Vok

The Vok are aliens in the Beast Wars portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

The ultimate Halloween costume.

The Vok were mysterious energy-based alien creatures who developed prehistoric Earth towards their own designs. The Vok were dedicated to "the Project", which consisted of enigmatic, sometimes contradictory plans for the planet. As a result of these experiments, there were a number of anomalies on the Earth, including several floating landmasses, a mysterious stone formation, and a hollowed-out moon.

Fiction

Animated continuity

Beast Wars

Voice actors: Blu Mankuma and Richard Newman (US), Hidetoshi Nakamura (Japan)

Their experiments were irreparably wrecked as a result of the Beast Wars. The Vok decided to cut their losses by revealing the nature of the second moon: An immense cannon designed to destroy the planet! Optimus Primal sacrificed himself in order to destroy the Planet Buster.

As a result of the Planet Buster's explosion, a Quantum surge was released. The surge caused a mutation in several of the Transformers (notably, Megatron, Rattrap, Cheetor and Tarantulas) turning them into Transmetals. The destruction of the Planet Buster also released a Transwarp wave that traveled through space and time, eventually reaching Cybertron in the era from which the main characters originated.

Later in the series, the Vok made several other attempts to wipe out the Transformers, notably a second weapon which appeared on the planet (sometimes referred to as the Metal Hunter) and the abduction of the Maximals Airazor and Tigatron.

Near the end of the Beast Wars, the Vok sent an emissary, Tigerhawk (a newly created fusion of Airazor and Tigatron), to Earth to deal with Megatron's disruption of the timestream. Tigerhawk was able to destroy the Predacon base, but was eventually subdued and captured by Tarantulas. Tarantulas was able to draw the Vok out of Tigerhawk's frame and into his own, but this lead to his own destruction...

Primeval Dawn comic

...and subsequent Vok-powered rebirth.

Now established as the enlightened descendents of Swarm, the Vok's goal in guiding Earth's development was to atone for their shameful and destructive past. Knowing that Tarantulas had stolen their own power for his evil plans, the Vok turned to the Ark, creating Primal Prime (from The Matrix, a Datasphere and Quickstrike's control harness) and restoring the sparks of Airazor and Tigatron to separate Transmetal bodies, hoping they could defeat Tarantulas. Later when lost the Matrix to the zombified-arachnid they merged themselves with Primal Prime in order to provide a temporary substitute to the Matrix. Primal Prime gained a snazzy new Vok-shaped breastplate out of the deal.

The ending of this story was long promised but not yet delivered when 3H lost the license.

Notes

Origin controversy

In the course of writing the Beast Wars television show, the co-story editors had conflicting ideas on who the Vok were. Bob Forward liked to imagine the Vok as the evolutionary endpoint of all sentient life in the universe, shaping the development of other races in order to eventually guide them into becoming Vok themselves. Larry DiTillio wanted to link the Vok to The Swarm, who, in his version of the events of the Generation Two comic book, had completely wiped out humanity and wished to atone for their crimes. Neither origin made it into the television show before it completed.

Ultimately, the Vok origin was published as backstory for OTFCC's Primeval Dawn storyline.

Motivations

The Beast Wars Universe book says that the Vok's experiments on Earth were part of an attempt to further evolve humanity, as the Vok had destroyed the human race while the Swarm. It states that the Energon crystals were seeded so that they would become Energon cubes by the time humanity came about, which would give them a reliable fuel source which wouldn't harm the environment, as Energon actually provided nutriets to the soil of the planets and didn't harm the animals. The Vok also attempted to play the role of God for humans, intending to guide their development and reveal their true nature once the Vok felt they were ready. It also states that the Vok had been forced to destroy Earth several times before the events of Other Voices, Part 2, all the while subtly manipulating the timestream after they did. The canonicity of these claims are currently being debated, but one thing is for sure: old habits die hard.

References

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