Absolutely. And I’ll just say- not every character needs a lot of depth or a nice character arc. Some characters are the NPCs of fiction- they add some flavor but don’t need to be the star of the dish.

 

But changing their transformation code to Terrorize is the same thing as reprogramming them as Predacons.

You kind of missed the point there. I always had the impression that the Predacon's ship was stolen as well... Probably Cryotek's originally. So there could of already been a crew of Predacons on board when it was stolen. This would negate the need to rely solely on Maximal Stasis Pods to introduce new characters in the show. They both could of lost pods when they crashed and then introducing new characters could of been more about is it a Maximal or Predacon stasis pod instead of a race to see who gets to the pod first and then having the Maximals not giving a shit that their crew were reprogrammed.

Beast Machines... The Maximals in Beast Machines were Technorganics. The concept of them having Technorganic forms in Beast Machines doesn't really make any sense if they were ALWAYS technorganic from the very start of Beast Wars.

They did scan the DNA of animals but that was just to create synthetic disguises. It's not really organic mixed with robotics until the Oracle makes them Technorganic in Beast Machines.

Yes, the same episode he was introduced. The Axelon was not just an exploration ship. That was more a cover up for their real mission. Rampage was part of an experiment to replicate Starscream's immortal spark. When he went insane and wiped out an entire city he was eventually captured and exiled off Cybertron. Only Primal and Rhinox were actually aware that Protoform X was even on board and what their actual mission was, to dispose of him. The rest of the crew as indicated by the fact that Cheetor didn't know about the pod, actually did believe they were just explorers.

 

That's blatantly not true.

 

Changing their transformation code is not the same. Reprogramming them into a Predacon changes their personality a bit as well. Look at the episode Rhinox was reprogrammed into a Pred.

The entire point of them taking on beast modes in BW was so they would be covered in an organic shell to protect teh robotic parts from the Energon radiation. The robotic parts and organic parts were seperate parts on the same body. What the Oracle did when it made them technorganic was to blend the robotic and organic at the molecular level. THAT's what technorganic means, it's different to what they did in BW. I forget which episode it is, but an episode of BM, Primal says the Oracle wanted the beast wars to happen so they could bring some dna back to cybertron so the oracle could do the whole technorganic thing.

 

Yes to all of these. For "Call of the Wild," Megatron says "... as my research into Maximal programming postulated" and "Sleep-Prowling". These seconds of exposition do SO much...

Even if it's synthesized, their organic elements are so well simulated that there's no functional difference between the form worn and the body it's based on, including instincts which come from genes.

I presume part of their fluid-state protomatter is something akin to nanobots that specifically function as cybernetic substitutes for reverse transcriptase and DNA polymerase, programmed by the data garnered from the DNA scanners in the show.
One possible conclusion is that BW-era Cybertron forged ahead into the realm of "is this life and how do we handle it?" from the opposite direction that we are taking when it comes to the question of A.I., sentience, and "life."

The quotes in this episode from both of the __gatron characters indicate a fundamentally different approach by Maximals and Predacons as to how this "other self" one adopts is handled for the mind of the robot. Maximals decided control and blocking it out was best while Predacons were open to this new experience for their mindscapes. It's almost conservative and liberal, but I don't want to go too far in that direction.

While we know the reality for beast form selection in the toys, and that in-fixtion any 'bot can presumably assume any animal as a beast mode, the possible relation here is that Maximals tend to take forms of more mentally complex creatures that learn and make choices (birds, mammals, cephalopods) while Preds prefer those seen as more subject to instinct alone (possibly "more emotion, less thought"). With Tarantulas and Megatron's dialogue when BA was brought online, it gives the impression that the preds actually get some kind of neurological reward from engaging their beast mode elements. Most of the Maximals generally don't give this impression, except maybe Rattrap, who is already seen as "dirty" anyway. Omg, is Rattrap the Maximals' redneck, a good guy foil to Quickstrike's more overt spaghetti western schtick?

Anyway, the real problem to this whole concept, writing-wise is that Dinobot suffered the same ailment when ALL he changed was his activation command and what base he used. He was shown to "still be Predacon" throughout the show. BUT, although possibly a case of post hoc ergo propter hoc, it could also be taken as meshing nicely with his beast mode selection specifically he was a velociraptor, which years after this show is commonly accepted as being a point in evolution bridging reptiles and birds.

