I don't think Brainstorm is working for the Functionists. It's been established in Remain in Light that he was constructed cold, and thus would be in the lower caste under a Functionist-run society (as we see in #35, when the Functionists gained complete control in the alternate timeline they deported all the constructed cold bots from Cybertron entirely). Brainstorm wouldn't want to change history to create a society where he's on the bottom. He just didn't figure that preventing Megatron's revolution, while probably saving countless Cybertronian and non-Cybertronian lives, also means preventing the corrupt Senate and later the Functonists from ever losing power (ensuring the genocide of countless other Cybertronian lives). It's clear Brainstorm wanted to prevent Megatron's rise to power and prevent the war, but it's also clear he wanted to minimize the change he made to the timeline. He started at Croteus 12 to try and prevent Megatron's first kill, but was unsuccessful (probably couldn't get to C-12 in time to prevent the miner riot). Then he tries to prevent Megatron being arrested and brutalized by Whirl, and fails there too. Finally he takes the last option of going back trying to prevent Megatron being born at all. The issue makes it clear that this is his last resort. The relationship between the Functionists and the Senate seems to me to mirror real life relationships between the religious and political classes in many civilizations throughout history. Both groups vie for control of their society. If the populous is heavily devout and invested in their faith, the priesthood can hold more power in the government and force the politicians/noblemen to enact policies they want, and continue to ensure their power. If the populous becomes less devout and more secular, politicians might only pay lip service to religious dogma while focusing more on policies that keep the political class firmly in control. The Functionists want a theocracy based on Functionist dogma with their council in control, while the Senate just wants a regular old totalitarian state they control. The Senate is perfectly willing to use Functionist dogma to keep their power, but they're ultimately just politicians interested in power, not "true believers." it looks to me like "Hardline" Functionism would be that bots should always remain in the body they were forged in, serving the function their alt mode originally determined for them. If we look at RID #34 we can see Nova Prime starting the seeds of a Functionist government in the ashes of the departure of the Primes. I would guess Nova Prime created/sanctioned the first Functionist Council as a way of classifying all the bots on Cybertron and organizing them into his "Golden Age" society. Nova sets up the Senate as the nominal governing body that makes policy and enacts laws, but Nova probably picks Functionists he trusts to run the Senate. But later on, when Nova Prime has the idea of universal conquest, he needs more sparks than Cybertron will give him naturally for an army that can colonize the universe. So he has Tyrest figure out how to generate sparks from the Matrix, starts banking millions of new sparks and building bodies for them. But this would be an affront to Functionism. Your alt-mode determines your place in life and your alt-mode is given by Primus when you're forged. But if you can place all these newly generated sparks into any body custom designed for any purpose with no need of Primus, strict Functionism kind of falls apart. Thus Nova creates the cover story about spark-splicing. Relinquishment clinics are probably another slippery-slope for Functionism. If you can change bodies so easily, why even bother to stay in the body you were originally forged in? Why not upgrade your body, or change your alt-mode so you can do something else? Probably later after the Ark disappears, Nominus Prime and Proteus and other Senators broke from the pure Functionists and just wanted to maintain the status quo that kept them in power. So the Functionist Council would like to increase the religiosity of the populous as a way to increase their power and wrest control away from the Senate. Unrelated, but I noticed this comment: I don't think this is correct. If you look at issue 9, the first setup flashback scene with Nightbeat and Quark is independent of Rewind's story. Rewind's story doesn't involve Rung at all, and starts with Prowl and Chromedome investigating Sherma's murder. It's just a story that involves everyone in the room contributing a part, which should help Rung connect the dots and jog his higher brain functions.
I'm buying Brainstorm wants to plant the green spark in Megatron to make him a .1%. Is that too obvious?
