The Change In Your Nature Part Two

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"The Change In Your Nature Part Two"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	November 6, 2019
Cover date	October 2019
Written by	Brian Ruckley
Art by	Anna Malkova (pages 1-3, 6-17) Beth McGuire-Smith (pages 4-5, 18-20)
Colors by	Joana Lafuente
Letters by	Tom B. Long
Editor	David Mariotte and Tom Waltz
Continuity	2019 IDW continuity

Dark secrets and darker deeds come to light as an armed standoff leads to conflict between Chromia's Security Operations, Ruckus's Risers, and Soundwave's Ascenticon Guard.

Synopsis

The situation is tense in the Cybertronian Mountains as the 'bots of Security Operations prepare for a protracted standoff between themselves and Ruckus's group of Risers, who have currently barricaded themselves in the body of one of the region's many immersant Titans. Despite Chromia and Springer's best attempts to deescalate the situation via remote-controlled drones, each and every one of their attempts has ended with the Ascenticon malcontent blasting their hardware out of the sky. As the two police-bots watch their latest attempt to parley end in another disheartening explosion, Chromia outlines the problem to Springer: they need to get their quarry out of the Titan for questioning, but the intensely pious Reversionists worship the gigantic Transformers and refuse to allow anyone to damage their crumbling bodies. As Chromia checks with her subordinate Javelin, however, the police sniper is abruptly cut off mid-sentence as a Riser bullet grazes her head!

Officers Kup, Sideswipe, and Strongarm have staked out the other side of the Titan as the crisis plays out. Sideswipe is eager as ever to charge in and bust some Ascenticon heads, claiming that they started it, but Kup—a veteran of the War of the Threefold Spark—advises him to temper his enthusiasm; young post-war forgings like him have never killed... and that's the way that Kup wants to keep things. Before Sideswipe can retort, a transmission from Chromia alerts the three that Javelin is down but still alive, and that the chief of Security Operations has decided to go ahead with a full breach of the Titan. Sideswipe smirks as he cocks his gun... after all, he can't help it if the Ascenticons are starting things again, can he?

In Iacon, Nautica confers with Prowl outside of a Voin dwelling. Although Prowl's blunt, straightforward approach to dealing with the aliens has failed in the past, Nautica explains that her many years of experience with the aliens just might allow her the luxury of a more nuanced tack. Over Prowl's impudent protests that he doesn't shout, and as her bodyguard Road Rage watches, Nautica enters the building and confers with one of the many Voin who inhabit the aquarium. When she emerges, Prowl immediately pushes her for details, and Nautica confirms that she now has a second-hand account of Brainstorm's murder, as witnessed by the now-deceased Voin scavenger. But the Voin are a fiercely mercantile race, and don't trade information for free: in order to learn this, Nautica was also forced to tell the aliens that The Rise were in possession of high-grade military weapons, and that Cybertron runs an ever-higher risk of experiencing massive civil unrest. And that's not all, Nautica continues to her incredulous comrade: the Voin whom Quake killed was a very important individual in their strange society, and its murder will have major consequences.

In the badlands, the operation has begun: Chromia directs Flak to begin firing on the Titan, a low-impact barrage designed to draw their attention while Sideswipe affixes breaching charges to the side of their impromptu bunker. As Ruckus and his men panic, Kaskade finds herself knocked off her feet when the wall collapses, allowing Kup to fire a fusillade of stun grenades. Unfortunately, Kup bargained without Lowload; the hulking drill-bot easily catches and crushes the explosives in one fist, before using his drill tank alternate mode to take out Strongarm! Although Sideswipe is able to outmaneuver the cumbersome warrior, badly damaging him with another grenade, Lowload is nevertheless able to retreat to the safety of the Titan and seals the damaged wall shut behind him. Sideswipe grimly reports the action to Chromia: they're going to need some bigger stunners.

