BEGINNING OF TIME
At the dawn of the universe, the universe was ruled by light and dark gods who maintained a tenuous balance. This status quo remained for millions of years until physical life began to take shape. The dark gods slowly began dying off, eventually leaving only one of them left: Unicron the chaos bringer.
Unicron began destroying the fledgling existence, forcing Primus, the last and greatest of the light gods and Unicron's brother, to begin battling against him. However, this clash caused immense galactic devastation, much to Primus's dismay. Wishing to end the fighting once and for all, Primus reverted to an energy form and lured Unicron to the astral plane.
As the chaos bringer chased his brother, Primus opened another portal that shut behind them, and they ended up entering 2 massive planetoids, being trapped for all eternity…or so they thought.
12 MILLION YEARS AGO
An incredibly greedy and malevolent alien race known as the Quintessons and their simian ally Primacron discover the planetoids that Primus and Unicron were captured in, and while Primacron took one of the massive structures for study, the Quintessons converted Primus's prison into a massive factory they dubbed Cybertron, and created a plasma energy chamber near the core of the planet where they could create robots to serve them.
Their first attempt, golden, horned and winged bio-mechanical beasts known as the trans-organics, were deemed too violent and sealed away in caverns on the planet. Their second attempt, pure machines consisting of consumer models and military hardware, was a rousing success and allowed the quintessons to delegate all the labor to them while they became rich from commerce and trade.
They later created the supercomputer Vector Sigma to automate the process and would even host gladiatorial games between their robots, with the losers being melted down and used to create new ones. However, the Quintessons were incredibly negligent, more often than not leaving another sentient machine they had created called Quintessa to take care of their robots while they conducted business.
Meanwhile, Primacron experimented on the planetoid containing Unicron, terraforming it into a warworld and using "Angolmois energy" derived from Primus's essense to try to bring it to life. However, this merely succeeded in waking up Unicron, who converted his new body into a transforming giant robot and attacked Primacron, greatly injuring him and killing his assistant, one of the quintesson's consumer robots which was loaned to him by the evil aliens.
Not knowing the location of Primus, Unicron would go on to begin consuming planets across the universe for fun. In the millenia that followed, Primacron became isolated and continued his research away from the quintessons.
11 MILLION YEARS AGO
Primus's essence awakened within the core of Cybertron due to the quintesson's meddling, and learning of their actions through interfacing with Vector Sigma, Primus used the computer to create 13 robots of his own, each with the power to transform just as Unicron did, as Primus had sensed Unicron's awakening through their connections as brothers. However, unlike the Quintesson's consumer robots, these robots had free will.
Primus dubbed these 13 new robots "Primes", and they consisted of Amalgamous Prime, Nexus Prime, Liege Maximo, Micronus Prime, Alchemist Prime, Logos Prime, Quintus Prime, Vector Prime, Solus Prime, Alpha Trion, Megatronus Prime, and their leader Prima. Primus bestowed 2 artifacts to Prima. The first was a cube known as the Allspark, which would allow for the creation of cybertronian life which had free will and transformation abilities from the start.
The second and most important artifact was a talisman known as the matrix of leadership, which bestowed its wielder, Prima in this case, with the wisdom of Primus and all those who would previously wield it. Using the Allspark, Prima brought the Quintesson's robots to life and led a revolution alongside his fellow Primes that drove the Quintessons off the planet.
Quintessa, who was still loyal to the quintessons, chose to follow after them, condemning the cybertronians as traitors. However, the Quintessons were able to create a sleeper program within Vector Sigma known as the Oracle which would one day superseed Vector Sigma and create a techno-organic cybertron that would make the cybertronians weak and docile so that they could one day have revenge.
Unaware of the Quintesson's contingency plan, the primes would become the new leaders of Cybertron.
11-10 MILLION YEARS AGO
Over the following million years, Cybertron would enter a golden age, its inhabitants being able to live their own lives and choose what they wanted to be instead of being slaves to masters. More and more new cybertronians would be created using the Allspark, and the Primes would take on various roles across the planet.
Prima would become the ruler of Cybertron, Alpha Trion would construct a massive library in Iacon city and become the records keeper of the primes, Megatronus, Micronus, and Alchemist worked as energon (A transformer's lifeblood) refiners, Solus Prime became a blacksmith who created various mighty weapons of destruction, Vector and Logos Prime became the guardians of space and time, and Quintus Prime left to seed other worlds with cybertronian life.
Solus and Megatronus would even form a romantic relationship. Many offworld colonies would also be established by cybertronian space explorers led by the primes, those being Caminus, Devisiun, Arduria, Aquatron, The Jungle Planet, Antilla, Gigantium, Velocitron, and Eukarus. To cyberform the planets, the colonists used devices known as Cyber Planet Keys created from Primus's life force.
