Paradox

« Reaching the Omega Point, Chapter Three »
"Paradox"
Publisher	3H Enterprises
First published	July 16, 1999 (BotCon 1999)
Cover date	July 16–18, 1999
Script	Simon Furman
Continuity	3H Beast Wars continuity

Windrazor seeks the Dark Essence in the past while Sandstorm seeks J'nwan in the future.

Synopsis

On a backwater planet, a lone Predacon Hunter is cornered by aerial Skyblades. Out of cowardice, the Hunter presses against a cliffside to hide from his pursuers, inadvertently shifting the centuries old rock of the cliff, revealing an underground passage. Entering the recess, he is drawn further and further inward by a mysterious presence, whose voice leads him to a deep abyss hidden within the darkness. The voice that guided him speaks clearly now, enticing the Hunter to accept his destiny.

On another planet in a future time, the synthetic race known as the Kolar is brutally conquered by one of Shokaract's Heralds, utterly annihilating the Kolar's advanced artistic civilization with Reaver armies and J-Class Warwings, so that it all may be rebuilt as another extension of Shokaract's empire.

In the Observatory on Protos, Leonicus despairs over the spiral to destruction as Shokaract's reign expands further in power and control. Overwhelmed, Leonicus retreats to the Reflectorium to put his mind at ease. He recalls how Primus originally trapped himself and Unicron within metal asteroids, with Primus's later becoming Cybertron, and how Primus created the Covenant as a test-run for the Transformers. The Covenant were set to wait their entire lives for a crucial event known as Point Omega, which would determine the fate of Primus's Grand Plan. But that moment has still not yet come, and the last visit of the Time Walker, the Chronarchitect, left them with a cryptic warning that has, so far, only resulted in both the Covenant's inability to locate the pivotal temporal event that was spoken of, and one of their number having gone missing.

Leonicus is then alerted by Ariex to return to the Observatory, where he is shown the birth of Windrazor and his time-jump to the past with Cataclysm, the latter of whom was ordered by Shokaract search for the Dark Essence in the past. Taking stock in the weight of these events, Leonicus determines that this could indeed be the temporal event they have been seeking. As the Covenant possess their own transwarp technology, they are prepared to follow this trail back through time to the Beast Wars on Earth.

On Prehistoric Earth, Windrazor spots the Predacon leader Megatron flying off in his dragon form and deduces that he has arrived during the Beast Wars. Realizing what this means for the flow of time, he avoids being spotted by the departing Megatron and examines his surroundings. While Cataclysm himself did not survive the time-jump, Windrazor discovers that his fission-brother's tracking device did. The device was designed to locate the Dark Essence and then activate a transwarp beacon linked back to the future. Seeing no alternatives, Windrazor goes forth to seek out the Dark Essence himself, in hopes of returning to his own time.

Meanwhile, at the Maximals' base in Mount St. Hilary, Windrazor's arrival through time has not gone unnoticed. Rhinox has detected the visitor and reports his arrival.

Back on Cybertron in the future, Sandstorm and his team, having trekked through enemy territory, search for the quasi-mystical J'nwan. It is said that Legends of the past reside there, and Sandstorm hopes to gain their assistance in the coming conflict with Shokaract. As the dimension's climate and topography are treacherously confusing and ever-changing, Sandstorm uses his superior mental faculties to just barely press his team ahead.

Windrazor follows the tracking device into a deep cave inside a mountain. The darkness within surrounds him completely, a sense of utter dread growing inside him. Whatever the tracking device had locked onto was close. Windrazor soon discovers a large cavern with a great pit at the source of the device's tracking. Above this pit, however, looms an awesome sight to behold: an eternity of cosmic and temporal wonders shown through a tear of the fabric of space-time. Windrazor then realizes that this whole area had become temporally unstable, disturbing whatever lies in the pit.

