Other Voices, Part 1

« Beast Wars: Transformers ep 25 »
Another floating head!?
"Other Voices" Part 1
Airdate	March 31, 1997
Written by	Larry DiTillio Bob Forward
Directed by	Colin Davies
Animation studio	Mainframe Entertainment
Continuity	Beast Wars continuity

The plans of both Megatron and the mysterious aliens are coming to a head as one of the two moons transforms.

French title: Les Voix d'Autre Monde - 1^re partie ("The Voices from Another World - Part 1")

French-Canadian title: Les Voix 1 ("The Voices 1")

Japanese title: 恐怖の大王現る! (Kyōfu no Daiō Arawareru!, "The King of Terror Arrives!")

Latin-American title: Otras Voces Primera Parte

Italian title: L'arrivo - Parte 1 ("The arrival - Part One")

Brazilian title: Outras Vozes Parte 1

Synopsis

Some women can't be trusted, especially spiders.

In a flash of light, a power anomaly emerges from a wormhole above the planet and descends to the surface. The aliens have arrived.

Rhinox detects the arrival and alerts Optimus, who hopes the truce is still holding. He flies off to meet Airazor and Rattrap at the landing site located in Grid Trion.

Tarantulas is programming his stolen Transwarp cell, when Blackarachnia pays him another visit. She tells him she can get them inside the Maximal base to steal a stasis pod. Megatron monitors the entire discussion between the two spiders and sends Waspinator to the location the aliens are anticipated to arrive at.

Rattrap and Airazor reach the site, which is a large circular plaza of stone, pulsing with energy and containing a stable energon crystal. When Airazor tries to scan it, it zaps her, blasts Rattrap away, and engulfs the entire site inside an organic dome-like structure with Airazor inside

The aliens don't like mimes in an invisible box.

Airazor awakens inside the "nutty alien bungalow", where a garbled alien voice speaks to her. She assures the aliens she means them no harm, but they have no such compunctions and painfully scan her until she converts to beast mode. After the scan ends, they are left with one word of information: "Cybertron".

Outside, Waspinator arrives to "secure the area", but Rattrap drives him off with a vigorous bout of fisticuffs.

Primal arrives and surveys the situation. Rattrap's efforts to use a laser to cut through the dome structure are ineffective. Megatron then arrives with Terrorsaur and Scorponok. He mocks Optimus for thinking that simple laser could get through the structure, commenting that the aliens can "create energon itself." He then has Scorponok fire a "toxic sting" that eats through the structure. Primal and Rattrap venture inside; Rattrap drags the semi-conscious Airazor out, while Primal stays to confront the aliens. A series of whip-like metal tentacles ensnare him and lift him up into an agonizing scanning grid.

Tarantulas and Blackarachnia have made their way to the Maximal base, where Blackarachnia activates a device that creates a small opening in the shields. The spiders move in, unaware that they are being followed by Inferno, who notes that they're up to no good and develops his own entry by digging a tunnel below ground.

Rattrap pulls Airazor out through Scorponok's opening just before it self-seals, to find himself facing Predacon guns. The truce is over.

Primal usually has to pay for this treatment.

Primal's scan ends, and to address him, the aliens (having no form he could comprehend) take the form of a "figure of authority"—the head of Unicron. The aliens tell him that the Transformers have contaminated their experiment, which will be "sterilized". Primal pleads for a chance to fix the damage, and for the lives of the planet's native creatures, but the aliens are dismissive, citing greater dangers unknown to Primal. The conversation ends with the aliens activating a "termination sequence".

That can't be good...

The alien construct begins to pulse with building energy. The distraction proves enough for Rattrap and Airazor to overpower the Predacons. With renewed urgency, Primal breaks his bonds and flies right through the dome; the Maximals beat a hasty retreat—as the dome bursts open, spewing a directed geyser of energy into the sky. The energy activates hidden systems on the second moon, burning away its earthen surface to reveal an endless grid of weapon-like emplacements that being powering up. The moon itself begins to change its shape, and the alien energies cause the orbiting stasis pods to tumble out of orbit.

