Talk:Continuity

Contents 1 featured? 2 old discussion 3 The impossible japanese continuity retcon 4 Hoping to avoid controversy 4.1 On Continuity families 5 "Subset" 6 List of continuities? 7 Other universes 8 Menonia and alternate dimensions 9 Fiction section 10 Confusion 11 New Chart 12 Cloud 13 New Chart (again)

featured?

I was thinking... this and the continuity family article should either be featured articles... or even "right off the main page all the time" articles. I think the information they contain should be touted as important reading. Thoughts? --M Sipher 08:09, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I think they are important enough to get some special emphasis, yes. They're very well written as is. My only suggestion is a small one (and I'm not entirely sure how best to implement it) but they're rather visually boring at the moment. I know they don't immediately lend them selves to it but if we could cook up some more pics to serve as visual aids that would liven things up immensly.--ZacWilliam 12:09, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I still feel like the articles are a bit of a mess, although I don't know that they could ever not be messy. I think the idea of linking to them more prominently is a good one, but... maybe not quite yet. --Steve-o 15:03, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, a good image for the "multiverse" portion could be a photo of a bunch of the various TF medias. A Marvel comic, an IDW comic, a DW comic, an old G1 coloring book and storybook, a G1 cartoon videotape, the RID DVD cover, some UT fiction (storybook, maybe?), BW DVD cover... Legends... I'd do it except I don't have any of those of G1 storybooks anymore. (I DO have the "See & Read" videocassette, though...)

The "Unified Japanese continuities"... pity that flash timeline doesn't really screen-grab well. Hm. "Continuity soup" could certainly use a scan of a post- BW G1 story mentioning "sparks".... --M Sipher 22:32, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I have added a pic of Optimus Prime's spark from Primeval Dawn in Continuity Soup. Ronimus Prime 20:58, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

old discussion

I dislike refering to RiD as a first-contact story, as in episode 3, the train station personel recognized Optimus Prime, and seemed ot have a fairly good grasp of him being the good guy to Preds' bad guy. A perponderance of evidence within the cartoon would appear to indicate that RiD was not first-contact, but that there had been some previous period of public TF activity on Earth. (That activity being based on parts of the G1 cartoon.)

Also, the description of the Unicron Trilogy, though factually accurate, is muddled. I was glazing over while reading it.

I've made some minor modifications to address your concerns. I at least partially agree with you about the RID thing -- the story told in the cartoon is clearly not the Transformers' first contact with humans in that timeline, as a big part of the story centers around TF contact with ancient humans. My original wording was a little clumsy.

Also, I removed the mention of the manga that XBob put into the "prominant g1 continuities" list. If I'm mistaken about this, somebody should feel free to put it back in again, but I was under the impression that the manga wasn't, in general, in-continuity with the TV shows. I had already made mention of the manga's existence in the Japanese continuities section, and I think that is probably sufficient. Certainly among English-speakings fans at least, the G1 manga is not a "prominant" continuity.

As a reminder to everyone using Talk pages, please sign your comments so other editors can tell who said what and when they said it. You can sign automatically by writing four tilde (~) characters in a row. There is even a "signature" button at the top of the edit area which will insert this automatically.

--Steve-o 05:55, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

That's good to know. Thanks.--G.B. Blackrock 18:29, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

>>Also, I removed the mention of the manga that XBob put into the "prominant g1 continuities" list. If I'm mistaken about this, somebody should feel free to put it back in again, but I was under the impression that the manga wasn't, in general, in-continuity with the TV shows. I had already made mention of the manga's existence in the Japanese continuities section, and I think that is probably sufficient. Certainly among English-speakings fans at least, the G1 manga is not a "prominant" continuity.<<

IIRC The G1 Manga's plosts were so simple(Save the animals from the Destrons!!!) that theres hardly any chance for contradiction, same thing goes for 2010 and Headmasters. The masterforce, and the victory manga however do conterdict. And the Zone-Operation Combination mangas seem to be in contuity with the TV show If I'm not mistaken X-BoB58

A note in the final paragraph (the one mentioning the manga) about how those fit into continuity would be appropriate, then. But you should also find out about the other, non-G1 manga if you want to include that, so readers aren't confused. But the in-continuity status of those is worth at least a brief mention. --Suki Brits 21:20, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

