1.) who is the random Decepticon with the empurata (Shockwave/Whirl) head? That's a story right there.

2.) Aileron will become the next Mistress of Flame?

3.) (from the 2nd story) I never assumed Fairborn, Sanjay or Jones were Americans. Bad form Barber (Sanjay could easily be Indian or Pilipino. Fairborn always had a slightly British accent to me.)

4.) Oprah is the President!!! (Well I didn't see THAT coming!)

5.) Awwww, Fairborn likes TC after all.

Still a lot to take in but I had to post before this thread became insurmountable.

 

Okay after running through the thread, let me add a few things:

6.) Buster vs Bob, rwarr!

7.) if Blackrock is a Pretender or Maximal, who is he? (Onyx Prime? Is he connected to Tarantulus from SotW?)

8.) Optimus has only been badass in the Shadowplay flashback. For those not old enough to remember when Op was a straight up action hero, that's what Optimus was in the 80's

9.) I'm not sure, but I think Aileron is loosely based on a Go-Bot from a few years back (the same kid friendly simple Transformers that predated Rescue Bots. Look up Air Bot on TFU.Info)

10.) The sigil ship that landed (crashed) into the White House could be the Scavenger's ship

I for one continue to enjoy "President Starscream", it just makes for endlessly enjoyable writing. My personal metaphor for his situation is, "what would a dog do if he DID catch the firetruck?" He's been rendered useless by Windblade & Prime's political manuvering, he's viewed as a traitor to the Decepticons, and will never be trusted by the Autobots. Even when he does make friends (Metalhawk, Scoop, Wheeljack, I know there was another, not counting Jiminy-Bumblebee) he just can't deal, and it makes for great reading when done well.

 

No, he's been said to be a creation of Onyx Prime's. I'm pretty sure he's not any other character--he's just Blackrock.

And Aileron's based off of Crasher from Gobots.

 

It kind of looks like the titan is buried near Jasper, Nevada. ..

 

Ony´x ride then?

 

Galvatron said it best when he mentioned he had weapons older than mankind itself.

 

I never thought of it like that....it sort of does have an Injustice vibe.

Yeah Optimus is one of those characters who is a damn if you do, damned if you don't.

I do agree he did make things bad, but again it could have been worse had he not intervened.

 

There was no need to annex Earth. Prime could have arrived, broadcasted Galvaron's crimes on all channels, announced his intentions to arrest everyone's favorite conquest-happy warlord, offered to work with the exciting world governments/sheduled a meeting with the United Nations in service of this goal, and used whatever technologies Wheeljack could cook up to avoid them if they didn't agree.

Throw in some moralizing and it would have been like an episode of Star Trek the original series.

Instead Optimus Prime taking over the planet and he has very little justification for this maneuver. Why is this gambit even legal? The Cybertronians have not elected him as a Representative nor did he ask the Council for permission. Yet no one in power is attempting to stop him. Where is the oversight? What will stop him from trying this out somewhere else?

I'm not annoyed by his decision to act. I'm objecting to his overreaction.

 

Optimus tried working with Earth organizations to stop Cybertronian threats to the planet. That didn't work out. Neither did just leaving Earth alone to its own devices, as it founded itself threatened by threats that originated from Cybertron regardless. He's not doing this just to stop Galvatron from taking over the Earth this one time, he's doing this to stop all future threats that might face the planet; as he explained, he doesn't think the governments of Earth capable because they were the ones who supplied Galvatron with tech in the first place while keeping this a secret from the world at large, rather than using that tech to actually help solve world problems. Optimus wants to stop this from happening all over again, and as he sees it, inducting Earth into the Council of Worlds and bringing it into the greater, cosmic community is the best way to accomplish that.

As for the legality of all of this, the backstory spelt that out pretty well. Starscream brings up that Optimus has no actual power, but the Council of Worlds still wants to hear his side of things first. The vast majority respect Prime too much to arrest him, and a lot of the Camiens especially would see this as something the Prime is perfectly allowed to do--hell, the Mistress of Flame encouraged him.

I don't think I agree with what Optimus is doing, but I can see where he is coming from, and why the Council of Worlds isn't doing much to stop him. I do look forward to #51, though, as that's been said to be focused on the other Earth Autobots' reactions to what Optimus is doing.

 

Also by claiming Earth as part of Cybertron's protectorate, it might protect Earth from other alien threats (the Galactic Council?).

Sort of like nobody asks the giraffes if they want to be part of a wildlife refuge. Doesn't stop the lions from kill them either.

 

I think the Black Block Consortia would be more likely to attack earth due to cybertronian contact. Also I somewhat agree with Optimus in this situation since earth always seem to be under some kind of extraterrestrial threat in the transformers franchise but I think the way he went about it was ill-advised as many would take it the wrong way. Perhaps stopping Galvatron's attack and opening up a peace talk with the planet's leaders afterwards like what starscream and windblade did the other planets maybe bribe humanity with even more advanced technology.

 

Sure, but the US government is openly using them now.

Really, the EDC deal was, at best, good for buying time. They were hoping to get tricks to let them hold their own like the mind bomb, but a lot of those are one-shot.

Their ideal situation is pretty much, "Cons never find out about mind bomb and/or can't counter it, human arsenal expands and becomes higher tech, all without the populace finding out and turning against them, so if/when treachery happens, be actually ready by then."

