Derailment
| |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
| "Derailment" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | Transformers Collectors' Club (online exclusive) | ||||||||||||
| First published | December 27, 2016 | ||||||||||||
| By | Jim Sorenson and David Bishop | ||||||||||||
| Art | Guido Guidi, Jesse Wittenrich, Christopher Colgin, Josh Burcham, Matt Frank, and Goncalo Lopes | ||||||||||||
| Editor | Jesse Wittenrich | ||||||||||||
| Cover | Christopher Colgin | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | Beast Wars: Uprising | ||||||||||||
| Chronology | Circa 2390 | ||||||||||||
| Page count | 179pp | ||||||||||||
It's Galva Convoy's Vehicons versus Cybertron as the Grand Uprising reaches its explosive finale.
Synopsis
Part 1—Drowning in the Depth of the Lethe
V minus 2.72 solar cycles...
The Resistance hold half of Cybertron, the Independent Predacus States and Maximal Nation another 20%, some of the local warlords like Shokaract are willing to cooperate with the Resistance for concessions, and the Builders are digging in, while satellite communication has ceased. At Resistance HQ at Stanix, nobody's happy that the Tripredacus Alliance is demanding so much territory in exchange for cooperating. Lio Convoy plans to offer Burthov (majority Pred anyway) and use the demands to push them to help take Kaon faster—and he certainly doesn't intend to make sure Predacus will border the Maximal Nation as both a check and to encourage the latter to expand to more Builder lands—but either way, Preditron will have to be killed 'deniably'. And while Lio Convoy finds that distasteful, that is why they rescued him. The only other main strategic issue is Carpessa and Damaxus have gone silent. Lio orders this checked.
In secret, he's feeling disquiet about all the 'greater good' atrocities he's been doing and wonders when exactly the bill is going to turn up...
V minus 0.64...
Buzz Saw and Stormrazor are the ones off to the island of Daxamus, passing through the storm-ridden Rust Sea, and they find thousands of protoforms building vast structures there even though Stormrazor's picking up no life signs. These thousands all have just three identical forms. And the jet-formers make the two out and attack, and even though Stormrazor sacrifices himself so Buzz Saw can get away, the wasp is too scared to risk himself sending their report back and surrenders instead. Instead he is killed and his dying body converted into one of the enemy, his last thought that being shot dead would have been better.
V minus 0.22...
Eject's grand scheme of Galva Convoy creating an army of loyal killers has finally come to pass, as Galva Convoy has developed the Vehicon! Obedient and fearless, these drones convert other protoforms into more Vehicons and will put an end to the Resistance. Nobody cares about your ethical issues, Hot Rod! Just to be on the safe side, Eject has made sure that General Order 66—no Vehicons into the Builder-held arctic without a majority vote in the Assembly—is hardwired into their CNA, and then infected a few Builder-loyal troops with the Vehicon virus so they'd be taken prisoner and spread it all about the enemy.
With Carpessa and Daxamus being successful tests, Eject knows victory is in sight and also knows what an irredeemable thing he's done. To his great shame, he also finds the Resistance are now running their own Games, the very Games he invented, with the POWs he'd set up. He tells himself the Vehicons will rebuild Cybertron and benefit both Builder and protoformer once the war's over.
V minus 0.17...
A storm is raging over Harmonex and base guard Magna Stampede is bloody sick of waiting for Stockade to get in already. Fretting something's gone wrong, he calls a replacement guard and goes off looking for his partner. He finds the city dark from power outage and Vehicons creeping about, attacking anyone they run into. Discovering they're jamming all radio transmissions, he fires a flare up to alert the others. Stockade arrives in time to drive them off but is infected, and to Magna's horror she begins to transform into a tank drone. Passing Resistance forces then mistake her for a hostile. To Magna's greater horror, his still-living partner is deemed incurable and, as he passes out, CatSCAN surgically removes her spark, killing her, for study.
V minus 0.02...
Lio Convoy is involved in his daily media check, listening in from each faction's official broadcasts (the new Voice of Maximals channel is proving very good) to the scattered local broadcasters. That's how he first learns...
V
...about the Vehicon infection breaking out at Protihex. There's very few soldiers in range of Protihex and if it falls to this threat, all of Resistance territory is at risk! Realising the sudden radio loss and, he now realises, the Builder's far too easy evacuation from lower Ky-Alexia was all part of this plan, he declares a war council in three cycles.
