Fanfic / TFA Kaleidoscope

TFA Kaleidoscope is a fanfic written by Emotwo. It is an Alternate Universe Fic retelling of Transformers: Animated with different characters in different positions. As one reviewer put it, it's the world of Transformers Animated viewed through a kaleidoscope.

The story begins almost the same way as it did in the show. A Ragtag Bunch of Misfits finds the Allspark and are hunted down by the Decepticons because of it. However, they found something else along with it; the large non-functioning body of a fellow Cybertronian. After Megatron's assault on their ship, the Autobot group crash lands on Earth and remains trapped at the bottom of a lake for fifty years. Meanwhile, a scientist named Issac Sumdac finds Megatron's body and uses it to start his own Robotics company.

And that's where the similarities end as the story diverges from the main canon.

The story has not been updated since September of 2019.

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TFA Kaleidoscope provides examples of:

• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Given to a great number of characters in this story, mostly due to the Great War having a deeper effect on them.
  • Unlike the cartoon, Wheeljack is exiled alongside Ratchet and the others on the Orion Crew whereas in the original, he was still living on Cybertron.
  • Sari was forced to live on the streets after her father died due to not having any legal documentation to confirm her existence, all while Powell takes the company in a direction that the Professor would have hated were he there to see it.
  • Optimus is no longer the idealistic young bot he was in canon. Here, he's a much older Shell-Shocked Veteran, and the Great War has caused him quite a bit of trauma.
  • Besides living through the Great War, Ratchet also lived through Cybertron's totalitarian caste-system before the war began. It's clear from his conversation with Optimus that he remembers every horrible moment of it.
  • Zig-zagged with Arcee. On one hand, she doesn't remember the war and isn't forced into serving as the Decepticons' access key to Omega Supreme. On the other hand, it's because she doesn't remember her past that she's part of the exiled Orion Crew and her inability to remember who she was causes her a lot of grief.
• Adaptational Personality Change:
  • Sentinel is described by the author as less of a Boisterous Weakling here and more of a snooty elitist.
  • Since Longarm is a separate character from Shockwave, his personality is more akin to G1 Red Alert.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Optimus, due to being an outcast, is detached from the Orion Crew while his show version was close with all of them (barring Wheeljack and Arcee, who weren't members of the crew in Animated).
• Alternate Universe Fic: The nature of the story is that it's an AU with some characters in different positions either as composite characters, decomposite characters, and some Truer to the Text characters.
• Arc Villain:
  • The CMX Police drone functions as this for the "Who Polices the Police Drones?" arc, functioning as the Starter Villain for the Orion crew.
  • Pyro Goblin is this for the "Fire Convoy" arc, serving as the first villain for Optimus and Sari.
  • Starscream, naturally, for the "Starscream Descending" arc.
  • The Beast Pretenders are the main villains for the "Beasts of Burdens" arc, with Prometheus Black as the Greater-Scope Villain.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Arcee was practically a Living MacGuffin in the main series and only played key roles in flashbacks or near the end of the third season. She's one of the main characters and a member of the Orion crew here.
  • Wheeljack only ever had a minor cameo appearance in the show, but here he's a member of the Orion crew like Arcee is.
  • The Beast Pretenders are the mutants Meltdown created in the show, only given backstory and personality rather than having implied backgrounds and being little more than one-off monsters.
• Badass Normal: The Detroit police manage to do pretty well when fighting super-powered villains, rogue weapons, and mutants.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: One of the reasons for Optimus's protectiveness of Sari is due to her showing him kindness even though he tried to kick her out of her only home.
• Berserk Button: Don't compare Starscream to Megatron. Also, don't look down on him or compare him to the Autobots either. He will start getting louder and more trigger happy if someone does.
• Black-and-White Morality: Propaganda from the Great War paints the conflict as simple: Autobots are good, Decepticons are evil. Ratchet states that this is all just lies and that the actual reality of the war was far grayer.
• Blatant Lies: When Arcee asks how Sari knows so much about the layout of Sumdac Tower, she hastily and awkwardly answers that she'd been there on field trips. Of course, she comes off as a Bad Liar to the readers, but Arcee pretty much accepts the answer, in part because they're in a hurry and she doesn't really have time to think about it.
