Talk:Burn Out (Diaclone)
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Does Burn Out really go in the "Female Transformer" category? She's female, but she's a piloted mech with an AI, and is in no way an actual Transformer except in outward appearance. --ItsWalky (talk) 00:03, 19 June 2015 (EDT)
Nightbird is an AI and gets Female Transformer category. Should be listed under "Half-qualifiers" on list of Female Transformers and tagged Female Transformer on her page.
- Well Nightbird was upgraded with Cybertronian tech in Legends. Burn Out is strictly an Earth mecha. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 17:30, 27 May 2016 (EDT)
Soooo... anyone notice that they mad Burn Out a guy in the product description? Does this count towards anything, or...? BaronXVI (talk) 10:32, 21 July 2022 (EDT)
- As much as any other editing flub in product copy for a character with an established gender, ie not much. -AzimuthAcolyte (talk) 10:42, 21 July 2022 (EDT)
Split out Cybertronians from Diaclone mecha
Why is this on the Diaclone page anyway? We already had this thing with the Bug Bites and we ultimately came around to splitting it with a "see also" on the GoBot one. Escargon (talk) 10:22, 22 July 2022 (EDT)
- Agreed. The intro for this article comes off as really silly trying to incorporate both interpretations and the characterizations here are much more different than, say, Knock Out (Prime) and Knock Out (G1). Saix (talk) 14:19, 22 July 2022 (EDT)
- Thirded. It was fine when it was just a few cute shout outs but now that Hasbro is actively mining Diaclone content on a constant basis we need to re-evaluate our approach. Grum (talk) 14:32, 22 July 2022 (EDT)
- I'm fine with that. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 15:21, 22 July 2022 (EDT)
- Thirded. It was fine when it was just a few cute shout outs but now that Hasbro is actively mining Diaclone content on a constant basis we need to re-evaluate our approach. Grum (talk) 14:32, 22 July 2022 (EDT)
- No, massive disagree, the split is actually just making two bad and repetitive pages instead of one good one. She's literally branded as "Diaclone Universe Burn Out", and the personality is the same. Bug Bite is *terrible* precedent, and Lift Ticket, her cohort, has unanimous negative sentiment on the discussion page. Sky Shadow (talk) 13:14, 27 July 2022 (EDT)
- Is her personality the exact same? I mean it's not like either has much to go on in their original appearances, but the opening paragraphs seem different enough. As for Lift-Ticket's page, it was based only on what we had at the time, and all that we did have was the fact that he was getting a toy, since these things don't have bio information anymore. By all appearances "Diaclone Universe" simply means "Diaclone colors" rather than Diaclone itself, at least so far. Escargon (talk) 13:34, 27 July 2022 (EDT)
- Those "X Universe" labels ultimately just mean "based on this design/color scheme" (Twin Twist is clearly just the same Wrecker Autobot and not a suit piloted by a human) and "stubborn mecha suit" seems to me a different personality and conceit than "determined racer". Saix (talk) 13:39, 27 July 2022 (EDT)
- ...I mean, Diaclone Universe Twin Twist.... does come with a pilot...
