Reaching the Omega Point

Featuring everyone pictured above... except Tarantulas.

Reaching the Omega Point is a multi-year, convention-based Beast Wars storyline that was released at BotCon and other related venues from 1998 to 2000. Produced by 3H Enterprises, it is part of the 3H Beast Wars continuity that serves as an expanded universe of both the Beast Wars and Beast Machines cartoons.

Created as part of 1999's celebration of the 15th anniversary of the Transformers brand, Omega Point was notable for being the first really BIG Transformers event in several years to feature the return of the Dark God Unicron, who had been absent from western Transformers fiction (barring a few cameos) since his last major appearance in 1990's "On the Edge of Extinction!" from Marvel Comics.

Omega Point also laid the groundwork for much more convention-based Transformers fiction in years to come, spreading its content across multiple forms of media that would see further use at many future BotCons, including comic books, a live script reading, lengthy prose stories, and web-based content.

It is alternately known as simply The Omega Point.

Overview

Prelude

The battle for the mysterious artifact, from "Visitations"

The first seeds for the storyline were planted in a light-hearted script reading presented at BotCon 1998. While the name Reaching the Omega Point did not yet exist at the time, the script reading was later grouped under that name by the BotCon: Beyond website. Titled "Visitations", the script reading told a rather tongue-in-cheek story about a small group of Maximals and Predacons fighting over a mysterious artifact that had crash-landed right in the middle of the Beast Wars, set during a time within the cartoon's second season. After the artifact was taken by an unknown shadowy figure, a new Predacon suddenly appears from a portal, demanding the artifact in question. The newcomer, Antagony, is directed to engage first Megatron and then Optimus Primal, before she is ultimately defeated and then captured by Megatron for interrogation.

Reaching the Omega Point

Reaching the Omega Point began in earnest with four prose story chapters released throughout 1999. Three main chapters were released in connection with BotCon 1999—the first two were included with material mailed to preregistrants ahead of the convention, and were later collected with the third chapter in the event's program guide. An extra installment was released via UK conventions, initially at unofficial convention Transforce 1999, around the same time that the second chapter was mailed to BotCon preregistrants. It would later receive an official release via BotCon Europe 1999, a month after the US BotCon 1999. When first archived at BotCon Online, this story was labelled as a prologue to the main story. A rewritten shorter version, later released on BotCon: Beyond, was instead labeled as the main story's fourth chapter, but was still set before the first three.

Megatron's interrogation of Antagony, from "Herald"

Serving as a direct sequel to "Visitations", this UK chapter, "Herald", follows shortly after the script reading's cliffhanger ending. Megatron holds Antagony prisoner and, having determined she has come from a future era far beyond his own, he attempts to pry any knowledge of that era from her through torturous means. Antagony, however, puts up a firm resistance against all of Megatron's methods and flashes back to her own past, in which it is revealed that she is Herald to a Predacon tyrant named Shokaract, who has conquered Cybertron in the far future. A rival of hers, Cataclysm, vies for her position, which brews a deep-seeded hatred for him within Antagony. Shokaract, meanwhile, had sensed a threat to his own existence has turned up in the distant past, and had sent Antagony back in time to right this temporal wrong. In the end, however, because Antagony has failed in her mission, she realizes this failure will give Cataclysm a chance to surpass her. Despaired, she allows her mind to be wiped clean before Megatron can gain access to her memories.

Leonicus has a vision of a dark future, from "Covenant"

The first of the main chapters, titled "Covenant", introduced a then-new concept to the Transformers lore: A group of twelve special Transformers called the Covenant, who were the first Transformers ever created by Primus. For eons, the Covenant had watched over Cybertron and the developmental growth of its people, in anticipation of an apocalyptic battle called Point Omega, or Shokaract, which would determine the fate of Primus's Grand Plan. By the time of the Maximal and Predacon rule of Cybertron, the Covenant receive a shocking visit by another new addition to the mythos, the Chronarchitect, kin to Primus and Unicron. Upon his arrival, Leonicus, leader of the Covenant, sees a dark vision of the future. The Chronarchitect warns Leonicus of a disruption to the timestream with the cryptic entreaty of "Return to the beginning...", which spurs the Covenant to begin searching all of history to locate this distressing temporal event.

