#but that has nothing to do with liege maximo

[askvectorprime]

what is the most horrible thing you have ever seen?

Dear Abomination Allured,

While I have seen many all-too-terrible things in my time, there is one that sticks in my memory banks… no matter how much I would wish to forget the sight.

During the long struggle against Unicron, I had grown weary. I had been fighting for so many eons that they blurred together, victory turning to defeat turning to victory turning to defeat. I wondered about the nature of the battle—how we could stand to fight such an impossibly overwhelming foe, whether we could ever triumph. Had our creation been a fool's errand?

This moment of weakness was answered by the Liege Maximo, who in a similar weary tone reminded me that I alone could answer these questions—by setting myself against the timestream’s flow, and visiting the distant past, to see how the universe was before our existence.

Liege had spoken flippantly, never expecting that I would take him at its word. But I did as he said, turning back the cycles, before even Primus’ own creation, to visit the stark nothingness that existed after the Primal Realms had been wholly devoured, that still and sparkless place: the Void.

I have felt the frayed edges of doomed timelines, watched entire universes cut down in their prime… I have met monsters the likes of which you cannot imagine, I have seen the Eye of Horus, witnessed the Hytherion’s impossible gyre, glimpsed unthinkable entities for which no name exists… I have visited scrapyard-worlds composed of corpses, I have seen stars and planets and all their life rendered down into fuel, I have stolen into torture chambers on the unmarked levels of vast underground complexes, and eavesdropped… time is a tsunami. And in a multiverse filled with overwhelming noise and abject suffering, it may seem foolish to say that the most horrifying thing in existence is nothing at all… but nothing compares, and I can promise you nothing scares me more.

The last light from the faintest stars has long since been swallowed up, every planet, every moon, every asteroid, everything… all swallowed up. There was no light to see by, nothing to see. No medium to transmit sound, nothing to hear. And without any referent, time itself ceased to hold meaning—nothing to happen, nothing to start, nothing to end. Having arrived in that timeless place, I found myself unable to leave—trapped, cut off from my own domain. Blind, deaf, powerless… I broke down.

In a way, it was a relief to realise I was being hunted. Having believed his hunger sated, Unicron was vexed to realise he had room for more. He stalked me through the Void, but ironically, it was his very presence which allowed me to evade him; some echo of relativity reasserted itself, and it was all I could do to keep the distance between us constant. I was still in denial, desperate to believe that surely some world had been missed, some crumb of life yet eked out an existence, an extremophile adapted for this most hostile of environments. And yet there was nothing. Just him.

I do not know how long I spent there; the question is non-applicable. All I know is that, eventually, I found a single molecule of hydrogen. I broke down once more, this time in joy. For if this one molecule could exist, so too could others like it. For through the period of its atomic orbital, the probabilistic behaviour of that single electron in relation to its proton giving rise to countless possible futures, I began to count the cycles once more. Perhaps that was when time began—and with time, as many untold eons as it might take, there came the possibility of change. Unicron would return to his slumber, and as he slept, these distant specks of matter would cross the gulf between them, and join together, to create a new universe. The Void would be filled with life once more. My future would come to pass. I watched the atom’s cycles, I counted on it, and then I was gone.

I returned, only moments after I had left. I was, if anything, more weary than I had been to start. But now I knew that even the smallest thing in existence could stand against Unicron, outwit him, defy him. And if it could, we could do no less. We would stop him, no matter the cost.

[lets-try-some-writing]

Death's Embrace

The Thirteenth Prime was never meant to remain on the mortal plane. His work remained in the space between the living realm and the one after. He was to ferry sparks to their destinations, be it to their frames or back to the Allspark where they might find rest. This was his design, and he never rushed the children of Primus to come to him. They would all meet him eventually.

This is what he believed, and so he never tampered... that was until the chosen Primes began to fall.

(Simply put: Thirteen/Optimus is literally death and has to go be a normal mech for a while to figure scrap out)

━━━━━━ ⊙ ❖ ⊙ ━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⊙ ❖ ⊙

He hadn't known what his purpose was at first. He fought the Unmaker alongside his kin and watched them all in mixed love and a degree of apathy. He didn't have a form like theirs, his was nothing but energy barley contained within a shell, and in all honesty, he had no issues with his form. To his knowledge he had no power, no gift like his siblings, and for a time this was acceptable to him.

Then Solus fell and as if a switch had been flipped, he found his design.

His frame changed and shifted, the bindings he hadn't known tied him the mortal realm snapping all at once. Then as he felt the void become accessible to him, he took Solus's spark and he walked with her, leading her along a path he didn't know he knew until she stood before the Allspark. He hardly knew what he was doing as he guided her there, but it felt right and he found himself with a sense of purpose.

When he returned back to the mortal plane, his frame rematerialized and he found his brethren engaged in battle. Where before he might have intervened, now that he knew his purpose, he did not. He watched and offered advice, but he let events play out however Primus wished them to. All his previous opinions and ties fell away and he devoted himself to his task, eventually leading Liege Maximo to the Allspark as well. His brother fought him all the way, but within the void the Thirteenth had as much power as Prima, if not more so. The void between the living realm and the Allspark was his domain, those who walked it were under his dominion.

In the end he watched several of his brothers offer themselves to the well, to which he did not move. He was not needed, for Primus accepted them without his aid. Megatronus was exiled and others fled to the stars, leaving only Primus, Nexus, and Alpha Trion behind. The Thirteenth did nothing save nod to them and wave in farewell before he turned to his new role, allowing his body to fall away so that he might walk the void, watching the world but not interacting with it. That was his reality and he felt more at home in the space between the stars than he ever did walking Cybertron's ground in the closest thing he had to a physical frame. He was the guardian of the fallen, their guide back to Primus, and it was a role he took with joy.

As time passed, Thirteen felt nothing but near parental love for the little children of Primus that emerged from the well that sprang from Solus's spilt energon. He admired their initial purity and accepted the little ones who perished too soon with a loving embrace. His spark sang with sorrow when the little ones came to him, often in tears and confused. However he was always gentle with them, shifting his form slightly to be more appealing and carrying them to the Allspark while singing a soothing song from the age of Primes. The little ones needed him most and he never held anything against them, for they were more pure and innocent than any other.

Older ones came to him with time. They were different, more mature, and with so many more attachments. They were more difficult to guide, often fighting against him in their desire to linger. However Thirteen loved their uniqueness and seeing their experiences as he led them home, sometimes leading him to allow them to walk the world as a specter for a time. Sometimes he spoke with them by taking on voices they knew, other times he merely extended a servo and guided them quietly all while singing his song. He cared not for their actions in life, only that they lived and learned. He washed their pains away and brought them back to Primus, uncaring of who they were in life so long as they did not break the natural laws or turn to the Unmaker.

Thirteen did not weep when the children came to him, nor was he angry when they fought against him, desperate to avoid his embrace for but a moment longer. No, he adored their struggles and their achievements and left most ample time to escape the death that loomed above them. All the children would come to him eventually, there was no need to rush them. Let them live, let them learn, and let them fight for their future. As children of Primus, they had much to do and so many possible roads ahead of them. Thirteen wanted them to live out their lives to the fullest, although he would not turn them away if they came to him sooner than he would have liked.

Sweet little children, his pride and joy. He loved them dearly and always watched on fondly when the most beaten down rose up to become something greater.

He only began to grow concerned when the number of children coming to him increased exponentially with the arrival of others from the stars, Quintessons they called themselves. So many children fell to lack of energon, to injury, to abuse. Thirteen was well aware that some of the children were not kind to their kin, but this was a whole other level of brutality. The children were being changed, he sensed it when they began returning to him and took longer and longer to know who he was.

Even still he did not act. The children would resolve this with the help of Thirteen's fellow Primes and with the aid of Primus's chosen champion. That was the way it always was and that was the way it was supposed to be.

In a way Thirteen was right. A champion was chosen, Sentinel Prime, and he led the children out of the control of the invaders from the stars. He freed them, and after guiding a worrying amount of children to the Allspark, the children stopped coming in such droves for a time. Thirteen was relieved... and then he watched as things grew to be far worse than anything the Quintessons had done.

The Quintessons abused and killed, altering the nature of the children for their own selfish gain. But the mech who called himself Prime did the same and delved further and further into dark territory with experiments, the caste system, and the way he threw lives away in the arenas and the mines. And that for the first time led Thirteen to be enraged. Invaders were not expected to feel love or compassion for those who walked the surface of Cybertron, but an actual child of Primus inflicting that same pain upon his kin? That made Thirteen seethe. He couldn't sit idly by, he couldn't watch it all silently, not when none seemed to be acting.

His kin in the realm of the Primes were not pleased with his deviation, but they allowed it since he couldn't linger for long anyway.

As such Thirteen made a choice he was not at all fond of. For the first time since those early years where he fought alongside his kin, he took on a physical form, at least as much as he could considering his near non-existent tie to the living realm. It was not at all "normal". He had seen plenty of memories and children, but he had never had to recreate what made them so distinctly Cybertronian. His limbs were too long, his denta too sharp, his frame gangly and uneven in places, and his spark chamber partially exposed. It was not what he intended, much less to manifest out in the wilds. Thankfully Alpha Trion seemed to sense his formation and came to collect him, taking him back to the archives and assisting Thirteen in learning how to be like the children he cared for so dearly.

Thirteen stayed with his brother, learning slowly how to be "normal" while he searched for someone capable enough to stop all the death and needless suffering. He was forced to release his form every now and then to guide the sparks that built up back to the Allspark, but most of his time he spent searching. He cared for nothing else, only taking on a name and working in the archives to try and learn how to best approach the situation.

He was largely left alone as most could not sense him. He faded like a shadow, present physically but not projecting the same aura that indicated that he was alive. At most he was asked curt questions before being allowed to continue his work... then he met Ratchet.

