|
| Ratchet | |
| Biographical information | |
|---|---|
| Homeworld |
Cybertron |
| Date of birth |
At least over 4,000,000 B.C. |
| Date of death |
2005 (Target: 2005 timeline) |
| Physical description | |
| Alternate Mode |
Cybertronian ambulance, Nissan C2 First Response ambulance |
| Gender |
Male |
| Sensor color |
Blue |
| Personal information | |
| Enemies |
Decepticons |
| Profession |
Medical Treatment |
| Position |
Medic |
| Chronological and political information | |
| Era(s) |
Generation 1 |
| Affiliation |
Autobots |
Ratchet from The Transformers (2017 TV Series).
Bio[]
Ratchet is the Autobots' Chief Medical Officer. If something's broke, he can fix it. Ratchet is known for his irreverent bedside manner. He is not a particularly mighty warrior, which sometimes leads him to believe that he is expendable. Optimus Prime has trouble convincing Ratchet that this is far from the truth.
Although he's a healer, Ratchet often finds himself on the front lines of combat and, on occasion, the last hope the Autobots have. These pressures are sometimes too much for him to handle, but Ratchet ultimately never gives up.
History[]
Arc 1[]
Ratchet was one of the select Autobots chosen by Prime to travel aboard the Ark, and ended up in stasis lock for four million years at the base of Mount St. Hilary with the rest of the crew. Once the volcano exploded and the Transformers reactivated, Ratchet was rebuilt to transform into an ambulance. He responded to Gears's complaining by telling him that at least he didn't have to fix everyone all the time! |The Beginning|
As their war against the Decepticons continued on Earth, Ratchet joined the Autobots' debate about how to deal with their dwindling fuel resources. Thankfully, Bumblebee had located a human, Sparkplug Witwicky, who could help them convert fuel to a form usable by them, so the Ark was left in Ratchet's hands as the others left to meet with Bumblebee and his new human friends. Ratchet noted sadly that without fuel, even his considerable skills were useless. |Power Play| While they were gone, Ratchet attended to the Ark. During his attempts at repairs, he uncovered something interesting in its memory databanks, but Optimus Prime cut him off before he could explain. Gears was badly damaged in the battle that followed, and his body was brought back to Ratchet for repairs. After working on him for a short period of time, Ratchet was amazed that he could already speak. Unfortunately, Gears had bad news; Sparkplug Witwicky had converted fuel for the Decepticons while he had been their prisoner! |Prisoner of War|
The Autobots were outraged at this, which upset Sparkplug so much that he suffered a heart attack. Ratchet volunteered to drive Sparkplug and his son Buster to the hospital. While Buster stayed at the hospital with his ailing father, Ratchet held fast to his oath to preserve life, an oath which made no distinction between organic or mechanical life, and helped two paramedics to get to their emergency. |The Last Stand| Afterwards, Ratchet helped stave off the Decepticons as they attacked Sherman Dam. After witnessing Optimus lose a duel against Megatron atop of the dam, Ratchet attended to Hound, who had been injured while fighting Rumble. |Decepticon Dam-Busters|
Upon their return to the hospital, Ratchet was happy to learn that Sparkplug, now able to speak, had told Buster that he'd poisoned the Decepticons' fuel. While this conversation was taking place, his drivers, alarmed their ambulance could talk, were poking around his ambulance mode, trying to discover the tape deck they suspected to be there. After an angry, annoyed outburst, the humans fled.
Despite Buster's good news, Ratchet felt he should return to the Ark as swiftly as possible; no one there was responding to his communications. Buster accompanied him, and en route tried to explain to Ratchet that the traffic signals were non-sentient and would not respond to his pleas. When a red light turned green, eventually, after Ratchet's attempts at persuasion, the Autobot admonished the child for his lack of communication skills. But when Ratchet and Buster arrived at the Ark, they were horrified to discover Rumble and Frenzy standing sentry outside. Buster, who was small enough to slip in unnoticed, snuck inside to investigate. |The New Order| Buster later returned to Ratchet, looking like a fright, and told the Autobot that the Decepticons had taken over the Ark, and that their bodies were hung like meat from the ceiling! Even crazier still was when Shockwave was seen carrying the defeated body of Megatron back into the Ark. Ratchet began to worry that he was the last Autobot alive. |The Worst of Two Evils|
Ratchet soon realized, to his horror, that he was up against the entire Decepticon army. Covertly invading the Ark, he learned that even the mighty Optimus Prime had fallen. However, Prime's head, though detached, still functioned, and the Autobot Commander told Ratchet that he must rise up to meet this challenge. Ratchet did not believe he could; he was a doctor, not a warrior.
