Aunty
- Aunty is the Ark's brain manifested as a disembodied head from the Marvel portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.
Aunty (or Auntie) is the visual AI interface for the Ark's computer systems. Therefore, she is in complete and near-sole control of all of the ship's functions, including its Guardians. She's a kind personality, but also dutiful and coldly logical in her actions. That is, until the crash and/or Megatron's fusion cannon fried her circuitry, changing her from benign into an untrustworthy, raging megalomaniac.
She does not run Bartertown.
Fiction
Marvel The Transformers comics
When the Decepticons attacked the Ark, Aunty reached the conclusion that the Autobots could not possibly come out of the fight victoriously. Thus, she prompted Optimus Prime to crash the Ark onto Earth so that at least the Decepticons would be taken down with them. Raiders of the Last Ark
All combatants within the Ark were rendered offline, but Aunty detected Cybertronian life outside. Dispatching a probe, she learned that Shockwave had come to Earth and was wandering the Savage Land. Aunty used data gathered from the Savage Land to convert five of the dormant Autobots into the Dinobots. They traveled to fight Shockwave, but their battle reached a stalemate when all combatants became trapped in a tar pit and buried under a collapsing cliff side. Aunty then shut down as well. Repeat Performance! In the Beginning... [1]
Once the restoration of most of the crew after their subsequent four million year slumber was completed, Huffer fixed up Aunty as well as he could for the time being. This so that she could collect data of the planet they were stranded on. Aunty did, though wrongfully presented human machinery as the native lifeform instead of anything actually alive. The Transformers
It wasn't until another attack by the Decepticons that Auntie was fully reawakened. Though the Autobots fought bravely, Optimus Prime realized they were not going to make it and pondered about their odds if Auntie would've been online. He did not know how badly the crash had damaged Auntie, but figured trying to bring her back was the only chance they had and so fled the battlefield to reactivate her. This didn't occur without Megatron's notice however, who deduced his nemesis had to have a plan in mind. Thus, as Optimus pleaded for Auntie to wake up, Megatron blasted the terminal with his fusion cannon. Hope seemed lost for merely a moment, as Auntie still escaped her slumber. Yet unfortunately, she did so with her circuits scrambled a lot worse than initially feared. Her first act upon awakening was to magnetize the Ark's walls in order to stop the fighting, her second to tell the two leaders she would listen to both their sides of the story and destroy the less deserving group. Optimus tried to reason with her and remind her of her original identity, but she refuted his claims and insisted on her solution to the conflict. This amused Megatron slightly at first, until Optimus explained to him Auntie was playing with them and that no matter her judgement, she would destroy them all if not stopped. Considering his chances, Megatron opted to take down the glitching computer. As Auntie was distracted in consideration of her verdict, Megatron tapped into the energy of a black hole to power up for one devastating attack. It didn't come to that though, as Windcharger and Ravage, who had been able to get past all the traps and defences set up by Auntie, came stumbling in. While Windcharger took care of the last obstacle, Ravage aimed for Auntie. Just a little slower than the Mini-Cassette, Auntie died her second death.
After chasing the Decepticons out of the Ark, Optimus Prime and Windcharger had a talk about the day's events. Optimus sourly noted it would take a long time to repair Auntie, if they even dared to take that risk again. Raiders of the Last Ark
The Ark's computer automated the Autobots' use of the Tubes of Transference. The Last Stand
Upset at the presumed death of Ratchet, Optimus Prime talked things over with the Ark's computer, simply referred to as "computer". When Prime asked what he could do to best reduce death and tragedy, the computer logically answered that he should stop fighting. Later, when Prime got his fighting spirit back, the computer agreed that past heroes can motivate tomorrow's heroes. Yesterday's Heroes!
Regeneration One
Following his revival after the Ark's second Earthbound crash, Megatron reactivated Auntie to use to his own benefit. The computer was able to constantly formulate counter-plans and strategies to any task-force that sought to dethrone Megatron from his seat of power, resulting in many human casualties. Loose Ends, Part 3 The Wreckers and a handful of humans tried to reach the Ark and shut her down, and she deployed the Ark's defenses including a number of Guardian robots to defend her. Loose Ends, Part 4 She was instructed by Megatron to launch the Ark's nuclear missiles at his and Optimus Prime's forces no matter the outcome of the battle, ensuring all combatants perished. She prepared to fire the Ark's missiles per Megatron's orders, but detected Circuit Smasher entering the Ark. Despite detaining him, he still managed to overload her systems and shut her down before she could launch the missiles. Loose Ends, Part 5
Transformers '84
When examining the truth behind Shockwave's battle against the Dinobots on prehistoric Earth, Counterpunch dismissed the account that had actual living dinosaurs involved, suspecting that Auntie (Artificial Utility Nexus/Tactical Intelligence Entity) had scanned the planet for "something big and ugly", reconstructing the Dinobots from its extrapolation of the fossil remains. Secrets & Lies #2
Notes
- The name "Aunty" was conceived by Jim Shooter in his original treatment for the franchise to refer to the "thinking machine" that was the computer "brain" of the Autobots' unnamed ship. At some point during development, this name was crossed out of the document and replaced with "The Ark," giving the ship and name and using it to refer to the computer as well, as if they were the same entity.[2] Though the name was by all appearances intended to be abandoned, Aunty received a single mention in the first issue of the Marvel US series, which probably slipped in by accident, and an early original story written for Marvel UK would then run with the idea, and feature the computer as an antagonist, in the process spelling its name "Auntie." The animated series, meanwhile, would name the computer Teletraan I.
- While the summary-story "In the Beginning..." maintains that Aunty is a living computer, it refers to her only as "it".
References
- ↑ Though the Ark's computer isn't specifically called out as being Aunty in "Repeat Performance!", "In the Beginning..." recounts these events while identifying Aunty by name.
- ↑ griffin's 2010 BotCon report
