Stormbringer #1 (SPOLIERS)

Aardvark · Post by **Aardvark** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 5:51 pm

Religion suxxx. Unless it doesn't....WORD... Moving on--->

I have no problem with religion/spirituality and whatnot in the world of Transformers. It's only natural that highly advanced, sentient beings would ponder the meaning of life and look for a higher meaning. It's when religion/spirituality becomes a reality is where the problem lies. Edit: Eek, the structure and grammar in that last sentence...well that's what illegal substances do to your brain children...sorry about that

I want to see a gritty, realistic (If that can be applied to giant death robots) depiction of the war between the 2 sides. The Matrix is a plot device that's outstayed its welcome (Likewise Unicron and Primus) What’s the point in the Autobot/Decepticon war if they always end up playing second fiddle to some god monster dweeb?

Anyway there’s been no indication of any magical fairy fluff thus far so I’m dandier than an Adam Ant convention.

Impactor returns 2.0 · Post by **Impactor returns 2.0** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 6:55 pm

Yaya wrote: If it's so rational, point me in the direction of such a spiritual computer. As far as I know, we don't have any Apple's or IBM's going around saying "I know now why you cry, but it is someting I can nevah doooo!!!".

Nor ones that transform in to flying weapons with black hole powers.

Theres no reason why a 'sentient' being (be it Robot,biological or somthing else) cannot have a spiritual understanding.

The question is here is about being sentient and as we cannot build a sentient robot we cannot argue if it wants to belive in a ''God'' so to speak.
I personaly have no problem with that.

Yaya · Post by **Yaya** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 7:26 pm

Karl Lynch wrote:I fink besty's point is they're giant fictional aliens and just because they're robots, and the robots we've made on Earth don't do much more than sort frisbees and kill people for the insurance money, doesn't mean they would be less inclined to the idea of a God than we might be necessarily, especially given the number of other human traits they carry (mass murder and a tendancy for witty one-liners)

Yeah, this might be true, but how about maintaining the mechanical nature of these beings, making them distinct from, say, a legion of shape-shifting Skrulls?

What I'm saying is that as long as the spiritual side of things is reined in a bit and not overly emphasized, then I feel the Transformers will hold true to what they were intended to be. Robots with programming.

This doesn't take away from the emotional side of the Transformers. There is a difference between the Return to Cybertron issues, for example, where Spanner the scientist is made into a spacebridge and Blaster must deal with the moral dilemma of destroying him, and Furman's chaos gods crashing into giant asteroids to later be worshipped by a race of transforming machines.

Again, my preference is for stressing the techinical aspect a little more and the spiritual aspect a little less.

Impactor returns 2.0 · Post by **Impactor returns 2.0** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 7:45 pm

but shape shifting skrulls are not sentient - I still thinkthats the big point here.

TF might just be robots with programming but are humans not just the same thing? we are born and we are programmed as we learn (or data is inputed) by society around us?

Post by **Kaylee** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 8:30 pm

Yaya wrote:
Karl Lynch wrote:I fink besty's point is they're giant fictional aliens and just because they're robots, and the robots we've made on Earth don't do much more than sort frisbees and kill people for the insurance money, doesn't mean they would be less inclined to the idea of a God than we might be necessarily, especially given the number of other human traits they carry (mass murder and a tendancy for witty one-liners)
Yeah, this might be true, but how about maintaining the mechanical nature of these beings, making them distinct from, say, a legion of shape-shifting Skrulls?

What I'm saying is that as long as the spiritual side of things is reined in a bit and not overly emphasized, then I feel the Transformers will hold true to what they were intended to be. Robots with programming.

This doesn't take away from the emotional side of the Transformers. There is a difference between the Return to Cybertron issues, for example, where Spanner the scientist is made into a spacebridge and Blaster must deal with the moral dilemma of destroying him, and Furman's chaos gods crashing into giant asteroids to later be worshipped by a race of transforming machines.

Again, my preference is for stressing the techinical aspect a little more and the spiritual aspect a little less.

I like the TFs because they're giant, over-powered humans with special powers (effectively), rather than machines. Let's face it, a comic series about genuine machines could be pretty dull

I personally very much like the mythological edge, but I like it in small doses. Furman has perhaps got into a little bit of a pattern of trying to make everything huge and perhaps introduces these vast ideas a little bit too quickly (or at all) from time to time. The reveals at the end of the Marvel run I thought were very good, it's as if we're finally finding out some of the 'meaning' behind why these characters are there and what they're doing.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 9:41 pm

Yaya wrote:
Best First wrote:
Yaya wrote:
Yaya Best First Polly want a cracker?
slowpoke want to miss the point?

