Reformatting

Reformatting is a term for the wholesale upgrading of a Transformer into a new form granting them new power, minus the effort of going through the tedious business of Spark transplant, protoforming, or manual rebuilding. Most commonly this is carried out by a higher power or by a Cybertronian channeling a higher power, though on rare occasions it has been achieved by Cybertronians on their own. Reformatting is not limited to Transformers and can be applied to other forms of life, and even whole planets. In the case of planets, the change is known as mechaforming.

Fiction

The Transformers cartoon

Unicron reformatted Megatron and some other Decepticons into Galvatron, Cyclonus, Scourge and the Sweeps. Hot Rod was reformatted into Rodimus Prime by the power of the Matrix of Leadership. The Transformers: The Movie In the case of Rodimus, the reformatting only appeared to be in effect while he held the Matrix. Dark Awakening The Return of Optimus Prime, Part 2

Beast Machines

After the Maximals returned to Cybertron and fell foul of Megatron's transformation virus, they were led to the Oracle by Optimus Primal. The Oracle reformatted them all into technorganic forms, becoming an amalgamation of technological and organic. The Reformatting Optimus himself was granted the ability to reformat other Transformers by channeling the Oracle's power. He first put it to use reformatting Nightscream into a technorganic bat. Forbidden Fruit Blackarachnia was able to trigger a total reformatting of Jetstorm by bringing him into prolonged contact with organic goo from Cybertron's core, combined with Rattrap's invention of a spark extractor combined with a DNA scanner. In Darkest Knight After a strange plant creature arrived on the planet, Primal realized it was a Transformer and reformatted it, revealing Botanica. Home Soil At the conclusion of the conflict, Primal and Megatron fell into Cybertron's organic core, which initiated the planet-wide reformat that left Cybertron a technorganic paradise.

Robots in Disguise cartoon

Megatron was reformatted into Galvatron after a failed attempt to seize the Orb of Sigma. He gained four new alternate modes and the power to drain energy from others. Peril from the Past

Cybertron cartoon

After Hot Shot, Red Alert and Scattorshot were mortally wounded by Megatron, the power of Primus reformatted them into the Cybertron Defense Team. Critical

Notes

• When the term was first introduced in Beast Machines, reformatting strictly referred to a process by which a Transformer's body is altered almost instantaneously from a mechanical to a technorganic form. In casual use among fans, the term is often applied more widely to any "instant" body change by some near omnipotent being, such as the Oracle, Unicron, or Primus. This usage was canonized by the glossary of the More Than Meets The Eye profiles books by Dreamwave Productions, which defined the term as "The process of upgrading or otherwise modifying an existing mechanical system or being. Can also be used to apply to other species/life forms."