Quote Originally Posted by Verno View Post
I'm not disputing it being canon in regards to the japanese stuff, but it's not explicitly stated in the CGI cartoon as fact, and you can't simply recon it to fit. No way in hell is that logical.
1. The law of retroactive continuity works precisely by stating that the most recent canonical account is the most correct. For example it's now been retconned that Tigatron and Airazor were previously existing Transformers on Cybertron who were nearly killed and were later reborn on prehistoric Earth but with no conscious memories of their previous lives. Now some people may not like this retcon, but regardless of preference it remains a canonical fact. Likewise Midichlorians in Star Wars.

2. It would only create a logic problem if something from official canon later contradicted the existence of a Matrix in Optimus Primal. For example G1 Prowl's appearance in The Headmasters created an illogical continuity problem - hence why the Story of Binaltech sought to resolve this by retconning that character as Prowl II. Wheeljack's appearance in Victory has still yet to be officially explained though (Wheeljack II? )

Considering that (a) Optimus Primal's Matrix was seen in an official medium, and (b) there's nothing in the Canadian cartoon that explicitly contradicts this - I think it's logical to assume that it remains a canonical fact (and officially speaking - under the law of retcon - that would indeed be the case).

Quote Originally Posted by Verno View Post
He did no such thing. All he said was "When a Spark comes online there is great joy in the univers" or some such. How do Sparks physically enter this universe? In BW times I'm sure whoever has a Matrix simply doesn't visit the protoform factory every second Thursday of the month and imbibes life into blanks. And if Vector Sigma creates them, how is it monitored so that Preds don't steal all the sparks Nd build up an army? There has never been an answer to this question right from the start of Tfs.
In Beast Machines the AllSpark is shown to be a kind of astral plane of existence - a kind of afterlife if you will. A place where all Sparks originate from then go on a life-long journey of learning and discovery, then returns to the AllSpark to add its knowledge to the collective. In that sense it's much like the Cosmic Mother Node believed by followers of Vedic religions like Hinduism, Buddhism etc. -- Optimus Primal rejoined the AllSpark when he achieved a kind of enlightened state (Nirvana) which apparently makes you glow white. Although the retention of a Spark's individual aspect is more like Zoroastrianism than Hinduism/Buddhism (and indeed many fans tend to compare Transformers theology with Zoroastrianism).

Now precisely how individual Sparks are extracted from the AllSpark plane/dimension... well, that's something that hasn't been explicitly shown or explained in canon AFAIK.

Quote Originally Posted by Verno View Post
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?
I've always worked under the assumption that post-war Transformers built by the Autobots were the Maximals and those built by the Decepticons were Predacons... or at least the first generation of Maximals and Predacons. You may have had subsequent generations of Maximals made by Maximals and Predacons made by Predacons.

Put it this way, in the G1 cartoon a group of Autobots led by Optimus Prime built the Aerialbots then got Vector Sigma to give them life. If one were to travel back in time and kill Optimus Prime before he could do this, then the Aerialbots would cease to exist as Optimus Prime would never live to build them. If you killed Ratchet in the Ark then you'd undo the appearance of the Dinobots as it was Ratchet who co-built the Dinobots in the G1 cartoon and also Ratchet who discovered and exacavated the Dinobots from the Savage Land in the G1 comics. It doesn't necessarily mean that the Maximals and Predacons have to have some kind of "genetic link" with the Autobots and Decepticons since the Transformers don't reproduce sexually. Unless you wanna go by the G1 TF Victory manga... <shudder> <facepalm>

But that's just the way I see it... official canon has never exactly specified how or why the Maximals are descendants of Autobots or why Preds are descendants of Decepticons... it's always just been agiven. No matter how it happens, what we do know is that the destruction of the Autobots cancels out the existence of the Maximals (as witnessed in The Agenda Part 3) and likewise destroying the Decepticons would also wipe out the Predacons (as mentioned by Blackarachnia and Tarantulas - it would also explain why BW Megatron went to all the trouble of breaking into the Ark and targeting Optimus Prime for assassination instead of just planting explosives throughout the Ark like Tarantulas did... that and Mainframe were hoping to get Peter Cullen to do a cameo appearance in Ep1 of Season 3 (but Cullen refused due to some voice actor industry thing between American and Canadian voice actors -- Cullen wanted to protect the US voice actor industry (despite Cullen's Canadian heritage))

So the exact nature of the AllSpark and precisely how the Maximals and Preds are descendants of the Autobots and Decepticons is still a fairly blank slate... so go nuts.