Force of Habit
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| "Force of Habit" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | Transformers Collectors' Club | ||||||||||||
| First published | April 17, 2008 | ||||||||||||
| Writers | Greg Sepelak and Trent Troop | ||||||||||||
| Illustrations | Matt Kuphaldt | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | Cybertron cartoon | ||||||||||||
| Page count | 25pp | ||||||||||||
An Autobot recon team finds a dead colony world that might not be so dead.
Synopsis
Ultra Magnus looks out over the bridge of the Iron Hope and briefs the Autobots on their missions to visit the many colony worlds in the search for the Cyber Planet Keys and Omega Lock to counter the threat of the Unicron Singularity. Once the assignments are given out, the Autobots head to their ships to begin the search.
Meanwhile a Decepticon ship, the Upstart, is also taking off, though some of the Decepticons on board are disgruntled about their mission. They too, under the captaincy of Brushguard, are searching for the Cyber Planet Keys. Their ship nears their target planet only to find a ship of Autobots is already there—Longrack and the crew of the Spanner, who have discovered the planet is a ruined wasteland, the site of a long-ended war between at least seven factions.
The Decepticons land and begin exploring as well. Hardtop finds an old Cyber Key, but it shatters when he picks it up and he falls into a hole in the ground. On the Autobot side, Blurr comes under attack from a large helicopter and uses his Cyber Key to counterattack. Unfortunately the fast-moving Blurr is taken out when a couple of Mini-Cons throw an engine into his path, tripping him. Having lost contact with Blurr, Longrack sends a transmission to the Iron Hope, but Ultra Magnus doesn't have any spare teams to send to help.
In the cavern Hardtop found, Brushguard orders Swindle to blast open a huge door, which naturally turns out to be booby-trapped with autoguns. Swindle is less than impressed at being used as the booby, and punches Brushguard. Runamuck proceeds to pries the doors open.
Checkpoint informs Longrack that he's found a data-con with information on the history of this planet, Combatron—it describes how when the original ruler, King Atlas, disappeared, the population fell into civil war, but it also mentions that the original colonists brought along a large amount of highly-dangerous weapons.
Elsewhere, the Decepticons look over the cache of highly-dangerous weapons they've just found. While playing with nucleon shock gauntlets, Swindle inadvertently sends Hardtop crashing into an unfamiliar piece of machinery which springs into life.
The Autobots come under attack from the Mini-Cons and their Bulk companion, but Longrack manages to get them to stand down by going into drill-sergeant mode and hollering at the Bulk, who turns out to be Private Whirl. Whirl apologizes as they free Blurr and introduces the Mini-Cons, Thunderstick, Grip-Lock and Skysickle. They're interrupted by the alarm alerting them to the Decepticon break-in. Heading back to the ship, Longrack contacts Magnus, but the Iron Hope is busy, under attack by Terrorcons. Luckily Armorhide has a plan.
The Decepticons are transferring the weapons to their ship when the Autobots attack. While Armorhide distracts them, Blurr uses his Cyber Key power to snatch the weapons right out of their hands. Unfortunately the Decepticons pull out their trump card—a horde of Decepticlones created by the machine they've found. Whirl attempts to blast the Decepticlone scanner, only to be knocked down by fire from the Decepticlones. The Autobots and Decepticons begin fighting, using their Cyber Keys and Mini-Cons to varying effect. Brushguard manages to incapacitate Blurr and one by one the other Autobots also fall and are taken captive. The only one left free, Armorhide, attempts to head for the Spanner and ends up wading into an army of Decepticlones.
Brushguard orders his men to load the scanner into the Upstart, only for the machine to explode, thanks to Skysickle who has pilfered one of the weapons from their ship. With the scanner destroyed, the Decepticlones lose control and begin firing wildly. While the Mini-Cons lift off in the Upstart, Armorhide arrives in the Spanner and rams the ship into the bunker—ejecting first, naturally. Though the rockets on his ejector seat fail, he's caught by Whirl. The Autobots and their new Mini-Con allies leave the planet in the Upstart.
Now stuck on Combatron, Brushguard optimistically contacts Megatron for help, only to be told that rescue is a deca-cycle away.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Mini-Cons |
|---|---|---|
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Notes
- Mentioned characters include: Optimus Prime, Vector Prime, agents on colony worlds, Primus, Starscream, Thundercracker, Unicron, Omega Guardians, King Atlas, Snow Cat, Demolishor, and Thrust.
- Combatron appears to have been heavily influenced by Apocalypse Planet, a planet that was planned to be included in the Cybertron franchise, but was cancelled. Much like Combatron, Apocalypse Planet was to be a war-torn wasteland populated by heavily armed and armored warriors.
- None of the Decepticons attacking the Iron Hope are explicitly named. The twin-cockpit jet is obviously Slugslinger, and the robotic Tyrannosaurus rex is likely Predacon. The writers have since revealed that the two gunships were intended to be Dreadwing and Sharkticon, and that the two other jets were Skywarp and Sunstorm. Whether the reader chooses to accept that depends on their acceptance of authorial intent.
- Unlike many of the other text stories published by the Transformers Collectors' Club, this was (and is) made available to non-members.
Errors
- On page 13, the "s" is missing from the word "scream."
- On page 19, "give" is used instead of the proper tense, "gave."
Continuity notes
- Ultra Magnus thinks of an agent trapped alone on a colony world, presumably referring to Overhaul being trapped on Jungle Planet. Since he also indicates that the Autobots have yet to find the Omega Lock on Earth, this story must take place between the Cybertron episodes "Search" and "Deep", after Overhaul's disappearance but before the Autobots on Earth locate the Atlantis.
- This story identifies the dimension gates used by Megatron, Starscream, and Thundercracker as warp gates.
- As in "The Dark Heart of Sandokan", the Cyber Keys are treated somewhat differently in this story than they were in the Cybertron cartoon. Here, they are depicted as tangible objects that must be manufactured from crystals, while they are portrayed as energy-ish manifestations of a Transformer's burning heart of justice in the cartoon.
Transformers references
- This story makes a number of references to past occurrences in the Unicron Trilogy, including:
- The Powerlinx Battles and the defeat of the Decepticons at the end of Energon.
- The Armada War.
- The "lobotomization" of Snow Cat and Demolishor during Energon.
- Thrust's gruesome demise in Armada.
- King Atlas' disappearance can presumably be chalked up to his abduction by Unicron to battle in the Universe conflict.
- Hardtop compares a dead Combatron resident to an Omega Guardian, presumably the group to which Omega Supreme and Omega Sentinel belong.
- Part of the name of Grip-Lock's assigned military unit is "Irontread Squad". Irontread was the Japanese name of Demolishor after he received a new body during Energon.
- Ultra Magnus quotes his namesake's "I can't deal with that right now" line from The Transformers: The Movie.
- The Upstart is a dropship from the Armada PlayStation 2 game.
Real-world references
- The star systems Ultra Magnus assigns each ship are the home systems of different alien races from the PC game Star Control 2. Delta Draconis, the focal point of this story, is the home of the Thraddash in the game... an alien race that has razed its own civilization to the ground eighteen times by the time the player encounters them.
- Brushguard refers to "real wrath-of-god type stuff", a direct quote from Ghostbusters.
- Buzzsaw mentions Christmas and also invites the Autobots to "say hello to my little friend," a reference to Scarface.
External links
- "Force of Habit" at The Official Transformers Collectors' Club
