This is part 20 in a series.

So, it’s time to talk about Voltron.  It’s another property Hasbro does not own.  I’m not sure how easy it would be to purchase; it is owned by both DreamWorks and World Events Productions.  DreamWorks bought the television rights to Voltron relatively recently, I don’t think they’ll want to part with the franchise, and while their series Voltron: Legendary Defender was quite good, it ended on a rather sour note for most fans.  I’m not sure how eager they are to return to the franchise.  Given the toy sales were somewhat disappointing they may not have gotten the return on investment they were hoping for.  They might be willing to sell.  I imagine WEP would be relatively easy to buy out though, if not buy outright.

So, Optimus Prime sends out this distress call and Earth answers, sending out at least two groups to explore uncharted regions of the universe.  One ends up leading into the Visionaries series, as already discussed.  The other group finds Voltron, possibly getting captured by King Zarkon who is the head of one of the many dynasties of the Drule Empire, and then escaping from him.  These Space Explorers then crash land on Planet Arus or Altea.  There they awaken Voltron and fight back against the Drule Empire.  At some point during the series the Galaxy Alliance studies Lion Voltron and creates their own Voltron, Vehicle Voltron, possibly with a third Voltron, Gladiator Voltron in the mix as well.  Eventually, the Drule Empire is defeated.

Now, the Drule Empire is also a Protoculture, the being sleeping at the center of their planet embodies Death.  Arus or Altea is also a Protoculture, the being sleeping at the center of Arus and lending power to Voltron embodies Life.  Ages ago, the Drule Empire created Voltron, this singular robot was their first and greatest creation, spreading death across the universe.  Until it arrived on Arus (or Altea) and encountered the being of Life.  Voltron tried to kill the being, it failed.  The embodiment of life split Voltron into five lions and scattered it to the corners of Arus (or Altea).  The civilization that arose on Arus (or Altea) eventually finding the lions and modifying them, making them pilotable.  Voltron was now a psychic fusion of mechanical life and organic life, a fusion of magic and technology, a fusion of life and death.

The Drule Empire wants their creation back, but well, that’s not going to happen, they end up defeated. Perhaps eventually, through a peace treaty, they are brought into the Galaxy Alliance.  Because really, the reason they’re spreading to the stars is that their world is dying, and they need a new home world.  Humanity has the means of creating a new planet for them that will produce a sustainable supply of exotic matter through the infinite spark of the titan in the SDF-1.  That spark has now been transferred to a new ship, as the SDF-1 is in no shape to fly.  But there’s a new problem, the Haydonites are back. They’ve built a new body for Unicron, and they have a massive fleet, coming out of some other uncharted region of space that they’ve been hiding in.

The expedition that we followed during the Visionaries series returns to Alliance space, with a new ally, the protoculture that uses magic, helping to counter the technology based Haydonites/Dire Wraiths.  Even Rom the Space Knight returns to help, his planet also having joined the alliance.  Maybe even the Invid Regess and her people appear to help.  This is the battle to end all battles, and at the end Unicron and the Haydonites are defeated, for now peace reigns in the Hasbroverse.

Is that it for Hasbroverse?  Chronologically?  Yes, for now.  Entirely?  I’m not sure.  There are still maybe a few other series I could tie in, Bucky O’Hare, and Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers come to mind.  But I’m kind of tired at this point, and I’m not fully sure how to tie to them in.  So, we’ll leave things here for now.  Thanks for reading and for entertaining my insanity.  I hope you enjoyed the ride.

This is part 19 in a series.

So, the message from Optimus Prime comes through to Earth, our allies are in need, Cybertron has been taken over by the Drule Empire.  Optimus has asked us to search uncharted regions of the universe in hopes of finding Voltron.  We send out a few different exploration groups.  We recall in the first season of the Transformers series we showed that the Decepticons set off some weapons that cause non-spark-based technology to shut down, blocking off an entire region of space?  Well, Earthings don’t know about that region of space that can’t be crossed because no one told them, but they do know that region of space is unexplored on the maps of the universe they have, based on information from all their allies including Cybertronians.  So, Earth sends one group off towards that region of space, attempting to have them cross this technology killing region of space.

