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1* How did the term "Transmetal" catch on? Rattrap sort of made up the name when trying to explain what they'd become "We're like these... trans...metals." and suddenly everyone, on both sides, is calling it that. Mid-battle was Rattrap like "Hey Megatron, by the way, these new forms? We're going to be calling them Transmetal. So, y'know, pass it on." Also, Rampage. His name was originally Protoform X and that's how all the Maximals originally referred to him. Then Megatron decides to rename him Rampage for some reason, and the Maximals, who missed the random renaming and already have a name they associate with him, start referring to him by that name too? Why?
2** The concept of name changes in the Franchise/{{Transformers}} franchise is a whole can of worms in and of itself, and mostly occurs for the sole purpose of [[MerchandiseDriven selling toys]]. WesternAnimation/BeastWars, for all the effort that went into downplaying the series' toy-oriented aspects (and, in this troper's opinion, succeeding), still falls victim to this. In the pilot, everyone who arrives on Earth, bar Optimus and Megatron, rename themselves based on their chosen beast forms, with wonderfully corny dialogue like "Hey, I'm a cheetah! No, wait... I'm CHEETOR!" They changed their names simply because "Cheetor", "Rattrap", "Rhinox" and so forth were the toys names. Likewise the term "Transmetals" "caught on" because said sub-line of figures were on the shelves. Same for Rampage - though at least in his case, when he and Depth Charge meet again in "Deep Metal" the latter refers to him as X (and does so throughout the third season), with "X" replying:
3-->"I'm called Rampage now; a bit obvious, but to the point, don't you think?"
4** Of note to the above, Cheetor’s the only one of the original characters who seems to rename himself onscreen. Others may have, but there are already several Transformers characters with animal-themed names - it may be that some had beast modes chosen based on names they already had.
5* Why couldn't Megatron come back to the valley to finish what he started after the disk was destroyed? He'd found the place already, and I don't recall the Maximals setting up any security measures.
6** It is discussed in "The Agenda: Part 1" between Megatron and Inferno. Megatron's attack forced the protohumans to leave the valley and spread out, meaning he was unable to exterminate them anymore, which is arguably what leads him to go for broke and try to destroy the Autobots. Furthermore, with the destruction of the golden disk, Megatron could never again check if the future had changed to his intended specifications; thus, he would never know if he'd killed enough humans, even if he did get back to hunting them.
7* Did they ever extract the original Megatron's Spark from Dragon Megatron? Just imagine how different History might have turned out if G1's megatron had no spark in need of protecting, meaning until he was blown up, he could have fought indefinately. Wouldn't such a small shift cause another minor time storm? Would the Maximals have taken the time to extract the double spark from Beast Wars Megatron?
8** They did, in a deleted scene that would've fit towards the end of the final episode of WesternAnimation/BeastWars, almost immediately before they took off from Earth. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbTFSeQXYNY Here it is.]]
9* Why is the Great War and the crash of the Ark and Nemesis treated as a sort of (somewhat-inaccurate) Arthurian lore by time of the Beast Wars? It's been established that there's still Autobots and Decepticons still around, some (like Ravage) old enough to have ''been'' in those events. Surely any one of them could've set the record straight, right?
10** It's pretty explicit that transwarp drive = now we have time travel. Given how important Earth was, if the exact details were too well known, it would have been ''pitifully'' easy to go back in time and screw things up if one felt so inclined. Thus, the people who know try not to spread it around.
11** Maybe the Great Upgrade included memory modification to make Transformers forget important details.
12** Well, let me elaborate: we know that the Maximal Elders kept any and all information regarding Earth and the events that transpired therein under wraps (for some stupid reason)...yet the Predacons aren't keeping to this practice, and again, the aforementioned survivors from before the Transformers even came to Earth would have a better account of what happened; Ravage's comment to Megatron upon his capture ("I served under the original Megatron; you may have his name, but not his army") seems to indicate that his memories weren't tampered with during his upgrade. Also, both Blackarachnia and Dinobot were shown to be avid scholars when it came to their peoples' pasts, enough to recognize Starscream for what he really was (and that he was killed by Galvatron instead of protecting him from Unicron as he said he was) when he returned, so obviously there's still "The Truth" out there that needs to be discovered, and no shortage of 'bots and 'cons looking to uncover it.
13*** Blackarachnia was a Maximal protoform that was "born" on Earth--she would only have access to the records that the Predacon ship happened to have in its computer. Megatron being that type of person, he probably had as much information on hand about his predecessor as was available, but not a lot about the war in general. Anyway, it's safe to assume that Transformer memories work more like human memories than computers, which is to say, they fog and change with time. Things would stand out for Ravage: Megatron, certain battles, the basic gist of what happened, but Ravage has fought a lot of battles over the years--why would that information stand out? The Maximal leadership wouldn't have to edit the records relating to the war all at once. They could go slowly, leave in the parts that everyone remembered as having happened, but fog up the rest.
14*** They're robots; they've been long established to hold a complete and pristine record of the events of their lives, unless some trauma or glitch futzes it up. Which leads to another goof: it's long been established that, had the plan to kill Optimus succeeded, all of Cybertron was slagged, due to the events of the movie (namely Unicron). This accounts for why BW Megs refused to go through with it until he had no choice...but why would ''Ravage'' agree to it? I'm sorry, but I simply cannot see his undying loyalty to G1 Megs blind him enough to go through with it when he was a ''first-hand eye witness'' to the destructive power of Unicron. In fact, his story in the "Binaltech" series has him purposely keeping Optimus alive to fight off Unicron, even using his knowledge of the Chaos God's onslaught to tempt the Autobots into helping him.
