Transformers Prime

I get the feeling that should have a pass thanks to rule of funny.

As for the "third season is the last" rumor, it might have been that the writers said they had the first three seasons mapped out in advance, but they also said they were anticipating five seasons. There might be some big shake-up starting in the fourth season which results in a new direction, I would guess the Broken Masquerade or maybe even a Time Skip.

Well either way Ratchet is dead after season three. Jeffrey Combs seemed to think that season three was the last work he'd ever do on Prime.

Just to point out going by his toy Waspinator's robot head (where his spark is located) is in his beast mode head. That was the only part of him NOT shredded into confetti.

BTW how did Dinbot die? My understanding was it was a mix between being shot enough (possibly in just the right areas) and running out of power (did he burn himself out?). Also they were too far away from the base to save him in time. (Yet Inferno had see-out-the-other-side-holes in his body during Optimal Situation... did Inferno survive out of sheer willower?)

IIRC Jazz was ripped in half yet he died. Did he leak to death before Ratchet could stabilize him? Or did Megatron give him a few extra injuries to be sure he stayed down?

edited 17th Sep '12 2:49:21 PM by WorldTurtle

Really? Okay, that's pretty cool. It's kind of odd though since that means his spark is in his chest...which is where it is on most T Fs.

Notice how at one point his systems say "Warning. Damage levels approaching critical, stasis lock imminent." or something like that and he tells it to override the stasis lock function. What stasis lock does is it shuts down all higher functions of a TF like movement, sight, etc. and devotes that power to the spark chamber which goes into lock down. The body can be brutalized and pretty much completely destroyed yet as long as the spark chamber isn't too heavily damaged the spark survives which means the TF can live provided a friendly gets them to a CR chamber to patch them up.

What happened with Dinobot was that he was going to go into stasis lock due to excessive damage but he deliberately overrode the procedure. By doing this he started draining energy from the spark chamber which eventually caused it to sustain damage. With his spark chamber malfunctioning his spark began to fade which essentially killed him. They probably could have saved him if they were right next to the base and were really lucky but they didn't have the tools on hand and he died shortly after they arrived.

edit: I was making a joke for the most part.

I don't know how the film T Fs work since they apparently don't have things like stasis lock. My guess is that Ratchet probably could have saved him but the combination of how long it took to get to him and Jazz being thrown from a skyscraper afterward probably did too much damage.

edited 17th Sep '12 2:59:57 PM by Kostya

He was damaged significantly enough that he needed to go into stasis to survive. He overrode his own safety protocols in order to keep on fighting. It's like injuring your leg while on a run, either you get it taken care of soon or you can keep on running and risk further injury.

Ultimately anything regarding Cybertronian durability is the same basic concept behind Made of Iron, they are in trouble when the script says they've taken enough damage. I just remembered that Animated had them survive headless without issue, I don't know if that means they all have their sparks located in their head or what.

What he said. Dinobot consciously chose to avert Stasis lock, and his already injured body was pushed past its limits.

edited 17th Sep '12 3:04:04 PM by HandsomeRob

Animated played fast and loose with what exactly a spark is. In most TF stories it seems to be a soul and contains their essence so losing it would probably be like getting lobotomized. In TFA though SS lost his spark but still kept functioning thanks to an allspark shard embedded in his head.

edited 17th Sep '12 3:01:14 PM by Kostya

Just to clarify cause I don't think I said that right: Waspinator was shredded in Beast Mode. His Beast Mode Head was the only part of him that remained intact-in Beast Mode that is where his robot head should be located. So that explains why he survived that.

He was also made into a pancake by OP once, but that was more Rule of Funny then anything serious.

Still haven't gotten a response about Inferno. At the very least he was probably borderline going into Stasis Lock by that point.

edited 17th Sep '12 9:34:27 PM by WorldTurtle

The holes missed his spark chamber somehow? It's never specified precisely where it is (and some T Fs have it in different places) and we don't even know how big it is so it could have not been hit at all.

