Marvel TF cartoon...

ShadowSonic · Post by **ShadowSonic** » Sat Oct 02, 2004 7:10 pm

But the event that caused Rodimus to absorb Unicron's essence in the first place never happened in the new future.

This means that there are two Unicrons in that future, the head floating in space somewhere and the one in the Matrix...

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Oct 02, 2004 7:36 pm

ShadowSonic wrote:But the event that caused Rodimus to absorb Unicron's essence in the first place never happened in the new future.

This means that there are two Unicrons in that future, the head floating in space somewhere and the one in the Matrix...

And since there is a floating head, then there must also be another Rodimus Prime whose Matrix lacks 'essence of Unicron'.

Then again, as Galvatron is around, it is reasonable to assume that unlike the other future's Galvatron, this one didn't escape into the past, avoided meeting a similar fate and therefore all events from the destruction of Unicron's body onwards are different too.

Then again, seeing as in Roddy's timeline, there was never an incursion by Galvatron in the mid-1980s, it's logical to assume that all events from the divergence point onwards are different, perhaps even significantly different, twenty years on. Who knows what the fate of Unicron in that timeline was?

ShadowSonic · Post by **ShadowSonic** » Sat Oct 02, 2004 7:59 pm

That's why I'm glad Furman never really returned to the future storyline after Time Wars, it's all too confusing now...

So, should Target 2006 be included or should the UK stories that weren't referenced in the US comic be ignored?

I just realized, maybe the US comic storyline (ignoring all the UK stories) was the alternate future timeline. There Unicron was wholly destroyed.

Maybe after G2 the war began again, Megs somehow became Galvatron again, and what happened...happened?

Señior's Covenant · Post by **Señior's Covenant** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 1:16 am

The way I always figured it is that the movie tale was the original timeline, but due to time-traveling every time someone from the future showed up it altered events and the future changed until it came to the point that the events leading up to Galvatron & Co. never happened in any way shape or form. But I'm probably wrong.

ShadowSonic · Post by **ShadowSonic** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 1:40 am

The movie timeline was the true timeline at one point. But that all changed when Galvy and co went back in Target 2006, this set in motion the whole Straxus clone fiasco.

Then the continued changes brought about by Galvy's continued presence in the past (Tricking the cons to all go to Ratbat, for example) led up to certain changes.

I'm not sure, but do you think that maybe the future characters influence somehow caused Underbase? Becuase if not for Underbase than Grimlock and co wouldn't have gone to the core, awakened Primus and cuased the Unicron battle to happen.

This leads up to G2, which totaly destroyed any chances of the movie future.

Rodimus and co are probably trapped in some alternate timeline that will neevr come to pass, with two Unicrons....oy...

Bouncelot · Post by **Bouncelot** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 6:34 am

ShadowSonic wrote:I'm not sure, but do you think that maybe the future characters influence somehow caused Underbase? Becuase if not for Underbase than Grimlock and co wouldn't have gone to the core, awakened Primus and cuased the Unicron battle to happen.

I can't see how. The Underbase was sent into space right at the start of the war. So unless Cyclonus and Scourge were sent back further in time than we thought at the end of Legacy of Unicron, there's no way they could be responsible for the Underbase heading for Earth. Though maybe Ratbat's taking over affected the turn of events significantly.

However, there is no way that Primal Scream happened in Rodimus's timeline. I blame this particular diversion on the existence of Straxatron.

Mind you, the Annual Story Ark Duty establishes that, in Rod's timeline, the Ark never got into space. Which means that most of the events we're familiar with never happened.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 9:42 am

Don't forget: If Galvatron hadn't gone back in time, Operation Volcano would probably have been a success, Impactor would've lived, Magnus would have been on Cybertron.

After that the possibilities are endless. Maybe Prime never died. Maybe Grimlock never died. Maybe Primus never woke. Maybe Unicron never came to Cybertron 16 years early.

In that case the movie timeline is the original one, and Galvy's meddling created a whole new past that drastically effected later events. Is that the 'butterfly effect' or am I thinking of something else?

Señior's Covenant · Post by **Señior's Covenant** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 11:58 am

spiderfrommars wrote: Is that the 'butterfly effect'...

Yes, I believe so.

Here's the thing, wouldn't it have been two alternate futures inwhich there was a Galvy given T: 2006 AND TW? (Was TW UK only?) Y'know, T:2006 Galvy stops by and his doings alter the time stream in a huge way, so a completely different Galvy makes a "return" in TW?