In Proximax, the Ex-Bots—minus Rampage who's off on a personal mission—are trying to capture Tarantulas, who plans to use the Robo-Smasher to conquer the city, without harming the civilians that are all over the place. He's effortlessly getting away from them and they can't pull out their big guns like Devastator without injuring anyone, and to add insult to injury the spider has hacked into their comms to diss them. To Snapper's dismay, Tarantulas has backup in the form of a Robo-Smashed Grimlock! The Dinobot is too much for them to easily handle and Stiletto is having problems fighting Tarantulas on his own. She can, however, boast to the villain they've been jamming the signal he'd send to the Smasher since the jump; always a good idea to have Overshoot's ghost around to find such things out! When Grimlock gets too close to Stiletto, the signal's jammed for him too and he batters Tarantulas into submission before also agreeing to be arrested. But as Tarantulas laughs that the apocalypse has already started anyway, Overshoot warns Stiletto of what's going on in Protihex and soon Nova Cronum too.
At 05:56, the sun rose again.
At V plus 0.57, the Vehicons have overrun all the Resistance's rear echelons. Cheetor's crew have fought their way free of Protihex and to Ser-Ket's anger, both he and Preditron agree they should flee to the Maximal Nation for help. And in an act of severe desperation, against most of the Resistance's command rank, Lio Convoy has ordered the K-Class to be used: four Commando Micromasters who had volunteered to be an ultimate deterrent weapon and found themselves nuclear suicide bombers. Jeepers is on Daxamus, Dangar sent to Carpessa, and a resigned Movor is to be dropped on Protihex. When footage comes in of the bombings, Lio Convoy forces himself to look.
With Jetstorms shooting down the Dreadrock, Movor has to jump early but decides not to deploy, believing no threat is worth wholesale slaughter. But when he falls, and realises exactly what's going on as he plummets, he's armed remotely by Lio Convoy. At this range, other cities are in the blast radius but there's little choice.
Only ninety-three protoformers were still alive in Protihex but thousands more in nearby Nuon and Lower Petrohex when Movor detonates. The resulting hole in the planet's crust is greater than Rodimus' Folly.
Southeast Protihex has survived due to the early detonation and the Vehicons still around shoot down Dreadrock. Bitter that the Vehicons have survived this last resort, Lio Convoy orders all available reserves (i.e. anywhere where Builders aren't an active threat) to rally at Upper Petrohex and that 'Rageland' will be offered Praxis if Rage, next on the Vehicon's list if they fall, shows up to help.
Cheetor's crew have made it to the Maximal Nation when they come under fire by the skittish locals, who are jamming their attempts at hailing in fear the virus is wirelessly transmitted. Ser-Ket has to fly out to make contact before they're allowed to land.
The Resistance reserves, many horrified at what happened and openly talking about Petrohex seceding from the Resistance, gather as the ash from the detonation makes the night grow darker. A few thousand incoming Jetstorms turn the offensive into a defensive but with their limited minds, the Vehicons prove unable to evade the barrage of anti-aircraft fire. Twinstrike, part of Coelagon's troops and one with limited gun range, is depressed he's missing the scrap until he spots an incoming Thrust army. Soon it becomes clear the sheer number of hostiles is going to soak up all the Resistance firepower and some guns are already overheating, and the Tankors are already moving in. That's good for Twinstrike as it means he has a reason to charge 'em in beast mode! This fails. As Twinstrike watches, Coelagon and hundreds of others are forcibly converted as the front collapses, and those who die like Judora are considered lucky. And thus, with Spittor's help, Twinstrike sets off his internal phlogiston reserves and blows up everything in a fifty-metre radius.
By V Plus 1.42, Petrohex, Polyhex, and Dodecahex are all being overrun and the Resistance is going to be facing three hundred and fifty thousand more Vehicons: the Resistance as a whole only has 380,000. In the face of this threat, surrender is on the table. But the very existence of Vehicons means that if they do surrender, the Builders will now use Vehicon conversion on any who cross them rather than merely the Games and so surrender cannot be broked.
So with the Vehicons something they can't directly stop, Lio Convoy announces they'll force the Builders to call them off by escalating at the front line and seizing Iacon tonight!
Part 2—Burned by the Banks of the Phlegethon
Part 3—Frozen the Flow of the Cocytus
Part 4—Slaughter at the Source of the Styx
Part 5—Succor at the Shores of the Acheron
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
Quotes
Snapper: It's one 'bot! He's making us look like amateurs!
Crazybolt: We are amateurs!
Bazooka: Talented amateurs!
"No, you were mine! I controlled you!"
"Me Grimlock obfuscating."
- —Tarantulas learns a little too late he underestimated someone.
"If there is a more honest mech than Cheetor, I have yet to meet him."
"Thanks."
"It wasn't a compliment."
- —Preditron defends Cheetor, sort of.
"This content patch was awesome!"
- —Bisk takes the Vehicon apocalypse in stride.
