[Dinorider37]

Originally Posted by arcticphoenix87

My head canon:

Zeo season premiere sets us up with the premise we are in a Cold War-esque fight between two Super Powers: Zeo Rangers, the MOST powerful rangers in the universe, versus the Machine Empire, the MOST powerful evil faction in the universe, who have just broke away from their alliance with Dark Specter. Explains why 5 (later 6) individuals have the power to fight back against thousands of Cogs and artillery.

Season progresses... mostly a stalemate, but the Machine Empire has a slight edge with their Neoplutonium armor. Day and night attacks makes the rangers fatigued. Dark Specter (still a secret behind the scenes), realizing that if the Rangers fail, knows that the Machine Empire will come for him next. Thus, he sends Rita and Zedd to negotiate a temporary alliance with the Rangers.

Zedd shows up on the viewing globe with a proposition. He has a weapon that is powerful enough to wipe out the Machine Empire (Surprise: Serpentera!) but it doesn't have a reliable energy source. That's where the rangers come in: all Zedd needs in one Zeo subcrystal to power Serpentera (again, these are the MOST powerful sources of energy in the universe) and Serpentera is good to go. Rangers don't trust Zedd, but they have no choice. Tommy agrees to Give his subcrystal to power Serpentera, since the Machine Empire recently destroyed/captured his Red Punchazord. We have a few interesting scenes of Billy and Finster working together to configure the Zeo Crystal with Serpentera.

With Serpentera powered, they successfully wipe out 95% of the Machine Empire's forces, including damaging the Royal House of Gadgetry who are taken hostage by Rita and Zedd. Of course Zedd is evil and double crosses the rangers, who sets Serpentera on a course for Angel Grove to wipe out Earth with the Zeo Crystal's power. The rangers can't disable it, but they realize they can overload Serpentera's engines if they sacrifice the other 4 Zeo Subcrystals in the its engine. Serpentera can't handle the additional power, and explodes and crashes on the moon (setting us up for Wild Force).

Rita/Zedd retreat with captured Machine King and Queen to be reprogrammed. Rangers won the war, but desperately need powers in case something happens. Zordon admits he doesn't have any backup powers to pull out of his ass, so Tommy suggests they build them from scratch with something modern: cars. Fortunately, there's just enough residual morphin' grid energy from the Zeo Crystal to power the Turbo keys, but the rangers will never again be as powerful as they once were. Fortunately their next villain (Divatox) isn't a "superpower", so the Turbo powers are sufficient to handle her threats.

That is a great head cannon. I really dig it.

Plus Tommy went on to race cars so it makes sense that he would pick the new team theme as he was the veteran ranger and Zordon favored him by that point.