Trial of Megatron, Part 1

« Transformers Animated ep 43 »
I'm sure we'll find out Sari's origin this time!
"Trial of Megatron, Part 1"
Airdate	August 17, 2019 (TFNation 2019)
Written by	Marty Isenberg
Continuity	Animated cartoon continuity
Watch this episode on YouTube

In the aftermath of the Decepticons' defeat, an unprepared Optimus Prime is pushed into conflict with Sentinel Prime for the position of Autobot leader—and Sentinel isn't afraid to play dirty.

Synopsis

Act I

On a newsreel, Optimus Prime leads Megatron, Shockwave, and Lugnut through the streets. The newsbot Uplink presents several soundbite interviews with Optimus and his Autobots. Bumblebee is characteristically excited, Ratchet is characteristically cranky, and Jazz plays it cool as always. Arcee, while glad to be back, is disoriented by everything that has happened in all the stellar cycles she has missed. Bulkhead, on the other hand, is overwhelmed by all the attention because they are celebrities, just like they were upon their arrival on Earth.

Optimus has the Magnus Hammer but plans to return it to Ultra Magnus as soon as he gets the chance. As for the protoforms that were stolen by the Decepticons long ago, they have all been recovered and are entrusted to the Cyber-Ninja Corps led by Dai Atlas, along with the AllSpark. Unfortunately, not all of the Autobots are so warmly welcomed. Omega Supreme—a living reminder of the Great War—is shunned by Cybertron's populace. Many of them are also terrified outright by Sari Sumdac, having never seen an organic being before.

Optimus is hailed as being responsible for the victory, and the public wants him to be the next Magnus. When Uplink points this out, Sentinel Prime is quick to downplay his rival's achievements. The feed cuts to Blitzwing, Sunstorm and Ramjet, being held in the new Trypticon Prison in Kaon. Their mouths are clamped shut and they wear stasis cuffs. Mini-Cons attend to them. Uplink asks why the Decepticons are being held in their own ex-capital city. Sentinel states that it breaks their spirits. When Uplink suggests that the starving Decepticons have nothing to lose, all he has to say is "bring it on".

A memorial for Prowl is held at the Cyber-Ninja Dojo, presided by Jazz. Arcee stares at the protoforms; although she no longer has any students of her own, she might do soon. Seeing this, Sari offers to be Arcee's student, hoping to find out more about her own Cybertronian origins and the world she finds herself in. Prowl's body is lowered into a forge, where it is turned into a brand new protoform just like the others. Sentinel arrives, having missed the funeral entirely. He declares that he is too busy as Magnus and begins to speak insensitively about "Pow-Wow" until he is caught on camera by Uplink. He changes tone mid-sentence, praising Prowl. A disgusted Jazz rips off his Elite Guard stripes. Sentinel turns to Optimus and demands the Magnus Hammer. Optimus agrees that it's time the hammer was returned to its rightful owner—Ultra Magnus—and leaves.

When Optimus finally gives the hammer back to Ultra Magnus, it temporarily revives the comatose leader. Ultra Magnus declares that he was wrong about Optimus' programming, that the younger Autobot did have the makings of a hero all along, and hands the hammer back. Optimus does not know what to say; as far as he is concerned, he was just doing his job. As he remarks that it would be refreshing to see a Magnus with humility, Ultra Magnus finally dies. Alpha Trion is not so easily moved, and declares that the council will make the final decision as to who will succeed Ultra Magnus. "Not if I have anything to do about it," says an overhearing Sentinel.

Act II

Ratchet prepares for the reopening of Maccadam's Old Oil House, with the rest of Optimus' crew joining in on the celebration. Arcee doesn't want to go, and neither does Omega Supreme, who worries that he won't fit in at the event—literally, as the establishment might be too small for him. As for Sari, she is much too small for the bot-sized furniture. Omega flies off as the Autobots shriek at Sari. Sentinel is also present at Maccadam's, standing at the back with Jetstorm, Jetfire, and some Autotroopers.

Bumblebee teases his old classmate Ironhide despite Bulkhead's best efforts to stop him. Sari, meanwhile, resorts to using her jetpack to remain at eye level with the larger bots. She cannot drink oil; she has enough energon to last her a lifetime. Rattletrap begins to spread rumours that Optimus is to become the next Magnus, and snaps a photo with the Autobot. Sentinel's Autotroopers try to shut him down, but it's too late. When Bumblebee toasts "Optimus Magnus", Sentinel sics the Autotroopers on him, and the Autobots come to his defense. Uplink records the ensuing bar fight, which at one point sees Optimus rescue Sentinel. The next day, Sentinel sees the broadcast, and smashes the screen in anger.

