Nemesis Part 1

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"The most powerful warship ever built! ...and I just had it washed."
"Nemesis Part 1"
Season	3
No. in season	12
Production company	Mainframe Entertainment
Airdate	May 6, 1999
Written by	Bob Forward
Directed by	Ezekiel Norton
Animation studio	Mainframe Entertainment
Continuity	Beast Wars continuity
Watch this episode on YouTube

Down but not out, Megatron discovers Tarantulas's secret tunnel network that leads to the Decepticon warship, the Nemesis.

Synopsis

"And the Bay said 'Let there be light', and there was a sunset."

The Maximals, secure for the first time since they moved into Mount St. Hilary, begin searching for the Predacons, who have been vulnerable since Tigerhawk destroyed the Predacon base. Optimus Primal quotes a verse from the Covenant of Primus, believing Tigerhawk's arrival to be divine prophecy.

Dinobot discovers why no one can get down Bugs Bunny's rabbit hole.

Meanwhile, the Predacons are growing disaffected with Megatron. (Even Waspinator is mouthing off.) Inferno, ever loyal to his "queen", declares that a new "colony" will resecure them. Megatron orders him to take Waspinator and Quickstrike, while he, Rampage, and Dinobot search the remains of Tarantulas's lair. Dinobot finds a hatch which leads to an underwater tunnel and a computer. Accessing the computer, Megatron becomes quite excited by what he discovers, and takes the rail car with Dinobot, while Rampage follows in tank mode.

Silverbolt and Depth Charge spot Inferno, Waspinator, and Quickstrike leaving. Optimus orders them to fall back, but Depth Charge heads in. Optimus leaves with Blackarachnia, Cheetor, and Tigerhawk to support them. As Primal arrives, Depth Charge finds the hatch—and a bomb. The explosion fails to kill any of the Maximals, but Silverbolt is damaged, and Blackarachnia and Cheetor escort his parts back to base.

At the anthropoids' cave dwellings, Inferno declares that the caves will be their new "colony". He orders Quickstrike and Waspinator to engage, but Waspinator angrily refuses. Something has finally snapped in Waspy's central processor, and he declares that he is out of the Beast Wars. After a tirade against Megatron, the Predacons, life in general, and always being blown up, Waspinator tells them that they can kiss his stinger. Inferno and Quickstrike blast him, and proceed to attack the anthropoids (who have become much tougher, having learned from the example of Dinobot and the Maximals).

Where is all the furniture?

In the tunnels, Primal, Tigerhawk, and Depth Charge continue searching. After locating a data terminal, Primal accesses it and discovers what Tarantulas found and Megatron desires—the Nemesis, the flagship of the Decepticon fleet and the vessel which Megatron used to shoot down the Ark. Realizing the threat the Decepticon warship holds, Depth Charge heads out to locate it. Optimus sends out an emergency warning to the Maximals, and he and Tigerhawk head out to the Nemesis's location through the air.

Meanwhile, Megatron and Dinobot are able to board the ship, where they discover that Tarantulas had been a busy spider: not only did he repair the vessel, he added a transwarp cell and installed a Predacon control console. Best of all, in Megatron's optics, Tarantulas left behind a copy of the Covenant of Primus to boot: the tome from which he took his name! Megatron and Dinobot begin powering up the vessel for an attack.

Why so serious?

Reaching the sunken behemoth, Depth Charge informs Optimus of his discovery, and Optimus in turn authorizes Depth Charge to neutralize the Nemesis by any means necessary. Before Depth Charge can start, he is engaged by Rampage. The two enemies fight and Depth Charge grabs an energon crystal. He drives it into Rampage's spark, and the explosion destroys both Transformers and also causes Dinobot to cry out in pain. Optimus, though mourning Depth Charge's loss, is relieved to know the threat of the Nemesis has been dealt with.

That is until the Nemesis rises from the ocean, fully operational. To be continued...

