andersonh1 wrote:Sparky Prime wrote:As I said, there were plenty of times in Beast Wars Rattrap was faced with tough situations, testing him and his abilities.
So in other words, it's not possible for him to come up against a situation where he can't handle it any more and does something desperate. Because he handled a lot of tough instances in the past, he should always handle them just as proficiently in the future?
It sounds like you believe Rattrap is incapable of failure. I know you don't mean that, but that's essentially what you're arguing here. That because he's tough and resourceful throughout Beast Wars that it's impossible that he would ever be anything else.
No, what he's saying is that Rattrap is resourceful enough that, even in the 'dire" situation of Beast Machines, he should've been able to figure out a way of doing something WITHOUT having to resort to getting weapons from Megatron, his sworn enemy. Seriously, there's tens of BILLIONS of Vehicons, laying around, all of them with weapons and armor and whatnot that he could've salvaged and modified for himself. Hell, with his newfound ability to interface with electronics, you'd have thunk that he'd would've tried it on a deactivated tank drone or something, and give himself some muscle. Going to Megatron for weapons makes. No. SENSE.
How is it not unreasonable to turn to their enemy when he's got an entire planet to look around for other alternatives? Surely, Megatron couldn't have stripped the entire planet of weapons.
Do we ever see the Maximals scavenge for weapons? We don't. In fact we see Rattrap cobbling those ridiculous explosive growth seed grenades later on. In any case, how long would it take one little Maximal to search one building in Cybertropolis for a weapon or for something to assemble into a weapon, let alone search the entire city or surrounding area?
Not long at all, considering the MASSIVE AMOUNT OF VEHICON DRONES TRAVERSING THE CITY. And why HAVEN'T the Maximals tried salvaging and analyzing the drones, anyway? Optimus hadn't gone all Ted Turner loco on us, yet, and they DO need to get some advantage over their enemies if they ever want to survive, so why NOT scavenge for weapons, or at the very least tech they can use to analyze, understand, and combat the Vehicons? The only answer I can think of to that question is "The Oracle demanded they use their natural abilities to fight them", which makes no sense if it really DID want "technorganic balance", and doesn't explain why it didn't have Optimus stop Rattrap from making those seed bombs.
Rattrap was tapped into the computer, and he knew Megatron was vulnerable. Rattrap keeps trying to tell Cheetor, Nightscream and Blackarachnia that Megatron was down, and they could go slag him right now, "once and for all". No one believed him (hence Nightscream's remark about "the rat was right!" when they find the depowered Megatron) so he took off on his own, conned Megatron out of the weapons platform, and was clearly planning to dispose of him and end the war right then and there. You boil it down to "Rattrap going to Megatron for weapons", but that isn't entirely accurate.
Now would the Rattrap we saw in Beast Wars have shot a defenseless opponent? Probably so, at least as late as the end of season one, where he mocks Waspinator and talks about fighting dirty. Not that Waspinator was defenseless, but still... clearly all that time serving under Optimus had some effect on him, since he invokes Primal's name when defending his actions. "Optimus would never attack a defenseless opponent".
...and that, right there, cements "The Weakest Component" as being completely out of character for Rattrap; throughout Beast Wars AND Beast Machines, Rattrap has ALWAYS conflicted with Optimus' orders, even bucking them when convenient. There was no one ordering him NOT to kill the defenseless Megatron, and up until that point, there's no reason why he WOULDN'T; again, he had to be TALKED OUT OF DOING IT BY MEGATRON, which makes no sense, given how staunchly he hates the guy and all Predacons, and despite how you rationalize it, getting seduced into protecting your enemy from your friends and SHOOTING AT THEM in order to do so IS TREACHERY; he got lured into Megatron's rationalities made a conscious decision to uphold his part of the bargain, and followed through with it, knowing full well he would have to face off against his fellow Maximals, to do so. That, by any definition, is treachery, something that is so ingraned in Rattrap's psyche to LOATHE, that even at his breaking point, there's no way he'd stoop that low.
Or at the very least, Rattrap could have grabbed something off of some Vehicon drones to adapt for himself.
Again, did he have the time? He knew Megatron was damaged and vulnerable. The window of opportunity to attack was not that large.
There was no reason for Rattrap to go to Megatron himself with so many other options available to him, especially with Megatron temporarily out of commission at the time.
The fact that Megatron was out of commission was the reason Rattrap went in the first place, to take advantage of that! That fact cannot be overlooked.
Again, remember the sequence of events:
- The Maximals are fighting Vehicon drones in the tank drone production factory
- Rattrap is plugged into the computer, having just figured out how to transform, when Megatron takes control of some drones to attack
- when the computer is damaged, the damage spreads, knocks out the power, and damages Megatron. Rattrap is aware of this through his connection to the computer
- he tries to tell the others that Megatron's weak and vulnerable, but they're too angry with him for spoiling their attack to listen
- they berate him behind his back, so Rattrap takes off on his own
- he intially tries to bluff Megatron with the threat of an attack in order to get "noisemakers", but Megatron sees through it
- when he finally agrees to Megatron's terms and gets the weapons, he test fires them, then tells Megatron "word of advice, never trust a rat."
- And here is where Rattrap makes his mistake... he listens to Megatron as Megatron plays on his better nature and sense of honor ("would even a rat attack a defenseless opponent?")
- then Cheetor and co. show up, jump to the wrong conclusions. As they move in to attack Megatron, Rattrap protests that Optimus would never attack a defenseless opponent.
Now if you want to debate the writing and characterization of this episode, here would be the point to do it. Should Rattrap really have fired on Nightscream to protect Megatron? Would he? Nightscream isn't exactly a long-time friend, and he had been the one talking about cutting Rattrap loose, but he's a fellow Maximal. Was Rattrap feeling so overwrought at this point (he certainly sounds like he is) that he just reacted in desperation? It happens to people.
The point is that the questionable actions in the episode aren't the sequence of events that lead up to and include Rattrap going to Megatron and getting weapons. Despite how Synjo characterizes it, Rattrap is not turning traitor. The episode makes it VERY clear that his intention is to take out Megatron then and there, and that there is a limited amount of time to take advantage of Megatron's weakness, and that no one else believes Rattrap when he tells them about Megatron's condition. So he acts on his own. And shows considerable guts in trying to bluff Megatron for the very weapons he needs to take Megatron out.
Rattrap has just discovered he can manipulate machines, and he knows that there are machines SWARMING the city, any one of which he could've taken over (something he's done REPEATEDLY SINCE THAT EPISODE). And, let's not forget that it took a FULL NIGHT for Megatron to recover, something Rattrap KNEW; he had AMPLE time to whip himself up a Vehicon body suit, go in, and slaughter the bastard.
I'm sorry, but I don't buy the "breaking point" BS used to rationalize this behavior; it goes against the very core personality of him that's INGRAINED in him, and it goes against the fact that, with his newfound abilities, he had SEVERAL OTHER CHOICES other than going to Megatron. He turned traitor for no reason, and Megatron kept his word for no reason.
