Griffin Rock
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Griffin Rock is a fictional town and island off the coast of Maine that serves as the primary setting for the Transformers: Rescue Bots animated series.
History
In-series, Griffin Rock was established by settlers in 1649 under the leadership of Horace Burns, having previously been visited by Vikings who believed that Griffins lived in the region. The community would suffer numerous hardships over it's early years, from marauding pirates-including Horace's future wife Bertha-to an icy winter that left many in fear of starvation until the mysterious Rider of Midwinter left bread for the townsfolk one winter. The latter incident led to the holiday of Midwinter Morning, in which the citizens of Griffin Rock gave gifts to commemorate the Rider's generosity and one or more anonymous citizen would continue the tradition of leaving bread at the homes of Griffin Rock's citizens. The actions of the pirates would also be felt for many years after their departure, with the town bell being lost for centuries and the outrage of piracy being such that some of the citizens briefly turned against the Burns family when their pirate lineage was discovered in the present.
As time went by Griffin Rock became a community that embraced scientific advancement and equality, gaining a notable female scientist, Dr. Elma Hendrickson, by the year 1939. Unfortunately, it also drew the attention of the nefarious Dr. Thaddeus Morocco, a scientist obsessed with immortality and unlocking the secrets of time travel. Fearing his predations, Dr. Hendrickson secretly hid a massive and powerful quantum crystal in Griffin Rock's time capsule in order to keep it out of Morocco's clutches. A prototype time machine of Dr. Morocco's would also wreak havoc with a ship known as the Phantom Voyager, sending it and Captain Ansel Ambrose on a time-hopping voyage that would cause the ship to disappear for ten years at a time from the perspective of Griffin Rock, briefly reappearing only to vanish again over the course of several decades. Another vessel, the U.S.S. Isolde under the command of Zachary Burns, would be abandoned after a machine designed to create new ice for the polar ice caps went haywire, encasing the vessel in an iceberg.
For a number of years the waters around Griffin Rock had been plagued by shipwrecks, a phenomenon referred to as the Griffin Rock Triangle. Professor Anna Baranova, a young but brilliant scientist, set out to discover the cause some twenty-eight years before the start of the Rescue Bots series, but disappeared and was presumed to have left the island. In more recent years Dr. Morocco-his youth maintained over the decades by a device given to him by former contemporary Jules Verne-returned to Griffin Rock and attempted to gain the position of chief scientist. However, several influential citizens-including Mayor Luskey, Chief Charlie Burns, and Dr. Ezra "Doc" Greene-determined that Morocco's technology was dangerously unstable, and that Morocco himself was of dubious moral qualifications. As such, he was rejected, and Doc Greene was awarded the position after his predecessor, Professor Plummer, retired.
Griffin Rock's pioneering spirit eventually persuaded Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots, to select it for an experimental cooperation between humans and natives of the planet Cybertron. The Cybertronians in question were a team of Rescue Bots-Heatwave, Chase, Boulder, and Blades-who were instructed to cooperate with Chief Charlie and his family of fellow emergency responders. Though initially instructed to keep their true identities a secret from everyone, their secret was discovered by Cody, youngest member of the Burns family, and eventually became known to all the Burnses. This soon led to the group becoming an effective unit, with Cody being the prime peacemaker between the differing personalities of his siblings and their Rescue Bot partners.
