The Quintesson Journal

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"The Quintesson Journal"
Production code	700-103
Season	3
No. in season	18
Production company	Sunbow Productions
Airdate	November 11, 1986
Written by	Richard Merwin
Animation studio	AKOM, Sam Young Studio
Continuity	Generation 1 cartoon continuity
Watch this episode on YouTube

A Quintesson device may just be the key to peace between two worlds.

Synopsis

Someone's Ritalin is just kicking in.

On Cybertron, the Autobots are hosting a peace conference for two neighboring planets, Xetaxxis and Lanarq, which have been at war for centuries and will wipe each other out within a generation, as explained by Melkorr. Spike Witwicky asks the leaders of the two delegations to shake hands. They take the opportunity to grapple with each other. Rodimus Prime remarks that it's going well so far.

Elsewhere, a lost Quintesson Journal tumbles from space and lands on an unknown world. Predaking detects the journal's strange Quintesson signal. He contacts Cyclonus, who intends to meet him at the coordinates. However, Perceptor has also detected the signal, and he sends Sky Lynx, who is carrying Blaster and Outback, to the Angarrix sector to investigate. The foliage is too thick for Sky Lynx to land, so Blaster and Outback head out on foot. Blaster ejects Steeljaw and Ramhorn to help in the search. Meanwhile, Predaking separates into the Predacons to cover more ground. The Autobots are suddenly attacked by vines, but are able to free themselves and find the source of the signal, a strange golden cylinder. Just then, a tree nearly falls on the device, and Outback blasts it, causing the device to activate. The Autobots learn that the cylinder is a Quintesson Journal, a record of their commercial activities on various planets. The Predacons then arrive and attack. Sky Lynx arrives to rescue the Autobots, and the Predacons unite. The Autobots are able to board Sky Lynx and escape, only to be attacked by Cyclonus and the Sweeps. Suddenly, an energy field grabs Sky Lynx through an unseen warp gate, which closes.

On the other side of the warp gate, a Quintesson ship captures Sky Lynx, disabling his ability to transform. The Quintessons reclaim the journal and take Outback, Blaster, and the cassettes prisoner. Outback is able to trick a Sharkticon into opening the cell for some energon, and Blaster then...uh, blasts the Sharkticon. Outback grabs the journal, and the Autobots escape aboard Sky Lynx, only to discover that Galvatron, Cyclonus, the Sweeps, and Predaking have located them. The Decepticons manage to steal the journal and flee. At the peace conference, the two delegations leave, intending to purchase doomsday weapons from their suppliers...the Quintessons.

"You must see this droid safely delivered to my father on Alderaan."

On an unnamed planet, the Decepticons begin to examine the journal. Upon discovering it is economic in nature, Galvatron is angry—well, angrier than usual. However, the Autobots have tracked the Decepticons down, and they learn that the war between Xetaxxis and Lanarq is among the journal's archives. Knowing that this could end the war, the Autobots attempt to steal the journal back, only for the Quintessons to steal it back again. On Cybertron, the delegations begin fighting each other. Rodimus is so frustrated that the Autobot leader fires his weapon and orders the two delegations to sit down. Furious, the Xetaxxan and Lanarqan leaders request the Quintessons to bring their omega bombs. The Quintessons decide that they will deliver both bombs once they have been paid. However, the Autobots manage to break into their ship and steal back the journal.

"Well, wait a minute. Where'd she go? Bring her back! Play back the entire message!"

Arriving on Cybertron, Blaster and Outback show the recordings to the delegations, who are horrified to discover that their worlds have suffered to finance the Quintessons. Having been found out, the Quintessons contact the peace conference, announcing that they will deliver the omega bombs—right into Xetaxxis and Lanarq. This is a big mistake on the Quintessons' part, for they're passing right by Cybertron at that moment. Rodimus and Ultra Magnus jump aboard Sky Lynx and follow the Quintessons, destroying their ship before the bombs can be launched. On Cybertron, a peace is negotiated between Xetaxxis and Lanarq. However, Rodimus notes that the only real winners of the conflict were the Quintessons.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"I don't think this is how a peace process is supposed to begin."

—Rodimus Prime as the delegates begin struggling with each other.

"I could really learn to hate cholorophyl in this place!"

—Outback, after a run-in with some vines

"But you said no mercy, Galvatron!"
"Very true! So I shall show none!" [hits Predaking]

—Predaking just wants to break something, and Galvatron is psychotic, as usual.

"Uh, this... might be a good time for a break."
"Yeah. Couldn't hurt. Seeing as how everybody's already left anyway."