The group is dropped off via space bridge just before the dead zone.  They cross into it and their ships shut down, crash landing on a planet.  As in the original Visionaries series, a wizard residing on this planet grants them magical powers, which they can then use to power their vehicles, however, their communication equipment still doesn’t work.  One faction of the group wants to continue deeper into the unknown region, searching for Voltron.  The other wants to return to Earth with their new abilities and take over, because power tends to go to some people’s heads.  This leads to the main conflict of the series between the two groups, are they going to use these powers to continue their mission, or are they going to use these powers for their own gain?

Eventually, the people that want to continue the mission win, and the group leaves the planet they crash landed on, heading out deeper into and beyond the dead zone.  As it turns out, Voltron isn’t in the region of space on the other side of the dead zone.  It’s another civilization, one of the Protocultures, the entity sleeping at the heart of this planet in the embodiment of magic.  There are a few ideas for what civilization could be on the other side of the dead zone.  This could be a chance to tie in either Magic the Gathering or Dungeons and Dragons, but I don’t think either really meshes well with Sci-Fi.  To bring those into the Hasbroverse, I would use the multiverse method where those are different universes within the multiverse of the Hasbroverse.  He-Man would be a good choice, but Mattel will never sell the rights to He-Man.  Perhaps the Spelljammer setting from Dungeons and Dragons would be a good fit here.  Or else, you create a brand-new IP. I have one I’ve created that I think might be a good fit, but really, it doesn’t matter what you use here.  It just needs to be a franchise that powers their technology with magic.

That’s pretty much it for Visionaries, yes, having the Decepticons create that dead zone for technology in space all the way back in season 1 of the Transformers series was a deliberate set up for the inclusion of Visionaries.  Next up is Voltron.

This is part 18 of a series.

When we last left off with the Transformers, Optimus Prime was dead, Megatron had given up his quest for domination (because yes, we’re keeping that from Transformers: Prime), and the war between the Autobots and Decepticons had sort of ended.  We can have a Transformers series taking place sometime after these events, with either Bumblebee or Ultra Magnus in charge and the Autobots and Decepticons trying to get along with each other.  Maybe they’re five-minute shorts taking place at the end of episodes of other series.  Maybe it’s a full series of its own.  We don’t really need a series showing this, but it might be nice.  We’re more revisiting the Transformers in this blog to set up the next few series.  As I’ve said a few times in this blog series, at some point during the chronology of the Hasbroverse, Cybertron goes silent.  And we ended the write up of Robotech with Optimus Prime calling Earth after years of silence asking for help.  What has happened on Cybertron?

Cybertron has been invaded by the Drule Empire, the bad guys from Voltron.  Cybertron has been enslaved, the Transformers are being forced to help create robeasts that the Drule Empire uses to attack planets and expand their intergalactic empire.  There is a small resistance group on Cybertron led by Megatron, but they’re not making much progress.  Pretender technology is in use as that is the only way for Transformers to get off the planet.  Autobot Pretenders disguise themselves as Zentradi and leave on Zentradi ships, while Decepticon Pretenders disguise themselves as monsters and take part in the gladiatorial games from which robeasts are chosen.  The Zentradi attend the games as spectators, allowed to come and go freely by the Drule as they’re not yet ready to enter into open conflict with the Zentradi and the Robotech Masters.

At some point during this whole process Optimus Prime is reborn at the bottom of the Well of All Sparks.  While merged with the Well he was trained by the Primes much like in Transformers: Robots in Disguise the sequel series to Transformers: Prime.  He has been informed that to defeat the Drule Empire Voltron must be found.  Upon returning from the Well of All Sparks Optimus reaches out to Earth asking them to search uncharted regions of space for Voltron: Defender of the Universe.

Why is Optimus Prime sending this message asking for humanity to find Voltron?  Well, Peter Cullen, the voice of Optimus Prime, did the narration for the opening sequence of the 1984 Voltron cartoon.

And as a result of the alliances formed between humanity, the Zentradi, the Robotech Masters, and perhaps other alien species, as well as Earth setting up colonies across the Milky Way, we now have a Galaxy Alliance headed up by Galaxy Garrison.  Yes, I’ve been building to this reveal since the first post.  But there’s more to come.  The next series we’re going to discuss is Visionaries.

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.

This is part 16 of a series.