The Zone manga is a retelling of the first OVA episode. However, the character designs for Kain, Akira and the Destron Demon-Generals are all different. As well, Bruticus shows up (he wasn't in the OVA) and the homoerotic subtext between Akira and Kain doesn't seem present. Otherwise, the events happen more-or-less as animated.--Monzo 03:10, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

The beastwars II and Neo Manga's arn't in continuity, and I don't think the UT mangas are either(withn the exception of linkage)

XBob, everything Takara or Hasbro publishes is "canon" in that it's "official." Transformers has no singular canon other than the recent notion of a unified multiverse. The phrase "aren't in canon" has basically no meaning pertaining to Transformers fiction. --ItsWalky 01:04, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Zac made some edits to the page, most of which I like, but I, personally, have a strong preference for the old opening sentence. I recognize that my opening was a little unusual-sounding, but it was direct and specific. So... rather than just reverting it I figured I'd see if anybody else cares? Did everyone, on reading my old opening, think "what the hell is he on about?" If so, I'll let it go. (Although I do think that at the least, the mention of comic books in the new one is unnecessary and just gets in the way.) --Steve-o 16:12, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I preferred your original opening statement, which was more clear, so I reverted. --ItsWalky 16:52, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I am sure some will think the added image contains some mistakes (and some lacks, it's already several years old), but it still illustrate the subject quite well and give a rather good recap of the whole thing--GUIGUI 02:44, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

It's my understanding that Galaxy Force has been reconciled with the rest of the Japanese Unicron Trilogy, though the explanation didn't comefrom the cartoon proper. Is that correct?Chip 06:02, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I think you're referring to the DVD booklet that connected Unicron to Planet X and explained the ending images. Interrobang 06:14, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

The impossible japanese continuity retcon

I don't read Japanese, but I can already feel just how auto-contradicting the G1 storyline retcon on the new TakaraTomy site is: http://www.takaratomy.co.jp/products/TF/table.html Is it possible to not recognize it canon despite it being official?

What I want to know is where that image of Cerebros transforming into Fortress's head came from. I don't recall Fortress's head transforming into anything in the Headmasters show, and I know those aren't Rebirth models. --FortMax 23:00, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

It's from Headmasters, alright, from the singular time that transformation happened, in the flashback episode to when the Headmasters were learning to transform. - Chris McFeely 23:40, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• Yeah, that timeline is a bit of a clusterfuck. Trying to shoehorn Car Robot in there is especially painful. Though, this sort of "official yet non-sensical timeline" thing isn't exclusive to Transformers. Shigeru Miyamoto once belted out a Zelda timeline which has been ignored by just about everyone because it made absolutely no sense. --DrSpengler 23:15, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

The Zelda time line is not ignored. A lot of people consider each game happens in the same universe in the same continuity. It's just the correct order that has never been clearly figured out. But that's beside the point. So back to the it, using that Zelda/Shigy case is not really a good argument to rule out that new retcon.

T'would seem to me that the only real problem is the random insertion of Car Robots - everything else that has been retroactively inserted into the G1 timeline (Robot Masters, Binaltech, Kiss Players) has managed to fit itself in there through the use of enough fiddly stuff to work fairly well. Binaltech, but the end of it's own story, has been diverged off as an alternate universe, while Robot Masters allowed itself to work through time travel, and as insane as Kiss Players is, they kept their ducks in a row, and by the end of the story everything was in a position to allow 2010 to occur unmolested (heh). It even managed to explain Daniel's lack of aging between the movie and 2010. Well, I'm assuming Prime, er, died again. - Chris McFeely 01:13, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Except the new movie is in there too; or does the red color mean something different? (And I like the entry for the launch of Voyager, heh)EricMarrs 01:32, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

The red colors are just signifying that those two white trails are part of the same line. The red is the hyphen at the linebreak, so to speak. I think it's safe to say that Car Robots is part of J-G1 while RiD is not part of US-G1. Sort of like how, for most of Galaxy Force, it was not considered part of the UT over there, but Cybertron definitely was over here. (Of course, that's not the case anymore. See the same page.) There are plenty of US materials that contradict the Japanese G1 timeline. --ItsWalky 02:00, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

T6heir timeline places the Voyager prome launch witht he golden disk in 1977. Does it say which specific Voyager? (1 or 2?)

