A Plea for Small Businesses

How can small businesses survive another UK national lockdown?  Is it even possible?  Since March 2020, UK society has undergone a paradigm shift, as everything has gone remote, online and socially distanced.  Everything, it seems, except businesses who haven't made the jump.

But how can small businesses, with small or no marketing budgets, stay afloat?

I've seen some great examples of local small businesses making the jump to online selling, and here's a summary of my informal research, presented as suggestions or advice:

https://www.classic-collectables.co.uk/  

1.  Share photos of the goods on your shelves
We still want to shop.  We miss being able to actually see the products we want to purchase.  We want to browse your goods, look at the items you're selling, and come up with purchase ideas, gift ideas and so on.  Get your photos up on your social media channels (Facebook seems to be the preferred platform) and show people that your shop is still stocked, even if it's closed.  Include the prices, or price ranges and show that you're still selling.  There is really nothing more infuriating than seeing pictures of amazing products on shelves (they could be collectable toys; they could be bespoke pottery items, designer clothes or whatever) and NOT having a price.  And if customers respond to your pictures and, for example, ask what the prices are, then RESPOND TO THEM!

Items on shelves with clear prices... definitely a good idea!

2.  Have multiple communication options
Some customers like social media.  Some like email.  Some prefer text messages, and others will probably want to speak to you (or your staff).  List all your communication channels on all your sites - it might be true that Facebook users will message you on Facebook, but they may actually prefer a different channel.  Do you have a website?  Link to it in your posts and in your profile.

Website; landline; mobile; facebook; email... list them all!  

3. Respond to all your social media
I can't stress this one enough (and I've written this in full capitals already).  I have personally made contact with a local small business on a number of occasions via Facebook messenger, and have tried to order various items from them.  I get as far as "I'd like to buy product number 1234, please can you order it." and then ... nothing.  If customers are reaching out to you, then reply to them - ask them to contact you via phone, or something, so that you can arrange payment.   Which brings me onto the next point...

4.  List your payment and delivery options
Should we send you a payment to your bank via online banking?  Do we click and collect, and pay you via a card machine?  Do you want cash on delivery?  And do you deliver?  What's your delivery radius?  Do you offer click and collect, or do you send orders out via Royal Mail/Hermes/Yodel?

We want to shop local.  We want to shop small.  A lockdown isn't going to stop us, just don't let it stop you.

Review: Transformers - War for Cybertron Siege: Episode 6

Will the robots zombies defeat the Autobots?  Will Optimus be able to reach the Allspark?  Will Bumblebee, Arcee and Cog escape from Soundblaster with their stolen energon?  Will they even survive with their lives intact?

It was cliffhanger city at the end of the last episode, so let's jump straight in.

The Autobots do indeed take some damage from the robot zombies, the so-called "Sparkless" and their seemingly unmotivated attack; while Optimus focuses on the Allspark, which is tantalisingly out of reach. No, wait, it's actually within reach, and just considerably smaller than it appears.  Moonracer (AKA Sergeant RedShirt) makes the ultimate sacrifice for the cause.  Optimus reaches the Allspark, and his contact with it causes all the Sparkless to disintegrate to dust.  Too easy, much too easy.

Impactor, Sideswipe and team have to protect the spacebridge from the Decepticon seekers.  Will they make it?

And will Bumblebee's heist succeed, or will Soundblaster's army of mercenaries get them?  Well, Cog is fast enough and accurate enough to take out Soundblaster's troops, while they suffer from Stormtrooper Syndrome and collectively fail to hit the heroes once.  Bumblebee gets another vision from the Alpha Trion protocols and is inconveniently incapacitated while they try to make their getaway.  No problem, Arcee pulls him out of the driving seat of the escape vehicle (because they can't transform into vehicles of their own, obviously) and sets off at speed.

This massively convoluted plan may just work.  The Ark, fully charged up with the energon that Bumblebee stole, flies to the Spacebridge.  I've given up trying to understand what's going on here, except that maybe they're going to rescue the team that was fixing it?  The spacebridge activates just in time, while Elita-1 continues to complain, even if there's nothing to complain about.  