Back on the surface, Optimus Primal's Maximals face off against Megatron Predacons in deep canyon, both sides having detected the new arrival and tracked his whereabouts. The Maximals' fleeting hopes that the visitor could be someone from their own time having come to find them led them open to a Predacon ambush. But the Preds' attack is just a distraction; Megatron detects the time-traveler and flies off to its location. With no choice, Optimus Primal follows, leaving his teammates to hold off Megatron's troops.

Having lost the rest of his team to the harshness of J'nwan, Sandstorm finds himself alone, his mind drifting, weary of his mission. On the verge of succumbing to madness himself, he soon collides firmly with the face of an unforeseen cliff wall. Slamming his head against it repeatedly, the pain spurs him back to sanity and, seeing no way around this obstacle, he proceeds to climb up the cliff's vast wall.

In the cave, Windrazor stares at the pit, feeling its malign pull reaching into his mind, and deduces that this must be the Dark Essence. Observing the time rift above once more, he also concludes that something must have gone wrong in this era, something that wasn't supposed to happen in Shokaract's timeline, which has torn the fabric of space-time open once more, now threatening to pull the Dark Essence back into the timestream from whence it came, jeopardizing Shokaract's future rise to power.

A voice in Windrazor's mind urges him to leave the Dark Essence alone and let it disappear, crippling Shokaract's future reign, while another voice wants him to secure it, bring it back to Shokaract and become Herald Maximo. In his hesitation, Windrazor is blasted aside by the newly-arrived Megatron, who takes immense note of the dark pool, which had called out to his mind as well. Surveying the pit, Megatron merrily acknowledges the malevolent presence that lies within: Unicron.

As Sandstorm continues his seemingly endless climb, the agonizing pain felt throughout his body is overcome only by his mind's retreating to the memory of another place, a place whose rigors now seemed enticing by comparison. There, he had trained his whole life for this moment, and now the time had come to prove his mettle. Reaching upward, he finds himself at the top and pulls himself onto the plateau. He is then greeted by a booming voice.

Windrazor launches head-first at Megatron, forcing him away from the pit. The two scuffle until Optimus arrives on the scene. He threatens to shoot Megatron, but his bluff is called since Windrazor is still in Megatron's clutches. Windrazor uses this diversion to strike Megatron, giving Optimus a chance to fire on Megatron and free Windrazor. Shifting to Beast Mode, Windrazor gives in to his primal anger and cuts loose on Megatron. The Dark Essence then seizes this opportunity to possess Windrazor, blast Optimus away, toss Megatron into the pit that was once its prison, and soar out of the cavern to its freedom.

Sandstorm finally meets with the Legends in J'nwan. He pleads with the "Authority" to assist with the impending battle, but the Legends delcine. Their time is past, a new generation must face this battle themselves. Rather than offer further futile protest, Sandstorm distastefully declares the death of Primus's Grand Plan.

Back in the canyon on Earth, the Maximals make their last stand against the Predacons. Just as the Maximals lie on the edge of defeat, the battle suddenly stops. They look up to see why the Predacons stopped firing... and witness a horrific sight: The possessed Windrazor arrives, the Dark Essence overlaying upon his form the silhouette of the Chaos Bringer himself. Unicron has come.

Optimus Primal recovers himself in the cave, noticing Megatron's absence. He ponders how the thing in the pit could have been Unicron, and how it got here on Earth in the past. Though Unicron was assumed destroyed in 2005, Primal wonders if maybe the destruction of Unicron's physical form tore open a rift in space-time that sent Unicron's lifeforce back in time to end up here on prehistoric Earth. Primal then contacts his team to warn them about Unicron, only for his call to be met with static.

On his way back from J'nwan, Sandstorm struggles to understand why the Legends refused to help and how he hadn't foreseen their refusal. To make matters worse, upon his return to the rebels, he receives a report that indicates his worst fears have come true: Point Omega, Shokaract, is nigh.

Unicron, in the body of Windrazor, approaches the Earth-bound Maximals and Predacons. He takes out the Predacons with a psionic blast, but allows the Maximals to fire on him so that he may savor their utter terror and hopelessness for as long as he's willing to wait. Then he stops waiting...

