A Change to the Agenda

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	"A Change to the Agenda" {{#if: \| {{#if: \|; (')}} {{#if:\|; ""}}}}
Publisher	Transformers Collectors' Club}}
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Published in	Hasbro Transformers Collectors' Club #70}}
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By	Pete Sinclair and Jesse Wittenrich}}
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ist}}{{#if: \| by}}	}}
and Elements }}by	}}
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Continuity	Beast Wars: Uprising}}
Chronology	4 million years ago}}
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Page count	2pp}}
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{{#if: | {{#if: Transformers Collectors' Club | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: Hasbro Transformers Collectors' Club #70 | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: Pete Sinclair and Jesse Wittenrich | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: Beast Wars: Uprising | {{#if: 4 million years ago | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: 2pp | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: |

{{#switch:{{#sub:xx|2|14}}|dark cybertron=}}

Megatron successfully kills Optimus Prime. This turns out to be a bad idea.

Synopsis

Four million years ago, on prehistoric Earth, the Predacon Megatron has shot legendary Autobot leader Optimus Prime, causing a timestorm that engulfs the Earth, threatening to erase the Maximals from history. As he gloats, however, his former underling Blackarachnia, herself a former Maximal protoform, uses her connection to Teletraan I to activate the Ark's security grid, sending Megatron flying back. She and Silverbolt go to put Prime on auxiliary life support, as the other Maximals arrive to survey the damage. Knowing that they won't be able to repair the damage to Prime if his spark remains in his body, the Autobot's descendant, Maximal commander Optimus Primal, prepares to transfer his ancestor's lifeforce into his body. And normally, this timeline would follow that route-but this timeline has splintered. Megatron, having remained closer to the Ark than in most timelines, enters the Ark and fires upon Prime, extinguishing his spark. Primal and the others quickly begin to fade, but Blackarachnia, managing to hold on for a bit longer, hatches a plan. Finding the stasis locked body of the original Decepticon leader, Megatron, she uses her cyber venom to try and at least incapacitate him, knowing that though she won't be able to bring Prime back, she can at least offer the Autobots an opportunity to stop the Decepticons before its too late. Megatron, too, begins to feel the effects of the timestorm, and lets out one last "noooo" as the universe course corrects. Cybertron is now populated with the embittered remains of the two factions presiding over their descendants, who have begun an uprising against them.

Featured characters

{{#if:*Silverbolt (3)

Rattrap (5)
Cheetor (6)
Optimus Primal (7)
Rhinox (8)|

{{#if:*Silverbolt (3)

Rattrap (5)
Cheetor (6)
Optimus Primal (7)
Rhinox (8)|| style="background:#ffdddd;" valign="top" |
Silverbolt (3)
Rattrap (5)
Cheetor (6)
Optimus Primal (7)
Rhinox (8) }}{{#if:*Megatron (1)
Blackarachnia (2)
Inferno (9)|

Maximals }}{{#if:*Megatron (1) Blackarachnia (2) Inferno (9)\|	Predacons }}{{#if:*Optimus Prime (4)\|	Autobots }}{{#if:*Megatron (10)\|	Decepticons }}{{#if:\|	Misc }}{{#if:\|	Misc }}
Megatron (1) Blackarachnia (2) Inferno (9) }}{{#if:*Optimus Prime (4)\|	Optimus Prime (4) }}{{#if:*Megatron (10)\|	Megatron (10) }}{{#if:\|	}}{{#if:\|	}}

Notes

Continuity notes

This comic follows directly on from the end of the Beast Wars episode, "The Agenda (Part III)". The first page is a recreation of the opening scenes of "Optimal Situation", complete with cribbed dialogue. The comic is made up almost entirely of screencaps from those two episodes, with some being reinterpreted (for example, the shot used of Megatron and Inferno aiming comes from later in the episode, outside the Ark, firing upon the newly upgraded Optimal Optimus, while the shot of the Maximals being "erased" is taken during the middle of the "fadeout" effect used to represent history shifting). The only other episode used for screencaps is a shot of the original Megatron from "Master Blaster", which covers up the shoulder of Beast Wars Megatron with a speech bubble to hide his silhouette and repurposes his head for Blackarachnia.
Blackarachnia's line of dialogue has her refer to Teletraan I as "Teletron", with an offscreen Rattrap telling her it's pronounced "Teletraan", recreating a gag from "Nemesis Part 2".

