Cryotek (RID)

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

Cryotek is a Predacon from both the Generation 1 continuity family and Robots in Disguise (2001) continuity family.

It's almost as if he's been doing too much science.

Cryotek is a gangster in Cybertron's dangerous criminal underworld. A supply manager who served the Decepticon general Deathsaurus as the Great War came to a close, he doublecrossed his boss by leading a team of Predacon rebels against him, earning him amnesty during the following peace.

Once a brilliant engineer, he turned his talents to crime, along with advancing technologies that were outlawed. He developed bodyframes that, though quite powerful and weapon-laden, qualified as legal for construction or research. His own "cryo-tank" form was as powerful as a Predacon could manage without special government clearance. With his bodyguards Dirge, Buzzbomb, and Backslash, Cryotek ran a tight organization that skirted the law, embarrassing the Maximal Command Security Force, who could never dig up any evidence against him.

Ironically, Cryotek's claim to fame would be his protégé, the rogue Predacon who would be called Megatron. Cryotek's greatest ideas would be co-opted by his former student, including technology for spark extractors and even his plan for the theft of the Golden Disk. If there's one thing Cryotek's pride cannot stand, it's his own failures.

Chro can often be seen perching on his shoulder.

Fiction

Theft of the Golden Disk

Voice actor: Brad Venable (English)

Step One: Teach a promising young criminal the ways of doublecrossing your superiors.

TFwiki.net will give its firstborn to whoever makes this toy.

After gloating about his genius plan to steal data revealing the location of a sacred Maximal artifact, the Golden Disk, he dispatched his star pupil Megatron to carry it out. He reminded Megatron that only Cryotek was allowed to decrypt the data.

Cryotek was no fool, however, and knew that Megatron would betray him sooner or later. He alerted the authorities to Megatron's heist, expecting his protégé would take the fall. Though when Dirge returned with the data storage box, it was empty, save for a Maximal security homing bug. Megatron had doublecrossed him! Cryotek pled for his lawyer as the Maximal Command Security Force infiltrated his secret lair. Theft of the Golden Disk

3H comics

Button ya lip, Mugsy.

When Megatron returned from his timelost exile on Earth, Cryotek offered to rid him of his hated beast mode, wishing to take the powerful dragon form for himself. This process, however, left Cryotek disabled for some while. Upon his recovery, he discovered that Megatron had stolen his research and conquered Cybertron.

Considered an outlaw among his own kind, and with Cybertron overrun with Vehicons, Cryotek exiled himself to New Quintessa, where he began a business partnership with Derodomontatus and the rest of the Quintesson race. Using the Oracle shell program that the Quintessons had used to manipulate Vector Sigma since eons ago, Cryotek and Derodomontatus manipulated several groups of survivors of Megatron's virus into running various fool's errands. One of these groups, the Mutants, were instructed by the Oracle to journey to New Quintessa itself. A trap was waiting for the Mutants, and they were devoured by Sharkticons while Cryotek and Derodomontatus watched. The Quintesson was amused, but Cryotek, striking him, reminded Derodomontatus of his race's incompetence and hubris.

He has taken his first step RRAGH RREERNG REAHGORAGH!!!

Secretly, Cryotek suspected that Vector Sigma's true voice would break out through their deceptions, and so he placed Cyclonus into another of the surviving groups, the Wreckers. The Wreckers traveled to Archa Nine, Cyclonus double-crossed them, and Cryotek had the object of his desire, the Divine Light, delivered to him. Betrayal He assured his Quintesson business partners of his success, and that despite their Oracle's recent destruction amidst Cybertron's Great Reformatting, he would escort them to Cybertron, their new home, which was now ripe for the taking. Disclosure

As he and the vast Quintesson army descended upon Cybertron, he scoffed at their arrogance in assuming that the Transformers' new technorganic forms would render them docile, facilitating the Quintessons' invasion. But this would not be the only trouble to befall the Quintessons—Cryotek himself would turn on them, and seize the Divine Light for himself. The Divine Light was a Quintesson-engineered conduit of Primus' power, and now that Cryotek possessed it, all the power of a god was now his! Having grown and mutated into a powerhouse, he battled the Wreckers. At one early point he believed he had killed Apelinq and Primal Prime, but they quickly returned, merged as one by Primus, as Sentinel Maximus. However, Cryotek didn't really care, and dissolved his contract with the Quintessons by killing Derodomonatus.