These colony worlds, as well as Cybertron, were protected by the Titans, massive city sized transformers built by the primes. Not only that, but they were all connected through a massive network of "Space bridges" built by the primes as well. However, they could also be inserted into a conduit for the Allspark dubbed the Omega Lock to empower Primus. And in addition to all of that, the primes built Omega keys that would allow the lock to create pure machinery to help with construction.
Among the many space explorers during this period were a bot known as Nova Major and his crew, who piloted the ship the Proudstar. A few hundred years after his creation, Nexus Prime would create a device known as the Enigma of combination that would allow transformers to combine in ways thought unimaginable.
Inspired by his brother's creation, Alpha Trion would decide to make something based off of his specialty as well. He gathered the smartest cybertronians on the planet, those being Boltax, Rokan, Decanus, and Tallus, and poured his own and their combined knowledge together to create a database known as the Underbase.
The Underbase contained the greatest sum of knowledge on all of Cybertron, and was curated by Boltax within his "Temple of Knowledge" alongside the Enigma of Combination. However, the Underbase was off-limits to all for all other cybertronians, as its power could detonate a star on impact and leave any planets in proximity scorched in its wake. To store the vast amount of knowledge, Boltax converted himself into a mountain.
However, even this Golden Age had its hiccups. The first 6 Cybertronians (Autonomous Maximus, Solomus, Mortilus, Epistemus, Skyfire and Adaptus) had all become disciples of the Primes known as the Guiding Hand shortly after the liberation of their species from Quintesson rule. Believing the Golden Age to be bringing about stagnation for their kind and preventing their ascension to the "Higher Realms", Adaptus urged the other members of the Guiding Hand and the Primes to take up arms and wage war against the galaxy.
When both Autonomous and Prima refused, Adaptus declared war against his compatriots. The conflict that erupted from this would come to be known as "The God War." Eventually, Adaptus was forced to flee to one of Cybertron's moons and unleashed an Electro-Magnetic pulse on the planet below, distracting his foes long enough for him to refit the moon with planetary engines and escape.
Because of the pulse, the remaining members of the Guiding Light were all left amnesiac and forgotten by all other Cybertronians, even the 13 Primes themselves. 3 of the 4 remaining Guiding Hand members would take on different names and new civilian identities. Autonomous Maximus became Rung, Solomus became Tyrest, and Epistemus's surviving brain module became known as the Magnificence.
The only exception was Skyfire, who was found by Megatronus and told of his true history by the Prime, becoming a servant to him. Unfortunately, this isn't the end of Cybertron's troubles. Unicron had sensed the EMP going off on Cybertron, allowing him to finally track down Primus and attack him, seeking to finish off his old foe once and for all.
Once the Chaos Bringer arrived above Cybertron, the Primes all engaged him in an epic battle that would go down in legend as the greatest battle in Cybertron's history. After several hours, it was ultimately Megatronus Prime who used the Requiem Blaster forged by Solus Prime to blast Unicron into the void of space, seemingly killing the Chaos Bringer.
However, Unicron survived in critical condition and was forced to remain in planet mode until he gained enough strength to try again. This battle cemented Megatronus's place as the most beloved of the Primes, with the Cybertronians revering him as the toughest of all of them.
10 MILLION YEARS AGO
The Allspark began to run out of energy after creating so many bots, leading to the possibility of the slow extinction of the cybertronian race. To combat this, 2 means were developed. The first solution was developed by the ordinary cybertronians and was a sort of mitosis known as "budding", where a cybertronian rapidly reproduced by generating mass energized liquid from their body.
However, this gradually diluted the amount of Primus's energy within them, so the method was deemed insufficient and wiped from the cybertronian's memories. The second method was the creation of giant machines known as star harvesters to drain the energy of suns, which would then be used to refill the allspark.
This method proved successful, but the primes had one major rule: Never use the star harvesters on solar systems with life in them. However, the scheming Liege Maximo began convincing Megatronus Prime to use the star harvester on systems with inhabited worlds. When Solus found out about this, she and Megatronus had an argument which culminated with Megatronus stabbing Solus with the star saber she had created in a fit of rage.
Solus told him that she still loved him as she died, and Megatronus sent himself into exile in his grief. Now having nothing left, he agreed to Liege Maximo's suggestion of building a star harvester on a small, developing planet called Earth. Upon learning of Solus Prime's death, the other primes tracked Megatronus down and battled him on Earth, ultimately defeating him and casting him into another dimension.
In the midst of the battle, Liege Maximo fled into space, going into hiding as well. In the wake of the battle, the primes discovered Liege Maximo's treachery and chose to hide the truth of Megatronus's betrayal from the people of Cybertron, claiming that he had sacrificed himself to stop Liege Maximo, who had killed Solus Prime.
Unbeknownst to the primes, their battle on Earth had caught the attention of a super dimensional alien species known as the Vok. Believing Earth to be a perfect testing ground for their experiments, the Vok set up shop on the planet, creating a flying island known as Brigadoon to conduct their experiments on and building a planet buster disguised as a second moon just in case they needed to blow up the planet.
