Godmaster (lifeform)


 * Godmasters are a breed of Transformers from the Super-God Masterforce portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

Godmasters (ゴッドマスター Goddomasutā) are the ultimate super-robotic lifeform, created by the perfect fusion of Transformer and human. The mechanical aspect of a Godmaster is a non-sentient Transformer body known as a Transtector, to which a human being is bonded. Through the power of the Masterforce, the human can sheathe himself in a suit of armor, which allows him to transform into an engine that connects to the Transtector, bringing it to life.

History
The precise origin of the Godmasters is somewhat confusing. The only version of the story offered in the course of the Masterforce War was a version told by Giga, full of the lies and half-truths propagated by Devil Z. Shūta and Grand Maximus would later clarify some points while discussing various other unclear events that had happened to them, but some of the specifics remain ill-defined at best.

Godmasters came to exist as the end result of the machinations of the self-styled Decepticon "god," Devil Z. Seeking to create the ultimate super-robotic lifeform, Devil Z aimed to merge Transformers and humans into singular beings that could control Chōkon Power. To this end, he stole eight Transtectors from the G Nebula—one of which was intended for use by Optimus Prime—and hid them on Earth. The seven smaller Transtectors were scattered across the planet, while the largest was buried deep in an ocean trench alongside Devil Z himself, where he slept for an unknown number of years. All evidence suggests that the Transtectors arrived on Earth in the forms of featureless black rocks of varying shape and size, and that several of them subsequently took on the shapes of Earthly vehicles through unknown circumstances—notably, through coincidence or design, the Transtector intended for Optimus Prime became a red-and-blue truck cab.

Precisely when this theft occurred is not explained, making Prime's involvement also a bit confusing, as he was dead at the time of the Masterforce War. Whether or not his Transtector was intended as an upgrade for him while alive or as a method of somehow resurrecting him is unclear. To further obfuscate the matter, Grand noted that a robot from planet Master was also intended to bond to the body. Devil Z's version of the story is no less confusing, as he claimed that the Godmasters were originally one singular Decepticon god-like entity, which broke up as it entered the Earth's atmosphere. He thus presented the Godmasters as children of this god, hence their name. But everything suggests he was just lying his non-existent butt off.

Whatever the specifics of the Godmasters' origins may have been, Devil Z's plan came to fruition some time after the Transformers departed Earth after the defeat of Scorponok, when a human couple named Mega and Giga came to his attention. Bonded to the largest Transtector together, Mega and Giga became Overlord, and were charged by Devil Z with creating a "Masterforce" of Decepticon Godmasters to serve as his army. Mega and Giga soon found the German brothers Hydra and Buster, and brought them to North America, where they bonded with two Transtectors that had taken the form of jet fighters.

Devil Z, however, had miscalculated—the remaining Transtectors that he had stolen were all intended for Autobot use. The next Godmaster to appear was Ginrai, a Japanese trucker living in America, who happened to cross paths with the Transtector intended for Optimus Prime. Next was Lightfoot, whose automotive-engineer father had mined a rock-form Transtector for minerals to make a car, leading the car itself to become Lightfoot's Transtector. Soon after, Canadian forest patrolman Ranger became a Godmaster by bonding with the mineral-state Transtector he had found in the mountains, and British racing champ Road King discovered that his own F1 racer was a Transtector to which he became partnered. All four of these good-hearted men joined with the Autobots, as did the final Godmaster, Doubleclouder, who briefly dallied with the Decepticons before realising their evil nature.

With Ginrai's upgrade into God Ginrai, Devil Z witnessed just how truly powerful Godmasters were as a result of their human components, and came to greatly fear the potential for power that existed not just within Godmaster humans, but within all of mankind. He decided to eradicate humanity, and his first step was to grant Buster and Hydra's desire to become true robots, removing the human aspect from them and creating purely-robotic Godmasters. He subsequently brought the Overlord and Doubleclouder Transtectors to life as well. When God Ginrai then defeated and destroyed Devil Z, the bond between the humans and Transtectors that he had created ceased to exist and the humans were separated from them—however, the Transtectors continued to live on as Godmasters themselves, and battled each other in the G Nebula during the command of Star Saber.