Inside Windrazor's mind, the Veteran and the Cub return to the Badlands for a talk. The Cub had been unable to stop Unicron from possessing them because he and the Veteran are still separate. The Veteran encourages the frightened Cub to complete the merging of their two minds and truly become one being of both body and mind, so that they may overcome Unicron together.

Optimus returns to his team to find them in the midst of being slowly and painfully killed by Unicron-Windrazor. With seemingly no hope left for the Maximals, the shadowy image of Unicron suddenly cries out in pain. Unicron is expelled from Windrazor's body, his Dark Essence retreating back into the underground. But before the Maximals are able to rest and get any answers from Windrazor, a transwarp portal opens to the arrival of a vast being who unleashes an attack on Optimus Primal's spark. Shokaract himself has come.

To be concluded...

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"Most base villain, show youself!"
"Nice going, dog-breath, you sure rattled their cage."

—Silverbolt and Rattrap engage the Predacons.

Optimus Primal: "Let him go, Megatron. I won't ask twice."
Megatron: "I think that if you have questions for our visitor here, and wish him to remain in any sort of condition to answer them, you will lower your weapon and leave, Optimal Optimus. Yees."
*Optimus eventually lowers his weapon*
Megatron: "Excellent."

"Miserable spot for a last stand. I always imagined, I dunno, somewhere a little more glamorous. Somewhere, well, with an audience, replete with swooning fem-bots."
"This is perfect for you, the ideal setting for vermin extermination."

—Rattrap and Blackarachnia

Blackarachnia: "What is it? What's going on?"
Cheetor: "You know how bad our situation looked a moment ago? It's worse."

The Veteran: "Well then, what happened to all that 'tiger by the tail' stuff? It sounded so impressive, all that talk of preferring death to letting go of your individuality. Hey, I bought it. For the first time I figured you had potential, that it could actually work, you and me. So what happens? One planet-eater wants in and you roll over!"
The Cub: "He's too strong. I didn't mean to let him in, but he did and now I can't get him out."
The Veteran: "No. No, you can't. But you're not just a you any more, you're a we. This is a partnership, remember? This, you and me, it shouldn't exist. We shouldn't be having this conversation. But it does, because neither of us are quite willing to relinquish what we were. We're still fighting each other, when we should be working together. In that moment in the cavern you took over, I was just a spectator. That was all you in there - wild, undisciplined, full of anger and hate - and Unicron saw it as an invitation. I can help you get him out, he's not as strong as he seems, the destruction of his physical body and the unprotected journey through overspace really took it out of him. But I can't do it as me, just as you can't do it as you. What do you say?"
The Cub: "I'm afraid."
The Veteran: "And you think I'm not? But this isn't the end, kid, no. This is the beginning! We can do so much, be so much. Don't let it end here, not like this!"

—The Veteran and the Cub have one final talk on the mental plane.

Notes

Production notes

• Mentioned characters: Primus, Megatron, Rodimus Prime
• This was the first chapter of Reaching the Omega Point to be first officially released at BotCon 1999 proper, rather than ahead of it. For a while, it was the only chapter to be exclusively available in the convention's program guide, until it was first posted online at the (now defunct) BotCon: Beyond website on December 8, 2000,^[1] and then later added to BotCon Online on November 13, 2001.^[2]
• The BotCon 2000 comic book contains a recap of this story, featuring an illustration (seen right) of Windrazor fighting Megatron above the Dark Essence. This recap was later posted to BotCon: Beyond, and then moved to BotCon Online on November 13, 2001.
• The full formal titles of both this chapter and its series have varied over years depending on the source:
  • The printed version included in the BotCon 1999 program guide titles the series as "Reaching the Omega Point" and this chapter as "Chapter Three: Paradox"; said titles were likewise later used in the first online version posted to BotCon: Beyond on December 8, 2000.^{[citation needed]}
  • The BotCon 2000 comic recap of this story refers to it as "Reaching the Omega Point: "Paradox" (recap)"^[3]; this title was retained when said recap was later posted on BotCon: Beyond^{[citation needed]} and later still at BotCon Online on November 13, 2001.^[4]
  • When BotCon Online was revamped on November 13, 2001, the new Storyline section of the website kept the series title as "Reaching the Omega Point" but titled the story itself as simply "Part 3: Paradox",^[5] both of which have remained unchanged throughout all proceeding updates made to that section.^[6]
  • However, also after the 2001 revamp, the story's actual webpage changed the series and story titles to just "The Omega Point: Part Three" and "Paradox",^[7] with the latter remaining unchanged to this day.^[8]
  • Finally, when BotCon Online was given several updates on December 12, 2003,^[9] the series title on the story's webpage was partially italicized as "The Omega Point: Part Three", its final and current rendering.^[10][8]

