#protomatter

It's established that protomatter is mined from the quarries in the sonic canyons. Then the protoforms are contructed and used for molds, but what about the processes in between?

So I'm thinking that the ore is transported to factories as plain rock. The factories take the sonic canyon rock, refine it into a near pure form of protomatter ore, place the refined ore chunks into pods, then seal it all up.

The pods are then transported to the Cyber-Ninja dojo and locked in the vault where they are "nurtured in the light of the Matrix Chamber" to be used at a later time.

With this, the Matrix Chamber is a conduit of Vector Sigma that slowly develops the protoform pods as they rest in the vault. Basically, growing protoforms.

The ore in the pod goes from a rock of indistinct shape, softens into putty, then begins to form limbs and body features. Going from infant development all the way to a matured protoform that can then be used in a mold.

So when Lockdown steals the cache of protoforms, he takes both mature and immature protoform pods indiscriminantly. The mature ones can be used to make more Cybertronians while the immature can only resupply lost protoform from grievous wounds.

With that in mind, Megatron kept a cache of an immature-type protoform in his subspace to use in the event he is mortally wounded to quickly replenish protomatter and continue the battle. But, after his descent into Earth's atmosphere, he is knocked offline and too damaged to reach the pod so it sits there, dormant.

In Sumdac's lab, the immature pod is ejected from Megatron's subspace and found on the ground for Sumdac to accidentally imprint and instantly sculpt into a technorganic.

Dear Transorganic Tracer,

While my sibling and I have different opinions on questions worth asking, I think we would both agree yours is intriguing. We have encountered those unfortunates in many universes, and certainly some were made from the remains of organics who perished by Quintessons or others cyberformed their world.

One, however, sticks in my mind quite strongly, despite the distant spissitude of the universe. Here the Quintessons had evolved from organic life and never abandoned their organic chauvinism, despite now existing as cyborg life, encased in mechanical shells.

They encountered a world of rocky ores and shining lakes of protomatter, and as is common for their kind, set out to exploit it. They built mines to harvest what they could, only to discover a primitive form of cybernetic life emerging from the protomatter. Dismissing the miracle in front of them, they denied its nature, and saw it only as more raw materials. They combined the cyberform with crude organic supplements, viewing it as an upgrade. As more emerged, they created more and more of their transorganic menagerie.

When the transorganics did not obey their commands, they abandoned them as failures, sealing them deep within their facilities. Then they re-examined the protoforms that emerged, and came upon an even more blasphemous decision. These entities were not life to be respected, but self-assembling machines to be utilized—the idea of this being slavery was unthinkable to the Quintessons, as they could not understand their discovery as anything more than circuits and motors.

In the end, these cyberforms evolved into what you would recognise as "modern Cybertronian life", and although the Quintessons patted each other on the dome, they certainly played no part in the development. When that fact became clear to the primitive Cybertronians, they—we—sought to drive them out. And in our shame we turned to our kin, the former victims of the Quintessons. We unsealed them, used them as weapons against our shared tormentors. We were as unwilling to recognise the transorganics as life as the Quintessons had been for us.

And by the time we realised it, it was too late.

“The experiment was a success: protomatter exists.”

Written and directed by Chema García Ibarra, Protoparticles premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival in the International Short Films category and took home an Honorable Mention. On today’s Film Poster Friday, we’re highlighting the unique and adorably cross-stitched film poster for Protoparticles. Check out the full short below!