Reaching the Omega Point: Difference between revisions
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Because ''Reaching the Omega Point'' features a heavily dose of time travel, alternate timelines, and temporal shenanigans, it can be a rather confusing story at first glance. | Because ''Reaching the Omega Point'' features a heavily dose of time travel, alternate timelines, and temporal shenanigans, it can be a rather confusing story at first glance. | ||
While not explicit, the implication behind Shokaract's alternate future is that it exists in a timeline in which the [[timestorm]] that Megatron created in "[[The Agenda (Part III)]]" never happened. The damage done to the timestream by the storm is what threw history into chaos, spurred the Chronarchitect to warn Leonicus about it, and alerted Shokaract to the unraveling of his timeline. While the Maximals successfully repaired the damage to the timestream caused by the storm (as seen in "[[Optimal Situation]]"), this story reveals that they actually weren't thorough enough: A rift in the fabric of space-time torn open by the storm was left hanging above the Dark Essence on Prehistoric Earth and threatened to pull it back in the timestream, leaving the future in a | While not explicit, the implication behind Shokaract's alternate future is that it exists in a timeline in which the [[timestorm]] that Megatron created in "[[The Agenda (Part III)]]" never happened. The damage done to the timestream by the storm is what threw history into chaos, spurred the Chronarchitect to warn Leonicus about it, and alerted Shokaract to the unraveling of his timeline. While the Maximals successfully repaired the damage to the timestream caused by the storm (as seen in "[[Optimal Situation]]"), this story reveals that they actually weren't thorough enough: A rift in the fabric of space-time torn open by the storm was left hanging above the Dark Essence on Prehistoric Earth and threatened to pull it back in the timestream, leaving the future in a state of quantum uncertainty. | ||
This implies that the timestorm was never supposed to happen and that Megatron did indeed alter history to some extent. However, his actions appear to have had an unforeseen positive effect. Had he never created the timestorm, the Dark Essence would have been left fully undisturbed for the Hunter to find later on and become Shokaract in the future, allowing his empire to exist in the proper timeline. In other words, Megatron ''had'' to shoot [[Optimus Prime (G1)|Optimus Prime]] in order for Shokaract's future to be erased, without either the Chronarchitect or the Covenant knowing of the beneficial outcomes that Megatron's temporal meddling would have upon the far future. | This implies that the timestorm was never supposed to happen and that Megatron did indeed alter history to some extent. However, his actions appear to have had an unforeseen positive effect. Had he never created the timestorm, the Dark Essence would have been left fully undisturbed for the Hunter to find later on and become Shokaract in the future, allowing his empire to exist in the proper timeline. In other words, Megatron ''had'' to shoot [[Optimus Prime (G1)|Optimus Prime]] in order for Shokaract's future to be erased, without either the Chronarchitect or the Covenant knowing of the beneficial outcomes that Megatron's temporal meddling would have upon the far future. | ||
However, because the timestorm occurred in the past, shouldn't its effects have instantly erased the timeline of Shokaract's future era? Theoretically, yes. But | However, because the timestorm occurred in the past, shouldn't its effects have instantly erased the timeline of Shokaract's future era? Theoretically, yes. But ''Omega Point'' seems to operate under the notion that the fate of the future, of all futures, wouldn't be determined until after Point Omega itself, which didn't happen until well after the timestorm ended. Yet, that battle still took place in the past, so it too had already happened from the future's perspective. Shokaract's future timeline should have still vanished immediately, or even never existed in the first place. Yet, it did exist, because Shokaract himself was needed to fight in Point Omega, but had not done so yet from the perspective of his personal history in that future era. Because Shokaract's participation in Point Omega was crucial to its outcome, his future timeline needed to exist so that he could travel back in time from it in order to fight in, and ultimately lose, the past battle that, in the end, prevented his future timeline from ever coming to be. Therein lies the paradox. | ||