But, that relies a lot on luck and nothing happening too soon, and the mind-bomb having to be used early to keep under wraps, and the clone army already being a too-soon breakpoint that almost blew up on them (as Thundercracker quite rightly noted, Galvatron would kill everyone if that happened).

They very much needed the Autobot's help here for long-term survival.

Sanjay is an Indian-American, I get the impression. And Fairborn is based on a G1 character implied to be the kid of two GI Joe members.

 

TBH, most of human weapons are one-shot only.

Mind bomb proved to be manageable both for an Outlier AND a "baseline" TF engineer with Cybertronian tech (Wheeljack as genius as he can be is using a replicable technology).

Orbital cannons proved to be defenseless against a spaceborne Cybertronian. This isn't the most common alt-mode, but probably every TF capable of orbital launch could do the same.

Zombieformers are pointless against a someone like Soundwave and it's pretty possible that an engineer like Wheeljack could disrupt them as well having enough time.

Entire Earth communication network was hijacked by Jetfire to broadcast Optimus's message (hopefully humans won't try going into electronic warfare against TFs any time soon, this could be a trainwreck for Earth).

Piloted mecha seems to be the best solution, for now, but I doubt if they're as hard as TF A-listers, so they probably need to outnumber TFs like 50 to 1 to have a chance.

Possibly humans could kill some rank-and-file grunts, but any war scenario would end with mankind being squished in the end.

Sanjay is a recurring character back from Costa's era. He was a scientist back in Bumblebee's mini. An established minor character working with Skywatch, obviously has US citizenship. Faireborn is a revamp of a Sunbow canon character.
I like that Barber's using already existing human characters where it's possible instead of establishing completely new ones for filling the same roles.

 

It seems sanctimonious to condemn governments for keeping secrets when science experiments on Kimia were classified, Prowl was the Autobot SIC for years, and Optimus Prime was strongly hinted to have known about genocide committed by Autobots in TF Punishment. :/

There's been no evidence of antagonists besides Decepticons showing interest in Earth. Most of the 'cons are on the planet because they feel they have nowhere else to go. Once he rounds the faction up, they're gone. If Prime worked harder to make living conditions on Cybertron better for the Decepticons, there would be less disenfranchised ex-soldiers for Galvatron and Soundwave to influence. They didn't want his aid either, but assisting them would be closer to his jurisdiction than the humans ever have been.

If he involved himself more in community outreach on Cyberton, there would be less Decepticons on Earth to imperil the humans and his presence wouldn't be required.

No matter how well-respected Optimus Prime is in danger of becoming an autocrat. What will he do with the governments that don't meet his specifications? Will we see him set up pro-Cybertronian puppet officials? If the humans don't want to be put "under his protection", it shouldn't happen. This plan is a short-sighted recipe for disaster and it sets him up as being extremely foolish if nearly everyone can see how bad the idea is, except him.

Optimus Prime is an avowed atheist. He doesn't believe in the existence of a supernatural being with the power to grant him the influence he's using. The matrix is broken, besides. He should not be abusing faith the Camiens have placed in him. He knows this and is doing it anyway for the sake of an unnecessary "benevolent invasion". If Bumblebee had attempted a takeover Wheeljack would have bubbled him.

I'm glad neither of us agree with his actions but what he's done is worthy of censure. For the sake of his fans and political allies, I hope Prime's got a better reason than he's expressed

 

You can't really say that for sure. They rounded up all of the Decepticons on Earth the last time, it sure didn't look like they'd ever come back, and and yet they still did. Optimus has no idea how long it'll be before Galvatron or someone else gets another gang together and assaults Earth again, especially when it's been said to be still considered valuable by Cybertronians because it has Ore-13.

And actually, we do have evidence that Galvatron's not the only threat to Earth--Blackrock, who was going to attempt to conquer both Earth and Cybertron, is a Cybertronian himself and also an agent of Onyx Prime, who may also have not-so-good intentions given that he's still after the Enigma of Combination. (and also left a Metrotitan with orders to kill any standard-formers)

 

I fully accept Optimus's action.

Better active heroes than ones drown in their self-doubt strictly following rigid ethics not applicable in situations they are facing. I like that he finally shows some spine. ;]

I only fear a situation where everyone is so set in their own point of view that they won't even try talking before fighting. Which is precisely what is Galvatron hoping for.

Unfortunately both TFs and mankind have really long tradition of being stubborn hardheads.

And of course Prowl and his possible ideas. They rarely end well in ExRiD. Directly challenging Optimus could be the least erratic of his behaviours. I would not be surprised if Prowl went straight into helping Spike.


But I think it's all heading into a classic comic book situation when something new appears and everyone has to fight it together.

 

Remember the Sunstreaker clones back in Maximum Dinobots. They did overwhelm the Dinobots for awhile, but only in *very large* number, and the Dinobots weren't exactly in peak shape either.

Right.

It's not just keeping secrets in general, it's "hiding an actual alliance with the Decepticons of all people."

And Prime fairly clearly dislikes that he has to keep secrets, but some stuff like science experiments are common-sense things, security wise.

 

There were the Reapers.

...although it was the Decepticons who saved the day, that time.

 

O HAI Cliffjumper!

And then Galvatron shot you, thanks for another pop up in the background.

 

Interesting..sad about sideswipe death..does this mean there are new delegates now?