15*** "Some stupid reason?" Transwarp technology allows for time travel. They wouldn't just have to deal with Megatron, every vainglorious Predacon with a brain would be trying to scrap Optimus Prime.
16** Real life answer: the writers didn't want to pin themselves down with any specific history, allowing for more room to craft plots. Beast Wars is set after A version of Generation One, but not any SPECIFIC version of Generation One, letting them pick and choose from the cartoon and comic as they please. So really, any continuity goofs or inaccuracies can be waved by saying it might not have happened, or happened in wildly different ways (particularly in regards to the 86 movie). As for the cast being able to remember things, the first IDW continuity would introduce the idea of "information creep"--as a robot ages, new information starts to replace old, akin to humans forgetting things with age. If one is so inclined, you could apply that to Beast Wars as well (Hasbro is no stranger to retroactively adding concepts themselves, like adding Sparks and statis lock to Generation 1 after the fact), so even if someone was alive during Gen 1, their memories are a bit fuzzy.
17*** Media as early as the 90's Generation II comics established that Transformers have anything but perfect memory. They aren't simple robots, but MechanicalLifeforms. Their brains can't contain infinite information any better than an organic one can. If a Transformer lives long enough or has enough experiences, old information decays and is slowly overwritten by the new, leaving early memories fuzzy at best before they're fully lost.
18*** We also have to remember that the Great War was of unimaginable scale compared to anything humans have experienced. It consumed the entirety of Cybetronian culture, extended over at least one galaxy, and lasted millions of years. Details of any given campaign would be next to impossible to accurately record, leaving only a few of the most important details around. All it would take to obscure those is a few scribes being lax on one side. Intentionally obscuring details would be trivially easy, especially when everyone on the former Autobots' side would be motivated to ensure nothing like this could ever happen again.
19* I don't understand Dinobot's death at all. I mean, Waspinator has taken ten times that amount of damage before, and Megatron got blasted to pieces. How did Dinobot die from that fight? Granted, it was just him against every single Predacon, but still, others have survived worse.
20** In regards to Waspinator...he's a special case. It's all part of his {{Chew Toy}} status, which is played for laughs throughout the entire series, surviving things that would most likely have killed other 'bots. One time, he was literally shredded into ''confetti''! What made Dinobot's HeroicSacrifice was that he overruled the stasis lock protocol. Stasis lock prevents the spark from [[strike:dying]] disengaging from the body, even through massive bodily trauma. When Megatron gets blown to pieces in "Power Surge" and when Waspinator gets blown up practically ''every episode'' they immediately go into stasis lock. The writers/producers expect you to assume that so long as the spark chamber is undamaged, a transformer lives.
21** Not an exact quote, but Dinobot overrides Stasis Lock after his systems prompt him to enter it with an explicit warning: "Power reserves 90% depleted, stasis lock commencing." "Override..." "Warning, further expenditures WILL RESULT IN LOSS OF SPARK, stasis lock MUST commence." "OVERRIDE!" "...acknowledged."
22** Also, we have to take into account that Dinobot already ''knew'' he was going to die a few episodes before ''Code of Hero'' went down. It's likely that the Golden Disk, being an artifact of the Vok's creation, has the events of time in it. Dinobot likely also realized (either by looking into the Disk's contents or by connecting the dots) what Megatron was planning (the destruction of the proto-human village and the extermination of humanity), and considering the repercussions this would have on time (the Decepticons being able to triumph in the Great War, and thus the Predacons being superior to the Maximals in social rank), and the ultimate fate of this outcome (without the Matrix of Leadership, Unicron would be devour all life in the galaxy), Dinobot would have decided that dying to save the universe was a fate befitting a warrior, and was what the Disk foretold, and his monologue before he fights the Predacons also lends itself to such a conclusion.
23*** Actually, the golden disk that Megatron was using in Code of Hero was the disk from Earth, A.K.A., the Voyager golden record. It was providing information like the newspaper in ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture'', as the information contained was altered by Megatron's actions.
24*** If you notice, Dinobot does receive damage before getting involved in that conflict which played a part in it. Also several times during the battle, Dinobot resists/refuses to go into stasis lock even after his internal computer implores him to. In fact, Dinobot actually has to override it so his own systems doesn't automatically send him into stasis lock, which is a safety net for both Maximals and Predacons to prevent death.
25** Personally, I never thought that Dinobot looked at the information on the discs himself because he was afraid of the possibility that they would disclose a fixed future that he couldn't change; he just speculated for a time that there may be some dark future awaiting him. As for his death in the battle, I read a theory that Tarantulas's first shot caused some damage to his spark chamber that was made worse as he took further damage fighting the rest of the Predacons without letting himself go into stasis lock.
26* Why was Inferno so insane? His pod was the only one we saw touch down without problems (Tigatron and Airrazor both crashed with severe problems, dunno what happened with Blackarachnia, everyone else crashed and suffered severe Transmetal mutations).
