These are short fanfics I've written that tell the tale of a single character
or small group of characters during the period between the Great War of the
Autobots and Decepticons and the start of the Beast Wars. They share a
number of common themes, but no strict continuity, so don't be surprised to
see contradictions between one story and another. They're listed in the
order they were written.
While I feel free to have one story contradict the continuity of another, I
do tend to revisit themes or storylines every so often, leading to some
"sub-universes" that are linked together. I have added some color-coded
notes to each entry to let you know which ones have some links. If I miss
one, let me know. "300 Year Gap" refers to stories set between the end of G1
and the start of Beast Wars, and includes those I used to call Retrieval
Stories. Not all 300 Year Gap stories are in the same sub-continuity, it's
more of a thematic catch-all bin.
Tales of the Intermezzo - 1998
- "Decoy" - A character from the
Machine Wars line goes from a nobody to a somebody. 300 Year
Gap
- "Sky Link" - Not every Autobot hero
got a hero's welcome on returning to Cybertron.... Picture now available, but read the story first. 300 Year Gap
- "S&H" - Sometimes you get the bear,
sometimes the bear gets you. This tale is lighter in tone than the two
above, and stars Defcon, a character who appeared in one episode of the
cartoon. 300 Year Gap
- "I Am" - The war is over for Omega
Supreme.... 300 Year Gap
- "Time's Blister" - What about the
humans during all this? This somewhat dry story starts to paint a picture of
what they might have been up to. Metatime Story
- "Planet Brawn" - Come with a couple
of Cybertronians to visit the original location of one of the most famous
restaurant chains on Cybertron! 300 Year Gap
- "Sunset" - For some Autobots, the
War never ended. 300 Year Gap
- "Night Watchman" - They also
serve.... Skyjack Trilogy
- "Ethos" - A young Scuba ponders what
makes Maximals and Predacons different. 300 Year Gap
plus BWII.
Tales of the Intermezzo - 1999
- "Sentinel" - A hundred years after
the events of "Time's Blister," the past catches up with Adrian Witwicky.
Metatime Story
- "AKA Primal" - The adventures of our
favorite Boss Monkey when he was a young protoform.... 300
Year Gap
- "Parable" - The Predacon
storyteller Aki-M entertains the masses with a tale from the very beginning
of the Great War.
- "POW" - Most died. Some joined the
Predacons. But what happened to the other Decepticons that failed to avoid
capture? 300 Year Gap
- "Pairbond" - A Nebulan walks into
a bar.... Incorrect Continuity Guess Story
- "Face" - It all began and ended with
Nucleon. A tale set in the intermission between the G1 and G2 comicbook
titles. Actionmaster War
- "Perchance" - What is it that
makes you who you are? Brain? Body? Spark? The ever-logical Prowl has
reason to consider this question as I splice together bits of G1 cartoon, G1
comic and Beast Machines. Actionmaster War
- "Name" - On a seemingly insignificant
world, the first creature capable of naming things awakens to the concept of
names. And then her world is destroyed.... Elements of the Furman issues of
the comic and the Beast Machines show are employed here. Incorrect Continuity Guess Story
Tales of the Intermezzo - 2000
- "X" - What really happened to
Megatron after Unicron found him? This story ties in elements from
Battlestars, the Japanese "Return of Star Convoy" series. Battlecross
- "Second Seed" - So, the story of
Beast Machines is over. What next? This story speculates about what might
happen to Cybertron aeons after the Great Reformatting. Post-Beast Machines Speculation
- "Repro Men" - After the Great War,
a group of Maximals tries to find Vector Sigma in order to start restoring
the population lost to the conflict. Along the way, they discuss
alternatives in case they don't find Vector Sigma.... 300
Year Gap
- "Freedom" - Sometimes, the
revolutionaries aren't who you'd expect. Post-Beast
Machines Speculation
- "Goons" - Unless you share a lot of
interests with me, you're likely to find this totally inexplicable. It's a
crossover with The Goon Show, a 1950s radio humor show on the BBC.
Tales of the Intermezzo - 2001
- "Soul of the City" - Gleefully mixing
together bits of continuity, this story answers the question "What happened
to Metroplex?" Skyjack Trilogy
- "Full Circle" - The final part
of the "Skyjack Trilogy" (Night Watchman and Soul of the City are the first
two parts), set in the far future as humanity reaches a turning point that
could affect the entire universe. And it's up to the Last Decepticon to stop
them! Skyjack Trilogy
- "Regret" - You can't keep a bad
spark down.... 300 Year Gap with Masterforce link.