What's more, Shokaract's backstory as the Hunter actually contradicts the events of ''Beast Machines''. Prior to his finding the Dark Essence, he is described as a Predacon who lived an easy life hunting down and executing Maximals in the years since Megatron took over Cybertron, until complacency set in and the Maximals launched a more concerted retaliation. This is in contrast to how, in ''Beast Machines'', Megatron conquered Cybertron not with Predacons but with Vehicons, and also stole the sparks of everyone on the planet, Maximal and Predacon alike. As such, it is unlikely that the Predacons received any benefits from Megatron's rule in ''Beast Machines'', much less hunted any remaining Maximals in the years to come, what with Megatron having captured every spark on Cybertron. | What's more, Shokaract's backstory as the Hunter actually contradicts the events of ''Beast Machines''. Prior to his finding the Dark Essence, he is described as a Predacon who lived an easy life hunting down and executing Maximals in the years since Megatron took over Cybertron, until complacency set in and the Maximals launched a more concerted retaliation. This is in contrast to how, in ''Beast Machines'', Megatron conquered Cybertron not with Predacons but with Vehicons, and also stole the sparks of everyone on the planet, Maximal and Predacon alike. As such, it is unlikely that the Predacons received any benefits from Megatron's rule in ''Beast Machines'', much less hunted any remaining Maximals in the years to come, what with Megatron having captured every spark on Cybertron. | ||
Revision as of 15:12, 30 September 2021
Reaching the Omega Point is a multi-year, convention-exclusive Transformers storyline that was released at BotCon and other related venues from 1998 to 2000. Produced by 3H Enterprises, it is part of the 3H Beast Era continuity, which serves an extension of both the Beast Wars and Beast Machines cartoons.
Created as part of 1999's celebration of the 15th anniversary of the Transformers brand, Omega Point was notable for being the first really BIG Transformers event in several years to feature the return of the Dark God Unicron, who had been absent from Western Transformers fiction (barring a few cameos) since his last major appearance in 1990's "On the Edge of Extinction!" from Marvel Comics.
Omega Point also laid the groundwork for much more convention-based Transformers fiction that would see release in years to come, spreading its content across multiple forms of media that would see further use at many future BotCons, including comic books, a satirical live script reading, lengthy prose stories, and online-based content.
It is alternately known as simply The Omega Point.
{{#if:Reaching the Omega Point descriptionfrom the original BotCon 1999 webpage|| “ | On the eve of their greatest battle, warriors from a distant planet fight to save their past, present, and future. |
” |
| {{#if:Reaching the Omega Point description| —Reaching the Omega Point description{{#if:from the original BotCon 1999 webpage|, from the original BotCon 1999 webpage}} }}}} | ||
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{{#if: BotCon 1998 script reading
BotCon Europe 1999 prose story
BotCon 1999 prose stories
BotCon 2000 comic
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BotCon 1998 script reading
BotCon Europe 1999 prose story
BotCon 1999 prose stories
BotCon 2000 comic
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Overview
Prelude
The first seeds for the storyline were planted a light-hearted script reading presented at BotCon 1998. While the name Reaching the Omega Point did not exist at the time, the script reading was later grouped under that title by the BotCon Online website. Named "Visitations", the script reading told a rather tongue-in-cheek story about a small group of Maximals and Predacons fighting over a mysterious artifact that had crash-landed right in the middle of the Beast Wars, set during a time within the cartoon's second season. After the artifact was taken by an unknown shadowy figure, a new Predacon suddenly appears from a portal, demanding the artifact in question. The newcomer, Antagony, is directed into engaging first Megatron and then Optimus Primal, before she is eventually defeated and ultimately captured by Megatron for interrogation.
