Sunrise
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| "Sunrise" サンライズ
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| Publisher | Transformers Collectors' Club (online exclusive) | ||||||||||||
| First published | January 7, 2016 | ||||||||||||
| Written by | Andrew Hall | ||||||||||||
| Illustrations by | Hayato Sakamoto | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | Shattered Glass, GoBots | ||||||||||||
| Chronology | 2015 | ||||||||||||
| Page count | 12pp | ||||||||||||
A team of GoBots continue on their mission to save their home universe on Earth, strangers in a strange land that's been made all the more stranger by recent disasters...
Synopsis
On the "Shatteredverse" Earth, heroic Decepticons Soundwave and Blitzwing cool off after recent battles by having energon drinks in the VIP lounge of the Dancitron, the most elite leisure club in New York City. Soundwave excitedly tells his friend of his recent battle with his Autobot arch-nemesis, Blaster, and his encounter with the strange, solar-powered robot known only as Solarbot, much to Blitzwing's bemused interest. The Decepticon communications officer explains how after Blaster and his cohorts retreated, Solarbot asked to interface with Soundwave, looking for data on six cyborgs with organic brains instead of embers. Blitzwing muses on how, after recent troubles with dimensional travelers and superhuman foes, he and Soundwave hardly seem so out of the ordinary anymore. His thoughts are interrupted when Soundwave continues his story, however, explaining that he initially thought that the strange robot meant the Seacons, Decepticons with organic parts in their beast modes. Blitzwing points out that the Seacons have embers, and wonders if the six that Solarbot is looking for has anything to do with the new Earth from the destroyed "Classicsverse" that now orbits Cybertron, something that Soundwave finds very possible. Soundwave mentions that Slugfest believes that Solarbot is looking for dimensional traveling cyborgs, and the Decepticons have a good laugh over that, as they enjoy themselves for the rest of the night...
Across the multiverse, the citizens of GoBotron gather in a dying universe, as Guardian military commander Leader-1, Guardian politician Zeemon, and Renegade commander Cy-Kill deliver grave news to the population. Leader-1 explains that though the mysterious extra-dimensional visitor known only as "the Beast Sage" was able to slow down the effects of the Cataclysm by providing the GoBots with a mysterious piece of machinery called the "crest," the power of the machine has begun to dim, and the Cataclysm has begun affecting the universe once more. With contact lost with those sent through the Dimensional Interfacer, and the breakdown of their dimension increased by some unknown multiversal event, they may have only a few days left before they're wiped from existence. Zeemon steps in to advise against using the Interfacer for an evacuation attempt, as rushing into an unknown dimension without scouting it out first will surely result in disaster. Cy-Kill objects, unwilling to stand by and let his soldiers perish, but Leader-1 steps into tell his former rival that any lines there used to be between Guardian and Renegade, civilian and soldiers, and otherwise are now gone; all they can do is hope their teams succeed in their goals. The gathered populace give subdued applause to Leader-1's speech, but Cy-Kill knows that in three days, there will be no one left to hope.
On the "Classicsverse" Earth, the original GoBots team of Path Finder, Small Foot, Road Ranger, and Bad Boy—Bug Bite has ran off on his own once more—wait at the rendezvous point for their three new teammates in the middle of a field in Utah. Wary after their experiences in Axiom Nexus, they are initially on guard when they see three vehicles approaching, but quickly stand down after realizing that back-up has arrived: arrogant Guardian Admiral Man-O-War, kindly Guardian medic Rest-Q, and the twisted Renegade scientist known as the Buggyman. Man-O-War quickly greets Path Finder, the only one there who he believes earns a modicum of his respect, explaining that they were sent here on a search-and-rescue mission when contact was initially lost with the six. Rest-Q notices that Bug Bite has gone missing, and Treds, the security officer, is forced to explain that he slipped away while they were offline for auto-repairs. Man-O-War begins insulting Treds for his apparent failure, and Treds is forced to take the abuse—he remembers how, long ago at the start of the war, he served under Man-O-War, and while he did more fighting than the arrogant Guardian, Man-O-War kept getting promoted, allowing him to reign his superiority over Treds. Path Finder steps in and explains that they've had problems they hadn't anticipated. Having spent far too much time stuck in Axiom Nexus, their original infiltration mission is no longer viable; instead, Path Finder suggests that they approach the Autobots directly. Man-O-War scoffs at this, but Small Foot, fed up with the Admiral's bad attitude, actually manages to briefly shut him up, explaining that the Autobots are much like them; heroes willing to help those in need. The Buggyman takes this moment to step in and introduce himself, acting as the navigator of Man-O-War's unit. Pulling out a small insectoid drone known as R-Navi, the Renegade scientist has R-Navi pull up holographic maps it made of the area upon arrival. Finding the Autobot base in Oregon, Path Finder decides to split the two teams up: she and Bad Boy will take to the air (and Man-O-War is quick to join her, supposedly so he can supervise first contact, but mainly so he doesn't have to walk or drive), while Treds takes the rest by land. Man-O-War takes one more stab at Treds, but the Guardian promises to get everyone there safely. As the two teams head out, Path Finder hopes she made the right choice by splitting the teams up...unaware that they were being watched the whole time...
