#nanocons

[askvectorprime]

dear vector prime,

Are sideways and mirror the same entity? Or is there something weirder going on with those two

Dear Sideways Stumped,

Even all this time after having passed on from that reality… I’m sorry to say that Sideways confounds me still. In my attempts to disentangle the origins and nature of this particular foe of mine, I have sought guidance from my multiversal brother, Alchemist Prime. But when he turned the Lenses on that particular universal stream, and focused them on Sideways… he saw only static, like a television tuned to the wrong channel, the cosmic microwave background of the universe. Prior to Sideways’ first appearance before the Autobots and Decepticons, that fateful day on the interstate highway… we could find no trace of him.

However, Runway was convinced he had met Sideways long ago, back on Cybertron, during the war—or rather, Sideways’ rider, who Runway claimed was not one Mini-Con, but two combined, their names Rook and Crosswise. Many of the other Mini-Cons corroborated their existence, and I have seen these figures crop up in alternate realities elsewhere in the multiverse. What the Mini-Cons seem unable to agree on is who Rook and Crosswise were—how they acted, what they did. Were they class traitors, working to sabotage the Mini-Cons’ efforts to escape Cybertron? Were they reactionaries, sowing discontent towards the Autobots, or the opposite? Was it Rook who suggested surrendering to the Decepticons, or Crosswise? If even a small number of these conflicting accounts are accurate, then it seems that these Mini-Cons were capricious indeed. Runway would have it that the Sideways we knew was nothing but a drone, that it was these Mini-Con steering him all along. Runway can be narrow-minded—why, he made similar remarks about Overload, whose relationship with Rollout was, in truth, vastly more complex than that—but his theory has a ring of truth to it. For when Sideways’ rider spoke, it was with the same voice, as though it was only through some act of ventriloquism that the bike could speak at all.

In one of his final reports, Rhinox hypothesised that Sideways was the successor to the race of Mini-Cons created by Unicron: not one entity, but rather a cloud of Nano-Cons, capable of infecting all forms of computerized life, undergoing constant transformation at a near-molecular level. In a combined state, it would be able to change appearance entirely—which would certainly explain his radical makeover by the time of his reappearance during the search for the Cyber Planet Keys.

Still, this fails to explain where Sideways came from in the first place—not as a collection of matter, but as a set of ideas: a name, a voice, a vehicle, a personality. The Unicron I know is not possessed of the spark of creativity. There must have been someone, at some point in history, who looked like that, and behaved like that… On Earth, there must have been a purple motorcycle, but I have not been able to locate it. Who did it belong to? What happened to them?

If Sideways, Rook, and Crosswise truly did exist… then what became of them? Did Unicron destroy them, and fashion a mirror from their shattered remains, a figurehead for bad luck? Or did he keep them alive, enslaved, at times reduced to mere puppets? In those moments where that cool, aloof temperament yielded to a more sinister and chaotic demeanour… was this simply a mask being removed, or a hand slipping into a glove? I wonder if they gave themselves willingly, as Thrust later tried, in his folly.

The Sideways I knew seemed almost like a different person entirely, a brazen buffoon who delighted in stoking the mistrust of others, and whose final act seemed to serve no greater purpose than simple patriotism. Unicron, by that point, had already been all but defeated; whatever fragment of his essence remained in Megatron’s body, and in the black hole, was little more than an echo, a rerun. If Sideways was still a pawn of the chaos bringer, then he was removed from play before he could make his final move.

But I have walked the streets of Planet X. I have met the gaze of passers-by, so similar in their construction, and thought—“Are you him?” Later, when Alchemist Prime looked, he could only confirm what I already suspected. It’s just a maze of white noise.

That reminds me… did you know that one of the Galactic Guardians pilots a vehicle that looks almost identical to that alien alt-mode of his? I passed by the TV once, and saw it. Safeguard does not see the resemblance…

[askvectorprime]

Is there a universe where Megatron is a small bot who transforms into a gun like IDW Vos?

Dear Miniature Master,

The Nanocon Megatron of one timeline was a particularly diminutive ‘bot, scarcely more than a few inches tall—however, when he was Powerlinxed to the maniacal Leader-1 against his will, he was able to fire inordinately destructive blasts of energy.

[askvectorprime]

Dear Vector Prime, I have a question that might be weird. What if rumble and frenzy were higher than soundwave?

Dear Size Sleuth,

In a universe I previously described, where Cybertron was just one of many moons around a gas giant primary, Soundwave was among the many unaffiliated Nanocons pressed into Decepticon servitude, splitting time between the unpleasant duo of Frenzy and Rumble. Although Powerlinxing with Soundwave gave them the ability to combine into the powerful Jackhammer, they rarely cooperated long enough to do so, for each believed that only he had the right to wield the Nanocon. The advent of the Dead End Battles saw Soundwave's transformation into the more powerful Soundblaster; unfortunately, however, this power boost only intensified the rivalry between the two Decepticon siblings.

[askvectorprime]

Dear Vector Prime. Is there dimension where Autobots and Decepticons are all Micromasters?

Dear Micro Master,

In some universes, all Autobots and Decepticons were forced to downsize into fuel-efficient Micromaster bodies in order to continue their war when energon ran scarce—or, in one instance, when all Energon on Earth was rendered toxic. In one notable reality, Cybertron itself is a tiny world, only slightly larger than Earth’s own moon, and the Cybertronians that have evolved there are all quite diminutive compared to the norm. And, of course, there those timelines where those Cybertronians who choose to undergo the Great Upgrade receive new bodies based on a mixture of Pretender and Micromaster technology to create a race of highly advanced, next-generation Cybertronian lifeforms.

[askvectorprime]

dear vector prime, what is the name of cybertron's star/star system?