Reaching the Omega Point
Reaching the Omega Point began in earnest with four prose story chapters released throughout 1999. Three main chapters were released in connection with BotCon 1999 – the first two were included with material mailed to preregistrants ahead of the convention, and were then collected with the third chapter in the event's program guide. An extra installment was released via UK conventions, initially at unofficial convention Transforce 1999, around the same time that the second chapter was mailed to BotCon preregistrants. It would later receive an official release via BotCon Europe 1999, a month after the US BotCon 1999. When archived on BotCon's websites, this story was variously labelled as both a prologue and a fourth chapter to the story, but was clearly written before the main three chapters.
Serving as a direct sequel to "Visitations", the UK chapter "Herald" follows shortly after the script reading's cliffhanger ending. Megatron holds Antagony prisoner and, having determined she has come from a future era far beyond his own, he attempts to pry any knowledge of that future from her by any means necessary. Antagony, however, puts up a firm resistance against all of Megatron's torture methods and flashes back to her own past, in which it is revealed that she is Herald to a Predacon tyrant named Shokaract, who has conquered Cybertron in the far future. A rival of hers, Cataclysm, vies for her position, brewing a deep-seeded hatred for him within Antagony. Shokaract, meanwhile, had sensed that a threat to his own existence had turned up in the distant past, and sent Antagony back in time to right this temporal wrong. In the end, however, because Antagony had failed her mission, she realizes this failure will give Cataclysm a chance to surpass her. Despaired, she allows her mind to be wiped clean before Megatron can gain access to her memories.
The first of the main chapters, titled "Covenant", introduced a then-new concept to the Transformers lore: A group of twelve special Transformers called the Covenant, who were the first Transformers ever created by Primus. For eons, the Covenant had watched over Cybertron and the developmental growth of its people, in anticipation of a final battle called Point Omega, or Shokaract, which would determine the fate of Primus's Grand Plan. By the time of the Maximal and Predacon rule of Cybertron, the Covenant receive a shocking visit by another new addition to the mythos, the Chronarchitect, kin to Primus and Unicron. Upon his arrival, Leonicus, leader of the Covenant, sees a dark vision of the future. The Chronarchitect warns the Covenant of a disruption to the timestream with the cryptic entreaty of "Return to the beginning...", which spurs the Covenant to begin analyzing all of history to locate this distressing temporal event.
Chapter two, titled "Schism" shifted the setting centuries later into the future time of Shokaract's empire. The story focused on the birth of the hybrid Maximal Windrazor, who was created from the merged sparks of a dying Predacon cub and an aged Maximal veteran. Upon his creation, he provides the united Maximal/Predacon rebels with information on Shokaract's plans (as Windrazor's Predacon half had been an up-and-coming Herald) and goes to defeat Shokaract's other Herald, Cataclysm, who was set to travel back in time to both continue Antagony's failed mission and locate something called the Dark Essence. Windrazor himself ends up flung to the past, arriving on Prehistoric Earth near to the end of the Beast Wars. Back in the future, the Predacon resistance leader Sandstorm prepares to embark to a mysterious region of Cybertron known as J'nwan to seek help from the "Legends" who live there, while the Covenant continue to search through history for the temporal event, with one of their number now missing.
Chapter three, "Paradox" continues the three plot threads of "Schism" and introduces a fourth: At a point following Megatron's takeover of Cybertron, a lone Predacon Hunter happens upon a cave in which he is drawn to a pit containing an evil presence that promises him great power. Back in the future, the Covenant determine Windrazor's time jump to the past to be the prelude of the event they seek, while Sandstorm's journey to J'nwan proves most rigorous as he struggles to overcome the treacherous, reality-warping nature of the area. After finally reaching J'nwan, his pleas for the Legends' help are unfortunately met with rejection. Back in the past, Windrazor searches for the Dark Essence in hopes that it may lead to a return to his home-time. Once he finds it, however, he is attacked by Megatron, who had detected Windrazor's arrival. Megatron sees the Dark Essence and correctly identifies it as the lifeforce of Unicron, having been displaced from his destruction in 2005 via a rift in space-time. The Dark Essence possesses Windrazor and attacks friend and foe alike, before Windrazor's two inner halves unite to expel Unicron from their shared body. But before Windrazor can answer any questions, a portal opens up and out steps Shokaract himself.