Contentious continuity

As a lot of readers observed when this comic first came out, the idea of a universe that diverges with the deaths of Optimus Prime and Megatron on the Ark doesn't line up with the world shown in prior Beast Wars: Uprising stories:
- Optimus Prime and Megatron were previously mentioned in "Broken Windshields" in the same breath with Bumblebee, Prowl, Blaster, Starscream, Shockwave, and Soundwave, which is awkward if they died millions of years before the others. Jesse Wittenrich argues that they were still war heroes for millions of years on Cybertron before they wound up on Earth,<ref>{{#if: Megatron and Optimus Prime were still war heroes for 5 million years before the Ark & Nemesis crashed on Earth. They're just missing out on the last 300 years or so. Or, well, Optimus is for sure. There was a lot of discussion how to phrase Blackarachnia's dialog to provide certain allowances. |"Megatron and Optimus Prime were still war heroes for 5 million years before the Ark & Nemesis crashed on Earth. They're just missing out on the last 300 years or so. Or, well, Optimus is for sure. There was a lot of discussion how to phrase Blackarachnia's dialog to provide certain allowances."—|}}{{#if: http://web.archive.org/web/20160817065708/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving#entry3311655 |Jesse Wittenrich|Jesse Wittenrich}}{{#if: The Allspark forums |, The Allspark forums|}}{{#if: TCC Magazine #70 Arriving |, "TCC Magazine #70 Arriving"|}}{{#if: 2016 |, 2016{{#if: 08 |/{{#switch:{{#len:08}}|1=008|08}}{{#if: 15|/{{#switch:{{#len:15}}|1=015|15}}|}}}}|}}{{#if: http://web.archive.org/web/20160817065708/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving#entry3311655 ||}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20160817065708/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving#entry3311655%7C7%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20160817065708/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving#entry3311655%7C8%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20160817065708/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving#entry3311655%7C7%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20160817065708/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving#entry3311655%7C8%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#if: | (dead link)}}</ref> and that the removal of these pivotal figures would be what caused the war to continue through to a lukewarm ceasefire.<ref>{{#if: It was always a G1 that started out with a similar war, but then the war just kept going. No sides claimed victory. It seemed like a reasonable explanation would be if Optimus Prime and Megatron were somehow removed from the war before they could contribute to its end - they're always the champions, the rallying force, the guys who can meaningfully turn the tide. And the Beast Wars cartoon already gave us a way to do just that. So it seemed fun to be able to use that moment as a splitting point. A "What If?" that - I have to be honest - I have been left wondering about since the episode aired 20 years ago. (Although, true, BW:U was never one of my headcannons before. I like how it fits now though.) Plus, like I said before, having Megatron's slightly embellished vision of the Cybertron where he and his Predacons were slaves to the G1 robots actually come true because of his actions... Delicious. |"It was always a G1 that started out with a similar war, but then the war just kept going. No sides claimed victory. It seemed like a reasonable explanation would be if Optimus Prime and Megatron were somehow removed from the war before they could contribute to its end - they're always the champions, the rallying force, the guys who can meaningfully turn the tide. And the Beast Wars cartoon already gave us a way to do just that. So it seemed fun to be able to use that moment as a splitting point. A "What If?" that - I have to be honest - I have been left wondering about since the episode aired 20 years ago. (Although, true, BW:U was never one of my headcannons before. I like how it fits now though.) Plus, like I said before, having Megatron's slightly embellished vision of the Cybertron where he and his Predacons were slaves to the G1 robots actually come true because of his actions... Delicious."—|}}{{#if: http://web.archive.org/web/20160822211958/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-4#entry3313545 |Jesse Wittenrich|Jesse Wittenrich}}{{#if: The Allspark forums |, The Allspark forums|}}{{#if: TCC Magazine #70 Arriving |, "TCC Magazine #70 Arriving"|}}{{#if: |, {{#if: 08 |/{{#switch:{{#len:08}}|1=008|08}}{{#if: 17|/{{#switch:{{#len:17}}|1=017|17}}|}}}}|}}{{#if: http://web.archive.org/web/20160822211958/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-4#entry3313545 ||}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20160822211958/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-4#entry3313545%7C7%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20160822211958/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-4#entry3313545%7C8%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20160822211958/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-4#entry3313545%7C7%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20160822211958/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-4#entry3313545%7C8%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#if: | (dead link)}}</ref>
- "Micro-Aggressions" made "Galvatron, born of Megatron" a major player in the universe's history during the early 21st century. Did Unicron use a 4-million-year-old corpse to make his herald? Wittenrich noted that this plot point was a major consideration in Blackarachnia's dialogue,<ref>{{#if: As for the Megatron -> Galvatron thing, Blackarachnia's dialog was rewritten over and over to make allowances. That the first part is entirely about her doubts that she can destroy him, and the second is just about him not waking, there's possible meaning there. |"As for the Megatron -> Galvatron thing, Blackarachnia's dialog was rewritten over and over to make allowances. That the first part is entirely about her doubts that she can destroy him, and the second is just about him not waking, there's possible meaning there."—|}}{{#if: http://web.archive.org/web/20160822211958/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-4#entry3313545 |Jesse Wittenrich|Jesse Wittenrich}}{{#if: The Allspark forums |, The Allspark forums|}}{{#if: TCC Magazine #70 Arriving |, "TCC Magazine #70 Arriving"|}}{{#if: |, {{#if: 08 |/{{#switch:{{#len:08}}|1=008|08}}{{#if: 17|/{{#switch:{{#len:17}}|1=017|17}}|}}}}|}}{{#if: http://web.archive.org/web/20160822211958/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-4#entry3313545 ||}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20160822211958/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-4#entry3313545%7C7%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20160822211958/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-4#entry3313545%7C8%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20160822211958/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-4#entry3313545%7C7%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20160822211958/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-4#entry3313545%7C8%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#if: | (dead link)}}</ref> and provided the tongue-in-cheek explanation that the Uprising backstory might follow Marvel Comics continuity, meaning Galvatron is actually the one Unicron plucked from a parallel reality entirely!