Elsewhere, Arcee is preparing material for Sari's lessons when Ratchet arrives with a gift: a pair of laser swords. He admits that he was actually trying to make laser pointers, but got a little carried away. He then says that things at Maccadam's the previous night did not go the way he had hoped and asks Arcee on a second date. She agrees, but just as Ratchet suggests that they do something that night, Ironhide arrives, summoning Ratchet to the Project Omega lab. At the lab, Sentinel tasks Ratchet, Wheeljack, Perceptor, and Red Alert to build him a suit of flying armour, dubbing the assignment "Project Powermaster" and expecting results within the decacycle.

Out in deep space, a bored Beachcomber pilots an energon transport ship and bemoans his job; at least he is not on space bridge repair duty. Suddenly, the lights go off—Blackout punches his way into the ship from the outside and grabs Beachcomber, draining the life from the Autobot in mere moments. Heading back outside, Blackout shifts to vehicle mode and begins to tow the ship away.

Act III

In her classroom, Arcee lectures Sari about the life cycle of Cybertronians: after a protoform is molded, it is given life by the AllSpark. Under her breath, Sari remarks that she actually misses Tutor Bot. When Arcee tells her to share that remark with the rest of the class, Sari snaps back that she is the rest of the class. At that moment, Bumblebee and Bulkhead arrive with Burger Bot hamburgers brought from Earth via space bridge. Thanks to a "subspace tachyon transmitter" installed in Sumdac Tower by Bulkhead, Sari is able to speak to her father. All around Detroit, strange crystalline growths are forming—raw energon. Sari impresses Arcee by linking this phenomenon to the AllSpark. When Sumdac sees the protoforms, he does not recognize them as Sari's was apparently much smaller.

Bumblebee promises that they will find answers, and he and Bulkhead take Sari to the Cyber-Ninja Dojo, where Jazz lets them in (at Optimus' word). Sari does not know what to ask the AllSpark, but receives an answer regardless—the ghost of Prowl appears, having become one with the AllSpark, and tells her that she has become the key to the future of Cybertron and Earth. The AllSpark grants visions to those present: Sari sees a spark merging with a DNA double-helix... Optimus sees a larger version of himself fighting Megatron... Bumblebee sees himself wearing Elite Guard stripes...

Outside of the Metroplex, Sentinel meets with Cliffjumper and asks the commander of Cybertron Intelligence to help make him look good. Cliffjumper is sceptical of this request, noting that it falls outside his job description, but Sentinel persists, asking not just as a leader but as a friend. Cliffjumper bluntly remarks that he is neither. Rattletrap arrives, and says that he has a photo of Optimus being friendly with Megatron. It turns out to be the photo of Optimus Prime and Rattletrap at Maccadam's, with Megatron's head crudely edited in place of Rattletrap's. Sentinel sends Rattletrap off, but the photo has given him an idea of his own.

Bulkhead returns to the energon farms on the moon, where the Cybertronian energon is withering. Earth's energon is ten times more potent, but because of its organic component it cannot be grown on Cybertron. Another Autobot named Trac-Tor is tending to the crops. The harvest gets worse every year; whoever controls the energon controls the planet.

Back on Cybertron, Sentinel, Jetstorm and Jetfire meet with Bumblebee. Sentinel invites Bumblebee to join the Elite Guard (leading the young Autobot to remember his vision) on the condition that he endorses Sentinel as Magnus. A conflicted Bumblebee requests time to think on the matter, so Sentinel gives him one solar cycle to make up his mind. Once Bumblebee is gone, the twins ask Sentinel why he has stooped to bribery. "It's war," says Sentinel. Ironhide arrives with an urgent message, but Sentinel does not notice because he is too busy cooking up another plan, one which requires an unremarkable Autobot which he can plant as Optimus' bodyguard to get dirt on his rival. Eventually, the twins point out Ironhide, and Sentinel realises he will be perfect for the job.

Bulkhead is enjoying the relative quiet of the energon farm... but not for long, as a Decepticon strike force led by General Obsidian suddenly attacks!

Quotes

"His spark still grooves with us."

—Jazz gives Prowl's eulogy.

"I'm splitsville on the Elite Guard. From now on, I'm swingin' a full-time Cyber-Ninja gig."

—Jazz leaves the Elite Guard.

"Optimus Prime. I once told you that being a hero wasn't in your programming. I've never been so pleased to be wrong."

—Ultra Magnus upon waking up from his coma.

"Humility... something that would be refreshing to see in a Magnus."

—Ultra Magnus passes the torch.

"Dude, that is so not cool... seriously dude, what do you get by taking meee offffliiiiiine..."
"A message."

—Beachcomber is (finally) murdered by Blackout.

"Once you carried the key... now you are the key... to the future of Cybertron... and Earth."

—The ghost of Prowl foreshadows events that won't occur later in the season.

"So what is its will? What does it want?"
"What it wants, has always wanted... life."