IIRC, I did a comparison once and the design of the satellite we saw,though similar to 1 and 2, matches neither, so it was probably meant to be a fictional subsequent launch, but if Japan SAYS it's Voyager 2, I'm willing to accept that.

Can someone who reads Japanese tell me? -Derik 04:00, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Hoping to avoid controversy

Hi there. PacifistPrime here, after a long absence followed by some very minor edits in recent weeks. Some of you may recall many months ago I made some petulant, uncalled-for comments on relevant IDW and Movie pages about my (unpopular) opinions regarding the continuity status of these neo-G1 universes. Anyway, it all got rather heated, I got temporarily banned when I stood up for myself and some people got astonishingly hostile, blah blah blah. Anyway, regardless of the subsequent unpleasantness, I acknowledge (as I did at the time) that my inital actions were in the wrong and I'd like to leave it at that, please.

To briefly recap my opinion (divorced from the acrimony); I felt/still feel that the IDWverse and the MoiveVerse should be granted equal footing, continuity-wise, as being either both part of the G1 continuity family, or both outside of it. My reasoning is that the IDWverse is significantly different enough from all other iterations of G1 while the MovieVerse is significantly similar enough to G1, especially when compared to RID and the Unicron Trilogy. I'm willing to cop that the MovieVerse is slightly more "un-G1" than IDW, but solely on the basis of including several non-classic characters, as I think that their respective premises are equally different from traditional G1 and that the drastic aesthetic differences are essentially superficial and not a significant factor.

Anyway, I want to stress that I'm NOT trying to lobby for a change in Teletraan 1's categorisation (although I'd be delighted if it were to happen), and that I have NOT made any unilateral changes to this effect. All I'm saying here so far is context for the paragraph I've added to THIS article.

So, I recently noticed that in my absence someone else (and please, don't even suggest that it was me) has added bits here and there that are at least somewhat sympathetic to my point of view, such as the prhase "loosely based on Generation 1" at the head of the IDW page, or the "Quibbles" section in the Continuity family article. So, given the nature of THIS article and its acknowledgement of the highly subjective, personal canon nature of TF continuity, and especially the subsection "Continuity Soup", I thought this would be an appropriate place to include an invective-free comment on the specific subjectivity of continuity subcategorisation. I promise that I'm not trying to be controversial or have a dig at anyone, and I hope that the section will not be seen as warranting deletion.

Thanks for listening. PacifistPrime.

Not too surprisingly considering I disagreed with you before, I think your changes were a little too much, but I definitely agree with you in principle that these things should be addressed explicitly. I was the one who added the "quibbles" section to continuity family, largely influenced by your previous statements on other talk pages. I've just made revisions to this article that tone down some of what you wrote, but I think (I hope!) that I have treated your viewpoint fairly. I mainly wanted to remove words and phrases that sounded a bit like editorializing to my ears. Feel free to make more changes. I imagine that in a couple rounds we can get the article into a shape we are both happy with. I would, however, prefer to keep most of the "categorization" talk in the families article instead of here. The other article is basically entirely about categorizing continuities, so, it's more relevant there. Hence, my revision of this article truncates the discussion and says "see the other article". I am okay with the idea of the IDW and movie quibbles over there being expanded a little bit. I am, however, still baffled by your continuing insistence that the altmode changes in IDW, which I consider completely trivial (ex: Thundercracker is a contemporary fighter jet instead of one that was contemporary 25 years ago), are meaningful, especially in light of your statement that you don't think the G1/Movie aesthetic rift is important. That seems really contradictory to me. --Steve-o 05:50, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I bet he's more hung up on there being no Ark/Mt. St. Hillary 4 million years ago.

I believe you, Steve-o, have been at least mutedly interested in discussing whether the Movie should be in the G1 continuity family— if only to explore the argument to its logical conclusion.

(It's not really an argument that Movie == G1 as it is an argument that our system of Continuity Families is inadequate. ...at least as I see it. Pacci might feel different.)

