Tailgate



The naïve Tailgate needs to be liked. It's hardly the most unique of flaws, but he has an unfortunate, childlike, tendency towards extremes. Placed in a situation with Autobots who don't know him from Primon, this sanitation 'Bot will spin a tall tale the height of a Metrotitan in an attempt to impress his fellows before it all comes crashing down. And it ultimately will - while he's a 'Bot with a spark of gold, he's broadly unfocused, frequently distracted and easily led, and often gets impulsive, irrational obsessions. And his timekeeping sucks.

Easily his most distinctive mental issue is his occasional inability to tell the difference between a non-living Earth machine and sentient robotic life such as himself. While it's a, typically they learn quickly and let it go. Not Tailgate. Once he gets it into his head, his compassion turns to rage against the "enslavers", and is quite vocal in his desire to "free" the machines of Earth.

That boy ain't right.

Sometimes, he acts as a scout—with strict orders not to break cover for any reason. In this, he is aided by a ridiculously powerful iron-cobalt magnet installed behind his bumper, which he can use to follow closely behind other vehicles and travel far into enemy territory using minimal fuel.

Fiction
Tailgate came online over six million years ago, a time before Transformers had single functions. According to his Autopedia entry, he studied metaphysics under Omega Supreme, was a champion kick-boxer who graduated from the Ibex School of Epistemology, helped invent the idealised heat engine, coordinated a search for Luna 1, and he was part of Nova Prime's inner circle, encouraging him to explore space. How Ratchet Got His Hands Back On top of all that, he's a war veteran: a bomb disposal 'bot in the Primal Vanguard! Hangers On He was going to be part of the Ark-1 mission and knew that, if he wasn't there for launch, the mission was doomed!

All of the above is a big fat lie. Tailgate was a fourth-class sanitation robot who was given the job of cleaning out the Ark's coolant tubes before take-off.

A rash detour saw him crippled in a pit at the Mitteous Plateau. He tried to detonate his energon rations in the hope of being detected. Despite passing out over and over, he did finally manage it... six million years later, outside the Lost Light launch, and he had a panic attack when he saw his explosion had damaged Whirl. The Autobots, not knowing who Tailgate was, took him on board the Light since he'd mentioned "the launch". Ratchet "had him carbon dated", bewildered by the antique systems he had.

When Tailgate came to (and seeing he hadn't killed "Nut-Job", as he mistakenly thought Whirl was called), he heard from Swerve just how long he'd been offline, to which he SLIGHTLY over-reacted. Hangers On He should have been found in days: six million years implied he was so unimportant that nobody had noticed or cared he was missing. Since there was nobody around who knew the truth, Tailgate began to make up a heroic, awesome past.

Swerve ended up 'adopting' him as a mate, filling him in on the future and begging him to show off his alt mode. The two were caught up in an attack by strange robots chanting "nineteen eighty four", robots that Tailgate seemed quite interested in. Later, during a crew gathering, Swerve finally convinced Tailgate to attempt to transform. Hangers On Tailgate got stuck during the transformation, leaving him temporarily without legs.

A Sparkeater was reported to be on the loose aboard the Lost Light and Rodimus ordered everyone to pair off and lock themselves in habitation suites. Tailgate noticed Cyclonus, another Transformer from his time, and asked for some help getting to a room. Cyclonus carried the half-transformed Tailgate there and quite rudely dumped him on the ground. As the Sparkeater situation unfolded outside, the two former crew members of the original Ark discussed the six million year gap in history they missed. Cyclonus described the Autobot-Decepticon conflict to Tailgate as he understood it. Later in the medibay, as Ratchet was unsticking his half-transformed body, Tailgate declared that he would like to be a Decepticon!

Word got around the Lost Light about Tailgate's aims, and Ultra Magnus asked Rodimus to set the "confirmed Decepticon sympathizer" straight. Rodimus hooked Tailgate up with Rewind, who beamed a compressed visual history of the civil war directly into Tailgate's head. Sobered by what he saw, Tailgate realized that the Decepticons were the "bad guys". He returned to his quarters and fumed at Cyclonus for not giving him a clearer picture of the two factions. When Tailgate impotently struck Cyclonus on the arm, his icy roommate reciprocated with a vicious backhand. Leaving their room, Cyclonus kicked the downed Tailgate on his way out, leaving him cowering on the floor.

Tailgate informed Ultra Magnus that he wanted to learn the Autobot Code, only to discover this meant an excruciating slog through an intense analysis of ten thousand pages of text. He was briefly interested in section 19, subsection 80, paragraph four because it reminded him of the robots that attacked Skids. How Ratchet Got His Hands Back Later in Swerve's bar, he had an unpleasant encounter with Cyclonus, and sat next to Chromedome instead. He was surprised by the news that there was an abridged version of the Autobot Code. He was still present when Fortress Maximus flipped out and shot a bunch of 'Bots.

