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=== [[Transformers Generation 1]] and [[Transformers:
* Why did Starscream use a slingshot in episode 2 when has ''two'' frickin lasers on each side of his arm?
** [[Rule of Funny]], and that Starscream is a [[Troll]].
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** Hammerspace change of scale, he's big enough to eat the moon, and he takes a big chunk out of Cybertron in another scene. Besides, just because he takes a while to rip it apart doesn't mean he won't finish it eventually.
** Cybertron is shown in one episode to be a bit smaller than Earth's moon, and Unicron is a bit bigger than the moons of Cybertron, which are, proportionally to it, the same as our moon. So really, Galvy is only the size of a large building, not Great Britain. Hawaii, tops.
*** As it says in the Teletraan "[http://www.tfwiki.info/wiki/Scale Scale]" entry, "Scale in Transformers is, not to put too fine a point on it, screwed.[...] Most fans agree that one must either ignore it or accept it, lest they be tempted to explain these problems and in the process [[Fan Wank]] themselves into oblivion." In the animated series, the scale doesn't remain consistent during a scene. So, in other words, [[MST3K Mantra|just skate over it]].
* This applies to pretty much every continuity... but the name Bonecrusher. Transformers don't have bones. And yet, it is one of the most common Transformer names.
** The names we know are their English names, not their Cybertronian names, and use of those names off of Earth is obviously [[Translation Convention]] since we can't pronounce their real ones. Presumably the Bonecrushers took those names after meeting us organics; they're invariably decepticons, after all.
*** One Bonecrusher was not, a non-show Maximal... But as this was the series were they turned into animals the 'this is what I can do to the organics' analogy still applies.
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*** He puts it in [[Hammerspace]].
*** [[Memetic Badass|Wherever the hell it wants!]]
**** That logic only holds up if Optimus is [[Beast Wars
** Yes, yes, the trailer disappears. I think that worrying about what happens to Optimus' trailer is kind of missing the point. The real question is where does ''the rest of Megatron'' go when he transforms from a robot of comparable size to Optimus Prime into a Walther P.38 (Even one big enough to be scale-correct to Starscream)?
*** The rest of his mass is [http://www.tfwiki.info/wiki/Size_changing#IDW turned into energy], in accordance with Special Relativity. Presumably, similar technology is used to allow Pretender shells to be human-sized.
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***** Because either the mass-into-energy thing is an "instinctive" process that cannot be harnessed for anything beyond cross-size transformation, Megatron is just that stupid, or energy produced that way is some form of energy that cannot be processed into energon, and as such is useless for their needs.
****** In the cartoon, the robots could turn practically any sort of power source into Energon. Crude oil, gas, geothermal, steam, even electricity from power lines could be easily transformed into it. They once even commented a conversion ratio for oil, it takes 1000 barrels to make an energon cube.
**** That raises further questions. Megatron's matter could be converted into energy and stored somehow, but his mass would remain the same, by mass-energy equivalence in relativity. So Starscream would be weilding a gun that weighed as much as a whole other Transformer.
***** That's not too much of a stretch as Transformers are shown to ve very strong and Starscream and others have been shown lifting other Transformers into the air in the past.
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h62DaJhr74 Here's a more scientific explanation.]
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* Why is it that vehicle modes are almost always realistic-looking disguises, but animal modes almost ''never'' are?
** Probably because, before the Pretenders and '"Beast Wars'' era, Transformers had no way of or no use for imitating organic life. Think about it: they're living robots whose bad guys go after mostly technologically advanced civilizations for their myriad power sources. Why bother imitating something living like a cat that most likely couldn't even go near such devices when a tank or car would do?
** In IDW's comics (''Transformers Spotlight: Shockwave'') The Dynobots actually used Beast Wars-style coverings on their bodies when they took their dinosaur forms, for the same reasons the Maximals and Predacons did. Later, when they wake up in modern times, they don't have the skin, and don't bother to replace it.
** The "real world" reason is that because making brand new molds for transformers toys is extremely expensive (hence the endless parade of repaints and redecos), many of the earliest G1 toys are recycled from other transforming robot toy lines. The G1 Dinobots, for example, were originally created by Takara for their Diaclone toy line and were never originally intended to look like realistic dinosaurs.
