was now, at least for the next few hours, Fortress Maxima.

Nightbeat/Shuta disengaged from his battle with the Russian Centurion battle droids as the ceiling began to crumble.

"That's my exit cue," he told his dumb opponents as he raced for the exit tunnel, which he noticed had just unsealed itself.

The Cassettebots scrambled inside Siren, and Fortress Maxima scooped up the two Autobot cars before bursting out of the ground, totally destroying the empty aircraft hangar overhead.
___

In Earth orbit, Cosmos detected Max's self-liberation and transmitted the co-ordinates to the Space Bridge, Spanner, for emergency exfiltration.

THE END

[Andy Turnbull]

Enjoyed that, nice to see Max get out safely and I do love a High Evolutionary reference.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

LIVING METAL: BLUESTRICKEN

PART 1

Bluestreak was rehearsing for his long-awaited, sold-out one-robot show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ('Bluestruck - Whatever That Is') when the order came to go into lockdown. His immediate reaction was unprintable. Literally. It simply does not translate into English.

But it wasn't the end of the world. All Transformers had been instructed to find somewhere safe to hide and shut down for six hours while the cosmic computer virus passed. Bluestreak wasn't due on stage until the following afternoon. The lack of rehearsal time was a blow, but not a fatal one. After all, his agent repeatedly assured him, his spontaneity and unpredictability were what made him so entertaining, to a certain type of audience.

The guidance was clear - Transformers would be at their most vulnerable to unscrupulous human actions during the lockdown, so they should tell nobody of their location in advance, and engage full disguise protocols.

Bluestreak knew what to do. He had his holographic driver avatar rent a storage locker out of town using a false identity, drove there under cover of darkness, reversed in, transformed one arm and carefully pulled down the roller-door. He jammed the locking mechanism from the inside and shut himself down, setting his internal alarm clock for the following morning.
___

Bluestreak returned to consciousness and was shocked to find a human teenager of Hispanic descent sitting on his engine. The girl had what looked like a black Soundwave clipped to her belt, and what could have been Time Warrior around her left wrist. She turned quickly to look in through his windscreen, as if sensing he was awake, though he had given no outward indication of his change in status. She smiled, then jumped down and ran out of the door - which, alarmingly, was fully open, despite all his precautions, sunlight streaming in.

A red sports car of unfamiliar design pulled up outside and hailed him via close-proximity inter-Autobot radio.

"Bluestreak - wake up and start your engine. We need to get out of here right now!"

"Overdrive?" Bluestreak was confused. "What are you doing in Great Britain, and how did you find me? I told nobody where I was."

"This isn't Great Britain. Scotland is now part of the Scandinavian Federation. And we didn't find you - the storage facility owner did, when your lease expired."

"My lease was for fifty years."

"I know."

"Oh. Bother."

"Yes. Look on the bright side! Last time this happened to you, it was four million years, and took a volcanic eruption to snap you out of it. This time all it took was a friendly human with Witwicky genes."

"The owner of this place called you?"

"No, he called a private company offering rewards for deactivated Transformers. The Internet-based part of Optimus Prime's intelligence intercepted the message and sent us to bust you out before the bad guys arrive. Now move!"
___

As the two Autobots pulled out onto the road, a convoy of unmarked vans approached from the opposite direction.

"Back into the facility," barked Overdrive. The bewildered Bluestreak followed obediently. What else could he do?

They rounded a corner and were momentarily out of sight of the approaching humans. Overdrive activated a warp gate, creating a portal in the fabric of space just wide enough for a car.

"Go!" he ordered, and Bluestreak accelerated. Overdrive braked and scanned the departing Autobot with an strange energy pulse.

"Wait - are you not coming?" Bluestreak panicked as he realised the Omnibot wasn't following him.

"It only takes one, and you're in no state to lose these guys. Don't worry about me!" And with that, the warp gate closed.

Overdrive activated his disguise reconfiguration circuits and colour-change technology and morphed into the exact likeness of Bluestreak. He let their pursuers get a good look at him ("That's the one!" yelled the facility's owner) before speeding away.

Overdrive led the vans past a certain alcove where his human ally had concealed herself. With a wave of a hand Izabella deployed a few Creation Matrix nanobots, and the lead van's engine fell to pieces. She met Overdrive on the far side of the building, jumped inside, and the Omnibot transformed to his aerial mode, launched into the sky, and five seconds later went supersonic.
___

Bluestreak found himself in a crater on the Moon, lit by the Earth overhead, well beyond his radio transmission range. There were no structures or signs of life in sight.

Badly frightened, he did the only thing he could do, and drove for the nearest ridge. As he approached the crest, he was relieved to catch sight of Beachcomber, Downshift and Hotspark, all slightly modified since he had seen them last, but recognisable. When he reached the top, he saw stretching below him a plain, on which were connected Fortress Maximus in repair bay mode, Countdown's rocket base with Sky Lynx in launch position, Optimus's Nebulan trailer in battle station configuration, the Battlestars Grandus and Sky Garry in their base forms, and the Space Bridge, Spanner. The tanks Hardspark and Warpath patrolled the complex's perimeter.

"Welcome to Moonbase One," Beachcomber greeted him over inter-Autobot radio.

"How many Moonbases are there?" asked Bluestreak.

"One. What you see is what we got. Finding Metroplex, the Armoured Convoy, the Battlefield H.Q., the Big Powerdasher, the Galaxy Shuttle carrying the Motorvators and Multiforce... we're still working on it."

"After fifty years?"

"Space is big."

TO BE CONTINUED

[Grand Moff Muffin]

LIVING METAL: BLUESTRICKEN

PART 2

The radar rover composed of the Autobot Micromasters Barrage and Heave escorted Bluestreak across the lunar terrain to Grandus (or 'Grand-Ass Base', as he/it was irreverently known when originally stationed in star-fighter carrier mode on the ocean planet of Pequod). The Battlestar base's controller, another Micromaster called Spinner, took over and led him inside, while Barrage and Heave returned to join the rest of the Astro Squad in Countdown's rocket base. Finally, Bluestreak found himself in Grandus's primary repair bay, where he was met at last by a good friend...

"Wheeljack! Am I glad to see you! I was beginning to worry that I was the last of the old gang."

"Hello, Bluestreak. Welcome to the future."

"I took out a fifty-year lease. That makes this the year 2134 by human reckoning, right?"

"Yeah. How are you taking it?"

"I missed my gig. My act was highly topical, too. No way I can use that material now. I'll have to consign it to the wheelie-bin of history, whatever that is. My agent will... Hmmm."

"Yeah."

"I guess I messed up by not telling anyone where I was shutting down. Stupid Bluestreak, huh? Is that what everybody was saying when I vanished?"

"Not at all. You obeyed orders, and you're safe. That's the main thing. We had no idea the virus would stop us all from automatically waking up as planned. It took Prowl and Inferno nine years to track me down and bring me back. And you and I are the lucky ones. We estimate that there are still some forty Autobots lying dormant in various hidden locations around the planet Earth. On Nebulos, the Technobots remain missing. The main Autobot fleet under Thunderclash Prime, carrying most of the surviving neutral populace of the late planet Cybertron, is lost in interstellar space, as is the Galaxy Shuttle. And all the non-Micromaster Decepticons are likewise unaccounted for."

