Talk:Combatant

Delete and fold back into protoform

Is there any purpose to keeping this on its own page? They have their own name, but in every conceptual way they are identical to protoforms as we currently understand them. They look like liquid metal, they're Cybertronians who have assumed a base form between taking alternate modes (which multiple continuities have explicitly established as still being protoform state). If Cosmic Rust and the Rust Plague are conceptually identical enough to be merged, so is this. TransFormersfan1 (talk) 16:35, 22 June 2021 (EDT)

I agree. But if we're going to keep them separate, at least they should link to each other in their notes sections. --Fritz (talk) 20:11, 22 June 2021 (EDT)

At first, I was going to say that Cosmic Rust and Rust Plague had similar enough names that they could easily be conflated while Protoform and Combatant don't... Until I saw the note about them never being named in the show and the term coming from a sourcebook, and in light of that I'm inclined to agree they should be merged. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 20:21, 22 June 2021 (EDT)

They're Putty Patrol-like mooks, not immobile "prototypes", who got dropped quickly because those early episodes didn't have consistent lore. Interpreting them as protoforms is a retroactive reading influenced by media that was released nearly a decade later. Saix (talk) 21:02, 22 June 2021 (EDT)

I can agree that this is a retroactive interpretation, but it's far from a stretch, and the wiki has done this before. The live-action film series has plenty of protoforms who go around and fight, and are explicitly depicted as "core" forms they take between alt-modes, which is exactly what these are. Whether or not they were intended to be a kind of protoform at the time (which I think they are, especially considering this is a Beast Era product), from a conceptual and readability perspective, they fit the bill. I think we should fold it back in, add Combatant to foreign names and make a note about them. I'm happy to do it. TransFormersfan1 (talk) 11:21, 23 June 2021 (EDT)

We are not in the business of making up interpretations that the fiction hasn't made. They weren't called prototypes or protoforms (which were explicitly immobile newborns in stasis pods in the only fiction they showed up in by 1998—Beast Wars) at any point in the cartoon or in concurrent media. They're generic mooks who got upgraded into the Autorollers before they realized, whoops, the Autorollers have a backstory. Saix (talk) 11:51, 23 June 2021 (EDT)

You are literally choosing to ignore all media since then, which has depicted protoforms as exactly this. Protoforms have evolved since this show aired. We can agree that Japanese Beast Wars 'Prototypes' and these are different, but they are both protoforms according to the way the concept has been employed for decades. and the wiki has folded concepts together when there is a clear connection because two pages is redundant. There is no tangible difference between the protoforms in the 2007 movie and these guys. Literally none. All you've done is cut content from a page that's been there for years for the sake of being pedantic. TransFormersfan1 (talk) 12:01, 23 June 2021 (EDT)

Everyone else who's talked on this page agrees, so what do we need for a proper consensus here? I'd also like to note that you unilaterally pulled this content from the page it's been on for years because it was given an extra name in a sourcebook. TransFormersfan1 (talk) 12:05, 23 June 2021 (EDT)

"This thing I say is similar to this other thing established a decade later" isn't how most of the wiki works. There is no direct connection between Movieverse protoforms and Combantants, be it inspiration or fictional linkage, like how there's no direct connection between Angolmois Energy and Dark Energon beyond vague similarity (and thank God they weren't merged because subsequent actual fiction would firmly establish they aren't actually the same thing). Saix (talk) 12:22, 23 June 2021 (EDT)

I'm going to step back and let some other people weigh in, because this is getting us nowhere. I'll go with whatever the majority and admins decide. TransFormersfan1 (talk) 12:43, 23 June 2021 (EDT)

As much as I do believe that the Combatants were inspired by protoforms, I'm fully aware that there's no place for speculation here, and so I have no more arguments in favor of folding back. However, I still think that we should at least add a note on both pages pointing their similarities, just like the Angolmois Energy and Dark Energon pages have. --Fritz (talk) 13:52, 23 June 2021 (EDT)

Alright, I've added notes on both respective pages just to clarify the misconception. I think we can agree with how long they were listed as protoforms on this wiki (and the original image is still called protoform), it's useful to make a note of it.TransFormersfan1 (talk) 15:08, 23 June 2021 (EDT)

Note that the Living metal article still regards these guys as protoforms. That ought to be rewritten or taken out. --Sabrblade (talk) 15:15, 23 June 2021 (EDT)

Fixed. I still think we should merge them, but it seems I'm alone in that, so hopefully the notes should make things more accessible. TransFormersfan1 (talk) 15:53, 23 June 2021 (EDT)

I think part of the problem is that the Protoform page folds together two different concepts just because they have the same name. There's the "body waiting for life" that we see in Beast Wars, Animated, and Prime, and then there's the "fully grown transformer with no alt-mode kibble" transitional form we see in the movie, and they're treated as if they're the same thing. Certainly the latter are more similar to Combatants (not the same thing, but given RotF and DotM had a lot of generic con protoforms being used like sentai mooks, a "see also" would make sense) than they are to babies.Tindalos (talk) 01:26, 24 June 2021 (EDT)

I tihnk it's less that they're two different things and more that what a protoform is in the wider context has changed. Kind of like sparks, where they were introduced in the Beast Era, but have been slowly integrated into pretty much every continuity since as a standard aspect of Cybertronain biology. If we're being honest, there is now plenty of BW tie-in media that has existing characters reset as protoforms (Grimlock arguably goes all the way back to the original toyline, not to mention all the IDW stuff with pre-Earth Tigatron and Airazor), so the idea that protoforms have never been characters before has been slowly retconned out of BW itself. I think part of why I was so dead set on keeping them merged was because to me Combatants seemed like this really clear conceptual throughline between BW protoforms and 2007 movie protoforms, and I tend to take a bigger picture look at things, like "how did this concept get to what it is now?" I'm sorry if I came off rudely, Saix, no hard feelings? TransFormersfan1 (talk) 11:14, 24 June 2021 (EDT)

ROTF also makes a clear connection between the hatchlings, which are literally just unborn protoforms, and the grown-up protoform army, as Starscream explicitly states the former were created to become the latter. So there is an actual link between the two interpretations of the concept. And now that I'm thinking about it, shouldn't we merge the hatchling and protoform pages, seeing as how they're literally the same thing as opposed to just "similar but unrelated" like the Combatants? --Fritz (talk) 14:23, 24 June 2021 (EDT)

Hmm, that's a good point. On the one hand, we could keep them seperate, by virtue of them being essentially unique to the live-action film universe and that they are treated as a distinct stage in Cybertronian biology and have a specific term. But on the other hand...they are literally a kind of protoform, and if we merged them we could clarify in its section that in the live-action family 'hatchling' refers to something closer to the BW/Animated idea of a protoform (newborn Cybertronian), while 'protoform' refers to a Cybertronain's "default state"/generic like Combatants. But we should move this conversation to that page, unless there's still debate on if this page should be merged too? TransFormersfan1 (talk) 14:46, 24 June 2021 (EDT)

I think we're done with the Combatants here. I'll start a new discussion on the Hatchling page then. --Fritz (talk) 14:56, 24 June 2021 (EDT)