Nautica: Home

	{{#if: "Nautica, that's your solution to everything: to move under the sea. It's not gonna happen!" \|; "Nautica, that's your solution to everything: to move under the sea. It's not gonna happen!"}}}}
	"Nautica: Home" {{#if: \| {{#if: \|; (')}} {{#if:\|; ""}}}}
Publisher	IDW Publishing}}
Published by	}}
Imprint	}}
Published in	}}
First published	September 18, 2019}}
Shipping date	}}
On-sale date	}}
Cover date	August 2019}}
Credits	}}
By	}}
Manga	}}
Manga by	}}
Original story	}}
Story & art by	}}
Story and color art	}}
Story	}}
Story by	}}
Story consultants	}}
Story concept	}}
Screenplay by	}}
Screenplay	}}
Adaptation by	}}
Adapted by	}}
Adaptation	}}
Based on	}}
Writer	}}
Writers	}}
Writing	}}
Written by	Brian Ruckley}}
Written & art	}}
Plotter	}}
Plotters	}}
Plot	}}
Plot by	}}
Plot/Script	}}
Scripter	}}
Scripters	}}
Script	}}
Scripting	}}
Script by	}}
Script and art	}}
Sript [sic] consultant	}}
Translation by	}}
Artist	}}
Comic artist	}}
Artists	}}
Art	}}
Art by	Sara Pitre-Durocher}}
Additional art by	}}
Flashback art by	}}
Art assistant	}}
Art assist by	}}
Line-art	}}
Line-art by	}}
Line art by	}}
Penciller	}}
Pencillers	}}
Penciler	}}
Pencilers	}}
Pencil art	}}
Pencils	}}
Pencils by	}}
Penciled by	}}
Penciling	}}
Guest penciler	}}
Layouts	}}
Pencil breakdowns	}}
Breakdowns	}}
Breakdowns by	}}
Illustration	}}
Illustrations	}}
Illustrator	}}
Illustrated by	}}
Illustration by	}}
Illustrations by	}}
Finished pencils	}}
Finishes	}}
Finished art	}}
Finishes by	}}
Inker	}}
Guest inker	}}
Inkers	}}
Inks	}}
Inks by	}}
Ink finishes	}}
Ink assist by	}}
Additional inks	}}
Inking	}}
Backgrounds	}}
Backgrounds by	}}
Colorist	}}
Colorists	}}
Colourist	}}
Colourists	}}
Color	}}
Colors	}}
Color art	}}
Colour	}}
Colours	}}
Colored by	}}
Color by	}}
Colors by	Joana Lafuente}}
Color art by	}}
Colors assist by	}}
Color assists	}}
Color assistance by	}}
Additional colors	}}
Additional colors by	}}
Color assist by	}}
Colour/Computer FX	}}
Computer coloring/effects	}}
Color Reconstruction	}}
Flats	}}
Flats by	}}
MTMTE Profiles	}}
Letterer	}}
Letterers	}}
Lettering	}}
Letters	}}
Letters by	Tom B. Long}}
Lettered by	}}
Lettering\|Production	}}
To}}	}}
Collaborators	}}
Contributors	}}
Editor	David Mariotte and Tom Waltz}}
Editors	}}
Editing	}}
Edits by	}}
Compiled and Edited by	}}
Original series editor	}}
Original Edits by	}}
Deputy editor	}}
Assistant editor	}}
s}}	}}
Editorial Assistance; provided by	}}
Senior editor	}}
Associate editor	}}
Story consultant	}}
Project manager	}}
Production by	}}
Designer	}}
Design by	}}
Designed by	}}
Design/editorial	}}
Book design by	}}
Collection designer	}}
Collection editor	}}
Collection Edits by	}}
Graphic design	}}
Graphic design by	}}
Collection Design by	}}
/ Layout}}	}}
Contributing editors	}}
s}}	}}
Managing editor	}}
Editor-in-chief\|Editor in chief}}	}}
Editorial consultant	}}
Dinosaur consultant	}}
Publishing manager	}}
Cover	}}
ist}}{{#if: \| by}}	}}
and Elements }}by	}}
Inside cover	}}
Apologies to	}}
Continuity	2019 IDW continuity}}
Chronology	}}
ISBN	}}
TPB ISBN	ISBN }}
UPC	}}
Page count	}}
Price	}}
Packaged with	}}
Printed in	}}
Animation	}}
Music	}}

{{#if: TF2019 12 cvrB.jpg | {{#if: IDW Publishing | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: September 18, 2019 | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: August 2019 | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: Brian Ruckley | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: Sara Pitre-Durocher | {{#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: Joana Lafuente | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: Tom B. Long | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: David Mariotte and Tom Waltz | {{#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: 2019 IDW continuity | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: |

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

When Head of Xenorelations Nautica and her bodyguard uncover a sinister plot while returning to Cybertron, she'll have to rely on her diplomatic skills and cultural knowledge to save the day.