• Body Horror: Time has not been kind to Optimus while he was in stasis. Before his repairs, his body was heavily eroded over and rustic, with his face being almost completely gone and left in its place was a warped metal skull alongside exposed wiring. Sari thankfully uses the factory equipment to repair him when she learns how to use her key, though she doesn't manage to fully repair him until later.
• Broken Hero: Optimus, even more so than his show counterpart could ever hope to be. Growing up under the oppressive rule of a ruthless caste system, being drafted into a seemingly endless war where he killed countless and witnessed all manner of death and destruction, then losing everything to hide the ultimate source of power in the universe and effectively cutting himself off from all life of his own volition is way too much for any normal bot to bear. Yet he perseveres all the same.
• The Cameo: Swindle and Lockdown make minor cameo appearances in the flashback chapter titled "Ripples".
• Chekhov's Gun: Following the arrest of Pyro Goblin, one of the chapter epilogue scenes ends with energy sparks arching across Kelly's police car for a brief moment, after Sari had used her Key extensively on it during the battle. Knowing Transformers, guess which Cybertronian is most associated with being a police car?
• Composite Character:
  • Ratchet has the role of Optimus' canonical counterpart, while still maintaining his position as the team's medic.
  • Wheeljack gets some elements of Ratchet from the show, as he's now the team's scientist.
  • For Cybertronians in general, their method of gaining new vehicular modes is more akin to Transformers: Prime.
  • A good chunk of Fanzone's Butt-Monkey status gets transferred over to Kelly here, though that's not to say she was never the butt of many jokes back in RID (2001) nor is it to say that Fanzone still doesn't get this treatment.
• Culture Clash:
  • Optimus has this with his own kind. Since Optimus lived through both the Pre-war Cybertron and the Great War, he's a lot more cynical and pragmatic than the crew of the Orion, which is composed of more idealistic Post-war bots.
  • The Autobots have this with Earth customs since machinery on Earth is non-living and the planet has a divided opinion on them. The fact that Ratchet wants nothing to do with Earth and actively prohibits his crew from exploring their new surroundings doesn't help.
• Dark and Troubled Past:
  • Optimus grew up on a Pre-war Cybertron, which enforced a caste-system that deprived them of choice. Then he was forced to fight in the Great War, where he fought and killed countless bots in many battles. This rendered him a heavily traumatized war-veteran with a pretty large chip on his shoulder due to killing many for what he considers arbitrary reasoning.
  • Sari was evicted from her home and forced to live on the streets due to being unable to prove her existence.
  • Arcee was a teacher back on Cybertron, but the Great War caused her to lose everything, including her memories. Since she sustained severe damage to her core-programming, she was barred from returning to her original occupation.
• Darker and Edgier: The story has a notably more mature and serious tone than the show did. Themes such as isolation, orphanhood, and War Is Hell tend to be pretty prevalent.
• Death by Adaptation: Issac Sumdac dies somewhere before the story begins. There are some elements of Uncertain Doom in there though, and the details on what precisely happened are sparse, though it's implied that Megatron did not deliberately cause it, since Isaac was searching for his body.
• Declaration of Protection: Optimus makes it clear to the Autobot that he's not just the Allspark's protector anymore, he's Sari's protector now too.
• Decomposite Character: Longarm and Shockwave are split into separate characters rather than Longarm being an undercover identity for Shockwave.
• Demoted to Extra: After they stop Starscream, Optimus and Sari become Out of Focus, not counting a cameo appearance in "Ghost in the Machine, Pt. 3". This is somewhat justified by Optimus not being part of the Orion crew and his key objectives being to protect the Allspark and Sari. Unless those end up overlapping with any of the other Autobots' predicaments, he won't get involved much. In Sari's case, she's a street orphan here and not the Autobots' benefactor and guide to human society, so she's not really familiar with any of them barring Optimus (her guardian) and Bumblebee.
• Determinator: Optimus will do whatever it takes to protect the Allspark and has forced himself to endure immense pain to do so. Ratchet stated that for him to reactivate with all his fried circuitry would render him unconscious again, but not only does he force himself to reawaken for a long period of time, he also traverses underwater into the city while it's in the middle of a rainstorm, despite any contact with liquid making his agony even worse.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Scalpel, the Decepticon's resident Mad Scientist, experiments and tortures his subordinates if they don't show up for work.