<ref>{{#if: Something to keep in mind is that the photo comic is attached to the Beast Wars Road Map from the previous two pages in the Magazine. So if you take all four pages together, it might ease some of the concerns being brought up. The Road Map makes a point of including a number of possible origins for the "G1" era that preceded the Beast Wars cartoon. Is it Sunbow? Is it Marvel? Something else? That's still true for BW:U. We have no idea which of those pre-BW cartoon paths it took to get to Agenda; a Marvel-esque Grimlock could have been entirely consistent with his portrayal in this timeline all along. Also (yes I'm joking a little here) if your interpretation of Blackarachnia's dialog doesn't allow for the possibility that Megatron is just disabled by toxin, a Megatron-born Galvatron could even be something like Marvel Unicron pulling Galvatron II from an alternate 2009 back in time to fight the Autobots in 1990. That's... kinda silly. Really silly. But honestly, it is a possibility given what's presented on the Road Map. (Also, Jim was brought into this early this year if not late last year, and he and I have specifically been discussing the Megatron/Galvatron thing for at least three months now. Everything fits with everything else when the stories end.) I think some of the concerns being raised might come back to how the Road Map was presented. The multiverse is still a fluid thing with streams and branches constantly flowing into and out of one another, with all sorts of tributaries and springs. Nearly all of those "unconnected" universes have connections to something and are almost never completely separate entities. It's all interwoven waterways. So while BW:U has its origins in Agenda, it's completely burst through the stream banks and has become its own universe. Because of that, the comic really doesn't affect what we knew about BW:U all that much. We still don't really know its G1 origins (see above) and the Beast Wars cartoon bits don't really connect into any of the larger plot lines anymore. They're sort of left in their own paradoxical bubble in Earth's past, existing no where else in the BW: U timeline. So I suppose someone could read that as say "it doesn't really add anything", and sure. It wasn't trying to give any grand additions (if it was, it probably wouldn't have been just a screen cap comic), but the entire idea of the universe was "what if Optimus Prime and Megatron died well before the end of the war, so the war just lingered and the Autobots & Decepticons built the Maximals & Predacons as slaves to continue their fight". And that the Beast Wars cartoon actually had that opportunity built right in made it seem neat enough to explore The Agenda as a creation point for the universe. I of course do see why some wouldn't like that. I'm just trying to explain/clarify the creative decisions that led to the comic being written. |"Something to keep in mind is that the photo comic is attached to the Beast Wars Road Map from the previous two pages in the Magazine. So if you take all four pages together, it might ease some of the concerns being brought up. The Road Map makes a point of including a number of possible origins for the "G1" era that preceded the Beast Wars cartoon. Is it Sunbow? Is it Marvel? Something else? That's still true for BW:U. We have no idea which of those pre-BW cartoon paths it took to get to Agenda; a Marvel-esque Grimlock could have been entirely consistent with his portrayal in this timeline all along. Also (yes I'm joking a little here) if your interpretation of Blackarachnia's dialog doesn't allow for the possibility that Megatron is just disabled by toxin, a Megatron-born Galvatron could even be something like Marvel Unicron pulling Galvatron II from an alternate 2009 back in time to fight the Autobots in 1990. That's... kinda silly. Really silly. But honestly, it is a possibility given what's presented on the Road Map. (Also, Jim was brought into this early this year if not late last year, and he and I have specifically been discussing the Megatron/Galvatron thing for at least three months now. Everything fits with everything else when the stories end.) I think some of the concerns being raised might come back to how the Road Map was presented. The multiverse is still a fluid thing with streams and branches constantly flowing into and out of one another, with all sorts of tributaries and springs. Nearly all of those "unconnected" universes have connections to something and are almost never completely separate entities. It's all interwoven waterways. So while BW:U has its origins in Agenda, it's completely burst through the stream banks and has become its own universe. Because of that, the comic really doesn't affect what we knew about BW:U all that much. We still don't really know its G1 origins (see above) and the Beast Wars cartoon bits don't really connect into any of the larger plot lines anymore. They're sort of left in their own paradoxical bubble in Earth's past, existing no where else in the BW: U timeline. So I suppose someone could read that as say "it doesn't really add anything", and sure. It wasn't trying to give any grand additions (if it was, it probably wouldn't have been just a screen cap comic), but the entire idea of the universe was "what if Optimus Prime and Megatron died well before the end of the war, so the war just lingered and the Autobots & Decepticons built the Maximals & Predacons as slaves to continue their fight". And that the Beast Wars cartoon actually had that opportunity built right in made it seem neat enough to explore The Agenda as a creation point for the universe. I of course do see why some wouldn't like that. I'm just trying to explain/clarify the creative decisions that led to the comic being written."—|}}{{#if: http://web.archive.org/web/20171010012632/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-11#entry3315422 |Jesse Wittenrich|Jesse Wittenrich}}{{#if: The Allspark forums |, The Allspark forums|}}{{#if: TCC Magazine #70 Arriving |, "TCC Magazine #70 Arriving"|}}{{#if: 2016 |, 2016{{#if: 08 |/{{#switch:{{#len:08}}|1=008|08}}{{#if: 19|/{{#switch:{{#len:19}}|1=019|19}}|}}}}|}}{{#if: http://web.archive.org/web/20171010012632/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-11#entry3315422 ||}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20171010012632/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-11#entry3315422%7C7%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20171010012632/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-11#entry3315422%7C8%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20171010012632/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-11#entry3315422%7C7%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20171010012632/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-11#entry3315422%7C8%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#if: | (dead link)}}</ref>
- Many Beast Wars characters were borne of Maximal stasis pods on Earth—yet when Quickstrike shows up on Uprising Cybertron in "Broken Windshields", he's already a Predacon. Wittenrich argues anything could have happened since 1984 to make that the case,<ref>{{#if: Everything after 1984 has changed. The entire circumstance and reason the Maximals and Predacons were brought online is different. Mixed-up factions could just be one of the unpredictable hiccups that result from such changes. |"Everything after 1984 has changed. The entire circumstance and reason the Maximals and Predacons were brought online is different. Mixed-up factions could just be one of the unpredictable hiccups that result from such changes."—|}}{{#if: http://web.archive.org/web/20160822212555/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-3#entry3312122 |Jesse Wittenrich|Jesse Wittenrich}}{{#if: The Allspark forums |, The Allspark forums|}}{{#if: TCC Magazine #70 Arriving |, "TCC Magazine #70 Arriving"|}}{{#if: 2016 |, 2016{{#if: 08 |/{{#switch:{{#len:08}}|1=008|08}}{{#if: 15|/{{#switch:{{#len:15}}|1=015|15}}|}}}}|}}{{#if: http://web.archive.org/web/20160822212555/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-3#entry3312122 ||}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20160822212555/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-3#entry3312122%7C7%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20160822212555/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-3#entry3312122%7C8%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20160822212555/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-3#entry3312122%7C7%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20160822212555/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-3#entry3312122%7C8%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#if: | (dead link)}}</ref> and Quickstrike's aggressive default personality certainly seems better-suited to Predacon philosophy.
