How come in the comic things didn't change more in 4 million years.

[Ozz]

Autobots, yes. Decepticon Micromasters were shown being built by Thunderwing.

[Wildrider]

Originally posted by Ozz
Autobots, yes. Decepticon Micromasters were shown being built by Thunderwing.

Hehe cheers Ozz, see what I mean, for every explanation there's a plot hole waiting to swallow you up.

Bloody Thunderwing!

[Housewife2000]

No oxygen on Cybertron but every man and his dog survives there, the only people who ever get space suits are four kids and a teddy bear. So to argue a sun's presence solely on the absence of dead Neo Knights is flawed I think. I can accept powermasters etc surviving because of their exo-suits, but Blackrock is just in a suit.

I agree completely that orbiting a star isn't the only reason Blackrock doesn't die instantly, but it's a key factor: he experiences earth like gravity, atmosphere pressure and oxygen levels. Whatever Cybertron's origins, it functions like earth in these respects, and as such its atmosphere would freeze as it passed out of the range of a star, endangering it's inhabitants.

I'm not sure if Cybertron has ever been documented as moving closer to Earth, unless it's a dastardly sceme by some 'con to start the engines etc. (I'm probably wrong though)

Well, the first issue of the Marvel comic series has Cybertron career through our solar system - the asteroid field they run into is the one between Mars and Jupiter. That's how the Ark ends up close enough to crash into the earth.

[Wildrider]

Originally posted by Housewife2000
Well, the first issue of the Marvel comic series has Cybertron career through our solar system - the asteroid field they run into is the one between Mars and Jupiter. That's how the Ark ends up close enough to crash into the earth.

But if it's flying through our solar system then, where is it in 4 million years?

I think if we're assuming Cybertron has gravity and oxygen comparable to Earth, we may as well just assume it has temperatures equivalent to Earth. I imagine perhaps Primus would generate heat from his spark or whatever and I'm sure his physiology is more complex that your run of the mill transformer. So via fuel circulation or whatever he could possibly maintain a core temperature that radiates through the outer layers indefinetly regardless of solar proximity.

Fuel circulation probably isn't a good theory on my part, as it just renders Primus a huge incendiary device ready to explode the second the Transformers have a tear up and cause a fuel leak. Providing his fuel is comparable to run of the mill energon, which it probably isn't.

I guess we have to treat Primus/Cybertron as something beyond what we would expect of a regular planet and it's inherent nature with orbiting a star. Especially when it's conducive to creating and sustaining life.

So it's all Primus's fault, pretending to be a planet, pfft idiot.

[Housewife2000]

But if it's flying through our solar system then, where is it in 4 million years?

OK, my rough memory of those early issues goes like this: 4 million years ago, war starts. Cybertron is knocked off its orbit around Alpha Centauri and after about 1000 years, finds itself heading toward the asteroid belt in our solar system. They pass through, losing the Ark and Nemesis, and Cybertron carries on its merry way, past earth and out of our solar system. For those missing 4 million years, Cybertron is flying off into the depths of Milky Way.

[RUNAMOK]

Could a scraplet plague maybe be somethingt to fill in the 4 million years?

Octane just said that a cure to the scraplet decease was found thousands of vorns ago, and since 4000000 years are 48192.771 vorns it could be a possibitlity to fill the gap.

The war on cybertron could have been put on a standbye while they were searching for a cure.

[inflatable dalek]

Originally posted by Wildrider
Heh I don't know why but every time we saw Shockwave in the cartoon, I always got the impression he thought the whole war and Megatron resurfacing was a tad inconvenient to what ever he had planned at the time

He's one of only two men left on a planet of women- the other being an old git. I'd know what I'd be planning.

Autobots, yes. Decepticon Micromasters were shown being built by Thunderwing.

Though we don't see it the storyline in question does pretty much say the Autobot Micromasters were built from scratch as Thunderwing needs to capture them to see how it was done. The downsizing thing comes from the Dreamwave comic only IIRC.

I'd assume the original purpose of the 4 Million year gap was to do something akin to the destruction of Cybertron in the new Movie- To give the characters a reason for not going straight home and to isolate the toy based cast from loads of generics. Of course, the cartoon completely buggered it by having them go straight back but at least the comic waited a couple of years until they'd used every variation on the Matrix idea to introduce new characters.

