Armada (episode)

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Megatron remembers seeing this scenario on Tumblr.
"Armada"
Season	2
No. in season	10
Production company	Hasbro Studios
Airdate	April 21, 2012
Written by	Matt Wayne
Directed by	Vinton Heuck
Animation studio	Polygon Pictures
Watch this episode on YouTube

Bulkhead is trapped on the Nemesis amid dual attempts on Megatron's life.

Synopsis

Bulkhead recovers consciousness, and realizes he's on the Nemesis. Unable to contact base, he begins to explore, but while hiding from Vehicons, he runs into Starscream. Starscream is reluctant to help, and strikes at Bulkhead, so Bulkhead returns the favor by jumping on Starscream and blindly beating the ex-con to death. Guiltily justifying his actions by muttering that Starscream left him no choice, Bulkhead returns to his exploration.

Quick! Reprogram them into Combaticons!

Some 24 hours before, Starscream reaches the wreck of the Harbinger in his search for energon. Instead, he finds a laboratory containing five protoforms. Elsewhere, Bulkhead picks up a strong energon reading. Starscream finds information in the Harbinger's computer on cloning, and fires up the lab equipment. Soon, five duplicates of himself stand before him. Meanwhile, Bulkhead, clambering into a hole he's found, realizes there's boxed energon at the bottom of it, and that the Nemesis is arriving overhead, ready to pick it up. As he struggles, he falls among the energon and, losing consciousness, is transported up to the Decepticon ship with it.

Starscream discovers that his clones are complete duplicates of himself, personality, memories, and all. The one significant difference seems to be that the clones have intact transformation cogs, and thus can fly. As the Harbinger is able to track where the Nemesis is, he sends his clones to eliminate Megatron once and for all. The five clones board the Nemesis and split up, one of them running into Bulkhead, who terminates the clone. The original Starscream is dismayed to discover that he feels the same pain his clones feel. Bulkhead locates a comm unit and attempts to use it to contact the other Autobots, only to set off an alarm and bring Vehicons running. As he escapes, the Vehicons are distracted by another Starscream clone, but unbeknownst to anyone, Bulkhead has inadvertently triggered a Decepticon beacon.

The beacon is detected by Airachnid, who releases her Insecticon army from their stasis pods to go terminate Megatron. The activity is detected by the Autobots, and Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and Arcee GroundBridge to the location to investigate, discovering Airachnid in the middle of sending her troops. She sets some of the Insecticons after the trio, but Arcee bursts through the explosions and begins pursuing her. Optimus and Bumblebee begin mowing down Insecticons.

Bulkhead crawls through a service duct, and spots Megatron. Megatron starts heading for the bridge in response to reports that Starscream's there.

Arcee continues her pursuit of Airachnid, despite having to contend with two Insecticons. After the Insecticons are taken out, Airachnid disappears underground, and Arcee follows.

On the Nemesis bridge, Megatron finds himself face-to-faces with the four remaining Starscream clones. He offers to make them all second-in-command if they terminate Starscream for him, but the clones are stable enough to keep to the mission. Before they can open fire, the ship is attacked by Insecticons. The distraction is all Megatron needs, and he starts taking out clones. The last of the clones manages to escape as the Insecticon attack intensifies, and Megatron finally checks on what's going on outside.

Megatron also remembers this from Tumblr.

Optimus and Bumblebee finish off the last of the Insecticons that were attacking them, and start looking for Arcee. Their comrade is currently deep underground hunting Airachnid. Arcee exchanges fire with her foe, and manages to manoeuvre Airachnid onto one of the open stasis pods, which promptly closes and puts the rogue Decepticon on ice. The Insecticons attacking the Nemesis all immediately stop their attack, drop on to the ship's hull, and proclaim their loyalty to a bemused Megatron.

Within the Nemesis, Bulkhead finds the ship's power core, and severely damages it with his mace, causing it to explode. The ship slowly begins its descent. As he runs to the exit, Bulkhead encounters the Starscream clone, who promptly takes off. Bulkhead is puzzled at the fact that Starscream is alive and can transform. Once the Nemesis has crashed to earth, Bulkhead is able to drive off and speed away. He soon reaches base, where the Autobots are inspecting the stasis-locked Airachnid.

The last Starscream clone returns to the Harbinger and lets the original Starscream know the mission failed. He's about to shoot his progenitor, when Starscream turns and blasts him, complaining about the shared pain he experiences as he finally terminates him.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"This is for Cliffjumper! For Bumblebee! For everything."

—Bulkhead delivers some much-deserved payback unto Starscream. Well, actually his clone, but what's the difference?

"My genetic code provides my clones with a T-Cog I no longer possess and all I get is their agony?!"

—Starscream laments over the side-effects of cloning.

"Exterminating you was so gratifying the first three times."

—Megatron approaching the last of Starscream's clones.

"When you extinguish my spark, make it hurt. You know I would extend that courtesy to you."

—Airachnid, creepy to the last.

Bulkhead: Guys, you are not gonna believe the day I had!
Bulkhead spots Airachnid in stasis, then looks at Ratchet and Arcee
Bulkhead: Oh, you too, huh?

—It's been a busy day for everyone.

Starscream Clone: You... knew I would attempt to terminate you?
Starscream: I feel your pain, really I do.
Starscream fires a missile at his clone, killing him but also still affecting the original Starscream
Starscream: Aaargh!! Scrap that hurt!

—That's our Starscream.

