All Hail Megatron Discussion thread

[Shockwave]

The Wiki sucks pure and simple. It's little more than Willis' fan site pretentiously purporting itself to be a valid informational resource. If it was such a great resource it wouldn't offer opinions at all, just the facts and let people decide for themselves.

Sparky, I think your main problem with AHM is that the humans weren't portrayed realistically. Your complaints about "the people of NY" and the military especially remind me of your complaints about the Machination scientists/technicians working on Sunstreaker. If I recall it was something along the lines of "they wouldn't have tortured a living being". Really? You have a cheerier view of humanity than I do then. I have no problem believing that the military are idiots and the Machination would be an organization of sadists.

[Onslaught Six]

That's the problem when things are made up as they go along.

Or when writer's don't check to see if the character has already been used in a story...

Or when editors don't do their job and 'edit the stories.'

Granted, it's some basic common courtesy for the writer to go, "Oh, somebody used Bombshell before," and then not use him. But if he's unaware, or simply forgets (We're all human!) then it's the editor's job to go, "Hey! Somebody used Bombshell before! Do something else."

The Wiki sucks pure and simple. It's little more than Willis' fan site pretentiously purporting itself to be a valid informational resource. If it was such a great resource it wouldn't offer opinions at all, just the facts and let people decide for themselves.

You exaggerate. [/Unicron]

[Dominic]

The wiki has its uses. But, one has to filter for bias when reading it.

Bombshell was created a year ago, though featured as a plot point in Spotlight: Blaster's flashback sequences. Kickback also had a minor cameo in Megatron Origin. (Much like Blaster and Bluster, this must be... Sitback! Evidently his cousin.)

I do not have my copies handy. Did they say Bombshell was created a year before, or perhaps some indeterminate time further in the past?

Think about this from a real world perspective. What are people more likely to believe? That alien robots have invaded, or that there's a human explanation behind something strange?

This depends on how much the people knew about what happened in Georgia/Chechnya/Brasnia and with the Machination. After a while, it become less realistic for people to not assume aliens or some other hostile. But, AHM was intended to be a soft reboot, (an actual problem with the series). And, as I said in the other thread, the discrepancies are largely intended as a way to distance the series from Furman.

I have no problem believing that people are idiots and capable f being sadists.

Fixed.


Dom
-leaving not moving any old comments up here.

[Sparky Prime]

Sparky, I think your main problem with AHM is that the humans weren't portrayed realistically. Your complaints about "the people of NY" and the military especially remind me of your complaints about the Machination scientists/technicians working on Sunstreaker. If I recall it was something along the lines of "they wouldn't have tortured a living being". Really? You have a cheerier view of humanity than I do then. I have no problem believing that the military are idiots and the Machination would be an organization of sadists.

I wouldn't say that's my main problem with AHM... Though it is something that could have been better. As I remember, the thing with Sunstreaker was more along the lines of those scientists thought he was just a machine and I was saying they should have been able to figure out he was a living being, based on things like his screaming in agony or study of his internal workings. But yeah, I would say I have a more positive view of humanity.

I do not have my copies handy. Did they say Bombshell was created a year before, or perhaps some indeterminate time further in the past?

The 3 Inesecticons were created as part of the Swarm cloning experiments which took place in the year gap between Furman's stories and AHM.

And, as I said in the other thread, the discrepancies are largely intended as a way to distance the series from Furman.

There is no basis for that assumption. In fact, comments from the comics creators would dispute that.

[andersonh1]

Who said anything about knowing "great detail about them"? The point they're making here is simply that the military has evidence of the Transformers existence. Certainly giant robots of unknown origin would warrant a national security risk, which would mean the high ranking military brass should know more than to think it was just a hoax.

Again, it depends on just how much they know. Without having the issues in front of me, we've got the scrambling of jets when the Autobot ship nearly crashes, some news footage of Sixshot going after Ratchet, and some Air Force jets flying over the battle site. Those events provide some visual images, but no other facts. And in the absence of details, it's very likely that the military are either going to go the hoax route (since giant robots aren't exactly common throughout history) or blame some other nation, possibly pinning it on their military. But without more to go on, they aren't going to come out and make a big deal of the situation. Accusing a rival national military of "putting giant robots on US soil" is likely to get the accuser laughed out of the room.

And my other point stands: "the military" is not one big monolithic unit. There are a lot of branches, and a lot of departments within those branches, and doubtless many secrets that only a few people would be privy to. I can easily see a disinformation campaign being run within the military, while the few who suspect the truth keep things quiet and run their investigation.

News footage of giant robots would be pretty big as well. Likely even making international news. Even if the Decepticons don't look like the same robots from the footage, it's hard to believe someone in the crowd didn't think: 'could they be like those robots I saw on the news a while ago?'

