"Revenge of the Fallen Reboot"--What's Next?

While I was on vacation with my family in St. Simons, I gave some thought to what might happen in the aftermath of "The Revenge of the Fallen Reboot."  Don't worry, I don't intend to write it--I'd like to finish Battle for the Wastelands by Veterans Day or at least pretty close to it.

SPOILERS for "Reboot" if you all haven't read it yet.

However, here're my thoughts on what a third story would look like.  It resembles the 1986 animated movie, which I saw at least twice as a child, a lot more than it does Transformers: Dark of the Moon, although it uses movie-verse characters.

*It takes place 20-odd years later.  Sam and Mikaela have since married and have a son named Daniel.  In the 1986 film, the G1 Sam and Carly were married and Daniel was their son.  The Autobots have established a ground-based civilization on Earth (Autobot City, like in the animated series) while the Decepticons remain primarily in space. 

Given the Autobots' origins among Cybertronian civilians and the Decepticons' origins among Cybertron's military, I figured the Decepticons would be more likely to be, in what fans of A Few Good Men, would recognize, "out there on the wall" while the Autobots would prefer a planetary existence.  Plus Starscream remembers the Fallen was not just a danger in his own right--he was the herald and apostle of Unicron, who is still out there somewhere.  Despite issues, the peace agreement brokered by Optimus Prime and Starscream (after finally usurping Megatron) remains in place.  Both sides cooperate in the mining of Energon and the creation of new Cybertronians (or to put it cynically, new toys), while other survivors filter in as they learn about the end of the war and Cybertronian settlement in the Earth system. 

Meanwhile, the humans have colonized the Moon and Mars, using borrowed Cybertronian technology to (partially) terraform Mars and build warrens and domed cities on the Moon.

*This peace is disrupted by the arrival of Galvatron and his minions, reforged by Unicron from the dead Decepticons (which included Megatron and probably Soundwave as well) cast into a black hole at the end of "Reboot."  Galvatron has taken the place of the Fallen as Unicron's herald and Unicron has learned from his mistakes with his last herald--he has given him a substantial army of his own rather than simply making him more individually powerful.  And Galvatron has the Fallen's ability to raise armies of robo-zombies from fallen Cybertronians and destroyed human military equipment too.  It has taken Galvatron this long to return to take his revenge because he probably cannot remember where Earth is (due to battle-damage from Starscream's assassination) and because Unicron had other plans for him.

*Galvatron and his army tear through the Decepticon defenses in the outer solar system on their way to Earth.  Galvatron takes pains to kill Starscream specifically, and then kills Jetfire who tried to avenge him.  He manages to collect a few Decepticon followers who recognize him as Megatron reborn and want to renew the war with the Autobots.  I'm thinking Dropkick, a lesser Decepticon from "Reboot" who got some POV chapters, will be one of them.  Bypassing Mars (which is out of the way enough they can do that without leaving their rear exposed), Galvatron and company batter their way through Earth's defenses and attack Autobot City.  They're driven off, but not before Ironhide, Optimus Prime, and others die (like in the 1986 film).

*As the Autobots and their human allies lick their wounds and attempt to rebuild their defenses, Galvatron returns to Unicron.  He intends to use Unicron to destroy the Autobots and the Decepticons who have remained allied to them, along with the pesky "fleshlings."  Unicron, who is fairly close to the Earth system, goes for it.

*The Autobots choose new leadership.  Not sure who among the surviving movie-verse Autobots would be chosen.  Bumblebee, perhaps, as one of the last survivors of Cybertron?  Or we could bring in Hot Rod, as one of the new Cybertronians created in the Earth system?  Bumblebee is the most recognizable Cybertronian movie character, but it was Hot Rod who (eventually) succeeded Optimus Prime in the 1986 film.