After the cliffhanger ending of the third chapter, the storyline was finally concluded a year later in a comic book released at BotCon 2000, which also contained illustrated recaps of all the preceding stories and an illustrated reprint of "Herald". The conclusion, titled "Terminus", wraps up nearly every major plot thread from before, culminating in a final showdown--Point Omega itself--with Shokaract and the united forces of Optimus Primal, Windrazor, the Covenant, Sandstorm (revealed to be the Covenant's missing member), and more. Among their number is also a mysterious newcomer named Apelinq, a displaced Maximal who is revealed to have also been the shadowy figure who took the artifact back in "Visitations", and whose presence here also served as foreshadowing for the next big storyline to come after Omega Point. In the end, after much sacrifice from many warriors, the Dark Essence is sent back into the timestream and Shokaract is destroyed.
Supplementary material
Outside of the primary media for the fiction, additional content for the storyline was produced both online and on the toys' packaging. The convention-exclusive toys all received bios that tied each character directly into the events of Omega Point. Several of them (plus Cataclysm) would later receive extended profiles that were originally posted on the (now defunct) BotCon: Beyond website, and which were later moved to BotCon Online. Chief among these were the bio and profile written for Shokaract, which revealed both himself and the Dark Essence, respectively, to have been the lone Hunter and the evil presence featured in the the opening scene of "Paradox". Moreover, after acquiring the Dark Essence, Shokaract fashioned a housing to contain its power in the form of the Matrix of Conquest, which had first appeared in "Terminus".
Furthermore, both Antagony and Sandstorm featured exclusive prose material on their individual toys' packaging: Antagony's featured both a character roster and a brief, alternate summary of "Visitations". Sandstorm's packaging, meanwhile featured a Predacon war journal that revealed how he had first learned of J'nwan's existence from an informant who nearly got him caught by Shokaract's sentries. And finally, a second, shortened version of "Herald" was created and first released on BotCon: Beyond, containing updated information to better align with the later parts of the storyline (as the original version of "Herald" featured earlier ideas and concepts that would be dropped or altered in the story's later chapters) and was most likely written as a recap meant for inclusion in the BotCon 2000 comic book, but which instead featured the original full-length version.
Addendum and aftermath
In the months leading up to BotCon 2001, an online series of short prose stories was released on BotCon: Beyond as part of a weekly buildup to that convention's new stories. Titled "Apelinq's War Journals", this series explored Apelinq's personal history in a pre-Beast Machines Cybertron setting. The final six of these War Journals, however, touched upon a few unresolved plot points from Omega Point by having Apelinq flung to the past in a transwarp accident, arriving on Earth right in the middle of the Beast Wars to witness events that led up to Point Omega. It was during this time that Apelinq snatched up the artifact from the events of "Visitations", with said artifact revealed here to actually have been one of Apelinq's personal belongings. Apelinq continued to observe the events of Beast Wars from afar, with his final three journal entries coming full circle with his previous appearance in "Terminus", landing him right in the middle of Point Omega.
Afterwards, the next BotCon storyline, The Wreckers, wrapped up a few more loose ends left hanging from Omega Point's conclusion. The first chapter, "Departure", saw Apelinq back on Cybertron during the second season events of Beast Machines, where he reveals to Optimus Primal (who had lost all memory of Point Omega) the outcomes of the battle: Shokaract was destroyed and his tainted future timeline had been erased from all time, with every time-displaced survivor of the battle (minus Primal himself, of course) having escaped back to their respective eras via transwarp portals. Primal, meanwhile, had been caught at the epicenter of the timequake and forgot all about these events, his amnesia providing an in-story explanation for why Point Omega was never mentioned in the cartoons (and which also jibes with the amnesia he received from Megatron's virus in Beast Machines). Windrazor, however, had seemingly disappeared at first, but his true fate would later be revealed in the 2007 prose story "Wreckers: Finale Part II", published by Fun Publications. Rather than having been erased along with his home time, his life was saved and preserved by Primus to let him serve as a spirit guide for those in need.
