Telefunken (Spoilers)

[andrewbcalculating]

When John said that he had updated the Underbase, I decided to go over there and have a look. Now as James Roberts is knocking zingers out the park over at IDW, I wanted to have a look at his TMUK work which lead me to reading the Telefunken entry.

I like reading the entries at the Underbase as they fill in the gaps of the story that I no doubt would miss and the Telefunken one was no exception. Even though I know I had read Telefunken years ago, the Underbase entry for it got me intrigued so I had to read Telefunken all over again. But despite reading the story and the entry, I still had questions about certain parts so I decided to have a look on this forum to see if there was a Telefunken thread.

I couldn't find one but what I did find was a post from Ralph over in the Classic TF Books & Comics section that included an explanation from Martin on how the Maximals and Predacons came about in TMUK.

Martins says that at around 2300, the preserved Beast Warrior corpse of Tarantulas was sent to Cybertron from YaJurus but then in Telefunken, it is explained that Tarantulas is a Decepticon Neogen created from Triton in 2316 which confused me.

So my first question is does Telefunken fit in the same timeline as the one that Martin explained with the evolution of the Maximals and the Predacons in TMUK?

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[Rich]

Andrew, I have no idea of the answer, but I really enjoyed reading this oldest of old school TMUK questions - nobody's asked this kind stuff for about 10 years

I never would have thought that I could get nostalgic for continuity!

[Rich]

err

[Benn]

Apr 24, 2012 14:55:56 GMT Rich said:

err

Ah ha ha ha!

[Grand Moff Muffin]

I knew the answer once but now I haven't a clue.

Martin

[andrewbcalculating]

I have a similar feeling to Richard when I look at the Underbase but it's less nostalgia and more an eagerness to know what happened in the stories.

I don't think I was a member of TMUK when CG2 was in its pomp and I don't think I had the intrigue that I have now to investigate all of the details in the stories that I did read when I did join TMUK.

I remember reading J'o's stories with Mindwipe as an Autobot and Martin's stories of Mirage as the Storyteller but I didn't appreciate their content that linked to other stories.

I've said in the past that I find it admirable that seemingly the majority of TMUK's creative output was done when the contributors had hardly any free time juggling education and jobs. It has also been mentioned to me that this creative output was probably also because there was no official comic being published. I guess I'm using the Underbase now to catch up with stories that I either didn't read when they were published or didn't remember the content when I did read them.

When I re-read Telefunken yesterday, I was impressed with how James was confidently mentioning events in that continuity's history. The problem is because I seemingly fail to keep story details in my head, I really need to have writing materials to document all the revelations in the form of notes and diagrams. Ideally I would like to be able to talk with James while I read anything that he has written so that I can ask him all the questions that I would have. For example are Blitzwing, Onslaught and Razorclaw all members of the Unicron religion? Has Ultra Magnus left the Autobots to form his own religion? What do all the other religious groups believe in?

To be honest, I would like to be able to talk with all of the authors on the Underbase while I read their stories because to be quite honest I would have a number of questions about the details that their stories reveal.

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[Andy Turnbull]

Graham addresses the fate of Ultra Magnus in his stories.

Andy

[chrisl]

what is the date on Telefunken? Anything published after 2001 and set after 2014 is probably TMUK new continuity. Anything published before then set after 2014 is probably TMUK classic. Telefunken i think was an early to mid 90s piece from James Robert's TransText fanzine that preceded CG2 but a part two may have been written by someone else years later which added the BW stuff. My reasoning for that is when BW came out James was on TMUK hiatus to write a Pulp Fiction pastiche sometime between 1994 and 1997 before returning to write CG2 30s Christmas strip drawn by Jack Lawrence of ATOM fame. Not 100% sure on this as its based on my memory of snail mail letters written 15 years ago.

[chrisl]

For those interested in old school TMUK try getting hold of the TMUK V1.5 cdr compiled by Martin. To see just how good James was back then check out The Life And Times Of Throwback then cry as you realise he was about 14 when he wrote it. For those after something light hearted check out his comic strip Crisis of Continuity.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Nope, Telefunken was written as part of 'The Prime Sacrifice' and also links to Eugenesis. It was firmly 'new' continuity.

Matt Dallas and Jack Lawrence produced some excellent stories introducing the BW toys to the Marvel comics universe, but despite that, people really wanted to bring the BW cartoon into the continuity too, so there was some convoluted explanation of how one version of BW preceded the other. Not very professional, but a trade-off when what you're building is a universe for fan writers to play in for their own enjoyment, rather than a tidy, smooth sequence of events for a mass audience.

Martin

[chrisl]

I stand corrected lol I was thinking of Actuality.
Continuity Cop nostalgia!

Personally I prefer the classic continuity and CG2 Beast Wars story.

[Deleted]

Hey I was just reading 'Telefunken' this morning and had to find out more about it, so did a search, found this site and joined up.

I'm a regular reader of MTMTE and have been back and forward through Eugenesis a few times. I've got two questions:

1) What's the relevance of the title to this story 'Telefunken'? Is it an old favourite Krafwerk song (I love 'Pocket Calculator' for instance).

2) I have a folder on my HDD that contains 'Telefunken' and 'The Polyhex Wars'. Did James write The Polyhex Wars? Because the writing style seems doesn't seem to match up.

[Rich]

Hi! Welcome, to the forum. You can find out a lot about James' TMUK studies on John Cullen's TMUK Underbase. Polyhex Wars was written by James, apparently, but it doesn't have a full listing. I suspect the difference in style is probably because of when it was written. There is a full listing for telefuken, which it's here: www.theunderbase.co.uk/wiki.asp?o=Telefunken

[Deleted]

Thanks Rich, that's just what I was looking for! In the authors words:

'Telefunken' translates as 'a spark between two points', which was intended to symbolise Tarantulas's movement from Autobot to Decepticon, and ultimately from Decepticon to Predacon.

Love the bit about Kup being a Neogen, and the further exploration about what happens to Cybertronian society now the war is over.

God, stuff like this makes me wish I read more widely when I was younger. I never read 1984, and so the 'Starsaber Society' similarity went over my head.

Polyhex Wars is weird. If someone else's name had been put to that work I wouldn't question it. I wonder what caused such a change in style, was it simply life and time? Or those elements... plus lots more writing?

I must say, MTMTE is stupendously good fun. And so re-readable. I didn't expect at 35 to be subscribing to a comic, let alone a Transformers comic! After picking up the first two TPB's I had to convert to the ongoing issues (waiting for Shadowplay to be published in TPB format would have been agonising).

I'd love to know what it takes to create this series, as in... how its formulated. Does he have files/documents of plot points, themes & ideas that get reshuffled or amplified... lines and plots attributed to different characters if it creates a better plot and so on. And which things developed organically from current arcs? That would be a great question to ask, has anything developed out of something seemingly innocuous?

[The Doctor]

James does still frequent this forum so you could try asking him directly.

-Ralph

[Andy Turnbull]

Indeed, and welcome to the Forum.

Andy