*Unicron arrives and begins devastating Mars.  Knowing that Unicron was able to defeat the much more advanced Quintessons (the original creators of the Cybertronians) in a straight up space battle, the humans and "good Cybertronians" come up with a different plan.  Their spatial forces will engage Unicron in order to provide cover for a ground force to land on him (it?) and dig inside to attack his vitals directly.  I imagine the Nemesis would take the lead in the space-battle, while the more colonization-oriented Ark would be the one landing the masses of Cybertronian ground troops and spacesuited humans.  There, the human forces (under the command of Lennox, who would probably be a general by now) and the Autobots under the command of Bumblebee or Hot Rod, must face off against Galvatron.

Now the stuff I'm not so sure about...

*Not sure how to get Sam and Mikaela involved in the violent mayhem again.  Their presence in North Africa in "Reboot" was a bit contrived--they got caught up in the deployment of NEST troops by accident.  Perhaps they'll be background characters and it'll be Daniel who is on the sharp end, so to speak.  He'd probably be around the same age the Daniel character was in the 1986 film, after all, while Sam and Mikaela would both be in their 40s.  "Transformers: The Next Generation" perhaps?

*I wonder what to do with Miles and Leo?  Given the Cybertronian fixation I gave Leo in "Reboot," I could imagine him having some kind of technical job after graduating college.  The fact Miles and Sam are drifting apart does come up in "Reboot," so him being left out of the story entirely could be doable.  Or maybe Sam runs into him at their 20-year high-school reunion, they awkwardly make conversation, and then promise to keep up better even though both of them know they won't?

Do any of your fan-fiction types want to take a stab at this?  If so, leave a comment and we can discuss it.  I'm not going to write anything, but I can always provide ideas and advice.

A Transformers Fan-Fiction Scenario

Keith Fraser, a member of my alternate-history forum who wrote the crossover between the Draka and the Twilight novels I blogged abour earlier, has posted a fan-fiction "plot bunny"--a crossover between Transformers and S.M. Stirling's Draka novels.  :)

(That kind of thing seems to be his bag.)

The premise is that the Cybertronians arrive in 2007 or so during the Draka timeline, which would be after the Domination defeats the Alliance for Democracy in the Final War but before they've completely pacified the Alliance territories.

Here's what Keith wrote about the general world situation:

-Jetfire teleported to avoid the nuclear destruction of the DTL's version of the Smithsonian and, realizing that both sides were using Cybertronian technology, sent a distress signal which was picked up by both the Autobots and Decepticons.



-Megatron and the Allspark were dug out of the Arctic and hidden in the Hoover Dam as per TFTL, providing the US with its technological leg-up (some of which was stolen/acquired by the Draka).


-The solar harvester inside the Great Pyramid was dismantled and analyzed by the Draka long ago, and was responsible for much of their technological leg-up.


-The crashed Ark and Sentinel Prime were fought over secretly by Alliance and Draka forces during the Protracted Struggle; most of the technology was destroyed, but the Draka recovered Sentinel Prime and a few of the space-bridge components.

He then described what happened to the human cast members.

-Sam Witwicky survived the Final War (the movie trilogy indicates that he is clearly half-cockroach) and is part of a serf labour force excavating the remains of the Hoover Dam (which was deliberately demolished during the Final War to stop the Draka getting to the goodies inside). More specifically, he and his mother are hostages for his mechanic father's good behaviour. He has a crush on the labour camp commandant's bedwench (who can be either Mikaela or Carly, since the two characters are largely interchangeable).



-Most of the members of Sector 7 were infected with the Stone Dogs and died in the Final War. Agent Simmons is one of the few survivors, now somewhat (more) unhinged, and is making his way across the post-apocalypse US to try to stop the Draka excavating the Hoover Dam site.


-Lennox, Epps and some of their men make up a surviving fallback force that links up with Agent Simmons.


-The politicians, computer hackers and wacky ethnic comic relief characters were all killed or enserfed.

He then derailed from the Transformers movie canon considerably, giving the Transformers themselves big upgrades so they're stealthier and harder to destroy, including the ability to withstand tank fire.  I think that goes a bit too far, since the movie-verse Transformers are much more destroyable with human conventional weapons than the Transformers from other media.