27** Blackarachnia was turned into a Predacon by Tarantulas, which is what he was doing to Inferno before his activation. As for why Inferno acts how he does, it's mentioned that his beast mode has overridden most of his personality, leaving him with heavy ant-like tics (such as calling Megatron his "queen", and his insane loyalty to the "colony"); why that is is unknown, but as Tarantulas was trying to reprogram Inferno in the middle of his alt-mode scanning session (and didn't get time to finish before the session completed and Inferno was reformatted), it's possible that that caused some damage in Inferno's robot/beast personality block protocols that caused the ant mode to take over.
28** His beast mode was dominating his logic circuits. Whether it was a glitch, missing data, or the mentality of ants being powerful enough to override a robot's programming isn't mentioned. It might have been a combination. Remember that the protoforms were basically "baby" Transformers, the Axalon's mission was to go to a planet, wake them up and give them alternate modes, and explore and observe.
29*** Another possibility: Inferno's circumstances have nothing to do with him being crazy. He was built that way, but since he wasn't up and walking around until the pod fell to earth, got fiddled with by Tarantulas, etcetera, nobody knew that he was defective.
30** It's very similar to ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'': when the Animorphs turn into animals, they still have their own minds, but acquire many personality traits of the animal they morph to. In BW, Cheetor gained a love of running, Rhinox gained the natural instinct to just ram things, etc. Hell, if I recall correctly, the ant morph gave the Animorphs issues as well in terms of going insane. So there's precedent for people going insane when turning into an ant.
31** My take would be the whole mid scan reformat issue. he took out the Maximal chip, The ant form got downloaded, and then he put in the Predacon one. Making assumptions about programming, the loyalty code was missing when it was supposed to be installed, and by the time the Predacon replacement was put in, it had given up and improvised something from the rather assertive ant hive mind. All that actually got in from Tarantulas's work was the idea of being a predacon and "Terrorize!" Megatron clearly fixed some of it later, but as we saw with Rhinox's brief flipside, this will have had some bad side effects of it's own...
32** Furthermore, why ''didn't'' Waspinator go insane? Wasps are just as hive-minded as ants are.
33*** Many species of wasp are solitary.
34*** Also, Waspinator got his beast mode while in the main ship with the other Predacons, where they would have likely been able to treat any potential programming glitch during the process; Inferno was reprogrammed at short notice in the forest, with nobody taking the time to check his system for potential bugs.
35** Inferno's pod is shown to have landed safely, but his ant mode dominates his logic circuts, which is evident in that he ''viciously'' protects his stasis pod like it was a colony. When Tarantulas and Blackarachnia managed to convince him to join the Predacons, his "colony" became the ''Darksyde'' and his "queen" became Megatron (much to his chagrin). That, and Tarantulas was fiddling with the stasis pod for a while, so a combination of ant logic and Tarantulas's fiddling with the shell program caused glitches, resulting in the fanatically-loyal Predacon ant we know as Inferno.
36* I find it annoying that Silverbolt only tries to redeem Blackarachnia, using the claim she was built out of Maximal parts as one of the lines he tries to do so with. That's true, but so are Inferno, Quickstrike, and, God forbid, ''Rampage''. Yet, he doesn't do anything to try and redeem any of them. Granted Rampage is borderline irredeemable, but I get the idea that Inferno is redeemable after a ''thorough'' defragging of his hard drive. Granted, those guys are too aggressive to even let him.
37** Well for one thing, Silverbolt does not have romantic intentions towards Inferno, Quickstrike or Rampage. Second, you've somewhat answered your own question with that last sentence - none of them ''have'' an interest in ''being'' redeemed. All three are insane, Inferno is clearly devoted to his "queen", Rampage has no choice but to serve Megatron anyway, and the fact that Quickstrike was willing to join the Predacons without the influence of a shell program suggests he is mean by inclination. Also, Silverbolt didn't try to make Blackarachnia change sides until he was convinced there was SOME goodness in her. You may have noticed, he does not interact with her between their first encounter in "Tangled Web" (where he simply states it isn't right to strike a female, Predacon or not) and their next in "Bad Spark" (where it all started). He knew she was a Predacon, if unreasonably hot, yet he saved her life in the latter episode, she rescued him, and that convinced him there was something worth saving.
38** Also consider how ''Transmutate'' went down, and it's likely that Silverbolt realized that Rampage was unlikely to really ''want'' to be friendly with him, since he kinda destroyed the one thing that could have saved Rampage from insanity. Inferno is also ''psychotically'' loyal to Megatron, and Quickstrike is trigger-happy and violent; both of which Silverbolt is not exactly fond of.
39* In the final episode, the characters start quoting passages from the [[HollywoodApocrypha Transformers Bible]], (the Code of Primus) realizing that [[spoiler:everything they're doing corresponds to the passages]]. However, [[spoiler:''who is cataloging it?!'' The humans are currently in the "communicate with grunts" phase, so they couldn't have, and there aren't any other literate creatures around to write it down. perhaps it was the vok, they so crazy.]]
40** The Code of Primus was supposed to have ''predicted'' the beast wars, not catalog it, and was on the Ark and a copy on the Nemesis long before the beast wars take place. Clearly whoever wrote the code of primus just happened to write passages that vaguely fit the end of the beast wars.
41** Magmatron.
42** Waspinator?
43** Check the Wiki. The Code Of Primus is written ''by Primus'', who transcends time and space. He's basically God to Unicron's Satan. Anyway, each part of the text is written in the language of the time, so while it all exists at any point in time, it's intelligible unless you can translate that language. That's why you can't predict too far into the future: the language it's written in doesn't exist yet.