The Bionic Six.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcgubzNS9d4

Not owned by Hasbro, not really needed, but easy to fit in.  Timeline wise, this takes place probably just before Centurions.  Another attempt to integrate man and machine to help humans fight off Zentradi and Cybertronians and any other potential alien species out there.  Much like with the GoBot project, this is based on experimental technology used to help the victims of horrible accidents or suffering from degenerative diseases.  Some of this technology is mis-used by the villains of the series, with Doc Terror and Hacker perhaps being some of the final subjects of this technology before it is shelved due to the potential for unstable subjects, again due to the influence of Unicron’s body in the center of the Earth.  There’s not much to say here.  It’s just another piece to add to the puzzle, and perhaps serves as an explanation for why Centurion technology was chosen over cyborg technology.

There is something else related to Robotech that I do want to discuss as I didn’t mention it in the last post.  If the rights to Robotech are obtained and with it the rights to Macross, another series that would be useful to incorporate into the Hasbroverse is Macross Plus.  There would be no need to re-animate it, people could go watch it, and basically, something very similar to those events would play out in the Hasbroverse, referred to as the Sharon Apple incident.  Jerrica Benton’s father, Emmett Benton would be involved in the Sharon Apple incident.  Starlight Music would be the company funding the research into the AI Sharon Apple, said research taking place on some Earth colony.  We’ll say that humanity started setting up colonies between the Zentradi invasion and the Robotech Master invasion.  During that period Emmett is working on Sharon Apple.  The Robotech Master invasion happens, and the war on the Robotech Master’s home planet is happening, but things are fine.  Then the Invid invasion of Earth happens.  Sharon Apple is traveling from planet to planet trying to raise morale, “We’ll reclaim Earth soon, don’t worry!  Look what humanity can achieve!”

The Invid on the Robotech Masters’ planet are defeated, then Earth is reclaimed and the Haydonites are defeated.  Sharon Apple the most famous singer in the Earth Alliance is invited to come perform on Earth in celebration at the site of the wreckage of the SDF-1.  She does, and Sharon Apple goes nuts, as seen in the events of Macross Plus, all thanks to Unicron.  As a result, advanced AIs are banned from setting foot on Earth.  This is the last conflict to take place on Earth for a while.  Emmett Benton feels horrible about this.  He returns to Earth, running Starlight Music from the office there and focusing his efforts on Starlight House.

Alright, I think that’s all I need to say about this topic.  Next up is Jem and the Holograms.

This is part 15 in a series.

Up to this point in the series we’ve dealt with the franchises, that to the best of my knowledge, Hasbro owns.  Some of them might be a bit murky, such as StarCom and Centurions.  I believe Hasbro owns those rights, as Centurions was a toy line by Kenner who Hasbro bought, but perhaps the animation company owned the rights to Centurions?  As to StarCom that was owned by Coleco, who Hasbro also bought, but the last time StarCom toys were produced Mattel released them.  So, I’m not sure who owns StarCom.  From this point on we’re going to include some franchises that Hasbro definitely does not own.  In a lot of cases, these franchises that are not owned by Hasbro can be skipped over, this universe is meant to be very plug and play, but in some cases they add a fair amount of depth to the universe that makes them difficult to not include.  One such franchise is Robotech.

Up until this year, it seemed like Robotech would be an easy franchise to buy, Harmony Gold’s license to the three anime series that made up Robotech was set to expire in 2021, I believe, after which point, the brand would essentially be worthless.  Most fans thought Harmony Gold would be unable to renew the rights, as the Japanese company that owns the anime series used in the creation of Robotech has had an adversarial relationship with Harmony Gold for years.  However, Harmony Gold was able to renew their license to the three series that make up Robotech, much to the dismay of Robotech and Macross fans.  Given that most fans were not pleased with the news that Harmony Gold renewed the licenses to the anime series that made up Robotech, it may still be possible to purchase the franchise from Harmony Gold.  There is a Robotech live action movie in development though, so Harmony Gold may be reluctant to sell.  Then again, that film has been in development for a very long time and may never actually be produced.  It wouldn’t hurt to make an offer.  If it is possible to get the rights to Robotech and thus the three anime series that comprise it, here’s how it would be integrated into the Hasbroverse.