* Why in the hell ''can't'' the Transformers make their own energy? They seem incredibly adept at converting other, more crude forms of energy into Energon, so why can't they set up some solar windmills or something?
** I'm not sure if this is what you're asking, but in the script for [[Transformers:
*** I meant ''before'' they came to Earth. It's like they had no concept of "renewable resource" or "alternate power source" while on Cybertron. Not once did I ever recall them talking about looking into manufacturing their own Energon before coming to Earth. Then again, they seem to have awesome skill at ''converting'' other forms of energy into Energon, but again, they don't seem to bring this up.
*** I grew up watching G1, and I distinctly remember that the Autobots fled Cybertron to regroup after a massive decepticon attack. However, Megatron and a group of Decepticons attacked the Ark, causing it to crash-land on Earth where it lay dormant for several million years. This caused severe damage, and the batteries were considerably drained. Thus, the Transformers had to seek out alternate sources of power to recharge it and get back home. The Autobots did go for windmills and such; the Decepticons tried to steal energy from humans because they're dicks.
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** Sure, if you listen to militant, atheistic tropologists. The straight dope is that they couldn't fit on The Ark.
*** I was under the [http://www.christiananswers.net/dinosaurs/j-ark1.html impression] that the dinosaurs made it on to the Ark.
*** Not ''that''
* How come Transformers are primarily humanoid when Quintessons are squidoid?
** In the G1 verse, humanoid aliens are fairly common, while the Quints are pretty much unique. Maybe they figured out that the humanoid shape was inherently more useful for labor, based on their own awkwardness with heavy lifting.
*** Yes, but given that the Quint society would naturally be oriented towards maximum convenience for squids, wouldn't squid-shaped robots be more logical?
*** Since the Quintessons created Transformers as labor-bots, it's possible that humanoid robots are just more efficient for that purpose. Those spindly tentacles don't seem particularly well suited to manual labor, in this Troper's opinion.
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* Why do the Decepticons have more combiners than the Autobots? The Autobots have the Aerialbots, Protectobots, Technobots, Trainbots, Brainmasters, Micromasters and one could probably count the Powered Masters. Compare the Decepticons, who have the Constructicons, Stunticons, Combaticons, Predacons, Terrorcons, Seacons, Dinoforce, Breastforce, and the numerous Duocons.
** Probably goes back to that "Autobots = Labor-force, Decepticons = Military-force" backstory, which is usually pretty accepted. (Can't generalize in this fandom.) Decepticons have more combiner teams because Decepticons have always been more likely to need a giant-ass giant robot smashing stuff.
*** I always put it down to giving each side one advantage: the Decepticons have the brute force, the Autobots have the larger army. Seriously, look how many new Autobots sping up in Season 2 (Perceptor, Hoist, Grapple, Cosmos, Omega Supreme, Warpath, Powerglide, Skids, Tracks, Beachcomber, Seaspray, Blaster, Inferno, Red Alert and Smokescreen) compared to the Decepticons (Thrust, Dirge, Ramjet, Blitzwing and Astrotrain. And let's not get into each side's respective Combiners). Also note that Blitzwing and Astrotrain were the first Triple Changers. Again, it does tie into the post above but it comes down to compensation in some respects.
** The Autobots have '''OMEGA SUPREME'''.
*** Who was originally a Dark Guardian Robot, built by the Quintessons to maintain order with their slaves. After the Dark Guardians were neutralized and the Quints chased off, they were reprogrammed into Guardian Robots by the Autobots. Omega Supreme was a unique case of a Guardian who became sentient.
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* There was a time Unicron considered sparing Galvatron's pitiful planet. Why the slag would Unicron ''ever'' consider sparing Primus, who is locked within Cybertron?
** Because the [[Transformers:
** For a [[Watsonian]] explanation: He's evil. He was lying.
** From the POV of the current canon of a single Unicron and a single Primus across the multiverse, we may consider the release dates rather than the given dates (unless it's treated as a "future timeline" of a current timeline, like the future UK stories). I mean, [[Transformers:
* Why in the name of Cybertron was Cyclonus so stupidly loyal to Galvatron? Skywarp wasn't especially loyal by Decepticon standards (his lack of smarts, however, is something worth noting), while Bombshell was so independent that he and his Insecticons were technically "allies" of Megatron's forces rather than being true Decepticons- and he was willing to try and steal leadership away from Megatron if he could get away with it. Not to mention the fact that, as Webworld makes perfectly clear, Galvatron is just as much a danger to his troops as the Autobots are, if not more so. Which leads to this troper's next gripe...
