[OOC] The Blue Dossier
Scourge's history and profile, for those curious.
History:
After being thrown out of the shuttle post-battle by Starscream for being either too badly damaged or too dead to defend themselves, the Decepticon leader Megatron was left drifting through space with the corpses of several of his followers. They were picked up by the giant planet-devouring robotic chaos god Unicron, who reformatted Megatron into his new Herald and renamed him Galvatron. Another corpse was made into Galvatron’s second in command and personal jet Cyclonus. Scourge himself was created as Galvatron’s tracker from the body of Thundercracker, apparently with no memory of who he might have been beforehand, Several others became the Sweeps, a group of physical clones designed to be his loyal huntsmen.
Unicron ordered Galvatron to track down the Autobot Matrix of Leadership and obliterate it, as it was the only thing that could destroy him. Galvatron and his followers went to Cybertron to kill Starscream and assert Galvatron’s role as leader of the Decepticons before Unicron told them to get back to what they were doing. The Unicronians returned to Earth to hunt down Ultra Magnus, the current Matrix bearer, and eventually shot down his ship over the planet of Junk. Scourge and his Sweeps tracked Magnus down and tore him apart (he got better) and handed the Matrix over to Galvatron. Galvatron attempted to use the Matrix to destroy Unicron-when he found that he couldn’t open the Matrix and release its power, Unicron swallowed him. Since Scourge does not appear again until after the film, it can be assumed he and the others fled the scene.
The Decepticons, now led by Cyclonus with Scourge as second in command, were pushed back to the desolate planet of Charr after Unicron (and seemingly Galvatron) were destroyed. Cyclonus continued to keep up hope that Galvatron was still alive in order to inspire the starving Decepticon troops. Scourge was dubious about this, but he continued to support his wingmate. In a last-ditch effort to find their leader Cyclonus and Scourge went to Unicron’s disembodied head and looked through Unicron’s memory banks, finding out that Galvatron had actually been thrown clear during the explosion and crash-landed on the planet Thrull. Cyclonus and Scourge proceeded to truck out to Thrull, find the now-mad Galvatron soaking in a lava pool and convince him to return to Charr after a lot of flattery and the mangling of several Sweeps.
After chain of command was reestablished, Scourge happily took up the position of loyal and responsibility-free third in command, making many appearances in crowd scenes or hiding zebra-like amongst his Sweeps. He generally stayed with Cyclonus, as they were literally built to be combat-compatible with each other and get along well.
Scourge was later damaged in a heated battle with the Aerialbots and Cyclonus decided it would be a good idea for them to hide in a strange swirling vortex. After emerging from the other side they crash landed on Paradron, a lost Autobot colony, and were taken in by the pacifistic natives. Scourge and Cyclonus contacted Galvatron with news of an energon-rich planet ruled by wimps, and then easily took over the entire colony on their own. The Decepticons stripped the planet of energon and forced the civilians into slave labor, only to have their plans interrupted when the Autobots invaded the planet, evacuated the Paradronians, and blew the planet up.
As the Decepticons recovered from this devastating and morally ambiguous loss, the greedy Octane went behind Galvatron’s back and made numerous dirty deals with the president-for-life of the Socialist Democratic Federated Republic of Carbombya (blame the 80s) while manipulating the powerful cityformer Trypticon for his own ends. He was expelled from the Decepticons and Scourge and his Sweeps were sent to track him down, with Cyclonus along to make sure they actually did their job. They chased him to the Decepticon catacombs and after numerous threats from Cyclonus Scourge and the fearful Sweeps went in after him.
Unfortunately for our heroes, the catacombs were being haunted by the ghost of Starscream. Starscream possessed Cyclonus and attempted to lead Galvatron into an Autobot trap, usurping command of the Decepticons from beyond the grave. Galvatron managed to escape and blasted “Cyclonus” for his treachery a bare moment after Starscream fled his body and possessed Scourge instead.
Unlike Cyclonus, Scourge realized he was being possessed and managed to put up some token resistance to Starscream’s manipulations. Galvatron gave orders to shoot him, but Cyclonus stalled him long enough for Scourge-as-Starscream to escape. Starscream took Scourge to Unicron’s disembodied head, which was still orbiting Cybertron. Scourge agreed to work with Starscream and reactivated Unicron’s mind, knowing that he couldn’t go back to Charr again. The awakened Unicron agreed to give Starscream a new body if he would complete three labors for him, and Scourge was roped into this as well.
After collecting two giant eyes and Trypticon’s transformation cog, Unicron commanded Starscream to connect his head to Cybertron so that he could use the planet itself as a new body-which is once again when Scourge decided to book it and run for help.
