Obsidian (BM)

The name or term "Obsidian" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Obsidian (disambiguation).

Obsidian is a Vehicon in the Beast Machines portion of the Beast Era continuity family.

"Wait, if my propellor's aren't spinning, then how am I flying?"

Obsidian and his consort Strika have fought for Cybertron in countless battles... and won them all. Though he is sophisticated and canny, able to concoct strategies with layers upon layers, his purpose is single-minded. He defends Cybertron.

There is some fine print. Whoever happens to be in charge, whether a benevolent or malevolent force, in his reasoning, is Cybertron. Once power changes hands, so does he. He is loyal only to the planet, and perhaps his consort Strika, not to any moral ideals. As his fellow Vehicon General Thrust has remarked, "If you're loyal to everybody, can you really be loyal to anybody?"... a question that has given Obsidian pause.

In an alternate universe, Obsidian would rise to overthrow Megatron and take over Cybertron, only to become a thrall of the chaos-bringer Unicron.

While he was pretending to be dumber-even-than-Tankor, his activation code (and, indeed, his entire vocabulary) was "obliterate". He dropped the word when the ruse was over.

Obsidian has been variously credited as a former Autobot or as a former Predacon.

Fiction

Timelines: Intimidation Game script reading

Voice Actor: Paul Dobson (English)

The Tripredacus agent Flamewar was held prisoner and interrogated by a group of Autobots and Maximals which included Obsidian. However, it transpired that the questioning was merely a test of suitability by the Predacon insurrectionist Megatron, and the entity appearing to be Obsidian was in fact a disguised Buzz Saw.

Beast Machines

Voice Actor: Paul Dobson (English), Masaya Onosaka (Japanese)

Obsidian, LA Nails spokes-bot.

Toys

Beast Machines

• Obsidian (Basic, 2000)
  • Accessories: Two rotors

A Basic-price point toy in the Beast Machines line, Obsidian transforms into a twin-rotor assault helicopter vaguely similar to an Osprey. His cockpit in helicopter mode is multi-jointed to allow it movement to look around, the Vehicons' toy aesthetic being "living vehicles". The cockpit's "eyes" further enhance the effect. The two rotor blades are pressure-launch projectiles.

The same mold is used by Robots in Disguise Obsidian and Universe Obsidian. A hand-painted mock-up of the mold was presented as a proposed Wreckers Rotorbolt as a future BotCon exclusive, but was never produced.

Beast Wars Returns

• Obsidian (Basic, 2005)
  • Japanese ID number: BR-14
  • Accessories: Two rotors

In 2005 the toy was redecoed and released as part of the Japanese Toys 'R' Us exclusive Beast Wars Returns series, the Japanese version of Beast Machines. Having been produced several years after the cartoon was, this version had a deco considerably more show-accurate than the original, but still not quite there, physical differences between the mold and show model regardless.

Trivia

• At one point Obsidian was planned to have a deluxe toy that would be more show-accurate. Sadly, this toy never made it past pre-production. (Rotorbolt was originally going to be a BotCon exclusive redeco of this mold, explaining why he was drawn to match Obsidian's show appearance in the Wreckers comics rather than the Basic toy.)
• Story editor Bob Skir wanted to depict Obsidian and Strika's to return Cybertron after the reformatting wave hit in the last episode, making them the only two purely mechanical beings remaining. However, this never made it into the series.

External Links

• Obsidian at TFU.info

From Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki, a Wikia wiki.