—Bumblebee and Prowl discuss the motivations of the AllSpark.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Notes

• A full and completed script for this episode was never written, only a detailed outline. Written by Marty Isenberg sometime in (probably) 2008, the outline was converted into an "audio play" for unofficial UK convention TFNation in 2019, featuring almost the entire cast of the cartoon (minus Tara Strong and Judd Nelson) reprising their roles. See the Transformers Animated season 4 article for more details.

Continuity notes

Wait, you don't look like a gorilla!

• Prowl went offline back in "Endgame, Part II"; his presence in this episode as a ghost was first mentioned in the synopsis of the unproduced season 4 episode "AllSpark-alypse Now!".
• Ultra Magnus had been in spark support ever since being attacked by Shockwave in "Where Is Thy Sting?". His death was one of the planned details for the unproduced fourth season.
• Blitzwing, Sunstorm, and Ramjet have been in custody since "Decepticon Air".
• Megatron, Lugnut, and Shockwave have been established as inmates of Trypticon Prison in the follow-up comic "The Stunti-Con Job", where Team Stunticon tried (and failed) to break old Megs out.
• The creation of Arcee's swords was first mentioned in the follow-up story "The Return of Blurr", where Arcee stated to Siren, Nightbeat, and Hosehead that Ratchet build her a pair of pointers for her lectures, only for him to get carried away and make them look like laser blades.
• The beat in which Prof. Sumdac notes that Sari's protoform (featured in "TransWarped") was much smaller than the protoforms seen in this episode is another piece of the puzzle that is her origin. Though this mystery would have been explored over the course of the fourth season, Isenberg has actually stated that they never really worked it out! However, the season was originally been pitched as having a strong emphasis on Maximals and Predacons, which historically have had much smaller protoforms than Autobots and Decepticons.
  • While this is pure speculation, it'd be remiss of us not to highlight Prowl's dialogue: "You are the key... to the future of Cybertron... and Earth." Perhaps Sari's protoform would've literally have turned out to have come from the future? Or, perhaps, that she'd simply be the first protoform of a new generation yet to come.
• Beachcomber's death in this episode is a repurposing of a planned scene from "TransWarped" that was ultimately cut for time, leading Isenberg to make another attempt on Beachcomber's life for a later episode.

Transformers references

• Although the Mini-Cons are not named individually in the outline, designs for five of them appeared in The AllSpark Almanac Addendum.
  • The first three—Grindor, Sureshock, and High Wire—are based on their Street Action Mini-Con Team namesakes from Armada.
  • The other two seem to have been designed with their role as Megatron's helpers in mind: Leader-1 is based on Armada Megatron's Powerlinx partner, while DUCK-E might have been inspired by "Beast Era" Megatron's famous Rubber Ducky.
• Obsidian makes his Animated debut in this episode, though he receives no dialogue in the outline. Much like Strika, the original Obsidian first appeared in Beast Machines, for which Isenberg was a story editor.
  • In his panel at TFNation 2019, however, Isenberg admitted that Obsidian's inclusion in the outline might have been a simple slip-up on his part, one which would have been corrected in the final cut of the three-parter by having Strika featured in Obsidian's place.
• The concept of Earth-grown Energon that's more potent than its Cybertronian counterpart is reminiscent of Ore-13 from the 2005 IDW continuity.
• Arcee's laser sword/pointers were, of course, included with her toy as accessories.

Real-world references

• In the illustration created for TFNation to accompany the scene, the energon transport ship driven by Beachcomber is modeled and colored after the Mystery Machine from Scooby-Doo lore. Coincidentally, Wyatt worked on Scooby-Doo!: Mystery Incorporated over a year after Animated had ended.
• Sentinel saying "You bots are the greatest thing to hit Cybertron since cubed energon" is a spin on the saying "greatest thing since sliced bread".

Trivia

• When Marty Isenberg was writing these episodes, he asked Derrick J. Wyatt if he knew of any Transformer journalists. None sprang to Wyatt's mind, and thus Uplink was born. When the outline was read at TFNation 2019, Uplink served as the story's narrator; his part was played by fan (and professional voice actor) Chris Finney.
• Trac-Tor was an in-joke amongst the Animated production team. Isenberg didn't know if Hasbro would be onboard with the character or not, but threw him in the outline anyway. For the TFNation reading, he was voiced by convention guest Peter Spellos.
• Though Bumper Robinson returned to voice Bumblebee for the TFNation reading, he did not reprise his role as Blackout, whose voice was instead provided by TFNation staff member David Wallace. Meanwhile, Tara Strong did not return to reprise her role as Sari, whose voice was instead provided by fan Aimee "Ladywreck" Morgan.
• In The AllSpark Almanac II, the title for the three-part opener to the fourth season was given as "The Trial of Megatron"—however, TFNation consistently referred to it simply as "Trial of Megatron", and this was reflected in the reading itself. We've gone with the latter.