the Transformers: Robots in Disguise
They are more than meets the eye. They are the Transformers: Robots in Disguise! Beginning in 2001, the Robots in Disguise (or RiD) cartoon aired in various countries around the world, a return of sorts to the Transformers' roots. Essentially, this series (and the accompanying toy line) revived the notion of robots who transformed into vehicles of various types, and not just animals.
Though there were plenty of those, too. The idea behind this series was that Megatron, on the orders of the Predacon Council, journeyed to earth to take control of the immensely powerful Autobot, Fortress Maximus - a robot who transforms into either a city block or a nigh-invincible battle fortress. Of course, Megatron spent most of his ship's energies just getting to earth, so he had to collect some first.
Unbeknownst to Megatron and his Predacon flunkies, a rather large force of Autobots knew he was headed there, and had spent a good amount of time digging in. They posed as various earth vehicles, interacting with and helping out the native humans, all the while setting up a powerful trans-warp system that would allow them to reach almost any point on earth in just minutes - a truly advanced highway system.
Once Megatron made his presence known, the Autobots revealed themselves, opposing his every effort to seize the earth's various energy sources as his own. They were in the dark about his true mission, however, until rather late in the game - it wasn't until after the Autobots stumbled onto Fortress Maximus' hiding place that Megatron revealed that was why he was really on the planet in the first place.
While Megatron kept upping the stakes in this battle, especially after his transformation into the undead Decepticon, Galvatron, the Autobots were ultimately victorious against this evil loosed on earth. After defeating and capturing both Galvatron and his many minions, the Autobots returned home with Fortress Maximus, presumably taking all of their technology with them - unless they left some behind, just in case.
The real mystery where this series is concerned is just where it takes place in Transformers continuity. Various hints from the translations of the original, Japanese tech specs indicate that all the Transformers featured in the Robots in Disguise cartoon came to 'modern' earth from some far-flung future, one that occurs after even the Beast Machines series. Not that the RiD show itself says anything to this effect.
It does give all kinds of references to the older Transformers series, you see. While these may be mere nods to the legions of Transformers fans, it is nice to think of the RiD series as an end cap to the original Transformers continuity, which has been replaced with the new Armada 'continuity', which apparently starts from a different 'base' entirely. Regardless, RiD has a lot of fun characters.
Thus you find this portion of Technohol 13: the Atomic Drink. Herein lies my efforts to provide the most detailed and accurate description of every Transformer featured in not only the RiD cartoon, but the toy line as well - and there were a whole lot of folks who weren't in the series. Not to mention the folks that received neither a place in the cartoon but also recieved no biographical information on the packaging, either.
These folks, which are duly noted, have only the toy themselves to go on. As such, I've done what many other character sites have done, and provided my own interpretation of just who and what each of these folks are. You can take these or leave them, but I figured that I need not bother with such an effort in the first place if I wasn't going to cover everybody that was present in the RiD toy line.
As are all the other folks covered by Technohol 13, the RiD Transformers are presented for your use in the Marvel Super Heroes Role Playing Game, either the original Classic one or the newer, Saga version. Not that the character biographies for any of these folks aren't a handy reference all by themselves. Either way, I truly hope you get some use out of these descriptions, and perhaps even enjoy them as well.
At any rate, folks here currently include:
the Autobots: learning that the evil Megatron was on his way to earth, if not necessarily why, many heroic Autobots immediately left Cybertron in pursuit. Crossing both space and time to stop this villain and his Predacon minions from causing any serious damage, the Autobots may very well be humanity's last hope!
the Decepticons: after his Predacons proved unable to defeat the veritable flood of Autobots opposing his plans on earth, Megatron decided to manufacture some backup. Either by converting helpless Autobots to evil or by summoning forth aid from the future, Megatron has created a new army on earth: the Decepticons!
the Maximals: as are their Predacon counterparts, the Maximals are robots who can transform into various beast modes. While none of them accompanied the Autobots on their journey to earth, they were nonetheless aided by the spirit of one legendary Maximal from the future, the ghost of Optimus Primal!
the Predacons: Transformers who change into various beast forms, the Predacons were sent to earth under Megatron's command to seize the most powerful Autobot of all - Fortress Maximus! Of course, they needed vast amounts of energy to succeed in this goal, the collection of which set back their mission considerably...!
the Vehicons: though they technically don't exist yet, a small number of Vehicons, deadly engines of destruction created by Megatron in the far future, have been spotted in the modern age, on earth (where they never roamed before). How they arrived is quite a quandry to be sure...!
the Miscellany: the Miscellany is a section of the Transformers: Robots in Disguise reference devoted to oddball characters from that series who did not belong to one of the five factions. All of them are incidentally aligned with the Autobots, but not Autobots proper. Or Transformers, even! But having nowhere else to go, here they sit.
Robots in Disguise Text File Archive:
Collected here for your gaming (or reading) convenience is every single character I have covered for the Transformers: Robots in Disguise reference in just one archive - well, one for each game the 13 currently supports. We hope you enjoy! Availability:
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