Around this time, Nova Major and his crew landed on what they didn't realize was Unicron's planet form for refueling. Once they left, Unicron's dark energon began to influence them. Nova Prime gradually began to terraform planets with life on them, wiping out several civilizations. After countless planets were wiped out, one of the crew, feeling immense guilt, sent the Proudstar careening into an alternate dimension known as the Dead Universe, seemingly destroying all of the crew.
Back on Cybertron, Nova Major was declared missing in action and became known as one of Cybertron's greatest heroes. A High Guard was also formed to act as aids to the primes after this. A few years later, two young scientists known as Starscream and Jetfire were charting the universe and stumbled across Skyfire, who had chosen to still serve Megatronus even after his fall from grace due to his greatfulness for the Prime giving him a purpose.
Skyfire attacked the two cybertronian scientists and chased them to Earth, managing to trap Jetfire in ice. However, Starscream managed to defeat Skyfire and left him for dead, returning to Cybertron while assuming Jetfire was dead. Afterwards, Starscream joined the High Guard. Sometime after this, the cybertronian spacecraft Atlantis landed on Earth.
9 MILLION YEARS AGO
The Quintessons returned to Cybertron to take the planet back, and the remaining Primes evacuated the entire city of Iacon underground for their safety. The primes would wage war against the quintessons for thousands of stellar cycles until the transformer Zeta, the Prime's principal aid, informed them that several quintesson generals were having a meeting, and that killing them would end the war.
The primes all agreed to go (except for Vector Prime, who was busy guarding the timestream), but unbeknownst to them, Zeta had struck a deal with the Quintessons that he would lead the primes into an ambush and help them kill them in exchange for being made proxy leader of cybertron and supplying the Quintessons with all the energon they would want.
The Quintessons agreed, and once the primes fell into their trap, they ambushed them. The primes had the advantage over their attackers until Zeta sneak attacked them at a vital moment, decapitating Logos Prime. Within minutes, the battle was over and the primes were dead. However, when Zeta tore the matrix from Prima's corpse and attempted to open it, it vanished into dust, not seeing him as worthy.
However, unbeknownst to Zeta or the Quintessons, Nexus Prime had survived, and after they left, the prime split himself into 5 cybertronians named Clocker, Mainspring, Skyfall, Pinion and Breakaway, who hid one piece of Prima's shattered star saber within each of their chassis and went into hiding across the universe to protect it from Zeta and the Quintessons.
Unaware of this, Zeta returned to Iacon and claimed that he was the last of the primes who had single handedly defeated the Quintessons, but the matrix was lost in the process. Afterwards he began tearing the transformation cogs out of 90% of newly forged cybertronians and put them to work in the mines to mine what energon they could get from the planet's core, as the planet's energon dried off after the matrix vanished.
However, not all cybertronians were fooled. The High Guard had managed to escape Zeta and the Quintessons and began a guerilla war against them, with Starscream assuming leadership. Zeta's journeys to eliminate them were disguised as quests for the matrix by him and his men. While not fighting the High Guard, Zeta and the Quintessons also hunted for the last of the primes: Quintus Prime.
They eventually managed to find Quintus on Earth, where he used his emberstone to create the titan Terratronus and then fused his spark with it. When the Quintessons and Zeta were unable to find Quintus Prime, they assumed he died due to injuries and left Earth alone. Sometime after this, a cybertronian explorer named Exarchon stumbled upon the Quintessons, who made his spark "immortal", being able to take over 3 bodies at once.
Exarchon managed to escape and returned to Cybertron, and after the experiments he had developed the crippling desire to conquer Cybertron and become its ruler. He also sought to usurp Primus's spark itself, and the conflict that erupted from Exarchon's invasion was known as the war of the threefold spark. Exarchon was eventually defeated by Zeta Prime's body guard Sentinel and went into hiding within the body of a dead cybertronian known as Provoke, going into stasis lock to avoid detection.
8,994,050 YEARS AGO
Exactly 50 years after Zeta Prime came to power, a young data clerk at the Iacon library known as Orion Pax traveled to the city state of Kaon with the current archivist of Iacon Codexa, who was a mother figure to him. Orion was one of the many bots who had had their cogs torn out upon construction, but Codexa had been able to convince Zeta Prime to allow her to mentor the boy despite not knowing why his cog was being torn out.
The 2 were heading to Iacon to meet with Codexa's old friend Termagax, who was mentoring a miner turned gladiator named D-16, a cogless bot just like Orion. As their mother figures conversed, Orion and D-16 began talking and soon became fast friends. They would continue to meet each other in secret over the course of the next month or two, with D-16 revealing that Megatronus was his favorite Prime, unaware of his fall to darkness.
However, Orion felt that his destiny was to be more than a simple data clerk. He wished to find the matrix of leadership so that he could return energon to cybertron and prove himself despite being cogless. However, he also decided to invite D-16 to the Iacon 5000 race so that they could prove themselves like Orion wanted.