- "Virus Warning" - Metal Mental
Fatigue. Actionmaster War
Tales of the Intermezzo - 2002
- "Head and Heart" - Years after
Masterforce and Victory, Minerva seeks to find herself...or at least flee
from reminders of her old human half. Battlecross
- "Holes" - Late in the final days of
the Beast Wars story, Rattrap finds a few holes that need plugging. Beast
Wars/G1 link (non-300 Year Gap).
Tales of the Intermezzo - 2003
- "Old Flame" - Set between Armada
and Energon, a short character piece as one of the kids from Armada deals
with some issues. Probably going to be contradicted something fierce, but
hey. Armada/Energon link
- "Alert" - Set after the Actionmaster War, this explains the entry of a few
characters into the Transformers: Universe storyline.
Tales of the Intermezzo - 2004
- "Elseworld" - A departure from
"pure" Transformers fanfic, this looks at what happens when more than one
alien life form ends up on Earth in 1984. JLAutobots
- "League" - A followup to Elseworld,
merging more of the two mythoses (mythoi?) and forming the Justice League of
Autobots! JLAutobots
- "Meister" - A foray into the
Alternators/Binaltech storyline, explaining why Jazz changed his name.
Among other things. Heh.
Tales of the Intermezzo - 2005
- "Jolted" - Due to various reasons
that don't bear going into here, Energon didn't flow very smoothly into
Cybertron. Which means plenty of gaps for me to exploit, starting with the
take of Jolt heading off for ComiCon International 2020! Energon/Cybertron link.
- "Ripples" - Jetfire starts to find
that his memory is playing tricks on him. He remembers things that no one
else does, bits of the past that are no longer part of history. So he sets
out to try to get his head together.... Armada/Energon/Cybertron link.
Tales of the Intermezzo - 2006
- "Shift" - Downshift is a complicated
bot, and no one understands him but his woman. Armada/Energon/Cybertron link.
- "Howl" - Some time in the past, as
Lugnutz enjoys brief freedom from Crosswise's prison, he engages in a little
poetic homage. A/E/C based.
- "Kiss" - Sometimes one life isn't
enough, but two lives may be too much. And sometimes you can go home again,
in a way. 300 Year Gap.
- "Documentary Hypothesis" - Bud
interviews some people who had previous contact with Transformers to get the
story on what happened to them...in the current timeline. Picks up from
Ripples, contains spoilers for the last episode of Cybertron. A/E/C based.
- "SB-1" - A crossover fanfic, involving
an alternate origin of the Space Bridge technology, and a different reason
for Micromasters to have been made.
- "CDGR" - Another crossover fic, this
one very short. Mercifully so.
Tales of the Intermezzo - 2007
- "PsyOp" - A piece of Classics
fiction, tying into my review of the "Battle for Autobot City" set.
Sometimes a Skywarp-shaped rock really is a threat....
- "Scale" - Another Classic story, this
is a vignette about Terrorsaur's first trip out into the wild on Earth and
the strange and wondrous things he finds.
- "Rush Hour" - Fireshot, one of the
older RoadBots on Earth, runs into a little trouble on the highway. RoadBots story.
- "Z" - A crossover fic, in which the Ark
crashed in the world of Mazinger Z, and got tangled up in the schemes of
Doctor Hell.
- "Dinosaur Tech" - A short piece
set between Scramble City and Headmasters, featuring a couple of the Cassette
Autobots who got toys but never showed up in the cartoons. Winner of the
April 2007 AllSpark Fic Challenge.
- "Two Autobots Walk Into A Bar" - During
the Actionmaster War, Grimlock accompanies Jazz on a
covert contact mission, disguised as a human thanks to some modified
Pretender shells.... Winner of the May 2007 AllSpark Fic Challenge.
- "Scars" - My first piece set in the
2007 Movie continuity, focusing on Ironhide, and
how the scars worn on the outside can reflect the scars carried on the inside.
- "Small Parts" - A minor character in
the 2007 Movie does some publicity on opening
night. Contains some spoilers.
- "Org Chart" - I work out a little of my
job stress via Signal Lancer, the intrepid traffic signal TF. A/E/C based.
- "Plot Device" - A tie-in with the
System Corruptors Annual below, it turns out that Traumastar doesn't get away
quite as cleanly as he'd hoped at the end of Chapter 3, and Channel has to
deal with the aftermath! Yes, it's a crossover tie-in story written 13 years
after the original crossover. Hey, DC did Crisis on Infinite Earths #4.5
after an even longer gap than that....
- "Reject Moonbase" - When Megatron
left Cybertron in Shockwave's care, there were a lot of holes in the chain of
command that needed "temporary" filling, and Shockwave's the sort of thorough
character who'd ensure all the holes were plugged. This is the take of one
of the smaller holes, and the Decepticon who fell into it and was lost....
