Tankor



Tankor is a Vehicon from the Beast Machines portion of the Generation 1 continuity family. Go ahead and make fun of his name. He won't get it and he'll kill you anyway.Tankor SMAAAAAASHHH! Tankor PULLLVERIZZZZEEE! Tankor SLAG BEAST BOTS! Tankor is the brute force part of Megatron's first trio of Vehicon generals and commander of the powerful Tank Drones. He's slow, simple-minded and immensely powerful. Lovably dim, his limited intelligence can be a drawback; he can easily be confused, misled, or even turned against Megatron, though temporarily. However, this is balanced out by his natural state of blind frustration and destructive rage, which makes getting him to listen to any cajoling a less than simple task.Tankor is in actuality a programmed shell personality given life by the spark of the Maximal Rhinox.An alternate-universe incarnation of Tankor is also a Minion of Unicron in a vast, multiverse-spanning conflict. He may or may not be a mindwiped Maximal. His command code is "pulverize".Contents [show][edit]Fiction [edit]Beast Machines cartoonVoice actor: Paul Dobson, Richard Newman (as Rhinox, later Tankor) (English), Daiki Nakamura (Japanese), Maurício Berger (Portuguese), Gerald Paradies (German) "Tankor's name litt... leeter... as it sounds!"When the Maximals returning to Cybertron from the Beast Wars were infected with Megatron's virus, Rhinox was not as lucky as most of his comrades. While the Transmetals were able to stay mobile for a time, Rhinox was immediately paralyzed and overtaken by Tank Drones. His spark was forcibly removed and stored in a canister in Megatron's citadel.Revelations Part III: ApocalypseWhen Megatron found that he needed underlings to properly control his Vehicon armies in battle, he used Rhinox's spark to power his tank general Tankor. He reasoned that if the Maximals discovered their new enemy had once been their close friend, they would be less willing to fight him. Unfortunately for Megatron, Tankor was only marginally more intelligent than the mindless drones he was created to lead. Meanwhile, Rhinox's spark/consciousness remained intact inside Tankor, albeit unable to act.Fires of the Past The Maxies are playing with the big boys now!After Megatron claimed there were fabulous prizes to be won! for whichever general got the Maximals, Tankor went after them and, after a vicious battle, actually captured them. He then took them to Megatron and demanded his reward... which would be to have his spark removed. Primal managed to use his affinity with the Allspark to contact Tankor's spark and convince him to do the right thing: the Vehicon helped them escape and went on the run with then, but Megatron was able to remote delete the tank's memories of this so he'd be their enemy again. Primal felt something familiar about that spark though...Mercenary PursuitsThe Maximals tried to ambush Tankor to see whether drones would stop functioning without their general; the plan would go tits up, however. The Weak ComponentTrue to Megatron's expectations, the Maximals did attempt to reach Tankor's spark, and they discovered his true nature. They woke his spark, but the Rhinox they got was not the Rhinox they expected. Tainted and embittered by his time inside Tankor, Rhinox rejected the Maximals and embraced Megatron's plan for a "peaceful", technologically-pure Cybertron, only with himself at its head instead of Megatron.Revelations Part III: Apocalypse Don't make me pull this spark over.Tankor-Rhinox immediately began plotting against both Megatron and the Maximals. He caught and reprogrammed one of Megatron's Diagnostic Drones, forcing it to work for him.Survivor He found the Oracle and, using the Diagnostic Drone, retrieved the Key to Vector Sigma from within. He then faked his own death, seeking to remove himself from both factions' suspicions. The Key. Manipulating events from behind the scenes, Tankor tricked Rattrap into activating an organic rapid-growth catalyst that would make the organics appear much more powerful and out of control, thus inspiring Megatron to take more radical measures to contain them.The Catalyst His escalating arms race gambit worked in manipulating Megatron into firing the key on a planetary scale — which would have killed all the organics, including the Maximals and Megatron, leaving Tankor to rule a pure mechanical world. Tankor's manipulations failed when he tried to attack Megatron, and a provision against doing so, hard-wired into his programming, shut him down. Due to Tankor's manipulations, however, Primal opened the Plasma Energy Chamber and Megatron fired the Key. The ensuing clash of energies destroyed Tankor's body, and his spark joined the Matrix.End of the LinePrimal met Rhinox's spark one last time within the Matrix, where Rhinox expressed regret over his recent actions.Fallout