Damn it, I knew the second I decided to rewrite my post, someone would reply to it.

Edit: To actually reply to what you said, there is more to Soundwave than there is to Raf but that doesn't stop the fact that he only turns up when the plot requires it. Plus, who cares about the respect of an insane dude who can't lead?

 

Considering Megatron will murder anybody at the drop of a hat, the fact Soundwave commands his respect is actually quite notable in this show since he's the ONLY one Megatron respects.

 

Firstly, like you keep pointing out, the kid's 12. I find it very hard to believe that, without some sort of real proof that he's a threat beyond he can get in and out, any FBI agent would be able to convince his superiors to assign him anything more than a very low priority. If you're having such a hard time believing Raf's abilities to be real, I'd think a government agency would too. So very likely any surveillance he would have been relegated to very light. Particularly since getting too intense would have probably necessitated involving his parents, if only to learn their backgrounds too. You seem to think the US government would jump to red alert as a knee jerk reaction.

Of course, of more interest to any such people watching him than the strange car he climbed into might be the tag team robot battle they would have gotten front row seats to the day before, a fact that probably would have drawn attention from Agent Fowler (and thus gotten him hotter under the collar than he was). So, I'm gonna take a firm stance that, for whatever reason, a 12 year old super-hacker with no criminal record slipped through the cracks of the US Intelligence community and thus had no one watching his every move for criminal behavior. That's not to say once Bill saw Raf's abilities in action, Raf's name wasn't handed off to someone, but that might have been really stupid considering the OTHER secret he's keeping. (Though thank you for the story idea.)

I direct you back to "Grill" wherein Fowler was being interviewed by his superior General Bryce, who, its revealed is being kept in the dark about the nature of the civilian help the Cybertronians are receiving.

And, if you noticed Fowler watching Raf during "Human Factor," perhaps you also noticed the rather large manilla folder he handed to Raf marked "Damocles." It could be said that what Bill saw at that point was a computer expert already familiar with the Cybertronians who used provided security codes and clearances to access and navigate a rogue satellite, eliminating it. Now granted, Rafael actually being able to crash the satellite as quickly as he did probably threw up some red flags in Fowler's head, but I doubt the agent would be turning Raf's name over to the FBI like he were a criminal rather than a potential future employee.

Raf's a FICTIONAL twelve year old human, that's how you hold them to the same standards. And I'm rather sure no one BUILT Soundwave anymore than they built Ratchet. In the fictional boundaries of the universe I mean, as obviously as a character he was constructed the hack (same as Raf was). His hacking skills are supposed to be from experience, same as his combat abilities, mini-con tech, and other various attributes that those "millions of years" he's lived conveniently gives him an alibi to acquire, in addition to fighting in a rather intense war while managing the Decepticon Army's information AND keeping any Autobot hackers from accessing the same, all while serving at the capricious whim of a rather unstable master.

Whereas Raf is just REALLY good with computers...

And yes, it does take a bit of willing suspension of disbelief to think that, in the space of three years (actually less than that), Soundwave was able to adapt himself to work so flawlessly with Earth-tech that he has no problems slipping in, grabbing, and going. Earth-Tech he would not have had any access to until he made it to the vicinity of the planet and would have had to adapt to in addition to all his other duties, as well as watching Starscream. And this time around they have not yet used the excuse that the Earth's digital age started by reverse engineering Cybertronian biology.

WORK AT HIS... Are we watching the same series? Beyond Wheeljack cracking his facemask, I have yet to see him do anything that looked remotely difficult to him. Heck, even when he went after Damocles's control codes, he just used a recording of Fowler's voice (where did he get that) to trick the soldiers into abandoning the base. All he has to do is violate a computer with his tentacles, launch Laserbeak, or heck even just show up and he gets what he wants. He doesn't even need to interact with others.

Megatron gives Soundwave a wide berth because of their shared history in the pits of Kaon, where Soundwave nearly bested him. It may be less respect and more the bully who knows which victims will fight back.

 

I like all three kids.

 

Actually I do too. Breath of fresh air after Sam Witwicky.

 

This kid can hack the government's internet system, they're going to want him under their control so his threat level is neutralized (because do you realize how easy it would have been for MECH to cause some serious shit to happen online if they'd gone for Raf and forced him to do their dirty work at gunpoint?). I mean, Raf alone has more skill with computers than the entirety of the Anonymous hacker group, which had several accused members arrested because of their illegal activities.