[Cliffjumper]

[WARNING! NOT FACT!] I always liked to think the Micros were just rank and file chappies who volunteered to have their brain modules placed in smaller bodies - maybe zealous types who were aways banging on about Energon footprints. This way Thunderwing would still need to copy the mechanics of their new bodies

[optimusskids]

Scraplet plague

the Transformers equivalent of the spanish Flu epidemic.

It would explain the drop in population.

[inflatable dalek]

Originally posted by Cliffjumper
[WARNING! NOT FACT!] I always liked to think the Micros were just rank and file chappies who volunteered to have their brain modules placed in smaller bodies - maybe zealous types who were aways banging on about Energon footprints. This way Thunderwing would still need to copy the mechanics of their new bodies

That would work- The imopression given by the issues themselves is that the charatcers have been treated like ****e their whole lives but that can be put down to Road handler being a knob even before he had the brain switch...

[Cliffjumper]

Ahh, but my problem is the population doesn't drop enough... considering how easily TFs seem to die, it should take less than four million years for the [Cybertron-based] species to wipe themselves out.

[inflatable dalek]

It's possible the Autobots simply dropped completely off the radar for a long time after Trannis took Iacon in order to regroup/rearm and only started to reemerge in a big way not long before the comic caught up with them- The cons might have thought they already won.

[optimusskids]

Was it ever mentioned what the original population of Cybertron was?

It could be they started with billions and whittled it down to a few hundreds.

It would also depend how the war started and developed


(reaches for the straws)

If cybertron started with 100's of city states it might have taken a while to just reach 2 factions with periods of peace in between or large parts of the planet unaffected between times.

Also presumably a lot of mechs emigrated to various planets in this new Empire which everyone forgot about until G2 at least from the Cons

Maybe the Autobots had there own colonies that we don't know about or they were subsequently gobbled up by the Empire



of course there is always the Dallas option

it was all a dream and no time has passed at all...

[Cliffjumper]

Originally posted by optimusskids
It could be they started with billions and whittled it down to a few hundreds.

At the rate of death seen on Earth (among what are presumably the more skilled TFs), it'd have to be billions and billions.

Originally posted by optimusskids
It would also depend how the war started and developed

With two (or more, been a while) cities wiped out and Megatron leading a vicious movement, wiping out many cities before he even left Cybertron. The loss of about a dozen troops wouldn't hit that so hard, especially as Straxus seems like a right bastard.

Originally posted by optimusskids
If cybertron started with 100's of city states it might have taken a while to just reach 2 factions with periods of peace in between or large parts of the planet unaffected between times.

City states doesn't really come into it. They were either with Megatron, or they stayed Autobots (apart from things like the empties, who probably got killed by the Decepticons in even greater numbers).

Originally posted by optimusskids
Also presumably a lot of mechs emigrated to various planets in this new Empire which everyone forgot about until G2

Which, again, means even fewer TFs to sustain such a large war.

Incidentally, I think any attempt to apply real physics to Cybertron are irrelevant for two reasons - one's the Primus thing, it's probably fair to assume one way or another he could do what he wanted with the surface of Cybertron; two, there's obviously something non-Newtonian going on as the thing's a planet the size of Saturn made (or, at best, entirely coated) with metal, in which case it'd have probably enough gravity to crush even Transformers...

[optimusskids]

Maybe Dalek's theory fits best

I suppose if you have a semi hollow Planet the size of Saturn and the enemy has 100's of troops it would be fairly easy for them to hide so they could rest and regroup.

Also at some point it is going to get increasingly difficult for the Con's to run their war machine.



As they start running out of people to run and make things given that there are certain skilled or semi skilled jobs that can't be automated.

There are big skill sets absent from the Transformers

for example medical Con's.

There only set of medics are having to handle construction, genral maintenace and engineering alongside there medical duties and don't even exist till they're built on earth

Especially when your leader start's deciding to feed all your potential slave labour into a giant fondu set

Transformers with alt modes betwenn Ironhides and Octanes in size are very thin on the ground. Even large transport aircraft are thin on the ground

Theres what 2 van size transformers and no small to medium transport outside a few dump trucks. so logistics is going to be a problem if you want to move round, especially if war has killed off all your shuttle craft maintenance engineers.

Logistics , Logistics, Logistics

Maybe the Con's just stayed in a few strongholds and left the rest of the planet alone apart from a few hit and run raids.

[Rurudyne]

Originally posted by optimusskids
A lot of people have probably seen back to the Future or Austin Powers.