"Lost in space..."

"Lost in space and time, actually. Still alive, just not right now. They live in whatever period of the future chance leads them to be found and reactivated. Who would have thought the Cybertronian race would end this way, scattered randomly throughout future ages?"

"That's mind-boggling. So we're the last of the Transformers, then?"

"No, just the last Cybertronian Transformers. With so many humans now carrying the Creation Matrix, the Earth-born Transformer race begun with Jetfire is growing very nicely. Which brings us on to why you're here in my repair bay on Moonbase One rather than cruising the roads of Scotland. You need an upgrade."

"You're gonna give me a 22nd Century disguise mode!"

"Not exactly. To keep one step ahead of anyone who might wish us Cybertronian Autobots harm, we've altered the way we transform, so that we can change our disguise modes at will simply by scanning a similarly sized Earth vehicle. I need you to transform to your upright mode and lie down here, so that I can infuse your living metal with a new nanotechnology that we call 'Transformium'."

"Did you come up with that name, Wheeljack?"

"Er, no, I have to admit Transformium is not my invention. Perceptor cracked the code while I was in my nine-year shutdown."

"Hey, how is Perceptor? Does he still think he's a human?"

"Yeah, though the lack of ageing of his Pretender form has necessitated three major memory reboots over the course of the last century. Anyway, his scientific achievements as a 'human' have been staggering."

"I trust you not to screw me up any more than I am already. Do what you gotta do!"
___

Wheeljack drove with Bluestreak as far as the Space Bridge, where Camshaft and Wildspark had already programmed in the set of co-ordinates relayed to them by Cosmos, cloaked in a high Earth orbit, which would take Bluestreak to Optimus Prime.

"Prime's in Asia at the moment, following up some rather weak leads with Landfill, Quickmix and Scoop," Camshaft told him. "He's looking forward to seeing you. You can go back to Europe afterwards if you like, once you've mastered your new body."

"Feels weird," remarked Bluestreak. "I keep having to resist the temptation to scan and mimic everything and everyone I see."

"Don't reconfigure your disguise mode too often," Wheeljack warned him. "It's very energy-intensive, and takes a long time to recharge the nanobots before you can do it again. Best if you keep it for emergencies... and times when you really want to impress."

"I'll try, but you know me. Curiosity gets the better of me sometimes. I wonder what it would be like to be a taxi cab... or a Batmobile... Anyway, thanks for everything, Wheeljack, old pal!"

"Take care, Bluestreak..."

THE END

[Andy Turnbull]

Hurrah.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Here's the piece I cobbled together for last year's Action Master fanzine. The logic behind it is as follows:

1. The battle on Hydrus Four in 'Another Time and Place' was the original, definitive end to the Transformers saga.

2. Soundwave, one of the most important Decepticon characters in the Marvel comic, was last seen in TFUS #77 leaving Cybertron with Bludgeon. We never saw him again, but it may be be inferred that he took part in the massacre on Klo.



3. Assuming Soundwave wasn't killed on Klo, it may be inferred he accompanied Bludgeon to Hydrus Four. Megatron and Bludgeon were destroyed on Hydrus Four, and 'Another Time and Place' didn't suggest any Decepticons survived that battle, so it may be assumed Soundwave was also killed. Given his prominence and popularity, it was annoying that Simon Furman lost interest in him rather than giving his arc a satisfying conclusion.

4. Something else somewhat unsatisfying was the TF story ending without more Action Masters action. But we know a lot of Autobots got pumped full of Nucleon in TFUS #75, and more Nucleon may have been administered in the aftermath of the battle with Unicron. So who is to say the likes of Soundwave, Jazz, Sideswipe and Bumblebee hadn't become Action Masters by the time of the battle on Hydrus Four?

5. If Soundwave is going to be killed, who would do it? Not Prime or Grimlock - they had Megatron. Does any other Autobot in the Marvel comic saga deserve to be the one to kill Soundwave? Maybe it should take a group effort?

6. Are the Autobot Action Masters worthy to kill Soundwave? Looking back over the events of stories like 'Crisis of Command' and 'Dinobot Hunt', I concluded - yes! If anyone deserved some payback, it was some of these guys.

---

CRIES AND SCREAMS WERE MUSIC TO HIS EARS

1984. Raiders of the Last Ark.

Jazz: "Let's see if Jazz can make things hot for you, Soundwave!"

Soundwave: "Very impressive, but my armour's more than a match for your weapon... A pity the same cannot be said of yours!"

Jazz: "ARRGH!"
___

1986. Crisis of Command.



Bumblebee: "Optimus? No..."

Soundwave: "Yes! And his end is just our beginning. When the others return we shall regroup, then destroy your fellow Autobots!"

Bumblebee: "You never will! You have no compassion, no honour - not even amongst yourselves! You could never lead like Optimus!"

Soundwave: "Your misplaced faith blinds you to Prime's fate, Autobot! Where is your saviour now?"
___

1986. Dinobot Hunt.

Sideswipe: "This is Sideswipe, signing off. I'm, UNGH... hurt pretty bad, so if I don't make it, give the Decepticons one for me next time you see them, okay...?"



Soundwave: "Hear me, Autobots... Your Dinobot Hunt is over, and once more it is the Decepticons who emerge triumphant!"
___

1986. Devastation Derby.



Devastator: "That... hurts! Stop it!"

Tracks: "GNNGG! Unhh... He's faster than he looks! A bit lower and he'd have dented my- UH-OH!"

Soundwave: "Yes, Devastator! Destroy him now!"
___

1989. Time Wars.

Inferno: "I'm... injured. Please... help me...!"

Soundwave: "Though we Decepticons are ostensibly the Autobots' allies in this battle, it would be more sensible to let them wear Galvatron down before we participate. Their lives are expendable! When they have fallen, we have merely to pick up the pieces!"
___

1991. Another Time and Place.

Klo had been a rare world, one to whom peace was a way of life, and war an unheard-of thing. But then the Decepticons came, meaning to claim the planet as their own. The Klovians didn't resist, but still the Decepticons cut them down like so much cattle, burning their cities, tearing their lives apart...

Prowl: "Let me refresh your memory, Optimus Prime. Hydrus Four, a part-colonised world in the Hunfi system where, a few years ago, scientists discovered a new source of energy... called Nucleon! Energy that Grimlock first used on himself and then on us! Shall I go on...?"

Prime's orders had been explicit. This time, no-one gets away!
___

Countless Autobots had reason to despise Soundwave, but that was all in the past. The Autobots and Decepticons had fought side by side against Unicron, and, under the terms of the post-Unicron truce, differences were set aside. A clean slate, so long as none of the Decepticons ever returned to inhabited planets against whose inhabitants they had previously transgressed. All Soundwave's crimes, wiped away at a stroke... A fresh start. A chance to scheme anew.