• Exact Words: Fanzone has Sari promise not to let him catch her pelting anyone with tomatoes again. Her response?
  Sari: I swear I won't let you catch me doing something like this ever again.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Played for Laughs. Prometheus's criminals may be bad people and know it, but they apparently find lawyers to be too horrid and amoral even by their standards.
• Fantastic Caste System: The Pre-War Cybertron enforced a segregation system where you are born for a specific class and are to stay there for the rest of your life. There is no choice in this system and what class you're born into determines how you are treated. Optimus and Ratchet lived through this and the system's cruel treatment of the lower classes was a part of what lead to the Great War. The Post-War Cybertron has completely abolished this, and Optimus is determined to make sure it stays that way.
• Fantastic Racism: Cybertronians in general have issues with organics.
  • Ratchet tolerates them to a degree, but makes it a point to his crew that they need to maintain their distance from them at all times.
  • Optimus, on the other hand, is okay with humans, but mentions having encountered other forms of organic life that were less than friendly.
  • Blackarachnia tends to be on the receiving end of this from fellow Decepticons due to her half-organic nature.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Downplayed. Optimus doesn't exactly become friends with the other Autobots after they finish dealing with Starscream, but they at least tolerate him and decide that the Allspark is safer in his hands than theirs.
• Freudian Excuse: Optimus's reason for taking the Allspark away from Cybertron was that he felt nobody should have that kind of power. He also felt that with the Allspark's ability to create an immeasurable number of Cybertronians, it would render them expendable units that nobody cares about.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: The Beast Pretenders started out as just a trio of thugs and robbers that the Autobots ended up stopping by complete accident. After some experiments by Prometheus Black, they become powerful animal themed superbeings that can go toe-to-toe with the Orion crew and put the city police on edge.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Wheeljack's got the genius part down. Gadgets, on the other hand, are not really his strong suit, despite his insistence to the contrary.
• Galactic Conqueror: While the Decepticons did their fair share of conquest during the war, Optimus stated that the Autobots have done just as much conquest, if not more, than the 'Cons before the war even started. Just like the Decepticons, all of this was for the sake of power.
• Glass Cannon: Optimus starts out as this, as he was reconstructed with inferior Earth metals. He still has his strength but is more fragile than the police drones and takes a lot of damage when he fights Pyro Goblin. After Sari fully repairs him and he merges with a nearby fire truck, he upgrades to an all-out Lightning Bruiser.
• A God Am I: After their mutations, Dauros starts to get angrier and more prideful to the point where he develops a full-blown God-complex and sees anyone who opposes him as sacrilegious heretics.
• Greater-Scope Villain:
  • Megatron is this for the "Police Drones" and the "Ghost in the Machine" arcs since he was controlling the machines that were trying to kill the Autobots in both cases. He's also this for the whole story at the moment.
  • Prometheus Black is never encountered by the Autobots or Detroit Police in the "Beasts of Burdens" arc, but he's the one responsible for everything they have to face. He was also this for the "Fire Convoy" arc as well, being the one who hired Pyro Goblin to steal from Sumdac Systems in the first place.
• Great Offscreen War: The Great War happens in the backstory and plays an integral part in the backgrounds of Ratchet, Wheeljack, Arcee, and Optimus. The closest we get are small glimpses and minor flashbacks from Optimus every now and then.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: The Great War apparently ran on this. The Decepticons were galactic warlords who sought power, but the Autobots were very much the same in this regard, having been conquerors before the war started and used various amoral tactics during the war itself.
• Have We Met?: Some of the people Sari interacts with find her familiar but have a hard time recognizing her. She often does her best to avoid being recognized for fear of being put into child services or being reminded of her non-existence. One of the police officers (Officer Lander) did recognize her as the same girl who helped with Pyro Goblin when he helped her bring Prowl his severed leg.
• Hypocrite: Subverted. Wheeljack accuses Optimus of being this, stating that despite his distaste for anyone using the Allspark's power for selfish reasons, he did use it to heal himself. However, Optimus didn't use it to heal himself. Sari initially used it accidentally against his will and later used it to fully repair him while he was dying. Neither of these instances had any input from him at all.