HAD Fowler known about Raf's presence at the battle under the freeway, I'm sure he would have asked about it the first time he shows up at the Autobot base when he's going on about the chain of car wrecks caused by Bumblebee and Arcee. This is of course assuming the writers aren't morons, which they of course are.

So now we're getting into Jimmy Neutron levels of fantasy? Seriously, there's NO way the government can't have known about Raf. If he's seriously this smart with computers, his various academic state tests would be through the roof in terms of scores. I mean, judging from the IQ Raf must have to understand that much about technology puts him ahead of Chris Langan a.k.a. "the smartest man in the world" Christopher Langan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Probably because Fowler knows that he's going to be in deep shit when he reveals he's been letting two teenagers and an adolescent hang out with a warring species of alien?

There's not a difference there. If he passed Raf's name along as somebody to be watched, it's going to mark him as a person of interest. They KNOW he's stupidly smart, they'll have the information on him, and they can not ignore the threat he would pose should he lend his skills to a terrorist organization.

No, that doesn't change ANYTHING. It doesn't matter if Raf is also fictional, he's got the ability to hack on the same level as a millions year-old robot with an extremely small percentage of the time of experience doing it. Hell, I'M good with computers, I'm almost twice Raf's age, I can't do HALF the shit Raf can do in the blink of an eye, and I'm in college working on a Comp. Sci degree!

This is blatantly ignoring the fact that the whole "slipping in and out thing" ALREADY HAPPENED IN EPISODE 1 when he goes to the VLA. Had the kids not intervened, Soundwave would have been unopposed to getting the space coordinate data.

He got Fowler's voice most likley the same way he heard Arcee and Cliffjumper talking in episode 1 despite being at least a few miles away, if not easily more.

And that entire last segment is hypocritical considering you're arguing against Soundwave having made himself easily compatible with Earth tech.

If this were the case, then Megatron would probably treat him no better than any other sentient thing on the ship. As it is, he hasn't thrown a single insult at Soundwave.

 

I think Raf's super autistic, that's why he understands BB.

 

I don't think so, That Guy. I highly doubt autism could somehow attune one's ears to the crude language of an alien mechanoid.

 

After checking the TFWiki page on Raf, apparently even THE WRITERS couldn't come up with some bullshit reason for why this is, so they literally have Raf say "I don't know why I can understand him, but it sort of makes sense" only HOW it makes sense is never mentioned. Ever.

 

Its really quite simple. Raf is in fact an alien robot, probably like Sari. That is how he understands R2-B2, that is how he has ridiculous hacking skills, and that is why his hair looks so frickin' weird!

 

If Raf does turn out to be Sari-esque, I'm gonna go to bed and cry.

Nah, just kidding; I'll lose my nut and ragemode everything instead.

But then again, bed is comfy.....

Okay, I'll ragemode everything, then go to bed for a nap. Cool, I'm sorted.

But seriously, I hope to Primus that never happens.

 

...that still doesn't make Raf any more of a rational character (or vindicate the writers), since we've already established how making Raf into Prime's Sari is one of the most unoriginal ideas of all time. I mean, if they SERIOUSLY go that route and the only possible clue was the fact Raf speaks Astromech from episode 1, then we might as well say The Courtier from Fallout New Vegas is ALSO Cybertronian since he can do pretty much the same thing in the Old World Blues DLC provided his science skill is high enough.

 

No, it's not one of the most unoriginal ideas of all time. It's already been done, and it is unoriginal, sure. But going that route does not reach the level of humdrum that some of the most cliché ideas in Transformers do. Optimus is the leader of the Autobots. They end up on Earth [every time]. Starscream is a coward wanting to overthrow Megatron behind his back. Megatron is the leader of the Decepticons. Autobots are the side of good and the Decepticons are the side of evil. But Primus forbid we dive into the lake over those. Because it's commonplace, right?

Funny how the character traits, plot points, and settings can be used over and over again and we fans don't get angry until they use a plot point that's been done once or twice.

 

Yes, exactly my point. Its only been done once, and while a ludicrous theory, it works when you think about it.

