In orbit, the false moon is now surrounded by an energy field. Tigatron and Cheetor observe it, wondering what's going on, but Optimus contacts them by radio to order them back to base. Optimus is convinced Rhinox will find a way to deal with the aliens.
At the alien landing site, the voice says the termination sequence is complete, and they should return to nexus 0. The entire compound beams away.
At the base, the Predacons see this, and wonder what happened to the moon, or what's coming next. The fake moon opens up, turning doughnut shaped. Inside is a small sphere and unfolds into a cannon. Megatron figures it's the instrument of their destruction. He has his computer scan the Maximal base and the location of the Transwarp cell. With the Axalon's shields down and alien scanning frequencies, he can keep tabs on the location of his troops. The Spiders are in the stasis hold, and Inferno is moving closer to them.
Tarantulas is working on the pod (Voiced by Scott McNeil in this scene) and it becomes apparent that two can't travel in one pod. Blackarachnia gets ready to kill Tarantulas when he's finished when she's shot and disarmed by Inferno, who proceeds to incinerate Tarantulas, after catching a missile the late threw at him.
At the Predacon Base, the computer informs Megatron that Tarantulas has gone offline, and his upload to the stasis pod was interrupted. Megatron decries that Inferno must've done something dumb.
The Maximals return to the base, and wonder why the shields are offline.
Inferno tinkers with the cell, but Blackarachnia jumps him, after a long, and impressive melee fight, she disarms him and shoots him in the head with his own gun. She the goes to Tarantulas' charred body, lamenting that without him, she can't escape this planet. She connects into him to copy his datatracks to finish the ship. She drifts in his head, but soon hears Tarantulas laughing, before shrieking in pain and disconnecting.
On the bridge, the Maximals find their comrades webbed to the ceilling and realize the spiders are here. They put the two in the CR chamber and Optimus orders Rattrap and Airazor to find the spiders, alive. He can't spare the power to turn Sentinel's internal defense online.
At the Predacon base, the computer tells Megatron Tarantulas' plan proceeds. But the alien Planet Buster begins powering up. It is firing a beam at the planet, super heating it to trigger the Energon, causing the planet to eventually explode.
Optimus turns the shield online, and Megatron loses his sensor readings. The Darkside shakes and rumbles under the effect of the beam. The Predacons lament their imminent destruction, but Megatron figures Tarantulas will "save" them.
Blackarachnia finishes her upload, and the pod is ready. But she has two guns to her head. Rattrap and Airazor found her. The rocks holding the Axalon begin to fall, causing the ship to shake and turn. Cheetor informs Optimus that Rhinox will not be fixed on time either. But Rattrap summons Optimus to the Stasis hold.
Optimus sees the modified pod and forces Blackarachnia to change the controls to respond to him. He plans to fly up to the planet buster, and use a transwarp explosion, and fly back to the Planet to clear the blast. Cheetor, Tigatron and Airazor all volunteer to do it, but Optimus insists he must. He orders Rattrap to rig the charge, while Blackarachnia finally agrees to reprogram the controls.
The pod is ready, and Optimus notes how it's cozy like a coffin. He thanks Blackarachnia for her help. The Maximals bid farewell and good luck to their leader, to Blackarachnia's annoyance at their emotions. Airazor decks her for that. With that done, the pod takes off. Rattrap calls dibs on Optimus' quarters if he dies.
At the Darksyde, Megatron realizes Optimus is the one piloting the pod, and he savours this.
Cheetor manages to get a sensor reading on the pod through the shields, using a trick Rhinox taught him. Inside the CR Chamber, Rhinox seems to realize what Optimus is doing.
The Pod flies up the beam, and Optimus arms the bomb and gets ready to blow the hatch... but it is magnet-sealed. The controls become unresponsive, and he gets a Transmission from Megatron. He taunts Optimus on the irony that both of them got the same idea to blow the Planet Buster. But in Megatron's version of the plan, the pilot goes down with the ship.
The Maximals realize he's not jettisoning. Blackarachnia's eyes glow green and Tarantulas' voice comes out, saying "Good Night, Optimus." before laughing (None of the Maximals seem to catch that).
Meanwhile on the Pod...
We hear the sound of Optimus' gun and glass shattering, as the planet buster explodes in a massive shock wave. Debris flies by the camera as we see the Explosion from many angles. These include Optimus' head (only visible on repeat viewing) and more recognizably Optimus' chest plate.
The End?
Other Voices form a very good season finale, building up on several things dropped during the latter part of the season. Optimus' sacrifice and death and Megatron's taunts pretty much guaranteeing the viewers would return to see how things would play out next seasons. Though there's a few continuity errors between both parts, it still forms a riveting two parter, that flows well without annoying padding or slow downs.
- Megatron references Optimus Prime's many deaths.
- The script originally called for Megatron to project Prime's head as he said the line.
- For one of only two times in the series, Inferno calls Megatron by name rather than "royalty" or "queen".
- Other Voices begin a pattern for all future alien episodes. From now all, they are all titled "Other" followed by a word starting with V.
- The Alien's line in the first episode: "That which does not become part of the one—shall become void" mirrors a line given to Unicron in the Marvel Generation 1 Transformers Universe comic: "That which does not become a part of me shall become one with the great void.".
- The Aliens having forms we cannot understand is a lie, as we'll see in future episode.
- The nature of their project is never expanded upon. In fact, both Larry DiTillio and Bob Forward have different visions of the Vok and their project's goal. I'll go into details at a later time.
- The first season of Beast Wars cost $18 million, according to Bob Forward.
- Since season 1 is over, I figured we'd celebrate by recapping some of the highlights. Mainly, each time Waspinator got hurt!
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