Transformers questions by newbies, and not-so-newbies

[Hursticon]

Animated Blitzwing: is it a forgone conclusion that buying the Hasbro version will result in owning a floppy mess? Is the Takara version better?

Ta

My Hasbro Blitzwing has always been rather good to me, given, I don't handle him much (If at all) but he's always been solid and MAN do I love his dumpy little "Metal Slug"-esque Tank mode!
(Not forgetting the Man-E-Faces homage )

Excellent. I appreciate the second opinion

Late to the discussion as always , but to chime in - I'd agree; that planet seems to have land masses & water, not to mention an atmosphere, so I reckon it wouldn't be Cybertron either.

At least, if Maximal High-Command were worth their salt, they wouldn't want to be testing/experimenting on Protoform-X anywhere near Cybertron or its outposts.

[Verno]

Late to the discussion as always , but to chime in - I'd agree; that planet seems to have land masses & water, not to mention an atmosphere, so I reckon it wouldn't be Cybertron either.

At least, if Maximal High-Command were worth their salt, they wouldn't want to be testing/experimenting on Protoform-X anywhere near Cybertron or its outposts.

The planet not being Cybertron opens up a larger can of worms. If we assume the scene we're seeing is the Axalon's launch (it's shown to be collecting other Stasis Pods, as well as Protoform X's) then the Axalon wasn't near Cybertron when Megatron and the gang were stealing the Golden Disk. Is it just a large coincidence that Megs steers their ship towards wherever the Axalon is, presumably some distance from Cybertron, before trying to travel through time? Optimus says something in episode 1 about the Axalon being the only one able to lock on the Megatron's warp signature (meaning there was more than one ship in pursuit?) but surely they'd have to be in some sort of close proximity to be able to lock on to such a signature.

I like to over-think stuff

[Paulbot]

The planet not being Cybertron opens up a larger can of worms. If we assume the scene we're seeing is the Axalon's launch (it's shown to be collecting other Stasis Pods, as well as Protoform X's) then the Axalon wasn't near Cybertron when Megatron and the gang were stealing the Golden Disk. Is it just a large coincidence that Megs steers their ship towards wherever the Axalon is, presumably some distance from Cybertron, before trying to travel through time? Optimus says something in episode 1 about the Axalon being the only one able to lock on the Megatron's warp signature (meaning there was more than one ship in pursuit?) but surely they'd have to be in some sort of close proximity to be able to lock on to such a signature.

I like to over-think stuff

I don't think it's the Axalon's launch as such, as I'd expect Cheetor to remember that part of the launch when the big mad robot was packed away? It's them putting Rampage into status for disposal and loaded onboard prior to the launch of the mission proper. And like Hursticon said I'd always imagined the Protoform X experiments took place off world.

I also assumed, from that line in the first episode, that the Axalon went after the Darkside, because yes is was the closest Maximal ship. It may have been the only ship in orbit of Cybertron ready for flight, and not actually started their mission (hence why they still had so many status pods aboard). I don't recall if they ever indiciated they had dropped some off prior to ejecting them in episode one.

[Verno]

There's a 4 stellar-cycle (year) gap between when Rampage escaped (leveling Colony Omicron) to when Depth Charge recaptured him. Presumably DC would have dragged his ass back to Cybertron to hand him over to the High Council to deal with. They in turn wash their hands of the issue and hand Rampage over to Primal to dump somewhere.

As for Cheetor not knowing about Rampage being on board, I presume that Cheetor and Rattrap were actually in Stasis Pods at the time of launch, leaving only Primal and Rhinox 'awake'. Then, when the Pred ship pursuit started, they needed a few more hands on deck, so they woke Rattrap and Cheetor up to man the different systems. This then explains why Cheetor, Rattrap and Rhinox have to introduce themselves to each other when just after they've taken on new Beast forms. "Livin' large is for bots like me -- Rhinox" etc etc.