Aligned continuity family

2011-02-27T00:50:07Z

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The '''New Aligned continuity family''' was launched in 2010 with the intention of being the foundation of most ''[[Transformers brand|Transformers]]'' projects for the decade to come.<ref name="decade">[[Hasbro Q&A/January 2011: Answers|TFWiki.net Hasbro Q&A, Jan. 2011]]</ref> Its core is a 400-page [[production bible]] that borrows elements from all previous "[[Franchise|generations]]".<ref>[http://collider.com/roberto-orci-jeff-kline-interview-transformers-prime/75039/ Collider.com interview with ''Prime'' cartoon story editors Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman]</ref> The [[Continuity family|family]] currently comprises the ''[[Transformers: War for Cybertron (franchise)|War for Cybertron]]'' and ''[[Transformers: Prime (franchise)|Prime]]'' franchises,<ref name="aligned">[http://www.allspark.com/content/view/8189/20/ Hasbro continuity declaration]</ref> and it has some influence on [[Transformers Hall of Fame|Hall of Fame]] character portrayal.<ref name="newaligned">[http://www.tfviews.com/news/main/hasbro-q-and-a/1024 TFviews.com Hasbro Q&A, July 2010]</ref>

{{note|[[Hasbro]] has not given this family an official title. We derived the name "New Aligned" from a Hasbro statement referring to "our new aligned continuity".<ref name="newaligned" />}}

==Creative vision==
The New Aligned venture appears to be Hasbro's attempt at synthesizing a grand unified [[continuity]] out of all of the previous lore. An expression of this can be seen in the Hall of Fame profiles: While only [[Jazz (disambiguation)|Jazz]]'s profile has been officially stated to be "based off of" the New Aligned foundation,<ref name="newaligned" /> it shares with the others a tendency to mix character traits from disparate continuities. For example, Jazz is pictured in [[Jazz (G1)|his ''Generation 1'' form]] but described as a "[[Cyber-Ninja Corps|Cyber-Ninja]]" like [[Jazz (Animated)|his ''Animated'' incarnation]].<ref>[http://www.hasbro.com/transformers/en_US/discover/movie-news/TRANSFORMERS-HALL-OF-FAME-Nominee-3.cfm Jazz's Hall of Fame profile]</ref> [[Soundwave (disambiguation)|Soundwave]], also looking like [[Soundwave (G1)|his ''Generation 1'' self]], is said to have a mysterious origin like [[Soundwave (Cybertron)|his ''Cybertron'' counterpart]], his partners are called "[[Mini-Con]]s" instead of "[[Mini-Cassette]]s", and he has [[Soundwave (ROTF)|his live-action movie incarnation]]'s vulnerability to simultaneous sonic booms.<ref>[http://www.hasbro.com/transformers/en_US/discover/movie-news/TRANSFORMERS-HALL-OF-FAME-Nominee-1.cfm Soundwave's Hall of Fame profile]</ref>

This is a significant departure from Hasbro's [[Universe (2003 franchise)|previous]] [[Hasbro Transformers Collectors' Club (magazine)|forays]] into meta-continuity, which preserved the integrity of old timelines as separate, coexistent universes within a single [[multiverse]]. In that schema, the New Aligned family would be simply one more [[universal stream]] added to the mix, beholden to preestablished concepts like [[Multiversal singularity|multiversal singularities]]. But when asked about how [[The Fallen|a certain singularity]] would relate to the new fiction, Hasbro replied, "Anything you know from past generations of the brand may or may not be factual in the new continuity."<ref name="fallen">[http://www.allspark.com/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=74182&view=findpost&p=1675011 Allspark.com Hasbro Q&A, Nov. 2010]</ref>

==Continuities==
Hasbro consistently refers to all New Aligned fiction as one "continuity", and while different storylines may appear to contradict each other, "reasons for the confusion will be revealed".<ref name="decade" /> However, that ideal is hampered by the fact that various elements of the fiction have separate creative teams with distinct visions. In that sense, the fiction can be divided thusly:

===Hall of Fame profiles===
In May of 2010, before any New Aligned franchises had launched, Hasbro announced a "Transformers Hall of Fame" honoring characters and people associated with the ''Transformers'' brand. The spot for one inductee was put to a fan-vote: [[Transformers Hall of Fame#Nominees|Five character profiles]] were published on Hasbro.com, and users could cast a vote for one of them. As mentioned above, most of them were described with a combination of traits from various continuities, and Hasbro later stated that Jazz's profile was based on New Aligned material. Whether that also applies to the others is unknown, but their spirit is in keeping with the general New Aligned approach. [[Jazz (Prime)|Jazz does appear in ''War for Cybertron'' fiction]], but his conspicuous Hall of Fame description as a Cyber-Ninja is not reflected there.