Ratchet: Hey! Can you help me find a text on T-cog functionality?

Thirteen: ... Yes.

Ratchet: You don't sound very confident.

Thirteen: You want the text? Follow. I will bring you to it.

Ratchet: Alright. What's your designation if you don't mind me asking? I haven't seen you around here before.

Thirteen: I was granted the designation Orion Pax.

Ratchet: An odd way of saying it, but its nice to meet you Orion.

Thirteen: ... Likewise.

He helped Ratchet and went back to his work of searching without much thought given. Sometimes mecha saw him, and while odd, it happened enough to not be startling. Ratchet was just another mech who would quickly forget him. At least that is what he thought up until Ratchet came back requesting aid again... and again... and again. It kept happening, with Ratchet returning to the archives for new texts and always going to Thirteen specifically.

Before long Ratchet started coming to the archives just to talk to him and all that Thirteen could do was fumble. He was not used to such things and often slipped up while trying to talk with the strange medic who kept tailing him. Often he struggled to speak in a manner that was not fanciful or grim. He was used to having to console and guide sparks, not speak with them on casual terms. There were several instances where he straight up referred to Ratchet as "child" and "young one". The medic laughed at such mistakes and rapidly began worming his way into Thirteen's life in a way he hadn't thought possible.

Thirteen had always been set apart, not truly connected to his siblings or the children of Primus. As such having Ratchet talk with him, get to know him, and introduce him to the living realm was... refreshing. Thirteen only barely noticed when he began seeing himself as the mech that he claimed to be. He was Orion Pax, if only in the living realm. His form even adapted to match that mental shift, with his plating smoothing, his limbs becoming more proportional, and his overall appearance heightening into something that he quickly found that normal mecha saw as pleasing. Even when he shed his mortal frame to do his work, bits and pieces carried over with his form of pure energy shifting to take on characteristics of his identity as Orion Pax.

His search continued, but his focus wavered as he started to connect to mecha in the living realm aside from Ratchet. He found himself getting along with Jazz and learning how to express himself. He came to enjoy the company of his fellow archivists, chatting with them more and more often. He began to enjoy going out to see the sights of the world he had watched over for so long, even smiling when never before had he ever felt the need to do so.

He felt... alive. But evidently his kin saw fit to remind him of the fact that his focus was to lie elsewhere. It was nothing more than a quick warning, but it was enough for Orion to begin letting go of his physical form more often to clear his helm. He couldn't be getting attached, he was to be neutral... and yet after a particularly long stint of him being absent in the living realm, leading to Ratchet literally leading an investigation to find him... he gave up on that front.

Ratchet: ORION!

Orion: Ratchet, my apologies.

Ratchet: DO YOU KNOW HOW WORRIED I WAS!?!

Orion: No, but I can imagine such an emotional response is not comfortable.

Ratchet: You-! ... You are so dumb sometimes.

Ratchet was usually not a very touchy mech, but after Orion's return he wrapped him up in a hug so tight Orion wondered if he was going to snap. Oddly enough, he didn't hate the touch and even leaned into it, enjoying the sensation of aliveness that he usually kept clear of. Ratchet didn't know it and Orion refused to acknowledge it, but after that interaction the embodiment of death was willing to bend his own rules a degree to protect the medic.

Then Megatronus got involved and similarly gained the favor of death incarnate. To Orion he was the perfect mech to fulfill the mission he had originally come to search for a mech worthy of undertaking. When he first met with Megatronus his only intention was to direct the mech toward the path of changing things for the better. Sentinel may have perished and been ferried long ago, but the council remained. Then he began to speak with the gladiator, developing a fondness for the intelligence of the mech before him.

Orion Pax was death, he was supposed to be neutral, and yet Ratchet and Megatronus gained his favor. Orion was awkward, cold, and didn't present very naturally, but for whatever reason his two companions stuck to him like glue. Whatever they did, they dragged him along, a fact that swiftly gained him more associates in Soundwave, Prowl (due to an accidental arrest), and even Senator Shockwave. Orion hadn't expected this, but as Megatronus worked to fulfill the mission of freeing the children of Primus, Orion couldn't find it in himself to dislike the situation.

He was attached, he knew his kin would not be pleased. But Primus, he couldn't help it. He even found himself using his power to aid his newfound attachments as much as he could while still playing within the rules. No one said he couldn't shed his frame to scout and then return with information cryptically. Not a spark said he couldn't use his deathly aura to frighten threats or call upon the chill of death to settle into the frames of aggressors as a silent threat. He wasn't playing favorites, he was just keeping Megatronus safe so that he could complete the mission and perhaps even claim the Matrix.

Only once did he allow anger to bubble within him and lead him to warp his form into something eldritch to fight off an enemy. He did it for the mission, most certainly not because he didn't want to see Megatronus and Ratchet hurt.

Death didn't play favorites... at least that is what he told himself.

[scalproie]

@zenyamin HELL YEAH I DO

Put them under a readmore bc even if I streamline their needlessly complicated lore, its still A Lot.

First group is bunch of miscellaneous vehicons left behind on earth after every cybertronian went home to cybertron, and they kinda stumble upon the enigma of combination, making them into a combiner. You have:

Jam (as in "Traffic Jam", vehicon, head)

TR-135 (vehicon, right arm (turn into blaster))

Overburden (miner vehicon, left arm (turn into a drill))

Ringer (eradicon (the flying ones), left leg)

Lacet (silver eradicon, right leg)

When combined theyre not very powerful but their strength resides in their crazy resiliance. They fight monstrous manifestations of Unicron who wanted to take advantage of the fact that every cybertronian allegedly left earth to plan his grand return by wiping out every living thing on his surface. He named them "Cannon Fodder".

Second group has a whole lore and setting so hold on:

Bots and Cons on hell moon

So it all starts with a decepticon scientist named Spin Glass who worked his entire life on one (1) project which is to create his own Emberstone after the one from Quintus Prime, Megatron recruited him back at the start of the war but after the severe lack of any result, he eventually send him to a very remote and hostile moon with a bunch of decepticon nobodies so he could get him outta his hands.

Eventually Optimus and the autobots came to know about the existence of said moon and the decepticon team on it so he send an equal bunch of autobot nobodies to keep the cons there in check.

The two teams came into contact and started fighting just as Spin Glass' Emberstone came to completion and its activation resulted in two things:

It destroyed the transmission tower of the moon, stranding the two teams there until its either restored and they can send a distress signals to their respective sides, or until someone from the decepticon or autobot gets worried about the lack of news from the moon teams (this will not happen)

Everybody acquired a power from a specific Prime, split into two for each side:

Spin Glass (con) and Quick-fix (bot) got Quintus Prime's magno-telekinesis and are able to channel Spin Glass' Emberstone to heal their allies.

Spin Glass is the leader of the decepticon team and the main scientist, he tries to keep his new god complex and his frustration about the stupidity of everyone on this moon, esp his team he has to relunctantly fix, in check, but to his credit he is arguably the strongest cybertronian there.

Quick-fix is the autobot team's medic, her magno-telekinesis is honestly nothing compared to Spin Glass', but she doesnt let it get to her (it pisses her off so bad). She can channel the Emberstone much better and from almost anywhere tho, and it had made her an incredible healer.

Tideturner (con) and Perihelion (bot) each got one half of Prima's Star Saber.

Perihelion is the leader of the autobot team and refuses to admit she might be a little out of her depth, and her denial is fueled by the need to prove her worth. She is by far the better swordmaster here and has a better handling of her half of the Star Saber.

Tideturner is a con soldier who loves challenges but hates defeat, he's a very sore loser and an even more infuriating winner.

Pulstar (con) and Pharos (bot) have a mild control over time and space that they got from Vector Prime, they use it to reach incredible speed.

Pulstar knew Spin Glass the longest and is the closest thing he might have to a friend if Spin Glass had any of those. Pulstar has something Spin Glass severely lacks: enormous charisma, and bc of that, Pulstar is on somewhat good terms with everyone on his team and is the major reason why it hasnt imploded yet. He's the unofficial SiC.

Pharos is a regular bot soldier and ever since hes had those powers, he's obsessed with finding out its limits, like lightspeed.

Balefire (con) and Aphelion (bot) can make clouds of the paralyzing toxin that was in Liege Maximo's liegian darts.

Aphelion is the "spark sister" of Perihelion and the autobot team's SiC. She is very worried and insecure about having received the power of the most treachorous Prime and what it could mean for the relationship between her and her sister/team.

Balefire used to be the most nobody of nobodies con soldiers and his new powers got to his head VERY fast.

Makeshift (con) and Presage (bot) gained the ability to transform into anybody effortlessly just like Amalgamous Prime.

Makeshift (yes that one) was already a shifting spy before this ordeal but with a lot of technical setbacks, so this new development and power made their job EXPONENTIALLY much easier. They have BY FAR the best handling of their new power out of anyone on the moon, including Spin Glass. They are even able to manifest Amalgamous' scythe seemingly out of nowhere.

Presage used to be an actor pre-war before having to join the autobot's side. Thanks to his new power, he is very excited to be able to flex his acting muscles and fool those uncouth cons into provinding intel for his team.

Short Fuse (con) and Atomizer (bot) inherited Alchemist Prime's lenses that allows them to see incredibly far, but also to scan for hidden energon, to see thru walls for a bit, and to see through Presage and Makeshift's disguises.

Atomizer (yes that one) is the one who is the most pissed about being stranded on this moon, and the godly powers he received are barely compensation, but he does have to admit that he is a much more deadlier archer/sniper now. Perihelion has to butter him up about him one of the most vital member of this team. He has a particularly active rivalry with Makeshift.

Short Fuse is the con sniper and he FUCKING HATES people. He will spend almost the entirety of the fights in a completely different location shooting bots from far away. Outside of fights he almost hides away in his own base and WILL physically attack you if you come near him. He tolerates Pulstar a bit.

