Questions that need Answering

[Verno]

Q: How did Tarantulas have knowledge of the Vok when no one else had ever heard of them?

A: Tarantulas and the Tripredacus Council were members of the Cybertronian Empire who reassimilated back into life on Cybertron after they were reformatted after a run in with Unicron, and the Hub being destroyed by the Autobot/Decepticons alliance. Double-whammy.

However, during his days as a loyal CE troop member, the scout ship he was assigned to (to find planets to be techno-formed into the Hub) discovered a world that also had Vok installations on its surface to test the indigenous life forms. It too was seeded with raw Energon.

They made to take over the planet, but the Vok were notified by one of their traps. The planets' moon opened up and destroyed the planet.

Thus why Tarantulas was so keen to get off Earth when it became evident that Earth was to be destroyed - he'd seen it all before.

So he knew of the aliens, hated them, but didn't find out their names until he met Tigerhawk.

Simple

[griffin]

I took Tarantulas' statement "(we) are from a different origin" to suggest that they weren't Cybertronian at alll... because if they were just reformated cybertronians by Unicron, they would still be affected by any temporal changes on ancient earth... unless you're saying that they were reformatted before the Beast Wars occurred thousands of years ago?
Either way, if they were created by Unicron or just reformatted cybertronians, I'd be guessing that they could have been "uploaded" with what Unicron knows, and he'd be expected to know about just about everything, including the Vok. (which allowed Tarantulas to recognise them, not by his own experience, but through his shared memories from Unicron)

Although, your version makes for a more interesting back story... which is always better for padding out a story with more depth than just the present.

[Verno]

Yeah, I took the comments about, and made by, Tarantulas during the BW at face value. 1. That he and the Tripredacus boys wouldn't be affected by the Time Storm, and 2. He was Unicron Spawn.

The whole 'Unicron spawn' thing was more than likely Megatrons way of calling someone a son of a b!+c#, but I always liked the idea of linking him in somewhere.

The idea of non-Cybertronian entities in Cybertronian bodies is an intriguing one, especially when said figures gain control over one of the factions, but I personally felt that Tarantulas's origins were on Cybertron, albeit it several millions years ago, long before Prime left on the Ark, thus why he wouldn't be affected by the time storm. A gamble, for sure, as who could really know the full extent of the time storms damage, but Tarantulas was pretty confident about the whole thing, so I have to trust he knew what he was talking about.

Again time travel rears its ugly head as a means of confusing everyone, but if I could draw you a map of the events, or even better, a timeline, it would show that it all works, I think.

[GoktimusPrime]

I suspect that Tarantulas didn't already have prior knowledge of the Vok, because he seemed to also regard them as a 'mysterious' alien species and indeed simply referred to them as "aliens" along with the other Transformers... and later mocked the Vok's name when he learnt of it from Tigerhawk ("such a simple name for so arrogant a race").

Unicron isn't one to usually go and share everything he knows with his minions... unless you're name is Megatron, then he'll happily tell you that the Matrix is his only weakness.

Tarantulas has been studying the Vok for a long time independently in his lair - and for a long time we saw that Tarantulas had his own plans for the Vok... which we saw come to fruition when he extracted the Vok influence from Tigerhawk -- absorbing Tigerhawk's Vok into himself (which later ressurected him in a blasphemous state of undeath).

[Verno]

His comment of "They'll come, they always come..." would suggest otherwise, Gok. To me that says he's had a previous run in with them in which they arrived and wiped the floor clear of anything and everything. An encounter per-BW.

[Verno]

Oh, and here's a little something from the Beast Wars Sourcebook in regards to Optimus Primal:

Originally just one of dozens of starship captains in the Maximal fleet, Optimus Primal's true calling was destined to be far more significant than merely trawling deep space exploration lanes. ... Thrust into the role of a military leader, he proved time and time again that he was an effective warrior who also possessed great compassion, loyalty, honor and even a wry sense of humor.

- page 3, BW Sourcebook 3.

So there you have it: In the CGI show, Primal was just an exploration ship Captain and NOT the Matrix-wielding, Convoy Council sitting, Cybertronian hero that the Japanese movie portrayed him to be. Whoever the Optimus Primal was in the Japanese movie, he is a different Optimus Primal from a separate continuity. The Japanese creators may have set out to try and link it to the CGi show, but they didn't, they created their own continuity.

[Ode to a Grasshopper]

Oh, and here's a little something from the Beast Wars Sourcebook in regards to Optimus Primal:

- page 3, BW Sourcebook 3.

So there you have it: In the CGI show, Primal was just an exploration ship Captain and NOT the Matrix-wielding, Convoy Council sitting, Cybertronian hero that the Japanese movie portrayed him to be. Whoever the Optimus Primal was in the Japanese movie, he is a different Optimus Primal from a separate continuity. The Japanese creators may have set out to try and link it to the CGi show, but they didn't, they created their own continuity.

Dude, you can't win this one. HasTak are corporate whor...companies of negotiable storyline integrity. I admire your passion my friend, but the official storylines are HasTak's baby/ies and they can and do rewrite them as they see fit - that's why they're usually clumsy Retcons.
Just don't worry about the official stuff and try to make the Vernoverse as awesome and well-suited to what you want as you can. Take the bits you like and ignore what you don't - they're your toys and you can give them whatever backstory you like.

For example, in the Odieverse the origins of Tarantulas and the TriPredacus Council lie with the Insecticons (hence why destroying the Ark wouldn't have destroyed them, and also explaining Tarantulas' penchant for eating other mechanoids), with their mistaken belief of being descendants of Unicron being a mistake caused by their thinking they were the descendents of the Sweeps. Unfortunately for them they only find this out after they've awoken their 'ancestor', who informs them of their true origins as he's draining their Spark energy to revive his Spark and create a new, smaller body (United Unicron) from the remains of his old head.
Not Canon, but it works and makes more sense than most of the official continuities out there, especially when coupled with the rest of the Odieverse fanon.

[GoktimusPrime]

Oh, and here's a little something from the Beast Wars Sourcebook in regards to Optimus Primal:

- page 3, BW Sourcebook 3.

So there you have it: In the CGI show, Primal was just an exploration ship Captain and NOT the Matrix-wielding, Convoy Council sitting, Cybertronian hero that the Japanese movie portrayed him to be. Whoever the Optimus Primal was in the Japanese movie, he is a different Optimus Primal from a separate continuity. The Japanese creators may have set out to try and link it to the CGi show, but they didn't, they created their own continuity.

1. Note that nothing in that Sourcebook quote explicitly states that Optimus Primal does not possess a Matrix.

2. The BW Sourcebook contains a variety of continuity discrepancies that conflict with other BW canonical sources; thus probably isn't the best source of BW canonical reference material outside of the IDWverse BW continuity (reference)

3. Lio Convoy and Big Convoy never sat on the Convoy Council, yet they both possessed Matrices anyway.

At best you'd be looking at arguably separate continuity streams (as I mentioned before).