So, an alien spaceship crash lands on Earth, providing Earthlings with another source of alien technology besides the Autobots.  Due to the appearance of this ship and the Autobots and Decepticons a single world government is formed.  This is a messy process.  Eventually, the ship is repaired, basically, the plot of the Macross Saga plays out, perhaps some Dire Wraiths oversee the Earth Government, perhaps not.  The Mars Base/Colony that is visited during the Macross Saga is the one that was destroyed during the events of StarCom and covered up, Misa/Lisa’s boyfriend was on the base/colony.  The humans maybe stand a slightly better chance against the Zentradi than in the original Macross Saga just because there are still some Autobots on Earth and we have slightly more advanced technology thanks to our contact with the Autobots, but we’re still seriously out matched.  Also, the existence of the Zentradi, giant humanoid aliens created by the Robotech Masters, and the existence of Autobots and Decepticons is why the GoBots program was considered, as well as the Centurions program.  There are multiple giant alien species out there that are hostile to humans, we need some way of fighting them on even ground.  Eventually, a peace arrangement is made with some of the Zentradi and the humans, and the majority of one Zentradi fleet is destroyed.  At the end of the series, the remaining Zentradi forces and much of humanity’s forces go to the planet of the Robotech Masters.

The lack of communication with this Zentradi fleet causes the Robotech Masters to investigate.  They send out a force to investigate as the joint Zentradi and human forces leave Earth.  The two groups cross paths without meeting.  The group sent by the Robotech Masters arrive on Earth and see the wreckage of the SDF-1.  Turns out this is a pretty special ship, is the corpse of a dead Cybertronian Titan with what amounts to an infinite Spark.  The Titan is dead, but its spark for some reason can still merge with a planet it lands on, allowing said planet to produce exotic matter like energon, and it can do this over and over again, most Titans can only seed one planet at a time in this way.  Technically, any Titan can seed multiple planets.  But if a Titan leaves a planet they seeded, in the process they extract their spark from that planet, and the planet loses the ability to produce exotic matter going forward.  The SDF-1 is an extremely valuable ship that is wasted on Earth, as Earth can already produce exotic matter, thanks to the presence of Unicron at its core.

Additionally, the presence of Unicron at the center of the Earth is what makes humanity a Protoculture.  A Protoculture is any species that developed on a planet with a being like Unicron at the heart of the planet.  However, when humanity was reverse engineering the remnants of the crashed SDF-1 one the records were kind of corrupted and they didn’t quite translate it properly, instead they thought the Robotech Masters called the exotic matter produced on such planets protoculture.

The Robotech Masters are really interested in the SDF-1 because their civilization is running low on Exotic Matter, especially as they are at war with the Invid, their home planet currently being assaulted by the forces of the Invid Regent.  So, a little conflict starts between this group of Robotech Masters and the small detachment of Earth forces left behind to defend the planet.  However, this conflict ends not long after it begins, as the Zentradi and human forces arrive at the Robotech Master’s home planet and strike up an alliance to help the Masters against the Invid Regent’s forces.  News of this alliance eventually reaches both Earth and the Robotech Masters invading Earth, the two groups on Earth settle their differences, and the Robotech Masters return home to help against the Invid invasion.

After the Robotech Masters leave Earth, the Invid Regess’s forces attack Earth.  Earth’s forces are drained at this point, she easily takes over.  A message reaches the Earth Forces fighting to free the home planet of the Robotech Master from the forces of the Invid Regent.  They can’t spare a lot of troops, but they need to defend their home somehow.  A small detachment is sent, Scott Bernard is among this detachment.  It goes badly.  Scott survives the initial engagement but most of the attacking Earth forces are destroyed.  He hooks up with the other characters featured in Robotech: The New Generation, still trying to reach Reflex Point thinking others must have survived the initial attack.  Lancer aka Yellow Dancer was part of the initial wave of Earth based defenders destroyed by the Invid invasion. 

The Cyclone Armor used by the cast of Robotech: The New Generation is the ultimate production form of Centurion technology, based on the Wild Weasel platform used by Jake Rockwell.  After the initial successful tests of the various weapons platforms by the Centurions it was found that most of Jake’s weapons platforms, while providing a lot of fire power, left soldiers far too vulnerable to enemy fire due to their low speed.  Wild Weasel as originally conceived also took far too much training for standard troops to learn to operate as their bodies becoming the motorcycle was often too disorienting.  Ace McCloud’s weapons platforms were found to take far too much skill to master and deemed impractical.  As for Max Ray’s weapons platforms, his smaller units were found to be easy for most troops to learn and so many are in use, but only during sea missions.  The Cyclone Armor developed from the Wild Weasel weapons platform is packed in every Alpha Fighter due to its wide usability.

