Rocket Base

The rocket base is an Autobot Micromaster base from the Generation 1 continuity family.

It's ADA-compliant!

Interstellar hero Countdown commands the enormously powerful rocket base in his quest to free the galaxy from Decepticon tyranny. The base converts from a mobile launching pad and rocket into a full command center to aid Countdown in his ever-moving fight for freedom. The rocket is an enormous ship, and can transport the rest of the command center via an unspecified form of compression. The base's equipment includes laser blasters, a repair bay, and an interstellar communications and tracking center.

Fiction

Zone

When planet Micro was rebuilt by the Powered Masters to protect the newly-developed Energon Z, Countdown's rocket base formed the core of the Zone Base, a sprawling installation formed of numerous interlocking stations manned by Micromasters which served to defend the planet. The rocket base served as a launch station for both the trustworthy Autobot Galaxy Shuttle and the "Galaxy Rocket", a spacecraft which could transform into a small base itself, which both transported Micromaster teams to planets all across the galaxy in order to protect them from the Decepticons attempting to making a "Zone" of their own. Zone story page #1

After defeating Decepticon attacks on various other planets, the Autobots on Zone itself soon came under attack by Overlord, Bruticus, Menasor and Abominus, who sought the Energon Z for their master, Violen Jiger. The villains successfully purloined the energy source, but the Micromasters did not give up, transforming the rocket base and launching the Galaxy Rocket in pursuit of the Decepticons. Unfortunately, the tiny heroes were stopped in their tracks by BlackZarak, but soon, Dai Atlas and Sonic Bomber arrived to put the Decepticons in their place. Enter the New Supreme Commander, Dai Atlas!

The Zone Base later came under Decepticon attack once more, this time at the hands of the monstrous Metrotitan, and was badly damaged in his assault. Galaxy Shuttle was stationed at the rocket base at the time, and was destroyed by the towering terror; the extent of the damage suffered by the rocket base, if it survived at all, is unclear. Zone story page #8

Dreamwave comics continuity

The rocket base in launch base mode, parked in Cybertron's wastelands. Scale inflated for awesomeness.

The rocket base's rocket ship transported Countdown and Groundshaker into the cosmos on a mission to search for Optimus Prime and his lost crew. Eventually, they parted ways with their search partners, Jetfire and Omega Supreme, and began tracking down rogue Decepticons. Their mission took them to Paradron, among other worlds, in pursuit of the Decepticons under Skystalker's command. Eventually the rocket ship ferried Countdown and Groundshaker back to Cybertron. Destined for Nothing

Once there, it was parked in the wastelands near Little Iacon. it served as their base of operations as they tried to persuade their fellow Micromasters that they had a higher calling. The Gray Race

Toys

Generation 1

• Countdown (Micromaster Rocket Base, 1989)
  • Accessories: Countdown Lunar Rover/Micromaster commander, rocket, base, platform, large ramp, helipad, short ramps (3), mechanical arm, large double laser, small double lasers (2), large laser, gunner pod, scout vehicle.

Guns and rockets are well and good, but it's the Autobots' superior ramp capability that will win the war.

The rocket base was sold in a large boxed package, along with Countdown; it was the largest toy of 1989. The base transforms from a comparatively compact launching pad modeled on the Space Shuttle crawlers, with a gantry tower and a large rocket ship. Rocket and base unfold into multiple ramps, platforms, and "buildings", along with a small "scout vehicle".

Zone

• Rocket Base (Micromaster Rocket Base, 1990)
  • Japanese ID number: C-330

Identical to the earlier American version of the toy, this Japanese release also included the Micromaster Rescue Patrol Team. The Galaxy Shuttle toy from the previous year was designed to interact with the Rocket Base.

Trivia

...FROM THE CUTTING EDGE OF THE SIXTIES!

• The Rocket Base shown in the 1989 catalog has a vastly different, Saturn V-esque rocket with five boosters and an extremely tapered nose. It transforms identically to the final version, however. The gantry is also different, in that there is no detachable platform to allow access to the rocket and instead there are latches to hold the rocket in place upright against the gantry. Said latches fold down to form the legs of the gantry platform in base mode. Also, two extra cannons fold out from two slots next to the large sculpted monitor detail in the main body of the base.
• The design of the Rocket Base was used for the Autobots' Shuttle Base headquarters from 1989's Japanese series, Victory, though it only appeared in the cartoon and was never shown to transform. Since the toy wasn't released until the following year, during the Zone series, where it was called by its original American name of "Rocket Base" and was employed in fiction slightly differently, it doesn't seem that the Shuttle Base and the Rocket Base are intended to be the same stucture.
• Countdown's base is another victim of galaxy/solar system confusion. His original tech spec states that the ship uses gravitational pulls to "slingshot across entire galaxies in seconds", as if that were physically possible (not that slingshotting across an entire solar system in seconds would be any more likely.) His More Than Meets The Eye profile adds in a mention of "experimental transwarp engines" to make this a bit more digestible, but retains a questionable mention of how the ship can "slingshot across the galaxy in mere moments."
• In the year 2000, the Rocket Base was reused, sans Countdown and the base's mechanical arm, as the final toy released for the Takara Microman LED Powers line. It was redecoed in black, silver, gold, and transparent dark green and titled L-26 Micro Rocket Base with Shining Edison. No retools were carried out, as the LED Powers Microman figures use pegs identical in size to those of Micromasters. As such, the L-26 Micro Rocket Base is fully compatible with Micromasters and other Micromaster bases.