Oracle (G1)

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

The Oracle is a mysterious being from the cartoon portion of the Generation 1 continuity family. It is also known as Primacron's assistant.

Primacron's assistant was a lava lamp?

The Oracle was once the assistant of Primacron, an ageless creature of magnificent intellect. Primacron built the Oracle to help him create life, but the Oracle's corporeal existence was cut short after the birth of Unicron.

Fiction

The Transformers cartoon

Voice actor: Gregg Berger (English), Toshio Ishii (Japanese), Werner Abrolat (German)

That Matrix sure gets around!

Originally an ape-like robotic creature, the Oracle was badly damaged when Unicron attacked Primacron. His essence fled to a dead world at the center of the universe, where it resided for millions of years.

In 2006, when Primacron created a new universe-destroying monster, Tornedron, the Oracle telepathically summoned the "Primitives", all of the animal and monster Transformers from both the Autobot and Decepticon factions, to his world. There, appearing to them only as iridescent energy within a subterranean cave, he explained his hope that the Primitives' simple instincts could defeat the meticulous planning of Primacron. The Primitives tried their best, but Tornedron sucked their life forces dry, leaving only Grimlock, who had been overlooked when Trypticon collapsed on him. Grimlock pursued Tornedron back to Primacron's laboratory, where he saved the day by proving the Oracle right; he randomly chose to flip a switch that reversed Tornedron's energy flow, causing him to dissipate and restoring everything he had consumed to life. Call of the Primitives

The cast notes for Call of the Primitives explain that the Oracle is the life force of one of Primacron's Primitives, thereby explaining his unusual, ape-like appearance and bodiless nature. What is infinitely more enigmatic about the character, however, is the scene in which we are shown his essence leaving his body—an essence that is visually identical to the Matrix of Leadership. What this means has never been clarified in English fiction. Whether or not it was intended by the writer is unknown, but seems unlikely, given that said writer could not care less about the franchise. Likewise, whether it was something added by someone else, or even if it was just an unintended animation mistake is, at this point, never likely to be known. In Japan, however, the scene is taken at face value and was the subject of a massive retcon in 2007.

Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity

In 2006-07, Japan released new timelines that introduced many new ties between series that had only been tangentially connected in the past. As part of this process, the events surrounding the Oracle were expanded and retconned to be notably different from US continuity. This new version of the Oracle's story effectively merges it with Vector Sigma, the Beast Machines Oracle and Primus.

The Oracle possessed the power to bring robotic beings to life, hence his important role in Primacron's experiments. After having his body destroyed by Unicron, the Oracle's essence, encased within a protective shell, fled to a dead planet at the center of the universe, which he proceeded to transform into a verdant, living world. However, he could sense that in the future, Primacron would go on to create another universal danger in the form of Tornedron, and so summoned the Primitives back through time to his planet, where he instructed them in how to destroy the threat.

In its original form, the English and Japanese version of "Call of the Primitives" did not imply the use of any time travel. Its inclusion in the new timeline is a retcon designed to prevent the episode from conflicting with the new idea that the Oracle had become Vector Sigma by the time the episode's events occurred.

Later in his life, the Oracle also reached through time when he discovered that the evil Sparkbots were attempting to recreate Unicron following the planet-eater's destruction in the year 2005. By this stage calling himself "Primus", the Oracle attempted to stop the villains and their unwitting pawns, the human Kiss Players, by snatching away the fragments of Unicron's lifeforce each time the Kiss Players recovered them. Kiss Players radio drama #45-46 Unfortunately, this merely led the Kiss Players to pursue him through the timestream and resulted in them crashing into the "Wall of Time" and becoming scattered throughout the multiverse. Kiss Players radio drama #47 Knowing that the Kiss Players were innocent in this whole affair, having been duped by the Sparkbots, the benevolent Primus rescued them from the different regions of time and space they had wound up in, and properly introduced himself, explaining the Sparkbots' treachery. He then took them back to prehistoric Earth, where they watched as he stopped Unicron's rebirth by sealing his lifeforce within the planet. As his last act, Primus then sent the Kiss Players back to their home time, and went to sleep, transforming his body into the golden sphere of Vector Sigma and returning to his world. Kiss Players radio drama #48-51

Unfortunately for Primus, as he slept, the Quintessons found his world and were able to shackle his power, using it to create the Transformers and to transform his planet into the metallic Cybertron. The aliens also recovered the shell that had held his essence, which became the relic known to the Transformers as the Matrix of Leadership.

For further information, see: Primus and Vector Sigma.

Notes

• The name "Oracle" was never used in the episode-itself, with "Primacron's assistant" being the only name spoken for the character. The name comes from the episode's script as well as Japanese sourcebooks.

Foreign names

• Japanese: Oracle (オラクル Orakuru)
• Mandarin: Shèngxián (圣贤, "Sage")