The birth of Windrazor, from "Schism"

Chapter two, titled "Schism" shifted the setting centuries later into the future time of Shokaract's empire. The story focused on the birth of the hybrid Maximal Windrazor, created from the merged sparks of a dying Predacon cub and an aged Maximal veteran. Upon his creation, he provides the united Maximal/Predacon rebels with information on Shokaract's plans (as Windrazor's Predacon half had been an up-and-coming Herald) and goes to defeat Shokaract's other Herald, Cataclysm, who was set to travel back in time to both continue Antagony's failed mission and locate something called the Dark Essence. Windrazor himself ends up flung to the past, arriving on Prehistoric Earth near the end of the Beast Wars. Back in the future, the Predacon resistance leader Sandstorm prepares to embark to a mysterious region of Cybertron known as J'nwan, to seek help from the "Legends" who live there. And all the while, the Covenant continue to search through history for the temporal event, with one of their number having gone missing.

A mighty clash above the Dark Essence, from "Paradox"

Chapter three, "Paradox", continues the three plot threads of "Schism" and introduces a fourth: At a point following Megatron's takeover of Cybertron, a lone Predacon Hunter finds himself on a backwater planet, where he finds a cave and is drawn to a dark pit containing an evil presence that entices him with great power. Back in the future, the Covenant determine Windrazor's time jump to the past to be the prelude of the event they seek, while Sandstorm's journey to J'nwan proves most rigorous as he struggles to overcome the treacherous, reality-warping nature of the area. After finally reaching J'nwan, his pleas for the Legends' help are unfortunately met with rejection. Back in the past, Windrazor searches for the Dark Essence on his own, in hopes that it may lead to a return to his home-time. Once he finds it, however, he is attacked by Megatron, who had detected Windrazor's arrival to the Beast Wars. Megatron sees the Dark Essence and correctly identifies it as the lifeforce of Unicron, having been displaced from his destruction in 2005 via a rift in space-time. As Megatron and Windrazor fight, the Dark Essence possesses Windrazor and attacks Maximal and Predacon alike, until Windrazor's two inner halves unite to expel Unicron from their shared body. The Maximals of the Beast Wars approach Windrazor, but before he can answer any questions, a portal opens up and out steps Shokaract himself.

Cover to "Terminus", the finale of Omega Point

After the cliffhanger ending of the third chapter, the storyline was finally concluded a year later in a comic book released at BotCon 2000, which also contained illustrated recaps of all the preceding stories and an illustrated reprint of "Herald". The conclusion, titled "Terminus", wraps up nearly every major plot thread from before, culminating in a final showdown—Point Omega itself—with Shokaract and the united forces of Optimus Primal, Windrazor, the Covenant, Sandstorm (revealed to be the Covenant's missing member), and more. Among their number is also a mysterious newcomer named Apelinq, a time-displaced Maximal who is revealed to have also been the shadowy figure who took the artifact back in "Visitations", and whose presence here also served as foreshadowing for the next big storyline to come after Omega Point. In the end, after much sacrifice and hardship, the Dark Essence is sent back into the timestream and Shokaract is destroyed.

Supplementary material

Outside of the primary stories above, additional content for the storyline was produced both online and on the toys' packaging. The convention-exclusive toys all received bios that tied each character directly into the events of Omega Point. Several of them (plus Cataclysm) would later receive extended profiles that were originally posted on the website BotCon: Beyond, which were later all moved to BotCon Online. Chief among these was the bio written for Shokaract, which revealed both himself and the Dark Essence, respectively, to have been the lone Hunter and the evil presence featured in the the opening scene of "Paradox". Moreover, after acquiring the Dark Essence, Shokaract fashioned a housing to contain its power in the form of the Matrix of Conquest, which had first appeared in "Terminus".