Don't mind us exclusives, we'll be up here in this containment bubble.

Using his new god-level powers, Cryotek transformed Chro into a huge technorganic monster, which kept most of the Wreckers busy. While Cheetor and Devcon were left behind to finish off Chro, Cryotek began his final face-off against the other Wreckers. He was drawn by his foes to a special chamber, at their Quintesson guide Al-Badur's insistence. Suddenly the chamber was activated by the Quintesson scientist, locking Sentinel Maximus and Cryotek inside a forcefield containment bubble with a portal inside. The pull from the portal was strong, but Cryotek's powers were easily able to keep him from being sucked inside—at least until Cheetor and Rodimus Major arrived. They were Matrix Templars, so they were able to drain Cryotek of his powers from outside the bubble. But he needed one extra final push, which came from Sentinel Maximus, and the two disappeared through the portal.

Cryotek found himself suspended in absolute nothingness. Only a tiny fragment of the power of Primus that persisted within him was keeping him alive, but that was enough. He planned to defeat Sentinel Maximus here and somehow use what remained to engineer his escape, but it was not to be. Sentinel Maximus was called by Primus elsewhere, leaving Cryotek utterly alone. ...Or was he? Wreckers: Finale Part II

Cryotek was apparently a Minion of Unicron, though it is unknown if or when hhe participated in the Universe War. Cryotek's Universe profile

Beast Wars: Uprising

Cryotek was the head of a crime gang. He took advantage of Trans-Mutate's naivete, presenting her with a narrative of absent leaders and continuing wars that fit her notes of inconsistent data in the officially prescribed history of Cybertron. Using her special abilities, Cryotek had Trans-Mutate assist in illegal activities without her full awareness and, once her usefulness was exhausted, had his underlings dispose of her to cover for their escape from a heist. Perception

TransTech

In an interview with Rook, Stungun stated that he had been in rooms full of Megatron lookalikes, including Cryotek. Rook - Axiom Nexus News: Investigative Journalist

Ask Vector Prime

Megatron, a quantum orphan from Primax 496.22 Alpha after the conclusion of the Beast Wars, schemed to conquer Cybertron in Viron 102.0 Beta. He joined forces with the ruthless Cryotek to better learn about the new world he found himself in. The Alternity shepherded the shipwrecked Optimus Primal, Rhinox, Rattrap, and Silverbolt to this dimension to battle Megatron. After the long and arduous "Allspark Battles", they triumphed over Megatron and his Vehicons. In response to Megatron's defeat, Cryotek launched his own stratagem. Like Megatron, he sought mechanical purity, but in a different and much more drastic way. Cryotek believed that Transformers’ sparks were not their life essences, but rather symbiotic, leech-like creatures, the Parasites (his thinking no doubt influenced by his own mutated, humanoid-shaped spark). He planned to eliminate all sparks from Transformers’ bodies, replacing them with physical operating systems which he had created, based partially on Megatron's own research into shell programs and spark extraction. Ominously, he had already conducted successful field tests on his own men.

Cryotek knew to be cautious in dealing with the ones who had defeated Megatron, and settled on hit and run tactics, using Megatron's Transwarp technology to attack the Autobots sporadically trough time and space with his stealthy Automatic De-Sparkers. Needing allies, he contacted Galvatron —then active on early 21st century Earth—who offered him refuge aboard his ship, the Megastar, in exchange for a body upgrade. By Cryotek's hand, the Predacon leader become “Megatron Megabolt”. Meanwhile, hundreds of years in the future, Optimus Primal found the victims of Cryotek’s horrendous experiments and resolved to stop him, no matter the cost. Having already perceived that a greater power was behind the Oracle, Primal demanded it send him after Cryotek; the Alternity revealed their true form to Primal and agreed to his request, if he would join the ranks of their elite agents, the Protectors, in return. Primal accepted the offer and was sent to Earth with Mirage GT as a guide. To minimize the risk of paradox, Optimus could only assume a corporeal form to engage with Cryotek; against the threat posed by Megabolt Maximus— Fortress Maximus under control of Megatron—Primal could only act as a spirit guide. It was a tough battle, but in the end Optimus Prime and Optimus Primal emerged victorious, with Megatron and Cryotek decisively defeated. Ask Vector Prime