Soundwave had been blasted out of the sky by Unicron, but the Autobots arriving on the Ark had brought him back to life with a hefty dose of Nucleon in order to assist in co-ordinating the Transformers' battle efforts. Bombshell, Bumblebee, Inferno, Jazz, Sideswipe and Tracks all got the same treatment. And in the days and weeks that followed the battle, the Nucleon took effect, making them stronger, faster, more alive than ever before. But, as a consequence, their Figure Alteration Systems were changed into Energy Storage Reactors, eliminating all their conversion powers. Those who became Action Masters ceased to be Transformers!

Many of those Action Masters who lost vehicular or bestial alternate configurations were of the opinion that their increased power levels had come at too high a price. But Soundwave lost only the ability to transform into a small blue box, and he couldn't care less. He now possessed the strength of Shockwave, and his former mortal enemies considered themselves honour-bound to be his allies. His future prospects for self-advancement looked bright indeed.

And then he threw it all away, by going with Bludgeon to Klo. He should have followed Bombshell's example and steered well clear.



Action Master Soundwave commanded the Decepticon contingent that levelled the Klovians' settlements on the planet's western land mass, massacring hundreds of the peaceful natives. Their cries and screams were music to his audio receptors. Drunk with the power of Nucleon, he tore apart the run-of-the-mill Autobots sent against him by Grimlock. And when Optimus Prime and the Last Autobot routed Bludgeon's unit and the Decepticon team to their south led by the late, lamented Treadshot, Soundwave obeyed the order to retreat with the greatest reluctance.

And now he had followed Bludgeon to Hydrus Four in a desperate quest to use Nucleon to revive his former leader, Megatron.

And his chickens had finally come home to roost.
___



Soundwave's mind-reading powers sensed the death of Krok, impaled by the charging Autobot rhino Ramhorn. He sensed Overlord pursuing the Motorvators into a carefully laid trap where Elite Action Master Omega Supreme waited to deliver his coup de grace. He was unable to locate Frenzy and Rumble. He was dimly aware of Ravage being run to ground by Steeljaw, while Blaster soared overhead, borne aloft by a Flight Pack, directing the Autobot assault in line with instructions relayed from Optimus Prime and Prowl. But most of all, Soundwave was aware of the murderous intentions of the five Autobot Action Master heroes now ranged against him.

"I surrender," said Soundwave. "Have mercy."

"That's what the Klovians said when you invaded their world," retorted Inferno, brandishing a magna-blast rifle given to him by Wheeljack. "What mercy did you show them? None!"

Soundwave fired his photon negator at the nearest Autobot.

"My Action Master armour's more than a match for your weapon," taunted Jazz, returning fire with his new electromagnetiser gun. "Let's see if the same can be said of yours!"



"This is for the Klovians," muttered Bumblebee, using the rotating blades of his Heli-Pack to slice off Soundwave's gun arm.

"This is for the humans..." Inferno transformed his Hydro-Pack into a high-pressure cannon and bathed Soundwave with a stream of metal-eating corrosive acid.



"And this one's for me!" cried Sideswipe, propelled forward by his rocket back-pack. Blinded by Tracks's black beam gun, Soundwave never saw coming the final, fatal, Nucleon-powered piledriver punch...

THE END

[Andy Turnbull]

Cracking little coda to the life of Soundwave.

Having spent more time examining ATAP than most people, I do think on some levels it does work as good prequel to G2 and actually sows the seeds for the ending we see in Peace and not as a full stop to the galaxy spanning adventures of the Transformers.

Optimus has resolved to do a Palpatine on the Decepticons after Klo. Which suggests it's possibly the first time they've committed war crimes on that scale involving Non-Cybertronians.

So you can see the split with the Autobots having the more combat hungry members looking to scour the Galaxy for Decepticons and those who are more in tune with the Autobot code looking to rebuild Cybertron and live a life of peace.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

My least favourite bit of ATAP was the 'It never ends' epilogue, as I found it somewhat lazy to default to the formula of never-ending factional war as the only thing that can be done with TFs. I think it would have been more courageous writing to say 'It ends' - at least as far as full-blown armies are concerned. The Creation Matrix is gone, there are only a handful of TFs left and if they can't make any more, all-out war becomes more clearly an unsustainable prospect for the Cybertronians and they need to start thinking differently or go extinct.

I agree though that some Autobots wouldn't take to peace, and might rather spend the rest of their days as interstellar bounty-hunters, mercenaries or vigilantes of some description. My problem with G2 and 'Peace' is they both reverted to factional warfare. Can't the galaxy-spanning adventures of the TFs continue with the surviving TFs doing their own things as individuals rather than as factions/armies?

Martin

[Grand Moff Muffin]

You know, there have been so many relaunches of Transformers, but as far as I know every single relaunch has consisted of two armies, Autobot/Maximal vs Decepticon/Predacon/Vehicon.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if one year Hasbro released a range of TFs with no factions, the concept being a period of the TFs' galaxy-spanning adventures when there isn't actually a war on and each robot is its own master, somewhere on the good-vs-bad spectrum, interacting with (and sometimes fighting) each other as individuals with independent agendas?

Martin

[Grand Moff Muffin]

SHINY METAL

(Very loosely translated from the 22nd Century Japanese.)

"Officer Tomiie, what are you doing away from your post? This entire section of the port is supposed to be sealed off to the general public."

"You can report me if you like, Officer Kudo, but I'm not going back in there. Bloody aliens!"

"Calm down, Hiroshi, there's no need to get over-excited. Tell me what happened."

"All right. First there was this really weird red aircraft that kept flying overhead - out to sea, back to land, out to sea again..."

"Alien?"

"No, not alien. Ancient military. Like something from more than a century ago, only with shiny metallic paint. Look, I caught it on camera."

"Wow! That's shiny, all right. Okay, go on."

"Well, I called it in, and they told me not to worry about it. Then a few minutes later I spotted what I believed to be an unauthorised civilian - a high school student, I thought, leaning on the harbour railings, staring out to sea. I politely asked her to move on..."

"Hiroshi..."

"Okay, okay, I may have made a mildly suggestive remark about the cheerleader convention being on the other side of town. And here's what she did to my service weapon! Just by looking at it!"

"That's pretty mangled. I think you got off lightly."

"This is no joking matter! I could file assault charges."

"Against a little girl? Yeah, that would look good back at the station, wouldn't it?"

"She's not a little girl. Said she was part-Titan Eternal and 115 years old."

"Oh. Then I guess you really did get off lightly. What happened next?"

"Then this really old car sporting a fresh coat of shiny metallic silver paint pulled into the parking lot, with a big black guy behind the wheel."

"Please tell me you didn't say something equally inappropriate to him..."

"Well... anyway, to cut a long story short, the fellow was just a hologram. Car was a bloody Cybertronian Transformer, you know?"

"Oh. Did it have authority to be there?"

"No, but the girl, Minerva, vouched for it - after a somewhat tearful reunion between the pair. Seems they were 'family', whatever that means. But the robot, Bluestreak, had apparently been missing for half a century, and they were quite emotional seeing each other again."

"And?"

"This was all doing my head in, but I kept it together and maintained my professionalism. Until this half-man, half-porpoise showed up. That's when I threw in the towel and got out of there. You gonna report me?"

