Withered Hope

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"Withered Hope"
Publisher	Transformers Collectors' Club (online exclusive)
First published	May 8, 2008
Written by	Greg Sepelak and Trent Troop
Illustration by	Matt Kuphaldt
Continuity	GoBots, TransTech, & Classics
Page count	47pp

Six mysterious travelers unwittingly end up on Axiom Nexus.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots, Maximals	Decepticons, Malignus	Guardians	Renegades	Others
Autobots Crystal Widow (2) Night Beat 7 (3) Adventas (8) Silverbolt (9) Optimus Prime (15) Prowl (17) Rhinox (18) Cheetor (26) Hoist (27) Prowl (31) Prowl (32) Maximals Prowl II (30) Escargon (33) Airazor (35)	Decepticons Megatron (16) Hooligan (21) Demolishor (36) Swindle (41) Dreadwind (43) Weirdwolf (44) Vehicons Blastcharge (28) Malignus Pick-Up (37) Turbo (38) Camaro (39) Jipe (40) Predacons Impound (42)	Small Foot (1) Leader-1 (6) Turbo (7) Road Ranger (11) Treds (12) Path Finder (13)	Cy-Kill (5) Bad Boy (10) Bug Bite (14)	Doctor Braxis (4) Doppler (19) a TransTech medic (20) Beam Rider (22) Skyquake (23) T-Bob (24) Comet (25) Truancy-Bot (29) Cryotek (34)

Quotes

"Our race was created for a higher purpose. What we do, we do to prepare for the true finality... the end of not merely our universe, but of all creation. The Unicron Phenomenon seeks to consume all that ever was and ever will be. We have faced it and bested it once, as have other Transformers from other universes. But it will return. It is beyond time, and will try again after consuming other realities. We must be ready. We must survive, and must always be there to stand against the nothingness Unicron seeks to bring about."
"Sounds more like self-interest than 'greater good'."
"Only because you imagine that there is a difference."

—Megatron teaches Path Finder about the TransTech.

"So you can't help. All right. What about the cop? That's a public official... what's the appropriate bribe?"
"Heh... If you can't help the Inspector's 'luck' at the roulette tables, furnish her apartment or provide her with a handsome companion you won't get far down that road."
"Handsome... Why would a machine...?"
"You're young yet, aren't you, sister?"
"I'll have you know I'm in my thousands!"
"Ahh... youth is more than a body frame, girl."

—Path Finder and Crystal Widow discuss the robotic birds and bees.

Small Foot: "Even the non-technorganic female ones look like that."
Path Finder: "I remember when I was built like that."
Road Ranger: "You were never built like that. You were just as boxy as any of us."
Path Finder: "I meant when I was organic."
Road Ranger: "Yeah, so did I."
Path Finder: "Jerk."

Road Ranger: "Anyone get the feeling we're being watched?"
Small Foot: "Frankly, yes. I looked this place up in that data-con we got."
Road Ranger: "Yeah?"
Small Foot: "The first words on it were 'Stay out unless you really want to die.'"
Bad Boy: "Lovely."

—'The GoBots discover that the Heap is not a nice place.

Notes

• While it had already been started by 2007's "Games of Deception" and e-HOBBY's stab at GoBot homages in 2004, this story really kicked off the trend of GoBots appearing in less mainstream Transformers fiction. Greg Sepelak stated in 2016 that he regrets writing this.

• Characters mentioned in-story but not seen include: Optimus Prime, Megatron, Unicron, Primus and his avatar, a corrupted Matrix, Herr Fiend, a robot dinosaur with pterodactyl on his shoulder, a ramshackle mechanism, a Lithonian guide, the Monster Renegades, an unsavory figure, Black Shadow, Crossblades Primax II, Destron-5, D. Drone, Tankor, Scooter, Stungun, Thundercracker, and Dreadwind's Swindle.

GoBots continuity notes and references

• As you might expect, what with this being a GoBots story, there are quite a few references to various characters and concepts from the Challenge of the GoBots cartoon.