Also, if the Megs in TW wasn't the Megs I know in T:2006 & G2, who wasd he? The clone?

Forgive typos & what not, got a baby in on earm.

Brendocon · Post by **Brendocon** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 12:57 pm

Señior's Covenant wrote:Here's the thing, wouldn't it have been two alternate futures inwhich there was a Galvy given T: 2006 AND TW? (Was TW UK only?) Y'know, T:2006 Galvy stops by and his doings alter the time stream in a huge way, so a completely different Galvy makes a "return" in TW?

Yep, Time Wars was UK only.

I'm confident that the Galvatron who returned in Fallen Angel (and stuck around till TW) is the same one as in T:2006.

- When he timejumps the first time, he alters the past and creates an alternate future, before returning to his own.

OR

- He successfully alters the timestream (even though he thought he didn't) and returns to an altered future.

Of course, that relies on the fact that we're not dealing with unbreakable ouroboros type timejump loops where it's impossible to change the past (such as War Dawn - the Aerialbots' anomolous presence actually caused the timeline to take the course that lead to their being then in the first place). Which I think it's accepted we aren't, otherwise things would have been much tidier...

Now, if the first is true (that he created an alternate timeline), when he arrived back in his present, he would have had memories of past events that didn't actually happen in his timeline. Which means that when he timejumps a second time, he would still have been in the unaltered timeline and nobody there should have remembered the events of Target 2006. Which they did.

- When Galvatron first arrived in the past in T:2006, his presence immediately altered the timeline, and everybody involved would have been present in the new timeline. That way, when Galvy returns to the future, he returns to the new future that has been created by his presence in the past.

That means that it's perfectly logical for him to have knowledge of events that happened the first time he timejumped, and explains why his second timejump put him in the same chronology as he'd been in before.

Of course, the moment he arrived back in time again, it caused another split and we're onto a third parallel continuum. This is the part at which my brain usually begins to hurt.

Imagine time as a straight line, left to right. 1980 is far left, 2010 is far right. Galvatron jumps from 2006 to 1986, causing the straight line to fork into two. One fork continues along as it should have done [OVC works, etc], whilst our second fork is the new timeline, with Galvy in it.

Each independant path follows its own set laws (past cannot be changed - timejumpers cannot break the rules of cause and effect: anything they do, they were meant to).

Presumably, in the original future, Galvatron simply vanished during the events of the Movie - it's impossible for him to return home, as he continues to exist only in the second timeline. Hot Rod, Kup and Blurr then follow him from the first timeline, ending up in the second, and splitting that in two - one where Galvatron was alone, the other (our third) where the Autobots were present. This now gives us the notion of an original future where Galvatron and Hot Rod both vanished during the Movie, never to return. That's a film I want to see!

Galvy then jumps forward in time, travelling along our third fork, finding himself in a future where there should theoretically be another Galvatron - but by a convenient coincidence, that one also timejumped. The events of the Movie then play out as they should.

Later, Galvatron (still on the third fork) timejumps a second time. This causes our third timeline to fork into two itself, with Galvy following the new line that has been created by his appearance (with the original fork retaining the laws of causality).

If that makes sense, I'm better at this than I thought.

Of course, there's Cyclonus and Scourge's role that needs factoring into it all as well. Does their presence obey the laws of causality? Presumably so, upto a point, as their appearance in the past would have caused the timeline to split long before we get to where we are. So really, our first timeline is actually an alternate one created by the events of Legacy of Unicron, which I think took place in the fourth future... which is now the fifth.

If events of the fourth created future are what caused the events of the "original" past, then it would indicate that all of it was meant to happen anyway, it was all inevitable and could not have been prevented. The laws of causality seemingly manage to cope with alternate timelines affecting each other.

And then there's Death's Head to take into account. And Soundwave and the Terrorcons. And the Autobots who jumped back in TW. Which is where I give up.

No wonder there was a bloody timestorm...

Also, if the Megs in TW wasn't the Megs I know in T:2006 & G2, who wasd he? The clone?

Only retrospectively.

Yeah, everything between Gone But Not Forgotten and Back from the Dead is the clone Megatron.

Dead Head · Post by **Dead Head** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 5:55 pm

Brendocon wrote: I'm confident that the Galvatron who returned in Fallen Angel (and stuck around till TW) is the same one as in T:2006.