Snap Out (con) and Coil (bot) are able to make almost any invention possible thanks to Solus Prime's power.

Coil was very happy to be a nobody bot during the war bc he hates violence and has a severe self-esteem problem. He uses his new power almost exclusively to create defensive devices to help his team. Spin Glass is particularly interested in him bc outside of himself, Coil is the only one able to fix the transmission tower.

Snap Out was the one who was most mentally affected by getting her power, she creates exclusively weapons for herself and treat them as if they were alive, calling herself their "mother". Despite that, they break very quickly and she has no grief over it. Spin Glass refuses to work with her bc he thinks she's crazy.

Sidewinder (con) and Stormweaver (bot) had their alt-mod upgraded into mythical creatures to reflect Onyx Prime. They can access aspects of his triptych mask, with the exception of mournsong.

Sidewinder can now turn into a western dragon with a lot of firepower. Out of the three aspects of the mask, the one he uses the most is predator and he now bases his new personality around the hunt. Sometimes he refuses to go back to his robot alt-mode. His team thinks he's cringe.

Stormweaver can now turn into an eastern dragon with lightning control. Out of the three aspects of the mask, the one he uses the most is farsight, and he mostly does it to try and predict the very hostile weather of the moon.

Lift Off (con) and Hardwire (bot) got the strength, arsenal and general tankiness of Megatronus Prime. They also have limited access to the requiem blaster and are mostly fighting for control over it.

Hardwire is the ONLY ONE out of the 18 bots on the moon to have a little admiration for the moon they're on. He secretly documents the environment around him. He is the main pillar of support for his team and is likely the one reason they don't all lose it.

Lift Off is a mean girl in the body of a massive helicopter. She thinks very high of herself and has now the power to back it up. She WILL try to get a rise out of people just to see what happens, Pulstar's the only one who's immune to it.

SO THAT'S THE FULL TEAMS.

They mostly fight over the transmission tower, as the first one to hold onto the position and fix it will be the one who'll be able to first call their faction's leaders. Usually when a team make a little bit of progress on it, the other team come destroy it.

They COULD work together to fix it but Spin Glass wants to rub his scientific success rrrrrreally hard in Shockwave's face and Perihelion wants to show Optimus that she can be an Autobot team leader hero without help from anybody.

When they're not fighting over the transmission tower or in other various locations, they're fighting against the moon itself that seems even more hostile than before ever since Spin Glass activated his Emberstone, so now the moon throws at them storms, meteors, energon blackouts, and other deadly stuff they might even have to work together to survive.

And if you read all this and think "hey wait a minute isnt that..." you would be 100% right and it is 100% on purpose

Now what are YOUR tf OCs 🫵

[cardboardfoxwrites]

So, the other day I was reading over the first pages of the Covenant. I stopped when I reached Liege Maximo's entry. The underlined part left me thinking.

I believe in the fact that someone has to take a negative role in the order to trigger certain events that bring the civilization/individuals to do something that might later either affect the Universe in some way, or, at a smaller scale, affect the planet in question.

Example - the 'go back in time and kill Hitler' rhetorical question: Basically, I'm a believer that, if one was to return in time and would kill Hitler, another guy would rise to take his place and the story would repeat, albeit somewhat differently.

What does this have to do with Transformers?

We all know that in The Aligned Continuity it was Liege Maximo who orchestrated the Fall of the Primes. I was thinking of ways to redeem him, but then I thought of something:

Liege was smart. He could pick up subtleties, and we know that Primus gave each Prime a certain coding and certain knowledge of things. What if, during the fight against Unicron, he got a vision, maybe they all did but brushed it off as Unicron's manipulation, and only a while after it was over he realize what it meant.

Maybe it WAS Unicron's manipulation and the Manipulator himself fell to it.

That vision was of two things:

1. He saw Quintus create new life using the Emberstone, creating the Quintessons, who in turn would kill him

2. He saw the Well of Allsparks as he entered it, a tunnel to Primus' Core, and saw other sparks rushing by him to get out

Thus, he understood that, the only way to bring new life to Cybertron would be to open that Well of Allsparks.

He thought it over for years, and, in the end, he came to the conclusion that one of them must die in order to open it (maybe through trial and error).

He loved his sibling, but Unicron's corruption made him jealous and blind to any other possibility. So, he began planning on how to make one of the others create the Well.

He didn't plan for that bot to be Solus. Primus below, even he knew that they'll need her.

It was one faithful day when he heard Onyx's cries. He was close to the pits, working on his creatures, which were initially meant to guard the new generation to come. Then Megatronus came, enraged. He immediately realized what was happening and, when the other Primes came, in their blind fight, he hit them with his darts, managing to make everyone see an illusion of himself.

That illusion didn't see the end of the fight. After the fight, they buried what they thought was the original. Liege Maximo watched everything from the sidelines, his spark shuddering like it hadn't since the fight against Unicron. Then the Well opened, and he watched as his brothers descended through it. He watched as the new generation emerged, beautiful stars being born and taking form, like they all must've done in the beginning.

His coding reached the end. He had fulfilled his plans. The Well had been created, the new generation of Cybertronians appeared.

He took a moment to lament the loss of his siblings - so many had paid the price for just one.

After that, the Original remained on Cybertron, unbeknownst to his remaining siblings, who were still affected by the Darts, took upon a new identity, and watched the events happen.

He was there when the Quintessons came. That's when he realized that his plan had been for nothing, and he had been played by Unicron, just like everyone else.

After the Quintessons left, he made his way to become a higher caste mech for the advantages, thus being given access to places, leisure etc.

Then the War started. He night played a part in it as well. He was in Sentinel's inner circle. He tried to make Sentinel to change the Caste System. He even used his Darts on him, but it only made things worse. By the time Sentinel would give in, Orion Pax and Megatron would stand before the Council.

Liege wouldn't be present there, aware of who Orion was, and that, once he would receive the Matrix, he would be able to remember him on sight.

He watched the War taking place from afar, part of him basking in the chaos, while part of him suffering and questioning why this was the wish of his Creator, why Primus created a race so complex that they'd even think to start a war.

He was there to watch his Creator die.

He was there when, millennia after the Well of Allsparks stopped creating new life, 3 or 4 new sparks emerged, receiving their bodies. He felt the presence of his Siblings, although it was faint, barely there, and went to inspect. His spark began racing when he saw a pale purple robot, a Minicon, and a Predacon.

He was there to see Shockwave take them in. He was there to watch, but didn't do anything. What could he? He'd risk getting discovered.

But then... His attention would get grabbed by something else. In two opposite places of the Universe: he felt Unicron waking up, and his transmitter picked up the Quintesson language.

[quetzalpapalotl]

Well, First Strike was much easier to follow this time around, some things are better than I remember and some are... not...

It's better than Revolutionaries and definitively better than Revolution (actually my perception of what makes a good comic may be skewed because of that). It helps that this is a story about Scarlett first and foremost, which helps it center it and feel way less messy, even if I'm not here for her. It was annoying that the story needed to remind me every two pages that Scarlett and Colton are oh so badass, but their story did make me feel something so. That side was fine.

The thing is, I'm here for Optimus, and he has some beats that I want him to have, that would have been right for him to have, except that the way the are presented feels completely unearned (which happens a lot with Scott, idk about Rodríguez). Like when OP apologizes to Scarlett for the council not listening to reason and she's like "To reason or to you??" that conversation was good and it brought up good points about OP, except it felt like a completely non-sequitur because is not like it was Optimus who brought Scarlett here and had promised she would be safe. She just showed up and OP tried to vouch for her. Is it because the Earth joining was his idea?? It still feels so weird especially with what comes next.

Optimus disregarding other people to do what he thinks is the right thing is nothing new, yes, but after annexing Earth, risking war to force it to join the council, ignoring the pleas of the Microverse and everything else he has been doing, breaking Scarlett and co. out of prison so they can help save Cybertron that's nothing! Like, Scarlett was arrested just for showing up as a preventive measure, is not like she has done anything bad. Why is this portrayed as such a dark thing and why is this the thing that made Windblade give up on OP??? When she said herself that Scarlett was right. When TAAO wanted to make such a big point of Windblade having had to learn to trick and scheme. When she keeps trying to appeal to Starscream's good side. When TAAO literally portrayed Starscream releasing Chromia from jail (who actually got people killed for no reason) to go look for Liege Maximo as a good thing. Like the scenes where OP gets chewed out would be good if they were happening for a good reason, but as it stands, it just feels like they just wanted OP to do some morally grey thing to have to scenes and that was the best they could come up with. It's kind of a waste, I wish OP had done something actually fucked up. I liked his interactions with Scarlett at least.

Also even if he broke the law and is full of himself, the Council fighting OP and co when the guys who want to kill all of Cybertron are right there is just stupid.

But yeah, for the most part I think it had good dialogue and character interactions, even among the characters I didn't care about, it was charming. So there is that.

[pluralsword]

No question about it. Arcee could totally crush Oryx (sorry pal). She is much older than him including in sheer combat experience. She is one of the foremost warriors ever. Period. Full stop.

She is sometimes older than many if not all societies in Destiny, and if not spanning a significant amount of their history. She's killed Liege Maximo, an ancient Prime. The fuck'n T-800 unit in the Transformers vs. Terminator crossover assessed her as a maximum level threat. She is known for the sheer pile of corpses she's left in her wake, whether alone or fighting alongside friends and loved ones, never relenting, giving her all, with practiced wisdom in fury or coolness or both in equal measure, and something more...