Furthermore, both Antagony and Sandstorm featured exclusive prose material on their individual toys' packaging: Antagony's box featured both a roster of character descriptions and a brief (somewhat inaccurate) summary of "Visitations". Sandstorm's packaging, meanwhile, featured a Predacon war journal that revealed how he had first learned of J'nwan's existence from an informant who nearly got him caught by Shokaract's sentries. And finally, the aforementioned second, shortened, completely rewritten version of "Herald" was released on BotCon: Beyond, containing updated information to better align with the main chapters of the storyline (as the original version of "Herald" featured earlier ideas and concepts that would be dropped or altered in the story's later-written main chapters). This version of "Herald" was most likely written as a recap meant for inclusion in the BotCon 2000 comic book, but the original full-length version was featured instead.

Addendum and aftermath

The aftermath of Point Omega, from The Wreckers #1

In the months leading up to BotCon 2001, an online series of short prose stories was released on BotCon: Beyond as part of a weekly buildup to that convention's new stories. Titled "Apelinq's War Journals", this series explored Apelinq's personal history in a pre-Beast Machines setting on Cybertron. The final six of these War Journals, however, touched upon a few unresolved plot points from Omega Point by having Apelinq flung to the past in a transwarp accident, arriving on Earth right in the middle of the Beast Wars to witness events that led up to Point Omega. It was during this time that Apelinq snatched up the artifact from the events of "Visitations", with said artifact revealed to actually have been one of Apelinq's personal belongings (but see "below for more). Apelinq continued to observe the events of Beast Wars from afar, with his final three journal entries coming full circle with his previous appearance in "Terminus", landing him right in the middle of Point Omega.

Afterwards, the next BotCon storyline, Transformers: The Wreckers, wrapped up a few more loose ends left hanging from the conclusion of Omega Point. The first chapter, "Departure", saw Apelinq back on Cybertron during the second season events of Beast Machines, where he reveals to Optimus Primal (who had lost all memory of Point Omega) the outcome of the battle: Shokaract was destroyed and his tainted future had been erased from all time, with every time-displaced survivor of the battle (minus the Beast Wars cast, of course) having escaped back to their respective eras via transwarp portals. Primal, meanwhile, had been caught at the epicenter of the timequake and forgot all about these events, his amnesia providing an in-story explanation for why Point Omega was never mentioned in the cartoons (and which doubly jibes with the amnesia he received from Megatron's virus in Beast Machines). Windrazor, however, had seemingly disappeared, but his true fate would later be revealed in the 2007 prose story "Wreckers: Finale Part II", published by Fun Publications. Rather than having been erased along with his home-time, his life was saved and preserved by Primus, to let him serve as a spirit guide for those in need.

Creative team

Simon Furman, author of the storyline's main chapters

Spanning multiple years and multiple release platforms, Reaching the Omega Point was handled by a wide variety of creators.

"Visitations" was written by Beast Wars writer and editor Bob Forward, with acting performances provided by Garry Chalk, Scott McNeil, Doug Parker, Susan Blu, and David Kaye, with a cameo appearance by Ben Yee.

"Herald" (both versions), "Covenant", "Schism", "Paradox", "Terminus", and all of the recaps in the BotCon 2000 comic, were written by veteran Transformers comic scribe Simon Furman, who had previously made his return to Transformers comics in his authoring the BotCon 1997 comic "Ground Zero". Glen Hallit of 3H Enterprises oversaw Furman's scripting of the prose stories and co-wrote "Terminus" with him.

Several fan-favorite British artists from the Marvel Comics days also made their return to Transformers in illustrating the BotCon 2000 comic. The normal convention cover featured computer-generated art and effects by Andrew Wildman (who had also returned previously to illustrate "Ground Zero"), while a dinner variant cover featured art drawn by Geoff Senior. The illustrations included in the comic's four recaps and the "Herald" reprint were done by Lee Sullivan. "Terminus" itself was penciled and inked by Senior, with lettering done by Richard Starkings and Comicraft (both having previously lettered "Ground Zero" as well).

