#mini-con

Similarly to their progenitor, at the end of their universe, the Mini-Cons were condensed into a single point. Instead of becoming a black hole, however, they became a new beginning. The aggregated being is recorded by similarly ancient extradimensional beings as calling themself Micron, and their combined Sparks brought life to the new universe. The knowledge of all parts of Micron condensed until eventually one Spark remained within them, and they lay dormant. A time came where a being from without entered this realm, claiming to be the First Being to exist. Using Micron's bountiful light, Primus fashioned new beings, and learned of this Micron, children of its Enemy, and took them in. While they were not the first of its creations, it still held them in a regard equal to the others despite their stature of form, which resonated with them somehow. In honor of the kindness offered by Primus to what remained of the Micron, they named themself Micronus of the Primes.

Notes below the cut

>[ERROR]: Deviation "Autobot Junior Divers Kicker and Sari" V1.0 (2021/06/18): [//////OBSOLETE//////] >[ERROR]: Deviation Upgrade Required And Requested >Auto-Upgrade: Initated >Upgrading Deviation To: "Autobot Junior Divers Kicker and Sari Upgraded"... 100% >Upgrade: Succesfully Installed _

Just in time for the Transformers 40th Anniversary, Transformers Energon 20th and Summer 2024, Autobot Junior Divers Kicker from Transformers Energon (2004) and Sari Sumdac from Transformers Animated (2008) are back, femmes and gentlemechs, bolts and gears, protoforms and techies of all aeons - and the Energon scuba spaceboy and the Animated scuba robotgirl are all upgraded and ready to Transform and Dive Out, be it in a Summer SCUBA class adventure diving under the waters of Ocean City in Kicker's native reality or Detroit, Robot City in Sari's reality, training themselves in out-of-air emergency simulations, underwater combat, rocket flying underwater Supersonic Jetfighter Rocketkid style and ultimately having splash 'n crash aquawesome fun underwater with each other and their Autobot wingmen protecting and escorting them with Kicker's Energon Saber Mini-Con Team, Sari's technorganic upgraded body and both's Autobot battle brethren led by Optimus Prime of both their native realities in case of Decepticon underwater party crashers!

The Autobot Junior Divers' personalized, customized boys' and girls' school swimwear and swim caps, stylish and colorful ABC kits of 360 degree single lens dive masks, clear purge snorkels and pairs of dive fins and just as stylish and colorful TransformerTech'd up backpack dive jacket, hi-capacity air tank and mouthpiece regulator SCUBA rigs all based on their respective battlesuits from their respective toyline and cartoon series are fully upgraded and ready for more Deep Heavy Metal Underwater Robots In Disguise Action than ever before as detailed below:

Autobot Junior Diver Kicker now has his own personal Evolutionary Accelerator (EV-AC) loaded with his custom Autobot EV-AC Helix for when it's time to Xevolve into his Autobot Powerlinx Kicker exobody, Grindor of his Mini-Con Street Action Team as his Transformer dive buddy and TransformerTech All-In-One Scuba Backpack System with TekSnorkelator has a Powerlinx port for Grindor to dock into and turn it into a TransformerTech All-In-One Scuba Underwater Jetpack System for Kicker to jet through the underwater worlds in hyperspeed - his way.

Autobot Junior Diver Sari's TransformerTech All-In-One Scuba Backpack System with Double Hose TekRegulator is now a Sumdac Systems TransformerTech Hydropack All-In-One Scuba Underwater Jetpack System created for Sari by Isaac Sumdac reverse-engineered from Bumblebee's Hydrodrive Underwater Submarine Module as her new personal All-In-One Transformable Scuba Underwater Jetpack System that has an Underwater Waterwing Scooter/Underwater Kickboard alt mode for Sari to rocket through the underwater worlds in true Kid Robot Girl style with a functional replica of her Allspark Key as a memento.

Long story short: 2021's requested aquawesome little Junior Diver!Kicker X Junior Diver!Sari art for Anbu-AAE-Demon333 just got the 2024 upgrade just in time for those forementioned anniversaries.

Autobot Junior Divers V2.0 Patch Notes: >Autobot Junior Diver Kicker V2.0 - Kicker's personal Evolutionary Accelerator (EV-AC) with custom Autobot EV-AC Helix loaded given to Kicker - Energon Mini-Con Street Action Team Grindor added and linked to Kicker as dive buddy - Powerlinx port added to Kicker's All-In-One TransformerTech SCUBA Backpack System - Grindor can now dock in the SCUBA Backpack System's Powerlinx port to access All-In-One SCUBA Underwater Jetpack System upgrade

>Autobot Junior Diver Sari V2.0 - Functional Allspark Key Replica given to Sari - Upgraded Sari's All-In-One SCUBA Backpack System to Sumdac Systems TransformerTech Hydropack All-In-One Scuba Underwater Jetpack System - Hydropack can transform from Underwater Waterwing Scooter/Underwater Kickboard to All-In-One Scuba Underwater Jetpack System and back

@aae-demon-zone333 @theworldofesteveze

May's Patreon-backed @tfwiki picture batch isn't a big history lesson, just filling in a few gaps in our 2000's-era Mini-Con coverage.