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Maximals	Predacons	Anthropoids
Tigerhawk (1) Rhinox (2) Blackarachnia (3) Cheetor (4) Optimus Primal (5) Rattrap (6) Silverbolt (7) Depth Charge (8)	Dinobot (9) Megatron (10) Quickstrike (11) Rampage (12) Inferno (13) Waspinator (14)	Una (15) Anthropoids (16) Neanderthal Leader (17)

Quotes

[Silverbolt has been injured in an explosion]
Silverbolt: "Worry not, my love. It's just a...scratch."
[Silverbolt's arm falls off]
Optimus: "Maybe. But I think you're due some time in the CR chamber."
Silverbolt: "Sir, I'm fine. I —"
Blackarachnia: "Shut up and obey your commander, bone-brain."
[Silverbolt's head falls off]
Silverbolt: "Yes, dear."

—Silverbolt is pretty whipped.

"There! That will be our new colony!"
"Eww, I don't wanna move in there. It got all them hairy critters in it. Unless... unless you mean, we's gonna slag 'em! Oh, oh, please tell me that's what yer plannin'!"
"The royalty demands a new colony, and we shall take it, by force."
"YA-HOO! Now yer talkin', haha!"

—Inferno and Quickstrike discuss a possible new home.

"I said no! Dragon-Bot command you, Sub-Commander Kiss-Butt! Dragon-Bot not command Waspinator! Not any more! Waspinator sick of being evil. Sick of being Predacon! And, Waspinator especially sick of getting blown to scrap all the time! Sooo, Waspinator quit! As of now, which means Ant-Bot and Two-Head can just pucker their mandibles and plant big, wet, juicy one right here on Waspinator's big...fat...stripy...a..."
[BAM!!!]

—Waspinator finally stands up for himself...and gets blown to scrap by Inferno and Quickstrike.

"I've no time for you, X."
"Like you had no time for Starbase Rugby? You had friends there, as I recall. Tasty ones too!"

—Depth Charge and Rampage.

"I was your assignment, and you failed!"

—Rampage

"Raw energon! Right through your twisted spark! Take it! Take it straight to the Pit, you SICKENING PIECE OF SLAG!"

—Depth Charge's final words before killing Rampage.

Notes

Script timeline

• First draft: 16th November 1998
• Finalised: 22nd November 1998
• As Air: 24th March 1999

Animation and technical errors

• When Dinobot squeezes the piece of Rampage's spark he possesses to pacify his "half-brother", his shoulder pads are missing. Also, the spark seems to float freely when it is released, in contrast to previous episodes where it was held in place by Dinobot's spark chamber.
• At the very beginning when Optimus is reciting, Cheetor is visible in the background in his normal Transmetal body, walking with Blackarachnia.
• Megatron must have had a tight fit climbing down the hatch that Dinobot found.
• As Megatron is walking up the ramp into the rail car, his feet don't touch the ramp, making him look as though he is walking on air.
• As Optimus and Depth Charge recover from the explosion, the former's vehicle mode cockpit is sticking out of his chest.
• After saying that he quits, Waspinator rips the Predacon icon off his head, but when he tells Inferno and Quickstrike to kiss his stinger, it's still on.
• Optimus tells Depth Charge "Warheads armed, full speed to maximum" when ordering him to intercept Megatron. Apparently he's so worried he can't form a coherent sentence.
• Scott McNeil's name is misspelled as "Scott McNiel" in the credits.

Continuity errors

• The bomb Megatron leaves behind as a trap for the Maximals manages to severely damage Silverbolt and cause a large shockwave, yet leaves Optimus Primal and Depth Charge—the closest to the bomb—relatively undamaged.
• When Depth Charge first calls in the Predacons' location, Inferno can be seen flying off with Waspinator and Quickstrike. This would place their arrival a good thirty seconds or so before Megatron, Dinobot, and Rampage use the secret hatch, which is supported by Depth Charge spotting Rampage and refusing to wait. However, after Optimus arrives, Silverbolt lands with him and Depth Charge has completely lost sight of Rampage. How did neither notice them use the hatch if they could clearly make out individual Predacons from their distance?
• Rampage is suddenly vulnerable to energon being jammed into his spark, despite it happening to no permanent effect previously.