Synopsis

Nautica has always been fascinated by organic life, a lifelong obsession that led her into a career in xenorelations, and, eventually, becoming head of the department and landing a seat in Sentinel Prime's innermost retinue. But as Cybertron grows increasingly factionalized, and years of long-buried histories threaten to boil back over, Nautica has spent more and more time offworld, doing what she loves. Even now, she remembers her solitary voyage beneath the ice of Aeglus IV, learning the language of the bioluminescent natives, before the words of a furious Sentinel Prime drags her back to reality. Having learned of the deaths of both Rubble and Brainstorm, the First Senator has cancelled his tour of the colonies, a journey that's taken him and his retinue to the remote asteroid city of Hexagon, and will return home as soon as all visiting delegations depart their Titan.

As the various Cybertronians go their separate ways, Starscream catches up with Nautica; while she's perturbed by the news of murder on her peaceful homeworld, she's more concerned by the thought of a dead Voin, worrying how it might affect Cybertron's Voin population. Nautica tries to brush off the Head of Intelligence, but Starscream has more important news for her, and shows her a transmission from the local Thraal embassy. The secretive, warlike Thraal have long been an unknown quantity in the politics of Cybertronian space, but Starscream is happy to report that he and his team have finally managed to penetrate their complex anti-surveillance system. Starscream doesn't speak Thraalese, so he's unaware that there's anything amiss from the recorded footage of the Thraal delegation taking leave of the colony's Thraal ambassador... but Nautica, who does, immediately takes her leave, putting in a call to her bodyguard Road Rage as she does.

As the pair head towards the Thraal embassy, Nautica fills Road Rage in on everything that's wrong with the picture. Obsessed with rank and hierarchy, the local delegate was showing great respect to a low-ranking junior advisor, and her odd goodbye suggested that this advisor was being sent on a journey—a final journey, even—of great cultural significance. Road Rage wonders if they should get Colonial Security officer Hound involved, or Sentinel Prime, or even Starscream, but Nautica brushes them all off, one by one. Sentinel Prime is too brash, Hound's good judgement fails in the face of the belligerent Thraal, and Starscream is amoral and self-serving.

Nautica remembers her days with the Voin in their verdant aquatic gardens, learning everything she could about their strange culture and ethics, her megacycle with Crosscut, negotiating a ceasefire between the Thraal and the Occulted Dremden, and muses that, for her, a life on quiet, static Cybertron just doesn't hold the same appeal that it used to.

Nautica's mastery of the Thraal language allows her and Road Rage access to the main embassy aboard the ship, where the Thraal ambassadors to Cybertron are getting ready for the voyage... but the mystery advisor isn't there. Nautica is able to quickly spin the situation and lies that they've merely been sent to confirm the number of Thraal that will be travelling with them; the moment they're out of the embassy, however, Nautica calls Lightbright and asks her to run a scan for any organics outside their usual zones. While they wait for the information, Nautica fills in Road Rage on the Thraal: every so often, the Thraal embassy petitions Sentinel Prime to expel Cybertron's population of A'ovan refugees, a political move designed to appease the hardline Thraal extremists bent on finishing their extermination of the species.

The impromptu political discussion comes to an end when Lightbright gets back in contact with Nautica, informing her that she's found a faint signature in the improvised cold store set up for the benefit of their organic diplomats. Road Rage puts on an excellent show of intimidation, easily battering the door down... but discovers that the larder has already been ransacked and abandoned. Nautica identifies the small corpses strewn everywhere as frems, a Thraal delicacy, but correctly deduces that there's a layer of subterfuge: something was disassembled, component-by-component, smuggled aboard the ship inside their bodies, then reassembled in the cold store. Whatever it is has already been reassembled and carried out, or, Nautica notes, climbed out, as most Thraal weapons take the form of autonomous, semi-sentient machinery. Ignoring her bodyguard's pleas to let her take the fore, Nautica instructs her to call Novastar, in the hopes that she'll be able to discreetly handle the problem. As the pair reach an intersection, however, they stumble across their mystery Thraal and his robotic creation!

