#rotr nanotube

[riseoftheradiotrons]

Presidential Alert, The Girls Are Fighting

Nanotube aimed her arm cannons at the mysterious figure the instant she saw it.

“What the melt are you doing here?“

The yellow gun hatches on Blackarachnia’s thighs immediately opened up, revealing two tranq-cannons longer than Ness was tall.

“Investigating.”

“Blackarachnia- you? Why are you- oh, no, don’t tell me I-” Nanotube, out of absolutely nowhere, dropped to her knees. “I respect Lord Megatron, I dedicate myself to Lord Megatron, please-”

“I don’t work for him anymore.” Blackarachnia pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’ve been exiled.“

“...exiled?”

A sigh. “I’ve had to tell two Decepticons here already. He scratched my badge and all.”

“Don’t blame her,” Ness, sitting in Blackarachnia’s hand, shrugged. “she’s probably too short to see it.”

A blast of the shrapnel-cannons. Blackarachnia quickly moved her hands out of the way, accidentally tossing Ness into the air, and the tree behind them was torn to shreds. Wood splinters flew, some tinking against Blackarachnia’s frame, others embedding themselves into other trees or the ground. The upper half of the tree crashed to the ground as Blackarachnia caught Ness in two hands.

Someone can’t take a short joke, Ness thought.

“Well, if you’re no longer a member of the Decepticons,” Nanotube let her cannon reload, “it is my duty to tear your spark out.”

Blackarachnia’s tranq-cannons fired.

Nanotube transformed to quickly duck underneath them, and the two tranq-arrows whizzed over her head before tinking into each other and falling to the ground just behind her. Loose forest dirt was kicked up by Nanotube’s tires as she sped off, going right past Blackarachnia before she could look.

Blackarachnia looked behind her, confused, but then quickly grabbed Ness and dropped them down onto her thigh.

“Hold tight.”

She jumped and transformed in midair, landing on the ground as a gigantic, terrifying spider. Ness was now gripping the top of the spidery abdomen, safe from potentially falling to the ground, and kept grabbing on as she rushed off in pursuit of Nanotube.

Pascal saw Nanotube rush right past it, and sighed.

“Well, there’s the Velocitronian that left these tracks.”

It ran off after Nanotube, her appearance now permanently in its mind database.

[transformers-fan-continuities]

Spotlight: Rise of the Radiotrons

Here it is folks, the first fan canon spotlight, showcasing Rise of the Radiotrons created by sleeveev! You can find this over at @riseoftheradiotrons and also on AO3! This is a long post, fair warning.

Q) Give us a run down of your cont! What's it about, what's it called, what's it like?

the cont, despite being called Rise of the Radiotrons, revolves around five main groups of characters, and the mystery that accidentally intertwines all of them. a lot of false identities, undiscovered pasts, mystery that you need to read all the way through to really uncover. it also takes place during the attrition phase of the Autobot-Decepticon war, and Megatron and Optimus are... dead. but... weren't they made immortal by the Eternal Surge? where are they?

Q) What characters take the lead here? Any personal favorites?

characters that take the lead? hoo, boy, there's a lot. and be warned, this is OC-heavy. Wavecrash, Blackarachnia, Sparkplug, Pascal, and Ness make up the Earth detective team, the first to investigate the Radiotrons: Nanotube, Quicksilver, Greenscreen, and [REDACTED] (that is not their name, you will learn it later!).

Starscream, Moonkiller, and Pharma investigate a series of rust-related murders, later with the help of Eclipse and Terraform. the two they investigate? two hulking beings that carry a rust of sheer destruction of anything metal, Turbulence and someone known only as The Crimson Doctor. the third part is mostly with just a few characters. Dial-Up and Absolute Zero are in a cat-and-mouse chase, Dial-Up attempting to capture Absolute Zero and return him to the prison he escaped from. other 'bots come into this story, including Pylon, Airachnid, Suture, and Cyclonus, but they are not the main focus.

Turbulence.  this motherfucker. this moldy bitch.

my personal favorites? i love Sparkplug, i love my little gaming PC gal. The Crimson Doctor has also grown on me quite a bit. i'm gonna make fat robots and you can't stop me.

