Transformers Animated/Headscratchers


 * Doesn't future Detroit have any federal government? We only ever see the mayor as a figure in authority. Does anybody find it really odd that the only reaction people had to alien robots from space was OH COOL SUPERHEROES? There's no attempts at diplomacy? No curious reporters? No military intervention even after another robot from space blew up a bunch of fighters? No massive cultural shifts because HEY, ALIENS EXIST? In the original series the President had contact with the Autobots, and the humans at the very least seemed to care that they were present. Geewun was very silly, but at least they acknowledged that there were giant robots hanging about. For a series which prefers to bring in human villains, they seem to have forgotten that human government and culture exist.
 * It's at least fifty years into the future. They may already know that Aliens exist.
 * Do they have diplomatic contact with these aliens? Do these aliens attack their cities regularly?
 * Maybe humans decided to play "Autobot-Decepticon war is someone elses problem"? Because, I dunno, maybe we would HELP aytobots beating shit out 'con instead of letting them level half of Detroit once a month.


 * Why does Slipstream hate Starscream so much? At first it seemed that she disdained everybody, but from her dialogue and actions in Endgame, Part 1, it sounds like she really hates him especially. Did Starscream do something nasty to her offscreen? Or does this have to do with the "Don't ask!" aspect of his personality?
 * She could represent his insecurity. With women or otherwise.
 * Personally, I believe that she represents his (repressed) self-loathing. I mean come on, all those failed attempts at assassinating Megatron, all those plans foiled by a glorified Autobot repair crew, getting blackmailed by a little girl riding a "My Little Pony" shoutout and his utter inability to gain any kind of respect from Megatron or any of his other comrades in the Decepticon forces, you just know that deep down there must be some aspect of Starscream's personality that hates himself.
 * Makes sense. It would also explain why Female Starscream IS female. Starscream's inner loathing is such that this aspect of himself rejected his design, choosing to differentiate herself from him by becoming female.
 * Actually the Female Starscream represents the sorrow Starscream feels when reflecting on the plight of the Native Americans as both their land and buffalo were violently taken from them during westward expansion. Okay not really. The truth is Word of God has never revealed what aspect of Starscream's personality the Female version represents, which is the whole gag. We're not supposed to know.
 * Then there's her "Kill on sight" reaction when she mistakes a flying Optimus for Starscream. Yep, definitely self loathing. Starscream really had issues.
 * Yes, but on the bright side,
 * Alternatively, she's a The Starscream, and she views Starscream is her Megatron.
 * They're all The Starscream, and he really should have thought of that before cloning himself. Female!Starscream seems to be the intelligent, competent one.
 * Or there's the simple answer, Starscream just tends to have that effect on people. I'd be surprised if there was anyone who didn't feel like taking a pot-shot at him at some point.
 * The original plan for "Endgame" part 2 was


 * Okay, so Autobots don't fly. At least not without reverse-engineering a Decepticon and then rebuilding a pair of injured Autobots pretty much from the ground up. So if it's that hard, how can Ratchet and Sumdac put a functioning and agile jetpack together in practically no time?
 * Well, this is Ratchet and Sumdac we're talking about here. Also it is just a jetpack and not giving Prime the ability to fly wholesale.
 * Sumdac built a jetpack for Sari earlier. Maybe they just scaled it up?
 * Also, Prowl donates his rockets for study.
 * The lack of flying Autobots seem to be a cultural rather than technological imposition. Since they have functional aircraft, and the ability to scan vehicle modes, they should be able to make a flying autobot without trouble.