(I'm told a comic-book depicts Megatron being bombarded with human artillery and aircraft, not being damaged in the slightest, snorting contemptuously, and walking away and one of the Dinobots is damaged but not destroyed by a nuclear bomb.  I used to watch the animated series religiously and I don't remember much human military involvement at all--maybe they were staying out of the way?)

Here's how Keith intends to begin his story:

The action begins when Bumblebee and two of Soundwave's subordinates (Laserbeak and Ravage) clash near the remains of the Hoover Dam. The battle is witnessed by a group of serfs including Sam who were on latrine/trash burying/whatever detail and their guards; the Decepticons massacre the group except for Sam after Bumblebee is seemingly disabled, but then he rallies and drives them off.



What happens next? Will the Autobots and Decepticons ally against the Draka? Will Sam get laid? How will the Draka react to physically superior opponents who consider *them* vermin?

Here're my thoughts on how the story would go if I were writing it.  No, I'm not going to write it myself, howver cool that would be.  I've got better things to do.
 
*The commander's "bedwench" would be Mikaela.  Being British, there's a much larger chance Carly died in the Final War (Britain is densely populated and would suffer more in a nuclear exchange--plus in the Drakaverse, the Stone Dogs-addled British nuked London themselves) and if she did survive and ended up in Draka hands, she might have been given limited Citizenship or made higher-status serf than some mid-level officer's concubine.
 
(The Draka hate Americans, but being the descendants of loyalists and Napoleonic vets, might feel more kinship with Britain.)
 
Plus if the Witwickies survive the war and get enslaved by the Draka, chances are Mikaela would have survived as well.  All of them lived in the same general area, so they'd probably get captured in the same Draka roundup.
 
*I liked the idea of Simmons surviving infection by the Stone Dogs virus but being more crazy than usual.  He could actually be a source of comic relief (as he was in the later movies) or a somewhat darker figure (like in the first film--since the Stone Dogs drives its victims violently insane, him being a bit dangerously psychotic makes sense).
 
*I also liked the military characters being part of the Alliance fallback forces.  In the Drakaverse, they wouldn't be deployed in the Middle East, since the Draka controlled that area since WWI.  It's more likely they'd be in the Continental United States when the hammer falls.
 
*The politicians would definitely be killed--the novel Under the Yoke describes the leaders of defeated European countries being paraded through the Draka capital in court-jester outfits before they're publicly executed.  Bobby Bolivia (the only "wacky ethnic comic relief character" who isn't anything else from the first film) would probably be killed or enslaved.  Maybe he's a serf entertainer for the Draka commander who keeps Mikaela as his concubine.

However, I can definitely imagine the computer-hackers from the first movie being given limited Citizenship.  The Draka lost a lot of their technical people during the Final War and the Alliance's superweapon--a computer virus their agents built into Draka equipment at the factory--gave the Draka particular trouble.  The Draka leader Eric von Shrakenberg pushed through the deal to give as many Alliance survivors as possible Citizenship to ensure the Domination had access to their skills.

Given how one of the hackers is black, this could be kind of awkward.  Eric's proposal gave Citizenship to people many Draka considered "racially totally unsuitable."  The black hacker would be one of the very few free blacks in the entire Solar System and I can imagine Draka "mistaking" him for a serf and abusing him, counting on the fact he's an overweight nerd and they've been trained from childhood to be killing machines to win any resulting fights.

(Of course, since the Alliance had universal military service, chances are he'd be in a lot better physical shape.  Still, the Drakas! anthology features American soldiers being told to avoid hand-to-hand combat with Citizens--they will lose.)

*As the discussion progressed, the concept of the two Cybertronian factions joining forces to take down the Domination of the Draka took shape.  Optimus and Megatron both want to revive Sentinel Prime for different reasons, while the Autobots will be horrified by the abuses the Draka heap on everyone else and the Decepticons will want to show the "master race" who the real masters are.

