I've been thinking about a number of matters that are sort of related to each other and I'm comming more and more to the conclusion that the so called Aligned Continuity has been revised so much now and well - ignored that it's time to ditch it as anything other than itself.

What I mean by that is yes certain key ideas can remain to be shared by WFC/FOC/Prime and certain other things like the idea of the 13 and their back story (more or less).

But in general in my view it makes less sense trying to hold onto something that is ever more slipping away - when ever I see the TFwiki bend itself into even more unlikely contortions to try to smash together things that don't fit (much to many peoples utter confusion I'm sure).

I can't help think it's time to admit that the events in WFC can't even been seen as consistent with each other let alone with Prime.

IDW have hardly been helping by using the WFC/FOC alt modes they just sow even more chaos.

Transformers Prime that makes no reference or link in any source unless that source has Transformers Prime written on it (like say a kids guide book).
You can't make WFC fit with Prime any more than you can the Hasbro Beast Hunters story fit with the TV Beast Hunters Story.

If two things with the same name don't fit why should two things that are clearly unrelated keep being tried to be smashed into a single whole.


Time for a divorce I think.

To stop confusing newbies and people researching things in the future things need to be listed separately and linked (I'm thinking about TFwiki in particular) but in General too.

You can't say that they are in the same timeline that's proved more and more as they drift and now Prime is defunct there is no reason for anyone to want to do it anyway.

So I say disentangle what you can before it's to late.

Besides The Aligned Continuity was Aaron Archers idea anyway and ow he's been axed - there is no one at Hasbro who has a vested interest in sustaining it - it's like happened after G1 ended there is no longer anyone who cares about how things fit (even though they never did anyway) so more and more drift is just inevitable.

The WIKI has enough on it's plate trying to deal with the new Videogame with it's Movie links - to then try to take all that and say it's linked to Universe and Prime as well.... that is obviously rather daft.

My comment may all be academic anyway as in 5 years time many people might not even remember there ever was an aligned continuity at all.

Just like Hasbro and others have drifted into many bad habits around the Generations brand leading to fragmentation and harm to character portrayals.

If it's all made clear that X is X and Y is Y then there is less reason to get bent out of shape when they kill someone off years later or abuse a character and then put that on the wiki as it's the same guy (according to them and well it's just them really).

Lets take Ironhide as an example - how much more sense would his coverage make if it was all properly set apart into sub categories.

Constructive opinions welcome.

 

No.

 

Hasbro's said that wfc and prime all take place in the same universe, and while that makes no sense, I doubt they have any motivation to change it. Its not like continuity snarls are anything new, and the ones here, while pretty nonsensical to change, are as easily ignored as all previous ones. I'm not sure how the wiki is trying to "smash" things together, they simply give a description of the character, the different media and what occurs within them that involves that character, then maybe a note or two saying "Yeah those two things don't really work together, huh?".

 

It would be far easier to dis-associate PRIME from WfC / FoC than it ever was to attach them all.

They should do it.

 

Aligned was never a direct continuity - it was designed to be a Bible of centralized information and consistent elements which would inform the Transformers media endeavors going forward. That WFC / FoC and Prime were associated with it and there were some people from the official Hasbro channels that insisted they were connected is just muddling the issue, but it is what it is.

 

I'm still confused and frustrated EXACTLY what Hasbro tried to do with Aligned, because in practicality, things really haven't gone any different than they have with the prior major brand pushes. And the seeming fact that this "bible" of sorts was still in development during the development of the "foundation projects (WFC and Prime)", and I fail to see why this was ever a thing to begin with.

In all reality, the brand hasn't really been treated any better than it has always been: even if Hasbro creates a story bible (as they did in G1 and Armada), the different creative teams are ALWAYS going to branch in their own directions, so the very idea of a single "true" continuity is destined to failure, just as it was in G1 or Armada.

I think my sticking point is the term "continuity". I think a better way to view Aligned is a foundation sketch upon which each team "finishes" differently.

 

Aligned at this point is pretty much synonymous with Prime alone. Nothing in it even remotely relates to the most important parts of the game, Dark Energon was treated as two completely separate things by nature of how it's created in each series from the outset, and then the pile of absolute bullshit that is the Covenant of Primus having nothing to do with the games established lore but instead being pretty much supplemental stuff about Prime that is as unrelated as it could possibly be to even the show beyond using the unoriginal "Primes" that Hasbro made up so they wouldn't need to put any real thought into them...

Aligned is Prime and nothing but, essentially, as no effort was made to make it anything else.

 

No matter what Hasbro says: WFC is another G1, just like IDW is.

That's like this meme about the iraq minister  

 

Hasbro decides what is what. It all belongs to them. Despite people not being able to wrap their minds around it Aligned remains a distinct unit of continuity because Hasbro says it is. End of story.

No one argues that we should "divorce" the G1 Cartoon and G1 Comic because they're irreconcilably different versions of G1. They're still both G1 because they're created from the same source material to be versions of the same thing.

It's exactly the same with Aligned. The games, novels, cartoon and packaging fiction is all built from the same sourcebook and all intended by Hasbro to be versions of the same thing.


-ZacWilliam. Hasbro is ok with "loose" or multiple versions within a continuity/continuity family. Fans just need to relax and be that way too.

 

The Aligned Continuity does not exist - or at least not n this multiverse.

The WFC storyline does fit with Prime's, but it's one from a continuity we've never heard of.

The Prime TV series does have it's origins in 'War For Cybertron', but that's a different story from the one we know.

When you think about it, we're dealing with several different Prime continuities alone - the TV series, the comics, the game versions. The Rescue Bots probably have their own personal Prime universe, too.