• I Have Many Names: Played for Laughs in regard to the Beast Pretenders. They tend to cycle through new names for their group so often that nobody can get their name right. So far, they've had Monster Men, Horror Mercs, Beast Warriors, and Monsters of Myth and Mayhem. They can never seem to pick one. They eventually get stuck with Beast Pretenders after the Autobots screw up their robbery.
• Industrial Ghetto: Sari made her home in an old, run-down, and abandoned car factory, which is surrounded by the more high-tech, modern day Detroit city. This becomes Optimus' home as well.
• Innocently Insensitive: When Optimus was talking about human societal norms such as adults taking care of their children and how Sari is an anomaly due to having no family, he wasn't aware that he was causing her grief since she hates it when it's brought up that she's alone. She eventually yells at him to shut up and they spend the rest of the drive in silence.
• Ironic Name: In the main series (according to the Allspark Almanac) Optimus's name was derived from his optimistic and positive outlook on life. He's, more often than not, a complete cynic in this story thanks to his war-time trauma.
• Irony: You know how Optimus and Sentinel hate each other in the original series? Here, while their exact relationship is unknown, Sentinel agrees with the idea that the Allspark should remain lost since that is the reason the peace has lasted as long as it has.
• It's All About Me:
  • Starscream has a massive ego and feels that the Decepticons should be his and his alone.
  • Powell is a self-centered jerk who even takes credit for what Issac did to help the city.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Optimus does have good points on why the Allspark should remain hidden, since desiring its power was what lead to the Great War in the first place. It's telling that even Sentinel, of all bots, agrees with this viewpoint.
  • While Sentinel is a jackass, he's technically correct in that the higher-ups are white washing the numerous acts of insubordination and reckless endangerment that the members of the Orion crew committed to become exiled Space Bridge technicians in the first place.
  • While it was cold of Optimus to be willing to abandon the hostages to prioritize defeating and/or killing Starscream, he is right in that the amount of lives that the Decepticon threatens should they give him the Allspark far outweigh the hostages.
  • Ratchet has good reason to keep his crew away from humans, as the populace is divided on them and they need to focus on getting back to Cybertron.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Optimus is bitter and cynical, but he grows to deeply care for Sari as family and makes it clear that he will protect her with as much determination as the Allspark.
• Karma Houdini: Sari gets away with pelting Powell with rotten tomatoes despite being caught by Fanzone because he lets her go. His reasoning simply amounts to "[Powell] deserves it".
• Let's You and Him Fight: Optimus ends up in a battle with the senior members of the Orion crew on if the Allspark should return to Cybertron or not.
• Mad Artist: Pyro Goblin not only delights in causing destruction and suffering through her flames, but she views what she does as artwork. After being defeated by Optimus, she starts developing an obsession for the outcast, believing that burning him to cinders will be her greatest masterpiece. She even gave herself a tattoo of Optimus burning alive.
• Mad Scientist:
  • Blackarachnia is implied to be one given how her experiments creep out even the other Decepticons, despite all of it being for her to become a normal Cybertronian again.
  • Wheeljack is a good guy variant. He loves inventing and 97% or the time, his creations explode. He can also be more than a bit unhinged when it comes to his inventions.
• Mechanical Lifeforms: The Cybertronians, obviously. This causes them problems when they arrive on Earth, as they confuse other vehicles and machinery for sentient beings. Some humans also don't seem to know or understand that Cybertronians are alive. Sari got pretty pissed when Lt. Kelly told her that she shouldn't worry about Optimus simply because he's a machine and can be rebuilt.
• Mythology Gag: How Optimus and Sky-Byte charge at each other during a flashback to the Great War is identical to how Optimus and Megatron charged at each other in the opening of Transformers: War for Cybertron.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The reason Ratchet and Wheeljack are in exile is due to having grown outspoken about the Autobots' amoral actions during the Great War.
  Ratchet: Sometimes standing up for what's right isn't taken kindly to.