So how come in the Marvel comic when Optimus and the Ark crew meet up with Perceptor , Blaster and co why hasn't more changed. It's been four million years , surely the non Ark crew should have changed so much to be unrecognisable plus there weaponry should be fairly antique.

In the past I've suggested two primary reasons for this.

The first and most important would stem from the fact that all Cybertronians (well, most ) are essentially turned on with what they need to be functioning members of society. The result of a lack of any childhood of any sort is an excess of what may deemed "conventional thinking." Conventional thinnking does not tend to promote revolutions in any field of thought.

The second is also important and is tied to the lifespans of Cybertronians. Now men ... we live brief and painful lives so if we are to do anything we have to do it together. That is why something like the Manhattan Project can consume thousands of man-years in but a short time. Cybertronians, OTOH, would seem to be extraordinarily individualistic in their research. It's not that they don't work well together but that they have no need to (at least not like humans do). They probably would lack a concept like peer review and any gathering of scientist would likely resemble what is seen in Futurama: a bunch of mad scientist gathered to show off quirky inventions that they've perfected without substantial help. Given that they would likely have many irons in the fire at any one time and you have the recipe for uber-Professor Farnsworths with a lab full of half-baked and incomplete projects.

Who knows how many pudgy-nose clones or mini-me's there could be be?

[Warcry]

Originally posted by Cliffjumper
At the rate of death seen on Earth (among what are presumably the more skilled TFs), it'd have to be billions and billions.

That assumes that there weren't any new TFs created in the gap while the Matrix was out of the picture. The easiest way of doing the job wasn't available anymore, but with TFs being as resourceful as they are it's possible they'd found more than one way around that.

We don't know exactly what Jhiaxus and his ilk did before they left the planet, and we don't know exactly when they re-discovered the 'budding' process, but it's certainly possible they spawned a large number of new Transformers before they left Cybertron. Quite a few of those might have died in the line of duty, been left behind when the G2ers left the planet, or even defected (Leadfoot & co. showed us that even being pre-programmed as a Decepticon isn't always enough to ensure that a TF will stay Decepticon).

Considering how casually Prime had copies of Smokescreen and co.'s personalities made 'just in case', it's also possible that both factions had copied the minds of their best fighters into multiple different bodies at once. Sure, it might be a bit confusing to have a dozen Kups running around, but it seems like a good tactical use of the technology.

Beyond that you'd get into the realm of mad science. Since the Matrix is, at the most basic level, just an incredibly complex and powerful computer program, I think it's probably possibly to manually code all of the personality subroutines and whatnot that the Matrix would impart on a newly-born TF. It would be an incredibly tedious job, probably to the point of being impractical if you couldn't re-use big chunks of code from one new TF to the next...but it probably is possible.

On a totally speculative note (as if the rest of this post has been anything else...), I've always liked to think that the reason why so many later-year TFs were so, well...utterly batshit insane was because they'd been brought to life using less-than-reliable technologies. I mean, can you see Primus deliberately crafting something like Fangry or Longtooth?

No, wait, Longtooth was already around before the Ark left, wasn't he? Uh...Doublecross, then? Quick Switch? Bah, you get the point.

[Rurudyne]

Originally posted by Warcry
I mean, can you see Primus deliberately crafting something like Fangry or Longtooth?

To borrow a suggestion from another domain, maybe Primus has an odd sense of humor?

[Rurudyne]

Originally posted by optimusskids
of course there is always the Dallas option

it was all a dream and no time has passed at all...

Hmmmm ... so exactly who is stepping out of the shower?

Alpha Trion – who really didn't fuse with the matrix ... found by Beta.

Optimus Prime – who really didn't die as Orion Pax ... found by his cute but not Elita-1 girlfriend.

Megatron – who as *MegsUltimate_1* never got in that debate with with *PeCPTRproto* over if Alpha Prime ever existed according to Harmonitron's ethical reading of history ... sure *PeCPTRproto* still waded in and people still committed suicide ... but Megatron never went violently insane.

Oh, and found by no one. I really don't picture Megs as a femme magnet.

Or how about Starscream ... nothing much changes but he's found by an eager Elita-1, Chromia, Beta and Arcee.

No wait: THAT really WOULD be a dream sequence ... and would likely get the writer banned as a booby-obsessed fan-boy from heck.

[inflatable dalek]

Actually? How much time do we think passed between Cybertron being thrown out of it's orbit at Alpha Centauri and arriving at Sol? Considering sub light speeds it could be as long or even longer than the 4 million years...