<snip cool dissection of Transformers timejumping stuff>

Excellent read Brendocon!

Bouncelot · Post by **Bouncelot** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 8:36 pm

A slight alternative to Brendocon's theory is that time jumping (at least by the method we see Galvy and Rodimus use) creates an alternative universe and ties the two timezones together. All time jumps from the later timezone go to the same alternative past, and the tieing together explains why the gap is always 20 years). A similar effect is seen in the Doctor Who story Day of the Daleks, where it is attributed to "the Blinovitch Limitation Effect".

It's pretty certain that the Galvatron from Fallen Angel is the one from Target: 2006, as he remembers his previous trip to the past, and kept his time jump trigger should he ever need to return to it.

Brendocon · Post by **Brendocon** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 8:44 pm

Bouncelot wrote:A slight alternative to Brendocon's theory is that time jumping (at least by the method we see Galvy and Rodimus use) creates an alternative universe and ties the two timezones together. All time jumps from the later timezone go to the same alternative past, and the tieing together explains why the gap is always 20 years). A similar effect is seen in the Doctor Who story Day of the Daleks, where it is attributed to "the Blinovitch Limitation Effect".

So the timejump mechanism itself is tied to the specific past? Makes sense. So, no matter what alternative timestream they end up in when returning to the future, using that gizmo will always take them back to the same past.

I follow. I think... this is why time travel should be banned from all fiction.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 8:52 pm

Bouncelot wrote:A slight alternative to Brendocon's theory is that time jumping (at least by the method we see Galvy and Rodimus use) creates an alternative universe and ties the two timezones together. All time jumps from the later timezone go to the same alternative past, and the tieing together explains why the gap is always 20 years). A similar effect is seen in the Doctor Who story Day of the Daleks, where it is attributed to "the Blinovitch Limitation Effect".

It's pretty certain that the Galvatron from Fallen Angel is the one from Target: 2006, as he remembers his previous trip to the past, and kept his time jump trigger should he ever need to return to it.

I thought the Blinovitch Limitation Effect stated that when having travelled through time, time continues to 'march on' at the same rate in both timezones, resulting in the traveller returning to a point in the original timezone forward the exact amount that the traveller spent in the other timezone. At least, that's the explanation given in the Doctor Who novel The Sands of Time.

Which makes no sense in Target:2006, as both parties returned to their own points very soon after they departed.

I would've thought that the reason there was always the 20 year gap was because that was just how they'd configured their machines.

Brendocon · Post by **Brendocon** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 9:01 pm

Rebis wrote:I would've thought that the reason there was always the 20 year gap was because that was just how they'd configured their machines.

Mhm. Galvy's magic little button o' temporal displacement was set to "take me back 20 years, boyo!"

Of course, I always had trouble understanding why time kept progressing in the future before Galvy's return (it makes sense that he could return at the point he left, thus seemingly never having been gone) - but having got my head around what I wrote previously, it makes sense that he never returned to his own future, thus making the hunt for him plausible.

Bouncelot · Post by **Bouncelot** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 9:31 pm

Rebis wrote:
Bouncelot wrote:A slight alternative to Brendocon's theory is that time jumping (at least by the method we see Galvy and Rodimus use) creates an alternative universe and ties the two timezones together. All time jumps from the later timezone go to the same alternative past, and the tieing together explains why the gap is always 20 years). A similar effect is seen in the Doctor Who story Day of the Daleks, where it is attributed to "the Blinovitch Limitation Effect".

It's pretty certain that the Galvatron from Fallen Angel is the one from Target: 2006, as he remembers his previous trip to the past, and kept his time jump trigger should he ever need to return to it.
I thought the Blinovitch Limitation Effect stated that when having travelled through time, time continues to 'march on' at the same rate in both timezones, resulting in the traveller returning to a point in the original timezone forward the exact amount that the traveller spent in the other timezone. At least, that's the explanation given in the Doctor Who novel The Sands of Time.

Which makes no sense in Target:2006, as both parties returned to their own points very soon after they departed.

I would've thought that the reason there was always the 20 year gap was because that was just how they'd configured their machines.

The Blinovitch Limitation Effect says all sorts of things. One of them is that time marches on like that - as in Day of the Daleks and The Sands of Time. And thanks for pointing out the flaw in my explanation. Maybe it normally works like that, but Unicron's intervention mucked it up for some reason.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 9:45 pm

Bouncelot wrote:The Blinovitch Limitation Effect says all sorts of things. One of them is that time marches on like that - as in Day of the Daleks and The Sands of Time. And thanks for pointing out the flaw in my explanation. Maybe it normally works like that, but Unicron's intervention mucked it up for some reason.