Creative team
"Visitations" was written by Beast Wars writer and editor Bob Forward, with acting performances provided by Garry Chalk, Scott McNeil, Doug Parker, Susan Blu, and David Kaye, with a cameo appearance by Ben Yee.
"Herald" (both versions), "Covenant", "Schism", "Paradox", "Terminus", and all of the recaps in the BotCon 2000 comic were written by acclaimed Transformers comic scribe Simon Furman, who had previously made his return to Transformers comics in his authoring the BotCon 1997 comic "Ground Zero". Glen Hallit of 3H Enterprises oversaw Furman's scripting of the prose stories and co-wrote "Terminus" with him.
Several fan-favorite British artists from the Marvel Comics days also made their return to Transformers in illustrating the BotCon 2000 comic. The normal convention cover featured computer-generated art and effects by Andrew Wildman (who has also returned previously to illustrate "Ground Zero"), while a dinner variant cover was drawn by Geoff Senior. The illustrations included in the comic's four recaps and "Herald" reprint were done by Lee Sullivan. "Terminus" itself was penciled and inked by Senior, with lettering done by Richard Starkings and Comicraft (both having also previously lettered "Ground Zero").
"Apelinq's War Journals" was written for BotCon: Beyond by 3H member Rob Gerbracht, who also provided additional text and editing for the BotCon 2001 "Departure" comic written by Glen Hallit. Then-newcomer artist Dan Khanna illustrated "Departure", including the two pages that revealed the aftermath of Point Omega. He and Jon Hartman were also editors for the comic alongside Gerbracht. The main cover art for "Departure" was produced by Mainframe Entertainment, while a variant release included with that year's exclusive Tigatron toy featured different cover art by Khanna.
Artwork for the related toy bios and online profiles were provided by Andrew Wildman (Antagony, Vice Grip) and Mainframe Entertainment (Windrazor, Sandstorm, Shokaract, Apelinq).
Continuity
Though "Ground Zero" was the first story produced by 3H, it was Reaching this Omega Point that really attempted to built upon and flesh out the universe of the 3H Beast Era, creating its own lore and laying the groundwork for further storylines to come in both this and future BotCon-affiliated continuities.
While the Beast Wars cartoon had alluded to, in the form of myth and legend, a Generation 1-based history that was a like a mixture of elements taken from both the cartoon and the Marvel Comics, it (and later Beast Machines) tended to borrow more elements from the G1 cartoon than from the G1 comics. However, Omega Point instead chooses to lean towards a more comic-based history, alluding to elements and events that more overtly stemmed from the comics, as well as the events of The Transformers: The Movie.
Author Simon Furman once stated at BotCon Europe 1999 that these stories were his first attempt to weave together the histories of the G1 comics and cartoon together into one timeline<ref>BotCon Europe '99 Simon Furman interview highlights (archived): "The stories I've written for BotCon are the first time I've really tried to make it all fit together in one cohesive line."</ref> (a practice he would later attempt again in his writing for the Dreamwave Generation One continuity), but would later state in a Transforce 2000 magazine interview that he, at the time, considered both the Omega Point storyline and the Beast Wars cartoon (but NOT the Beast Machines cartoon) to be specifically part of the comics universe, preferring to view Omega Point as his own post-Beast Wars storyline while disregarding Beast Machines altogether.<ref>alt.toys.transformers post by Andrew Crane on 5/30/00: "Simon Furman regards Beast Wars as taking place in his comic universe (according to an interview in the Transforce 2000 magazine, he ignores Beast Machines entirely). His own post-BW storyline is Reaching the Omega Point (the BotCon stories)."</ref>
Additionally, at the time that Furman was writing Omega Point for BotCon, he also wrote two other stories for the unofficial Transforce conventions: 2000's "The Last Days of Optimus Prime" and 2001/2002's "Alignment". Both of these served as extensions of the Marvel Comics continuity in Furman's eyes--much like Omega Point--and also contained certain elements that Furman tied in directly with Omega Point. "Last Days" both confirmed the Veteran's identity as the Dinobot Swoop and revisited J'nwan as a quasi-afterlife residence for the Generation 1 Autobots and Decepticons. It also first declared the Generation 1 Optimus Prime and Megatron to be residents of J'nwan's, three months before such would be reiterated by "Terminus". "Alignment", meanwhile, reintroduced the Liege Maximo--a massive plot point left dangling from the final issue of the Marvel Generation 2 comics--whom both "Covenant" and "Schism" namedropped rather overtly, with "Schism" even stating the Veteran to have been familiar with the Liege Maximo; said familiarity was fully disclosed by the events of "Alignment".
