Alliance

The name or term "Alliance" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Alliance (disambiguation).

« Transformers: Armada ep 49 »
"Alliance" 覚醒 (ゆにくろん) (Unicron) "Awakening: Unicron"
Production code	TF: A-49
Production company	TV Tokyo, NAS
Airdate	September 30, 2003 (English, United Kingdom) December 5, 2003 (Japanese) December 9, 2003 (English, United States)
Writer	Isao Shizuya
Director	Masayuki Motsumoto
Animation studio	Actas Inc.
Continuity	Unicron Trilogy

Starscream's sacrifice spurs the Autobots and the Decepticons to join forces. But Unicron awakens...

Synopsis

You failed, your highness. I'm a Jedi, like my father before me...yeah...

Demolishor is astonished to hear about the truce between the two armies and asks if Galvatron is functioning. Cyclonus is disgusted that they're doing this simply because the traitorous Starscream asked that they do it, but then suggests that they simply use the idea of a truce to ambush the Autobots. Outraged, Galvatron makes Cyclonus respect his authority with the usual amount of physical punishment. Galvatron is upset at how poorly things have turned out, but Starscream's sacrifice has convinced him: they're going to ally with the Autobots...for now in order to stop Unicron. Galvatron went far stating of the reasons of why Starscream rebelled against him in the first place, calling him a true soldier.

Not all Autobot spaceships know how to swim.

Seeing Galvatron's point of the crisis, the rest of the Decepticons agree to the truce, except for Cyclonus, who is still disgusted by this. Inside of Unicron, Thrust and Sideways plan their inevitable victory and conquest of the universe. The power of the Star Saber allows Unicron to shed the remains of his moon-disguise shell. The dark god hovers over Cybertron, sucking up parts of the terrain. Both armies evacuate the surface, assisted by the Mini-Con swarm.

In a ceremonial procedure, Galvatron and his Decepticons meet with Optimus Prime and the Autobots for a handshake to seal the truce. The leaders shake hands, and Perceptor also grabs on as his way of representing the allegiance of the Mini-Cons. The kids observe this, astonished that it's actually happening. Alexis begins to tear up and when Carlos asks her if she's all right, she says she was just remembering Starscream and how he would have loved to see this happening for himself. Forming a single front, the Autobot/Decepticon armada heads towards Unicron. The first volley of fire does no damage against their enemy. Two larger ships perform reconnaissance and are blasted, so a team of Hot Shot, Side Swipe, Demolishor, and Cyclonus (and some others) are sent in, based on a theory that smaller ships will elude Unicron's detection. On Unicron's surface, Cyclonus and the generics fly away to break stuff, and Demolishor leaves to avoid Hot Shot, leaving the two Autobots by themselves.

Balls of DOOOOM!!!!

Unicron's geography shifts and folds, disturbing his visitors and causing Demolishor to lose Blackout. From the base, Galvatron suggests another attack, which Optimus Prime makes sure won't harm the recon crew, who have their hands full fighting against swarms of Dead End Drones. Demolishor saves Cyclonus from falling into a fissure, while the Autobots assist their begrudging allies. Demolishor saves Side Swipe from falling into another fissure, and Hot Shot thanks the Decepticon by re-uniting Demolishor with Blackout—a tender moment. Optimus and Galvatron arrive to bring the group home.

From a distance, the armada witnesses Unicron complete his transformation into robot mode, ready to devour the planet.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Humans	Mini-Cons	Other
Scavenger (17) Optimus Prime (18) Side Swipe (19) Hoist (20) Blurr (21) Hot Shot (22) Red Alert (23) Jetfire (25) Generic Autobots	Demolishor (2) Galvatron (3) Cyclonus (4) Wheeljack (5) Tidal Wave (6) Generic Decepticons	Carlos (9) Rad (13) Alexis (14) Fred (15) Billy (16)	High Wire (10) Sureshock (11) Grindor (12) Perceptor (24) Blackout (26) Dead End Drones (27)	Unicron (1) Thrust (7) Sideways (8)

Quotes

Believe it or not, this is the correct scale between the two characters.