—Spike and Rodimus Prime find diplomacy ain't so easy

"Item four hundred and fifty-seven. Planet: Tixlara."
"This is it! The secrets of the Quintessons are ours!"
"A large fleet of Quintesson transport vessels were sold to Tixlara. The primitive nuclear fuel requirements drained the planet's mineral resources, bringing the Tixlarian economy under Quintesson control."
"This is useless!!"

—Obtaining the Quintesson journal is not Galvatron's greatest victory

"My wives now!"

"Don't you know any gentler games?"

—Ultra Magnus to the rambunctious delegates.

"Congratulations. It's taken you only a few thousand years to comprehend your folly, and we shall reward your perceptiveness by providing you your 'ultimate weapons' as promised—already armed, and set to explode on impact. Are you ready to take delivery?"

—Quintesson

"It's sad, really. All those centuries of war..."
"And the only winners... were the Quintessons."

—Ultra Magnus and Rodimus Prime state the moral of the story.

Notes

Continuity notes

• It's never stated outright, but it would seem this is intended to be the same journal from "The Big Broadcast of 2006", last seen tumbling away through space (even though, as noted below, they messed up the color scheme.)
• Predaking is presumably hungry for revenge against Sky Lynx after his previous defeats in "Five Faces of Darkness, Part 5" and "Chaos". Sky Lynx evidently didn't rate the latter face-off, though, as he specifically refers to only "one thorough drubbing".
• Blaster is first shown riding inside Sky Lynx in boombox mode. He doesn't seem to have size-changed, as he is very large compared to Outback. Ramhorn and Steeljaw are both in mini-cassette mode resting against Blaster. The three of them sort of bounce towards Sky Lynx's exit and freefall to a planet surface before finally transforming. Later on, Blaster rides in Sky Lynx in robot mode with no problem.
• The Quintessons' economic victims include the planets Tyxlara and Alaxuu, as well as Xetaxxis and Lanarq.
• The Quintessons can apparently summon up warp gates out of the ether at will.
• This episode features an intelligent Allicon... possibly by accident. Though the finished episode depicts an Allicon talking strategy with a judge-type Quintesson on equal terms, the dialogue script refers to the speaker as the "Quintesson Navigator". This might mean the storyboard artist or animators simply grabbed the pre-existing Allicon model to fill the required character role.
• The Quintesson cruiser crashes into an asteroid with two fully armed omega bombs. It blows the hell up, taking the asteroid with it. Anyone who was on board is definitely dead!

Real-world references

• Rodimus Prime says that the fight between the Xetaxxis and Lanarqs reminds him of pro-wrestling, but Spike corrects him by telling him that those are at least faked.
• The Quintessons are depicted as war profiteers.
• The architecture on Xetaxxis owes more than a little to Saint Basil's Cathedral in Moscow.
• Star Wars sound effects:
  • Deactivating lightsaber as the Quintesson ship's hatch seals behind Sky Lynx.
  • Death Star defense cannons as the Autobots and Decepticons battle on the uncharted planet.
  • Death Star superlaser as Galvatron takes off in pursuit of the Quintesson ship.
• And speaking of, the projecting eyes, turban-wrapped heads, and oddly-shaped mouths of the Xetaxxians point to the Sandpeople as design inspiration. Years later, the Shining Armor miniseries would take the reference further by reimagining them as organic creatures wearing Tusken Raider-esque headgear.

Animation and technical errors

"Crikey! It's a wild Steeljaw!"