The various creatives involved with Uprising at the time had differing views on the comic's canonicity. Upon its release, the comic's creators waded into discussion on The Allspark forums to defend it—a discussion complicated by the fact that many of the participants hadn't read the comic, due to its very limited distribution via the Club magazine!
- Pete Sinclair, editor at Fun Publications, categorically declared it to be the canonical origin for the Beast Wars: Uprising universe.<ref>{{#if: Fair enough. But this was the plan for the last year. If there are any perceived contradictions, we will make sure it is all clear and all ties together once the BWU universe wraps. This is our origin for the BWU and should be understood as such. |"Fair enough. But this was the plan for the last year. If there are any perceived contradictions, we will make sure it is all clear and all ties together once the BWU universe wraps. This is our origin for the BWU and should be understood as such."—|}}{{#if: http://web.archive.org/web/20171010011645/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-6#entry3313953 |Pete Sinclair|Pete Sinclair}}{{#if: The Allspark forums |, The Allspark forums|}}{{#if: TCC Magazine #70 Arriving |, "TCC Magazine #70 Arriving"|}}{{#if: 2016 |, 2016{{#if: 08 |/{{#switch:{{#len:08}}|1=008|08}}{{#if: 17|/{{#switch:{{#len:17}}|1=017|17}}|}}}}|}}{{#if: http://web.archive.org/web/20171010011645/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-6#entry3313953 ||}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20171010011645/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-6#entry3313953%7C7%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20171010011645/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-6#entry3313953%7C8%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20171010011645/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-6#entry3313953%7C7%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20171010011645/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-6#entry3313953%7C8%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#if: | (dead link)}}</ref> Self-admittedly, however, Sinclair was not paying close attention to the content of the prose stories, and often failed to communicate his intent to the writers working for him.
- Jesse Wittenrich, who appears to have scripted the comic, made a concerted effort to phrase things carefully so as not to explicitly contradict the prose stories within the confines of the comic's premise. He stated that the basic idea of Optimus Prime and Megatron being dead was established around 2013, but the specifics of how the divergent timeline would work weren't discussed until later.<ref>{{#if: A little point of clarification, the final details of how BW:U would originate in "The Agenda" (I'll stop using phrases like "connects to" or "tied to" since I see the scene much more as a "Big Bang" that blasts the timeline into its own universe - it's not trying to be an alternate take on the cartoon; it's still an alternate take on all things Beast Wars) are what were discussed a year or however long ago. The concept of "no more leaders, soldiers carry on the fight", however, has been around since... 2013, I believe. When we went back to my Transtech Blackarachnia bio from 2009 and decided to expand the universe. It was one of the "rules" of the universe given to all of the writers who worked on those aspects of the fiction. |"A little point of clarification, the final details of how BW:U would originate in "The Agenda" (I'll stop using phrases like "connects to" or "tied to" since I see the scene much more as a "Big Bang" that blasts the timeline into its own universe - it's not trying to be an alternate take on the cartoon; it's still an alternate take on all things Beast Wars) are what were discussed a year or however long ago. The concept of "no more leaders, soldiers carry on the fight", however, has been around since... 2013, I believe. When we went back to my Transtech Blackarachnia bio from 2009 and decided to expand the universe. It was one of the "rules" of the universe given to all of the writers who worked on those aspects of the fiction."—|}}{{#if: http://web.archive.org/web/20171010012758/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-12#entry3316388 |Jesse Wittenrich|Jesse Wittenrich}}{{#if: The Allspark forums |, The Allspark forums|}}{{#if: TCC Magazine #70 Arriving |, "TCC Magazine #70 Arriving"|}}{{#if: 2016 |, 2016{{#if: 08 |/{{#switch:{{#len:08}}|1=008|08}}{{#if: 20|/{{#switch:{{#len:20}}|1=020|20}}|}}}}|}}{{#if: http://web.archive.org/web/20171010012758/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-12#entry3316388 ||}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20171010012758/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-12#entry3316388%7C7%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20171010012758/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-12#entry3316388%7C8%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20171010012758/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-12#entry3316388%7C7%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20171010012758/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-12#entry3316388%7C8%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#if: | (dead link)}}</ref>
Meanwhile, the architects of the Beast Wars: Uprising prose stories were left to pick up the pieces in the wake of the comic's printing. They would ultimately allude to it in "Derailment", by vaguely implying that Optimus Prime was eventually restored as a Triple-Threat Master, but evidently were unhappy with the comic.
- Jim Sorenson, Uprising prose co-author, didn't learn about these plans until the earliest planning stages of the BotCon 2016 comic "Dawn of the Predacus", which at that point was intended to be an Uprising story (before it was instead outsourced to IDW Publishing) and would have opened with a (properly-illustrated) version of "A Change to the Agenda".<ref>{{#if: Originally, had DotP been a BWU story, the convention comic would have opened with the events of ACttA, but actually drawn as a comic and not recycled screencaps. As it turns out, the whole reason that ACttA was even conceived is because it was the very foundation upon which the BWU universe was even thought of. The whole thing, going all the way back to Transtech Blackarachnia's profile, was first thought of as being the result of "What if BW Megatron had succeeded in killing G1 Optimus Prime?" It wasn't just something concocted after Jim and Bish had already established much of the universe in their prose stories, it was the original basis from which the idea of BWU's universe had been thought of. |"Originally, had DotP been a BWU story, the convention comic would have opened with the events of ACttA, but actually drawn as a comic and not recycled screencaps. As it turns out, the whole reason that ACttA was even conceived is because it was the very foundation upon which the BWU universe was even thought of. The whole thing, going all the way back to Transtech Blackarachnia's profile, was first thought of as being the result of "What if BW Megatron had succeeded in killing G1 Optimus Prime?" It wasn't just something concocted after Jim and Bish had already established much of the universe in their prose stories, it was the original basis from which the idea of BWU's universe had been thought of."—|}}{{#if: https://discord.com/channels/656241088826441729/674045482158522369/870548847976382475 |Sabrblade|Sabrblade}}{{#if: the TFWiki Discord server |, the TFWiki Discord server|}}{{#if: |, ""|}}{{#if: 2021 |, 2021{{#if: 07 |/{{#switch:{{#len:07}}|1=007|07}}{{#if: 30|/{{#switch:{{#len:30}}|1=030|30}}|}}}}|}}{{#if: https://discord.com/channels/656241088826441729/674045482158522369/870548847976382475 ||}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://discord.com/channels/656241088826441729/674045482158522369/870548847976382475%7C7%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://discord.com/channels/656241088826441729/674045482158522369/870548847976382475%7C8%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://discord.com/channels/656241088826441729/674045482158522369/870548847976382475%7C7%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://discord.com/channels/656241088826441729/674045482158522369/870548847976382475%7C8%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#if: | (dead link)}}</ref><ref>{{#if: Look, IF that's true, it was never communicated to us. But it was presented to me as "we have this exciting new idea". / [...] / I do vaguely recall the first time the idea coming up being while brainstorming the comic / And that was definitely my pitch -- Magnaboss as villain, Predacusbas hero -- though I am not sure they'd have let me do it. |"Look, IF that's true, it was never communicated to us. But it was presented to me as "we have this exciting new idea". / [...] / I do vaguely recall the first time the idea coming up being while brainstorming the comic / And that was definitely my pitch -- Magnaboss as villain, Predacusbas hero -- though I am not sure they'd have let me do it."