Apelinq's War Journals was written for BotCon: Beyond by 3H member Rob Gerbracht, who also provided additional text and editing for the BotCon 2001 "Departure" comic written by Glen Hallit. Then-newcomer artist Dan Khanna illustrated "Departure", including the two pages that revealed the aftermath of Point Omega. He and Jon Hartman were also editors for the comic alongside Gerbracht. The main cover art for "Departure" was produced by Mainframe Entertainment, while a variant release included with that year's exclusive Tigatron toy featured different cover art by Khanna.

Artwork for the related toy bios and online profiles were provided by Andrew Wildman (Antagony, Vice Grip) and Mainframe Entertainment (Windrazor, Sandstorm, Shokaract, Apelinq).

Continuity

Though "Ground Zero" was the first story produced by 3H, it was Reaching this Omega Point that really attempted to built upon and flesh out the universe of the 3H Beast Wars continuity, creating its own lore and laying the groundwork for further storylines to come in both this and future BotCon-affiliated continuities.

While the Beast Wars cartoon had alluded to, in the form of myth and legend, a Generation 1-based history that mixed elements taken from both the animated series and the Marvel Comics, it (and later Beast Machines) tended to borrow more elements from the G1 cartoon than from the G1 comics. However, Omega Point instead chooses to lean towards a more comic-based history, alluding to elements and events that more overtly stemmed from the comics, as well as the events of The Transformers: The Movie.

Author Simon Furman once stated at BotCon Europe 1999 that these stories were his first attempt to weave together the histories of the G1 comics and cartoon together into one timeline^[1] (a practice he would later attempt again in his writing for the Dreamwave Generation One continuity), but would later state in a Transforce 2000 magazine interview that he, at the time, considered both the Omega Point storyline and the Beast Wars cartoon (but NOT the Beast Machines cartoon) to be specifically part of the comics universe, preferring to view Omega Point as his own post-Beast Wars storyline while disregarding Beast Machines altogether.^[2]

Cover art for Alignment

Additionally, at the time that Furman was writing Omega Point for BotCon, he also wrote two other stories for the unofficial Transforce conventions: 2000's "The Last Days of Optimus Prime" and 2001/2002's "Alignment" (pictured right). Both of these served as extensions of the Marvel Comics continuity in Furman's eyes—much like Omega Point—and also contained certain elements that Furman tied in directly with Omega Point. "Last Days" both confirmed the Veteran's identity as the Dinobot Swoop and revisited J'nwan as a quasi-afterlife residence for the Generation 1 Autobots and Decepticons. It also first declared the Generation 1 Optimus Prime and Megatron to be residents of J'nwan, three months before such would be reiterated by "Terminus". "Alignment", meanwhile, reintroduced the Liege Maximo—a massive plot point left dangling from the final issue of the Marvel Generation 2 comics—whom both "Covenant" and "Schism" namedropped rather overtly, with "Schism" even stating the Veteran had been familiar with the Liege Maximo; said familiarity was fully disclosed by the events of "Alignment".

However, while Furman may have given the impression of building his own personal canon with all of these stories he was writing at the time, his authorial intent would officially hold little weight in the end as far as 3H was concerned, since the very next BotCon storyline, The Wreckers, leaned towards a more G1 cartoon-based universe while simultaneously serving as a direct follow-up to the more Marvel-based Omega Point storyline. Thus, while Omega Point, "Last Days", and "Alignment" could together be viewed as an extension of the comics universe on their own, the larger continuity of all the 3H fiction disregards that intent in favor of a more blended Beast Era universe that—much like the Beast Wars cartoon itself—borrowed more evenly from both the cartoon and the comics, favoring neither over the other. And since Omega Point was the only one of these three Furman-penned convention stories to be officially published with Hasbro's approval, the Last Days and Alignment fall into the realm of pseudocanon at best (see their respective pages for more on their relation to the canon).

Consequently, any potential continuity errors with the original Marvel G1 comics found in Omega Point (or any 3H fiction) wouldn't necessarily be continuity errors due to the 3H Beast Era ultimately inhabiting its own unique continuity that only directly ties to the two Beast Era cartoons while merely indirectly tying to the G1 comics and cartoon.

Fan reception

Reaching the Omega Point has, to put it bluntly, received rather polarizing reception in the years since its original release.

