Denyer wrote:And I wouldn't have been upset to see Tailgate offed. In an equation between deceitful idiot child and ancient pragmatist the potential for character writing is very heavily weighed to the latter.
Agreed. Between the two, Cyclonus is by far the more interesting character.
Denyer wrote:I don't really buy Whirl as that much of a moral void at this point.
I think the script seems to go back and forth on this point, sometimes he's actually an utterly amoral psycho and other times he comes off a relatively normal (if broken) person trying really hard to be that amoral psycho because it makes life less painful.
Unicron wrote:Maybe I'm overthinking it but I'm not sure Rodimus could just boot Atomizer, at least without consequence. The minute Rodders tells him to leave, that's when news of the list comes out. Yeah, it was fake, but Rodimus didn't know that. He willingly took it and read it when he thought it was real, after saying that even looking at it could end him.
I dunno, I think he could probably explain it away. I mean, he is an authority figure and Atomizer was admitting a crime to him. He couldn't just ignore that, right?
"Hey Magnus, Atomizer is up to no good. He claimed to have a copy of the voting records from the captaincy vote and wanted me to use it to kick people off the ship! Obvs I seized it as evidence. I investigated and it turned out to be false, but isn't that still illegal?"
And then Atomizer gets locked up, probably before Rodimus has finished his second sentence.
Red Dave Prime wrote:Too many things happen here to facilitate end results. There is no reason Cyclonus goes for his sword. He knows that there is something going on with Getaway and Tailgate so at the very least he can explain himself.
There's also no reason why he doesn't just phone Megatron (or Tailgate if he suspects his involvement) and warn them that something nefarious is afoot.
Red Dave Prime wrote:Now that you all point it out, Tailgate has gotten dumb. And he didnt have to. The way he has been potrayed (big headed upstart) means that Getaway could have just played to his ego.
Agreed. The whole silly, "you need to brainwash Megatron if you want to marry me!" sales pitch was over the top. The sort of ego-boosting and alienation from Cyclonus that Getaway had been buttering him up with would have led a bit more naturally to a "someone has to do this, Tailgate, and you're the only one brave and cool enough to pull it off!" angle.
If the previous scenes between them had had the same emotional depth as the one in this issue, then sure, this sort of manipulation would have made sense. But in the previous Getaway/Tailgate scenes it felt like it was being played out more like a bad-influence teenage friend or boyfriend than ZOMGLOVE4EVAR. I'm not saying it couldn't have gotten there, but there was a big leap between the two that we didn't actually see play out.
inflatable dalek wrote:Now that last bit is just trying to troll me!
Yes.
inflatable dalek wrote:Thinking on it... I wonder if it's not so much a case the gun has a lack of set up, but that the gun itself is set up for something? As the caption informs us, Tyrest took it off Getaway, and Tyrest is both still out there and can teleport about the place. And wasn't it Slag's theory that Getaway had been turned by Tyrest during captivity? An evil team up perhaps?
Good point! I think I'd pondered the Getaway/Tyrest connection before, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if there was something there. But I hadn't made the connection between that and the gun. I'd just assumed that Red Alert and co. found it in a stash on Luna 1 and shipped it to Getaway on the LL.
inflatable dalek wrote:I'm assuming the gun had just been set to wipe any of Whirl's conspiracy related memories rather than specific details.
My thought was that you had to be a whole lot more precise than that. Otherwise you're going to wipe out a whole swath of Whirl's memories and he's going to wake up and be completely lost like Skids was. Which would not only be highly suspicious, but would point directly back at the only guys on the ship known to use memory-wipe guns in the past, and would in turn probably lead to Whirl trying to murder Getaway. Not the best outcome, that.
But to erase just the incriminating memories and absolutely nothing else would require you to be able to single out just those memories and nothing else. Which would have to mean that Getaway's attack was premeditated, right? Except he didn't know he was going to do it until he did it. Unless he's so super-paranoid that he always keeps the gun updated and ready to fire just in case, not just for Whirl but also Atomizer and anyone else in on their conspiracy.
inflatable dalek wrote:Presumably they just want to be completely removed from any blame or fallout themselves, can you imagine how Optimus would react if it had been pulled off?
An obligatory show of disappointment set in place to mask a bigger feeling of relief than he'd ever thought possible?
inflatable dalek wrote:It's worth noting Cyclonus has also had a drink he's not used to and which he took to aid out of character behaviour, so he's not in the best frame of mind at the end either.
I dunno, "they were drunk!" just seems like a bit of a cop-out to me. Like the author is saying "No, see, that scene wasn't out of character at all! They're just acting that way because of the booze!" Especially when the characters involved are robots who can apparently turn their intoxication on and off like a light switch.
inflatable dalek wrote:One worry I do have is that after Brainstorm got rehabilitated despite attempting to destroy established history, Getaway will wind up being forgiven and back with the team as well.
I'm not sure what's worse. That, or the thought that they'll arbitrarily punish him severely for it even though there's a dozen people aboard who've done worse. Hopefully he'll have the decency to die so that we can avoid both scenarios.