Sparkplug above, Crimson Doctor (Crim) below

Q) I love how he isn’t crimson at all.

oh you'll learn why he's crimson

Q) Ominous! Is there a bigger point to this, like a theme or some catharsis? Or is it just fluffy fun?

a bigger point to this? well, i have quite my fair share of trauma for being in a military family - being on the home front of a war i never even learned about until i was like 12. i wanted to show the horrors of attrition above all, because attrition is the part of war that everyone seems to forget, but is possibly the most dangerous part of it. everyone's killing each other over resources, dying of preventable diseases, resources are spread thin among soldiers and thinner among civilians. it also lets new, perhaps worse groups arise from the dust.

war was never about who was right. it was about who could live longer. and RotR, with its rampant killings that people can't even begin to investigate until their leaders are toppled from their thrones and complete anarchy reigns among military sites, is a testament to that.

war was the cause for part of the namesake of the Radiotrons themselves - the Great Radiation Crisis. war was where everything went wrong

Q) How long have you been working on it?

now, for the slightly less dark - it varies from character to character! while the official plot of RotR was established on August 25 this year, some 'bots go much further back - Pascal's earliest concepts were made on May 8, Nanotube's were made on April 25, and The Crimson Doctor's roots go as far back as a character called The Crimson-Eyed Doctor, a character created on Dec 11, 2019 (happy belated birthday, Crim!).

Q) You’re very meticulous with your dates!

i lose track of all time otherwise

Q) Give us a behind-the-scenes look! Show us a secret ;))

behind the scenes.

this is a mystery cont.

THERE'S A LOT BEHIND THE SCENES.

i will start with some no-context spoilers, here.

and, now for something a bit more genuinely secret.

whether this is a crimson doctor or a red herring, you decide.

Q) Where did you draw inspiration from? What canons, what other fiction, what parts of real life?

this varies from subtle to shameless.

my cont would fit best in an comic format, so it makes sense that i was inspired by IDW - and that it was my entry into the TF fandom! there is also some TFA bits in there, but the majority of it is personal robot worldbuilding, with a couple sprinkles of headcanons and OCs taken from Afterburn, a cont made by a longtime friend of mine.

other fiction i took inspiration from is mostly in the character designs. Blackarachnia was loosely inspired by Tawna from Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time (you went through such a good revamp sweetie. neon lesbian.). if you can't tell that Turbulence took inspiration from Cioccolata from JJBA: Golden Wind, i don't know what to tell you. Crim took less inspiration from a character and more from a trope - the "ever-obedient villain subordinate". i just sucked all of the homoeroticism out of it, and also decided to give him more of a self than just someone who serves the villain.

here's Tawna (specifically Crash Bandicoot 4), one of the big inspirations for Blackarachnia's design! we don't talk about your past sweetie.

and Blackarachnia headshot to compare, because her fullbody is still in progress.

i am sharing this specific image of cio, one of turb's inspos, because i BASED A TURB PIECE OFF OF IT.

real life? RADIATION, RADIATION. i have radiation and radioactive things and the PERIODIC TABLE as a special interest and it SHOWS. it's all radiation. even the names. Quicksilver comes from mercury, Starborn comes from all elements being created from stars in space, Nanotube comes from carbon nanotubes, and [REDACTED] comes from... well, you don't know yet. there's also the whole attrition war thing, for real life inspiration, too.

Q) Show off something you're really proud of, a particular favorite part of your cont.

this piece of Eclipse and Turbulence('s hand), for one

(the image is at the end of the post under a readmore, as it contains eye trauma, eye touching, and roboblood)

and another thing i am particularly proud of are all my worldbuilding posts! they look like textbook entries kinda but i really really love em. here's one of them, though there are many more on the blog!

lastly, my favorite character introduction post. if you know Afterburn, you may be pleasantly surprised seeing this.

Q) Ah, that guy.

fun fact about RotR Absolute Zero! his color palette is taken from a diagram of a human heart. here is the motherfucker in question,

Q) What other fan canons do you love and why? Would you like to see them interviewed?

Afterburn. my best friend made this i can't just NOT advertise it. go look at it there's murderers and there's an OC that's actually very inspired by not one but two of my creations (the original OC he was a fanformer of, and his altmode - I'd had thoughts of various greenhouse 'bots like that). @transformersafterburn​. please don't simp for Abzero. or maybe do. he's a better option than Turbulence.