I have translated the core argument against the existing Family model from messy English to Steve-o through the use of a nice, unambiguous chart. (right.) It's the Linnean thing, discuss. -Derik 10:26, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

If we're talking about my own personal thoughts on how close things are, I consider IDW to be unambiguously a G1 continuity, while the movie is outside G1, but a lot closer to G1 than the UT or RID is. Early on, I wasn't sure whether I would think of the movie as G1 or not, but eventually found the differences from G1 to be too large for me to think of them as the same thing. I understand what you're trying to do with your chart, but really it is committing falacies too because the continuum needs to be N-dimensional, not linear. There are many, many different axes along which we can move to find new universes. What is the origin of the TF race? How and when do they interact with Earth? What characters exist? Is there a Unicron? What factions are there? What subgroups/gimmicks do the TFs develop? Do they have sparks? What is energon like, if it exists at all? And on and on...--Steve-o 14:54, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Assuming there is an objective way to quantify those N-dimensional criteria, then you could presumably reduce them down to a weighted geneology; "How 'G1y' is this continuity? How 'Armaday,'" and whichever 'ethnicity' was preeminent would be the category it was sorted into. So not a continuum-- but a sorted noisy set with individual population curves where the values off to the side aren't 'how close is it to the continuity on my left' (because putting continuity families in a line is silly) but rather 'those continuities whose bond to this family are so weak they're close to snapping over to another.'

(That's still a lousy system because it only functions assuming you have a full set of all possible Continuity Families. And some, like Megazarak's Universe, don't seem to fit into any of them.) -Derik 16:48, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, silly boy-- all Transformers have Sparks because Primus exists in all universes! ^_^

You know, except for the Challenge of the GoBots universe, which appears to have Gobotron but no Cybertron... and maybe the Go-go-go-go-bots world...

I admit I have problems with a multiverse that declares that all universes are wild ahistoric variations on a theme-- so the same two characters (Prime and Megatron) are genetically related in one universe but not another-- but at the same time also insists that there's a common unvarying history. So you can have 'wild unchecked flights of fancy and imagination-- up to a point.' You can never do a world where Unicron is a god of creation and Primus of destruction, or where Unicron is a trickster space-lemur that teaches the Junkions how to hunt the wild Buffalodumps of Goo, or where the 'allspark' is a fiction made up by the theocratic ruling body to keep Cybertron a 'demon haunted world' and Transformers are naturally occuring processes of levers and gears with no sparks, or stories where the Allspark dimension is real but a naturally-occurring phenomena with no Unicron or Primus, or stories about the Lords of Chaos, or stories about the very first Transformers where they're all My Little Ponies. You can never tell a story where the good guys win, and if they think they have they're just ignorant.

It doesn't seem like much of a constraint... but when you remove one ball the manatees don't want to play any more. -Derik 17:16, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Anyway, I totally agree that the "family" system is imperfect because it creates undefined categories that are supposed to span then entire multiverse with no overlaps or holes, and that is not a job that is possible. However, I think the system is "good enough" as long as we don't think of it as being The Truth and recognize it just as a way of helping to keep most stuff organized. (As has been previously discussed (and stated in "quibbles"), even if one were to convince me that Movie should fall under the G1 umbrella, I would still advocate splitting them for practical purposes of wikification.) --Steve-o 14:54, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, totally. This is a problem all hierarchical categorization schemes have. But in the end we use them because they're useful, and trying to address a large flat set without an imposed system is totally unmanageable. Ultimately the concern is 'does this system meet our needs in most cases,' which it does.

But it's still healthy to talk about its shortcomings once in awhile to see if any new solutions come up. -Derik 16:48, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

[Please note that Steve-o's post immediately prior to this one appeared just as I was submitting this, so my (loooong) comments below don't touch on that post specifically]

Hi fellas, thanks for weighing in. Particularly nice to be able to have a discussion without people hurling personal insults at me. ;-)

I'm pretty happy with your changes, Steve-o, and yes, I do think your toning down of my edit still fairly represents my view. Which is good! I agree that the Quibbles section (which I'm delighted and more than a little surprised that you originated) on the other page is a more appropriate place to discuss this further, and the link to it is good. I'm also pleased that you are amenable to slight expansion of the Quibbles section, as that is precisely what I plan to do (as soon as I get around to it). I hope we can both be pleased with the result.

