Elita One


 * Elita One is an Autobot from the Generation One continuity family. She was once known as Ariel.



Elita One is the female counterpart to Optimus Prime; a powerful warrior, fearless in the face of her enemies, but compassionate to those who cannot defend themselves. She commands a squad of Female Autobots, and has their undying trust and support.

While her pistol is powerful enough to blast Shockwave out of the air in one shot (!), her greatest power is her ability to briefly stop time. Sadly, this ability drains all of her life force, and is almost assuredly fatal, and thus she only uses it in the direst of situations.

When the situation calls for it, she consults the wise Alpha Trion, her unbeknownest creator, via a holographic message machine.


 * (Note: Elita One's name shares the same root meaning as Optimus Prime's... "Best First". For many years, the actual spelling of her name was the subject of much fandom debate. The MC Axis kit finally gave her name the current spelling, and was later backed up by episode scripts.) Elita is s presumably derived from "elite," which comes from the Latin electa'', meaning "Chosen."  So her name translates as Chosen One, which makes sense as she was the one Alpha Trion chose to gift the special power and to lead the Femmes.

Animated continuity

 * Voice actor: Marlene Aragon (US); Kazue Komiya (Japan), Eiko Yamada (Ariel-Japan)



Nine million years ago, during the Golden Age of Cybertron, there lived a female robot named Ariel, the girlfriend of dock worker Orion Pax. She'd heard that the new "flying robots" that Orion and and his friend Dion admired had put together an army and attacked one of Cybertron's outer cities, but Dion laughingly dismissed her as gullible.

One of those "flying robots" - Megatron - raided the energy storage facility Orion worked at with his transport drones. While Megatron was in the midst of an assault on Orion, Ariel tried to stop him, only to be gunned down herself, by Megatron.

Fortunately for all involved, the time-lost Aerialbots brought the deactivated Orion to Alpha Trion for repairs, who recreated the young robot as the first of Cybertron's new defenders - Optimus Prime. Prime and the Aerialbots then convinced Alpha Trion to try reconstructing Ariel; after agreeing to send some droids for her, Alpha Trion mused to himself that "Elita One" would be a good name for a female warrior.



Five million years later, Elita One tried to board the Autobot starship as it took off on its mission to search for energy - wanting to go with Optimus - but she was seemingly destroyed while the ship was attacked during takeoff.

(Note: In the original pilot, the Ark did not appear to be under attack as it launched. The Ark being attacked and Elita One's presence as it took off constitues a retcon.)

But Elita One did not perish. About four million years later, she was in command of a team of Female Autobots, including Chromia, Firestar, and Moonracer, who had been raiding Shockwave's energon supplies in secret for an unknown length of time. Their existance was revealed thanks to Moonracer's carelessness, which subsequently lead to Elita's One capture by Starscream and the destruction of their secret base by Rumble.

Way to go, Moonracer.

Elita was used as bait to lure Optimus Prime into a trap, where he too was captured - and was soon on the block for execution in a vat of acid. Desperate to save her beloved, Elita triggered her time-stopping power, which allowed her to save Prime... but expended nearly all her life-force doing so.



After getting them both out of Decepticon Headquarters, Optimus was able to track Alpha Trion to his secret base. The ancient Autobot repaired Elita to the best of his ability, but revealed to Optimus Prime that only he could save Elita by interfacing to her with his power filter. An astonished Optimus Prime stated that only his CREATOR could know that!

(Optimus Prime had apparently forgotten that Alpha Trion was his creator, although he seemed to know that Alpha Trion created Elita One, making a knowing comment when Elita said that Alpha Trion was like a father to her. Which is really kind of creepy when you think about it.)

After Elita One was re-energized, she and Prime arrived in time to save both a group of Earth-based Autobots who had followed Prime to Cybertron and Elita's own troops from certain death at the hands of the Decepticons. Notably, Elita shot Shockwave out of the air with a single blast from her pistol.

With their original secret base in ruins, Alpha Trion quickly set the female Autobots up with a new one, full of advanced equipment.

Though regretful that they'd be apart again so soon, Elita One elected to stay behind on Cybertron and continue the fight at home while Optimus and the other Autobots returned to the war on Earth. Of course, this didn't prevent her from telling him not to stay away TOO long...

MC Axis Kit mini-comic
Elita One and her team toppled a colossal Decepticon warrior. Though her team was jubilant at their victory, Elita knew that this one victory was far from enough to win the war, and longed for Prime to return so they could re-take their homeworld.

Dreamwave comics continuity
Elita One and the other female Autobots were an elite squad of warriors under the command of the Quintessons, waiting for intel from their Autobot sleeper agent, Arcee.

(Note: Dreamwave filed for bankruptcy and stopped producing Transformers books right as the female Autobots arc was beginning.

Classics

 * (Note: The Classics story takes place in a post-Marvel Generation 1 comics universe where Generation 2 did not happen.)

Elita One is part of Grimlock's crew on the Graviton. After following Bug Bite's crew of Decepticons to Earth, she fights her way into the Decepticon base herself with radical martial arts. She is so totally awesome, what anyone else does isn't really that important, apparently.


 * (Note: Her appearance is apparently designed with a redeco of Thunderblast in mind.)

IDW comic continuity
Elita appears with her boyfriend, their father, and a close friend/white clone of her boyfriend at Bumper and Fastback's funeral.

Merchandise

 * Elita One (1996)


 * This Japanese "garage kit", an unpainted resin model, was made by MC Axis, and was also the first official product made of Elita One. It also included among the paperwork a comic strip starring Elita One and the other female Autobots.

Diamond Select Transformers

 * Elita One (2008)




 * Exclusive to Big Bad Toystore.com, this bust of Elita One is limited to 600 pieces worldwide. The sculpt is based upon her cartoon appearance, though some creative liberties have been taken, such as the fact she carries a large rifle that is similar in design to Optimus Prime's instead of the small pistol in her fictional appearances.

Trivia



 * A Cybertronian battle scene in Comic Bom-Bom (reprinted in Transformers Generations) depicts Elita One fighting the Decepticons alongside other pre-Earth Autobots.


 * According to writer David Wise, he did not intend for Ariel to be rebuilt as Elita 1 when writing War Dawn. Whether Ariel was originally supposed to die or if she was supposed to be rebuilt into someone else is unknown.


 * Elita One's alt-mode has never been depicted in its entirety. As shown above, only the very front end is seen, as the rest is hidden by Optimus Prime's truck mode. It looks a little like a mish-mash of the alt modes of Wheelie and Arcee.


 * In the War Within graphic novel, Elita One's silhouette is depicted on Optimus' mudflap in vehicle mode, similar to the "naked lady" silhouette decal seen on modern vehicles.