[Note: this was transcribed over the course of several installments, so please note there is a *lot* of text here.

I’d recommend at least reading "what was the plan for Rewind 1" and it is waaaay wilder than anything I could've thought. I have new respect for James. Wow.

As noted, there are actually a couple of questions mentioned elsewhere online that mysteriously do not show up in the recordings...I've taken the liberty of adding them at the end of the interview, with the exception of one pertinent one and that's noted there.]

James thanks everyone for asking questions.

James: Many many questions. I'll try to answer as many questions as I can - difficult ones I will try to answer, but may skip. Nasty ones I will ignore.

Many peoples questions seem to be along the lines of:

• Chromedome and Rewind
• DJD
• What would have happened had the series continued

I think other questions seem to actually be veiled criticisms, i.e. "Would you have you have done more with X",
"maybe you wouldn't have treated this character so badly if you had more issues"... 

Swerve loves human culture. Would he ever date a human, hypothetically speaking?

He would probably date Ryan Reynolds.

What obscure TF do you regret not adding in?

And this person likes what I did with Star Saber...there's one!

John and I and others picked the G1 carcass clean of characters, really. Even the Micromasters, Simon got in there first and hoovered them all up so they were accounted for. As they got into other iterations of the franchise, maybe I would've selected a Beast Wars character.

If Jack Lawrence draws Roller with some of his own mannerisms, who does he draw with your mannerisms?

Jack said "if you like James, you can tell them I draw *Rung* with your mannerisms. That doesn't help my anti-Mary Sue argument at all...thanks Jack.

Why did Rewind 2 and the duplicate briefcase not vanish when the duplicate Lost Light was cancelled out?
[James claps. Excited.]
*Good question*.
The briefcase didn't get cancelled out because it was a new briefcase, reconstructed by Brainstorm from scratch using new parts.
THe Rewind thing is more complicated. We'll come back to that. =)

You've implied that Rodimus was conflicted about Ratchet and Drift's relationship. Could you elaborate?
Did I imply that? Maybe. Rodimus is pleased for them. If we're talking at the end of the run, Rodimus is cool with it. As he says in the issue correctly, Ratchet is a keeper.

Sorry to disappoint the Rod/Drift fans, but I doesn't think Rodimus ever saw Drift as a long-term thing. Maybe a thing. Maybe it *was* a thing sometimes. But not like they were going to settle down together. "It was good when it happened."

Are there any fan pairings that you particularly dislike or love?
Uhhhmmmm...that's a dangerous question isn't it? =) I have never really ...people are going to be upset aren't they?
I don't really see the Rodimus/Magnus thing. That was certainly never intended to be ...I never scattered any breadcrumbs there.

Has the way a panel turned out to be drawn ever surprised you?
Oh yeah, all the time. Jack and Alex and Nick and Brendan and the others...it's always better than I have in my head. When Megatron strides onto the battlefield at the end of Dying of the Light, I was surprised at how amazing it looked, frankly. Not that I didn't expect Alex to deliver, but that was a particularly epic scene thanks to him.

If you could rewrite MTMTE and LL all over again, would you change anything?

Yeah, *definitely*, and I guess this touches on other questions about what do I regret/what didn't I like.

• I'd probably decompress some of it - some of the earlier issues are very tightly packed, and I recognize that this is good for some people. But the earlier issues are a little busy, I'd space them out more.
• Definitely would have more stories focused on the non-core cast.
• Would've had more stories set on the Lost Light during the mutineer's takeover.
• Always wanted to do 1-2 parters around characters like Hound, Inferno, Huffer, Gears, Bluestreak, Mirage, classic G1...a look into the backroom stuff.
• There was going to be an issue with a new character being behind the Lost Light Insider.
• The above would have happened partially to sell the idea that this was a ship with 200+ people.
• I wouldn't have decapitated Red Alert.
• I may not have killed Trailcutter.
• I may have had another DJD conflict/story before they caught up with the crew.

The 4 acts of conjunx endura - a real thing, or another Getaway lie?
Not a lie, it was the real deal.

How did the LL crew - specifically Megatron - react to the deaths of Optimus, Soundwave, and Starscream?
Let's specifically focus on Megatron - he would've been conflicted about all three.
Would've been most cut up over Starscream's death, because there was a lot of unfinished business between him and Starscream, and the reformed pacifist Megatron never got to meet Starscream. That probably eats away at him.
Closely followed by Optimus.
Would've been incredibly interested in what Soundwave had done and would've been proud of him.
Imagine he would have been bitterly affected by all three deaths in slightly different ways.

What was your favorite MTMTE/LL moment and why?
I think:

• the message from Rewind in MTMTE 16.
• Conversation between Chromedome and Brainstorm in the same issue.
• Rodimus reacting to what he thinks is his future dead body.
• Ravage+Megatron scene in Slaughterhouse.
• Lot of moments in LL 25.
• Rung punching the moon
• Starscream's testimony in Megatron's trial
• Seeing DJD designs for the first time.
• Seeing a nuance or character detail that Jack [Lawrence] has put into the scene.

Does Rewind have color changing pants?
Yes he does. Fascinates Brainstorm. No one knows how he does it - he could be an outlier.

Was there any significance to the following numbers:
77 - Rodimus' Room
No.

113
Yes, first TF comic I got way back.

Any significance to them adding up to 190?
No, that's my fault for being "clever" with numbers and thus tricking the readers into treating them as having some significance.

What comes next? Where can we hope to find the next Roberts work?
Good question. Hopefully something coming out soonish, and then plans for something different after that. Will let you know on Twitter.

What do Transformers do with the gifted vials of innermost energon after they've recovered or died?
If you are fortunate enough to be given a vial of innermost energon when you're sick, and you recover, then you can choose. When someone gives you innermost Energon, they do so with no expectations that they will be getting it back. If the person recovers they can gift it back or keep it as a reminder of how much you are cared about.
If you are dead, then like donating an organ it can be recycled.

Issue 14: the layout of the panel suggests Overlord's spark is being harvested. But it looks as if we're seeing something in the Functionist Universe.
That scene in 14 is in the regular universe, and we are seeing Overlord's spark being harvested. Functionists still had a role in the regular universe, just marginalized with the rise of the Senate.

Why did Whirl not accept Ratchet's gift in LL 25?
Was due to his perception of his disability - always felt he needed fixing, but he didn't. He realized that was the wrong way of looking at and he was complete.

At what point did you come up with the idea that Rung was Primus incarnate?
At the beginning, but after Chaos Theory if I'm honest. The dialog in Chaos Theory...maybe it was subconscious. In between writing Chaos Theory and preparing to write More Than Meets The Eye was when I came up with the idea of Rung becoming Primus. That's why you have the serial number in MTMTE 1, as proof for the skeptics down the line that it was considered from the beginning.

