Blastcharge Strika Drone
From Transformers Wiki
- The Blastcharge Strika Drones are Autobots from the Wings Universe portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.
Boasting incredible strength and firepower, the Blastcharge Strika Drones are a force to be reckoned with! The Drones share the physical attributes of their template, the Autobot General Strika. As they hold no Sparks of their own, they instead rely on a limited artificial intelligence. That said, their intelligence isn't really necessary, as Strika commands her Drones through a prototype Genetronic Translink System originally conceived by the late Wheeljack and his human ally, Chip Chase. This gives Strika an edge in battle, and can send them up against a specific target or whole army with but a single thought.
One Drone in particular however has been granted a Spark of her own.[1] Should Strika's controls be severed, this "Backup Drone" can take command of her forces, though she harbors an incredibly low intelligence and can only give the most basic commands, such as "CHARGE!", "RUN", or "ATTACK!".
The only downside to their efforts would be that the Drones are good at what they do. Perhaps a little too good. For if neither Strika or her Backup Drone are available, then the Drones are programmed to continue on with their last given orders to the very end. And if that order happened to be "DESTROY!" with no further clarification, then this could result in a particularly nasty skirmish for both Autobots and Decepticons alike.
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Fiction
Wings Universe
At an unspecified point in time (possibly before the Machine Wars), at least nine Drones were assembled, ready and waiting for their general to give them commands. Interlude...
Shortly before the invasion of Megaplex and his clone army, several Drones were recruited (along with Hauler, Hotlink, and Magnificus) to form a unified-yet-uneasy alliance to protect their homeworld. In the weeks that followed, at least one Drone assisted Strika, Obsidian, Sandstorm, Hoist, and Octane in an attempted ambush on Thundercracker and his clones. While they fought valiantly, the Drone was soon destroyed. Nobody seemed to notice.
As part of Obsidian's scheme to lure as many of Megaplex's forces into one location for a hopefully swift victory, five Drones teamed up with the remaining Rainmakers and charged into battle. They appeared to hold their own well this time around, with one Drone grabbing Thundercracker in a stranglehold with a single servo.
That was, until Jhiaxus showed up with a menagerie of reinforcements. As none of the Drones nor their Rainmaker teammates were seen alongside their Generals, it's safe to presume they were either all taken prisoner, or terminated on the spot. Termination
At least one Drone survived, and helped a joint Autobot-Decepticon squad fend off the invaders. A Common Foe
TransTech
Blastcharge Strika drones helped guard Axiom Nexus's Offworlder Maximum Security Prison along with the Autoroopers. During a blackout, one of them attempted to stop a group of Cybertron's most wanted criminals with a vibro-mace. She was overpowered by the inmates, however. More Blastcharge Strika Drones continued to attempt to stop the prisoners from escaping, but were trounced by the stronger (and craftier) 'bots. Cybertron's Most Wanted
Toys
Timelines
- Blastcharge Strika Drone (Customization Class toy, BotCon 2013)
- Accessories: Missile, flagpole and sticker sheet (Customization Class only)
- A retool of Generations Warpath featuring the new head used for Strika of the same year's boxset, Blastcharge Strika Drone transforms into a tank. She retains all of the mold's previous gimmicks, including a spring-loaded missile launcher mounted on her right shoulder, rotating turret, 5 mm-compatible hands, and rods to hold c joint accessories.
- For BotCon 2013, fans were given two options to acquire her; the first involved attending the Customization Class on either Wednesday or Thursday, though this was limited to roughly 120. Each figure came unassembled and unpainted, resulting in an average of 4-7 hours spent sanding, polishing, and painting. On the downside, no enamel was available at the class to help seal each figure's paint job, nor was there a guide (beyond one quick hand-painted model) as to where the paints should be applied for anyone who wanted their figure to be as authentic to their original namesake as possible.
- A further bonus was available for participants in the Class. Each Drone was given a hollow plastic rod and sticker sheet. Combining the two resulted in a flag she could fly around. Due to budget restrictions, the flag was too thin to carry in robot mode, but could fit in two of the screw holes in vehicle mode. The sheet contained three extra stickers; two with the words "J4C08" and "K8-M", plus one promoting BotCon 2013. A second, more elaborate flag was given away to four randomly-selected Class members over both days through a raffle ticket competition. While recommended by the organizers, this flag is not considered official Hasbro product. The blueprints were later made available for download.
- For those who could not attend the Class, a number of unpainted figures were available for purchase throughout the weekend at the Collectors' Club store, minus flag and stickers.
| Generations mold: Warpath | ||
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Notes
- Originally, Blastcharge Strika Drone was meant to be an updated version of the Beast Machines Vehicon Blastcharge. Furthermore, they would have retained the Warpath head sculpt as it was felt to be an adequate passing for the original character's design. Somewhere along in production however, there was an unspecified error, resulting in the Strika head being used entirely by accident. This error was never caught until the figures arrived. With less than three weeks until the convention began, and a whole shipment of mis-headed figures at their doorstep, the organisers had little choice but to go back and quickly rewrite his bio into both a new character and drone army resembling their General.[2]
- While the bio was changed, all of the Blastcharge Strika Drones in the comic retained their Warpath head, as did the instructions to assemble the figure. This led to confusion amongst Class participants, wondering why they were given three screws for the head, as the Strika sculpt only required two.
- In an ironic twist, this resulted in those attending the Wednesday Customization Class to be the first to own the new head sculpt, half a day before registered guests who ordered the ready-made figure could pick her up along with the boxset.
- The name "Blastcharge Strika Drone" stems from the Customization Class manual, and was (for a while) its only official use. Neither packaging, promotional material or the Timelines comic give a name, with the latter simply referring to them as "drones". When made available at the Collectors' Club Online Store, the figure was named "Blastcharge Strika".
References
- ↑ While the figure's bio is essentially genderless, given each Drone shares the same physical design as Strika, it's fair to say the Blastcharge Strika Drones are female. Whether this applies to the Drone with a Spark as well (or if this individual Drone in particular is meant to be a precursor to Blastcharge, though the bio says nothing to confirm or deny it) is left up to each fan to decide. For the sake of convenience (plus it never hurts to have more female Transformers around), this page unless suggested otherwise lists the Drones as female (albeit Sparkless) Autobots.
- ↑ This was confirmed at the Customization Class, where they furthermore apologised for not getting the head they wanted.