Meanwhile, back at the home planet of the Robotech Masters a new alien group shows up, offering to help the Robotech Masters, Zentradi, and humans against the Regent’s Invid, they are the Haydonites.  Except they’re not.  Remember that third group of Dire Wraiths that Rom didn’t capture, the ones sent into Deep Space in search of Unicron’s spark?  Well, if the rights to Robotech are obtained, this is where that group comes into play, if the rights to Robotech are not obtained, that group doesn’t exist.  Anyway, since for now, we’re assuming the rights to Robotech have been obtained, that group of Dire Wraiths does exist, they did go off into deep space, and they did find Unicron’s spark.  Unicron wants to be re-united with his body, preferably the one at the center of Earth, but he needs help getting there, and the Dire Wraiths, well their numbers are very small, it’s just the group in deep space sent to find Unicron that exist at this point.  Unicron teaches them how to build mechanical bodies that the Dire Wraiths trapped in the dimension Rom sent them to can operate.  These mechanical puppets become the Haydonites.

Anyway, the Haydonites offer to help the group on the Robotech Master’s planet defeat the Invid and provide them with what is named Shadow Technology.  The Invid on the Robotech Master’s home planet are defeated, and the alliance of humans, Zentradi, Robotech Masters, and Haydonites travel to Earth to reclaim it, arriving just as Scott Bernard and his small group of rebels arrive at Reflex Point.  Earth is retaken with the Invid Regess leaving the planet for other regions of space, along with most of the Invid on Earth.  Some Invid remain, those that were stationed in remote regions of the planet cut off from the Invid hive mind by the influence of Unicron’s body.  They will be a problem to deal with in later series, perhaps.

After the final battle with the Invid, the Haydonites turn on humanity activating the built-in self-destruct on the shadow technology.  The Haydonites trying to take out humanity and the Invid, so they can take Earth for themselves and Unicron.  However, this effort is defeated, and humanity survives, the Haydonites running off to unknown regions of space.  After Earth is reclaimed a message is received from Cybertron.  This is the first message received from Cybertron in years, communication between Earth and Cybertron has gone dead for decades and no one could figure out why.  Any parties sent to investigate haven’t returned.  The message is the voice of Optimus Prime calling for aide.  And we’ll touch on what’s been happening on Cybertron later.

What may or may not be revealed to the audience is the nature of the entities sleeping at the center of the Invid’s home planet, and the nature of the entity sleeping at the center of the Robotech Masters’ home planet.  The entity at the center of the Invid’s planet is the embodiment of Peace, the Regent believing in peace through annihilation, the Regess believing in Peace through co-existence.  The Invid began life as a completely peaceful society until their planet was attacked by the Robotech Masters who were looking for more exotic matter, and finding an abundant source of it in the Invid flower of life which could be refined into something like Energon very easily and grew quickly.  The Robotech Masters originating on a planet where the embodiment of War slept.

For now, that’s it for Robotech.  Next up is the Bionic Six.

This is part 14 in a series.

And now we’re on to GoBots.  There are going to be some major changes here to really make GoBots fit into the Hasbroverse as we’re creating it.  GoBots in America have always kind of been looked at as a low budget knock off Transformers, so we’re going to lean into that.  Instead of the GoBots being aliens like the Transformers, what if the GoBots were humanities attempt to create beings like the Transformers?  That’s interesting.  Why would humans create Transformers like beings?  Well, if we’re to spread to the stars we’ll run into Cybertronians and may come into conflict with them or other alien races. Also, we’ll potentially need to extend the lifespan of our astronauts, depending on how fast our ships travel.  In GoBots lore, the GoBots began as organic beings like humans and then built themselves what are effectively immortal robot bodies.  Let’s do that but for humans, with a few full robots in the mix.

Now, obviously it’s somewhat unethical to just convert humans into robots, but what if the humans that went through the process volunteered.  And what if said humans that volunteered were paralyzed or quadriplegics or otherwise didn’t have full use or command of their bodies?  What if the GoBot process was an experimental treatment for those types of diseases/conditions?  Well, we’d have a small sample of test subjects probably, which would explain the need to also try building a few just purely robotic GoBots, since to colonize the galaxy you’d need large numbers.  And what if the Benton that appeared briefly in Sky Commanders and Centurions oversaw this project?  I think we’re getting somewhere.