D-16 did come to the race as Orion requested, and as the race started, Orion strapped stolen jetpacks to himself and D-16. The 2 shot off into the race, and although they got pretty close to winning, they did end up losing. Afterwards, D-16 went off on Pax for what he did, although he did admit he had fun.
In order to make it up to his friend, Orion gave him a limited edition Megatronus Prime decal, which D-16 gratefully accepted. However, once they returned to their respective homes, Orion was chewed out by Codexa for his recklessness and D-16 was demoted back to the mines. There he clashed with his aggressive, by the books and arrogant boss Chromia, and eventually ended up getting in a fight with her which caused him to be sent to the lowest level of cybertron to do waste management, where he met another bot designated B-127.
B-127 had been thrown into the lowest level, sub level 50, several years prior and had gone slightly crazy, creating imaginary friends dubbed A-A tron, EP-405, and Steve from the various pieces of scrap metal littered around the area. When D-16 grew fed up and punched "Steve's" head off (Much to B-127's despair) a beacon containing an SOS from Alpha Trion and the location of the last stand of the primes rolled out of it.
D-16, wanting to show this information to Orion, convinced B-127 to come with him as he managed to escape sub-level 50 despite being pursued by Chromia once she saw him. Meanwhile, in the months that had passed since D-16 was sent to the mines, Orion Pax had met a female dock worker named Ariel, beginning a romantic relationship with her.
In fact, they were talking at the Iacon library when D-16 and B-127 came bursting in with the information on what they had found. Orion's eyes widened with excitement upon seeing this, and he convinced Ariel to come with them. Together they managed to hijack an energon train and made their way to the surface despite being pursued by Chromia.
Chromia would ultimately reluctantly agree to aid them when Orion told her that they were pursuing the Matrix, but only so that she could get promoted. They barely managed to escape the dangers on the surface and made their way to the cave where the prime's corpses lay. As they surveyed the area, Orion realized that Alpha Trion was just in stasis lock and not dead, so he fed him a piece of energon that woke him up.
While Alpha Trion reacted violently at first, he was calmed down by Orion and brought up to date on the current state of affairs. Upon hearing of Zeta Prime, Alpha Trion told the 5 cybertronians the truth and led them to a cliff where they saw one of Zeta's transactions with the Quintessons. D-16 was left enraged by this and wanted to exact revenge, but Alpha Trion told the 5 young cybertronians that they had to tell the rest of the planet the truth.
He then gave them transformation cogs from the primes and as well as a holo recording of the evidence, but they were then found by Zeta Prime's death trackers. Alpha Trion held them off long enough for the others to escape, but was knocked out by Sentinel and brought before Zeta Prime. After a conversation in which Alpha Trion condemned the false prime, Zeta executed him, greatly unnerving Sentinel.
Sentinel asked his leader about Trion's claims that he was a false Prime, but Zeta threatened him and told him to apprehend the escaped lower class bots. Sentinel reluctantly agreed and led a coalition back to the surface. Meanwhile, the heroic bots were captured by the High Guard, who took them to their base for interrogation, believing them to be working for Zeta.
D-16 was not impressed with them, and influenced by his growing rage, challenged Starscream to a battle for leadership. D-16 overpowered Starscream with ease, and after damaging the seeker's voice box, manifested a massive cannon on his arm, pointing it at Starscream's head. Starscream was forced to yield, but before the high guard could head out to Iacon, Sentinel and his men began attacking the base, having tracked them there.
During the mayhem, Sentinel fought and subdued D-16, taking the holo-projector from him and examining it. He discovered its contents and Zeta Prime's betrayal, and was horrified at what he saw. He ordered his men to take D-16 alive, and they did so alongside B-127 and a few of the high guard.
After the battle, Orion was left devastated and hopeless. However, thanks to encouragement from the girls (backhanded encouragement in Chromia's case), Orion managed to convince the High Guard to help them save their friends. As they headed to Iacon, Zeta was mocking D-16 in his palace. He noticed his Megatronus Prime decal and, simply for sheer sadistic pleasure, welded the symbol into his chest.
It was at that precise moment that Sentinel could no longer stand by and watch Zeta's villany. The tyrant's bodyguard charged at him and began fighting him, attempting to free D-16 and B-127. However, he was ganged up on by Zeta and the death trackers, being captured as well and being slated for execution.
As this was happening, Orion headed to the energon mines and introduced himself to the miners, knocking out their oppressive supervisor Darkwing. He revealed to them the truth of Zeta Prime's deception, and despite their doubts, Pax managed to convince them to side with him and the High Guard to stop Zeta.
The following attack went well, with Orion and the girls leading it and managing to free D-16, Sentinel and B-127, who discovered his knife hands. D-16 then faced Zeta Prime in one-on-one combat, but was overpowered and nearly killed. However, before Zeta could deliver the killing blow, Sentinel appeared on a city-wide broadcast hijacked by the High Guard and showed all of Iacon the evidence of Zeta killing the Primes and allying with the Quintessons.