His attempts to warn Galvatron were met with yelling and laserfire, and Scourge was forced to surrender himself to the Autobots and beg for their help. Meanwhile, Starscream finally received his new body and left Unicron as a disembodied and now very pissed off head. After the Autobots shut Unicron down for good, Scourge was thanked for his assistance and released back to the Decepticons. It is unclear how he managed to avoid getting messily executed, but Cyclonus may have interceded on his behalf.
No sooner was that debacle over with than Scourge unknowingly aided Cyclonus in luring the mad Galvatron to Torkulon, a living and vaguely gelatinous planet populated by alien psychotherapists and their bizarre patients. Scourge stood by while Galvatron was captured, sedated, and forced into all manner of strange therapy in the hopes of curing his insanity, although he repeatedly voiced his doubts about the wisdom of this venture. The psychotherapists eventually ran out of options for treating Galvatron’s madness and decided to use “the Aliya solution”, the robotic equivalent of a lobotomy. Scourge and Cyclonus attempted to rescue Galvatron but they were restrained and threatened with the same fate. Instead of having his mind invaded and destroyed by the Aliya, Galvatron managed to get into Torkulon’s mind through sheer force of will and found the way to destroy it. Cyclonus and Scourge resignedly waited around while Galvatron spent several hours tearing the planet apart and then distracted him with the prospect of Autobots to shoot, once again saving themselves from facing the business end of Galvatron’s cannon and returning things to the status quo.
Appearence:
Scourge is a dark blue transforming robot that is between fifteen and thirty feet tall depending on how his underpaid animator is feeling that day. He has a pair of wide, curved wings and a scope on top of his head, along with a Fu Manchu style metal beard and mustache and sharp, pink claws. Since Transformers “bleed” pink, this is probably supposed to look more menacing than it does.
Scourge’s vehicle mode is an air skiff, a teardrop-shaped spacecraft with his gun and scope poking out of the top. This makes him look vaguely like a flying soap dish, but again nobody seems to think it’s weird.
Scourge’s human form is stocky and muscular, like some kind of gruff biker gang member. He has black hair reaching slightly past his shoulders, and a small mustache and goatee, a miniature version of his once-impressive beard. His fingernails are long and personally sharpened.
Basic Personality:
Due to his existence as a secondary villain in a eighties cartoon, Scourge has very little canon characterization. He is cowardly and avoids danger as much as possible (although regular battle situations don’t phase him), a reasonable tactic given that he works for a violent madman in an army built around power displays and treachery. In his short life he’s been exposed to many strange things that want to kill or eat him, and weirdness will be approached with extreme caution. If a command struggle ensues, he will usually side with whoever has the most power over him at the time, and shows no loyalty to his allies unless it is beneficial to him. This follows the unspoken Decepticon code that when one cannot have the biggest gun, it’s best to follow the one who does.
A notable exception to this would be his wingmate and counterpart Cyclonus, to whom he is very attached. Scourge usually plays the snarky, grumbling cynic to Cyclonus’ dramatic and honorable warrior, as while Cyclonus is loyal to the death, Scourge is loyal in order to avoid death. However, they were literally created for each other and it is highly unlikely that he would form such a bond with another person without extremely extenuating circumstances and probably a long period of time.
Unlike the Decepticon stereotype, Scourge isn’t actively sadistic. He isn’t adverse to a rousing afternoon of shooting at Autobots from the sky, but the actual visceral aspect of killing doesn’t appeal to him and torture he generally leaves to Cyclonus and Galvatron. He does gets a thrill from intimidating people, something he can’t do very easily around the people who know he isn’t actually that menacing, but aside from scaring or yelling out orders he has absolutely no leadership skills. Even his own clones won’t listen to him most of the time; they might follow him into battle but getting them to do any actual work usually requires a threat from Cyclonus or Galvatron.
Admittedly, Scourge isn’t much better. He goes along with the path of least resistance as much as he can, but tries to duck work or delegate it down the chain of command if he thinks he can get away with it. One of his favorite activities is spying on other people of both factions with his heightened senses or through his many hidden cameras, with a major interest in illicit activities and romantic encounters. Aside from being a general voyeur, knowing things that other people think he doesn’t know gives him a mild feeling of empowerment. This is enjoyed by a number of others in the Decepticon ranks (most significantly the Decepticon spymaster Soundwave and his Casseticons), but so far nobody has ratted on anybody else.
In essence, he’s cowardly until he needs to fight, he’s lazy until someone makes him work, and he’s nosy until someone catches him. Since no one expects anything more from him, it’s worked out pretty well so far.
