The Intergalactic Highway

Hi everyone, I know that Depth Charge became a transmetal because of some form of anomaly, but what was it and where did it come from? It couldn't be the quantum surge/transwarp wave since that thing passed by cybertron in season 2, so what else could it be? Also, is it possible that any other bot who traveled to earth without a specially designed transwarp ship like Ravage would be mutated into a transmetal if they flew into prehistoric earth's atmosphere? Or at least toward that timeline?

actually, it might have something to do with the transwarp surge. It might have leaked into the space/time continuum or vacuum thingy.

I t could be anyting. People?

I never really pictured him as a transmetal. lol. Didi anyone notice that when they become transmetals they also become triple changers? If he did it was probably because the surge thing polluted the atmosphere and anything metal and sentient that comes through gets that weird extra feature. lol.

I know that's not very helpful but it's the only thing I could think of...

I had a similar idea to yours Artemis, but then I thought about Ravage. he traveled through earth's atmosphere without going transmetal (though he certainly wasn't a standard looking bot, lol). It could be that Ravage wasn't affected because he was in a ship specially designed for transwarp travel so it protected him from whatever quantum surge radiation remained in the ancient atmosphere (whereas Depth Charge was using a one bot ship called a Star Hopper, not likely designed for transwarp travel). who knows? I sure don't, lol

I think it was a goof on the part of the designers. In the scene before he goes through the warp and lands on Earth, we can see most of his face and it's nearly identical to his post-crash, TM form.

Personally I'd like to blame it on the fact most of Season 3 was rushed. It seemed a lot of explanations were cut out (Dark Glass) in an attempt to wrap everything up ASAP. >_>;;

I think that Depth Charge going on transmetal was because of the transwarp surge. That came out of the alien device explosion. Since Optimus plan was to destroy the alien construction by a transwarp explosion that gave the surge the ability of time & space travel (or at least the path, that I argue about below). The transwarp signature was the one that maximals used (It came from a maximal stasis pod & Maximal technology). It is obvious to me that it was the same signature that the Axalon had, giving Depth Charge the chance to track down Rampage's location. Depth Charge asks for a "quantum scan" in order to locate precisely Rampage's location. Now everything is ok until he is preparing his ship to "jump into hyperspace". Here's when I think my theory about his transmetalizing gets wacky.

Since he is jumping from the cybertronian "time & space" or reality into earth's past reality, he has to undergo the same path that, the axalon used & the transwarp surge used on its way back to cybertronian reality. Since it's the same transwarp siganture. So in this way when anything undergoes a quantum leap it leaves some sort of track behind it (The one that Axalon left behind, and Depth Charge is using to locate Rampage). I believe since the transwarp thingy could alter Beast Warriors on Earth, encountering it's tracks during the transition of realitys would have the same effect (Now I'm Supossing that). He had no way of knowing about the transwarp surge cause the Tripred council stopped any maximal device from scanning it. So in this way Depth Charge is confronted with the transwarp surge without any protection his ship could have had. And voila he transmetalizes.

Ravage in the other hand had a state of the art ship, but not only the ship was his advantage but his faction did knew about the surge and could prevent him. They never realized that the surge could have benefits when encountering Ravage's ship so they might have ship defenses on. Through out all the travel.
Both ships had the technology for transwarp travel, if not they couldn't have arrived where Maximal & Predacons where, at least that's what I think.
On the episode The Agenda part I the Triped council state that Ravage is to follow the surge back to it's source, which gives my theory a point, but on the other hand when they scanned the surge they also said that the signature matched the ship stolen by Megatron, why was that?, any idea to complete this black hole?

And to anybody who might have the answer why was the sector where The Axalon & Darkside, and after them Ravage & DepthCharge jumped forbidden by the council, if they could trace them why wouldn't they help?
I mean both Ravage & Depth Charge followed them. Maybe just a few transformers back at cybertron actually knew what happened.

sounds like a great theory! so basically anyone not possessing a state of the art ship like Ravage did would become a transmetal when he or she traveled back in time to the Beast Wars era yes?

at any rate, I guess the region was marked forbidden because the Councils of both factions feared what would happen if they sent anyone back and possibly muck up the timeline (in the case of the maximal elders, they may have feared Protoform X had escaped in that region when Primal's crew went missing, shrugs)

I meant not only his ship was the advantage, but the fact that he did knew the surge was there. Since only the Predacon scanners detected it they could prevent him and thus he traveled with the ship defenses on. While Depth Charge could never knew about it, jumping into hyperspace without the proper defenses/shields on. An transmetalizing.

Maybe the sector was forbidden due to a conspiracy. I don't know the explanation can make a real good fanfic.