Galvatron's insanity

bobaprime85 · Post by **bobaprime85** » Sun May 15, 2005 6:44 pm

It there is one reason people will remember this guy, it's because he could be nuttier than a bag of peanuts in a mental institution. Yet, how much of his reputation as a nutjob is really deserved? He could actually be quite the shrewd thinker on occasion, and it seems as if his stigma of madness is greatly influenced by his crap characterization on the cartoon. Plus, there is the lingering question of just why he can be insane. There have been mentions of it (i'm thinking of a line from "savage circle" I think it was, where he mentions that the remnants of Megatron were eating at his precision 'like a cancer' or something), but has a reason really been nailed down, or do I just need to brush up on my back issues?

Post by **Kaylee** » Sun May 15, 2005 6:53 pm

I always felt it was just a natural progression of Megatron's insanity. Also something to do with Galvatron's immense strength and firepower... naturally there's nothing planned about Meg's lunacy i dont think, so it's not fair to start reading traits or particular issues into it, but I always felt Megatron felt very threatened and became incredibly paranoid and used anger to lash out, almost randomly.

Hence add 20 years of worsening insanity onto that and a huge ober-powerful new form and you have a being who loses all control and sense at seemingly almost the slightest feeling of conspiracy against him unless he actively concentrates to control it (backed up I think by G's Universe entry which documents his actively plotting against everyone, even his own allies, and also by the conclusion of Time Wars which showed Galvatron would only feel he had succeeded when he'd destroyed everything, even his own allies, so nobody could usurp him).

That's of course ignoring the whole Straxus bit, which I tend to like ignoring because it just feels like a nasty retcon to tie up a loose storyline, but more than anything because I honestly can't get my head around how it's meant to work (yes, I've read and studied the diagrams and the explanations and it just gives me a headache

).

Ozz · Post by **Ozz** » Sun May 15, 2005 7:17 pm

I think first Galvatron was nuts for a while due to entering Earth's athmosphere combined with time-jumping after having been thrown out of Unicron. And soon after Blaster used his electro-scrambler on already unstable Galvatron, and that definitely didn't help.

Bouncelot · Post by **Bouncelot** » Sun May 15, 2005 7:43 pm

Ozz wrote:I think first Galvatron was nuts for a while due to entering Earth's athmosphere combined with time-jumping after having been thrown out of Unicron. And soon after Blaster used his electro-scrambler on already unstable Galvatron, and that definitely didn't help.

But after that, he was perfectly sane up until Time Wars, where his insanity could be put down as a side effect of the rift.

bobaprime85 · Post by **bobaprime85** » Sun May 15, 2005 8:10 pm

Bouncelot wrote:
Ozz wrote:I think first Galvatron was nuts for a while due to entering Earth's athmosphere combined with time-jumping after having been thrown out of Unicron. And soon after Blaster used his electro-scrambler on already unstable Galvatron, and that definitely didn't help.
But after that, he was perfectly sane up until Time Wars, where his insanity could be put down as a side effect of the rift.

Then, of course, we have the Rhythms of Darkness Galvy, and the problems associated with him, so the insanity should go deeper than that.
Karl made some salient points (as usual) about Megatron's degrading mental state which are very logical. However, it seems to me that Unicron's actual reconstruction of Galvatron from Megatron may be the key. It's as if Unicron was trying to create a totally new being, but wasn't quite sure about what to do with the leftover remnants of Megatron, and that ended being a cause of Galvy's insanity. I guess it gets down to how much Galvatron identifies himself with Megatron. Or something.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Mon May 16, 2005 12:07 am

I like my Galvatron nuttier than a fruitcake. It's part of the fun of the character. Yes, he can be salient but certain things send him over the edge.

Megatron was loopy too, even if you ignore the basket case that was Straxus/Megatron. But rather than wheel out loads of examples I'll stick to one source, the aforementioned 'A Savage Place.' This also shows that Rhythms of Darkness Galvy was mad, even though unsubjected to a Time War or a nasty Fallen Angel type re-entry.

Pre-Galvatron, a monologue reads: "Madness... so long eating at my brain. Fades..." After he's recreated it reads: "But the jewel is not flawless. What was Megatron eats at my cold, clinical precision like a cancer. Insanity ravages me..."

So, when the going gets tough, the mad get madder.

Or in other words, the recreation didn't go exactly according to plan.

(Note the Galvatron in Armada's World's Collide was not mad, but he didn't seem to have much of a personality to speak of. In this alternate reality, Unicron's creation seems to have been a 100% success - takes some of the fun out of it IMO).