"Hmmm, let me check the list. There she is... and Dolph Finn, a Battle Beast on special assignment to the harbour authority. No, I think you're in the clear. But you'll have to explain what happened to your service weapon..."
___

Eight miles out from the Japanese coast, the Autobot hovercraft Seaspray, proudly showing off his own shiny new metallic blue coat of colour-changing Transformium-infused nano-armour, circled above a very specific location on the Pacific Ocean floor.

Directly below the hovercraft, on the sea bed, Optimus Prime led Landfill, Quickmix and Scoop in a painstaking search of the wreckage of possibly the greatest Transformers battle of the 21st Century - the Masterforce War of 2027.
___

"I like the metallic silver," Minerva remarked.

"Thanks go to Wheeljack for that. But you should have seen the shiny metallic green Beachcomber I met on the Moon! I was too polite to say anything. Heh. Maybe I should call myself Silverstreak from now on?"

"Hmmm. No... There's no such thing as talking a silver streak."

"I suppose you're right."

"And I've met green Beachcomber. But wait till you see Bumblebee! He looks like a James Bond villain's victim."

"Don't tell me he's taken to calling himself Goldbug again?"

"No, he hasn't, thankfully."

"Good. So what are you doing here in Neo-Tokyo?"

"Looking for more sleeping Autobots. Optimus and Ginrai are scouring the Seacons' Graveyard in the hopes of finding the second-generation Pretenders, Diver, Lander and Phoenix, in the submerged remains of Black Zarak Scorponok."

"What makes you think they're down there?"

"Well, last month Optimus spotted that someone had put one of my uncle Jacko's creations, Twincast, up for Internet auction."

"Twincast... miniature blue version of Blaster, right?"

"Right. I've got four little dinosaur Cassettebots that are supposed to go with him. Anyway, we managed to get him back from the seller, and when I reactivated him, he claimed that before he went into lockdown the Pretenders told him they were going to wait out the cosmic virus wave in a hiding place they'd discovered inside the remains of that giant Decepticon scorpion."

"Crazy. You and they all took part in that battle, didn't you?"

"Yes. They were sleeper Pretenders, living as humans in Japan without even realising they were actually Autobots, until the Seacon clones attacked Neo-Tokyo, led by Black Zarak - or Zaraka Black, as it was known at the time - itself controlled by a Halfworld robot called Quintessa, allied to a group of malevolent Asgardians. The attackers jammed all forms of teleportation - Space Bridges, warp gates and suchlike - to prevent help from arriving, but Metalhawk was in Japan, and he woke up the Pretenders and together they held the line until we arrived."

"'We' being?"

"Optimus/Ginrai/Godbomber, Shuta/Siren, me/Nightbeat, and Toraizer Maximus, who had travelled from Planet Beast to Earth in pursuit of Zaraka Black, Sixknight and the Asgardian Godmasters."

"Oh, right, I remember hearing about it. Must have been quite a dust-up!"

"Yes. I was only eight years old at the time, but having the Creation Matrix made me good for dismantling unliving Seacons. Anyway, it was all part of a multi-pronged global attack involving duelling magicians and great swords of power, Laser Beasts and evil Sectaur invaders from the planet Symbion. The Witwicky family lost some good friends and allies that day... But the bad guys were beaten - Zaraka Black, Doubleclouder, the Godmaster jets, Sixknight and the Seacon clones were all destroyed - and technology has prevailed over sorcery on both Earth and Planet Beast from that day to this."

"Technology prevailing is good. Why aren't you and Nightbeat down there now, helping them look for the Pretenders?"

Minerva shuddered. "No way! Shuta and I nearly drowned when Zaraka Black got hold of Nightbeat and Siren in her pincers. If it hadn't been for Prime and Ginrai... No. I won't go into the water. Especially not this water."

"Okay, I didn't realise. Any idea when Prime's due back on dry land?"

"Prime's here now," replied Minerva, gesturing with her head at a lorry trailer parked a short way off. "Only the Optimus module has gone underwater."

Bluestreak did a double-take. "Prime! I didn't realise! You're shiny too... and black!"

Prime transformed to Combat Deck mode. "Hello, Bluestreak. Sorry, I didn't want to interrupt your reunion with Minerva. And I was... concentrating on other things."

"Fair enough! It's so great to see you! Minnie, do you know, I remember Optimus before he got his humanoid robot form, and this is what he looked like all the time. Oh, hello to Roller, too! Why isn't Roller shiny, eh?"

"There are some things that shouldn't be messed with," said Minerva. "Roller's one of them."

"You won't get any argument from me. So, Prime, any luck finding those Pretenders?"

"I'm afraid not. Either they were never here, or the water got into the chamber where they were resting and carried them out to sea. The gold parts of the scorpion's outer armour have crumbled away over the years. Anyway, we're returning to shore now."

"Oh. I'm so sorry, Prime. Camshaft told me it was a long shot."

"He was right. For every Autobot we find and succeed in restoring to life, we follow up dozens of false leads that result in dead ends."

"Wheeljack said there were around forty still missing on this planet alone."

"Yes, closer to fifty if you believe Reflector and the Dinobots are somewhere here on Earth. We mustn't give up looking."

"I'm grateful you found me, Prime, and I think I owe it to those fifty to help you look for them."

"Even Reflector?"

"Even Reflector. Just tell me what you want me to do."
___

In a billionaire's private vintage car collection somewhere in Cairo, Sideswipe and Hubcap sat peacefully in car mode, a third Autobot called Vanguard stowed compactly in Sideswipe's boot. The owner of the collection had inherited them from his father. Like his late father, he knew that they were Transformers, and that this made them all the more valuable. Nobody else knew it.

He had painted Hubcap metallic red, and Sideswipe black, so that nobody would ever recognise them for the sentient beings they once were, and could be again, if their friends ever found them.

He was not going to let that happen.

THE END

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

THE 2134 HUMANOID WHO'S WHO

DOLPH FINN

First appearance: Shiny Metal

Dolph Finn is a Battle Beast from Beastbourne, capital city of Planet Beast. He can invoke the mystical power of water, which enables him to sense moving objects of any size over two hundred miles away when submerged beneath the ocean waves, giving him uncanny spatial awareness underwater. Dolph Finn does not battle for fun. Over the course of the 21st Century, a growing number of Battle Beasts have defied their species' default genetic programming to seek higher purposes in life than fighting duels. Dolph has embraced the twin vocations of lifeguard and undersea archaeologist. He has relocated to Earth because we have more undersea archaeology and more land mammals trying to swim. Despite the increasing diversification of professions among Battle Beasts, in 2134 the majority of them - along with a certain proportion of humans, Thunderians and Rock Lords - continue to enjoy tournaments of inter-species gladiatorial combat.

