Hi-Test (G1)

Hi-Test is a Decepticon-allied Nebulan Powermaster from the Generation 1 continuity family.

Hi-Test substitutes food for love after a bad breakup.

Hi-Test is an overachieving perfectionist with the brains and determination to accomplish incredible things. But when his partner Hi-Q's accomplishments exceeded his own, Hi-Test's pride was injured. He became the Powermaster partner of the Decepticon Dreadwind, enabling him to experience new worlds and thrills he'd never dreamed of.

As a Powermaster, Hi-Test has been bio-engineered to transform into Dreadwind's engine, vastly increasing his power as well as allowing him to fuel himself on human foodstuffs. The process granted Hi-Test enormously increased strength, however it has also made him and Dreadwind interdependent- they must link up on a semi-regular basis in order to survive. If Hi-Test removes his external armor he can pass for a Caucasian human. (In some continuities.)

Hi-Test finds that it's his duty to nag the depressive Dreadwind in order to keep him on-task. Hi-Test's perfectionist nature allows Dreadwind to perform his duties despite his depressive fits- he knows the Nebulan will always remind him what he has to do...

Fiction

Marvel Comics continuity

Marvel The Transformers comics

Oh you dirty boy...

Hi-Test was an overachieving perfectionist with the brains and determination to accomplish things no one has ever done before. Those attributes, which made him so attractive to Hi-Q as a partner, also doomed their relationship. When it was Hi-Q's breakthrough, not his own, that allowed the Council of Peers to poison all fuel on Nebulos for Transformers, Hi-Test walked out, vowing to prove Hi-Q was a fraud.

Hi-Test had a plan to get even. He picked up the thief Throttle in a bar to serve as his new partner, and had him steal Hi-Q's research data on fuel conversion. He and Throttle bio-mechanically engineered their bodies to become Powermasters using this data, putting lie to Hi-Q's promise of a Nebulos free of Transformers. Being binary bonded with the larger Decepticons consumed a large amount of energy, however. This forced the two Nebulans to attack food courts and restaurants with the help of their Decepticon partners, so they could gorge themselves and restock their bodies' energy levels. On one such raid, on the Gardens of Eternal Peace and Harmony Macrobiotic Restaurant, Hi-Test ordered the manager to bring them twenty servings of his best entrees.

Hi-Test and his allies then hassled the Council of Peers, only for their antics to be interrupted by a group of newly arrived Autobots. The Decepticons maintained the upper hand in this first encounter, but when they fought the Autobots once more, the heroic robots had not only underwent the Powermaster Process, but were being backed-up by a reborn Optimus Prime. Dreadwind and Darkwing were soundly defeated. For his crimes against the planet, Hi-Test was afterwards banished from Nebulos, and forced to seek refuge off-world within alongside the Decepticons. People Power!

Later, they took up a job as middlemen and "robot-spotters" for the Mecannibals. Because Master Mouth and his brood lived off of eating robots, Darkwing and Dreadwind posed as a non-sentient spacecraft, allowing Hi-Test and Throttle to act as the primary partners in their dealings. Working with J'oh of the Black Hole Bar and Grill in Grand Central Space Station, the team delivered many robots to the dinner plates of the Mecannibals, receiving large commissions in the process. The Mecannibals also sold the discarded parts of their meals, so when two enormous humans came around asking for some microchips, the Nebulans set up an exchange for them: 500 million high-quality chips for 4,000 Energon units. Hi-Test was uneasy about the whole affair though, being suspicious of any human that showed as much sympathy for robots as their buyers did. His concerns became validated when the giants wound up allowing Master Mouth's meal, the Autobot Sky Lynx, to escape. This snag cost Hi-Test and Throttle half their commission. Embittered by this loss they decided to spy on the pair, coming upon them as they were talking with another human, Berko. Through the course of the conversation, the Nebulans discovered that they weren't dealing with organics, but a pair of Autobots with Pretender shells! They rushed off to inform J'oh of this fact, and arranged for Cloudburst and Landmine to be delivered to Master Mouth. Guess Who the Mecannibals Are Having for Dinner?

Despite the Nebulans warning Master Mouth not to trust the Autobots, the Mecannibal was talked into letting the Pretenders go free so that they could fetch spices from a nearby planet and season themselves. So long as Berko was his prisoner, Master Mouth felt the Autobots were guaranteed to return. Knowing better than to let the Autobots go off unsupervised, Hi-Test and Throttle pretended to resume their robot-spotting duties to follow them to the planet Femax. There, they laid in wait for the Autobots to return from their errand, combining with their Decepticon partners to ambush them. But they were unaware that Sky Lynx had in turn followed them. When they lunged out to attack Landmine and Cloudburst, Sky Lynx sprung forth, knocking Darkwing and Dreadwind unconscious. The Autobots then secured both their own and Berko's safe release from the Mecannibals by holding the Nebulan pair hostage. On their way out, the Autobots told Master Mouth of Hi-Test and Throttle's own partially robotic natures, and with their ruse uncovered, the Powermasters found themselves on the run from their now former bosses. Recipe for Disaster!

At some point, Darkwing, Dreadwind, and their Nebulan partners fell under the command of Scorponok on Earth. When they learned of an Autobot-made power cell that would do away with the Nebulans' need to consume enormous amounts of food in order to keep their partners energized, the group stole the device. As they fled over the ocean, the Dreadwing was shot down by the Aerialbots, forcing them to wait on the seafloor while the Seacons came to retrieve them. But the Autobots were intent on retrieving the power cell, and fought Hi-Test's rescuers in the briny deep. Hi-Q made his way to the Dreadwing's cockpit while the larger combatants were preoccupied with one another, and breached it to pry the battery from Hi-Test's hands. With their Nebulan allies now at risk of drowning, the Seacons abandoned the fight to see to them safely reaching the surface. Dreadwing Down!