"Right now, all I can think about is the comrade we lost. Sure, he challenged my authority in a failed coup attempt, and even though Starscream was a traitor, he never lost sight of his oath to the Decepticons. He was a true soldier, unlike most of you!"

—Galvatron defends Starscream's memory from the jibes of the other Decepticons.

Demolishor: "I'm only doing this because I'm following Galvatron's orders."
Cyclonus: "Ha! I can't believe I'm fighting for harmony! What a load of bunk! I'm a lean, mean, fighting machine! Hahahaha!"
Side Swipe: "I gotta work with this guy? I'm not so sure about this."

—The truce gets off to a shaky start.

"Tidal Wave..."
"Uh...nice meetin' ya."

—Tidal Wave and Jetfire shaking hands.

"I can't believe I just saved Prime!"

—An incredulous Galvatron after he destroys a cannon targeted at Optimus Prime.

Notes

Differences with Legends of the Microns

• At the start of the episode, Demolishor and Cyclonus question Galvatron's decision to join the Autobots without moving their mouths. This is due to dub script extending their lines, as in the original they didn't speak during the shot where their faces are shown.
• The original has Demolishor lamenting Starscream's death, while in the Armada he claims he was a traitor who got what he deserved.

Animation and technical errors

• Strangely, some errors present are exclusive to Legends of the Microns, whereas as Armada actually fixes them up. Granted, it's a very small number and the episode is otherwise the same animation wise, but still odd, especially since it's always the opposite. This is the only episode of the entire cartoon that has this quirk, so guess someone must've messed up which version to send on broadcast. This includes:
  • When Galvatron delivers his speech after punching Cyclonus, Wheeljack is colored like Sparkplug. Armada has him colored properly(albeit with the red eyes remaining). However, in a later shot when the Decpticons are running, Wheeljack is once again incorrectly colored with Sparkplug's palette.
  • When Galvatron shoots at Unicron, his blaster is incorrectly colored white. Armada fixes this by making it the proper black dark gray and yellow.
  • When the Autobots and Decepticons go to Unicron with their pods, the former faction seemingly stop in the air when they are trying to land. Armada fixes this by making them actually land on the ground.
• At several points throughout the opening scene, the Decepticons are all drawn with hideously faulty character models with faulty proportions and lack of detail.
• As the Decepticons prepare to launch the ship to escape from Unicron's gravitational pull, generic Decepticons using Inferno, Mirage, and the Air Military Mini-Con Team's character models are standing in the ship's hangar bay.
• The Race Team Mini-Con Mirage appears among the Mini-Cons there, but he should be with Thrust inside Unicron by now, as the traitorous Decepticon had stolen the Skyboom Shield several episodes earlier. However, this could be just another case of model reuse.
• Several of the Mini-Cons protecting the Axalon and the Autobot fleet during the lift-off from Cybertron use Generation 1 character models instead of Mini-Con character models.
• The four generic Decepticons on the mission to Unicron change colour between each shot.
• When Jet Optimus attacks the Dead End Drones surrounding Hot Shot and Demolishor's recon team, the laser blast comes from in front of the first drone destroyed, rather than behind (the direction from which Prime is coming).
• Unless size changing occurs when Galvatron and Tidal Wave combine, there's no way Galvatron should be able to pick up Demolishor and Cyclonus with each hand.
• When shaking hands with Tidal Wave, Jetfire's wings are shortened to just above his head. This is possibly to continue the tradition of exaggerating Tidal Wave's size.
  • Oddly, despite the change in length of his wings, the characters are drawn to be in accurate scale with one another.