However, while Furman definitely gave off the impression of building his own personal canon with all of these then-new stories he was writing at the time, his authorial intent would officially hold little weight in the end as far as 3H was concerned, with the very next BotCon storyline, The Wreckers, leaning towards a more G1 cartoon-based universe while simultaneously serving as a direct follow-up to the more Marvel comic-based Omega Point storyline. Thus, while Omega Point, "Last Days", and "Alignment" could together be viewed as an extension of the comics universe on their own, the larger continuity of all the 3H fiction disregards that intent in favor of a more blended Beast Era universe that--much like the Beast Wars cartoon itself--borrowed more evenly from both the cartoon and the comics, favoring neither over the other. And as Omega Point was the only one of these three Furman-penned convention stories to be officially published under Hasbro's license, the other two fall into the realm of pseudocanon at best (see their respective pages for more on their relation to the canon).
Consequently, any potential continuity errors with the original Marvel G1 comics found in Omega Point (or any 3H fiction) would no longer necessarily be continuity errors due to the 3H Beast Era ultimately inhabiting its own unique continuity that only directly ties to the two Beast Era cartoons while merely indirectly tying to the G1 comics and cartoon.
Analysis
| “ | Ah, excellent! The rift -- Caused I suspect, when Unicron's essence was time-shunted from 2005 and exacerbated by my own temporal tamperings. It is at optimal criticality. Unless Shokaract acts forthwith, his future will be lost to him forever, pulled back into the timestream. | ” |
| {{#if:Megatron| —Megatron{{#if:"Terminus"|, "Terminus"}} }}}} | ||
Because Reaching the Omega Point features a heavily dose of time travel, alternate timelines, and temporal shenanigans, it can be a rather confusing story at first glance.
While not explicit, the implication behind Shokaract's alternate future is that it exists in a timeline in which the timestorm that Megatron created in "The Agenda (Part III)" never happened. The damage done to the timestream by the storm is what threw history into chaos, spurred the Chronarchitect to warn Leonicus about it, and alerted Shokaract to the unraveling of his timeline. While the Maximals successfully repaired the damage to the timestream caused by the storm (as seen in "Optimal Situation"), this story reveals that they actually weren't thorough enough: A rift in the fabric of space-time torn open by the storm was left hanging above the Dark Essence on Prehistoric Earth and threatened to pull it back in the timestream, leaving the future in a state of quantum uncertainty.
This implies that the timestorm was never supposed to happen and that Megatron did indeed alter history to some extent. However, his actions appear to have had an unforeseen positive effect. Had he never created the timestorm, the Dark Essence would have been left fully undisturbed for the Hunter to find later on and become Shokaract in the future, allowing his empire to exist in the proper timeline. In other words, Megatron had to shoot Optimus Prime in order for Shokaract's future to be erased, without either the Chronarchitect or the Covenant knowing of the beneficial outcomes that Megatron's temporal meddling would have upon the far future.