As the fandom of the time was mostly starving for new comics (since there hadn't been any new Transformers comics since the abrupt end of the Generation 2 comics in 1994), and since the Beast Wars cartoon originally had a rather haphazard release schedule for its new episodes airing in syndicated television, the Omega Point storyline was initially received very well and hailed as Simon Furman's grand return to form. Many fans took a liking to the backstory of the Covenant and what they added to the lore at the time. The Terminator-esque dark future timeline also provided a new era to explore that fascinated many. And, of course, the surprise return of Unicron in a Beast Wars storyline was a move that pulled readers even further into the story, with many eager to read the BotCon 2000 conclusion following the 1999 prose chapters.

On the other end of the spectrum, however, Omega Point has also been the subject of much criticism. In addition to being confined to such a limited release venue that not every fan had access to (a critique that would become common to most BotCon and related fiction in years to come), one of the biggest issues that turned people off was the sheer complexity of the story that, for some, made the story very difficult to follow. "Schism" and "Paradox", for instance, constantly jump the story around from setting to setting, even scene per scene in the latter's case, and the erasure of Shokaract's timeline essentially undoes much of the storyline's events, creating an overall paradoxical nature that in turn left a number of readers finding the whole of Omega Point to be a highly convoluted and needlessly overcomplicated mess. What's more is how it evidently tried to recreate the scale and overall feel of the Marvel Comics "Unicron Saga" that ran from Issue #60 to Issue #75, but condensed down to just a small amount of prose stories and one comic, lacking the substance and breathing room of the sixteen issues that the original Marvel storyline had.

Unhelpful to these matters is how the storyline has seemingly become more redundant over time, with many fans looking back on it years later with far less reverence, instead recognizing it more clearly as the product of a time when Transformers fiction was much less bountiful and ubiquitous. The inclusion of Unicron is no longer looked on with awe and wonderment, but instead presents Omega Point, in many fans' eyes, as "just another Unicron story", due to the enormous amount of exposure that the Chaos Bringer eventually received in the subsequent years of the Unicron Trilogy, the Dreamwave comics, the Fun Publications fiction, and much more.

In the end, like many other pieces of Transformers fiction, the saga of Reaching the Omega Point served its purpose at the time, and was successful enough with its original audience, but with the rapid growth and expansion of the Transformers brand that has brought it to wider reaches of mass media in the years since, the Omega Point storyline has since faded far into the backgrounds of obscurity, residing mostly in a state of indifference and neutral unawareness within the greater fandom.

Legacy

The Covenant would pave the way for the concept of the Thirteen.

Despite having been overtaken by more mainstream fiction, Reaching the Omega Point would go on to influence many other works in the years to come. Most importantly, the concept of the Covenant as a special group of "original Transformers" created by Primus would be reinvented for the development of the Thirteen, another creation of Simon Furman, in the early-to-mid 2000s.

Shokaract's role as a Predacon overlord empowered by Unicron's lifeforce would also resurface in 2007–2008, with Shokaract serving as the primary antagonist of Furman's Beast Wars comic mini-series The Ascending, albeit with the Dark Essence replaced by the similar substance of Angolmois Energy from the Japanese-original Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo series. Though, the Matrix of Conquest of this series was renamed the "Anti-Matrix" (And renamed again the "Matrix of Chaos" in Shokaract's Beast Wars Sourcebook profile). Additionally, as another throwback to Omega Point, among Shokaract's five Heralds in the mini-series was none other than Antagony.

By the year 2014, that year marked the 20th anniversary of BotCon. To celebrate, BotCon 2014 saw the release of a special new "Pirates vs. Knights" storyline that paid tribute to Reaching the Omega Point. Set in the far future of the Wings Universe on a post-Beast Machines technorganic Cybertron, the convention's "Hoist the Flag" comic story saw the rise of that universe's version of Shokaract (known originally as just "the Hunter"), with the comic's final pages depicting his acquisition of the Matrix of Conquest from Unicron.