On Scorponok's orders, Dreadwind and Darkwing raided an Alternate Reality, Inc. warehouse, where Optimus Prime had left behind a floppy disk containing a copy of his mind. They found the facility being guarded by Getaway, Slapdash, and Joyride. While Hi-Test advised tactics to Dreadwind on how to best keep the Autobots busy, Throttle and Darkwing made their way inside the facility. Following Hi-Test's instructions, Dreadwind managed to take both Joyride and Slapdash out of the fight with his thermal melters, but Getaway evaded them long enough to enter makes it inside the warehouse. The Protectobots then turned up and kept Dreadwind and Hi-Test busy until the rest of their group emerged with the disk in-hand. Darkwing and Dreadwind combined into their Dreadwing configuration, and the Decepticons fled the scene, their missing a success. Prime Bomb!

Hi-Test and his allies eventually made their way to Cybertron, where they took a job working for deposed Decepticon leader Megatron. The latter hired them to retrieve a special cargo from Earth: the deactivated body of Starscream. En-route to Earth, the group crossed paths with an Autobot shuttle and Darkwing insisted they postpone their job to go after it. The ensuing chase was fun for the Decepticons, but Hi-Test and Throttle quickly grew bored of it. Hi-Test's ennui soon turned to fright when the Dreadwing nearly crashed into the rim of a lunar crater during the chase. Thankfully for him, the whole pursuit soon came to an end with the Autobots' shuttle crashing down into Earth's atmosphere. Resuming their mission, the Powermasters made their way planet-side, unaware that the Autobots had managed to ditch their ship at the last moment, and were now covertly following them.

Upon arriving in southern Peru, Hi-Test and his allies found that Starscream was NOT so deactivated after all: his zombie body stalked the Earth, somehow animated past death by the remainder of the Underbase's energies. Darkwing and Dreadwind were trounced by the zombie, and the two Nebulans took off running. In their dash, they bumped into the human archeologist Susan Hoffman. The Throttlebot Backstreet misinterpreted the situation, and snatched up Hi-Test, thinking he was about to attack Hoffman. Though hesitant at first to divulge any information, Hi-Test quickly relented and explained the whole situation. The Autobots were soon too busy battling Starscream to pay the Nebulans any heed. As soon as the coast was clear, Hi-Test and Throttle doubled back towards their Decepticon partners, and linked-up to re-energize them into working order. With the Decepticons back on their feet, Hi-Test suggested they cut out of the mission, but Dreadwind insisted on seeing it through to its conclusion. He had Hi-Test and Throttle run up to Starscream as soon as the Autobots created an opening for them. Thanks to their unique systems, the Nebulans were able to drain out the Underbase energies keeping Starscream ambulatory, causing him to collapse into a heap. Before the Autobots could properly react to the situation, Hi-Test's team gathered up Starscream's parts, and flew off to meet with their employer. Race with the Devil

Classics

Hi-Test encountered Grimlock and found the Dinobot leader surprisingly disarming. Games of Deception

Wings Universe

Sure, he's green now, but at least he's wearing something that fits.

On Nebulos in 2012, Hi-Test worked with Hi-Q on Project: Powermaster, but Hi-Q's sudden disappearance left Hi-Test the allegedly unenviable position of working on the project alone. When Autobots under the command of Pyro arrived to investigate, Hi-Test was reluctant to help them, as he was very busy. However, the suggestive powers of Hubcap coaxed Hi-Test to reveal that the answer to Hi-Q's disappearance might lie in their lab's surveillance footage. A Flash Forward, Part 3

Ask Vector Prime

In Primax 1086.0 Kappa, Hi-Test and Vorath, working for Mortilus Zarak, fused the remnants of Transformers defeated by the Nebulans into the entity known as Zarak Maximus. Part of their experimentation was binary bonding Zarak with the robot, which drove him insane. Ask Vector Prime, 2015/06/11

Commercial appearances

Hi-Test accompanied Dreadwind in an assault against the Autobot Powermasters, allowing his partner to transform in mid-air. The Decepticons possessed the advantage until Optimus Prime showed up and made a display of his considerable firepower. Powermasters commercial

Games

Transformers Roleplaying Game

While researching the history of the Enigma of Combination, Vorath recruited the intelligent Hi-Test, although Vorath lamented that Hi-Test was difficult to work with. The Enigma of Combination

Toys

The Transformers

• Dreadwind (Powermaster, 1988)

Released in the fifth year of the original Transformers toyline (fourth in the European line), Hi-Test is an armored humanoid figure with a dragon-like face that converts into an engine block. In this form, he can fit into the engine socket of any Decepticon Powermaster mold, releasing a catch and unlocking its transformation from vehicle to robot mode. (He can fit into Autobot sockets, but will not unlock their transformation.)

He was only available packed in with his partner Dreadwind.

Redecoed versions of Hi-Test and Dreadwind were sold in Japan as the Godmaster Buster and his Transtector. The Hasbro-colors version of the set was also made available in Japan via mail-order, dubbed "Buster Dreadwind".

• More information on Hi-Test at TFU.info

Notes

• Hi-Test is 65 Earth-years old^[1] in 1989, and he implies that Nebulan years are measured differently. Which is probably a given, but we can thank him for clarifying.

References