As to my position on altmode aesthetics, well, I think it's likely that we're ultimately going to just have to agree to disagree on that one, but my reasoning is more or less this: All macro and micro continuities of G1, including pre-IDW neo-G1 (most prominently Dreamwave) consistently depict the characters with the likenesses of the toys (with the obvious minor exceptions of differences in animation models for characters like Ironhide, Jetfire etc.) and their '80s vintage altmodes. While the different continuities have presented various different origins for G1, they've all involved them being on a ship which was buried etc. etc. and when they woke up in the mid-'80s they had those specific altmodes. The IDWverse, however, presents us with such a radically different war/universe premise, timeline etc. that it requires more up-to-date vehicles. Which is fine. But by not being directly based on the G1 toyline so much as the characterisations which were later developed for it by ancillary media, I view it as being a further step removed, as thus being "less" G1. So, yes, I acknowledge that the altmode question in isolation is a somewhat superficial issue, but it is a pervasive and immediately apparent one. Any other incarnation of G1 you can look at it out of context and (depending on being able to recognise the artist, obviously) not be able to immediately delcare which sub-continuity we're looking at (e.g. many IDW covers use traditional altmode-model pinup art). However, one glance at IDWverse Megs or Starscream and it's instantly obvious that they're the IDWverse versions. Just like you can immediately distinguish Machine Wars or Movie iterations of the same two characters.

As to your comment about my assessment of the "aesthetic rift" with the MovieVerse as compared to the IDWverse, I think you've slightly misunderstood me, but perhaps that's my fault for not being clear enough. What I meant to say is that I think part of the reason many people are more prepared to situate the MovieVerse further away from "core" G1 than the IDWverse is an overreaction (on their parts) to how drastically different the movie characters whole aesthetic looks. I mean, you show me IDW Ratchet and although he's clearly not classic animated/comic Ratchet, he's still immediately recognisable, whereas I think you'd agree that without being told even the most ardent Transformers fan wouldn't have recognised Movie Ratchet from a bag of chips.

So, essentially I'd argue that although the aesthetics of the Movie designs are extreme compared to Core G1, I think they are themselves only marginally more "important" than the aethetic differences between the IDWverse and G1, i.e. in both cases they create a significant dissociative effect that mitigates against identifying them as "true" G1, or at least being as G1 as, for example, Dreamwave. Which, is naturally, very ironic, since I think the writing of the IDW comics kicks the crap out of Dreamwave's but we're talking about continuity deliniation here, not measuring quality.

Ultimately, of course, I think issues of alterations to the basic premise of all traditional G1s (again, Ark, hibernation, 1980s wakeup call) are far more important, but you asked me about my altmode obsession, so that's why I've focused on that here. As far as storytelling is concerned, I still tout the opinion that the IDWverse and the MovieVerse present new spins on G1 concepts and characters that are vaguely equal in their degree of difference from vintage G1 (if one doesn't let the more extreme visual dissonance of the Movie sway you), at least to the extent that they are both deserving of being equally in OR out of the larger G1 continuity umbrella. At this point, I really don't have a strong opinion which, just that both should be one or the other.

Obviously it's all a matter of personal taste. I think you put it quite nicely yourself where you wrote "What ratio of character rehashes to original characters is required to count as part of the old family instead of the start of a new one? " Obviously there are no hard answers, but I would hope that maybe this might generate some wider discussion as to this question.

Whew! That was... long. Hope you got through it with your sanity intact!

Cheers, PacifistPrime

P.S. Thanks for the graphic Derik, but I'm afraid I dropped maths for art way back in High School and have never looked back!  ;-) Would you care to do a "graphs for dummies" version, please?

This is Derik you're talking about. He's already making graphs for the dummies.--Rosicrucian 16:16, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

...I made it for steve-o, what are you implying?  ;)

And simpler, um... "Any given continuity is a shade somewhere along that color spectrum (from red to blue,) but our system of categorization says that they are either red or blue, and does not recognize that there can be values in between. Thus you could have two shades of purple right next to one another, but one would be considered G1 and the other Armada because they're on opposite sides of the imaginary defining border, and our syste would recognize no kinship/relationship/closeness between them."

See, I totally didn't understand the graph at all, but once you said it, I totally got it. - (Chris McFeely, not signed in, and contributing nothing of worth.)