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**** The matrix IS why. Scourge has a matrix affinity. Since the Matrix is of Primus, this gives him a measure of protection against Unicronian influence, the same way being a person with great faith in Christianity is often a protection of some small measure against satanic influence. Not enough to stop MUCH, but enough to keep the blind loyalty from sticking.
***** But Primus doesn't ''exist'' in this continuity! Unless you want to call the renegade Quintesson who helped the Transformers rebel against his kind that. The Matrix is a kind of datalog containing the collected memories of every Autobot who's ever possessed it, while Unicron is explictly stated to be a giant, extra-advanced transforming robot. Beyond which, explain the Sweeps being immune- while the Skywarp/Bombshell identity for Cyclonus is debated, it's a fact that Thundercracker became Scourge, while the Sweeps were transformed from Shrapnel and Kickback, the other two Insecticons.
****** Primus was [[
******* And, as Scourge's ''melting'' made clear, it had a bit of a [[Toxic Phlebotinum]] effect on the bodies of those who were of Unicronican manufacture.
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** Also, remember that the expedition left in the first place because they were running out of energon. According to at least one source, the entire planet went into power-conserving sleep mode comparatively soon after the Arc and Nemesis left, so not much time ''had'' passed, as far as Shockwave was concerned, since he'd slept through most of it.
* He knows there probably is a reason for it but it still bugs this Troper that Snarl gets disregarded in the movie (my personal favourite of the Dinobots) and that there is no mention of Chip Chase. Granted, he probably became more of a liability in the years following but would it have killed the writers to include a line or two about his whereabouts?
** It bugged this Troper more that Carly didn't even get a mention, you know given that whole "Daniel" thing.
*** What about Bluestreak? Sideswipe? Trailbreaker? Gears? Any of the second-season Autobots aside from Blaster and Perceptor? Chip and Carly are hardly unique in their mysterious absence.
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** It just indiscriminately repairs anyone who happens to be under the repair beam. By coincidence, that happened to be Skywarp, who of course had every reason to get the other Decepticons up and running, and no reason to do the same for the Autobots.
=== [[
* Why couldn't Megatron come back to the valley to finish what he started after the disk was destroyed? He'd found the place already, and I don't recall the Maximals setting up any security measures.
** It's mentioned in the episode itself; Megatron's attack forced the protohumans to leave the valley and spread out, meaning he was unable to exterminate them anymore.
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** Well, let me elaborate: we know that the Maximal Elders kept any and all information regarding Earth and the events that transpired therein under wraps (for some stupid reason)...yet the Predacons aren't keeping to this practice, and again, the aforementioned survivors from before the Transformers even came to Earth would have a better account of what happened; Ravage's comment to Megatron upon his capture ("I served under the original Megatron; you may have his name, but not his army") seems to indicate that his memories weren't tampered with during his upgrade. Also, both Blackarachnia and Dinobot were shown to be avid scholars when it came to their peoples' pasts, enough to recognize Starscream for what he really was (and that he was killed by Galvatron instead of protecting him from Unicron as he said he was) when he returned, so obviously there's still "The Truth" out there that needs to be discovered, and no shortage of 'bots and 'cons looking to uncover it.
* I don't understand Dinobot's death at all. I mean, Waspinator has taken ten times that amount of damage before, and Megatron got blasted to pieces. How did Dinobot die from that fight? Granted it was just him against every single Predacon, but still, others have survived worse.
** He fought past the point when he should have gone into stasis lock. Stasis lock prevents the spark from <s>dying</s> disengaging from the body, even through massive bodily trauma.
*** So, when Megatron and Waspinator get blasted to pieces, they go into stasis lock?
**** They ''should'', yes. It's the robotic equivalent of getting knocked out. As long as they didn't talk during the 'being in pieces' phase, it's not a continuity error. Also, Waspinator is... a ''special'' case.
