Doctor Arkeville
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Doctor Arkeville (frequently misspelled as Dr. Archeville or occasionally Dr. Arkavil) is a fictional character from the 1984-1987 Transformers television series. Dr. Arkeville, with his frizzy white hair, metallic skull-cap, and bionic right arm, bore a passing resemblance to Dr. Rotwang, the mad scientist from the silent Fritz Lang film Metropolis.
[edit] Biography
Dr. Arkeville, a mad scientist specializing in mind control, allied with the Decepticons in 1984. He assisted Megatron with his Hypno-Chips, small microchip-like devices that, when placed upon a person (usually behind the ear), allowed him to control that person’s mind via a central relay station. Megatron had Arkeville use the enslaved humans to perform various acts of manual labor, and to act as living shields, knowing the Autobots would not risk harming them. Certain high-frequency sounds could interfere with the hypno-chip signals, freeing a subject from control. Arkeville believed Megatron would allow him to rule the Earth when the Decepticons got the energy they needed to return to Cybertron. He did not know of Megatron’s plan to bring the Transformers' home planet of Cybertron into near-Earth orbit, then drain the tremendous energies generated when Earth tore itself apart from the earthquakes and tidal waves initiated by Cybertron's gravitational influence. When Arkeville did discover Megatron’s true goals, he still went along with the Decepticon tyrant’s plan, seeing no alternative.
Starscream eventually forced Arkeville to participated in a plan against Megatron, but was forced to serve Starscream when Megatron left Arkeville to die. Starscream tried draining Arkeville’s mental energies to convert to Energon, but found even his brilliant mind was not enough to fill even one Energon cube. Starscream then forced Arkeville to lead him to his secret laboratory (after Cybertron was literally blown out of Earth’s orbit), where Starscream took Arkeville’s Exponential Generator ("the ultimate power source"). Starscream modified it to build power to infinite capacity. This would cause the generator to explode and destroy the entire Earth with it. Starscream planned to be on Cybertron to collect the escaping energy. Starscream took Arkeville with him to Cybertron, rightly assuming the scientist would deactivate the generator the instant Starscream left, but Arkeville tried to foil Starscream’s plans. ("I may not be able to save the Earth, but I can stop you from collecting the energy of its destruction!")
Unfortunately for Arkeville, the controls were set so that only a Decepticon could use them -- the Sentry Monitor sent a powerful energy jolt through the scientist’s body which rendered him comatose. Arkeville awoke sometime later and found himself strapped to a motorized chair, rebuilt by Starscream's medicroids into a cybernetic being, much of his organic body replaced with spare (presumably Decepticon) parts. Starscream rebuilt Arkeville as punishment for interfering with his affairs, forcing him to continue existing as a prisoner within his own body. When the Earth did not explode (thanks to a temporary collaboration between Megatron and Optimus Prime), Starscream left Cybertron to see what went wrong, leaving Arkeville to an undetermined fate. Arkeville attempted to prevent Starscream from fixing the timing mechanism to blow up the Earth, although it was never mentioned in the series. It is unknown whether Dr. Arkeville is deceased, or still trying to escape following the events that took place after "Countdown to Extinction".
Dr. Arkeville was voiced by Casey Kasem in the United States.
The MP-03 Masterpiece Starscream figure comes with a smaller Dr. Archeville (sic) figure as a pilot.
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