Memory (Cybertron)

This article is about the Cybertron episode. For the Cyberverse episode, see Memory (Cyberverse).

« Transformers: Cybertron ep 34 » Galaxy Force ep 35
Yeah, they're boned.
"Memory" アトランティスの迷路 () (Atlantis no Meiro) "Atlantis's Labyrinth"
Production company	TV Aichi, We've, Tōkyū Agency
Airdate	September 3, 2005 (Japanese) September 6, 2006 (English)
Writer	Kazuhiko Sōma
Director	Atsushi Nakayama
Animation studio	GONZO, Radix
Continuity	Unicron Trilogy cartoon continuity

Separated from the Autobots and their Mini-Con friends, Coby, Bud, and Lori fight alone against Sideways.

Synopsis

And video game companies seethed in envy...

On the surface of Cybertron (or should that be Primus?), the Decepticons are hoofing it towards the Omega Lock at high speed when the Autobots catch up to them. Optimus squares off against Megatron, but his distraction over the plight of the missing kids and Mini-Cons allows Megatron to score some free hits.

Meanwhile, in Starscream's hideout, the kids are still floating around in zero gravity, trying to catch their communicators. Coby succeeds in getting his hands on one, but his attempts to communicate with the Mini-Cons and Optimus don't work, and Bud's suggestions aren't helpful. Coby changes tack and uses a navigation system built into the communicator to determine where in the galaxy they are, soon discovering that they are on the wreck of the Atlantis, still floating on the dark side of the Earth's moon! Puzzling over how they're going to get back, they decide to look for the Mini-Cons.

On the bridge of the Atlantis Starscream smugly watches Optimus and Megatron fight, while Sideways works on trying to extract information about Gigantion's location from the memory of the protesting Jolt. The sheer amount of data in Jolt's brain is making it difficult, so Sideways tries to tune in to Galactic Guardians before remembering all the communications are jammed, and settles for listening to music on his mini-cassette player instead. No sooner has he started singing along than Starscream accuses him of goofing off, so he decides to finish the repairs to the ship. As he departs, Jolt wonders where Six-Speed and Reverb are, and it is immediately revealed that they are, in fact, throwing themselves against a door in an attempt to get to Jolt. Sideways is on the other side of the door, carrying out his repair work, and tells them to knock it off, as the door won't open without the key he has.

Back on Cybertron, the Autobots are still fighting the Decepticons. Prime and Megatron activate their claws, and their fists slam together with a power which can be seen from space.

On the Atlantis, Sideways has finished his repairs and returns to find the download is taking forever. As Starscream demands he do something about it, Sideways thinks of a new plan—hack into Jolt's brain and delete all of the data not pertaining to Gigantion. Jolt is justifiably terrified at the prospect, but his squeals do little to deter the Decepticons, and Starscream departs for Cybertron to steal the Omega Lock while Sideways gets to work.

Back with the kids, Coby rigs up a scanner normally used for maintenance on Transformers, which allows them to x-ray the ship's walls and directs them to a heating duct that they are able to use to escape the room. They float along until they reach an opening in the duct, where they witness Sideways working on something, but cannot see what. To make his work go smoother, Sideways turns the gravity generator back on, causing the kids to fall down, along with a coil of wire that Bud snatches up. At this point, the kids finally realize that Jolt is the subject of Sideways's evil experimentations, prompting a dismayed cry from Bud. This alerts Sideways to their position, but fortunately for the kids, he trips over a cable when he tries to capture them. Jolt yells at them to run, and they are wise enough to do so, heading down a shaft that opens over a flaming pit. Bud makes it over, but Lori nearly falls in and Coby slides after her when he grabs her hand. Bud wraps the cable around Coby's leg and saves them both.

Recovering from his fall, Sideways teleports off in pursuit of the kids. The kids flee upon sight of him, but they only have a moment before he simply warps to their new location. In the span of that moment, however, Coby has concocted a plan, and as Lori and Bud run, Coby uses his commnicator to protect a life-sized hologram of Megatron. Coby speaks through the hologram and makes it tell Sideways to surrender to Optimus, but Sideways finally realises he's been had when the hologram tells him to "hop on one foot and say 'I'm a pretty lady'". Sideways chases Coby, but trips over the cable which Bud and Lori have been setting up, crashes into a wall and ends up bured under debris. The kids retrieve his key and liberate Six-Speed and Reverb from their prison.

Across the galaxy, Starscream arrives at Primus and observes the fighting on the surface from afar, when suddenly, Thunderblast flies into range to check her reflection in a satellite panel and whine about the battle ruining her looks. Starscream looms up behind her, and she continues moaning until she realises he's there, and then lets out a scream. Quickly flip-flopping, Thunderblast claims she never meant to betray Starscream, but he commands her to get the Omega Lock or be blasted to smithereens. After she agrees to get the Omega Lock, he flies off and she resumes complaining.

The kids use Six-Speed and Reverb as transport while they track down Jolt, and are finally able to free the Mini-Con. While discussing how to get off the ship, Coby realizes that they were unable to contact Optimus before because of an electromagnetic jamming field surrounding the ship that is blocking communications. They are just discussing how to disable it when Sideways suddenly appears and looms over them...

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Humans	Others
Hot Shot (8) Optimus Prime (9) Override (10) Snarl (11) Crosswise (12) Landmine (13) Jolt (19) Six-Speed (20) Reverb (21) Wing Saber (23) Jetfire (24)	Nemesis Breaker (1) Megatron (2) Thundercracker (3) Thunderblast (4) Scourge (5) Crumplezone (6) Ransack (7) Starscream (18)	Coby Hansen (14) Bud Hansen (15) Lori (16)	Sideways (17) Primus (22)

Quotes

"I know! We just send them a email and mark it 'urgent'!"
"How about this: We send them your useless butt and label it 'kicked'."