Notes

Continuity notes

• Starscream returns to the Harbinger, first seen in "Partners", the episode in which he defected.
• Starscream references sneaking on board the Nemesis and meeting Optimus Prime in "Orion Pax, Part 1".
• Starscream mentions killing Cliffjumper and sparing Arcee's life... again.
• Bulkhead pounds Starscream (well, his clone really, but still...) for killing Cliffjumper and damaging Bumblebee's T-cog in "Operation Bumblebee, Part 2".
• Starscream laments over losing his T-cog in "Operation Bumblebee, Part 2".
• Airachnid had apparently repaired her severed limb. It didn't last.
• In "Grill", Agent Fowler said the next time Arcee and Airachnid meet, only one is going to walk away. That's exactly what happened.
• The Starscream clones lack the facial scar of the original Starscream that was given to him by Arcee in "Partners".

Transformers references

• Starscream follows in the footsteps of his Animated predecessor, who also once cloned multiple copies of himself.
• Starscream's clones are mentally linked to him via binary bonding.
• The crash of the Nemesis on a cliff edge resembles the one of a certain other Transformer spacecraft.

Real-world references

• Starscream's activation of the clones, with all the electricity and cackling, seems inspired by Frankenstein.
• The Nemesis has Jefferies tubes.

Errors

• When Airachnid commands the Insecticon rear guard to fight, six are seen flying off the group. In the next scene, there are five.
• Previously, one Insecticon was so powerful that it was able to fight toe-to-toe with Megatron (deprived of his fusion cannon). The Insecticons in this episode are considerably weaker, enough that several go down in one hit and another is taken out by crashing into a tree. You can do plenty of rationalizing—the Autobots have an open battlefield and their ranged weapons which Megatron did not, a lot of Insecticons die from crashing out the air rather than from attacks—but this downgrade is nothing special, being a widely observed phenomenon with armies of generic henchmen in fiction of all kinds. The Insecticons' position as freakishly powerful is restored in "Tunnel Vision" and "Toxicity", but gone in "New Recruit".

Trivia

• The Insecticons speak for the first time. They're still vermin, though.
• Soundwave, Knock Out, and Dreadwing do not seem to be on board the Nemesis to defend it from its Insecticon assailants for some unknown reason. While you could argue they were present and simply off-screen (e.g. when Megatron arrives, Vehicons are seen in the background firing on the Insecticons), considering how prominent the three of them are their absence is rather odd. Dreadwing, in particular, would most likely be heading the counterattack because of his position as second in command.
• Oddly, immediately after he laments the lack of energon on the Harbinger, and after spending episodes going on about how he needed to scrounge for scraps just to survive, Starscream, on finding the protoforms, takes some of his own energon from his arm to power the clones. Perhaps his ambitions got the better of his common sense, or he was counting on the clones winning and he could then resupply on the Nemesis.
• This is the second time Arcee has basically "saved" Megatron. Even though she couldn't think of a reason why she would want to stop that, Arcee's greater hatred towards Airachnid then starts a chase after her trying to kill her and Airachnid got trapped in a stasis egg freeing the Insecticons from her control, making them loyal to Megatron again. Arcee defeats Airachnid but saves Megatron and boosts the Decepticon ranks in the process.

Foreign localization

French

• Title: "L'Armada" ("The Armada")
• Original airdate: ?

German

• Title: "Angriff auf Megatron" ("Attack on Megatron")
• Original airdate: 7 November 2012

Japanese

• Title: "Mugen Henkei! Zōshoku suru Teki" (無限変形!増殖する敵, "Infinite Transformation! Multiplying Enemies")
• Original airdate: 8 December 2012

• Starscream's clones have a different speech pattern from the real deal, speaking in a kind of countryside dialect.
• The Japanese-dubbed Insecticons continue being very talkative even in a swarm, filling any scene they appear in with buzzing onomatopoeia when they fly and cries of "You got me!" when they die.

Brazilian Portuguese

• Title: "O Exercito" ("The Army")
• Original airdate: 14 June 2013

Italian

• Title: "Armata" ("Army"), "L'Armata" (2017 airing, "The Army")
• Original airdate: 19 October 2012

Home video releases

DVD

2012 — Transformers Prime — Season Two (Shout! Factory)
2013 — Transformers Prime — Vol. 18 (Avex Trax) — Japanese audio only.
2013 — Transformers Prime — Folge 9: Angriff auf Megatron (EDEL:kids) — English and German audio.
2013 — Transformers Prime — Season 2 Volume 2: Battle for Supremacy (Madman Entertainment)
2014 — Transformers Prime — Season Two Collection (Madman Entertainment)
2014 — Transformers Prime — Saison 2 Vol. 2: Nemesis Prime (Primal Screen)
2014 — Transformers Prime — Season 2 Vol. 2: Nemesis Prime (Primal Screen)
2014 — Transformers Prime — Stagione 2 Vol. 2: Nemesis Prime (Primal Screen) — English, Italian, Swedish, Finnish, Danish and Norwegian audio.
2015 — Transformers Prime — Intégrale Saison 2 (Primal Screen)
2015 — Transformers Prime — The Complete Season 2 (Primal Screen)
2015 — Transformers Prime — La Seconda Stagione Completa (Primal Screen) — English, Italian, Swedish, Finnish, Danish and Norwegian audio.

Blu-ray

2012 — Transformers Prime — Season Two (Shout! Factory)
2015 — Transformers Prime — Season Two Collection (Madman Entertainment)