GINRAI

First appearance: Tales of Asgard

In the year 2020, the Asgardian warrior hero Ginrai volunteered to binary-bond to Optimus Prime through the Powermaster process to help Grimlock and Death's Head destroy the intergalactic menace known as the Liege Maximo, thereupon becoming the first Godmaster. Later on, Ginrai also acted as Godmaster partner to the currently missing Ultra Magnus, and with Ginrai locked in place both Prime and Magnus have combined with the armoured trailer known as Godbomber to form robotic super-warriors unmatched by any that came before, capable of vanquishing villains such as Krark, Prince of Darkness, Lord of the Red Mutant Zoids, and Black Zarak, an enhanced version of Scorponok created by the Battle Beast Blitzkrieg Devilbat (Ratbat) in 2020 and subsequently controlled by the Asgardian Enchantress Amora and then finally in 2027 (while Amora duelled Earth's Sorceress Supreme, Illyana Rasputin) the mysterious Halfworld robot known as Quintessa.

IZABELLA DAREHEART

First appearance: Living Metal: Bluestricken

Izabella is a seventh-generation fully human Matrix-bearer, descended from Katy Witwicky, daughter of Buster Witwicky. Her mother is Peruvian, while her paternal grandfather was born on the planet Nebulos. Izabella idolises the 21st Century heroine Danita Santella, and has adopted the surname 'Dareheart' in her honour. She is a close ally of Optimus Prime, and often works alongside Time Warrior and the Omnibots. Her partner is Soundblaster, an early Witwicky creation. Soundblaster's design is inspired by the Decepticon Soundwave, the key difference being that he remains small in size even when in robot mode. In the year 2134, Izabella went with Overdrive to Scotland to secure and reactivate the missing Autobot Bluestreak, who more than 130 years earlier had helped Buster and Jessie raise their daughter Katy - Izabella's great-great-great-grandmother. Minerva Witwicky is Izabella's great-great-grandfather's sister.

MINERVA WITWICKY

First appearance: Tales from the 1987 Toy Range: Battle Beasts Strike!

Minerva Sui-San Jessica Witwicky, born in 2019, is the daughter of the human Matrix-bearer Katy Witwicky and the Titan Eternal Eros, also known as Starfox. (That makes Thanos her uncle.) As such, she is the most powerful, and the only effectively immortal, wielder of the Transformers' sacred lifeforce (but not the only non-human, as it is now also carried by the half-Thunderians Pumm-Ro Witwicky-Jones and Kittara - distant relatives of Minerva, don't ask me precisely how). Since the age of five, Minerva has been binary-bonded to the Autobot detective Nightbeat, forming an enhanced Headmaster pairing generally referred to as a Titanmaster. Minerva has given life to numerous robots, including Dragonstorm (currently missing in space), Arcee, Alita-1, the Trainbots and the dinosaur Cassettebots. Minerva's closest living relative currently on Earth is her half-brother Shuta Go, Titanmaster partner of the Autobot Siren. Shuta is not a Witwicky.

PROFESSOR PERCIVAL TORN

First appearance (as Perceptor): Marvel's Transformers #18 ('The Bridge to Nowhere')

In the early 2020s, several Autobots volunteered to become 'sleeper' Pretenders and live as humans with their Cybertronian memories suppressed, in order to awaken and rise up in their Autobot forms to defend the Earth in the event of a future catastrophic threat from outer space. The sleeper Pretenders' false memories have to be refreshed/rebooted every few decades to address the ageing issue, at which time they cut all ties, move to new locations and establish new human relationships. Five sleeper Pretenders (Diver, Lander, Phoenix, Pulsar and Tempest) went missing during the cosmic virus lockdown of 2084 and have yet to be found. But Perceptor, a.k.a. Professor Percival Torn, lives happily in a small village in Devon, England, oblivious to his true robotic nature, tinkering and inventing. Inventing things like Transformium, the nanotechnology that now enables the Cybertronian Autobots to adopt new disguise forms at will.

FILE ENDS

[Grand Moff Muffin]

BIOCOMBAT BEASTIES: AN ORIGIN

(BECAUSE THERE AREN'T ENOUGH BEAST WARS ORIGIN STORIES OUT THERE)

PART 1

Planet Beast.

A logical place to start.

No, that's not right.

We begin our tale on... Planet Symbion!

Somewhere in space, somewhere in time, there existed a planet where a genetic experiment failed, leading to changes that could not be stopped. The result? A world where insects and arachnids grew to frightening proportions, and whose humanoid inhabitants themselves took on the awesome characteristics of insects and arachnids! A world where the forces of the God-Empress Devora, ruler of the Dark Domain of Synax, and her henchmen, the evil Sectaurs, waged brutal war on the peaceful Shining Realm of Prosperon to gain possession of the 'Hyves', fortresses of an ancient civilisation said to hold the key to ultimate power.

A world where the forces of darkness prevailed, and, having achieved global domination, looked to the stars to expand their dominion!

Early in the third decade of the 21st Century, Devora established diplomatic relations with the Asgardian God of Mischief, Loki, who was at the time himself binary-bonded to the Decepticon-inspired Godmaster Transformer Doubleclouder, and who, together with his fellow Asgardians Hydra, Bust-Up and Amora, now controlled the Laser Beast armies on the western continent of Planet Beast. In exchange for a position of power in Loki's future Galactic empire, Devora offered him the services of her elite Sectaur warriors. Let us meet them...

General Spidrax was cold, calculating, ruthless, and driven by an insatiable desire for power. All but totally devoid of any positive emotion, he was dedicated to the service of Devora. A master of combat weaponry, he wielded an ancient Skall shield and a venom-tipped whip fashioned from the antenna of the dreaded Triceralon, one of the most feared beasts on Symbion. Spidrax was telebonded to the sadistic Spiderflyer, whose most valued asset, besides his great strength and powerful, flesh-piercing fangs, was his flammable, venom-coated torture web.

An expert swordsman, Commander Waspax trained and commanded the Dark Domain's elite corps of Sting Troopers. The knowledge and natural ability that he possessed with bladed weapons was second to none. He carried a venom-firing Vengun (the standard weapon of all evil Sectaurs), a twin-edged sabre of finely-honed Skall and a heavy-duty battle shield. His telebonded companion Wingid was a deadly assassin with lightning speed and a venom-tipped tail, who would streak from the sky, strike, impaling his victims, and zoom away. Both Waspax and Wingid were said to revel in eliciting agonised death cries from their opponents.

Skito had a well-earned reputation as 'The Sly One'. He was a treacherous sneak, with a vampire's taste for blood. He was vicious, cunning and clever, and the sound of his low, chilling laughter could often be heard as he issued commands to his fellow mercenaries - savage, misfit pirate-guerillas. In combat, Skito favoured the rapier, a single stalk of Skall honed to a lethal, piercing point. Toxcid, Skito's telebonded arachnoid, was capable of firing a corrosive stream of venom from his snout, killing a human in a matter of seconds. Having eight legs, he moved quickly and silently, sneaking up on his victims to attack them from the rear.

Skulk was the Dark Domain's multi-eyed master of terror and mayhem. Sly and stealthy, he preferred to operate from the shadows with his scuttling spider Trancula, a wriggling, hairy menace-in-the-dark. Skulk was well-suited for scouting and espionage missions. He disdained battle, preferring to dispatch his victims long-distance by means of poison, or with a silently-hurled dagger. The huge, multi-eyed Trancula, Skulk's telebonded steed, was brutal and sadistic. Trancula's gigantic paws would grasp and crush his opponents, while his jaws ripped through their flesh, and he was known to delight in the dying screams of his victims.