Charts with specialized terminology are less likely to be misunderstood, but also less likely to be understood at all. Ironic, don'cha think? -Derik 17:25, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I could throw my support behind a handy pie chart that says the movie is 33% G1, 45% things that blow up real good, and 22% raspberry cream.--Rosicrucian 17:22, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

*shrug* -Derik 17:45, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Mmm, pie... Yes, that pretty much sums it up for me. Shades of purple. I'd argue that the IDWverse and the MovieVerse are not at exactly the same point in the spectrum (I assume 'Armada being the francise selected to represent the opposite end of the spectrum to G1 was an arbitrary choice?), but that they are reeeealy close in therer level of similarity to, yet removal from, G1. Especially when compared to anything else that is or is not Geewunniee.

But yes, I agree with your general proposition that our continuity family system here is too black and white (err, red and blue) to happily deal with the differing shades of purple. HOWEVER, I would still argue that, as I just said, IDW and Movie continuities are both so similar in terms of their shade of purple when compared to anything else in the spectrum that they really should be considered either both included in or excluded from the same umbrella. I don't strongly care which it is, I just think it's really semantic to place them on opposite sides of the "is/is not G1" divide.

Cheers, PacifistPrime

On Continuity families

I propose that above the currently existing term 'continuity family' we recognize a 'continuity order' which encloses multiple like-grouped families. (G1, Movie, Animated are probably members of the same Order.) This mechanism would allow us to recognize that some characters are closely related (G1 and Animated Grimlock for example) while still documenting them separately.

Our current system holds that Animated Grimlock has no more relationship to G1 Grimlock than RiD Grimlock does, which seems... disingenuous. -Derik 16:50, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I think just saying that Animated and Movie bear a close resemblance to G1 covers all that, doesn't it? JW 17:49, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Homage characters can appear in completely unrelated continuities, such as Unicron Trilogy Wing Saber and Shockblast. The Animated Dinobots and Constructicons are just another example of that. It's more like the Animated Constructicons bearing no more relationship to G1 than the Unicron Trilogy Constructicons.--Rosicrucian^Talk 18:32, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Especially considering how many G1 homages ther eare in Energon alone... including a t-rex Grimlock and ptero Swoop... --M Sipher 19:46, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

"Subset"

I would like to officially register my discontent with the word "subset" as it's used in this page.

I'm sure the original author was thinking of the mathematical sense of the word, but most readers aren't going to read it that way. Saying that the American cartoon is a subset of the Japanese cartoon makes it sound like Japan produced this cartoon all on their own, then some Americans came along, cherry-picked out some of the cartoon and aired it in the States (presumably "ruining" the "original intent" in the process.) Given how common the mistaken "Transformers all came from Japan" notion is, I really think a different wording is preferable. -- Repowers 02:33, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I see what you're getting at, but I'm not sure offhand how to remove that possible connotation without making the explanation muddier. Do you have something in mind? --Steve-o 04:45, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Question wasn't directed at me, but I would think that it should simply look like this...

• Cartoons (American) - Three complete seasons of varying length, and a 3-episode "fourth season". Probably the best-known of all continuities.
• Cartoons (Japanese) - Includes the first three seasons of the American cartoons as well as three additional TV series, two OVAs and a manga series.

--KilMichaelMcC 05:04, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

That sounds perfect. -- Repowers 13:47, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

List of continuities?

...do we have a list? I'm working on a thing where it'd be quasi-useful. -Derik 19:58, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Not really... how exhaustive do you want it to be? The closest I can think of is Jackpot's attempt to make a complete list of section headings (User:Jackpot/Sandbox/Sections). --Steve-o 03:11, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Other universes

Do these universes warrant a mention in the Continuity/Continuity Family articles?

The universe that houses Defensor (OTFCC), Megazarak, Ultra Trion, Optimus Prime (Balancing Act), etc. All of these characters are listed as hailing from the Universe franchise, but they all really come from the same universe. Any chance of allowing there to be a page devoted to this universe? It seems like a much less formal Shattered Glass situation.

Also, the Tonka GobBots: their universe is shown in the beginning of Withered Hope, and GoBots are the stars of that story. Is the GoBots universe worth a mention since it appears in official TF fiction?