 

You keep acting as if his mere potential to cause problems if he chose to is an indication that he would or even is. Especially since the most malignant thing he's been shown doing in his spare time is perpetuating the LoLcat's meme on conspiracy websites. I find it particularly unnerving that they'd get so worked up over someone who hasn't even shown an inclination towards being a problem, yet not bother jailing Colonel Bishop. And for now, or at least pre-Season 2's finale, Raf is under the Autobots' protection, same as Miko and Jack, and Bulkhead made it clear said Autobots weren't interested in that changing. Beyond keeping a watch on his activities online, if he's now on the radar, it is doubtful the government would risk ticking off their alien allies by taking away one of their charges. No, I do not believe the Autobots would be persuaded that him leaving is in his best interest, I think they'd question why the government seems so willing to punish someone for something they haven't even done.

This in particular because Raf does seem like a rather good candidate for a bit of headhunting when he's older, especially if said Autobots were dangled in front of him as a fringe benefit of the job.

It seems less likely that MECH would have made a grab for Rafael, if only because Silas was quite sure he had everything he needed for a successful organization to challenge the US and the world. Its quite obvious that even if he'd bothered to notice the kid, Silas would have written him off as an unnecessary in the face of MECH's resources.

Or it indicates that there was no surveillance as Fowler's original rant about the incident failed to mention two civilian children in a drainage ditch. It seems rather off mark to insist that anyone watching Raf would fail to report the battle, a report that would have made it to Fowler himself.

He has been recognized, that's why he jumped from elementary to high school. You don't get put on the FBI's most wanted list for being smarter than everybody else. And its fairly obvious that he works not to make waves in high school, so he's not all that likely to show off the upper reaches of his intelligence for fear of being ostracized further by his classmates, particularly since doing so before got him landed in high school to begin with.

Or he kept his promise to Bulkhead about keeping the kids off the books after he got saved from the Decepticons.

You make it sound like when he's not on camera Raf has an inclination to wearing a blue hood and ordering around HISS tanks. They would watch him, but on what grounds would they be able to do more? The government can't just roll up and say "Give us your kid, he's a possible threat" and expect anything BUT trouble. And who's to say he isn't, or wasn't, being kept an eye on after the fact. Fowler wound up moving the whole family, I imagine it would be easier to set something up in whatever new home they wound up in (though that was probably a lovely budget discussion after "Darkest Hour"). But again anyone tapped to keep an eye on Raf would also have to be briefed on the Autobots... Most likely the one keeping tabs on Raf would be Fowler.

So because you couldn't do it, its impossible? Without any intention of sounding insulting, are you a genius? Because if not that might not be the right bar to set the standard by. And in all honesty I have yet to hear anyone concretely say that Cybertronians are more intelligent than human. More advanced in some areas, yes. Older, certainly. More intelligent, no. Soundwave is an exceptional individual for his species, same as Shockwave, Ratchet, and Perceptor. But on the whole the Cybertronians are about as intelligent as the human species, they've just existed long enough to make themselves look smarter. And if Soundwave is smart enough to, in the space of three years, figure out every nuance of human technology he'd need to to so flawlessly work with it, a task that he very likely did not get the chance to devote the entire three years to, why is it so against reason that a human prodigy, a rare occurrence, who lives with that technology, can't match him on that system at the same level Raf does? And keep in mind, Raf has never actually out and out beat Soundwave. He either slowed him down by undoing what why the Con did like with the array in Texas, or avoided him entirely by going after something different as with the satellite's rockets.

I'm not saying Soundwave didn't do what he did. I'm saying that, realistically speaking, he shouldn't have been able to, and that he could indicates his talents are relying more on his legendary status as a hacker within the franchise as a whole than realism. He's not getting past the technological boundaries because he's that good, he's doing it because he's Soundwave and fans would find it more unbelievable that he couldn't. But he's given a pass for this in-universe because he's one of the original characters and he's supposed to be nigh-unstoppable with information. Heck his G1 incarnation was pretty much a psychic who could read other 'Bot's minds based on the radio waves they emitted. There are probably even fans out there who question why Megatron didn't just send Soundwave in to hack Unicron and force him back to stasis. A rather badass thing for him to do, but rather hard to swallow even with Soundwave. But that doesn't stop the fact that he has little to no resistance in anything he's set to do, even when the show's own logic says he's supposed to. Such as when he got set to cracking the Iacon database after "Triage," something the Decepticons had specifically need Orion Pax, or the Nemesis's intelligence, to do.