—|}}{{#if: https://discord.com/channels/656241088826441729/674045482158522369/870650714152665139 |Jim Sorenson|Jim Sorenson}}{{#if: the TFWiki Discord server |, the TFWiki Discord server|}}{{#if: |, ""|}}{{#if: 2021 |, 2021{{#if: 07 |/{{#switch:{{#len:07}}|1=007|07}}{{#if: 30|/{{#switch:{{#len:30}}|1=030|30}}|}}}}|}}{{#if: https://discord.com/channels/656241088826441729/674045482158522369/870650714152665139 ||}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://discord.com/channels/656241088826441729/674045482158522369/870650714152665139%7C7%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://discord.com/channels/656241088826441729/674045482158522369/870650714152665139%7C8%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://discord.com/channels/656241088826441729/674045482158522369/870650714152665139%7C7%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://discord.com/channels/656241088826441729/674045482158522369/870650714152665139%7C8%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#if: | (dead link)}}</ref><ref>{{#if: It was Jesse who told me that, and he too admitted that there was a severe lack of communication between them and you at the time, the fault for which they place on themselves. [...] |"It was Jesse who told me that, and he too admitted that there was a severe lack of communication between them and you at the time, the fault for which they place on themselves. [...]"—|}}{{#if: https://discord.com/channels/656241088826441729/674045482158522369/870679407432454214 |Sabrblade|Sabrblade}}{{#if: the TFWiki Discord server |, the TFWiki Discord server|}}{{#if: |, ""|}}{{#if: 2021 |, 2021{{#if: 07 |/{{#switch:{{#len:07}}|1=007|07}}{{#if: 30|/{{#switch:{{#len:30}}|1=030|30}}|}}}}|}}{{#if: https://discord.com/channels/656241088826441729/674045482158522369/870679407432454214 ||}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://discord.com/channels/656241088826441729/674045482158522369/870679407432454214%7C7%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://discord.com/channels/656241088826441729/674045482158522369/870679407432454214%7C8%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://discord.com/channels/656241088826441729/674045482158522369/870679407432454214%7C7%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://discord.com/channels/656241088826441729/674045482158522369/870679407432454214%7C8%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#if: | (dead link)}}</ref> Up until this point, he'd been writing with the intention that Optimus Prime and Megatron had woken up in 1984 and gone on to be major players in the war.<ref>{{#if: I think folks who have been reading the stories observed, correctly, that the idea of a Megatron and Optimus-less backstory wasn't something that had been hinted at or built up to. Since the ostensible purpose of the comic is to add something cool and new to the universe, the fact that it didn't seem to line up is a valid and legitimate criticism. On the other hand, ACttA has some interesting things to say THEMATICALLY about the BWU universe. So, if you enjoy the comic on that level, then I think that's great. From my POV, as a writer, I want to have my cake and eat it too. Yes, it's pretty obvious that the universe in the stories we've read was intended to have Optimus and Megatron wake up in 1984. Did we ever out and out DECLARE that, unequivocally? No, I suppose we did not. That gives wiggle room. So, we do things like we did with Trigger Warnings. I change out "Optimus Prime" for "Autobot leader" and introduce a level of ambiguity. If you want to read it as Optimus Prime, then you as the reader have that option. If you want to think of it as Ultra Magnus, or someone else, with a straight-up linear read on ACttA, then you have that option too. But, like I said, my own personal interpretation of ACttA is that it did not spin off a single timeline, but hundreds, maybe thousands. The Beast Wars Uprising stories you've been reading are in just one of those, and in that timeline anything is possible. Optimus could have woken up, a different and nastier Optimus than the one the Beast Warriors knew from history in the original Beast Wars. Megatron might turn into a tank instead of a gun. Unicron could be slumbering deep within the Earth. Even human history might be subtly different before 1984, although the timeline I gave you in, um, Micro-Aggressions suggests it was at least pretty close. Basically, if it hasn't been stated in one of the stories, don't assume it's true. And really, guys, can we stop arguing about it? Folks who love ACttA, great, you're allowed. Folks who hate ACttA, great, you're allowed too. I promise I'll keep putting my best foot forward regardless, and the story you'll get will be as close to the vision in my head as my skills permit and editorial oversight allows. Besides, the focus is really on the Maximals and the Predacons of the 24th century. The backstory is garnish, the meat is the Uprising and how it impacts those characters. I think it's telling that, in 7 stories, featuring about 20 main protagonists, only one of those protagonists has been a Builder. |"I think folks who have been reading the stories observed, correctly, that the idea of a Megatron and Optimus-less backstory wasn't something that had been hinted at or built up to. Since the ostensible purpose of the comic is to add something cool and new to the universe, the fact that it didn't seem to line up is a valid and legitimate criticism. On the other hand, ACttA has some interesting things to say THEMATICALLY about the BWU universe. So, if you enjoy the comic on that level, then I think that's great. From my POV, as a writer, I want to have my cake and eat it too. Yes, it's pretty obvious that the universe in the stories we've read was intended to have Optimus and Megatron wake up in 1984. Did we ever out and out DECLARE that, unequivocally? No, I suppose we did not. That gives wiggle room. So, we do things like we did with Trigger Warnings. I change out "Optimus Prime" for "Autobot leader" and introduce a level of ambiguity. If you want to read it as Optimus Prime, then you as the reader have that option. If you want to think of it as Ultra Magnus, or someone else, with a straight-up linear read on ACttA, then you have that option too. But, like I said, my own personal interpretation of ACttA is that it did not spin off a single timeline, but hundreds, maybe thousands. The Beast Wars Uprising stories you've been reading are in just one of those, and in that timeline anything is possible. Optimus could have woken up, a different and nastier Optimus than the one the Beast Warriors knew from history in the original Beast Wars. Megatron might turn into a tank instead of a gun. Unicron could be slumbering deep within the Earth. Even human history might be subtly different before 1984, although the timeline I gave you in, um, Micro-Aggressions suggests it was at least pretty close. Basically, if it hasn't been stated in one of the stories, don't assume it's true. And really, guys, can we stop arguing about it? Folks who love ACttA, great, you're allowed. Folks who hate ACttA, great, you're allowed too. I promise I'll keep putting my best foot forward regardless, and the story you'll get will be as close to the vision in my head as my skills permit and editorial oversight allows. Besides, the focus is really on the Maximals and the Predacons of the 24th century. The backstory is garnish, the meat is the Uprising and how it impacts those characters. I think it's telling that, in 7 stories, featuring about 20 main protagonists, only one of those protagonists has been a Builder."