Well, it certainly worked that way for the Iron Man of 2020.

Perhaps it's because the TFs are the offspring of Primus, that they can bend the rules a bit.

Señior's Covenant · Post by **Señior's Covenant** » Mon Oct 04, 2004 1:07 am

Sooo, out of curiosity, did the "real" Megs ever find out the true nature of Galvy?

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Mon Oct 04, 2004 6:32 am

What do you mean by 'true nature'?

Certainly the clone Megatron did, and after Time Wars he went back to Cybertron and came to terms with his ultimate destiny, building towards his future (until the real Megs showed up).

That said, the real Megs did meet Galvy again at the end of the Marvel run, and sensed a 'kinship.' It was never explored further in G2, though I'm sure Furman would have done if he'd had the chance.

Stormwolf · Post by **Stormwolf** » Mon Oct 04, 2004 9:10 am

spiderfrommars wrote:That said, the real Megs did meet Galvy again at the end of the Marvel run, and sensed a 'kinship.' It was never explored further in G2, though I'm sure Furman would have done if he'd had the chance.

Furman did mention Galvatron (in G2) in the interview that was posted here a while ago.....

ShadowSonic · Post by **ShadowSonic** » Mon Oct 04, 2004 1:07 pm

Yups, I think he planned to have him and Shockwave come back afterwards, and Galvatron would try to take leadership from G2 Megs (Who now cannot become Galvatron). I don't think he'd win very easily though, G2 Megs is equal to him.

Anyways, don't you think we should get back to what we'd like to see if Hasbro animated the original comic?

What changes would you like to see? I mean we can do some things differant, I want Prime to die better in "Afterdeath", and maybe we should leave some of the UK stories out of it. (Time Wars wasn't that good...)

Bouncelot · Post by **Bouncelot** » Mon Oct 04, 2004 1:22 pm

If we're leaving in all the Galvatron stuff before Time Wars, then we need something to tie up all those story strands. I say rewrite Time Wars from scratch. Make sure we get this era's Magnus finally beating Galvy into the mix, and we're sorted.

ShadowSonic · Post by **ShadowSonic** » Mon Oct 04, 2004 2:35 pm

I remember in Farscape a few new theories about time travel were introduced, and they made sense:

1) Even if you changed the past, if you tried to get things as close to the way they were before, more than likely the future will be relatively unchanged. Time's like a rubber band, it can be stretched for a while before it breaks, but if it's not too badly stretched it's still okay.
2) Just by being in the past you chnage things (Even if you sat on your butt the whole time) somehow the presence of beings that shouldn't be in that time period releases waves in the 'pool of reality' that change the surroundings.

This could explain why things diverged in the UK comics, the sheer presence of Cyclonus Scourge and Galvatron in the past constnatly affetced things differently rather than their actions.

Maybe Starscream got the idea to merge with Underbase and kill everybody in the new timeline, but in the old one he didn't?

And I agree, we can keep the basics of Time Wars but should change most other things.

And after Rodimus and co leave, we never EVER see the future characters again (forget the black and white strips).

I dunno about the Galvatron thing at the end of the book, that could get confusing, maybe we could jsut have him be a clone of Megs that Unicron altered or an original creation or something.

As for Magnus, why not include him in the series after Time Wars instead of forgetting him like Furman did?

Señior's Covenant · Post by **Señior's Covenant** » Mon Oct 04, 2004 3:09 pm

ShadowSonic wrote: 2) Just by being in the past you chnage things (Even if you sat on your butt the whole time) somehow the presence of beings that shouldn't be in that time period releases waves in the 'pool of reality' that change the surroundings.

This could explain why things diverged in the UK comics, the sheer presence of Cyclonus Scourge and Galvatron in the past constnatly affetced things differently rather than their actions.

That would be the butterfly effect spidey was referring to and one of the best tv series that covered it was Seven Days. A butterfly flaps it's wings in North America, a chain of events occurs later creating torrential winds, perhaps a tornado, on the other side of the world. In the previously mentioned series the test subject notes who wins a major basketball game and once sent back in time seven days he bets on the winning team. However, due to his presence the sheer condition of the world has altered and one of many things to change is the outcome of the game. I'm reminded of the religious argument in General Discussion where Shocks mentioned "The 49th cell formed must touch or signal to the 107th cell made, otherwise instead of muscle tissue you get skeletal tissue." This is a similar principle (if not the same on a different scale). Like an avalanche, but on a far greater scope with ranging effects. When even thinking of the enormity of the process its mind boggling, and incredibly ******* interesting.