Impactor returns 2.0 · Post by **Impactor returns 2.0** » Mon May 16, 2005 10:21 am

its interesting in that quote that he reffers to 'megatrons' madness like its seperate being, TF schizophrenia perhaps?
He says his mind is clear and clincal (delusional maybe?) and in some respects you do see sides of Galvatrons persona that are clear and concise.

Galvatrons time jump device doest displace TF to Limbo, which leads to interesting run-ins with himself/megatron, surely route 1 for a head ache?

I love him tho

Legion · Post by **Legion** » Mon May 16, 2005 10:27 am

it's because he was formed from Straxatron i tell ya!

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Mon May 16, 2005 10:43 am

Impactor returns 2.0 wrote: He says his mind is clear and clincal (delusional maybe?) and in some respects you do see sides of Galvatrons persona that are clear and concise.

It seems that was Unicron's initial plan. But the 'vessel/body' used was, in a sense, tainted?

Post by **Kaylee** » Mon May 16, 2005 10:54 am

Perhaps its like wiping a hard disk- you can format it 20 times and still it is possible to retrieve the original data from it. No matter how much Unicron rebuilt Megatron's mind, the original architecture was still there maybe?

It also raises the old interesting question- did Megatron die at the hands of Unicron, and Galvatron was built out of the remnants? or are they in fact they same person, but Galvy is such a physically different specimen that it affected his psyche to the point where he looks on Megatron like a previous incarnation rather than 'himself'?

I always plumped for the latter ^_^

Birdman · Post by **Birdman** » Mon May 16, 2005 12:59 pm

Hi all,
Let's see...Megs was already crackers (and the Straxatron even more so, if Galvy was created from him), then (according to the events of the Movie, at least those events accepted as future continuity by the comic) he was wounded in battle, jettisoned into space by Starscream, encountered a massively powerful being, was reformatted into a new body, was tortured by Unicron, went back into his own past in an attempt to change his present, was fooled into believing that he had gone back to an alternate past (due to destroying 'Starscream'), returned to 2006, was thrown out of Unicron's leg, went back in time again, made a rough landing and got his brains scrambled by Blaster after just regaining some semblance of sanity...I'd say that it would have been amazing if he HADN'T gone just a little bit loopy....

Predabot · Post by **Predabot** » Mon May 16, 2005 5:06 pm

I think Birdman said most of the potential factors in this case...

bobaprime85 · Post by **bobaprime85** » Mon May 16, 2005 5:30 pm

Karl Lynch wrote: It also raises the old interesting question- did Megatron die at the hands of Unicron, and Galvatron was built out of the remnants? or are they in fact they same person, but Galvy is such a physically different specimen that it affected his psyche to the point where he looks on Megatron like a previous incarnation rather than 'himself'?

I'm not sure that they are the 'same person' in the sense that you're talking about, but rather that Galvatron is, in a way, a separate personality that has bits and pieces of Megatron thrown in there, which cause him to be nuttier than a fruitcake. Something along the lines of TF schizophrenia like Impy mentioned. Spidey mentioned the 'Worlds Collide' Galvy and how straightforward he was and I think that is what Unicron actually wanted, but couldn't initially achieve with the Galvy we know. It may be possible that an alternate version of the TF movie played out in whatever reality the 'Worlds Collide' Galvy came from, and that after an attempted betralyal by Galvy, Unicron decided to have him undergo another 'reformatting' so to speak. A way of getting the bugs out, maybe.

Gah, I have trouble understanding half of that.

Autobloke · Post by **Autobloke** » Mon May 16, 2005 6:58 pm

Sparks.
Unicron grabs Meg's spark, squishes it about a bit and paints it a new colour. Still the same spark though. Cyclonus and scourge weren't all smoophed up in the head by the reformatting, so I'll assume it was 'cos Galvy was made from damaged goods.

That said, Snowcat and Demolisher weren't exactly the sanest beings after their sparks were reformatted by Energon Megatron in the cartoon. And Demolishor was probably the most 'normal' of all the characters on the show. Pity they buggered him up then - his story was quite interesting, what with all the indecision and side-swapping.

bobaprime85 · Post by **bobaprime85** » Mon May 16, 2005 7:33 pm

Autobloke wrote:Sparks.
Unicron grabs Meg's spark, squishes it about a bit and paints it a new colour. Still the same spark though. Cyclonus and scourge weren't all smoophed up in the head by the reformatting, so I'll assume it was 'cos Galvy was made from damaged goods.

Ah..... one should be careful when using the Sparks idea in tandem with the old G1 stories. Granted, it's a nifty concept, but when you add it into the mix it can result in a bad headache.

Anyway, it seemed to me the reason Cyclonus and Scourge didn't have any problems was because they were officially dead, or at least close enough to the point where they wouldn't have any knowledge of their previous lives, and therefore no personality conflicts. As far as I know, Cyclonus never said "Y'know, back when I was Bombshell..." Not so with Galvy.

