A mysterious bat offers a strange new energy supply, but is it a blessing or a curse?
- Forbidden Fruit (Japanese title: Forbidden Fruit) (禁断の果実 Kindan no Kajitsu) is the fifth episode of first season of Beast Machines: Transformers, is the fifth episode of the Beast Machines: Transformers series and is overall the fifty-seventh episode of the Beast Era of the Transformers series. It is overall the one hundredth-fifty-fifth episode of the G1 Era of Transformers.
Summary[]
In the depths of Cybertron, the two technorganic warriors, Blackarachnia and Cheetor, mock-spar in their beast modes. They are being tutored by Optimus Primal on finding their still point during battle so they can transform during confrontations. Cheetor objects to the new, "mystical" Optimus and proclaims that he trusts his instincts. All this unfolds while they are watched by an unfamiliar set of bat eyes. Beside the more advanced Blackarachnia and Cheetor, now learning to transform in combat, Rattrap is still struggling with the basics of his technorganic body and relearning the transformation process...unsuccessfully. Optimus tells him to have patience and just let it happen while also educating him again that transformation while as a Technorganic has no short cuts for being mastered. Frustrated with his new body and his liability in combat, the rat lashes out at his leader - according to him, Primal should save his advice for the still-missing Rhinox and Silverbolt.
Hurt by Rattrap's mentioning of the lost Maximals in the his response, Primal quietly leaves, while the others scold the rat for his his unkind behavior. While thats happening Primal notices and catches something up above. It's a giant bat, and he is shocked at the presence of organic life on Cybertron. Before he can examine it further, he is hit with a sonic-pulse-like bat screech, and the creature flaps away. The Maximals pursue the bat in their beast modes (for reasons which are already understood at this stage by everyone including the audience) through the lower regions of Cybertron before Cheetor transforms and catches the creature. As Primal holds the bat down, it speaks! Not only that, it—or rather, he—claims to be a Maximal when Blackarachnia asks him.
At this point, Jetstorm and his Aero Drones appear and attack the Maximals. Primal and Blackarachnia transform for action, while Rattrap, unable to transform and devoid of weapons, hides. After a short clash, the Maximals, following an explosion knocking them back into beast mode, run away, followed by Jetstorm, who fires a homing mine after them that the bat deflects with a sonic blast. While the Maximals take cover, the Aero Drones are destroyed...by each other - the bat treats the Drones to a sonic pulse scream that this time scrambles their targeting systems, leaving the Drones' systems to catapult them into a special automatic protocol which sees them blast each other out of action, and, to make things more crazy, Jetstorm, the Vehicon General who is the only Vehicon present to not be affected, is unintentionally caught in the crossfire just by of his Drone colleagues grounding him with a blast; he vows to return.
The creature, being the kind soul he is, leads the Maximals back to his hideout. On the way, Primal tells him a simplified story of the Beast Wars, their reformatting, and basically all the events leading up to the present. The bat recounts how he found himself trapped in this new form when the first Vehicon drones attacked Cybertron. As other robots were destroyed, he fell down a deep pit and awoke, he says, in his current, organic body. When the Maximals reach their destination, Primal is amazed at Nightscream's temporary home. It is a towering, organic fruit tree lodged in the metal world of Cybertron.
The creature explains that he has been eating from the tree since his transformation and offers its fruit to the others. While three of them accept, Cheetor is suspicious of the creature. While Primal tries the fruit, claiming that it may help their organic components, Cheetor retorts that he only processes Energon. Period. Cheetor interrogates the bat and demands answers. He wants to know if the newcomer's an agent for Megatron, but the bat denies it, as Megatron took everything he loved away from him. Cheetor and the bat go back to the others, but the Maximals seem unresponsive and strange. Primal beats his chest and speaks in a primitive way, while Rattrap and Blackarachnia squabble over the fruit, hissing and nipping one another. The organic fruits have magnified their bestial sides, creating a mental imbalance and the eventual dominance of their animal natures.
Amidst the chaos, Jetstorm reappears and attacks. Cheetor attempts to snap the others out of their beast mentality and get them to transform for battle. They ignore him, and so he is forced to transform for battle alone. He and the bat attempt to take the food away from the increasingly feral Maximals to restore their new bodies' mental well-beings. Cheetor notices the trunk of the organic tree and cuts it down, destroying it (with the help from some shots from the Vehicons who he intentionally manipulates to hit the tree), despite the bat's protests - this restores the affected Maximals to their old selves, and they transform and begin the fight. The bat is badly hurt by a blast from Jetstorm in the back, and the only way to save his life is for Primal to reformat him. Before he starts the process, Cheetor warns him that he's not strong enough after what happened to the others but Primal strongly responds: I won't lose another Maximal!
