Thirst
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| "Thirst" | ||||||
| Production company | Hasbro Studios | |||||
| Airdate | June 7, 2013 | |||||
| Written by | Marsha Griffin | |||||
| Directed by | Scooter Tidwell | |||||
| Animation studio | Polygon Pictures | |||||
Knock Out and Starscream's experiment with synthetic energon threatens to take over the Decepticon ship and unleash an old enemy.
Synopsis
In Knock Out's lab, Starscream bemoans his current situation, having to compete with Shockwave for Megatron's favor. His whining is interrupted by moans from Cylas, who is strapped to a table and begging to be freed. Knock Out injects him with a derivative of the synthetic energon he recovered from the Autobots. The compound drives Cylas into a rage, which Knock Out notes is one of its erratic side effects. Starscream sees in Cylas' fury the makings of a super-soldier for Megatron.
Starscream attempts to inform Megatron of this discovery, but the Decepticon leader is only interested in discussing the status of the Predacon protoforms with Shockwave, who is reporting in from his off-site lab.
Cylas becomes more enraged with each new injection of Synth En. Knock Out discovers that the more the compound is administered, the faster Cylas burns through his own natural energon reserves. Starscream cannot see the use of having another unruly beast that can't be controlled, but then has an idea: Dark Energon. Knock Out objects, noting that the Dark Matter once turned their own ship against them. Starscream assures the doctor that controlled exposure will merely place Cylas under Megatron's command, via their leader's symbiotic link with the substance.
Under orders, Knock Out injects Cylas with Dark Energon. Cylas temporarily powers down before rebooting in a rage and breaking free from his bonds. But after only a few steps, he crumbles to his knees, desperately low on energon. Then with a fierce roar, his lower jaw splits into monstrous mandibles and a long, bladed tongue emerges. He attacks, sending Starscream and Knock Out fleeing down the halls of the ship.
Once a safe distance away, Knock Out suggests sounding the alarm. Starscream disagrees, not wanting Megatron to learn of their actions. He claims that once Cylas attempts to feed upon the ship's highly-trained Vehicon troopers, they will take care of the threat.
Elsewhere, one of the Vehicons stumbles upon Cylas, who grabs the highly-trained trooper and begins draining his energon.
Starscream and Knock Out plan the disposal of Cylas' corpse when they find the Vehicon's corpse instead. While the two argue about who's to blame for their predicament, the dead Vehicon rises as a reanimated Terrorcon and reveals the same segmented jaw and bladed tongue that Cylas had. Starscream's blaster fire has no effect, nor does destroying the Terrorcon's head, as the tongue continues to protrude from inside its chest. A final volley of blasts destroys the monster's revitalized spark, severing its link to the Dark Energon.
Knock Out posits that Cylas could infect the entire crew in the same manner, a theory that's borne out when they find themselves surrounded on all sides by energy-draining Terrorcons. Starscream and Knock Out lock themselves in a room to get a breather and assess the situation. Accepting that this may be the end, the two Decepticons exchange final pleasantries and step back into the hall…
…right into Megatron, who demands to know why the Dark Energon in his spark has been acting funny. Starscream provides a slanted explanation, but Megatron doesn't believe it until he's forced to destroy an attacking Terrorcon.
After a more extensive debrief of the situation, Megatron puts the ship on high alert and orders Starscream and Knock Out to destroy Cylas. Around the ship, Vehicons and Insecticons battle the infected Terrorcons.
Cylas wanders into the ship's vault. Sensing energon within a stasis pod, he breaks it open, freeing and reviving Airachnid. Cylas attempts to drain her energon, but Airachnid is able to immobilize him with webbing long enough to deliver a killing blow. She immediately re-establishes her telepathic control over the Insecticons and commands them to return to her. Their sudden departure is noticed by Soundwave.
Starscream and Knock Out discover Cylas' corpse. Starscream is elated until Knock Out points out Airachnid's destroyed prison, followed by Megatron demanding a status update.
Airachnid leads the Insecticons through the halls of the ship, ordering them to wipe out every Decepticon aboard. At the end of the hall, Soundwave calmly steps forward to face them. The bug-bots attack, and Soundwave opens a space bridge directly in front of him at the last second. Before they can react, Airachnid and the Insecticons are teleported to another location. As the bridge closes behind her, Airachnid realizes that they have been sent to a moon orbiting Cybertron and screams in rage.
Aboard the Nemesis, Megatron contacts Shockwave again to inform him they're implementing his containment protocol to prevent further outbreak. He also tells Shockwave to speed up the Predacon cloning project, as they have now lost more than half their military forces.
Back on the moon, an infected Airachnid drains the energon from one of her minions as the rest of the Insecticons line up obediently to await their turn.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Decepticons | Others |
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Quotes
"My, my, my. Whatever have you been inflicting upon poor Cylas?"
"Ha! Well, anything that merits the need for a living petri dish."
- —Starscream and Knock Out laugh over Cylas' misfortune.
Megatron: [Talking to Shockwave over comm] Tell me of the Predacon protoforms. What is the status of their incubation? Mm-hm. Uh-huh.
Starscream: Master, if I do say so myself, I have made the most intriguing discovery. It appears that--
Megatron: Not now! [Back to Shockwave] Please continue, Shockwave. No, no one important.