Any thoughts on what happened to Orion Pax in the FU?
He would have done incredibly heroic things, but Megatron was always the figurehead. Would have done great things together with Megatron, although a bit of a role reversal of sorts with Megatron being the mentor. Never any question that Orion could survive and come through the portal in Crucible - there was so much going on at that point with so many characters and events to account for...to give Orion enough time and explore him and Megatron's relationship, there just wasn't time. That's why Orion didn't make it through. Sorry Orion. That's why Terminus didn't make it through as well. With Terminus, you also have the reader's perspective of "Did Megatron ever find out that Terminus lied to him?" No, he didn't. There would have been an expectation that those things would've needed to have been addressed on the page.

[Some dude asked Roberts 26 separate questions...really...]

What was the plan with 'Connie' [Scorponok's human baby, the Firstborn] and the actual plan with her if you could've had more time?
She would've been in broad terms part of the Scavengers and have them looking after her. She would've remained young, no artificial aging. She would've been wanted by Scorponok for furthering his plan. There were plans for one of the Scavengers to sacrifice themselves to protect her. Never got fleshed out much further than that.

What does 'warborn' mean?
Means simply that they came into being in the war, as some sort of cold construction or small scale random hotspot.

Would you have given more coverage to concepts like 'the shimmer' and 'blurred data' had the series continued?
Maybe. Sometimes I have lore mapped out - other times like the above you can come up with that "on the hoof". You might discover during an issue there's an opportunity to discuss those things or make a new myth and so you add to it "live", so to speak.

Are there any specific points in the series when they would've played Stan Bush's the Touch?
Played mostly all the time in Rodimus' head.
The montage in the Annual of Rodimus' "Till All Are One" moments.

In Shadowplay, Glitch says that his outlier ability causes him pain. Did this pain ever subside or is his transformation addiction a means of managing that pain like clenching and unclenching a hand to relieve a cramp?
That's a great idea although I did not think of it. The pain subsided and the transforming just gives him a hell of a rush.

Is Cyclonus actually rich?
Not anymore, sadly. He was rich and a landowner, but value can rise and fall. He doesn't own anything on new Cybertron...well, maybe he does! Maybe he and Tailgate have invested in some land.

If the series had gone on for another 100 issues...
My god.

...would there have been more of the DJD or is the conclusion you gave them the intended one?
Yes, really intended to be their end. If i had more space...as I said earlier if I could do it all again, I would have spaced things out and given them more stories. But they were never going to come back. Flashbacks only, sorry.

Was Tarn/Glitch's transforming addiction a plotline that was curtailed or dropped?
Eh, not deliberately, I didn't think of much more to do with it. Tarn was a very rich character - or had lots of gimmicks, depending on your perspective. It was difficult to find room to explore them all. I always wanted to do more about his voice killing people remotely and always wanted to do a telephone scene, and I did get to do that in the end with the flashback in Lost Light.

You left Flame's fate purposely ambiguous.
I didn't think - you're invited to assume he survived.

Liked LL 25 - did you have the Drift/Ratchet romance planned from the very start?
No.

When did your plans for them change or evolve?
As I went along? I think by the time they came back for Dying of the Light I thought "this could go that way". But - here's the secret - it wasn't till I sat down to write 25 that I decided to write that particular ending.

If you had more time and space, would you have covered the uneasy Rodimus/Drift/Ratchet triangle in more depth?
Never intended it to be uneasy. Rodimus was pretty relaxed about it, in as much as it existed. He was pretty cool about it.

Who was the mentor teaching Megatron medicine? Seemed like his skills outmatched Ratchet's.
They nearly did. I think Ratchet's still the ultimate. It's like "Hulk is always the strongest", and you want him to be. There's a variety of skills. You're not going to get a surgeon who is good at everything. Megatron's expertise, you can say, was around the "zero point" neurology and things like that.
Who's his mentor? he's self taught. He's probably the most ferocious autodidact.

Will Brainstorm continue living fine, or in the condition he was in in issue 25, or can he just get repaired or did he choose life support?
We're sort of straying in the territory of "that's up to you to decide"...I didn't write that with it in mind that he would be able to fix himself. That's his fate. He might live a long time, but he'll be very constrained in what we can do in the meantime.

Who are the Malware Brigade? I'm thinking a faction with that title would've been great, like the Phase Sixers or the DJD.
Sometimes a name kind of appeals and you scatter in some world-building confetti while you're going, and you might come back to it or you might not. I always wanted to go back to the Malware Brigade...I think it probably stems from being a kid and references to the "Software Wars" on someone's tech specs. Was it Chromedome? Maybe Guzzle's. There are times when you think to yourself, if you were to write a "real" Transformers story - and this would be bad, what I'm going to say - they wouldn't be running around. THey'd be fighting remotely, using hyper sophisticated drones, or viruses. The Malware Brigade would likely be a more visually interesting version of that concept. Someone else can write that now. =)

Were there ever any plans to bring back Rewind 1, or was Overlords hand obscured in MTMTE 16 just to keep us guessing?

[ed note: buckle in]

Well, okay, let me have a little drink. =)

So let's tie together various questions here. So originally - there's a lot of disclosure you're about to hear - originally Rewind 1 *was* going to come back. Eventually. Rewind 1, we would've learned, would have - because if you remember Rewind 1 couldn't shrink and right back in the first issue we established that he turns into a giant USB stick, essentially. We would've learned that thanks to the intense trauma or panic or fear of being trapped in a slow cell with Overlord, his deep seated defense mechanism/reflex would've meant that he did rediscover the ability to transform and shrink. So he would've shrunk to that size and Overlord would've grabbed him as the ship exploded. So definitely, when the issue was drawn - 16 - the fist was clenched/obscured.

And this is where it gets more complicated.

So, we would have discovered that Overlord and Rewind were discovered by the Galactic Council. So some of that happened - Overlord was discovered by the Council. Originally the Council would find Overlord *and* Rewind, and they would have used Rewind in an experiment that they'd been working on for years - and there are shades of this in a sense, in the finale - a weapon that would punch its way into parallel universes. And they would've fixed Rewind, and given him a suit of armor necessary to jump from universe to universe. And to do that after the first successful jump to another universe, he would've discovered that it would be very difficult to find the power sources necessary to jump again...a bit like Back to the Future. He wanted to get home, a bit like Quantum Leap - just stealing from all these other sources. So the Council wanted to use Rewind as a weapon - it wouldn't be to jump to universes, it would be a super powerful directed teleportation weapon, but it would've malfunctioned and he would've been pushed in space and time, in the distant distant past in a different universe.

So the reason why Rewind 2 survived Slaughterhouse and didn't get cancelled out is because by that point Rewind 1 wasn't in our universe anymore. And so Rewind 1 would've been off-stage having these adventures, fighting his way back to our universe to be reunited with Chromedome, and encountering all sorts of different iterations of Transformers and I guess different Chromedomes, but he wanted the original. Had we had a series 4 or had I enough space in S3 to do the Chromedome/Rewind story I wanted to do, it would've been the return of Rewind 1. The bollocked thing about this and Chromedome and the 2 Rewinds, as you've picked up already, is that if Rewind 1 comes back...then one of the two of them would have to go. One of them is gonna be cancelled out. I had in mind an entire issue just with the three of them - and believe me, it would have worked out scientifically, there would have been a reason for this - they would have been aware of their situation and they could exercise choice over which one of the two Rewinds is gonna go. By this point, you would've hopefully taken Rewind 2 to your hearts and poor Rewind 1 - yes, we all love Rewind 1 - but Rewind 1 would've spent literally millions of years jumping and jumping to get back to Chromedome.