However, because the timestorm occurred in the past, shouldn't its effects have instantly erased the timeline of Shokaract's future era? Theoretically, yes. But Omega Point seems to operate under the notion that the fate of the future, of all futures, wouldn't be determined until after Point Omega itself, which didn't happen until well after the timestorm ended. Yet, that battle still took place in the past, so it too had already happened from the future's perspective. Shokaract's future timeline should have still vanished immediately, or even never existed in the first place. Yet, it did exist, because Shokaract himself was needed to fight in Point Omega, but had not done so yet from the perspective of his personal history in that future era. Because Shokaract's participation in Point Omega was crucial to its outcome, his future timeline needed to exist so that he could travel back in time from it in order to fight in, and ultimately lose, the past battle that, in the end, prevented his future timeline from ever coming to be. Therein lies the paradox.
What's more, Shokaract's backstory as the Hunter actually contradicts the events of Beast Machines. Prior to his finding the Dark Essence, he is described as a Predacon who lived an easy life hunting down and executing Maximals in the years since Megatron took over Cybertron, until complacency set in and the Maximals launched a more concerted retaliation. This is in contrast to how, in Beast Machines, Megatron conquered Cybertron not with Predacons but with Vehicons, and also stole the sparks of everyone on the planet, Maximal and Predacon alike. As such, it is unlikely that the Predacons received any benefits from Megatron's rule in Beast Machines, much less hunted any remaining Maximals in the years to come, what with Megatron having captured every spark on Cybertron.
In reality, these discrepancies were most likely due to author Simon Furman having not been privy to the finer details of Beast Machines at the time of his writing this storyline, as the first episode had only just received an early screening at BotCon 1999. It is very plausible that Furman based this backstory for the pre-Shokaract Hunter on an early description for the sequel series to Beast Wars (then named Beast Hunters) found in a Fall 1999 Fox Kids press release first put out on February 9 of that year, which referred to "the evil dragon Megatron and his hordes of Predacons". This is further supported by the fact that Windrazor, who hails from Shokaract's future, identified Megatron during the Beast Wars specifically by his dragon alternate mode.
This would further mean that, while the timestorm somehow did not happen during the Beast Wars in Shokaract's timeline, the rest of the Beast Wars did play out more or less the same: Megatron still acquired his dragon mode and eventually made it back to Cybertron to conquer it afterward. But in this timeline, he ruled Cybertron for years and had Predacons hunting and executing Maximals, instead of using Vehicons to steal everyone's sparks. From an in-universe perspective, there is simply no explanation for how or why Megatron's tactics differed so much (as these differences were most likely unintentional), but which can be further attributed to the changes to history caused by the timestorm. Regardless, this alternate timeline was ultimately erased anyway, with the proper events of Beast Machines occurring instead.
Fan reception
Reaching the Omega Point has, to put it bluntly, received rather polarizing reception from readers since its original release.
As the fandom of the time was mostly starving for new comic material (since there hadn't been any new Transformers comics since the abrupt end of the Generation 2 comics in 1994), and since the Beast Wars cartoon originally had a rather haphazard release schedule for its new episodes airing in syndicated television, the Omega Point storyline was initially received well and hailed as Simon Furman's grand return to form. Many fans took a liking to the backstory of the Covenant and what it added to the lore at the time. The [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}The Terminator|{{#if:Terminator|Terminator|The Terminator}}]]-esque future timeline also provided a new era to explore that fascinated many. And, of course, the surprise return of Unicron in a Beast Wars story was a move that pulled readers even further into the story, with many eager to read the BotCon 2000 conclusion following the 1999 prose chapters.