Winner of the November 2007 AllSpark Fic Challenge.
Tales of the Intermezzo - 2008
- Cleanup: An early shot at the
Transformers: Animated continuity, looking at an event stuck somewhere
between the opening sequence of the pilot and the "fifty years later" main
action.
- Opt Out: A tale of culture shock in
the 2007 Movie setting, in which we see that it's
not always the differences between cultures that cause dismay.
Other Fanfic
This section is basically for a few scattered pieces I've written that are
relevant to Transformers, but aren't Tales of the Intermezzo.
- Broken Down: My oldest "free standing"
Transformers fanfic, a short vignette involving the Mechanic during the G2
comic. The only older TF fanfic by me is an epilogue to Lizard's "Sale of
the 24th Century" and is best read with that main tale, so I'm not including
it here.
- Fighting Fire: A short piece dealing with a battle for
one Transformer's soul.
- Boredom: What happens when a godlike being gets
bored?
- System Corruptors Annual #1: This is the aftermath of a crossover
storyline I did in the Legion of Net.Heroes, using RoboMACs characters of my
own creation...although with close ties to G1 Transformers. In this piece,
the RoboMACs meet their Transformer counterparts in a series of short
stories. Note: back in 1994 when I wrote this, I didn't make a habit of
proofreading my work before posting it, so there's a number of typos and
weird errors here and there.
- Section One: Prelude (Talking Heads),
Chapter One (Something's Not Quite Right), Chapter Two (Reality's Gone In The
Blender) and Chapter Three (Opposites React).
- Section Two: Chapter Four (Making Waves/Lord
of the Files), Chapter Five (Survival of the Fittest).
- A SuperDeformed Christmas Party: A fumetti
(photo-comic) using various cute little robots at an office Christmas party.
And, in a similar vein, here's the true story
of Rhinox's conversion to Tankor and Scourge
finding a new power source.
- Tribarrel Techspec: An AEC-continuity techspec
for Tribarrel, the Autobot I designed based on my new car. :) His presence
in the Armada and Energon conflicts is part of the retcons discussed in
"Ripples" above, but he was always a background character there even in the
new history.
- Channel Techspec: An old MUX character of mine. I've
redesigned him for various settings, but since lost the original background
info. So here's a new writeup, in the More Than Meets The Eye form.
Essays Etc.
I've written a number of pieces worth putting online that aren't fiction, but
deal with fiction. Aspects of Transformers mythology, or meta-reviewing of
toys, or whatever. They go here.
- The Three R's Of Transformation: An essay on three
distinct styles of transformation, as far as the toys are concerned.
- What's In A Name?: An essay about the topic of reused
names in Transformers.
- Response to reviews of the Skyjack Trilogy: Bobbi
Carothers runs a semi-organized review board on alt.toys.transformers.fanfic,
and in June 2001 she asked me to submit a piece to the "FFR" (FanFic Review)
process. I submitted the Skyjack Trilogy, and four reviews came in. This
file includes all those reviews, plus responses of mine to some of the points
in the reviews.
- "It's a Mythology, Not a Canon": An essay about the
Transformers Mythos, and how it's better seen as a tapestry than as a thread.
Note: Hasbro has since taken something like an official stance on the
continuity of future seasons, adopting a "Final Fantasy" style of
non-continuity, where characters and themes repeat from season to season, but
not actual history. If you read my essay here, you won't be surprised to
know I'm pleased with this approach.
- "Toyhacks": An examination of an underlying cause of
One True Way-ism in fandom, especially toy fandom. TOIHAAK = The One I Had
As A Kid, pronounced "Toyhack". Updated May 30, 2006.
- TF Fancharacter Archetype Test: I've seen that fan
characters (be they subjects of fanfic, art, or MU*s) tend to fall into one
of ten common categories. This test will help you figure out where yours
falls. Updated September 14, 2006.
- Transformers: Spark Hunt: An idea for a
Transformers series that would use only Deluxe pricepoint toys and rely on
combiners to get bigger characters. February 28, 2008.
- Song Parodies - In the tradition of Weird Al (to me, if it doesn't sound
like folk music, it ain't filk).
- "Decepticon Radio": A song parody (I suppose
some might call it a filk, but I come in from the Weird Al tradition) based
on Wall of Voodoo's "Mexican Radio".
- "Sweet Transformer": Another song parody,
based on "Sweet Transvestite" from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. It's about
Override/Nitro Convoy. :)
- "The Beast Wars Line": Written in 1996 to the
"tune" of Green Eggs and Ham, as part of a project that got shut down by a
Cease & Desist letter. The matter came up recently, so I dug this up and
added it here.
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