Never seen the movie but i approve.

 

So why couldn't Rewind or Chromedome get their holomatter avatar to remove the sword that was stuck in the door? You know, when Overlord attacked.

 

Yeah, that is a pretty major issue that the use of holo avatars creates. I guess an explanation one could say is that they don't have as much strength as a Transformer so there's no way it could've pulled the sword or that it takes too much concentration for such a stressful situation that needed such a quick reaction, but there's not a huge lot to suggest that they couldn't have.

 

Maybe it takes a while and some extra concentration to boot one up, making it impossible to use there?

(I don't like the avatars by the way   )

 

Nevermind previous comment, Overlord is after Hedonia. I think the strength thing comes into play as does not always thinking straight when under pressure. Ratchet did use his avatar rather effectively in a similar situation and while at death's door so the concentration thing... Hmm. It might have to do with familiarity as well? Ratchet would have used his avatar a lot more.

 

This entire thing with holomatter can be resolved a quite simple if a heavy-handed manner.

Just show few times that avatars can be simply blocked or disrupted to accent how unreliable it may be in practical use. Or that they can be easily detected.

As they should be. They're some kind of projection. Just like you can scramble a radio transmission with another radio if you know frequency, it should be also possible to scramble one avatar with your own holomatter projector if you can pinpoint frequency at which it operates.

This alone would turn holomatter avatars into a very unreliable method of doing anything precisely because of how common the technology may be. It's not longer that useful to deploy your avatar if any other bot with projector can break it.

 

As has been discussed, those aren't really appropriate limits. Avatars can be projected without effort over great distances, through solid objects of any type, so it's awfully unlikely that there'd be something that to could block them that's not highly specialized and not widely known/acknowledged. As for detectability.... that's not really making them unreliable at all. So they can be detected, so can missiles or ground troops. That's not a negative, and already isn't true, because of the multiple hyper-sensitive scanny-scanny types on the LL, no one realised Swerve was an avatar.

 

I think this may have had the most inventive technique of breaking the 4th wall I've ever seen. A holomatter world, which uncannily reflects our world, complete with the actual comic within the comic, featuring the exposition page that helped the characters out.

 

I thought something similar about the ending of slaughterhouse earlier today. Why even send Rewind B and a shrunken Megatron (which is also kinda dumb) when they could have just sent their avatars and been in way less danger?

 

One might also suggest that they simply never thought of it. The only Autobots who have been shown to be familiar with holomatter avatars are Infiltration guys. It seemed to me that Brainstorm had to introduce the technology to everyone for the Hedonia trip. It might not be standard issue.

 

Neither Megatron or Rewind had the upgraded avatars that Brainstorm and Rung designed.

Anyway they take a lot of concentration to use, and i5 was a delicate situation that needed a steady hand.

 

The Autobots present simply never thinking of it is a perfectly reasonable explanation, but the problem with it is it's never explained by the story. If the story doesn't tell you, it's not part of the storytelling, if that makes sense.

And Megatron and Rewind were chosen for very specific reasons: Rewind was naturally small enough, and Megatron had mass-displacement capabilities.

But... why not have Skids project his avatar? He's confirmed to have one. (Personally, that sounds more reasonable than Megatron shrinking in his new body that turns into *a tank*... but I digress.) And I don't think it's too far a stretch to say Getaway or Riptide would have one. Or they could've used Trailcutter or First Aid, who weren't exactly doing a whole lot down on that planet

Spoiler

other than Trailcutter dying

.

That's fair. But, again, like the "They just didn't think about it" explanation, it's not in the story. If you have to explain it yourself, it's a plot hole, even if you *can* explain it yourself.

I'll be totally honest, I really liked slaughterhouse. I liked Rewind's kinda-sorta return.

#43 just retroactively made it less enjoyable. :/

 

Rewind totally has one of the new holo avatars. He's the generic white boyband-looking guy with the camera, remember?

...But to be perfectly honest, I don't blame you for forgetting. His avatar is very unfitting and unmemorable, which is personally my biggest problem with the avatars: Most of them are either extremely prettied-up, over-designed, and ill-fitting...or they're unremarkable and ill-fitting. The only ones I'm completely on board with looks-wise are Rung's (the old Jung/Brent Spiner dude in the orange suit version, not the other one) Swerve's, and Nautica's.

 

Uh no. Rewind 2 didn't have the upgrade at the time of Slaughterhouse, how could he when one half of its designer, Rung, was 'lost'. That's the point I was getting at.

Megatron is an unknown but judging by his reaction during 43 it was either a very recent upgrade or his first time using it.

But yeah, totally agree with you on Rung, Swerve and Nautica. But I do prefer the steampunk one for fangirly reasons, and steampunk XD loves me some steampunk.

 

This thread, while fun, has turned into the internet equivalent of Chinese water torture. You should all flee and only discuss this thread in hushed tones so as to not upset the delicate balance of nature.

 

Oh shit, wait, I thought we were still talking about the part where Rewind sacrifices himself when getting that sword out of the way of the door closing. Whoops!

Still, though. That's...kind of an overlooked out for Rewind not dying in the first place.

Also, well, I'm just more perturbed that that steampunk avatar is not very Rung-like in the least, which overshadows any love I may have for the design otherwise. Also those muttonchops are hideous.

 

Rewind's sacrifice only makes sense in terms of a split-second decision that was technically suboptimal anyway. I remember we came up with about five things he "should" have done before getting to holomatter.

That was just not a very well *staged* issue. The blocking was pretty much unbelievable or just ineffective at storytelling in most panels. :/

 

In order to use an avatar for complex tasks, doesn't one have to focus on it? I can't remember anyone using one (for more than 'sitting in car mode' at least) while doing anything else.

 

^ Yeah the only one who's sort of halfway pulled it off was Ratchet distracting Pharma with his.

 

There's also a rapidly decaying Ratchet managing to create a holo-avatar sticking out of a wall that caught a vial dropping from a building, while it was out of Ratchet's sight, whilst he was focussing on Pharma. In fact, re-reading the scene, Ratchet was actually getting pummelled by Pharma at the time he should be focussing on the holo-avatar.