But, here's the other thing - back when Rewind is in a coma in issue 12, and Chromedome speaks to him, we don't know what Chromedome says. But what Chromedome does, is he confesses something. And this ties in with Rewind's alleged allergy to ultraviolet light, and so storyline right back at the beginning...before I wrote issue 1, was that Chromedome was involved in Dominus Ambus' disappearance, and Chromedome was tasked by Prowl with removing from Rewind 1's memories the fate of Dominus Ambus and then removing the precise details of his disappearance from his own memory. When Chromedome and Rewind met at the relinquishment chamber, it was after Chromedome had done that. And Chromedome would have been burdened with this guilt, and he would have confessed this to Rewind when Rewind was in a coma in issue 12.

And if you go back to issue 12, you will see that in that panel, Rewind's recording. So even though he's in a coma, he's recording everything...including Chromedome's confession. So while Rewind 1 is universe hopping, at some point he would have accessed this memory - this recording - and discover what Chromedome did, and his motivation for returning to our universe would have gone from a desire to be reunited with his love to a desire to have a reckoning or to take revenge or...it became more complicated than love.

And the idea would be that Chromedome, when Rewind 1 came back into our universe, this three way conversation with the two Rewinds and Chromedome would've been very interesting; because what Chromedome did to Rewind 1 he would have also done to Rewind 2, but Rewind 2 would only just be finding out about it. And so, and...what I haven't said about it...the Galactic Council [James says "Functionists" here, but I think he meant GC based on earlier] fashioned this armor to look like Primus, because they reckoned that many Transformers were superstitious, and figured if they could teleport "Primus" into the middle of a battlefield, it would sow discord and confusion, etc. so Rewind 1 looked like Primus. And everything I've just told you was more or less going to happen - I'll come back to that - and when I absolutely definitively had to ditch that storyline was when I came to write the last part of the Mutineer's Trilogy, and that scene in issue 12 where we have the Scavengers interlude, that was originally an interlude set in the Marvel UK Transformers universe - and I wrote this scene - and it was set in the Target: 2006 story. In Target : 2006 for those who don't know, Galvatron travels back in time, fights Megatron, tries to build a weapon to blow up Unicron in 2006. Within that story Omega Supreme is brought up but never shows up and his disappearance is never accounted for. So this 5 page flashback would have utilized original Furman dialogue, and it would appear to be Primus arriving from nowhere, fighting Omega Supreme for "reasons", defeating Omega Supreme, and then hopping out of there, basically using Omega's power to hop him closer - very close, because 1986, although in a parallel universe is getting closer to "our" time. So that would've been that.

[Ed note: Roberts pronounces "Omega" like "Amiga" =) "Amiga Supreme", the greatest 80s computer the Autobots possess, I guess...]

And it was written, and two things: by this point I was thinking, "I've already got a lot of stuff compressed into the last 12 issues and I don't think I can find room to have Rewind come back and have that special conversation and to give that the attention it deserves". That was one reason. The other reason was that I'd gone really cold on the idea of Chromedome doing that to Rewind. At the beginning - way back, before issue 1 came out, and you're mapping all these stories - it seemed like an interesting thing. It was a memory, it was using Chromedome's abilities against him, and it was high drama. But I didn't like - as those characters came to life and that relationship came to life - I didn't like that to be part of their relationship. And so we've got references in Dark Cybertron, in issue 14, to Prowl knowing something and using it to blackmail him. And I put those things in there thinking "Well, I can pick up on that or I don't have to." And so yeah...in the end I E-mailed my editor and said, "I don't know how I feel about this anymore" and we decided that, yeah, don't go there.

So hopefully that's explained the UV thing, the Prowl blackmail angle, the lost scene from the Mutineer's Trilogy...oh yeah! And at the end of the Functionist Universe, the end of Dissolution, you would have had an epilogue where Rewind 1 [as Primus] attacks the Functionist Council, and is responsible for them merging with Vector Sigma, which would have led to the Crucible events. And it was all tied together, and I sort of loosened some of those ties, but still would've been able to pursue the story if I wanted to.

So here we are. Canonically, Chromedome didn't do that to Rewind. Prowl's blackmail is of a different nature - to be determined, that original storyline went. And...yeah. So that's...yeah. So that's a lot of answer.

Did you have any more plans for Ten?
I would've used him more. Again, if we'd spaced things out differently I would've used him more. I felt a bit bad; he deserved his own story, much like Roller.

If you had more time would you have fleshed out Ten's infatuation with Magnus?
Yes, I would've had that as a sort of gentle backplot/backdrop; it would've been sweet, and gentle, and innocent.

Why did Nautica say that Skids wasn't a great guy in issue 9? Were you implying that love made her blind to his mistake?
Um, no - she didn't regard him as her best friend. She didnt dislike him, but no longer had that connection to him, which was sad.

If Starscream had to have made an appearance, where and when would it have happened?
Actually that would've been fun. That would've been fun at the beginning of Megatron's time on board, when he wasn't quite set...when he hadn't quite embraced pacifism. It would've been interesting in different ways if he had appeared at the end. I like to imagine the meeting between Megatron and Starscream in the cell at the end, had Starscream still been around.

Was it intentional that the lightning bolt shaped cuts on Cyclonus' face on Tailgate's apparent death look like Drift's face at Ratchet's funeral?
Not on my part, no...I like the idea of that though. No, sorry, that wasn't intentional.

I was wondering why Megatron says he hasn't seen Minimus for centuries, but the Lost Light is still set in the same time as "Optimus Prime".
Right, okay. So that's because of the Warren. It's timey wimey isn't it? The Last Light has essentially jumped back in time to join the main crew.

Do you think you'll ever write these characters again? Maybe a short prose story from time to time?
If there was a big fat hardback ultimate edition omnibus thing, I'd like to do something new to make that worth your while, to enhance the package.

Give a time when fan reaction to something in the comics surprised you.
There must be tons of times! Just trying to think...you guys are quite hard to predict with your reactions sometimes. I thought "Dissolution" would go down better than it did. Oh! The reaction to Getaway being strung up and having his mouth removed. That was controversial, wasn't it? I was surprised at how people reacted to that.

Are Fort Max, Red Alert, and Cerebros in any sort of relationship? Some sort of polyamorous three way conjunx?
Let's just say yes; yes, they are, it works really well for them.

Does Grand Maximus exist as a member of Fort Max's family?
No, I don't think Grand Maximus exists in the IDW universe.

Were Rodimus and Drift Amica Endura?
Um...their relationship was...they could've been and no one would've batted an eye. They may have had the ceremony off panel; that would've made sense.

What exactly is the Simanzi massacre?
The information's in the title, really. It was a bad, bloody fight. It's one of those things that gives a sprinkle of color to the story. Someone should write a story about the Simanzi massacre.

Did Rodimus know that Overlord was on board or not?
Yes.