• Only Mostly Dead: When the Orion crew found Optimus, he was still alive, but was in stasis for so long and with so much fried circuitry that any attempt to wake up at that point would render him unconscious again.
• Only One Name:
  • Pretty much the entire crew of the Orion only has one name to go by. This applies to most Cybertronians as well.
  • In contrast to even his counterpart from Animated, Optimus doesn't have the rank of Prime and is simply referred to as Optimus. There's some implication that this might not even be his real name.
  • Subverted with Sari. Though the narrative treats that like it's the only name she has, the readers know that her last name is "Sumdac". Optimus even almost says it, but goes offline before he could finish due to his injuries.
• Orphan's Plot Trinket: Sari's pendant, which becomes her Allspark key.
• Perpetual Poverty: Sari, in contrast to her canon counterpart, pretty much lives off a measly income of "however much I can pickpocket off other people" and lives in an abandoned car factory. The only things she can afford amount to a TV and food.
• Police Are Useless: Subverted. The police are pretty competent at their jobs, with the only instances where they falter involving opponents well out of their league like Decepticons or super-villains. Even then, they hold their own against the human super-villains well enough.
• Propaganda Pieceinvoked: Bumblebee watched these back on the Orion while they were on Spacebridge duty. Ratchet points out that it's all just a bunch of baloney and that the war was more grueling and complicated than they make it out to be.
• Pronouncing My Name for You: Lt. Kelly's full name is Kelly Junko, which is pronounced Yun-ko. She yells this to Optimus when he mispronounces it.
• Pyromaniac: Pyro Goblin. She's practically what happens when you take the insanity of the Green Goblin and make him obsessed with fire.
• Quantity vs. Quality:
  • During the Great War, the Decepticons were fewer in number than the Autobots, but their members were composed of more experienced warriors who fight by choice. This contrasts them to the Autobots, who had the greater numbers, but whose soldiers were mainly trained civilians forcibly drafted into the war.
  • After Powell's takeover of Sumdac Systems, the company has mass produced more machinery on a greater scale compared to when Sumdac ran the place. However, their products have seen a large drop in quality, which leads to them cutting corners and relying heavily on the original base for most machines. This was the key factor that allowed Megatron to gain control, since Isaac's tech had too much deviation from his base specs for him to manipulate before this cutback.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Issac was shown to be a generous and benevolent businessman. When some members of his board suggested replacing the common factory workers with robots to improve efficiency, Issac shuts that idea down immediately. His mindset being that doing so would put several good people out of jobs and that the money they could save from doing so is inconsequential compared to the needs of others.
• Rule of Funny: How can Starscream yell out his frustrations while in the vacuum of space where no sound can travel? Because it's funny.
• Sanity Slippage: The Beast Pretenders probably didn't have much in the way of rational thinking to start with, but their mutations just made them more aggressive and violent. After Prometheus detonates the nanobots in their systems, thereby furthering their mutations by stimulating the bio-engineered steroids in their bodies, they become ravenous monsters who only know how to destroy whatever's in their way.
• Ship Sinking: Prowl initially had romantic feelings for Arcee after she saved him from Megatron. This stops altogether after the "Ghost in the Machine" arc, where he starts seeing her as just a good friend.
• Slow Clap: After Issac gives his speech that they are working to serve the community and that replacing workers with robots to save time and money would put several people out of jobs and is as such not viable, people start to clap and applaud him for his dedication and generosity. Even those opposed to him end up applauding him.
• Social Services Does Not Exist: Subverted. They do exist, but since Sari doesn't exist as far as the world is concerned, they don't apply to her.
• Space Is Noisy: Starscream can, well, scream at the top of his voice-box despite doing so in the vacuum of space. Lampshaded in the author's notes at the end of the chapter that this doesn't make any sense.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Granted, his death only lasted a minute in canon since this is Optimus we're talking about, but he doesn't die at all here. Even when he was almost killed by Pyro Goblin, his spark was still glowing, so he didn't die.
• Stealing the Credit: Powell tries to take credit for Sumdac's past achievements. No one buys it for a second.
• Super-Toughness: Lt. Kelly's police car tanks a lot of damage and comes out of the ordeal with Pyro Goblin mostly unscathed. Sari's key augmenting it may have had something to do with that.
