Talk:Transformer fuel

IDW

"Transformer fuel" in this article is about a specific substance, distinct from energon, that was just called "fuel" in the Marvel Comic. I'm not sure if it is appropriate for the IDW continuity to have a section here. I know from this panel that it has been revealed that Transformers have fuel pumps. I also know that the issue summary for Rules of Disengagement describes fuel being salvaged from Transformer corpses. That sounds like Transformers run on some kind of "fuel" similar to the Marvel comics. But way back in Escalation it was revealed that Transformers use Energon or Energon substitutes. I'll let someone else sort it out since I don't follow the comics closely, but I would suggest that if the idea that Transformers run on Energon still applies and Fulcrum's fuel pump is just pumping liquid Energon, then I wouldn't think the IDW continuity needs a section at all in this article. - Starfield 17:33, 13 June 2013 (EDT)

Conversion process and artificial energon

The current note, "...Given that the fuel described here required a conversion process before it was useable, it's not hard to retroactively imagine it was an artificial energon." is incorrect. The fuel described here did not require a conversion process before it was usable. Gasoline required a conversion process to make it usable by Transformers. Gasoline was converted to Transformer fuel. So it doesn't make sense to retroactively imagine Transformer fuel as artificial energon. I suppose someone could imagine this fuel as being regular-old energon, except they also had Energon Cubes, which was treated as a different thing. - Starfield 13:52, 4 August 2013 (EDT)

The wording is a little odd, but the basic idea sounds just like "artificially-generated substitutes created from other local energy sources" (wording taken from our Energon article). --Khajidha 14:27, 4 August 2013 (EDT)

Isn't all the fuel the Transformers use in the first dozen-or-so Marvel issues converted gasoline? They don't have anywhere else to get non-earth-converted fuel from. Frankly, I sort of look at this article existing separate from energon as willful dissonance anyway. - Chris McFeely 14:47, 4 August 2013 (EDT)

Yeah, I'm with McFeely here. This is yet another instance of ridiculous pedantry getting in the way of presenting information. --M Sipher 14:56, 4 August 2013 (EDT)

The Transformers were using "fuel" when they first woke up before they started converting gasoline. In issue #2 the Ark's computer said they were low on fuel in issue #3 Megatron said "My spies have ascertained that you [Sparkplug] possess the technical facility to convert your world's primitive hydrocarbon fuels into the life sustaining fuel we need! You will provide us with that fuel!"

I can't think of their fuel as energon. It is not pink and glowy for one thing, it is liquid. Maybe today with 30 years of development of the concept of energon it is easy to think it as energon, but "energon" used to mean something specific. It used to be pretty much pure energy stored in a way only alien robots could store it. Not something so mundane as to be described as "fuel." - Starfield 15:22, 4 August 2013 (EDT)

Also, Empties on Cybertron were begging for beakers full of fuel as late as issue #17, so it wasn't all converted from gasoline. - Starfield 16:16, 4 August 2013 (EDT)

Yeah, I worded that bit of trivia wrong, then. More than enough instances of non-Earth-resource-derived fuel in there. Still don't really see a point distinguishing it from energon, though. - Chris McFeely 16:22, 4 August 2013 (EDT)

This really does feel like it's better served as a sub-section of "Energon". --M Sipher 16:27, 4 August 2013 (EDT)

Why can't Marvel just be different? They used "fuel" as late as 1989. They could have retconned it to energon if they wanted to. Energon cubes were shown to be a convenient storage medium for different forms of energy, such as geothermal, oil, or sound from a rock concert. Transformers were never actually shown using Energon cubes for fuel directly. - Starfield 16:41, 4 August 2013 (EDT)