As he ruminated over what to do next, Ratchet was found out by Megatron. In his weakened state, Megatron could not hope to defeat Shockwave and reclaim his leadership, but Ratchet approached him with a possible solution. Ratchet knew how Shockwave had fallen 4 million years ago (having discovered this earlier within the Ark's memory databanks), and struck a deal, sealed by the Rite of Oneness: If Ratchet could defeat Shockwave, Megatron would relinquish Decepticon control of the Ark and its wrecked Autobot inhabitants. |Warrior School|
Ratchet journeyed to the Savage Land, where the Dinobots had fought Shockwave to a stalemate, leaving all dormant in a tar pit prison. He dug up the Dinobots and repaired them. Soon after, he met with Megatron on a snowy ski slope and announced that he had fulfilled his half of the bargain; Shockwave was defeated. Megatron, of course, went back on his part of the deal and threatened to kill Ratchet. Ratchet declared that he knew all along Megatron would not hold up his end of the bargain and admitted that he had not, in fact, defeated Shockwave. The Dinobots sprung up out of the snow surrounding Megatron and fought him, but did not succeed in bringing him down. Megatron now stood alone, triumphant, mocking Ratchet and his lack of a warrior's edge. With nothing to lose, Ratchet charged Megatron, but he too was ineffectual against the Decepticon. However, the charge had loosened the ground on which Megatron stood, and the Decepticon leader fell off the cliff-side and disappeared. |Repeat Performance|
On their return trip to the Ark, Ratchet helped educate the Dinobots about human/Autobot relations by telling them the story of the battle with the Decepticons at a hydroelectric dam. |Decepticon Dam-Busters| When they arrived, Ratchet and the Dinobots found the Ark defended by Guardian, an Autobot combat drone which had been reprogrammed by Shockwave. Ratchet rescued the Dinobots from the powerful drone by remembering and exploiting one of its few weaknesses, an access port which could admit a fine laser. Ratchet then began the task of repairing the Autobots, placing priority on those whose command skills would be useful. This put him at odds with Dinobot leader Grimlock, who felt that the fallen Dinobot Swoop should be repaired first. As he worked, Ratchet discovered that the Guardian had been booby-trapped with a thermo-nuclear bomb, which threatened to blow the Ark and all those within it to smithereens should the Dinobots deliver the killing blow to the droid. |The Wrath of Guardian|
Though Ratchet was helpless to intervene, Wheeljack managed to remote-control Optimus Prime's headless body, and stayed Grimlock's hand at the last moment. Said hand was destroyed as Guardian retaliated and fled, forcing Ratchet from taking a break from fixing the deactivated Autobots, and tending to the Dinobot instead. After "testing out" his repaired hand by punching Ratchet in the face, Grimlock went off to brood. The medic next began repairs on Windcharger, whom he hoped would help them deal with Guardian by using his magnetic powers. Once this was done, Grimlock had Ratchet fix up Swoop next, despite earlier objections. Swoop's repairs were completed just as Guardian burst into the repair bay, intent on detonating the bomb within his body himself. Windcharger wasn't fast enough to implement the Autobots' initial plan, forcing Swoop to carry Guardian up into the sky, where the bomb went off far away from the Ark. Believing Swoop to have perished in the blast, the Autobots held a mourning ceremony for their lost ally. |The Wrath of Grimlock|
Upon completing the repairs of all the Autobots (except those who were extremely damaged), Ratchet had them all perform a check-up outside the Ark. Jazz wanted to make contacts with helpful humans, but Ratchet felt that retrieving the head of Optimus Prime was a higher priority. |DIS-Integrated Circuits| Jazz would regardless make an ally in G.B. Blackrock, an industrialist who subsequently came to visit the Ark while Ratchet was reattaching Jazz's arm. |The Next Best Thing to Being There| Blackrock helped Ratchet and Prowl eavesdrop on the Decepticons, who had taken up residence in Blackrock Aerospace Assembly Plant Number One. Eventually, they heard Shockwave state his plan to dispose of the head of Optimus Prime, and the two immediately dispatched the Autobots to intercept. |Brainstorm|
Post Arc 1[]
After Optimus Prime's restoration, Prowl devised a plan to use the Matrix to create an army of monstrous Autobot warriors, and debate over the plan's ethics threatened to divide the Autobots. Ratchet remained neutral and asked Optimus Prime to step in and provide guidance. After a harrowing adventure, wherein Optimus was forced to rescue Bumblebee by himself, Optimus assembled Ratchet and the others to announce his decision on the matter. He declared that he had decided against the creation of super warriors, and that the debate was closed. |Crisis of Command|