- yes you state it is your personal preferenace but you still insisted that the fact they are mechanical in some way suggests a tendnacy toward less spiriuality which, and would act as something that would keep TFs mechanical nature distinct, soemthing that in fact has no rational basis.

do you see?
If it's so rational, point me in the direction of such a spiritual computer. As far as I know, we don't have any Apple's or IBM's going around saying "I know now why you cry, but it is someting I can nevah doooo!!!".

"Errh! Sorry, Hans. You lose!"

You're dismissing the point based on an irrelevant non-analogy.

Machines on Earth, in the real world, have not evolved in the same way, or indeed are anywhere like approaching, those characterised in Transformers lore.

There are no real machines that question their existence (a fundamental concept of spirituality, I'd assume), but that doesn't preclude the possibility that another form of machine life, real or imaginary, might be able to achieve sentience, individuality and formulate such questions.

Yaya · Post by **Yaya** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 9:41 pm

Karl Lynch wrote: I personally very much like the mythological edge, but I like it in small doses. Furman has perhaps got into a little bit of a pattern of trying to make everything huge and perhaps introduces these vast ideas a little bit too quickly (or at all) from time to time.

That's crazy. That's like saying:

Yaya:

He has a tendency to do two things which, for me, threaten a good story.

1. He goes too epic too fast. His storylines of late have encompassed Cybertron-shattering events that effect all bots on a grand scale.

2.What I'm saying is that as long as the spiritual side of things is reined in a bit and not overly emphasized

...except its coming from Karl and not Yaya.

It's only natural that highly advanced, sentient beings would ponder the meaning of life and look for a higher meaning. It's when religion/spirituality becomes a reality is where the problem lies.

That's funny to me. Did you write this with a straight face?

Impactor returns 2.0 · Post by **Impactor returns 2.0** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 9:43 pm

I dont see whats wrong with that - to be sentient requires u to question...

Aardvark · Post by **Aardvark** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 10:15 pm

Comander Yayawav wrote:
It's only natural that highly advanced, sentient beings would ponder the meaning of life and look for a higher meaning. It's when religion/spirituality becomes a reality is where the problem lies.
That's funny to me. Did you write this with a straight face?

If you're referring to awful structure of the last sentence, well it makes me cringe rather than laugh. (Sometimes people make mistakes when typing... OMG LOLZ) If you're referring to the content, no I don’t find the idea of Transformers thinking particularly funny. I can understand why you might; after all you did like the Sunstorm saga *shudders*. Leave your brain at the cover folks and watch the story unfold…

Legion · Post by **Legion** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 10:19 pm

Ugh.. i hate to site this... but the V'Ger machine from StarTrek:TMP gained sentience and asked "Is this all that I am? Is there nothing more?" and to try to seek answers to these questions it went about trying to find it's creator.
This is essentially what (most) religions are about...

Anyway... the Transformers a bit of a different kettle of fish, as they have (in most continuities) physical proof that their 'God' exists/existed... be it in the form of The Matrix or the giant head in the middle of their planet...

Aardvark · Post by **Aardvark** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 10:30 pm

That's according to Primus and Unicron. Frankly I wouldn't trust either of them...

They could be highly advanced beings rather than demigods.

Edit: By according to Primus and Unicron I'm referring to them claiming to them being actual Gods...with SUPER GOD POWERS ETC which really doesn't have anything to do with Legion's post

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 10:34 pm

Aardvark wrote:That's according to Primus and Unicron. Frankly I wouldn't trust either of them...

They could be highly advanced being rather than demigods.

Any sufficiently advanced form of life could be mistaken by a more primitive form as a god?

Or was that technology seen as magic?

Aardvark · Post by **Aardvark** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 10:37 pm

Pretty much. They don't display any godlike powers (Whatever they may be...)

Aardvark · Post by **Aardvark** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 10:39 pm

Well I double posted...so...eh...damn...

What is wrong with me today...I'm not crazy...

Shanti418 · Post by **Shanti418** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 10:42 pm

Yaya wrote:What I'm saying is that as long as the spiritual side of things is reined in a bit and not overly emphasized, then I feel the Transformers will hold true to what they were intended to be. Robots with programming.
Again, my preference is for stressing the techinical aspect a little more and the spiritual aspect a little less.

