117 replies to this topic

[Sabrblade]

My interpretation of the Season 1 Vok events was that they seeded the planet with energon and built the standing stones for some undisclosed reason. Then when the Maximals investigated the standing stones, their fight with the Predacons set off the signal that brought forth the alien pod that absorbed Optimus Primal to study him, for the purpose of enabling the Vok to learn about these new unforeseen elements that had come to the planet.

 

In response to the discovery of the Maximals' and Predacons' presence on the planet, the Vok then created the flying island as a sanctuary for the foreign newcomers to reside (as Tigatron put it) "in peace," still near the planet but physically separated from it so that these foreign objects could still be around while being taken out of the experiment's territory.

 

However, though the island was perfectly equipped both to sustain the Maximals and Predacons and to forcefully keep them in check with the obelisk's swift and decisive form of discipline, the Vok hadn't anticipated the Predacons' (specifically Blackarachnia's) craftiness and ambition, which led to the island being turned from a safe haven into a weapon of mass destruction. With Tigatron forced to reluctantly destroy the paradise that he had so wished to maintain, the last bout of power in the obelisk sent its final signal back to the Vok, alerting them of the island's destruction at the hands of those it was made for.

 

Understandably, the Vok didn't take kindly to what they perceived as having been a gift given out of mercy and generosity being practically thrown in the trash by its recipients, and concluded that these intruders were no longer worth saving, for they had not only rejected the Vok's hospitable gift but their conflict had done enough damage to the Vok's experiment for them to deem it unsalvageable. Thus, they decided to wipe the slate clean, putting an end to their failed experiment and those whose cancerous interference had ruined it.

Edited by Sabrblade, 03 January 2019 - 11:38 PM.

[Copper Bezel]

So essentially, the Vok are petty and capricious gods concerned with the offering of boons and the meting out of punishments? That's probably the most self-consistent interpretation, I guess. Destroying the planet still has nothing to do with ending an experiment, and is a pure wrath-of-God scenario. The Vok can't not understand that the Transformers came from somewhere and didn't just naturally develop on the planet somehow; if the interference of Transformers in their games was something they wished to prevent, it would be very silly to think that destroying this handful of them would help them to that end. Meanwhile, if the planet was no good to them after the Transformers had "tainted" it, it ... still wouldn't have been any good to them destroyed, either. 

[Thylacine 2000]

But then the Vok sent Tigerhawk to prevent Megatron from blowing up Earth and damaging the timestream which the Vok were trying to do 20 episodes earlier.

They had also said "Cybertron" in a s1 episode. They knew from the beginning.

Edited by Thylacine 2000, 02 January 2019 - 08:12 PM.

[Sabrblade]

Looking back over the show, the Unicron visage used the word "project" and later does say, "The experiment will be sterilized."

 

 

Later, the Vok themselves state "The experiment has been terminated," in Tigerhawk's debut episode.

 

 

 

So from their perspective, there was some sort of project going on with the planet ("Nexus Earth" as they term it) from their end.

 

Though, here's a thought. We know that the Maximals and Predacons were under the impression that the alien superweapon was intended to destroy the planet in a chain reaction that would rip it apart, but... what if that's simply what they believed, but wasn't actually what the Vok were intending to do? What if the weapon, in its aim to "sterilize" the planet, was instead merely supposed to kill all lifeforms on the planet's surface, keeping the dead planet intact so that it may once more restart its natural evolution? A sort of Project: Genesis type scenario, albeit more ruthless in its methods (superheating the planet to ignite its energon deposits).

Edited by Sabrblade, 02 January 2019 - 08:29 PM.

[Thylacine 2000]

Turning every established character - including Sentinel - into an unreliable narrator causes more problems than it solves.

In "Other Victories" the Vok seemed surprised that there could have been a disruption in the time flow of Earth, as they believed they had already destroyed it. So... maybe they had some "clean" way of destroying the planet but they were mad Megatron picked it up on the streets, as it were?

[Sabrblade]

Or, here's a really crazy, nutty idea.

