Botcon 2016 figures

Ancillary, non-main-line stuff. Star Wars TF, Speed Stars, Titanium Series, Robot Heroes, that sort of thing. They're kinda neat, but we all know they're not really that important. Admit it, you know it's true.
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Dominic
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Re: Botcon 2016 figures

Post by Dominic »

The line in "Nemesis" (I think it was) about Tarantulas and the Council having "other origins" is what made the "Unicron's Spawn" line hard to ignore. And, it directly contradicts the line (spoken by a member of the council during a private meeting) about how the Decepticons were their ancestors.

Season three was pretty bad. It had too many dropped plots and (likely) back-writes, mixed with on-the-fly writing.

That is bad enough, even without the fan club deliberately taking some of season three out of context.


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-honestly remembers liking "Beast Wars", but has a harder time remembering why.
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andersonh1
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Re: Botcon 2016 figures

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Sparky Prime wrote:Yeah, I know there was a lot they'd planned to do in season 3, but had to cut or change things for various reasons. Although a fan had asked Larry DiTillio about the origins of Tarantulas and the Tripredacus Council and posted his reply on ATT... DiTillio said that Bob Forward regretted the "Unicron's Spawn" line given the way some fans took it literally. He also speculated they may have been from Jhiaxus' brand of Decepticons from the comics.
There was definitely supposed to be a Generation 2 connection, but it's been so long ago I can't remember what it was. I'm thinking the Vok were connected to the Swarm from G2, after Optimus had unleashed the Matrix into them. I can't recall if Tarantulus was connected to this or not... I think so, given how familiar he is with the Vok, but I can't recall what the exact connection was meant to be.

And I can easily see "Unicron's Spawn" as a Cybertronian insult, so the line makes sense in that context.
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Onslaught Six
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Re: Botcon 2016 figures

Post by Onslaught Six »

The Vok are definitely supposed to be some kind of future-singularity race. The idea that they were connected to the Swarm from G2 was only ever done after the fact. I think a lot of the initial implication is that they are hyper-evolved humans from the future, evolved to the point where they are beyond time and space. (Not sure if these two ideas are incompatible with each other.)
BWprowl wrote:The internet having this many different words to describe nerdy folks is akin to the whole eskimos/ice situation, I would presume.
People spend so much time worrying about whether a figure is "mint" or not that they never stop to consider other flavours.
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Re: Botcon 2016 figures

Post by Sparky Prime »

Dominic wrote:The line in "Nemesis" (I think it was) about Tarantulas and the Council having "other origins" is what made the "Unicron's Spawn" line hard to ignore. And, it directly contradicts the line (spoken by a member of the council during a private meeting) about how the Decepticons were their ancestors.
It wasn't "Nemesis", it was "Other Victories". When Tarantulas had captured Tigerhawk, he explains he plans to use Tigerhawk to destroy the Ark. Tigerhawk says that is madness as it would wipe him out as well, but Tarantulas explains that only applies to those descended from Autobots and Decepticons, but he and the Tripredacus Council had 'other origins'.

The "Unicron's spawn" line came from "Nemesis", with Megatron declaring Tarantulas might still provide him with one last bit of usefulness while looking through the remains of his layer.

And while the Tripredacus Council did say in "The Agenda" their Ancestors were Decepticons, they could have been referring to the Predacon faction itself given they say "we Predacons". Or they could be referring to a different group of Decepticons...

andersonh1 wrote:There was definitely supposed to be a Generation 2 connection, but it's been so long ago I can't remember what it was. I'm thinking the Vok were connected to the Swarm from G2, after Optimus had unleashed the Matrix into them. I can't recall if Tarantulus was connected to this or not... I think so, given how familiar he is with the Vok, but I can't recall what the exact connection was meant to be.
Yeah, Larry DiTillio envisioned the Vok being the result of the Matrix energies unleashed into the Swarm. Bob Foward apparently wanted them to be the final evolution of all sentient life in the universe. While the IDW Source Book explained their origins as being a combination of the evolution of the Swarm, Cybertronians, humans and a lizard people...

I don't believe Tarantulas had any direct connection to the Vok, at least nothing was ever said in the show... Although he did seem to hate them and be more familiar with some of their technology than the others.
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Re: Botcon 2016 figures

Post by andersonh1 »

Yeah, I wish that some of those behind the scenes theories had actually made it into the show so we had a few more definitive answers. I still wonder why the Vok were determined to destroy the Earth at the end of season 1, but were later concerned with Megatron polluting the timestream. Surely destroying the Earth with the Ark on it would be a far worse pollution of the timestream, as depicted at the end of season two. Obviously the writers changed plans and ideas about the Vok behind the scenes and didn't make the onscreen material mesh as well as they should have.
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Re: Botcon 2016 figures

Post by Onslaught Six »

andersonh1 wrote:Yeah, I wish that some of those behind the scenes theories had actually made it into the show so we had a few more definitive answers. I still wonder why the Vok were determined to destroy the Earth at the end of season 1, but were later concerned with Megatron polluting the timestream. Surely destroying the Earth with the Ark on it would be a far worse pollution of the timestream, as depicted at the end of season two. Obviously the writers changed plans and ideas about the Vok behind the scenes and didn't make the onscreen material mesh as well as they should have.
I think that was the entire idea. They are beyond us. Their actions are so incomprehensible to us because they are operating on a higher level.
BWprowl wrote:The internet having this many different words to describe nerdy folks is akin to the whole eskimos/ice situation, I would presume.
People spend so much time worrying about whether a figure is "mint" or not that they never stop to consider other flavours.
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Re: Botcon 2016 figures

Post by andersonh1 »

Onslaught Six wrote:
andersonh1 wrote:Yeah, I wish that some of those behind the scenes theories had actually made it into the show so we had a few more definitive answers. I still wonder why the Vok were determined to destroy the Earth at the end of season 1, but were later concerned with Megatron polluting the timestream. Surely destroying the Earth with the Ark on it would be a far worse pollution of the timestream, as depicted at the end of season two. Obviously the writers changed plans and ideas about the Vok behind the scenes and didn't make the onscreen material mesh as well as they should have.
I think that was the entire idea. They are beyond us. Their actions are so incomprehensible to us because they are operating on a higher level.
So if the Vok destroy the Earth for their own unknown reasons, everything will be fine, but if Megatron shoots Optimus Prime in the head and alters history, that's bad. Yeah, that's hard to figure out. :mrgreen:
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Re: Botcon 2016 figures

Post by Onslaught Six »

Are we sure they wanted to destroy Earth? Maybe the whole time they were just trying to kill the Maximals, who were mucking around with proto-humans and the Ark.
BWprowl wrote:The internet having this many different words to describe nerdy folks is akin to the whole eskimos/ice situation, I would presume.
People spend so much time worrying about whether a figure is "mint" or not that they never stop to consider other flavours.
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Re: Botcon 2016 figures

Post by Sparky Prime »

Onslaught Six wrote:Are we sure they wanted to destroy Earth? Maybe the whole time they were just trying to kill the Maximals, who were mucking around with proto-humans and the Ark.
If Optimus hadn't destroyed the planet buster, the Vok would have ignited all the unstable energon deposits, which would have destroyed the planet... Unless they intended for the Maximals to stop the planet buster, they were set on destroying Earth.
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Re: Botcon 2016 figures

Post by andersonh1 »

Yep, Rattrap didn't call it a "planet buster" for nothing.
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