Is there something you really regret leaving out?
I'm of two minds - the little fanboy in me would've loved to have been able to say I contributed to the original Marvel Transformers universe, which I could've done through that Target:2006 interlude, but it would've been indulgent, even by my standards, and it would've meant that Rewind storyline, which wasn't as good.

Is there anything you hadn't planned to write but did anyway?
Most of it? =)

Did Rung really create all those Matrixes, or did he just have them stored in his secret ass compartment the whole time?

His "ass compartment"...no, he really created all of those Matrixes. He used most of his body to do so. Rung's "ass compartment" is not as capacious as people seem to think.

Did you have any interactions between the LL Captains (specifically, Magnus and Drift) that you didn't get/choose to include?
Not specifically - I'd be able to answer that if I had physically written it and had to cut it for space; I did do that with some dialogue but rarely with entire scenes. I did quite like the vibe we were getting - the Magnus, Drift, Rodimus triumverate we had in the early days and then Megatron came along and squared that triangle. But no, sorry.

What was the Scavengers arc going to be about?
It was originally going to be a 5-part storyline, which was going to wrap up their adventures. I wanted them to have a trade to themselves. It was going to be a longer, more detailed version of what you saw in issues 14 and 15. More scenes, more locations, a bit of a chase. There would have been, vaguely, a "Last Stand" feel about it - I had some sort of floating oil rig that they had to weaponize and defend. Maybe to subvert Dying of the Light.

Would there have been more on the Guiding Hand?
It was always nice that the end reveal was going to be about them. It would have been nice to have seeded more information about them as we went along. But if you look at Lost Light in particular as our Season 3, the Guiding Hand are often mentioned, or they appear as statues, or whatever - there's quite a lot of Guiding Hand stuff in there.

Whatever happened to Pious Maximus?
Well, that's a reaction that surprised me - the love for Pious Maximus. I think it's just because he's got a very cool name, let's face it. Whatever happened to him? I sort of figured that he died. Maybe he died with a butchered mind in the cell.

How and when did the original Ultra Magnus die?
I don't know! It's that thing when you sort of create the details you need as you're writing them or you think you're going to need them. I don't mean this facetiously at all, but for some of the questions I get asked I'd need to have a bank of information that I simply never used.

Are Percy and Brainstorm a couple, or just the closest of friends forever?
Well, if you had to put a gun to my head, I'd say that they were a proper couple.

How much did Pharma hate being stationed at Delphi, even before the DJD? Also, what would you envision his holoform looking like?
There's a lot of Pharma fans out there, isn't there? I don't think he hated it, before the DJD made his life shit. He may have been a bit grumpy and he may have missed Ratchet, but he was in command. He would've run a good medicentre, and I think even before he fell from grace him and Ambulon, they certainly had a grudging respect for each other, even First Aid.

What would his holoform look like? All Pharma fans waiting for the right answer here...when I say things like "I'll come back to that", I want someone out there to remind me on Twitter and I'll tell you. [ed: it doesn't get answered here]

Do you think you have another Transformers opus in you?
I don't know, actually! Well, I had plans for a 12 issue series about something, about a particular character. I won't tell you about it in case one day it comes into being.

What's the conjunx endura ceremony like? Will Cyclonus and Tailgate become conjunx endura?
They certainly are conjunx by the time LL 25 comes around. What's the ceremony like? It's pretty much as sketched out by Getaway.

I understand that writing almost every character comes from a place of empathy. Is there any character you identify with the most?
Not one particular character. There are times when you relate to certain characters. I'm not going to say Rung, obviously...that just plays into people's hands. =) There's bits of all of them really. Chromedome maybe?

When you were writing "Swearth", did a scene between you and Swerve end up on the cutting room floor?
No, as indulgent and fourth wall breaking as things got, I never would've put myself in the comic, literally or through Rung.

[at this point, feed cuts out, comes back and James reveals he's been streaming on his data plan - no wifi!! The ultimate twist! He's also paid for more data just to continue answering questions!]

What do you want to see in a new iteration of Transformers?
Inclusivity, a variety of characters and places, you know...and I want it to be embraced, to continue to build community.

What was with that image Nick Roche posted the other day?
So Nick posted a page that was drawn for an issue of MTMTE that never made it into the issue. It was one half of a two page script that I wrote - at speed - and there's an NDA that I guess is still in force, so I can't say too much. But I will say that it was to do with what became the expanded Hasbroverse. What I can remember from those two pages is that Rodimus had just come from the fancy dress party in Swerve's. There was some dialogue I recycled from there..."a lone Megatron in a sea of Whirls" was in that originally.

How did Ratchet interpret and feel about Pharma's last words, in particular "my beloved Ratchet"?
I think there was an imbalance in feeling between Ratchet and Pharma. Before Pharma's fall from grace I think Ratchet certainly cared for him and respected his abilities as a doctor. But there may have been a bit of a Brainstorm/Quark dynamic to that.

How many times have Rodimus and Drift slapped each other's ass?
I've signed an NDA; I can't disclose that, I'm afraid.

Is there any special meaning to the patterns on Drift in LL 25?
Yes and no - yes, that's why they were there and no I can't tell you what they mean. They're to denote moments in their lives, either literally or symbolically. Might be a version of chronolingualism/spectralism, evoking certain emotional truths. I'll be honest with you, when I wrote the scene in LL 25 with Rodimus and Drift holding hands, I didn't have chronolinguistics in mind. I *love* the way Jack drew that closeup though, and it certainly looks like - and this is something you could only say in the context of this continuity - a "post-chronoliguistic". It looks as if there's a message there.

Is Cyclonus actually a good singer or does only Tailgate think he is?
I think he's a good singer. He's a bit like an opera singer in that his talent isn't always appreciated by the uncultured. And Tailgate would've liked whatever he was doing at that stage in their relationship.

Of the final Lost Light crew, who would win in a game of "Shoot Shoot Bang Bang"?
Probably Whirl, but he would bend the rules.

The end of Lost Light was a love letter to fanfic...
Yes, it certainly was...

What are your favorite fanfictions, and use that word as broadly as you like?
In terms of actual fan fictions, it's been quite a while since I read any for professional reasons. Some of the fan-art that I've seen that sort of sells a scene, relationship, or dynamic between characters. I love to see that sort of thing, particularly around the Scavengers. They've had relatively little time on the page, but some of the fanart around them really speaks to the volume of information on the interdynamics on the team we don't see on the page.

Was the recurrence of the phrase "trapped light" tied to an unused reveal, or always meant to be left mysterious, or did I miss something obvious?
You didn't miss anything! It was meant to refer to "trapped light" within Rung or within the Matrix.

Were you ever tempted to have Unicron and Primus have a faceoff ala the UK stories?
Not really. I wanted to keep the LL storyline in and of itself, just because it was neater that way.

What would have been the big cliffhanger for S3 before the compression?
I cant give much detail, but probably around the Infinites and First-born. As a character, Scorponok would have been a bigger villian, both in terms of the Infinites and the army he had built up. It would have been around him.