It would probably be more accurate to say that there are an infinite number of Aligned Continuities, including some where Unicron was actually killed off permanently and even some where Transformers are a work of fiction and a toyline, weird as that sounds.


The next time someone from Hasbro mentions the 'Aligned Continuity', I'll be asking 'Which one?'.

 

I have to argue this point, simply because that's not the case with Aligned. Nobody wants to divorce the G1 Cartoon and G1 Comic because, even though they have completely different characterizations, plots, settings, etc. the core concepts are usually the same. Things like Energon, the use of alt. modes as actual disguises in the human world, stuff of that nature.

With Aligned? From the start, the core plot device of Dark Energon is not even remotely the same thing. In WFC it's a manufactured corruptive substance that gives Megatron the powers of a Sith Lord (but colored purple, 'natch) and eventually screws the planet over with it, forcing the global shutdown and evacuation of Cybertron. In Prime, Dark Energon is outright stated to be Unicron's Blood and impossible to manufacture (so there's a bunch of DIFFERENT Energon types that rarely show up more than once) and the climax of 'Darkness Rising' has Megatron chuck a giant crystal formation of Dark Energon at Cybertron to corrupt the planet...which he already did millions of years ago back in WFC. And the comic that was supposed to explain how FOC tied into Prime? It really didn't even try to do that beyond using one or two BH toys for character models, but rather ended up just being MORE in contradiction to FOC (namely the idea there were Autobots still on Cybertron once Prime left, as in FOC the narration Prime explicitly states all remaining Autobots will leave on The Ark, aside from Metroplex, obviously).

G1's various sub-continuities aren't a problem because they all have the same core elements (which admittedly are very few as they all had to shill the thin-plot parts of the toyline). Aligned's sub-continuities ARE because Prime wasn't developed with any regard to following what was established in the games to the point FOC force-retconned a lot of stuff to even REMOTELY look like it was in the same psudeo-continuity. And they still didn't solve the problem of Orion Pax becoming Optimus Prime in two absolutely different scenarios between the games (where he's just carried in the dead Zeta Prime) and the show (where it's cited as the reason Megatron just went 'screw it' and openly decalred war out of jealousy)

I think you just explained why Aligned managed to do the exact thing it wasn't meant to do.

 

As a continuity it's out of alignment.
It was nothing more than a late-in-the-game marketing concept that you could never see in the toys themselves- which is what it's supposed to be all about.

Maybe the White Knights want to argue that it IS the way HASBRO wants it. That's fine. As a consumer it's an inferior product

 

Takara places everything into a G1 timeline: 'Hahahah Takara you're crazy'.

Hasbro places everything into an aligned timeline: 'THIS IS LAW! OBEY!!'.


I'm not denying that there's an internal guide that creative teams could use / were asked to use, but the fact the first of the products meant to be in the 'aligned' continuity was already underway, different products were given heavy freedom to do what they wanted in terms of story and designs means we've ended up with a continuity that's not really a continuity at all - just different products that share no more traits among another than any other previous Transformers iteration.

The argument that even G1 was just different continuities with different takes is true - that it's meant to be seen as a 'continuity family' - there is something to say for that. But even then, the discrepancy between G1 cartoon and G1 comics is so much smaller than in Aligned, and for every character that's portrayed differently, there's a design that does match up, or a new play pattern from the toyline that's introduced in both.

Aligned consists out of:
-Totally separated videogames that take place way in the past, with designs and storylines that don't line up.
-Totally separated cartoon that takes place in the present, with designs and storylines that don't line up.
-A couple of novels and the Covenant of Primus, that are a mishmash of many different continuities (including movie elements), which also includes another aborted Aligned concept: the Star Seekers.
-A cancelled MMO
-An upcoming MOBA that's since been branded as its own thing.


It was a marketing ploy - one that makes sense, because tying products together means there's more potential crossover. But it was also poorly executed, the stuff that does tie together was either afterthought or cosmetic (quick! Put Prime Prime's gun in FOC, as well as Cliffjumper's head!).

Nothing wrong with accepting it as one thing if that's what you want, but I find it a bit laughable (and insulting) to suggest people who don't accept it as one thing 'can't wrap their heads around something'. Something that's obvious marketing and doesn't make a more coherent continuity...aherm, family, than the tv-show Full House makes a continuity family with Blade Runner.

Hey, they both take place in LA during separate times!

 

Well, if Rise of the Dark Spark is any indication, they've just said "SCREW IT!" to the idea of having series have anything in common and now just lumped FOC characters with Movie characters even though that...still doesn't make sense as to HOW that's possible beyond it just being a Super Smash Bros. clone in a free-roam arena.

Of course, the idea of a Super Smash Bros. clone with Transformers in a free roam arena immediately makes the game that more appealing because then that's basically ROTF multiplayer, which everybody liked.

 

Unicorns, leprechauns, fairies, Aligned Continuity, mermaids...

...the next time HASBRO mentions the 'Aligned Continuity', I'll give it the credibility it deserves.

 

That would be delightful. Very delightful.

 

The person who said WFC and Prime take place in the same timeline no longer works for Hasbro - has it been repeated since ?

I've not heard it.... if anything lately they seem to be trying to shoehorn the IDW Universe into the WFC continuity - after all that is Current Unlike Prime.

I just get this feeling that as with Beast Machines the follow up to Beast Hunters will not be consistent with many things that have previously been said or shown... such as WFC.

I suppose if I wanted to be generous to Hasbro you could say that their Prime/Beast Hunters Toy Universe might be seen as a continuation of WFC/FOC - But I suspect the makers of the new game didn't get that memo. To me the link between the two is potentially even looser than it is between Prime and Rescue Bots.

Thus my thinking it's time for a divorce due to irreconcilable differences.

 

I'd like that very much.

 

couldn't care less