5. Megatron
They called it the Golden Age. They called it a time of liberty and prosperity, of credits and energon for everyone. And it was fine for some. The upper class, the wealthy Autobots, the Senate, the mechs in the glittering towers of Iacon or the upper levels of Polyhex. They recharged, went to work, came home to a family and some energon cubes.
They never stopped to think about where their energon came from. They never saw the mines, the dark holes in rocks far from Cybertron, in the outliers. They never saw the miners, filthy mechs who knew only the swing of a pick and the flash of unstable, unrefined energy crystals. They never spent orns down there in the stifling heat, never sure whether the next swing would strike an explosive shard and bury them all, never sure they could scrape enough crystals from the rock to meet their quotas and earn their daily ration. They never lost their jobs to drones, never had to look for an occupation with no experience, no cleanliness, no friends in high places.
For the rich it was the Golden Age. For the powerful, it was an age of corruption, bribery, stockpiling.
For the rest, there was a shortage of energon, a shortage of jobs. There was a dark Altihex, practically a ghost town. There was a crumbling Vos, the ground littered with lifeless frames of fliers who hadn't even had the energon to continue functioning.
And there was Kaon. The unemployed miners came here, the outcast factory or military builds came here; poor mechs from all over Cybertron poured into Kaon's lawless underbelly in search of credits and energon.
Kaon was the capital of Cybertron's criminal underworld. The black market, the bootlegging, the prostitution rings, the arena fights. The only way to survive was to elbow your way into one of these shady establishments. The gladiators of the arena were worshipped by the rest of the lowly, dirty, hungry poor. And one gladiator was better than the rest.
His name was Megatron. He had been a miner on one of Cybertron's moons, before he was replaced by automation. So he had come to Kaon, and he had caught someone's optic, and he had been introduced to the vicious sport of arena fighting. These were no-holds-barred battles to termination—enough to stamp out weaknesses like kindness, pity, or mercy.
Megatron could please a crowd without trying. He had the perfect build: tall and imposing, a powerful tank altmode, well-kept silver armor, scarlet optics. He was a natural fighter, champion of the arena, having slaughtered his way up the ranks, and commanded incredible power. The best fighters clamored to join him, and everyone in the underworld admired him.
There was something about Megatron that made them love him. It was evident whenever they spoke his name in reverent tones. Megatron will free us, they said. Megatron will lift us to the sky. Megatron will end our hunger.
He saw the corruption of the Senate. He had borne the load while the Autobots ate rust sticks. And Megatron had ideas. He made plans. It started small—thefts, riots, threats. And when the Senate refused to act, it grew. Bombings. Kidnappings. And then it became massive: a planetwide strike for freedom and justice, the liberation of the poor and hungry, with Megatron at their head. The Decepticons rose up from the darkness, from the seedy depths, battling the old ways that had driven them down.
It should have been easy. The Autobots should have seen the error of their ways. Surely they could see that the uprising was for the best! Surely they wouldn't stop their counterparts from taking their rightful place in the world. But they did, and so the display of unity became a war, and the war went on.
And on.
For thousands of astrocycles the Great War raged, the Autobots stubbornly refusing to give in. The leaders of the opposing forces, Megatron and Optimus Prime, each believed that his respective faction was in the right. The War eventually drained Cybertron of its resources and the Autobots and Decepticons went out into the galaxy to continue their battle. Countless planets were devastated in the crossfire, scoured of energy sources. The Autobots committed atrocities that the Decepticons had never foreseen.
Circumstances drove the War to a blue planet called "Earth" by its people. Tiny, primitive organics calling themselves "humans." The assistance of the humans was the push the Autobots needed and the Decepticon forces were weakened. They battled each other in the space between Earth and Cybertron, near the Axis cluster.
It was the most devastating space battle of the War. Countless mechs were terminated. Finally a chance shot broke through the shields of the Decepticon flagship, Nemesis, and destroyed the bridge along with Megatron… an anticlimactic end. The universe loves cruel jokes.
After Axis, the Autobots brought the surviving Decepticons back to Cybertron, which had revived over the astrocycles.
Do you know what an astrocycle is? A thousand vorns. Can you imagine an astrocycle? Now imagine ten thousand astrocycles. Ten million vorns of war. The Academy gives it maybe fifty at most… and they never mention Megatron's name.
Just the word gave us hope, once. Now, if an Autobot hears us say it, we'll be beaten to scrap. Because the power that strengthens us frightens them. They're afraid of a ghost.
The Senate reinstated itself after Axis—all Prime's talk about giving power back to the people just played into their hands. They pushed the Decepticons down even further than before, making them slaves.
Do you know what it is to be a slave? It's taking the energon you're given because you'll offline if you miss a day's ration. It's taking orders when you don't want to; it's being divided; it's being powerless; it's having wings but being chained to the ground. It's remembering what it was like to be free.
During the War, we were powerful. We had energon, we had identities. We could talk and drink and recharge and fly whenever we liked. But now we have nothing. No chain of command, no trines, no gestalts. The Autobots took every precaution.
But we are strong. We will rise again. All it takes is a memory, a ghost, the whisper of a name.
Megatron.