#kalistan

[askvectorprime]

Dear Vector Prime, I know the answer to this question likely varies throughout the multiverse, but where are countries such as Carbombya, Kalistan, Trans-Carpathia, Nanzhao, Brasnya, and Benzheen located? I'm specifically looking for their locations in the IDW 2005 universe.

Dear Country Confused,

While a lot of things vary throughout the multiverse, I can confirm that most of these countries and regions are located on Earth.

[askvectorprime]

Did the revolutionaries reunite after the end of IDW1?

Dear Revolutionary Reader,

That unlikely team of heroes did indeed have further adventures following Earth's close encounter with Unicron. In fact, recognizing the important role they had played in combating the Iron Ring, the group was formalized as the Special Threats Allied Response Team, an official collaboration between G.I. Joe and the Action Man Programme—although I gather the team themselves still prefer the name "Revolutionaries"!

Thanks to a wholly unlikely series of events, one of the team’s earliest escapades involved none other than their fallen comrade Kup! In Kalistan, the Count van Rani had begun experimenting upon the Talisman simulacrum that had been left in his Iron Castle by the late wizard Merklynn—or rather Garrison Kreiger, as he was known at the time. Seeking to learn more about the device, the “Iron Klaw” recruited a number of experts in the arcane—the Cobra mystic Crystal Ball, Lady Shazraella of Microspace, the stranded Prysmosian warlock Falkama, and the Dire Wraith sorcerer known as “Caleb Awan”—and tasked them with summoning Kup’s spirit from beyond the veil, believing the Autobot’s extensive adventures with the Talisman could provide unique insight. 

Using a mystical artefact known as a Ouija board, the group successfully dragged the elderly Autobot back into the world of the living, but Kup refused to cooperate, instead proceeding to cause gleeful ghostly havoc around the Iron Castle. This chaotic “haunting” drove his villainous hosts away from the fortress, which in turn drew the attention of the Revolutionaries, who infiltrated the castle only to find themselves in an unexpected reunion with their deceased friend. Believing their time with him to be short, Ian, Ayana and Garrison made ready to say their goodbyes, but—stubborn as ever!—the spectral Kup informed them he had no plans to go anywhere.

As it happened, Kup’s final remains had been transported to the Buenos Aires Onyx facility prior to Cybertron’s destruction—in particular his largely-intact head. With a renewed sense of purpose, Blackrock set about reconstituting Kup’s cranium, combining the late Wheeljack’s reverse frequency wave technique with the skills of another practitioner of the mystic arts: amateur magician Tankor. Kup’s spirit was able to inhabit and animate his restored head, although as you can imagine, becoming a talking head was not quite the new lease on life he was hoping for. Before long, however, Garrison would use his own body as a template to reengineer Kup into a pseudo Titan Master, able to transform from head into diminutive robot form. Kup would in fact be only the first of a whole new generation of Headmasters—but that, my friends, is a story for another day.

[askvectorprime]

Dear Vector Prime, Could you tell us more about the Transformers from the universe where GDO had control over Earth, like Springer, Sandstorm, Megatron, or Hot Spot?

Dear Global Development Organizer,

The Cybertronians there were quickly forced into a strained alliance due to their circumstances, not least because both sides chafed under the control of Megatron.

The tyrant had been busy fighting Optimus Prime when the ships crashed to Earth, and not even the intervention of the human's Savoy Strikeforce could distract him from it. He only noticed their presence when Optimus Prime interposed himself between the humans and Megatron's fusion cannon—and then was felled by the Strikeforce before Megatron could even fire.

The shocking discovery of creatures even more cruel and merciless than himself pushed Megatron into an uncomfortable position. Understanding the GDO to be the biggest threat to himself and the rest of his kind, he gladly led the fight against them—but with each battle, he found himself more and more discouraged by the sheer waste of resources which he felt, by rights, should have been his. His greed knowing no limits, he swore to seize control of the GDO and put it to work conquering the galaxy in his name.

Hot Spot was one of Megatron's seconds-in-command, taking command of a motley group of Autobots and Decepticons which he dubbed the Survivors. Most of them came from teams of their own, destroyed in the crash and subsequent retreat, and it was only Hot Spot's patience that allowed him to merge them into a cohesive fighting unit. Off the battlefield, he found himself enthralled with the culture of Kalistan, and spent many nights peering through the windows of museums and opera houses.

Springer and Sandstorm were former members of the Wreckers, forced to fight alongside Decepticons they'd once fought against. To their surprise, this proved not to be altogether too challenging.

Sandstorm found an odd kinship with Brawl—each of them revelled in the other's devastation. While their teammates ostracised them for the sheer level of damage they caused, none could deny their effectiveness against the GDO's drone squads. Springer, while lacking Sandstorm's oil-thirst, similarly forged a strange friendship with Dead End. Following the loss of his team, the former Stunticon had sunk to new levels of despair—but Springer found himself helping Dead End find a reason to carry on without them.

To the discomfort of both factions, the GDO had been able to seize the bodies of their fallen allies. By combining the Cybertronians’ in-built schematics with their own advanced technology, the GDO were able to create an army of transforming drones. Their Laserbeak units were an advanced form of unmanned aerial vehicle, capable of converting into an animalistic avian mode with greater manoeuvrability and combat capabilities, at the cost of a lower cruising speed.

Their Motorbreath units, in comparison, were able to disguise themselves as civilian vehicles. When Cybertronians attempted to liberate a city, they would assume their robotic mode—paralysing any Autobots in the vicinity, for they all wore bodies based on Optimus Prime, but with none of the fallen hero's merciful tendencies.

[askvectorprime]

Dear Vector Prime, what is the GDO, which stands for "Global Development Organization"? And how is this related to Transformers in general?

Dear Organization Optimizer,

The Global Development Organization was originally founded in one universe with the aim of protecting the planet Earth against existential threats. Unfortunately the group became convinced that anything that was not subject to GDO oversight was an existential threat to them, and thus the planet.

Any organization which wasn't destroyed was suborned, and GDO became even more powerful. Formerly independent projects, such as the Institute of Intelligence and Information's artificial intelligence software (Technology and Operational Research (Quantum)), or the VEhicle NOMads of the Mechanically Augmented Saharan Khanate were repurposed for GDO's control of the world.

When the Autobot/Decepticon war reached Earth, both sides were taken by surprise when the GDO's Skywatch satellites took out their ships, sending them crashing to the ground. Pursued by the GDO's Terrorism Reaction Force in Mobility Enhancing Cerebral-Harmonized suits, the two sides were forced to put away their differences in an attempt to survive. They fled to the last region on Earth that had managed to escape GDO control, the Sovereign Kalistani Autonomous Region, under the control of General Courtney A. Krieger.

The general and the Cybertronians worked out an alliance to oppose the GDO, and with the addition of transformer technology, the Kalistani resistance managed to slowly expand the free regions of Earth, liberating humanity from the GDO's near omnipresent control.