Road Rage immediately takes the fore; when she tackles the Thraal, he stays down, but he's already given a command to his machine, which promptly scuttles off. Road Rage transforms and gives chase, but is unprepared when the device promptly teleports outside of the tube they're in. The two Cybertronians are right behind it, however, and head for the nearest airlock. Nautica reveals that they're dealing with an autonomous artificial-life bomb, a purpose-built suicide bomber that will crawl to the weakest point of the ship and explode. Disarming it, Nautica grimly realizes, is completely out of the question, as even the gentlest touch will immediately trigger its detonation sequence.

Of the two, Road Rage's flight mode means that she can operate in zero-gravity better than her charge, who nevertheless crawls towards the dogged machine—though her attempts to negotiate with the AI in Thraalese are for naught, as the device is fanatically devoted to its guiding purpose. Nautica looks over her shoulder to see Road Rage finishing her adjustments: with Lightbright's help, she's hatched a plan to stop the bomb, and turned a hatch on the Titan's hull into an impromptu bomb shelter for Nautica. Road Rage transforms and zooms off, just as Lightbright pulls the release on a deliberately overpressurized valve. The burst sends the bomb flying off the ship, while Road Rage takes aim and fires her missiles at the device. As Nautica watches, the bomb is consumed by a massive explosion, while Road Rage's body slowly drifts away...

Some time later, Nautica has finished informing Sentinel Prime of the incident, gratefully noting that Road Rage will make a full recovery in a cycle or two. The same can't be said of the Thraal saboteur, however, who's been slowly dying since Road Rage landed on him. The Thraal ambassador, she reports, is horrified by this news, and although Nautica is sure that he's innocent, it's clear that this was a very deliberate, well-orchestrated terrorist attack. The Thraal hardliners who masterminded the crime wanted to send a message to Cybertron, a warning that their continued protection of what remains of the A'ovan will not be tolerated. Sentinel grumbles that news of this attack cannot be allowed to spread; they have enough troubles at home already. Nautica agrees to keep this dark, but warns her leader that this is not an entirely unanticipated development. Privately, Nautica wonders what new problems she'll find when she returns home... and if Cybertron even is her home anymore.

Featured characters

Characters in italic text appear only in flashbacks.
{{#if: ||(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)}}

{{#if:* Sentinel Prime (5)| {{#if:* Sentinel Prime (5)|| style="background:#ffdddd;" valign="top" |

Sentinel Prime (5) }}{{#if:|

Autobots }}{{#if:|

Decepticons }}{{#if:|

Humans }}{{#if:* Nautica (1)

Lightbright (2)
Hound (3)
Starscream (4)
Lodestar (6)
Road Rage (7)
Crosscut (7)
Thraal ambassador (8)
Thraal saboteur (9)|

Others }}{{#if:|

Misc }}{{#if:|

Misc }}

}}{{#if:|

}}{{#if:* Nautica (1)

Lightbright (2)
Hound (3)
Starscream (4)
Lodestar (6)
Road Rage (7)
Crosscut (7)
Thraal ambassador (8)
Thraal saboteur (9)|

Nautica (1)
Lightbright (2)
Hound (3)
Starscream (4)
Lodestar (6)
Road Rage (7)
Crosscut (7)
Thraal ambassador (8)
Thraal saboteur (9) }}{{#if:|

}}{{#if:|

}}

Quotes

"Did you tell Starscream, at least?"
"No. Why would I?"
"Well, he is the head of intelligence. And he's generally considered quite clever."
"I generally consider most Cybertronians as incapable of distinguishing amoral self-interest from cleverness."

— Road Rage and Nautica

"Somehow, everything that has Cybertron in its grip—the megacycles of stratified, unforgotten history, the intricacies of doctrinal differences... somewhere along the way I slipped free and the rest of the universe got a grip instead."

— Nautica

"Bodyguard moment, Road Rage! Bodyguard moment!"