Additional build-up material was also produced online ahead of the convention. A prose series titled "Tornado - Decepticon Saboteur" was released as the first of a new line of Facebook-based fiction produced for the Transformers Collectors' Club. In this series, the Decepticon-turned-pirate Tornado chronicled the adventures of the Star Seeker space pirates held before their arrival at the future era Cybertron of the 2014 convention comic. During these narratives, Tornado would compose personal journal logs in a vein similar to Apelinq's War Journals, and to further the homage, there were seven instances in Tornado's writings where he would happen upon journal entries written by the Wings Universe version of Apelinq himself, in which Apelinq described moments where he would have brief visions of the events of Point Omega, events that he otherwise did not remember but cryptically felt as though he had experienced them first hand in another time, in another life…

Finally, the last piece of fiction to be majorly influenced by Omega Point was the final installment for the "Pirates vs. Knights" storyline: A one-page comic art print made for the 2015 "BotCon Legacy Collection". Simply titled "Legacy", this story was told from the point-of-view of the newly-arisen Shokaract himself, who waxed poetic about his destiny to conquer Cybertron, at a point when the planet was completely unprepared for his coming.

Analysis

Because Reaching the Omega Point features a heavily dose of time travel, alternate timelines, and temporal shenanigans, it can be a rather confusing story at first glance.

A temporal paradox

The timestorm created by Megatron was apparently the crux of all of the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff in this storyline.

In the Beast Wars episode "The Agenda (Part III)", Megatron tries to kill the sleeping Autobot leader Optimus Prime in an attempt to change history, which creates a timestorm so devastating that it threatens to destroy all of time itself. In the following episode, "Optimal Situation", the Maximals successfully repair the damage done to the dormant Optimus Prime, thereby repairing the damage to the timestream and ending the timestorm itself. However, Omega Point posits the idea that the Maximals weren't thorough enough in their efforts to fix the timestream.

A small tear in the fabric of space-time had been torn open by the storm, and was left hanging overhead directly above the Dark Essence; the very same time rift had previously brought the essence to its resting place on prehistoric Earth. Over time, the rift gradually grew bigger and threatened to pull the Dark Essence back in the timestream, putting Shokaract's future era at risk and leaving all possible futures in a state of quantum uncertainty. In "Terminus", when Megatron stumbles upon both the Dark Essence and the rift overhead, he deduces that he and his timestorm were what caused the rift to reopen:

This all seems to imply that Shokaract's alternate future exists in a timeline where Megatron's timestorm never happened, which further implies that the timestorm itself was possibly never even supposed to happen, and that Megatron did indeed alter history to some extent. However, his actions apparently had an unforeseen positive result: Had he never created the timestorm, the Dark Essence would have been left fully undisturbed for the Hunter to find later on and become Shokaract, allowing his future empire to exist in the proper timeline. In other words, Megatron had to shoot Optimus Prime in order for Shokaract's future to be erased, without either the Chronarchitect or the Covenant knowing of the preferable effects that Megatron's temporal meddling would have upon the far future.

However, because the timestorm occurred in the past, shouldn't its effects have instantly erased the timeline of Shokaract's future era? Theoretically, yes. But Omega Point seems to operate under the notion that the fate of the future, of all futures, wouldn't be determined until after Point Omega had come to pass, which didn't happen until well after the timestorm ended. Yet, that battle still took place in the past, so it too should have already happened from the future's perspective. And the battle was even lost by Shokaract, anyway. By all sense, Shokaract's future timeline ought to have vanished immediately, or even never existed at all. Yet, it did exist, because of destiny.

Point Omega was destined to be started by Shokaract himself, so he and his future timeline needed to exist in order for him to travel back in time to the Beast Wars and kickstart Point Omega. But, the battle in the past he was destined to start was still ultimately lost, thereby preventing Shokaract's future timeline from ever coming to be and thus negating his own existence. But in that case, no Shokaract means no Point Omega, since fate required that he be the one to instigate it. No Point Omega would mean that it wasn't lost by him (or anyone) and thus didn't erase his timeline. So he would have existed and would have lived to start and lose Point Omega, which then erases his timeline, which negates his existence, which negates Point Omega, which allows his timeline to exist, which allows him to exist, which allows him to start and lose Point Omega, which erases his timeline, and on and on. Therein lies the paradox.