Before Chromia can respond, however, she's interrupted by Soundwave and the Ascenticon Guard, who've supposedly arrived to try and negotiate with Ruckus and his team. Brushing off Springer and Chromia's protestations that the situation isn't safe for a Senator, Soundwave informs them that the Ascenticons police their own; when that doesn't work, Soundwave simply amplifies his voice many times over, knocking both 'bots off their feet, in order to get the attention of the besieged Risers and declare a truce. Soundwave instructs Bumblebee and Elita-1 to follow him, while Acid Storm and Refraktor stay behind. Soundwave tells Bumblebee and Elita-1 that he'll do the negotiations himself while they wait outside; once Soundwave has entered, however, a suspicious Bumblebee decides that he's going after him, regardless of the consequences, and sneaks after the Senator. As Elita-1 takes up her lonely guard, a shadow darkens the sky above her...

...a shadow that belongs to Starscream, who touches down in front of Chromia and Springer and announces that he's only present as an observer, here to make sure that security brings Ruckus's group in alive for questioning. As it turns out, however, Starscream's got ulterior motives all his own: once they're safely out of earshot, Starscream presses Refraktor, his own private mole in the organization, for information on everything that the Ascenticons have been up to while he was away from Cybertron.

From the shadows, Bumblebee watches as introductions are made all around, with Soundwave promising them safe passage out of the Titan if they cooperate with Chromia's security forces for information. Ruckus and his team are eager get out without a fight, claiming that they know nothing about Brainstorm's murder. As Soundwave prepares to depart, however, Ruckus stupidly lets slip that he really does know more than he claims: he and his teammates are members of The Rise's inner circle, veterans who'd been there since Shockwave took command... and Soundwave grimly realizes what must be done. The senator scolds Ruckus for his foolishness, but plants his electromagnetic suppressor in the ground and snaps his fingers, claiming that the device will block surveillance while they wait for further contact.

As Bumblebee scrambles to the surface of the Titan ahead of Soundwave, Soundwave falsely informs the pair that negotiations have broken down: the terrorists possess a large stash of unstable explosive material. Bumblebee whispers to his compatriot that Soundwave's left his staff behind... and, not far away, Starscream chews out Refraktor for not telling him that Bumblebee, of all 'bots, has joined the Ascenticon Guard, but both conversations are cut short when the Titan is suddenly consumed by a fiery explosion, a detonation that blows the sleeping giant to bits!

'Bots scramble for cover as Chromia stares up in horror at the sight... a sight visible from the Metal Geysers out in Cybertron's badlands, where both Geomotus and Landmine stare up in confusion at the pillar of flame...a pillar that can even be seen from the middle of Iacon, where Megatron grimly watches the ghastly panorama. As he stalks from the balcony, Megatron warns Strika and Jhiaxus that it's only just begun: they're in a race against time now, and one wrong move will mean the end for them all...

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"You're a post-war forging, ain't you?"
"Sure. What difference does that make?"
"A lot if you've never killed anyone. I didn't volunteer for security service to revisit that. Nobody who went through it would. Unless there's somethin' wrong with 'em."

—Kup and Sideswipe

"I did not shout at them. I'm not even sure they'd know whether a Cybertronian was shouting at them or not."

—Prowl on negotiating with the Voin

"'Courage is the currency of the moment'? What does that even mean?"
"Yeah. Madness does seem more like the main currency right now."

—Elita-1 and Bumblebee

"Damn us all to the void for what we have done. And for what we may yet have to do. We are in a race against catastrophe now. One missed step and we all fall."