Metal Vendetta · Post by **Metal Vendetta** » Mon May 16, 2005 7:56 pm

Impactor returns 2.0 wrote:Galvatrons time jump device doest displace TF to Limbo

Skids?

Autobloke · Post by **Autobloke** » Mon May 16, 2005 8:10 pm

I should have put a

there - I think that sparks are a bit iffy and are one of the ultimate retcons when trying to define TF souls/minds.

Señior's Covenant · Post by **Señior's Covenant** » Mon May 16, 2005 8:24 pm

bobaprime85 wrote:Ah..... one should be careful when using the Sparks idea in tandem with the old G1 stories. Granted, it's a nifty concept, but when you add it into the mix it can result in a bad headache.

It's a great retcon to consider, and here's an aspirin.

Autobloke · Post by **Autobloke** » Mon May 16, 2005 8:26 pm

Señior's Covenant wrote:It's a great retcon to consider, and here's an aspirin.

(takes whole bottle and washes it down with a gallon of JD).

Señior's Covenant · Post by **Señior's Covenant** » Mon May 16, 2005 8:34 pm

Hmm.

Autobloke: Tranfans.net's official random message signature. This board-wide sigbot cannot be affected from your control panel.

bobaprime85 · Post by **bobaprime85** » Mon May 16, 2005 8:59 pm

Señior's Covenant wrote:
bobaprime85 wrote:Ah..... one should be careful when using the Sparks idea in tandem with the old G1 stories. Granted, it's a nifty concept, but when you add it into the mix it can result in a bad headache.
It's a great retcon to consider, and here's an aspirin.

*takes aspirin*

You got an extra 5,000 of those?

Señior's Covenant · Post by **Señior's Covenant** » Mon May 16, 2005 8:59 pm

bobaprime85 wrote:
Señior's Covenant wrote:
bobaprime85 wrote:Ah..... one should be careful when using the Sparks idea in tandem with the old G1 stories. Granted, it's a nifty concept, but when you add it into the mix it can result in a bad headache.
It's a great retcon to consider, and here's an aspirin.

*takes aspirin*

You got an extra 5,000 of those?

On me? Nope. I'll give my guy a call and see what he can connect.

Autobloke · Post by **Autobloke** » Mon May 16, 2005 9:35 pm

Señior's Covenant wrote:Autobloke: Tranfans.net's official random message signature. This board-wide sigbot cannot be affected from your control panel.

Eh? You what?

Snowcat · Post by **Snowcat** » Tue May 17, 2005 9:53 am

Megatron is insane. Megatron "dies". Unicron creates Galvatron from Megatron's remains. Galvatron is powerful, but Megatron's insanity gets amplified because of the power.

At least no one's said it's because of a bloody plasma bath.

Impactor returns 2.0 · Post by **Impactor returns 2.0** » Tue May 17, 2005 10:58 am

Metal Vendetta wrote:
Impactor returns 2.0 wrote:Galvatrons time jump device doest displace TF to Limbo
Skids?

oh yeah...
who was displaced for Cyc and Scourge again?

And if Skids was displaced, how come the time stream was effected by Galvy?

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Tue May 17, 2005 11:00 am

Impactor returns 2.0 wrote: who was displaced for Cyc and Scourge again?

No-one.

Hence that whole, y'know, rift-in-time-and-space-end-of-the-entire-universe-time-war thing.

KingMob · Post by **KingMob** » Tue May 17, 2005 11:06 am

Did the tinkering Galvatron did with the time-machinery have any bearing on it? Was that the reason he was a problem, despite obeying the quantum-mass displacement thingy? Like...was he unnaturally unaturally in the past, because of the thing he did which stopped him going when Wreck-Gar tried to return everyone to their correct time-zones?

Or was he already a serious anomaly (the 'it was a different Galvatron' thing) and was that the main problem?

Always been slightly skew-wiff on that one.

Post by **Kaylee** » Tue May 17, 2005 11:17 am

Maybe Galvatron secretly knew about the whole Megatron/Straxus thing, and trying to get his head round that was what drove him insane

Warcry · Post by **Warcry** » Wed May 18, 2005 3:12 am

Impactor returns 2.0 wrote:And if Skids was displaced, how come the time stream was effected by Galvy?

Because he was roving around killing and destroying stuff that wasn't supposed to be killed/destroyed yet?

Scraplet · Post by **Scraplet** » Wed May 18, 2005 12:22 pm

I really need to stop reading these types of threads on a lunchtime, cos I need to lay down and rest now. I'm supposed to be back at work in a minute - I think I'll just hide under my desk......