Mirror Mirror. found at @transformers-mirror-mirror​, it's got so many epic character designs and realistically sized altmodes despite not having realistically sized altmodes this makes me go happy flappy and is also inspiring a future project of mine, also Shattered Glass!

NEW PRIMES OF CYBERTRON. RITO I LOVE YOUR CONT SO MUCH. i summed it up in "transformers ungunned" but THERE IS MUCH MORE GO CHECK IT OUT AFTER YOU FINISH READING THIS INTERVIEW @thenamesblurrito​

Q) [insert flattered keysmashing from me, creator of New Primes of Cybertron, otherwise known as TF:SNAP]

Thank you very much veev! Everyone go check out Rise of the Radiotrons! Stay tuned for next week, when we’ll get to see some Shattered Glass...

(aforementioned image under the cut, warning for eye trauma, eye touching, and roboblood)

[riseoftheradiotrons]

Heeeeere’s Nanotube! Angry little bike lady. My goal for the villain cast is that it will take you many guesses to determine who the only RotR villain lady is.

[riseoftheradiotrons]

woah Nanotube, what's a radiotron and why can't you leave?

Veev will be answering this one out of character!

The Radiotrons are the new faction this entire schtick revolves around. Not much is known about them, but they consist entirely of RWTs, Radioactive Waste Transporters. RWTs all became RWTs because of various war crimes, and... it’s not the easiest to stop becoming a war criminal. Not to mention, she does have her own personal reasons for staying, including the fact that Megatron himself is on this asteroid.

[riseoftheradiotrons]

Nanotube, turncoat for the ask meme?

“Oh, I would. I would, trust me. More than anything I’d want to go back to the Decepticons and carve out my position as a loyal Decepticon general that should be feared at all costs. But because fragging Moonkiller decided to throw me across the battlefield and right into an Autobot’s arms, I’m stuck-” she punches a tree- “working with a bunch of traitors on some dusty asteroid, because apparently killing an Autobot counts as a war crime back on Cybertron Original. Megatron himself is here and I can’t even get any recognition by telling the Decepticons that he’s alive, because I’m too far away to send any sort of signal to them without leaving my boundaries assigned to me as an RWT! As much as I want to leave them, I don’t want the shock collar.”

She sits down on the ground, grabbing fistfuls of rocky earth below her and throwing them.

“I didn’t even want to take off my Decepticon symbol in the first place. But I had to, as part of becoming an RWT. I refuse to let the Radiotron brand go where that Decepticon brand was, because even if I’m stripped of my brands and demoted to war criminal and RWT, there’s nothing that’ll force me to leave the Decepticon cause behind.”

[riseoftheradiotrons]

💗 Nanotube

She denies your kiss request.

[riseoftheradiotrons]

First Observations

Nanotube was silent, making her way through the trees. Organic plants were much bigger than she expected, so she at least had something to hide behind. Although her servos and wheels getting this sticky wasn’t a very nice sensation. Oh, well, organics were never that good at keeping smooth and clean, anyway. 

She gradually got used to the sound of rustling plants, no longer turning her head and readying her weapons upon merely hearing a squirrel jump to another tree. Quicksilver would hate it here, she thought, all this ‘unneeded noise’. They’d be yelling at any organic they see. 

Something chittered and ran off into the branches. 

She took a little pride in the fact that she didn’t scream at it.

She knew where her ship was - she placed a galacto-marker chip on it, so she could locate where it was anywhere in the galaxy. If someone tried to fly it, she’d be alerted to its position moving. 

Greenscreen hadn’t tried to contact her yet. Considering how much he wanted to throw her into the nearest wall half the time they spoke, that wasn’t too surprising to her. But Quicksilver and Starborn hadn’t tried either, or if they have, their attempts were lost in the vastness of the galaxy around her. 

More rustling. She looked up to find a couple of birds taking off. 

“Flying organics…? So they have evolved flight.” She kept watching them soar into the distance, curious about how exactly they functioned, to evolve flight and yet keep such a small form.

She couldn’t figure out scrap.

Organics were too complicated.