===''War for Cybertron'' video games===
Created by [[High Moon Studios]] under Game Director [[Matt Tieger]] with tie-in games by [[Next Level Games]] and [[Vicarious Visions]], [[War for Cybertron games|these games]]' aesthetics and characterizations are heavily based on ''[[Generation 1 (franchise)|Generation 1]]''; for example, [[Bumblebee (Prime)|Bumblebee]] and [[Soundwave (Prime)|Soundwave]] speak words, despite both being quasi-mute in the [[Transformers: Prime (cartoon)|''Prime'' cartoon]]. Set in the ancient days of the [[Cybertron (planet)|Cybertron]]ian war, the games' plot focuses on [[Megatron (Prime)|Megatron]]'s quest to harness [[Dark Energon]], which ends up corrupting the planet itself and leaving it uninhabitable for millions of years. Those events overlap a large portion of the simultaneously-released ''[[Exodus: The Official History of the War for Cybertron|Exodus]]'' novel, but they [[Transformers: War for Cybertron (360/PS3/PC)#Synopsis|differ in many details]].

===''Exodus: The Official History of the War for Cybertron'' novel===
Written by [[Alex Irvine]], this book describes the beginning of the war and then, as mentioned above, covers the same ground as the ''War for Cybertron'' games with many differing details. (Hasbro did take a small stab at reconciliation by declaring [[Optimus Prime (Prime)|Optimus Prime]]'s predecessor in the games, "Zeta Prime", and the one in the novel, "Sentinel Prime", to be the same individual, "[[Sentinel Zeta Prime]]".)<ref>[http://www.ripten.com/2010/06/26/creators-talk-transformers-war-for-cybertron-at-botcon-2010-panel-lbd416/ Ripten.com's coverage of the BotCon 2010 Activision panel]</ref> Irvine also wrote the [[Transformers: War for Cybertron (comic)|''War for Cybertron'' comic]] and the apocryphal short story [[Bumblebee at Tyger Pax]], both set in the novel's pre-game period. The comic contains no major discrepancies, other than maintaining the "Sentinel Prime" name, but the short story features [[Bumblebee (Prime)|Bumblebee]] losing his ability to speak words before the game events.

===''Prime'' cartoon===
Overseen by the team of [[Jeff Kline]], [[Duane Capizzi]], [[Roberto Orci]] and [[Alex Kurtzman]], this show is set on modern-day [[Earth]] with a unique aesthetic somewhere between the [[live-action film series]] and ''[[Transformers Animated (franchise)|Animated]]''. Released five months after ''War for Cybertron'', it also features Dark Energon as a primary plot element, but it seems to be a more mysterious substance with the added quality of being able to [[Terrorcon (Prime)|reanimate corpses]].<ref>[[Darkness Rising, Part 2|''Prime'' episode "Darkness Rising, Part 2"]]</ref> Also, strangely, Megatron is able to create an army of such creatures by crashing Dark Energon into the dead world of Cybertron,<ref>[[Darkness Rising, Part 2|''Prime'' episode "Darkness Rising, Part 5"]]</ref> despite the reason for the planet's demise in ''War for Cybertron'' being its complete infection with the stuff. A [[Transformers: Prime (comic)|prequel comic]] written by [[Mike Johnson]] shows events on Cybertron immediately before the cartoon, incorporating the ''War for Cybertron'' notion of [[space bridge]]s being a lost art and Megatron's backstory as a [[Kaon]]ian miner.

==Notes==
* Instead of giving this continuity family an official name, Hasbro has instead referred to it with brief descriptors such as "new aligned",<ref name="newaligned" /> "aligned",<ref name="aligned" /> "modern",<ref name="decade" /><ref name="fallen" /> and "War for Cybertron/Exodus".<ref name="newaligned" /> VP of Intellectual Property Development [[Aaron Archer]] said at a [[BotCon 2010]] panel that he had considered naming it "Epochs" but then decided not to.

==References==
<references />

[[Category:Continuity families]]
[[Category:Prime| ]]
[[Category:War for Cybertron| ]]

MediaWiki - User contributions [en]

Aligned continuity family