- —Megatron doesn't like to be interrupted when he's on the phone.
"Do you think he's actually trying to--?"
"Suck out our energon with that thing? Sure seems that way."
- —Starscream and Knock Out discuss Cylas' fancy new tongue.
Starscream: Megatron will undoubtedly hold us responsible.
Knock Out: But...WE ARE!
Starscream: Well, you are, mostly.
- —Starscream blames someone else, news at 11.
"Aim for the head!"
"What? How do you know?"
"I've seen human horror films." [Starscream looks at him curiously] "At drive-in theaters!"
- —Knock Out schools Starscream on how to survive a zombie apocalypse.
"You know the worst part? After battling Autobots all these years, getting smacked down, shot at, blown up, this is how our lights go out?"
- -Knock Out getting retrospective on us. This sounds familiar...
"If this is indeed the end, if we are to become Terrorcon-chow, it has been an honor serving Lord Megatron with you."
"You're no Breakdown. Though I must confess, I have always admired your lustrous finish."
[Awkward pause]
"Well, then."
"Should be going."
- —Starscream and Knock Out begin a beautiful friendship…
[To Knock Out] "Allow me to handle this." [To Megatron] "It's Knock Out's fault!"
"Precisely, my-- WHAT?!?"
- —…which ends moments later when Starscream jumps at the first opportunity to throw Knock Out under the bus.
"Let me just say, you have been awarded more chances for redemption than anyone in Decepticon history!"
- —Next contestant, Megatron from Kaon. Special subject, the obvious.
"Silas? Whatever have they done to you? But more importantly, thank you for freeing me."
"No. Thank…you… [Dies]
"Whatever."
- —Airachnid is unmoved by Cylas' final words.
"Soundwave! I vow that on this day, the world will hear the sound of your screams."
- —Airachnid's mouth writes a check that her abdomen can't cash.
Notes
Animation and technical errors
- Airachnid lost one of her spider legs to the closing pod door when she was put in stasis, but all six are intact in this episode.
- Once again, Starscream fires a missile at an infected Vehicon, only to have it appear again later while he is cowering in a control room.
Continuity notes
- Yowza, this would be a tough episode to start watching the series.
- Airachnid was frozen in stasis in "Armada" and was retrieved from the Autobot base by the Decepticons in "Darkmount, NV".
- The polarity gauntlet can be seen in the vault, in the first of the five containment fields. It was left on Cybertron by Bumblebee in "Darkest Hour", and can be assumed to have been recovered by Knock Out's salvage team offscreen in "Darkmount, NV".
- Silas, the formerly 100% human commander of MECH, was surgically combined with Breakdown's corpse in "The Human Factor". He changed his name to Cylas (Cybernetic Life Augmented by Symbiosis) and became a reluctant guest of the Decepticons in the same episode.
- Cylas (then Silas) entered into a partnership of convenience with Starscream in "Operation Bumblebee, Part 1" and conveniently stole his T-cog in "Operation Bumblebee, Part 2".
- Cylas (then Silas) once had Breakdown pinned to his operating table in "Operation: Breakdown".
- Knock Out recovered some of Ratchet's synthetic energon in "Stronger, Faster".
- Shockwave has been working from an off-site laboratory since "Chain of Command".
- Megatron previously used Dark Energon to reanimate and control the dead in "Darkness Rising, Part 3".
- Dark Energon awakened a dangerous, self-serving intelligence within the Decepticon warship in "Flying Mind".
- Airachnid killed Breakdown and discovered her telepathic control of the Insecticons in "Crossfire".
- Airachnid knows Cylas (then Silas) from their brief partnership in "Crisscross".
- Airachnid's desire to have Soundwave scream likely stems from the very one-sided beatdown she received from him in "One Shall Rise, Part 3".
- Starscream refers to the Decepticon soldiers as "Vehicons" confirming it as their real designation. Wheeljack previously used that term in to describe them in "Plus One"
Transformers references
- Protoforms are the first stage of Transformer life in many continuities.
- Transformers have faced both robot zombies and energy vampires before.
- Megatron again refers to his upcoming Predacon army as Beast Machine super-soldiers.
Real-world references
- Knock Out's proclamation of "It's alive" echoes the famous words spoken in Frankenstein.
- The combination of a segmented jaw and forked tongue shown by the Terrorcons is nearly identical to the Reapers from the film Blade II. The Reapers were an errant strain of vampires created through experimentation, just as these Terrorcons were, and suffered from a similar, zombie-like thirst for blood due to their accelerated metabolism burning through it much faster.
- In addition to the segmented jaw and barbed tongue, the Terrorcons' teeth also transform into vampiric fangs.
- As Knock Out indicated, destroying the head is the traditional way to kill zombies in many horror movies.
Trivia
- This is the first episode which doesn't feature the Autobots in any capacity. Previously, "Patch", the last Decepticon-centric episode, had flashbacks which contained Autobots even though none appeared in person.
- Starscream says that the ship is crawling with "highly-trained Vehicon troopers". Kinda makes you wonder what a poorly-trained one is like, huh?
- On-the-move teleportation seems as if it's becoming Soundwave's signature move, having used it to dispatch Arcee in "Orion Pax, Part 1" and to claim the Predacon fossil in "Project Predacon".
- Steve Blum is credited as "Insecticon #1" instead of Bombshock this time.
