Artillery Drones are a subspecies of Cybertronian Vehicons from the planet Cybertron.
Biology[]
Anatomy[]
Artillery Drones share a similar biology to other Cybertronians, except they transform into Cybertronian six-wheeled assault tanks.
Powers and abilities[]
Artillery Drones share many of the same abilities as other Cybertronians.
Artillery Drones are equipped with reciprocating laser cannons that wreak havoc and shred anything caught in their field of fire with one sustained blast. They are also capable of high-speed bursts on any terrain and have amazing endurance in close combat.
Weaknesses[]
Artillery Drones share many of the same weaknesses as other Cybertronians.
Culture and society[]
Artillery Drones share a similar culture to other Cybertronian Vehicons. Much like the Tank Drones, they serve as formidable front-line fighters. They are usually under the command of Strika, one of Cybertron's greatest military generals.
Gallery[]
Notes[]
- Unlike other Vehicons, the Artillery Drones were ever named in the Beast Machines cartoon or toyline. Behind-the-scenes of the show, the production staff simply referred to them as "Strika-Drones".[1]
- Several fan-coined names were used to refer to the Vehicon drones resembling Strika drones in lieu of a known official name, including "Ground Drones", "Striker Drones", "All-Terrain Drones", "Heavy Artillery Drones", etc. Of those examples, the name "Heavy Artillery Drone" is what TFWiki.net used, with the name having been chosen by the anonymous user who originally created the article.
- As the name "Heavy Artillery Drone" had no canonical origin, it is very likely to have derived from the opening paragraph of Strika's article that describes her as "taking the place of Tankor as commander of heavy artillery." From the time that the article for the Strika-type Vehicon drones was first created, the name "Heavy Artillery Drone" had remained untouched for a little over a decade, due to an unintended oversight and lack of fact-checking on TFWiki's part, which had remained in effect for all that time.
- As TFWiki is usually quite diligent in its adherence to official terminology, and not in the habit of making things up, it was assumed during all that time that the name "Heavy Artillery Drone" had to have come from somewhere official, even an obscure source. Simply put, no one was aware that the name was not official during all that time.
- Much like with the Copter Drones, the name "artillery drone" (in all lowercase) first appeared in the Beast Wars: Uprising prose story "Derailment" as a shortened form of the name that this article had been using since its onset, as was confirmed by Jim Sorenson, one of the story's authors. Sorenson also admitted to having floated "assault drones" as an alternative naming option.[2] Since then, these Vehicon drones gained an official, in-fiction name thanks in part to TFWiki's little slip-up.
- The truck-type Vehicon troopers featured in the Transformers: Prime video game are analogues to the Artillery Drones, as they transform into "heavy" ground vehicles.
References[]
- ↑ 14 April 2000 Q&A w/ Bob Skir (archived)
- ↑ Post by Jim Sorensen on The Allspark Forums, 01/02/2017 (archived)