Questions that need Answering

[Sky Shadow]

Bunt what does descendant mean in regards to a Transformer? How does Optimus Prime affect the programming of later generations of Transformers? Killing Prime in the Ark would have wiped them from existence, yes, no argument there, but how are Optimus Primal and Rhinox descendant from Optimus Prime?

G2-style budding.

[Verno]

But the word descendant makes it sound as though there is some kind of lineage. that Optimus Prime is somehow directly related to them. Yet Tfs is devoid of parenting as far as I'm aware.

With budding, programming would be copied, sure, but the spark has to come from the all spark. And budding wouldn't still be used in BW times.

[Sky Shadow]

But the word descendant makes it sound as though there is some kind of lineage. that Optimus Prime is somehow directly related to them. Yet Tfs is devoid of parenting as far as I'm aware."

1. That's what budding is. Mindset was a descendant of Onslaught. And Dinoforce had children and Rattrap had a great aunt.

And budding wouldn't still be used in BW times.

2. There's no reason why it can't be the reason for Predacons being descended from Decepticons.

[Verno]

I found this on TF Wiki:

Transformers Legends

This takes place after "Other Voices, Part 2", and also after "End of the Line".

Following the explosion of the Planet Buster, Optimus Primal found himself in Maccadam's Old Oil House, where he encountered Optimus Prime, an Optimus Prime from a different universe, and a future version of himself. The four of them were able to overcome the alternate Prime's doubts about his leadership, before they all returned to the time streams from whence they came. Optimus Primal repeated the whole thing again much later, after his destruction facing Megatron in the Council Citadel on Cybertron.

So, this directly contradicts BW II which seems to state that Primal got transported, after death, to help Lio Convoy defeat Zarak. So in this continuity, the subject of Primal's supposed Matrix never comes up, and therefore doesn't have one.

Basically I'm saying he doesn't have one and have no evidence to say that he doesn't, and you're saying he does but have no evidence to say that he does in the CGI cartoon continuity alone.

The Japanese stuff can go jump as far as I'm concerned. Gathering and Ascending make it defunct anyway.

[Verno]

One of the big questions is: Who is still alive?

We see Prowl and Ironhide sitting as Maximal Elders, but they both lucked out in the first 10 minutes of TF:TM.

[Sky Shadow]

We see Prowl and Ironhide sitting as Maximal Elders, but they both lucked out in the first 10 minutes of TF:TM.

Isn't what happens to them in Transformers: The Movie the opposite of "lucked out"?* Grimlock, Silverbolt, Ravage, Laserbeak, Buzzsaw, Arcee, Alpha Trion, Sinnertwin, Razorclaw, Divebomb, Hot Rod, Trailbreaker, Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Bumblebee, Ratchet, Outback, Chromia, Vector Prime, Devcon, Cyclonus, Quake, Skywarp, Bumblebee, Deathsaurus, Starscream's ghost and High Beam are also still around.

*I just looked it up and apparently "lucked out" can mean both:

(idiomatic) To experience great luck; to be extremely fortunate or lucky.
(idiomatic, UK) To have run out of luck.

Well that renders it a completely useless phrase then...

[liegeprime]

Following all these continuities is giving me a headache I can't keep up which versions are being mentioned, comics, cartoons etc etc.... I think Im just gonna steer clear for now until I get a few more questiones again to clear up

Oh SS: hehehe Starscream's ghost ... still around hehehhe I don't think that one's gonna go away at all heheheheh

[GoktimusPrime]

I found this on TF Wiki:

Transformers Legends

This takes place after "Other Voices, Part 2", and also after "End of the Line".

Following the explosion of the Planet Buster, Optimus Primal found himself in Maccadam's Old Oil House, where he encountered Optimus Prime, an Optimus Prime from a different universe, and a future version of himself. The four of them were able to overcome the alternate Prime's doubts about his leadership, before they all returned to the time streams from whence they came. Optimus Primal repeated the whole thing again much later, after his destruction facing Megatron in the Council Citadel on Cybertron.

So, this directly contradicts BW II which seems to state that Primal got transported, after death, to help Lio Convoy defeat Zarak. So in this continuity, the subject of Primal's supposed Matrix never comes up, and therefore doesn't have one.

I thought Optimus Primal's appearance in the Beast Wars movie occurs while he was abducted by that Vok probe thing ("Chain of Command"?). Even if it were to occur during his death between Seasons 1 and 2, what's to say that Primal didn't appear in Maccadam's Old Oil House and Gaea at two different points in time? It's apparent that Primal's traversed time and space -- so what might have been a few hours or days on pre-historic Earth may have been weeks, months or years in whatever astral plane Optimus Primal went off to (Inception'd!).

But IIRC Primal appeared on Gaea during his first Vok abduction. I'll recheck that when I get the opportunity later... btw the movie's just called Beast Wars, not Beast Wars Second (although it does involve principally BWII characters, the movie was never actually called BWII).

Basically I'm saying he doesn't have one and have no evidence to say that he doesn't, and you're saying he does but have no evidence to say that he does in the CGI cartoon continuity alone.

The Japanese cartoon continuity is officially tied to the Canadian cartoon continuity and it states that Primal has a Matrix. I mean, if you solely want to look at the Canadian cartoon continuity in isolation then just say so... if you're going to talk about Beast Wars in general, then it's reasonable to examine the entire continuity as a whole. But note that if you're going to look at the Canadian cartoon continuity in isolation, then we need to disregard a lot of other expanded universe stuff too, such as:
+ Exactly how the Golden Disk was stolen - this becomes a mystery
+ Tigatron and Airazor being pre-existent Maximals prior to arrival on Earth
+ The existence of any G1 Transformers in the Beast era other than Ravage (so Grimlock, Prowl, Prowl II, Silverbolt, Ironhide etc. are all out)
...etc.

The Japanese stuff can go jump as far as I'm concerned.

How objective of you...

Gathering and Ascending make it defunct anyway.

The IDW comics go off on a different continuity splinter as it ignores a lot more canonical material than just the Japanese animation (e.g. 3H's BotCon/OTFCC comic material).

So we're looking at different continuity streams here - you have the "core" continuity which is the Canadian cartoon. Then you have different streams branching from that core - one comprising of the Canadian cartoon + Japanese animation and BotCon/OTFCC comics... another comprising of the Canadian cartoon + IDW comics.

The former explicitly shows Maximal commanders with Matrices, and the latter doesn't confirm nor deny it, although under Occam's Razor one would presume that until they probably don't exist. So if you wanna go by this continuity stream, then fine, I would concede that probably none of the Maximal commanders have Matrices in that universe.