• Take That!: Sari wants to give Optimus a hot-rod flame paint job, but he dismisses it as unsubtle.
• The Talk: While driving Sari to get some food, Optimus questions how exactly humans are born. Before Sari can tell him (and the readers by extension), Smash Cut to Optimus swerving in the street before reassessing himself, then Smash Cut back to Sari laughing like a maniac.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
  • The Autobots and Optimus didn't exactly work together on the best of terms. Ratchet and Optimus in particular are at each other's throats the most.
  • The Beast Pretenders are frequently at each other's throats, especially after their mutations.
• Time Abyss: Most Cybertronians are older than every human on the planet combined, with three of the Orion Crew having experienced the events of the eons long Great War. Optimus far exceeds the rest of the Autobots (expect Ratchet) in age and has been in stasis lock for about 4 million years and has been fighting in the Great War for perhaps even longer than that. Not to mention that Optimus and Ratchet were also brought online during the era of the segregation classes on Cybertron, which is before the events of the Great War even began.
• Time-Compression Montage: During the end of "Ripples", we see from Megatron's perspective the scenes showcasing Sumdac's improved research and prestige overtime. The first being his beginnings experimenting with the applications of Cybertronian technology, the second being years later with his improved lab having made a strong degree of wealth off his robotics, and the final scene being even further after that; having fully established Sumdac Systems and having contracts to make new robots for several areas of the city.
• Took a Level in Badass: The Beast Pretenders start off as a bunch of goofy, albeit moderately competent, thugs. Thanks to their mutations from Prometheus Black, they become super-powered mutants that can fight off the Autobots and most of the Detroit police force combined.
• Truer to the Text:
  • Soundwave and Shockwave have much more in common with their G1 counterparts than their Animated incarnations. In Soundwave's case, he wasn't created on Earth but is instead native to Cybertron and is Megatron's right-hand man, while Shockwave is the head Decepticon scientist and not The Mole, with his appearance even being reminiscent of the G1 comics.
  • In Optimus's case, he was originally a soldier who fought in the war for Cybertron in previous incarnations, unlike the series where he was a post-war Elite Guard cadet and washout. Since he's a soldier from the Great War here, he fits the mold of the original Optimus better, though he never really displayed the jerkass behavior that this one starts out with until later renditions of the character.
• Uncertain Doom: Issac Sumdac is stated to be dead. How he died is a mystery, though there is some In-Universe speculation.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Both Powell and Prometheus have this, which helps them avoid the legal repercussions of their amoral business practices.
• War Is Hell: The Great War plays a more notable role in the backstories of four of the Cybertronian characters seen so far. Among the Orion crew, Ratchet and Wheeljack despise the amoral actions they took, and Arcee lost everything because of it and can no longer remember her life prior to the war. This all pales in comparison to Optimus, as he frequently has PTSD nightmares and flashbacks to his time in the war as a front-line soldier. When the story perspective shifts to the war, we see what a horrid, energon-soaked nightmare it was, as numerous bots on both sides were killed, mutilated, and worse.
• We ARE Struggling Together:
  • All the Autobots agree that the Decepticons should not have the Allspark. Optimus, however, believes that the Allspark should remain lost, while the rest want it back on Cybertron.
  • Following Megatron's "death", the Decepticons have been in a state of chaos due to the void in leadership. Whenever fights break out, they usually start placing bets on who wins rather than try to stop it.
• We Have Become Complacent: In Ratchet's case, he hasn't been in live combat in a long time, and acknowledges that he's out of practice. This is averted and played more seriously in Optimus's case, as the war was practically yesterday from his perspective.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Optimus took the Allspark from Cybertron to hide it from the warring factions, despite all the good it could do. His reasoning stems from how the Allspark's limitless power can corrupt those who use it and how said power can create innumerable Cybertronians, which turns them into expendable units. He also has no issues sacrificing innocent organics if it means that the rest of the planet's population will survive.
• Whole Episode Flashback: "Ripples" is a large flashback chapter that focuses on what happened after The Orion and Megatron transwarped to parts unknown and how it affected the Autobots and Decepticons.
• Who Writes This Crap?!: Sari's reaction to a very crappy TV show called "Beauty and the Bot".

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