Fallen Comrades
Title card via TFWiki, fan-archive fair use
A Maximal stasis pod crashes in the frozen north; the new protoform that emerges, Tigatron, must choose a side.
A field of debris circles the planet. Among the waste, a stasis pod falls from orbit and enters the atmosphere. Both the Maximals and Predacons watch as it falls into the distant icy Northern Sector. Rather than immediately going for it themselves, Megatron decides to ambush the Maximals' only flier (Optimus Primal) as he goes for the pod.
At the Maximal base, Primal is anxious to retrieve the pod containing a fellow Maximal. He falls for Waspinator and Terrorsaur's trap despite Dinobot's attempt to protect the Maximal leader. However, Dinobot is able to prevent the Predacons from taking Primal out of commission.
Back at the Predacon base, Megatron is disappointed to learn that Optimus Primal has survived, but realizes that the Maximals must now send a ground party to retrieve the stasis pod. This will leave the Maximal base undermanned and vulnerable to attack. Megatron dispatches his fliers to race to the pod, while he, Tarantulas, and Scorponok go to attack the Maximal base.
Meanwhile, Rattrap, Rhinox, and Cheetor run towards the pod. As they go, they remark that while leaving the base with the damaged Optimus Primal and Dinobot may not have been the best idea, it was their only option. Rhinox goes on to say that they need to hurry because, if the pod is damaged, the protoform robot within will be exposed to the planet's dangerous energon fields. Indeed, this seems to be the case when the stasis pod is shown opening, as the protoform's arm reaches from the pod and immediately begins to short out due to the high energon.
As they come to an ice bridge across a crevasse, the Maximal team is met by Waspinator and Terrorsaur. After a fire fight, the Predacons knock out the bridge and the Maximals' best hope of getting to the pod quickly.
Rattrap radios back to the base and informs Dinobot of this development. He accesses Optimus Primal's core consciousness in the CR chamber and informs him. Primal suggests that they send a laser transmission to the pod by bouncing the signal off something.
Outside of the Maximal base, Megatron and the other Predacons observe Dinobot setting up a laser transmitter on top of the base. Megatron offers Dinobot a chance to return to the Predacons by handing over the base. Dinobot responds by shooting Megatron with his eye lasers and is then promptly shot by Tarantulas and Scorponok. Although damaged, Dinobot is able to activate the base's auto-weapons which quickly dispatch the Predacons. Megatron then calls off the assault to join the pursuit of the pod.
With the transmitter in place, Optimus Primal is able to bounce a laser off one of the planet's moons and to the stasis pod. Both the Maximals, the Predacon fliers, and a nearby white tiger witness this development. The pod's DNA scanner comes online and scanning its surroundings.
—Waspinator's understatement after being flattened by a rock some ten times his size.
—Dinobot and Optimus, the former perhaps being a little too hopeful.
—Dinobot and Rattrap share some friendly banter over the comms.
—Rattrap, gracious in defeat.
—Tigatron gets poetic. This would serve as his motto in "Dawn of Future's Past" and Transformers: Beast Wars Sourcebook.
- You can avoid being shot by Maximal autoguns if you stand perfectly still. Just try not to get so nervous that you shake uncontrollably.
- Talking of the autoguns, they are EXTREMELY weak for ship-mounted weapons, causing no visible damage to Scorponok, Tarantulas or Megatron despite several direct hits. It's possible that the power to the autoguns is much lower than in the first episode because the Axalon's main engine core is damaged (assuming the guns receive their power directly from the engine).
- After the repeated use of cycle in the previous episode, we're back to regular human units of time in this one.
- Tigatron's character model, like his toy, is just barely retooled from Cheetor's, featuring a different head in both modes and being just slightly taller than the latter. Beyond that, their transformation animations and weapons are the same beyond the obvious different fur texturing.
- Later Beast Era stories would retcon Tigatron into being a pre-existing Maximal who had lived on Cybertron, albeit one who had suffered amnesia upon transferring to the Axalon. It doesn't really synch up with the episode itself, though, as none of the Maximals seem to recognize the guy.
- Just prior to its debut in syndication, this episode was made available on DirecTV on a pay-per-view basis beginning on August 19, 1996.
Screencaps via TFWiki (Teletraan I), used under fan-archive fair use.