Greetings!Now I am not the most online person (especially at the moment as I get ready for the birth

Greetings!

Now I am not the most online person (especially at the moment as I get ready for the birth of my son) but I am humbled by the kind words about Dawn of the Predacus that keep coming in from the folk that did manage to nab a copy at Botcon. Because I’m not online a whole bunch I have tried to answer questions as much as possible if they’ve popped up on forums I go to because I have always loved it when creators have chimed in. I’ve not been around much and that’s likely to be the case for a while as I try and keep on top of deadlines and all my new responsibilities. I’m a director’s commentary, interview reading, making-of book reading obsessive so I love to give some of that back, especially when so many of the questions have been very detailed and well-considered.

As with all things there are, of course, differing views. I can understand that some fans don’t want to accept that G1 and BW connect or that there was ever any overlap. For me the connection between past and present was what won me over to Beast Wars. Seeing those connections, the richness of a shared history was a big part of what made the series as special as it was. G1 and BW do not fit neatly together of course, there is a lot of disconnect and rough edges. And of course the G1 references in BW don’t necessarily mean that the G1 cartoon connects completely but that something that is very similar is connected. By picking a moment in time that straddles the two continuities to place the one-shot there was always a limit to how many threads could be pulled together, how many edges could be smoothed. I’m not stepping on anyone’s childhood, everything that happens in Beast Wars still comes to pass. Every decision that was made was taken where it could be supported by the actual concrete events of the previous comics and cartoon and just as importantly not be contradicted by it.

SPOILERS

Some fans had speculated that there was no overlap, that BW characters were completely separate and some that many of the characters were old characters. Any story that fits in this time frame has to choose a path to go down. With Magnaboss’s combiner function being an aspect of the toyline it would be impossible to separate out Tigatron from Ironhide and Prowl’s story. However with both Tigatron and Airazor effectively blank slates reborn in the series their presence in the past does not bump against anyone’s experience during the Beast Wars. The crew of the Axalon exist at the time of the Great War but they are not involved in it which again was a balance between the two viewpoints and is absolutely in the spirit of the show and other established canon. Megatron has a chance to take power which he is punished for. He never gets the chance to be a big player, but he displays cunning, manipulation, brute force and fearlessness, all qualities that will stand him well in the future. But the skill he learns from incarceration is the patience to play the long game.

Beast Wars only ran for three years and made massive impact on the fandom, and me in particular, but it also left contradictions and blank spaces. I have never seen those as barriers to further inquiry, and indeed the shape of the story I wrote changed when testing assumptions of what could be supported by the continuity. Episodes were rewatched, scripts and comics reread and opinions were sought from other fans which included people who worked on the book. Funpub, IDW and Hasbro all considered, cogitated and fact challenged anything which was not going to fit or make sense.

None of this means that anyone has to like the book, I’ve never been crazy enough to assume that everyone will, but I would hope that the above would contextualise the care and depth that went into it..

“The stasis pods in this story are labeled with the names of the characters inside, whereas the pods in the show weren’t (with the obvious exception of Protoform X). It’s possible that this is simply a change that occurred over the next 300 years, but why?”

Because they are not the same devices. The life support pods in DotP are literally to keep the protoforms alive. The stasis pods in BW are completely different, more like cryogenic suspension chambers. They are different shapes, have different windows… They are clearly shown to have a different purpose to the pods in BW and they look different. It is 300 years between then and now, the technology would naturally have evolved.

Again to use a Star Trek example there is a hundred year gap between TOS and TNG. In the former the Federation is at war with the Klingons, in the latter they are at peace. The fact that we have these two states of play and a time gap does not mean that an error has occurred, it means TIME HAS PASSED. Events continue to happen even if we don’t see them. We know that there are letters between A-Z even if only presented with those two letters. There are events that lead from here to BW, there are no events that stop BW from happening. This is the status quo NOW, it is not a barrier to a new status quo LATER.

“The death of Predaking, a being composed of black, yellow, and red mammals and birds, is commemorated with… a purple insect face?”

The Beast Wars do not start until they reach prehistoric Earth yet they had animal emblems already. This isn’t a continuity error it’s what was already there.

“In “Optimal Situation”, a cross section of the Axalon’s bridge is moved into the Ark, and we can see how big Optimal Optimus—who was larger than his fellow Maximals but much smaller than at least one Generation 1 guy—is in relation to the inside of the ship. As Optimal Optimus is tall enough to span the height of the entire hull (which is why the cross-sectioning happened for out-of-universe reasons), that the ship once housed Generation 1-sized guys is essentially impossible, unless they were scooting around inside it on their butts.”

Leaving aside the fact that Transformers were all in different heights and sizes (not everyone was Optimus Prime’s height) if you rewatch “Optimal Situation” it is actually clear to see that there is an almost empty deck immediately below with a raised platform in the middle. I’ve included a screen grab as the image for this article. It was my contention that existing decks were divided up into smaller decks following the reformatting and that consoles etc were reconfigured. And it is that secondary deck you can see in Optimal Situation. In DotP you see Rattrap and the gang pretty squished together on the bridge as the width of the bridge could not change but the height and depth of the bridge could. So it is more than possible and was taken into consideration in detail before writing the story.

