#krixby87

[askvectorprime]

Dear Vector Prime, has there ever been a group of Cybertronians who have taken the alt modes of agricultural equipment? If so, can you please tell me more about them? Thank you very much.

Dear Farmer Friendly,

Certain versions of Cybertron, particularly during peacetime, are home to the Agricultural Guild. This organization oversees the farming and cultivation of fuel sources such as energon crystals, and as such many of their members take on the form of farming machinery. In one reality, an energon farmer named Megatron bristled against the Agricultural Guild, who enforced what he saw as archaic inefficiencies while refusing to offer any support to the lunar colonies. In another, the Guild was led by Brushguard, a talented but arrogant agriscientist; though Alpha Trion, head of the Guilds Domesticus, valued his advice, Supreme Commander Ultra Magnus never entirely trusted him, believing that his ambition might lead him to turn against the Autobots some cycle.

I assume, however, that you are asking about Cybertronians who have taken part in the Great War. Farming equipment is, I admit, much rarer amongst the Autobot and Decepticon armies; lacking either obvious military function or the practicality of common road vehicles as disguise, most farmers choose to undergo reformatting into a different alternate mode once they join up as soldiers.

The one major exception I can think of is the Decepticon Thresh. A hulking brute of a soldier, Thresh scanned a combine harvester upon arrival to Earth, and stubbornly refused to reformat away from it—he found it too much fun to menace humans, chasing them down as they tried desperately to escape his whirling blades. This bullheaded attitude eventually paid off for Thresh, as he was tasked with sabotaging Earth's defenders by destroying their farms and other sources of food. To aid him in this task, he was assigned the Agricons, a quartet of drones that transformed into agricultural machinery: a Tractor Drone, Grain Truck Drone, Loader Drone and Baler Drone, the last of which could be towed by the Tractor Drone. Thresh himself was also upgraded with Power Core Combiner technology, allowing him to combine with his drones to form a super mode, letting him take his love of destruction to a new level.

[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.

[askvectorprime]

Dear Vector Prime, Have you ever heard of the Jukebox Transformer known as Raze? He was a Decepticon warrior. Also, were there ever any Transformers which transformed into bucketwheel excavators, or cuckoo clocks?

Dear Familiarity Fantasist,

While I have been fortunate enough to never meet Raze, I did have the pleasure of once meeting a Cybertronian by the name of Wonderwheel who was one of the rarest triple changers. He transformed into both a bucketwheel excavator and a cuckoo clock.

[askvectorprime]

Dear Vector Prime, Since I'm here, I have to ask you one question. Is there a group of Cybertronians whose alt modes are carnival rides? If so, then explain each of the members of that particular group.

Dear Amusement Appreciator, Years after her adventure with Powerglide, Astoria Carlton-Ritz decided to fund a Transformer-themed amusement park, and offered vast amounts of crude oil resources to any robots who would participate. Rodimus Prime approved of the venture, and several Autobots chose new alt-modes:

D-Go and his Liner Team became the park’s main attraction, the Rapid Run rollercoaster.

Grand Scrounge was happy to find a use for his alt-mode at last, as the park’s Ferris wheel.

Bumper, Crash Test, Ricochet, Crumplezone and Jolt formed the dodgems, spending most of their time begging their riders not to crash them into one another.

Mach Kick instituted the Thoroughbred Carousel Corps.

Whirl eagerly took on a new identity as “Tilt-a-Whirl”, though he didn’t quite get the idea of theme parks, believing this to be a human torture device.

Grandus housed the whole amusement park in his base mode. In honor of the Liner Team’s combined form, Sixliner, the park was named Sixflags.

[askvectorprime]

Dear Vector Prime, Has there ever been a Transformer or group of transformers which have worked in a circus?

Dear Big Top Buddy,

While both Optimus Prime and Sky Lynx famously performed in the galaxy-spanning Cosmic Carnival, they are not the only Transformers to have wound up performing under the big top!

Not long after the Autobots set up shop in Detroit, Bumblebee and Sari attempted to convince the other team members to perform in a traveling circus that passed through Detroit, in the hopes that seeing them in action in a non-threatening setting would help endear them to the humans. However, none of the other Autobots were interested; as a result, Bumblebee and Sari snuck out alone one night to audition for the act.

