Coronation

 Note: I began writing this post on Saturday, August 14th, 2021, and did not post it until 8/15/21. All time references are correct to when I began the post. Also, names have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved.

      Yesterday was not a good day for me. Those in the Transformers fandom might assume this means that I was among those disappointed or worse by the lack of new figures shown off in the Hasbro Pulse Fan First Friday, but that's not the case.

     I learned yesterday morning that my closest coworker of the last five years died late Thursday night. 

     I don't talk much about my personal life on this blog anymore (I don't post much in general!), but I am a teacher, and have been since the fall of 2007, not long before I started this blog. I currently teach at a high school and have just started my fifth year there. For the previous four school years, Carol has been my "neighbor" teacher - her classroom is next to mine. She and I are also on the Physics team together. Due to some scheduling issues in my first year, I couldn't attend planning meetings with the Physics team, so Carol was a lifetime, sharing resources and updates, but also her sense of humor, care, and friendship. 

     I haven't seen Carol since her last day in the building which was the last Wednesday in July. I watched her, that afternoon, lead some training for the 8th grade science teachers from one of the local middle schools; those teachers would be the last people Carol would ever teach. Carol did not feel well and did not come back the next day; this was something that she attributed, at the time, to possible problems with her blood sugar level, as she was diabetic. Carol's niece, Erica, is also a teacher at the school, and I learned from her on that following Friday night that Carol had been hospitalized. Things looked very bad at first, and then seemed to sort of plateau last week, and then by the middle of this week Carol took a swift downturn. It was Covid-19 that had stricken and eventually killed her. 

     Yesterday's livestream was scheduled for 11:00 AM, which is in the middle of my lunch; I started the day excited and looking forward to seeing new figure unveilings while I had that lunch break. Anyone paying attention to the fandom lately knows that advanced leaks have been a big deal for the past year or so, and one of the leaked figures, presumably for 2022 release, was a Studio Series '86 Coronation Starscream. The leak specified that it would be an Earthrise Starscream remold with new parts, including not only the expected cape, shoulder armor and crown, but also a throne. After a brief delay from unveiling the SS86 Sweep figure (yawn), this is exactly what was shown. I have not been more excited for a Starscream release in a while, even after being quite happy with the announcement of the new Shattered Glass Starscream this spring. SS86 Coronation Starscream looks great! I helps that I am a fan of the Earthrise mold, of course. Take a look for yourself:

     

     See? Wonderful! I have wanted something like this for a long time - a King Starscream that is an actual, transforming, mainline figure. Not the new RED figurine (which I just saw in person the first time last week; it's ok) nor an overly expensive masterpiece release (I stopped buying MPs a long time ago). Take a look at the throne: 

     While this particular shot is a bit humorous, I think it's great that this throne is included. The livestream mentioned that it is based off of the command (bridge?) chair of the Nemesis. All of Starscream's accessories can be stored on the back, as you can see with the back of package image:

     Speaking of which, the Leader class packaging - at least for Studio Series, they didn't discuss other lines - will now have no window and instead feature artwork, much like the WFC Trilogy Commander class packages:

     It looks great, but I don't like that I can't see the figure itself. That matters more for buying off the shelf than for online orders (I did preorder from Hasbro Pulse), but some worry that this will further embolden toy swappers. I don't think it will be any bigger of a problem, as retail customer service workers often allow all kinds of obviously wrong swaps to happen with windowed packaging.

     Back to Starscream himself. I mentioned that he is a remold of the Earthrise toy; the most obvious changes are the new opening hands (no wrist rotation, unfortunately) and some new connectors that allow for accessories to attach. When first leaked, it was claimed that the wings and intakes would have larger, exaggerated molding, resulting in the jet mode looking a bit off but allowing the bot mode to resemble the animation model better. Clearly this did not eventuate. I'm a bit disappointed as at least having the larger, pointed wings would have looked really cool in bot mode, but I can live with it. There a few deco changes to try and hew to the animation even more closely than with Earthrise. 

     The accessories themselves look great. I particularly like how the shoulder armor has hinged connectors that allow the null-ray cannons to look like they are correctly positioned, maintain mobility but also allow for expressive arm posing. It's a really clever trick that even the Masterpiece didn't employ. The cape looks good, and while I don't think it has as many sections as that of the Masterpiece, I think it's a better choice than cloth (which is available on the new RED figure anyway) and it does have at least one hinge for posing.

     One thing I like so much about King/Emperor/Coronation Starscream is that he takes on the purple. Starscream is my favorite Decepticon (really, my favorite transformer), but out of the context of Transformers fiction, he looks heroic. He's almost red white and blue! Shattered Glass Starscream only looks more heroic by adopting the colors of a known Autobot hero, G1 Jetfire. So when Starscream ascends to Decepticon leadership, it's telling that he takes on the colors of the movement, which nicely coincide with traditional colors of royalty. He's trying to sell himself as a true Decepticon - perhaps even moreso than the discarded Megatron, who lacked purple in his deco as well. He also dons a crown, which we have never seen on the show before, but the environment of the scene suggests that it could be some traditional element of Decepticon or Cybertronian leadership; it could just as easily be a device of Starscream's own creation, as suggested by the IDW comics. Either way, it's clear that Starscream considers it important. Then, of course, Galvatron arrives. What does Galvatron look like? Well, a futuristic Megatron, sure, but notably, he's nearly covered in purple, and in contrast to Megatron's Nazi "buckethead," Galvatron's helmet is a crown. He doesn't wear one; it's built in. Starscream is the pretender to the throne, draped in these symbols of authority and faction allegiance, while Galvatron embodies them.

