When Did One Continuity 'Drop The Ball' While Another One 'Caught' It?

[Paulbot]

That said, Zachary was a computer genius with a cutting-edge lab... which he used to play computer games. And your technobabble sounds sufficiently babbly to be convincing (although there were no Allsparks or laser cores in G1 comic continuity.)

Which is why I wrote (well drafted) a little essay called "Powermaster Optimus Prime has no soul" back around 2000/2001

[GoktimusPrime]

He's an abomination in the eyes of Primus.

[Geminii]

What, he couldn't substitute Hi-Q?

[kup]

I personally retconed it in this way in an attempt to bring reason to the whole event:

Since the Spark is basically mostly energy encased in a kind of physical transluscent but volitile bubble, Ethan Zachary was able to store the 'energy' in a Double Density 5.25" 360kb () Floppy disc. The capacity of the Floppy disc became irrelevant as the magnetic disc was enough to sustain the Energies of Prime's spark in the same way that the transluscent bubble is able to do.

Note: Please keep in mind that:

a) I am taking Scientific Liberties like all good Sci-Fi universes do.
b) There is a lot about what constitutes a spark and Transformers data storage capabilities that we don't know. They could have perfected some super advanced way to compress data in order to store huge amounts of it in as little 'space' as possible. Kinda like a super advanced pkzip (winzip now).

[GoktimusPrime]

What, he couldn't substitute Hi-Q?

What do you mean? Are you asking why Hi-Q's soul doesn't count for Powermaster Prime? Hi-Q and Optimus Prime, at the time of their binary bonding - were two separate entities... much like Spike and Fortress Maximus. One unexpected side-effect of binary-bonding appears to be the merging of the minds between the Nebulan/human and Transformer (e.g.: Spike and Fortress Maximus were able to commune telepathically to each other, even from vast distances and Zarak and Scorponok's minds became one (within Zarak)).

Story time!
In the case of Optimus Prime, he and Hi-Q were separate entities, but during the events leading up to and during the Matrix Quest their minds began to merge - although unbeknownst to both parties. The merger manifested itself in a series of random painful fits for Optimus Prime. Just before Prime sacrificed himself to destroy Unicron, he released Hi-Q. Prime's death then suddenly sped up the merger with Optimus Prime's mind becoming one with Hi-Q's shortly after Prime's death. The Last Autobot then took Hi-Q/Prime and recreated him (them?) into Action Master Optimus Prime.
(/storytime)

I personally retconed it in this way in an attempt to bring reason to the whole event:

Since the Spark is basically mostly energy encased in a kind of physical transluscent but volitile bubble, Ethan Zachary was able to store the 'energy' in a Double Density 5.25" 360kb () Floppy disc drive. The capacity of the Floppy disc became irrelevant as the magnetic disc was enough to sustain the Energies of Prime's spark in the same way that the transluscent bubble is able to do.

Note: Please keep in mind that:

a) I am taking Scientific Liberties like all good Sci-Fi universes do.
b) There is a lot about what constitutes a spark and Transformers data storage capabilities that we don't know. They could have perfected some super advanced way to compress data in order to store huge amounts of it in as little 'space' as possible. Kinda like a super advanced pkzip (winzip now).

A Spark is something which has no physical form and is intangible - not made of any matter. Although Mainframe animators gave Sparks a visual avatar, Beast Wars writers have stated that it is formless. Seeing a Spark is like seeing a ghost.

No Cyber-Ectoplasm please.

[kup]

A Spark is something which has no physical form and is intangible - not made of any matter. Although Mainframe animators gave Sparks a visual avatar, Beast Wars writers have stated that it is formless. Seeing a Spark is like seeing a ghost.

Megatron managed to cut Rampage's in half with a refined energon blade so there has to be a physical element to it.

On a typical spark that would have caused it to exploded but because it was based on Starscream's 'immortal' spark, he was able to successfully split it in two.

[GoktimusPrime]

Okay... maybe there is some cyber-ectoplasm after all! Well... ghosts are weird... they're supposedly formless and devoid of matter, yet they can sometimes physically interact with the universe (e.g. poltergeists). So perhaps a Spark is like that - formless yet somehow still able to be physically interactive. Yeah, it makes no sense... but let's face it, we're talking about freakin' spirits and Transformer spirituality here. Trying to apply logic here is like bashing your head against a brick wall. You just have to suspend disbelief and accept it really (remembering that spiritual beliefs are based on faith rather than empirical logic).

Who ya gonna call?