Transformer references

• As you might expect, what with this being a GoBots story, there are several references to various characters and concepts from the Challenge of the GoBots cartoon.
  • The basics of GoBot anatomy and physiology are repeatedly noted, including their organic brains, species-wide robot-mode flight systems, built-in weapons systems which operate on "power packs" and self-repair capabilities.
  • While Leader-1 is the only GoBot outside of the main cast of the story who identifies himself by name, Renegade leader Cy-Kill and Turbo are easily recognizable by their descriptions.
  • "The doctor" who delivers the address that opens the story (later referred to as "Doctor B" by Bad Boy) is Doctor Braxis, the evil human ally of the Renegades.
  • The GoBots' "level" system for classifying parallel universes originates in the two-part cartoon story, "Invasion from the 21st Level", in which insectoid monsters from another dimension are brought into the GoBots world using the "Dimensional Interfacer" device that plays a role in this story. The GoBots classify the Marvel Comics continuity as the twenty-second level.
  • Bad Boy refers to Bug Bite at one point as an "underworld freak", as a nod to Bug Bite's hailing from Level 17, a deep inner level within Gobotron, as seen in the GoBots episode "The GoBots That Time Forgot".
  • The Astro-Beam is a space bridge-esque teleportation system used by both the Guardians and Renegades to transport their troops from Gobotron to Earth.
• The TransTechs have cataloged 15,962,782 universal streams, and they have a sophisticated classification system for all the timestreams they have cataloged. Each universe they mention refers to a specific existing Transformers continuity. The classification listing begins with a noun that describes the continuity family, a number which refers to the date of origin (in the real world), and a Greek letter that indicates the form of media. For example, the "Primax 984.0 Gamma" thread refers to the Generation 1 U.S. Marvel Comics continuity, the first issue of which was cover-dated September 1984.
  • Primax - the Generation 1 continuity family
    • Primax 984.0 Gamma - The Marvel Comics continuity
    • Primax 207.0 Epsilon - The Classics continuity, a splinter timeline of the Marvel Comics continuity
    • Primax 1291.0 Zeta - The "Another Time & Place" text story continuity, a dead-end splinter thread of the Marvel Comics continuity
  • Tyran - the Movie continuity family
    • Tyran 707.04 Delta - The movie itself.
  • Malgus - The Animated continuity family
• The GoBots only wind up on Axiom Nexus after being caught in the wake of a group of dimensional travelers from the Malgus Cluster (Animated). As the story notes that travelers from Malgus are rare, this particular group is presumably Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, and Sari Sumdac making the trip seen in "Bee in the City".
• Cheetor and Cryotek both make reference to the death of Black Shadow, which happened in the previous prose story "Gone Too Far".
• When Bug Bite fixes himself up with a replacement head at the conclusion of the story, he remarks that he has failed to "match the shade" on his new noggin, referring to the fact that the Bug Bite toy's head is a distinctly brighter, whiter color than the rest of its body.

Real-world references

• The song Crystal Widow listens to in the prologue is indicated by the Ancient Autobot on Night Beat 7's display to be "As Time Goes By", a song most well know for appearing in the film Casablanca
• The Ancient Autobot on Crystal Widow's drink in the prologue reads "FINGAL RICK" in reference to the film {{w|Overdrawn at the Memory Bank}}, which, aside from being riffed by author favorite Mystery Science Theater 3000, heavily involves the film Casablanca in its plot.
• "Withered Hope" is a song by They Might Be Giants. References to They Might Be Giants are one of Greg Sepelak's trademarks.
• The "robot dinosaur" with the "pterodactyl on his shoulder" is Deadeye from the 1980s Tomy toyline, Starriors.
• In the background of an Axiom Nexus scene, you can see Truancy-bot from a PBF Comics strip.
• Deadeye isn't the only non-Transformers mech lurking around Axiom Nexus; the robot that Treds and Bad Boy question on the whereabouts of Bug Bite is (a version of) T-Bob, the neurotic kid-appeal robot character from Kenner's M.A.S.K..
• Bug Bite announces that "the jig is up, the news is out, they finally found me", a line from the Styx song... "Renegade". See what they did there?
• If you don't get the Casablanca references from the transit passes and the Widow's Café Cybertronian...there's just no hope for you.

Errors

• On Page 2, "calmed" is mistyped as "clamed". This was eventually corrected.
• On Page 17, "Tripredacus Square" is mistyped as "Tripdedacus Square".
• On Page 22, "Haven't" is mistyped as "Haven's".

Other trivia

• Creatures spotted throughout the story include:
  • A long-necked cross between a reptile and fungus.
  • An ambulatory tree-stump that speaks in an eldritch language.
  • A creature that look like a crocodile with a beetle shell back, a conical mouth that splits into four flaps, and a pair of tentacles extruding from each cheek that eats metal.

External link

• "Withered Hope" at The Official Transformers Collectors' Club