Dinobot War

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He no Slag, but him still tasty!
"Dinobot War"
Publisher	Corgi Books
Imprint	Young Corgi Adventure/Adventure Game Books
First published	1985
Writers	Dave Morris
Illustrator	Bob Harvey (interior pencils and cover painting)
ISBN	ISBN 0-552-523143 ISBN 9780552523141
Page count	71

You have an adventure back in time where you meet the Dinobots.

Synopsis

You are enjoying your first visit to Disneyland, California when you encounter strange goings-on at an unfinished attraction called the Wizard's Cave. Investigating further, you discover strange suited men and a scientist inside the cave, where they have recovered a number of items from a buried flying saucer. It is one of these items, a metal sphere, that transports you to a mysterious jungle. There you encounter the Dinobots, a group of robotic dinosaurs who tell you that you have travelled four million years back in time and that you may have brought back two present-day Decepticons with you!

The cassettes Ravage and Laserbeak plan to find the Ark and destroy the Autobots lying in stasis within, and the Dinobots must stop them. When you describe the flying saucer whose contents brought you here, Swoop says that he saw a similar craft land recently and Grimlock insists that you investigate, as the saucer is in a cave with an entrance too low for your Dinobot allies. Once inside you encounter the aliens that pilot the craft, as well as the two deadly Decepticons. Thinking fast, you run into the spaceship and use its contents to return to your own time.

Endings

As a multipath adventure, there are a number of ways in which this story can end for you. Unusually, "Dinobot War" has two paths that lead to the "main" ending:

• You use the same time-sphere that sent you into the past to return to the future, which also removes Ravage and Laserbeak from the past.
• The aliens use the time-sphere to displace themselves and the cassettes. You use a Stasis Gun to freeze yourself and re-awaken in the present day.
• You are turned away from The Wizard's Cave by a security guard. You miss out on the adventure of a lifetime but at least you get a milkshake and a burger.
• You are killed by Ravage. Sometimes he shoots you with his proton missiles, more often he rips you to shreds.
• You "share the intimacy of hunter and victim" with a sabre-toothed cat, who eats you.
• Laserbeak shoots you with his lasers and you die in agony.
• You are unable to find a way to return to your own time and live out your life with the Dinobots, four million years in the past.

Featured characters

Autobots	Decepticons	Humans	Others
Grimlock Sludge Swoop Slag Snarl	Ravage Laserbeak	You	Time-travelling aliens

The order in which the characters appear depends on the path you take through the book.

Notes

• All Transformers' names are printed in CAPITAL LETTERS.
• Ravage's alternate mode is labelled as the soundtrack to Cats. In jaguar mode, his eyes are green.
• The Dinobots' chronology is not clear—they are familiar with "puny humans" but no mention is made of how (or if) they travelled back through time. They say that all the Autobots (and Decepticons) are inactive aboard the Ark but not whether their past versions are amongst them. Whichever way the story ends they remain trapped in prehistoric California with no way to return to the present but wait, though this is pretty much an occupational hazard for a Dinobot.
• The Triceratops on the front cover is revealed to be a hologram projected by the aliens as a defence mechanism.
• This must be the only time in the whole Generation 1 continuity family where a human has found a Walkman that didn't later turn out to be Soundwave in disguise.

Advertisements

• Inside the front cover is an advert for the UK comic, using a piece of artwork that depicts Jetfire's unused character model fighting Megatron.
• At the end of the story are adverts for other Young Corgi books "Peril from the Stars" and "T.R.Bear: Enter T.R." by Terrance Dicks.