 

Supposing that the Axalon and Darksyde did both officially crash-land in Africa, and that the Ark crashed in the northwest United States, what if, just what if, the two ships actually crash-landed on Earth before the Ark and Nemesis did? As in, the Ark and Nemesis came down where they did, far off away from Africa, beyond the detection ranges of the Axalon and Darksyde*, around the time of, say, "Coming of the Fuzors" in early season 2, after the Vok's planetary weapon was destroyed at the end of season 1. Meaning that, if the Vok were truly planning on blowing up the planet, they would have done so at a time before the Ark would have been on the planet to be blown up along with it. And the Ark not yet being on the planet during Season 1 would also give Megatron less of an incentive to seek it out, tying into his more laid-back motivations in Season 1 compared to his more driven ambitions in Season 2 onward. And once the characters would realize that they were on Earth after all, the two ancient ships would have arrived just in time for Megatron and Tarantulas to go looking for them.

 

 

* -- After all, several stasis pods went down at the end of season 1 in far off places beyond the detection ranges of the two ships, hence Tigatron and Airazor leaving to go off looking for them. The characters knew of these pods because of those that were detectable by their ships went down at the end of Season 1, so it would stand for them to reason that all other pods that they couldn't track went down as well.

Edited by Sabrblade, 02 January 2019 - 11:53 PM.

[Copper Bezel]

Wow, ha! Thylacine was not wrong about how many more contradictions you can create in the effort to fix contradictions.

 

I don't really want to encourage more of this, but I can't help saying - you see how similar to removing the principal actors in a sequence of events, removing the planet, or the surface thereof, where those events were meant to take place might also alter the outcome of those events, right? x ]

[Cybersnark]

Looking back over the show, the Unicron visage used the word "project" and later does say, "The experiment will be sterilized."

Later, the Vok themselves state "The experiment has been terminated," in Tigerhawk's debut episode.

"Sterilized" and "terminated" aren't necessarily the same thing.

Maybe it goes like this:

Plan 1: vaguely-defined experiment involving energon, puzzles, and a Golden Disk.
*complication: Cybertronians detected, puzzle island destroyed, control disk removed*

Plan 2: sterilize planet and start over.
*complication: planet-buster destroyed*

This is unexpected, and now the Vok (possibly a different "administrative" faction of the Vok) take another look at what's happening on Earth and implement a new project (thus terminating the original now-irreparable project).

Plan 3: Collect specimens (Tigatron & Airrazor), deploy Metal Hunter to do _____*.
*complication: Metal Hunter hacked by Megatron using the stolen control disk and almost immediately destroyed*

Plan 4: Deploy Emissary to eliminate Megatron directly to put out this out-of-control fire.
*complication: control of Emissary lost, Emissary goes rogue*

Somehow things manage to work out despite these attempts at recovery; the (important) Cybertronians either destroy themselves or go home, and the Vok can reclaim a mostly-undamaged Earth.

(* Fans have long speculated that the Transmetal driver [referred to by the Vok as a datasphere] came from the Metal Hunter. If so, it might hint at the Hunter's original mission; to reformat the Cybertronians on the planet into a form more compatible with Vok technology, allowing them to regain control directly. For that matter, maybe the Hunter was intended to be a receiving platform and/or base for the Emissary the Vok were already intending to create [using the specimens collected earlier], but things escalated before the Emissary could be deployed [at which point the Emissary Project was reoriented into creating a killing machine].)

[Jim S]

TL;DR -- The Vok were inconsistent in their portrayal during the show. Given how vague everything around them is it certainly possible to come up with innovative and interesting theories to try and patch these inconsistencies, but you're not going to find a simple and intuitively correct Unified Vok Theory. Much more likely you'll just further muddy the waters.

[M Sipher]

As a general rule, coming up with a Unified Theory of anything specific in TFs is gonna be an exercise in exceptions. There's too much of it, and too much "fundamental" stuff was written at a time when internal consistency was NOT a priority. Sometimes, you just gotta shrug and blame quantum.

 

 

M "That's Been The Best Solution I've Found" Sipher

[Locoman]

But it's FUN to go full Pepe Silvia sometimes.

[SG Roadbuster]

The real Vok was the friends we made along the way

[Fear or Courage]

Sorry to necro, but I just had a 3 AM thought regarding the Vok wanting to torch the planet despite the Ark being there: We have no idea when in Earth's history they planted their tests, Energon and Planet Buster, so it's entirely possible that they planted them long before the Ark ever crashed there, they went away, and the Ark crashed in the interim, not setting off any of those tests, so they never knew it arrived, and only came back to Earth when the Beast Warriors tripped some of those tests. That timeline makes it more plausible that they simply didn't realize it was present.