You'd be amazed how ignorant of current events some people are. But that aside, I have no problem imagining that someone in that crowd had just the reaction you mention, even if we didn't read it. There are a lot more silent bystanders than commenting ones. Yeah, that's me reading something into the story that isn't there on the printed page, but there's no reason why it couldn't have happened.

And, to add to my answer of the time, the Ironhide mini-series took care of this plot hole.

Yes, quite a while after the fact.

Better late than never.

Continuity could have been a little more important in the story if you ask me... Anyway, I should point out the wiki page has been edited since whenever you originally wrote all of that.

Yeah, I see that now. I guess I could have been a little more up to date.

[Sparky Prime]

Again, it depends on just how much they know. Without having the issues in front of me, we've got the scrambling of jets when the Autobot ship nearly crashes, some news footage of Sixshot going after Ratchet, and some Air Force jets flying over the battle site. Those events provide some visual images, but no other facts. And in the absence of details, it's very likely that the military are either going to go the hoax route (since giant robots aren't exactly common throughout history) or blame some other nation, possibly pinning it on their military. But without more to go on, they aren't going to come out and make a big deal of the situation. Accusing a rival national military of "putting giant robots on US soil" is likely to get the accuser laughed out of the room.

The Autobots ship nearly crashed into the center of town, which dozens of people witnessed and got the attention of the air force. A couple of human fighter jets engaged and were destroyed by Sixshot shortly after. A news crew had footage of Sixshot destroying some ambulances and transforming in pursuit of Ratchet. A news helecopter as well as a military drone also filmed pretty much the entire fight between the Autobots and Sixshot, which prompted the military to send bombers to try and destroy them. Not to mention events from Maximum Dinobots where we saw some battles take place in the middle of cities. The military has more than enough information to know how powerful and hostile the Transformers are. And with how public the news footage especially would have been, there is no way they could deny it as being just a hoax.

And my other point stands: "the military" is not one big monolithic unit. There are a lot of branches, and a lot of departments within those branches, and doubtless many secrets that only a few people would be privy to. I can easily see a disinformation campaign being run within the military, while the few who suspect the truth keep things quiet and run their investigation.

Again, the Transformers easily prove themselves to represent a threat to national security. There is no reason to believe the branches of the armed forces wouldn't be briefed on the situation, particularly with how public some of the footage was.

You'd be amazed how ignorant of current events some people are. But that aside, I have no problem imagining that someone in that crowd had just the reaction you mention, even if we didn't read it. There are a lot more silent bystanders than commenting ones. Yeah, that's me reading something into the story that isn't there on the printed page, but there's no reason why it couldn't have happened.

But there in lies the problem... Everyone in this story is portrayed as ignorant of the Transformers existence before that point, even the military. Something needed to be on the printed page. Otherwise, as AHM goes to show, it presents the story as inconsistent with the previous stories.

Better late than never.

I suppose... although I prefer if they avoid the problem in the first place by not creating such plot holes that they have to try and fix later.

[Dominic]

This post is largely responding to Sparky's posts in the comics thread...because Gomess led us down there....and now we are back up here.....

... Megatron's *motivation*, and the continuity issues that went along with it. Megatron never even gets to his true plans. Instead, he literally spends the *entire series* waiting for Starscream to make his move and letting the Decepticon army become bored.

Megatron does not have a real plan. Like most demagogues, the worst thing that can happen is that he wins too decisively too quickly. There is no indication that Megatron wants the Matrix for anything specific. He has it, and it is nice to have...if not terribly useful.

The point of AHM is bored/lost troops with no direction. There is nothing in AHM that shows that the Matrix is much more than a thing to have. It might be worth studying. But, it has no immediate or apparent use. It is never a focal point in the series beyond "Megatron has it". Even Prime is not overly concerned with the Decepticons retaining it at the end.

You cannot figure out why a character has a completely different personality "off panel" for example.

Sideswipe spends a page or two talking about how the war is changing them. Clearly, that also happened with Perceptor and such. Kup got repaired...sort of.

[Dominic]

Furman didn't write AHM.

Furman is the one who never bothered to show all 6 stages (infiltration up through devastation). Furman decided that was too much work and jumped right into McGuffin territory with ULTRA-ENERGON OMFG!!!!!!

I don't see that they even mention Cliffjumper's comment on the wiki.

I think it is one of the issue summaries. (And, the wiki can always change.)

And again, McCarthy had said there was an in-story explanation, but never explained what that was.

Maybe IDW did not pay him to write it. Given the amount of "baw" "waaaaaah", who can blame them for abandoning a minor plot point?

[Gomess]

ULTRA-ENERGON OMFG!!!!!!

Hahahaha seriously is there something in the current book called "ultra-energon"? Seriously?

[Dominic]

Blame Furman. It would be more tolerable if it was not yet another "super duper thing" that Furman uses to make the idea of robots from another planet seem even more "out there".