(It was suggested that Starscream, being Starscream, might try to make some deal with the Draka.  Given how one of the biggest things about the second two movies that sucked was that Starscream's desire to usurp Megatron was largely ignored, I'd love to see this.)

*With the Domination getting knocked around, the millions of Alliance survivors given Citizenship might remember they were Americans (or Britons or Australians or Japanese) before they were "Draka" and see opportunity.  Although the majority of Alliance survivors would be slaves, the neo-Citizens are in the best positions to cause trouble.

*Given how the Draka by this point have extensive orbital assets and orbit-to-ground weapons, the Cybertronians will need space assets of their own to avoid being hammered to bits by Rods from God.  Both the animated series and the live-action films featured the Autobot Ark and the Decepticon Nemesis, so I would imagine they and space-capable individual Cybertronians would make an appearance.

Keith said he might write a fake movie trailer like he did for his Twilight/Draka story, the one I posted here.  If he goes through with it, I'll post it here.

I'm posting this here so that any of you fan-fiction writers out there can take the ideas for a spin.  I'm officially retired from fan-fic writing now that The Revenge of the Fallen Reboot is done, but that doesn't mean I can't sow ideas like seed and see what sprouts.

"The Revenge of the Fallen Reboot" is Done

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5208263/1/Revenge_of_the_Fallen_Reboot

I wrote the climactic chapter in a marathon writing session on July Fourth and posted it before I left for a friend's party.  I then wrote the first part of the last chapter during "down time" at said friend's party when the other guys were playing beer pong, his wife was knitting, and I figured I had more productive things to do than get their cat chasing after the laser from an infrared thermometer.

It's done.  I started writing this a few days after I saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in 2009.  I essentially wrote this story to prove a point, or several points:

1. It is possible to have epic Michael Bay-esque action sequences and have a coherent plot and characterization.  I had friends who said they saw the movie for the action scenes and the storyline was a secondary consideration.  My question is, why can't you have both?  Bay can command massive amounts of resources--finding good writers should not be a problem.

2. I could write something better than what appeared on-screen.  The concept was sound, but how it was executed was just aggravating.  I will give props to the people who wrote Revenge of the Fallen for being successful screenwriters, but there were some massive plot-holes in that movie.

3. Anyone can complain, but providing constructive ideas and suggestions shows talent.

This one took me a lot longer to write because I had a lot of other projects going on, like my Harry Potter story "Lord of the Werewolves" (which I was about halfway through at the time) and my original novel Battle for the Wastelands.  The latter was one reason why at one point "The Revenge of the Fallen Reboot" went six months without an update--I think at this point, I was writing the first few chapters of Battle.

Ironically, taking as long as I did to write it meant I was finishing up around the time Transformers: Dark of the Moon came out and interest in the Transformers series revived.  I'm not going to claim to be the best Christian in the world, but I was reminded of Romans 8:28.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  (Romans 8:28, NIV)

It seems like lack of and/or diversion of focus actually came in handy.  :)

This will be my last fan-fiction.  I have much better things to do with my time, especially since now I've got a quarter to a third of Battle to go before the first draft is done.  As I said in my last chapter, I've played in others' sandboxes long enough.  Now it's time to build a new sandbox, so others can play in it later.

(Given how my first two, possibly three finished novels are fan-fic, I'd be a massive hypocrite to object to people using my ideas in their own work, especially if they acknowledged I was the creator and final authority.  Many writers are advised to throw away their first completed novel--however, by using other people's ideas in a non-commercial context, hopefully I "worked the bugs out" in my own writing without sacrificing any of my ideas.)

There's not going to be a "Dark of the Moon Reboot," however much that movie needed one.  If I did write one, I'd keep the space-race, Sam-job-angst, and the stuff that happened with Sentinel Prime, but not replace Mikaela with Carly, keep Bumblebee with Sam, and rewrite the entire invasion plot to account for the probability the human nations and armies would make a much better account of themselves.

I hope y'all enjoy the ride. It's as good as my Harry Potter stories and about one-half to one-third the length, so it won't take as long to read.