A mass uprising began from this, and D-16 then overpowered Zeta and prepared to kill him despite his pleas for mercy. However, Orion attempted to stop him, telling him that Iacon already knew and that they could not begin their rebuilding with an execution. However, these words fell on deaf audio receptors as D-16 shoved Orion aside and shot at Zeta Prime. However, Orion jumped in the way, taking the blast.
A horrified D-16 caught Orion before he could fall into the pit that led to Cybertron's core. Orion begged his friend not to let him go, only for D-16 to bitterly reply that he was done saving him and then drop him. He then grabbed Zeta Prime and ripped him in half, killing him. He proclaimed that there would be no more false prophets and ordered the High Guard to burn Iacon, the last of Zeta's legacy, to the ground.
The High Guard happily obliged, but Sentinel, Ariel, Chromia and B-127 attempted to convince D-16 to stop. However, D-16 had been completely blinded by his rage, mortally wounding an enraged Ariel and knocking out the other 3. As this was happening, Orion Pax's dead body plummeted into Cybertron, with Primus deeming him worthy of the matrix due to his sacrifice for the greater good.
And so, at the same time as D-16 dubbed himself Megatron for all of Cybertron to hear, Orion had the matrix placed in him and was reborn as Optimus Prime. Prime shot back to the surface of Iacon and landed in front of Megatron. After Megatron expressed his disgust at Orion getting the matrix, the 2 began an epic battle. After a lengthy battle, Optimus ultimately bested his former friend and banished him and the high guard from Iacon.
Said villains all left, but Megatron vowed that this wasn't over. Afterwards, Optimus used the matrix to restore the energon lakes to Cybertron and give all the miners transformation cogs. From there, Optimus became the new leader of Cybertron, with Sentinel becoming his advisor and an honorary Prime. Ariel was also taken to a repair bay and rebuilt with a new body, being renamed Elita One.
Afterwards, the former miners, now called Autobots and being led by Optimus Prime, headed to the surface and began a war to drive the Quintessons off of the planet. Meanwhile, Megatron officially became head of the High Guard and renamed them the Decepticons.
8,994,045 YEARS AGO
The Quintessons were finally driven off of Cybertron by the autobots, but just as they all celebrated, Megatron and his Decepticons attacked Iacon, beginning what would come to be known as the Great War. In order to help combat the Decepticons, Optimus Prime commissioned the formation of the Elite Guard, a replacement for the former High Guard.
The Elite Guard was led by the autobot Ultra Magnus and consisted of himself, Blurr, Kup, Jazz and Chromia. They were only called upon in the most dire of circumstances and reported directly to Optimus Prime himself. Speaking of which, Optimus and Megatron would clash many more times on the battlefield for years to come, neither bot able to kill the other.
However, along with the autobots, Megatron faced opposition from even Termagax, who was enraged with what he had become. She would go to him and renounce him as worse than Zeta Prime had ever been, and enraged by this, he shot Termagax through the spark. However, this was simply a drone, and Termagax had relocated to a mobile tower dubbed HOUSE, where she would busy herself with a Bohemian lifestyle and many projects away from the war.
8,994,000 YEARS AGO
Codexa, tired of her immortality and seeing how the war was destroying Cybertron, retired from her position as Head archivist at the Iacon academy and went immersent, a state where transformers would merge themselves with Cybertron and eventually pass into the Allspark. The Caminoan Proxima would take her place as head archivist.
Optimus mourned the loss of his mother figure, but ultimately understood her decision and accepted it. Shortly after this, Optimus learned of the Underbase and went to acquire its power. While he did want to use it to end the war, there was also a major part of him that desired glory from wielding the power. However, Megatron and his triggercons had also learned of the Underbase and headed there for the same purpose.
They all eventually reached the Temple of Knowledge, with the autobots arriving first and Optimus speaking with a puppet for Boltax. Boltax couldn't give Optimus exsacltly what he sought, but did offer to impart some of the Underbase's knowledge into him. Prime entered a chamber to have the knowledge imparted, but Megatron and the triggercons then stormed in and killed the supposed Boltax.
Optimus then explained the truth about Boltax to Megatron, which he had realized when he absorbed some of the Underbase's knowledge, and added that the information was too much for any one cybertronian. Not believing him, Megatron prepared to kill Prime, but as he gloated about his victory, Prime hit a switch that launched both the Underbase and Enigma of Combination into space.
Prime was left to live with the regret of his hasty actions, and vowed never to let pride or ego overtake him again. The transformers then left Boltax, with Megatron destroying the mountain transformer out of fury at the loss of the Underbase.
8,990,000 YEARS AGO
Exarchon was accidentally freed when a battle between the Autobots and Decepticons caused his tomb to be destroyed. The evil cybertronian quickly began possessing everyone on the battlefield, seeking to complete his plan of consuming Primus's spark. The autobots and decepticons were forced to ally with each other temporarily to combat this mutual threat, and together they managed to kill him and stop him from consuming Primus.