Continuity notes

• Though the Herald who oversees the conquest of the Kolar is unnamed here, it is most definitely supposed to be Antagony, as the events of that scene match her job description history as Herald Maximo, which was previously given in "Herald". And, well, the Herald is identified by the narration as female.
• Sparks were first introduced in the Beast Wars cartoon as the lifeforce, or soul, of a Transformer, fully detailed in the episode appropriately titled "The Spark". In the Marvel The Transformers comics, the Creation Matrix was introduced as the source of all Transformer life, and was later retconned into containing Primus's essence to explain how Primus had originally given life to the Transformers in those comics. It is this story here that first married the Spark concept of Beast Wars with the Primus mythology of the comic, officially declaring Sparks to be fragments of Primus's life essence.
• Having been first mentioned in the previous chapter and in Sandstorm's toy packaging, J'nwan is formally introduced here, described as a quasi-mystical region on Cybertron where reality itself remains in a constant, ever-changing state of quantum flux. At the very heart of J'nwan lies the home of 'Legends' from Cybertron's past.
• The Dark Essence is revealed here to be none other than the lifeforce of Unicron, displaced through time and space from his destruction in 2005. Though, while the latter is merely speculated by Optimus Primal in this story, the BotCon 2000 comic "Terminus", and its recap of this story, confirm that to be the case. Around this same time, by complete coincidence, Japan had also done their own take on the exact same concept of "Unicron's lifeforce turning up on Earth in an unusual era", in the form of the Angolmois Energy that was featured in 1998's Beast Wars II series and 1999's Beast Wars Neo series. Though, during its appearance in Beast Wars II, it was originally treated as merely the sacred life energy of the planet Gaia (later revealed to be a future version of Earth), and only declared (via a possible retcon) to be Unicron's energy a year later in Beast Wars Neo. And, later in 2010, the Aligned continuity family would introduce Dark Energon as a third version of this same concept, created independently of the previous two in yet another coincidence.
• At the time, this story was the first new piece of Transformers fiction in the Western World to truly spotlight Unicron in an important role in nine years, ever since his last real appearance in Marvel Comics' The Transformers issue #75 in 1990. As he had been absent for so long (heh) and had not yet gained the levels of (over)saturation he would acquire in years to come, Unicron's return was met with much acclaim and praise by the fandom, with people eager to read the conclusion of the Omega Point saga that would come a year later at BotCon 2000.
• Optimus Primal's wondering if the era in which this story (and the Beast Wars as a whole) takes place was "some kind of nexus" that "their entire race was inextricably linked," calls back to "Covenant", in which Leonicus similarly referred to the temporal event that the Covenant sought to locate as "another nexus, one from which [their] ultimate fate will be decided."

