The way I see it, you can't 'kill' a combiner, only force it to disengage combined mode.

 

Correct and for a good example, see the Superion Maximus fight in the last episode of Energon. 

 

Well, but in Energon we never saw the parts of the combiner acting like members, only as as parts of said combiner. I never saw them having actual identitiies.

 

In "key to vector sigma" Prime clearly states that the lives of six autobots are at stake. I remember because I thought he was crazy and couldn't count at the time. This leads me to think, in the case of Superion anyway, the combined form is more than just a "big stick" that takes 5-6 bots to swing. There seems to a life worth preserving there. Plus based solely on the stats, a combiner appears to much more than the sum of it's parts. So between an individual consciousness and the general acknowledgement of life I don't feel comfortable dismissing a combined form as simply 5-6 minds trying to work in concert to mobilize a larger body (ala Voltron or Megazord).

As to how to destroy it...well possibly a psychic attack or something that attacks the mind directly would be the best way to permanently disable a combined form. If that happened I believe the individual minds and sparks would survive, though possibly in a slightly altered state.

 

Depends on how they link up, and how you kill them. if you, for example, cut Bruticus in half, swindle, Blastoff, Vortex and brawl will most likely survive, with onslaught dead.

So yeah.

 

Ah, but a "merged mind" doesn't mean it's all physically in one place. If your computer is connected to a remote server, and the server is smashed with a hammer, your computer doesn't die with it. But it can't link up with those other computers again to form a composite.

Interesting point. The very term "gestalt" indicates that they become more than a sum of their parts... but I don't think the ideas are incompatible. If 5 minds come together to form one consensus mind with a distinct personality, then that consensus mind might still be considered an "Autobot" in it's own right. Heck, the combiners all get Tech Spec bios, after all. But I don't think that they exist simultaneously. They are either 5 or they are 1.

zmog

 

I think the merged minds cannot be compared with my computer being linked up to another, more like a cluster.

 

I imagine that, if a limb or portion of a combiner takes so much damage, it will disengage, never to form that combiner limb again.
But if you kill the robot that iniates the combination, that's when it gets interesting

 

So by this rationale, the combiners only exsist when all components are combined, and cease to exsist when the parts split. Does that mean that the individuals cease to exsist when the combined form takes over? They're clearly suppressed, but to stop all individual function altogether...somehow that doesn't jibe with me.

Could a limb choose to disengage if the combined form doesn't want it to? Does the combined personality need to want to awaken in order for the combining sequence to be successful? I tend to think yes in both cases.

 

I know that a lot of fans like to overlook The Keepers Trilogy books,but at the end of book 2,Devastator is fused together by the nuclear blast and Megatron tells Prime that they would never be able to separate and become their individual components or minds ever again.

That never sat right with me,because what happens when Devs runs out of energy?Boom they are all offline.

 

Well you can take the episode from g1 where the Protectobots had to form Defensor without Firstaid as an example. I think Defensors personality was affected from missing the fifth component. I've never subscribed to the idea that the Gestault had its own spark, I just saw the connection and personalities merge through a local network essentially. I think if you destroyed the center bot the link gets disabled and the four limbs eject... However if you destroy a limb, it would not disable the central link.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSSSSSSSSSIIIIIOOOOOOONNNNNNNN HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!

 

I have no real input into this other than a couple of pics:

Dead combiner? Certainly Onslaught's in trouble:



One of my favourite TF pics (which confuses the issue somewhat!):

 

In #21 of the Marvel comic, the Aerialbots formed Superion to destroy a huge drill. Due to circumstances, Superion didn't destroy it and separated back into the Aerialbots instead. The individual Aerialbots didn't remember what had happened or why they hadn't destroyed the drill. This would seem to lend more credence to the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, otherwise it seems like each Aerialbot would have remembered everything. I thought something similar happened in one of the cartoons, but I might be wrong.

Trippy. VERY trippy. Love it.

 

I think it depends on which combiner it is and how the fatal blow is dealt. Blowing up G1 Devestator's head wouldn't kill the six constructicons, whereas blowing up Bruticus' head will kill Onslaught (since Bruticus' helmet just goes on top of Onslaught's head). And then there's the oddball combiners like RID Landfill, who has three forms but Wedge always is the middle. Shooting right through Landfill's head doesn't seem like it would kill Wedge, but since there's always one of the three other build team members forming the back right behind the head, they're more likley to die because they're in the line of fire.

 

You know different combiners have different attributes. But somehow on Scramble City a Decepticon merged into an Autobot combiner which hurt the Autobot combiner. I forgot who.

 

I never read them, but from what I gathered on wiki, the results of that were never properly explored. what would happened to the individual personalties if they were prevented from disengaging? Would they eventually go mad? Would they end up competing for control of the body? Is a combined form able to sustain itself indefinitley? Or would it eventually collapse under it's own weight? An idea I'd like to see explored sometime.

Egad! What in Gods name is going on here!?

That's interesting. I don't remember the issue. Could the memory loss have had something to do with the "circumstances". Was Superion blasted apart or something? Was this the only time it happened? I'm pretty sure there were times they did remember events as Superion.

I don't remember that ever happening in the 'toon.

 

But if the mental components are linked, but still contained in each individual bot's body, then the head of the Combiner is still just a hub. So if you "kill" the Combiner, and the component bots aren't physically damaged, they should survive, right? However, they might suffer mental trauma because they would have had the intimate experience of death nonetheless.