So! An unsavoury bunch, all in all.

TO BE CONTINUED

BIOCOMBAT BEASTIES: AN ORIGIN

(BECAUSE THERE AREN'T ENOUGH BEAST WARS ORIGIN STORIES OUT THERE)

PART 2

The invasion of Earth did not go as planned. The Asgardians, Laser Beasts and evil Sectaurs over-reached themselves by failing to foresee that wielding six great swords of power* simultaneously would result in a critical mass of magic amounting to more than this universe could accommodate all in one time and place, causing the aforementioned swords to annihilate one another in a spectacular implosion of sorcerous energies. When the cosmic dust settled, Loki limped away into hiding, the sole Asgardian survivor of the misjudged endeavour, all his Transtectors and Seacon drones lying in ruins at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, courtesy of Godmaster Optimus Prime and the Titanmasters, and his Laser Beast and Sectaur armies all but wiped out, albeit at great cost, by the combined space forces of Earth, Cameron and Nebulos.

(*Listed in the order in which Amora acquired them: the Zodiac Edge, wielded by the Battle Beast Sir Sire Bluehorse; the Eternian Power Sword, wielded following the fall of Eternia first by Skeletor and then by the Battle Beast Pugnacious Penguinis; the Sword of Omens, wielded following the destruction of New Thundera and Third Earth first by Mumm-Ra the Ever-Living and then by the young Thunderian named Pumyra; the sword 'Dragonfang', wielded by Brunnhilde the Asgardian Valkyrie; the Sword of Plun-darr, wielded most recently first by Mumm-Ra and then by the little mutant Earthling Sorceress Supreme Illyana 'Magik' Rasputin; and Magik's own Soulsword of Limbo.)

The swords of magic were gone, their valiant custodians brutally slain, heralding a new cosmic order where technology rather than sorcery guided the course of Galactic events. But one magician remained at large and overlooked, back on Planet Beast.

Planet Beast, where General Spidrax and his handful of surviving Sectaurs found refuge with Magmar's Rock Lords and the Eternian Evil Horde and Snake Men, currently ruled jointly by King Hiss and the immortal sorceress called Shadow Weaver.

Shadow Weaver had more patience than the likes of Mumm-Ra, Skeletor, Ratbat, Loki and Amora. She bided her time until the major competition had been eliminated, taking with it some of their most powerful shared enemies. She offered a safe haven and the prospect of revenge to their surviving minions. And she reassessed her resources relative to those of the enemy.

Her conclusion was that the Planet Beast alliance of Beastbourne, Rocksford and the new Cats' Lair remained too strong to challenge openly, despite the recent loss of the Zodiac Edge, the Eternian Power Sword and the Thunderian Sword of Omens and the deaths of their custodians at the hands of the malevolent Asgardians. In particular, the Autobots based on Planet Beast - the Victory Lion, Red Phoenix the Blazing Eagle, Longtooth, the Galaxy Shuttle and Road Caesar - were too formidable to face in open battle. But would they remain stationed here indefinitely, now that the Decepticons and Asgardians were all gone? Shadow Weaver thought that unlikely. So she convinced her allies to lie low, while she studied the Cybertronians' technology, and how it might be combined with the giant insects and arachnids of the recently arrived Sectaurs to create a new breed of hybrid Transformer.

(Shadow Weaver disposed of the unwanted Sectaurs themselves by manipulating them into deadly hand-to-hand conflict with the crew of the small starship Thunderstrike, whilst at the same time denying General Spidrax's men the usual support of their insect and arachnid allies. The evil sorceress calculated the outcome of the skirmish to perfection. There were no survivors on either side.)

TO BE CONCLUDED

BIOCOMBAT BEASTIES: AN ORIGIN

(BECAUSE THERE AREN'T ENOUGH BEAST WARS ORIGIN STORIES OUT THERE)

CONCLUSION

A century later, Cybertron was gone and a cosmic computer virus had taken its toll on the Transformer race. Many Autobots remained unaccounted for, including the Galaxy Shuttle carrying the Motorvators and Multiforce, lost somewhere in interstellar space, and Longtooth, who lay comatose on the ocean bed of Planet Beast. The Victory Lion and Red Phoenix were still active on the Battle Beasts' adopted homeworld, but the majority of their fellow surviving Autobots had chosen Earth and its Moon as their preferred home.

Through all this time, Shadow Weaver had not been idle. In the dark jungle regions of Planet Beast, a new form of life was rumoured to exist. At first it was thought to be nothing more than a handful of monstrous creatures from Symbion. But several Battle Beasts reported sightings of an unfamiliar type of Decepticon Micromaster. And then, the first report of a giant tarantula transforming into an eight-foot robot warrior, initially dismissed as fantasy until corroborated by a second sighting, and a third. Then, not long afterwards, stag beetle and wasp Transformers, and a giant scorpion that was said to launch bee drones from its pincers!

The mystical merger of life from the planets Cybertron and Symbion was an unequivocal success. And deep in the ever-expanding Planet Beast Fright Zone, Shadow Weaver wove her webs of evil, both figuratively and literally, now in the likeness of a giant black-and-gold spider. A spider that transformed...

And so were born the Biocombat Beasties!

'Black Arachnia' - spider-Transformer hybrid life-form (possessed by Shadow Weaver)
'Buzz Saw' - wasp-Transformer hybrid life-form
'Cicadacon' - cicada-Transformer hybrid life-form
'Drill Bit' - boll weevil-Transformer hybrid life-form
'Inferno' - fire ant-Transformer hybrid life-form
'Insecticon' - stag beetle-Transformer hybrid life-form
'Jetstorm' - dragonfly-Transformer hybrid life-form
'Manterror' - praying mantis-Transformer hybrid life-form
'McBeetle' - stag beetle-Transformer hybrid life-form
'Powerpinch' - earwig-Transformer hybrid life-form
'Ram Horn' - rhinoceros beetle-Transformer hybrid life-form
'Scorponok' - scorpion-Transformer hybrid life-form
'Tarantulas' - spider-Transformer hybrid life-form
'Transquito' - mosquito-Transformer hybrid life-form
'Waspinator' - wasp-Transformer hybrid life-form

These fifteen loathsome creatures waged undeclared war on all and sundry from their horrific mobile headquarters, the titanic semi-organic 'Arachnid' battle station.

A BEGINNING?

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

MOONBASE ONE

In the year 2135, Autobots and civilians from the planet Cybertron gained permission to Cyberform part of Earth's Moon. For decades humans had planted flags and argued over which nations owned which lunar craters, but they eventually realised that the Moon was rubbish for air-breathing life-forms, and directed their attention instead toward planets like Mars, which had sufficient gravity to potentially hold a breathable atmosphere.