Ultimately, he passed his Autobot Code exam, albeit with a grade below what he was used to. Asking Cyclonus to attend his Act of Affiliation, a step on the way to the full Rite of the Autobrand, he was seemingly ignored - although his fellow Ancient Cybertronian would secretly attend. At the ceremony itself, however, Rodimus was briefly possessed by a Metrotitan and, rather than drawing his probationary Autobot symbol, scrawled "Set Me Free" in Old Cybertronian on his chest.

He watched one of Rewind's old public information films, "Proteus' Promise", with several other members of the crew. Who's Afraid of the DJD? As Swerve and Rewind organized story nights to try and help Rung regain his memories, Tailgate was part of the third group of storytellers, though his part in the story was barely a mention. He had to interrupt Drift to ask what a Relinquishment Clinic was. He was particularly impressed by the skills of one Orion Pax Patternism though he found himself having to make notes to keep track of all the characters, and it later turned out he hadn't realized that Orion was Optimus Prime.

Tailgate joined a mission to Temptoria to investigate the possibility that the Circle of Light were being held there. While the larger Autobots roughed up the occupying Decepticons, Tailgate and Rewind investigated the contents of The Battery only to find that the Decepticons didn't have the Circle and were merely converting the native life forms to energon, and had rigged up a bomb. Before & After Now forced to actually dispose of a bomb, Tailgate tricked Rewind into telling him how to actually do it. Cybertronian Homesick Blues Unfortunately he accidentally triggered a timer, and when he refused to stop work and escape, he had to be physically thrown from the room by Cyclonus. Cyclonus and Rewind were caught in the bomb's explosion, and Tailgate dragged the severely-damaged Cyclonus back to the Lost Light's medibay on his own. Observing the other Autobots leaving offerings of innermost energon for Rewind, Tailgate attempted to leave an offering for Cyclonus, only for it to be rebuked. Cyclonus did seem to have a change of heart after seeing Rewind's offerings, and helped Tailgate pick up the pieces of the shattered vial. Some time later, he went to the bars on Hedonia with his usual crowd. (His holomatter avatar was a baby) When Rewind was about to show a recording of the Ark-1 opening ceremony, and the naming of Nova Prime's original crew, Cyclonus went into a 'drunken rage' and Tailgate remained to calm him down. Once the others were gone, it became clear Cyclonus had done this so the others wouldn't realize Tailgate hadn't been included in the crew manifest: he'd known from the start that Tailgate had been lying. The Autobot broke down and admitted to having falsified his past, and his grief over being a nobody. Tailgate was in fact a Waste Disposal bot whose job was to clean out the Ark's coolant tubes prior to take-off. When he had gone missing six million years before, nobody had cared enough to search for him. Cyclonus took pity on Tailgate and taught him how to sing an Old Cybertronian anthem.

Despite moments of tension around movie-night, Cyclonus remained close to Tailgate afterwards, sitting with him during Rewind's funeral in the aftermath of Overlord's rampage through the ship. After the ceremony, Tailgate went to help Ratchet to care for the dying Ultra Magnus, but accidentally scanned himself with Ratchet's "death clock". The clock displayed that Tailgate had only three days to live. The Gloaming. Other than Ratchet, the only one on board the Lost Light that Tailgate could trust with his impending death was Cyclonus. However Cyclonus initially seemed to be disinterested in Tailgate's news, and hurriedly abandoned him almost as soon as Tailgate was finished telling him. Tailgate went to Swerve's Bar to drink away his sorrows, oblivious to the massive portal to Luna 1 that the Lost Light would ultimately travel through.

An evidently distressed Cyclonus made up for his behavior by inviting Tailgate along to visit Luna 1 for the experience, with the caveat that despite Luna 1's reputation as a "Miracle Moon", Tailgate must not hope for a cure.

On arrival to Luna 1 Tailgate was captured and imprisoned with the rest of the Lost Light away team, becoming separated from Cyclonus, who remained with Whirl to fight the Decepticons and stage a rescue mission. As none of the others knew he had less than three days to live, Tailgate's claims of impatience and panic at being in captivity were dismissed. Things looked brighter once their co-prisoner Minumus Ambus revealed his story of becoming Ultra Magnus. When Tailgate asked how he could have cheated his impending death, Minimus declared that Chief Justice Tyrest had doctors that - apparently - could work miracles.