Is this why people are gonna be shipping us for 40+ years?
OMG it's the backstory episode!!! Yes yes let's GOOOO
LOL Megs captured most of earth's world leaders huh? Honestly you can have em Megs. I for one welcome our new alien overlords.
The aerialbots go all fanboy over the Cons lol girl same. Though actually it is an interesting idea - they're new, so they don't really understand what makes one side good or evil.
Screamer you are such a bad actor lol the only reason anyone is fooled is that your adversaries are kind of stupid.
Megs you can probably find an easier way to take care of these mild annoyances than "throw them back to the start of time potentially upsetting the space time continuum". It's always go big or go home with you.
BACKSTORY FINALLY! And haha "Who could this Orion Pax guy be". I feel like this 'twist' has less impact now.
G1 Orion actually reminds me a bit of Tf:One D16? The guy who just wants to do his job, not bother with the bigger picture. Very interesting - And a very different origin for Orion than t:One?
"Keep away from her" geez Orion creepy much!? I guess this was less creepy and possessive back in 1985, now it makes him seem like a bit of a jerk.
WAIT HE ACTUALLY KNOWS WHO MEGATRON IS!? HE ADMIRES HIM AND LOOKS UP TO HIM? HOLY SHIT I WAS JUST KIDDING ABOUT THEM BEING DOOMED YAOI IN THIS CONTINUITY, THEY ACTUALLY DO HAVE A CONNECTION!?
Seriously I'd thought G1 Megs and OP barely knew each other. This is actually quite a revelation to me. They've always had a backstory connection, even from day 1? Wow.
I mean it's not as intense as other continuities, which seem to keep topping themselves in terms of how close they were. Still though.
And hey with the D16 parallels, Megs here is kinda like, for Orion what Sentinel was for him. The guy he looks up to who ends up betraying him.
Curious how D and G1!Orion kind of have the same experience in a lot of ways? Their idol turns out to be a bad guy, they get betrayed. Maybe it was Megs gunning down Ariel and Dion that kept Orion from, you know. Ripping him in half.
And this origin for Orion also kind of reminds me of like, the difference between Steve Rogers and Tony Stark. Like Tf:One Orion is very Steve - the already noble hero who just needs the power to do good things, while g1!Orion is more like Tony, the flawed anti-hero who has to learn a hard lesson and become a hero. Very different arcs in a way.
I'm glad they threw in that line about Ariel becoming Elita. Stopped them from just Fridging here, did something infinitely cooler.
Guess they still fridged Dion though. Wiki tells me there are infinite fan theories for what the hell happened to him.
Anyway OP shows up all Optimus Primed (Hey, Alpha Trion built him here, just like he gave Orion and co Cogs in t:One! Another connection!) Oops Megs you accidentally made your worst enemy.
I feel like in-universe if the Aerialbots told this story they'd get yelled at for their self-insert Mary Sue fanfic. Like "sure you guys saved Optimus Prime, sure you're the reason he survived. Unrealistic!"
Fascinating little lesson Orion/Optimus learns here about how Might Does Not Make Right. Again, the D16 parallels are so interesting to me. D also looked up to Megatonus and Sentinel for being strong, hence the whole Decepticon philosophy. Again, I think Megs killing Dion and injuring Ariel is a big factor in Orion turning into Optimus and not. Y'know. Ripping in half and all.
Anyway the Aerialbots get back to the present and how does this time travel loop even work who cares we got backstory we got flashbacks we got the origins of the doomed yaoi and of Orion (and Elita, though they didn't do a ton with her). YAY! Great episode.
A month ago I wanted to do pixels of Frenzy and Rumble but they got lost. Then let's do two characters I really wanted to draw, in pixelart - Orion Pax as seen in War Dawn, and Aerialbot leader Silverbolt! He's also one of my favorites, and a very underrated bot just like Octane.
WATCH THEM - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7cl7mGpFDk
Elita One's first G1 cartoon appearance was in "The Search for Alpha Trion" (though a later episode, "War Dawn," showed us an earlier form for the character called Ariel). She appears briefly in vehicle mode, near the end of the episode, but Optimus Prime is in front of her and you can't see her entire car mode. A lot of fans have tried their hand at a conjectural vehicle design based on what little of her we do see.
Well, her official vehicle design, as created by Floro Dery, only recently surfaced for the first time. I tried my hand at coloring it, based on what we see in the episode, and doing a little bit of extrapolating regarding how she seems to fold up. (It's weird that her knees apparently form her trunk. I have no idea how that would work on an official Hasbro toy. But, that's the great thing about being a character designer, I suppose—your designs aren't required to work in three-dimensional space!)
Transformers G1 Orion Pax (Fan Color Model)
The G1 cartoon episode "War Dawn" told the story of Optimus Prime before he became Optimus Prime. The design for his previous form, Orion Pax (note the initials), was originally conceived by Floro Dery as a design for Ultra Magnus for The Transformers: the Movie, before being appropriated for the second-season episode instead.
Color key artist Phyllis Craig deliberately chose colors for Orion Pax that strongly evoked Optimus Prime. Orion Pax never transformed into vehicle mode in the cartoon, and his vehicle design only surfaced fairly recently. I took a guess as to what colors he probably would have been in vehicle mode, based on which robot parts seem to turn into which vehicle parts. The Floro Dery design influence is strong here; to me, his trailer reminds me a lot of Rodimus Prime.