Optimus delays the inevitable Decepticon attack, while he and Megatron have a philosophical debate.  Optimus is going to destroy Cybertron; Megatron is going to enslave it.  Megatron steals the Allspark from Optimus; Bumblebee immediately steals it back.  The Decepticons mount their attack (they have a recurring problem with their shooting accuracy which is laughable, when they even remember to fire their weapons) and it takes the arrival of Omega Supreme to help the Autobots launch the Allspark into the Spacebridge, and get the Ark off the planet.  Elita-1 (still complaining) says she must stay behind to protect the launch of the Ark, while Omega Supreme seems to be doing a perfectly good job of that himself, towering over the Decepticons.  The Ark also has a wide range of weapons which have been sitting idle all through the series, and which are also fully capable of keeping the Decepticons at bay.

So:  Optimus throws the Allspark into the Spacebridge, and then the Autobots (including Optimus) fly the Ark into the Spacebridge, abandoning Cybertron to the Decepticons, and a fraction of the Autobots (including Elita 1, Chromia, Red Alert and Jetfire).

This was a chaotic and strange episode:  it did draw all the previous storylines together and make them work together, but it had some very strange gaps in it:

- Why didn't the Autobots take the Allspark with them in the Ark?  Why launch it separately?  Flinging it into the spacebridge and then flying after it in the Ark makes as much sense as firing a bullet up (or throwing a ball) into the air, and then trying to run and catch it, instead of just carrying it with you and running.  It made no sense.

- The Decepticon virus incapacitated all Autobot systems but didn't damage the Autobots themselves?  And didn't affect the Ark?

- The Sparkless robot zombies?  Why, oh why?

Overall, I have to say that I did enjoy this series.  The visuals were as good, or even better, than any other visualisation of the Transformers that we've seen - with the exception of the Bumblebee movie.  The characterisations were good, although I'd have given Elita-1 slightly more personality other than cynical pessimistic moaner.  Megatron was very well written, and actually derives sympathy for his cause (compared to Ultra Magnus who was such an optimist that he thought he could go and speak with Megatron and expect to leave Decepticon HQ alive, and instead ended up helping Megatron's plans).

The new series starts on 30 December, which is a few days away from now (hence I'm writing this in readiness for the new episodes).  The final episode here ends with Teletraan 1 detecting an alien space vessel.  Opinions are divided in our household, between either Earth space vessels, or the Decepticon Nemesis.  Hopefully it'll be more than meets the eye.

Transformers War For Cyberton Siege: Episode Reviews

Episode 1
Setting the scene, as Megatron starts executing his plan on Cybertron

Episode 2
Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus make some questionable decisions, as Shockwave searches for the Allspark

Episode 3
Megatron twists history to suit his own ends, while Impactor and Skyfire question their loyalties.

Episode 4
Megatron makes progress with his plan, while the Alpha Trion Protocols choose a new host.

Episode 5
Optimus Prime searches for the Allspark, Wheeljack needs more energon, and Megatron prepares to commit genocide.

Episode 6
Will the Autobots be able to secure the Space bridge, and the energon they need, and the Allspark?

Review: Transformers War For Cyberton: Siege: Episode 5

At the end of the last episode, we saw Bumblebee receive the Alpha Trion protocols, meaning that he'll be a prominent character in this series (although I truly wish he wasn't).  However, things improve for the storyline overall with Soundwave making a valuable contribution; I wish they'd kept his voice closer to the original 1980s cartoon series, but the new version will suffice.  Soundwave tracks the Alpha Trion protocols and the network they used to move around the planet.  Shockwave has a 'secret experiment' which can use this network and bring it down.  The virus will destroy all processors and mainframes that use the Autobot code; this would deny the Autobots one of their key advantages (although the collateral damage will be significant).

Will the Decepticons go ahead with a plan to destroy an Autobot advantage, even if it causes widespread damage to Cybertron's infrastructure?  Did they wreck Sherman Dam??  You may not enjoy the story, but the visuals remain outstanding.

Say, "Cheese!"

Meanwhile, Jetfire is trying to defect to the Autobots, having realised that Megatron is bent on genocide, and that's too strong for his taste.  Jetfire's ideals conflict with Megatron's, and Megatron has gone too far by murdering Ultra Magnus.  We all know Jetfire ends up as an Autobot, and we can see how this should work out, although it's not going to be a smooth ride.

Wheeljack and Bumblebee partner up to try and get the Alpha Trion protocols out of Bumblebee's brain, in an attempt to write him out of the storyline.  Nobody was in a rush to get them out of Ultra Magnus's head, so I like this idea (although I know it won't work).  The Allspark, according to the map, is in the Sea of Rust (so why didn't Ultra Magnus point this out?  Just saying).  Elita-1 continues to needle Optimus Prime at every opportunity, "We're as low on hope as we are on energon."  Honestly, she's just becoming too much of an irritation to be helpful.  They might be able to traverse the Sea of Rust with Jetfire's help - what a coincidence that he's just decided to join the Autobots in their fight.  Elita 1 says of course that this is tactically unwise, but then says they need to carry on anyway.  She really isn't bringing much to the party, except some unwanted negativity.