Continuity notes

• Despite destroying Starscream for firing upon him in the previous episode, Unicron doesn't seem to mind Galvatron doing exactly the same thing.
• Assuming the episode was entirely in real-time, Unicron's transformation took close to seven minutes.
• The three Mini-Con super weapons are used to fully restore Unicron's power. Guess the Mini-Cons really are Unicron's cells.
• Unicron's innards appear to be technorganic.
• Gadgets and powers:
  • Unicron eats parts of Cybertron through his planet form's mouth.
  • Unicron fires lasers from the chunks on the right side of his planet mode (the ones that house the Mini-Con gimmick to fire the leg missiles on the toy).
  • Mid-transformation, Unicron uses his shoulder/planet houns to fire an energy beam at Jet Optimus.
  • The inside of Hot Shot's shin apparently has hollow space, big enough to store a Mini-Con. As an added piece of toy acurracy, his shins open on the transformation hinges of his toy.
  • Unicron his a surface-based turret he uses to try to shoot Optimus in the back.

Continuity errors

• What's with Demolishor claiming that Starscream got what he deserved when except for Thrust, he has shown to care about his comrades? Also, why does Cyclonus the only who got punched by Galvatron when all he asked was if they could double cross the Autobots when Demolishor actually insulted Starscream? Legends of the Microns fixes these errors by having Demolishor lament about Starscream's death and Cyclonus say that he died for nothing, making Galvatron's actions far more justified.
• Why would Hot Shot hostility tell Demolishor to be quiet even though the latter just said he doesn't want to get shot by Unicron? No wonder the Decepticons didn't want to join forces with the Autobots if this is how they get treated. Legends of the Microns changes Demolishor's line to him saying that the Autobots sound overly optimistic, as well as Hot Shot's line to him responding with "What was that?!"
• Cyclonus is in danger of falling into a hole, having apparently forgotten that he can fly, which he was doing moments before. It's possible that he's just that stupid, but not likely.

Transformers references

• Several parts of Unicron's transformation sequence are clearly a visual homage to his transformation in The Transformers: The Movie.

Trivia

Galvatron...Emperor Palpatine...What's the difference?

• The English version of "Alliance" first aired in the United Kingdom. It aired in the United States on December 9, 2003.
• Various cameos appear in the hand-shaking scene, including Soundwave and a palette-swapped Dead End of the Stunticons.
• The generic Decepticons sent to Unicron to assist the named characters have Generation 1 character models (namely Astrotrain, Blitzwing, Bonecrusher and Buster) but with radically different color schemes. They totally all died.
• Various generic Mini-Cons use the Generation 1 Throttlebot designs.
• Unicron's transformation sequence, while homaging the Generation 1 version of the sequence, also transforms accurately to the toy.
• Yes, the combined forces of Autobots, Decepticons, and Mini-Cons is what the "Armada" in the title of the series stands for.
• Legends of the Microns Year Book 2003 has some interesting tidbits:
  • Cyclonus saying that fighting is the only thing makes him feel alive might be one of his few highlights.
  • The time during the making of these last episodes were particularly difficult. Everyone was desperate for the final episode to be finished and only such a difficult thing was remembered.
    • Munetaka Abe was busy with animating Starscream's death in "Cramp", Unicron's transformation in this episode, Overload's robot mode in "Union", and being the animation director for "Mortal Combat". When commenting on Unicron's transformation, Abe stated he used quite a bit of motion tweens so that the animation doesn't take too much time to work on due to the amount of work. It was hard but he had a lot of fun.
    • Hidehito Ueda was troubled with the storyboards for "Portent", "Union", and "Mortal Combat", while Takeshi Sano and Masami Nagata worked as the storyboarder and animation director respectively for "Drift" and "Origin".

Foreign localization

German

• Title: "Mit vereinten Kräften" ("With Joint Forces")
• Original airdate: 13 January 2004

Hungarian

• Title: "Felderítés" ("Recon")

Portuguese

• Title: "Aliança" ("Alliance")

Home video releases

All releases listed are in English audio unless otherwise noted.

DVD

2004 — Transformers: Legends of the Microns — Volume 13 (Columbia Music Entertainment) — Japanese audio only.
2006 — Transformers: Armada — Season One: Part Two (Rhino Entertainment)
2009 — Transformers: Armada — Volume Two (New KSM) — English and German audio.
2014 — Transformers: Armada — The Complete Series (Shout! Factory)