Rhinox also had a gaping hole in his chest in the climax of "Coming of the Fuzors: Part II." Transmetal 2's also had explicit spark chambers, with Cheetor's spark located in his hip. Not all spark chambers are located in the exact same place.

edited 17th Sep '12 3:41:10 PM by KJMackley

I just note Inferno because he had at least a few holes you could see out the other side-including his head. It's amazing he was still walking around at all.

edited 17th Sep '12 3:43:00 PM by WorldTurtle

BW Inferno survived into season 3 by sheer popularity. He was slated to die in Agenda

Dinobot died of power failure. When he overrides stasis lock, his body is warning him "further power expenditure will result in loss of spark" after telling him his reserves are nearly depleted. From the timing, it seems likely it is Tarantulas' sneak attack that caused him to start leaking energon badly.

Depth Charge's death puzzled me always, because you see amongst the wreckage that flows up that his torso is mostly intact. Heck, except for the whole "blown to bits" part, his components show little damage. One wonders if he was not salvageable and repairable and the Maximals just never bothered.

One thing about BW: Predacons seem WAY more durable than the Maximals. As at least five of their numbers got blown to bits only to be re-assembled with no lasting damage (Waspinator, Megatron, Rampage, Inferno and Tarantulas). By contrast, Maximals seem much more easily damaged, often crippled for extended periods of time despite having barely any visible damage. Airazor in particular must've been built out of tissue paper.

edited 17th Sep '12 5:45:32 PM by Ghilz

Re: Airazor
Which kinda makes sense, actually.
Birds achieve flight via hollow bones and various other evolutionary helping hands.
Add in a metal body inside the flesh to keep aloft.
She's also a pre-transmetal flyer. So no jet engines to assist flight.
No wonder her armor is kinda thin.

Hmmm, this might retroactively/fanwank-ily explain Waspinator's ease of being blown to pieces: he skimped on joint connections instead of armor.

Terrosaur was kind of a one-hit wonder for taking damage, too, now that I think of it. Then again, being The Starscream, he took pot-shots more often than frontal assaults.

She's got thrusters in robot mode actually. You see them in the shit episode where everyone thinks they are animals.

Mind you, in that same episode, Airazor gets the longest stay in a CR chamber: 6 days. For a slight damage to the thruster that didn't stop her from actually flying. Rhinox spends less time in the CR chamber when he got a giant hole blown in his chest.

Plus the weight rationalization makes no sense. If weight factored in Airazor/Terrorsaur/Waspinator's ability to fly in beast mode, they'd have to be so light that a slight gust would send them flying in robot mode. And it flies counter to the scenes where crashing flyers are clearly heavy and hard enough to cause craters and dent rock/ice on impact when crashing. Terrosaur in beast mode is solid and dense enough that he can dent steel with his head.

edited 17th Sep '12 6:15:33 PM by Ghilz

Let's keep in mind that Sparks were a new concept in Beast Wars. The writers didn't have all the rules mapped out. At least one of them said that he imagined sparks to be suffused throughout the body, only to coalesce when needed in the chamber (though later episodes showed prove that false).

Bottom line, we're lucky things were as consistent as they were regarding the sparks.

The very concept of what makes Cybertronian life before the idea of Sparks was fairly random, given that Wheeljack and Ratchet created the Dinobots because they were bored. There was some hints towards some sort of mechanical biology with references to a Laser Core, but a "soul" that gives them life and intelligence did not exist.

Ghilz: I only remember seeing the top part of DC's torso (without his head) floating. It's plausible his spark was in the lower half.

I'm just going to assume Inferno is more armored then Dinobot and survived on a fluke.

My theory is the Predacons being the warrior society that they are wisely invested more in their medical insurance then the Maximals did.

edited 17th Sep '12 9:33:10 PM by WorldTurtle

In TFA, Blur didn't die when he was turned into a cube by Shockwave as he kept his color.

That only happens when the animators feel like it. The Autobot Shuttle crew didn't turn grey in the '86 movie.

There was apparently some Word of God statement that's how it works in TFA. And given how they apparently showed the Blur cube after the initial crushing leads to the idea that he was coming back.

That, or he's going to stay in that cube, on top of the scrapheap, unable to move, unable to talk, with only himself for company, for eons.

...

...

Eventually he'll go mad, start talking only in rhymes, and turn orange from rust and neglect. Eventually someone finds and fixes him and we get Animated Wheelie.

I seem to recall Shockwave then had the cube burned or something.

He did. Even if Blur was still alive when turned into a cube he died for sure when he was thrown into an incinerator.

Meh, it's a crack theory. Logic has no place here.