Continuity notes

• The anthropoids are well on their way to civilization since we last saw them, developing fire, spears, musical instruments, and sophisticated anti-Transformer strategies.
• Quickstrike mentions that the anthropoids have become much tougher after their last encounter; presumably, he's referring to "Code of Hero", where he took part in the attack on the anthropoid valley.
• We get more hints about the sordid history between Rampage and Depth Charge; notably, Rampage boasts that he attacked Starbase Rugby, solely because Depth Charge had friends aboard. Ouch.
• It's not quite clear why Rampage allowed himself to be stabbed in the spark. Did he simply want to end his tortured existence? Was he gleeful in the knowledge that Depth Charge had followed through on his threat, becoming the true monster? A mix of both? The world may never know...
• When Dinobot cries out in pain after the death of Rampage, brief flashes of the original Dinobot's animation model can be seen as he looks upward. This possibly alludes to the plot of the unproduced episode "Dark Glass", where Rattrap would have uploaded the original Dinobot's datatrax into the clone. For more information on that plotline, please refer to these articles.
• Depth Charge addresses his leader as "Optimal" at one point, making him the only character other than Megatron to call Primal by the name of his big and fancy new toy.
• Gadgets and powers:
  • Tigerhawk pulls off some cool kung-fu moves in the air, accompanied by some supernatural glowing stuff.
  • Flying, flying, everywhere! Apparently Cheetor can now fly outright in his Transmetal 2 form's beast mode, rather than merely being restricted to his previous rocket-boosted running. Furthermore, Depth Charge has developed the ability to fly in both his regular stingray and robot modes, and Optimus (although shown hovering and such in robot mode beforehand) now demonstrates the capability to fly at high speeds in this form as well. This does rather raise the question of what point their respective flight modes actually serve anymore.

Transformers references

• Well, first off, there's the Nemesis itself, the ship that attacked the Ark in the original Transformers lore. Optimus Primal retells the story for the benefit of new viewers. His account doesn't precisely match the circumstances of the G1 cartoon or the Marvel comic, presumably to avoid Beast Wars from tying too closely into one continuity or the other.
  • The flashback to the battle between the Ark and the Nemesis, as recounted by Optimus Primal, neglects to mention that the Decepticons boarded the Ark before the crash. This was likely seen as an unnecessary inclusion, as previous episodes, "The Agenda (Part III)" and "Master Blaster", depict the Decepticons aboard the Ark.
  • The Nemesis went unnamed in original Generation 1 media; this is the first work of fiction to actually name the ship.
  • The Nemesis uses a very different design than it had in "The Agenda (Part III)", now appearing more bulky and triangular.
• The Covenant of Primus is introduced in this episode as a sacred Cybertronian tome. Prior to this episode's release, the term "Covenant", in direct association with Primus, had originally been applied to a group of twelve original Transformers created by Primus in the BotCon 1999 prose story aptly titled "Covenant". Said story was written by Simon Furman, who would write the very next episode of this two-parter. While no connection is made between either the tome or the group in either this or the next episode, one would later be given in 2001 in the 19th entry of the BotCon Online feature Apelinq's War Journals.
• Megatron refers to Tarantulas as "Unicron's spawn". Writer Bob Forward intended this as a generic insult in the vein of a human casting aspersions on someone's parentage (e.g. "bastard" or "son of a bitch"), but it came right on the heels of the previous episode's revelation that Tarantulas was not descended from either Autobot or Decepticon, prompting a large portion of the audience to take the invective literally. Ancillary fiction like Primeval Dawn and "Yokohama Decepticon Secret Base" ran with it, and depicted Tarantulas as a literal creation of Unicron. Ask Vector Prime had "Vector Prime" lampshade this in 2015 with "I suppose some cycle "spawn of Unicron" will be the sort of invective hurled with nary a second thought."
• This is the first time we hear that Megatron's name is not a reference to that other Megatron, but a figure from the Covenant.