     The significance of this scene, which occurs in the 1986 film, is underscored by the previous two seasons of the television show, throughout which Starscream works to undermine and usurp Megatron, utterly convinced that he himself has what it takes to lead the Decepticons to victory and rule the Cybertronian race. In the film, he finally gets his shot: Megatron mortally wounds Optimus Prime, but has barely survived the battle, making his ejection from Astrotrain's passenger area trivial. Starscream arranges for his coronation on Cybertron, fulfilling the dream he's had at least as long as he has been a Decepticon. But it kills him. Megatron, as the (sort of) resurrected Galvatron, literally turns him to ash, crushing the crown with his foot for emphasis. 

Coronation. Crown. Coronavirus. 

   

 

     Coronaviruses get their name from their appearance, bring ringed with spike proteins in such a way to resemble the Sun's atmospheric corona as seen during a total solar eclipse. The Covid-19 pandemic, now exceeding a year and a half in duration in America, has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in this country alone at this point. It's been devastating; I feel fortunate to only personally know two victims of the virus, but it has torn through communities across the world. 

     August 8th marked the 35th anniversary of The Transformers: The Movie, and despite the fun movies that film includes, it's also a showcase of devastation. Characters that kids had come to love over the long first and second seasons of the television show are killed in battle, in some cases being literally executed. Prowl burns from the inside out, glowing fumes exiting his eyes and mouth. Corpses with dead, dark eyes and evidence of physical trauma are seen. Of course, the culmination of this is the death of Optimus Prime, hinted at earlier in the post. Even before all of this, the film opens with the slaughter of the planet Lithone by Unicron. Yes, the slaughter of the planet as Unicron, a planet himself, devours the world inhabited by another mechanical race similar to the Cybertronians. We see children on Lithone, joyfully playing mere moments before being reduced to fuel for the world-eater. It's terrifying.

     I'm sorry if this all reads as sort of scattershot. I'm not really drawing an analogy between the coronavirus and Starscream's crown, or even between the coronavirus and Unicron. I'm just processing all of this, and the juxtaposition of the experiences is strange. I'd lost one of the best coworkers I've ever had, and an hour after I found out, one of my most anticipated rumored Transformers was announced, being how Starscream, my favorite character in the franchise, was depicted at the height of his glory in The Transformers: The Movie. This is additionally in the context of the 35th anniversary of the film, which is a beloved film (and one of the mainstays of my Generation 1 exposure as a child) but at the same time is full of slaughter, from which Starscream was not spared.

     I think that's the resonance - this isn't just another Starscream toy. It's Starscream, who knows not his coming fate, moments before death. That's how this school year started - I met Carol the morning of preplanning and worked with her the next two days, neither of us knowing her own imminent end. As I noted above, my last working interaction with her was watching her train the 8th grade science teachers from the local middle school, one of whom taught my son last year and may teach my daughter in two years. Carol was mostly instructing them on how we execute lab assignments, and I chimed in a few times with some advice. After she went home shortly after, I'd never see her again. How would I have acted differently if I had known what was coming? 

      According to Hasbro Pulse, I'll receive Coronation Starscream by April, but based on the past year it might arrive earlier. With the way that the Delta variant is working its way through the community, I'm not sure when or if we'll have a service for Carol (there are other mitigating factors in her family that make planning such an event difficult at the moment). However that works out, opening up Starscream in the spring will be fun, and I'll enjoy setting him up with his accessories and throne, but it'll be a reminder of what this school year wasn't. Already I've read of at least one county in a neighboring state that has switched to online learning, so who knows what things will look like by April; the only certainty is that Carol won't be there. She won't be there to crack wise with me about any of our coworkers, nor to serve as the newly appointed Physics team lead, nor to chat with my daughter when I bring her in the mornings, nor ask me how the new art school is going for my son so she can decide if she wants her own daughter to apply this fall. And of course this is just a short list of the unnumbered things that will now never occur. Carol was always bemused, but accepting of the transformers I would display in my classroom. When Coronation Starscream arrives and I put him out in my classroom, he'll add a tough but touching reminder of her absence, if only for myself. 

     The audience that originally followed the Transformers television series would learn in it's third season that Starscream was not totally snuffed out by Galvatron, reappearing as a ghost that even showed up a decade later in Beast Wars, explained as having an immortal, mutated spark. Starscream, it turned out, persisted after death. This of course will not be true in a literal sense for Carol. I hate to engage in cliche in this kind of tragic event, but Carol will persist too, but only through us that knew her. This means much more for her family than for myself, but her example of how to treat students and other teachers will be something I strive to emulate. Her students this year never got to know her - her second day out of the building was open house - but I'll make sure they know that she had their best in mind as she prepared to work with them this year. I look forward to meeting and working with her successor, whoever it may be, so that we have another new light to shine in the halls of our school.

     Hug your loved ones. I know the pandemic is a political powder keg, but urge those in your circle who are hesitant to get vaccinated. If Carol had, this would just have been another Starscream fanboy post. She would still be here. Pray for the teachers you know, along with our students and other fellow school employees, and my heart goes out to any of you who have also lost someone close due to the pandemic.