When the **** is 32 out?

[Computron]

I think Hound's got the right of it. Perhaps an attempt at fixing the timelines results in the warning we got way back in issue 1 or whatever about not opening the coffin?

Either way brilliant stuff. Glad the DJD is back, they give off such a horror vibe, it's great.

That Megatron/Ravage scene!

Now back to our regularly scheduled anxiety over the next issue not getting here fast enough!

[snarl]

I'm of the opinion as with other Rob that there was a split during the original jump, either duplicating the lost light or duplicating the timeline.

Sure there's more to it though - the solicitations for the next issue mention sector 113, which hints at some shadowy outside interference.

All in all though, [composite word including 'f*ck'] da Po-lice.

[Metal Vendetta]

I think sector 113 is the area of space that they're in - which may or may not lend credibility to my proximity theory...

[Hound]

I asked James Roberts where Bluestreak and the other new crew members were and his response...

https://twitter.com/jroberts332/status/ ... 2333726721

[snarl]

what did everybody make of the phrasing of Tarn's addiction as a "morphing" addiction?

Made me think of morphine / opiate addiction, and associated issues...

[Impactor returns 2.0]

God I love this comic.
It's amazing to behold. I love every detail. That moment between megatron and ravage!
Wow that's something, megatrons admission that his spark doesn't quite bind to his body like it uses too.
I love that moment it's a tasty detail. The moment is felt ever so more by ravage deeling betrayed by his master. It's brilliant.
I love this megatron, powerful, smart, dangerous. But also, compassionate?
It's just so good I hate waiting for it!

[Computron]

God I love this comic.
It's amazing to behold. I love every detail. That moment between megatron and ravage!
Wow that's something, megatrons admission that his spark doesn't quite bind to his body like it uses too.
I love that moment it's a tasty detail. The moment is felt ever so more by ravage deeling betrayed by his master. It's brilliant.
I love this megatron, powerful, smart, dangerous. But also, compassionate?
It's just so good I hate waiting for it!

I don't know if it is compassion or more that he is just weary of everything. After being forced to confront all that he did during the heady days of the revolution, he is beginning to realize that it all turned to ash.

Now we'll see how long that attitude exists. It's almost like he is an addict going clean after a lifetime of heavy drug use. When confronted with reality, will he persevere in a sober lifestyle, or will he take the easy path and revert, basking in hero worship and violence to mask the desolation of his soul?

Why yes, this is a Transformers comic, why do you ask?

[bumblemusprime]

Right. So I'm operating under the theory that this is a duplicate Lost Light which was somehow split off from the main ship at the end of issue #1 in the quantum explosion. This is the story of what would have happened if the Lost Light hadn't been knocked off course on their first jump out:
Half the crew didn't get sucked out through a hole in the side of the ship. I haven't gone through and ID'd everyone yet but the presence of either Hyperion or Polaris amongst the corpses would definitely prove this - AFAICT Hyperion transforms into something with tracks and Polaris is a sort of rounded-shell car thing.
They never picked up Skids from that planet. Swerve didn't bunk with him during the Sparkeater crisis and so didn't find the bar. Crosscut did find the bar and established a theatre there instead.
Overlord and Pipes's bodies aboard prove that Overlord never escaped. Given that the DJD couldn't detect him and then suddenly could, I suspect that as in "our" universe, Red Alert drilled into Overlord's slow cell, which somehow allowed the DJD to detect him and catch up with the Lost Light. Rewind is the only one they didn't kill.
It's possible they didn't go to Delphi, maybe they weren't close enough. If you look at Ratchet's corpse, his hands are in the same sort of position they were way back in issue #2 before he smacked one of them with a hammer. No Delphi - no Fort Max or First Aid.
Though that still leaves a whole lot of questions - what about alternate Tyrest? Would they still have run across him without Skids? Magnus was working for him, but could he have pulled off his grand diabolical scheme without Magnus even being aware of it? Are there any constructed cold corpses on the Lost Light? If so, that might suggest that they managed to stop it but in this timeline Roddy got killed (maybe by Star Saber's sword) in the attempt...

Where is First Aid? He's the only season 1 member of the Lost Light crew to have joined since the launch yet to be accounted for. He's been mentioned as keeping solitary and not talking to anyone before the ship disappeared, but presumably he's not just been left floating in space? Or maybe he has?

For that matter, where are Bluestreak, Broadside, Doublecross, Groove, Grotusque, Hosehead, Hot Spot, Joyride, Mirage, Repugnus, Sky High and Streetwise?

Could it be that it's proximity to the alternate version that has caused the ship and everyone with a duplicate aboard to vanish? Like the two versions not being able to exist in the same area of space?