Shortly after these events, a group of cybertronians that had come to hate the rest of their kind due to the war abandoned Cybertron and became pirates known as the Star Seekers, pillaging and murdering any and all races they came across.
8,500,000 YEARS AGO
Police bot turned autobot Prowl stumbles upon a non-affiliated cybertronian scientist named Methosulas and decides to take him on as an advisor in secret. Together, the 2 of them would work together to make many terribly powerful and dangerous weapons, including stasis bullets, spark extraction, and decepti-bombs.
The decepti-bombs in particular were used to destroy the neutral city of Carpassa and blame it on the Decepticons, causing what little of the population that survived to join the autobots just as Prowl and Methosulas had planned. Prowl's fellow autobots were unaware of the atrocity their friend had committed.
Around the same time, the decepticons created the Decepticon Justice Division, Megatron's personal assassins who were named after the first 5 cities the decepticons had conquered early in the war: Tarn, Helix, Kaon, Tesaurus and Vos. Their job was to find and kill anyone who went against the Decepticon cause, and they would often go about this in the most violent way possible.
8,499,980 to 8,499,910 YEARS AGO
Prowl and Methosulas constructed an artificial cybertronian that they named Osteros, and at this point, Prowl was starting to get serious doubts in their plan. They also constructed the Aequtilas prison, a giant supercomputer located on the Autobot prison asteroid Garrus-9 which scanned the minds of cybertronians and downloaded all of their crimes, judging if they deserved to die or not.
However, what finally pushed Prowl over the edge was the creation of a pocket dimension known as the Noisemaze, which overloaded its prisoner's senses and caused excruciating pain. Prowl secretly made a deal with Autobot soldier Impactor that he would toss Methosulas into the Noisemaze and destroy everything that had been built in exchange for Prowl releasing Impactor's friend Roadbuster from prison.
Impactor did throw Methosulas into the Noisemaze, but couldn't bring himself to kill Osteros. When Prowl found that he didn't want to kill him either, they enlisted him as an autobot, reformatted him with a new body and renamed him Springer. They gave Springer to the old autobot Kup for training, as neither believed that they would make decent role models for the young bot.
However, to Kup's shock, Springer possessed the ability to assume 2 different alternate modes. This was because of Springer's unique origins, and because of this he was dubbed a Triple Changer, becoming an incredible asset to the Autobot cause. In response, Decepticon scientist Shockwave experimented on certain Decepticon troops, turning them into triple changers as well and evening the playing field once again.
Around this time, Megatron discovered a young homeless energon thief named Drift whose friend Gasket had been caught in the crossfire of an autobot-decepticon battle. Megatron recruited Drift to the Decepticons and renamed him Deadlock, with the new Decepticon soon becoming one of the faction's most violent warriors.
8 MILLION YEARS AGO
Asteroids containing the cosmic rust (or simply rust) plague fell onto Antillia, and fueled by the heat generated by their Lightning Bug weapon, the plague quickly consumed the entire planet. The spacebridge network also inadvertently caused the plague to spread across the rest of the cybertronian colony worlds. Attempts to find a cure proved fruitless, as the doctors studying it would always be infected, and even the hospitals would be rusted away.
The autobots and Decepticons were forced to temporarily put their war on hold in order to deal with the plague, but ultimately in order to stop the plague from wiping out the entire cybertronian species, Optimus Prime was forced to destroy the space bridge network, cutting Cybertron off from its colonies.
Once a cure for the plague was found in the form of Corrostop by Autobot and Decepticon scientists, the 2 sides went right back to fighting. Meanwhile, the remaining colony planets would gradually develop their own culture separate from that of their homeworld, including the Atlantis still on Earth within the ocean.
Its crew, along with the colonies on Gigantium, the Jungle Planet and Velocitron, would continue to hold the Cyber Planet Keys in high regard, viewing them as sacred objects despite forgetting their true origins.
Shortly after these events, the Quintessons took advantage of the sudden isolation between cybertron and it's colonies to easily conquer a defenseless Aquatron, placing a fellow Quintesson physician named Xeros in charge of the planet, much to his annoyance.
7,500,000 YEARS AGO
Unicron became aware of the war between Primus's children, and believing this to be a perfect chance to weaken them further, created tiny robots called "Mini-cons" that were made in the image of Micronus Prime. Like him, they could powerlink with cybertronians to grant them power, and they would serve to perpetuate the war and divide Primus's children further, generating negative psychic energy that would allow Unicron to regain his full power and exact revenge on Primus and the Cybertronians for defeating him.
However, thanks to 3 young humans time traveling from the future, the mini-cons ended up developing free will. They were soon unleashed on Cybertron, and as soon as the Decepticons became aware of their power linking abilities, the war became a battle for control of the Mini-Cons, with the Decepticons enslaving them and the Autobots working with them willingly. These would become known as the Mini-Con conflicts.