History:
After being thrown out of the shuttle post-battle by Starscream for being either too badly damaged or too dead to defend themselves, the Decepticon leader Megatron was left drifting through space with the corpses of several of his followers. They were picked up by the giant planet-devouring robotic chaos god Unicron, who reformatted Megatron into his new Herald and renamed him Galvatron. Another corpse was made into Galvatron’s second in command and personal jet Cyclonus. Scourge himself was created as Galvatron’s tracker from the body of Thundercracker, apparently with no memory of who he might have been beforehand, Several others became the Sweeps, a group of physical clones designed to be his loyal huntsmen.
Unicron ordered Galvatron to track down the Autobot Matrix of Leadership and obliterate it, as it was the only thing that could destroy him. Galvatron and his followers went to Cybertron to kill Starscream and assert Galvatron’s role as leader of the Decepticons before Unicron told them to get back to what they were doing. The Unicronians returned to Earth to hunt down Ultra Magnus, the current Matrix bearer, and eventually shot down his ship over the planet of Junk. Scourge and his Sweeps tracked Magnus down and tore him apart (he got better) and handed the Matrix over to Galvatron. Galvatron attempted to use the Matrix to destroy Unicron-when he found that he couldn’t open the Matrix and release its power, Unicron swallowed him. Since Scourge does not appear again until after the film, it can be assumed he and the others fled the scene.
The Decepticons, now led by Cyclonus with Scourge as second in command, were pushed back to the desolate planet of Charr after Unicron (and seemingly Galvatron) were destroyed. Cyclonus continued to keep up hope that Galvatron was still alive in order to inspire the starving Decepticon troops. Scourge was dubious about this, but he continued to support his wingmate. In a last-ditch effort to find their leader Cyclonus and Scourge went to Unicron’s disembodied head and looked through Unicron’s memory banks, finding out that Galvatron had actually been thrown clear during the explosion and crash-landed on the planet Thrull. Cyclonus and Scourge proceeded to truck out to Thrull, find the now-mad Galvatron soaking in a lava pool and convince him to return to Charr after a lot of flattery and the mangling of several Sweeps.
After chain of command was reestablished, Scourge happily took up the position of loyal and responsibility-free third in command, making many appearances in crowd scenes or hiding zebra-like amongst his Sweeps. He generally stayed with Cyclonus, as they were literally built to be combat-compatible with each other and get along well.
Scourge was later damaged in a heated battle with the Aerialbots and Cyclonus decided it would be a good idea for them to hide in a strange swirling vortex. After emerging from the other side they crash landed on Paradron, a lost Autobot colony, and were taken in by the pacifistic natives. Scourge and Cyclonus contacted Galvatron with news of an energon-rich planet ruled by wimps, and then easily took over the entire colony on their own. The Decepticons stripped the planet of energon and forced the civilians into slave labor, only to have their plans interrupted when the Autobots invaded the planet, evacuated the Paradronians, and blew the planet up.
As the Decepticons recovered from this devastating and morally ambiguous loss, the greedy Octane went behind Galvatron’s back and made numerous dirty deals with the president-for-life of the Socialist Democratic Federated Republic of Carbombya (blame the 80s) while manipulating the powerful cityformer Trypticon for his own ends. He was expelled from the Decepticons and Scourge and his Sweeps were sent to track him down, with Cyclonus along to make sure they actually did their job. They chased him to the Decepticon catacombs and after numerous threats from Cyclonus Scourge and the fearful Sweeps went in after him.
Unfortunately for our heroes, the catacombs were being haunted by the ghost of Starscream. Starscream possessed Cyclonus and attempted to lead Galvatron into an Autobot trap, usurping command of the Decepticons from beyond the grave. Galvatron managed to escape and blasted “Cyclonus” for his treachery a bare moment after Starscream fled his body and possessed Scourge instead.
Unlike Cyclonus, Scourge realized he was being possessed and managed to put up some token resistance to Starscream’s manipulations. Galvatron gave orders to shoot him, but Cyclonus stalled him long enough for Scourge-as-Starscream to escape. Starscream took Scourge to Unicron’s disembodied head, which was still orbiting Cybertron. Scourge agreed to work with Starscream and reactivated Unicron’s mind, knowing that he couldn’t go back to Charr again. The awakened Unicron agreed to give Starscream a new body if he would complete three labors for him, and Scourge was roped into this as well.
After collecting two giant eyes and Trypticon’s transformation cog, Unicron commanded Starscream to connect his head to Cybertron so that he could use the planet itself as a new body-which is once again when Scourge decided to book it and run for help.