You're known to have a special style of writing; such as knowing each and every detail and planning the entire storyline in advance. Can you let us in to some of your process when writing?
Not every single detail is mapped out ahead of time. A lot of it is - the spine of the story is. But two things - you've got to give wiggle room to accomodate things, such as Megatron becoming an Autobot. And you have to rely on yourself to have new ideas while you're writing and include them - or like the Chromedome and Rewind stuff, to jettison things you've gone cold on. You can't be too tied up or you don't give yourself any room to adapt. And you find - I mean - someone said "it's surprising how you can remember everything". I don't remember everything. But bear in mind, you're thinking about this story *every day*. Whether you're writing or not, it's always in your head, so you're living and breathing it. It becomes easier if you think of it like that, to understand how you can keep a lot of plates spinning like that. You're examining the story from every angle, turning it over in your head, figuring out how to best tell it. And picking up details from every angle. When you're doing that, you tend to know things exhaustively. You do come to really understand, become very familiar, with how things fit together.

Which issue or arc was the hardest to write?
Shadowplay was hard to fit into three issues. Crucible was hard, for similar reasons, given there were a lot of characters and events. The end of Remain in Light was very hard to scale down into 22 pages, and I've said before we were originally going to have the briefcase opening there and the pages running out of sequence - it was right to postpone that. I found the 2 parter around Skids and Nautica on Troja Major very hard to write.

Similarly, talking about regrets...I do recognize it was suboptimal, no it was bad to have Cyclonus sustain those injuries at the end of MTMTE 47 and then to have him up and about in 48 with sort of not much in between those two events. I would've done that differently.

Was there anything to Pharma and Tarn besides business?
Is that...am I being asked if there was any shipping stuff going on there? In which case, no sorry. Tarn's a bad guy, and he was principally responsible for Pharma's mental collapse.

Did you have any plans to write Optimus' character further after Chaos Theory?
I would've liked to. I would've done or liked to have done more stories with "The Outlaws", as I called them in my notes. Pax and Roller and his team that we meet at the beginning of Chaos Theory. I would've liked to have told more stories in the Functionist Universe after Megatron stays behind with Pax.

Would Cyclonus and Whirl become Amica Endurae?
Yes, I think they would.

Why am I so into Roller, and why are you making me so into Roller?
I can't explain why Roller has that effect on you, other than what's due to Jack's lascivious designs.

Was information creep entirely a result of Adaptus' weapon, or did it exist independently of that?
I think it existed independently of that. It might've been called something else, but conceptually the idea that data corrodes and is mis-remembered...I mean, I conceptualized that before I linked it to Adaptus' weapon. When it was introduced it was my idea to explain why these robots with software, why it was possible for these near immortals with huge power of recall to have contested history.

Was Ten a composite Cybertronian, with memories of lives or past lives housed in one spark?
I like that idea, I didn't have that idea, but it would account for some things.

Did Megatron feel he was a failure at the end of LL after promising Optimus to find the Knights, or was he more humbled by not getting his way?
I don't think Megatron felt like a failure...by that point, the reality of the Knights of Cybertron has become apparent. They succeeded in their quest in so far as they ended up with a new Cybertron, beyond finding the Knights that was their goal. I think he was at peace with that side of things.

Anything you wish you hadn't done in the stories?
The fake-out with Red Alert didn't do me any favors, sometimes the pacing has been a bit rough or I've had to skip around like the Cyclonus injury in 47.

Which is your least favorite issue and why?
Um...maybe, and this is purely from a writing perspective, nothing to do with the art because the art is always amazing...I will answer this but I will say that some issues didn't benefit from their sequence or closeness to other issues. The Swerve issue following the charisma parasite issues didn't do me any favors because it was three "high-concept" issues in a row.

The Troja Major two parter, I didn't pull that off as I wanted to. I mean, I'm obsessively careful about not submitting an issue until it's the best I can make it. There are bits of every issue I think are good and lots of things I think aren't good. Something in that I couldn't get to work the way I wanted to.

Considering everyone forgot Rung by the end of LL, where does everyone think the additional Matrixes came from?
I thought somebody would ask that...the simple answer is that no one's quite sure. It's just people having to invent explanations for it, since they can't even detect a Rung-shaped absence, let alone explain *that*. Information creep possibly accounts for that, but...conflicting theories.

What was the original rationale for the DJD confronting the LL?
"Dying of the Light" would have originally been based on the DJD coming after Drift.

Do you own any Mastermind Creations?
I don't...I'm very tempted by the MTMTE Megatron as miner, I don't know who put it out...

On what grounds did the Galactic Council have the right to intervene in the Transformers business and punish Megatron?
There's sort of parallels with the UN really, and with the court of international justice. Many worlds have signed up for this and agreed to surrender a degree of sovereignty in a greater justice system. The Cybertronians have been frozen out of that, having made themselves galactic pariahs over the years, and at the end of LL we see efforts by Prowl and othres attempting to re-integrate. It's a combination of "if you want to be part of the Galactic Council you need to surrender to our justice system", and that Megatron is such a divisive character that it carries a bit of weight to say "we will trust your judgment over our own".

[Editor's note: The following question has been said to have been covered in the Q&A, both online and by @unknown456 . However, after listening to the entirety of the stream again I can't find evidence of it. Maybe *it* disappeared into the Warren? I've added a version of it here for context for the question that immediately follows it, which is part of the recording.]

If there had been more time devoted to the Guardians plotline, what would have occurred?
Originally, Rodimus would sacrifice himself in Crucible to stop the Omega Guardians from using the Warren to enter our universe and take it over. Even saying that is making me yawn. Everyone would’ve thought Rodimus was already dead, and as such another character would’ve gotten credit for his sacrifice. Rodimus would’ve known this, and sacrificed himself anyway as a way to show how he had grown as a character.

At TFCon, you mentioned you intended to kill off several more characters in the finale. Who else was on the death list and how were they going to die?
Well I've told you about Rodimus [ed: huh!?], Brainstorm was another near-miss, and I want to say Whirl as well but that's going back a long way.

Why aren't Brainstorm and Chromedome amica endurae?
They might be. Like I said, just because they don't refer to it doesn't mean it hasn't happened. To unpack that a bit, you might have people for whom conjunx endurae carries a certain weight but amica endurae doesn't. Or Chromedome might've been burned out.

Was the secret identity always going to be Glitch?
Yes. People didn't believe me, but yes. That was true.

Of the playlist songs out of your playlist, what songs do you use for writing?
I don't normally listen while writing, but of all the songs I've offered up over the years, it was a Dr. Who Song called "Heaven Sent" that I played a lot during writing of that issue.

Why was Riptide's Autobot brand grey midway through? Did it change when the mutiny went wrong because he thought everyone had been super-murdered by the DJD?
"Super-murdered". I like that phrase, in a different time we would've said that was deserving of a No-Prize. Something where someone says "There's a continuity error, how can we fix this, how can we explain it?" and I would've said, "That's fantastic, that's a great explanation". Someone else asked me why certain Autobrands are gray and others are not. To be honest, we just took our eye off the ball there and had to stick with it. You can see it's perhaps reflective of different stages of grief.

