The Taxonomy of Toy-Based Fiction, or a further look at Continuity Families

[NovaSaber]

I moved a response from the recent Timelines sub-toyline discussion over to here to mitigate thread drift.


Technically, AVP's analysis was more along the lines of "The Chronarchitect performed emergency surgery on a damaged universe when the local Cybertron was blown up." As Sabrblade points out, Cybertron got better anyway, and rumours of Primus' death were exaggerated.

I'm not talking about the specifics of what the answer said.

I'm talking about what prompted it in the first place, where someone simply asked for a universal stream for the Japanese G1 timeline and the answer was entirely based around "explaining" why the timeline incorporated bits from "multiple universes", which was bullshit because it didn't.
The Japanese G1 timeline published with Kiss Players material literally did not contain anything which had ever been specifically intended as not part of the G1/BW universe.
The most specific example being given was that that it incorporated "a Viron universe", even though Car Robots had in fact never been its own universe in Japan.

Actually, given Wrecker Hook, I even think Derik's false information about Robot Masters is a big part of why western fandom didn't realize Car Robots was in JG1 continuity until the timeline.

 

[Sabrblade]

Actually, given Wrecker Hook, I even think Derik's false information about Robot Masters is a big part of why western fandom didn't realize Car Robots was in JG1 continuity until the timeline.

When RobotMasters came out, Derik and others were all riding the high of the multiversal crossover story told in the Universe comics, and most just assumed RobotMasters was something similar to that what with it likewise being a big crossover story, not realizing it only featured time travel and no multiversal travel. This is evident in cases where AVP mentioned the Blastizone from RobotMasters and merely assumed it was used for multiversal travel (but thankfully, every instance of the Blastizone mentioned in AVP was vague enough to NOT state that assumption outright).

 

[Tuxedo Prime]

People also forget that the Chronarchitect died as a consequence of the time-destroying timestorm created by BW Megatron's attempt to kill G1 Optimus Prime in "The Agenda (Part III)".

I admit that I don't remember him dying -- he was in pain, and the transmission was lost, but I don't recall his death being specifically mentioned. I'll defer to your recollection (as you've been putting together a 3H-Beasties timeline) on this one, but even so, it is entirely possible (due to the Chronarchitect's nature) that his surgery on Primax 787.3 Alpha took place before his demise, despite the latter appearing to take place earlier from our perspective. Or, to paraphrase an expert on these things "People expect time to be a sequence of linear cause and effect, when it's really more a of a big, wibbly-wobbly ball of... timey-wimey... stuff."

AVP also making the "Ruler of Time and Space" from the Beast Wars Neo manga be the Chronarchitect also completely missed the fact that said "Ruler" is also known as the "Creator of the Universe" (which the Chronarchitect most certainly is not), implying that he's meant to be what is known in Japan as Kami-sama. In other words, God.

Wait, I thought that Tyr Odinson was "Kami-sama"....

If there had to a TF-original character that this Ruler needed to be retconned into being the same person as, The One (who is already a God-equivalent) was right there.

Surprisingly, The One even got fleshed out in JG1 year later by the Generations Selects manga, as being the superior of Primus who gave him his Golden Power, so The One would have fit the bill for the Beast Wars Neo manga character even better.

As with "The Matrix", "The One" may be a term that Transformers creatives may have reflexively avoided to avoid confusion with a bigger and even more pretentious franchise. Which doesn't negate your point, I'm just reaching for a likely explanation as to why a piece of Furman's lore from The Ultimate Guide (which was Aligned before Aligned) was not used in spite of its utility and appropriateness.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

The Ultimate Guide was a better Aligned before Aligned. I will die on this hill.