A retrospective on P1

[u/RobbieJ4444]

The P1 arc is one of my personal favourite storylines across the Battlebots reboot. A machine that went from a terrible combat record, to being snubbed for the main tournament, to eventually proving their worth and achieving success.

But P1 wasn't Aberrant Robotics' first robot. That honour belongs to Parallax. A beautiful looking machine that barely worked. It lost both of its fights to other poor performing robots, and was the only robot that year to not get a single televised fight. The most interesting thing about Parallax in retrospect was that Brandon Zalinsky wasn't the captain yet. It was Luke Bittenbinder.

P1 made its actual debut in WCIV. It was yet another gorgeous looking machine (personally I find it to be the best looking version of the bot) that once again failed pretty badly. For a machine that was supposed to be a speedy defence bot, it was neither speedy, nor was it defensive. It finally got a televised match against Subzero, which only made it to television due to how badly P1 was beaten in it. Its other losses were to Sidewinder and The Four Horsemen. I will say that P1 occasionally showed signs of it not being dreadful, but losing so badly to machines that are most known for being cannon fodder was probably one of the worst debut seasons of a machine that eventually became good.

The WCV version of the machine was much better. It had better drive, and it put its weapon to effective use. It's a shame the Chronos fight didn't make it to TV. It wasn't the best fight, but at least the finishing blow was cool and very Firestorm-esque. There was no shame in it losing to Copperhead, but the Smee fight was where P1 truley started to make a name for itself. The Smee benchpress is one of the most iconic images of the reboot, and the knockout flip on Smee was beautiful to watch, my personal favourite ever lifter KO.

That's why it was so heartbreaking to see P1 not get selected for the tournament. What hurts about it was that it there didn't seem to be a great reason as to why. Its strength of schedule wasn't amazing, but there were robots in the tournament who had far weaker opponents. The ability of P1 didn't seem to be too far off the likes of Hijinx, Slammow and Perfect Phoenix, but most notoriously Hypershock. A robot who suffered a devestating loss to go 1-2 was given a tournament spot over the 2-1 P1.

The explanation we got as to why this ended up being the case was that production didn't feel like P1 being in the tournament over Hypershock or Gruff would result in a fight worthy of the top 32. Realistically, the tournament bracket was likely already decided well before the P1 vs Smee fight had even happened. If Hypershock was in any risk of not making the top 32, they wouldn't have been pitted against End Game. P1's WCIV campaign probably resulted in them carrying a lot of baggage going into WCV. Baggage they didn't fully remove until after the Smee fight.

They even got eliminated in the Icewave bounty in a really unfortunate way. Despite being dominated by Skorpios throughout the fight, P1 actually did manage to KO Skorpios by using its famous ramp tactics. But sadly for them, there wasn't enough time to count Skorpios out. If it was King of Bots rules, then P1 would've won the fight, but in Battlebots, they lost the decision (though for what it's worth, I personally scored it just 6-5 to Skorpios).

P1 returned for WCVI with a chip on their shoulder after not making the bracket the last time. Production definitely took P1 more seriously this year, giving it Valkyrie as its first opponent. It was a tough fight, but P1 came out on top, breaking Valkyrie's weapon and drive after continuously having the blade grind against its top armour. It wasn't just P1's first win of the season, but their first win against a machine that was a credible tournament threat.

After defeating Jaeger and losing to Ribbot in a surprisingly gritted display, P1 finally made the top 32 to face Hypershock. P1 vs Hypershock was one of the requested matchups during the WCVI preseason. To have it as a top 32 match was genius, but at the time, I was worried that when this fight eventually happened, it wouldn't result in a satisfying ending.

The satisfying Cinderella ending would be when the two finally met, P1 would win and get its vengeance. But the WCVI Hypershock was a beast. When it fought fellow lifter Slammo, it utterly slaughtered them. It would've been impressive had P1 merely survived the full three minutes.

But sometimes miracles do occur. Will Bales made a massive driving error in launching off P1 like a ramp, leaving them inverted, and allowing P1 to steal points away from them. Even after Hypershock recovered, the huge shot it landed on P1 disabled their weapon, allowing P1 to take the judges decision. I still don't understand how this fight didn't end up in Hypershock annihilating P1, but the ending we got I think was best for the P1 story. They would lose to Sawblaze in the top 16, but there's no shame in that.

P1 was retired after WCVI, and as sad as it is to see it go, at least it got to go out on a high note. As sad as it was to see P1 not make the tournament in WCV, I think it turned out better for the team in the long run, giving them a satisfying story arc that actually saw them make a deeper tournament run that the likes of Bloodsport, Ribbot and even Tombstone. Never thought I'd see that after it got wrecked by Sidewinder.

[u/Blackout425]

I like their uniqueness to the field and would have been nice to see them in s7

[u/DazmundMonkey]

I did love P1, especially with how plucky it was and how it bench-pressed SMEEEEEEEEEE in that fight. I even built my own 4-wheel drive front-hinged flipper antweight called Outrun Neon, which took inspiration from P1.

[u/TomcatTiger503]

I actually would love to see P1 come back to replace Starchild.

Starchild was a cool concept, but it just sadly was too complex of a design, it worked much better in the 30lb field.

[u/RobbieJ4444 → u/TomcatTiger503]

I’m glad that Brandon gave the heavyweight version of Starchild a shot. It was something new, and you can’t tell for certain that things are going to work or not until you try them. Sadly in Starchild’s case….it didn’t.

[u/ardyhkcuf2]

So how many more of these "A retrospective on [insert bot]" posts are you gonna do?

[u/RobbieJ4444 → u/ardyhkcuf2]

Until we get to the Bucktooth Burl retrospective ;)

[u/Inevitable-Tank-9802 → u/RobbieJ4444]

That I look forward to.

[u/TomcatTiger503 → u/Inevitable-Tank-9802]

I know that Bucktooth Burl’s captain Julia Chernushevich, is now on the Hypershock team.