Toys

Robots in Disguise (2001)

• Cryotek (Ultra, 2001)
  • Accessories: Missile

Between us, this is actually just a hue-shifted photo of Megatron.

Cryotek, a redeco of Transmetal 2 Megatron in blue, teal, and purple chrome, was a Target exclusive in 2001. It transforms from a robot into a cyborg-like dragon and can launch a missile from the top of his robot head. It also has a third "dragster" mode which is best forgotten. The toy has different wing claws from Megatron, a slight retool for unknown reasons.

If one follows the instructions and package photos, the dragon mode has Cryotek's robot head sticking plainly out on his lower back. In addition to looking strange, this also forces the dragon tail to sit parallel "above" the spine instead of joining it at the bottom. It is possible to configure the tail so that it joins properly with the spine and conceals the robot head, but this forces all the sculpted detail (scale ridges, etc.) to be upside-down.

Japanese version of Cryotek which includes "spark avatar". It looks like a tiny pre-Earth Megatron

Both this mold and Tigerhawk's mold share a gimmick that was dropped before release—a cockpit bubble where a tiny "spark figure" would have piloted the character. Hasbro dropped the concept due to it junking around with the Transformers mythos; it was feared buyers would mistake the "spark figures" as humanoid pilots for a non-sentient transforming robot, a la Diaclone, instead of being representations of the spark essence of a living, breathing Transformer. The cockpit bubbles remain on both toys (and their redecos). The "USA Edition" (a limited Japanese release) of the toy includes the "spark figure".

More information on Cryotek at TFU.info

Notes

• The name "Cryotek" was first used by a hero from Hasbro's mid-Eighties action figure line Visionaries. Andrew Frankel, a longtime fan of Visionaries and responsible for exclusive Transformers product at the time of Cryotek's release, assigned the name.

Clearly a photoshop.

• Cryotek debuted in an eBay auction by a seller with zero feedback, packaged inside a Beast Wars Transmetals 2 Megatron box. One of the largest flame wars the fandom had ever seen erupted over this early sample as fans argued over whether the toy was merely an easy Photoshop job or if it were a real production piece. Even when a buyer received the "blue Megatron" from the seller and confirmed that it was, in fact, blue, claims of fraud were not silenced. Not until BotCon 2001, where a few copies of this early mispackaged sample were seen in person and its authenticity (and name) confirmed by 3H Productions, did the fandom finally simmer down.

“	Definitely faked, looking at the bottom of the box. There's no consistency in the brightness/readability of the fonts. Especially considering the angles of the boxes below it, for the way it would be pointing. Plus the bottom looks like it's just stuck ontop of the pic.	”
—Brendocon, alt.toys.transformers

• Cryotek's CGI model in "Theft of the Golden Disk" is based on Energon Shockblast with a new head. His voice was patterned after actor Sydney Greenstreet.
• Cryotek's fate involved being suspended in what feels like a dimension of nothingness, but he suspected he was not truly alone. He may be detecting the presence of the evil extradimensional beings that turned Ramjet crazy.
• Cryotek's Wreckers profile lists him as a "Minion of Unicron", despite him being defeated before the Universe War began. Later, in "Wreckers Finale", when told his ascension to godhood would alert Unicron to Cybertron's location, he mocked the idea of Unicron's existence being a "bedtime story", since the Chaos Bringer had been destroyed for centuries. Maybe, uh, the Minions of Unicron retroactively claimed him.
• Cryotek will eat your dreams.

Foreign names

• Japanese: Cryotek (クライオテック Kuraiotekku)