This is part 17 in a series.
As we know Emmett Benton’s father or grandfather worked on various projects involving hard light and Artificial Intelligence for the Government. He also had a deep love for music. Unfortunately, the presence of Unicron’s sparkless body in the center of the Earth caused a few of the subjects in his projects to go “renegade.” As a result of other incidents with A.I. systems going rogue all R&D into advanced A.I. systems on Earth was outlawed and thus this Benton was no longer employed by the Government.
He still believed in A.I. though and thought it could be used to help humanity, but he couldn’t work on it on Earth. He needed a means of funding his research, and he wanted to give back in some way to make up for the damage the rogue elements of Project GoBots had done. He created a music company, Starlight, very basic A.I. programs assisted with the mixing of songs, keeping costs low while helping to produce hit after hit for the singers signed on with the company. The other aspect of Starlight music that continued to bring in the best stars was Starlight had the most talented studio musicians. In order to give back, this Benton began a foundation that took in orphans and raised them, paying for their education and teaching them an instrument. These children were sent on to the best music conservatories in the world, that education also paid for by the Foundation. In exchange the orphans would work as studio musicians for Starlight upon graduation for a certain number of years, still being provided room and board by the Foundation.
Eventually, Emmett Benton took over Starlight Music and Starlight house. He began work on a new advanced A.I. system Sharon Apple, which was developed off planet. Eventually, Sharon was brought to Earth and went rogue. A.I. were no longer allowed on Earth at all. Emmett feels tremendous guilt for what happened with Sharon Apple and remains on Earth to focus on Starlight House, still running Starlight Music from the planet. He is obsessed with figuring out what went wrong with Sharon Apple though, and so in secret he begins developing a new A.I., very much illegally. This A.I. is named Synergy.
While all this is going on Emmett’s wife, Jacqui, gives birth to their two daughters Jerrica and Kimber and then grows ill. She’s dying; she will never get to see her daughters grow up. Emmett doesn’t know what to do, how can he save his wife? He scans her brain and uploads it to Synergy; Jacqui dies but she still lives as Synergy the first human created A.I. with a spark. Jerrica and Kimber grow up in Starlight House along with many of the adopted girls and their father, Synergy watching them grow.
The Foundation never sat right with another executive at Starlight, Eric Raymond, it was too expensive to run. As Emmett grew older, Eric brought in fewer and fewer orphans every year, depleting the talent pool of studio musicians available to Starlight, he couldn’t completely shut the Foundation down though, Emmett wouldn’t let him. Then Emmett dies, and Eric wants to close the Foundation. By this time Jerrica has started working at Starlight as well and has been put in a co-ownership position with Eric due to her abilities and hard work. She won’t let Eric shut down the Foundation.
Eric wants to get rid of Jerrica and take over Starlight for himself, so we get the original conceit of the series, the bet between the two regarding managing a more successful band. Whoever wins gets the company. Jerrica is, in fact a talented signer and Eric knows this, he stipulates in the agreement that she cannot be a member of the band, same goes for Kimber. Why? Because Eric has mostly overseen talent acquisition all these years while Jerrica has more overseen the business side of things. She doesn’t know any bands, so he thinks by doing this he’s guaranteeing his own victory. As stated in their contracts with the Foundation, none of the girls that live with Jerrica can perform publicly; they’re all under exclusive agreements with Starlight as studio musicians. Meaning Jerrica cannot possibly find a band to manage for the bet that is good enough to win the competition.
These conditions for Jerrica, Kimber and the other Holograms establish why they must keep their identities a secret. Synergy’s abilities give them the perfect work around for this problem. Of course, Synergy also needs to be kept a secret because such an advanced A.I. is illegal and would be destroyed if ever discovered, even though due to her true spark, she is immune to Unicron’s influence.
Jerrica, Kimber and the Holograms discover Synergy at some point after Emmett’s death and hatch the plan of Jem and the Holograms, Jerrica signing them as her band to compete against Eric’s. Eric, in the meantime, has signed on The Misfits, a glam punk band to contrast the glam pop of Jem and the Holograms.
The Misfits have worked hard for their record deal with Starlight, putting in years on the road, working their way up from bar gigs to larger ones, working the scene. They know all the bands of significant talent within the glam scene on a national level, even if those groups aren’t in the same exact sub-genre of glam as they are. Those are their friends, each of those other bands just as worthy of a record deal as The Misfits. Then along comes Jem and the Holograms, a group no one in the scene has ever heard of and Jem and the Holograms suddenly have a record deal? Jem and the Holograms didn’t put in the work like their friends. Jem and the Holograms didn’t earn that contract. Also, The Misfits know precisely how long it should take before a show to get into make-up and costumes like the ones Jem and the Holograms wear, and yet that band never shows up with nearly enough time to get into those outfits, something is going on. They’re going to take down Jem and the Holograms by any means necessary because they didn’t put in the work to get that record deal, not like The Misfits or their friends in the scene.
And that’s Jem and the Holograms. Based on where we placed the Sharon Apple incident, Jem and the Holograms takes place after the Invid invasion. It’s possible that Jem and the Misfits will cross paths with Yellow Dancer aka Lancer at some point during the series, they may even be big fans of hers/his. Next, we revisit the Transformers.
A New Hasbroverse 