—|}}{{#if: http://web.archive.org/web/20171010013222/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-14#entry3341759 |Jim Sorenson|Jim Sorenson}}{{#if: The Allspark forums |, The Allspark forums|}}{{#if: TCC Magazine #70 Arriving |, "TCC Magazine #70 Arriving"|}}{{#if: 2016 |, 2016{{#if: 09 |/{{#switch:{{#len:09}}|1=009|09}}{{#if: 20|/{{#switch:{{#len:20}}|1=020|20}}|}}}}|}}{{#if: http://web.archive.org/web/20171010013222/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-14#entry3341759 ||}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20171010013222/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-14#entry3341759%7C7%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20171010013222/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-14#entry3341759%7C8%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20171010013222/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-14#entry3341759%7C7%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20171010013222/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-14#entry3341759%7C8%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#if: | (dead link)}}</ref> As a compromise of sorts, he gave his interpretation that the killing of Optimus Prime could have spun out hundreds of new universes, with changes going forwards and backwards in time due to various time loops; thus meaning this comic didn't necessarily tie Beast Wars: Uprising stories to a universe where Optimus and Megatron are dead.<ref>{{#if: This is a fascinating notion, and does dovetail a bit with my own thinking somewhat. Most of the complaints, or "errors", people have observed come from thinking of Beast Wars: Uprising as a simple divergent timeline. Now, obviously, that wasn't how we originally thought of the universe, but does ACttA necessarily change that, retcon it into a simple divergence? I would suggest that, no, it does not. Not necessarily, anyway. I think people are treating the story more like a tale where someone like George Washington or Alexander the Great gets killed young, when it'd be more proper to think of it as a story where Doctor Who gets killed young. Now, the classic Beast Wars cartoon backstory isn't exclusively the cartoon backstory, but it certainly draws heavily from it. But, as a thought experiment, let's imagine it was pretty firmly a direct sequel to the G1 Sunbow cartoon. Then ACttA comes along. We're in timeline 2.0. Optimus Prime (and maybe Megatron) die. Volcano blows up. War starts on Earth. Goes differently. There are alternative takes on More than Meets the Eye 1-3, Ultimate Doom, Heavy Metal War, Enter the Nightbird, Megatron's Master Plan, etc... and then we get to A Decepticon Raider in King Arthur's Court. The war has gone differently, perhaps more brutally. Some players are different, and those who are the same aren't untouched and have different attitudes and experiences. England was destined to rule the greatest empire mankind had ever seen, so changes to its past could easily reverberate forward. There's another time storm. Now we're in timeline 3.0. The Autobots and Decepticons awake on a world where human society is very different. Maybe the British Empire never came into being. Maybe it still dominates the globe. Maybe it's caught in a cold war with the Soviets, or the Ottoman Empire. But events play out again. Let's say they get past the Decepticon Raider incident eventually, though it might take another several iterations until there is an equilibrium, no-change version of events. (Let's call it timeline 3.08 to account for that) There's still no Optimus Prime, though maybe Megatron has been revived by now, Cybervenom purged from his system. We see The Secret of Omega Supreme, Triple Takeover, The Search for Alpha Trion, The Key to Vector Sigma, and then... War Dawn. Some Autobots (maybe... or maybe the Aerialbots have defected. Or maybe they were never built and it's the Dinobots who go back. Or maybe, maybe, maybe...) go back in time, to minus nine million years. Again, things go differently. Again, timestorm. Maybe Orion Pax never becomes Optimus Prime now. Maybe Megatron gets defeated in the past. Maybe Orion Pax joins the Decepticons and takes Starscream's place as Megatron's number two. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Timeline 4.0. Now the cast of characters is completely changed in 1984 when they awake. We hit Decepticon Raider and fluctuate a bit, finding a steady equilibrium at 4.31. Then we proceed to War Dawn and hit some more variations, eventually stabilizing in timeline 4.87. The history of both Earth and Cybertron are now different as of minus nine million years. (And, for Earth, not necessarily just 6th century AD and beyond... Jetfire and the Insecticons both came to Earth in Timelines 1.0 - 3.08 and lay dormant, but now who knows? Maybe all of southeast Asia is dominated by the Insecticons when they awoke a few thousand years early. Maybe Jetfire crashed in Sicily and the ancient Romans found him and revived him. Maybe, maybe, maybe.) This mess of a timeline, which may or may not include an Optimus, blunders forward through the Movie, some version of Five Faces of Darkness, and then we hit... that's right, Forever is a Long Time Coming. Quintessons open a time window to minus eleven million years, the dawn of the Cybertronian rebellion. At this point all bets are off. Who knows how this new batch of characters react to going back to the earliest days of Cybertron. Primacron may not have even built Unicron yet. By the time we get to a stable timeline 5.344 (to take into account Decepticon Raider, War Dawn, and any other time travel adventures), we could have a completely different mythology. And to make it even more interesting, we've established that, in one of these timelines, humanity quantum locks Earth, making itself off-limits to time and dimensional travelers, fixing its history forevermore. Once Earth's history becomes cemented in place, the rest of reality has to bend and twist to accommodate that. The volatile timelines settle down. But where it settled could be completely different than where it started. Maybe now the Quintessons held dominion over Cybertron until minus eight million years, and Orion Pax and Megatron banded together to kick them off, and then had a falling out. Maybe Optimus Prime was created by a bitter Alpha Trion to get revenge on the Decepticons. Maybe Megatron died before the Ark launched.Maybe the Transformers woke up in 1984 to face an America dominated by the Spanish Empire. Maybe Optimus woke up in 1984 and survived the attack on Autobot City led by Shockwave in 2005, only to perish battling Unicron. My point is, all of those would be reasonable possible outcomes for killing Optimus Prime before he awoke JUST IN THE G1 SUNBOW CARTOON. The actual BW backstory is, if anything, even MORE complicated than this, and largely unrevealed, so just imagine all the ramifications and the many universes spawned in that instant. Hell, Marvel, Dreamwave, IDW, Hearts of Steel, Animated, and Robots in Disguise could all come just from this one point, if one was so inclined. (Or it could be tampering with the paradox locks on a briefcase, choose your poison.) I think that's what's so fascinating about The Agenda, the original S2 BW finale. Optimus Prime is a central figure to the mythology of Cybertron, both after AND before he was created. There's a reason he's one of the Thirteen Primes over in The Covenant of Primus. So, at least in my mind, ACttA doesn't result in a tangent. It results in a big bang, hundreds of new universes. BWU could be any one of them. Hell, it could be several of them, all very close. Who is to say that Blackarachnia returned home to the exact same 100% universe she left and not a very similar one. Add in a dash of quantum harmonic resonance, the tendency of new universes to echo pre-existing ones, and you've got quite a potent stew. |"This is a fascinating notion, and does dovetail a bit with my own thinking somewhat. Most of the complaints, or "errors", people have observed come from thinking of Beast Wars: Uprising as a simple divergent timeline. Now, obviously, that wasn't how we originally thought of the universe, but does ACttA necessarily change that, retcon it into a simple divergence? I would suggest that, no, it does not. Not