Ask Vector Prime
When asked if Devil Z was lying about the origin of Godmaster, Vector Prime related one possible origin of Godmaster and Godmessenger, noting that it was true, and yet so were other conflicting origins, as such was "the fluid nature of the intersection of myth and reality, especially in unstable realities."

Technology
By all appearances, the creation of a Godmaster involves as much science and technology as it does more undefinable, almost supernatural, energies, in the form of Chōkon Power. During their time in the G Nebula, the Transtectors absorbed Tenchōkon, the "power of the heavens", the energy of the universe itself. When hidden on Earth, they complemented that with Chichōkon, the "power of Earth", the energy that gives the planet life. The addition of the third and final power, Jinchōkon, the "power of humanity"—added by bonding a human to one of these Transtectors—brought the Godmasters to life. The presence of these three unique energies within their bodies gives the Godmasters power over all three types of Chōkon Power, making them easily the most powerful breed of Transformer. This energy can be generated for a variety of different offensive purposes—see the energy's own article for more details.

A human is bonded to a Transtector via Masterbraces, a pair of small golden bracelets worn on the human's wrists. When the human touches the bracelets by crossing their wrists with a shout of "Masterforce!", they are transformed in various ways, with the most readily obvious difference being the manifestation of a suit of armor around their body. Additionally, the human gains enhanced strength, agility and reflexes, and most importantly, they undergo an ill-defined biological transformation that converts them from flesh-and-blood into living metal, with the ability to transform into engine-like forms called "Iacons". By connecting to their Transtector in Iacon mode with a shout of "God On!", the Godmaster transforms the Transtector to robot mode, placing it entirely under their control. This partnership is often mistakenly interpreted as the human "piloting" the Transtector in some way, directing its motion from the point on the body where they connect to it—in truth, human and Transtector become as one entity. The human is the Transformer.

Godmasters have incredible regenerative abilities—small injuries heal so quickly that the naked optic cannot even detect it, leaving the Godmaster appearing as if it never even took damage in the first place. Even more severe injuries—for example, those sustained in falling from a cliff—can heal in a matter of seconds. A sustained, continuous attack can prevent the Godmaster from healing, but in general, they are remarkably hard to kill.

Flaws
Whereas other -master partnerships tend to be voluntary decisions made by the entities involved, albeit often made out of necessity, there is virtually no choice involved in becoming a Godmaster. Once Masterbraces are donned, they cannot be removed, whether the human wants to do so or not. Although one could potentially ignore the ability to combine with their car and just try to carry on living a normal life (if they were capable of ignoring the moral responsibility such power conveys), they are almost sure to come under attack from Decepticons, as are their relatives or friends. They're stuck with the burden, whether they like it or not.

Additionally, in the event that a Godmaster should be deprived of any one of the three types of Chōkon Power, it is exponentially weakened. Buster and Hydra's transformation into robots left them without Jinchōkon; Devil Z substituted his own Devil Power in its place to make up for it, altering the brother's abilities. Similarly, the separation of the humans from their Transtectors left the Transtectors unable to use Jinchōkon; Consequently, God Ginrai faced significant difficulty fighting Liokaiser without his signature God Fire Guts attack, and was killed by Deathsaurus's Living-Metal-Destroying Cannon, a wound he could no longer recover from.

Super-God Masterforce

 * Godmasters (1988)
 * Super Ginrai
 * Lightfoot
 * Ranger
 * Road King
 * Overlord (Combined form of Giga and Mega)
 * Buster
 * Hydra
 * Doubleclouder
 * Aquastar
 * Bullet
 * Zetca

Super-God Masterforce

 * Godmaster-Braces—Ginrai (1988)