Omega Point vs. Beast Machines

While likely unintentional, Shokaract's backstory as the Hunter actually contradicts the events of Beast Machines. Prior to his finding the Dark Essence, the Hunter is described as a Predacon who lived an easy life hunting down and executing Maximals in the years since Megatron took over Cybertron, but then complacency set in and the Maximals launched a more concerted rebellion. This is in contrast to how, in Beast Machines, Megatron conquered Cybertron not with Predacons but with Vehicons, and stole the sparks of everyone on the planet, Maximal and Predacon alike. Thus, it is unlikely that the Predacons received any benefits from Megatron's rule in Beast Machines, much less hunted down any remaining Maximals in the years to come, what with Megatron having, as said, captured every spark on Cybertron.

In reality, these discrepancies were most likely due to author Simon Furman having not been privy to all the finer details of Beast Machines at the time of his writing Omega Point, as the first episode had only just received an early screening at BotCon 1999 and wouldn't premiere on television until September 18 two months later. It is very plausible that Furman based this backstory for the pre-Shokaract Hunter on an early description for the sequel series to Beast Wars (then named Beast Hunters) found in a Fall 1999 Fox Kids press release first put out on February 9 of that year, which referred to "the evil dragon Megatron and his hordes of Predacons".^[3] This is further supported by the fact that Windrazor, who hails from Shokaract's future, identified Megatron during the Beast Wars specifically by his dragon beast mode.

This would also suggest that, while the timestorm somehow did not happen during the Beast Wars of Shokaract's timeline, the rest of the Beast Wars did play out more or less the same: Megatron still acquired his dragon mode and eventually made it back to Cybertron to conquer it afterward. But in this timeline, he ruled Cybertron for years and had Predacons hunting down and executing Maximals, instead of using Vehicons to steal everyone's sparks. From an in-universe perspective, there is simply no explanation for how or why Megatron's tactics differed so much (as, again, these differences were most likely not intentional), but all this can further be attributed to the unforeseen changes to history caused by the timestorm. Regardless, this alternate timeline was ultimately erased anyway, with the proper events of Beast Machines occurring instead.

The artifact

The early installments of Reaching the Omega Point focus on a plot device simply known as "the artifact". The exact identity of this artifact is initially left ambiguous, with the likely intent of being revealed later as the story progressed. However, rather than follow through with that, Omega Point instead basically forgets about the artifact and any significance it might have had, with its role in the story being replaced by the Dark Essence in the main three chapters. Yet, there do remain clues as to what the artifact's original purpose was before it fell by the wayside.

When first introduced in "Visitations", the artifact was said to be a Predacon "gizmo" of "futuristic" design. Later, in the original version of "Herald", the artifact was described as "a key capable of breaching—or indeed sealing—the dimensional wall." These descriptions suggest that the artifact was originally supposed to be a device that originated from Shokaract's dark future, and that its arrival through time into the Beast Wars posed a threat to said timeline's existence. But afterward, the artifact would go on to never be mentioned at all in either "Covenant", "Schism", or "Paradox".

Apelinq with the alleged "artifact". Maybe. We're not really sure, to be honest.

It would not be until the release of "Terminus" at BotCon 2000 that the artifact would be brought back into the story. In a text recap describing the events of "Visitations", it was once again described as a Predacon artifact, but also as a "sealed canister of arcane but futuristic design." The artwork accompanying this recap (pictured further up the article in the "Prelude" subsection) indeed depicted it as a sealed vial-shaped canister, and revealed the Maximal Apelinq to have been the mysterious individual who took the artifact in that story. But, the "Predacon" and "futuristic" aspects of the artifact (and even the new "arcane" part) would ultimately not factor into the main story of "Terminus". Though, when Apelinq first appeared in said story, he was holding a vial containing a yellow-green liquid (pictured right), which the narration text referred to as "his own key to the future. An artifact acquired recently at considerable risk." While the "key" part does evoke the description of the artifact from "Herald", this object in Apelinq's possession would not play any role in the story whatsoever.