Were there any romantic feelings in Velocity and Nautica's relationship?
Not really, but...it's a spectrum isn't it, feelings. There may have been times where something ebbed and flowed and flared and faded, but they were never intended as such. It was never a consideration of mine.

In the version of MTMTE where Megatron joins the crew, would the green spark from "Remain in Light" turn out to be Quickswitch?
Yes! Good guess.

Other things left on the cutting room floor - I planned to have the crew using information garnered through Chromedome's invasion of Overlord for them to build their own phase-sixer through Quickswitch, given him life through a spark they acquired, and coat him with ununtrium. There's a seed planted in "The Sound of Breaking Glass" regarding this. Reference to Swerve having a tray of liquid metal that he takes away.

I thought it was pronounced "you-new-trium".
No. Well.

Is that a spider on your wall? I hope not.
No, that's a fancy light.

Do you ever see yourself writing Transformers fiction again, or is this the end?
I feel like a little prose story for an omnibus. Or I might have a fantastic idea and try to persuade IDW to let me run with it. I don't know - there might be a gap.

How would Whirl be as a roommate?
He'd be very messy and destructive. You'd probably have a crush on him and then hate him.

Will you ever write "2 Horsepiece"? [ed: !?!]
Not unless I can find a way to get paid to do it and take time off to do it justice. =)

If you voiced a character who would it be?
All of them.

What would Quickswitch's personality be?
Quickswitch was going to be the pacifist character. They'd have gone to all this trouble to create the ultimate super-warrior and he'd never ever want to fight.

Favorite Chris Barry sitcom?
Definitely the British Empire.

Is Kup pronounced "Cup" or "Coop"?
It's obviously pronounced "Coop".

Tell us about Spectralism.
I didn't really think too much about it.

Do the cast remember the truth about the Guiding Hand?
Yes, to a degree. Rung's role is confused.

Does Megatron miss any of his Decepticons?
Yes indeed.

What is considered attractive in Cybertronian society?
Metal.

Favorite phase sixer?
Sixshot, definitely.

What was Wheeljack's original role in your story?
Brainstorm.

What's a Cybertronian wedding like?
Long.

Were the Sharkticons planned to be found in space?
No.

Did Ratty and Drifty...
Ha, I'm always surprised at people's reactions to "Ratty".

Did Ratty and Drifty get together on the way back to the LL or after?
They got together on the way back.

Do you find prose or comics more interesting to write?
Depends on my mood.

Swerve on finding out about Blurr's death?
Inconsolable.

How was the CyGate wedding?
Very loud due to singing.

Do turbofox furries exist on Cybertron?
No comment.

Was there anything between Swerve and Velocity planned?
Absolutely not.

Does Minimus ever transform?
Yes.

What's Rodimus' favorite meme?
He likes the butterfly meme.

Who had more crushes on them: Rodimus or Getaway?
Getaway.

How did Getaway feel when Riptide outsmarted him?
Not happy.

Are there any other duplicates on the Last Light?
That was something that occurred to me, but was too much to explore in Crucible without complicating things.

Any thoughts on Drift's thighs?
They are certainly impressive.

Did the Scavengers raise the Firstborn in our universe?
Yes.

Say something about FU Impactor?
He was a hero.

Did Skids love Nautica as a conjunx?
...yeah, I'd say he was in love with her.

Ravage to Megs - "Don't change back".
Aww we're never gonna answer that one. =)

Are you excited for the Bumblebee movie?
Yeah I am! And that's even before I knew there was a Smiths reference in it.

Roller and Nickel - yea or nay?
I sometimes look at the panel where he's spinning her wheels and think that is the most outrageously erotic thing we've ever put in the comic.

Was Nautica always going to forget Skids?
Yes, sadly.

What alt universe is the crew in at the end of LL 25?
That's for you to decide.

Random fact about Black Shadow?
Scared of oil.

Will Swerve find love ever?
I think he's destined to be a good friend to many.

Wasn't Chromedome going to have the Firstborn early on?
Yes, *very* early on. I had an image of him holding a baby in his hand.

Did Swerve get Misfire's number?
Yes.

Who do you regret killing?
Tailcutter. Tailbreaker. Trailbreaker, even. [clearly James is feeling the Corona at this point...]

Who would win...
My god, no one has asked me a question about who would win! In who would win questions, it's always the first person that you list.

Was Kaon's death always planned?
No.

Will Drift and Rod see each other again?
Definitely maybe.

#1 TV Show?
Community, obviously.

Why did it seem heavily implied in LL 24 that Whirl died while opening the matrix?
That was never intended! I was surprised people read it as that. He was just injured.

Who's the clumsiest Transformer?
Discharge.

What's the most self-indulgent thing you wrote?
The disco scene, which I probably shouldn't have done.

Where did the Guiding Hand get their mortal names from?
Some sort of folkloric information creep. People filling in the blanks, feeling the need to do that.

Kaon and Dominus - were they involved? James, please!
Not in the way you want them to be. Sorry.

What time do you have to be up in the morning?
You're right! I have to be up in the morning to write, actually!

Does Swerve prefer "Queen is Dead" or "Strange Ways"?
OOOOH! Ahhhh, man. Queen is dead. Even though Strange Ways is the cool choice.

Was there always tension between Cyclonus and Getaway?
Yes.

(at this point many people chimed in through Instagram to say they liked the disco scene)
Thank you, everyone, for liking the disco scene!

Does Whirl still make clocks?
Yes he does make clocks! You saw him do that in LL 25.

Has the faith changed now that there is knowledge that the Guiding Hand is real?
Great question! Yes, it must have, I think.

Are you still writing comics?
Yes!

If you were a Transformer, what would your alt mode be?
It would be...a pair of really nice headphones.

Did Megatron get to read any of Minimus' poetry?
Minimus took it to him in the last days in his cell.

Did Swerve actually watch all of Earth's entertainment?
Yes. Twice. Apart from Iron Fist.

Does Brainstorm like Inspector Gadget?
He's conflicted about that.

What would Death's Head's alt mode be?
A horn.

Optimus and Megatron - how would that conversation have gone?
Oh my god, it would have been the most intense conversation they've ever had respectively.

Besides Rung, favorite original character created?
I don't know if Rung *is* my favorite! I think Nautica.

Is Deathsaurus a Point One Percenter or a Phase Sixer?
He's not a Phase Sixer.

Does Swerve like the Big Bang Theory?
No, because he's got a functioning brain.

Are there any other Cybertronian neuro-diverse conditions?
Yes! I would have liked to have explored some.

Does Pharma feel bad for what he did?
Yes, originally, but then he sort of got overtaken by the mania.

Does Swerve like South Park (early series)?
Yes.

Did Minimus face discrimination because of his furry alt mode?
He did.

Who would win...Cyclonus or Drift?
Cyclonus.

Would you ever do a writing workshop at a convention?
Yes, I would, if there was a demand for it. If I'm invited to conventions anymore!

Do you think Ambulon deserved better?
Yes.

Who's the furry in the Lost Light crew?
Hoist.

Will Rung be in any future projects?
Not my own.