This to me smacks of Cartoon Sympathy. The only way you can fit Robots With Programming is with the concpet of Autobots as Workers and Decepticons as Warriors, not Primus's children. Whether they have sparks of Primus within them or brain modules, like in "Rock n Roll Out," it's more than just programming.

Toonie! :P

Yaya · Post by **Yaya** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 11:03 pm

Aardvark wrote:
Comander Yayawav wrote:
It's only natural that highly advanced, sentient beings would ponder the meaning of life and look for a higher meaning. It's when religion/spirituality becomes a reality is where the problem lies.
That's funny to me. Did you write this with a straight face?
If you're referring to awful structure of that sentence, well it makes me cringe rather than laugh. (Sometimes people make mistakes when typing... OMG LOLZ) If you're referring to the content, no I don’t find the idea of Transformers thinking particularly funny. I can understand why you might; after all you did like the Sunstorm saga *shudders*. Leave your brain at the cover folks and watch the story unfold…

No, I'm laughing at the way you say its only natural that sentient beings achieve spirituality, and in the same breath say the problem arises when spirituality actually happens.

Maybe you were trying to convey something else, but the way you put it is laughable stuff. Sorry.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 11:19 pm

Aardvark wrote:It's only natural that highly advanced, sentient beings would ponder the meaning of life and look for a higher meaning. It's when religion/spirituality becomes a reality is where the problem lies.

Yaya wrote:I'm laughing at the way you say its only natural that sentient beings achieve spirituality, and in the same breath say the problem arises when spirituality actually happens.

Maybe you were trying to convey something else, but the way you put it is laughable stuff. Sorry.

You mean, like the way Aardvark said "would ponder the meaning of life and look for a higher meaning" and you said "achieve spirituality"?

Your paraphrasing, by the way, implies that it is laughable for a form of life to effectively doom itself through its own evolution. I'll bet you laughed at Darwin too. Seedless grapes and bananas - what a ******* hoot!

Aardvark · Post by **Aardvark** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 11:26 pm

Edit: Well Rebis wrote what I was going to say... ---->

Nevertheless I didn’t "put it" like that at all. I said it's only natural that sentient beings would ponder the meaning of life and whatnot. Then I said I don't like it when the religion/spirituality/etc becomes a reality (Unicron's actually a prime example of this) At any rate you must be easily amused.

Yaya · Post by **Yaya** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 1:09 am

Rebis wrote: Your paraphrasing, by the way, implies that it is laughable for a form of life to effectively doom itself through its own evolution. I'll bet you laughed at Darwin too. Seedless grapes and bananas - what a ******* hoot!

Hey, no offense here, but, uh, what the [composite word including 'f*ck'] are you talkin about?

Shanti418 wrote: Toonie! :P

Actually never really followed the cartoon, but I did kind of like that idea of the Autobots being workers and the Decepticons being warriors. I like it much more than the whole Primus/Unicron thing.

KingMob · Post by **KingMob** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 7:36 am

Yaya wrote:Actually never really followed the cartoon, but I did kind of like that idea of the Autobots being workers and the Decepticons being warriors. I like it much more than the whole Primus/Unicron thing.

Yeah? Not too keen myself; a little too much like predestination to me.
Seems like it takes away a lot of drama and emotional content from the idea of a civil war, both on a larger scale but perhaps more importantly, on a smaller, more personal scale...referring to the personal motivations of individual characters here.
If someone was always and is always going to be a Good Guy or a Bad Guy and has absolutely no chance to change, who cares what their reasoning for their behaviour is, or even what tehy think about events? They're simply going to be responding to stimuli based on a narrower set of choices, of which morality and ethics have been drained of meaning. Carrying out rote roles that have no higher purpose other than executing predetermined objectives.
Execute {Evi}l Plan 42 to Gain Energy to Build Planetary Dreadnought. Counter with {Noble} Action 69 to stop the Other Ones.
Except 'evil' and 'noble' barely mean anything and you fight each other because You Are Of the Other and Not One of Us and nothing else.
Oh, we're back to robots and programming. Intended to be that or not, is it fair to evaluate them according to what that means to a human?

The Transformers may look like robots to humans, but they are aliens first, no? I think of them as aliens before robots. Metallic mechanical aliens, to be sure, but that doesn't make them analogous to our conception of robitcs...and now I end up repeating a point made by BF and Karl and Rebis...

