Dear Vector Prime, you've stated before that Shockwave continued his experiments by producing more Dinobots to use for his own purposes, RID Grimlock being such a case, however other subspecies of Dinobot, such as Chompazoids, seem to be born from the Well. Does this mean that Shockwaves experiments caused the Allspark to adopt the Dinobot as a type of Cybertonian, or dies it even have connection to Grimlocks disappearance, perhaps sacrificing himself to the Well to produce more of his kind?
Dear Chompazoid Champion,
Shockwave created the first Chompazoids after the fall of Cybertron, a side project that he worked on for many years in the ruins of Nuon City. While his earlier experiments—on the Insecticons, the Dinobots, the Forged—attempted to graft genetic information onto a living test subject, the Chompazoid project was far more ambitious—he attempted to create a hybrid, a superior organism that drew upon the strengths of multiple different Cybertronian organisms. Though the Chompazoids used the Dinobot “genome” as a base, Shockwave spliced in many traits from other lifeforms. Thanks to an infusion of Predacon CNA, for instance, they would be born with a powerful internal fusion reactor—not to breathe fire, but to burn up inorganic material and turn it into pure energy. Their jaws—a mixture of Sharkticon and Scraplet—would allow them to chew through solid durabyllium, and their modified brain modules would fill their minds with the mindless, all-consuming hunger of the Insecticons. Finally, his creations received the Cybertronian ability to transform into vehicles and machinery—but when the last of the energon he'd allocated for the project ran out, Shockwave put his specimens into cryogenic storage and turned his attention back to the less energy-intensive task of simply cloning a new Predacon.
After the end of the war, Cybertronians began resettling the city of Nuon, which had been left comparatively intact by the war—until an Autobot cleanup crew that consisted of Vectorium, Catapult, Sledgehammer, and Stormsong stumbled upon Shockwave’s backup lab quite by accident. When they thoughtlessly deactivated the stasis chambers keeping the newborn Chompazoids under control, the onrushing brood promptly devoured the four and escaped captivity. The Chompazoids were far smarter than Shockwave had intended, and proved able to outhink, outwit, and outfight their pursuers; the largest and most intelligent Chompazoid, a hulking brute by the name of “Underbite,” rampaged through Nuon for hours, eating everything in sight before the Cybertronian provisional government could martial a coordinated response—it took Ultra Magnus, Bulkhead, Ripraw, and all four Dinobots to finally subdue and arrest him. Ever the braggart, Underbite became inordinately proud of his famous rampage and boasted endlessly about it to everyone who crossed his path.
As for the other Chompazoids… well, I am sorry to say many did indeed succumb to their primal instincts and turned to villainy in an attempt to sate their hunger. This is not to say that all Chompazoids are inherently evil, of course, and many successfully integrated themselves into Cybertronian society before Cyclonus staged his coup. The Chompazoid Molar, for instance, became a kind and supportive mentor as part of Cybertron’s provisional tutelage system.
And so, to answer your question—although these designs began as mere scientific experiments, the Well would later begin birthing Chompazoids of its own accord. Did the AllSpark within the well merely recognize and replicate a successful body-plan, or was this some attempt to welcome these chimeric beings into the great song of Cybertronian coexistence? Even I cannot say for certain.