Continuity errors

• The Hunter's backstory from before he finds the Dark Essence is a bit odd when set against the context of the Beast Machines cartoon. He is described as having lived an easy Predacon life of hunting down and executing Maximals after Megatron took over Cybertron. But in Beast Machines, Megatron conquered Cybertron not with Predacons but with Vehicons, and whatever benefits (if any at all) the Predacons reaped from Megatron's conquest were never disclosed in that show. Beast Machines story editor Bob Skir would even strongly imply that Megatron wiped out all of the Predacons on Cybertron along with the Maximals.^[11] From a real-world perspective, the Beast Machines cartoon had not yet aired at the time of this story's initial release, with the first episode having only just received an advanced screening at that BotCon. As such, author Simon Furman was likely not privy to all of the show's finer details (aside from Megatron ruling Cybertron) at the time that he wrote this story. However, a Fox Kids Fall 1999 press release had been released on February 9—five months before the convention—in which a brief story treatment for the Beast Wars cartoon's sequel was featured. Said sequel—originally named "Beast Hunters"—referred to Megatron as having "hordes of Predacons" under his command. Furman likely used this early treatment as the basis for the Hunter's backstory, naturally unaware that the Predacons would ultimately be replaced by the Vehicons in the finished product, making the Hunter's backstory a rather awkward fit in hindsight.
• Primus is described here as the "last of the Light Gods" in reference to how Unicron and Primus were both part of greater pantheons in the versions of their backstory given in "The Legacy of Unicron!", Transformers: The Facts, and "The Primal Scream", with the first two referring to Primus as "Lord of the Light Gods", and the latter declaring their battle to have been near the end of the era of gods, calling Unicron the "last of the Dark Gods". However, the Primus/Unicron backstory given back in "Covenant" declared the other gods to have only existed in the old universe that Unicron devoured, with Primus not only having been created in the new universe, but created alone, without a greater pantheon, for the sole purpose of countering Unicron.
• This story claims that the Axalon had been "ambushed and attacked by Megatron's rogue band of Predacons during a transwarp jump," which led to the start of the Beast Wars. Except, according to what was actually said and shown in the first episode of the cartoon, that isn't what happened at all. It was the Axalon who chased after Megatron's fleeing ship, having been assigned to pursue it after Megatron stole the Golden Disk, since the Axalon was the only ship that could "lock on to Megatron's warp signature".
• Dinobot expresses feelings of divided loyalties and honor in his spark, but this phenonenon is not supposed to start happening until "Nemesis Part 2", three episodes after this point, following Rampage's death in "Part 1".
• How exactly does Megatron recognize the Dark Essence as Unicron almost instantly on the spot?

Other errors

• The fourth paragraph contains the phrase "As he went deeper, so the Hunter became aware of a presence," in which the word "so" probably should either not be there or instead be the word "soon".
• In the sixth paragraph, there is an extra space between the ellipsis and the closing quotation mark in the line "This... ". This is repeated at the beginning of the next line of dialogue, but at the beginning of the dialogue line of " ...this is your destiny!"
• In the tenth paragraph after the second break, Protos's name is misspelled as "Protus".
• The second paragraph after the sixth break contains the phrase "No life signs, indigenous or otherwise, registered, and he could fine no trace of any technology." The word "fine" ought to instead be "find".
• In the first paragraph after the seventh break, there is a second, extra "as" in the phrase "declared Silverbolt, as around him as he and his fellow Maximals came under heavy fire from concealed positions in the rocks above them".
• In the seventh paragraph after the seventh break, there is an extra comma after Rhinox's line of "Go!"
• In the first paragraph after the eighth break, Windrazor is said to bump his head on a cliff face, but that's actually Sandstorm.
• In the fourth paragraph after the eighth break, there is an extra space between the ellipsis and the word "and" in the line "... and began to climb."
• In the second paragraph after the tenth break, there is an extra space between the ellipsis and the question mark in the line "Uncomprehending, his hand explored blindly, desperately, eventually finding an edge, and beyond that... ?"
• In the eighth paragraph after the eleventh break, there is an extra comma after Megatron's line of "Why?"
• In the third paragraph after the twelfth break is the phrase "a shallow tributary of main river had cut a narrow gully through the rock", in which a "the" is missing between "of" and "main river".
• In the third paragraph after the fourteenth break (in the online versions, see the next bullet point for more), there is an unneeded "the" in the phrase "one with which the their entire race was inextricably linked."
• There are three discrepancies between the convention's printed version and all online versions:
  • In the first paragraph after the fourth break, the printed version renders Teletraan I's name as "Teletran One", while the online versions all render it as "TeleTran One". Neither is really accepted as the "correct" spelling, though.
  • In the fourth paragraph after the ninth break, what is written in the printed version as "the rise of Shokaract" is written more redundantly as "the rise and rise of Shokaract" in the online versions.
  • The printed version contains an extra break following the first paragraph after the fourteenth break, whereas all online versions instead have another instance of using the word "Unicron" as single-word paragraph.
• As this text story has a lot more instances of spoken dialogue than preceding chapters, there are more frequent occasions in the text where the first letters of the words that begin new sentences of dialogue (and which follow preceding lines of dialogue) are not capitalized when they should be:
  • In the sixth paragraph, the S in the word "step" that begins the line of "step forward and claim the key to all possible futures."
  • Also in the sixth paragraph, the T in word "this" that begins the line of " ...this is your destiny!"
  • In the fourth paragraph after the 12th break, the word "A" that begins the line of "a new generation must carry the torch."
  • In the first paragraph after the 13th break, the S in the word "somewhere" that begins the line of "somewhere, well, with an audience, replete with swooning fem-bots."
  • In the third paragraph after the final break, the Y in the word "you" that begins the line of "you cannot resist me!"