There's also the whole notion of "virtual death" or whatever you call it in those sci-fi movies where inexplicably your body dies if you die in the virtual world... which is really complete BS. Nobody REALLY should ever have to put their brain INTO a virtual environment... the virtual environment comes to them. That whole notion of feedback-induced brain death only really exists in fiction to attach dramatic consequences to a situation that should actually be quite safe and boring.  

They don't cease to exist. They merge their psyches. They transcend. Defensor (for example) simultaneously is distinct from the other Protectobots AND synonymous. The Protectobots are the ingredients, but putting them together makes a whole new casserole.

I don't think the combined form has it's own will BEFORE it's merged. It's not like Defensor needs to want to "wake up". Defensor's motivations are the product of the Protectobots' motivations... or at least a consensus of them.

This is explained fairly clearly in the long bios when they discuss how coherent the synthesis is for most of the combiners. Menasor can barely function because, despite all the Stunticons following Motormaster out of fear, when fused into one mind, their hatred for him cannot be concealed. Hence the inner conflict and tantrums. Defensor is a pretty good blend, and all the Protectobots get along well, but Groove is such a loner and a free-spirited individualist that his tendency towards distraction can cause a schism in Defensor's composure. It's not strong enough to cause a break in the linkage... just enough to create a mental lapse.

On the other hand, Bruticus works very well together, because despite their differing personalities, the Combaticons are united by a strong professionalism and military discipline. The down side is that this discipline comes at the price of free-thinking autonomy.

I always find it interesting how these personalities emerge though... Computron for example, is nothing like any of his components... with the possible exception of Nosecone's compulsively slow, methodical approach.

Although I'm not a big fan of the Seacons, the long bio for Piranacon is verrry interesting in how it depicts the fusion. The Seacons merge TOO well. Piranacon is similar to Predaking, in that his instinct and purpose is so focused and streamlined, that he is incapable of taking interest in any outside concerns. Piranacon will happily stay fused indefinitely, hunting and killing until he exhausts his fuel supply... to the point that Snaptrap has to set an internal timer to ensure that Piranacon separates. So obviously the composite mind can still have priorities that are distinct from the individual minds.

It's... it's... the combiners that dare not speak their name! Unholy abominations!!

Is that from any specific canonical source? The art is definitely Japanese. And I seem to recall that in Scramble City, they could swap into any other team, just like the toys.

On a related, how many people here realized that Metroplex is designed to combine with Scramble City limb bots? I don't mean connecting the base modes. I mean literally plugging them into the ports on his shoulders and shins. I can't believe it took me 25 years to notice that.

Yeah, that seems like it would be a weird oddity. I would think that Combiners should inherit some knowledge of what's going on from their components when they combine, just as the individual bots should be aware of things experienced by the Combiner after they separate.

I see it as being part of a group mind... you lose a bit of yourself when you do it. In the case of Stunticons, it's torturous because of the personal conflicts involved. In the case of the Seacons, their unity is so seductive that they happily remain fused, even when individually, Snaptrap might otherwise want to order a separation. When he is submerged in Piranacon's mind, he's content just to stalk prey.

Even that might be overly literal. Just because the toy is built that way, it may be sensible to imagine that the "real" transformation might be more complex. Perhaps Onslaught's head would really retract inside his body (like HotSpot does), rather than just put on a helmet. Of course this is complicated in the case of most combiners, by the fact that the Super Warrior helmet/head just sort of appears out of nowhere (subspace magic land). I always liked the fact that Defensor actually had his head integrated into Hotspot's design.

zmog

 

The way I've always seen it is that the primary hardware, software, and other control mechanisms necessary for a combiner is located in the body of the leader. Therefor if the middle body of the combiner is blown to smithereens there is no more combiner, period, tho the limbs would likely survive (but probably severely mentally damaged by the shock) and could be incorporated into another combiner at some point.

Another thing to consider is that the technology each combiner is built with improves on the one built before, like RL computers. So Predaking is generations more advanced than Devastator (tho Devastator, being made of the Decepticons' foremost technicians, may have undergone multiple upgrades such as installing a redundant set of hardware and software in Long Haul in case Hook is taken out). Same with Defensor being more advanced than Superion.

--Moony

 

It's a worthwhile point, though the seniority of Combiners is hardly a constant through the various media. Generally Devastator is considered to be the oldest and most primitive (though still respectfully one of the toughest), but Superion, Defensor and Predaking all came out the same year... who's to say which one came first?

Granted, Bruticus and Defensor do seem to be a little less buggy than Menasor and Superion, and Predaking is clearly miles ahead of those others.
I guess the G1 cartoon and Marvel comics at least agreed roughly on the progression you describe... at least they were introduced in that order!

The issue gets muddier with Computron and Abominus. We know where they came from in the G1 cartoon, but according to Computron's Marvel bio, he was actually built HUNDREDS of years ago on Cybertron. Computron may in fact, be the OLDEST combiner, which might actually explain why he has such a crippling mental quirk. The "Technobots" may have been the top-of-the-line team in their day... but that might have been a long time ago. I mean, it's not like they were going to change their names to the "Mentally Unstable Obsoletobots".  

A tiny quibble with your Devastator theory... people make a big deal about the Constructicons being "great scientists", but that's sort of misleading. Scavenger, Bonecrusher and Long Haul are nothing more than simple labourers... a diggger, a smasher and a heavy lifter, in essence. Mixmaster is a chemical engineer. Scrapper seems to be mostly an architectural engineer, though he may be multidisciplinary. Hook is the most likely candidate for performing upgrades, since he's actually a surgical engineer. He's probably the only one with a particular focus in electronics. Rebuilding TF bodies is literally in his job description.  

zmog