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Heroic Decepticons | Guardians | Renegades |
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Quotes
"Earth, again? Honestly, human names... why not go for something patriotic, like 'Peopletron,' or something?"
- —Treds finds Earth names to be stupid.
"The Buggyman is master of not just insects... I have metal maggots, turbo-worms, and botspiders, too... You will love them!"
- —Buggyman
"That means you’ll be the one in charge of the ground team’s safety, Treds. You sure the perilous wilds of Potato won’t be too much for you?"
"I’ll get them to the Autobot base safely, or I’ll turn in my Guardian badge."
"I’ll hold you to that, soldier."
- —Man-O-War and Treds
Notes
- Characters mentioned but not seen include: Solarbot, Blaster, Colton, Ravage, Optimus Prime, the Seacons, the Terrorcons, Cold Slither, the Vehicons, Slugfest, the Recordicons, the Beast Sage, Doctor Go, Bug Bite, and the Last Engineer.
Continuity notes
- This delves into the long fallow GoBots plot of the Fun Pub stories. Noticeably:
- The Cataclysm was the reason the GoBots were turning up since waaaay back in "Games of Deception". That plot was quietly wrapped up in, of all things, The Complete AllSpark Almanac, which said the events of 2012's "Invasion" had ultimately sorted it. Now we get to see how the relevant characters are dealing with everything.
- This story follows on from the end of "Withered Hope", where the team is on Earth and reinforcements are picked up, which happened in 2008.
- Path Finder states that "the string of natural disasters that occurred after our arrival here" delayed the rendezvous with Man-O-War's forces, referencing the events of "Invasion". Despite 3 years (as indicated by Cliffjumper in "Dungeons & Dinobots", who noted he woke up on his earth about 25 years ago) having passed and several Classics stories having occurred after "Withered Hope", "Sunrise" begins after "Invasion" and "Solar Requiem", with Classicsverse Earth already in the Shatteredverse. The inordinate time gap between "Withered Hope" and "Sunrise" is intentional; the author acknowledged the need for suspension of disbelief in regard to this story's temporal setting. To be fair, this phenomenon is not without precedent. It’s also noted that they entered auto-repair mode after encountering Bug Bite, perhaps explaining some of the time gap.
- This story also follows up on the previous Shattered Glass story "Solar Requiem", which Andrew Hall was also involved with. The inclusion of the Shatteredverse is foreshadowing a GoBot incident mentioned in Stepper's BotCon 2015 profile card.
- Lio Convoy was noted to have visited Gargent 984.08 Alpha in a 14/5/2015 Facebook entry of "Ask Vector Prime". Vector Prime also noted in another entry on the same day that the ultimate fate of Gargent 984.08 Alpha would be addressed soon.
- Leader-1 is aware of the Transcendent Technomorph term "Primax". Presumably he learned it from Lio Convoy, who traveled through Axiom Nexus.
- These references were made possible by collaboration between Andrew Hall and Jim Sorenson.
- Small Foot refers to a previous fight with Buggyman from the Challenge of the GoBots cartoon episode "Gameworld".
Transformers references
- Soundwave's reference to Solarbot going "Super Seibertron mode" references the classic Japanese name for the planet Cybertron.
- Soundwave name-drops a six-bot team named the Seacons, which presumably includes versions of Overbite, Seawing, Snaptrap, and Tentakil from "Shattered Expectations".
- Blitzwing also name-drops a Shattered Glass group called Vehicons.
- Rest-Q's "foreign vocoder syndrome" that leads him to speak in Antillian comes from his Generation 1 counterpart.
GoBots references
- Whereas "Withered Hope" referred to "Herr Fiend", this story uses "Doctor Go", the cartoon name of Herr Fiend.
Real world references
- "Super Seibertron mode", discussed above, is also likely a reference to the "Super Saiyan" concept from Dragon Ball Z, in which the characters "power up" into a form with glowing golden hair and auras.
Errors
- Soundwave misspeaks the Spanish phrase "mano al mano" when it should be "mano a mano" or possibly "mano a la mano".
- The word "stream" in "Gargent universal stream" should be "cluster".
- While it's often difficult to tell how a cartoon character's name is supposed to be spelled, the Buggyman's name was spelled as "BuggyMan" on his original toy packaging and in the Renegade Rhetoric iteration of Ask Vector Prime, whose author consulted GoBots model sheets.
Other trivia
- This story's title image by Hayato Sakamoto was originally displayed at BotCon 2013.[1]
References
External links
- Spatiotemporal Challengers Part 1: "Sunrise" at The Official Transformers Collectors' Club