44* The idea of the transwarp wave moving into the future as it spreads. Not only does it conveniently reach Predacon / Maximal Era Cybertron (or would have if the Tripredacus Council hadn't taken steps), but no explanation is given for why anyone picking it up wouldn't just travel back to immediately after the explosion, rather than weeks / months ''after'' it.
45** Maybe transwarp drive can only go X units of time per distance traveled? So the same trip made 1 month later would arrive 1 month after the first trip.
46* In ''Call of the Wild'', the beast mode glitch is repeatedly referred to as an issue specifically pertaining to Maximal programming... so why is Dinobot affected?
47** Maybe Predacons have a similar glitch and Megatron's research was into whether or not the Maximal glitch was similar to theirs. Inferno believed he was an ant and Tarantulus seemed to enjoy his beast mode instincts a little ''too'' much, which supports this.
48** Dinobot reprogrammed his transformation code to be that of a Maximal, so that explains why his transformation was affected.
49** Really, it could just be that Megatron worded it poorly. There's no reason whatsoever to think it wasn't a glitch Maximals and Predacons shared. After all, Megatron never made any disparaging remarks about their glitchy programming, despite his ideas of Predacon superiority, so he probably just was referring to a glitch they all had, just using "Maximals" because they were the only ones affected in this situation.
50* Since you can just toss a damaged bot - no matter ''how'' damaged, just ask Waspy - into a CR chamber, that means a lot of knowledge of the future is on Earth circa G1 in the form of everyone who appeared to die during the series (except of course for Dinobot.) and even the ''existence'' of those whose data was lost and so have no memories should have been quite the clue that something was up. Then you have to consider the ships that weren't completely destroyed. Nothing seems to have been written about this, ever, in the decade-plus since BW.
51** Theoretically, there are traces of the Beast Wars still on earth. Unfortunately, these traces have been exposed to around two million years worth of environmental factors and are scattered around what could be generously described as "the middle of nowhere". Even if a human or Cybertronian of the G1 era were to dig up, say, a chunk of the ''Axalon'', they'd likely have no idea what the thing was and would certainly have no method of extracting any useful data from it (seeing as it's based on technology that doesn't exist yet).
52** If Rhinox, genius that he was, couldn't hook up relatively intact Maximal technology to Autobot tech to any useful effect, there's no way that [[Franchise/TransformersGeneration1 Wheeljack]] would be able tell what a chunk of two-million-year-weathered Maximal computer even ''is'' let alone pull any paradox-worthy information from it. It'd be like sending a laptop back to the Elizabethan era after hitting it with a sledgehammer and burying it in the mud.
53* Whose hand shoots up out of the ground at the very end of "Aftermath"? It shows Quickstrike and Silverbolt's stasis pods and the next episode starts at that same scene, but that hand is never seen again. I assumed it was Terrorsaur's and that that the lava he fell into was some kind of river that carried his damaged body downstream, but since they already had a death fake-out with Optimus it seemed clear that Terrorsaur wasn't coming back. So who was buried there?
54** It actually comes out of a crashed stasis pod. In the next episode, you can see various pieces of a Protoform lying around, so the hand either belonged to it, or that's how Silverbolt's or Quickstrike's hand looked like before they obtained their beast modes.
55* When Optimus was in the Vok pod, why did he choose Rattrap to lead, instead of Rhinox?
56** Rattrap makes a good 'underground' leader. He's more into sabotage and demolition than head-on battles. He's not above using dirty tricks, and you need to know a few when fighting Predacons. He's not likely to drag the team into head-on battles for nothing more than glory, or force them to fight to the death just for honour. And while he has a tendency to refuse dangerous orders, he ''really'' doesn't like Predacons so he was unlikely to sell the team out to Megatron. A touch of cowardice can be a very good survival trait. In the circumstances that Optimus was leaving his team in, he wanted them to survive, even if they had to take the battle into an 'underground' phase. It's just tough to see Rattrap as a leader because he's so coarse and abrasive, and also the rat alt-mode and Brooklyn accent.
57** Aside from that, Rhinox, being the ship's science officer, needed to stay behind and figure out something that could analyze the pod (preferably recovering Optimus in the process). Besides, Rhinox made it clear that he doesn't really like leading or being in the spotlight, preferring to do the vital behind-the-scenes work instead.
58** There's also the fact that Rattrap didn't really believe Optimus was "cut out for this commander gig" in the first few episodes of the series. He may have put him in charge to make him eat his own words, if he didn't truly think that Optimus wasn't cut out to be a leader.
59* Related to the above, who cast the second vote for Dinobot and why?
60** It was Cheetor. Assuming Rattrap and Dinobot voted for themselves, Rhinox counted off the third vote (in favor of Rattrap) without much reaction. Only when he realized that the final vote was in favor of Dinobot, Rhinox sighs in disappointment (suggesting Rhinox voted for Rattrap). The scene immediately cuts to Rattrap for his reaction, but Cheetor is seen deliberately turning his head and avoiding eye contact with Rattrap.
61* How did Rampage decimate Colony Omicron? He's powerful, but he was never shown to be [[OneManArmy that]] powerful. A Colony with presumably hundreds or thousands of Cybertronians should have been able to defend themselves against one crazy science project!