[NightViper]

Yeah that does make a lot of sense. The groundfall of the Axalon and Predacon ship didn't trigger anything. It wasn't until he Maximals and Predacons started poking everything that a signal was finally sent.

[Sabrblade]

Yeah that does make a lot of sense. The groundfall of the Axalon and Predacon ship didn't trigger anything. It wasn't until he Maximals and Predacons started poking everything that a signal was finally sent.

Case in point, the events of "Chain of Command" at the Standing Stones.

 

And that also fits with how the Vok-controlled Tigerhawk never got to be told about Megatron possessing the original Megatron's spark, yet showed concern towards Tarantulas's plan to destroy the Ark.

Edited by Sabrblade, 23 January 2019 - 10:19 AM.

[Copper Bezel]

The Vok aren't omniscient or really uh ... even ordinary levels of scient, really, particularly for a planet they both control and apparently know and depend on the already established future of. But it's still a random about-face for them to create their "experiment" and then suddenly become aware that they remember its future history. They're safely in the category of "incredibly stupid highly advanced super-intelligence" no matter how you slice it.

[Fear or Courage]

I figured that because Space is Big, the Vok couldn't exactly keep regular tabs on Earth, and only knew what was going on when a) One of their tests sent out a signal, or b) one of them physically came there and checked. With that in mind, here's the timeline of events from their perspective, as I see it.

 

1) The Vok set their stuff up, providing Energon as a clean power source, their various tests to both analyze and direct the sentient race that'll eventually evolve there, and the Planet Buster in case it goes south. They then leave the planet alone, and wait until their tests are tripped.

 

2) The Ark and Nemesis crashland. None of their tests are tripped, so they never notice

 

3) At a time when early Humans are confined to a valley, the Beast Warriors from the future land. A few weeks later, they trip the alarm at the Standing Stones, which was designed to detect when anything local became interested in the Energon. The Vok send a probe to have a look at what tripped it up, anticipating the start of the active phase of the experiment.

 

4) They realize it's something that shouldn't be there, a foreign element. While they figure out what to do, said foreign element commandeers and destroys Brigadoon island, an environment that was meant to encourage the natives to be peaceful, and/or breed out violence.

 

5) The Vok send an observer from Nexus Zero to scientifically double-check the facts, make contact with the locals, and confirm that an advanced species is mucking about the planet, contaminating the experiment. However, Optimus and Airazor both a) don't know they've time-travelled, and b) don't know the Ark is there, so neither does the observing Vok who makes contact with them both. He does, however, learn they're stranded there.

 

6) The great danger is that the natives may stumble across the advanced technology of these invaders before they're ready for it, so said observer opts to torch the place, setting off the Planet Buster and leaving, writing off the experiment and closing the case, never checking that it succeeded. Call it arrogance.

 

7) A few months later, Tigatron and Airazor trip another Vok trap, and get warped to Nexus Zero. The Vok realize that the Planet Buster was destroyed, and decide to take the more nuanced approach of sending the Metal Hunter to specifically destroy the Transformers. Once again, they don't actually check that it worked. They, once again, close the book on the matter.

 

8) Megatron causes the time storm.

 

9) Awhile later, a pair of Vok detect said time storm, and realize, for the third time, their attempt to shut the whole thing down failed, and finally take a more direct approach: Travelling there themselves in a commandeered, enhanced Transformer body, specifically to kill Megatron, the one, they've learned from their different interactions with the Maximals, is the biggest troublemaker. They finally learn about the Ark, but it's too little, too late, and the two Vok wind up dead.

 

10) Having suffered a loss of both lives and hardware to the failed experiment, the Vok prepare another response...but realize the Maximals and Predacons packed up and left of their own regard. Humiliated and humbled, the Vok skulk away, and leave the Earth to develop naturally.

Edited by Fear or Courage, 23 January 2019 - 12:51 PM.

[Cradok]

Brigadoon island

 

*blinks* I'm sorry?

[Copper Bezel]

An apt name, after Google searching the term.

[Fear or Courage]

 

Brigadoon island

 

*blinks* I'm sorry?

 

 

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Brigadoon

Edited by Fear or Courage, 24 January 2019 - 09:03 AM.