Despite his endless boasting about his speed and physical prowess, Bumblebee failed to impress the ringmaster when he accidentally blew out one of his tires and went skidding headfirst into a pile of crates, destroying any chance he had at performing daredevil stunts in the circus! However, the ringmaster admitted that, with one of their props in the shop for maintenance, they did need a car for that night’s act…

Thus, Bumblebee and Sari did get to join the circus for a night—but only as a part of a clown act where the little Autobot carried twenty performers inside his alternate mode. Bumblebee complained dreadfully about the entire experience for a long time afterwards, much to the amusement of his Autobot comrades—not only was the gaudy clown car paint difficult to scrub off, but he also kept finding bits of confetti in his interior for weeks afterwards.

[askvectorprime]

Dear Vector Prime, are there any notable transformers which transform into televisions?

Dear Viewer Verisimilitude,

Officially, the spy known as Raster works as a data interceptor in Blaster's communication unit. But he is under the deepest cover; he's so devout to the Autobot cause that he has two alt modes and no robot mode!

As an Autobot, he acts as one of the Ark’s viewscreens, always paying meticulous detail to anyone who might be looking at his display. It often seems that relevant sound and video just happen to appear whenever an Autobot wants to request some data, as if the media were being plotted or directed deliberately. Indeed, Raster tends to obsess over these directorial details, which distracts him from his frequent spy missions.

Under his Decepticon alias, “Staredown”, he situates himself amongst the many screens to be found in Decepticon headquarters, where he can disrupt the enemy strategy by feeding misleading information. When things get too quiet, he borrows recordings from Polybius; before long, footage of Megatron and Starscream scheming behind each others’ backs is playing in high definition in the command room, and the clangs of a beating ring out through the base. Of course, when tempers get heated, it’s not uncommon for a screen to be smashed in anger—but cracked glass is a small price to pay if it saves Autobot lives.

Outside the field, Raster has served as Sparkplug Witwicky's TV on Earth, happy to keep the old man company in his golden years.

[askvectorprime]

Dear Vector Prime, In the Bayverse, Dispensor was a vending machine animated by the Allspark, but there was also an Xbox and a steering wheel animated by the Allspark. What were the names of the animated Xbox and the animated steering wheel?

Dear Mutated Mechanism,

The Xbox-bot referred to herself as Git-Gud. After escaping, she found herself among competitive online gamers, hacking games for her users (for a hefty fee) in order to inflate speedrunner records and create illegal mods for video game streamers. She has since upgraded herself to an Xbox Series X, but has a secret third PlayStation 5 mode.

The steering wheel was Necro-Nom-Nom-Nom. Upon facehugging his poor driver after gaining sentience, he discovered that he had no taste for consuming humans and released her. But he did like being a steering wheel. His alt-mode now includes an air bag for his driver to save them in the case of an accident, and he only feasts on belligerent Cybertronians who attack his car (and human driver).

[askvectorprime]

Dear Vector Prime, In the Bumblebee Movie, there were appliances animated by Allspark energy, such as a clothes washer, a dishwasher, a tv, a radio clock, and a fridge. What were their names, if they had any?

Dear Apocryphal Appliances,

Those appliances possessed Allspark energy far too briefly to receive any sort of designation. However, as it turns out, I know of a set of BotBots from another universe who happened to have precisely those alt modes:

The clothes washer was Spin-Thrift, who has become known for her immaculate skill as a shanix-launderer. She is a distant relative of Decepticon Justice Division member Tesarus.

The dishwasher was Degerminator, a forensic analyst who studies discarded food to discover human weaknesses. He can also deploy a bot with a meat mallet alt mode (Crunchy) and his Targetmaster ally, Crispy the Flambé Flamethrower.

The TV set was actually the Transtector body to the antennae bot atop the set, named Die-Pole. His social influencer abilities were a scourge to humanity in the mid-21st century.

The radio clock was Snooze-Lose, who was in fact a triple changer, having a clock mode as well as a beetle-like mode. Snooze-Lose could be cloned, creating a large "millipede" chain of crawling clockbots.

The fridge bot was Cryo-Baby, a very sensitive bot who resists change at all costs, preferring to preserve enemies inside his freezer mode rather than deal with the inherent unpredictability in all things.