You know what the most dangerous thing about her is? It's not her martial skill. It is her capacity to love, observe, think, learn, and plan. She knows as love at some point or across much of her life (it depends) as the strongest thing in the universe, and wants nothing more than autonomous peace for all, and is willing to speak to that, to formulate understanding of hierarchy and opposition to it, to persist even hegemonies alienate and other her and people dear to her, even when she's been through unbearable pain, ostracism, loneliness and continuing to try and fight for her kid Gauge even when things seem hopeless *sobs...*

even if you go all the way back to her 86 bio and to Sunbow or Marvel G1 (e.g. "Aspects of Evil Part 2" Transformers UK #224) prior to her intentional trans writing (2012 onwards) she speaks to the power of peace and dignity to prevail against hegemony, or reflects the deep capacity to be ferocious with and for love. Her Earthrise toy of recent years came with a motto: "Ferocity without compassion is brutality."

Then there's this from Optimus Prime #24 "A Sunrise Dark (couldn't reblog with the image so reblogging this way":

Three comic panels of Arcee talking with Optimus Prime on Earth. The first is a closeup on Arcee's face looking forward, saying "I don't know. Maybe all we can do is try to love we can and understand who we can't."

In the next panel we see her walking away a bit while Optimus Prime looks up at the sky - where Unicron looms overhead. Arcee says: "But, again... look who you're talking to."

To which Optimus Prime replies "I... I don't know that love can save the day."

The third panel is Arcee from the shoulder side remarking on Optimus's words: "I guess if I learned one thing in my time being a relic, it's that... ...love can't hurt."

There's a somewhat obscure Ask Vector Prime story that reflects this a bit- she helped start a trans revolution of understanding and gender affirmation as a post-war biologist.

Today... Arcee reflects so much. Among many other things, there is this that is immediately relevant to this poll: That for those of us whose trans journeys aren't so simple, that have hurt and pain from interacting and being subject to patriarchies (thinking of androcentrism and transmedicalism that she opposes in IDW1 here in particular) and/or empires, from having to fight so hard to survive- that we can find love and trust, that we need not always war- that our stories have meaning, that as we wisen we have so much to teach.

Oryx has a journey into kindness and love too. We won't besmirch that, from what we know it has it's own beauty. But Arcee's teachings is very much deeply entwined with transformation as an idea, as something the whole world does, and that that can be a fiery hope and part of building a new future.

Also importantly she reformats five times in IDW1. She kind of reflects that the idea of getting it right the first time isn't what everyone experiences- and that trans journeys are not linear. We are always learning more about ourselves.

congratulations to ARCEE for winning the finals of the losers' bracket! but here comes the real question: who's going to be tonight's big loser the real winner of second place? our last second place-r or her?

[deepwater-abyss]

Starscream, second in command of the Decepticons, member of the Elite Trine, and planning on overthrowing Megatron! Wait. You didn't hear that last part.

More under the cut!

Starscream is the sibling of Thundercracker and Skywarp. They didn't rise together, nor do they share a splitspark bond, but they are siblings nonetheless. Like the other two, Starscream was forced to fend for himself when he was younger, a street rat within Vos. But he wanted more for himself, and for his siblings. He didnt want to be forever fighting for survival.

He met a young scientist by the name of Skyfire by chance, though Skyfire was quickly enamored by her. Skyfire took sympathy with Starscream and her plight and became the ticket out of poverty. Though Starscream couldn't forget her origins.

When the Decepticon movement began to take hold, Starscream immediately knew they wanted in. Here were others, suffering just as they had, others who are still suffering because of their frame, because no one would take them in, because everyone turned a blind-eye to anything less then perfect. (Perfect being a midweight grounder who was always a grounder.)

Starscream and xir trine travelled to Kaon to personally join the movement. Starscream proved valuable quickly, and xir trine was basically adopted by Megatron. Starscream, who already loved Skyfire but had yet to admit, realized that xe also fancied Megatron. But xe wouldn't say anything. No. That would be showing weakness and Starscream cannot be weak.

Eventually, Thundercracker and Skywarp's incessant nagging made Starscream propose forming a sparkbond with Megatron. Since he was practically their right hand man! Not because he liked them. Though after said bond was formed, it was obvious, though left unsaid.

As the war began and was waged, things changed. Skyfire betrayed the Decepticons, breaking Starscream's spark. Megatron was careful about the emotions shared with even Starscream. And Cybertron began to die.

As did Megatron.

Only to come back. Changed. That wasn't Megatron. Not anymore. Even without a sparkbond, it was obvious. Touched by the Unmaker itself? Starscream avoided interacting with Megatron as much as possible aside from running the war, shutting him out. But the sparkbond was still there. Maybe Starscream himself was cursed as well. He dare not think that.

Tension between him and Megatron became apparent. But after the Nemesis crashed on Earth, after being awoken by a human, things may change yet again.

Oh, also Starscream is Liege Maximo reincarnte.

[ring-rong-rang-rung]

Do you think a Jealous Prima in the love triangle would feel remorse for killing either Solus or Megatronous ina jealous rage ? Or would he start to self justify what he did ?

Hmmm...

There would be some remorse from him, along with a good amount of guilt. He is the leader, the one who sets the example. How could he do this? How could he have this blood on his hands?

But if Liege Maximo is still there and manipulating him, I could easily see him coming around to justify it.

He might struggle harder about justifying Solus (she begged him to be calm, to sit at the fires and speak to her, to tell her what was wrong. She said they could fix it together, the three of them, and yet, he refused. Pride had been his downfall, and he had taken her with him.), but he probably has an easier time with Megatronus (he was snarling, grabbing Prima’s wrists and telling him to drop the Star Saber, to disconnect from the Matrix. Telling him to stop being a fool and listen, Primus-damn-it! It had been so easy to cut through him, and watch his optics fade.).

Without Maximo’s influence, however, the guilt and remorse would outweigh everything else. He’d probably surrender everything as soon as he was found. Weapons, titles, the Matrix, and himself to the justice his fellow Primes saw fit to put upon him.

If it was Solus who lived, she would almost find it pitiable, were the fires within her spark not raging, crying out for both her loves who were now lost to her. She would take him to Alpha Trion, and retreat into her forge, praying to Primus the best way she knew how, with her Forge.

If it was Megatronus, he would level the Requiem Blaster and fire. The satisfaction was worth it, but nothing would ever bring her back. And eventually, he would mourn Prima too, as much as it pained him. The others would have to decide his fate then. Was he guilty, or justified? Either way, he was lost now, searching for something that would never return.

[thanksjro]

Before We Begin

Full disclosure: I’m not working off of a physical copy of this story, but rather a PDF download. I live in the United States, and don’t think I’d be able to find a copy of this book if my life depended on it.

When I was looking at the download packets, I chose the one with as many extra materials as I could, so I’d have the best chance at understanding the story without having to rely on the internet too much.

As you can see, there’s a good amount to work with here. I’m especially happy to have the notes- also known as the Story So Far. Thank god for this, because this would be an absolute slog to get through otherwise.

Eugenesis takes place within the Marvel comics continuity, which includes both the American and UK comics published at the time, and The Transformers The Movie. The guide summarizes the millions-year long war between the Autobots and the Decepticons over control of the planet Cybertron. Pretty basic stuff, things anyone who’s ever heard of the Transformers ought to know. The notes assume that the reader knows absolutely nothing about the franchise, which is good, because it means nothing gets left out.

This is already an interesting contrast between Eugenesis and MTMTE/LL, which didn’t need very much extra reading to be understood, if any at all. A rarity in the comic industry. Sure, there were things you could read to get a deeper understanding of certain character motivations- Last Stand of the Wreckers, for example, giving one a better grasp of why Fort Max is so messed up and angry.

But this is about the notes right now, not the comics. So, let’s dive right into:

That’s right, baby, this novel takes place in the far-flung future of 2012, and you better believe the date 12/21/12 comes up at least once.

There’s a lot of stuff that’s covered in the notes, and I’ll bring it up as needed as I progress through the novel. It’s helpful to have, but let’s move on to the juicier stuff.

…Is what I would say, if the notes weren’t completely batshit insane.

It starts out innocently enough, describing the beginnings of the war, establishing that the Transformers didn’t always, well, transform. Transformation technology was developed by Megatron in order to make the Decepticons more combat-effective, and the Autobots followed suit. They fought so hard that Cybertron was knocked out of orbit and got lost for a little while, eventually coming under the rule of a warlord named Trannis while Optimus and Megatron are busy being unconscious for four million years on Earth.

Trannis is a massive technoist, who believes that mechanical beings are the bee’s knees, so he starts cyberforming other planets, until he gets offed by the resistance. He’s quickly replaced with Jhiaxus, who’s basically more of the same, and the Decepticons of Cybertron split up, one team heading into space to do evil robot things, the other guarding Cybertron from the resistance. The Beast Wars are mentioned. The cartoon continuity is mentioned. Shockwave shows up for a bit, gets thrown in a swamp a couple times.

Things go on like this until 1985, when the Earth-based Autobots reestablish contact with their homeworld.

Galvatron shows up- y’know, Galvatron. The revamped Megatron from the movie, which takes place in 2005. He time-hopped from the future to build a weapon to kill Unicron. The Autobots try to stop him. Why they don’t just let him kill Unicron, who is blatantly evil and a threat to anyone around him, isn’t stated, but they eventually trick Galvatron into going back to the future, with a little help from Kup, Blurr, and Hot Rod, who are also from the future.

Galvatron comes back a year later. He causes a bunch of time-travel nonsense to happen, and is basically the worst until the Time Wars happen.

Meanwhile, Megatron heads back to Cybertron to see what’s happened while he was taking a dirt nap. Straxis- who was left in charge by Jhiaxus- isn’t doing so hot, and decides he’s going to steal Megatron’s body for his own. He gets killed for his troubles. Megatron decides he’s just going to head back to Earth, feeling pretty paranoid at this point- which, fair enough. I don’t think I’d feel very safe after someone tried to steal my body either.

Later on, Optimus Prime dies in a video game. Optimus Prime is killed by a human child in a video game. In fact, let me just show you the whole paragraph that covers this, because I don’t know that I’m able to do it justice.