And last and least, the universe with "Optimus Prime (Worlds Collide)": worth a note? --Crockalley 10:41, 30 May 2009 (EDT)

Menonia and alternate dimensions

Do the "alternate dimensions" that are shown in Madman's Paradise count as continuities? I'm not entirely sure what science fiction generally means by "alternate dimensions." Are Menonia in another dimension that is still within the G1 cartoon universe? - Starfield 22:41, 8 June 2009 (EDT)

Menonia is not in any way, shape, or form a "continuity." How exactly an "other dimension" from the G1 cartoon universe fits into the multiverse structure, I'm not really sure, but a continuity? No. --KilMichaelMcC 23:27, 8 June 2009 (EDT)

Fiction section

Maybe that stuff about dimension-hopping and whatnot should go into the multiverse article instead. Considering that the fiction sections of both articles are pretty much about the same kind of thing. Item42 10:38, 1 September 2010 (EDT)

Confusion

I am somewhat confused. I know Transformers Prime and War for Cybertron are in the same continuity, but not the same universe. Could someone please explain the difference to me, because they sound like the same thing. Is it like the G1 Cartoon and the G1 Comic, or something along those lines?166.109.0.45 11:57, 11 February 2011 (EST)

We're not entirely sure yet. We've asked Hasbro, and they tell us things will make sense later as the show continues, though I'm not sure how that can be the case. We're right there with you in your confusion. --ItsWalky 12:13, 11 February 2011 (EST)

I use the analogy of the G1 comics, cartoon and Beast Wars for Exodus, WFC and Prime myself. The former three were based on Bob Budiansky's concepts and bios, while the new three clearly link to the story bible Hasbro uses for the Hall of Fame bios, where Orion Pax and Megatron led a class rebellion, Jazz was Optimus's best friend, Energon is the emanation of Primus and Dark Energon is Unicron's, the lost art of space bridge technology, Mini-Cons as terminology for all small Transformers, Shockwave waiting to betray Megatron when the time is right, a loose incorporation of the first movie's events with Bumblebee being rendered mute by Megatron and the AllSpark's jettisoning onto Earth, and the identities and history of the Thirteen.

Perhaps we could do with this out-of-universe information in the article, discussing how divergences can be formed because writers use outdated sources (eg the movieverse's novelists and comic writers using older screenplay drafts) or ignore it (as in the case of Sunbow's Shockwave). Alientraveller 12:16, 11 February 2011 (EST)

Yeah The best we can see right now they're alternate stories springing from the same story bible. Alternate but similar universes. Hasbro still insists that they are more the same and conected than we can see right now and that we will learn more in the future... Whether that's true or not, who can tell yet. For right now I'd personally assume they were seperate realities within the same Continuity family (read that page if you don't know the term.) Hasbro says they may be more, but you'll have to wait and see with the rest of us.--ZacWilliam 13:48, 11 February 2011 (EST)

New Chart

I'm proposing that the chart we have up front be replaced with this slightly more accurate and cohesive chart.

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/1729/timelinea1jo5.jpg —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 158.103.0.1 (talk • contribs) 01:19, 2 December 2011 (EST).

That's impressive, but bits of it are not in English, there's no key to say what the different coloured lines mean. It looks like it was originally posted here, so we would also have to get that dude's permission. --abates 01:32, 2 December 2011 (EST)

It's also inaccurate and badly formatted. —Interrobang 01:35, 2 December 2011 (EST)

A Modification then? That would not only fix the errors, but it would make in a derived work, the chart itself is simply the most Comprehensive one on the TF Multiverse so far seen.

It's also a fan work, whereas the one in the article was printed in an official publication. - Chris McFeely 11:58, 2 December 2011 (EST)

Cloud

Anyone with a better knowledge of Transformers Cloud than me want to add to the list under the "Multiverse" section? --abates (talk) 06:41, 12 July 2014 (EDT)

New Chart (again)

So here's a more recent version of the mulitverse road map. http://i.imgur.com/iDrNXwB.jpg --Iustitia (talk) 02:28, 16 January 2016 (EST)

Where does this come from? -Foffy the Sheep (talk) 02:53, 16 January 2016 (EST)

I think that's the one from Hasbro Transformers Collectors' Club issue 51. --abates (talk) 04:08, 16 January 2016 (EST)

Oh. It's pretty nice looking, aside from the page-fold in the middle. -Foffy the Sheep (talk) 07:38, 16 January 2016 (EST)