6 MILLION YEARS AGO
Realizing that the Mini-Cons had become the center of their war, the autobots built a spaceship known as the Exodus that would allow them to flee Cybertron and find a new home elsewhere in the universe. Many Mini-Cons transformed into storage panels to make the trip, leaving only a skeleton crew to maintain and pilot the ship.
However, once they took off, the ship was attacked by the Decepticons in an attempt to get all of the Mini-Cons, but the autobots managed to hold them off long enough for the ship to leave Cybertron. Unfortunately, the Decepticon attack and the strain of passing through multiple warp gates left the ship damaged and floating aimlessly through space. Its inhabitants were also sent into stasis lock.
After the departure of the Mini-Cons, the Autobots and Decepticons went right back to fighting each other for the same reasons they had before they arrived. Growing weary of this constant war, many smaller cybertronians who had not yet mastered the art of transformation fled the planet aboard spaceships.
They eventually crash landed on the planet Master and began attempting to eke out an existence on the planet. However, Master's hazardous conditions claimed the lives of many of them, forcing them to develop various impressive technologies. Partially aided by reverse engineered technology from a time traveling spaceship that had crashed on the planet, the cybertronians of Master created larger, stronger bodies for themselves known as Transtectors that would allow them to survive the planet's hazardous conditions.
However, they would still have to transform to use these new bodies, so they underwent a rigorous training process, with only the most qualified, including their leader Cerebros, becoming Headmasters.
5,999,997 YEARS AGO
A few years after the departure of the future headmasters, Megatron developed a device known as the robo-smasher to reprogram autobots into decepticons.
Among those affected were the Constructicons of Crystal City, who tore it down and nearly killed its guardian, the giant Omega Supreme. However, Omega survived in critical condition, and was taken to a facility where he was left to eventually be reactivated. After months of work, all that was left were the access codes, which would be delivered by a female autobot agent named Beta.
However, Beta was captured by the Decepticon bounty hunter Lockdown, forcing Optimus Prime to send his chief medical officer Ratchet to retrieve her. Unfortunately, in the confrontation against Lockdown, Ratchet lost a piece of his head crest and his medical EMP. However, before losing it, Ratchet was able to use the medical EMP to wipe Beta's memory at her insistence to ensure their safety.
Afterwards, Ratchet would become head of the restoration of Omega Supreme when Beta's memories were imparted onto him, but upon being told that Omega Supreme was being rebuilt with a simple processor so that he wouldn't be disturbed by emotions or ethics (A decision made without Optimus's knowledge), Ratchet refused and attempted to train him to be an Autobot.
5 MILLION YEARS AGO
Sentinel Prime decided to retrieve a sample of cosmic rust that was still in storage within one of the few autobot facilities that survived the plague and converted it into a form that he could store in bullets, turning one of his guns into a cosmic rust cannon that he used to great effect against the Decepticons.
A few centuries later, another group of autobots, regular sized ones this time, followed in the small bot's footsteps and fled to the planet Paradron, where they established a peaceful civilization away from the war. Around this time, the autobots were beginning to lose the war, and not wanting the Allspark to potentially fall into Megatron's hands, Optimus made the difficult choice to launch it into space just like he had the Underbase.
A team of Autobots led by B-127 were sent to the city of Tyger Pax to hold off Megatron long enough for the plan to be executed, but while they did manage to succeed, Megatron ended up ripping out B-127's voicebox for his troubles. Unfortunately for him, Megatron could only watch as the Allspark was launched out into space by Optimus, potentially dooming their race to slow extinction.
This was also observed by Decepticon commander Gigatron, who vowed to one day locate the Allspark.
4.010,000 YEARS AGO
The Decepticons discovered Dark Energon, which unbeknownst to them was the blood of Unicron that had been floating through space ever since his battle with Primus. Upon early experiments, It was discovered that Dark Energon greatly enhanced the physical capabilities of any Cybertronian who ingested it, but it was highly addictive and would drive it's user mad.
An orbital space station known as Trypticon station was built to study the substance, being watched over by Starscream. However, early experiments ended up causing a massive explosion that surpassed the destruction caused by any weapon beforehand. Because of this, the Decepticons abandoned the station and left it to rust.
4,000,010 YEARS AGO
At this point, Cybertron was a shell of its former self, and Sentinel Prime, realizing that there was still no end for the war in sight after millions of years, was forced to make a drastic decision: He struck a deal with Megatron. Believing that the only way to restore Cybertron was by sacrificing another world, Sentinel recreated the space bridges to transport resources across interstellar distances, choosing Earth due to its status as where the Fallen was defeated.
Knowing that Optimus would never condone this plan, Sentinel chose to tell him that the space bridges were meant to teleport troops into battle. He would depart Cybertron with the space bridge aboard the spaceship Steelhaven with the intent to meet up with Megatron on Earth later, but unbeknownst to either of them, Starscream had caught word of their plans.