Finally, Rampage and Quickstrike provide evidence that the Maximal government, irrelevant of the population being aware of it or not, used planetary exile as a form of punishment. There's nothing preventing this "exiled criminal" status from being applied to Inferno or even Blackarachnia as well. In fact, it would actually support BA's "even if I'm good, I'm still bad" A stasis pod, carrying the ability to somewhat adapt the occupant to wherever they're dumped would have been the concession to "give them a fighting chance" to start over elsewhere, instead of relying on a death penalty.

 

Now, I think Quickstrike and BA aren’t in a similar case of criminal exile as Rampage. Rampage was the only one to emerge from a pod who was stated in the show to have been born prior to coming online on earth.

Tigatron, Airazor, Inferno, BA, SB, QS, and Transmutate were all born on earth, and most of them died horribly before ever seeing their “true” home or hell even living five full human years. Just imagine how short their lives must have been for Cybertronians.

Sure, they were basically born as adults/teenagers but they still barely had a chance to live before being blown up.

 

Depending on what derivative media (Timelines) you do / don't accept into personal canon, Tigatron and Airazor specifically were active on Cybertron, placed in two of the blank protoforms on the Axalon as a life-saving measure.

The existence and use of blanks means they fully expect to transplant bodies as a matter of good preparation if not actual eventuality.

QS is the best case study though. He has no memories of a prior life, no shell program, and he's still a big mouth nobody. His personality is true to him, moreso than any other pod-born in the show. So if he IS a new-born, and the stasis pods for exile idea is not being allowed, it would mean nobody checks who the new sparks are (max/pred/psycho) before literally "ship"-ing them away, and the Maximal-led government of the planet commonly force "birth" to happen off-world. Which is effed up for "good guys" to do.
Maybe that's why Preds still believe in conquering worlds? Make them safe for their babies before they're born there? *shrug*

 

IIRC in Tigatron's first episode there's a bit about him "not remembering" who he is or what team he's on which lends more credence to the idea he was already a person. Guess they ditched that idea, or the sparks are just programmed with some basic information that was lost when he crashed.

 

It was also never stated that they didn't have a life prior to becoming protoforms, nor was Rampage ever made out to be an exception in this regard. Not to mention, the protoform characters are never treated like they're young.

 

Yeah...
Tigatron: not sure until he saw Maximals defending
Inferno: shell-programmed and more of an ant with a robot mode than a robot with an ant mode (wouldnt know OR care)
Fuzors' pods say "data tracks not recoverable"
Airazor: barely survived until online, damaged to the point of needing parts anyway, so yeah "memory fritz" works for her too...

There's so much robot amnesia going on, it's like "All My Circuits" on Futurama.

Except for Primal: brought back from death SO intact that he even "remembered" his beast mode for the transmetalized blank to use

 

IMO my impression was always that they were existing people who ditched their old bodies or somehow reverted to protoforms and volunteered to go into stasis for these missions. What good is having a crew on reserve if they're gonna be literal newborns who know nothing at all when you need them?

 

Wasn't the blank that Optimus used undamaged? I think it and Blackarachnia were the only ones where there were no complications. Blackarachnia seems to have more knowledge of Cybertron than most other characters, while Optimus's memories were able to be retrieved by the blank protoform's properly functioning system.

Like, we know from Beast Machines that a spark contains memories of everything it lives through, but that a shell may not always be able to access those memories. Not only are the first three Vehicon generals purposely designed to have their memoried supressed, but the Maximals also suffer memory loss when affected by the virus.

 

Oh I get it. You mean how Dinobot literally says the word “honor” out loud a lot.
I was talking about how the show (and SB himself) plays up his knight motif, complete with trumpets & everything. He’s all about that chivalry & knight’s honor, even if he literally doesn’t say, “knight’s honor.”

That’s crazy.
But even so, BA told him what it was the moment he laid eyes on it, so he knew right away. No excuse on this one.

Heh. Well, I guess they’re just lucky they never had to find out.

Tell it to Dinobot. All he did was change his activation code. He never underwent reprogramming.

And it is absolutely moving the goal post. First he just wanted her to join their side. So she did. But then that wasn’t good enough. He wanted her to get reprogrammed too. That’s moving the goal post.

Anymore? If they could control her, I don’t think they would’ve let her snatch Megatron’s ultimate victory away from him in “Optimal Situation”.

