Technorganic

They changed bodies...again?

Technorganic describes certain types of beings whose physiology includes both technological and biological components, often melded at a cellular level.

Fiction

Beast Machines cartoon

The first technorganic Transformers were Optimus Primal's team of Maximals, who were reformatted by the power of the Oracle. The Reformatting

These technorganic Transformer were no longer purely technological robots, nor were they organic life forms. In Primal's words, they were "both, and neither"—a balance of organic and mechanical, combining the strengths of both. Though they still retained the ability to change between two forms, transformation now required conscious thought and effort, as well as a certain sort of mental discipline. They had to achieve an internal, zen-like mental balance, or "still point" as Optimus referred to it, and will themselves into their other mode. Primal, Cheetor and Blackarachnia used the mantra "I am transformed" to help until they got the hang of doing it on their own. If this state of mental balance was lost, a technorganic Transformer in robot mode would revert to their beast mode. Master of the House Several later technorganics seemed to get the knack of transforming right away; Silverbolt, Botanica and Nightscream seem to master the process immediately. Forbidden Fruit In Darkest Knight Home Soil

The on-board computers which previously handled such things were no more. Their transformation was not a mechanical shifting of moving parts, as with their robotic predecessors. For most, it appeared more like fluid shape-shifting, generally accompanied by a burst of bright energy. Master of the House

Primal's techorganic Maximals were invisible to traditional scanners while in beast mode, no longer giving off an "energy signature" like ordinary machines. However, when in their robot mode, they were as readily detectable as any other Transformer. Fires of the Past

Technorganic Transformers appear to be highly resistant to injury with highly-advanced internal "nanosurgical" healing abilities. Survivor

Optimus Primal's band of technorganic Maximals possessed powerful (almost supernatural) combat abilities. Seemingly all technorganics would have similar capabilities. Wreckers: Finale Part II Though powerful and durable, the technorganics were not invulnerable. Sufficient conventional firepower could render them unconscious Mercenary Pursuits or even physically damage them, and they were vulnerable to the same sort of Spark extractors which Megatron used on conventional Transformers.

On one occasion, ingesting a seemingly organic fruit caused Primal and his team to mentally devolve into primitives. When the tree that generated this fruit was slashed by Cheetor, it shattered into fragments, as if it were a digital illusion, and the fruit's effect was immediately undone. Primal concluded that the fruit's organic nature was devolving their bodies. Forbidden Fruit

Another vulnerability came from the Key to Vector Sigma, a device which converted organics into "technomatter". When applied to the technorganic Maximals, it caused them to convert to a metalized state, resulting pain and hysteria; it could eventually have resulted in deactivation if its effects were not reverted. The Key

The technorganic ethos extended beyond the Maximals themselves, to new plantlife Fallout, and eventually the planet itself. Cybertron had long been a planet of metal upon metal, "technology" alone. According to Primal's interpretation of the Oracle, the returning Beast Warriors brought with them organic components of the planets they had visited, allowing the Oracle to begin the process of reformatting the planet to be technorganic. The Maximals eventually discovered Cybertron's organic core, with deep sublevels comprised of soil and containing organic fossils, such as the one scanned by Nightscream.

At the end of the conflict, Cybertron was reformatted planet-wide, creating a new Earth-like world, a mix of technorganic flora and fauna, oceans (presumably full of water), and vast cities of varying construction; some largely technorganic in nature Abduction, others retaining more "traditional" inorganic metal or stonework construction, depending on the part of the planet. Wreckers: Finale Part II

Just what the reformatting of Cybertron implies for Primus, whose body is Cybertron, is unknown. Marv Wolfman, who did the series outline for Beast Machines, did not have the Primus origin in mind: "No thoughts were ever made re: the Marvel version while I worked on the concept. Fact is, I never even read that. I did what I thought would make a good series concept." [1]

Dreamwave Armada comic

Predacon loves marching in Iacon's "Organic Pride Day" parade.

Predacon experimented on himself with "biomechanical" technology to integrate organic tissue into his Cybertronian robotics, something that most other Transformers were said to find repulsive. More Than Meets The Eye bio

Animated cartoon

Not a being currently found at your local rave club.

Elita-1 became the first technorganic Blackarachnia after an accident in which she tried to use her ability-absorbing power on an organic species of alien spider. Along Came a Spider She found this state of being repulsive and was obsessed with finding a "cure" to restore her to an entirely robotic state. This, along with devices like the "organic detector" on the Elite Guard's ship, implied that it was considered unnatural and probably disgusting for Transformers to have any organic components whatsoever.

Isaac Sumdac discovered a protoform in his laboratory. While examining it, his DNA somehow mixed with the protoform while it was activating, creating the technorganic Sari Sumdac, who he adopted and raised as his daughter. TransWarped

Wasp became technorganic when he was experimented on by Blackarachina using modifed Transwarp pods. Predacons Rising

"Technorganic" in Beast Wars

He's furry, but was he organic?

Though Beast Machines introduced the term "technorganic" and used it to refer very specifically to living entities blending machine and organic at the cellular level, subsequent media under the Beast Wars banner has used the term to describe to pre-Beast Machines characters:

• IDW's Beast Wars Sourcebook makes frequent references to characters possessing features like "technorganic musculature".
• The Ultimate Guide refers both to Optimus Primal's beast mode and all Transmetals as "techno-organic" (with hyphen).
• The term bio-mechanical crops up occasionally in bios and reference books, used synonymously with this use of "technorganic" in reference to pre-Beast Machines beast warriors.

It remains unclear what the Beast Wars-era characters were. One would think that they were not technorganic according to the Beast Machines definition, since that would have rendered the distinction (and their reformatting) meaningless. The original Beast Wars cartoon never clearly explained whether their animal parts were comprised of genuinely living organic tissue, or were made of faux-biological synthetic matter, but most evidence points toward their beast modes essentially being a fleshy "shell" or "fur coat" surrounding the inner robot, rather than the cellular fusion described by Beast Machines.

The terms "technorganic" and "biomechanical" have been used to describe characters from other, non-Beast Era Transformers franchises—generally characters based on redecoed Beast Wars toys such as Armada Cheetor. In the absence of a full backstory, however, the exact meaning of those terms in those continuities is unclear.