Unlike in some fiction, real Cyberforming doesn't mean coating everything in metal. That's a pointless waste of scarce elements. No, rock is just as good as metal for robots to walk and drive on. Real Cyberforming means turning a solid mass into a honeycombed living structure. It means drilling tunnels and creating stable underground chambers.

Moonbase Commander Countdown oversaw the endeavour. It began with the return of Rabbicrater's Thunder Arrow from Halfworld. While Deadwheeler and Hot Rodimus took the Thunder Arrow's sister ship, the Sky Hyper, down to Micromaster Island in the Pacific Ocean, Rabbicrater set a course for the Moon. There he linked Skystalker's old ship up with Countdown's rocket base, the Missile Launcher and Tanker Truck transports, the Battlestar bases Grandus and Sky Garry, Optimus Prime's Nebulan trailer manned by Godbomber, and Fortress Maximus, whose Headmaster partner was now the Autobot Micromaster Cogman, at the site selected by the geologist Beachcomber for a new underground Autobot City.

At this time, over a hundred Micromasters lived on Micromaster Island, protected by Groundshaker. Around half of them were from Cybertron, the other half having been Matrixed on Earth. Five Micromasters (Drillbuster, Full-Barrel, Overflow, Sonic and Speeder) were lost in space. But fifteen were stationed long-term on Earth's Moon, namely Cogman, Countdown, Gusher, Pipeline, Rabbicrater/Robocritter, Retro, Shotbomber, Spinner, Surge and the Astro Squad.

The Constructicons were currently on Earth, inhabiting Micromaster forms modelled on the human-built Micromaster Sixbuilder team, but the Autobots on the Moon still had their original bodies in storage, and put them to work digging and drilling alongside Hauler, Landfill, Landmine, Quickmix, Scoop and Trench, aided by the carefully applied firepower of the several Autobot battle stations assembled on the lunar surface. Wheeljack oversaw the excavation, and the reinforcement of the tunnels and chambers being created using recycled materials brought to the Moon by Sky Lynx and the Autobots' Junkion allies, all the while following plans drawn up by the architect Erector down on Micromaster Island. Red Alert organised the security, supported by Canopy, Cosmos and Warpath.

When the Moonbase had been sufficiently expanded, the Autobots living there were joined by five old comrades - Chromedome, Crosshairs, Pointblank and the occasional Godmasters Lightfoot and Roadking (formerly Revaway and Lubedash) - who had exhausted all their efforts to search Nebulos for the missing Technobots, and were relieved, albeit despondent at their failure, to accept a new assignment and cross the Space Bridge to Earth's Moon.

Optimus Prime and a number of other non-Micromaster Autobots of Cybertronian origin, notably Bluestreak, Bumblebee, Inferno, Jazz, Nightbeat, Powerglide, Prowl, Seaspray, Siren, Time Warrior, the Omnibots and the Sparkdashers, elected to continue living amongst the humans on Earth, and they were joined by Beachcomber, Red Alert and Wheeljack once those three had completed their contributions to the Moon City project. But they all continued to monitor developments on the Moon with considerable interest.

What the Autobots had in mind to create there would be the work of decades.

FILE ENDS

[Grand Moff Muffin]

BIOCOMBAT BEASTIES: THE DEATH OF CHEETOR

(BECAUSE THERE AREN'T ENOUGH BEAST WARS ORIGIN STORIES OUT THERE)

"Cheetor's wounds are too severe. I'm sorry... He's going to die."

"Oh, no! Not him too..."

"The impetuous fool... He saved my life out there, but his speed wasn't enough for him to escape the enemy's clutches."

"Who got him?"

"Transquito, I think it was. But we lost many brave comrades today to Black Arachnia's Sectaur-spawned Transformer Beast Warriors, and there isn't one of those fiends that doesn't now owe us payback."

"But what can we do? Our best fighters are either dead or mortally wounded, Red Phoenix and the Victory Lion have been damaged almost beyond repair, Beastbourne and Rocksford are both under siege from those insectoid and arachnid monsters, and all communications with our allies on other worlds are being blocked. We're finished!"

"No, there is still one hope for our survival... and victory. Cheetor, Pantha and Prowlus may yet be saved."

"But how?"

"Their reckless, unsanctioned mission to the Fright Zone was not in vain, for while few survived, our rescue party did succeed in capturing four of Black Arachnia's protoform pods. Our enemies are not magical beings. They have been created by science - dark technology that we too can harness."

"But... this is beyond anything we've studied before, sir."

"I know. And that's why I called you here. Through your part-human ancestry, you two possess the power of the Creation Matrix. You can use it to visualise the workings of these pods, to understand them on an almost instinctive level, and adapt them to serve our needs."

"But they are evil! Black Arachnia used them to turn the genetically engineered monsters of Symbion into malevolent Beast Warrior Transformers."

"It's worth the risk! I have consulted the spirit of my great-grandfather on this matter."

"You entered the Book of Omens? What did the ghost of Lord Bengali say?"

"He told me that together, the Creation Matrix and the Hammer of Thundera can turn this dark power into a force of good, enabling us to draw out our dormant feline DNA and reshape our bodies to become organic Transformers - heroic Beast Warriors strong enough to combat the threat of Black Arachnia."

"You said 'us'. You mean you intend to undergo the transformation process yourself? But you're not injured!"

"I know, but we have four pods, and I can't inflict this procedure on our three mortally wounded comrades unless I'm prepared to suffer the same fate myself. And our people here need all the robotic assistance we can provide."

"But we need you to stay and lead us!"

"No. You two are both still young, but you're ready to take my place. Rule our people wisely... together."

"But will they accept us? Kittara and I have human blood running through our veins. The Creation Matrix powers that we possess will always act as reminders of that."

"All our people have human DNA in their veins if you trace our ancestry back far enough. You will learn this in time yourselves, when you read the Book of Omens. They will follow you, Pumm-Ro. But enough! It is time! Turn your thoughts instead to these protoform pods. Use them to turn swift Cheetor, agile Pantha, fierce Prowlus, and me into Transformers - into noble Beast Warriors!"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes! Obey my final command! I, Tigatro, Lord of the Thundercats, have spoken!"
___

And so four brave warriors were reborn...

'Cheetor' - cheetah-based Thunderian-Transformer hybrid life-form
'Pantha' - panther-based Thunderian-Transformer hybrid life-form
'Prowlus' - lion-based Thunderian-Transformer hybrid life-form
'Tigatron' - tiger-based Thunderian-Transformer hybrid life-form

The half-human, half-Thunderian Matrix-bearers, Pumm-Ro Witwicky-Jones and Kittara, also used their powers to create a new, improved Headmaster module for the damaged Victory Lion's beast mode. A Headmaster module known as... Thunder-3!
___

Shadow Weaver, a.k.a. Black Arachnia, watched all these developments from afar with unconcerned amusement before turning her attention back to her own current devious project, deep in the heart of Planet Beast's Fright Zone. This new work involved mechanically modifying five test subjects captured by her surviving Laser Beast allies in Earth's Savage Land - two Pteranodons (one blue, one red), two Velociraptors (one grey, one pink), and a purple Tyrannosaurus.