Real-world references

• When Depth Charge spots Predacon activity in Grid Scylla, he's referencing a fan of the time.
• When contacting the Maximals, Optimus encodes transmission "M Sipher", a reference to Greg Sepelak.
• Silverbolt's remark "It's just a scratch" followed by the dismemberment of his arm could be a reference to the immortal line of the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
• Inferno utilizes the classic cartoon method of hiding, appearing from behind an impossibly skinny tree.
• When Megatron powers up the Nemesis, external ship lights illuminate Cybertronix text in the Predacon variant, which spells out "Red Dwarf", a reference to the British sci-fi comedy show.

Trivia

• The death of Rampage is the only time in the series that a Maximal actually kills a Predacon (not for lack of trying).
• "Nemesis" was originally going to be a three-part episode, but was later compressed to two.
• Bob Forward and Simon Furman both worked together on the "Nemesis" outline, to the extent that it wasn't decided for a while who would be writing which part. Originally they'd had bigger, grander plans, but many of them got dropped when it was clear a fourth season wouldn't be coming. [1]
• At the beginning of the episode, when Rattrap holds up the Covenant of Primus, the Maximal variant of Cybertronix text can be seen. It reads "7 613 were cast out with him a cork one fork and a bowl of beans between them". This presumably follows the portion of the Covenant read by Primal, Datatrack 7.613: "And a mighty warrior came down from the sky, and a rainbow was upon his head, and his feet as pillars of fire. And the great dragon was cast out onto the earth, and his followers were cast out with him."
• The copy of the Covenent of Primus on the Nemesis has the Autobot symbol on the cover.
• This is clearly the only time Waspinator refers to himself as "I." This is also (regrettably) the last time Waspinator is slagged as a participant of the Beast Wars.
• Since dragon Megatron has his beast mode head as a robot mode arm as his original T. rex body did, Megatron's... odd relationship with his hand has returned. In this two-parter, he can not only be seen petting the dragon-head, but at one point, he turns from a monitor he's watching, and his head-hand turns toward it, and actually moves back and forth as it observes the on-screen events.
• Depth Charge's death cry, heard over Optimus' communicator, is bloodcurdling.

Foreign localization

French

• Title: "Némésis 1" (Canada)

Italian

• Title: "Destini - Parte 1" ("Fates - Part 1")

• Megatron calls Tarantulas "Unicron's spark" instead of "Unicron's spawn".
• When the Nemesis starts moving, in a moment of voice silence in English, in Italian Optimus is heard saying: «Something extraordinary is happening!». A few moments later, another line is added by having him saying: «The great prophecy is coming true!».

Japanese

• Title: "Dokkān" (ドッカーン, "Ka-Boom")
• Original airdate: March 15 2000

Portuguese

• Title: "Nemesis Parte 1" ("Nemesis Part 1")

Spanish

• Title: "Nemesis Primera Parte" ("Nemesis First Part")

Mandarin

• Title: "Gōngzhèng de Chéngfá" (公正的惩罚, "Fair Punishment")

Home video releases

All releases listed are in English audio unless otherwise noted.

VHS

2000 — Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers: Metals — We Have Returned (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
2000 — Beast Wars: Transformers — Volume 4 (Universal)

DVD

2000 — Beast Wars: Transformers: Metals — DVD Box 2 (Pioneer LDC) — English and Japanese audio.
2004 — Beast Wars: Transformers — The Complete Third Season (Rhinomation)
2011 — Beast Wars: Transformers — Seasons 2 & 3 (Shout! Factory)
2011 — Beast Wars: Transformers — The Complete Series (Shout! Factory)
2006 — Beast Wars: Transformers — Season 3 (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — The Transformers: Beast Wars — Complete Collection (Madman Entertainment)