The second profile pic, commissioned after it was brought to the staff's attention that Warner Bros. held the rights to the likenesses used in the GoBots cartoon.
Renegade Rhetoric was a Character Blog on Facebook for Cy-Kill, the main villain of Challenge Of The Go Bots, where he answered questions about his experiences, many of his answers being given in the form of describing the events of episodes from a non-existent second season of Challenge of the GoBots.
This was possible because of Hasbro, the owners of the GoBots franchise's main competitor (and eventual surpasser) Transformers, obtaining the rights to GoBots when they acquired GoBots owner Tonka.
Renegade Rhetoric initially started as a guest column of the Ask Vector Prime Facebook page that ran from October 13-21, 2015, with the premise of Cy-Kill finding his way at Axiom Nexus in the Transformers: TransTech universe and eventually being forced to retreat back to his home dimension, but not without bringing along various Renegade recruits who were notably Toyline Exclusive Characters. After that, Renegade Rhetoric resumed on November 5 of that year as a separate Facebook page from Ask Vector Prime and continued making regular posts until February 5, 2016, afterwards the Facebook page temporarily shifted to a storyline about Wheeljack and the Spy Changers that ran from April 30 to July 14 before one final post on New Year's Eve 2016 where Cy-Kill returned to announce that he, Megatron and Magmar (leader of the evil faction of Rock Lords, not the Pokémon) had formed several plans to use against their enemies while providing a final farewell.
Tropes:
- Affectionate Parody:
- The season two episode recaps serve as this to 80's toy cartoons as a whole, parodying the many stock plots and ridiculous premises endemic to shows of the era.
- The trappings of classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons are also affectionately spoofed, with the fictional episode "Double Dribble" even working in a guest appearance by the Harlem Globetrotters.
- Anachronic Order: Ask Vector Prime at one point established fictional airdates and mock Episode Title Cards for the non-existent season two episodes Cy-Kill discussed, with a lot of the made-up episodes listed in a different order from when Cy-Kill originally discussed them.
- Anachronism Stew: In the post describing the fictional episode "Darkest Before the Dawn", Cy-Kill answers a question about the costumes he and his Renegades wore when they infiltrated the sci-fi convention, with most of them being fictional characters who most certainly did not exist during the mid-1980's as these non-existent season two episodes were supposed to have aired. For example, Crasher is said to have dressed as Lara Croft (when her first game wouldn't come out until 1996), Cop-Tur is mentioned as having dressed as Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII (a video game that didn't exist until 1997 and was the seventh entry of a series whose first installment didn't come out until 1987) and Decker Decker is described as having dressed as Deadpool (who didn't exist until 1991).
- Babysitting Episode: Cy-Kill, Cop-Tur and Crasher agree to look after a giant toddler from another dimension with magic powers in "Babysitting", but soon find looking after the child to be more frustrating than they bargained for.
- Character Blog: The basic premise of Renegade Rhetoric is that it's the social media account of Cy-Kill, leader of the Renegades from Challenge of the GoBots.
- Clip Show: "Nightmares of a Leader" is implied to be a clip show episode, as the story entails Leader-1 falling into a coma after being injured during a Renegade attack with the Guardians and their human allies hooking a monitor to him to observe his memories and Cy-Kill succinctly mentioning that the events of the episodes "Time Wars", Cy-Kill's Shrinking Ray", "Sentinel", "Wolf in the Fold", "A New Suit for Leader-1", "Ring of Fire", "Lost on Gobotron", "Ultra Zod", "The Renegades' Rampage, Part Two" and "Dawn World" were remembered.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: "Bears and Bulls" features the Renegades conspiring with Drake J. Hinkleford IV, a magnate who ends up buying out every major business in the country and constructing a pair of mechs resembling a bear and a bull as insurance in case the Renegades turn on him.