But I should point out that if I wanted an absolute adhesion to realism, I wouldn't be watching a show centered around giant alien robots fight a war between themselves while in disguise. I'm willing to accept reasonable breaks in reality for the sake of story.

No he would, if only to keep from having to keep butting heads with someone who might not take his attitude for long. Soundwave's loyal, not dumb, and if working for Megatron meant continually having put up with the same treatment Starscream, or more accurately the general soldiers, get, he'd become an even bigger problem to put down. Megatron knows which of the other little children will fight back, and he's not willing to get himself trashed when being civil would work better. If he did not have definitive Soundwave was a bruiser like he is, 'Wave would being getting tossed around just like anyone else if he didn't step right.

 

Everything you listed is expected of the Transformers series simply because they're character archetypes (Optimus is the leader, Starscream is the backstabing syncophant, etc.) or because they need to sell toys (land on Earth for the alt. modes, and have two separate sides so they can fight each other to promote buying more characters.)

Also, after G1, the Transformers technically never got involved with humans again with a cartoon until ten years afterwards when RID came about as a complete continuity reboot/alternate dimension to take over the end of the Beast era. Including RID, the entire fanchise has only technically been rebooted a grand total of five times (RID, A/E/C, Bayformers, Animated, and now Prime/Rescue Bots) since the Beast era shows are G1 continuity. That's almost one continuity reboot every six years, and always to a new audience so the general framework of Transformers can stay constant.

The reason Raf being cybertronian is unoriginal is that it's occurring IMMEDIATELY after the series that debuted the idea; Animated, and another major difference is that Sari's constant interventions were NOT always to fix things up. Rather, more often than not, she made problems WORSE. However, the idea she wasn't human was carried out from the first episode, built up in S2, and reached its crescendo in S3 whereupon in the S4 plans she would have swapped places with Jazz as main and secondary characters, respectively.

Whereas Sari has always been involved with the events surrounding the Autobots and the AllSpark (she is most likley one of the protoforms Lockdown stole from the Cyber Ninjas and stored on the Nemesis, so more or less she's been involved with the show literally from the beginning and NOT after the time jump), Raf was nothing more than an innocent bystander who HAPPENED to be playing in the exact same spot where Bumblebee and Arcee would jump off a freeway to beat up some vehicons. He was also EXTREMELY trusting of a strange robot car that managed to TRACK HIM DOWN TO WHERE HE WENT TO SCHOOL despite not having explicitly interacted with said robot car beyond a one sentence exchange. How does that NOT seem wrong in any context to you?

1. Silas was ex special forces and only went terrorist AFTER being discharged from the service.

2. Yes, the government is so skilled at capturing people who are militant and want to cause terrorism in the U.S.A. despite not knowing where the fuck they are. And even when they DO know, they need to take their time to ensure they can get the target as quickly and efficiently as possible. This is why the planning period for Operation Neptune Spear, the mission that killed Osama Bin Laden, took three months, and then an additional month of nonstop preparation leading up to the raid at the start of May. That was just to kill a guy who was in such poor health that he could not be moved from that location, and the original plan was to just bomb the fuck out of the compound with B2's. The final operation involved 79 commandos and a dog raiding the compound, with backup consisting of heavily armed Chinook helicopters and almost 100 more highly trained SEALs, and then an unspecified supporting group from the Air Force consisting of fixed wing fighters and drones. Just to kill one man and a handful of armed guards.

And then we have Silas Bishop, whose training pretty much implies he knows the expect all of that. And he WASN'T rendered immobile because of extremely poor health, or lacking in armed soldiers. And he tried to steal something that could be used as a nuclear bomb (which is something Osama only wished he ever had). I'm pretty sure he would have been on the government's most wanted list and subject for capture/killing, they just couldn't actually get him since they had no fucking idea where he was holed up.

As for Raf, here we have a kid who CLEARLY is having domestic problems and his only friends appear to be a beeping generiCamaro, the most generic teenager ever, and a supposedly Japanese exchange student who hasn't managed to kill herself from stupidity simply by sheer dumb luck and the Autobots. The liklihood of him growing up with permament issues stemming from this is not as low as you'd like to think, and if he also happens to be the smartest damn guy alive who can hack the military, well...if you've ever seen Live Free or Die Hard you can probably get the idea here.