She continued through the trees. Trying to travel solely on wheels in her bipedal mode proved to be too difficult to do for long, so she shifted to her altmode - a very Velocitronian vehicle, with two chunky wheels designed for rough-terrain racing, which was becoming an increasingly popular sport. Not very adjacent to whatever may be on Sol 3, but useful as hell for getting through this forest.

She made sure to keep some Energon on her, so she could survive for a while away from the spaceship and leave the Cybertronian that entered her ship confused as to where she would be next. Who was that Cybertronian, anyway? And how many more were sey with? If it were just sem, just Quicksilver could help her overpower sem, but if there were more... well, Greenscreen would be sacrificed first, she knew that much.

She took no notice to the thin trail of lead dust and energon she left.

[riseoftheradiotrons]

Nanotube, you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

“...is this a riddle? Is this a secret fucking message? Is this a joke?!”

Quicksilver can barely hold back laughter in the background.

“What the hell is this supposed to convey? Like, do you want my tires? Do you want to just take my handlebars off of my body and admire then for yourself? Do you want to try to ~change my ways~ and live out your life with me on a cottage on the outskirts of the galaxy? What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!”

Quicksilver is wheezing. No laughter comes from Greenscreen, but he’s slamming his hand on the table, head hanging low as if he’s laughing.

[riseoftheradiotrons]

Nanotube are you a milf

“A... a what? What sort of Sol III term is that? I have no idea what the melt you’re talking about and I’m-”

A message from Quicksilver, explaining what a milf was.

“No. I don’t know what half these words mean, and I don’t think I want to know what they mean.”

[riseoftheradiotrons]

...And Turn To Page 1

A blast of... something was shot at Wavecrash. It scratched seir left arm and left a solid dent in the wall of the ship, a dent with tons of little spikes, as if the projectile was a large ball of razor blades.

The clatter of lots of tiny hard things hitting the ground. It definitely might’ve been razor blades. Hopefully they didn’t do as much damage to sem as they did to Ness.

The mystery Cybertronian gradually stood up, rubbing the spot where their handle was torn right off. Their empty mask-eyes showed no pupils, but Wavecrash could almost feel their gaze burning through seir left hand - the one holding the handle.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Your ship crashed.”

“It- of fragging course it did. When can I ever trust Starborn to refill the fuel tanks?” They punched the wall - once at course and once at Starborn. The first punch didn’t do much, but the second left a dent in the wall - or, rather, lots of tiny dents looking like one huge dent.

What the hell was causing this?

“Plug, Ness! Run!”

“There’s more of you?! Well, this won’t be as easy as I thought.” Another blast of that something. This one hit Wavecrash’s arm again, and nearly blasted the forearm off the upper arm. It seemed to be like some sort of capsule that shattered upon impact. Shrapnel from the explosion embedded itself in Wavecrash’s arm, the ship walls, crates of Cybertronian food.

A surge of power went through Wavecrash’s arm, and sey threw the torn-off handle in seir hands at them at unnatural speed. They raised their cannon arm to blast it back, but weren’t fast enough, and a solid crunch was heard as the impact rendered the cannon useless. A clear liquid, slightly metallic and tinted dark grey, leaked out, and scraped away the paint and metal as it went. They desperately waved the arm around, trying to fling this liquid at Wavecrash, presumably, but sem hiding behind a crate of Crystal Bismuth Chips did the trick.

“Okay, answer me before I throw some sonic-speed bismuth at you. What’s your name?”

No answer. Another capsule blast headed right for sem - they must have a backup cannon.

Sey grabbed a couple party-sized bismuth chip bags in one servo, and let the power surge through seir hand as they rocketed towards the other. The bags burst, sonic-speed bismuth bags making a good improvised grenade.

Dripping with strange grey fluid, orange Energon trickling down their plating in small rivulets, they reluctantly follow Wavecrash’s demands.

“I am Nanotube. I am neither Autobot, nor Decepticon. A new faction has appeared, ready to take full advantage of this new chaos, and make use of all this potential we’ve desperately pushed away.” 

Wavecrash gradually stepped out from behind the crate, noticing Nanotube was telling the truth. The symbol she bore on her shoulder was neither Autobot red nor Decepticon purple.

It was green. Two large triangles served as eyes, and vents rested at the bottom of the emblem’s face, what appeared to be a crown fused with the top of its head.

