Revelations Part II: Descent
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 His crime is curiosity. | ||||||
| "Revelations Part II: Descent" | ||||||
| Production company | Mainframe Entertainment | |||||
| Airdate | November 6, 1999 | |||||
| Written by | Marv Wolfman | |||||
| Directed by | William Lau | |||||
| Animation studio | Mainframe Entertainment | |||||
Cheetor and Rattrap make a surprising discovery about their missing memories and the identity of Tankor.
Synopsis
A gazelle-like beast watches Optimus Primal swing from tree to tree in a mysterious forest, following a trail of floating sparks towards their nexus, the Allspark. Suddenly, the Allspark vanishes, and Primal is suddenly restrained by vines. As he watches, the placid forest disappears, the trees and grass replaced by buildings and steel. Before him, the face of Megatron laughs triumphantly as the organic vines become technological.
Optimus Primal awakes, shaken. The dream is revealed to be an Oracle-induced vision. Cheetor explains that he was worried about his leader, as Primal was yelling and fearful. Primal rebukes him, saying that they should leave him alone no matter how worried they are. With Primal back in the Oracle, Cheetor takes over. Explaining to the Maximals that the Sparks of the Vehicon generals are subverted Maximal sparks, he tells them that they must extract the sparks somehow and reformat them into other technorganic Maximals to help them accomplish their goal (whatever that may be).
Cheetor suggests going after Tankor first, as he is slower then the others (in both speed and mentality). Blackarachnia suggests going after Thrust (for obvious reasons). However, she is the minority, so Tankor wins out. Cheetor splits them into two groups: Nightscream and Blackarachnia will distract Thrust and Jetstorm, while he and Rattrap will (hopefully) extract Tankor's spark and place it in a new body.
The three generals are entrenched at a spaceport, supervising work. Tankor is coordinating the loading of a spacecraft, Jetstorm supervises the defense from the sky, and Thrust... is doing something important too. Probably.
Nightscream distracts the two latter generals by destroying a building, prompting Jetstorm to give chase to the bat. Nightscream manages to escape and drains the energon from Jetstorm's body, weakening the Vehicon. Blackarachnia tries to talk to Thrust about his past identity, and he begins to experience flashbacks of prehistoric Earth, seeing Optimus Primal, Rhinox, Cheetor, and Blackarachnia (all in their final incarnations) looking at him.
At the docks, Rattrap distracts Tankor by throwing a bomb at him, irritating him enough to give chase. Cheetor transforms to robot mode and leaps from Drone to Drone as Tankor fires at him. Rattrap interfaces with a crane and knocks Tankor away into some crates. Rattrap then attempts to interface with his mind. After some effort he finally manages to access Tankor's past memories and break his own amnesia.
Rattrap discovers that Megatron broke free of the Shuttle in transwarp space, where he was sucked away, and remarks that "that was the last of him". Eventually, the team returned to Cybertron and was immediately shot down by orbiting satellites.
Rattrap takes a breather from watching these records and wonders why they all seem to be from his point of view. He then plugs back into Tankor's brain. He sees Cheetor (in his Transmetal 2 form) and Primal (in "Optimal" configuration) escaping from tank drones. But the drones fire canisters that explode and release a green gas that envelops the Maximals.
Rattrap watches the Transmetals revert to their pre-Transmetal beast modes, while Silverbolt remains in the same form but lies on the ground helplessly. Stranger, though, is that Rattrap sees himself reverting as well. He wonders why this is, if these are his own memories. But then he sees his reflection in an approaching tank drone, and the mirrored face is Rhinox's. Which means that Tankor is Rhinox!
As Thrust and Blackarachnia talk, Jetstorm (now strengthened) arrives, buries Nightscream under fallen rubble, and accuses Thrust of fraternizing with the "enemy". Thrust denies this, and Jetstorm puts pressure on him to remove Blackarachnia's spark. Grudgingly, Thrust shoots her, but is tackled by Nightscream before he gets a chance to extract her spark. Thrust and Nightscream fight, eventually detonating a nearby tank, causing Nightscream to become pinned under some bars. As the Maximal watches helplessly, Jetstorm extracts Blackarachnia's spark.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Maximals | Vehicons |
|---|---|
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Quotes
"If I'm ever to get to the heart of our quest, then it is vital that you leave me alone, no matter what you hear."