She summoned five of her smaller insectoid Beast Warriors and addressed them sharply. "Cicadacon, Insecticon, Drill Bit, Powerpinch, Ram Horn... observe this closely. The Sectaurs engineered the bodies that we inhabit to serve them as their steeds, but now they are dead and we are the masters, while these five magnificent creatures will be your mounts in battle. Our enemies won't know what hit them, as the walls of Beastbourne, Rocksford and the Cats' Lair come crumbling down. My loyal servants, prepare to become... Biocombat Dino-Riders!"

THE END?

STORIES LISTED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

MISCELLANEOUS
The year 1984: G.I. Joe vs Transformers: Prisoner of War
The year 1987: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: The Death of Counterpunch Part 1
The year 1987: Bumblebee 1987
The year 1987: Battlechargers Forever / Transformers #23 and 32
The year 1987: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Gold Standard
The year 1988: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Attack of the Clones
The year 1988: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Blot on the Landscape
The year 1988: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Ink Blot Test
The year 1988: Terrorcons, Combine!
June 1988: G.I. Joe vs Transformers: Wrecking Havoc
Beginning from September 1988: Tales from the Cosmic Carnival / Transformers #44
January 1989: A Stopped Clock / Transformers UK #199-205, 223-227 and 251-254
January 1989: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Blot on the Record
August 1989: G.I. Joe vs Transformers: The Interplanetary Wrestling Championship / Transformers #55
The year 1989: A Stopped Clock: Chimes at Midnight / Transformers #60-61

THE LAST DAYS OF THE TRANSFORMERS WAR
The year 1990: Transformers UK #229, 237-239 and 255-289
The year 1990: G.I. Joe vs Transformers: Life in the Slow Lane
The year 1990: G.I. Joe vs Transformers: Manoeuvres
The year 1990: The Magnificent Six (Transformers UK Annual 1991)
The year 1990: Transformers #67-70
The year 1990: The Last Days of the Transformers War: Xaaron / Transformers #71-73
The year 1991: The Last Days of the Transformers War: Unicron / Transformers #74-75
The year 1991: The Last Days of the Transformers War: Nucleon / Escort Duty / Breaking Bonds / Transformers #76-80
November 1991: Top Secret
December 1991: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Battletrap's Beasts - They Battle for Fun
December 1991: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Flywheels's Friends - They Too Battle for Fun
December 1991: Another Time and Place (Transformers UK Annual 1992)
December 1991: The Reckoning
December 1991: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: The Death of Counterpunch Part 2

WHAT HAPPENED AFTERWARDS
The year 1992: Destiny of the Dinobots (Transformers UK Annual 1990)
The year 1992: Stylor's Sequel
The year 1992: Stylor's Statement
The year 1992: Stylor's Speech
The year 1993: The Last Minispy (time of narration)
The year 1993: The Last Minispy: Jaws of Steel
The year 1993: G.I. Joe vs Transformers: Unfoldings/Realignments
The year 1993: Earth's Mightiest Heroes
The year 1993: Earth's Mightiest Heroes: Minefield

INTERIM
1991-2018: Great Battle Beast Duels of History
1991-2018: Sky Lynx May Be a Rubbish Toy, But...!
1994-1995: G.I. Joe: Street Fighter II
1994-2018: Marvel Superheroes Meet the Transformers
The year 2008: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Third Generation
The year 2008: G.I. Joe vs Transformers: The Big Broadcast of 1987
The year 2009: G.I. Joe vs Transformers: Rhythms of Darkness
The year 2009: Pretender Monsters: Dinoforce Works

TWENTY YEARS LATER
The year 2014: Twenty Years Later
The year 2014: Twenty Years Later: Kup's Story Retold
August 2017: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: One-Robot Army
September 2017 to July 2018: Prelude to the Predator War
August 2018: Where Were You During the Predator War?
August 2018: Life and Freedom
August 2018: Cameron Space Marines
September 2018: Titanium Shott Blaster for Hire
September 2018: Titanium Shott Blaster for Hire: Death's Head vs Grimlock
September 2018: Game Over
September 2018: Game Over: Walkthrough
October 2018: The Mad Marvel UK Mash-Up / G.I. Joe vs Transformers: Destiny of the Dreadnoks
October 2018: The Mad Marvel UK Mash-Up: Deadlier Games
November-December 2018: War of the Skull
December 2018: The Legacy of Rodimus Prime
December 2018: The Legacy of Galvatron
December 2018: The Legacy of Primus
January 2019: Remembrance
The year 2019: Choose Your Own Prologue
The year 2019: Choose Your Own Adventure
The year 2019: Choose Your Own Destiny
The year 2019: Choose Your Own Strategy
The year 2019: Choose Your Own Fate
The year 2019: Choose Your Own Ending
The year 2019: Choose Your Own Epilogue
May 2019: The Return of Optimus Prime
Ending in June 2019: Stories from Grand Central Space Station
Ending in June 2019: The Singular Adventures of Slugfest and Overkill
Ending in June 2019: Irwin Spoon Goes to Cybertron
July 2019: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Concerning Monsterbots
August 2019: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Technobots vs Terrakors
September 2019: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Battle Beasts Fight!
October 2019: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Battle Beasts Roll!
November 2019: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Fortress Scorponok
December 2019: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Battle Beasts Strike!
December 2019: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Stylor's Staff
The year 2020: Battle Beasts Universe
The year 2020: The Search for Mr J
The year 2020: Battle Beasts Universe continued
The year 2020: Interlude

ENDGAME
October 2020: Battle Beast Legends
October 2020: Broken Bad Guys
October 2020: Rock Lords vs Battle Beasts
November 2020: Aspects of Evil: Ratbat
November 2020: Aspects of Evil: Devil-Z
November 2020: Aspects of Evil: Magmar
December 2020: Tales of Earth
December 2020: Tales of Cybertron
December 2020: Tales of Asgard

THE NEAR FUTURE
The year 2021: Target: 2036
The year 2021: Target: 2036 Aftermath
The year 2024: The Bridge to Somewhere
The year 2024: The Bridge to Somewhere: Sit-Down
The year 2024: The Bridge to Somewhere: Amnesty
The year 2024: The Bridge to Somewhere: Over the Rainbow
The year 2024: The Bridge to Somewhere: Blaster's Revenge
The near future: Ratbat Breaks the Internet
The near future: Congratulations - You Have Won a Christmas Vacation in Micromaster City
The near future: Rhyme Wars
The year 2026: The Galva-Pretender Cometh
The year 2026: The Transformers vs MANTA Force
The year 2027: Biocombat Beasties: An Origin

THE MORE DISTANT FUTURE
July 2070: Dead Metal
July 2070: Dead Metal: In the Zone
The year 2084: Dead Metal: Alien Robots Amongst Us
The year 2084: Living Metal
The year 2084: Living Metal: Calling All Autobots
The year 2085: Living Metal: Liberated
The year 2134: Living Metal: Bluestricken
The year 2134: Shiny Metal
The year 2135: Biocombat Beasties: The Death of Cheetor

THE FAR FUTURE
Centuries from now: Dead Metal: Living Plasma
Half a million years from now: Dead Metal: Lost