62** This is ''Rampage'' we're talking about. You saw how powerful he was before Megatron split his spark.
63** Speaking of Rampage, what episode did he quote Hannibal Lecter in?
64*** I'm not sure he did. I think they just did that on the Transformers Wiki.
65** To answer the original question, it's that Omicron was a ''human'' colony, though this wasn't made clear in the show. Basically, it was a human colony, and Depth Charge was responsible for guarding it- which explains why there would be a massive body count, and why Depth Charge would blame himself so much.
66*** Colony Omicron being a human colony is Fanon. Check the TF wiki, there's nothing that indicates that Colony Omicron was a human colony. It say, quote, "Colony Omicron was a Maximal colony established some three centuries after the Great War. Protoform X was incarcerated at the colony but he escaped and destroyed it, along with every Transformer. The only survivor was the security chief, Depth Charge. Haunted by the massacre and feeling guilty, Depth Charge spent four stellar cycles hunting down X."
67*** New explanation, then- Rampage's indestructible spark and cunning mind allowed him to evade capture on several occasions. Plus, no-one ever said he personally slaughtered everyone on Colony Omicron- he could've rigged a kind of explosive device to level the colony, as Optimus said he did. Nothing said he just ran loose on a mad [[AccidentalPun rampage]]- he could've been more of a stealthy mass murderer who just happened to also be immortal and massive, so it took Depth Charge several years to track him down.
68** It's easy to forget, but the cast we follow are not the average Cybertronians. They're all highly trained and equipped fighters. Sure, most of Maximals were scientists, but they were prepared to explore dangerous wilds and defend themselves far from civilization. Everyone we know is a certified badass by Cybertronian standards and that's before they were hardened by the Beast Wars let alone mutated into powered-up Transmetals. Despite everything they'd been through, Rampage was enough to terrify them when he appeared and only a few of them were ever strong enough to defeat him one-on-one. Now imagine what would happen if he was up against run of the mill civilian bots with, at best, some basic cop-equivalents to defend them. I have no trouble imagining him tearing through a colony of Maximals, humans, or both like tissue paper before enough heavy hitters were summoned to take him down.
69* In the pilot episode, how come the Maximals and Predacons seem to rename themselves once they arrive on Earth? Granted, it would be silly for someone to be called Rhinox when they transform into a bulldozer, but other incarnations of the Transformers don't have scene like this.
70** To be honest, previous incarnations of the franchise were much more transparent in being toy commercials, and a lot less effort and thought was put into them at times because of it. Witness things like when the Seekers in G1 were just flying pyramids (in the first episode)... and yet turned into robots with obvious pieces of Earth jets on them. Also the Transformer names in the first generation were much more general... names like "Rumble", "Blaster", "Soundwave", "Ironhide", and so on may imply a general function but not a specific form. The extended universe further tells us that names are very important to Transformers... one of the greatest things you can do to shame a Transformer is to take away their name and their right to claim a new one for themselves (see: The Fallen). The Maximals are essentially beginning a new stage of their life and get overcome with enthusiasm (which, appropriately, starts with the youngest member of the crew) and choose new names that fit their new forms more specifically to commemorate it. In many ways they're getting an early start on acknowledging the beginning of the Beast Wars, by taking more beast-themed names for themselves.
71* In the episode "Master Blaster", other than to sell Megatron's newest toy, what reason did he have not to just kill off the Maximals when he had the chance? Does it relate to securing the Decepticons' sparks from another time storm or something?
72** My guess, ego. Megatron doesn't ''just'' want his enemies dead. He wants them to see his newfound power and know just how badly he's beaten them.
73* Maximals and Predacons; Why do they needed to new alt-forms when they are hinted to have animal alt-forms already?
74** When they crash-landed on Earth, they need to take organic-type forms to survive the high levels of Energon. The scanner detected the nearest compatible life and modified their forms to match. Their previous alt-forms were all-metal (as seen in the prequel comics, which incidentally show the Predacons having contruction-equipment alt-forms), since they hadn't needed to use organic-forms on Cybertron.
75** The prequel comics showed that they all had vehicle forms before. Strangely tiny vehicles considering their relative size to their ancestors, but vehicles nonetheless.
76* In the last episode, we find out that the Nemesis has blueprints for the Ark and its shuttle... Why? How?
77** When did this happen? Rhinox knew about this because he was in the Ark and so would have access to the blueprints. When did the Nemesis show its knowledge of the Ark?
78** Dinobot II sent to info from the Nemesis to the Ark while Megatron and Optimus were fighting.
79*** My bad. New idea: The Nemesis took scans of the enemy vessel while it was attacking. It detected it because the Ark wasn't trying to hide its existence, it's just an emergency shuttle whose existence was lost in the interim of eons and was probably presumed by the Autobots to be destroyed or accidentally jettisoned when the Ark crashed, when the show reveals that the Maximals used it to return to their future. An episode of Beast Machines has a brief focus on the shuttle.
80* What the hell is wrong with Quickstrike? He's never reprogrammed as a Predacon, but he's a trigger happy psychopath from the start.
