Beast Wars: Encyclopedia II - Beast Wars - Further adventures

Beast Wars - Further adventures

Before the Maximal ship crashed on the planet's surface, it ejected dozens of stasis pods, containing dormant Transformers, into a safe orbit. When the stasis pods come down to the planet's surface, the pod's computer scans the immediate area for animals (searching for a suitable beast form). Eventually, a new Transformer emerges; upon detecting the pods' electronic signals, the Maximals and Predacons each race to rescue (or reprogram) him or her first. Thus, as the first season progresses, the cast of characters is built up in this way.

The subsequent seasons of the Beast Wars saga see dramatic changes to the characters, including the introduction of the Transmetals, characters based on the Hasbro Transformer toys which feature three modes of transformation, not just two, clearly meant to recall the three and six-changer transformers, and the Fuzors, in which the Beast Mode of the Transformer consists of a combination of two different animals (for example, a wolf and a eagle).

Beast Wars introduced the concept of spark, a secular/mechanical term for "soul". Each Transformer carries his own spark within it and when critically injured, the Transformer dies and its spark leaves its body. Both Maximal and Predacon sparks return to "the Matrix". Sparks and mortality would play a major role in Beast Wars.

Eventually it was revealed that Maximals and Predacons were the descendants of the Autobots and Decepticons, and that the Autobots were the eventual winners of the wars in the original Transformers saga. The Decepticons were, for the most part, dismantled or made second-class citizens, or as Megatron referred to them, "slaves."

Further developments come with the revelation that the Transformers have been stranded on prehistoric Earth with the Autobot Ark, containing the stasis-locked (i.e., in suspended animation) Autobot leader Optimus Prime, his officers, and the Decepticons who boarded the Ark before it crashed. Also, one of the "Golden Discs" was in fact the Voyager Golden Record, and the location of Energon was Earth itself. The original Megatron had inscribed additional information onto the disc.

It is also revealed that the first Megatron's mission was a futuristic rebellion. He plans to destroy the first human or blast Optimus Prime as he lies in stasis, and free the Decepticons and thus reverse the Predacons' defeat by the Autobots and Maximals.

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