• It's an AKOM episode, with all the usual cruddy art and incorrect character models:
  • Rodimus and Galvatron are both consistently colored using outdated color models; Rodimus's shoulder indentations are red instead of white, his pelvis-windshield details are white instead of light burgundy, and his gun is red instead of black, while Galvatron has pale purple "underpants."
  • Spike has black eyebrows again.
  • While Outback's optics are blue in "Five Faces of Darkness, Part 1", in this episode they're consistently the same grey as the rest of his face.
  • The first time we see him, Cyclonus has his purple chin again, which changes to gray as he turns his head. His eyebrows alternate between purple and grey in different shots in the episode. He's got a pinkish-purple neck when he lands on the uncharted planet.
  • The Sweeps fly around in hovercraft mode with their heads sticking out of the top.
  • The inside of Galvatron's and Cyclonus's mouths are purple; Magnus's is red.
• Five voices of doom:
  • In AKOM episodes, individual Quintessons usually speak only from a single face, with the most frequently heard being Regis Cordic's "Quintesson #1" speaking from the face of Doubt. For the lines "I've never seen two planets more eager to blow each other to dust!" and "To say nothing of vaporizing half our profits!", however, the voice emanates from the face of Death (which is usually used by Jack Angel's "Quintesson #3", who can be heard delivering only a single line this episode, beginning with "Simultaneous delivery!")
  • At the episode's end, as "Quintesson #1" congratulates the Xetaxxans and Lanarqans on their realization, he speaks using the face of Laughter (usually reserved for Roger C. Carmel's "Quintesson #2"), before an animation error sees it cross-fade into the face of Death, instead of rotate.
  • The Quintesson who provides narration for the journal, meanwhile, is voiced by Paul Eiding. It's not strictly an error, but he uses the face of Death, rather than one of the other two "unclaimed" faces.
• Ventriloquist bots:
  • Predaking's mouthplate doesn't move for any of his lines.
  • Likewise, Divebomb and Headstrong both speak in beast mode without moving their mouths.
  • "Do the best you can!" - Sky Lynx's mouth doesn't move for this line.
  • "Look at the canister!" - Outback's mouth doesn't move.
  • Ramhorn growls at the Quintesson hologram without moving his mouth.
• Blaster's voice is missing its usual modulation throughout the episode.
• Predaking's head and face can't make up their mind how to be drawn and colored in his first few shots. The first shot shows his face half-buried in his torso, without his black eyeband. The second shot, a closeup, puts a second orange mouthplate on top of the first red one. As he replies to Cyclonus, his shoulder guns are drawn mounted to his armpits.
• After Cyclonus transforms and lands, the star background behind him in a closeup is drifting by him for no apparent reason.
• Sudden starry night:
  • As Outback runs toward Sky Lynx's exit, a starry sky is visible outside, while Sky Lynx is flying through fog and clouds.
  • "One thorough drubbing wasn't enough" - Sky Lynx has a starry sky behind him instead of daylit clouds, and again when the shot is recycled a moment later.
• From the inside, Sky Lynx has a vertical hatch; in the next shot, from the outside, it's a horizontal hatch.
• Blaster and the tapes get the wrong transformation sound; as they are going from a small, compact form to a taller, larger robot form, it should be the ascending-pitch version.
• "Must make more speed!" - Predaking's face is missing completely, replaced by an orange block.
• Divebomb's wings separate from Predaking, transforming into all of Divebomb's form - and leaving the rest of him still attached as Predaking's arm!

Blaster was so very grateful this episode wasn't part of the Japanese continuity.

• Blaster's belly:
  • As he struggles against the vines, Blaster's switches disappear, and his Autobot logo bounces around and morphs into a series of almost-random lines.
  • While spying on the Decepticons, Blaster has five switches on his chest instead of three.
  • After Sky Lynx grabs the journal, a reaction shot shows Blaster with five switches again, and his Autobot logo is colored somewhat randomly.
  • When he arrives at the conference, Blaster has 6-8 switches on his chest!
• During the first Quintesson journal playback, we see a projection of Cyclonus and two Sweeps standing on a planet for no clear reason.
• When the Decepticons attack Blaster, his Autobot symbol is missing.
• As the Predacons combine, Divebomb transforms into Predaking's head, which should be part of Razorclaw.
• Sky Lynx gets a lot of non-standard laser sound effects as he battles Predaking.
• Predaking's face is missing again as he recovers from Sky Lynx's blast.
• Sky Lynx the morphobot:
  • Sky Lynx grows his Lynx part when escaping from Predaking.
  • His lynx section grows the bird part when transforming back to spaceship mode to pursue the Quintessons.
• In the second shot of Cyclonus and the Sweeps flying through space, Cyclonus is flying upside down (relative to both the screen and the group he's leading.) The shots before and after have him oriented correctly.
• After the Sweeps turn to pursue Sky Lynx, Sky Lynx is shown flying over a planetary surface when he's supposed to be in deep space.
• Because of a layer error, a Sharkticon's arm is sticking into the Autobots' prison cell.
• Outback's energon cube starts out pink, but is the old multi-colored hue (seen way back in early Season 1) in subsequent shots.
• When running towards Sky Lynx, Outback's legs don't reach the bottom of the cel. Neither do Cyclonus's a couple of scenes later after he's grabbed the journal.
• Sky Lynx is missing all his panel lines as he sits in the Quintesson hangar bay.
• As Predaking fumbles with the journal, most of Razorclaw's lion face is missing from his chest.
• When the Autobots attack, the first salvo uses Optimus Prime's gun sound effect.
• "Doom to the intruders!" - Scourge (or a Sweep) is missing his wings in two shots.
• When one of the Quintessons picks up the container with his ray gun, the "beam" from the gun is missing. Then the canister suddenly jumps into the Quintesson's grasp, and is suddenly encased in energy beams.
• As Sky Lynx and Outback (!!) take off, Galvatron is shown flying alongside them! The next shot shows him turning to fire back at them.
• As Rodimus tries to reconvene the peace conference, Magnus pushes two random aliens back into their seats. Only... there are no seats! And we've never seen either of these aliens before and have no idea what they're doing there or why Magnus is mad at them or anything.
• Outback bangs on the journal without any sound effects; as it activates, its beam is layered over his arm when it should be behind it.
• When he jumps on Sky Lynx, Rodimus' spoiler is all-yellow (it should be orange in the middle).
• As they watch the Quintesson ship explode, Rodimus' spoiler is all-yellow, and the back of Magnus' arm has a square of gray (when it should be all-blue).
• In the episode's super-way-dramatic finale, Rodimus and Magnus fire one shot each at the Quintesson ship, declare "It's working!!", and urge themselves on to fire "One last burst!!", that being one more shot each. Don't wear yourselves out there, guys.
• The Lanarqans vanish from the shot before leaving the frame in the last shot of the episode.

