Unfinished Business, Part 4
| |||||||||||||
| "Unfinished Business, Part 4" | |||||||||||||
| First published | October 2, 2008 | ||||||||||||
| Story | Hirofumi Ichikawa | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity | ||||||||||||
| Packaged with | Convoy | ||||||||||||
With the seeds of the future now laid in front of them, the Autobots must bring the Binaltech wars to an end.
Synopsis
The strange substance produced by the Timaeus Project is dubbed "Alternium" and is deduced to be a trans-dimensional substance from a higher plain of reality of which the Autobots are only perceiving a tiny portion. However, even with this material in their hands and the knowledge that it would be key to the evolution of the Alternity, the Autobots do not yet know what to do with the Alternium. Feeling that the answers will come in time, Optimus Prime sets the matter aside and instead focuses the Autobots' attentions on finally bringing to an end the Binaltech conflict endangering the Earth. This plan takes two forms: eliminating all the illegal Binaltech experimentation being conducted by humans around the planet, and finally bringing the Decepticon threat to an end.
To accomplish the former, Wheeljack finally activates his long-hidden third body, the "Omega Unit", which is revealed to be not a literal body, but a system that fuses Wheeljack's lifeforce with the information network and power grids of the entire planet Earth. Using this unrestrained access to all the computer systems of the world, Wheeljack pinpoints all the illegal Binaltech projects, allowing Earth Defense Command teams led by Prowl to raid each location and shut their experiments down.
Simultaneously, the Autobots track the Decepticons to a city in Australia, where Nemesis Prime reveals his latest plan to the captive Protector. He plans to use a device to separate the minds of the city's human inhabitants from their bodies and collect them in a crystalline containment field, thereby creating his own synthetic Matrix. If successful, the Autobots will be his next victims...but no sooner has he spoken the name of his enemies aloud, than the Autobots themselves surround him and his Decepticons! As battle erupts, Optimus Prime and Nemesis Prime face off, with the Decepticon landing the first punch and sending him crashing backwards. The Protector is freed by Arcee, and his spark immediately flies to the fallen Prime, sinking into his chest and merging their power together. Feeling a great sense of familiarity from the experience, Prime rises to his feet and declares that, now that the "seeds of the future" are in the Autobots' hands, Nemesis Prime will never win. Nemesis Prime opens fire on Optimus, but the Autobot leader simply raises his hands and absorbs the blast, redirecting it back upon Nemesis himself. Nemesis Prime is overcome by the attack and is destroyed, exploding into a million shards. The Autobots cheer for their leader as Starscream and the other flying Decepticons retreat, carrying off as many of their fallen comrades as they are able.
With the Decepticons and the Binaltech experiments taken care of, Prime inquires if there is anything more they need to worry about. Ultra Magnus claims he can't think of a thing, and the Autobots all roll out, into the sunset.
Grimlock, however, can't help but feel that he has forgotten something very important...
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Others |
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
Notes
- This chapter of the Binaltech story was printed on the packaging of the Optimus Prime Binaltech toy. It is the final chapter of Story of Binaltech, and together with the preceding chapter of "Unfinished Business," sets the stage for the beginning of the Alternity toyline and story. It is not the last we would see of the "Binal Time" world, however, which reappeared in the final Alternity story chapter.
- This chapter finally reveals the Protector's identity, albeit implicitly, as Optimus Primal. He is not named outright, but several clues in the story tell the tale: the familiarity Optimus Prime feels when their sparks merge refers to the last time the characters did so in "Optimal Situation", while his ability to absorb and redirect attacks and his "seeds of the future" mantra are both trademark characteristics of Primal's Beast Machines incarnation.
- An entry of the Facebook version of Ask Vector Prime written with Ichikawa's input years later would reveal the familiarity is not completely direct. While the Optimus Prime in this story is a branched timeline version from the Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity, the Optimus Primal in this story would be clarified to be a branched timeline version from the U.S. rather than the Japanese Beast Wars cartoon.
- Wheeljack's "Omega Unit" was originally mentioned in the earlier Story of Binaltech chapter, "Project Bodyshop".
- Eight years after the publication of this chapter, we still don't know what Grimlock forgot, if indeed we ever will.