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** Blackarachnia was turned into a Predacon by Tarantulas, which is what he was doing to Inferno before his activation. As for why Inferno acts how he does, it's mentioned that his beast mode has overridden most of his personality, leaving him with heavy ant-like tics (such as calling Megatron his "queen", and his insane loyalty to the "colony"); why that is is unknown, but as Tarantulas was trying to reprogram Inferno in the middle of his alt-mode scanning session (and didn't get time to finish before the session completed and Inferno was reformatted), it's possible that that caused some damage in Inferno's robot/beast personality block protocols that caused the ant mode to take over.
*** Anothr possibility: Inferno's circumstances have nothing to do with him being crazy. He was built that way, but since he wasn't up and walking around until the pod fell to earth, got fiddled with by Tarantulas, et cetera, nobody knew that he was defective.
**** It's also possible that ant instincts are just that strong. ''[[
* I find it annoying that Silverbolt only tries to redeem Blackarachnia, using the claim she was built out of Maximal parts as one of the lines he tries to do so with. That's true, but so are Inferno, Quickstrike, and, God forbid, ''Rampage''. Yet, he doesn't do anything to try and redeem any of those (granted Rampage is a [[Complete Monster]], but I get the idea that Inferno is redeemable after a ''thorough'' defragging of his hard drive.) Granted, those guys are much too aggressive to even let him.
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** See [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Aaron_Archer here.]
* Why the hell did they pull it from broadcast TV after the [[Wham! Episode]] of ep. 26 that had a Cliffhanger ending?
* Why wasn't "Scorponok's Scars" dubbed?
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**** No gender means "no girls" and "no boys". Technicaly Optimus, Ratchet, Bumblebee and the others are not more male than they are female, we identify they as male because we are socialy conditioned to asign masculine gender to everything that's not explicitly female. But the secondary sexual characteristics we use to identify a character as girl (including voice pitch) are inaplicable to most of earth species (I'm pretty sure you can't find anything specialy "femenine" in, for example, a female [[Futurama|crab]]) let alone to a race of [[Starfish Aliens|alien giant transforming robots, only vagely humanoid]]. So a robot with [[Non-Mammal Mammaries|breasts]], hourglass figure, [[Tertiary Sexual Characteristics|some contraption in the head imitating hairdo]], and a higher pitch voice, makes little sense, but the Autobots decided to make Arcee this way to meet our preconceptions, only they overdid it. Maybe a little less [[Pink Girl, Blue Boy|pink]] would have helped, but in fairness I think it would be very hard to make something that is naturaly genderless look "femenine" without it looking "stereotypical femenine". Sometimes you just can't win.
***** To be fair, the transformers are mostly warriors, so that's another reason to view them as male. Then again, I am not sure using stereotypical gender roles is much better than defaulting to male when anthropomorphizing genderless alien beings.
** In the IDW comic, [[Mad Scientist|Jhiaxus]] introduced gender to the Transformers just to see what would happen. The real question here is "how did the Transformers ''know'' that Arcee was female"?
*** Kup had enough experience with organic species to figure it out, according to the ''More Than Meets the Eye'' character profiles.
*** They didn't. What happened was that the introduction of gender caused the others to sense a difference about her and use female pronouns due to it.
** in the G1 cartoon continuity the Transformers were originally created by the Quintessons as a slave race and were bought and sold on the interstellar market until they rebelled. The Decepticons were created to be disposable soldiers while the Autobots were marketed as laborers and domestic servants. One imagines that there might be a niche market for female robot slaves among the giant humanoid demographic, particularly if they're anatomically correct under their exterior plating.
*** I don't know about you, but anatomically correct giant metal genitals would be a bit of a [[Squick]] to me.
*** Alternatively, they might be for marketing to female-dominated species, who would prefer to have their robotic servants look more like them than the inferior male sex.
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*** ^[[Yaoi Fangirl]]s! You could already know one! They could be on our jobs, our schools, even on your very street! [/joke]
* How come in numerous ''Transformers'' stories, whenever Starscream tries to usurp Megatron (or, at least, it's the main plot of the episode) Optimus and the other Autobots help Megatron rather than whoever Starscream's teamed up with? The whole "[[Enemy Mine]]" thing works pretty much the same with Starscream, not to mention that Decepticons under the control of a Starscream would be much, much less organised and successful than ones under the control of a Megatron. America has done this in countries [
** Megatron may be a brutal tyrant but at least [[Even Evil Has Standards|he has standards]]. Starscream's sole purpose is the aggrandizement of Starscream and he doesn't care what crimes he has to commit to elevate his stature. If he ever gains control of the Decepticons there will be nothing to stop him from turning his maniac ambition on the Autobots and the rest of the universe; when that happens he's likely to engage in war crimes that Megatron wouldn't even contemplate.
