Sparkwar Pt. III: The Siege

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Om nom nom nom...
"Sparkwar Pt. III: The Siege"
Season	2
No. in season	9
Production company	Mainframe Entertainment
Airdate	April 5, 2000 (Canada) October 7, 2000 (USA)
Written by	Steven Melching
Directed by	Luke Carroll
Animation studio	Mainframe Entertainment

Having found the imprisoned sparks, the Maximals have to race against time to stop Megatron from consuming them and becoming a god.

Synopsis

Nightscream flaps along beneath a Cybertronian moon, evading hordes of drones. He meets up with Cheetor and Blackarachnia. Megatron's big floating head is hovering over the central spaceport, and the Maximals wonder how they can put a stop to whatever Megatron is re-supplying for.

You can turn away and scowl all you want, but it's still bath time, mister.

Obsidian and Strika are nearby, ordering troop movements, when a familiar howl sounds. It's Noble, who obliviously strolls up to the Maximals' hiding spot in plain sight, leading the drones right to them. Cheetor orders a retreat, as they're on recon; the group disposes of their attackers and begins to leave. But despite Nightscream's pleadings, Noble continues fighting. Nightscream finally fires off a sonic burst that destroys Noble's attackers, and the beast retreats along with them.

Cheetor admonishes Nightscream over his "little pet" nearly getting them killed, and orders him to cut the creature loose. Nightscream reluctantly heads in the other direction, with Noble following like a puppy.

Later, Optimus reminds Cheetor and Rattrap of their upcoming mission's importance. Rattrap wonders if they could get away with a Trojan horse gimmick. The others, and the audience, look at him like he's nuts.

Cheetor, Nightscream, and Silverbolt are to distract the Vehicons; the rest go to infiltrate the big head and free the Sparks. Rattrap offers up his disks again, new and improved this time. As the group heads out, Cheetor coughs meaningfully and nods in Noble's direction. Optimus responds with a look to Nightscream, who reluctantly shoos him away. Noble departs with a puppy-like whimper, and the group moves out.

Thrust reports to Megatron, who manifests himself in the form of his glowing red Spark. Megatron opens the Spark containment grid, releasing a pair of drifting Sparks. Energy shoots out from Megatron... and the Sparks are consumed, absorbed into his own, as Thrust watches dumbfounded. Megatron testily demands Thrust's report, while gobbling up a couple more Sparks. The Maximals no longer concern him, he tells his General; he's mastered the secrets of the Oracle, and nothing can stop his grand ascension now.

I'm not cleaning this up.

On the surface, Nightscream and company initiate their "noisy distraction". Optimus's group tries out Rattrap's scramblers, which seem to work, and leap aboard a hovertransport that's heading for the big head. The distraction group, elsewhere, plays a game of cat and mouse with the drones. Cheetor slaps a disk on one of the drones, causing the others to read it as a Maximal, and blast it to scrap. Silverbolt is impressed.

The generals examine the wrecked drones, and find one of the disks. Primal and company, meanwhile, have infiltrated the big head. Primal listens to the voices in his head — literally — which direct him toward the Sparks.

Strika figures out how to reconfigure the device's harmonics, causing feedback to overloading all of the other disks. A moment later, the Maximals are picked up by the big head's sensors. Thrust soon arrives to attack. The distraction team soon finds themselves similarly occupied.

Rattrap gets the Maximals through a doorway, then seals it before Thrust can follow. The group finds themselves in a large round chamber with a seal at the bottom... a seal which opens to reveal a huge canister full of glowing, seething Sparks. The canister rises to meet the orange-red form of Megatron above. He's pleased to see the team; tentacles lash out and snare the group.

Megatron initiates his trans-ascension, chomping down on a few more Sparks. He intends to unite every Spark on Cybertron into one, perfect being — himself. The containment unit opens, and the Sparks drift upwards. Optimus entreats them to resist, but Megatron just laughs.

On the surface, all the combatants stop and stare as Megatron's ultra-Spark rises out from the big head. Megatron lashes out with energy beams that suspend the Maximals in mid-air and begin to draw out their Sparks. Nightscream manages to evade the beams momentarily, till he trips on a fallen drone. But as the beam begins to drag him away, he sees Noble lurching towards him. Strika sees him too, and orders her drones to attack. But the mighty beast is too much for the drones. Obsidian and Strika are bested as well. Noble reverts to Savage and blasts the beam holding Nightscream, freeing him. Savage launches, heading for Megatron, but Megatron zaps him, knocking him out of the sky. Savage falls and hits the ground hard. He reverts to Noble, and dies cradled in Nightscream's arms.

