Crystalline containment vessel

Crystalline containment vessels are pieces of technology from the Generation 1 continuity family.

This caption points out the obvious, as does Grimlock.

Crystalline containment vessels or control crystals are yellow crystals capable of storing the mind engrams of Transformers as patterns of light for long-term storage.

Fiction

Marvel comics continuity

Events from the UK-only comic stories are in italics.

Before the launch of the Ark, Grapple, Hoist, Smokescreen, Skids, and Tracks volunteered to have their memory engrams transferred to crystalline containment vessels, to serve as additional soldiers for the Autobot crew as needed. The vessels were stored in the mind bank.

The Ark crash-landed on Earth, where the crystalline containment vessels were left undisturbed. Four million years later, the main crew awoke, but were almost all injured by a surprise attack by Shockwave. Optimus Prime, realizing the need for more troops, had Wheeljack set up the mind bank to transfer the five Autobots into bodies newly constructed by the Ark. Once the transfer process was complete, Optimus Prime remarked that the five now lived, for a second time. Rock and Roll-Out!

The shuttle that brought the Dinobots to the Savage Land contained a control crystal, which was left behind when the Dinobots engaged Shockwave in battle and got buried alive with him. Millions of years later, a human named Professor Embrey found the ship and took some of its parts, including the control crystal, to build himself a home for the duration of his stay in the Savage Land. Moreso, when a strange disease hit the native dinosaurs, he found that the control crystal's radiance kept the disease away. Knowing this, he enclosed an amount of land around his hideout to keep a number of dinosaurs near and thus save their lives.

In 1992, Snarl's case of Corrodia Gravis had gotten to an advanced stage and still there was no cure. The only thing the Dinobots could think of to save their teammate was to get a control crystal and store Snarl's brainwaves in it while they'd get him a new body. The sole control crystal they knew to still exist was the one from their old shuttle, so they went to get it. Finding the crystal missing, they searched the Savage Land, homing in on the control crystal's energy aura and encountering many sick or dead dinosaurs on the way. Upon finding the control crystal, Professor Embrey begged the Dinobots not to take it away from him and his healthy dinosaurs. Swoop suggested that they could use the crystal to transfer Snarl's mind into a stegosaurus and that Embrey would look after him in return for keeping the crystal. That suggestion was agreed to by all parties (except maybe the stegosaurus). Destiny of the Dinobots!