81** He was born without memories since his data tracks were wiped by the transwarp explosion so he was just acting on pure instinct. Being a Maximal doesn't make a bot nice, Rattrap's fairly unpleasant, Cheetor's pretty trigger happy and Rhinox, Optimus and Silverbolt have all shown rather nasty sides when really pushed. The only real differences we're shown between Maximals and Predacons are which values they hold and an aggression boost for the Preds. Both Dinobot and Blackarachnia have little trouble adjusting to life with Maximals as allies. Quickstrike is just suited to a hyper aggressive, back-stabbing lifestyle.
82** Or, quite alternately, it's Quickstrike's beast forms influencing his psyche; scorpions and cobras are rather aggressive animals.
83*** Neither scorpions or cobras are aggressive. The only non-hunting times they attack is when they feel cornered.
84* How exactly did Dinobot II's death kill him? He had half of Rampage's immortal spark. While Rampage dying made sense, given he experienced something that likely would've killed a normal Transformer BEFORE the blade went through his spark (as their beast modes are specifically to PROTECT them from that) and heck, maybe it worked BECAUSE half of his Spark was in Rampage at the time. So how exactly did just getting caught in the bridge explosion do Dinobot II in?
85** My theory is that the reason why Depth Charge was able to wound Rampage because he only had half a spark. While cutting the spark in half allows Megatron to control Rampage, it might have also weakened him. If that spark goes out, so did the one in Dinobot II. That's why Dinobot II felt whole again because Rampage's spark was destroyed permanently.
86** It's also possible that while Megatron's blade was of refined/stable energon, the crystal Depth Charge used was, as he put it, "raw energon", and since it was a crystal, that meant it was unstable. Maybe that instability was reason why it was able to kill him?
87* How did the Maximals get their asses handed to them so badly in "Coming of the Fuzors- Part 2"? The Predacons have been running their guns almost non-stop and they also had to breach the shields, while the Maximals are at their base where they could reload. Furthermore, they would have had the Axalon's autoturrets to support them. And yet, it's the Maximals that run out of ammo almost immediately while the Predacons pummel them into scrap.
88** RuleOfDrama, perhaps?
89** Actually, for all his intelligence and cunning, Megatron can be just as incompetent and arrogant as his subordinates. He was really sure of his victory that he didn't mind wasting all of their ammunition. He may have even ordered Tarantulas and Waspinator to bring in the extra ammo. I think the Maximals did reload but they didn't expect the Predacons brought in all their firepower in one battle. Also, I think the turrets were disabled following the quantum surge (or they may have still been offline after Rhinox diverted so much of the base's processing power to monitoring his trip into the Matrix to retrieve Optimus).
90** None of them were close to being on top of their games. Rattrap, Dinobot, and Cheetor had been fighting all night while outnumbered and outgunned. Rhinox had just barely gotten back from a prolonged near-death experience while searching for Optimus in the afterlife. All four of them had been drained to exhaustion and had minutes to try to recover. Even Sentinel was drained by diverting so much power to make Rhinox's trip and Optimus' revival possible. Meanwhile, the Preds hadn't been nearly as battered and had time to resupply. Running out of ammo probably wasn't the best way to show it, but them being quickly overwhelmed makes perfect sense.
91* What exactly was Blackarachnia planning to do with the Ark anyways? Her plans made for quite the subplot that in the end only served to up for TheReveal of the Ark, and she doesn't hint what she was planning to actually do with it, and we know she wasn't planning to kill Optimus Prime like Megatron was since she's a Maximal protoform.
92** As you've said, Blackarachnia '''IS''' a Maximal protoform. Imagine her point of view being living with a Predacon BadBoss that would gladly sacrifice minion after minion to get the job done. The idea of Megatron killing Optimus Prime and her as collateral damage is something that is within her realm of things that are believable. She most likely wanted to fortify the Ark's defenses to shoo her comrades away or pilot the ship somewhere else where Megatron can't find it and it's occupants.
93* How did Megatron get to the stasis pod so quickly in ''Fallen Comrades''? He got there just as the Maximals did, even though it was 100 kilometers through ice and snow, and the Maximals were within visual range of the pod when they got there.
94** It's possible he had some sort of transport ready to be there. I mean, Blackarachnia did make a transport in the "[[Recap/BeastWarsS2E11TheAgendaPart1 The Agenda]]"
95* Since when did Cybertronians gain the ability to eat and digest organic material? (i.e. Tarantulas eating a rat in "Victory" and Rhinox eating vines in "The Low Road")
96** Since upgrading into smaller, more effective robot bodies after nearly collapsing from not having enough Cybertonium.
97** The Maximals are part of a crew of explorers. They were meant to go to alien worlds and study their environments. Since they aren't likely to have too many alien worlds with naturally occurring wild sedans, the Cybertronians of their era have been upgraded to allow them to take realistic beast mode disguises to replace the obviously mechanical ones their ancestors used. The new beast modes include a rudimentary mimic of the animal's digestive system to let the Transformer gain chemical energy from its diet as space faring crews can't expect every planet to have energon deposits to fuel up on once their supplies get scarce. It also helps sell the disguise aspect of their organic beast modes to mimic the behavior of the real animal.
98** Cybertronians being able to eat and digest organic material goes back to the original G1 cartoon. The Insecticons somehow managed to adapt the ability just by being alone on Earth for long enough. It isn't much of a stretch to assume that this ability would be seen as useful enough to replicate in the next generation of Transformers as a back-up for situations of limited Energon supplies. Transformers may have seen it as gross before, but it's a far better option than slowly starving to death.
