The Taxonomy of Toy-Based Fiction, or a further look at Continuity Families

[Tuxedo Prime]

I thought that I'd take a look at sparking some discussion (that wasn't about ARGs and anime-themed games) with regards to our Great Big Story Map -- by which I mean the Continuity Family Tree.

Since at least the 2003 Universe line, there have been various efforts, some fan led and some official, to categorize the various media that made up the Transformers story franchise. Eventually, the Transtech (who are better than you) were introduced and we got a look at the Universal Stream system. Streams were grouped into clusters, which represented various continuity families. Here's a canon example, while over here is a fan-made one.

Okay, so that we all know, then Hasbro conceived of the Binder of Revelation circa 2010 and tried to create a Whole Sort Of General Mish Mash with "Aligned" continuity, with varying degrees of success.

Then came the Shrouding, which is supposed to make dimension-hopping a lot harder than it has historically been (and severely curtailed the Transtech's abilities to see other universes, making them slightly less better than us), as well as a push towards fiction focusing on Current Product and less on All The Other Stories, No Matter How Popular. (IDW's 2019 continuity seems to have been a byproduct of that to some extent, even as it supplanted a shared "Hasbroverse"....)

Anyway, after RID2015 and Rescue Bots, there's been a lot of ongoing Neo-G1 content (IDW 2019, IDW Beast Wars 2021, Netflix's War For Cybertron "anime"), as well as new material either using the "evergreen" designs (Cyberverse) or seemingly unconnected to anything prior (BotBots, the upcoming Earthspark series). The former is easy enough to categorize in the existing system, but the latter stuff puts us on uncertain ground we haven't been on since 2001 or so. Which is interesting, as I was one of those outliers who politely disagreed with making RID2001 its own cluster.

Anyway, we know that a cluster doesn't have to have a lot of material in it -- the Robotix continuity family has a limited comic, a cartoon miniseries, Spacewarp's Log.... and that's likely to be it, as Hasbro sold off the Robotix toyline some time back.

Now, I don't presume to know more than the Transtech (who are, after all, better than us), but I'm curious to see what the fans think. Is the "new new" material one cluster or several? What names might we bestow, in the lack of any official designation, to the post-Aligned universes?

And while we're at it, are there any revisions that could be suggested to the map as it stands? (As I wrote above, I would fold RID2001 into Primax alongside its Japanese counterpart, even though Primax is a hefty chunk of any universe list. But that's just a thought....)

 

[Alexcoene]

I'm gonna quote Vector Prime there: "Ultimately, it is important to remember that these are just labels, of no particular import... not worth devoting your mental energies to."

Continuity Families are a method made by fans to organize things in the Transformers brand based on their franchises of origin, and 'universal clusters' is the in-universe name given to them by the Transtechs. We never needed the latter to know Movie Bumblebee is almost nothing like Animated Bumblebee, for example. And making RID 2001 into a generation 1 thing would just make things needlessly complicated for no reason, due to stuff like the Ultra Magnuses (Ultra Magni?) being clearly different characters.

New series like Earthspark, Botbots and Cyberverse are clearly distinct continuity families from previous series and each other in appearance and content alike. The only remaining 'question' would be what the Transtech would call them, which can basically be anything you like. It's not a cut and dry map.

 

[Tuxedo Prime]

Vector Prime both knows, and doesn't know, the fandom quite well. But that sort of quantum superposition is to be expected. Heck, I myself am of two minds on the matter. On the Fanon Wiki Universal Stream category page, I was even blunter than the above AVP quote:

"'GODSDAMMIT, THIS SCHEME WAS DELIBERATELY MADE COMPLICATED AND UNINTUITIVE SO THAT FANS WOULDN'T INSIST ON USING IT FOR EVERYTHING'"

... but then I went and made this.

And yes, the distinctions between clusters/franchises are both arbitrary and (mostly) sensible, although as with biological taxonomy one is going to have examples that start arguments. (RID2001 above is a good case. Sorenson, Sepelak and Troop thought it was distinct enough to warrant its own cluster. I didn't think that nitrous-sucking goofball characters and a minimization of Decepticons (which became less of a thing as the toyline went on) are quite enough to establish a whole new cluster. You point out RID Magnus, I could counter that IDW 2005 Ultra Magnus is a very different take as well, but we wouldn't say he's not in a Primax stream.... And so on it could go, but as I said above, that's just my one disagreement with the setup. I didn't expect mine to not be a minority position, just saying that I would have drafted things slightly differently had it been up to me.)

