Perceptor (Animated)

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

Perceptor is an Autobot from the Animated continuity family.

Now aren't you glad they kept his name under trademark?

Perceptor is a member of the Autobot Ministry of Science, and thus one of the finest minds on Cybertron. His high-caliber analytical skills help keep Autobots one step ahead of the exiled Decepticons in their technology. He frequently works with Wheeljack on special projects.

Fiction

Animated cartoon continuity

This section covers fiction that is ongoing. It will be added to as the story progresses. If it isn't current, you can help by updating it.

Events from IDW Publishing comics are in italics

Millions of years ago, Perceptor participated in "Project: Omega", attempting to create a living weapon of mass destruction that would serve as the Autobots' last hope for defeating the Decepticons. The end result of the project was Omega Supreme. During the final stages of the project, Perceptor explained to field tech Ratchet that Omega had been designed with a simple processor and would require a mentor-bot to guide his actions. Having inherited the activation codes to Omega from the mind-wiped Arcee, Ratchet was thrust into this mentor position, and followed Perceptor's directions to bring Omega online. TransWarped

Perceptor was given the data downloaded from the programming of the captured Decepticon Starscream and ordered by Ultra Magnus to initiate project Safeguard. He expressed concern regarding the risks of implanting Decepticon programming into an Autobot shell, and so was instructed by Ultra Magnus to find an expendable test-subject to offset the danger. Eventually, two suitable subjects landed in his lap, a pair of split protoforms who had been injured working in an energon refinery. While Wheeljack reinforced the two Autobots' structures to withstand the upgrade, Perceptor reverse-engineered the Decepticon flight codes and passed them to Red Alert for the data-merge. Though the resources of the Ministry of Science were sorely strained by this project, it eventually yielded Jetfire and Jetstorm.

During the twin Autobots' training, Perceptor put the downloaded data from Starscream to further use, upgrading the aging combat simulator they had at their disposal to represent Decepticon battle tactics more accurately. Unfortunately, Starscream's programming proved rather potent, and Perceptor lost control of the simulation. The twin Autobots were forced to fight their way out, finally allowing the scientist to terminate the simulation. Rise of Safeguard

Trivia

• Perceptor's character model was finalized and approved on April 1st, 2008. Aaron Archer, discussing this at BotCon 2008, wanted to make it very clear to the fans that this character was definitely not a prank.
• Perceptor is "voiced", so to speak, by an electronic speech synthesizer, rather than an actual, living actor, as an homage to his fellow super-genius, Stephen Hawking. It's a wee bit skeevy if you stop and think about it, really.
• According to a recent interview with the show's creator, Perceptor's voice sounds like that because he deleted his own emotions and personality to be able to store more information in his processor.