Mount St. Hilary
- Mount St. Hilary is a volcano in the Generation 1 continuity family.
Fiction
Marvel Comics continuity
The Transformers space cruiser, the Ark, crashed into the side of the dormant volcano roughly four million year ago where it lay undisturbed until the volcano erupted again in 1984. The explosion reactivated the systems aboard the Ark which promptly set about restoring the Autobots and Decepticons on board.
Mount St. Hilary would serve as the headquarters of the Autobots for the next few years. At one point Wheeljack installed a number of automated gun emplacements around the volcano. These were hidden inside the rock face, emerging through sliding panels as they were needed.
Under the leadership of Grimlock, the Autobots completed repairs on the Ark and successfully relaunched it into space. The hole left behind still contained a variety of discarded machinery and communications systems. These were later used by the Autobot Goldbug to send a distress call that was eventually received by the Autobot Headmasters on Nebulos.
They answered the distress call and made their way to Earth followed by the Decepticons. Tracking the source of the signal they arrived at Mount St. Hilary to find Spike Witwicky looking for his missing brother Buster.
Not long after the Decepticon Headmasters attacked and trapped Spike in the volcano. Scorponok caused molten lava to erupt from the cavern floor. Fortress Maximus’ headmaster, Galen, attempted to save Spike by pushing him out of the path of a rock fall and dies himself in the attempt.
After this Mount St. Hilary played no further role in the Transformers war.
Animated continuity
The volcano that the Transformers crash into is never explicitly named in the cartoon series, and neither is the state in which it is located. There is no reason that it couldn’t be called Mount St. Hilary, but there is no canonical evidence within the series to back this up.
The name has, however, been used in a number of places other than Marvel comic. These include a set of collectors cards based around the television series and the range of Audiobooks which use a number of concepts from the television series. These lend support to the idea that the volcano in the cartoon is also called Mount St. Hilary, but it is far from conclusive.
Beast Wars
In the Beast Wars episode The Agenda, the Ark is uncovered by the Predacon leader Megatron, but again, the volcano itself is never given a name. This makes sense, however, as Beast Wars is set in prehistory, and therefore the volcano has no name at this stage. It could eventually be named Mount St. Hilary, though. Beast Wars did give the Autobot spaceship the name "the Ark" for the first time outside of the comic continuity; therefore, it is possible that the writers also intended the volcano to be the same as that shown in the comics.
Micromaster Collection
After a battle with the Decepticons, the Autobot Micromasters discovered ruins of Cybertronian origin at Mount St. Hilary, including a piece of metal with a Predacon faction symbol on it (though none of the Micromasters knew the symbol's significance). The Autobots set up a headquarters at the base of the volcano. While excavating the ruins, they uncovered a stasis pod, which emitted a strange radiation that brought forth a combiner team from an alternate dimension.[1]
Where is Mount St. Hilary?
In the Marvel comics continuity, it is stated that the volcano is located in Oregon not far from Portland. Subsequent events also largely take place in Oregon around (and in) the city of Portland. A possible location for the volcano could be the Boring Lava Field near Portland, which does indeed contain a number of volcanoes similar to the one shown, but this is never specified within the comic itself.[2]
Assuming that the volcano that appears in the cartoon is Mount St. Hilary and is located in the same state, then it seems to be part of a largely desert landscape, which does not seem to fit with the geography and climate of the Portland area.[3] As mentioned above, the area is home to the Boring Lava Field but given the desert landscape, it is more likely that the volcano would be located in the southeastern part of Oregon.
The location of the Decepticon headquarters, however, may imply that the Transformers crashed somewhere in the coastal region. Portland is about 60 miles from the nearest coastline, so it is still possible the volcano could be located in that area, but as mentioned, the desert landscape really doesn’t fit in with this.[4] One major problem with this is that in the episode Day of the Machines, a computer screen shows oil tankers converging on the Decepticon base - in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. This could be written off as one of the many animation errors in the series, as other episodes show the Decepticon base much closer to the shore.
It could be that the Decepticon base is located in the Atlantic, meaning that the volcano might not be in Oregon at all but instead in an East Coast state, although this again wouldn't really fit the desert landscape.
It is possible, of course, that the volcano is nowhere near the Decepticon base. The Japanese manga mentions the Autobot Road, suggesting that the Autobots have a series of underground roads that allow them to travel around the world at great speed. This is not backed up by the series itself, however. Even assuming that the Autobot Road is a reality, it is still very likely that the Decepticon base is near the Ark for the following reasons:
- When the Decepticons are reactivated by Teletraan I they believe the Autobots to be dead. There is therefore no reason for them to travel thousands of miles to build their new space cruiser.
- The space cruiser is built in an area whose geography is very similar to that around the Ark.
- After Mirage causes the space cruiser to crash, the Autobots watch from the shore as it crashes into the ocean. This suggests that the crash site is very near the launch site.
- The Autobot Road would have taken a long time to construct, and even if it exists, it is unlikely that it was available during More Than Meets the Eye.
- In The Immobilizer, Carly drives from the Ark to the coast where the Decepticon base is located. It seems unlikely that she would drive all the way across the USA to get there or have access to the Autobot Road at this early stage in her relationship with them.
Most Generation One continuities state or imply that the Ark crashed in Oregon, so it would seem likely (but not certain) that the cartoon would also adopt this location. The Key to Vector Sigma, Part 2 shows Megatron approaching the city of Seattle, Washington. Washinton State is just to the north of Oregon which would seem to support this. However, identifying the location of the volcano in the cartoon continuity with 100% accuracy will never be possible due to the many conflicting "facts" presented in the course of the series.
Merchandise
- In 1984 Presto Magix released a transfer set called Trouble on Mount St. Hilary.
- In 1985 Mount St. Hilary appeared on the Transformers Trading Cards from Milton Bradley.[5]
