Space Case

Ok, so I've already talked about Space Case in the last post and now put up my review of him. Still, some toys I end up building a bit of mental fanfic around, and Space Case is one of them. Thought I'd just write out my take on the story behind this guy here.

Ok, so in the movie universe, there are different transformer groups. There's the original Seekers, as shown in ROTF that served the 13. There're the Constructicon drones that built Solar Harvesters. Later, we get groups like Starscream's Seekers (who I envision as being started by Ransack, one of the last original Seekers, and then taken over by Starscream) and the Dreadwing-lead Alpha drones. Last year's Terradive toy lead me to imagine another group - the Decepticon Hunters.

It's not a very creative name, but it's rather just the other word from the term "hunter-seeker," of which, of course, "seeker" is the other part. Just as the latter-day Seekers were formed to be an elite group of aerial warriors within Megatron's pre-Decepticon Defense Force, the Hunters were another such group. However, they had a more specific mission profile in accordance with their name - in addition to generally engaging in combat, they were to hunt down and capture or kill Defense Force traitors and defectors, a role that became increasingly important during the conflict with the Malcontents, a movement that had recruited several Defense Force soldiers.

Terradive, obviously, was one of the Hunters, and his partner Space Case was literally the fastest of the Defense Force, let alone the Hunters. He was also an effective soldier, working well with his partner and doing his job with high competency. Both used a special spear/trident weapon to carry out their tasks. Unfortunately, the Hunters' role was sidelined after Shockwave introduced the Defense Force Drone program, which involved creating 3 types of military drones. Moreover, these drone body-types wouldn't just be used for sparkless robots, but also as replacement bodies for sparked cybertronians who entered the Defense Force. This achieved several goals, including streamlining the Defense Force's physical assets, allowing for more uniform tactics and so forth, but also putting ultimate control of the soldier's bodies into the hands of Megatron & Shockwave, the latter of which had designed the bodies to have fail-safe measures to prevent any soldier from defecting (or performing any other similar activities). Granted, many soldiers still were allowed to exist in their own, individualized bodies or in bodies of freely chosen types (like some of the Seekers, most of whom stuck to a particular group of body types) largely due to the warriors' capabilities and skills being too limited in drone bodies.

This clearly had an impact on the role of the Hunters, whose skills were now less and less needed. Space Case in particular took the "demotion" harder than most, but as one of the top enforcers of loyalty in the Defense Force, he never contemplated resigning or anything of the sort, and went along with the program when the Fallen helped corrupt Megatron and the Defense Force gave way to the new Decepticons. Space Case secretly hoped that the new civil war would lead to a higher number of defections among the non-drone Decepticon populace, as he knew some would be swayed by Optimus' claim to be Prime and his support from the aged Sentinel Prime. And there, were, for a time, an increase in hunts for Space Case, Terradive, and the rest of the Hunters, but the response from High Command was to increase the number of free-to-drone conversions and also the population of sparkless drones, who operated under the supervision of Dreadwing, who possessed a drone body himself (Starscream was now Air Commander in addition to leading the Seekers, so Dreadwing officially reported to him, while more truthfully operating under Shockwave, as did all drones, sparked or sparkless).

Space Case was eventually selected to be one of the crew of the Nemesis, captained by Soundwave. He did not see this as an honor (which Terradive did), but rather took it as a sign that he was wanted out of the way, off of Cybertron where the real conflict was going on. Much later, after the Nemesis had collided with the Ark and had been set down on Titan, Space Case was charged by Megatron to be one of many to continue watching over the ship as he took the hatchlings and remaining key officers back to Earth after his defeat by Optimus and the death of the Fallen. Space Case followed these orders for a time, but, already bored and dissatisfied with his fate, left Titan on course for Earth, where he figured there could be something going on.

In the meantime, the Seeker Firestorm had defected to the side of the Autobots during the events of ROTF, changing his appearance somewhat and his name (to Breakaway) in the process. Terradive had become aware of this and proceeded to Earth to take in (or, more likely, take out) the rouge Seeker. He sought the Nemesis first, where he attempted to find his old partner to join him on this mission; Space Case wasn't there, having already departed for Earth. So Terradive went on to Earth, hoping to find Space Case and hunt his prey. When he reached the planet and got in touch with some of the Seekers, he was rebuked; Breakaway's old brothers-in-arms Thrust and Dirge were furious that the Seeker known as Firestorm was now with the Autobots and embarrassed that a Hunter had found out that an elite Seeker could also be a defector. Insisting on keeping the elimination of Breakaway in-house, a skirmish developed between Terradive and the two Seekers. Terradive decided that he would indeed need backup, and set about trying to find the as-yet-unseen Space Case and then take care of Breakaway (and teach Thrust and Dirge a lesson).

Unfortunately, upon his entry into Earth's atmosphere, Space Case crashed into a cavern that collapsed on him, trapping him and also damaging his cerebral circuitry, putting him in stasis lock during the time that Terradive had come to Earth. When he finally woke and freed himself (thanks in part to the inadvertent actions of a squad of autobots) he eventually met up with Starscream, who had had a falling out with Megatron and was wandering the planet, attempting to find hidden Decepticons to recruit to his own cause. Space Case would have never desired to work with the Air Commander and leader of the Seekers before, but the damage from the crash was severe, causing profound memory loss and a dulling of his mind. Regardless, Starscream saw value in recruiting him.

Later, Terradive caught wind of Starscream's activities, and, thus far unsuccessful in locating Space Case, thought he'd take up the issue of Breakaway with the head Seeker himself. Of course, when he confronted the Air Commander, he found Space Case with him, which he could barely believe. While Space Case recognized Terradive, he did not fully remember him as his Hunter partner and excitedly asked him to join on with Starscream. Terradive was dismayed; he understood that something was wrong with Space Case and refused to join Starscream. He attempted to lure Space Case away with the promise of the hunt of Breakaway, but Starscream's personality and flattery had already worked its magic on Space Case. Terradive left discouraged, but still on the hunt for Breakaway. He would eventually meet back up with Megatron, and later, before the events of Dark of the Moon, Starscream and the rest of his recruits (including Space Case) were once again part of the Decepticon fold.