- Crazy-Prepared: One answer on the guest column during "Ask Vector Prime" had Cy-Kill mentioning that he kept the George Washington, Martha Washington and Minuteman costumes that he, Crasher and Fitor wore in the children's book "Go-Bots: Operation Hoax" just in case a Revolutionary War-based scheme popped up.
- Deadly Euphemism: In "Trash and Treachery", Cy-Kill mentions finding a more "permanent" solution to his problem with the Renegade Zero, which very likely implies that his intentions are to kill Zero.
- Christmas Episode: "And to All a Good Knight" describes a time where Cy-Kill attempted to take advantage of people's belief in Santa Claus by disguising himself as a Mall Santa and using small traces of sorium to control people's minds and use them to build an Anti-Guardian field. In the end, the force field is instead set to repel Renegades and Cy-Kill goes back to his Thruster to find presents for his Renegades and a lump of coal for himself.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- The very first post to describe the events of fictional season two Challenge of the GoBots episodes, submitted on October 17, 2015, described the events of multiple episodes at once and the majority of them in a succinct manner, when later posts would only describe one episode per submission and would do so in at least a few paragraphs.
- "The Hawks of Space", the first two-part episode, was covered in only one post, when all subsequent two-part episodes would be covered in a separate post for each individual part.
- Forced Transformation:
- "Babysitting" has Cop-Tur briefly turned into a mouse due to the alien child with magic powers overhearing Cy-Kill ordering Cop-Tur to be quiet as a mouse.
- "Human Resources" features the Last Engineer being turned into a parrot by the Master Renegade.
- Fountain of Youth: "Going Loco" involves the discovery of the fabled fountain of youth, where the Robo Rebels and the Guardians' human allies visit a ranch in Los Jóvenes that turns out to be where the fountain is located and that the staff is actually historical figures Wild Bill Hickock, Davy Crockett, Calamity Jane, Jesse James, Annie Oakley and Ponce de Leon, having used the fountain's water over the centuries to keep from growing old.
- "Freaky Friday" Flip: "Brain Swap" has Cy-Kill reminisce on a time where an accident resulted in himself and the Guardian Scooter switching brains.
- Fully Absorbed Finale: The last two posts (aside from the aforementioned Spy Changers storyline and Cy-Kill's farewell message on New Year's Eve) described a fictional two-part episode titled "Combiner Wars", which in many ways had the feel of giving Challenge of the GoBots the final conclusion it never had. The plot begins with the Guardians, the humans and the benevolent Rock Lords planning to form an alliance between their homeworlds Gobotron, Earth and Quartex. Cy-Kill and Magmar seize the opportunity to stage an attack with the Renegade Combiners Puzzler, Monsterous and Nemesis, almost winning until the Guardians and the heroic Rock Lords gain the upper hand. In the end, the Renegades and the evil faction of Rock Lords are soundly defeated, the heroic Rock Lords have their database of knowledge lost from their time as RoBeings unlocked by Nuggit interfacing with the computer system and Cy-Kill and Magmar are forced to retreat and go into hiding until their next chance at facing their enemies.
- Girl's Night Out Episode: "Ladies Night" has the Guardians and Renegades find themselves on a planet known as Amazonia IV, where a being named Artemis offers a challenge to claim an object of great power on the planet, but will only allow females to participate. Engaging in the challenge from the Guardians' side are Small Foot, Spay-C and Sparky as well as human allies A.J. Foster and Dr. Turgenova, with the ones representing the Renegades being Crasher, Vamp and Snoop.
- Gondor Calls for Aid: In "The Guardian Smashers", Matt Hunter turns the tide against the titular team of human Guardian foes by forming the Guardian Auxiliary League, which is composed of humans who helped the Guardians or were helped by them (Mira Shaw from "Renegade Carnival", Buddy from "Whiz Kid", Greg and Don from "Speed is of the Essence", Professor Janus from "Terror in Atlantis" and Dr. Aeolis from "Clutch of Doom").
