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A spaceship crash-lands on Cybertron, releasing a tentacled alien monster. The Maximals and Vehicons both rush to take control of the vessel's secrets.

Home Soil

"I'm just a mean green mother from outer space, and I'm bad!"

Home Soil (Japanese Title: "'Revolt of the Plants") (植物 の 反乱, Shokubutsu no Uneri) (Lorax Title: "I speak for the trees") is the sixth episode of second season of Beast Machines: Transformers, is the nineteenth episode of the Beast Machines: Transformers series and is overall the seventy-first episode of the Beast Era of the Transformers series. It is overall the one hundredth-sixty-ninth episode of the G1 Era of Transformers.

Summary[]

High above Cybertron, a mysterious spaceship and a cluster of asteroids prepare to make planet-fall. But the automated space cannons manage to destroy the asteroids and badly damage the ship, sending it plummeting towards Cybertron. Flying above the city streets, Silverbolt sends word of the ship's arrival to base.

Underground, a worried Optimus examines the wilting Technorganic trees and ponders their survival and the future of Cybertron should they die. Cheetor tries to console him, but to no avail. Suddenly, Rattrap bursts in, telling the Maximals about the ship's crash. Megatron has also found out about the arrival of the ship and orders Thrust to destroy any survivors of the crash. Thrust obediently heads towards the site, turning this into a race against time.

As the Maximals head towards the crash site, Thrust and his troops whiz by them. Several of the drones peel from the squadron and about-face, turning to fight the Maximals. Transforming for action, the Maximals make short work of the Vehicons, but have lost time. The allegiance separates into three teams: Optimus and Cheetor will travel on the surface, Rattrap and Blackarachnia will go underground, and Silverbolt and Nightscream will take to the sky.

In the air, Nightscream and Silverbolt destroy a squadron of Aero-Drones, but Nightscream still treats newcomer Silverbolt rudely, even after the latter compliments their teamwork together.

In the sewers of Cybertron, Blackarachnia laments to Rattrap of Silverbolt's lack of affection, even after she freed him from his Jetstorm slave form and reformatted him into his present condor form In Darkest Knight. However, the conversation is cut short as two mole drones burst in from the sides. Blackarachnia destroys one and Rattrap decides to use the second for transportation reasons of getting them both to their destination quicker.

On the surface, Cheetor and Primal are surrounded by a group of drones. Nightscream and Silverbolt arrive to help, and together four assembled Maximals destroy the drone squadron.

Eventually, all of the Maximals arrive at the ship. Stepping inside, they discover that the walls are covered with plant matter. They are suddenly attacked by a tentacled plant beast which turns tail as soon as they clash with it and quickly scrambles to somewhere else on-board the ship. Primal decides to have the team split up again as they, in teams of two for a second time, look around for it.

Eventually, they soon find it underground with the Oracle and the technorganic orchard and act fast to stop it before it contaminates the orchard and spreads all traces of pure organic across thereby possibly overpowering the technorganic starting point and starting Cybertron's transformation into a fully organic-only world.

However, Primal, before the team makes a move, notices that the plant is mysteriously 'glitching' - to this end, he decides on an idea: tapping the power of the Oracle, he attempts to reformat the monster. The other Maximals are in protest, seeing as only "Cybertronians" can be reformatted, but the alien, once bathed in the Oracle's power, starts to go through a transformation that reveals its true identity: it is a Transformer - the organic components are combined with the technological, and a technorganic body is created. The Transformer explains that she, several years ago with a crew, embarked on a mission of exploration similar to the Axalon's (except without all the guns, violence and killing). Reaching a planet that is inhabited by sentient, mobile plants (in other words, "talking trees"), she and her crew took the natives' forms to study them and avoid predation. She also states that Megatron's attack had "shorted out" both her ship and her higher mental functions, so she was merely acting out of self-preservation.

Botanica LightningWeb

Bulbasaur, I choose you!

But her explanation is cut short as a phalanx of Tank Drones attack, beginning to ravage the orchard. The newest member of the Maximals takes action, using the powers and abilities of her new body's robot mode: shooting one drone with electrical energy, she uses a "linkage"-style attack, with the energy spreading from one tank to the next, until it soon forms a network of victims - this collection of targets is completely destroyed.

Examining the poor state of the plants, the home-coming Transformer notes that different plants need different lighting, and throws a bomb-like device onto the lights currently used. As the light changes, the technorganic plants flourish, and the new Maximal introduces herself as Botanica.