As to what event occured to change everything (assuming Galvatron was the catalyst, which likely he was) it was probably a multitude of little things leading to the grander stories which resulted in a timeline where Galvatron is never created. Also, seeing as in Time Wars Galvy is seeing the battle through Megs eyes (retrospectively) and the Megs involved in that battle is the clone (yes?), then it would be the clone that goes on to become Galvatron and not the real Megatron, right?

What I want to know is why future characters that travel to the past and alter events in such a way they never existed, continue to exist. I know theoretically it's possible, I've just never heard the theory.

ShadowSonic · Post by **ShadowSonic** » Mon Oct 04, 2004 3:53 pm

I believe it's because they existed out of their own time period when the changes that neutralized their existances occured.

I mean that they changed the past, but becuase they weren't in their own time period whent he changes occured they continued to exist, as temporal anomalies. THis could be why the time storm happened, becuase so many anomalies (TFs who shouldn't exist anymore) still existed. The time storm destroyed their future (It was moving from the past and the future) but they weren't there when it happened, so they still existed. The storm then began reaching through time to find them and destroy them.

When they were destroyed, the rift closed.

What I meant about the sheer presence thing altering reality was that simply going back to the past but not interfering at all changed things nonetheless. The sheer presence of a person not of that time altered things just by existing.

Señior's Covenant · Post by **Señior's Covenant** » Mon Oct 04, 2004 3:59 pm

Ah, gotcha.

ShadowSonic · Post by **ShadowSonic** » Tue Oct 05, 2004 12:59 pm

Okay, back to cartoon storylines.

Would you put any storylines in differant order, would you exclude any (Please, this isn't a Bob Bash, stay civil)? Would you alter certain storylines? What?

Bouncelot · Post by **Bouncelot** » Tue Oct 05, 2004 1:06 pm

ShadowSonic wrote:Okay, back to cartoon storylines.

Would you put any storylines in differant order, would you exclude any (Please, this isn't a Bob Bash, stay civil)? Would you alter certain storylines? What?

I think I'd muck about with some of the later stories so that we could include some Earthforce stories. I'd probably get rid of several of the earliest UK stories just because making them fit in would probably mean a few rewrites. Get rid of the Two Megatrons thing (as I said above a couple of times), rewrite Time Wars, make minor changes here, there, and everywhere so that things fit together better or made more sense. Other than that, I'd leave the overall storyline pretty much unchanged.

Oh, I'd probably have some original cartoon exclusive characters turn up as hi-then-die background TFs just for the fun of it.

BB Shockwave · Post by **BB Shockwave** » Tue Oct 05, 2004 6:58 pm

That's a good idea... starting with the femmebots!

But I dare say "Prime's Rib' was good. Funny at least, especially when Jazz tries to explain the gender problem to Hot Rod...

Two Megs was a good idea. Shocking, too. It was one of those Furman twists- and although we would see it coming, in a cartoon it would be cataclismatic. They could foreshadow it in earlier episodes by showing Megs having flashbacks out of Straxus's memory...

Also, I'd like to see what mission was that clone Megs sent the Triggercons on. Not only are those three great characters, I get a hunch that they were sent to find a suitable lieutenant for Megs- namely Thunderwing!

Stormwolf · Post by **Stormwolf** » Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:28 pm

BB Shockwave wrote:Also, I'd like to see what mission was that clone Megs sent the Triggercons on. Not only are those three great characters, I get a hunch that they were sent to find a suitable lieutenant for Megs- namely Thunderwing!

Correct, here's another thing I noticed:

The Decepticon Powermasters were sent to Nebulos to find Scorponok to form an alliance, pretty cool when you consider that the powermasters worked for Megatron (a bit retconning done by Furman).

Ozz · Post by **Ozz** » Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:34 pm

Stormwolf wrote:The Decepticon Powermasters were sent to Nebulos to find Scorponok to form an alliance, pretty cool when you consider that the powermasters worked for Megatron (a bit retconning done by Furman).

I don't remember such a retcon. Was it done in UK versions of US issues? Besides, Megatron was on Earth at that time, this would be silly.