It just blows my mind, and I knew that this happened before I even attempted to read the notes. These notes are eight pages long, and this is on page three.

Now Fortress Maximus is leading a group of Autobots, but he’s really not feeling the fight so much, so he, Kup, and Hot Rod just kinda… leave. They end up on Nebulos and become Target/Headmasters, just in time for the Decepticons to track them down and fight some more. Back on Earth, the Autobots launch Optimus’ corpse into space and elect a dinosaur as their new leader. This goes about as well as one would expect.

Over in London, G.I. Joe finds out that Megatron’s been living in the sewers. Actually, it isn’t Megatron, but a clone, housing the personalities of both Megatron and Straxis. They kill him and throw him in the river. Shockwave catches wind of this and has the body brought to him so he can use it to kill Galvatron. He brings the body back online using a ‘psycho-probe’, and uses the power of suggestion to have Megatron do his dirty work.

Megatron decides to kill Cyclonus and Scourge first, since they work for Galvatron, and through a time-travel mishap, ends up killing one of them before they were created. This displeases the space-time continuum, which promptly rips, and will continue to do so over the next few months.

Are you starting to see why I needed to break this down?

Optimus Prime is brought back from the dead. Hooray.

Starscream finds the Underbase-  an ancient storehouse of Cybertronian knowledge so vast it will literally melt your brain- and wrecks shop until the moment it kills him.

Meanwhile, clone-Megatron has decided he’s not going to kill Galvatron, but rather join forces with him. Everyone agrees that this is a terrible idea, and so the Autobots and Decepticons living in the year 2009 join forces to get Galvatron back to the future. The space-time rift swallows him, Scourge, and Cyclonus’ corpse, solving the problem pretty cleanly. Clone-Megatron finds the original-flavor Megatron, and promptly kills himself.

With the original Megatron back in play, he kidnaps Ratchet and forces him to resurrect Starscream as a Pretender- a robot in a protective shell. Ratchet decides that he’s going to fuck the warlord over as thoroughly as possible, instead bringing back a few of his friends and then exploding the Decepticon base. Both Ratchet and Megatron are presumed dead, but when has that ever stopped anyone in this franchise?

The newly resurrected Autobot Pretenders wind up in the center of the planet, Decepticons hot on their trail, and find themselves face-to-face with Primus, their creator god. Someone shoots the poor guy in the face, and he screams loud enough for Unicron, Bringer of Chaos, Vorer of Worlds, to hear him. So, that’s a thing they’re going to have to deal with in a few months.

Unicron finds a Galvatron from a parallel universe and takes him along for the ride, as the Autobots spend the start of the 90’s looking for the original Optimus’ dead body, which they never bothered to get the Matrix out of for some reason. They better hurry, because space is pretty big, and that Matrix is the only thing that can stop the Chaos Bringer.

Ratchet and Megatron are found- alive- in a pocket dimension, though they probably wish that they weren’t, seeing as they’ve been fused together so hard their brains have to take turns piloting their horrific, melty, shared body.

Unicron shows up in ’91 and kills, just, so many people. Optimus Prime sacrifices himself to save the rest of the population, flinging his body and the newly-recovered Matrix into the World-Vorer’s mouth. This kills God.

Optimus names Grimlock as the new leader of the Autobots- because that worked out so well the last time- and then dies. Prowl does all the heavy lifting to actually get the planet back in shape, seeing as the fight with Unicron wrecked Cybertron so hard its trying to tear itself apart via earthquakes.

Cyberquakes?

Anyway,  Prowl works out a deal with the new leader of the Decepticons, Bludgeon, only to get sabotaged for his efforts, the Autobots being left to die as the 'Cons fly off to find new worlds to conquer.

Shockwave and Starscream- that’s right baby, he’s back- steal the Ark, unaware that there were multiple other people aboard. It’s like they didn’t even check. Galvatron is stowed away, and both Megatron and Ratchet- freshly separated- are stored in stasis pods. Ratchet wakes up and immediately crashes the ship into Canada, hoping to kill the Decepticons aboard. Galvatron lives, only to be trapped under the ice by a nasty fight with Fortress Maximus, the last Autobot left on Earth.

Back on Cybertron, Gridlock has a show of competence and reveals that he had extra ships hidden away, just in case the Decepticons tried anything funny. They get off the planet and go to fight some ‘Cons.

Optimus Prime is brought back from the dead. Hooray.

The Matrix is recreated. Wahoo.

The Autobots fight the Decepticons, defeating them once and for all. Or do they?

No, they don’t.

See, even the notes know what’s up.

Not even a year later, Optimus catches wind of Decepticon forces gathering along the edge of the galaxy. He decides to make Grimlock leader of the Earthforce- because Optimus never friggin’ learns- and they face off against Megatron and friends a few times before the Decepticons abandon Earth altogether. At some point, Fortress Maximus gets killed off. Grimlock disbands the Earthforce to chase the ‘Cons across the galaxy, and finds a Cybertronian empire, which holds at its center Liege Maximo, who claims to have created Megatron.

Well, that’s not exactly right; he claims to be Megatron’s progenitor.

It’s at this point I broke out the TFWiki, because that could mean a lot of things.

Still vague. Hmm. I’m onto you, Marvel comics. Don’t be jumping on the mechpreg just yet, we still have three more pages of notes to get through.

…What did I just say, Marvel comics?

Did I say three pages? I meant two paragraphs. Holy hell, that hits like a punch to the face, it does.

Okay, so this isn’t exactly what you think, believe it or not. This is describing the form of reproduction that was established in the Marvel comics known as budding- some unlucky robot’s body runs away with itself and basically vomits out another fully-formed ‘bot. It’s like their chest was chewing a huge wad of gum, tried to blow a bubble, but did it just a little too hard.

Getting back on track, Optimus Prime finds out about budding from Vector Sigma, but pulls out of their little pow-wow before he can be told about the byproduct of this birthing process- the Swarm, an ink-black cloud of evil energy that left Cybertron ages ago to find something to feed off of.

The Swarm finds its way home, interrupting yet another standoff between the Autobots/Decepticons and the Cybertronian Empire. A lot of folks die, and Optimus surrenders to the Swarm in an attempt to save his compatriots. The Swarm gets introduced to, and I quote: “concepts of nobility, compassion, and sacrifice”, then goes back into deep space to seek enlightenment.

Can you imagine if human afterbirth did that? You just had a baby, and now you have to beat your placenta off with a broom? Then the god-king of the world introduces it to meditation and kindness, and it goes off to find inner peace instead of killing everyone? Comic books are wild.

Other than that funky little aside, it’s business as usual for the Transformers- war! From 1995 to 2003, they’re fighting nonstop. Then the UN decides that Optimus Prime’s allowed to build a giant robot city on Earth. It sure is a good thing Optimus is such a nice guy, because I don’t think they would have been able to stop him otherwise. Imagine telling the thirty-foot tall robot-Jesus from space he needs a permit to build a city in the middle of the desert.

They build the city- Autobot City, in fact- with Metroplex the Titan sealed inside, just in case the Decepticons decide to try anything funny.

They do- it’s called The Transformers The Movie. There’s a slight difference in plot, in that the notes remind us of the fact that Galvatron is a time-traveling ponce, but other than that the movie’s the movie.

To summarize that- though I’d be surprised if I needed to- movie goes like this: It’s the distant future of 2005, ‘Cons attack Autobot City, Optimus gets shot and dies AGAIN, traumatizing thousands of children in the mid-80s, Megatron gets shunted into deep space, meets Orson Welles who makes him a thigh-tastic new body, Megatron-now-Galvatron turns Starscream into a small pile of ash, a bunch of robots get vored, Hot Rod fulfills his destiny and becomes the new space-Jesus, Unicron explodes, YOU GOT THE TOUCH YOU GOT THE POWER-

So after all that happens, the Autobots take back Cybertron and tell the remaining Decepticons to kindly screw off. Hot Rod- now Rodimus Prime- decides he’s not taking any chances and hires a bounty hunter to find and kill Galvatron, who’s off galavanting somewhere in space. Both Rodimus and the bounty hunter follow Galvatron through time- of course- and land in 1987, but return to the future/present empty-handed. While they were gone, Shockwave and a group of Decepticons showed up on Cybertron, resulting in a stalemate between the two factions.

In 2008, the bounty hunter shoots down Cyclonus and Scourge- Rodimus put a hit out on them, too- over the planet of Junk, home of the Junkions. Who else is there? Oh, just Unicron. He’s got the Junkions brainwashed and building him a new body. He uses the bounty hunter to kill Shockwave, instates Cyclonus and Scourge as the new Decepticon leaders, then gets blown up by Rodimus and Wreck-Gar. Cyclonus, Scourge, and the bounty hunter all go through a time portal as this is happening, and the two Transformers end up in 15th century Cybertron, where they’ll become Targetmasters. Their resumes must be very impressive at this point. Nobody’s sure where the bounty hunter’s gotten to- we’ll get back to him later.

Although his physical form has been destroyed, Unicron’s essence lives on inside the Matrix. This can only end well, surely.

Back on Cybertron, Soundwave takes control of the Decepticon forces.

The Quintessons break free from Unicron’s control, just in time to discover that their planet’s about to be torn apart by the space-time rift Cyclonus’ dead body made.

Are you beginning to see why I felt the need to summarize these notes?

The leader of the Quintessons decides that now is the perfect time to attack Autobot City on Earth, as well as Cybertron. This doesn’t go very well for the Quintessons, or their planet.

The time-rift is still causing issues, so Rodimus Prime grabs some Autobots and heads to the past, to go grab everyone’s favorite time-traveling ‘Cons. What happened there we already covered, so I’ll leave it at that.