necessarily, anyway. I think people are treating the story more like a tale where someone like George Washington or Alexander the Great gets killed young, when it'd be more proper to think of it as a story where Doctor Who gets killed young. Now, the classic Beast Wars cartoon backstory isn't exclusively the cartoon backstory, but it certainly draws heavily from it. But, as a thought experiment, let's imagine it was pretty firmly a direct sequel to the G1 Sunbow cartoon. Then ACttA comes along. We're in timeline 2.0. Optimus Prime (and maybe Megatron) die. Volcano blows up. War starts on Earth. Goes differently. There are alternative takes on More than Meets the Eye 1-3, Ultimate Doom, Heavy Metal War, Enter the Nightbird, Megatron's Master Plan, etc... and then we get to A Decepticon Raider in King Arthur's Court. The war has gone differently, perhaps more brutally. Some players are different, and those who are the same aren't untouched and have different attitudes and experiences. England was destined to rule the greatest empire mankind had ever seen, so changes to its past could easily reverberate forward. There's another time storm. Now we're in timeline 3.0. The Autobots and Decepticons awake on a world where human society is very different. Maybe the British Empire never came into being. Maybe it still dominates the globe. Maybe it's caught in a cold war with the Soviets, or the Ottoman Empire. But events play out again. Let's say they get past the Decepticon Raider incident eventually, though it might take another several iterations until there is an equilibrium, no-change version of events. (Let's call it timeline 3.08 to account for that) There's still no Optimus Prime, though maybe Megatron has been revived by now, Cybervenom purged from his system. We see The Secret of Omega Supreme, Triple Takeover, The Search for Alpha Trion, The Key to Vector Sigma, and then... War Dawn. Some Autobots (maybe... or maybe the Aerialbots have defected. Or maybe they were never built and it's the Dinobots who go back. Or maybe, maybe, maybe...) go back in time, to minus nine million years. Again, things go differently. Again, timestorm. Maybe Orion Pax never becomes Optimus Prime now. Maybe Megatron gets defeated in the past. Maybe Orion Pax joins the Decepticons and takes Starscream's place as Megatron's number two. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Timeline 4.0. Now the cast of characters is completely changed in 1984 when they awake. We hit Decepticon Raider and fluctuate a bit, finding a steady equilibrium at 4.31. Then we proceed to War Dawn and hit some more variations, eventually stabilizing in timeline 4.87. The history of both Earth and Cybertron are now different as of minus nine million years. (And, for Earth, not necessarily just 6th century AD and beyond... Jetfire and the Insecticons both came to Earth in Timelines 1.0 - 3.08 and lay dormant, but now who knows? Maybe all of southeast Asia is dominated by the Insecticons when they awoke a few thousand years early. Maybe Jetfire crashed in Sicily and the ancient Romans found him and revived him. Maybe, maybe, maybe.) This mess of a timeline, which may or may not include an Optimus, blunders forward through the Movie, some version of Five Faces of Darkness, and then we hit... that's right, Forever is a Long Time Coming. Quintessons open a time window to minus eleven million years, the dawn of the Cybertronian rebellion. At this point all bets are off. Who knows how this new batch of characters react to going back to the earliest days of Cybertron. Primacron may not have even built Unicron yet. By the time we get to a stable timeline 5.344 (to take into account Decepticon Raider, War Dawn, and any other time travel adventures), we could have a completely different mythology. And to make it even more interesting, we've established that, in one of these timelines, humanity quantum locks Earth, making itself off-limits to time and dimensional travelers, fixing its history forevermore. Once Earth's history becomes cemented in place, the rest of reality has to bend and twist to accommodate that. The volatile timelines settle down. But where it settled could be completely different than where it started. Maybe now the Quintessons held dominion over Cybertron until minus eight million years, and Orion Pax and Megatron banded together to kick them off, and then had a falling out. Maybe Optimus Prime was created by a bitter Alpha Trion to get revenge on the Decepticons. Maybe Megatron died before the Ark launched.Maybe the Transformers woke up in 1984 to face an America dominated by the Spanish Empire. Maybe Optimus woke up in 1984 and survived the attack on Autobot City led by Shockwave in 2005, only to perish battling Unicron. My point is, all of those would be reasonable possible outcomes for killing Optimus Prime before he awoke JUST IN THE G1 SUNBOW CARTOON. The actual BW backstory is, if anything, even MORE complicated than this, and largely unrevealed, so just imagine all the ramifications and the many universes spawned in that instant. Hell, Marvel, Dreamwave, IDW, Hearts of Steel, Animated, and Robots in Disguise could all come just from this one point, if one was so inclined. (Or it could be tampering with the paradox locks on a briefcase, choose your poison.) I think that's what's so fascinating about The Agenda, the original S2 BW finale. Optimus Prime is a central figure to the mythology of Cybertron, both after AND before he was created. There's a reason he's one of the Thirteen Primes over in The Covenant of Primus. So, at least in my mind, ACttA doesn't result in a tangent. It results in a big bang, hundreds of new universes. BWU could be any one of them. Hell, it could be several of them, all very close. Who is to say that Blackarachnia returned home to the exact same 100% universe she left and not a very similar one. Add in a dash of quantum harmonic resonance, the tendency of new universes to echo pre-existing ones, and you've got quite a potent stew."—|}}{{#if: http://web.archive.org/web/20171010013146/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-13#entry3341502 |Jim Sorenson|Jim Sorenson}}{{#if: The Allspark forums |, The Allspark forums|}}{{#if: TCC Magazine #70 Arriving |, "TCC Magazine #70 Arriving"|}}{{#if: 2016 |, 2016{{#if: 09 |/{{#switch:{{#len:09}}|1=009|09}}{{#if: 20|/{{#switch:{{#len:20}}|1=020|20}}|}}}}|}}{{#if: http://web.archive.org/web/20171010013146/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-13#entry3341502 ||}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20171010013146/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-13#entry3341502%7C7%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20171010013146/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-13#entry3341502%7C8%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20171010013146/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-13#entry3341502%7C7%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20171010013146/https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-13#entry3341502%7C8%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#if: | (dead link)}}</ref>
- David Bishop, Sorenson's co-writer, similarly didn't like giving the setting an origin as a "darkest timeline" (one where Optimus is way dead), implying it was 'wrong' and needed 'fixing' through plot activity.<ref>{{#if: |""—|}}{{#if: https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/140167-ama-bish-jesse-jim/?p=3512955 |David Bishop|David Bishop}}{{#if: The Allspark forums |, The Allspark forums|}}{{#if: AMA: Bish, Jesse, & Jim |, "AMA: Bish, Jesse, & Jim"|}}{{#if: |, {{#if: |/{{#switch:{{#len:}}|1=0{{{month}}}|{{{month}}}}}{{#if: |/{{#switch:{{#len:}}|1=0{{{day}}}|{{{day}}}}}|}}}}|}}{{#if: https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/140167-ama-bish-jesse-jim/?p=3512955 ||}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/140167-ama-bish-jesse-jim/?p=3512955%7C7%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/140167-ama-bish-jesse-jim/?p=3512955%7C8%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/140167-ama-bish-jesse-jim/?p=3512955%7C7%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/140167-ama-bish-jesse-jim/?p=3512955%7C8%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#if: y | (dead link)}}</ref>