99* Why is Depth Charge's transformation words reversed? He says beast mode to transform into a robot, and "Depth Charge Maximize" to go into beast mode.
100* Why did they leave Dinobot II to die? Optimus could have caught him. If Optimus was really that busy ripping a transwarp cell off the Nemesis, he could have ordered their other flyer, Silverbolt, to rescue Dinobot (Bolt was, at that moment, in the shuttle which had just rammed the Nemesis). Actually, why didn't Optimus order Silverbolt to accompany him when he infiltrated the ship? He needed backup badly, and while Silverbolt was doing some work helping Rhinox fire up the Ark's engines, Rattrap could have easily filled in for him.
101** The Nemesis was tearing the entire mountain up and had previously vaporized their most powerful flyer. Anyone flying up there would be blown to bits if they made a slight mistake. Optimus had to fly up through its grinders and face the strongest remaining Predacons alone in hopes of doing anything at all to either disable the ship or at least buy the others some time to get the Ark to safety. This was a suicide mission and Optimus knows it. He's willing to go himself, but he is not willing to lose more of his friends by dragging anyone else with him to almost certain death.
102** As for Dinobot, there wasn't time. The ship was exploding at the moment. If Optimus couldn't run or fly close enough to grab Dinobot and escape, he'd never be able to call someone else, wait for them to arrive, and then have them fly over and get Dinobot. Even if he did, we're still talking about Dinobot II here. He may have started to regain the original's code of honor, but he's still not the original. We have no idea what he could do after all was said and done. The original Dinobot was clear that there was no life waiting for him back on Cybertron after his crimes. Dinobot II would have even less chance of acceptance from either Maximals or Predacons. If anything, he would face the same fate as his "brother" Protoform X. All and all, dying in battle with honor as he did is probably the best fate Dinobot II could have hoped for and exactly what he would want.
103* Why exactly did the time storm caused by Megatron killing Optimus Prime only effect the Maximals? Removing Optimus from the equation would have massive implications for the entire timeline, and would impact the Predacons as well.
104** Which is precisely why Megatron didn't want to take that risk. It was implied in The Agenda that Megatron knew where the Ark was, but never tried to to anything drastic (locating the Ark's whereabouts, and then blasting it shut as Silverbolt mentioned). Before resorting to desperate measures, he tried to either find a "safer" method to twist history into the Predacons favor or try to take advantage of any unknown tool/weapon he could find that he would then bring back into the future to aid him in dominating the current Cybertron.
105** We only saw the full time storm for a brief period. Who knows what its full effects would be? The Maximals took the most immediate effects because their existence depends directly on Prime surviving to provide his schematics to create them. The natural Predacons could at least conceivably come to exist in some form even with the changes. If the time storm was allowed to continue beyond the point where the Maximals were erased, we would probably have seen major changes and possible erasure of the surviving Darksyde Preds.
106* Aside from RuleOfCool, why did Megatron become a Dragon or even a Transmetal 2 for that matter? Was he a Transmetal 2 or was that just coming off of the toyline name? Does that make Optimal Optimus transmetal 2 as well? Would the result have been closer to Optimal Optimus if he had not been thrown into the lava?
107** He's never actually called a Transmetal 2, no. And neither is Optimal Optimus ever called a Transmetal for that matter, even though the toy labels him as one. Chalk it up to the inconsistency between toy and media that's plagued Transformers from day one. As for how, he transformed because he had the Spark of the original Megatron inside him, same as what happened to Optimus. And unless the original Megatron somehow influenced Beast Megs' new dragon form (despite there being no indication of such a thing), then him becoming a dragon was simply because the toy did and the cartoon had to follow suit.
108** Megatron was under a number of unusual circumstances during his mutation. It's possible that the dragon mode was created by a combination of a "compromise" between his T-Rex form and G1 Megatron's weapon mode and a forced adaptation to the magma for his own survival. It's a huge stretch, but we are working backwards from a toy that had already dictated that he somehow become a mythical creature when everyone else was limited to existing animals or fusions thereof.
109** And if you REALLY wanna get fan-wanky, Megs' TM2 toy would later be redecoed in blue and become the character Cryotek. Later fiction would establish Cryotek as a Cybertronian mobster who took Megatron under his wing and taught him everything there is to know about being a Predacon/criminal/jerk. So just maybe Megatron chose his old boss' beast mode, either as a form of respect (unlikely, since he stabbed Cryotek in the back first chance he got) or in a 'student surpasses the master' kind of way.
110* How exactly did Starscream's spark end up on prehistoric earth to possess Waspinator again? He died in 2005, millennia after the events of Beast Wars.
111** Starscream did say he "drifted helplessly through space, beyond the reach of time itself". It's possible that during his time adrift, he ended up encountering some sort temporal anomaly that sent him back through time. It's also possible that because of this, this episode might even be set before Starscream's Ghost from the G1 cartoon from his perspective.
112* The reason the Maximals and Predacons took alt modes based on animals was to protect them from getting overloaded with Energon, which would damage their bodies. So how come that when Terrorsaur got supercharged with Energon, his body didn't get destroyed?
113** Different form of Energon, it seems. Future TF series (particularly TF Prime) would introduce other variations, like Tox-en (poisonous) and Red Energon (speed boosts), so it's not unreasonable to think the same here.