Rodimus and friends return to the present, only to wind up in a parallel universe, and the fact that this is only the second time I’ve had to write “parallel universe” for this section of the breakdown honestly astounds me. Rodimus gets possessed by the spirit of Unicron, who was hiding in the Matrix as we covered earlier, but he handles it pretty well and they head back home.

Back in their original universe, they find Galvatron, Cyclonus and Scourge, repaired by the space-time rift. Rodimus destroys any and all time machines he can get his hands on at this point- the notes say it’s to keep a promise he made to Optimus, but between you and me, I think he’s just gotten sick of Galvatron’s shit.

A couple years after that, Unicron’s got himself a hot new bod, and now he’s gonna tear up the town. By "tear up”, I of course mean devour with the sole intent of destruction, and by “town", I mean the entirety of Cybertron. Rodimus Prime manages to stop him, by containing him within his body, perhaps his mind? The notes are vague here, but the Wiki seems to imply that he’s trapped within the Matrix again, which Rodimus holds.

Now it’s December 2012, and things aren’t going so great for the Autobots. The Decepticons have control of Cybertron, the remaining Autobots being forced into hiding underground. On Earth, Autobot city is manned by a hundred ‘bots, Ultra Magnus acting as leader. They’re there to make sure Earth’s safe from the ‘Cons, but there hasn’t been an attack in quite a bit.

That’s where the notes end. That’s everything you need to know before reading Eugenesis. So, what did we learn?

We learned that Galvatron and his goons time traveled so frequently they broke the laws of physics. Optimus is just as incapable of staying dead here as he is everywhere else- multiversal constant, that one. Rodimus is smarter than Optimus about confronting the enemy, in that he intends for them to die, either by his hand or one that’s been hired. Good for him, I say. Get the job done, Rodders.

We also learned that the mechpreg really isn’t Roberts’ fault. I mean, yeah, he probably leans on the concept a bit heavily, but he’s just working with what he was given by the franchise. We’ll see how deep that rabbit hole goes later on.

But I think the most important thing to glean from this is that comic timelines are a nightmare. That’s the real lesson here.

Okay! Notes are done! That means we can start on the novel, right?

No.

No, it doesn’t.

We still have the prequel to get through.

[blueikeproductions]

Lately I’ve kept pondering over RiD15, and wondering how the story and characters could’ve been approached differently. As much as I didn’t like the bulk of Prime, I do think embracing its predecessor from the start might’ve helped in places. Generally I see a revised RiD as largely having the same concept, escaped prisoners the Autobots need to round up, but pivoted in a more coherent direction. The Alchemor would be an inside job. The (secret Decepticon) High Council would specifically arrange a prison ship filled with baddest of the bad to be sent adrift in space, and later be sabotaged to crash on Earth as part of an elaborate plot. While partially a revenge scheme for Earth’s role in the Decepticons’ final defeat in the Great War, it’s also mostly busy work to distract the Autobots while the Council set larger plans in motion on Cybertron. Some of The Thirteen however would have an influence on events. Optimus would urge Bumblebee to protect Earth, but Onyx would be the one to subtly manipulate the Council, orchestrating the wrangling of Beast type Transformers in the prison ship for a colonization effort for Beast kind, with Steeljaw as the figure head. Steeljaw, of course, would defy Onyx as he seeks to recruit a personal Pack to take over the greater Solar System and create a new Decepticon Empire. Another Prime would also interfere, Liege Maximo, who like in the RiD books, mostly partakes in events for his own amusement over anything else. The villain of the week plot would generally remain, but tighter plotting would ensure everything feeds into larger story arcs. In particular, the Autobots apprehending weaker Decepticons, for example, would allow Steeljaw to weed out undesirables in his future Pack, something that was alluded to in the Minitron episode. Overtime Steeljaw would form his Pack, consisting of members from the third season, as well as extra characters such as Chop Shop, Bisk, Simacore, Vertebreak, Springload and Groundpounder. Springload in particular would be useful in sniffing out relics remaining on Earth for Decepticon usage while on his hunt for Dorados. Decepticon Island would still come into play, though slightly tweaked to serve as more of a homebase for The Pack, though it eventually gets taken over by the Autobots as it does inshow. Like Prime, there’d be a collectathon aspect, as both sides resume collecting leftover tech, which would result in several arcs. The initial arc would be the revival of MECH, now under the command of Dr. Archevil, with Short Circuit, and The Mechanic. Following Cylas’ lead, they’re conducting biotech research to jumpstart humanity’s next evolution. Denny and Fixit would infiltrate the group, disguised as The Robot Master with the glitchy Mini-Con said to be a tamed Cybertronian under his control. Later arcs would be adaptions of the Prime Wars trilogy. Upon finding the Enigma of Combination, Steeljaw plots to use it to create the ultimate Decepticon Combiner from his pack, resulting in SteelReign. Secondhand exposure causes the Bee Team to merge into UltraBee. On top of including Crash Combiners from the toyline, there’d be several original combinations as well such as Twinferno and Grimlock. Later, in desperate need of resources and a base after Decepticon Island, Springload insists on finding Doradus, and after following some leads, eventually discovers it! It turns out to be a Titan that crash landed on Earth during ancient times, it’s abundant sources of Energon being what seeded the planet’s Energon deposits in a mild retcon. Steeljaw seeks to control the Titan, and uses Vertebreak’s grafting experiments to merge with Dorados’ Titan Master to do so. The series finale sees the Council attempting to harness the Power of the Primes for their benefit on Cybertron, which causes a ripple effect to Earth, causing the Transformers to confront the Primes that orchestrated events and come together to defeat The Fallen, who was awakened between dimensions by the Council’s tampering. The human characters would be allowed to have proper arcs and characterization as the show progresses. Denny and Russell would be largely the same, only with an arc that gradually allows Russell to warm up to his father and explain how they became estranged in the first place. The original show implies such a relationship, but it’s glossed over way too quickly. Mrs. Clay would appear, and be revealed to work with Fowler in UNIT: E to help investigate and cover up the Transformers’ presence on Earth. Her team consists of Stormshot, Skyhammer and Twinferno. Fowler’s unit is not directly interacted with usually, but is shown to include adult! Jack, Raf and Miko who along with Ratchet are shown to deal with Alchemorcons outside of Crown City, particularly Stockade and his Mini-Cons who have become their arch enemies. Hank is allowed to be in the know at the scrapyard following a Decepticon attack at the Crown City Fair, and becomes fast friends with Grimlock. Their relationship is an inversion of Bulkhead and Miko’s. The alien hunter from season 3 is used at the start of the series, rewritten as investigating Transformer activity since at least TF Prime, and seeks to prove their existence. Something of a Mr. Crocker type, he’s viewed as the Crown City nutjob, and nobody believes his claims (even MECH wants nothing to do with him). Like Kelly of the original RiD, he’d get comically caught up in the Transformers’ conflicts, usually with little to show for it by the end. Some additional spot light episodes include the following: A loose adaption of Afterdeath, where Bisk seeks programmer Ethan Zachary at Alternate Realities, Inc and demands his team create a challenging video game to his specifications. He and Bumblebee would later duel within the completed game, dubbed Multi-World. Ethan Zachery would be an old college buddy of Denny’s. Grimlock, frustrated at is inability to blend in like the other Autobots, finds a relic in Simacore’s lab that enhances transformation. Equipping it, Grimlock can now transform into other vehicles, but can’t control what he turns into, leading to many hilarious situations. Chop Shop is hired by an eccentric alien collector, later revealed to be Autobot Pipes, to acquire Earth memorabilia to add to his collection. The biggest source of such memorabilia is Denny’s scrapyard, which Chop Shop pilfers from under his nose as part of an arc long running gag, until the Autobots get wise to it. Pipes, not really a bad sort at all, tries to make amends by actually buying Denny’s wares, of which leaves the discriminating nostalgist with a hefty pile of Shanix that’s useless on Earth... This later works out for Denny, as thanks to Pipes, he now has a new intergalactic avenue of business with other alien collectors by series end.

[spockandawe]

windblade and or chromia?

Awright! I’m catching up on a few more of these before I pass out for the night (work has been kicking my ass), but I haven’t forgotten these are here, and heck, if anyone still wants to send in other asks, this is exactly the kind of character noodling I love to do.

I already hit windblade, so! Chromia!

First impression: Hahaha, not much. Like Windblade, she was a casualty of Dark Cybertron writing. And because IDW was my first real introduction to transformers, I had no idea at all she was a legacy until forever later, so there wasn’t anything to get my attention at the time.

Impression now: Oooh, this is a complicated one. So, I’m in a weird spot where I really love who she is, but I’ve got real trouble getting attached to her emotionally, which is weird, because she hits LOTS of my favorite things, but... here I am. More than anything, I love how ruthless she can be. The Windblade miniseries was where she got my attention, and that was some choice character material. I love it when Windblade is calculating about things, but Chromia took an extra sharp, mercenary approach to the situation that’s a lot more like how Starscream would classically take control of a situation than how Windblade would. And I love the push and pull between her trying to do what’s best for Windblade versus her own wants and needs. And then I really love that the story touched on the aftermath of her setting off the bomb, where autobots/decepticons? They’re used to casual killing. Chromia is plenty aggressive and ready to fight, but the emotional impact of following through in that way has a much different scope when you’re not coming into the situation after millions of years of total war, and I love the nuance of her emotional response to it all and how that’s also used to control her. It’s a fascinating dynamic and her character is so interesting.

Favorite moment: Mm. Hmmm. This feels a little like cheating because it’s feeding off my emotions for another character, but the moment when she panics Waspinator and he tries to bolt, and she tackles and pins him. The backstory for both of them gives layers of emotional context for the scene that’s not necessarily easy to discuss in a post like this, but it’s wonderful material to think through and turn over in my head on my own.