Errors

Someone made a screen capture comic and unironically published it.

Other trivia

The scene shown in this comic follows on from Megatron's speech in "The Agenda (Part III)" about the Predacons being "slaves" to "archaic energon guzzlers", evoking the state of the Beast Wars: Uprising incarnation of Cybertron, intended to show the irony of how Megatron's actions resulted in the very Cybertron he wanted to prevent.<ref>{{#if: I have comments about the final comic that I shouldn't share publicly, but when it was proposed a year or more ago, I really liked the concept. And I still do. A lot of that comes from the scene right before this comic starts: Megatron's "I enter these hallowed halls, a conqueror" speech. If you go back and listen to his words, it will give you shivers how well he could be describing the Beast Wars: Uprising universe. Talking about being "slaves" to the "archaic Energon guzzlers" and just... the whole speech really. So then in a splintered timeline where he destroys Optimus Prime and he seals Cybertron's fate to be as he described it - and worse - the irony is just delicious. |"I have comments about the final comic that I shouldn't share publicly, but when it was proposed a year or more ago, I really liked the concept. And I still do. A lot of that comes from the scene right before this comic starts: Megatron's "I enter these hallowed halls, a conqueror" speech. If you go back and listen to his words, it will give you shivers how well he could be describing the Beast Wars: Uprising universe. Talking about being "slaves" to the "archaic Energon guzzlers" and just... the whole speech really. So then in a splintered timeline where he destroys Optimus Prime and he seals Cybertron's fate to be as he described it - and worse - the irony is just delicious."—|}}{{#if: http://web.archive.org/web/20160819101037/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-2#entry3311705 |Jesse Wittenrich|Jesse Wittenrich}}{{#if: The Allspark forums |, The Allspark forums|}}{{#if: TCC Magazine #70 Arriving |, "TCC Magazine #70 Arriving"|}}{{#if: 2016 |, 2016{{#if: 08 |/{{#switch:{{#len:08}}|1=008|08}}{{#if: 15|/{{#switch:{{#len:15}}|1=015|15}}|}}}}|}}{{#if: http://web.archive.org/web/20160819101037/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-2#entry3311705 ||}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20160819101037/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-2#entry3311705%7C7%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20160819101037/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-2#entry3311705%7C8%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20160819101037/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-2#entry3311705%7C7%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:http://web.archive.org/web/20160819101037/http://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/131659-tcc-magazine-70-arriving/page-2#entry3311705%7C8%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#if: | (dead link)}}</ref>
- The irony is undercut by not including the relevant dialogue in the comic itself (as it pertains not to the events of the specific episode in question but to events that transpired in the episode after that one), and by the odd choice to cobble-together a scene of Blackarachnia wounding the original Megatron.
- Jesse Wittenrich hoped to show how, in the later (and already planned) Uprising stories, Megatron's altered self helps to actually undo a world of oppression. This didn't come off like he'd hoped.<ref>{{#if: the screen cap comic style ended up hampering the concept far more than expected |"the screen cap comic style ended up hampering the concept far more than expected"—|}}{{#if: https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/140167-ama-bish-jesse-jim/?p=3513180 |Jesse Wittenrich|Jesse Wittenrich}}{{#if: The Allspark forums |, The Allspark forums|}}{{#if: AMA: Bish, Jesse, & Jim |, "AMA: Bish, Jesse, & Jim"|}}{{#if: |, {{#if: |/{{#switch:{{#len:}}|1=0{{{month}}}|{{{month}}}}}{{#if: |/{{#switch:{{#len:}}|1=0{{{day}}}|{{{day}}}}}|}}}}|}}{{#if: https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/140167-ama-bish-jesse-jim/?p=3513180 ||}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/140167-ama-bish-jesse-jim/?p=3513180%7C7%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/140167-ama-bish-jesse-jim/?p=3513180%7C8%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/140167-ama-bish-jesse-jim/?p=3513180%7C7%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://www.allspark.com/forums/topic/140167-ama-bish-jesse-jim/?p=3513180%7C8%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#if: y | (dead link)}}</ref>

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A Change to the Agenda

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A Change to the Agenda

Synopsis

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