Here’s the problem with it- as far as we know, BA came online for the first time on Earth. Her ORIGINAL self *is* her Predacon self. We don’t know exactly who she would’ve been had she been a Maximal all along, but the question that I always ask is, what did Silverbolt think was going to change about her if she got reprogrammed? Obviously it bugs him that she’s not a “true Maximal.” But what does that even mean? The show never gets too specific about what kind of programming is contained in the Predacon Shell within her, and it leaves the door open for speculation.
If they told us what all the Shell did, then maybe it wouldn’t seem so creepy that Silverbolt wanted to fix his girlfriend- despite the fact that she had told him that she was happy just the way she was. But no one, including Blackarachnia, seems to know how getting reprogrammed will affect her. If she had known her personality would stay the same, she probably wouldn’t have worried so much. But she didn’t know. No one did.

Probably because of the risk and difficulty. Rhinox said the procedure had never been done before, and that it could result in death even under the best of circumstances. Their resources were also pretty limited. Probably the only reason they did it for Blackarachnia was because she had joined their side & was literally faced with death or becoming a Maximal.

Is Rampage a Predacon? He was a Maximal experiment gone wrong. I always assumed he was a Maximal turned evil. Quickstrike was never reprogrammed either. Only his transformation code. Dinobot 2 was a clone, of course, but Dinobot 1 was always a Predacon with a Maximal activation code. So it seems like only Inferno & Blackarachnia were reprogrammed in the true sense of the word.

I like the analogy. But in this case, the person has already left the cult and is now actively attacking the cult. Whatever the Predacon Shell did, it didn’t restrict her free will.

Cool.

 

How so? That's always been my understanding. If he was never reprogrammed as a Predacon then he wouldn't have a Predacon transformation code and Predacon insignias.

Right but we don't actually know what their personality would of been like when they were reprogrammed while still in stasis pods. I highly doubt that Quickstrike was always just like that.

This is mostly right. You seem a bit confused on some things though. They never said in beast wars that they needed an "organic shell" to protect them, they just said they needed to take beast forms to protect them. It's never really confirmed one way or the other if the beast forms were really organic or synthetic but seeing as how the computer scans DNA and then generates their beast modes from that DNA... I would say it has to be synthetic cause a computer can't just generate organic flesh onto a robot. It can get the general idea of what the beast is suppose to look like and SYTHESIS a close approximation. But unless they literally took the original animals and chopped them up to cover themselves with their flesh it can't be really organic.

The same thing applies to Terminator by the way. I mean they said that the time portal would destroy any non-organic material it came into contact with and the robots had to cover themselves with human disguises to protect themselves... but it seems the time portal can't actually distinguish between real organics and synthetic organics because Arnold literally says that his human skin is made from synthetic materials.

Plus the liquid metal Terminators are literally just made of metal that take on human form and they make it through the portal just fine. So it's not so much non-organic materials as synthetics aren't organic either, it's more like... anything that doesn't look like a naked human.

As for Beast Machines... they just said Technorganic was a blend of tech and organic. Nothing about this bonding at a molecular level stuff. So again... if they always had organic beast modes then they would always be technorganic.

Oh and their beast modes in Beast Machines also hid their spark signatures so the Vehicons couldn't track them. They could still be tracked in robot mode though.

There's also the fact that their Transmetal forms continued to give them protection in beast mode despite being mostly robotic by that point. So clearly the protection had nothing to do with the shells being organic.

Finally... they did bring the DNA back to Cybertron. Cause the DNA was scanned to create their beast forms in the first place that's still true regardless if their original beast modes were synthetic or not. I don't really know how the heck the Oracle made their organics actually real but it's at that point that they're basically reverse cyborgs.

Oh you were talking metaphorical not literal. I thought you were talking about him literally talking about honor all the time which why I thought you had him confused with Dinobot.

He didn't know right away... Blackarachnia had to explain it first. That's the point. All he knew immediately was that it was a large space ship inside of a mountain. That's it. Blackarachnia told him it was the Ark which still meant nothing to him since he didn't know what the Ark was till Blackarachnia explained everything. And he called the Maximals and reported it as soon as he had the full story about what he was looking at.

Sure he did... he reprogrammed him own activation code. He never underwent FORCED reprogramming because the Maximals don't do that.

Again no, because she never actually joined their side until after she was reprogrammed. It's the same goal. Again, working with the Maximals is not the same as joining their side. Until she gets reprogrammed as a Maximal she's still a Predacon and there for not on their side.

There is no so she did but that wasn't good enough. Getting her to join their side/get reprogrammed was always the goal, they're the same goal.

Autobots/Maximals and Decepticons/Predacons/Vehicons have occasionally worked together before and after that... and every time simply working together doesn't mean they're on the same side. Dreadwing explains this perfectly in Prime when he helps the Autobots. Until a character actually changes their faction they have not actually changed sides.

