Robotix

The Robotix are a race of warring, shape-changing robots: one side of peaceful heroes, the other of sinister villains! They used to all be organic creatures, a mammalian race and a reptilian race, but a cataclysm sent most of their population into stasis and four agents each of the heroic Protectons and evil Terrakors were turned into robots to rebuild their world of Skalorr... but the Terrakor leader wants galactic conquest! Their war is without end, but the arrival of humans into the conflict may save the day!

Parts of this may sound familiar, and it should, because the Robotix are actually the Transformers in the Xobitor universal cluster!

Their homeworld also includes a race called the Rock Lords that can transform to and from immobile rocks. Hey, that's also familiar!

Fiction

Marvel The Transformers comics

Soundwave read the Robotix comic and backed the Terrakors. He didn't think much of the concept of robots that need humans to be more powerful though.<ref>Soundwaves, issue 61</ref>

The AllSpark Almanac

Two Xobitor dimensions have been recorded, and the Compu-Core of the planet Skalorr is known to be a Vector Sigma node. The AllSpark Almanac II

Ask Vector Prime

Those rock monsters from that one episode are definitely Rock Lords! Ask Vector Prime, 2015/06/02

Spacewarp's Log

After falling through a black hole, Spacewarp wound up on Skalorr and encountered the Terrakors and Protectons. Although she originally threw her lot in with the Terrakors, feeling a kinship with these Decepticon-esque fellows, she was doublecrossed and wound up on the dissection table. The Protectons rescued her but before she could peace out of Skalorr, she witnessed the Compu-Core breaking down. Unable to just let two races go extinct, Spacewarp and her Mini-Cons joined the quest to repair the Compu-Core Spacewarp's Log (2), 2016/01/23 and in the process, she turned the tide of war in favour of the Protectons. She offered to take the stranded humans of the Daniel Boone back to Earth but they decided to stick around. Not her though, bye guys!

Spacewarp noted that the Robotix seemed very primitive by Cybertronian standards, considering them analogous to apes on the human evolutionary tree. She admitted, though, that they were very adaptable, and could morph into a wide variety of useful shapes. Spacewarp's Log (2), 2016/01/24

Spacewarp dates the human involvement in Scalorr's war to the early 22nd century, based on the specifications of the Daniel Boone. Spacewarp's Log (2), 2016/01/23

Notes

• Robotix was a property of the 1980s acquired by Hasbro following their purchase of Milton Bradley in 1984. A building toy with the gimmick of being able to construct your own "working," motorized robots. To maintain the successful weekend ratings generated by Transformers as that show moved into weekday syndication for 1985, Robotix was one of the first shows to debut on Sunbow's new Super Sunday cartoon anthology series. Unlike the previous use of the miniseries format to pilot shows, Robotix consisted of fifteen six-minute shorts. Initially airing two segments a week, alongside one segment of Bigfoot and the Muscle Machines. Robotix would soon be joined by Jem and later, Inhumanoids. Unlike the latter two, Robotix was not successful enough to warrant a full series. As with all Super Sunday pilots, the Robotix shorts were later collected as an omnibus, in this case as Robotix: The Movie.
  • The surreal experience of watching all of Robotix all in one sitting, and in particular the way this left the characters imperilled by cliffhangers roughly every six minutes, informed the way writer Jim Sorenson penned the rising action in the Robotix-themed adventure in Spacewarp's Log.
• Robotix also received an adaptation by Marvel Comics, though it failed to fare any better and lasted only a single issue. The story was reprinted as a back-up strip in Marvel UK's Transformers from #51 through #54. Soundwave read it too, disliking only the organic element of the story.
• The cartoon shares several voice actors with Transformers, such as Corey Burton, Peter Cullen, and Frank Welker. Victor Caroli even served as series narrator. Cullen plays the villain leader Nemesis who sounds... oddly Optimus-like. Now that the Robotix has been retconned into being part of the Transformers multiverse, that becomes a bit sinister...
  • Several pieces of music from Transformers were also used in the Robotix cartoon.
• The Robotix rock monsters predate GoBots' infamous Rock Lords by a year. Thanks to retcons and homages, there are now three Transformers continuities known to have transforming rock creatures in them. All of them have since been called the Rock Lords too! See what happens when you let fans run the asylum?
• The name Protecton was pinched from Robotix for Transformers Animated.
• Although the Robotix name and system became the property of Robotics and Things in 2001, Hasbro still retained the copyright to the series at least as recently as the 2007 DVD release, which gives sole copyright to Hasbro and makes no mention of Robotics and Things.
• After the retirement of Robotics and Things President Neal Friedman in 2019, successor company Robotic Rice LLC continued to sell the Robotix system until early 2021, when the line was discontinued.

References

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External links

• [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Robotix|{{#if:Robotix on Wikipedia|Robotix on Wikipedia|Robotix}}]]
• Robotix show bible and other material at the Sunbow Marvel Archive