- And, really, frankly, "determined" vs "stubborn" does not... seem... at all incompatible. It seems more like one is directly influenced by the other, a mere thesaurus substitution of the same idea. --ItsWalky (talk) 15:18, 27 July 2022 (EDT)
- like... [1] ItsWalky (talk) 15:23, 27 July 2022 (EDT)
- Yes, but Twin Twist isn't a lifeless mecha. As for the bit Saix brings up, I think the more pertinent bit is the "racer" bit, which Timelines Burn-Out is decidedly not. Escargon (talk) 19:21, 27 July 2022 (EDT)
- I mean, RID Scourge isn't a racer, either, are we gonna give his Velocitron toy a new page? Saying a character, like, can't ... have a toy that features in a race if they weren't ever said to be in a race previously, saying that makes them too-different to be the same character... that... that does not seem sustainable. --ItsWalky (talk) 20:12, 27 July 2022 (EDT)
- Fair enough, yes, I completely forgot about that angle. Still, you said it yourself above; this version of the character isn't a Transformer. She's an artificially intelligent mecha who very explicitly comes from a very far off corner of the multiverse. Escargon (talk) 21:04, 27 July 2022 (EDT)
- The lore of all the Diaclone decos who got Masterpieces tends to lean in the direction of treating it all as G1 continuity family even when, in Spin-Out's case, he was literally a mecha who later got a spark. That's the one avenue where Diaclone stuff continues to get fiction more substantial than one-panel cameos and one-paragraph copy, and I'd argue a far stronger precedent than arguing for the isolated integrity of a dead-and-buried BotCon set. Sky Shadow (talk) 04:19, 28 July 2022 (EDT)
- I disagree; a comic with even a slight retail presence is far more substantial to me than a prose piece in a toy's packaging. And to be fair, Spin-Out is an outlier among these characters. Escargon (talk) 08:01, 28 July 2022 (EDT)
- We have like 30 Nebulon pages where there's a line in at the bottom of the intro paragraph that says "sometimes they're fleshy Nebulans, sometimes they're Cybertronians" to keep us from separating pages pointlessly, and I'm not sure why we don't do that here. --ItsWalky (talk) 08:32, 28 July 2022 (EDT)
- But they aren’t explicitly travelers from a non G1 dimension. Escargon (talk) 08:54, 28 July 2022 (EDT)
- but like Burnout's GS toy says she's literally from the "Diaclone Universe", so --ItsWalky (talk) 10:39, 28 July 2022 (EDT)
- s'pretty wild to say this Burnout can't be a traveler from another dimension in a toyline specifically about travelers from other dimensions, with indicators saying which universe they're from, and Burnout's says she's from the exact universe that the "other version" of the character is from --ItsWalky (talk) 10:42, 28 July 2022 (EDT)
- But they aren’t explicitly travelers from a non G1 dimension. Escargon (talk) 08:54, 28 July 2022 (EDT)
- We have like 30 Nebulon pages where there's a line in at the bottom of the intro paragraph that says "sometimes they're fleshy Nebulans, sometimes they're Cybertronians" to keep us from separating pages pointlessly, and I'm not sure why we don't do that here. --ItsWalky (talk) 08:32, 28 July 2022 (EDT)
- I disagree; a comic with even a slight retail presence is far more substantial to me than a prose piece in a toy's packaging. And to be fair, Spin-Out is an outlier among these characters. Escargon (talk) 08:01, 28 July 2022 (EDT)
- The lore of all the Diaclone decos who got Masterpieces tends to lean in the direction of treating it all as G1 continuity family even when, in Spin-Out's case, he was literally a mecha who later got a spark. That's the one avenue where Diaclone stuff continues to get fiction more substantial than one-panel cameos and one-paragraph copy, and I'd argue a far stronger precedent than arguing for the isolated integrity of a dead-and-buried BotCon set. Sky Shadow (talk) 04:19, 28 July 2022 (EDT)
- Fair enough, yes, I completely forgot about that angle. Still, you said it yourself above; this version of the character isn't a Transformer. She's an artificially intelligent mecha who very explicitly comes from a very far off corner of the multiverse. Escargon (talk) 21:04, 27 July 2022 (EDT)
- I mean, RID Scourge isn't a racer, either, are we gonna give his Velocitron toy a new page? Saying a character, like, can't ... have a toy that features in a race if they weren't ever said to be in a race previously, saying that makes them too-different to be the same character... that... that does not seem sustainable. --ItsWalky (talk) 20:12, 27 July 2022 (EDT)
- Yes, but Twin Twist isn't a lifeless mecha. As for the bit Saix brings up, I think the more pertinent bit is the "racer" bit, which Timelines Burn-Out is decidedly not. Escargon (talk) 19:21, 27 July 2022 (EDT)
- like... [1] ItsWalky (talk) 15:23, 27 July 2022 (EDT)
- Those "X Universe" labels ultimately just mean "based on this design/color scheme" (Twin Twist is clearly just the same Wrecker Autobot and not a suit piloted by a human) and "stubborn mecha suit" seems to me a different personality and conceit than "determined racer". Saix (talk) 13:39, 27 July 2022 (EDT)
- Is her personality the exact same? I mean it's not like either has much to go on in their original appearances, but the opening paragraphs seem different enough. As for Lift-Ticket's page, it was based only on what we had at the time, and all that we did have was the fact that he was getting a toy, since these things don't have bio information anymore. By all appearances "Diaclone Universe" simply means "Diaclone colors" rather than Diaclone itself, at least so far. Escargon (talk) 13:34, 27 July 2022 (EDT)
- "Is not a Transformer but rather a lifeless suit of armor that a human rides" is an origin like "Actually a Gobot" or "Shattered Glass" - it really can't be reconciled with other origins and normally should not be listed on the same page.
