Xaaron

[Philip Ayres]

I will assume blueshift didn't read the post at the top of the board before he posted this in it's original thread.....

tmukhub.proboards.com/post/320251/thread

[The Doctor]

He is a Transformer.

-Ralph

[Philip Ayres]

The placement of this question (it's in the same forum as where it was when I took the poll off it) leads to a different answer to if it was placed in the toys forum.

Xaaron is a fictional Transformer, he has no toy.

But the question here is more "is he a transformer even though he doesn't Transform?" and the answer is YES: in City of Fear he's trying to use the ability albeit at the cost of great pain to himself.

[blueshift]

I think it's a great question! Martin's point is that only Cybertronians who can transform are Transformers

If Xaaron USED to be able to transform but can't anymore without dying, does that mean he is a Transformer by being grandfathered in?
If Xaaron can MAYBE transform still but he doesn't know, is he Schrodinger's Transformer?
If a Transformer can transform but automatically dies if they do it, does that still count?
Must a Transformer have more than the potential to transform to be classed as a Transformer??

[Philip Ayres]

You wouldn't argue that Wreckgar, a Junkion, or the Sharkticons, weren't Transformers though and they're not Cybertronians

Ditto Unicron

[blueshift]

I might

[Philip Ayres]

There's always one contrary so and so.....

[blueshift]

May 28, 2018 7:38:02 GMT Philip Ayres said:

There's always one contrary so and so.....

But in all seriousness, Sharkticons were made by the Quintessons so they are basically cousins/siblings to Cybertronians (if you follow the cartoon) and weren't the Junkions supposed to be a lost tribe of Autobots?

[blueshift]

May 28, 2018 7:41:18 GMT blueshift said:

May 28, 2018 7:38:02 GMT Philip Ayres said:

There's always one contrary so and so.....

But in all seriousness, Sharkticons were made by the Quintessons so they are basically cousins/siblings to Cybertronians (if you follow the cartoon) and weren't the Junkions supposed to be a lost tribe of Autobots?

Personally I class Junkions as Transformers but not Sharkticons

[Grand Moff Muffin]

We'll never know whether or not Xaaron was still a Transformer or not in his last days.

However, I'm pretty sure Rack'n'Ruin wasn't. I think of him as two ex-Transformers fused together, a bit like Ratchet-Megatron, but more successfully. Similarly, Ratchet-Megatron was two ex-Transformers.

If a long-distance runner sprains their ankle, they are clearly not a long-distance runner for the duration of their injury. Similarly if they are chained to a wall in prison.

To my mind, a Transformer is something that can prove it can transform when it wishes to do so.

Martin

[Grand Moff Muffin]

May 28, 2018 7:49:52 GMT blueshift said:

Personally I class Junkions as Transformers but not Sharkticons

That's an interesting viewpoint. Gnaw clearly transforms, and I believe he even had Decepticon stickers and a rubsign to prove he was a genuine Transformer.

What about transforming Nebulans?

Martin

[blueshift]

May 28, 2018 7:57:28 GMT Grand Moff Muffin said:

If a long-distance runner sprains their ankle, they are clearly not a long-distance runner for the duration of their injury. Similarly if they are chained to a wall in prison.

Well you say that, but look at the backlash over not seeding Serena Williams in the upcoming French Open as she hadn't played professionally for a year (as she had a baby)

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Yeah, but they should have known she would almost certainly be a world-class tennis player again by the time of the tournament. She clearly couldn't claim to be one in her last days of pregnancy! Nor will she be one when she's 90.

Martin

[Fortmax2020]

There are Transformers (broadly mechanical beings that can reconfigure there body forms including Junkions, Sharkticons, etc) and then there are Transformers (as in 'The Transformers' of race-specific Cybertronian derivation which would include Xaaron and Action masters etc).

Pretty sure TMUK solved this one in fiction by having all giant robots (transforming or otherwise) be ultimately Cybertronian in some way via an Empire connection. Cybertronian is then species, Transformers a subset based on ability. Like not all humans are SAS.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

May 28, 2018 8:46:57 GMT Fortmax2020 said:

Cybertronian is then species, Transformers a subset based on ability. Like not all humans are SAS.

Yes, it's probably true that all the transforming robots in this part of the Galaxy are related in some way, even if just by one group being inspired by another group. It's too much of a coincidence otherwise for the Autobots to travel from Earth to Cybertron in the Movie and encounter Lithones, Junkions, Sharkticons and Unicron who are all transforming robots but have no connection with each other whatsoever and just happen to cross paths due to chance. What a boring universe that would make it!

