All I need to do in order to understand Tankorhinox is watch the BW episode "Dark Designs".

 

But beyond that, the fact remains that Rhinox was still in Tankor's body. Remember everything that Rhinox had to go through in BW in order to remove Blackarachnia's Predacon shell program? Rattrap did nothing so complex as that; he simply "jarred something loose" (in Cheetor's words) which allowed Tankor to remember who he had been, while still being held within Tankor's body. Tankorhinox himself acknowledged that Megatron had "changed" him. It seems pretty clear to me that Rhinox was never again "himself"; at least not until after he had rejoined the Matrix.

 

But it's still important, I think, to note that Tankorhinox was indeed acting of his own free will the whole time. It was just an "evil" free will, if you like. (Much as Rhinox was acting of his own free will in "Dark Designs", though because of the zappy machine he chose to make "evil" choices.

 

I do find it interesting that the dark side of Rhinox's personality is an aggressive bully interested only in conquest.

Toy-to-Show Accuracy has never been something that makes or breaks me wanting a TF Figure. I just didn't like hardly any of the Beast Machine toys. Several felt way too fragile and others (most) just didn't look very good to me. I really just hated most of the toys. *shrugs*

 

I tend ot agree, though my feelings aren't as strong. I have a few BM toys, and generallyl ike all of them except for the tank drone(It Powerglideing sucks.). they're just not very playable for the most part... Except for this one wolf transformer that has a switch blade.

 

Now that is Powerglideing cool.

 

All I need to do in order to understand Tankorhinox is watch the BW episode "Dark Designs".

 

But beyond that, the fact remains that Rhinox was still in Tankor's body. Remember everything that Rhinox had to go through in BW in order to remove Blackarachnia's Predacon shell program? Rattrap did nothing so complex as that; he simply "jarred something loose" (in Cheetor's words) which allowed Tankor to remember who he had been, while still being held within Tankor's body. Tankorhinox himself acknowledged that Megatron had "changed" him. It seems pretty clear to me that Rhinox was never again "himself"; at least not until after he had rejoined the Matrix.

 

But it's still important, I think, to note that Tankorhinox was indeed acting of his own free will the whole time. It was just an "evil" free will, if you like. (Much as Rhinox was acting of his own free will in "Dark Designs", though because of the zappy machine he chose to make "evil" choices.

 

I do find it interesting that the dark side of Rhinox's personality is an aggressive bully interested only in conquest.

 

Not really. It's pretty much an exact opposite of his normal self: a peaceful scientist who only takes up arms when forced, which seems to be pretty damned often. The dude is almost zen, IIRC.

Rhinox was my favorite (and still is) Beast Wars character. He's a scientist who could make for an awesome leader, plus he's the mystic and spiritual guy in BW. He's just an absolutely well-rounded character with a lot of depth (like most BW/BM characters).

 

It was very hard for me to swallow what happened to him in BM and I still never fully liked it nor accepted, a part of me never really got it either until just about a year ago. I still don't like it.

When Rattrap restored Rhinox's personality within Tankorr, he became Rhinox again - the real Rhinox. If his logic circuits or data tracks had been damaged or scrambled during the process of recovering his core personality, then I'm certain that Rattrap would have noticed -- it seems to be a fairly obvious thing for Transformers when another one of them has their logic circuits scrambled or what not. And especially considering that Rattrap was jacked into Rhinox's mind, I'm sure he'd notice any damage to his mind after undoing the changes that Megatron had made.

 

As for why it seemed a lot faster and simpler than what happened with Blackarachnia, well, you have to remember that what they did to Blackarachnia was an entirely different thing. With Blackarachnia, Rhinox wanted to remove her Predacon Shell Program because it was inhibiting her personality and probably making it more aggressive and hostile than it would "naturally" be. In the end, the Shell Program had to be removed because it would otherwise destroy her Spark. With Rhinox, they weren't trying to necessarily delete a shell program, but rather undo whatever modifications that Megatron had done. And it seems that what Megatron did to his Vehicon generals was somewhat similar to what he'd done to Rhinox in Dark Designs, only that he also wiped their memories. As Silverbolt described it, Megatron didn't reprogramme them, he simply removed a series of inhibitions (such as Silverbolt's code of honour) that would otherwise prevent them from acting maliciously.

 

Now, getting to a philosophical point here, are the 1st Season Vehicon Generals acting on their own free will? I would say no for two reasons. First of all, they had their memories wiped, and our memories play a major part in dictating who we are. Secondly, removing a series of inhibitions can drastically alter someone's personality. Look at what happens to people when they get drunk - their inhibitions are removed and they can become entirely different people, often becoming rather selfish and doing silly or malicious things like getting into fights or driving a car. Legally we are responsible for our actions while we're drunk, because the law sees that a drunken person would have placed him/herself in that situation by drinking too much alcohol in the first place, and therefore is legally liable for anything s/he does or says during the course of intoxication. What Megatron did to his first batch of generals is different - they did not choose to be deinhibited - it was forced onto them. Kinda like spiking someone's drink to get them drunk without them knowing it or using a date-Transufomah! drug. In essence, they have been brainwashed. Rattrap undid Megatron's brainwashing, but in spite of that he failed to return to his Maximal allies and turned out both sides.

 

The second season Vehicon generals - Obsidian and Stryka, and heck, the new Thrust too, differ from the first year Vehicons because they retain their former memories and personas (well, Thrust maintains Waspinator's memories if not his persona - he's kinda in-between the two kinds of generals) and are acting freely by their own volition.

The reason why I kept going on about Rhinox being stuck in Tankor's body is because I do believe that Megatron used a "Vehicon shell program", among other things, to control his generals. Megatron removed Silverbolt's code of honor, as you said. That is a perfect example of what a shell program (as I understand it, a construct imposed upon a robot that filters, blocks, and or amplifies impulses from its spark) can do. Megatron was able to completely block anything noble or honorable that came from Silverbolt's spark. And when Jetstorm's body was destroyed, everything within it, including that shell program, was destroyed. Silverbolt was able to emerge again. This never happened with Tankor. His logic circuits weren't scrambled at all. He was Rhinox, acting through Tankor's programming. The difference from before is that Rhinox had "awoken" within Tankor and was no longer passively observing everything that Tankor was doing.

 

I guess I'm just saying that Rhinox and Jetstorm were in two very different situations.

this thread makes me want to finish the BM series.

:redface

 

(sorry i totally pooped out after the chicken dude returned and we had this unending NOBLE SAVAGE ordeal)

You should really finish it, so you can love hate love hate love hate love it like everyone else

He was Rhinox, acting through Tankor's programming.

that makes sense and also perfectly explains thrust/waspy as well.

IMO Beast MAchines could have killed the TF Franshise stone dead if it didnt have some interesting episodes and a decent if flawed story line.

 

The toys were crap the whole organic thing was crap, Nightscream sucked balls and the highlight for me was the statue of G1 Prime

 

Bob Skir you are an arse head

IMO Beast MAchines could have killed the TF Franshise stone dead if it didnt have some interesting episodes and a decent if flawed story line.

 

The toys were crap the whole organic thing was crap, Nightscream sucked balls and the highlight for me was the statue of G1 Prime getting blown to smithereens by an army of tank drones

:thumb