 * In "Nanosec", Megatron said that he needed Destronium to build his new body. And yet, in "Sound and Fury", he stated his intention to take over Soundwave, who was built by Professor Sumdac without any help from him. Did Megatron accept that Destronium wasn't available, or did he assume Sari's All Spark upgrades would make up for it?
 * That seemed to be his plan.
 * Another possibility is that he saw Soundwave's body as being "good enough", and decided to take it, figuring that it would do until he could get his hands on some Destronium (Nice shout out, by the way).
 * One can guess that the Allspark Key can change the composition of metals and chemicals if it's required or asked of. Whenever something is brought to life as a Cybertronian, they gain the toughness and abilities of a typical Transformer (Soundwave being the exception, with his larger bodies being a combination of multiple machines), showing that the Key can change iron, steel, and other metals to Cybertronium alloys. After the Nanosec incident, Megatron probably went back over his analysis of the Dinobots and realized that they had become Cybertronians, which made him realize that the Key could create a new body.


 * In the second Season Finale, Megatron apparently needs to chuck Optimus Prime through the space bridge to make sure it works. Why is this necessary when Blurr and two of Starscream's clones had gone through a few minutes previously?
 * The coordinates hadn't been set yet when they fell in. After setting it, Megatron wanted to make sure it lead to where he wanted it to.


 * Bit of Fridge Logic: Sari's Robotic Reveal. Namely, the fact that it's taken this long. With no Terminator-style artificial blood, etc. the first time she got a cut at any point in her life, she should've noticed that something wasn't right. Especially when you consider how reckless she can be sometimes... this is a kid who'd accumulate more than the usual kid quota of scrapes, not none. So how is it that this is the first time she's ever gotten hurt?
 * Sari's been cloistered for most of her life, and so probably wouldn't have seen anyone else get cut in real life. She might see people getting hurt on TV, but since she's around eight years old, even Isaac Sumdac wouldn't be negligent enough to let her watch anything too violent.
 * In addition it's obvious that Sari isn't completely robotic, she can get hungry, can catch a cold and more importantly sets off the Elite Guard's organic detection sensors. In case you think that that means Isaac Sumdac did a good enough job to fool the sensors, when Blackarachnia attempted to use the All Spark to remove her organic half, Sari was just as affected as all the other organic lifeforms were.
 * Furthermore, it is heavily hinted in some eps that Sari is more or less immune to pain, except when Rule of Funny kick in. She discovered her true nature when a BIG patch of skin from her left arm was ripped off at end of season two, and doesn't realize the damage until somebody else see it and freaks out. Earlier, she get splashed with boilling hot water and doesn't react except for the fact that she is now wet. Sari's teeth are somehow strong enough to hurt Blackarachnia without Sari hurting herself, and when she bit her, it let out a big CLANG. Really, even if she got some cuts or bruise earlier in her life, she problably doesn't even realize it, let alone feel it.
 * That was probably the first time she had ever taken that much damage. Being techno-rganic, one would assume Sari has blood and tissue. The cave collapse was the fist thing that cause enough of that tissue to be lost to reveal the mechanoid parts underneath.