Elita-1, Chief Autobot Naysayer

We left Impactor, Ratchet and their uneasy group repairing the Space Bridge.  The repairs are a success, and Mirage generates a large-scale hologram to hide it.  

Wheeljack, meanwhile, needs raw energon to get The Ark up and flying - so Bumblebee again takes the lead.

It's not all wins though, as Megatron and his cronies are able to infiltrate Ultra Magnus's brain and start destroying the Autobot network.  I am becoming increasingly unimpressed with Ultra Magnus's decision to try to negotiate with the Decepticons, way back in Episode 2.  He was storing the Alpha Trion protocols; he's got access to this Autobot network; he knows Megatron can't be trusted... his decision was naive at best, and utterly misguided.  He's done more damage to the Autobot cause than Elita 1, and that's saying something.

On the Autobot side, the plots are getting complicated.  There's the Space Bridge, which has been reactivated because... it's there.  There's the Ark, which is the Autobot's main base, which Optimus wants to use to possibly flee the planet, although I'm not sure.  Whatever ity is, it all has to happen at the same time, because Optimus says so.  I really  miss the decisive, confident Optimus Prime of the 1980s cartoon; this version is a wet lettuce by comparison.

On the Decepticon side, the aim is simple:  defeat the Autobots through propaganda; destroying their assets, and direct physical confrontation whenever politically possible.

Who's going to win?

The Autobots go off with two aims:  get the raw energon from the Mercenary Soundblaster, and retrieve the Allspark from its safe location in the Sea of Rust.  This involves driving through lightning storms, dust storms and a multitude of other natural obstacles (if this was Earth; I don't recall Cybertron ever being dusty); and eventually reaching the site of the Allspark.  Optimus has, "A feeling, as if the Matrix itself sends a warning," and the next thing you know, they're engaging - sigh - in hand-to-hand combat with robot zombies.  We had similar zombies in the early episodes of Transformers Prime, and they are just as out-of-place here as they were there.  What's the point?  Can't we have some imaginative jeopardy between our heroes and the Allspark?  No, it's recycled robot zombies.   Will the heroes survive?

Here come the robot zombies... again...

The plan to obtain raw energon from Soundblaster also seems to be going off the rails: Soundblaster's guards scan Bumblebee, Arcee and Cog for weapons.  Cog transforms into a huge arsenal of weapons... but no, he's clean.  But wait, Soundblaster knew that all along... this isn't looking good for our heroes.

All-in-all:  a convoluted plot starts to take shape.  The Autobots want the Space Bridge, and the Ark (and the energon to power it), and the Allspark, in order to get the Allspark off Cybertron, and presumably flee themselves (in a chase to retrieve it from deep space).  It seems unnecessarily complicated, but it is what it is.  The Decepticons, on the other hand, are out to destroy the Autobots no matter the cost, and to seize the Allspark for themselves, in order to turn all the remaining Autobots into Decepticons.

It's not clear how all this will turn out in the end, but it's clear that the temporary jeopardy of Bumblee and the Energon Gang, and Optimus and the Allspark Gang is entirely temporary, and should be resolved very quickly in the next - and final - episode!

Transformers War For Cyberton Siege: Episode Reviews

Episode 1
Setting the scene, as Megatron starts executing his plan on Cybertron

Episode 2
Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus make some questionable decisions, as Shockwave searches for the Allspark

Episode 3
Megatron twists history to suit his own ends, while Impactor and Skyfire question their loyalties.

Episode 4
Megatron makes progress with his plan, while the Alpha Trion Protocols choose a new host.

Episode 5
Optimus Prime searches for the Allspark, Wheeljack needs more energon, and Megatron prepares to commit genocide.

Episode 6
Will the Autobots be able to secure the Space bridge, and the energon they need, and the Allspark?

A/B testing without a 50-50 split

Whenever people ask me what I do for a living, I [try not to] launch off into a little speech about how I improve website design and experience by running tests, where we split traffic 50-50 between test and control, and mathematically determine which is better.  Over the years, it's been refined and dare I say optimized, but that's the general theme, because that's the easiest way of describing what I do.  Simple.

