Another pod makes landfall.
Last time on Beast Wars, we
had some Jurassic Park shenanigans to deal with. Megatron created a
clone of Dinobot to infiltrate the Maximals base. The major flaw in the clone
was its inability to transform. Terrorsaur traps the original Dinobot in a collapsed
cave and the clone gets to work. The clone is able to clear out the base, lying
about a Predacon assault and then attempting to dispose of Rattrap on the sly
to add credibility to his lie. Dinobot escapes the cave and returns to base.
The two dinos battle, the OG Dinobot being the victor. He tricks Megatron into
thinking he’s the clone just long enough to get Megatron into range of the base’s
cannons. After, it’s revealed he ate his clone. Gross. Enough recap, lets get
to it.
We open with a stasis pod in space.
It’s struck by some debris and drops toward the planet. We get a helpful bit of
exposition from the pod’s onboard computer telling us the hit from debris has
damaged the pod’s seals and some internal systems. So… not good.
Down on the planet, Tarantulas is
on comms when their computer detects the pod. He has it calculate the landing
coordinates. Knowing the spider, he probably would have kept this to himself and
done something terrible to the proto-form inside, but Megatron was
eavesdropping and takes over. The computer tells them that the pod will land
close to their territory, but its drop from space is erratic, so they won’t be
able to get an exact landing point. Scorponok and Blackarachnia are the closest
to the pod. Tarantulas offers to go and help as he’s their best coder and
hacker, but Megatron says his skills are needed at the base. He’s ordered to
tell the other arachnids to go for the pod and to put Terrorsaur and Waspinator
on alert. Given how pissed Tarantulas seems when he’s alone, I think my guess
that he had his own plans for the pod was spot on. He calls Megatron a Tyrand
behind his back and Megatron calls him a Treacherous Arachnid, so they seem to
have the measure of each other.
Out in the wilderness, Rhinox is
surveying a bit of the Predacons territory. They’ve got a lot of Energon deposits
in the area, but it’s all unstable, forming little geysers of energy. He’s about
to write the expedition off when he sees the pod dropping. He maximizes and
tracks it’s trajectory with his eyes. He tries to radio into base, but the
interference is too extreme. He jumps down from the cliff he was standing on
and starts running towards it. Thankfully, it turns out that Cheetor was
scouting (resting in a tree) nearby and saw the pod. He radios Tigertron, whom
he was scouting with and asks him to go back to base to let them know and then
to follow him to his position. Tigertron agrees and tells Little Cat to be
safe, to which he confirms to Big Cat. As he runs off a Falcon seems to fly
after him.
Scorponok and Blackarachnia see the
pod, Scorponok praising Megatron for telling them this and Blackarachnia mocks him
for always groveling to their boss. He says that Megaton rewards loyalty and
punishes treachery, which just makes her laugh harder.
The pod crashes into the ground and
Rhinox comes on it a few moments later. Which is great because it’s badly
damaged. A rock landed on the hatch and badly cracked it. Rhinox’s body starts
shorting out due to high levels of Energon exposure, so he diverts power from
his weapons to shields. He opens the pod. The proto-form inside is in bad
shape, being almost a silver goo. Were its shields up and stable it should
resemble a robotic humanoid shape, so it being barely recognizable as humanoid
is very bad. He pops open the computer on the pod. He orders the computer to
start scanning for lifeforms, but the damage is too extensive for that. He’s
informed he’s got 8 cycles (minutes) to do repairs or the proto-form’s spark
will go out.
FYI, this is the first time that
the term “spark” was used. Before this the inner power source for a Transformer
that also functioned as its brain/heart/soul was dubbed the Laser Core.
Rhinox pops open the pod’s side
hatch and starts trying to replace damaged microchips. Cheetor arrives and the
two compare notes. He tells Cheetor they need to fix the pod and soon or the
Proto-form will die. Cheetor obviously wants to help, asking what they can do
and Rhinox rather despondently says that he wishes he knew.
Tigertron, meanwhile, is running at
full tilt for the base. He hears the clicking of Scorponok’s claws, transforms
and ambushes him. Tigertron freezes Scorponok but takes a poison arrow from
Blackarachnia. She leaves them both, saying she’ll be back for Tigertron when she’s
got the new Predacon at her side.