[edit] Okay since I posted that McFeely has done the wiki page and according to him the corpses are: (robot mode) Ambus/Magnus, Ratchet, Drift, Hound and Tailgate, (vehicle mode) Blades, Jackpot, Blaster, Smokescreen, Rad, Powerflash, Trailcutter, Waverider, Huffer, Strafe, Inferno, Rollout and Highbrow. Seen getting mullered in flashback we have Perceptor, Swerve, Whirl and Mainframe. Since Blaster's cold constructed, we can assume that Tyrest didn't manage to get his universal killswitch to work in this timeline, at least not before the DJD attacked.

Smart stuff. And thorough. Hm.

I first assumed that this is actually something that happened in a kind of time bubble. Right around issue #9, when the DJD found Overlord and took off, so excited to kill Overlord that they didn't even finish killing the Losercons... forgot those guys' names. We haven't heard anything about the DJD since. Maybe they showed up, killed everyone, but some temporal displacement around the event did a thing... No, the presence of the theatre and the face that Skids doesn't disappear accounts more for MV's theory.

This has to be the alternate Lost Light that the DJD trashed. So there was another Lost Light flying around since the quantum jump. Now the quantum foam has... mutated? Theory #1: There was a Duobot fused into the quantum engines, and the Duobot actually inspired a kind of religious experience when he connected to the Titan. Now the quantum foam is out, mutating, and... trying to reunite with its double? I mean, I don't understand quantum physics, but I do understand that when you write SF, typically, "it's alive!" is always an interesting bet.

So let's say that the quantum engines of the Lost Light actually gained some kind of self-aware urge from the Titan's touch, some sense that they had a counterpart out there? Or a missing limb? Unfortunately, the DJD had already killed everyone on the alternate ship.

Theory #2: Nightbeat says, "it's like established events are playing out differently, like they're being re-edited." Brainstorm was working on the fourth-wall device, which I assumed to be a throwaway gag, but perhaps that's the ultimate weapon--re-edit events so they play out differently. It apparently rearranged the established order OF THE PANELS on the page where Nightbeat and Nautica open the briefcase.

[Computron]

Theory #2: Nightbeat says, "it's like established events are playing out differently, like they're being re-edited." Brainstorm was working on the fourth-wall device, which I assumed to be a throwaway gag, but perhaps that's the ultimate weapon--re-edit events so they play out differently. It apparently rearranged the established order OF THE PANELS on the page where Nightbeat and Nautica open the briefcase.

I could sworn Roberts said all the clues we need to determine what was in that briefcase would be pn that page. Someone at the IDW forums posted it at any rate.

If thats so, your theory may be correct. Brainstorm's briefcase contains a cosmic editor.

[Impactor returns 2.0]

So there's nothing in the briefcase, or there's something localised in the case that bends time and space?
The actual device isn't in step with the current time frame. The case just holds the device in physical position and stops the effect. Once opened the device reverses time? You can't see the device as it exists in the future as you are moving back... Or something like that.

[Computron]

So there's nothing in the briefcase, or there's something localised in the case that bends time and space?
The actual device isn't in step with the current time frame. The case just holds the device in physical position and stops the effect. Once opened the device reverses time? You can't see the device as it exists in the future as you are moving back... Or something like that.

I had this long post ready but it all boiled down to "it could be this, that or another, but I have no clue because of this, that or another."

Bottom line, we know that time manipulation is possible and we know other parallel universes exist. We also know that the quantum engines on the Lost Light are different somehow.

So either

1) This is the same universe, but time has been altered, either through the quantum engines or the briefcase.
2) This is a different universe and most of the crew disappeared because they were dead in this universe, and the quantum engines of the Lost Light punched a hole in space time.

As an aside, I would dearly love to know who exactly sent that warning message way back in the first couple of issues, because I have a feeling Brainstorm's briefcase may be involved in that.

[bumblemusprime]

Just as long as no one uses the ******* words "Dead Universe."

[Mr_Tigg]

Did anyone notice how Skids mentions he once knew a bot who could locate a brain module on any bot in alt mode?

A nice little reminder that one of the DJD is a mole...

[Impactor returns 2.0]

Tarn? Is a mole?

[Computron]

Tarn? Is a mole?

If Tarn is Roller it would fit.

Although one wonders if any mole would have gone native already...the opportunity to break cover and betray the DJD must have occurred a million times over by now.

Also, on another note completely, anyone else notice that Nautica referred to Ravage as a "she?" Interesting. I wonder what the significance of that was.

[Computron]

https://twitter.com/jroberts332/status/ ... 5806808064

"Very much so. All the answers you need to 'What's in the briefcase?' are on that page."