...

Also, the idea of a god being involved and also not particualrly giving a toss about the individual lives of his 'children' makes warfare, esp civil warfare, more gim and gritty for me. The god doesn't actually have to show up for that to work, but it was pretty powerful when Primus turned up and sent everyone to die, no? But also doesn't work that often.

So a compromise state is desirable, yes - and that atmosphere is one that seems present in Stormbringer, with the characteristic moment of Jetfire looking for a scientific explanation for the apparitional qulaity of his menacers, and other moments.

Hopefully it will continue. And we won't find out that Thunderwing was originally designed to turn into an axe and Jetfire a saucepan.

Post by **Kaylee** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 7:41 am

Yaya wrote:
Karl Lynch wrote: I personally very much like the mythological edge, but I like it in small doses. Furman has perhaps got into a little bit of a pattern of trying to make everything huge and perhaps introduces these vast ideas a little bit too quickly (or at all) from time to time.
That's crazy. That's like saying:

Yaya:
He has a tendency to do two things which, for me, threaten a good story.

1. He goes too epic too fast. His storylines of late have encompassed Cybertron-shattering events that effect all bots on a grand scale.

2.What I'm saying is that as long as the spiritual side of things is reined in a bit and not overly emphasized
...except its coming from Karl and not Yaya.

mmm, it's called 'sharing a similar opinion'.

Post by **Best First** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 9:33 am

Yaya wrote:"I know now why you cry, but it is someting I can nevah doooo!!!".

interesting Arnuld is reffering to reading Yaya's posts.

"oh! point me in the direction of a machine that does that then! ha! i've outsmarted you there!"

i have - human brain.

see, i like to employ analogies that, you know, actually work.

Legion · Post by **Legion** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 11:34 am

Aardvark wrote:That's according to Primus and Unicron. Frankly I wouldn't trust either of them...

Very true, but as Primus at least is the TF's God as in he is their ultimate creator, he bestowed them with life - to that end, he is their God. He may very well not be a paranormal being or supernatural deity, but he is their creator.

Rebis wrote: Any sufficiently advanced form of life could be mistaken by a more primitive form as a god?

Or was that technology seen as magic?

yes it was, but the analogy stands!

Aardvark · Post by **Aardvark** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 11:59 am

Yeah I know (And of coarse I agree), I was pretty out of it yesterday. All my posts were full of typos and mistakes.

.....and this wasn't the only message board to feel the brunt of my "madness"....

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 12:07 pm

What's the Terminator got to do with anything? That was a cold unfeeling machine, about as far from the TFs as you can get.

Post by **Best First** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 12:08 pm

Yeah, and nothing can stop it.

whereas kiddy apathy has killed off TFs at least twice.

Aardvark · Post by **Aardvark** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 12:15 pm

spiderfrommars wrote:What's the Terminator got to do with anything? That was a cold unfeeling machine, about as far from the TFs as you can get.

Even Megatron displayed affection towards Ravage however you could describe Shockers as somewhat of a cold, unfeeling machine…

Post by **Best First** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 12:18 pm

Aardvark wrote:
spiderfrommars wrote:What's the Terminator got to do with anything? That was a cold unfeeling machine, about as far from the TFs as you can get.
Even Megatron displayed emotionthough to be fair Shockers was pretty much a cold unfeeling machine….

not true in Shockwave's case - he shows both fear and anger in Robot Buster. Plus he acknowledges enjoyment when he is trailing Starscream (in The Human (puttup) Factor i think).

Plus he is an arrogant bastard.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 12:19 pm

Aardvark wrote:
spiderfrommars wrote:What's the Terminator got to do with anything? That was a cold unfeeling machine, about as far from the TFs as you can get.
Even Megatron displayed emotionthough to be fair Shockers was somewhat of a cold unfeeling machine….

I disagree. In Marvel he's had mental breakdowns on at least 4 occasions.

Aardvark · Post by **Aardvark** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 12:25 pm

Grrr, you quoted me while I was editing my post Once again I find myself typing nonsensical crap...what in the hell is wrong with me

You could describe him as a cold unfeeling machine. Whereas Megatron displays genuine affection towards ravage, Shockwave is a single-minded prick, fuelled by his logic. He had an nervous breakdown during the Time Wars saga mainly because he had faced his own mortality and could no longer rely on his logic.

Anyway I was only saying you could, I didn't say I would...