Force of Habit

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It is being brought.
It is being brought.
Oh, he's doin' somethin'...

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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

On board of the new Autobot flagship Iron Hope, Ultra Magnus thinks to himself (and his binary-bonded Mini-Con partner, Knock Out, as some of highest ranking Autobots-including Scavenger, Rodimus, Arcee, Sparkplug, Bulkhead, and Longrack gather. Ultra Magnus begins his brief: with the black hole growing exponentially, Cybertron's population has been evacuated to Earth. With conventional attempts failing, Optimus Prime has turned to the advice of the mysterious old bot, Vector Prime, and with his crew of Autobots, is looking for the four Cyber Planet Keys and the Omega Lock. Data suggest that the Omega Lock is on Earth, and with agents already on two colonies, the Autobots have a good headstart. However, data from Vector Prime suggests that aside from four main planets, there were other colony worlds designed as relay points. With no way of knowing which colonies have the keys, it's the Autobot space fleet's job to search them out, and to report any data they may find. Magnus assigns the captains to their ships, crews, and regioins of space; Bulkhead and the Eclipse are assigned to Gamma Kreuger ; Sparkplug and the Valiant to Betelgeuse; Arcee and the Azusa to Gamma Serpentis; Longrack and the Spanner to Delta Draconis; Scavenger and the DieCast to Zeta Persei; Rodimus and the Longbow to Beta Aquarii; and the Iron Hope itself to Delta Crateris. Magnus reminds the captains to not engage in any local civilization's power struggles, or to tell them of the severity of the situation. Ultra Magnus also warns them to look out for the Decepticons, as Megatron (having stolen the planet map that contained the archival database on the colonies) presumably has the same data the Autobots have, and orders them to roll out.

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots Decepticons Mini-Cons

Notes

Continuity notes

  • This story shows where most of the non-Cybertron Unicron Trilogy Autbots have gone during the events of the show; Scavenger and Sparkplug were last seen in Armada, while Arcee, Rodimus, Bulkhead, and Ironhide all were last seen in Energon. Longrack and Blurr make their first chronological appearance here; they originally appeared in-continuity in the first club prose story, "The Dark Heart of Sandokan", set after the cartoon.
  • Cybertron's evacuation, the arrival of Vector Prime, the Omega Lock being located on Earth (based on the symbol of the Atlantis symbol on Lori's t-shirt), and Megatron's theft of the colony data were all established in the first Cybertron episode, "Fallen".
  • The agents Magnus refers to are Hot Shot, Red Alert, and Overhaul; Hot Shot and Red Alert arrived on Velocitron in "Landmine", while Overhaul was accidentally trapped on Jungle Planet in "Search", which Knock Out reflects bitterly about.
  • The Space Bridge network was introduced in "Balance".

Transformers references

  • Many of the characters in this story are non-toy characters given their first appearances here. These include:
    • Much of the crew of the Iron Hope. Ultra Magnus and Knock Out were a "eleventh hour" Energon toy. Tow-Line was a regular release from the Energon toyline.
  • 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.
  • This story makes a number of references to past occurrences in the Unicron Trilogy, including:
  • 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 II. 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. Other planets include Gamma Kreuger (home system of the Pkunks), Betelgeuse (adopted home system of the Syreen; the devastated Acid and Radioactive worlds are theorized by Magnus to be the result of Decepticon intervention), Gamma Serpentis (home system of the Yehat, who are indirectly referred to as a "spacefarring civilization"), Zeta Persei (home system of the Druuge), Beta Aquarii (home system of the Utwig), and Delta Crateris (where the Ur-Quan ship the Sa-Matra is located).
  • The Azusa is named for Azusa Fuzita, a Japanese Transformers fan. The DieCast is named for the metal used in old Generation 1 toys.
  • 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.

Errors

  • On page 13, the "s" is missing from the word "scream."
  • On page 19, "give" is used instead of the proper tense, "gave."

Other trivia

  • Unlike most of the prose stories released pre-2015, "Force of Habit" was available to non-Club members.
  • Not that it's an error internal to the story, but it's a bit odd to see Blurr being a recent ally, seeing as how angry Optimus was at Hot Shot for making contacts on Velocitron in the cartoon.
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