Above, Megatron (encompassed within his big floating head) notes the newest arrival and transforms into a "spaceship mode", destroying the remains of Botanica's ship and the rampant plant growth around it.

Quotes[]

Rattrap: Are you outta your processor?! You can't reformat a houseplant!
Blackarachnia: Not unless it's a... Transformer!

Rattrap and Blackarachnia are just two of the many Maximals who are confused about Optimus' idea of reformatting a sentient 'glitching' houseplant


Home-coming Transformer: Thank the Matrix... My circuits are finally clear!
Silverbolt: You're a Maximal... like us!
Transformer: Exactly. I left Cybertron many stellar cycles ago leading a crew on a voyage of exploration; the planet we settled (on) was populated by chlorophyll-based life-forms.
Optimus: So, whereas our crew assumed the form of animals...
Transformer: My crew became 'sentient plants'.

The new home-coming Transformer explains her story...

Rattrap: [To Nightscream] That means 'talking trees'.
Nightscream: [In a reluctant mood] Thanks...

...Along with a slight education lesson from Dr. Rat himself about a concept which, to Nightscream, is already very obvious. Yep, Dr. Rat's wasting his vocal Energon on a subject which the others already know too well...

Cheetor: They were on the same scientific mission we were on... until Megatron dragged us into the Beast Wars.
Transformer: Megatron? Well, that certainly explains a great deal... No doubt he had something to do with the distress call I received.
Rattrap: Yeah... an' not to mention the welcome wagon that ran ya over when your ship dropped into orbit.
Transformer: His attack shorted out my ship along with my higher reasoning protocols... My self-preservation circuits must have kicked in.
Optimus: Which is why you were lashing out at us.
Transformer: Fortunately your reformatting automatically rebooted my primary operating systems... Although I am puzzled as to how organics can exist on Cybertron.
Optimus: It's a long story...

The explanations continue and the home-comer's mental circuits are still slightly needing repairs after she sees her technorganic surroundings.

[An explosion thunders from somewhere around the sound department]
Rattrap: Yeah... Too bad we won't live long enough to tell it!

You herd Rattrap, Optimus - if you wanna tell your story, never's the good time to tell it!

Hey, fly-boy... Thanks.

Thank you, Silverbolt for saving Nightscream before he meets Primus... And thank you, Nightscream for finding it in your Spark to thank Silverbolt for definite (meaning no traces of no respect) for what he did for you.

Guys.. eh heh heh... as much as I hate to say it... we're trapped like rats!

The return of "trapped like rats" thanks to Rattrap!

Then we'll just have to defend our ground.

Aha - stand your soil - a nice reply to Rattrap's panic from the home-comer!

Lady... you just made a BIG mistake...!

A nice reply from Thrust addressed to the home-coming Transformer following her one-shot destruction of every Tank surrounding the Maximals!


Stats[]

Writers: Meg McLaughlin
Original Air Date: March 15, 2000 (YTV); September 16, 2000 (FOX)

Major Characters (in order of appearance): Silverbolt, Optimus Primal, Cheetor, Rattrap, Nightscream, Blackarachnia, Botanica
Minor Characters (in order of appearance): Thrust, Mole Drones, Areo-Drones, Tank Drones, Megatron

Notes[]

  • This is the debut episode of Botanica, unless you count Optimus Primal's split-second prophetic vision. Fallout
  • This is also the only episode where Megatron's Grand Mal body transforms.

Animation and/or technical glitches[]

  • Botanica has a brief wardrobe malfunction.

Continuity errors[]

  • Primal doesn't suffer any weakness post-reformatting, as he did with Nightscream Forbidden Fruit - it's unknown what exactly is going on about this mysterious case.

Transformers references[]

  • Botanica exclaims "Thank the Matrix", a phrase occasionally used by Tigatron in Beast Wars.

Real-world references[]

  • Nightscream and Silverbolt declare "Do not pass 'Go!' Do not collect $200!", a clear reference to the popular board game Monopoly.
  • Nightscream at one point refers to Silverbolt as "Typhoid Mary", a reference to both the previous episode and the infamous real-life carrier of the Typhoid virus.

Miscellaneous trivia[]

  • The planet that Botanica and her crew were sent to explore is apparently Planet Jungle from Mainframe Entertainment's other toyline-based cartoon Shadow Raiders/War Planets - whether this is an intentional crossover or simply due to the recycling of backgrounds and animation models for budget reasons is unclear.

External Links[]

  • Link
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