Cryotek (Universe)
| 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 Generation 1 continuity family.
Cryotek is a mobster 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.[1]
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
Beast Wars cartoon continuity
Theft of the Golden Disk
- Voice actor: Brad Venable (English)
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
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.[2]
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.
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.
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 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 he participated in the Universe War. Cryotek's Universe profile
Beast Wars: Uprising
Cryotek was the head of a crime gang called "The Minions of Unicron". Not All Megatrons 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
Some twenty-one cycles before the Grand Uprising, an upstart gang called the "Darksyders" started encroaching on Minion territory. Cryotek's initial offers of an alliance were violently rejected. As the cycles passed, Cryotek found his influence and reach diminishing. Four cycles after the outbreak of war, his people managed to catch a Darksyder going by the name of Doom-Lock, who Cryotek personally interrogated, finding the location of the Darksyder's mysterious leader "Megatron". Gathering his top enforcers, Cryotek went to his domicile to take the fight right to Megatron. It turned out Megatron had been expecting them, and offered an alliance. Unwilling to work with some pretentious purple prat, Cryotek refused.
At which point it turned out Megatron had planned ahead, and wasn't even there. But a group of Dropkicks were. Cryotek's lieutenants were swiftly killed, and Cryotek cornered by Megatron, who gave him a new offer: Surrender and dissolve the Minions into the Darksyders and he'd live. With no other choice, Cryotek accepted. Of course, Megatron followed by saying thanks to his earlier reluctance, the Predacon had to take some precautions, and introduced the mnemosurgeon Psychobat...
Later, after the merger of the Minions and the Darksyders, Packrat - one of Cryotek's former underlings - noted he was acting a little weird when he introduced the thief to Megatron, but wasn't too concerned. Not All Megatrons
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".
Notes
- Cryotek's BotCon Online profile was based on an unreleased bio and tech specs that Hasbro originally created for the character's retail toy.
- 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". The was most likely done to maintain marketing consistency with the Universe franchise presenting all of its evil-aligned characters as Minions of Unicron, despite Cryotek's mocking the idea of Unicron's existence, being defeated before the Universe War began, in "Wreckers Finale".
- Beast Wars: Uprising Cryotek's design is based on the Prime: Robots in Disguise Bulkhead toy.
References
- ↑ Much of Cryotek's prehistory comes from his "Theft of the Golden Disk" profile available to fan club members on 1/18/2008.
- ↑ Cryotek's bio at BotCon.com, also in the Director's Cut edition of "Betrayal".