When Apelinq's War Journals came along to fill in some of the gaps of Omega Point, the identity of the artifact was finally explored... kind of. Journal 15 referred to Apelinq having lost his Transfer Interlink, a device capable of opening and closing transwarp gateways. He then mentions having reclaimed it in Journal 16, in direct reference to the events of "Visitations". However, in the same journals, he also refers to having lost and reclaimed a cure he had made for Megatron's virus from Beast Machines. This makes the antivirus and the Interlink the two most likely candidates for the artifact's identity, essentially retconning away the previous implications of the artifact having been a Predacon device from Shokaract's future. But, determining which of these two is supposed to be the artifact is easier said than done.

As mentioned, "Herald" describes the artifact as capable of breaching and sealing "the dimensional wall." The Transfer Interlink is indeed an object that can both open and close transwarp portals, as stated in Journals 14, 17, and 18. Journal 15 also makes direct mention of Apelinq having lost the Transfer Interlink, while the loss of the antivirus is only implied. And while Journal 16 refers to Apelinq having recovered both items at the same time, there was specifically only one device, not two, that Apelinq made off with in "Visitations". This would suggest that, prior to his logging Journal 16, Apelinq either reclaimed one of the two outside of the script reading's events, or that both objects could possibly be the same object instead of separate ones. The latter notion is even supported by how Journal 16 indisputably refers to the antivirus as a program, while Journals 17 and 18 also confirm that one of the Transfer Interlink's functions is a transwarp program.

And when all is said and done, logic and reason would beg the questions of how and why a cure for Megatron's virus in Beast Machines would be of any relevance to anything in the Omega Point storyline. Why would Shokaract send Antagony to search for a cure to a centuries-old virus that, by all appearances, held no threat to Shokaract's former life? What danger would the antivirus pose to the Dark Essence? How could the antivirus breech or seal the "dimensional wall"? It makes little sense for the antivirus to be the artifact. The Transfer Interlink at least has its transwarp program to connect itself to the artifact's description in "Herald", but the antivirus has no known relevance to the Omega Point storyline whatsoever.

And yet, despite all of that, there are still a few other points that lean more towards the antivirus being the artifact: As mentioned, the recap of "Visitations" found in "Terminus" both describes and visually presents the artifact as a sealed canister, which is reiterated in its depiction as a vial filled with a yellow-green liquid in the main story. What's more, the Interlink itself is later depicted in the BotCon 2002 comic story "Betrayal" as a small computer console accessed by little keypads mounted on the insides of Apelinq's forearms, which does not match the visual depiction of the artifact taken by Apelinq in the aforementioned "Visitations" recap art. This not only strongly implies the antivirus to be the artifact, but also a physical liquid substance instead of an intangible program, making Journal 16 referring to it as such seem like another retcon.

Plus, in the BotCon 2001 comic's inside-cover recap of Apelinq's War Journals, the antidote to Megatron's plague is called "a virtual key that might seal the tyrant's fate while securing the Wreckers' last hope for salvation." Though the context is different, the precise use of the word "key" in specific regards to the cure feels a little too on the nose for both "Herald" and "Terminus" likewise referring to the artifact as a "key" to be just a mere coincidence. And most tellingly of all (depending on how much value one puts into authorial intent), in 2002, 3H member Glen Hallit once openly insisted that the artifact was absolutely the antivirus and not the Transfer Interlink at all.^[4] However, in 2018, when shown this post of his from sixteen years prior, a rather baffled Glen Hallit had completely forgotten about having ever made that claim and couldn't remember why he had made it in the first place.^[5]

In short, the artifact was evidently written with the initial intent of being a nebulous object left open enough for later writers to fill in the blanks on its identity. But in the end, said blanks were never completely filled in either a consistent or a conclusive manner. Therefore, it remains ultimately up to the reader as to which of Apelinq's two personal belongings one wishes to perceive as the true identity of the artifact.

References

External links

• The complete Reaching the Omega Point storyline at the BotCon Online archives