Santon (Beast Wars Transformers)

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Name: Santon
Allegiance: Maximals
Function: Medic
Timeline: Generation 1 (Beast Era)

There is no better medicine than hope.

Profile:

Even though he is among the largest and most fearsome-looking Maximals, Santon is a gentle giant. One of the eldest Maximals, Santon is the greatest physician of his generation. That achievement is somewhat undercut by the fact that he may also be the only physician of his generation. The march of technology has rendered the study of medicine all but obsolete on Cybertron, with the majority of repairs, maintenance and medical treatment accomplished through the use of CR chambers and AI repair drones. Many felt Santon was something of an eccentric for choosing to devote his life to the pursuit of a largely redundant profession, even though they respect the feelings that motivated Santon's decision. Santon, like many of the great medics of Cybertronian history, is a great believer in the sanctity of life. Due to his age, Santon has first-hand knowledge of the final battles of the Cybertronian Wars - he even fought in some of them, and found no satisfaction in inflicting harm on others. This revelation led Santon to his true calling. But Santon is by no means a coward or a pacifist. If left no alternative, he will fight, revealing considerable strength that belies his mild-mannered nature; however, Santon always fights to disable opponents without causing them harm, knocking them to the ground with a mighty stomp of his feet, or using some remarkable sharp shooting to blast opponents' weapons from their hands. Santon's latest assignment is to serve as one of the tutors of the young Maximal prodigy, Lio Junior. Santon has found this to be his most challenging assignment yet, as he tries to instil a sense of ethics into the hot-blooded youth and convince his young charge that the greatest victories are those achieved without fighting.

Elephant mode:

Author notes:

I find Santon to be a very interesting character for a simple reason: where he exists in the history of Transformers. The Beast Era of Transformers is, to date, the only era of Transformers set into the future of Cybertron. That creates some interesting storytelling possibilities, but the main one for Santon is where medicine is at by the time Beast Wars comes around. We see in the main Beast Wars series that wounds are fixed using CR chambers, and in Beast Machines, Megatron has a Diagnostic Drone who takes care of his more complex medical needs. We never at any point really see a need for a doctor type character, outside of very specialised situations like when Rhinox is working to save Airazor in her debut episode, and we're led to believe those are uncommon scenarios.

That is a very interesting idea, and Santon plays with it in his IDW profile by outright saying he's one of the few who still study medicine in that time because the profession is largely redundant. I think it is a great idea and would love to see a future series that revisits the era play with the idea. We sort of see the consequences, though, with Megatron's takeover of Cybertron: a lack of medical professionals and a reliance on automasted repair left the planet vulnerable to an attack by an unknown "mode lock" virus.

Santon's backstory in the IDW profile also included this great line about how he intended to start up an interplanetary medical aid mission. I'd have loved to have found a way to work this into the backstory of Santon here, but it didn't fit the flow of the narrative I wrote. In my mind, that is still where Santon ends up going after the ending of Beast Wars Second: he starts up an intergalactic aid agency, and through his good works does a lot to not only help other living beings, but also mend Cybertron's reputation among the intergalactic community and get a few alien races to view Cybertron as something other than a warmongering race.

Although the odds of a Shattered Glass Beast Wars Second is highly unlikely, I'd love to think SG Santon would be "an elephant who never forgets... to kill!" in the style of that one Futurama episode. A guy can dream, right?

Toys of Beast Wars Transformers Santon

Beast Wars Second Santon

For this post, I've repurposed my Beast Wars Ironhide for Santon, since I currently don't own Beast Wars Santon. That being said, the two molds are largely identical and even painted very similarly. They're a solid, fun toy, be it Ironhide or Santon, who functions as around 60% of the Magnaboss combiner, providing both of the arms and both of the legs.

More information on Beast Wars Second Santon at TFW2005

See more Beast Wars Transformers toys in my collection.

See more Beast Wars Second toys in my collection.