“Protoforming technology is established as a weapon of war, with stasis pods as a form of life support for its victims. Optimus Primal takes possession of some of these stasis pods (stating that he’ll “do what we can for them”), implying that the stasis pods said to contain his Maximal crew on the cartoon are actually a bunch of protoformed Autobots and Decepticons he’s been carrying around in his ship for 300 years and that the blank protoform who becomes his new body from “Coming of the Fuzors (Part 2)” onward is actually somebody’s corpse.”

I’ve already explained this in a previous post but nothing I have stated conflicts with Beast Wars. By the time Beast Wars begins they are using this technology in a normalised way to transport their crew. It’s like saying “300 years ago everyone was on horseback and now everyone is driving cars and flying on planes” as if the two things contradict or prevent the other. Technology evolves, that’s a principle conceit in every aspect of Transformers.

In Beast Wars, Primal says that it his crew that are in the pods, yet later we discover he also has a mass murderer on board in Protoform X so his statement was never complete. It is not against the spirit of Beast Wars to conjecture that he would also have some unrecoverable blanks on board. He uses these in Dawn of Future’s Past to spark transfer Tigatron and Airazor aboard. Cheetor says “We do have a few blank protoforms in the cargo hold”. Dawn of the Predacus simply explains how they got there.

And of course Primal uses a blank as his new body in Coming of the Fuzors Part 2. But that was always the case, unless people thought the protoform was alive and well in case Rhinox would have murdered the previous inhabitant to take his body? I’m not sure why something that is plainly established in Beast Wars is considered a “point of note”. The use of “actually” implies this was not previously known yet is unambiguously presented within the cartoon.

“The sight of Generation 1 Inferno becoming a protoform which is then labeled as (naturally) “Inferno” suggests that his protoform became Beast Wars Inferno. Which wouldn’t really be a continuity error, but it would be incredibly stupid.

Bove stated at BotCon 2016 that this was was deliberately left open to the reader’s interpretation, and that he hasn’t ruled out Generation 1 Inferno’s return if the story were to be continued.”

Despite the second point invalidating the first it confirms that this is neither factually a continuity error and the opinion is irrelevant for a site that is supposed to represent “facts”.

“There appears to be at least one of Ravage’s transwarp cruiser, which will be “experimental” 300 years later, flying around.

Bove explains that it’s just a similar design, similar to the various Enterprises.”

Again the second point should negate the need for the first…

“However, on some points his explanations fall short:

Rattrap really shouldn’t know Optimus Primal yet. Bove defends this by saying nobody ever said how long they’d been serving together, but while nobody establishes a precisetimeframe, “Beast Wars (Part 1)” makes it abundantly clear that Rattrap is new to Primal’s command, and on top of that strongly suggests that Primal himself is new to command. Making them old friends destroys the backbone of Rattrap’s entire first-season character development, as it’s grounded in him learning to know and trust Primal as a commander. There’s some wiggle room, but it’s hard to argue that there are three centuries of it.”

Primal’s backstory was a somewhat mixed bag of fragments. He WAS present in the last days of the Great War. He WASN’T anyone who really fought in it. Again the absolutism of the statement on the wiki is a very, VERY narrow reading of the events of Beast Wars. Rattrap sarcastically asks Primal if it’s his first day on the job. They are not friends in this story, it is clear that they have an antagonistic relationship.

What is also being completely overlooked is that Primal is established within Dawn of the Predacus as a SHIP captain not a COMBAT captain. It is never said that Primal is new to captaining a science vessel in the cartoon, but he is constantly being forced to prove himself in combat which suggests that he is new to commanding TROOPS and engaging in combat. That is absolutely consistent with DotP. Primal may even be an excellent science ship captain but there is no reason at all for Rattrap to respect him as a soldier, as someone to trust his LIFE with, by the time of the Beast Wars. These are not either/or circumstances - there is no contradiction. Characters can possess more than one facet at the same time without it being a contradiction.

For Rattrap to not have respect for Primal before the first season and then to grow to appreciate Primal when he steps up as ‘bot ready to fight, adhere to principle, lead by example and make the ultimate sacrifice does not touch the backbone of the show’s portrayal at all. Starscream disrespected Megatron for millions of years, we’re talking about 300 here. Rattrap is, in this story, a character who disrespects Primal, the ship, the mission and it’s importance. Only when he sees what Primal is capable of in the cartoon does his attitude begin to shift. Everything established in DotP leads to the events of Beast Wars.

“Many Maximals and Predacons from the cartoon, plus some who didn’t appear in the cartoon, existed concurrently with their legendary “energon guzzler” “ancient ancestors”. Bove tries to explain this away by pointing out that most of them aren’t seen to interact with any Autobots or Decepticons, but that still puts them in the same time frame as characters who were supposedly part of the distant past.”