(More importantly, from my view, I suspect that there are universes that exist on the "borders" of clusters, and could be categorized as one or the other depending on how you look at it. "Lonesome Diesel" could be a Primax story or an Aurex story, as the cast largely resembles early G1 but it has Mini-cons that give you power-ups. The Sector Seven ARG could be Tyran (as it was tie-in promotion for the 2007 film), or Quadwal (as it asserted that both the 1984 and 2007 TF brands and media exist as fiction -- albiet fiction conceived to cover up actual alien robot encounters). Some story-verses are just not going to fit neatly into boxes. And I'm okay with that.)

Anyway, the meat of the matter, as you say, seems to be "what should we call the new new stuff?" (As opposed to the Neo-G1 and Neo-BW stuff, we have that covered at least until 2072.) And yeah, in the absence of any official support, we can call them what we like (with the understanding that if this scheme ever does get revisited by official or quasi-official people, whole chunks of the scheme are likely to get discarded). So -- what would you (that's a plural you for the fandom-at-large) call them? (I'm working on a name for Cyberverse, but it needs refining, I think).

 

[Alexcoene]

Well, clearly, Cyberverse should be the Pinus cluster because it uses 'Evergreen' designs. My personal philosophy is that if you're going to make up a name, you make as well use hokey puns. And I guess Botbots can be Commerx from commercium because it centers around a mall.

 

[Sabrblade]

Nah, BotBots is clearly a Tyran/Movieverse, what with all the cameo appearances of AOE Grimlock's design, the BotBots basically being non-evil AllSpark mutations, and Sector Seven showing up at the end.

 

[Andrusi]

Pinus cluster

The proper name for what's often referred to as a tentacle monster

 

[Alexcoene]

Nah, BotBots is clearly a Tyran/Movieverse, what with all the cameo appearance s of AOE Grimlock's design, the BotBots basically being non-evil AllSpark mutations, and Sector Seven showing up at the end.

I see, it all makes sense to me now. And as we all know, the 2007 movie takes place in the Japanese G1 Continuity, which absorbs everything in it.

 

[Sabrblade]

I see, it all makes sense to me now. And as we all know, the 2007 movie takes place in the Japanese G1 Continuity, which absorbs everything in it.

Oh, but I did not say that BotBots is the same universe as the 2007 movie, just that it is a Movieverse universe.

 

[Tuxedo Prime]

Well, clearly, Cyberverse should be the Pinus cluster because it uses 'Evergreen' designs. My personal philosophy is that if you're going to make up a name, you make as well use hokey puns. And I guess Botbots can be Commerx from commercium because it centers around a mall.

Okay, I can see that. My brain kept coming back to "Verdend", as it was trying to do similar things as Aligned ("Uniend") using "evergreen" designs (Vert/Verdi for green).

 

[Tuxedo Prime]

Nah, BotBots is clearly a Tyran/Movieverse, what with all the cameo appearance s of AOE Grimlock's design, the BotBots basically being non-evil AllSpark mutations, and Sector Seven showing up at the end.

Oohh, that'd be a question to ask a Hasbro rep. I could see it being a means, similar to the Bumblebee movie, of trying to make Lighter and Softer entries into the movie continuity family.

 

[Sabrblade]

Oohh, that'd be a question to ask a Hasbro rep. I could see it being a means, similar to the Bumblebee movie, of trying to make Lighter and Softer entries into the movie continuity family.

Truth be told, I don't think Hasbro really cares that much.

 

[Haywire]

I honestly tire quickly of the universal stream designations. To me, it's a lot easier to describe something as "like the original G1 cartoon, but everyone wears ducks on their heads" or "just like the Marvel comics, but with a French accent" than "Primax 4.8.15.16.2342", or whatever.

Each series might borrow from previous ones, but they are also willing to ignore prior continuity whenever it suits. Even in the G1 cartoon, the Autobots flew in robot mode, until they suddenly didn't anymore. Without a hard commitment to maintain canon, continuity only lasts as long as it's convenient. It's certainly fun to pick out the influences from previous series, but unless there is a specific tie-in to previous material, it's probably better to judge each new series on its own merits.

