Sparkeater (creature)

This article is about the vicious predator. For Roadbuster's weapon, see Sparkeater (weapon).

File:IDW Sparkeater.jpg

It's not every day that Transformers fiction is inspired by the Snorks.

Sparkeaters are powerful and monstrous predators, so rarely seen that they are largely believed by Cybertronians to be mythical. As such, mere mention of them can invoke a sense of supernatural terror even among battle-hardened warriors. Little is firmly known of their habits or origin, but it is apparent that multiple denizens of Cybertron possess the capacity to become one of these unfortunate, cannibalistic creatures, from ordinary Transformers to lowly turbofoxes. Tracking the intensity of their prey's spark energy, they are able to immobilize and kill Transformers without making physical contact, through powers that seem to defy conventional explanation. Once consumed, the sparks linger in their abdomens and are slowly digested.

Inkeeping with the lack of general knowledge about them and the myths that have sprung up around them, they are sometimes also known as Cybervores, Soulsnatchers, and The Nightmare with a Thousand Names.

“	Nickel, iron, cobalt, chrome, He'll eat your soul, Turn your spark to stone, Nickel, iron, cobalt, chrome, Run, little robot, run away home.	”
—Traditional Cybertronian rhyme, The Chaos of Warm Things

Fiction

IDW Generation 1 continuity

The horrifying and blood-soaked myth of the Sparkeaters would make Brainstorm go "hey, I got an idea for a cool new gun!!" Whirl took the Sparkeater Gun on a time-travel trip with him, unaware of what the thing was called. When the time travellers were accosted by a security guard and his turbofoxes in the newly-constructed Lost Light, they shot him with the gun and locked him up as he started to mutate. The ship was then accidentally shot across time and space Predestination: An Expert's Guide where some Mortilus worshipping NAILs Twenty to One found it. For some reason, they kept the new Sparkeater alive and fed with more turbofoxes (assuming they ever realised he was there). The Chaos of Warm Things

A self-deluded Decepticon named Blip professed to be a Sparkeater. The Chaos of Warm Things The Decepticon Justice Division professed to have tamed a Sparkeater as their petRules of Disengagement Who's Afraid of the DJD? but they were lying to scare people. At Close of Day

The Lost Light would be sold to the very people who'd later time travel to it! The Light suffered an engine malfunction and premature quantum jump, which heavily damaged the ship and allowed the Sparkeater to breach its cell. While the Duobot Shock attempted to retrieve a tracking device that Prowl had ordered Ore to attach to the ship's engine, he ventured too close to the Sparkeater's cell: the beast was then able to somehow immobilize Shock and force him to regurgitate his own brain capsule, killing him and causing his spark to emerge for the Sparkeater to devour. The Chaos of Warm Things Red Alert discovered Shock's body and telltale claw marks on the nearby walls, and deduced that a Sparkeater was present. Hangers On

Despite his own skepticism and instinctual disregard for the myths and rumors spread by many of his crewmates, Ratchet eventually had no choice but to acknowledge that the damage to Shock was consistent with a "robocarnivorous entity". When Drift asserted that the Sparkeater would seek out the "brightest" spark on the ship, Rodimus oh-so-humbly assumed that meant he himself would be the next target. But, in fact, the Sparkeater was drawn to Rung. On its way towards Rung's quarters, it encountered and killed Animus. Whirl then attempted to kill the monster with a missile barrage—only for Trailbreaker to save it with his forcefield, as a weapon strike on the unstable, partially digested sparks inside the monster's belly would have caused a catastrophic explosion. The Sparkeater relentlessly and single-mindedly pursued Rung throughout the ship, as Skids tried to help the frail psychiatrist escape and Brainstorm cowered in terror but was ignored in favor of the tastier prey. Finally, Rodimus seized Rung and used him as live bait to lure the Sparkeater next to the engine block of the Lost Light. Ordering Perceptor to engage the quantum drive, he then allowed the Sparkeater to attack him—and quickly grabbed the monster and pushed it up against the ship's engine. The quantum drive's localized disruption of the laws of physics resulted in the Sparkeater being merged with the engine block, killing it. Rodimus survived this unbelievably irresponsible, risky, and foolhardy bold act of heroic leadership, though his arms were also sucked into the ship's engine and had to be amputated and replaced. The Chaos of Warm Things

On a quantum duplicate of the Lost Light, the duplicated Sparkeater was similarly lured to the engine room by Animus after Rung had already been lost. This version of Rodimus used the same strategy to get rid of the monster, but mistimed the attempt and got part of his head stuck in the engine, killing him alongside the Sparkeater. The Road Not Taken

Notes

• Though no one really knows much about Sparkeaters, Rodimus believes that technologies capable of neutralizing them include "industrial strength energy dampeners", "nullification booths", and "level-9 containment fields".
• We may have seen the origin of the myth in Elegant Chaos Part 2, when Whirl shoots a random baddie with the Sparkeater Gun millions of years ago...)