From his chest, a brilliant white light shoots out. The bat's organic components are mixed with technology, and a new technorganic body for the bat emerges. Transforming into his new robot mode, he decimates the ranks of the Aero-drones and drains energon out of Jetstorm with one of his new body's robot mode abilities until the general crashes. But reformatting the creature has taken its toll on Optimus - he is severely weakened and requests Cheetor to lead while he recovers, as Cheetor was right to destroy the tree; its purely organic nature was creating imbalance in their technorganic bodies. Cheetor simply accepts the offer with a strong sense of a concern for Primal's health and orders Blackarachnia and Rattrap to build a stretcher for Optimus - they're moving out.
The new robot decides to travel with them and introduces himself as Nightscream. But as they leave, a fruit from the organic tree puts down roots into what appears to be organic soil in Cybertron!
Featured characters[]
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
Maximals | Vehicons |
---|---|
|
Quotes[]
"Sit! Eat! Get strong!"
- —Optimus Primal, nutritional specialist on fruit
"Why don't you save your advice for Rhinox and Silverbolt?"
- - Rattrap gives Optimus the third degree.
"Even with wings, a rat's a rat. And we're survivors."
- -- Rattrap gives a lesson.
Cheetor: Who knew there were any animals left on Cybertron?
Blackarachnia: Who knew there were any animals ever on Cybertron?
- - Cheetor and Blackarachnia debate history.
Bat: (To Optimus) Get your stinking paws off me you... big... dirty... ape!
Blackarachnia: You're a Maximal?
Bat: No, I'm a figment of your imagination - OF COURSE I'M A MAXIMAL! The question is what are you supposed to be?
Optimus: It's a long story...
Bat: Ah whatever I've got better things to do than sit around waiting to get dusted. (Begins to fly away)
Optimus: Uh wait! Who are you? (The bat stops briefly) Are there any others?
- - The offense Optimus gets serves as evidence that the bat is actually a Transformer disguised as a synthetic bat despite being on Cybertron for most of his life... now how could he have gotten his beast mode to be flesh-like in appearance if he wasn't on Earth?
"Nice upgrade!"
- - Nightscream after becoming Technorganic
Notes[]
- This is the debut Beast Machines: Transformers episode of Nightscream. He also manages to regain the ability transform immediately after the reformatting, and, believe it or not, his first transformation into robot mode as a Technorganic feels like no-one's taught him first - he must've been listening well in the first scene while being the 'hidden' audience of Blackarachnia and Cheetor's spar or Primal's reformatting of him infused him with knowledge about transforming from beast to bot in a Technorganic body.
- Cheetor, despite being a quadruped animal, is using karate against Blackarachnia while they are sparring.
- When the organic tree is destroyed, it disintegrates. Which is kind of odd.
- This episode's plot structor is very similar to the Beast Wars: Transformers Season 1 episode "Call of the Wild", in that the Maximals act like real animals mid-way in the episode before a Felion Transformer (Call of the Wild: Tigatron, Forbidden Fruit: Cheetor) helps out and knocks them back to their senses.
Continuity errors[]
- Prier to the episode "Survivor", it was highly unknown as to when, where, why and how Nightscream had gain a Bat for his Alt-mode despite being on Cybertron and that there are no Organic Animals of any-kind on Cybertron.
- Nightscream cannot transform and is reformatted, then instantaneously transforms, unlike some of the other Maximals, who must relearn transformation. (Rattrap, who hasn't relearnt yet, is as surprised as the viewer, exclaiming "You gotta be kidding me!" at the sight).
- However, it is arguable but likely that Nightscream simply learned from his times watching and studying how to transform properly as the others were training, which is what he admitted to doing when he was "spying" on them. Seeing and hearing how they did it and obtaining the same type of body, it's logical he simply applied what he witnessed earlier on himself and had better success than Rattrap, who is very much a non-believer.
Transformers references[]
- During his flashback, Nightscream (back when he was a Cybertronen Robot) is seen hiding behind a Transformer that resembles Soundwave from The Transformers series.
Real-world references[]
- As the Maximals hold down Nightscream, he looks at Optimus and cries, "Get your stinking paws off me you... big... dirty... ape!" This is a reference to the film Planet of the Apes starring Charlton Heston.
- This episode was riffed on in MSTF fashion at BotCon 2000. It is one of two Beast Machines episodes to get the MSTF treatment, the other being "A Wolf in the Fold".
- Cheetor references the fact of how real-life cats can land on their feet from a short distance drop.
External Links[]
- Link
Thanks for helping me... pull myself together.
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