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When did it suddenly become cool to hate everything? It's a growing problem, especially in the entertainment world, and no one benefits from an increasingly hard to please, pessimistic audience.
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Comments, crits and questions are welcome and encouraged!
SOUNDWAVE Function: Communications Expert Alternate Mode: Oshkosh HEMTT M985 with specialized communications array Strength: 5 Intelligence: 10 Speed: 3 Endurance: 5 Rank: 7 Courage: 3 Firepower: 6 Skill: 9 Soundwave is obsessed with the pursuit of knowledge. So much so, in fact, that he removed the emotion circuits of his processor to free up more space for pure data storage, leaving him with a detached, monotone vocal synthesizer. In order to aid him in his research, Soundwave constructed three autonomous drones – Rumble, Ravage and Laserbeak – to act as independent scouts to gather data on the Decepticons’ environment and opponents. When Soundwave’s drones return to him, they link into the robot’s mainframe and upload all the intelligence they have gathered, adding it to Soundwave’s own consciousness. Soundwave’s largest flaw stems from his largest asset, his lack of emotion. Whereas emotion does not have an effect on his efficiency, the lack of it frequently gets in the way of his decision-making and his ability to interact with most of his teammates. Megatron favors Soundwave for his no-nonsense attitude, a fact which annoys the fiercely loyal but stupid Bonecrusher to no end. Soundwave also acts as the Decepticons’ main channel of communications. His substantial array is powerful enough not only to allow communication between any two points on Earth, but, with a focused datastream, can even reach Cybertron. This ability to communicate with allies on the Transformers’ homeworld is a luxury the opposing Autobots do not have and are not aware of. In robot mode, Soundwave retains all of his communications capability and drone interactivity. His dish can also transform into a sonic cannon, able to emit a variety of sound-based attacks; including a subsonic shockwave, a shrill receptor-piercing tone, and a radio-jamming signal. For armed combat, Soundwave is also outfitted with a shoulder-deployed repeating laser. ------------------------------------------------- Oh, Soundwave. What a pain in my ass. So, first things first: the vehicle mode. I never wanted him to be a cassette player. Even among the G1 handheld altmode crew, a cassette player is done. At least a gun shoots bullets and a microscope or camera fits the character. For some reason I've always had an armored truck altmode in mind for Soundwave; I guess it stems from his Machine Wars toy. When I saw Energon Signal Flare with his big ol' radar dish, that sealed the deal; I was like, "That's it. That's Soundwave." And so here we have an HEMTT (a real vehicle, which Animated Ultra Magnus was based on) with a totally fictional communications array of some sort, which is sort of inspired by the Godzilla series' MASER tanks. I think it fits the spirit of the G1 character best; it's still related to sound and communication, and it allows for interactivity with "cassettes," or in this case giant USB thumb drives (but more on that in the drones' own entry). Don't get me wrong, I really like the directions that Animated and ROTF took their Soundwaves, which were each different aspects of the same idea, both remaining very faithful to the character. I took the idea of Soundwave's voice and function and developed his personality to follow suit, whereas most previous incarnations have just made his personality "really loyal to Megatron". The idea of his voice being a result of him removing his own emotion circuits is ripped off directly from Derrick Wyatt's reasoning behind Animated Perceptor's Stephen Hawking-soundalike voice. To make a Star Trek reference for some reason, this version of Soundwave is a lot like early Data. He's incredibly knowledgeable about concrete stuff, but he's usually totally oblivious in any sort of social situation. Loyalty is no longer a defining factor in his personality; he just believes that the Decepticon cause is "right". His transformation was a nightmare to work out. I knew I wanted the cabin to form his chest to mimic G1 Soundwave's cassette door, I wanted the comm array to deploy over his shoulder without being removed, and I wanted the arms to form from the truck bed so that the two drones in storage mode could be easily deployable from his forearms. The end result is actually deceptively simple if totally