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 the 2001 Robots in Disguise continuity family.
Cryotek suggests that you pay attention to what your enemies and allies overlook!
Fiction
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 Predacon Cryotek, a native of this universe, to better learn about the new world he found himself in. The Alternity shepherded Megatron's contemporaries Optimus Primal, Rhinox, Rattrap, and Silverbolt to this dimension to stop Megatron's machinations. 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 parasites. He planned to eliminate all sparks from Transformers’ bodies and replace them with physical operating systems which he had created, based partially on Megatron's 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 those who had defeated Megatron, and for a time settled on hit and run tactics, using Megatron's transwarp technology to attack the Autobots sporadically trough time and space with his 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. With Cryotek's engineering, the Predacon leader become “Megatron Megabolt”. Meanwhile in the future, Optimus Primal found the victims of Cryotek’s horrendous experiments and resolved to stop him, by any means necessary. 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 back in time to Earth with Mirage GT as a guide. To minimize the risk of temporal paradoxes, Primal could only assume a corporeal form to engage 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
- 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.
- 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".
- This toy was repurposed by 3H Productions as a Beast Era Cryotek.
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.
- 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.[1] 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 | ||
- Though he didn't have any real fiction until 2015, Cryotek did appear with the other Robots In Disguise characters in the opening illustration of the Ultimate Guide's Robots In Disguise section.
Foreign names
- Japanese: Cryotek (クライオテック Kuraiotekku)
