New Drift TPB

[BWprowl]

What sort of reason would you give for them not using the big sword all the time? Frankly, something like 'Because we has honors!' would be even more fanfic-ish.

The sword's particularly dangerous because of...something, I don't know. Crazy energy fields it generates or something. So the sword's got an onboard computer that analyzes the situation around it and won't let the sheathe release it unless things are really, really bad.

That's more of a "how would I play with the 'only in the direst circumstances'" thing more than a "why it's only the direst circumstances, but still.

Like, dig it, say Drift's fighting Bludgeon or whatever, and just having his ass kicked clean off. So he figures, "Well, I'm boned UNLESS..." and tries to draw the sword, only to hear "Access denied" and find the damn thing doesn't think that Drift's own safety is worth letting the sword out?

Okay, I have to admit, that's a pretty sweet idea.

[Dominic]

Given the amount of mystical jibberwank, (spark-swords, really?), in the franchise, having the knights only bring out the big swords for really bad scenes would work fine. Granted, it would take a skilled writer to pull it off. But, between McCarthy and Costa, IDW has the intellectual capital to make it work.

If nothing else, it could work as a microcosm of tactical ethics, an idea that TF lends itself to.

[andersonh1]

It's an interesting choice to make, and it's not without precedent. Though usually, manipulation of the spark is a bad thing. Think Megatron's torture of Rampage during Beast Wars, or his entire plan to merge every spark with his own in Beast Machines. And yet here we have a group who have weapons that manipulate the spark, but that has to be done in a self-sacrificial way.

I think it's an idea with potential.