“I represent and bring forth the rise of the Radiotrons.”

[riseoftheradiotrons]

Nanotube! Kiss, marry, kill: Starscream, Greenscreen, Crimson Doctor

“What the fuck kind of joke is this?“

Quicksilver, from the distance. “Answer the question!”

She huffs. “Fine. I’m murdering Greenscreen, without a doubt. Even without a voice he won’t shut up. I’ll... I’ll marry Starscream, for the status.”

Starborn looks into the camera like they’re on The Office.

“And that leaves the incredibly dangerous and well-known serial killer to kiss. I’m fine with that, honestly. As long as he isn’t like Greenscreen, at least.”

[riseoftheradiotrons]

Hm... who could this be? I’m not even tagging her name until she’s revealed, so none of that spoilers for you. Though you can probably see that her altmode is one of those big four-wheeled ATV things with the handles that only people with too much money on their hands own.

[riseoftheradiotrons]

I am proud to announce that I have officially drawn the holoforms of EVERY main RotR cast member! With the exception of a few suspects Dial-Up interviews, as well as [REDACTED] and [UNDISCLOSED], every main cast member of RotR is here with a human holomatter avatar!

I will put the list of them under a readmore, because this is a LOT of holoforms, and some of y’all don’t have the time to scroll through all of them every time you look at this post.

Optimus: far middle left, old man in the polo shirt.

Cyclonus: far lower left, corset and choker.

Pharma: upper left, boob window hoodie. yes, those are stretch marks on the tiddies, i will not leave those out.

Turbulence: middle left, cross necklace and drippy hoodie

Wavecrash: lower left, bomber jacket and dark streak in hair

Eclipse: middle left, hoodie without string and darker scleras

Sparkplug: middle left, Minecraft dirt block hoodie and eye patch

Crimson Doctor: lower left, bandages over eyes

Terraform: upper middle, flannel shirt and sunhat

Pascal: dead center, long curly hair and glasses

Blackarachnia: bottom middle, punk as fuck with so many piercings

Starscream: upper middle, crop top hoodie

Greenscreen: middle right, fade tank top and face mask

Nanotube: bottom middle, tank top and high ponytail

Dial-Up: middle-ish right, bob cut and hunting headphones (and very, very dead expression)

Quicksilver: lower right, bomber jacket and short curly hair

Moonkiller: far upper right, sleeveless hoodie and half-head-shaven

Absolute Zero: far middle right, ponytail and burn scar over eye

Starborn: far bottom right, Radiotrons necklace and one of those button-down crop tops

[riseoftheradiotrons]

You Are (Not) Alone— I mean 1.0

BEEBS WHY DID YOU HAVE TO PUT AN EVA REFERENCE IN MY ASKBOX.

Aside from that, the original RotR story plan was... well, it didn't quite have a story to it. It would be an episodic continuity, but there was no giant plot. It was just robot shenanigans.

The main villain at the time was Nanotube, the head of a little gang of Cybertronians dealing in very, very illegal poisons. She had a bit of a rivalry with Bumblebee (who was scrapped very early on for a good smattering of reasons) due to both of them being far too small compared to most Cybertronians (they both stood at around 14 feet tall in that draft).

The Autobot protagonists weren’t well-decided on, they were really just whoever popped into my head. Concepts included everything from Arcee to Rodimus to Bulkhead to Ratchet, the last of whom actually made it a bit further past the original cut, but was ultimately removed.

There was also a completely different leader of the Radiotrons. named Hazmat, who stood at a nice height of “fucking gigantic” and took more appearance inspiration from DIO than anyone seemed to realize. Their character, much like Ratchet’s, was later scrapped, but bits of them remain in the Radiotron’s elusive leader, so elusive that even their name is a secret to the reader.

I had plans for other human friends in this continuity as well - the original Rise of the Radiotrons was set entirely on Earth - but they were... well. Canon humans. And my current humans are... not canon humans.

The only thing I really kept from the original Rise of the Radiotrons plan was Nanotube and most of the things revolving around her! She’s still small, angry, and has a fondness for poisons, even a B-ability (modern term for outliers, the term has gone extinct) that gives her completely indestructible guts, enabling her to digest any poison she comes across. With this continuity, however, she’s much less capitalist, and her team much more sinister.