Micro-Aggressions
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| "Micro-Aggressions" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | Transformers Collectors' Club (online exclusive) | ||||||||||||
| First published | April 2, 2016 | ||||||||||||
| By | Jim Sorenson | ||||||||||||
| Illustrations by | Christopher Colgin | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | Beast Wars: Uprising | ||||||||||||
| Chronology | early 25th century | ||||||||||||
| Page count | 15pp | ||||||||||||
Old heroes of the Great War now find each other on opposite sides in the Grand Uprising.
Synopsis
Long before the Uprising, Grimlock and Hot Rod 'downsized' at war's end. But Grimlock illegally had his mind put into a Maximal protoform and tried to kill the Builder Assembly. While Hot Rod has tried to reform the corrupt system from the inside, convincing others to become Micromasters and forming a cross-faction alliance, Grimlock wants to rip down the whole stinking edifice. Hot Rod sees Grimlock and the resistance as wrecking any chance, while Grimlock sees the Autobot as a traitor to his badge.
Bladez, Pincher and their mercenary Predacon crew formed a monstrous combiner and raided the Forever Vaults, killing all guards but Cop-Tur, to retrieve the "G-virus". After putting the word out, Grimlock arrives to buy it. In payment, they get all the information the resistance has on the Human Confederation...
At "Micropolis", a de facto city contructed from Micromaster bases, Hot Rod has been fully fuelled—a rare occurance on the fuel-starved Cybertron—and called in for a mission. His command team inform him of the threat and that the Assembly would like the G-virus back in one piece. (Hot Rod is not impressed with that requirement) Knowing how Grimlock thinks, Hot Rod realises the rebel will deploy the virus at the next Games—where Councillor Ratbat will be present, showing the world that everything is under control, and where resistance prisoners are being forced to fight to the death!
Grimlock finds his small crew having a fun game of "everyone punch everyone" and snaps them out of it, before they make a sneak attack on the Games. The Builders have an ambush set up though and Grimlock's team, despite giving as good as they get, is rapidly whittled down while Hot Rod engages Grimlock directly! The two fight viciously, each accusing the other of brutal moral failings, but the advantage is with the rebels: the Builders are too sluggish to evacuate the area and can't even tell there's a real fight on. When Snapper, the last rebel standing, steps in, nothing can stop the G-virus being used...
...until Hot Rod tells Snapper what it is: all that remains of the mad tyrant Galvatron, the absolute worst Transformer to ever live, after his vivisection. The virus will turn everyone it touches into Galvatron replicas! Grimlock admits to it, saying this will terrify the Assembly and undermine their ability to function by turning twenty thousand necessary Builders into psychopaths. But while the Builders are too fuel-starved to move, the Maximals and Predacons in the arena are not and will be transformed as well!
Snapper destroys the virus, causing Grimlock to swear the resistance will have him killed, and surrenders to Hot Rod. The Autobot promises the Predacon will be well treated and kept out of the Games.
And in the Micropolis infirmary, Cop-Tur succumbs to that brief exposure he had to the virus on its theft. Galvatron gets out of bed, kills the nurse, and drives out to Primus knows where...
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Maximals | Predacons | Builders | Others |
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Quotes
"You've always gone too far, Grimlock!"
"And you never go too far enough, 'Chosen One'!"
—Hot Rod vs Grimlock
Notes
- Characters mentioned but who do not appear include: the Master, Hornet, Scorp, Lio Convoy, Primus, Crumplezone, Fortress Maximus, Road Police, a "monstrous" Predacon combiner, Cop-Tur, Black Out, Search, K-9, the Aerialbots, the Protectobots, the Constructicons, Megatron/Galvatron, and Unicron.
Errors
Continuity notes
- Greasepit and Hot Rod remember the events of "Head Games", where friends and comrades got massacred. This is attributed to the poor suckers being on quarter-ration fuel as security guards weren't considered important enough. Greasepit specifically mentions the death of Crumplezone.
Transformers references
- Grimlock was made into a Beast Wars character by the toyline, and The Gathering and Beast Wars Sourcebook established that he did indeed stuff his spark into a protoform.
- A Micromaster Hot Rod came with the Star Convoy toy, and thus his base is called the Star Convoy.
- Hot Rod refers to convincing the Protectobots, Aerialbots, and Constructicons to downsize, all of whom had Micromaster combiner sets in Universe.
GoBots references
- It's already been established that GoBots are hiding out in Primax 209.0 Gamma, integrating themselves in with the local Predacons, in "Ask Vector Prime, 14/5/2015". Both Bladez and Pincher were Monster GoBots in the Challenge of the GoBots series.
- Cop-Tur survived as the GoBots weren't sure if that was their Cop-Tur.
- Bladez swears by the Master Renegade, his creator.
- There isn't a Monster GoBots combiner but there is a monster GoBot combiner callecd Monsterous, which "Renegade Rhetoric" debuted as a Predacon combiner!
Real world references
- The title references microaggression theory: "brief, everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages to certain individuals because of their group membership."
- The G-virus may be a nod to the Resident Evil maguffin.
Other trivia
External links
- "Micro-Aggressions" at The Official Transformers Collectors' Club