- What I find strange is that we already split the Lift-Tickets - but the actual talk page discussing that split was exclusively against splitting them, even though I side with having done it I am a bit surprised that it went ahead. Unless there was a discussion somewhere else?
- Hasbro is trying to smudge things together by saying "They're real Transformers now, from a universe named Diaclone" (just like they smudged together G1 and SG Flamewar, or G1 Slicer / SG Wheeljack). I think if we were to indulge in that smudging-together and Ignore All Standards for the sake of not having two near-identical short confusing pages, we would have to have the opening line specify "Burn-Out is a Diaclone mech (and occasional Autobot)". Hasbro is trying to bring her to life, we can play along if we feel like it, but shouldn't be running ahead of them. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 11:11, 28 July 2022 (EDT)
- The Lift-Ticket split only happened because Saix went and did it of his own accord. Same with his going ahead and splitting this page while the conversation is still going on.
- On a related note, we have Kuwagatrer and Zaptrap separate from each other due to the latter's extended profile distinguishing the two. --Sabrblade (talk) 11:26, 28 July 2022 (EDT)
- In my eyes the split/merge debate boils down to a Watsonian perspective versus a Doylist one. I'm firmly in the latter camp; both BotCon Burn Out and Legacy Burn Out are literally just the Diaclone character, and then the Wreckers appearance is literally just a toy commercial for that existing decidedly-Diaclone toy! You obviously can't reconcile the mech portrayal and the individual one, but I personally don't think we should have to; multiple different contradictory interpretations of the same character should go on the same page, and we should let the reader chart the real-world evolution of the character. Frankly, the Autobot Lift-Ticket page as it stands is utterly laughable—"he's an Autobot". Like, what? At the very least, the Generations toys should be on both pages—and that speaks to a common problem with this wanton fragmentation, that we end up with redundant writeups on multiple pages that have to be maintained in tandem. To speak more generally, I also strongly disagreed with the Bug Bite split, and think the idea of "continuity transplants" as they're always called in the notes sections is a totally bunk thing the wiki made up and which only feels less and less useful as the franchise calcifies; Character X is Character X, regardless of what story they appear in, and I think by far the most salient argument for splits is simply that many pages would be too long otherwise. —The Wadapan (talk) 16:08, 28 July 2022 (EDT)
- Fully agreed. Both Burn Outs are fundamentally the same thing of "we have characterised this particular Diaclone toy into a character named Burn Out who can appear in Transformers stories", what universe they originate in is irrelevant IMO. We keep the robotic and organic Targetmasters on the same pages because splitting them based on backstory would be stupid. Similarly, we merged all those G1 versions of RID01 characters because, ultimately, continuity families are an imaginary concept that exist to help organise things, not something we should be a slave to, to the point of splitting one White G1 Bumblebee Called Bug Bite from another White G1 Bumblebee Called Bug Bite on the technicality of whether they're from a Primax universe or whatever it is the GoBots cluster is called. If characters originating from GoBots and Diaclone universes were routinely appearing in Unicron Trilogy stories or movieverse stories or whatever, maybe I'd feel different, but for all practical purposes those franchises are basically attached to G1 at the hip in the same fashion as the Beast Wars franchise, and I don't think drawing lines between them and G1 really achieves anything other than needlessly fragmenting information about what are always going to be the Same Guy in the eyes of both Hasbro and any fan who is not already knee-deep in the wiki sauce. Jalaguy (talk) 16:22, 28 July 2022 (EDT)
- michaelscottThankYou.gif --ItsWalky (talk) 16:48, 28 July 2022 (EDT)