[Impactor returns 2.0]

Is it the obvious in its a crazy weapon of horrible destructive power.
So everyone was killed when it was opened, and now everyone is dead and in that, you know, other universe?...

[bumblemusprime]

As our apparently emeritus Jack Cade pointed out on IDW, though, as scary as the DJD are, it's hard to believe they killed Overlord and 200 hardened war-veterans all in one go. So perhaps there was something enabling their slaughter as well. I mean, they're a targeting team designed to kill fugitives, not a full team of Phase Sixers.

[Impactor returns 2.0]

The suitcase contained a weapon that forces everyone to turn into their alt mode...

I'm just chucking stuff out there now

[snarl]

Some sort of time scrambler for moi.

DJD could totally take the Lost Light btw. Quickly and brutally, I could see that happening. I've seen some people getting pissy about this, but it's not a head on fair fight is it?

In those conditions (surprise attack on a stricken vessel, in close confines so the bots cant really run or hide or concentrate firepower), they'd kick [composite word including 'f*ck'] out of the crew of this LL - Max probably not on board remember (Not that he'd have been able to do much imo)?

For me, the main problem with taking down a phase 6er is their utter resilience - think Overlord was mugging for the camera when he used his "holding back" line on UM and I think a canny bot (or bots) could do him, as seen in LSTOW. The top hitting bots and cons probably have a similar level of strength if they "had a wrestle" etc, it's just much harder for bots to do actual proper damage since the cons have had their endoskeletons dipped in whatever that piss was from issue ... 15 was it?

So when they start actually trading blows in close confines, the bots get all ****** up... when they should be standing the [composite word including 'f*ck'] back and counter punching.

DJD circumvent this damage problem by having mad guns that get around that endo skeleton problem, eg the **** with the blades in his tits has had them dipped in it himself etc...

And I've seen people say "If they're so hard why don't the just win the war for the cons then"

Strikes me they're ******* sadists who don't give a [composite word including 'f*ck'] about the war, just killing people in awful ways... I mean FFS, their leader is a druggy!

[Metal Vendetta]

As our apparently emeritus Jack Cade pointed out on IDW, though, as scary as the DJD are, it's hard to believe they killed Overlord and 200 hardened war-veterans all in one go. So perhaps there was something enabling their slaughter as well. I mean, they're a targeting team designed to kill fugitives, not a full team of Phase Sixers.

I think Jack's being a bit deliberately obtuse there. The first time we met the DJD they had no trouble pacifying and killing Black Shadow, who as we saw in that very issue was responsible for 3003 Autobot casualties in a single battle despite having to also fight both Ultra Magnus and Optimus Prime. Their job is basically to kill Phase Sixers and they didn't appear to have much trouble doing it. The crew of the Lost Light - though they may have a few decent warriors amongst their ranks like Magnus, Cyclonus and Whirl - are not great fighters as a rule. Look at what happened when Overlord got loose aboard the ship - if it hadn't been for a fighting-mad Fort Max aboard they would have lost far more than the five 'bots they did. Tarn has already been mentioned as having power levels equivalent to a Phase Sixer and the other DJDers are definitely tougher than your average Autobot, so I don't see the massacre as being unlikely at all. It's been consistently established that the DJD > Phase Sixers > regular Autobots.

The way I see it, and this is just my POV, is that this alt-Lost Light is a horrible "what if" - as tragic and heartrending as the journey so far has been for the crew of our Lost Light, this is what would have happened if everything had (apparently) all gone to plan. They made the first jump okay and didn't get thrown off course, they never went to Delphi or picked up Fort Max and Overlord never escaped. Meaning that when they ran into the DJD no-one aboard the ship was forewarned or ready to deal with such a deadly raiding party and everyone died in pretty short order.

[Best First]

Also the Lost light is not a battlefield - it is a series of rooms and corridors, an effective, powerful unit working their way through the ship could do damaage far greater than the odds would allow if the battle happened on an open field - especially when this is a team who have apparently worked together for millenia.

If Tarn really is Roller you wonder if his addiction has got the better of him? Or his cover is just so deep that he knows no matter what he does or who he kills that he has saved so many more. Or maybe he has just gone crackers.

Thought the same thing as Rob about the warp core explosion - the suggestion that the Losercons story may have been in an alternate/parralel reality - or at least that at the end of it the DJD went off and found an alternate version of the Lost Light makes even more sense when you think back to the necro-bot scene and the names on the list along with Flywheels - Magnus, Hound, Drift, Dipstick all but one of whom we see dead here but we can assume Dipstick was also amongst the dead i think.

