I was reading one of the wiki pages recently regarding headmaster and titan master technology and it lists one of the main and most obvious weaknesses that without the head all the robot mode can do is mostly stand around. Now I've seen in the cartoons they can fight to pretty well anyway in fact the lack of head seems to be no hinderance at all and I'm sure a robots head leaping off and becoming a smaller robot is a great shock tactic all by it's self. But the bit that gets me is most transformers spend at least part of their lives in a headless state anyway IE their vehicle modes which I'm guessing they must "see" through through a mixature of how a pilot/driver would see and some type of built in sensor system a little like on starships maybe. Couldn't these systems be reprogrammed to function in robot mode allowing the bot to function just as well with or without a head?
That's exactly true. There's no reason to assume a Headmaster would become a helpless robot mode if the Nebulan goes off on their own. Transformers can function in alt mode without eyes or a passenger and they can function equally well in robot mode without a head.
And I would assume that they would have some wireless technology to control the body independently from their headmaster robot mode, but also use the sensors built into their bot mode to have input from both their headmaster eyes/sensors and their robot mode/alt mode sensors. At least that's what they should build into it, otherwise it would make being a headmaster inferior, except for the ability to interact with humans on eye level. Thinking about it, being a headmaster takes robots in disguise on a whole new level regarding earth. The possibilities they had if they had continued season 4... *sigh* BTW. I keep thinking of Headmasters as the head being the actual robot instead of being a Nebulon. That's what I thought how it worked when I only had the toys and I prefer that. Thinking about Headmasters being Cyborgs opens up so many questions, that I'd rather not want answered.
In the Marvel comic, the personalities merged. Spike WAS Fortress Maximus. So in that respect, the concept of the head being the mech itself (as in Japanese continuity), or the human being the head, become very similar.
They were robots in the Japanese Headmasters series. I prefered this version of them. Edit - and so was cogman in TLK now i think about it ( even though he never transformed)
I believe in the headmaster anime headmasters true bodies are the small robots the larger ones are akin to pilotted mechs. Though I much prefer the lore of a large and small robot combining bodies and minds literally being inside each other's heads giving huge tactical advantages since one can focus on pilotting the vehicle mode and one can man the weapons and if need be the head unit can even seperate to assist in battle and scaring the living Primus out of his opponent.
As much as I disliked the Headmasters anime, I always thought they had the right idea for Headmasters, never been a fan of the Nebulon's being the heads.
I think the Marvel comics did dig into the technicalities of Headmaster tech in an interesting way on numerous occasions. In particular Spike and Fort Max's ongoing symbiosis and Zarak's decent into madness. The sequence where Zarak has a final moment of clarity on Nebulos, crying madly that he'd made a mistake and Scorponok was 'forcibly rewriting his mind' and begging Galen (I think? Maybe his daughter) for help was really compelling. I like that contrast between the two factions and how specific circumstances provoked Headmaster technology development between them. The Autobots were refugees and war deserters who removed their heads as an act of surrender, hoping for peace, and then willfully engaged in a sacrificial symbiosis with the natives to protect Nebulos from the Decepticons they'd unwittingly led there. Meanwhile, Scorponok and the Decepticons saw the advantages of symbiosis but were NOT interested in sacrificing any of their power or autonomy. Poor Zarak is straight up brainwashed after a misguided attempt to protect his homeworld and continually lives-on Scorponok's twisted agenda all the way until Unicron attacks and he achieves one final moment of clarity in death. Sure it's not as straightforward as 'tiny bots in big mechsuits' but I've found it to be supremely fascinating. I've only just read the original Marvel US/UK run of comics this past year at 21 years old, so no nostalgia glasses are affecting my impressions.
Don't I remember a commercial that showed that the heads would fight over the body, and switch as needed or something like that? Between the comics and such, it's going to be whatever they go for, but for toys, the heads are all compatible with any bodies (plus all the extra "Masters" heads), so I'm going to go that the "brain" is the head and they can take over any of the bodies that they want... so, Cogman could take Overlord's body should he manage to pop the head off or find it unattended. I actually both like and dislike the general concept.
That’s not entirely accurate, it was less a merger and more like an extremely strong link In the marvel comic Spike and Max would converse with each other , have differences of opinions with each other over what to do and how to do it This was good but I felt what they did with Zarak down the line, what looked like his personality re-emerging was great As to the main topic, What if the higher functions of the sensor network Transformers use to see in alt mode is located in the cranial units of their robot modes I could see how that could become a Liability when the head separates in the middle of a fight