- —Optimus should at least give them a safe word.
"As of this moment, we are going on the offensive."
"And who are we offending today?"
- —Cheetor and Blackarachnia
"Nice try! Someone need his targeting system recalibrated? Ha ha!"
- —Cheetor, still a kid at heart, even as a leader.
"And it's a hard fly to left field. He's going, going...GONE!"
- —Cheetor, again proving that he's a kid at heart.
"And I thought I got the easy job."
- —Rattrap, riding on Tankor's back.
"These blasts! Gah! They're devolving us!"
- —Cheetor, mastering the obvious.
Notes
- Technically, this would be the first appearance of Rhinox since his disappearance in Beast Machines, albeit from Tankor's unlocked memories.
- While the Maximals ponder which Vehicon to attempt to free first, their images appear on a screen along with Cybertronix text saying "we the unwilling are led by the unknowing to do the impossible for the ungrateful", which is a quote from Mother Teresa.
- This episode marks the first time Tankor commands the Tank Drones.
Animation and technical errors
- When grappling with Optimus after his dream, Cheetor's feet clip into the floor.
- When Thrust shows up during Nightscream and Blackarachnia's distraction, he's misrepresented by one of his drones. (Note the hands. Thrust's are yellow, drones' are purple.)
Continuity errors
- We never discover what the Tank Drones are loading onto the spacecraft or why. Sure seems to be important, though.
- Although the Maximals' Transmetal modes seem to be powerful enough to injure and occasionally kill other sentient Cybertronians, and their alternative forms have been shown to be pretty fast, there seems to be no evidence of the Maximals putting up a fight against the Vehicons, nor evidence of them using vehicle or beast modes to escape. Instead, we have the slightly odd sight of Optimal Optimus and Transmetal 2 Cheetor running in robot mode away from the tank drones, rather than using their (much faster and flight-capable) alt-modes.
- Not so much an error, but certainly an ambiguity, is that the nature of the green gas and its relationship to the virus are unclear at best. Those who were "devolved" (probably better put as "de-Transmetallized") were also spared the immediate paralytic effect of the virus. But Silverbolt was one of the fully-paralyzed victims, despite the fact that he did have Transmetal qualities (as evidenced by his immunity to the Metal Hunter's weapon). Perhaps, as a Fuzor with no previous body upgrades, he simply wasn't Transmetal enough to resist the virus. Ultimately, there are no clear answers.
- Along similar lines, Optimus Primal is "devolved" back into his season 1 body. However, that body blew up in space fighting the Planet Buster. His "Optimal Optimus" form evolved from his Transmetal body.
- One final comment: The virus seems to act as if the first bodies we see the Maximals using in Beast Wars are their original bodies. However, the Axalon crew had different robot modes before they crashed on Earth. Why did the gas take them back to the bodies they had in season 1 of Beast Wars, but no further?
- Blackarachnia isn't seen escaping the Vehicons, though she is briefly seen aboard the shuttle. It is likely that she immediately fled underground after the Maximals run away (as indicated by the first episode), but not before being hit by the virus.
Foreign localization
French
- Title: "Révélation, Partie II" ("Revelation, Part II")
- Title: "Révélations 2" (Canada, "Revelations 2")
Japanese
- Title: "Tomo no Kioku" (友の記憶, "The Memory of a Friend")
- Original airdate: November 28, 2004
Spanish
- Title: "Revelaciones, Segunda Parte: Ascendencia" ("Revelations, Second Part: Descent")
Home video releases
- DVD
2004 — Super Lifeform Transformers: Beast Wars Returns — Volume 2 (Geneon Entertainment) — Japanese audio only.
2006 — Beast Machines: Transformers — The Complete Series (Rhinomation)
2007 — Transformers: Beast Machines — Season One: Volume Two (Sony)
2007 — Transformers: Beast Machines — Season One: Volume Two — Revelations (Sony)
2007 — Transformers: Beast Machines — Complete Season One (Sony)
2009 — Transformers: Beast Machines — Intégrale Saison 1 (Sony) — French audio only.
