From kendrick@io.com Mon Mar 20 18:35:48 1995 Article: 7256 of alt.toys.transformers Path: illuminati.io.com!nobody From: kendrick@pentagon.io.com (Kendrick Kerwin Chua) Newsgroups: alt.toys.transformers Subject: Tf weekday: Friday 30 Sept Date: 30 Sep 1994 08:29:08 -0500 Organization: Illuminati Online Lines: 76 Message-ID: <36h3r4$k3j@pentagon.io.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: pentagon.io.com Roll For It, featuring squishy humans, and the Autobot brother pairs. Presumed dead after the space bridge incident, Megatron is in Cybertron with Shockwave, the two of them trying to get the damn thing to work. Meanwhile, Starscream fails to steal any energy from the local hydroelectric plant, foiled by Prime and two minibots, for crying out loud. Megs contacts his wayward warriors to get ready for the antimatter raid on a local military laboratory, this episodes EI/AD. The Autbots manage to rescue Chip from the Cons but fails to prevent Megatron from stealing the antimatter. In a final battle, the Bots wear out the Cons to the point that the antimatter is useless. This episode has absolutely nothing wrong with it, except for the regular colouring problems and the nitpick of the week (explained below). The animation is gorgeous, the voices are sharp, and the plot is tight and well organized with room for in-jokes, action sequences and comedy. For example, while Rumble is standing guard at the laboratory, Hound and Mirage do their light-bending tricks to get inside, while taking verbal potshots at old ShakeNBake. Also, you get some beautiful characterization establishing the relationships between Prowl and Bluestreak and Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. In a post-repair scene, you see RedGuy and the Ego indian wrestling (!). You also observe Prowl and Bluestreak trading quips in a very fraternal fashion. "I am about to transform into the most powerful weapon in the universe!" "_I_ am about to transform the Autobots into sub-atomic particles!" "You think like a regular mainframe." (This is a compliment? KKC) "I must have static in my rectifiers." "Now that's the smartest thing you've said all day!" "Hey, really? Hey! Waitaminute!" NITPICK OF THE WEEK! (echo echo echo) Antimatter. You hear this term trhown around in Star Trek, in any kind of science fiction where they need the most destructive kind of thing they can think of. In 1984, we have the technology to create small bits of antimatter with radioactive funny isotopes of Carbon (I forget the exact number). Very small bits, not enough to make a warp drive, unfortunately. The way Antimatter works is not made very clear. The explosive part comes >from when a positron, the orbiting stuff in antimatter, collides with an electron, the orbiting stuff in normal matter. The result of just one positron and one electron colliding produces the only explosion know to destroy matter and turn it completely into energy, an energy state conversion that leaves nothing of either reactant. The explosion of just those two particles would be quite visible to the naked human eye, about an inch spherical. Imagine the size and output of an explosion with the number of electrons found in, say, an average sized Burrito :) In this episode, Megatron takes a small-sized energon cube with suspended antimatter in it and casually tosses one at a few Autobots inside the lab. Shyeah, as if. The resulting explosion would have not only totalled the building and vaporized everyone inside, it would probably have produced enough heat and light to make nice glass sheeting for a couple hundred yards around. This episode must establish that inside energon cubes, whether they be plasma fields or whatever, are suspended electrons. Somehow an energon cube takes electrons and stores them indefinitely in a neutral, unmoving state, something which is damn near impossible for human science at present time. This is the only way you could store positrons in a normal-matter environment. Another bit of food for thought is the idea that Megatron can channel the positrons through his circuitry. This ability adds to the mystique of the TF technology, without being too unplausible. KKC, hears his roommate screaming in his head, "And there's no such thing as faster-than-light travel, either!" -- Kendrick Kerwin Chua - kendrick@io.com - "Hey man, your bike's on fire." Necronomicon FAQ keeper, OS/2 guru, Transformer collector and cartomancer. FTP Anonymously to io.com and find the Necronomicon FAQ in /pub/usr/kendrick "WhataboutmeMagnuswhataboutme?Mmhuh?Mmhuh?IcanhelpIwannahelp!Whataboutme?"