114** Terrorsaur was massively overcharging himself. When it ran out, we saw him outright exhausted, not just reduced to normal. We also saw that his second charge lasted for far less time than his first, so it was getting less effective for him. He was almost certainly damaging himself each time, but was either too dumb or too drunk on power to care. He's probably very lucky that Optimus and Rattrap destroyed the mountain before he could use it long enough to damage himself permanently with it.
115** The problem with the energon on Earth was that it was all in it's raw form. Raw enegergon is powerful but also unstable and dangerous but once it's stable energon means power for a transformer. After the Vok weapon went off in the first season the energon was all either detonated or turned stable so the problem enmded there. As for Terrorsaur, the energon he found was stable enough to power himself up, stable energon does happen in nature soemtimes.
116* How come Transmetal Optimus Primal's alt mode is a ''blue gorilla on a hoverboard''? Aside from the gorilla part, isn't that rather random for his character?
117** Because that's what his toy was, so the show had to follow suit. At least a hoverboard is kind of a lateral move from the rockets he had before, so he could keep flying when necessary.
118*** I'm aware that it came from the toy? That doesn't answer the question of why they (as in the toy designers) gave him such a ridiculous design.
119*** Basically all the Transmetal figures' third mode is random. Tarantulas turns into a motorcycle thing, Cheetor gets wings and rockets and Megatron gets giant fans and rollerskates. Optimus getting a flying surfboard is pretty par for the course.
120* What is the in-universe reason that being possessed by Starscream's spark didn't result in Waspinator getting a more powerful body? I know that the writers probably hadn't thought of it yet and he is the butt-monkey but thore are out of universe reasons
121** You could theorize that after said possession he became immortal as increasingly destructive injuries came his way with him recovering every time.
122** It has been stated that Starscream's spark was a "mutant" spark. Perhaps that's the reason why it didn't make Waspinator change.
123** Starscream's spark is immortal, but it was nowhere near as powerful as Optimus Prime's or the original Megatron's. Those two were freaks of nature compared to most Transformers so it follows suit that their sparks had far more energy than a mere mutant like Starscream who was never portrayed as being particularly strong.
124** Optimus and Megatron were also both transmetals when they took on the second spark and changed. Being in an already mutant form likely allowed them to mutate further.
125* In "Double Jeopardy", where did Blackarachnia go at the end? Megatron claimed that she went missing. However, she couldn't have gotten very far -- the Energon overload would have forced her to change to beast form eventually. And since Cheetor shot her spider legs off, she would have been legless in her black widow form.
126** She probably left the battle to heal and then went exploring. Missing just means nobody knows where she is, not that she necessarily went far.
127* Why does Optimal Optimus have a yellow color scheme and birdlike feet? Neither Primal nor Prime ever had those characteristics.
128** The feet aren't bird-like. They're meant to be gorilla-like. As for the yellow/orange color scheme, your guess is as good as mine.
129* The idea of the transwarp wave moving into the future as it spreads. Not only does it conveniently reach Predacon / Maximal Era Cybertron (or would have if the Tripredacus Council hadn't taken steps), but no explanation is given for why anyone picking it up wouldn't just travel back to immediately after the explosion, rather than weeks / months ''after'' it.
130** It was stated at the beginning of the series that transwarp technology was experimental. They might still have been perfecting it.
131* In ''Call of the Wild'', the beast mode glitch is repeatedly referred to as an issue specifically pertaining to Maximal programming... so why is Dinobot affected?
132** In the first episode, he mentioned he'd reprogrammed his activation code to that of a Maximal, so maybe there's that.
133** The Predacons are shown as, at best, second-class citizens, meaning that they have to make due with poorer technology and locales. It's possible that the Preds removed that particular glitch so they could adapt to life on more worlds. It might also explain why the first few battles tended to leave the Maximals running in fear: being more in tune with the mindsets of their (mostly) predator animal forms, they would have an advantage.
134** Come to think of it, the glitch makes no sense at all. The Maximals primarily use their alt-modes to unobtrusively explore inhabited worlds. How would they do their studies on the local populations if they started tweaking out after a few days in beast-mode?
135*** My guess would be that most inhabited worlds aren't as rich with raw Energon as proto-Earth, allowing the Maximals exploring them to be able to surreptitiously spend a good amount of time in robot mode to compare notes with their comrades. Either that, or the glitch is a side-effect of the presence of excess ambient Energon radiation.
136*** You also have to take into account that the glitch only comes up because they have to stay in their alt-modes for days to protect themselves from Energon poisoning. As explorers, they would have hidden their ship and be returning to it during downtime each day where they could safely return to robot mode and the ship's shields would protect them from any dangerous radiations.
137*** Also worth noting is the circumstances. The Maximals didn't have much time to rest or wind down due to the constant Predacon attacks. Much like a human lacking sleep, this likely caused them to become less functional. If anything, they were going stir-crazy.
138* Question about Megatron's season 1 design. How come it appears to have large dinosaur teeth near his throat? The teeth from his Beast Mode are in the T-rex head, which becomes part of his arm in his robot form.
139** They're not teeth, merely rounded cylinders that are a part of the design. It's doubtful that they're meant to be anything other than metal since the original figure had this part be unpainted black plastic, the Robotmasters toy of BW Megatron made that area a bright purple, multiple future toys would make them silver, and the TV series made them a metallic purple/indigo color that is visibly different from his beast mode teeth.The animators likely changed them cylinders from solid black to give the model more color variety.

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