So, interesting question for me - do people think Overlord was dead when he was shot by Chromedome? If he was i can see a motivation for the DJD seeking a way to go back in time so they can get him before the 'bots do. But i thought one way or another he was probably still alive (if barely).

Also Roberts - who cares about Rewind, where is alternate survivor Pipes man? C'mon. Think Ravage's nose needs to do a more thorough checkety-check-check.

When the **** is 33 out?

[Metal Vendetta]

Thought the same thing as Rob about the warp core explosion - the suggestion that the Losercons story may have been in an alternate/parralel reality - or at least that at the end of it the DJD went off and found an alternate version of the Lost Light makes even more sense when you think back to the necro-bot scene and the names on the list along with Flywheels - Magnus, Hound, Drift, Dipstick all but one of whom we see dead here but we can assume Dipstick was also amongst the dead i think.

See I thought this was really good, but then I find myself thinking back to the end of Remain in Light where both Misfire and co. and the DJD were seen to be affected by Tyrest's killswitch, which to me firmly places them in the same timeline as the regular Lost Lighters. So if anything, it would just be the Necrobot scene that was in an alternate timeline, which again, wouldn't make sense unless Flywheels's body somehow crossed timelines. I think the key to this is the bit where Nautica's sonic wrench indicates that this area of space has seen lots of warp jumps and/or subspace incursions - I think this ship was somehow brought into the regular timeline (possibly forcibly, hence all the quantum foam damage and being torn to bits and stuff). Whether it was then attacked by the regular DJD (perhaps rather than Red Alert drilling into the slow cell, the signal that made them leave the Losercons on Clemency was in fact the alt-Lost Light being pulled into our universe) or had already been attacked by the DJD in the alt-timeline, the fact that our timeline does have this big ship full of dead Autobots floating around in sector 113 means that the Necrobot can visit it and add everyone's names to his list without having to be in a different timeline. I think. The locations are all kinda vague, but if sector 113 is closer to Clemency than, say Delphi, that would make a bunch of sense.

I am much intrigued by Compy's "universal editor in the briefcase" idea though. It's just barmy enough to work.

So, interesting question for me - do people think Overlord was dead when he was shot by Chromedome? If he was i can see a motivation for the DJD seeking a way to go back in time so they can get him before the 'bots do. But i thought one way or another he was probably still alive (if barely).

Fairly sure that regular Overlord's still alive and so is regular Rewind. Which means that if it was the regular DJD that attacked the alt-ship and killed alt-Overlord, they may have a nasty surprise at some point, especially as alt-Overlord presumably still thought Megatron was dead and so had given up, while real Overlord is going to be fighting mad.

[Best First]

Yeah i thought that when look at the scene of Tarn with a chainsaw at his neck - hey he can break those bonds! - oh wait he would just be saying "Kill Me" over and over again.

On that note seemed a rather clean death compared to Blackshadow.

In terms of Remain in Light and the Losercons being shown that is what prompted me to say "or at least that at the end of it the DJD went off and found an alternate version of the Lost Light" but you are right that doesn't explain the Necrobot.

Now i have the issue proper (for anyone reading on iphone it skips severel Megs and Ravage panels by the way! - which was kind of cool, bonus Megs and Ravage - i did a total double take) the combination of the Lift scene and Nightbeat actually stating someone is re-editng the past...

I think someone has tried to use the briefcase to fix something (again cannot help but think of the message in issue 1 here)

And made it far far worse.

And if i am right the question becomes who and when.

I also think the scene in issue 28 where the lights go out on Rung and Megs must signify the start of this - the first thing to dissapear is called out after this (The last digit in Chromedome's room number, quickly followed by the Fuel Furnace sign on the wall). But it is hard to tie anything or anyone... forget warp cores i think it is my brain that may explode.

On a side note 113 as well as being the name of the sector is also the code Momus uses to call in the finding of a one percenter.

[bumblemusprime]

Can't help wondering now if Megatron commissioned the 'universal editor' from Brainstorm. Would come in handy as a way to pay for war crimes, no? I tend to think (made its way into the fanfic) that Megs' downfall, as long as a decent writer has him, will be that his ideals have changed but not his methods--it'll go from peace through tyranny to redemption at all costs.

[Impactor returns 2.0]

Ok I only just realised that on the page where they open the briefcase. The numbers in the background.
Oh dear if you read each panel in order of the numbers in reverse order they make sense.

I'm a dumb ass...

[bumblemusprime]

I missed it the first time too. I was a bit stupid with excitement about the issue.

[Yaya]

Nice summation, MV. Impossible for me to recall all those events at my age.