Is Tailgate the cutest?
Yes, he's like a little marshmellow.

Do all of the Lunarians look like Rung, or just some of them?
They all have aspects of Rung...and actually, that's something in LL 25 that we were trying to...we wanted through Jack's designs and Joanna's colors to try and get the idea across without being too obvious about it.

Why couldn't Rook have been Primus?
...sorry.

Hoist and Zootopia?
Yeah, Hoist and Zootopia...he's a big fan of that film.

Is it hard to break into the comics writing scene?
Yes it is, and I was very lucky to have contacts that gave me a chance.

Is Rung watching from above?
Yes.

Who is considered the hottest on the Lost Light?
Getaway was, actually. Followed by Skids. They were a very hot duo.

Were there any cut Scavengers?
Not in terms of team members that I dropped.

What does Perceptor do in his spare time?
He doesn't have any spare time.

What did Rung see on Mediri?
...(thinking) Oh! Yes, that's a good question. Actually, I'm trying to think of whether I contemplated that.

What happened to Functionist Universe Anode?
She was an incredible war general.

Did Nickel have a girlfriend on Prion?
Yes, I think she probably did.

Did Rapidfire survive? Can you tell me about his personality?
He is - as the name suggests, he talks 10 to the dozen, he can't sit still, he's got Attention Deficit Disorder.

Favorite TF toy as a kid?
My favorite TF toy as a kid was Hot Rod, followed closely by Sandstorm...very good.

Grimlock and Misfire - amica possible?
Amica definitely.

Swerve's favorite Quantum Leap episode?
He likes the final episode *a lot*, otherwise it's "The Leap Home" parts 1 and 2.

Is it weird not being on a monthly deadline?
Yes it is weird, actually! My life is lacking shape at the moment in terms of that. It's nice to have time to read and watch things though.

Did Grimlock reunite with Swoop in our universe?
Yes.

Will there be a comic about the DJD in the future?
I was going to say "very unlikely" but who knows?

Current favorite song?
Oh my god it's this song by Grace Petrie called Farewell to Welfare

Who was Nickel's favorite DJD member?
Tarn

What was Fortress Maximus going to do in MTMTE 15 that was so morally horrible?
...hmm. I've forgotten.

Did Crankcase get together with cons4eva in our universe?
Yes.

Decepticons beef with organics...where did it start?
I *should* know that answer...it's a fundamental question! Um...I think it was in...weren't the Cybertronians attacked by organics first? I'll come back to you on this one.

What do you think of this season of Dr Who?
I am...I really wish it well. I'm a bit underwhelmed. There's been some great episodes or great moments, but...something's just not quite right.

Would you like to have done more like Star Saber?
Yes, I would've liked him to have had longer fights with people. =)

How long were Ratchet and Drift together?
Decades and decades, but you've gotta be vague because the time difference in 25 is vague.

What would you tell your child fanboy self?
Try to unlearn things. Don't feel you need to scratch every fanboy itch. Try to relax and do different things.

Swerve and Misfire thoughts?
I think they are the Booster Gold and Blue Beetle of the Transformers Universe.

Which Lost Lighters like the movie "Monsters vs. Aliens"?
None of them.

What styling product do you use, and why do you keeping running from this question, and thus running *from yourself*?
I use "Fish".

Does Rung know that we love him?
No he doesn't. He's very lonely.

What's the one thing you would tell a new comic writer?
Never ever settle for "will this do". If you think something can be better than make it better.

Was Crucible originally going to be longer?
Kind of - it would have been spread out over multiple stories in a way.

Can we have a Spotlight: Hoist #2?
Oh that's the *other* person who liked Spotlight: Hoist! Thank you, nice to meet you!

What bots like Shrek?
No single character likes all of the Shrek movies. They all like the first one.

Did Grimlock and Fort Max reconcile?
Yes.

Rodimus' favorite Disney movie?
Robin Hood.

Lug and Anode wedding song?
"I can't take my eyes off of you".

Which Transformer gives the worst hugs?
Octopunch.

Does Swerve sort of remember Rung because of the fourth wall breaking?
Swerve remembers the cover to a comic that had Rung on it and can't explain what that means.

Would Rodimus eat Doritos?
Oh yeah.

Who gives the best hugs?
Funnily enough, Megatron. I was gonna say Magnus gives the best hugs, but he's only learned this after Megatron.

When did you start writing anything?
Like about six. Six o'clock! No, six years old.

Top three easy on the eye lost lighters?
That's for you to tell me.

Cygate wedding song?
Surely you don't have to ask that one. [ed: Huey Lewis, Power of Love]

How did Chromedome and Brainstorm meet?
At the new Institute.

Has Swerve read your erotic fan fiction?
Yes he was embarrassed, but flattered.

Could you have done an Inhumanoids spinoff any justice?
I don't think I could have done that. I don't think I could have brought the passion you need for that project.

What would a "simpatico" wedding be like?
Very complicated. They'd be trying to outdo each other in subtle ways - it would make a good sitcom episode actually.

Favorite podcast?
Seb Patrick's office podcast, I like that a lot.

Why did Rodimus feel great with the Matrix?
I think that was slightly psychosomatic. He's always fancied himself Matrix compatible...and maybe he is!

Can Grimlock get a boyfriend?
Unlikely.

How would you feel about a Jem/TF crossover?
Fantastic. Bring It On.

Which character would you have liked to have used but didn't get to?
Prowl.

Would you ever consider writing prose for a fanzine?
Uh...it's not the fanzine part...it's just whether I think I need a little break from TF at the moment.

Would Nightbeat like 'Sherlock'?
Oh god yes.

Who was Tusk?
One of the early beast warriors. An elephant.

Swerve's reaction to his fans?
Oh my god. Swerve would be both the best and worst Twitter user of all time.

Any romances among DJD members?
Not that I thought about.

What's your favorite gift from a fan?
I can't choose - but everything that's been handmade I do like.

Have you watched TFP or Animated?
I have watched both but not all the way through. I can see why they have large fanbases.

Skids as Dr. Who...what's the link?
That was just sort of an in-joke that we ran with.

Will you start reading all the fanfic now?
Yes...but please don't - in the nicest way - you can send me links but I can't guarantee I'll read it because I imagine I'll get quite a lot.

What's the worst movie Rodimus likes?
Caddyshack.

How was Terminus' confession going to go?
Terminus was never going to confess to Megatron.

Would Ratchet and Drift open a clinic together?
I like the ambiguity of the word 'clinic' there...yes, they'd open a 'clinic'.

Is "Toaster" the real mastermind of the mutiny?
Yes. He's got issues, Toaster has.

How do you feel about Whirl's many admirers?
I can see why Whirl has many admirers.

Which Transformer would you like as a best friend?
Skids or Rung would be good as a best mate.

Have the LL ever heard the song "Boogie Wonderland"?
No, it hasn't reached them.

Does Whirl miss his Wrecker teammates?
Yes, of course he does! They were his first family.

Execution of Megatron - was it Prowl's idea?
The Galactic Council's, but Prowl was very much in favor of it.

Who would be the best romantic partner?
It depends on your tastes.