Blackarachnia never officially becomes a Maximal until she gets her TM2 form. Before that she's still a Predacon and never really on the Maximal's side.

You're assuming control has to be 100% no will of her own. Being programmed as a protoform into a Predacon is itself a form of Predacon control. Even when Tarantulas was inside her mind he was controlling her. Not literally, he was just a voice inside her head, she still had control over her own actions but her actions at that point were driven by the desire to get Tarantulus out of her head.

The first part of that is irrelevant. Her original self is a MAXIMAL protoform. That's what matters. Her Predacon self is the result of a forced reprogramming. All Silverbolt was trying to do was to put that choice back into her hands... or um... whatever you want to call those large pinchy things she had instead of hands...

Doesn't matter, that was never the point.

I told you what that means several times now. Essentially, it means she's not a Predacon anymore.

Seems pretty specific to me... What's there to speculate about? It's right there in the name, PREDACON! How much more specific can you get? What more do you want? It's literally laid out for you clear as day.

Predacon = Evil, bad guys, villains.

Maximal = hero, good guys.

It's not rocket science. It's a cartoon for children.

THEY DID TELL US EXACTLY WHAT THE SHELL PROGRAM DID! I've also told you exactly what it did multiple times. It seems like the problem isn't about the show not telling you enough information but about you simply not wanting to accept the obvious information it did tell us for some reason.

Well they never said he was a willing test subject. It was always my understanding he was always a Predacon and the Maximals just choose to experiment on a prisoner rather than risking the life of one of their own if the experiment didn't work.

Plus Rampage never changed his faction insignia, he was never reprogrammed, he just always was a Predacon.

Again, Dinobot changed his own activation code willingly. Quickstrike did not, so it's not really the same thing. Quickstrike had to of been reprogrammed of the Predacon's couldn't have changed his activation code. If he wasn't reprogrammed then no Predacon activation code.

I will say his reprogramming was a bit different from Blackarachnia and Inferno. Tarantulus was the one who implanted both of their Shell programs when he reprogrammed them. This wasn't done with Quickstrike because his pod was too damaged. But they still reprogrammed him, just using different methods. They tried the same thing with Silverbolt but it didn't work on him. Silverbolt still retained enough his true self to realize what they were doing was wrong and he defected to the Maximals but Quickstrike stayed with the Predacons. Besides not having Tarantulus' Shell program in him Quickstrike displays all the other signs of a reprogrammed Maximal protoform.

I think all that shell program really does is discourages Maximals from undoing the Predacon programming since that's the only reason it was so dangerous to make Blackarachnia a Maximal again.

She didn't leave though. She still identified herself as a Predacon, not a Maximal. And she was working BOTH SIDES. She wasn't actively attacking the Predacons, she was sneaking around helping the Maximals without their knowledge. The Predacons still believed she was one of them, though Megatron was suspicious of her he never had any proof that she was working with the Maximals until she fully was one.

 

Explain Rattrap in the episode where he "goes Pred", then. It's well established the Predacon reprogramming changes who you are. See Rhinox.

This is why Megatron had to convince Silverbolt and Quickstrike they were Predacons. When Blackarachnia was brought online there was no big deal, she just was there. SB and QS were skeptical of Megatron and Silverbolt had an inherent dislike of saying terrorize. Changing the activation code is not reprogramming. If it was, there would have been a scene where Silverbolt was fixed.

 

Yeah, I'm sorry SaberPrime, but you're just completely misinterpreting the situation. An activation code is essentially like changing the password on your computer, whereas reprogramming someone is more like completely changing your computer's operating system. The former is far more trivial of a change than the latter

 

I kind of already did. Rattrap in that episode was the one who willingly changed his own activation code in that episode. Rhinox did not. That's the difference. It's the same thing I've been saying with Dinobot changing to a Maximal.

There was a scene where Silverbolt was fixed... when he switched sides and changed his own activation code back to Maximal. He didn't stay a Predacon for the rest of the series.

That's an interesting analogy except that your computer never has any free will of it's own so all changes would be like Predacon reprogramming.

The point is that reprogramming someone from Maximal to Predacon is done against their own will and without their knowledge. This is what makes Rattrap and Dinobot different from the others as they willingly changed their own activation codes. Silverbolt and Quickstrike just woke up already having Predacon activation codes. This would require reprogramming to accomplish. They didn't choose to switch factions to the Predacons, that means the Predacons reprogrammed them. If they were never reprogrammed their activation codes would still be Maximize, they would still be wearing Maximal insignias.