*** Uh, yeah, but have any Decepticons actually performed well under a (classic type, not emo type) Starscream? They ignore him in ''Animated'', betray him in ''Beast Wars'', and I get the feeling the kind of guy who blows up the trumpets celebrating ''his own coronation'' isn't going to be too popular.
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* The multiversal hub Axiom Nexus has a law stating that there are to be no Optimuses and no Megatrons. Axiom Nexus has its own Optimus, and its own Megatron. Why has it not banished those two yet, if it has seen the kind of problems the inevitable conflict between them will cause?
** Because the TransTechs are a bunch of pretentious hypocrites.
*** [[The Simpsons (animation)|It says no OptimusES and MegatronS. They're allowed to have one]]
** This law comes from the same live script reading in which Beast Wars Megatron is apparently aware of what characters share his voice actor. In a previous script reading, he opened fire on a member of the audience. Details given therein should ''probably'' not be taken too seriously.
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** Third here: If there wasn't an airlock, then it would have the same reaction as an airplane I would guess. With the change in pressure, it would send everything not bolted down into the empty, vacuum of space. While it wouldn't kill them, it would be annoying at least and catastrophic at most; as a transformer could get lost forever in space. [[You Fail Physics Forever|Or I could just not know how spaceships work.]]
* Why is there IDW comics stuff in the Generation 1 entries? [[Your Mileage May Vary]] about the comics quality, but from an objective POV, it isn't more G1 than the Unicron Trilogy, the live-action movies and [[Transformers Animated]]; all those series replicate the same characters and throw some G1 references into the mix. There's even a few name re-uses as different characters in all of them (Red Alert in the UT, Galvatron in IDW, Scorponok in the 1st movie, Skids in ROTF, Ironhide in Animated, just to name a few). The Dreamwave comic was a modern G1 continuity, [[Transformers: Wings of Honor]] is in a G1 continuity (and even then, it has its own entry), [[Transformers Victory]], [[
** Its G1 because its part of the Primax univeral stream, with story attempting to retell G1 from another universe. If we took it out, we'd have to take Dreamwave out into its own article too.
*** Dreamwave was trying to retell G1, IDW isn't, is just another TF universe like any other. However, if it has already been defined as a Primax universe, it means that it's [[Word of God]] from Hasbro, I must accept it and there's nothing to do in the page. Now what bugs me is why Hasbro considers IDW as a version of G1 when clearly isn't.
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*** This has nothing to do with staying on model and everything to do with the character model itself not actually being able to plausibly transform.
** The old Diaclone and Micromaster leftovers that the characters are based on are, when you look at them, actually pretty funny-looking, and in some cases just plain ugly. The reduced kibble and implausible transformation is the price paid for making the robot modes more aesthetically appealing. Later series are much better about this.
*** Pretty much. The main reason is simply that the actual toy models wouldn't make attractive characters in motion. Technology has improved greatly since then, so they can actually make toys that would look good in motion (or ''have'' motion, for that matter).
* The Fallen's pre-Fall name is Megatronus Prime. Okay, makes a sick sort of sense. But he's a Multiversal Singularity, meaning that he exists in the past of every continuity, and in every continuity, that was his name. The Megatrons we know by that name therefore all obviously were named after him. Okay, in some cases, that makes sense- in several continuities, he's explicitly stated to have taken that name himself as a symbol of his rebellion against authority. But what about the continuities like the movies, where that's the name he was sparked with? Why in Primus' name would his protoform-batch-initiators in the movies, presumably the same protoform-batch-initiators that raised Movie Optimus, name their sparkling after ''Robo-Lucifer''?
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* Regarding a Powercore Combiner drone: the Aerialbot / Protectobot Fighter Jet becomes a leg easily enough. But why does the whole cockpit / nosecone assembly need an entire hinge to itslef? No Commander figure's torso mode has a knee that protrudes out so far that it would be a problem; so what's the deal?
** As one of the earliest molds in the line, the jet was probably one of the first few to be
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Headscratchers (Animation)]]▼
[[Category:Transformers]]▼
[[Category:Headscratchers]]
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