It’s a beast Transformer. It..sort of counts.

Sometime back I mentioned my old, defunct Transformers fansite, and I’ve brought up the usenet group alt.toys.transformers which is still in operation. Although I haven’t had time to really visit in years and I don’t know who’d remember me, I had a lot of fun posting to that group. Sometimes i would even write an essay or a fanfic. Below is one of those essays. Around the time of Beast Machines there were discussion about how Megatron could have turned this or that Maximal into one of his Vehicon commanders. After thinking about it a while I came up with a theory, which I’ve gone through and fixed to keep in line with my current abilities. Enjoy.

So you’re a maniacal despot who’s just taken over your home planet. Your enemies are getting the better of your mindless drones, which you can’t control all at once. You’re best bet is using some of your captured Sparks to create Generals who will do the work for you. Then you’re going to rip said Sparks back out. Now you’ve already decided to use some of the sparks of your old enemies, whether for irony or because your arch nemesis would never hurt his friends. Or maybe you’re just a dumbhead.

Either way, you’re faced with how to get them to do what you want. Now in Beast Machines: Transformers, Megatron has had a total of 5 generals by series end, and has chosen the “right” sparks for the job

• Tankor-Rhinox
• Jetstorm-Silverbolt
• Thrust-Waspinator
• Strika-Strika
• Obsidian-Obsidian
  (In the case of the last two, Megatron kept their original personas, while influencing them to be loyal to him. More on that later.)

So how do you convince them to join your side? Give them what they want! Let’s look at each individually……

Continue reading →