But how do we get the Guardians and the Renegades?  Well, this whole project is carried out on Earth, and Unicron’s body is still sleeping at the center of the Earth separated from his spark.  Unicron’s body has been known to cause AI to act erratically in the past.  So, all those fully robotic GoBots that were created, they all go rogue, some of the human subjects also go rogue, driven insane by Unicron’s influence.  These are the Renegades.  However, not all the human subjects go rogue, some maintain their sanity, these are the Guardians.  And then the Guardians must stop the Renegades from acting out Unicron’s will, which is the annihilation of the human race.

And after the GoBots series is when we first see some legal ramifications to AI constantly going haywire.  All research into advanced AI on Earth is outlawed.  Advanced AI is still allowed to be researched off planet, but advanced AI can no loner be developed on Earth.  After this series, the Benton we’ve been following decides to give back, after all the harm his research has caused.  He starts Starlight House and Starlight records.  The Hard-light technology and the AI he created to run it is used to do special effects during concerts.  We’ll get into the exact mission of Starlight House when we cover Jem and the Holograms.

And I think that’s pretty much it for GoBots.  If you think we’ve already gotten deep into the weeds, just wait until the next post.

This is part 13 in a series.

So, we’re going to cover four franchises today; Furbies, FurReal Friends, Baby Alive, and Rom: The Space Knight.  Why are we doing these all in one post?  Well, the integrations of Furbies, FurReal Friends, and Baby Alive into the Hasbroverse are all similar.  As for Rom, I don’t know that much about him, so it’ll also be short.  Additionally, this series is getting long, and we still have a lot of ground to cover, so I’m trying to consolidate a bit.

Furbies and FurReal Friends –

These are both relatively easy.  Pets have known psychological benefits for humans.  If you’re going to start expanding across the stars it’d be nice to send your astronauts out into space with pets.  However, pets consume resources, so if you include living pets on a spaceship or space station, you need to send more food, water, and oxygen, which adds more weight, which requires more fuel.  If only you could get the psychological benefits of pets without the demand on resources that pets require.  Wait, what if the pets were robots?!

That’s a great solution!  But if you do animals like dogs and cats, or any existing animal that humans are remotely familiar with you run into the possibility of triggering the uncanny valley, where the animal is almost perfectly real but there’s just one thing that’s off about it, and instead of bonding with it, humans will reject it.  That’d completely defeat the purpose of sending these robot pets.  How can we get around that?

What if the robot pets weren’t mimicking an existing animal?  That’d do it.  And that’s how Furbies are introduced into the Hasbroverse, as pets for space fairing humans that won’t trigger the uncanny valley, and thus confer the psychological benefits of pets to humans in space without the Furbies consuming the limited resources on spaceships or space stations.

Eventually, once humans have mastered the replication of animals well enough, instead of bringing along Furbies, these space fairing humans can be accompanied by FurReal Friends, which perfectly mimic the behavior of real animals and do not trigger an uncanny valley response.  Furbies and FurReal Friends that appear in Hasbroverse shows are then sold in Toy Stores and Online.

There may even be some story issues with Furbies and FurReal Friends being Artificial Intelligences and going haywire due to the influence of Unicron’s body on them, depending on the series they appear in, and whether or not the series takes place on Earth or in Space.  The fact that Furbies and FurReal Friends in space don’t go haywire, while those on Earth sometimes do hinting at the fact that the presence of Unicron’s body in the center of the Earth is leading to problems with AI on Earth.

Baby Alive –

Well, it’s a well-used plot on teen dramas and sitcoms, teenage characters need to take care of a sack of flour, or an egg, or a baby doll as part of a health education class to teach them what life with a baby is like.  Only this time, instead of using an egg or a sack of flour, the teenagers use a Baby Alive doll, a somewhat sophisticated AI that behaves just like a real baby.  You can use this in almost any series that features teenage characters, and depending on the overall tone of the series, these Baby Alive dolls could potentially go haywire and must be fought off, thanks to Unicron.  Or nothing violent could happen with them, and the conflict is just the kids in charge of taking care of the baby not really being mature enough for that responsibility.

