Force of Habit

An Autobot recon team finds a dead colony world that might not be so dead.

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Stats

Writers: Greg Sepelak and Trent Troop<br /> Pagecount: 25p<br /> Originally published: online exclusive for the Transformers Collectors' Club on April 17, 2008 <br /> Illustrations: Matt Kuphaldt

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

<table border="5" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="5" align="center" style="border:#800000"> <tr> <th style="background:#FFEEEE"> Autobots</th><th style="background:#EEEEFE"> Decepticons</th><th style="background:#D8BFD8"> Misc </th></tr> <tr> <td style="background:#FFEEEE" valign="top">

• Ultra Magnus (1)
• Knock Out (2)
• Scavenger (3)
• Rodimus (4)
• Longrack (5)
• Blurr (6)
• Ironhide (7)
• Tow-Line (8)
• Bulkhead (9)
• Arcee (11)
• Armorhide (17)
• Checkpoint (18)
• Whirl (19)
• Prowl (22)
• King Atlas (23)
• Grimlock (29)
• Swoop (30)
• Quickstrike (31)
• Skyblast (32)
• Overcast (33)
• Sky Scorcher Mini-Con Team (34)
• RipTide (35)
• Smokescreen (36)
• Land Military Mini-Con Team (37)

</td><td style="background:#EEEEFE" valign="top">

• Hardtop (12)
• Brushguard (13)
• Swindle (14)
• Buzzsaw (15)
• Runamuck (16)
• Slugslinger (25)
• Divebomb (26)
• Insecticon (27)
• Predacon (28)
• Megatron (40)

</td><td style="background:#D8BFD8" valign="top">

• Sparkplug (10)
• Skysickle (20)
• Grip-Lock (21)
• Thunderstick (24)
• Skidmark (38)
• Heavy Barrel (39)

</td></tr></table>

Notes

• Ultra Magnus thinks of an agent trapped alone on a colony world. He's presumably referring to Overhaul being trapped on Jungle Planet, indicating this story takes place between the Cybertron episodes "Search" and "Savage".

• Combatron appears to have been heavily influenced by Apocalypse Planet, a planet that was planned to be included in the Cybertron franchise, but was canceled. Much like Combatron, Apocalypse Planet was to be a war-torn wasteland populated by heavily-armed and -armored warriors.

• As in "Dark Heart of Sandokan", the Cyber Keys are treated somewhat differently in this story than they were in the Cybertron cartoon. Here, they are depicted as tangible objects that must be manufactured from crystals, while they are portrayed as energy-ish manifestations of a Transformer's burning heart of justice in the cartoon.

• None of the Decepticons attacking the Iron Hope are explicitly named. The twin-cockpit jet is obviously Slugslinger, and the robotic T-rex is likely Predacon. The writers have since revealed that the two gunships were intended to be Dreadwing and Sharkticon, and that the two other jets were Skywarp and Sunstorm. Whether the reader chooses to accept that depends on their acceptance of author intent.

• Unlike many of the other text stories published by the Official Transformers Collectors' Club, this was (and is) made available to non-members.

Transformers references

• This story makes a number of references to past occurrences in the Unicron Trilogy, including:
• The Powerlinx Battles and the defeat of the Decepticons at the end of Energon.
• The Armada War.
• The "lobotomization" of Snow Cat and Demolishor during Energon.
• Thrust's gruesome demise in Armada.

• King Atlas' disappearance can presumably be chalked up to his abduction by Unicron to battle in the Universe conflict.

• Hardtop compares a dead Combatron resident to an Omega Guardian, presumably the group to which Omega Supreme and Omega Sentinel belong.

• Ultra Magnus quotes his namesake's "I can't deal with that right now" line from The Transformers: The Movie.
• The Upstart is a dropship from the Armada PS2 game.

Real-world references

• Brushguard refers to "real wrath-of-god type stuff", a direct quote from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostbusters" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:Ghostbusters">Ghostbusters</a>.

• Buzzsaw mentions Christmas and also invites the Autobots to "say hello to my little friend," a reference to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarface_%281983_film%29" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:Scarface_(1983_film)">Scarface</a>.

External links

• Force of Habit PDF at transformersclub.com (no membership required to download)

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