Transformers references

• Like in the first chapter, Leonicus recalls the history of how Primus originally trapped Unicron and himself within metal asteroids, just as such was stated in Marvel UK The Transformers issue #150, Transformers: The Facts, the Marvel US The Transformers issue #61, and issue #74.
• Like in the previous chapter, Windrazor instantly identifies Megatron in his dragon form emerging from the volcano at the end of the Beast Wars episode "Master Blaster". While this suggests that the Beast Wars are commonly known enough in Windrazor's time for him to recognize Megatron on the spot, of import is Megatron's dragon form being what specifically gives him away to Windrazor. From a real-world perspective, Windrazor recognizing Megatron's dragon mode may very well be a reference to the aforementioned "Beast Hunters" story treatment, which specifically referred to "the evil dragon Megatron" as that series' main antagonist. Though Megatron did retain his dragon form for the first season of Beast Machines, he despised it to the point of trying to hide its existence and rid himself of it, details that were likely inaccessible to Furman at the time that he wrote this story.
• Upon realizing that he has arrived in the Beast Wars, Windrazor reflects upon the events of the cartoon's final episode, "Nemesis Part 2", which have yet to come by this point in the Beast Wars' time, but which have long since already occurred by his future time. (And was also written by Furman!)
• During the battle between the Maximals and the Predacons, the story describes Megatron's forces as "those both still loyal to him and still functional", specifically name-checking Inferno, Rampage, Quickstrike, Waspinator and Dinobot. Of the roster of Predacons who were active during this point in the cartoon, Tarantulas is distinctly absent due to his treacherous behavior in the aforementioned "Master Blaster" episode, whose events immediately preceded this battle scene.
• The story refers to Megatron as having taken the spark of the original Megatron for himself, which recreated him into his new dragon form; both of which occurred in "Master Blaster".
• Though it was first alluded to back in "Herald", some sort of event, one that was not supposed to have happened in the timeline of Shokaract's future era, had occurred during the Beast Wars. This anomalous event had caused time to become destabilized enough to reopen a rift directly above the Dark Essence. The BotCon 2000 comic "Terminus" would later confirm this event to have been the timestorm that formed after the Predacon Megatron attempted to kill Optimus Prime in "The Agenda (Part III)".
• Rodimus Prime's destroying Unicron with the Matrix in 2005 occurred in The Transformers: The Movie. Though, here, the Matrix is referred to as the "Creation Matrix", its Marvel Comics name, rather than what what it was called the movie, the "Matrix of Leadership". This is yet another attempt by Furman to combine the comics and cartoon versions of the Matrix together into the same singular concept, which would eventually become cemented by later fiction.
• Heh. "They always got Waspinator!"

References

External links

• The Omega Point: Part Three - "Paradox" on the Botcon Online archives
• BotCon 2000 comic Reaching the Omega Point: "Paradox (recap)" on the BotCon Online archives