They probably all have some link to Primus and Unicron, who have mind links to each other. Or maybe the Junkions just modelled themselves on the other Transformers after seeing them on TV. Some Transformers like the Constructicons are built on Earth from Earth materials, other Transformers have humans or Nebulans (or alien things like Devil-Z) inside them if you open them up, but they're all shape-changing mechanical beings to a certain extent.

I wouldn't say Cybertronian was a species, 'cos that would make all Earth life-forms the same species. Cybertronian is the planet of origin or descent. Is Jetfire Cybertronian or Terran? Bit of both, as he has Cybertronian programming from the Matrix. Powermaster Optimus Prime is built on Nebulos with Nebulan materials and programmed from a floppy disk from Earth, but it contains some programming of Cybertronian origin, so with HiQ he's part-Nebulan, part-Cybertronian, part-Terran. But definitely a Transformer. HiQ wasn't a Transformer originally, then he became one for a bit until the Unicron war, then he stopped being one for a bit, and then became one again when they flushed out the Nucleon and Optimus Prime could transform again. And of course, Optimus Prime wasn't a Transformer to begin with.

They don't have what we could strictly call a species as they don't interbreed and exchange genes.

None of the characters in 'State Games' were Transformers. The term had yet to be invented.

Martin

[The Doctor]

This can all be solved via THE MIND GAP.

-Ralph

[The Doctor]

May 28, 2018 7:27:13 GMT Philip Ayres said:

The placement of this question (it's in the same forum as where it was when I took the poll off it) leads to a different answer to if it was placed in the toys forum.

Xaaron is a fictional Transformer, he has no toy.

He is! The FOC Wreckers combine to make him.

-Ralph

[Philip Ayres]

Iirc the combined FOC Wreckers should have been Xaaron but they stupidly changed the name at the last minute.

tfwiki.net/wiki/Ruination_(FOC)

[Fortmax2020]

May 28, 2018 12:36:34 GMT The Doctor said:

This can all be solved via THE MIND GAP.

-Ralph

The what? I don't remember a Mind Gap.

[tomwe]

May 28, 2018 6:43:39 GMT blueshift said:

Okay, so Martin has been making me think
In City of Fear we learn he doesn't know if he still can, and even if he can the strain might kill him

No idea but this sure makes me want to read City Of Fear again. Queued up as my next question for the G1 collection FB mods!

[Fortmax2020]

Now 30 years later it seems even more unlikely he could transform!

[Andy Turnbull]

Especially as Unicron killed him.

Andy

[The Doctor]

I have always assumed that Primus killed him first when he took him over and destroyed his mind.

-Ralph

[Andy Turnbull]

I think you would always have some wiggle room there (and in my head that's what happened - Primus is not a benevolent god he is the first of those who would be Decepticon and the Empire were what he envisaged the Transformers being - but that's a fancomic for another day) but any chance of survival was gone when Unicron destroyed him.

[Fortmax2020]

THE FINAL TRANSFORMATION.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Is it possible that Primus and Xaaron swapped places, so that Xaaron is now in the giant Primus head?

Martin

[The Doctor]

I had not thought of that.

-Ralph

[Andy Turnbull]

Neither did I.

It could be possible, but the way the Marvel US material framed Primus and his actions doesn't really track with that, unless Optimus' reading of his actions as he unleashes the Matrix is correct.

However, wouldn't Primus have swapped back at the moment of death? Xaaron was at the heart of Cybertron and then switched back just before Unicron destroyed him.

Andy

[Fortmax2020]

Only if he could maybe.

This is all an interesting idea though. I hope the originator runs us a story out of it..?

[Grand Moff Muffin]

What I want to know is this:

The chamber of Primus must be hidden somewhere deep on Cybertron, since it went undisturbed for millions of years until Bumblebee, Jazz, Bludgeon and co. got accidentally teleported to it in 'Yesterday's Heroes', and then teleported out again in 'Primal Scream'.

And yet when Galvatron, Hook, Line and Sinker attacked Autobase just prior to Unicron's arrival, Xaaron was able to take Galvatron to Primus in less time than it took Hook, Line and Sinker to subdue Landfill, Quickmix and Scoop. How did Galvatron and Xaaron get there so quickly? And then how did Hook, Line and Sinker get there so quickly, given that Galvatron was now out of Unicron's sight?

Was everyone using the Space Bridge to get from the surface down to Primus? Or had Xaaron relocated Autobase to directly over Primus' chamber following 'Primal Scream' so that it was possible to get there really quickly without teleporting? Which would suggest it wasn't that deep underground after all.

What do people reckon?

Martin