It's Tuesday, which means it's Ark Addendum day. This week, we go back to Changing Gears, on of the last episodes that I have substantial background images for. The centerpiece is the Solar Needle, identified as the Star Needle on the model. It's quite a lovely design.
I don't really like the episode, though. The drastic personality alteration that Gears undergoes should have deeper implications than it does, really. That it's accidental only makes things worse. For a better examination of personality shifting, see the S1 episode of Beast Wars, Dark Designs. Evil Rhinox is pretty badass, as we learn there and confirm in late season one of Beast Machines.
Interestingly, Gear's circuit card looks just a cassette tape, which brings up an interesting possibility. Could Gears also be a cassette-bot, controlling his robot body just like Ultra Magnus's truck body controls his trailer armor, only a step more involved? Such a scenario would have deeper psychological implications for Gears because it would mean that he did not perceive his cassette form as his real body, despite that being where his spark would be.
ReplyDeleteIn a sense, Megatron turned Gears into a zombi, not the shambling, flesh-eating, undead monster of the movies, but the more traditional soulless, yet still alive, slave of voudon, which has its origins with traditions originating in, yes, Africa. Basically, the villain kidnaps one of the heroes and removes his soul, turning him into a slave. His fellow heroes must then hunt down the villain and save their comrade, reuniting his sundered body and soul before he (and everyone else on Earth, in this case) is forever lost. The whole technobabble with the Solar Needle provides the scenario with a reason more substantial than revenge for some cultural slight or "for the evuls".