 

[Tuxedo Prime]

The proper name for what's often referred to as a tentacle monster

"The Legion got out again...."

 

[Tuxedo Prime]

I honestly tire quickly of the universal stream designations. To me, it's a lot easier to describe something as "like the original G1 cartoon, but everyone wears ducks on their heads" or "just like the Marvel comics, but with a French accent" than "Primax 4.8.15.16.2342", or whatever.

The "pillar" realities aren't likely to be remembered by their stream-codes, even by those sad fans like me. And given the fact that one of those pillars -- the Japanese G1 cartoon continuity -- spans several streams all merging and splitting into and out of each other (and also appropriated parts of unrelated streams to stave off fatal damage from MegaZarak's destruction of Cybertron), and another -- the Marvel G1 comic -- has multiple splinter timelines caused by Unicron showing up and blowing up "early"; it's just easier in casual non-dimension-hopping parlance to speak of "Sunbow-G1", "Marvel-G1", "Toei-G1", "IDW(2005)-G1", "Mainframe-Beasties" and so on.

That said, the system is good -- maybe a little too good -- at cataloguing micro-to-medium-sized continuities (Dreamwave's Armada comics, toy tech specs, Beast Wars: Uprising, "Wings Universe", Ladybird books, Diaclone fiction, and so on....)

 

[Tuxedo Prime]

Each series might borrow from previous ones, but they are also willing to ignore prior continuity whenever it suits. Even in the G1 cartoon, the Autobots flew in robot mode, until they suddenly didn't anymore. Without a hard commitment to maintain canon, continuity only lasts as long as it's convenient. It's certainly fun to pick out the influences from previous series, but unless there is a specific tie-in to previous material, it's probably better to judge each new series on its own merits.

The toylines -- and, of course, all this fiction exists to help sell, or was inspired by prior attempts to help sell, toys -- have certainly been changing and innovating on the regular -- arguably much faster than the North American and European fiction did.

Marvel-G1, for example, covered the initial toyline, The Scramble Combiners, Headmasters, Targetmasters, Powermasters, Pretenders, and gave us a glimpse of Action Masters.

And then, of course, there was Beast Wars, a sequel series that was extremely coy about what it was a sequel to. While there were both Sunbow and Marvel references dropped by the Maximals and Predacons, we only got the vaguest glimpses of the G1 backstory said characters were referring to. Some were frustrated by this, but looking back I honestly think it worked out.

Cyberverse lasted 4 seasons. We'll see if Earthspark is going to be a long-haul series, the start of something new, or another in many reinventions.

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

Oohh, that'd be a question to ask a Hasbro rep. I could see it being a means, similar to the Bumblebee movie, of trying to make Lighter and Softer entries into the movie continuity family.

Truth be told, I don't think Hasbro really cares that much.

Hasbro rep:

 

[Lobjob]

I just like the idea of a multiverse. Transtechs can label universes one thing, other universes can label them other things and of course some universes don't even know others exist at all.

Related? I did *like* the idea of the original 13 being universal constants when they were more mysterious. I liked the way IDW handled them.

 

[Nevermore]

Cyberverse: Eigen (from "eigenform", a key concept in cybernetics; also, it's originally a German word that means "own", which would make it a double pun indicating that Cyberverse is its own thing)
Earthspark: Jordmael - combining the Norwegian word "Jord" for "Earth" and the name of the Mael brothers, who form the band Sparks

 

[Alexcoene]

I just like the idea of a multiverse. Transtechs can label universes one thing, other universes can label them other things and of course some universes don't even know others exist at all.

Related? I did *like* the idea of the original 13 being universal constants when they were more mysterious. I liked the way IDW handled them.

Meh, the Singularity stuff was just an unnecessary and confusing on using them, and I feel like it was just there to make them 'more special' without any thoughts put in about how to handle it.

 

[Tuxedo Prime]

Hm. So TFWiki's initial description of the Earthspark cartoon described it as using "stylized" evergreen designs. At this point, though, I'm thinking that it would be premature to put a cluster name on it until we actually get some full episodes released.

(Although I did kind of like the idea of referencing the guys from Sparks)