— Nautica

"You can't teleport, can you?"
"What? You don't think I would have mentioned it before now, if I could teleport?"

— Nautica and Road Rage get frank

Notes

Continuity notes

As per the note on page 1, this story is set before issue #10. As such, most of the comic is set aboard the Titan Lodestar (who would eventually be named in issue #17) as she prepares to head back to Cybertron with Sentinel Prime and his inner retinue.
The issue begins with an excerpt from a fictional book titled Introductory Principles for New Recruits to Xenorelations, which highlights several alien species alluded to in the series thus far and outlines the nature of their civilizations. In addition to the Voin, Thraal, and A'ovan, which have all appeared in a semi-major capacity, the Aklutheen, who were mentioned by Rubble to be one of the many races living in Iacon's Xeno-Quarter, the text also introduces a new race to the Transformers canon, the Occulted Dremden.
First alluded to in issue #2, the A'ovan had previously appeared in issue #5 as refugees, living in a custom-built arcology designed to replicate their natural biosphere after the Thraal used nuclear weapons against their homeworld. This issue reveals that their planet was deliberately "sterilized" by the Thraal, and the text suggests that the conflict between the two races is much less of an active war (as per their prior appearance in issue #3 of Titan's Transformers magazine) and something closer to a deliberate, targeted genocide, carried out for reasons unknown.
Several Voin representatives appear aboard Lodestar; unlike their prior appearances, where the Voin all used the same ape-like creature as their "slaved organics", these Voin are also shown controlling another organism, a tripodal crustacean, alongside the familiar primates.
The previous few issues revealed the jobs of some of Sentinel's staff: in addition to Head of Xenorelations Nautica and Head of Intelligence Starscream, this issue reveals that Hound and Novastar are part of Colonial Security.
It wasn't clear at the time if Rubble's memories of the "Aklutheen" as inhabitants of the Xeno-Quarter was him misremembering the name of the similar-sounding Akalouthan; this issue apparently confirms that they are two separate species.

Transformers references

Road Rage receives her first major role in.... well, ever, as Nautica's bodyguard. This function originated in her original toy's bio, which depicted her as the loyal, talented bodyguard and aide to the Autobot diplomat Crosscut. In reference to this, a flashback shows Nautica and Road Rage working with Crosscut during a prior diplomatic mission.
Lightbright also makes her debut in the new continuity; originally a one-off background character in Transformers Animated, the character was brought into the original IDW continuity as a Camien cityspeaker. Issue #17 would confirm this to be true in the new continuity as well, as Lightbright demonstrates in this issue with deftly manipulating Lodestar's various circuits and inner workings.
The Thraal of this continuity appear on-panel for the first time, though they've been somewhat redesigned: while the original Thraal were basically humanoid except for their blue skin, this version of the species re-imagines them with pale green skin and thick, hairlike tentacles.

Real-world references

On page 2, a generic Cybertronian in the crowd is coloured to resemble Rom the Space Knight.

Physics notes

Contravening a popular sci-fi trope, Nautica correctly states that sound does not travel in the vacuum of space. Hooray for Brian Ruckley!

Other notes

Designated for a late August release, this issue slips into the middle of September.
Starting from this issue, the series shifts from its usual biweekly release schedule to monthly, largely to accommodate the release of the upcoming Galaxies comic.

Covers (3)

Cover A: Nautica and Road Rage, by Alex Milne and Josh Perez
Cover B: Nautica explores an alien ocean, by Andrew Griffith and Thomas Deer
Retailer incentive cover: Nautica wants YOU (to go exploring), by Jeffrey Veregge

Reprints

Transformers Volume 1: The World In Your Eyes (January 22, 2020) ISBN 1684055318 / ISBN 978-1684055319
- Collects Transformers (2019) issues #1–12.
- Bonus material includes alternate covers.
- Hardcover format.

Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection Volume 99: The Cracks Beneath Your Feet (October 21, 2020)
- Collects Transformers (2019) issues #8–14.
- Bonus material includes a cover gallery, and an intro by Simon Furman.
- Hardcover format.

Volume 1: The World In Your Eyes – cover art by Cryssy Cheung
The Definitive G1 Collection Volume 99: The Cracks Beneath Your Feet – cover art by Dreamwave (Cyclonus) and Angel Hernandez

External links

Preview

Search