There is nothing in the rules, however, that says you have to split traffic 50-50.  We typically say 50-50 split because it's a random chance of being split into one of two groups - like tossing a coin, but that's just tradition (he says, tearing up the imaginary rule book).

Why might you want to test on a different split setting?

1.  Maybe your test recipe is so completely 'out-there' and different from control that you're worried that it'll affect your site's KPIs, and you want to test more cautiously.  So, why not do a 90-10?  You only risk 10% of your total traffic, and providing that 10% is large enough to produce a decent sample size, which risk a further 40%?  And if it starts winning, then maybe you increase to an 80-20 split, and move towards 50-50 eventually?

2.  Maybe your test recipe is based on a previous winner, and you want to get more of your traffic into a recipe that should be a winner as quickly as possible (while also checking that it is still a winner).  So you have the opportunity to test on a 10-90 split, with most of your traffic on the test experience and 10% held back as a control group to confirm your previous winner.

3.  Maybe you need test data quickly - you are confident you can use historic data for the control group, but you need to get data on the test page/site/experience, and for that, you'll need to funnel more traffic into the test group.  You can use a combination of historic data and control group data to measure the current state performance, and then get data on how customers interact with the new page (especially if you're measuring clicks on a new widget on the page, and how customers like or dislike it).

4.  Maybe you're running a Multi-Armed Bandit test.

Things to watch out for

If you decide to run an A/B test on uneven splits, then beware:

- You need to emphasise conversion rates, and calculate your KPIs as "per visitor" or "per impression".  I'm sure you do this already with your KPIs, but absolute numbers of orders or clicks, or revenue values will not be suitable here.  If you have twice as much traffic in B compared to A (a 66-33 split), then you should expect twice as many success events from an identical success rate; you'll need to divide by visit, visitor or page view (depending on your metric, and your choice).

- You can't do multivariate analysis on uneven splits - as I mentioned in my articles on MVT analysis, you need equal-ish numbers of visits in order to combine the data from the different recipes.

The Numbers of a UK Vaccination Program

Today's news of the regulator's approval of a COVID-19 vaccine is extremely good news, and the light at the end of the tunnel is drawing closer on a daily basis.  Thoughts are now moving from "If..." to "When..." and "How..." - and this is an important question:  how will we all get vaccinated?  I'm not going to answer the political questions, I'm looking at this entirely from a logistical perspective.

*  There are, according to UK Census data from 2019, just over 66 million people in the UK.  If we assume that children won't be vaccinated, that brings the number down to around 55 million (source: York University)

*  Each of these 55 million people will require vaccination, and the Pfizer-Biontech vaccine (and the Oxford-Astra Zeneca vaccine also) require two injections to be given.  That's 110 million doses.

*  The UK government has promised to vaccinate everybody who wants to be vaccinated, and has already contracted to purchase 40 million doses of the Pfizer-Biontech vaccine (enough for 20 million people).  It also has contracts out with other potential providers: totalling over 357 million vaccines doses through agreements with several separate vaccine developers at various stages of trials, here's the full breakdown, sorted from largest to smallest quantity: (source, UK gov website)

100 million doses of University of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine – pending MHRA approval
60 million doses of Novavax vaccine – phase 3 clinical trials
60 million doses of Valneva vaccine – pre-clinical trials
60 million doses of GSK/Sanofi Pasteur vaccine – phase 1 clinical trials
40 million doses of BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine – approved by MHRA
30 million doses of Janssen vaccine – phase 2 clinical trials
7 million doses of Moderna vaccine – phase 3 clinical trials

So, assuming the Oxford vaccine is approved, the UK government will already have secured sufficient vaccine for the UK population who will need it.  The others could be considered a safety net.

*  How will it be distributed?
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) have set out their independent advice on how the population should be prioritised, in an article they published today.  They recommend starting with the elderly in care homes, and with health and social care workers. , moving on to those who have been shielding due to being Clinically Extremely Vulnerable, and then in phases from older people to younger, down to teenagers last.  Some groups are recommended to be excluded from the vaccination program, including pregnant women (due to lack of data) and children under 16, who are asymptomatic (i.e. they don't become very ill with COVID).  

The logistics:  distribution will have to be decentralised (i.e. regional, and probably by district - possibly on the scale of a Parliamentary constituency) because the vaccine has special storage requirements (-80C).  There have already been discussions of sports halls, football stadia and leisure centres being used - that's the scale of the operation that's being planned.  It will be fascinating to see how it all rolls out, and something I'm looking forward to (around Easter, probably).