Continuity errors

• At the beginning of the episode, the Quintesson journal falls from space, bumps into a tree and lands on the ground. It should have made a huge meteor impact.
• The Quintessons are the worst jailers ever - they don't disarm Blaster before locking him up, and don't even bother tethering up Sky Lynx.
• Assuming this is the same journal from "The Big Broadcast of 2006", it's a completely different color.
• Now why would the Quintessons let the journal float just outside the prison cells?
• Flying Autobots:
  • As both sides pursue the Quintessons, Outback takes off into space alongside Sky Lynx!

Trivia

• This episode is full of names and terms that the fandom would be unable to properly spell until the dialogue script surfaced in the mid-2000s. Damn you, Richard Merwin!

Foreign localization

French

• Title (European French broadcast): ?
• Title (Canadian French broadcast and European French DVD release): "Le journal des Quintessons" ("The Quintessons' Journal")
• Original airdate: ?

• To date, and although there is probably one in existence, the European French dub of this episode is lost. The French DVD editions use the Canadian French dub instead.
• Concerning the Canadian French dub:

• Predaking still calls himself "King of the Predacons" instead of "Prédaroi".
• Strangely, Sky Lynx is called by his English name all episode long. He has been called by his Canadian French name "Chaînon" in all the other episodes.
• Only during Predaking's phrase "Must make more speed!", he pronounces the "R" the Russian way.
• The first time they pronounce it, the Quintessons say "Tuxlara" instead of "Tixlara".
• During the secret file, Metroplex is called by his English name too instead of his Canadian French name "Métropole".

German

• Title: "Das Geheimnis der Quintessons" ("The Secret of the Quintessons")
• Original airdate: ?

Italian

• Title (first dub): "Il giornale Quintessenziano" ("The Quintesson Magazine")
• Original airdate: ?
• Title (second dub): "Il diario di bordo dei Quintesson" ("The Quintesson Journal")
• Original airdate: ?

Japanese

• Title: 死の商人クインテッサ (Shi no Shōnin Quintessa, "The Quintessons, the Merchants of Death")
• Original airdate: April 17, 1987

Mandarin

• Title: "Wǔmiànguài Rìzhì " (五面怪日志, "The Journal of the Quintessons")
• Original airdate: ?

Brazilian Portuguese

• Title: "O Jornal Quintesson" ("The Quintesson Journal")
• Original airdate: ?

• This episode's original translated title is currently lost due to a glitch in the only known surviving copy of the audio track.

Home video releases

VHS

1992 — Transformers — Super Video (Tempo Video)

LaserDisc

1999 — The Transformers: 2010 (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.

DVD

2001 — The Transformers: 2010 — DVD Box (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
2004 — The Original Transformers — Season 3 Part 2 & Season 4 (Rhino Entertainment)
2004 — Transformers — Season 3 and Season 4 (Metrodome)
2004 — Transformers — Collection 5: Series 3.2 (Madman Entertainment)
2006 — Transformers — The Complete Generation One Collection (Metrodome)
2007 — The Transformers — Complete Collection (Madman Entertainment)
2007 — Transformers — Le Journal des Quintessons (UFG Junior) — Canadian French audio only.
2009 — Transformers — Season's Three & Four [sic] (Metrodome)
2009 — The Transformers — Complete Collection: Decepticon Edition (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — The Transformers — The Complete Series: 25th Anniversary "Matrix of Leadership" Collection (Shout! Factory)
2010 — The Transformers — Seasons Three & Four: 25th Anniversary Edition (Shout! Factory)
2011 — The Transformers — The Complete Original Series (Shout! Factory)
2014 — The Transformers — Seasons Three & Four: 30th Anniversary Edition (Shout! Factory)
2014 — Transformers — The Classic Animated Series (Metrodome)

External links

• Episode dialogue script