Idea for a story; Arcee/Chromia. I want to take these two ladies who have a lot of similar characteristics, where they’re both often blunt, impatient, quick to anger, and prone to violence, but where their backstories are so dramatically different, and make them smooch. Arcee is so old, so jaded, so experienced, and very used to holding herself detached from the world. Chromia feels very young, she’s very naive in some ways, and being an ‘experienced’ warrior on caminus is nothing compared to what cybertron has been through. My trouble is that if I knew what the story was about (just the ship isn’t enough for me to sink my teeth into) I’d be able to write their dynamic pretty easily, but I don’t know... what the story would be about :T

Unpopular opinion: ...................i’m not a big fan of chromblade :X At least as flushrom. I’ve seen it done well, and I get why people like it, but... I don’t know. I think part of it is that when a relationship is old and established and comfortable, it doesn’t have the negotiating-new-territory ground for me to play in. Part of it is that given canon, I’d want to pick my way through all the post-bomb territory to make myself believe it at a gut level, but that’s so much to cover that I’m never going to actually do it. And I kind of like the baggage of unintentionally poisoned relationships, where neither person wanted it to fall apart, but it still hangs over them and hurts them ages later, a la cdprowl. I don’t have many characters where canon prepackages that scenario for me, so I’m reluctant to smooth away this one. It’s not quite a complete explanation, because I still like palerom/amica chromblade just fine, and I don’t know why that’s different, but flushrom just won’t click for me.

Favorite relationship: Just to be contrary, I’m going to say Ironhide. It was going to be arcee in one answer and ironhide in the other, so he goes here. I know they only shared a few scenes because nudge nudge wink wink remember how they were dating in the eighties??? But I’m also ABSOLUTELY FASCINATED by the emotional potential of them getting close to each other. Some of it is similar to the arcee thing, where I want to ship someone young, naive, and energetic with someone who’s exhausted, burned-out, and running on autopilot. But the parallels in how both of them have fucked up!! Ironhide got angry, acted impulsively, and nearly beat Mirage to death. Chromia decided to manipulate Windblade into leaving cybertron, and ended up killing several bystanders and hurting Windblade pretty badly too. They both pull up afterwards, horrified, but the consequences don’t just go away. And whether it’s platonic or romantic, I want.... I’d love to see something where she helps spark him into engaging with life a little more (especially at the time when he spends most of his time wandering inside metroplex) and he helps slow her down a little so that things don’t feel quite so urgent that they need immediate, drastic action. This is a dynamic I’d prefer to write instead of trying to describe, because it would be a very delicate balance, so it’s not just the eighties obligatory het cliche romance, but... yes. I want to see it explored.

Favorite headcanon: That while she ran off looking for Liege Maximo, she hooked up with Arcee, and then hooked up with Arcee :V I would have died happy if that had genuinely taken place in canon, but it fits so perfectly in my heart that I’m just going to act like it’s canon anyways

[lets-try-some-writing]

What if it was another Prime who was reincarnated into Orion Pax? Like instead of The Thirteenth who was reborn as Orion Pax and late became Optimus Prime, what if it was Prima? Or Solus Prime? Or Heck! What if it was Megatonus!

How would the plot change? What would their interactions between the Team, Decepticons and Humans be like? What would their reaction to finding Unicron be like?

Thank you!

Ooooooooh this is a REALLY good prompt. I like it a great deal. Also I loved this idea so much that I took it to my friend @spreadwardiard and with his help, planned out several parts for this AU.

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Where is Thirteen?!

It had been decided long ago that the Thirteenth Prime would be the one to return, that he or one of his incarnations would lead Cybertron during its darkest hour. The original Primes all knew this, especially those who perished and were returned to Primus's embrace. It was the rule. And so when Thirteen vanished from among them, sent up to be prepared to enter the living realm, they were all eager and waiting to see what would come of it.

But nothing came. Things continued to grow worse in the living realm, and while they couldn't see it, they could FEEL it. Thirteen should have been up and operating by now. He should have been doing something.

Liege Maximo was not generous by any definition of the term, but he was cunning and calculating. He could tell quite easily that something had either gone wrong, or Thirteen had gotten lost somewhere in his mission. Whatever the case, it needed to be rectified. As such he intended to go the Well's edge, to possibly attempt to hitch a ride with some unsuspecting mech so he could look through their optics and get and idea of what was going on. It would be bending the rules, but he knew how to play his cards. The only reason his plans fell apart last time was due to his belief that Solus would not be overpowered by Megatronus. He was wiser now, he would play his games carefully.

He really should have expected Primus to note his desire and do something with it.

'This was wrong, very very wrong. Thirteen couldn't be gone. Thirteen was supposed to be operating this frame, NOT Liege Maximo. The younger Prime was a fool, but he was the one meant for this task, not Liege, never him. The frame he occupied what quite clearly meant for his diplomatic compatriot, the singular member of the original Primes that Liege failed to gain any sway over. He both admired and resented that fact.

Whatever the case, this was wrong. Horribly and unmistakably wrong.'

Something obviously had deviated from the plan. All Liege could do was internally scream when he found himself within the small and still sparkling like frame quite clearly intended for his fellow Prime. The body he occupied had Thirteen's face, it had his structure, and most disgustingly it had absolutely none of the sharp features Liege loved in his old frame. He hated it with every fiber of his being, and momentarily he considered flinging himself and the abominable frame he operated back into the Well. However that idea was banished when Liege came to the conclusion rather quickly that if HE was operating Thirteen's intended frame, then Thirteen was still up here somewhere, lost and quite possibly stuck in some limbo.

This was not his job. He was the most 'evil' of his fellows, he was the most selfish, and he was NOT meant to be the kind and empathetic leader Primus had likely sent Thirteen up to be. Why in the stars was HE here then? As much as he seethed at the question, he soon found himself with an answer as Alpha Trion came to collect him. The elder Prime knew it was Liege immediately, and in return both were let reeling and wondering where their fellow Prime was.

Alpha Trion: You should not be here Liege.

Liege Maximo: I am well aware of that Trion. Where is Thirteen?

Alpha Trion: I do not know. The Covenant offers no wisdom aside from the assurance that he yet lives.

Liege Maximo: He has a duty to fulfill and I have no interest in remaining in his frame.

Alpha Trion: That much is obvious, but there is little we can do at present. Thirteen must be located and put back on task. Until then, you must operate in his stead.

Liege Maximo: What? I am no empathetic fool like Thirteen. I have wishes, desires, things I wish to have.

Alpha Trion: I am well aware of that Liege. But you have always been charismatic. Use that ability and Thirteen's frame to find him and bring him back into the fold.

Liege Maximo: And what do I gain from this arrangement?

Alpha Trion: A chance to obtain power. If you find him, you will have Thirteen's audial. You always wanted a say in the developments of Cybertron did you not?

Liege was still not pleased with the arrangement, but it was one he had next to no choice in agreeing to. He had no interest in playing messiah for Primus's mortal creations unless he could lord over them, and that was not on the table so long as Thirteen was lurking somewhere. Regardless of his future plans, he still needed to find wherever his fellow Prime had wandered off to, if only to assess the situation. If Thirteen failed to perform, them Liege could begin looking into doing as he wished. Until then, he needed strength and influence, resources he would gain through his search if Thirteen was buried as deep as he predicted.

As such, Liege went with Alpha Trion and contented himself for a time in gathering intelligence as his frame developed. Taking into account the rather docile appearance of his new frame, Liege developed a designation and personality to match. He needed contacts, and his prior personality would simply not cut it, at least so long as he paraded himself so openly. He had been given a set of cards to play, and while not fond of them, he would put them to good use. He chose the designation of Orion Pax, a name he found to be fitting for his purposes. He needed to be seen as intelligent, but kind. He played that role before with Solus. He could do so again. It did not take long for him to be known as the most knowledgeable and kindsparked archivist serving under Alpha Trion. This ended up with the Master Archivist giving Liege, or rather Orion, quite a few side glances, untrusting due to his prior betrayal.

Orion Pax opted to keep his distance from his fellow Prime for both their sakes, but mainly for his plans. Alpha Trion knew him well, he knew that Liege, or Orion, was a master manipulator and speaker. If the Recorder Prime knew all his thoughts, there would be battle between them. As it was, they were only bound by shared duty. Thus while Orion learned under him, he otherwise kept to himself and tried not to be suspicious.

He grew slowly but observed dutifully. He saw the situation on Cybertron and laughed in the face of it. The mortals were so very foolish. They chose their Primes on whims and chained themselves without any subtly. Using reprogramming and castes was so very inefficient. If the mortals really wanted control, they would make their population believe themselves in command through careful usage of propaganda and education, not forced labor. It was too obvious, and there were always mecha willing to look past the veil. How very foolish of them. It was so ridiculous to him that often he spent extraordinary amounts of time digging through files, not for enjoyment, but to dig out the gems amidst the slag. He needed servants like his loyal beasts from so long ago. He needed mecha who would follow him and do his bidding even if they weren't aware of it. And for that, he required competent individuals to serve him.

It was somewhat hard for him to work his way through the archives enough to understand the world in great enough detail to begin his search. It took him millennia, of which he spent patiently working away under Alpha Trion even as he grew in knowledge. He could be patient, especially when he finally found mecha that garnered his interest that were within the realms of his sphere of influence. Orion was of course only a middle caste mech, data caste specifically. There were rules to his station, ones that he found just as foolish as the caste system, but that he was required to adhere to while he blended in and grew in power. With that in mind, there were only two mecha who he could influence who seemed to not be wrapped up in the lies told to them.

Orion Pax: Welcome to the Archives. How may I be of assistance?

Ratchet: I am looking for medical case records from the Rust Plague. I couldn't find them at my local archive. They said the files were transferred here.

Orion Pax: That would be correct. We had those files moved here in response to an influx of medical personnel. I will guide you to the records, please follow me.

Ratchet: Thank you-?

Orion Pax: My designation is Orion Pax. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.

