Transmutate

Transmutate appears in one episode and dies in it, and the entry is short because the material is thin by design. A stasis pod damaged in the seismically unstable Grid Deltron produces a protoform that is neither Maximal nor Predacon and has no beast mode at all: a skeletal, mismatched thing assembled from incompatible parts, with almost no intelligence, no capacity for speech beyond a few words, and enormous destructive power in the form of a sonic scream and crude force fields.

Both factions decide immediately that it is a problem. Megatron judges it useless because it cannot transform and orders it destroyed. Optimus Primal judges it a danger to itself and others and orders it stasis-locked, which Silverbolt correctly identifies as disposal dressed up as care. The episode is an unusually direct euthanasia parable for a syndicated toy cartoon, and it does not resolve in anyone's favour.

What gives it weight is who befriends it. Silverbolt, on principle, because his code says all sentient life is worth protecting. And Rampage, the show's monster, who recognises something of his own tortured existence in it and defends it in front of Megatron. Transmutate calls Rampage "friend dark", which is either a description of what he is or an acknowledgement of what he is not. It is the only affection Rampage is ever shown.

The two fight over it. Transmutate puts itself between their missiles, overloads, and implodes, naming them both as friends as it dies. Silverbolt asks Optimus and Cheetor to leave Rampage alone to grieve, and they do. Nothing else in the series is quite like it.

No beast mode and no transformation. Capable of flight, projecting crude force fields, and emitting a supersonic scream powerful enough to knock Inferno out of the air. Limits: severe cognitive damage, minimal language, no combat judgement whatsoever, and an unstable spark that cannot regulate the power it channels, which is ultimately what destroys it.

• Silverbolt: defends it on principle against his own commander, and is the only Maximal who treats it as a person.
• Rampage: recognises a kindred tortured existence in it; the only creature ever shown to draw affection out of him.
• Optimus Primal: orders it stasis-locked as a danger to itself and others, a decision the episode presents as reasonable and wrong.

Transmutate has almost no presence outside the episode. A Transformers Collectors' Club toy revived the character in the convention line, but there is no substantial comics material. Effectively no divergence, because there is almost nothing to diverge from.

Destroyed in its only appearance, imploding after overloading its own unstable spark while shielding Silverbolt and Rampage from each other's missiles.

• Voiced by Susan Blu, who voiced Arcee in the original G1 cartoon and later became one of the franchise's principal voice directors.
• Transmutate was never sold as an individual toy; it was distributed as a build-a-figure across the first two waves of Beast Wars 10th Anniversary releases in 2006, each of the six figures including one part.
• The episode script's cast list describes it as "a being with no beauty of form nor logic of shape... a face that vaguely indicates it is female", while using genderless pronouns throughout, which is the origin of the long-running fan argument about the character's gender.
• The same script explicitly states that its spark was unstable and tearing the body apart, information the broadcast episode never gives, which answers the common fan objection that the Maximals should have transferred its spark to a new body as Rhinox did for Optimus Primal.
• According to Ben Yee's commentary on Madman Entertainment's Beast Wars season two DVD release, Hasbro considered replicating the sonic scream as a spring-loaded projectile and then as a static decoration before abandoning the toy design entirely.

Where the cartoon, the Marvel comics and the toy bios disagree, or where a popular claim does not hold up. We record these rather than smoothing them over.

• Gender is genuinely unresolved: the script describes the face as vaguely female while consistently using genderless pronouns, and the episode itself never settles it.
• Fans have long argued that a spark transfer should have been possible, as Rhinox performed for Optimus Primal; the broadcast episode says only that the core consciousness and body structure were beyond recovery, and the unbroadcast script detail about the unstable spark is the only counter-evidence.