Blackarachnia: Encyclopedia II - Blackarachnia - Beast Wars

Blackarachnia - Beast Wars

Blackarachnia is a Transformer character from Beast Wars. During the Beast Wars series, she was originally a Maximal protoform, but her stasis pod was stolen by the Predacons and reprogrammed by Tarantulus as a Predacon spy and saboteur fitted with a Predacon shell program. Her beast form is a black widow spider.

One of the first female Transformers to become a major character, Blackarachnia is beloved by fans for her ingenuity, take-charge attitude, and her ability to look after herself — something that previous female characters had been lacking. Originally, this character was intended to be a quick retool the Tarantulas toy, but animators ended up giving Blackarachnia a very feminine design, said to have been inspired by an asian exotic dancer.

Although a transmetal version of Blackarachia was sold with children's meals, Blackarachnia did not become a transmetal in the beginning of the second season of the television series like some other character did, probably because of the limited resources of the show animators.

Blackarachnia - Season 2

Eventually, Blackarachnia began a relationship with the Maximal Silverbolt, who continually tried to bring her over to the side of good. She first encountered him when she was setting up an energon mining post with Tarantulas and Quickstrike, and was stunned at how he didn't destroy her simply on the grounds that she was a female unit. They spent their first significant amount of time together when the Predacons and Maximals fought over Rampage's pod; although she had goaded him into trying to fight her as she attacked him, Blackarachnia was counter attacked by Tarantulas, and Tarantulas in turn was attacked and struck down by Silverbolt, who then helped Blackaracnia to her feet. Unfortunately, Silverbolt slammed Tarantulas into the pod, which was laying in an energon bank, and the force of the throw caused an explosion that scattered the combatants and left the two equally damaged and in need of contacting their bases, so they travelled to a mountain that was out of range of the energon interference. Along the way, Silverbolt saved Blackarachnia again from a saber tooth tiger, even though she was about to shoot him in the back, and, shocked again, she decided to keep him alive after that, unaware that Megatron and the other Predacons were listening in. Their journey ended when Optimus Primal and Cheetor came to help them fight Rampage (then called Protoform X), and Silverbolt forced his damage wing mechacnism to work so he could save her from seemingly falling to her demise. That was only the beginning of their relationship.

For a long while Blackarachnia resisted Silverbolt's attempts to reform her based on his assessment that as a Maximal protoform, the good side was where she belonged, and she even told him that it was her bad girl persona that he liked most about her.

Blackarachnia officially switched sides when Megatron attempted to change history by killing Optimus Prime, a change which would probably have resulted in Blackarachnia and the other Maximal protoforms never being created. Although still calling herself a Predacon, she worked on the same side as a Maximals from this point on.

Blackarachnia - Season 3

In the end, Silverbolt's efforts prevailed; Blackarachnia rejected her Predacon ways and became a transmetal 2 Maximal fighter because of the transmetal 2 driver, while still retaining some of her bad girl personality and sardonic sense of humor. For some unexplained reason Blackarachnia gained telekinetic powers in her transmetal 2 form.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Beast Wars", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki