Something ive realised while rewatching tfp clips
Soundwave is only able to open portals willy nilly cus the mechanism for space bridge technology is on the nemesis, not him. he can only connect to it and make it open portals (which makes me wish Astrotrain was in the show cus I wonder if he would have this tech as well to help with travelling)
My source? When Soundwave is sent out to get a relic of Iacon and alserbeak gets hurt. Once Laserbeak sends his distress signal Soudnwave even forgoes taking out Wheeljack and just leaves immediately to get his partner, but he didn't use a spacebridge, despite the alternative being much quicker and immediate to retrieve Laserbeak. The best answer we have is that he couldn't create a bridge between their two locations because the nemesis was too far to recieve his commands to make one
In Shockwave's hunt for a predacon bone Soundwave arrives at the scene and is able to summon another bridge to let the falling bone piece fall into Megatron's hand. This scene shows bridges are made by commands through him, and there's a limited but large range distance Soundwave is able to make bridges outside the ship
And perhaps bridges can be timed or just made to hold open? because the first bridge remained for quite some time till both mecha ran back in
How dare you question Soundwave’s abilities /lh
When I first watched TFP, I assumed that was indeed the case, but I happen to have an interesting personal take on this.
Why Soundwave Wouldn’t Take a Ground Bridge Directly to Laserbeak
In reality, the writers went that way for the purpose of suspense. They needed to give Ratchet and Raf time to load Laserbeak. Also, the badass shot of Soundwave landing in the dark lol
For plot reasons that still bug me, Laserbeak wasn’t able to tell Soundwave that Ratchet was keeping him captive and had literally violated his body.*
Soundwave only received a generic distress call. He didn’t know if Wheeljack had come alone. For all he knew, the Wrecker could have called for backup in the form of the entirety of Team Prime, who may have set up a trap for him. Soundwave’s a tactical genius—he knows what others know about him. He would have known Team Prime would be expecting him to come via ground bridge.
Yes, Soundwave knew Laserbeak was in danger, but he also knew the Mini-Con was alive. He would have calculated the odds and selected the route at the intersection of the least risk and best potential outcome.
Overall, arriving via direct ground bridge would have been riskier than flying in. At least from the air, he could assess the situation before walking into a potential trap. He’s good, but not take-on-all-of-Team-Prime-at-once good.
Ratchet: “What’s wrong? Where are you?”
Wheeljack: “Uh. Figure you got maybe…two minutes.”
Ratchet: *sees Soundwave flying in*
Maybe Wheeljack’s estimate really was that bad.
Maybe Soundwave is faster than he looks.
Maybe Soundwave used a ground bridge sometime during the flight, but far enough away from Laserbeak’s location so that he could still assess potential danger from the air.
*This plot hole still bugs me. If Laserbeak had just told Soundwave he’d been loaded up with a grenade and infected with a virus, the Autobots would have lost the race for the relics. You had ONE job Laserbeak! 😡 /lh
Ground Bridge Limitations
I present this glorious clip:
Based on Fix-It’s reaction and everything we’ve seen about ground and space bridges, only one portal at a time can be opened from a single bridge mechanism.
It’s reasonable to assume that when Prowl and Bluestreak engineered the first space and ground bridges (The Covenant of Primus), they found out very quickly that more than one portal per bridge was a bad idea. They would have then ensured that all bridge apparatuses were engineered with these limitations in mind.
However, nothing prevents two separate bridges from opening two different portals near each other, as we see in TFP and RiD15.
All this to say, in the clip above, there’s no way the second portal could have been opened from the junkyard’s bridge. It had to have originated from another bridge apparatus (assumed to be built into Soundwave’s body).
But couldn’t Soundwave have just tapped into the junkyard’s bridge from the Shadowzone and hijacked it that way?
Even taking into account inter-dimensional radio waves, nothing would have happened because, like I mentioned earlier, all bridges are likely designed to prevent two portals from opening at once. (Signal blockers, limited power capacity, etc.)
Soundwave would’ve had to have been physically there to restructure the physical ground bridge mechanism, in order to increase its power capacity (among other things). Even so, the implied physics of portal “streams” prevents this.
And anyway, Soundwave is later seen at the controls, linking himself to the junkyard’s ground bridge. This tells me he wasn’t connected to it before, so the portal he originally opened was all him.
In the Predacon bone scene, at one point, both portals were open at the same time. This means one of them probably originated with Soundwave, unless the Decepticons figured out a way to build a bridge that supports more than one portal.
But even if they had, it would be considered an exception, since many years after the events of Prime, Fix-It and the others still believe two portals from the same bridge mechanism isn’t possible.
So, can Soundwave open bridges on his own or not?
I think it’s likely that the writers intended for him to be limited in his ability to open bridges, lest he be a little too OP. (As if he wasn’t already. lol)
However, what all of those limitations are isn’t 100% clear. The most common take is that he can only open them when linked to a control mechanism, but there’s at least one exception to that in RiD15.
All things considered, I think Soundwave can open bridge portals on his own.
Things to consider when opening portals without a link to an external bridge control:
If at all possible, Soundwave would avoid opening his own portals when fighting because it uses up a lot of energy—energy that may be needed in unexpected combat. He’s an excellent fighter, but he has limits that he knows very well. Tapping into an existing control mechanism would eliminate the energy drain that comes with opening portals with a personal apparatus built into his body.
Soundwave wouldn’t be able to open massive ground bridges or even space bridges on his own because of his personal energy (energon) reserves and the limited capacity of the smaller apparatus installed in his body.
Like all other bridges, Soundwave would only be able to open one portal at a time—hence why he wasn't able to escape from the Shadowzone by himself.
TL;DR Soundwave can probably open ground bridges on his own, but there are limitations.