 * Why don't any of the Autobots carry guns? I know why Optimus and his crew don't -- they're repair-bots, not soldiers -- but it seems that the Elite Guard at least would carry actual ranged weaponry as a matter of course. When your enemies can both routinely fly and carry actual guns, limiting yourself to melee and thrown weapons seems like a bad idea.
 * Well, the Autobots haven't been at war for millennia. Also, if the toy is canon, Magnus has rocket launchers everywhere.
 * Doesn't quite explain why the Elite Guard members don't carry guns, but according to Word of God: "To me the Autobots were built as a labor force, and the Decepticons were created as the military. This is one reason that the Decepticons use military weapons, while the Autobots use 'tools' to fight with." --Derrick J. Wyatt
 * The elite guards at least have weapons like Magnus's war hammer, Sentinel Prime's lance and shield, and Jazz's nunchucks. Optimus Prime's crew simply have tools for use as weapons. Only Optimus has an axe, but that has other uses besides a weapon.
 * Exactly, why would they give weapons to repair-bots? If you take the Word of God above that the Decepticons were military and Autobots were labor, then they only learned how to use their tools in order to defend themselves. Years later, they learned how to adjust their tools to make weapons and create new weapons, but being a labor force is still in their programming. And if being built for miltary made the Decepticons kinda evil, you could see how the Autobots might be reluctant to repeat the same mistakes.
 * TransWarped shows a bunch of Autobots with ranged weapons, such as Rodimus Prime's bow and arrow and Hot Shot's flamethrower. Also, Omega Supreme is revealed to be loaded with big guns.
 * More like being this universe answer to More Dakka, really.
 * Alternatively, the only times we've seen the Elite Guard in action have been while they were on Earth or in their own ship/bases. While on Earth, the Elite Guards would be aware of the human civilization and quite possibly voluntarily disarmed all but their signature weapons to avoid inter-stellar incidents. While in their own territory they, logically, wouldn't be carrying their full arsenal.
 * "Heroes don't use guns." I can't remember who said it, but it was the response to the same question about the Maximals in Beast Machines. And it's also worth noting that there's no hand-held guns, energy or otherwise, in all of Animated. All of the guns are built-in weapons on their bodies.
 * Actually, he was saying that it's perfectly legitimate for a hero to use guns - it's just that most heroes don't need guns. IE: Spider-Man, Superman, Wolverine, Batman... He also noted that heroes like the Punisher do need guns, so it's okay for him.
 * Warpath has a gun... sorta. Well it's more like a cannon. A really, really big one. Sticking out of his chest.
 * It's simple really they may be only repair bots, but there are potential threats out there besides the Decipticons. The weapons they do have seemed to be meant for self defense against minor threats they might find as they do their work. Which is why in general they are out matched by the Decepticons who are still outfitted for war.
 * In "Return Of The Headmaster", why did Optimus Prime agree not to tell anyone what happened to Sentinel Prime? It's not like Optimus isn't aware that the Headmaster is a serious threat and having some backup would probably help, and there's really no reason for him to be doing Sentinel Prime any favors, since Sentinel's been busting his chops since day one. Does Optimus have any reason for doing this other than being, as he himself puts it, a sucker?
 * Maybe 'cause he's not a dick?
 * As has been shown, Optimus has a real soft spot when it comes to Sentinel. No matter how much of a dick he is, Optimus helps him out practically without complaint. My best guess is that he's still guilty about Elita-1 and refuses to let down his surviving friend ever again.


 * Sari apparently got her human side by scanning Isaac Sumdac for an alternate mode, Maximal-style. Okay, I get that. She apparently doubled up the x-chromosome so her alternate mode's gender matched her own spark's gender, as she's a she. Odd, as its more than said Maximals could do, but still acceptable. So, how exactly are her hair and skin completely different from Isaac's? Shouldn't she be an Opposite Gender Clone of her "father"?
 * Perhaps Isaac has alleles for both black and red hair, and Sari doubled up the chromosome with the re-hair allele in the same manner as the X-chromosome.
 * Sari scanned his DNA, but that doesn't mean she would have the exact same set of dominant and recessive genes as him.


 * What kind of accent (if any) does Blitzwing have in the German dub of Animated? I'm pretty sure it's impossible to do a German accent if you're already speaking in German..
 * Austrian?
 * Maybe he would have an American accent.
 * Shockingly, there's actually more than one dialect of German! Who could've imagined that one?
 * The troper who posted the original comment (Crowley) is aware of that, and did not mean any Unfortunate Implications. She is very sorry for her stupidity.
 * What bugged this Troper to the point of asking was that she can't find any clips of Animated dubs. This is the only video she can find, and it's in horrible quality.
 * There are, the Japanese dub of animated is listed as TFA 01, presumably meaning Transformers Animated: Season one.


 * In Five Servos of Doom, it's made clear that Prowl received his ninja training during the Great War (references to Project Omega, "We're at war", etc.) But this means that Prowl and Jazz are at least as old as Ratchet and older than the majority of the main cast...dear Lord, I've gone cross-eyed.
 * Ratchet seemed to be middle aged during The Great War while Prowl struck me more as being a young man equivalent. Granted, I know Cybertronians don't exactly age, but I doubt they're actually as old as Ratchet.
 * Yeah..but the others like Optimus and Bumblebee (and possibly Sentinel) are implied to not even be alive until the Great War is long over.
 * After, Prowl probably just started flying through space at relativistic speeds.
 * Which would also explain why it took him so damn long to master Processor-Over-Matter.


