Deeper meaning to the Protoform X project?

[robo_rob]

This is how I see it.

Even with the Maximals at 'peace', war is an inconvenient truth. Just because there is no current threat, doesn't mean there will never be. Creating super soldiers is a sci fi stand by and a time of peace is a good time to experiment. Then hey, the Elders could be corrupt or arrogant. Maybe they'd like to live forever and would like to find a way to do so.

As far as Wheeljack... he dead. Of course there was that whole Binaltech clone thing, but that's a splinter timeline and not the one connected to BW I don't think. Also a retcon and not what was going on when X was thought up.

[GoktimusPrime]

Even with the Maximals at 'peace', war is an inconvenient truth. Just because there is no current threat, doesn't mean there will never be. Creating super soldiers is a sci fi stand by and a time of peace is a good time to experiment.

Well it was a difficult peace anyway... much like say the former USSR where a lot of different countries were forced to coexist under the Soviet flag... but you can bet they all still hated each other. And as soon as the Soviet Union fell, all these factions went to war (e.g. Kosovo, Bosnia etc.) - and we still have separatist factions within the current Russian Federation (e.g. Chechnya).

And it made sense for Unicron to ensure that peace on Cybertron didn't really work because a unified Cybertron would pose a threat to him. Remember that Primus created the Transformers as a last line of defence against the Chaos Bringer. Divided by war, the Transformers no longer become a threat to Unicron. That would be why he planted the Tripredacus Council as the leaders of the Predacons, as well as various other agents amongst the Cybertronians (e.g. Tarantulas, the Blentrons).

The Maximals may have officially been at peace, but they certainly maintained considerable military capability, e.g. Maximal Galactic Patrol, armed forces, Maximal Fleet (which Unicron destroyed in one fell swoop... aww snap! :p).

Then hey, the Elders could be corrupt or arrogant. Maybe they'd like to live forever and would like to find a way to do so.

The Maximal Elders are headed by the Maximal Imperium who are the former-Autobots Ironhide, Silverbolt and Prowl (all former members of Earthforce!). I don't think they would have had malicious purposes behind it. But who knows...

As far as Wheeljack... he dead. Of course there was that whole Binaltech clone thing, but that's a splinter timeline and not the one connected to BW I don't think. Also a retcon and not what was going on when X was thought up.

1. Wheeljack did come back to life in the G1 cartoon as well since he appeared in Transformers Victory where he rebuilt God Ginrai as Victory Leo. Yeah okay, the Japanese anime series is a splinter from the US G1 cartoon, but...

2. Beast Wars doesn't continue from any one specific G1 continuity, but rather from an "overall" G1 continuity. For example...
* Starscream having an immortal Spark comes from the G1 cartoon
* Starscream's tale of being destroyed by Galvatron during the events of Transformers The Movie occurs in the cartoon continuity or splinter comic continuity (alternate future).
* References to Primus are from comic continuity
* The Vok and their G2 origins is from the comic continuity
* Vector Sigma is from the cartoon continuity, as is the Key To Vector Sigma
* The Hate Plague is from the cartoon continuity.
* Ravage's manifestation in Beast Wars is based on toy continuity (tech specs bio). Ben Yee provided writers with a copy of Ravage's tech specs, hence why he's credited as "Consultant" in the credits for The Agenda!
* Transmetal 2 Prowl (aka Prowl II) is from Japanese cartoon splinter continuity (RE: The Headmasters, Binaltech).

So it's perfectly plausible that Wheeljack could exist in Beast Wars. As I said before, it's best to think of Beast Wars as belonging to the G1 continuity family rather than trying to specifically slot it into any one single G1 continuity (cos otherwise there's lots of contradictions to contend with).

[robo_rob]

Thing is, Binaltech didn't exist when BW did. So, it could work as a retcon, but at the time who knows. Being that no TF cannon gets followed 100% accurately, when saying it follows G1, that basically means it's roughly fitted in. Like The new Modern Continuity. Prime, WFC, and Alignment don't fit together 100%, but they are in the same cannon.

It's one of those " *shrug* maybe" moments if it could have happened or not.

[JazZeke]

*ahem*

[GoktimusPrime]

Okay okay, let's just stick with facts here...

While it is possible that Wheeljack may have been alive during Beast Wars era Cybertron there exists no evidence that he was "canonically active" (i.e. he made no canonical appearance and there have been no canonical references to him). So we have no reason to assume that Wheeljack had any involvement with Protoform X. Thus the identities of the Maximal scientists who created him remain undetermined. We could try to make guesses, but I don't think we could reach any conclusion. It might have been Wheeljack, Perceptor, Armourdillo, Buggy Man, Bob The Builder, Darth Cuddles, Mirror Universe Evil Chuck Norris, A Wizard, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Drift or Kermit the Frog... who knows. :p

[OriginalSafeguard]

One has to question what it was that made the Maximals think that they would be able control an indestuctible spark. As far as we know, the only one that they had encountered was Starscream. His leader was a megalomaniac and even he couldn't control Starscream.