Niko Don

Niko Don is an alien from the cartoon portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

Niko Don was a rocket scientist and roboticist on his native world of Zamojin.

Fiction

The Transformers cartoon

Voice actor: Frank Welker (English), Masashi Ebara (Japanese){{#if: Bernd Simon (German), Frédéric Cerdal (European French)|, Bernd Simon (German), Frédéric Cerdal (European French)}}

At some time before approximately 2995 BC,<ref>The Quintessons said they had "kept Zamojin imprisoned in darkness for five thousand years" in what is assumed to have been the year 2006.</ref> Zamojin scientist Niko Don had developed a "flying tower", a rocket which was evidently capable of escaping his planet's atmosphere. However, the Zamojin Empress of the time forbade Niko Don himself from flying his tower to the stars. Assenting to the Empress's wishes, Niko Don created Nijika, the Sky-Dancer, an intelligent gynoid, who would ride the rocket in his stead.

The night of the launch, Niko Don and the Empress presented Nijika to the jubilant citizens of Tozin. The revelry was cut short, however, as a group of Quintessons attacked, damaging both the rocket and Nijika. The Quintessons deployed the Quadrant lock soon afterwards, depriving the Zamojins of the starlight which enhanced their intelligence—and leaving Niko Don unable to repair his creations.

5,000 years later, Niko Don's lineage continued in the blacksmith Katsu Don. The Face of the Nijika

Notes

• The coloring of Niko Don's beard inverts between his long-shot near the Empress and his unveiling of Nijika.
• There is no indication as to the length of a Zamojin's lifespan, making it impossible to tell how many generations came between Niko Don and Katsu Don. In any case, between looking pretty old in the flashback and being referred to as an "ancestor", he was probably long-dead by the time of the episode.
• Niko Don's name is likely a play on nikudon (肉丼), a Japanese dish of pork on rice. This would make sense given that his descendant, Katsu Don, shares his name with katsudon, a Japanese fried pork dish. It's probably for this reason that his name was localized to the Chinese-sounding "Songmei" in Japan.

Foreign names

• Japanese: Songmei (ソンメイ Sonmei)

References

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