To put this another way... reprogramming their personalities is actually a different than reprogramming them to be Predacons. They are Predacons only when they're actually wearing the insignias and using the "Terrorize" activation code. They are Maximals only when they're wearing Maximal insignias and using the "Maximize" activation code. You seem to be trivializing the very things that actually identify their factions.

The whole thing about moving the goal post with Blackarachnia. It's not moved because the goal the entire time was for her to join the Maximals. Until she has Maximal insignias and activation code she has not joined the Maximals and the goal has not been reached.

And this thing about Quickstrike never being reprogrammed as a Predacon. If that were true then he would never have Predacon insignias and activation code.

Like read what you're actually saying... Silverbolt wanted the Blackarachnia to join the MAXIMALS so she did and then he wanted to be reprogrammed as a MAXIMAL... That doesn't make any sense. How can she join the Maximals before she was reprogrammed as a Maximal? You can't be a Maximal and not be a Maximal at the same time. Being reprogrammed is part of joining. They're the same thing, the same goal.

Same with Quickstrike. He can't have a Predacon activation code, and Predacon insignias, if he's never programmed as a Predacon. All of that would still be Maximal if that were the case... and plus again... since we never saw his original personality personally it's impossible to tell exactly what the Predacons actually changed but it's very clear from the lack of Maximal and addition of Predacon that he was in fact reprogrammed.

Essentially there's nothing to misinterpret since the show explicitly and clearly shows exactly what happened. There is nothing to interpret. Maximal = Maximal and Predacon = Predacon. It's as simple as that. There is no Maximal = Predacon (Quickstrike) or Predacon = Maximal (Blackarachnia).

Think about like this... You have a blue team and a red team. If someone from red team moves into the blue base and starts working with blue team but continues to wear a red uniform, they haven't officially joined blue team. Reprogramming someone from blue to red is like forcibly stripping their blue uniform and making them wear red. Willingly changing sides isn't going to change who you are but being FORCED to switch sides will cause if it didn't you'd never choose to stay there. You're essentially claiming that someone who was originally wearing blue was never forced to wear red, that he either was always red or is still blue despite being clearly told and shown that he was a blue soldier that is now wearing a red uniform.

The two things clearly go hand in hand. Reprogrammed as a PREDACON... Has a PREDACON activation code... If one is not true then the other must also not be true since they are literally the same thing.

 

I'm not. Think about it like this...

Predacon insignia and activation codes = Nazi uniform and symbols

Predacon shell program = Nazi ideology

Imagine one scenario where an American soldier crash lands in Nazi Germany and gets amnesia because of his injuries. A group of Nazi soldiers dress him up in a Nazi uniform while he's unconscious, and then when he wakes up they tell him he's a Nazi. He doesn't remember what side he's supposed to be on, so he goes along with it, but his ideology is still that of a non-Nazi. That would be the equivalent of what happened to Silverbolt.

Then imagine a different scenario where someone is captured by the Nazis and brainwashed until they truly believed the Nazi point of view. That would be the equivalent of what happened to Blackarachnia. Even when she joins the Maximals in season 3, it is only after the Predacon shell program is removed that she is fully rid of the Predacon's brainwashing.

 

That makes sense. I would make one stipulation though- that it is possible to grow beyond their original programming. We saw it with Dinobot & Blackarachnia, where they came to value life and Maximal ideals all on their own during their time among Maximals. Removing the Pred shell just sped up BA’s personal growth in that regard, I guess. Guess that would also explain why her personality didn’t change after losing the Shell too.

Thanks. That’s been my one big hangup about that whole situation for the longest time. The show never explicitly stated what the Predacon Shell did other than “it makes you a Predacon.” And then you have “Proving Grounds,” where Blackarachnia monologues the whole ep about how the Maximals would rather rewrite her instead of let her be who she is. It really gives off the impression that everyone in the room thinks her entire personality will change. Maybe if someone explained it better in the first place, she wouldn’t have ditched the team & ran off!  

And with “Dark Designs” showing how Predacon programming made Rhinox hyper aggressive & all that- it REALLY gives off the impression that they thought there would also be a personality change with BA. Anyway, I like your explanation. Think I’m gonna make that my personal head canon from now on.

 

In "Proving Grounds" I think Blackarachnia didn't realize how much she had already changed through her own personal growth. If she had her shell program removed in season 1, the change to her personality would be immense, but by season 3 she had already significantly changed her outlook through her experiences and her own free will.