Notes
Errors
Continuity notes
- Characters mentioned but not depicted include: Ikard, Longhorn, Pyra Magna, Soundbite, Triceradon, Jeepers, Mega-Dolrailer, Dangar, Wing Saber, Legend Majora, Dragoyell, Solomus, Dynobot, Epistemus, Adaptus, Shutterbug, Skurge, Bigmos, Refute, Trip-Up, Kingbolt, Diablo, Mortilus, Depthcharge, Trailcutter, Brim-Stone, Zarak, MegaZarak, Thunderwing, Powerbomb, Dropshot, Optimus Prime, Diac, Apex, the original Megatron, Nitrostreak, Sky-Byte, and Maxima.
- It's the finale, so every previous Uprising story gets a nod.
- The Vehicons were introduced in the previous story, the result of Galva Convoy's work from "Not All Megatrons".
- Hot Rod, his Micromaster underlings, and Big Grim himself return from "Micro-Aggressions".
- The kill order on Preditron was also established in "Safe Spaces", as was Preditron's friendship with Cheetor.
- Stiletto, Snapper, the Constructicons, and what's left of the Dinosaur crew return from "Cultural Appropriation".
- Megatron, Scorponok, Terrorsaur, Wasp, Leatherhide, and Packrat return from "Not All Megatrons".
- Tarantulas returns from "Trigger Warnings".
- A nod is made to Dynobot and the resistance cell from "Alone Together: Prologue", the first nod to Chopperface and the gang in the text stories. Better late than never.
- In just the previous story, the Resistance were using the lobotomized body of Star Dasher as a transport. This story reveals the poor glitch wasn't the only unfortunate they've done this to.
- Lio Minor (a renamed Lio Junior) previously appeared as a member of the yet-to-be-identified Maximal Command Security Force in "Perception".
- Queen Rage has been mentioned several times through the text stories, as having seized an entire city state for herself. We finally get to meet her.
- In the previous story's map, Praxus was misspelled as "Praxis". This story reconciles that "Praxus" is an older, traditional spelling which has somewhat fallen out of favor by the present timeframe.
- Beast Wars Scourge appeared in "Broken Windshields" with his name spelled in said manner although "A Brush With Infamy" parsed the original Scourge's name the same way. It is revealed that Skurge likes to parse his name like the original, though some such as Queen Rage refuse to indulge his affectation.
- Scylla spoke with a stereotypical pirate speech pattern in "Broken Windshields", in keeping with her original characterization as a Seacon Space Pirate. This story therefore puts her in a high-ranking position in the Resistance's navy. Her high rank probably has something to do with the fact that she was part of the Resistance before Lio Convoy or Blackarachnia, as shown in "Broken Windshields"
- Megatron and co. have managed to nab Klaws, the last of the Antares Eight left from "Cultural Appropriation", whose fate was left hanging.
- Galvatron finally reveals the identity of "Triple-Threat Prime", and it is in fact Optimus himself. Galvatron also notes that Diac replaced Optimus' "mangled face", which could be a reference to the state of Optimus per "A Change to the Agenda"... or something else, since ol' Galvatron never actually specifies how Optimus' face got mangled... and he's not remembering all of it properly.
- This story identifies Diac as having been killed by Galvatron, explaining why he was the only member of the Optimus not to be binary-bonded with Triple-Threat Prime in "A Brush With Infamy".
- Galvatron's got an immunity to the Vehicon hordes because he owes his origin to the G-Virus, as do the Vehicons themselves, since they're born from Galva Convoy, also created by mucking around with the original Galvatron's remains.
- Aura and Stiletto's not-so-joyous reunion brings up the events depicted in the flashbacks of "Burning Bridges", namely Stiletto being sent to the mnemosurgeon on Aura's orders, along with Wolfgang's nature and death from "Trigger Warnings".
- Lord Imperious Delirious turns out to be the mastermind behind the Vehicons, the autonomous mechanical lifeforms which remove the spark of any Cybertronian they come across. He previously expressed distaste with Cybertronian life back in "Intersectionality", during which he was revelaed to have survived the destruction of his body as an electronic being. 'Not All Megatrons" showed that someone was influencing Galva Convoy's meditations, and "Cultural Appropriation" revealed that a "unique digital entity" was frustrated that they had failed to trigger a Terran-born apocalypse on Cybertron with the Antares Eight's plot.
- The epilogue identifies Artemis, where Thunderwing was said to have found the Underbase back in "Not All Megatrons", as an alternate name for Luna 2, with Luna 1 and Luna 3 receiving the names Hecate and Selene.
Transformers references
- The Uprising iteration of Big Convoy is named Slammoth, one of the unused possible names for Victorion in the Fan Built Bot program.
- Magna Stampede identifies as the great-nephew of Pyra Magna, much like how Rattrap once referred to Arcee as his great-aunt.