Doesn't matter if it's pre-Season 2, right now he's on the run from Decepticons with the one Autobot who had his mind taken over by Megatron. Of ALL the humans, he's at the most risk right now.

I never said they would punish him, they would just take steps to ensure Raf didn't step out of line in the future and bring the government to its knees for whatever reason.

Like Raf, with his impossible computer skills, would work on a government check, when he has the know-how to be the next Bill Gates? Right. I'd like to point out that it's canon Raf claims he's been able to understand code since he was THREE . Roughly working back from the show's original start date of 2010, this would mean he was working with code all the way back in 2001. Just to put how damn long ago that is, that was the year the original iPod hit the market, Google started offering image searching, and Windows XP succeeded Windows 95.

Silas wasn't THAT stupid. He probably would have gone after Raf immediately had he ever known the kid existed before, and the one time he learns of his existence in Human Factor, he spends most of the episode trying to KILL HIM. The only reason he went after Jack Darby was because Airachnid wanted to track him down and so they made a deal.

So...you AGREE with me that Raf was not in fact under surveillance, as you insisted he was earlier?

One thing I'd like to point out here is that in real life, a kid YOUNGER than him went to college. At age 10.
Michael Kearney - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Now, you'll probably try to use this against me by saying "But Burnout, this proves somebody CAN be as stupidly smart as Raf!". I will counter by pointing out this means RAF SHOULD BE IN COLLEGE and NOT in Nowheresville High if he's this smart. This just only further proves how much of a plot device these moron writers have made Raf into.

I never said he's be on a wanted list.

Again, he should be in college because he's easily as smart as the guy I linked to above.

Enh, fine, I'll give this one to you since I can't think of a good counterargument right now.

You're acting like I'm saying Raf should be tracked like a convicted sexual offender and I'm not. What I AM saying is that somebody is going to notice Raf is spending a lot of time with somebody who drives a generiCamaro after school, which doesn't mesh with him telling his parents he joined the computer club since as stated in Darkness Rising, Bumblebee's alt. mode isn't a known model of car, which means it's custom, and why would anybody in a high school computer club also happen to own a completely custom (read: really expensive) sports car?

No, I am not a genius, but all you said was that Raf was "good with computers", so I provided a simple counter argument based on that vague statement.

Really? Humanity has invented starships on the level of the Nemesis?

To be honest, "inteligence" may not be the best word for this discussion, I'll admit.

In the three years between Megatron's departure and arrival, the Decepticons laid low and just ran secret mining operations. Soundwave had ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD in those three years to do whatever the hell he pleased, and if it was making himself be more adept at hacking Earth tech, then I bet he could have perfected it.

Raf wrote a virus that infected Laserbeak, and therfore technically both Soundwave AND the Nemesis. And Soundwave never detected it. How is that NOT Raf beating Soundwave?

Gathering information may be Soundwave's forte, but the only other time Soundwave has been depicted as an active hacker was ROTF when he tentacle rapes a military satellite like a Japanese schoolgirl.

And yes, the only reason I wrote that comparison was to keep people interested in this wall of text.

I'll give you the mind reading, simply because IDW appears to have made it used outside of that one G1 episode.

But how could Megatron order Soundwave to hack Unicron? Megatron was turned into Galvatron, who decided to bump off Ultra Magnus and use the Matrix. Galvatron also was quite clearly already slowly loosing his mind in the movie, so rational thought most likely never was Galvatron's forte.

That was lazy writing by the writers when they realized they had to have somebody decode the database but had already decided they wanted Boringmus Prime back to his usual self for S2.

I'm not even going to argue this because of evidence provided earlier in this post.

I'm going to save this argument for later as I'm pretty sure I'm going to violate post lengths or something soon.

 

Burnout, I'm on your side here, but technically, 'Bee is an Urbana 500 muscle car, which is a known model of car in the Primiverse.

 

Huh. Ah, well, so his alt. mode is known.

My point about it being an expensive car still stands, though.

 

I want a spin-ff series about Raf teaming up with Jimmy Neutron and Dexter.

 

I want a spin-off series of Soundwave beating the shit out of everyone.