 * So, in the Season Three finale. Prowl and Jazz manage to re-assemble the All Spark (which in itself was something of an Ass Pull), and in the process they remove Starscream's fragment. Why didn't it remove the Omega Clones' fragments? The entire plot could have ended right there. Thick armor plating? Either way it's a bit of a plot hole.
 * Starscream broke smaller pieces off of his when he made his clones. That might have loosened it, or made it easier to mentally "grip". Plus, Starscream's was only there due to an accident. The Lugnut Supremes were intentional, so they may have had their fragments put in deeper and more sturdily.
 * Also, reason why  sacrifices himself is that they can't pull out more. So they tried, failed and resorted to plan B.
 * They didn't even manage to get all of the Allspark fragments. In the continuation material and the Allspark Almanac, it's shown that some fragments were left behind (they were too far away to be affected) and caused a few problems.


 * Hiding the Dinobots on a random deserted island sounds fine... until you realize that our heroes to this point never go very far from Detroit which means the only large bodies of water are the Great Lakes waterways (and apparently their version of Detroit actually extends far enough south to be on Lake Erie)... and those're busy waterways, with lots of commercial and recreational traffic. There's a reason the Island Base is usually in the South Pacific.
 * I'm thinking the island was some kind of nature preserve. And it's been shown that Captain Fanzone knows they're there and doesn't mind, as long as they stay there.


 * Have a look at the timeline. Jazz was active during the Great War (his head is one of the busts in Prowl's flashback), Sentinel was part of the post-war generation. HOW THE HELL DOES SENTINEL OUTRANK JAZZ? Was he Kicked Upstairs or what?
 * Maybe Jazz had the same relativistic travel problems Prowl did, and so lacked experience despite being older in an absolute sense?
 * To quote from the Horrible Judge of Character page (which suggests a very believable possible reason), "...And [Ultra Magnus] probably keeps Sentinel Prime at his right hand so he can babysit him. We've all seen what happens when he's not around to keep the glitch-head out of trouble."
 * The whole issue with Prowl's training predating the Great War sounds iffy to begin with. Are we really supposed to believe that he (and by extension Lockdown and Jazz) is that old? Perhaps it's best to just ignore this one.
 * Ratchet was also lower ranked than Optimus, despite fighting in the Great War. Jazz didn't seem to be interested in command. Since a race of immortal robots are unlikely to have a "Go up or Get out" promotion policy, he could just stay in his preferred non-command position for as long as he wanted.


 * If everything Ramjet says is a lie, how did Lockdown make a deal with him? The only way I can think of is for Lockdown to figure out Ramjet's "lies" shtick and then hear something like "I can't make a better deal than the one you already have".
 * It's entirely possible Ramjet never intended to hold up his end of whatever bargain they struck. Not necessarily a good idea on Ramjet's part, but possible.
 * Plus, Lockdown is hardly a bastion of truth. I doubt it would have taken him long to work out Ramject's saying the opposite quirk.


 * If Lockdown gets all his trophy's and upgrades from autobots then doesn't that mean he got that jetpack from one as well? That means there must have, at some point, been flying autobots and yet everyone is always saying over and over "Autobot's don't fly". Also why does Ratchet seem cling so tightly to this belief when he knows Omega Supreme personally.
 * I thought that Lockdown said he hunted for whoever paid him the most. Normally it was Decepticons (paying to hunt Autobots), I'd imagine on occasion he was hired to hunt Decepticons by Autobots willing to pay. Of course, it's possible (perhaps even likely) that he was hired to hunt a Decepticon by a Decepticon. I mean, Starscream can't be the only The Starscream out there, right? For the point about Omega Supreme, he wasn't a real autobot, he was a weapon built specifically to fight the Decepticons, and likely to be decommissioned once the war was over (no one wants an intelligent WMD wandering around the neighborhood...).