- Hypocrite: Cy-Kill has frequently attempted to paint himself as the good guy and the Guardians as being the real threat, but there are a fair number of posts where he openly describes himself as devious and wicked as well as practically gloating whenever bringing up his dishonest deeds and demonstrating unrestrained zeal when reminiscing on how close he came to slaughtering a Guardian.
- Legion of Doom: The titular villain team in "The Guardian Smashers" consists of several human adversaries of the Guardians (Trident from "Trident's Triple Threat", Professor Frost from "Cold Spell", Mr. Murchison from "Crime Wave", Dr. Cunningham from "In Search of Ancient GoBonauts", Major Benedict from "The Seer" and Dr. Helstrom from "Renegade Carnival").
- Literal Genie: The alien child that the Renegades look after in "Babysitting" attempts to use his powers to grant wishes for Cy-Kill, but frustrates the Renegade leader because his lack of experience causes him to innocently misinterpret Cy-Kill's orders. When told to blow the Guardians away, he takes that as an instruction to blow wind at the Guardians' ship. He later overhears Cy-Kill telling Cop-Tur to be quiet as a mouse and responds by turning Cy-Kill into a mouse before Cy-Kill demands he return Cop-Tur to normal. The last wish the child bungles up is when Cy-Kill states that he doesn't care what the child does so long as he doesn't have to see the Guardians again. It initially looks like the child disintegrated the Guardians, but Cy-Kill later is irked to see that the Guardians have simply been turned invisible.
- Santa's Existence Clause: Cy-Kill dismisses Santa Claus as being make-believe in the post describing the non-existent Christmas Episode "And to All a Good Knight", but the ending implies that Santa is real when the Renegades return to their Thruster to find presents, with Cop-Tur getting a new rotor blade for letting the Guardians Good Knight and Scooter go and Cy-Kill unsurprisingly getting a lump of coal for his attempted evil plan.
- Self-Deprecation: When he isn't reminiscing on the adventures of the non-existent second season of Challenge of the GoBots, Cy-Kill is taking advantage of the GoBots IP now being under the same ownership as their former competitor by making potshots at the Transformers franchise, one notable instance being when he pointed out that his team faction's name Renegades doesn't necessarily indicate malevolence while quipping that the Decepticons went with a name for their faction that makes it glaringly obvious that they're not to be trusted. His post describing the events of the fictional season two episode "Ladies Night" also has him address how the Challenge of the GoBots cartoon treated its female GoBots a lot better than the G1 Transformers cartoon handled female Transformers.
- Stable Time Loop: At the end of his recounting the events of the fictional two-part episode "Renegade Victory", Cy-Kill grouses at the realization that his attempt to secure Renegade victory by kidnapping Leader-1's past self Luther Unum may have indirectly resulted in him going down the path that led him to becoming the noble leader of the Guardians.
- Superpowers for a Day: The post describing the events of the fictional Challenge of the GoBots episode "Go-Girl" recounted how A.J. Foster gained super powers from an accident where she was exposed to high levels of a recently discovered material called "MacGuffium", afterwards she starts a career as a superheroine before Cy-Kill attempts to manipulate her into using her powers to commit robberies for him by holding Small Foot hostage.
- Took a Level in Badass: The Renegade Combiner Puzzler goes a long way from his single appearance in the Challenge of the GoBots cartoon as a non-sentient series of drones which were ultimately destroyed. His revival in "Six Heads Are Better Than One" has his individual components each having their own special ability (Crossword having super strength, Jig Saw having a disguise ability, Pocket having karate, Rube having super senses, Tic Tac having super intelligence and Zig Zag having super speed) and being able to access all of these powers when in his combined form.
- Toyline-Exclusive Character: These Facebook posts notably went out of their way to rectify this by using the posts describing fictional Challenge of the GoBots episodes to retroactively add many of the GoBots toys who never appeared in the Hanna-Barbera cartoon to the canon, even going so far as to incorporate the RoGuns and the Wendy's promotion GoBots as well as featuring characters based on unreleased GoBots toys and Machine Robo toys that Tonka never exported to their GoBots line.