—Bud's solution to not being able to contact anyone doesn't go down well with Lori.

"What a bunch of useless data... This is going to take forever! I wonder what's on the tube? *pause* ... Oh, that's right, we're jamming the communication signals. So much for watching the Galactic Guardians. Cripes, I'm bored. Okay, I'll listen to some tunes. *tapping foot to music* Once, I was afraaaaaid..."

—Sideways fills his time wisely

"I won't lie; This is gonna hurt. A lot. But when I'm done, you won't remember a thing, hehehe!"

—Sideways prepares to delete some of Jolt's memories.

"I don't stink, but I'm silent and deadly!"

—Sideways apparently comparing himself to a fart.

"That's right, now jump on one foot and say I'm a pretty lady!"

—Coby tricks Sideways with a hologram of Megatron.

Notes

Differences with Galaxy Force

• Galaxy Force includes a "previously on" segment summarizing the events of "Darkness".
• Additionally, this summary in Galaxy Force explained quite a bit of the huh?? factor surrounding the reappearance of Megs and the black fog—all of which was left a mystery in the Japanese version of the previous episode.
  • Megatron's body was not entirely in this dimension
  • The black fog "preserved" Megs body
  • Ligerjack's ferocious biting of the fog supplied enough power and energy to break the "seal" of the fog, and bring Megs fully into this realm and back to life!
  • The remainder of the fog coalesced to create the body of Dark Ligerjack
• Cybertron credits Coby with adding the navigation files to his communicator; in Galaxy Force, it was Scattorshot's doing.
• In Galaxy Force, the song Sideways listens to on his music player is "IGNITION!", the second opening theme to the series. Cybertron replaces it with a piece of the show's background music.
• Coby doesn't push his luck quite so much with the hologram in Galaxy Force, eschewing the "pretty lady" thing in favor of telling Sideways to fight for peace in the galaxy.
• In Cybertron, Starscream describes the battle on Cybertron as "going 50/50". This seems to be a slight corruption of the original Galaxy Force dialogue, where he accuses Thunderblast of playing both sides.

Animation or technical errors

Alright, who's flashing Thunderblast Mardi Gras beads again?

• In addition to the customary use of stock footage, the animation for Megatron and Prime's entire "Cyber-Key-powered claw attacks colliding and creating an explosion visible from space" is recycled from "Darkness".
• In one rather bizarre "error", what appear to be nipples can be seen on Thunderblast's, um, chest...area. Unless the animators at GONZO added them for this specific scene (which would be a creepy and weird thing to do), this would seem to imply that the "nipples" had always been a part of Thunderblast's CG character model. We just hadn't been able to see them until now because her "bra" was always in the way. For god's sake woman, have some modesty!
• While watching the map, Coby tells to the Mini-Cons that Jolt is on "the next right", but they actually turn left.

Continuity notes

• Sideways refers to the Galactic Guardians, a TV show previously mentioned by Bud in "Haven" and "Assault".

Transformers references

Operation: Cameo

• The music player Sideways uses is identical to the Generation 1 Soundwave toy, and even has Laserbeak inside in tape mode.
• During his fight with Prime, Megatron says "Yessss". There was much cheering.

Real-world references

• As Sideways bops along to his music, he appears to be singing the lyrics to Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive".
• Sideways quotes "Fe fi fo fum!" from Jack and the Beanstalk.
• When Coby realizes they've been spotted, he tells the others to "Exit, stage left!" in reference to the catchphrase of Hanna-Barbera character Snagglepuss.
• When flying through the air over the flames, Bud shouts "I Believe I Can Fly!"
• After pulling off his trick with the cable, Bud announces "Just call me Indiana Bud!"
• Sideways tells Jolt that "In space, no-one can hear you whine!", paraphrasing the tagline of the movie Alien.
• Sideways follows the previous line with declaring that he's gonna go take care of those "meddling kids," a reference to Scooby-Doo.
• Before legging it after his hologram trick runs out of credibility, Coby quotes Bugs Bunny's catchphrase, "Ain't I a stinker?"
• When telling Starscream she'll get the Omega Lock, Thunderblast asks "Do you want fries with that?", a classic fast food drive thru up-sell technique.

Trivia

• What is a derelict spaceship doing with an open flaming fire pit?
• When Starscream flies to Cybertron, the warp gate he is seen leaving is from the Fire Dimension which was supposedly destroyed or sealed by Vector Prime in a previous episode.

Foreign localization

Italian

• Title: "La memoria di Jolt" ("Jolt's Memory")

• At the beginning, instead of saying "armor of Unicron", Megatron says "armor of the unicorn".
• Instead of mentioning the Galactic Guardians, Sideways talks about a series called Sentieri intergalattici (literally "Intergalactic Paths"), which is likely a spoof on Sentieri, the Italian title of Guiding Light, probably with the intention of making Sideways look like a soap opera addict. We already witnessed something similar...
• Sideways singing "Once I was afraid..." is changed by having him saying (not singing): "My biggest mistake". What he meant is not clear...

Home video releases

All releases listed are in English audio unless otherwise noted.

DVD

2006 — Transformers: Galaxy Force — Vol. 09 (Victor Entertainment) — Japanese audio only.
2008 — Transformers: Cybertron — The Ultimate Collection (Paramount)
2014 — Transformers: Cybertron — The Complete Series (Shout! Factory)