No, I think Brainstorm wants to kill Megatron before he is born to prevent the war, and he'll succeed in killing the blue spark (Megatron's original intended spark) next issue. The Lost Light crew will arrive too late to stop Brainstorm, but they'll catch him and discover that he has that green .1% spark on him. Now they'll have a Sophie's choice: plant the green spark and preserve "our" Megatron and the timeline but also ensure Megatron starts a devastating war, or decide not to save Megatron, preventing the war but ensuring a Functionist dystopia and the destruction of their timeline.
He keeps it in his chest. You can see that he has an open (empty) spark chamber in the picture posted before, from Remain in Light Part 5. Swerve also noticed a green glow coming from Brainstorm's chest in "The Sound of Breaking Glass". Didn't Roberts say that the conclusion to the green spark story wasn't happening any time soon though? Aside from that, the theory of him creating Megatron using it is solid.
I'm going with Brainstorm trying to stop the war (still an Autobot) and resorting to killing Megs at birth as a last resort. I think he will destroy the blue spark, Hot Rod and co will turn up and explain the ramifications and they will have to use the green spark to keep Megs alive (as they were always destined to do). Brainstorm joins Sandstorm on the Autobot naughty step. The face plate being something he keeps to bluff his way out of the hands of any Cons he might fall prey to. So Megs will owe his powers, his rise and the war to the future LL Autobots (who will have to live with that fact). edit- BigC beat me to it.
It totally fits his personality doesn't it. "Don't shoot, I'm really one of you guys!" and then when the poor dumb 'Con turns his back, blam! DJD were too cute to fall for it though.
I think we're rejecting that idea brecause it's just too simple. Brainstorm: "I only have this just in case! Not literally, though, that's where I keep my time machine." Fanbase: "FUCK WE WAITED MONTHS AND THIS IS WHAT WE GET?! OH MY FUCKING GOD RUINED FOREVER ROBERTS YOU TROLLMASTER" Roberts: "... Shit."
To go further, my own interpretation was that the Functionist Council arose moreso in response to the sudden power vacuum on Cybertron due to Nova's disappearance. After all, let's face it, between Jhiaxus and Tyrest's jobs, Nova had no real respect for Functionist ideology; he was less Functionist, and more of a supremacist who saw Cybertronians as a superior form of life suitable to supplant all other forms. Functionism struck me as being seeded by, ironically, his expansionist cold construction policies, as he would want mass production of specific types of 'bots as one would need if they were going to be conquering and colonizing other worlds. When Nova up and vanished, the reins of power would have fallen to Alpha Trion, Dai Atlas, and Omega Supreme, none of whom were likely interested in actually ruling Cybertron directly. Hopefully someday Roberts touches on the forms of Cybertronian government - Functionism strikes me as an apparatus to keep 'bots in line rather than being designed for actual rule; with Nova gone it would be the most organized apparatus left and thus easily fill the void before the Senate could react and push back.
Which is exactly why it's so perfect. It's not like James hasn't done it before anyway (rebuilt Overlord anyone?)
Back to DJD Conspiracy Theories 202. The reasons I thought random bot was Kaon were: The visual foreshadowing The experimental weapon of unknown capabilities The fact that Kaon has outlier-grade skills, but is constructed cold Rung as Vos is a bit more sketchy. There are the visual similarities in general and in that panel in particular (I thought so, anyway). The knock to the head with a Brainstorm weapon seemed like a possible memory loss device. We've talked on these forums before about the oddity of Vos who is new to the DJD, but doesn't speak neocybex (gets a few words, speaks a few words). Unless he was locked up in a lab all this time, it's bizarre. Note, he gets knocked out outside a Wellbeing Clinic, which I guess is where he works, but I can't help thinking Relinquishment Clinic. The Empyrean Suite being whistled could be a lingering memory or have some other significance. Obviously, timeline-wise, it doesn't add up. We know Rung is there in the future. But we also know people keep forgetting about him, like Skids kept forgetting about his gun. This is mentioned one time too many to be throwaway. Then there is the deja-vu comment he makes at the portal to Luna 1 opening. Enough hints here and there to indicate that his timeline might be askew or that others' memories or his own might have been affected. Even if Rung=Vos is a no, there's something here.