Rhinox observes all this at the Maximal base, taking measures to track what's happening even as the sensors begin to fritz out. Thus engaged, he doesn't see the spiders coming up behind him till it's too late. Dinobot is likewise gunned down in short order. Staring at Rhinox's displays, Blackarachnia wonders what they're looking at, to which Tarantulas replies: "The beginning...of the end."

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Maximals	Predacons
Rhinox (1) Optimus Primal (2) Airazor (7) Rattrap (8) Dinobot (12)	Tarantulas (3) Blackarachnia (4) Megatron (5) Waspinator (6) Scorponok (9) Terrorsaur (10) Inferno (11)

Quotes

"Not fair! Waspinator always gets slag assignments."
"May I remind Waspinator that the current ceasefire applies only in reference to Maximals."
"gulp, Waspinator go."

—Waspinator and Megatron discuss the fine print.

[Rattrap has just brutalized Waspinator]
"I swear, I can't take you anywhere!"
"Hey, e-heh, just keeping the peace."

—Optimus Primal and Rattrap

"We can't leave Optimus in there!"
"Hey, ours is not to reason why, but to blow dis joint before we die!"

—Airazor and Rattrap

"Aah, would I could have that sound to lull me to sleep each night."

—Megatron enjoying the soothing lullaby of Optimus Primal's agonized screams

"It is too late. You and your enemies have already contaminated the project. The harm has been done. That which does not become part of the one—shall become void."
"No—wait! We can fix whatever damage was done."
"We are not interested. The experiment will be sterilized."
"You can't do that! There are living creatures here. You, with all your power—even you have no right!"

—The Vok refuse to bargain with Optimus Primal

Notes

• This is the first of several episodes centered on the aliens, all with "Other V*"-styled titles: "Other Voices", "Other Visits", "Other Victories".
• Bob Forward has said this was originally meant to be a 4-parter but the plans were changed at the last minute—"Apparently anything more than a two-parter is too hard to schedule".
• After Waspinator is defeated by Rattrap, he has exactly the voice you'd expect from someone who's been kicked in the nards.
• "Scan complete, this is the specimen we analyzed before."—The Vok previously analyzed Optimus in "Chain of Command".
• The Vok's Unicron hologram is solely a visual reference, and is not meant to suggest any connection between the aliens and Unicron.
• The Unicron hologram's statement "That which does not become part of the one—shall become void" may be a reference to Unicron's quote from Transformers Universe: "That which does not become a part of me shall become one with the great void." It might also be a twisted reference to a certain Autobot mantra, which wouldn't be the first or last of such references.
• At the beginning of the episode, Tarantulas has a series of purple bars and a series of red bars on a computer screen. In Cybertronix, they are labeled "bass" and "treble."
• While the Vok claim to have a form we can't comprehend and that "there is more danger than you know" if they don't destroy Earth, neither idea ever came up again.
• This is the last multi-parter to feature a "Next time on Beast Wars" segment.

Miscellaneous trivia

• The start of the audio commentary for this episode with fan consultant Ben Yee and story editor Larry DiTillio on the Madman Entertainment Beast Wars Season 1 DVD is almost inaudible. As Larry DiTillio is trying to explain something, something happens that is very difficult to make out, with Ben Yee suggesting they start over.

Home video releases

All releases listed are in English audio unless otherwise noted.

VHS

1998 — Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers — To Protect the Peace... (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
2001 — Beast Wars: Transformers — The Beginning: Vol. 4 (Universal)

Laserdisc

1998 — Beast Wars: Transformers — Predacon Edition (Pioneer LDC) — English and Japanese audio.

DVD

2000 — Beast Wars: Transformers — DVD Box (Pioneer LDC) — English and Japanese audio.
2003 — Beast Wars: Transformers — The Complete First Season (Rhinomation)
2005 — Beast Wars — Classic Episodes: Volume 4 — The Predacons Advance! (Alliance Atlantis) — English and French audio.
2005 — Beast Wars — The Complete First Season (Alliance Atlantis) — English and French audio.
2006 — Beast Wars: Transformers — Season 1 (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — The Transformers: Beast Wars — Complete Collection (Madman Entertainment)