—Megatron

Notes

Continuity notes

• Ruckus first appeared all the way back in issue #1, as one of many Ascenticon protesters on a march to Tarn. It wasn't clear at the time how this tied into his appearance in the previous issue; this issue confirms that he was a veteran member of The Rise.
• Ruckus blabs that Soundwave had assisted fellow Riser Barricade with "[getting] him out", referring to Soundwave's recent orchestration of a phony "attack" on Ascenticon headquarters to extricate the police-bot in issue #12. Ruckus also notes that a recently recruited group of ex-intelligence recruits speak highly of him; the previous issue suggested that the as-yet unseen Frenzy is very likely to be one of these bots.
• Starscream, Nautica, and her bodyguard Road Rage arrived on Cybertron in issue #10. The circumstances behind their arrival were elaborated on in issue #12. That issue also confirmed that Nautica had spent more time with the Voin in their native environment than any other Transformer, allowing her to effectively communicate with the aliens; additionally, Nautica worried that Cybertron's Voin community might take issue with the death of the scavenger, as their culture held some Voin individuals above others.
• Prowl was noted to have previously attempted to work with the Voin in issue #3, though he was unable to get any straight answers from their community representatives.
• Starscream's suspicion towards Bumblebee is well-founded: Issue #11 revealed that Orion Pax had put Bumblebee up to infiltrating the Ascenticon Guard in order to keep tabs on Megatron's organization from within; issue #10, meanwhile, revealed that Starscream was head of Cybertronian intelligence. This issue not only reveals that he had hired Refraktor for a similar task, but he had also somehow ousted Soundwave from the position as well, resulting in the latter's demotion to a mere Senator.
• Soundwave is shown wielding an electromagnetic suppressor, a tool that first appeared in issue #5.
• Last we saw him in issue #9, Geomotus was preparing to go on a geological expedition to Cybertron's Metal Geysers with his friend Landmine.

Transformers references

• Chromia grimly notes that Cybertron's Reversionists revere Titans, and refuse to let one come to harm: a similar phenomenon occurred in the original IDW continuity, where the devout Transformers of Caminus also worshipped the giant Transformers.
• Javelin is another IDW-original character; along with a number of other Camien Transformers, she first appeared in 2015 as a crewmember of Thunderclash's spaceship in The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye, and made a brief cameo in 2018's Unicron miniseries.
• Javelin's sniper rifle is loosely-based on the alternate mode of Vos, who appeared in the original IDW continuity as a member of the Decepticon Justice Division. More specifically, its finer details are based on a third party toy of Vos. Oops.
• Strongarm and Sideswipe as part of the same team may be a reference to their Aligned counterparts, who both wound up as members of the "Bee Team" in the 2015-2017 Robots in Disguise cartoon.
• Flak and Stakeout appear as members of Security Operations; while the characters are traditionally Micromasters, this continuity continues to depict them as ordinarily-sized Transformers, as was the case with Storm Cloud and Visper in issue #10. This isn't the first time this has happened to the two, however: Flak was a full-sized dude in Fun Publications' Wings Universe stories, as was Stakeout in IDW's Sins of the Wreckers miniseries.
• Alluded to in issue #9, Geomotus's friend Landmine makes his first on-panel appearance. He's been redesigned to resemble the Transformers: Energon holder of the name, with an orange-and-blue color scheme, and his alt-mode's treads and plow; this had some precedent in the first IDW continuity, where G1 Landmine appeared using the Energon body (though that was due to an artist error). In addition to this, his characterization hews closer to his traditional Generation 1 counterpart; Geomotus reveres him as a seasoned adventurer, mentioning a prior expedition into the depths of Cybertron's Sonic Canyons.

Errors

• On page 2, Stakeout is coloured incorrectly: his arms are silver, rather than black.

Other notes

• Originally solicited for October 30, this issue arrives one week late.

Covers (3)

• Cover A: Security Operations, by Kei Zama and Josh Burcham
• Cover B: Starscream, by Priscilla Tramontano
• Retailer incentive cover: Starscream, Soundwave, and Megatron, by Sara Pitre-Durocher

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Reprints

• Transformers Volume 2: The Change In Their Nature (September 16, 2020) ISBN 1684056756 / ISBN 978-1684056750
  • Collects Galaxies issues #1–6 and Transformers (2019) issues #13–18.
  • Bonus material includes alternate covers.
  • Hardcover format.

• Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection Volume 99: The Cracks Beneath Your Feet (October 21, 2020)
  • Collects Transformers (2019) issues #8–14.
  • Bonus material includes a cover gallery, and an intro by Simon Furman.
  • Hardcover format.

• 

  Volume 2: The Change In Their Nature – cover art by Cryssy Cheung

• 

  The Definitive G1 Collection Volume 99: The Cracks Beneath Your Feet – cover art by Dreamwave (Cyclonus) and Angel Hernandez

External links

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