- The Uprising version of Steel Jaw leads the Pack, much as his Robots in Disguise counterpart led another pack.
- Several characters throughout the story swear by members of the Guiding Hand
- This story introduces Tigatron and Airazor to the mix, the two having been the only members of Beast Wars' main cast not to have appeared previously.
- Cheetor and Tigatron call one another "big cat" and "little cat" respectively, as their counterparts in the Beast Wars cartoon did.
- Queen Rage's aide is Flytrap, a character based on an unused concept for a triffid-based Transformer from the Beast Wars Telemocha Series. Her general Manticon is the manticore design, leaving Rage as the third design, a jellyfish (since her original incarnation was, you guessed it, a jellyfish).
- Tidal Wave is a mode-locked Builder repurposed as a warship, similarly to his non-sentient Wings Universe counterpart.
- As he confronts the Builder Assembly, Lio Convoy punctuates his terms for surrender by solemnly *doink*ing his staff on the floor. "*Doink*" enjoyed a short-lived run as a meme in the fandom after 2016's Combiner Wars cartoon, based on the poorly edited SFX of the Mistress of Flame's hammer.
- Ratbat winds up getting turned into a Diagnostic Drone by the Vehicons.
- Leatherhide's mad science has now produced such things as the mighty Fuzors and Horrorcons.
- Goldbug communicates entirely through music clips after his voice box was damaged, just like a more famous Bumblebee.
- Proving some things just don't ever change, Wasp is "picked" as the guinea-pigatron for Leatherhide and Labrat's little experiment. His just narrowly avoiding becoming a Vehicon himself is a nod to his time as Thrust during Beast Machines, and his new body is based on his Timelines "Thrustinator" toy.
- Lord Imperious Delirious being a product of Gorlam Prime's civilization harkens back to its appearance in the IDW universe, where its inhabitants had begun to augment themselves with cybernetic technology.
- Know that Razor-Claw appears, using a speaking pattern based on his memorable speech from "Abduction".
- The epilogue notes that Optimal, one of the Maximals in the newly-formed Parliament, is an "enormous" orange-and-blue quad changer, i.e. someone with Optimus Primal's "Optimal Optimus" form.
- The unnamed head (tee hee) of the Maximal Academy who joined the High Council is Under-3, a Happy Meal toy from the original Beast Wars toyline, known as "Lionhead" in Japan. As "Unit-3", he was a previous member of the Council's Magnaboss combination in the BotCon 2016 story "Dawn of the Predacus". A sideways reference to him is made when Cheetor rejected council membership, and Tigatron said there were "under three" candidates left.
- Shadow Panther appears, with the mention of rumors suggesting he's a Builder rebuilt into a Predacon body. Pfft! What a foolish idea.
Real-world references
- Blackarachnia refers to Lio Convoy first as Aslan, then as Mufasa, both of whom are also slagging big lions.
- "Vehicon General Order 66" is a reference to Order 66 from Star Wars, both of them being contingency measures.
- Stiletto nicknames Tarantulas "webhead", which is a frequent moniker of Spider-Man's.
- Run-Over speaks entirely in quotes from The Simpsons, which the narration notes ran for several thousand episodes (in real life at the time this story was released, the show clocked in at 606 episodes).
- "Go out on a Tuesday? Who am I, Charlie Sheen?" is from "Moms I'd Like to Forget".
- "You know what I blame this on the breakdown of? Society." was spoken by Moe in "Miracle on Evergreen Terrace".
- "I call the big one 'Bitey'" is from "Marge vs. The Monorail".
- "Take that, Dick Tracey!" was shouted by a young Ned Flanders in "Hurricane Neddy".
- "Why you little-" is from too many episodes to name, but (of course) usually signifies that Homer is about to strangle Bart.
- "I bent my Wookiee" was spoken by Ralph Wiggum in "Lisa's Rival".
- Bisk's new beast mode is referred to as a "rock-lob," which is surely a reference to "Rock Lobster" by the B-52's.
- The Ex-Bots repaint a Sweep into the black and yellow-striped "Ex-Jet", referencing the X-Jet from Marvel's X-Men.
- Fever Dream repurposes the Platinum Edition Blitzwing toy, much as Star Dasher is a repurposing of that toy's package-mate Astrotrain.
- Dante the Cyberdroid is forced into a job on his day off, complaining all the while how he's "not supposed to be [here] today," just like Dante the human in Clerks.
- During his spiel on the Ex-Jet's weapons, Bazooka quotes Sergeant Hicks of Aliens fame, namely his boast that they have "knives, they got sharp sticks."
- As mentioned above, Cybertron's moons are given the names Hecate, Artemis and Selene, who in Ancient Greece were moon goddesses.
References
External links
- "Derailment" at The Official Transformers Collectors' Club
