In Beast Machines (forget what episodes), Primal looks up at a hologram of Prime and says "A hologram of my ancestor: the original Optimus Prime." But what does this mean? He could mean generally speaking since Maximals are descended from the Autobots, but the tone implies a deeper connection, but how could that be since Transformers don't reproduce like humans do. (Or at least as far as I know)

 

Optimus Prime's sourcecode and spark or whatever got recycled into the creation of new bots, eventually leading to Optimus Primal?

 

Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe they share programming?

 

Maybe he's the latest Optimus model in the long-running Optimus series of protoforms?

Would explain why they look the same.

 

My theory is that he and the other beast war Prime looking characters shared a body type with him in some form on Cybertron, or at least from the same series of body types. Think like two seekers from different toylines.

 

That'd help explain the other billion dudes who also happen to look like Optimus Prime.

 

Not the first time, lineage has been expressed. In the G2 comic, Mindset was descended from Onslaught. It confused fans because they thought the Combaticons were created on Earth but the G1 comic never showed their origin so this retroactively suggested they came from Cybertron and may have been adapted for combining after they did so.

There was also a behind the scenes reveal years later that Jhiaxus was descended from Starscream which is why they shared similar design cues. It's a pity it was dropped. I'd still love a Jhiaxus repaint of Cybertron Voyager Starscream.

 

Don't forget that Arcee is Rattrap's great aunt.

 

I alway thought is was via spawn locations.
In some fictions there like a few different wells sparks come from? Or something.

Family could just be based on shared spark fountains?

 

Well, if the Vok were an evolution of the Swarm from G2 (which depends on which creator you ask iirc), then it follows that budding is also a thing in the Beast Wars continuity since the Swarm was originally a byproduct of excessive budding. Thus there could still be generations and lineages made through asexual reproduction.

Where was this from? Sounds interesting.

 

When transformers are created, they roll dice to see what it is they get to turn into, what gender they are, which faction they are, and whom they are related too. Oh, and what accent they will have too.

 

Somebody came up with this explanation:

At the bare minimum, Primal's creation would have been "inspired" by Prime, which is likely good enough for a Cybertronian to consider someone to be their ancestor, from their point of view.

Like, Primal's spark presumably came from the Allspark. And his body was made using protoform goop with some software programming. It's possible that the goop has some sort of robot-DNA link to Prime, but I think it's more likely that the programming is where Primal gets his connection to Prime. Their familial link is data. It's information.

Optimus Prime will have "children" for as long as people revere his legend and want to follow in his footsteps and be heroes.

 

Does that mean the data some how was pasted down from OPrime? Or is was just a random combination that happened to match OPrime when made?

 

There's your problem.

 

I dunno. Maybe he built him so he could "pass the torch" so to speak? Maybe all Primes have a connection or past-life connection and shared memories or something?

 

As far as I know, Primal took the name to honor Optimus Prime. I've never seen or read anywhere that they were actually related.

I'm not that informed about much Transformers continuity outside the original G1 cartoon,film and recent Cyberverse series, heck,even my Beast Wars knowledge lacks much, so I'm not sure.

 

That’s actually the back story for Beast Wars Megatron

A “family like” relation was heavily implied for Optimus Primal and Optimus Prime

 

I like the built in honor of him angle.

 

When a mum truck and a dad truck love each other very much...

 

The best ‘canon’ explanation was given in BWII, when Lio Convoy mentioned that he was of the ‘Convoy class’ of robots (‘Convoy’ being Optimus Prime’s name in Japan). So Optimus Primal is of the same ‘class’ as Optimus Prime. Therefore, Prime, Primal, Lio Convoy, Big Convoy, (fill in the blank) Convoy, et. al are all “related” that way.