He's on the cover of #40 comforting a upset looking First Aid so I seriously doubt he got left behind.
It comes up so frequently because its a running gag, just like people saying his name wrong or Chromedome not being able to say "Pfft". I honestly think you're taking it a bit too seriously. Its supposed to be funny, not foreshadowing a huge convoluted twist. Its completely unlike Skids' gun because Skid's gun was an obvious plot point; a gun mysteriously being in someone with amnesia's hand who forgets its there whenever they're not looking at it is not the same as a joke about a person being forgettable. I think there's definitely been implication that Rung will be important, but not in that he's Vos or that there's some all-important reason he's a forgettable person.
So I'm rereading from issue 28 and I had a thought. What if the gun Brainstorm is holding is the color-coded gun? Perceptor called him a genius, so what if he does something super stupid and tries to shoot Megatron with it, but since Megatron isn't a Decepticon yet it blasts Brainstorm in the mouthplate?
I'm sure that for Nova, Functionism was just a means to an end, but we definitely see a hint of him using it as the organizing principle for his new world order in RID #34. Page 13 of RID #34: RHINOX: ...And this world has a place for me, and my kind? NOVA: Oh, indeed. There shall be a place for everyone in our new world... And everyone shall be in their place. Page 14: OPTIMUS PRIME: And you took that to mean what? That Nova should be trusted? ALPHA TRION: It was a different time, Optimus. Nova's words seem menacing in retrospect only. Yes, here was the dawn of the subjugation of Cybertronians based on their forms. Beasts consigned to a poor fate. Those with unfortunate alternate modes to worse. (emphasis in original) This seems clear to me that Nova was the originator of at least part of Functionist ideology. Maybe the Functionist Council, like the DJD did with Megatron's writings, turned Nova's ideas into a quasi-religious cult. But I think Functionism predates Nova's plans for expansion, as seen above. Having bots constructed cold for whatever universe conquering and colonization tasks are planned contradicts the dogma that everyone is divinely created for a specific purpose with a Primus-given alt-mode. For example, the Functionists were perplexed by Rung because his alt-mode apparently serves no purpose. But why not simply modify his body to give him a standard alt-mode? Because strict Functionism probably forbids alt-mode modification. The Functionists are not above tweaking their dogma to maintain their power and control (see their "recall" policies in MTMTE #35) but perhaps since the alt-mode you are born with is so core to the ideology, not even the Functionist Council would sanction modifying a bot's form. I do agree with you that the Functionists probably took greater control in the power vacuum left by Nova Prime's disappearance. But it also appears that another faction of the Senate (probably led by Proteus) wanted more secular control and eventually wrested power from the Functionists by the time we get to the Shadowplay era.
Some good points. We also don't know, mind, where Nominus fell on the ideological/political scale, other than "he wasn't good enough for the Senate anymore", so I think there's a story to be told there as well. Did he enable their rise only to get backstabbed, or was he a Functionist advocate?
I don't know if it's intentional or a coincidence, but this is also the ruling dogma of the Padishah Empire from Dune, which they use to justify their heavily stratified feudal class society: a place for every man and every man in his place https://books.google.com/books?id=S5njq1FhUUgC&pg=PA501&dq=#v=onepage&q&f=false
We have very little to go on now, but I'm going to guess he was more a Functionist advocate, with a little speculation. In Shadowplay, we learn that the Senate (led by Proteus) and Sentinel (pre-Prime) conspire to have Nominus Prime killed, so they can gain access to the Matrix. They believe that they can use the Matrix to generate more sparks (as Nova and Tyrest did in the past), and apparently Nominus wouldn't grant them access to the Matrix while he was alive. What if Nominus was a Functionist adherent, and felt that using the Matrix to generate sparks was heresy? That would put him at odds with the Senate, and the death of a more religious Functionist-leaning Prime, being replaced with a more secular Prime (Sentinel) would allow the more secular faction of the Senate to have more control over Cybertronian society.