unorthodox. Basically, the entire rear end of the vehicle except the wheel wells (which form the legs) is on a rail that extends from the back of the right side of the cabin. The back end then rotates 90 degrees counter-clockwise about 3/4 along its length, making the now-perpendicular back of the truck symmetrical in width relative to the cabin. I then slides along the rail to become flush with the back of the cabin, and the whole apparatus folds down 90 degrees to form the shoulders and arms. Okay, maybe it's not so simplistic after all. When/if I post instructions it should clear things up considerably. I'm pretty damn proud of it, in any case. Also, =artoni (inadvertently) figured out my horrible secret: the whole initial catalyst for Legacy was trying to match up Transformers characters with Team Fortress 2 classes, one set per team (barring leaders). Bumblebee is the scout, Starscream the soldier, Ironhide the heavy. Soundwave's the engineer, and Ravage, Rumble and Laserbeak correspond roughly to the sentry, dispenser and teleporter respectively - but more on that next week. In any case, the idea's taken on a life of its own since then so I can't really say that's the only impetus for the project, but there you go. Congrats Artoni. Well, I think that hits on pretty much all the points I wanted to touch on. I love you Soundwave but I'm glad I'm done with you. Next: Soundwave's Drones |
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Comments
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Beware the Terror of Tyrantis!
Proud member of the DA villains guild: [link]
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Have you seen my mind? I seem to have lost it.
Its totally cool in any aspect. He had a G1 appearence like his color scheme, arms, a left-shoulder-gun and chest with "buttons". His head is also G1, but for me it looks like more Animated
Personally when I thinked about how Legacy Soundwave will look like, I thinked about a helicopter, a E-3 AWACS, a van like ScionX B... but never imagined THIS truck
His story is also great, reminds me of Animated Perceptor, which also removed all his "emotion softwave" so he will be smarter
And about its transformation... if a Ironhide was for me a hard job, Soundwave is a Excalibur in stone
And about overall new informations... did he disliked a Starscream's ruling over army? He is probably loayal to Megatron, and very smart, so why he dont take a commnand over his army?Also, just a stupid question... why "Rumble" and not "Frenzy"?
And now we know a new Decepticon, Bonecrusher... I have now idea what he could be. Because it dont seems he will be a member of the Constructicons. So maybe like his movie-counterpart... who know
And as the final words.... you are RLY GREAT ARTIST, which makes something new only myself and make a great work so... keep it up *thumbs up*
P.S.: So, we know about these Decepticons: Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave (and his minions). 3/10... are there also composed Thundercracker and Skywarp, like it will be 5/10 known D-cons?
About Soundwave's relationship with Starscream: Soundwave is the phrase "book smart, not street smart" taken to the extreme - he has endless technical knowledge, but he has trouble interacting with other Decepticons because he cannot perceive emotions. He cannot detect Starscream's scheming, does not question even blatant lies and cannot comprehend sarcasm. Soundwave is loyal to the Decepticon cause and its leader, but not necessarily to Megatron himself (unlike his G1 counterpart), and hence does not have a problem with Starscream's leadership.
I'll hold off on commenting much on the drones until their separate entry, but they transform into what are basically gigantic USB drives for their storage mode. You can see them on Soundwave's vehicle mode right now; Laserbeak is loaded in the comm array and Rumble (left) and Ravage (right) are stowed on the truck's bed. As usual, Laserbeak is a condor (appearing in "robot" mode here), Ravage is a jaguar and Rumble is a humanoid robot.
Bonecrusher, along with a couple of other Decepticons, are more or less original characters and only loosely based on pre-existing Transformers. He'll be the next Decepticon to be posted.
I'll throw you a bone and give you the six characters I've mentioned but haven't posted entries for yet: Jazz, Red Alert, Mirage, Thundercracker, Bonecrusher, and Skywarp. There's also Galvatron but that's Series Two.
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Just call me Cobalt
Your everyday friendly Fox
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