For years we've had the Takara Legend of the Microns "Hawk" toy pic, but not the Hasbro Armada WIND SHEER version of the toy, which has a lighter charcoal-black and brighter-yellow plastics than the Takara jet-black and orange-yellow.

For the 2003 Universe line, several sets were filled out with Mini-Con redecos: PROWL and TERRADIVE here were added to the Ultra-class multi-pack of Stockade and Magna Stampede. Prowl (and his fellow Emergency Team Mini-Cons) has a color scheme based on the Takara Legend of the Microns DVD-exclusive Hazard Team, but darker and more desaturated.

GUNBARREL and MAKESHIFT were added to the Universe Whirl set. These two would get renamed as "Thunderstick" and "Skysickle" (respectively) in the club-exclusive story "Force of Habit".

Cybertron saw Mini-Cons return, with a few larger toys getting pack-in partners. DRILL BIT came with Giant Planet leader Metroplex, while "Galaxy Force" SAFEGUARD came with the late-series redeco of Vector Prime.

LONGARM of the Giant Planet Mini-Con Team, weirdly one I hadn't done pics of when I did the other two. Fun trivia: the Giant Planet Team's bios are based on the Brothers Strong. Longarm the loud dim muscle, Deepdive the depressed pushover, and Overcast with swaggering troublemaker with a dubious hand situation.

The 2008 Universe series (Transformers has a bad habit of re-using names, you just kinda get used to it after a point) left most of its Mini-Cons to store-exclusive multi-packs. BOLTFLASH, HEAVYTREAD and SUPPRESSOR here all came from a Kmart exclusive 12-pack, some of which also got released on single cards through "dollar store" style chains. They also all got made as "candy toys" in the UK, with tiny mold differences on each one, but I don't have most of those to make actual comparisons, sadly.

If you like these little toy picture threads, do check out patreon don com slash gregstfwikipics, where you can help get even more pics out every month.

Dear Tractive Talker,

You are correct in that the Megatron of one such universe once transformed into a tractor, in those bucolic pre-war days when he owned an energon farm—indeed, you can still see some remnants of his original function in his shape. But perhaps I should start at the beginning...

Megatron spent his early life on a communal energon farm on one of Cybertron’s moons, a simple farmhand who tilled the purple fields. Energon farming is more of a science than most Cybertronians give it credit for—it is a mixture of chemical engineering and extensive geological surveying—but the unfortunate stereotype of the “dimwitted Energon farmer” still persists among many urbane Cybertronians. Megatron originally transformed into a vehicle these socialites would refer to as a “tractor”, but was really something quite more sophisticated: a reinforced offroad crawler equipped with a suite of sophisticated geological sensors, drills, and spray nozzles capable of seeding new fissures with microscopic energon crystals. 

Megatron chafed under the lack of support that the lunar colonies received from the homeworld. As time passed, he cajoled, wheedled, and backstabbed his way up the ranks to become the chief of his farm, and once he had accrued sufficient wealth and power he dissolved the commune and reformed the farm into a single, autocratic corporation, ostensibly to more efficiently lobby Zeta Prime’s Autobot government for additional support. Soon after, neighboring energon farms began suffering strange “accidents”—workers disappearing, suspiciously bad harvests, and even reports of sabotaged equipment. When a farm was weakened, Megatron and his men swooped in, bought out the farm responsible, and added it to his growing empire. On these bucolic moons, where such troubles were rare, they stood out all the more—and indeed, it didn’t take long for farms to connect the dots and realize that Megatron was behind the trouble. Correctly branding Megatron and his deceitful followers as “Decepticons”, the remaining independent farmers took up arms against the Decepticon leader; however, Megatron had not wasted his profits, and had indeed spent a vast part of his newfound fortune on illegally sourced weapons and armor from unscrupulous merchants, while his ample supplies of energon made besieging his position fruitless.

By the time that Zeta Prime finally caught wind of the Decepticon crisis unfolding in lunar space, Megatron and his new militia were more than prepared, and repelled the first three waves of peacekeepers sent to crack down on his advances. Megatron’s anti-Autobot rhetoric had already spread across Cybertron, and a sizeable amount of the population now supported Megatron’s principal demand: for Zeta Prime to abdicate his position. Tired of the pageantry, Zeta Prime mustered the Autobot fleet and the mighty Elite Guard to storm Luna 2 and take down Megatron.

Check out this giant fucking Minicon I have

Obviously, it’s a knockoff of Armada Mirage

I got it in the summer of 2012 from this random novelty store in Cape Cod, Massachusetts

I also got similarly upscaled knockoffs of Downshift, Sky Blast, and Astroscope from them, but they all broke over the years because they were made of shitty knockoff plastic; Mirage is the only one who’s weathered the test of time

(Fittingly, the Star Saber team were the only Minicon combiner team I had as a kid, so it’s interesting that all my upscaled knockoffs were of Requiem Blaster and Skyboom Shield guys, even if both teams were missing their most out-of-place members and as such couldn’t actually do the whole combining thing)