My previous post about the lockdown was called "Undo, or Save Changes?" and looked at how things will be different after COVID.

Combinations and Permutations

PERMUTATIONS AND COMBINATIONS

After mentioning permutations and combinations in my previous blog post on targeting, I thought it was time to provide a more mathematical treatment of them.  Everybody talks about them as a pair (in the same way as people tend to say 'look and feel', or 'design and technology').  

Let's start with an example:  three banners are to be shown on a website homepage. If we simplify and call the different pictures A, B and C, then one order in which they can be hung is A, B, C and another is A, C, B.

Each of these arrangements is called a permutation of the three pictures (and there are further possible permutations), i.e, a permutation is an ordered arrangement of a number of items.

Suppose, however, that seven banners are available for presenting on the website, and only three of them can be displayed. This time a choice has first to be made. If we call the seven banners A, B, C, D, E, F and G, one possible choice of the three pictures for display is A, B, and C - ignoring the sequence of the banners. Regardless of the order in which they are then hung this group of three is just one choice and is called a combination.

A, B, C
A, C, B
B, A, C
B, C, A
C, A, B
C, B, A

are six different permutations; but only one combination - thus:  a combination is an unordered selection of a number of items from a given set.

In this post,  I will discuss methods for finding the total number of ways of arranging items (permutations) or choosing groups of items (combinations) from a given set. But before we do so it is critical that we're able to distinguish between permutations and combinations.  They are not the same, and the terms shouldn't be used interchangeably.

For example:  a news website has ten news articles on its site, but the home page layout means that only five can be shown, in a vertical column. While they cannot display all ten of the articles, they must choose a group of five. The order in which the site selects the five articles is irrelevant (in this case); the set of five is only one combination. Once they have made the choice, they are then able to place the five articles in various different orders on the display stand. Now the site team are arranging them and each arrangement is a permutation, i.e a particular set of five articles is one combination, but that one combination can be arranged to give several different permutations.

1.  The King's Health is Failing
2.  Peace Treaty Signed!
3.  Life found on Mars!
4. Bungled Theft on the Railway
5. Jack the Ripper
6. Reports of My Death Greatly Exaggerated
7. Lottery Winner Buys Football Team
8.  New 007 is a Woman
9. Crop Circles - The Answer
10. Price of Eggs falls 10%

In each of these examples, decide if the question is asking for a number of permutations, or a number of combinations.

How many arrangements of the letters A, B, C are there?
Arrangements means the sequence is important, so this means permutations.

A team of six members is chosen from a group of eight. How many different

teams can be selected?
The sequence is not important, so this means combinations.

A person can take eight records to a desert island, chosen from his own

selection of one hundred records. How many different sets of records could he choose?
Different sets, again the sequence is not critical, so these are combinations.

The first, second and third prizes for a raffle are awarded by drawing tickets

from a box of five hundred. In how many ways can the prizes be won?
Here, there's a difference between the order (or sequence, or arrangement) of the three prizes, so we're looking at permutations.

Combinations:  the sequence is not important.
Permutations:  the sequence is important.

Other reading you may find interesting:

If you're interested in how to use this to improve your website, I can recommend this article on personalisation and targeting and this one on why personalisation programs struggle (hint: they don't make good use of maths).

I've also written a more practical article on how to use combinations and permutations, looking at Targeting Website Banners.

Alternatively, if you like the maths of combinations and permutations, I can suggest Multiplications Puzzles

Review: Transformers: War For Cybertron: Siege: Episode 4

 CONTAINS SPOILERS

The previous episode concluded with Megatron's great political speech, and to be fair, he seems to hold all the cards.  After Ultra Magnus's misguided and deluded attempt at peaceful negotiations, he's become Megatron's prisoner and things are looking bleak.

Episode 4 starts with a similar bleak tone: pouring rain and a thunderstorm, as a shackled Magnus leads Megatron to the location of  Autobot Command, Tarn Hauser Gate.  Tarn Hauser was a tragic battleground from the original War.  Megatron continues to spew his own political diatribe about unifying Cybertron (i.e. bringing them all under his command and control).

However, Magnus has not betrayed his fellow Autobots.  Tarn Hauser Gate contains a portal where the wisdom of Alpha Trion (known as the Alpha Trion Protocols) can be transferred to another Autobot upon the death of their current host (Magnus).  Megatron shoots Ultra Magnus in the chest, killing Magnus, and thereby triggering the Alpha Trion Protocol transferral process.