His attempts to warn Galvatron were met with yelling and laserfire, and Scourge was forced to surrender himself to the Autobots and beg for their help. Meanwhile, Starscream finally received his new body and left Unicron as a disembodied and now very pissed off head. After the Autobots shut Unicron down for good, Scourge was thanked for his assistance and released back to the Decepticons. It is unclear how he managed to avoid getting messily executed, but Cyclonus may have interceded on his behalf.
No sooner was that debacle over with than Scourge unknowingly aided Cyclonus in luring the mad Galvatron to Torkulon, a living and vaguely gelatinous planet populated by alien psychotherapists and their bizarre patients. Scourge stood by while Galvatron was captured, sedated, and forced into all manner of strange therapy in the hopes of curing his insanity, although he repeatedly voiced his doubts about the wisdom of this venture. The psychotherapists eventually ran out of options for treating Galvatron’s madness and decided to use “the Aliya solution”, the robotic equivalent of a lobotomy. Scourge and Cyclonus attempted to rescue Galvatron but they were restrained and threatened with the same fate. Instead of having his mind invaded and destroyed by the Aliya, Galvatron managed to get into Torkulon’s mind through sheer force of will and found the way to destroy it. Cyclonus and Scourge resignedly waited around while Galvatron spent several hours tearing the planet apart and then distracted him with the prospect of Autobots to shoot, once again saving themselves from facing the business end of Galvatron’s cannon and returning things to the status quo.
Appearence:
Scourge is a dark blue transforming robot that is between fifteen and thirty feet tall depending on how his underpaid animator is feeling that day. He has a pair of wide, curved wings and a scope on top of his head, along with a Fu Manchu style metal beard and mustache and sharp, pink claws. Since Transformers “bleed” pink, this is probably supposed to look more menacing than it does.
Scourge’s vehicle mode is an air skiff, a teardrop-shaped spacecraft with his gun and scope poking out of the top. This makes him look vaguely like a flying soap dish, but again nobody seems to think it’s weird.
Scourge’s human form is stocky and muscular, like some kind of gruff biker gang member. He has black hair reaching slightly past his shoulders, and a small mustache and goatee, a miniature version of his once-impressive beard. His fingernails are long and personally sharpened.
Basic Personality:
Due to his existence as a secondary villain in a eighties cartoon, Scourge has very little canon characterization. He is cowardly and avoids danger as much as possible (although regular battle situations don’t phase him), a reasonable tactic given that he works for a violent madman in an army built around power displays and treachery. In his short life he’s been exposed to many strange things that want to kill or eat him, and weirdness will be approached with extreme caution. If a command struggle ensues, he will usually side with whoever has the most power over him at the time, and shows no loyalty to his allies unless it is beneficial to him. This follows the unspoken Decepticon code that when one cannot have the biggest gun, it’s best to follow the one who does.
A notable exception to this would be his wingmate and counterpart Cyclonus, to whom he is very attached. Scourge usually plays the snarky, grumbling cynic to Cyclonus’ dramatic and honorable warrior, as while Cyclonus is loyal to the death, Scourge is loyal in order to avoid death. However, they were literally created for each other and it is highly unlikely that he would form such a bond with another person without extremely extenuating circumstances and probably a long period of time.
Unlike the Decepticon stereotype, Scourge isn’t actively sadistic. He isn’t adverse to a rousing afternoon of shooting at Autobots from the sky, but the actual visceral aspect of killing doesn’t appeal to him and torture he generally leaves to Cyclonus and Galvatron. He does gets a thrill from intimidating people, something he can’t do very easily around the people who know he isn’t actually that menacing, but aside from scaring or yelling out orders he has absolutely no leadership skills. Even his own clones won’t listen to him most of the time; they might follow him into battle but getting them to do any actual work usually requires a threat from Cyclonus or Galvatron.
Admittedly, Scourge isn’t much better. He goes along with the path of least resistance as much as he can, but tries to duck work or delegate it down the chain of command if he thinks he can get away with it. One of his favorite activities is spying on other people of both factions with his heightened senses or through his many hidden cameras, with a major interest in illicit activities and romantic encounters. Aside from being a general voyeur, knowing things that other people think he doesn’t know gives him a mild feeling of empowerment. This is enjoyed by a number of others in the Decepticon ranks (most significantly the Decepticon spymaster Soundwave and his Casseticons), but so far nobody has ratted on anybody else.
In essence, he’s cowardly until he needs to fight, he’s lazy until someone makes him work, and he’s nosy until someone catches him. Since no one expects anything more from him, it’s worked out pretty well so far.