Dear Stellar Solicitor, 

Across universes, the location of the Transformer homeworld varies greatly. In some universes, it originally orbited the star Alpha Centauri before the war ripped it from its place in the cosmos. In others, it orbits the star Hadean in what your scientists term the “Scutum-Crux” arm of the Milky Way. And in yet more, it circles the yellow dwarf Shaula in the constellation humans call Scorpio.

There are some obscure universes where Cybertron or its local equivalent is a roaming comet, travelling between solar systems, and realities where Cybertron is not even an independent celestial body. In one peculiar Aurex universe, for instance, Cybertron was just one moon of a larger gas giant. On this shrunken Cybertron, smaller even than Earth, the heroic Sparkplug and the evil Leader-1 waged a destructive war across Cybertron and twenty-seven moons for control of the planet’s Nanocons. 

[askvectorprime]

Dear Vector Prime Is there a universe where transformers change size? For example that optimus has the size of bee and bee the size of optimus and so with others

Dear Height Helper,

This certainly seems to be a popular topic of conversation as of late! I shall once again describe the history of the smallest Cybertron I have yet seen—the world where Leader-1’s Decepticons battle Sparkplug’s Autobots—and some of its inhabitants.

In peacetime, Optimus Prime was leader of the Nanocons, part of an elected council of leaders who represented their individual Nanocon villages. Before the war, they dwelt in sequestered quarters within Cybertron’s individual polities and inhabited specialized miniature cities designed to accommodate their tiny frames. Unfortunately, however, this separation led to a shift in public opinion; apathy towards their “bulk” neighbors turned into resentment, which soon festered into real hatred. When the war began, the Decepticons began raiding Nanocon settlements for unwilling powerlinx partners; in turn, Optimus Prime urged his fellow Nanocons to join forces with Sparkplug. However, the ambitious senator Megatron sought power at any cost, and orchestrated a coup that saw Optimus deposed and many representatives of the Senate—Starscream, Shockblast, Cyclonus, Demolishor—pledging their allegiance to Leader-1. Megatron believed that Leader-1 would reward him for his ambition and loyalty; when the Nanocon Assembly pledged leadership to the Decepticons, however, Megatron and his compatriots found themselves forced into unwilling servitude. Realizing that Megatron and Leader-1 could not be stopped by force of words alone, Optimus Prime rallied his loyalists to join the Autobots and lend their evolutionary power to Sparkplug’s forces. 

Unusually for most similar universes, this particular reality does contain a Bumblebee—as the war for Cybertron ground on, however, he grew dissatisfied with Sparkplug’s idealism and deserted the Autobots to become an energon scavenger, working for whichever side paid him the most. He used those profits to set up a haven for destitute Nanocons looking to escape the war, a growing conclave of conscientious objectors and pacifists. The energon was flowing, but by that point Bumblebee sought to leave Cybertron entirely, and did so by obtaining a crashed warship and refitting it into a spaceborne arcology, an Ark that would carry him and his kind off Cybertron and beyond the war. He and many hundreds of Nanocons left their wartorn planet behind, intending to begin anew on Earth—but didn’t account for the Decepticons following them. Though they eluded the Decepticons in the end, their damaged ship crashed on Earth, where they lay dormant for many years until they awoke in the modern day.

[askvectorprime]

In the Aurex timeline of the Nanocons and the smallest Cybertron, did the Autobots and Decepticons have combiners? Other Aurex timelines feature bot combinations like Perceptor and the Star Saber: are there equivalents on Nanocon Cybertron?

Dear Nanocon Native,

In this reality, combination among the “large” Autobots and Decepticons is not unheard of, but comparatively rare. Sixtrain and Devastator are the most powerful warriors among the Autobots and Decepticons; on this tiny Cybertron, their clashes were devastating enough to reduce entire cities to ruins. Other combiner teams include Sureshock, High Wire and Grindor; the Decepticons employ several Transformers who can combine into shared vehicle modes, such as the villainous Fireshot and Vanquish.  

Indeed, it is far more common for the Nanocons of this universe to combine. Put together, a team of Nanocons can rival a “full-sized” Cybertronian in terms of strength and power, and these powerful Nanocon warriors are sought-after by those independent Nanocons who seek independence from both the Autobots and Decepticons. The Nanocon Bumblebee, for instance, employed Constructicon Maximus and Superion Maximus as security guards while laboring to build the Ark.

[askvectorprime]

Dear Mr. Vector prime, Do you know what would happen to you if you went to a negative polarity universe? do you know a a vector prime from a negative polarity universe, what were they like?

Dear Polarity Practitioner,

In this incarnation, I have never traveled to a negative polarity universe. Though I can recall memories of my prior, singular self now that I reside in the Realm of the Primes, in many places they are fuzzy and distorted. I can clearly recall a reluctance to travel to such realities, fearful of what their inverted laws of nature might do to my dimensionally-transcendental being—an uncertainty that I do not believe I would have felt had I ever tested the idea—and yet, in the depths of my memory banks I occasionally catch glimpses of strange data, information which I have no context for, memories from beings antithetical to what I think of as "me". A meddling monk, interfering with history for his own personal amusement or gain... a cold, detached intellectual, treating other beings as test subjects, just as a scientist with a picoscope studies nanocons in a drop of oil... a violent authoritarian, delivering twisted justice to anyone who dares interfere with the fourth dimension. The idea that any of these could be a part of my fundamental nature is an idea that I find deeply disturbing.

From my current dwelling place, I can see from the perspectives of countless other incarnations of myself, stretching across the multiverse... and yet, I cannot see through the eyes of any such inverted Vector Primes. I do not know yet whether this is cause for relief or concern, but in my experience, such unexpected upheavals are rarely something to be celebrated.