Oh, no. Don't think playing dead's going to save you from the tub, either!

Nightscream, infuriated, blasts Megatron with his sonic weapon. The blast disrupts Megatron's hold on the Maximals, the captive Sparks, and himself, too, as he howls in agony. The Sparks begin falling back into the containment unit, and the big head begins to plummet. The Maximals quickly work to gain control of the vessel; Rattrap extends a bridge to a control center, and finds the manual control system. The head falls from view... then rises again. Cheetor and Silverbolt are briefly exultant, till they turn back to Nightscream, still kneeling beside Noble.

The group gathers around a holo-image of the slain beast, as Optimus eulogizes the creature who bought them their victory with his life. But elsewhere on the empty streets of Cybertron, Megatron's orange-red Spark can be seen flitting through the shadows.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"The Maximals no longer concern me. I have mastered the secrets of the Oracle and now no force in the universe can prevent my ascension!"

—Megatron enters his megalomaniacal phase. Again.

"If anyone knows how to cause confusion, it's our little Rattrap."

—Silverbolt sums up Rattrap's character in one sentence.

"The sparks! What are you doing?!"
"Fulfilling my destiny, Optimus Primal. Uniting every spark on Cybertron into one perfect being — me."

—Optimus and Megatron

"Abandon head!!!"

—Rattrap keeps in mind his location in times of crisis.

Notes

Animation and technical errors

• Blackarachnia pulls an impressive stunt: when attacking the Artillery Drones, she somersaults forward, but her right leg spins backwards, clipping through her entire body.

Continuity errors

• How can Megatron speak as just a spark?
• When Rattrap, Optimus, and Cheetor reach the top of the elevator in the Oracle's chamber, the Oracle's portal-like structure is shown in the background to be active with a starry display for the third time this season, when it should be inactive after the Oracle itself had hid itself away inside Optimus's body back in "Fallout".
• The technorganic Maximal sparks are depicted in their usual light blue, when "Revelations Part II: Descent" established that they have unique colours.
• Why does Megatron's body have a manual control system in the first place? Or a control system at all?
  • For that matter, why does the Mal begin to fall when Megatron is defeated? He had already been separated from it for several minutes by that point, so he couldn't have been controlling it. At the start of the season it hovered in the air just fine without Megatron's spark at all.

Continuity notes

• Gadgets and powers:
  • Cheetor can throw his swords like boomerangs.

Transformers references

• When calling the sparks to him, Megatron says "let us all become one!"

Real-world references

• Strika and Obsidian direct their troops through the NATO phonetic alphabet.
• Rattrap at one point suggests pulling the Trojan Horse trick on Megatron.

Trivia

• A Copter Drone shows a lot of emotion as it pleads for its life.
• In spite of the numerous editorial decisions to remove firearms and other examples of overt violence from Beast Machines, this episode features Megatron implicitly killing a whole ton of Maximals by literally eating their souls. Dark.

Foreign localization

French

• Title: "La Guerre des Étincelles (Partie 3)" ("The War of the Sparks (Part 3)")

German

• Title: "Der Held" ("The Hero")
• Original airdate: December 23, 2000

Italian

• Title: "Sparkwar (terza parte) - L'assedio" ("Sparkwar (third part) - The siege")

• Weirdly, in the title "Sparkwar" is left in English.

Japanese

• Title: "Eien no Yūjō" (永遠の友情, "The Eternal Friendship")
• Original airdate: January 16, 2005

Mandarin

• Title: "Huǒzhǒng Dàzhàn " (火种大战, "Spark War")

Brazilian Portuguese

• Title: "Guerra das Chamas Parte 3: O Cerco" ("Sparkwar Part 3: The Siege")

Spanish

• Title: "Guerra de Chispas Parte 3: El Asedio" ("Sparkwar Part 3: The Siege")

Home video releases

DVD

2005 — Super Lifeform Transformers: Beast Wars Returns — Volume 6 (Geneon Entertainment) — Japanese audio only.
2006 — Beast Machines: Transformers — The Complete Series (Rhinomation)
2014 — Transformers: Beast Machines — The Complete Series (Shout! Factory)
2007 — Transformers: Beast Machines — Season Two: Volume One (Sony)
2007 — Transformers: Beast Machines — Complete Season Two (Sony)
2009 — Transformers: Beast Machines — Intégrale Saison 2 (Sony) — French audio only.