Rom: The Space Knight –

In StarCom we left off with the Dire Wraiths returning to their home planet, and invading Earth.  Rom has to fight them off on his home planet and hunts them down on Earth as well.  This can happen at any time after the events of StarCom, and that’s pretty much it.  The planet that Rom and the Dire Wraiths are from has an entity sleeping at the center of it, this entity is the embodiment of Science, Rom being someone who uses science for good, while the Dire Wraiths use science for evil.  Potentially, Rom doesn’t end up using his special gun to banish all the Dire Wraiths to the special dimension it sends them to though.  He gets all the Dire Wraiths on his home planet, and all the Dire Wraiths on Earth, but there was a third group that went out into deep space.  Depending on what happens later in the Hasbroverse, if this third group exists, they find Unicron’s spark, and we’ll see what happens with them later, maybe.

That’s it for these four franchises.  Next up is Gobots.

This is part 12 in a series.

I realize I forgot to account for something in the previous post.  Technically, humans would have already had access to Faster Than Travel prior to accessing the Microverse, namely Cybertronian Space Bridge technology.  There a few problems with Space Bridge technology, though.  It’s great for colonization, not so great for exploration.  As far as we know, Space Bridges are very large, they’re not something a ship can carry with it, unless said ship is a Titan Class Transformer such as Metroplex or Fortress Maximus, but such Titans are rare, and Earthlings don’t have access to one.  That leaves Earth only with the option of a Space Bridge built in orbit around Earth.  Why is this bad for exploration?

Let’s say you have three star systems and one Space Bridge.  So, you have a Space Bridge orbiting Earth, and you send out a ship to explore the galaxy.  You establish a Space Bridge connection to System B, from Earth.  The ship goes through the worm hole, and explores Star System B, now it wants to explore Star System C.  The ship needs to get in touch with Earth, a Space Bridge needs to be opened between Earth and Star System B.  The ship then needs to travel back to Earth, where another Space Bridge will be opened allowing it to travel to Star System C.  Of course, who knows how long it will take that request for a Space Bridge to reach Earth from Star System B, hopefully not long, though that’ll depend on if faster than light communication exists.  But the big problem here is it creates an extra step, instead of this exploratory vessel going from Earth to Star System B to Star System C, it must go from Earth to Star System B to Earth to Star System C.  That’s just inefficient.  Which is why a ship that can carry its own Faster Than Light drive system would be beneficial, hence the exploration into the Microverse and the use of it as a means of Faster Than Light travel. 

Before we discuss StarCom, we’re going to get into the Fermi Paradox for a minute.

Thus far in the Hasbroverse, we have three or possibly more civilizations, at least two in the Macroverse and at least one in the Microverse.  Now, the Microverse civilization or civilizations are in a different universe, so we’re going to say they don’t really count towards a solution to the Fermi Paradox, and that they operate under different rules than the civilizations in the Macroverse.  We have Earth and we have Cybertron, and then all the various civilizations that the Autobots aligned themselves with during the Cybertronian Civil War.

Earth and Cybertron have something very interesting in common, they both have a being of Godlike power sleeping in the center of the planet, Primus for Cybertron, and Unicron for Earth.  Though granted after season three of our Transformers series, it’s just Unicron’s body at the center of Earth, while his spark is floating through space, but I digress.  Our solution to the Fermi Paradox, at least as it relates to civilizations spreading to the stars is the Rare Earth Hypothesis.  The thing that makes Earth rare, is the same thing that makes Cybertron rare, that each has what is effectively a god slumbering at the center of the planet.  Primus and Unicron allow a planet to produce exotic matter in the form of Energon and Dark Energon.  When a Titan lands on a Cybertronian colony its spark mergers with the planet thus allowing that new planet to also produce Energon, and Unicron has never created any Titans.  Therefore, the Transformers fleeing Cybertron during Season 1 or 2 of our Transformers series needed to leave the planet on Titans, or at least leave for a planet where a Titan was already stationed.  The Titans merging their sparks with planets is also why active Titans are so rare.

Eventually, in the Hasbroverse we may introduce other space fairing civilizations, to do so we’ll need other entities like Primus and Unicron.  These entities will always come in “opposing” pairs; War and Peace, Life and Death, Science and Magic, so on and so forth.  These entities will find a planet, merge with it and sleep within it, producing exotic matter of different sorts on each planet.  This exotic matter will allow the civilization that arises on that planet to spread to the stars, though whether they will have a mechanism like Titans that allows them to bring that exotic matter with them to another planet is unknown.  But the exotic matter from one entity can be used by the civilization of another entity easily.  And thus, we have a potential source for conflict between the various civilizations.