We exist in the same time frame as sporting legends, presidents and celebrities who most of us have no chance of meeting. Being a legend and being part of the distant part are not necessarily one and the same thing. Optimus Prime and the crew of the Ark had existed for MILLIONS of years and been involved in almost every major event in Transformers history. Whether you met Optimus, passed him in the street, fought against him or just read about him he would be a legend in all senses of the word. The word “ancient” as well as “antiquated” are figurative as well as literal expressions. The timeline of the show establishes that the war ended 300 years prior, G1 characters are established as existing in the BW timeline. Optimus Primal says to Rattrap “Remember the Great War” which if we’re going to only allow literal interpretations of what people say would suggest that they were both there and that Primal knows that he was.

“Tigatron and Airazor are incredibly important Autobots, to the point that Prowl says that Tigatron is “respected by all sides for his desire for peace”, sending him as an emissary to the Decepticons due to his widespread reputation. This echoes his later personality traits when awoken on prehistoric Earth and he would again be sent as an emissary by the Vok… but apparently nobody will make the connection.”

Only Tigatron is an important Autobot. But let’s break this down:

Optimus Primal is established as having not been home for some time.

Tigatron does not meet Optimus Primal.

In Dawn of Future’s Past, Tigatron and “Airazor” do not introduce themselves when they meet the Axalon so Primal would have no idea who he has park transferred aboard.

It is consistently the case that Beast Wars characters seem to be able to choose a name for themselves even if they are not the character that previously held that name. E.g. Silverbolt, Inferno, etc. In the same way no-one ever said “Oh my, you’re the former Aerialbot Silverbolt” to BW Silverbolt (because he wasn’t), there was no reason for a character who says his identity circuits are damaged to be immediately thought of as the same guy as the name he chose. To assume otherwise follows the same knee-jerk logic that assumed Optimus Primal and Megatron were the G1 versions before being given the information in the show itself.

“Airazor ends up in a stasis pod labeled with her name and Tigatron does not, which makes the status quo of “Dawn of Future’s Past” difficult to extrapolate. Apparently at some point she was brought back, but without her memories (and possibly without her name—despite it having been written on her pod), and also Tigatron won’t recognize her. Which isn’t impossible, but wow she has the worst luck.”

I have already explained how the two points connect, but as it is contained in material that does not feature in the issue I won’t repeat it all here. However the principle is EXACTLY the same as the way Beast Wars characters give themselves names which other characters already have or change their names when they wake up. Even in Beast Wars Part 1 the characters mainly rename themselves to account for their changes in form. Either the show and the book are in making the same error or they are both consistent with each other in their approach. From my last post I explained that Airazor would be one of the few that could not be brought back and that Tigatron decides to allow her to born as a new life rather than live an unlife, but he cannot watch as the one he loved was effectively lost forever. The new Airazor (no longer called that) would live a new life.

Even without that information, at the time of Dawn of Future’s Past, she is going by a different name. It is clear that her and Tigatron do not know each other. Tigatron has a completely different face. Airazor does not look the same. Their total interaction is him commandeering her ship, getting attacked, the hull breaching and then being spark transferred out into protoforms. There is literally no time for them to make the connection even if they had enough information to be able to make it.

Long conversations were had about how all these points would connect with Dawn of Future’s Past. I did not have to keep it in continuity at all with the previous TFCC stories but if felt absolutely right to not contradict what was in that comic. There will definitely be some issues that abut with some of the bio cards originally intended to go with the toys and the comic, but again the bios and the comic/cartoon not aligning is not something I have invented.

“In “The Agenda (Part 1)”, General Ram Horn says, “ever since the Autobots defeated our Decepticon ancestors, we Predacons have worked secretly towards the day where we might rise up and take what is rightfully ours,” but we learn in this story that the Tripredacus Council WERE those Decepticon ancestors and that they defeated themselves, on purpose. To be fair, it doesn’t really jibe with Tarantulas’s claim of having different origins in “Other Victories”, either.”

In any fiction, information is true until new information comes along which either adds to your understanding or contradicts what you thought was true. Beast Wars already retconned out the “Decepticon Ancestor” aspect that had gone before through Tarantulas’ attempt to destroy the Ark which he was only happy to because he and the Council had NON-DECEPTICON origins.

In DotP it is clear that they predate the Decepticons, but present themselves as being on their side. But they are not Decepticons and are not loyal to their cause, that should be pretty clear by their actions. Because the show itself completely contradicted itself the best fix I could see was that they were presenting themselves as Decepticons in the past but their origins predated factions. So they could be considered Decepticons but their fates, history and destiny were not tied to the Decepticons. The use of the term “Decepticon ancestors” by the council was always difficult to reconcile and the show itself didn’t even try after contradicting it.

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I’d like to thank the folk who reached out and responded telling me that they had tried to update the wiki but had found their entries removed and overwritten. The problem with a split release is that the normal opportunity to talk in depth about the work comes when everyone has had a chance to read it, but in this case some have but most haven’t. Which is also why misinformation before most people have had a chance to read it is particularly problematic and requires going into more depth a lot earlier than planned and risk spoiling it for a lot of folk.

If anyone has any questions that the last 10 pages of answers have failed to address drop me a line!