Apelinq's War Journals
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Apelinq's War Journals is a web-based series of short text stories written by Rob Gerbracht and was originally released on a near-weekly basis on BotCon: Beyond from February 17 to June 29, 2001. It served as part of a campaign to build up hype for BotCon 2001 (following a similar campaign conducted earlier by "VEHICON ALERT!"), and is written in the form of personal logs made by the Maximal Wrecker Apelinq.
It also served as both a bridge between the Beast Wars and Beast Machines cartoons and as a bridge between the 1998–2000 convention-based storyline Reaching the Omega Point (which had just concluded the previous year at BotCon 2000) and the then-forthcoming Transformers: The Wreckers comic series set to debut at BotCon 2001.
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Overview
Apelinq's War Journals chronicles the days on Cybertron that led up to Megatron's takeover of the planet following his return from the Beast Wars, all told from the perspective of Apelinq, a Maximal scientist and Squadron Commander for the elite special operations unit known as the Wreckers. These events are drip-fed over the course of each journal entry, providing tantalizingly small samples of the story's bigger picture rather than spelling everything in fully-elaborated detail. Once Megatron has conquered the planet, the story carries on into the events of the Beast Machines cartoon, with Apelinq observing Optimus Primal's team of Maximals returning to Cybertron in Journal 9.
By Journal 13, a major status quo shift occurs when a transwarp ship containing a ragtag crew commanded by Primal Prime arrives on Cybertron, with Journal 14 seeing Apelinq thrown back in time while Primal Prime take his place for that journal entry. For the rest of the series, Apelinq is stranded on prehistoric Earth during the latter half of the Beast Wars cartoon, and observes the events of that series a from afar. He finally gets involved when the battle of Point Omega suddenly begins, bringing the series full circle with Apelinq's previous appearance in "Terminus", the finale of Reaching the Omega Point set between the Beast Wars episodes "Master Blaster" and "Other Victories". The series ends on a deliberate cliffhanger that overlaps with the events of "Terminus", leaving Apelinq's fate undetermined in order to hype up the BotCon 2001 exclusive comic The Wreckers #1.
Notes
- Following its original release on BotCon: Beyond, the series was later moved to BotCon Online on November 13, 2001, where it remained until it disappeared in a site update made on May 11, 2003. It wouldn't resurface until early January 2006, on the BotCon Online archives hosted by Fun Publications (and later BC Productions).
- Apelinq uses an AU dating system for his journal entries. The recap of Apelinq's War Journals included in the BotCon 2001 comic The Wreckers #1 would later indicate this system to refer to the number of years, or stellar cycles, After Unicron's destruction (in reference to his 2005 destruction). The first fourteen of Apelinq's entries take place during 316 AU, with decimal points to distinguish between them. As Journals 10 and 11 are dated with the same decimals, but clearly take place some time apart from each other, it is very plausible that each decimal signifies the day, or solar cycle, of the year/stellar cycle 316 AU that Apelinq made each entry.
- Between Journals 15 and 20, Apelinq was basically stuck on prehistoric Earth from about midway through Season 2 of Beast Wars to right after "Master Blaster".
- The series was originally placed under the Transformers: The Wreckers label on BotCon Online, but then placed under the Reaching the Omega Point label when the series was brought back in 2006.
- Apelinq would later make one more War Journal entry on the inside-cover of The Wreckers #3, serving as a prologue for that comic issue in lieu of a standard recap for the preceding issue, The Wreckers #2.
- The concept of personal log journals written by Apelinq would later be revisited for BotCon 2014, with seven entries written by the Wings Universe version of the character published by "Tornado - Decepticon Saboteur", the Facebook page of the Star Seeker Tornado. These entries were given date indices beginning with 468.900.12, but with no units given. They cover the Wings Universe Primal Prime's new Wreckers team and his conflict with the Cybertronian Knights, as well as Apelinq's visions of another life he had forgotten.
