Talk:A Plague of Insecticons

Continuity Errors section

Hello, I kinda think that all the points in the continuity errors section are no really continuity errors:

• If the Insecticons had landed four million years before the crash of the Ark, and have presumably been active throughout all previous episodes, how come neither the Autobots nor the Decepticons ever learned of their existence until this episode. And when they did learn, how did they find out simultaneously?

A (kinda poor) explanation might be that the Insecticons had so far limited their activity to the "Demon Swamps" of Bali (which must have earned that named for some reason) and some surrounding landscape. The Decepticons and Autobots simultaneously found out about their existence because both of them caught the same SOS radio signal send by the Balinese farmers. Or maybe the Insecticons were, like the rest of the season 1 maincast, simply inactivated until recently.

• How does Skyfire manage to hide in the bushes with the other, shorter Autobots? He's about four Bumblebees tall!

How about kneeling?

• Why do the Decepticons and the Insecticons not know each other if they were all on board the Nemesis? Even if you assume that there were lots of Decepticons on board and Megatron didn’t know them all personally (which in itself is doubtful), the Insecticons must surely know who Megatron is! It's entirely possible to retcon this by claiming that the Insecticons were protoforms who had not come online and were activated by the pod as a method of preserving them. However, the protoform concept hadn't been introduced yet, so...

It's at no point said that the so called "Decepticon Escape Module" was launched from the Nemesis. Megatron says "It was launched before our own Starship crashed the earth four million years ago." To me that sounds like it was actually launched from Cybertron, not the Nemesis. Remember, the Ark and the Nemesis were not the first time Transformers visited Earth, as at least Starscream and Skyfire had been there long before. Megatron and his Decepticon followers want to find energy to "reboot" Cybertron. The Insecticons against that simply want to feed on energy. They have no interest in reviving Cybertron, conquering the universe or whatever. They simply left Cybertron and for a random place with lots of energy, which by coincidence was the Earth. This must not have taken place immediately before the crashlanding of the Ark, it could as well have happened millions of years before. Of course that's all my personal guessing, but that's what I myself figured out when I watched the episode (before consulting this article). --134.76.63.1 13:57, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

No real argument about the first two points, but regarding the third, even though the dialogue is sketchy at best, the official synopsis of the episode in the show's bible makes it explicit that the escape module comes from the Decepticons' starship. Mind you, according that new Japanese timeline, Takara's taken a similar position to your own. - Chris McFeely (not signed in)

Regarding point one, why wouldn't the Autobots and/or Decepticons have known about the Insecticons—or vice-versa, considering the Insecticons don't recognize Megatron—from before the crash on Earth?--Apcog 18:46, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to weigh in on this a bit. I think the notion that the Insecticons not recognizing Megatron is a plot hole in the episode that can't be explained. It's a true continuity error. On a larger point, a couple G1 episode articles have Continuity Errors listed that are really plot suggestions and conjectures, rather than actual incongruities. I make a note of this on the Talk page of Attack of the Autobots. Someone asks why Megatron uses a device to take over the minds of the Autobots instead of just using Bombshell's cerebro-shells. Isn't that a choice left up to the writer of the episode? And wouldn't use of the same devices in every episode be really boring and repetitive? These aren't real continuity errors and I think they need to be purged.--Suzyprime 19:29, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Is it possible?

If you consider Beast Wars to be canon with G1 episodes, is it possible that the Insecticons were protoforms when they left the Nemesis, and we completely different Transformers the last time they saw Megatron? There's no reason to believe this, obviously, but it's an idea. Skyshock Thunderblast 13:48, 9 June 2009 (EDT)

Considering the sheer size difference between Beast Warriors and actual Generation One Decepticons, this qualifies as very far-fetched. --Detour 14:02, 9 June 2009 (EDT)

Also regarding Shrapnel saying he didn't know Megatron, could it be possible that his crash caused memory loss similar to Tigatron's?Stevo 18:15, 29 January 2010 (EST)