User:Locoman/Sandbox:Seekers

Conceptual history

Origin of the term

The truly mysterious thing about the term "Seeker" is the fact that, despite it being widely used by fans as early as the 1990s, nobody knew where it actually came from, as evidenced by confused conversations from that time on alt.toys.transformers. There were plenty of wrong answers; the strongest suggestion seemed to be that it came from the "hunter-seeker skyship" used in issue #17 of the Marvel US comic—though the Decepticons it is applied to in that story are shown only in their flight modes, which look nothing like the jets in question, and are completely different from the Cybertronian forms of the Coneheads, who also appear in the issue. The only real connection between the hunter-seekers we were shown and the "Seekers" is that there's more than one of them and they fly.

During this time when the term was believed non-canon, fans flirted with other terms such as "Skyraider" (see below), but in 2002 Simon Furman used "Seeker" in a Dreamwave War Within script, which sealed the deal of officiality and set the tone not just for the fandom, but for the Transformers fiction that came afterwards as well.

No, you fool, we're following orders: We were told to scour the countryside, so we're scouring it.

Years later, the mystery was finally solved with the discovery of multiple department-store advertisements from the 1984 holiday season in which the word "Seeker" appeared. The J.C. Penney catalog (sometimes called a "wishbook") featured a page dedicated to Transformers that included this statement in its description of Starscream: "Airplane with sensational F-15 styling scours the countryside searching for Autobots. When they're found, the Seekers set out to destroy them." It also said Soundwave "sends out messages to the Seekers and other Decepticons". J.C. Penney and (now-defunct) chains Zayre and Dahlkemper's put out ads in November 1984 listing Starscream and either Thundercracker or Skywarp as "Decepticon Seeker". In addition, one of the earliest known ads for Transformers toys period is a Zayre circular from April 1984 that uses the term. The term even appears as late as 1985, in a toy-ordering catalog for (now-defunct) Western Auto, a specialty retail chain for automobile parts and accessories, which lists all the standard Transformers releases from the 1984 line-up, among them the "Decepticon (Seekers) Plane assortment", with Starscream, Thundercracker and Skywarp depicted.

Presumably, then, the term "Seeker" was likely handed down by Hasbro in promotional materials, and those retailers happened to run with it. It's impossible to know with absolute certainty, but the most curious aspect of the whole story is that members of the online Transformers fan community were widely and independently using the term largely without question since the early 1990s, when the fandom was just getting on its feet, not dissimilar to the way the term "Generation 1" was coined. Were those obscure toy ads truly widely seen enough, and a strong enough part of the fandom's collective memory, to determine common parlance almost ten years after the fact? Or were there more official usages that have since disappeared? That is a mystery we may never solve!

Alternate terms

I don't know what to call you, Scourge, but I know "plane" isn't it.

The most obvious alternate name for these Transformers—and the one generally used by toy pack-in catalogs—is Decepticon Planes. While usually clear enough from context, this term has the weakness that there are many Decepticon planes who do not share this body-type. Also, the term is rarely, if ever, used outside of toy-specific contexts. The first UK toy pack-in catalog referred to the group as strike planes. The 1985 European Milton Bradley catalog calls them "Decepticon Aeroplanes". In Japan, they were called Jetrons. The Generation 2 versions were called "Decepticon Jets".

Within the fiction, the cartoon episode "Atlantis, Arise!" features Brawn calling Thundercracker a Deceptijet. And the 1985 Listen 'n Fun audio book "Sun Raid" has Megatron ordering the Deceptiplanes (Starscream, Skywarp, and Thundercracker) to break off an attack. The audio book "Jaws of Terror" referred to them as Decepticon superjets. The multipath adventure book "Dinobots Strike Back" has Megatron order his warrior jets to attack the Autobots, just before a "good" ending which they fail to prevent.

Did you ever wonder why we had to run for shelter...

For a long time, it has been common among fans to refer to the Seekers' cartoon Cybertronian forms (from the episode "More than Meets the Eye, Part 1" among others) as tetrajets because their shape resembles a tetrahedron, a pyramid with a triangular base.

If there was ever an official term that could've given "Seeker" a run for its money, it was the one used on the European Generation 2 packaging of Starscream and Ramjet: Skyraiders. That term also appeared in those characters' profiles in the UK Generation 2 comic. When the modern fandom dug this information up, "Seeker" was still considered a fan-generated term, so there was a push to supplant it with "Skyraider". But Furman's use of "Seeker" in The War Within, coupled with the rediscovery of the department store advertisements, put a damper on that movement. Some years later, the term "Skyraider" was officially resurrected to describe the jet warriors in the BotCon 2009 set "Wings of Honor" (based on the Energon Starscream mold). Skyquake was indicated as the body-type's developer in-universe.

Games

Transformers: Mystery of Convoy

Transformers: Mystery of Convoy

The Transformers: Battle to Save the Earth

In this iteration of the Autobot/Decepticon conflict, it seems all the Decepticon possess the Seeker body-type. There are also innumerable amounts of them. The Transformers: Battle to Save the Earth

Transformers: Cybertron Adventures

Transformers: Cybertron Adventures

Transformers: Devastation

Besides Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp, generic conehead-style Seekers were encountered by the Autobots during Megatron's plan to cyberform the Earth. There were three types encountered: Warriors (standard), Heavy Weapons (use missiles), and Elites (use swords).

Transformers: Devastation