 * Why does Ratchet seem so old? Do cybertronians even have old age? Yes, he was around during the great war, but so were Prowl, Jazz, Yoketron, Arcee, Ultra Magnus, Lockdown, Omega Supreme, and the majority of the Decepticons, and none of them look or act nearly as old
 * It's not the years, it's the mileage. Also, it's hinted that Ratchet doesn't go in for the tune ups and full-scale repairs that his fellows do. Once in the series, when asked why he still has dents and scratches in him, he says he keeps them "to remember those who can't."
 * The movieverse isn't in continuity with TFA, but it's the only version to ever explain why T Fs show signs of aging that don't line up with their known age: ROTF Jetfire's a run-down 'old-guy' robot because of energon depletion. Perhaps Ratchet suffered it at some point.


 * After the Elite Guard returns to Earth, there's always this big deal about Optimus' crew not having any proof. YOU'RE ROBOTS! You must have visual memory. We know for a fact you have datatracks that record information. I get Sentinel being hard to convince; he's a jackass. Ultra Magnus has no excuse, and one of these should have been enough to do for him. But no, instead it's a Cassandra Truth until proof literally falls into their laps.
 * Why does it follow that their memory is cross-compatible with their computers? They were created by a magic rock. There's nothing there that stipulates that they know how to copy stuff recorded in their brains.
 * Except, as demonstrated multiple times with Arcee/Omega Supreme/his clones, data transfer between Transformers is wholly possible. It's even a point that finding Omega's activation codes is a simple matter of rifling around in Arcee's brain. Willingly transferring visual memory should be simple by comparison.
 * Only specific "access codes" can be transferred, which is probably a special case as they were (presumably) originally created by computers in the first place.
 * Also, data can be faked. It's likely that the Guard wouldn't believe Optimus and co without physical evidence.
 * Especially annoying considering the first thing Megatron saw when he came back online was news footage of Starscream boasting about his destruction of Megatron to the Autobots. With all of the battles and events occurring over the months, especially the Curb Stomp Battle at Sumdac Tower between Megatron and the Autobots, there should have been a ton of footage of Decepticon footage laying around.
 * Is it just me, or does Prowl's helmet in "A Fistful of Energon" and "Five Servos of Doom" look the same? If they are, why didn't Prowl notice that it was his sensei's helmet the first time around, instead of later? If they aren't, then I'm just not looking hard enough. ..
 * There's slight difference, namely Yoketron's helmet has those square side...thingies attached to it while the one in "A Fistful of Energon" does not. Yeah, pretty flimsy, but hey.


 * How does Fanzone breathe on Cybertron? For that matter, if Sari stayed on Cybertron like in the unrealized plans for season 4, what would she eat there?
 * Well, obviously, Cybertron has an atmosphere that humans can breathe. A lucky break, but Animated is hardly the only science fiction show to do that. As for Sari, as a robot, she should technically be able to survive off of the same stuff as other transformers, but she'd probable miss organic food.


 * The sheer Almighty Janitor status of pretty much the entire main crew. Despite explicitly being an unimportant repair crew, they have two Great War-era vets (one of whom is a skilled Cyber ninja, the other of whom is bonded to the greatest Autobot weapon of all time), a skilled Autobot Academy bot, and the greatest space bridge engineer in the Autobot ranks. And this is BEFORE they Took a Level in Badass. It just reeks of a Contrived Coincidence. And it kept piling them on. Okay, Ratchet being a Great War vet and Prime being an Academy washout... okay, that's fine. Then we find out that Bulkhead is a genius Spacebridge engineer. Okay, Hidden Depths. Neat. Then, out of nowhere, Prowl was active during the Great War AND was to be Yoketron's successor? I feel like if the show went on, we'd find out that Bumblebee was actually Primus or something.