Megatron was reactivated by the mobster Joey Slick, and the weakened Decepticon recalled being defeated by Ratchet. |Shooting Star
Ratchet was present to give Brawn a neuro-tranquillizer to sedate the malfunctioning Autobot. |The Enemy Within|
Later, Ratchet was made to leave his medical bay when a mind-controlled Swoop attacked the Ark. Ratchet and the other able-bodied Autobots pursued the Dinobot after he began struggling free from the mind that had enslaved his: Peter Anthony Morris. After they had followed him to Morris's lab, Swoop presented the Autobots with the scientist and left Optimus Prime with deciding his fate. While Optimus delivered judgement, Ratchet approached Swoop, only for the Dinobot to go berserk. Swoop was subdued, and Ratchet assessed that Swoop's outburst was the result of his cybo-dendrons fusing, due to spending four-million years submerged in tar. Worse yet; the other Dinobots, out on the loose, likely were on the verge of reverting to primal instincts for the same reason. |The Icarus Theory| Ratchet accompanied Bumblebee and Optimus Prime on a mission to retrieve the missing Dinobots, who had already begun a rampage in Doonstown. Ratchet attended to the several wounded Autobots, quietly worrying that he would not return them to his medical bay in time to save them. |Dinobot Hunt| The Dinobots were rounded up and returned to the Ark as well, and Ratchet repaired their bodies, but the Dinobots were trapped in their dreams. Ratchet worried that their psychological flaws may have been keeping them in a loop which prevented them from awakening. |Victory|
Arc 2[]
As Optimus Prime was giving the newly-sentient Jetfire a tour of the Ark, Ratchet was keeping busy in the medical bay attending to several fallen Autobots. |Rock and Roll-Out| Jetfire was assisting Ratchet in doing minor repair work when they heard news reports of a distressed Bumblebee under attack by Shockwave's Decepticons. Ratchet insisted angrily that something must be done. |Plight of the Bumblebee|
Ratchet and Wheeljack collaborated on a Transformer-sized robotic suit, to be used by Buster Witwicky in battle. Optimus Prime was unamused, and ordered the suit destroyed. Feeling bad for Buster, Ratchet and Wheeljack agreed to destroy the suit... in a day's time. They didn't get the chance to do so, as Buster stole the suit, and destroyed it himself in a battle against Shockwave. Discovering Buster missing, Ratchet alerted Prime, and the Autobots headed out, managing to catch Shockwave just as he was about to squeeze the life out of Buster. Shockwave walked away rather than face the assembled Autobot forces, and Ratchet gave Buster a look-over, relieved to find the boy only had minimal injuries. |Robot Butser|
When Buster was besieged by visions of combining Transformers, Ratchet insisted on taking him to the Ark for investigation, despite his father's objections. |Devastation Derby| Ratchet himself featured prominently in Buster's visions, appearing in battle against Shockwave, only to be killed. When Buster woke up from his visions, Ratchet was there at his bedside, who then connected Optimus Prime and Buster mentally so that the two could share in the latter's visions. The two awoke, shouting "SPECIAL TEAMS!" and Ratchet queried Optimus further. This was interrupted when a medical bay alarm alerted them to the awakening of the Dinobots, who were finally rousing after having been damaged during the Dinobot Hunt. Grimlock shoved Ratchet, proving the Dinobot Commander was in his usual sorts. |Second Generation|
Along with the other active Autobots, Ratchet witnessed the unveiling of Omega Supreme. When Ratchet expressed doubts that "this big lump" could protect the Ark and his patients, Omega Supreme promised him no harm would befall them. |Command Performances|
During a meeting called by Optimus Prime, for which Ratchet and Prowl were called upon to make reports, the three screamed and suddenly vanished. The Autobots would later learn that they were displaced by the time travelling Decepticons Galvatron, Scourge, and Cyclonus. |Target: 2005| The three appeared in Limbo, where they were soon joined by Shockwave, Thundercracker, and Frenzy, who themselves were displaced by time traveling Autobots. The Transformers felt compelled to join a conflict between two warring factions of the native creatures, though Optimus's refusal to use lethal force left the more pragmatic Shockwave in a better position forge alliances. Ultimately, Optimus discovered that everything was an illusion, and managed to dispel it by abiding by his stance on non-violence when urged to fight by the leader of the violent alien faction. Ratchet quickly surmised that the six Transformers' rage had been siphoned by mind-controlling Limbo parasites while they were sharing a dream-world fabricated by the latter. |Distant Thunder| After Galvatron and his two lieutenants were defeated and returned to their own time, Ratchet and the others were returned to their dimension. |Target: 2005|