Back at the pod, Rhinox explains to
Cheetor the main issue here. The crash damaged the pod’s locking chip, it’s
what regulates their bodies ability to absorb Energon. Without it, and on a
planet like this one, it’ll fry their internal circuitry in minutes. Cheetor Maximizes
and offers his chip. Rhinox tells him he’ll need to go offline for a few
minutes while they perform brain surgery. Cheetor goes into repair mode and has
a trippy vision/dream of Rhinox explaining sparks to him. Like I said before,
they serve as the heart/brain/soul. They’re unique to each Transformer, when
one goes online there is great joy and if one is extinguished the universe weeps.
Cheetor comes back online and says that vison was ultra-gear. Rhinox says to tell
him later and he makes some quick repairs. They’re able to restore the pod’s
stasis lock, solidifying the liquid metal of the proto-form back into shape. Unfortunately,
he just bought them time. And to make matters worse, the Energon concentration in
the area is causing him shorts even with his dampeners on max. Cheetor suggest
taking it back to base and use the restoration chamber on it, but there’s not
enough time. Rhinox needs to get the scanner back online and hopefully find something
with DNA for it to scan in this wasteland. And then they pick up Blackarachnia’s
signal.
Cheetor faces off against Blackarachnia.
They take shots at each other, Cheetor shooting a boulder and burying Blackarachnia
in rubble. She breaks free and starts shooting at him. Rhinox, meanwhile is
programing as fast as he can. He’s got 4.8 cycles (minutes). Blackarachnia overpowers
Cheetor, taking his blaster and then beating with her knees and claws. She goes
to shoot him with her venom dart, but he catches it and throws it back at her.
She’s down for now, but then he sees Waspinator fly in. He quickly grabs his
gun and shoots at the wasp. Unfortunately Terrorsaur flies in at that moment
and Cheetor hits his Energon limit. So the big cat has to just run and draw
them away.
Rhinox plugs himself into the pod
and orders it to run the program through his central processor. He’s warned that
can cause damage to him, but he says do it anyway. This causes a surge and
throws him back, slamming him into a wall. His dampeners are taken off line and
he’s force into beast mode. He passes out a moment later. But it seems to have
worked, the pod’s scanner perks up and starts scanning for lifeforms.
Cheetor is able to take out Waspinator,
tricking the bug into flying over an Energon geyser that goes off. But then
Terrorsaur flies in and blasts him away. Terrorsaur crows about his good
fortune before going to the pod. At it, the computer announces there are no
compatible lifeforms in range and the spark will go out in minutes. Terrorsaur
lands and says this is his lucky day and Rhinox’s last. But then the falcon
from earlier starts circling above them. The pod’s DNA scanner kicks on and samples
it. The proto-form transforms, launching into the sky. Rhinox asks Terrorsaur
if he’s still feeling lucky as the new Maximal flies in and carries him away from
Rhinox. The two of them start dueling in the sky, Terrosaur shooting at her
while she flies around the shots. Having enough of this, she charges,
announcing “Airazor, Maximize!” and assuming her robot form. She makes quick work
of Terrorsaur, breaking him into individual pieces. Airazor lands by Rhinox and
already knows him. He asks how she knows him, and she says she just does and
that she knows she owes him her life. He says they should just call it even.
Back at the base, Rhinox introduces
Airazor to the team. He says that they’ll be cleaning up Terrorsaur for days. Airazor
says she’s not sure what to make of all this. Rattrap tells her that if she’s smart,
she’ll make tracks and Cheetor tells her to ignore him. Optimus tells her she’ll
get used to everything and takes her on a tour of the base. Rhinox muses about the
Universe being in great joy when a spark comes online. Cheetor is surprised by
him using that exact phrasing as his vision but smiles in agreement.
This was a great lore episode of Beast
Wars. We got more info on Sparks and what makes them important, specifically
on how it’s essentially the Transformer’s soul. Each one is unique, it’s their
power source and essence and obviously one going out is bad. I liked seeing
Rhinox work so diligently to save Airazor. He doesn’t hesitate to risk himself
in an effort to save this unique life form. And there’s just something so COOL
about Airazor rocketing out of her pod and then going toe to toe with the more dangerous
of the Predacon Air Squad. She’s fast, she’s strong, and falcons are cool. It’s
no wonder that she got the most screentime of all the Maximals in Rise of
Beasts. I don’t mind telling you that she’ll be getting a fair amount of
screentime going forward. A factoid about her that makes me laugh is that in
the Japanese dub of Beast Wars, they give her a man VO and present her
as a man. The Japanese distribution company I guess didn’t have faith that boys
would want to buy toys of a female character (a dumb stereotype that persists).
It’s definitely weird, but I guess her design is androgynous enough they could
pull it off? Whatever. Good intro to a good character. Next time, the mystery
of the planet they’re on gets deeper as they rise higher.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/97332790
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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