Terrorsaur
Background
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Starscream must be feeling very flattered right now. In Beast Wars, Terrorsaur was little more than a grunt in Megatron's ragtag army of renegade Predacons. Oddly enough, however, this unassuming red-and-silver pteradon felt that he was far more qualified to lead the group than was Megatron. Although Terrorsaur seized command from Megatron on two occasions (one of which included shooting him several times and sending him flying off the side of a mountain in a state of total dismemberment), Megatron never really punished Terrorsaur for his treachery. It's rather reminiscent of the many times Starscream (himself a red-and-silver Decepticon flyer) attempted to take command away from the original Megatron in the original Transformers series. They even had the same sort of screechy, high-pitched voice. In fact, Doug Parker (who voiced Terrorsaur) voiced Starscream in the episode "Possession." I'd like to say that the writers just ripped off the Starscream character for their new series, but I was surprised to find that neither Bob Forward nor Larry DiTillio had any first-hand knowledge of the first generation of Transformers. Crazy how that works. Interestingly enough, Starscream and Terrorsaur butted heads in the one episode in which they appeared together (Terrorsaur was jealous of Starscream receiving a "promotion" for his good work in planning and carrying out an attack against the Maximals' base).
"Ahh, it's good to be a Predacon!"
As with most of the first-season Beast Wars characters, there is almost no background information available about Terrorsaur's actual character or the circumstances that led him to join Megatron's group of Predacons. However, a lack of real information has never stopped anyone from drawing wildly inappropriate conclusions about a given subject, so on we go!
First, Terrorsaur strikes me as a totally egotistical person. He seems to think he deserves to lead the Predacons by virtue of the fact that, hey, he's Terrorsaur! He really doesn't seem to care about working his way up through any sort of real chain of command, so I suppose that's one reason why he joined Megatron; perhaps he figured that when/if Megatron launched his coup against the Predacons in power on Cybertron, he'd have an instant "in" since he was there from the beginning (see my entry on Thrust). When you're in an army composed of only six people, it's good to have something to bring to the table. Terrorsaur didn't bring his intelligence, obviously, or his good work ethic. Since Waspinator was the only other Predacon with the ability to fly, his mastery of the aerial arts might have made him an attractive prospect to a general looking for some hired muscle. Megatron might have also appreciated his ambition, since both of them had that in spades. Maybe he saw a little bit of himself in the brash young rebel. Still, Terrorsaur was never one of the more interesting or popular characters, Predacon or otherwise. He was mean-spirited and quite frankly lazy and it's hard to sympathize with someone who just doesn't give a shit about anything besides elevating their own position in an organization without making any effort to achieve that goal.
Death
Terrorsaur died a rather unceremonious death at the very beginning of the second season. While celebrating what the Predacons believed to be the death of Optimus Primal, their base is hit by an energy wave that knocks Terrorsaur and second-in-command Scorponok into a pit of lava and out of the story.
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