Now, let’s move on to StarCom.  A refresher on what StarCom is:

So, I’m not sure exactly where on the timeline StarCom falls, given the gimmick of the original toy, where vehicles kind of folded up for more efficient storage, it should be fairly early, as that utilizes what can be determined to be simple transformation technology.  Or we could say it happens somewhat late, as StarCom is the first mass produced application of simple transformation technology, while all the other applications we’ve been following thus far have been in more experimental, and thus limited, applications.

So, in StarCom we’ve got Shadow Force, led by Emperor Dark, who’s researching the remnants of an ancient civilization scattered throughout the Solar System.  Humans are beginning to spread to the stars, first by colonizing our own Solar System, likely using Space Bridge technology.  We have colonies and research stations on various planets, most notably a colony on Mars.  Shadow Force ends up raiding various locations around the Solar System looking for more information on this ancient civilization.  At the end of the series they discover something on Mars, a tomb of some kind.  Emperor Dark opens it up and unleashes a swarm of Dire Wraiths on the planet.  The colony on Mars is wiped out, this incident is kept quiet by the world government.  Most of the Dire Wraiths return to their home planet, some remain on Earth, we don’t know how many or what forms they take.  That’s basically the end of StarCom, ends on kind of a dour note.

Next up are a few properties all in a single post.

This is Part Eleven in a series.

Let’s talk Micronauts.  We just discussed Centurions, which we said was going to use the Microman body, so why do we need the Micronauts?  Well, what we really want is the Microverse, because it’s going to explain a few things.  When Transformers mass shift, where does the extra mass go?  The answer is the Microverse.  While this extra mass is in the Microverse, the inhabitants harvest it for resources.  They’ve learned how to tell when this material is about to leave.  Them harvesting from the extra mass stored in the Microverse also explains why it is detrimental to Transformers to remain in their alt modes for extended periods of time.  If the extra mass remains in the Microverse for too long, it’s been broken down by the inhabitants and can no longer be recalled, potentially trapping Transformers in their alt modes.

We’re using the Microverse for more than that though.  We’re also using it as an initial means of Faster Than Light Travel.  Eventually, during the course of the Hasbroverse other means of FTL travel will be used by humans, as this will be rather dangerous, given that the inhabitants of the Microverse aren’t always friendly.  I’ve created a little diagram to help explain how this will work.

Our normal universe is the outer circle, the Microverse resides at a much smaller scale sort of at the center of our universe.  Let’s say points A and D are 10 light years apart, if you travel at the speed of light, it’ll take ten years to get from point A to point D.  Points B and C aren’t nearly as far apart as points A and D, and if the universe containing points B and C is small enough, as the Microverse is, that distance may be very short, comparatively to the distance between A and D.  In order for this to work, travel between points A and B, and points C and D, all go along a radius of the shared center of the two circles, and traveling or rather shrinking and growing along lines AB and CD isn’t constrained by the speed of light. For whatever reason, that shrinking and growing travel is close to instantaneous.  Thus, traveling from A to B, then B to C, and finally C to D, ends up being much faster than traveling from A to D.

This is the next step in the development of human technology from Cybertronian technology, using their mass shifting technology, which was already in use during the GI Joe series, to develop FTL travel to allow humanity within the Hasbroverse to spread to the stars.  This FTL technology comes with a few drawbacks though. The Microverse is somewhat unstable, or rather the routes through it are, as transformers are adding and removing mass from it at random intervals.  The societies within the Microverse are also somewhat hostile.  And it’s a very energy intensive travel method.  Eventually, a different FTL solution will need to be found.  But for the Hasbroverse’s early days of space travel, this will work.

So, to clarify the premise of this series, humans develop a new FTL technology that involves shrinking down into the Microverse where they encounter hostile extraterrestrial species, and danger wrought passages to the destination point, as mass from transformers pops in and out of existence along the route.  The natives of this universe quickly converging on the mass popping in from mass shifting Transformers to harvest it for resources.  Their main settlements all on the mass of Transformers that can no longer transform, either because they spent too long in their alt modes, or they died in said modes.

Alright, time to move on to our next property.  That’ll be StarCom.