Who was Rung's romantic interest?
He didn't really think of people romantically. He was very close to Skids. He was fundamentally a lonely person who liked feeling connected to people.

Who plays Fortnite?
Tailgate, Swerve, Rewind.

Any franchises or universes you'd like to write beyond Transformers?
I'd like to do - back when IDW had the X-Files license, that would have...yeah, X-Files...there should be a Quantum Leap comic. A Death's Head comic...

What's your favorite superhero?
Spider-man.

Please publically apologize for sinking Ratchet/Pharma.
Oh goodness me! When I gave that answer I failed to consider the *very* passionate and devoted Ratchet/Pharma fanbase out there. I'm just giving you my interpretation...but I'm sure, it's not canon anymore is it? Because it's not on the page.

Did Megatron and Ratchet and Minimus ever hug?
There's been contact...touching in the sense of Christmas decorating, of course.

Have you ever read the Warriors books?
No.

Who made the first move: Ratchet or Drift?
It's one of those complicated things where they both think the other one did.

And with that, James wraps the Q&A...BUT WAIT.

So for some reason, this 2 hour recording is *missing* several parts in it that I've seen repeated elsewhere, so here are those, taken from
Jame Roberts’ Instagram Q&A -November ‘18

and reposted here:

Does Rodimus' "flame on" ability make him an outlier?
Rodimus’ flame abilities are not an outlier ability, but an upgrade he got along the way; it's like getting a really excessive tattoo.. The ability is really painful and uses up a lot of Roddy’s energy.

Is Springer hot?
Yes, he is certainly hot. First Aid has a crush on him.

Who would you ship Rodimus with?
Rodimus is an interesting case. Unlike the rest of the cast, hee’d actually be quite well-versed in the area of romance. He wouldn’t pine for people. Roller.

Other scenes with Cyclonus and Drift?
I wanted to included a scene between Cyclonus and Drift, where Drift proclaims his new respect for Cyc after seeing his Great Sword. This scene would’ve happened around the Remain in the Light arc.

[fin]

 

I think the British-English pronunciation is just different. I remember in the Doctor Who special "the Three Doctors" they kept saying "Oh-mee-gah" instead of "Oh-may-ga" like we do in the States.

 

Thank you for the great work! Are you planning to transcript the rest?

 

Yep, just after I sleep  

 

Yeah, I remember that, too. Also same in a 7th Doctor story.

 

Really appreciate this. Helluva task to set yourself. Thank you!

 

Thanks a lot on behalf of all the non-English speaking fans  

 

Lack of focus on the side characters on the Lost Light seems to have always been a big missed opportunity with MTMTE.

 

Oh DAMN

 

Did not these beings can become rich or make any type of money.

 

Cool stuff. No questions about the UK reprints I guess?

 

Agreed. Something I really liked about early MTMTE is that while we'd have a core cast, we would rarely get stories that were *just* the core cast. Like, You would have Pipes accompanying Drift and Ratchet to Delphi, Trailbreaker tagging along during the sparkeater incident, and Perceptor accompanying the crew to Luna 1. I liked it because it really felt like there was an entire crew of colourful characters accompanying the main cast with their own sets of stories, but this mystique kind of vanished once we got into S2. I'd have loved to have seen someone like Hound, Highbrow or Repugnus accompany the crew during Elegant Chaos, or appear during the personality tick stuff.

 

This is great. Really great of @justiceg to transcribe it (I couldn't work out how the Instagram stream thing worked at all last night!) Great of Roberts to answer all these questions, and many so comprehensively.

I can really see Wheeljack taking on Brainstorm's role - with my enduring fondness for Wheeljack, I think that would have cemented the IDW incarnation as one of my all-time favourite TF characters. I grew to like Brainstorm very much, but he had to work his way up from a standing start.

Hate being negative at this point but gnnnghgh what is with all those "Are X and X a couple?" questions? Really, just, jeez, hell.

 

I thought that Brainstorm was originally Wheeljack was always obvious from the start and definitely G1 inspired and would explain the whole psuedo-rivalry he had with Perceptor. It's just too bad that Barber had first dibs on Wheeljack in RID.

 

Hey, when you write an ending like, that you have no one to blame but your self.

 

I'm curious what it could be. something related to the Solstar Order since they were established to be on par with the Galactic council and Black Box Consortia.

Interesting concept. It's similar to when Optimus and Bee were in Pyra's mind during The Falling arc. It could also explain how siblings work with cybertronians. One spark could hold multiple "souls" and splits off when it's harvested.

 

Funnily enough, I came back to this thread to see if you had gotten to that Rodimus thing yet, because I wanted to refresh myself about it.

At one point in the live stream (I guess before this moment if he's mentioning it, but if you didn't see/hear it, then idk what happened. Maybe the recording glitched or something? Maybe it's mentioned later on? idk), someone asked him about if he wanted to do more with the Omega Guardians (iirc), and he answered, yeah, he did want to do more with them (I'm guessing that would've been Season 4 finale), but he had to cut it down. From what I recall, at the moment when the Omega Guardians were returning to the universe, Rodimus would've steered the Lost Light or Last Light (his accent made it kinda hard to tell the difference) into the portal or whatever they were coming through, sacrificing himself to stop them. But, none of the characters would've known that it was him doing it, as they all thought he died previously (Roberts didn't go into detail about this, I'm assuming because he himself hadn't thought that part out specifically other than broad details), and they thought it was someone else driving it (context made it sound like the others knew who that person was). But that character died (again, Roberts doesn't elaborate who it might've been, or how they died), so Rodimus took control, content in the fact that he died with no one knowing that it was him making this grand, heroic sacrifice, as a sign of his growth since the start of the series.

While he was explaining this, Roberts made it abundantly clear that he realized how cheesy the self-sacrifice route sounded, but that he would've found someway to make it work. Personally, this factoid, combined with the original plan for "Last Stand of the Scavengers", Rewind V1 stuff, and Scorponok/season 3 finale, really makes me wish we had gotten the original 3rd season and planned 4th season. CURSE YOU EXECUTIVE DECISIONS! *angrily shakes fist at sky*

 

I have no idea where the Rodimus thing shows up in the live stream (I’ve been transcribing from the one on his Instagram page, maybe it was clipped). If anyone can point me to the approximate time stamp I would be all over adding it in here.

If I had to guess, it would be Rodimus sacrificing himself knowing that they would give all of the credit to Thunderclash.

This live Q&A has really forced me to retroactively evaluate a lot of the run knowing where things were heading or the whys behind certain story points being dropped. Roberts would have been far and away my fave writer of all time with the stories he described here.

 

I wish we got a couple of more Spotlights like Hoist and Trailcutter. The format would've been a great way to explore all the characters on the ship.

 

Ugh, so many shipping questions...

But some interesting information there and might have been neat to see some of these plots play out, as opposed to the rushed, info-dump heavy resolution that actually occurred. I don't know if it would have been a good idea to decompress the earlier issues, though. I didn't think those issues were too 'busy' - the plots moved along at a good pace and all of the important information came through in one way or another, unlike some of the Season 2 and LL issues that meandered and dragged.