On the other end of the spectrum, however, Omega Point has also been the subject of much criticism. In addition to being confined to such a limited release venue that not every fan had access to (a critique that would become common to most BotCon and related fiction in years to come), one of the biggest issues that turned people off was the sheer complexity of the story, which made it very difficult for people to follow. "Schism" and "Paradox", for instance, constantly jump the story around from setting to setting, even scene per scene in the latter's case, and the erasure of Shokaract's timeline essentially undoes much of the storyline's events, creating an overall paradoxical nature that in turn left several readers finding the whole of Omega Point to be a highly convoluted and needlessly overcomplicated mess. What's more is how it evidently tried to recreate the scale and overall feel of the Marvel Comics "Unicron Saga" that ran from Issue #60 to Issue #75, but condensed down to just a small amount of prose stories and one comic, lacking the substance and breathing room of the sixteen issues that the original Marvel storyline had.
Unhelpful to these matters is how the storyline has (or rather hasn't) aged over time, with many fans looking back on it years later with far less reverence, instead recognizing it more clearly as the product of a time when Transformers fiction was much less bountiful and ubiquitous. The inclusion of Unicron is no longer looked on with awe and wonderment, but instead presents Omega Point, in many fans' eyes, as "just another Unicron story", due to the enormous amount of exposure that the Chaos Bringer eventually received in the subsequent years of the Unicron Trilogy, the Dreamwave comics, the Fun Publications fiction, and much more.
In the end, like many other pieces of Transformers fiction, the saga of Reaching the Omega Point served its purpose at the time, but with the rapid growth and expansion of the Transformers brand that has come about in recent years, venturing it in wider reaches of mass media, the Omega Point storyline has since faded far into the backgrounds of obscurity, residing mostly in a state of indifference and neutral unawareness within the fandom.
Legacy
Despite having been overtaken by more mainstream fiction, Reaching the Omega Point would go on to influence other works in the years to come. Most importantly, the concept of the Covenant as a special group of "original Transformers" created by Primus would be reinvented for the development of the Thirteen, another creation of Simon Furman, in the early-to-mid 2000s.
Shokaract's role as a Predacon overlord empowered by Unicron's lifeforce would also resurface in 2007-2008, with Shokaract serving as the primary antagonist of Furman's Beast Wars comic mini-series The Ascending, albeit with the Dark Essence replaced by the similar substance of Angolmois Energy from the Japanese-original Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo series. Though, the Matrix of Conquest of this series was instead named the "Anti-Matrix" (or the "Matrix of Chaos", as noted by Shokaract's Beast Wars Sourcebook profile). Additionally, as another throwback to Omega Point, among Shokaract's five Heralds in the mini-series was none other than Antagony.
By the time 2014 rolled around, that year marked the 20th anniversary of BotCon. To celebrate, BotCon 2014 saw the release of a special new "Pirates vs. Knights" storyline that paid tribute to Reaching the Omega Point. Set in the far future of the Wings Universe, on a post-Beast Machines Technorganic Cybertron, the convention's "Hoist the Flag" comic story saw the rise of that universe's version of Shokaract (known originally as just "the Hunter"), with the comic's final pages depicting his acquisition of the Matrix of Conquest from Unicron.
Additional build-up material was also produced online ahead of the convention. A prose series titled "Tornado - Decepticon Saboteur" was released as the first of a new line of Facebook-based fiction produced for the Transformers Collectors' Club. In this series, the Decepticon-turned-pirate Tornado chronicled the adventures of the Star Seeker space pirates held before their arrival at the future era Cybertron of the 2014 convention comic. During these narratives, Tornado would compose personal journal logs in a vein similar to "Apelinq's War Journals", and to further the homage, there were seven points in Tornado's writings where he would happen upon journal entries written by the Wings Universe version of Apelinq himself, in which Apelinq described moments where he would have brief visions of the events of Point Omega, events that he otherwise did not remember but cryptically felt as though he had experienced them first hand in another time, in another life...
Finally, the last piece of fiction to be majorly influenced by Omega Point was the final installment for the "Pirates vs. Knights" storyline: A 2015 pack-in comic made for the "BotCon Legacy Collection". Simply titled "Legacy", this one-page comic was told from the point of view from the newly-arisen Shokaract himself, who waxed poetic about his destiny to conquer Cybertron, at a point when the planet was completely unprepared for his coming.