As Ratchet tended to a wound Optimus Prime had received during an earlier battle, the Autobot leader had granted an audience to Skids and the untrustworthy human Donny Finkleberg. Finkleberg claimed he had information on the whereabouts of a group of Autobots who had traveled from Cybertron to Earth. Optimus Prime assigned Jetfire to assist Finkleberg, but Ratchet would have preferred extracting the information from the human painfully with his medical equipment. Optimus Prime left Ratchet before repairs could completed so that he could oversee Wheeljack's newest creation—the Aerialbots. |Aerialbots over America| Optimus Prime later returned to Ratchet to finally have his wound sealed, but as Ratchet welded, the tiny mind-controlling Insecticon Bombshell injected a cerebro-shell inside the Autobot leader and fled the Ark. |Heavy Traffic|
When Optimus Prime planned to fake his own death to teach the Autobots that they had to learn how to operate without him, Ratchet was one of the Autobots who loudly protested when Optimus told them all that he was going to "go on a reconnaissance mission to the Decepticon base." Later, Ratchet was among the Autobots who found "Optimus Prime's body" scattered across the woods. |Prey| Ratchet comforted Wheeljack, the one Autobot secretly in on Optimus Prime's scheme. |...The Harder They Die| Ratchet presided over Optimus Prime's funeral (according to Earth custom), which was interrupted by Optimus Prime himself, returning from his adventures on Cybertron. |Resurrection|
After the (actual) destruction of Optimus Prime, Ratchet tried and failed to repair him. Unable to deal with his failure, Ratchet wandered off on his own during Optimus's funeral. Ratchet decided that rather than moping, he should concern himself with the other damaged Autobots under his care, so he headed towards a junkyard to look for spare parts he could use. However, he was abducted in vehicle mode by the Mechanic and his accomplice Juan when the two thieves were found by the police. Ratchet revealed himself when they arrived at the Mechanic's hideout, but the Mechanic froze Ratchet with his own surgical weapon and hid outside. When he had unfrozen, Ratchet presumed the humans had fled and went back to the Ark, unaware that this was what the humans had been waiting for, as they intended to follow him to his hideout and steal even more of his weapons. Inside the Ark, Ratchet was again defeated by his own surgical tools. But using pieces he took from the junkyard, he repaired Prowl, and the appearance of the police car frightened the Mechanic away. The Mechanic escaped with Ratchet's tools and the power booster rod, but Ratchet was brought out of his funk, and vowed to repair as many Autobots as he could post-haste. |Funeral for a Friend|
Arc 3[]
With Optimus Prime dead, Ratchet and a few other high-ranking Autobots assembled to nominate a new leader. Ratchet stressed that their nominee must be kind, just as Optimus Prime had been, someone who would be willing to give everything he had. After a surprise attack on the Ark by Trypticon, Ratchet had his answer. Ratchet's new patients, those that had suffered during the attack, had told him of Grimlock's selflessness in battle. The other Autobots agreed, and Grimlock was declared Autobot leader. |King of the Hill| |Mechanical Difficulties| However, Grimlock's leadership quickly turned sour, and Ratchet joined the chorus of Autobots who wished Blaster would usurp the Dinobot's leadership. |Spacehikers| After Blaster failed, Ratchet became the voice of sarcasm behind Grimlock's terrible decisions. When a second group of Autobots led by Fortress Maximus met Grimlock's Earth-bound Autobots, they brought with them a hard drive containing the mind of the dead Optimus Prime. Ratchet couldn't contain his joy, and so Grimlock struck him down and told him to shut up. Ratchet was told to shut up again when he belittled Grimlock's disbelief that Fortress Maximus was part human. Grimlock set up a battle for Autobot supremacy between him and Blaster (who fought in Fortress Maximus' stead), so Ratchet and all of both Autobot groups stepped out onto the surface of Earth's moon to watch the fight. Ratchet cheered relentlessly for Blaster, but the spectators were cut short by a surprise Decepticon attack. After the Decepticons had fled, Ratchet was glad to see that Blaster and Grimlock had, for the moment, set aside their differences, because they would need all the cooperation they could muster to repair the fallen and the heavily-damaged Ark. |Totaled|
Trivia[]
- Troy Baker voices Ratchet.
Changes[]
- As the episodes in the adaptation, compared to the original comic, are out of order: Ratchet isn't in the repair bay repairing Bumblebee in The Icarus Theory as the latter was already repaired before that point.
- The episode form of Target: 2006 was renamed Target: 2005, and all references to 2006 were also changed to accomodate.