This is pure genius. But quite complex. I wonder if a diehard fan will catch something that Roberts himself didn't consider. Seems like plenty of chances for a No Prize. Of course, James is so thoroughly good, he might have covered all his bases like a pro.

Fantastic stuff.

My theory is that time split, but when I'm not sure. Like MV poses, likely at the quantum explosion.

[Metal Vendetta]

I've just listened to the Underbase podcast and they brought up whether it was a question of proximity to the alt-ship and also that Skids wasn't aboard meant Crosscut found the bar instead of Swerve. And something I've picked up from the IDW boards - no Skids could mean no Rung on the other ship as Skids was there to save him. I have to say I am also getting a strong vibe that something happened to alt-Cyclonus pre-DJD as well, not least because he's not in the flashbacks and alt-Tailgate's corpse is alone. I think I'm probably right in assuming that the Temptoria mission where they took on Snaptrap and Hun-Grr's Decepticons probably didn't happen in the alt-timeline, or at least went differently, because that was when Cyclonus started to earn his "noble demon" persona by saving Rewind's life and it was Rewind's serious injury that left Chromedome vulnerable to persuasion regarding Overlord, which ultimately led to his escaping.

In our universe, Thunderclash is missing - could that be connected? Before Meggy's trial the plan was to find Thunderclash again and carry on with the quest but I'm not sure if that continued to be the case once Megs took command? Could it be significant that Thunderclash's ship/life-support system (and perhaps therefore TC himself) was charged from Lost Light's quantum engines? Rodimus also mentioned that he had lost contact with Drift, though considering he's about to get a whole new mini-series of his own, my suspicion is that means he won't come into play here.

I think someone has tried to use the briefcase to fix something (again cannot help but think of the message in issue 1 here)

And made it far far worse.

And if i am right the question becomes who and when.

Yes, this seems logical, though I'm pretty sure that whatever happened on the alt-ship and the message in issue #1 are not connected directly, if only because it seems that the crew of the alt-Lost Light seemingly didn't do any of the things that the message warned about. "Don't let them take Skids" - as far as we know they never encountered Skids. "Don't go to Delphi" - well, I don't think they did. "Don't open the coffin" - it seems likely that they're the ones who closed it in the first place. "Don't look in the basement" - it doesn't appear that in this timeline, anyone did. Whoever sent that message, they must have been aboard the regular ship and I'd say that they were on it from the start which probably rules out everyone present in this issue (Skids is obviously out by default). On the other hand, I like the fact that we can contrast the fates of our crew - who so far have done apparently done three out of four things they weren't supposed to do - and the alt-crew who apparently didn't do any of them and were slaughtered wholesale with the exception of Rewind.

[edit]...and now it's just occurred to me (penny drops) that perhaps the alt-ship *did* get the message, which is why they didn't do any of those things and following the message's advice is what led them to all get killed in the first place. Argh. If ever there was a place for a David Tennant-esque quote about the paradoxical nature of time travel, this would be it.

On a side note 113 as well as being the name of the sector is also the code Momus uses to call in the finding of a one percenter.

Heh, I wouldn't read too much into that. Megatron has Hab-suite 113 on the Lost Light, the Ethics Committee met in Room 113, Agent 113 is an Autobot mole in the DJD, Megatron brought down the 113th Cybertronian Senate, Black Shadow caused massive casualties to the Autobots' 113th Battalion and Phase Sixers are created by infusing their exo-skeletons with ununtrium which is a real element that basically translates to "one-one-three-ium". Seems Roberts is a big fan of Wanted: Galvatron - Dead or Alive part 1.

I wonder if a diehard fan will catch something that Roberts himself didn't consider. Seems like plenty of chances for a No Prize. Of course, James is so thoroughly good, he might have covered all his bases like a pro.

I have a feeling that there will be a plot hole or two down the way but I trust Roberts enough that any such "mistakes" will be cleverly hidden away in the seams, to borrow a dressmaking analogy. Because comics can be studied in a way that doesn't lend itself to, say, movies I think (or at least hope) we're looking more at moments of Fridge Horror (or even Fridge Brilliance) rather than Fridge Logic. There may be the odd moment where something doesn't quite gel and we've seen it in the Scavengers issues with the issue of whether Misfire or Flywheels was obsessed with finding the Necrobot, or when Impactor was said to be a Point One Percenter (and so forged) which contradicted his being found guilty in the Aequitas trials (and so constructed cold) but both of those were quietly "fixed" for the trades and the universe as a whole moves on smoothly. I really have more issues with differing characterisation between writers - Prowl being an obvious example.

[Best First]

Ugh. Prowl.