- The G1 continuity argument doesn’t even work when Timelines Burn Out and Lift Ticket showed up in a TransTech comic! Not to mention that Bug Bite's showed up in Cyberverse. I don’t care if the toy is listed on here because yeah whatever ultimately, that particular bit is right to do, but it’s ridiculous to me to do this for characters who have nothing in common in their fictional appearances. And we have hundreds of pages where we go “x is an x”, I don’t see why it’s a problem for this one. Escargon (talk) 17:28, 28 July 2022 (EDT)
- michaelscottThankYou.gif --ItsWalky (talk) 16:48, 28 July 2022 (EDT)
- Fully agreed. Both Burn Outs are fundamentally the same thing of "we have characterised this particular Diaclone toy into a character named Burn Out who can appear in Transformers stories", what universe they originate in is irrelevant IMO. We keep the robotic and organic Targetmasters on the same pages because splitting them based on backstory would be stupid. Similarly, we merged all those G1 versions of RID01 characters because, ultimately, continuity families are an imaginary concept that exist to help organise things, not something we should be a slave to, to the point of splitting one White G1 Bumblebee Called Bug Bite from another White G1 Bumblebee Called Bug Bite on the technicality of whether they're from a Primax universe or whatever it is the GoBots cluster is called. If characters originating from GoBots and Diaclone universes were routinely appearing in Unicron Trilogy stories or movieverse stories or whatever, maybe I'd feel different, but for all practical purposes those franchises are basically attached to G1 at the hip in the same fashion as the Beast Wars franchise, and I don't think drawing lines between them and G1 really achieves anything other than needlessly fragmenting information about what are always going to be the Same Guy in the eyes of both Hasbro and any fan who is not already knee-deep in the wiki sauce. Jalaguy (talk) 16:22, 28 July 2022 (EDT)
- In my eyes the split/merge debate boils down to a Watsonian perspective versus a Doylist one. I'm firmly in the latter camp; both BotCon Burn Out and Legacy Burn Out are literally just the Diaclone character, and then the Wreckers appearance is literally just a toy commercial for that existing decidedly-Diaclone toy! You obviously can't reconcile the mech portrayal and the individual one, but I personally don't think we should have to; multiple different contradictory interpretations of the same character should go on the same page, and we should let the reader chart the real-world evolution of the character. Frankly, the Autobot Lift-Ticket page as it stands is utterly laughable—"he's an Autobot". Like, what? At the very least, the Generations toys should be on both pages—and that speaks to a common problem with this wanton fragmentation, that we end up with redundant writeups on multiple pages that have to be maintained in tandem. To speak more generally, I also strongly disagreed with the Bug Bite split, and think the idea of "continuity transplants" as they're always called in the notes sections is a totally bunk thing the wiki made up and which only feels less and less useful as the franchise calcifies; Character X is Character X, regardless of what story they appear in, and I think by far the most salient argument for splits is simply that many pages would be too long otherwise. —The Wadapan (talk) 16:08, 28 July 2022 (EDT)
It should be noted that the labels "Diaclone Universe" / "G2 Universe" / etc. can't actually be taken to mean what they sound, frustrating as that may be. They're just Hasbro's marketing-speak for "this toy is based on a Diaclone origin" because evidently they don't feel like using the wording "Diaclone Series". If we took them literally, then Legacy Road Rocket would not be from the same world as G1 precursors, and Generations Selects Lift-Ticket should not be a mecha which has an Autobot insignia. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 16:27, 28 July 2022 (EDT)
- For what it's worth — my perspective is that Diaclone and GoBots are not continuity families. If we covered Diaclone and GoBots as a whole then splitting them would make sense, but as-is I don't think they should be split under the continuity family rules because the universe-hopping versions aren't from "another continuity family", because they aren't from ANY continuity family. --Riptide (talk) 19:09, 28 July 2022 (EDT)
- But the ones who aren't universe jumping ones/who are normal Cybertronians ARE from a specific continuity family; there's now multiple Bug Bites who aren't G1. Escargon (talk) 19:24, 28 July 2022 (EDT)