Seeing a chance to sabotage his hated leader's plans, Starscream led his fellow seekers Skywarp and Thundercracker in attacking the Steelhaven, damaging it immensely and sending it spiraling into the depths of space. Sentinel and all aboard were assumed dead, leaving Optimus to lead the Autobots alone. His contingency plan seemingly foiled, Megatron was forced to use his plan B.
He took a ship and went up to the long abandoned Trypticon Station, taking what dark energon remained and absorbing it into his body. Now having immense new powers, he then infused 2 of his Decepticon soldiers, Brawl and Barricade, with the dark energon as well, claiming it to be their birthright. The seekers then went to reactivate the energon bridge that once connected the satellite to Cybertron.
They successfully did so after slaughtering all of the Autobots that attempted to stop them, and then attacked Iacon alongside the other Decepticons. Megatron led two of his soldiers, the incredibly loyal communications officer Soundwave and paranoid warrior Breakdown to find one of the Omega Keys that would allow him to open the Omega Gate protecting the Plasma Energy Chamber and by proxy, Primus's spark.
Making their way to the key's holding place was easy for the 3 Decepticons thanks to Megatron's new powers, but once they reached the containment area, they saw that city commander Emirate Xarron had taken the key somewhere safe. The team quickly regrouped with Brawl and Starscream and used dark energon bombers to eliminate the remaining autobots before storming the building Xaaron was hiding in.
Xaaron was easily defeated by Megatron, who ripped the omega key out of his body. However, before he could kill him, a shuttle mode Omega Supreme was activated and attacked the building they were in. Emirate Xaaron managed to escape as the decepticons were forced to retreat, with Starscream dubbing himself the new leader once assuming Megatron dead.
Enraged but unable to make outside contact, Megatron led his forces through the city, dodging their way through Omega Supreme's attacks while trying to find a way to fight him. Once they met up with Starscream's group and corrected his mistake, the Decepticons used Soundwave's idea of using autobot nuclear shock cannon turrets nearby against Omega Supreme and managed to shoot him down.
They then went to the impact crater to loot Omega's remains, but he then transformed into robot mode and unleashed a full barrage on the squad. However, Megatron was able to take control of him using Dark Energon and used him to reach the core of Cybertron. Once there, he infected it with Dark Energon.
Sometime later, B-127 came up to Optimus and told him of Iacon's fall via the beeps and whistles he had been using to communicate since the loss of his voice. Upon hearing of the news, Optimus received what seemed to be a message from Emirate Xaaron that said that he was captured and was being held in a prison in Kaon. However, this was a decepticon trap made to lure the autobots to their doom.
Optimus gathered a team of autobots consisting of himself, Bumblebee and the rookie autobot Sideswipe to "save" Emirate Xaaron. On the way they helped the gruff, ornery and gun-happy autobot Ironhide liberate the Decagon, the main autobot control center for planetary security and defenses.
After a brief skirmish with Starscream, the autobot team eventually arrived at the Kaon prison, where Optimus allowed them to be captured so they could get in. The 3 were barely saved from a firing squad by the timely arrival of the aerialbots, the autobot counterparts of the seekers. The autobot team then headed into the tunnels below, sneaking through the prison and freeing the autobot prisoners.
Using the chaos as a distraction, they snuck into the high security bunker where Emirate Xaaron was supposedly being held, only to instead find Soundwave, who attacked them with his servant bots Frenzy, Rumble and Laserbeak. Once Soundwave and his servants were defeated, they retreated, with Optimus deciding to free them in order to focus on purifying Cybertron's core, having learned about what had happened from Soundwave.
He, B-127 and Sideswipe then traveled down to Cybertron's core and managed to disconnect the corrupted Plasma Energy Chamber. However, Primus informed them that in order to repair himself, he would have to go into hibernation for millions of years, forcing the autobots to evacuate cybertron.
The 3 autobots then quickly returned to Iacon, with Optimus ordering a full evacuation of the planet. However, Megatron used Trypticon station to shoot down the evacuation ships, so Optimus sent a team of fliers to shut down its power core. While they were able to succeed, they soon realized that Megatron had used a combination of dark energon and the genius of his chief scientist Shockwave to turn the station into a living cybertronian.
Knowing this, they flew in deeper to find its T-cog and make it forcibly transform before it leveled Iacon, and they managed to succeed, flying out just as the station transformed into a giant dinosaur-like titan that named itself after the station it once was. The autobots managed to shoot out Trypticon's thrusters and sent him flying to the ground, but the titan soon got up and was ready for round 2.
After a long and difficult battle, Optimus managed to use his energon ax to knock Trypticon into the energon pools below, causing the last of his systems to shut down. Afterwards, as the last remaining autobot transports escape their homeworld's dying surface, Optmius authorized the construction of a ship named the "Ark" that would carry the remaining autobots to a new home.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I just used the name Beta as a placeholder for TF Animated Arcee's replacement, since I have plans for Arcee in the future of this timeline.