Sunday 20 September 2015

Genius Loci

Been FOREVER since I updated this but I asked a little while on my Twitter and FB if people would be interested in seeing a pitch I developed for a Spotlight Metroplex. Some things to bear in mind here that this predates the actual Spotlight Metroplex, and the whole Titan storyline. It also predates Overlord's appearance by quite a while. So it's safe to post because sadly it can never be, but I hope you enjoy a look at what could have been a very different tale, steeped in the Infiltration mythology and set in an undetermined time frame to allow it to be followed up on however future stories saw fit. I wanted to explore the idea of an unintended consequence of the Transformers infiltrations and interference on alien worlds and to explore the idea of evolution and how places can become living things - the Spirit of the Place. Here's how things could have gone...
Open on a sketch, done in a style circa 1000AD of a few huts. Through pencil sketches, paintings, grainy photographs we see the construction of Metroplex. He was built over centuries, added to, made larger and larger until one point he became a sentient city.
On a double page splash we see the massive expanse that is the city of Metroplex – abandoned.
He wonders at what point he became alive. He finds his records scrambled, damaged somehow… He sees snatches of history, fragments. He sees that a war raged here once, the inhabitants fighting. But there’s something odd, unfamiliar in the records. Symbols he hasn’t seen before, records in an unfamiliar language – Cybertronian. Realises there were mechanical lifeforms there, in secret, in disguise. Digging for something deep in the earth. Watches them transform. He creates a small robot in their image, controlled entirely by him, sets him to work around him, repairing, modifying. Finally fixing a few sensors he discovers an image of one of the symbols on a city in the north – A Decepticon symbol.
Transforming his city into a mobile fortress he heads toward it, tracking a lonely and dusty course across the scorched landscape. Along the way he reviews images from the history of the world (perhaps a seed of something setting up something that is coming down the road). Sees pictures and reads stories of the world’s mythology, of giants that walked the earth like gods and dragons that scourged the skies. Of gods that fell asleep deep beneath the ancient cities. Reaching a vast mountain range he can go no further. Discarding his weaponry he uses it to create another robot to cross the mountain range.
The two small robots separate, each with their own path. Finally one of them discovers the city – Trypticon city. Abandoned, desolate, strewn with corpses and pieces of fallen ‘bots. Using what little information Metroplex has of the world his little robot downloads the information into Trypticon city. A rumble. Violent. The information isn’t going in right, it’s being corrupted. Fragments of the legends are going in. Pieces of the earlier panels. “I” “AM” “A” “GOD!!” The feed goes black.
Elsewhere the other robot, Sixgun stops, sensing something bad, but then sees something in the distance… is that another city?
Back at the mountain range…
THOOM
THOOM
THOOM
Metroplex is distracted, sounds like thunder…
BOOM!
Trypticon, the multi-storey monster, smashes through the mountain range!
Trypticon, like a mech-Godzilla starts to trample through the mighty City of Metroplex. Without armaments Metroplex knows that his history, the records and culture will all be lost. All of the treasures and truths of this city. He begins to transform into one of the heroes in the memory banks, to counter the image of the dragon.
The fight is like nothing seen before. Two giants fighting. The landscape is ripped apart, sonic booms tear from every blow.
Metroplex manages to knock Trypticon down who transforms into his attack mode.
Metroplex is outgunned and taking heavy damage, but he has a plan. He can't afford for everything to be destroyed - the knowledge, the memories, the art and culture...
Meanwhile Sixgun has made his way to the main generator for the region, where he initiates a massive EMP.
Metroplex initiates a memory dump into Scamper who recoils with pain.
Metroplex transforms back into a city as the Pulse blasts through him and Trypticon - knocking them both off-line.
As the EMP shockwave surges onwards, Scamper drives off a cliff into a water trench, the shockwave passing overhead as he plunges into the water.
Then silence. Dust blows again through the twin cities of Metroplex and Trypticon.
The water shows no sign of Scamper coming back out.
Sixgun lies deactivated, lifeless next to the EMP generator. The sign that was marked "Danger, Overload" has partially fallen down, it now reads - "Overlord". As we pull back we can see that the facility is actually the Decepticon powermaster Overlord.
Pulling further and further back we see a track and a launch pad. Next to it is a sign reading "The Omega Spaceport - The Supreme Travel Location"
The End?

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