And the mysterious and ancient combined wisdom of generations of Autobots selects Bumblebee.  Well, of course it does - why choose Optimus Prime, who clearly needs help, when you can instead select a non-Autobot who is massively over-used in the entirety of Transformers lore (apart from the movie Bumblebee, where he actually make sense as the main character)?  Bumblebee - annoying character with a chip on his shoulder the size of Iacon - has now become indispensable to the Autobots, which is going to make him even more annoying.  We can now add precocious to Bumblebee's list of annoying characteristics (selfish, cute, screen-time hog... the list goes on).  Bumblebee goes on a Protocol-induced vision quest to meet Holographic Alpha Trion who tells Bumblebee that he can be trusted with this great wisdom.  This mellows Bumblebee slightly, but I'm not impressed with this decision at all.

Optimus senses the death of Ultra Magnus through the Matrix (or something similar).  Megatron, on the other hand, has no idea what he's just witnessed.  Jetfire is continuing to play the part of the loyal Decepticon, which would work out better if he hadn't killed Skywarp and been found out.  Starscream appears by Megatron's side, exposes Jetfire's treachery and then pursues him across Cybertron's skies.  Jetfire against the Seekers isn't going to end well for the treacherous Decepticon.

Bumblebee gets hit with the full force of the Alpha Trion Protocols, and as he recovers, he starts to see parts of The Matrix (no, not the Autobot Matrix - think Keanu Reaves) everywhere.

Optimus is continuing his mission to get the Spacebridge up and running, and sends Ratchet, Mirage and Impactor (Decepticon who will one day go on to lead the Wreckers, just don't tell him that yet) as part of a team to go and repair it, so that he can use it to take the Allspark off Cybertron.  Elita-1 continues to question and criticise, while Optimus prepares to sieze the Allspark.  His plan is coherent and makes sense, on paper at least.  Taking two separate trips across occupied Cybertron is going to be dangerous.

First, though, Optimus goes to attempt to recruit the Guardians, who live in a wide expanse of cloudy, foggy Cybertonian plains.  He wrongly assumes that one of them was given the Alpha Trion Protocols, and they remain mysterious in their cloudy atmosphere.  Could Omega Supreme be one of the Guardians?  Will they refuse to interfere in the affairs of the Autobots and Decepticons?  To paraphrase Optimus:  What use are they if they don't interfere?

The apparent demise of Jetfire leaves a vacancy for Head of the Seekers, and Megatron wishes to reward Starscream for exposing Jetfire and then eliminating him.  (Is Jetfire really dead?  Was Skywarp?).  So, Starscream gets promoted to Commander of the Seekers - much to the bemusement of Soundwave ("most inferior") and Shockwave.  I laughed out loud at Shockwave and Soundwave's reactions - and considering that Soundwave doesn't have a mouth, and Shockwave has only an eye, the animators have done a fantastic job in injecting expression into both of them.

Bumblebee knows where the Allspark is, but before the Autobots can start their journey, they have to help Jetfire complete his path from Decepticon to Autobot, and that's where we leave this episode.

Jetfire has defected from the Decepticons (we all knew this was going to happen).
Impactor, Mirage and team are fixing the Spacebridge.
Optimus and Bumblebee are preparing to retrieve the Allspark.
Megatron is playing catch-up: having held all the cards at the start, Megatron has now lost Ultra Magnus, doesn't understand the Alpha Trion Protocols and doesn't have the Allspark.

So, the pieces are all in play, and there's no obvious conclusion (except we have to assume the Autobots will succeed, because that's the way history's written).  There are some fascinating twists here - some expected, some unexpected, and it'll be interesting to see how the writers straighten everything out.

Transformers War For Cyberton Siege: Episode Reviews

Episode 1
Setting the scene, as Megatron begins executing his plan on Cybertron

Episode 2
Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus make some very questionable decisions, as Shockwave searches for the Allspark

Episode 3
Megatron portrays recent history to suit his own ends, while Impactor and Skyfire question their loyalties.

Episode 4
Megatron makes progress with his plan, while the Alpha Trion Protocols choose a new host.

Episode 5
Optimus Prime searches for the Allspark, Wheeljack needs more energon, and Megatron prepares to commit genocide.

Episode 6

Will the Autobots be able to secure the Space bridge, and the energon they need, and the Allspark?