- Transmutate is a non-aligned Transformer from the Beast Wars continuity family.
MU-tilate. MU-tant. Hm. I wonder. Oh well.
Transmutate is a minor characters of Beast Wars: Transformers who appears in the Season 2 episode "Transmutate (episode)" as the title character.
She is a mutant Transformer, partially Transmetal, born from a heavily-damaged stasis pod (likely due to her landing in the seismically-unstable Grid Deltron). The creature possesses very little intelligence and is utterly innocent in personality, curious and childlike.
However, she also contains inconceivable destructive power (i.e. super-sonic screams, mouth energy lasers and somewhat strong force fields) to boot, making her extremely dangerous to keep unsupervised and uncontained. Though she has no alternate form or beast mode, she does have the ability to fly.
Fiction
Beast Wars
- Voice actor: Susan Blu (U.S.), Haruna Ikezawa (Japan)
Both factions considered Transmutate to be too dangerous to recruit. Megatron decided to have her destroyed as without enough intelligence or an alternate. She was useless to him, while Primal felt that her scrambled data-tracks and limited intellectual ability combined with her extreme power level made her a danger to herself as well as those around her and suggested putting her into Stasis Lock, presumably until a solution could be found. This caused considerable concern for both Silverbolt and Rampage, as Silverbolt felt it was a Maximal's duty to protect all sentient life and Rampage simply found a kindred spirit in Transmutate's tortured existence.
Transmutate managed to befriend both Transformers, which caused some friction between them. Eventually, they came to blows. Transmutate imploded when she overloaded her power when trying to deflect missiles shot by Silverbolt and Rampage placing herself between the blasts. Her last words were to name Silverbolt and Rampage as her friends before she died, with the two transformers deeply grieved by the fact that Transmutate never lived long, to the point that Silverbolt requested that Optimus and Cheetor leave Rampage alone to mourn. Transmutate
Toys
Beast Wars
Transmutate was never sold as an individual toy. Rather, she was only available with the first two waves of Beast Wars 10th Anniversary toys in 2006; each of the first six releases had a part to "Trans-Mutate" packaged with it. All six parts combined to form a non-transformable figure with limited articulation... but the simple fact that an official figure of a one-episode show character got made is itself an extraordinary occurrence.
- Head - Waspinator
- Torso - Cheetor
- Waist & right leg - Rhinox
- Left leg - Tarantulas
- Right arm - Rattrap
- Left arm - Dinobot
Notes
- Transmutate's voice actress, Susan Blu, previous voiced Arcee from The Transformers: The Movie, later both the third and "fourth" seasons of The Transformers, and is also the director of Beast Wars: Transformers.
- A minor point of argument among fans is exactly why the Maximals were so quick to stasis-lock Transmutate instead of transferring its spark to another body like Rhinox did with Optimus Primal following the latter's unintentional sacrifice. It was stated only that its core consciousness and body structure were mutilated beyond recovery; no mention was made about the condition of its spark. Of course, the euthanasia metaphor of the character's titular episode would fall apart if they did that, but hey, semantics.
- It is possible that they didn't have any available, and they may have planned to do so when they could, but Silverbolt was too angry to understand that, and wouldn't listen.
- In regard to the previous bit of trivia, the script for this episode explicitly states that Transmutate's spark was unstable: "Energy ERUPTS throughout Its body as Its own unstable spark begins to tear It apart." Although stage direction and narration from scripts are only pseudocanon, this may nonetheless satisfy some fans that the spark was indeed as damaged as the body. The script, like many Beast Wars scripts, can be found on BWTF.com.
- Also from the episode script comes this character description in the cast listing section: TRANSMUTATE: a being with no beauty of form nor logic of shape, massive, made of unmatched parts: bits of Predacon, pieces of Maximal, chunks of Fuzor and Transmetal, heavy-duty weapons, and a face that vaguely indicates it is female. This wording lends some credence to the fan notion that Transmutate was originally a female Protoform. However, Transmutate is consistently referred to within the script using genderless pronouns, confusing the issue.
- According to Ben Yee on Madman Entertainment's Beast Wars Season 2 DVD commentaries, Hasbro attempted to replicate Transmutate's sonic scream attacks first as a spring-loaded projectile, then as a static decoration. Fortunately for the sake of good taste, they abandoned those plans.
- Notably Transmutate is one of the only, if not the only creature ever able to inspire kindness or affection from Rampage who befriended it, defended it before Megatron and vowed to protect it. Transmutate seemed to some degree realize that Rampage has darkness within him calling him "Friend Dark", but this could suggest that it recognized to some degree that Rampage was not evil so much as totally alone and isolated, lashing out at a world that will not accept him.