#allspark mutations

[timeliner2004tf]

Transformers : Saga of the Allspark ( Titan Magazine )

#7 : Starscream's Militia

[askvectorprime]

Dear Vector Prime, I have to ask you this very important question. What is the name of the Vatti gas hob transformer owned by Daytrader?

Dear Product Placer,

I don't believe that the unscrupulous Daytrader ever gave that particular AllSpark Mutation a name, referring to it only as "Vatti-Bot" for the brand name inscribed across its chest. Perhaps if he had named it, he would have been more upset when Bumblebee crushed it to death.

[surveille]

Back when I first got into Bayverse some people were wondering why the Allspark creations were all evil. The theory went that it was Megatron's coding showing through, since the technology involved was reverse engineered from him. Which is a plausible answer to the question and a good reason why they all have the fight instinct rather than flight. 

But why assume the little guys are evil? They're violent, yes. They're newborns in a strange world with no stabilizing influence to turn to, whether that be parent or guardian. They're physically tougher than most of their surroundings, and most importantly they're armed. 

If human infants had motor control and guns built in, I don’t see it going much differently. 

[askvectorprime]

A bunch of Transformers undercover at Sector Seven can seemingly use Cyber Planet Keys, with their own Sector Seven branding(!), despite not seemingly having a Primus around to give it to them. How does that work?

Dear Secretive Scholar,

I see your confusion—no, those are not Cyber Keys, or at least not the sort which is familiar to you or I. The devices of which you speak were one result of Sector Seven's research into the AllSpark. Through trial and error, the scientists at Hoover Dam were able to gain a vague understanding of the minimum complexity threshold needed for a device to be animated by its energies. This allowed them to create machinery capable of funnelling the AllSpark's power without itself becoming animate in the process.

However, when their attempts at controlling the mutations were met with abject failure, they instead began developing strategies by which to deploy the feral newborns against enemies of the state. They fabricated a kind of battery capable of independently storing a minuscule fraction of the AllSpark's energy, such that an agent might use it in the field to create an indiscriminately-violent shock trooper. It quickly became clear that such tactics posed far too much danger to those using them, so they started working on remote deployment methods. The most promising of these involved firing an AllSpark unit at an enemy vehicle using a ballistic missile; evidently rather taken with this means of murder, the scientists began referring to the batteries as "keys", used to "start" vehicles.

Thankfully, the destruction of the AllSpark at Mission City effectively shuttered this research for good—but a handful of charged keys remained, scattered across various warehouses. Drawn by the AllSpark radiation, the Cybertronians operating undercover at Sector Seven quickly seized the devices. Of course, for an already-living Transformer, the trace amounts of AllSpark power only serve to grant additional ferocity!