It was not hard to throw his weight around as Alpha Trion's student to have files moved. And it was also not at all difficult to purposefully have certain files checked out when Ratchet came, forcing the medical student to return time and time again for more. Orion always made sure to be the one to help him, and to offer nothing but kindness with a hint at a desire to break free of the castes. It was perfect, and before too long, Ratchet came to him without need for manipulation, often speaking on the cruelties of their world. He played his cards well, and in return he gained a loyal ally who was well on his way to climbing up the latter in the medical field.

Jazz was not so easy to take into his circle as the spy was quite simply able to see through his manipulations. Thus Orion instead opted to speak half truths and lure the spy in with promises of a better future. Jazz was rightfully skeptical, but Orion showed his worth by performing a few minor interventions, saving the lives of a few mecha with well placed documents and a few whispers amongst certain circles. Jazz didn't trust him, but he didn't need to. He only needed to serve. In that regard, he was exemplary, doing exactly what Orion needed him to do if Orion could simply convince him it was for the benefit of their endeavors to free the people of Cybertron. Meanwhile behind the scenes, Orion used the influence he garnered to begin his search for his fellow Prime.

Vorns were spent going through records, visiting locations, and trying to find anomalies. It was an impossible task, and quickly ended with Orion deciding that moving along and preparing the way for Thirteen was the best course of action. He had already cemented himself as a 'freedom fighter' amongst his allies, so he might as well use that reputation to make greater contacts. Thirteen would naturally be drawn toward things that aligned with his duty, at least, that was the hope. Thirteen was most likely to be involved in organizations and communities that focused around freedom and care for the weak. As such it simply made sense for Orion to seek out a mech with growing influence down in the pits, if not to find Thirteen, then to increase his own sphere of influence via association.

Alpha Trion: You wish to go to Kaon and use archival funds to do so.

Orion Pax: I do. There is a mech there, one who has named himself after our fallen fellow Prime. He speaks of freedom and fights for it.

Alpha Trion: You have never cared for freedom Liege. What is it you really want?

Orion Pax: Now, don't be hasty Trion. I am going to Kaon to look for Thirteen, just as I said I would. He is most likely to be around those fighting for his precious freedom.

Alpha Trion: What do you gain from this Liege? Don't play games with me.

Orion Pax: So untrusting. If you must know, I intend to establish contact with the gladiator Megatronus and extend my sphere of influence. There is much to be gained from eliminating this ridiculous waste of resources you call the caste system.

Alpha Trion: Such as potential for you to manipulate the order of this world?

Orion Pax: Why I never insinuated anything of the kind Prime. I merely wish to see the people of this world free to act as they will-

Alpha Trion: Preferably for your benefit.

It was quite the affair to convince Alpha Trion to find his expedition, but once it was done, Orion Pax studied Megatronus and prepared the perfect personality and arguments to use. He needed the gladiator to find him useful if nothing else, and due to his position, he brought much to the table. There was no way Megatronus would turn him away, and with the gladiator's help, Orion could ride his way straight into a position of power able to manipulate Cybertron. Finding Thirteen would be a bonus since he could throw his sibling Prime into the position of poster mech and control things from the sidelines. It was a perfect plan, one with little room for egregious error.

Only as soon as he finally secured a meeting with the gladiator, he suddenly found himself vividly remembering the chaos that was his first attempt to control the flow of things during the first age as one mech stuck out like an energon crystal in the rust sea. He came expecting to meet Megatronus, and possibly even locate Thirteen hiding away somewhere as a small domestic worker or even settled with a family. He was not at all ready to meet Megatronus and find himself being stared down by a masked mech who looked nearly nothing like his brother Prime, but was quite clearly the one and only Thirteen.

Orion Pax: Greetings, it is a pleasure to meet you-?

???: Greeting accepted: Orion Pax aknowledged.

Orion Pax: You know my designation? How-?

Megatronus: The moment you reached out to me, I had my associate here look into you. I do not like acting without the input of my second.

Orion Pax straining to keep smiling: Oh? I was unaware you had someone with such capabilities on your side, much less a second in command.

Megatronus: Why yes, Soundwave is a highly capable friend and compatriot. I would have never gotten this far without his aid in planning and management. He is a true ally and the only who I believe could best me in the arena.

Orion Pax struggling to not break character: I see. In that case, shall we begin discussion? As I stated in my message, I wish to hear more of your ideals and operations.

It was against all the odds, yet somehow Thirteen happened to be the mysterious spymaster and second in command of Megatronus of Kaon of all mecha. The Thirteen Orion, or rather Liege Maximo recalled was soft spoken, a diplomate of few words but endless empathy and consideration. This mech... he had to be Thirteen, his spark signature and everything about his told Orion as such, but he was different, wiser, and no longer the naïve Prime from so long ago. He had not been idle during his time in the living realm, and yet no matter how hard Orion looked into "Soundwave" he could barely find anything. All information on the mech was hidden behind Prime and council level security. If he went to Alpha Trion asking for the information, the recorder Prime was likely to become outright hostile.

He couldn't risk it. He would just need to work on his own. Now that he knew who Thirteen was, he just needed to move him into a position where Orion could manipulate him. But that quickly proved to be a challenge as the moment he tried to use his persona on Soundwave, his brother Prime noted him immediately and cornered him.

Orion Pax: Soundwave! I would be in your debt if you would look over these speeches I have composed for Megatronus-!

Soundwave: Liege Maximo's games are waste of time. Megatronus: No fool. Tolerates you because of usefulness. Hard to win trust.

Liege Maximo: Why Thirteen, I do not wish to harm him or anyone for that matter. I merely wish for this world to be made into the best version of itself. Does that not start with removing the caste system?

Soundwave: Liege Maximo: Betrayed us. Had Megatronus kill Solus. Was punished by Megatronus. Liege Maximo: Does not remember last attempt at manipulation?

Liege Maximo: I am well aware of my faults Thirteen. But that is why I need your aid. You were meant to inhabit this frame, not me. If I had my way I would never have come to the living realm as I am. You are far better suited to lead this people. Can I not help you get there?

Soundwave: Manipulations: Useless. Liege Maximo: Will refer to Soundwave by designation. Not Thirteen anymore. Soundwave: Has no interest in ruling. Megatronus: Better suited.

Liege Maximo: Then why don't we put aside our differences for the time being to help him? He wants to fix things doesn't he? If I prove untrustworthy by the time he gets to speak to the council, then we can discuss this further. How does that sound?

Soundwave: .... Parameters: Acceptable. Liege Maximo: Will be killed if Megatronus is harmed.

Liege Maximo: Of course brother. I would never touch your Champion, at least not without cause.

Soundwave: Final warning: Do. Not. Touch. Megatronus.

Orion or rather Liege Maximo finally found Thirteen, but it seemed that his fellow Prime was not at all trusting. It was an agitating turn of events, but manageable. Now with Thirteen at least within his realm of influence, Orion could finally begin working to accomplish his own aims.

[anotherramblingfangirl]

Take the Fifth:

Summary:

After all that she's done for it, Quintessa will not allow Cybetron to be destroyed. Nor will she ever allow the great devourer to rise once more.

Even if the only way she sees that can ensure both of these things, requires the deaths of over 7 billion people

Link: AO3

Fic:

She made them.

She made them and was one of the first to be made.

The fifth.

Only a few like her even existed at the start. Those created by Primus himself, those who existed for a purpose: to ward off a great evil.

His brother. His opposite. The great devourer.

Unicron.

And they fulfilled that role.

One long, long battle filled with so much destruction left him decrepit. Not dead, not yet.

But defeated, left derelict and banished away for now.

It was then that she had time to think, as the rest of her siblings turned to their own ambitions.

During this battle against chaos himself, she'd witnessed so many civilisations as he'd been pushed back from one planet to the next.

People, not built for any purpose, but simply living their lives. Building their own civilisations and striving for greatness as one whole community.

So many wondrous civilisations like that.

So full of growing, thriving life.

And she wanted it.

She had nothing against any of her fellow Primes, not yet, not then, but they were so few.

Why did they have to be so few? They were powerful, they had a habitable planet in Cybertron that could house billions and yet they numbered only just over a dozen.

That could not stand. She would not let that stand.

Cybertronians would have their civilisation too.

She would not just be a Prime.

She would be the Prime of Life.

She would see her dream through.

First, it came time to practice. She would not let her own people be the test run.

A few words whispered in ears, Primes and aliens alike convinced that their own goals would be furthered by her own...just a few lies told.

Here and there.

It would be worth it in the end. When it was done.

They would thank her.

That's what she told herself as the first part of her plan came to fruition.

As she breathed life into a new race. Albeit one that was organic, not mechanical like her.

They named themselves and the planet they resided after her.

Her subjects.

It was then that her trouble started. Had she known then, been older then, wiser then, she might have been more careful.

But back then...well, back then she was Quintus Prime and everything was going perfectly in her mind. Why should she make any changes to her plan?

So she set about her task.

Leading Liege Maximo onto her side had been easy enough. Wouldn't like subjects to rule over, after all? Cybertronians were glorious, should they not take more steps to spread that glory? Wouldn't it be fun?

All he had to do, was to spread some half-truths here and forget to mention a few facts there, and it would be easy.

All he had to do, was exactly what he already did.

Alchemist and Solus were harder.

They did not have such lusts for power, anxious to be exploited.

But they did have one thing that could be used, in that they were far more like her than of their other siblings.

They loved to create too.

Craft magnificent inventions that would not be found anywhere else across the stars.

Would creating life not be another magnificent and yet also wholly benevolent challenge?

That appeal there, was what got her the Emberstone crafted.

An artefact that could breathe life into metal.

An artefact that, at some point, came to later be called the Allspark.

They questioned what she would do with it. Solus being especially insistent and Quintus knew that Alchemist would have been too, had he not spent so much time partying, overcharged, with aliens.

They knew that harvesting enough resources required to do what they wished could not be done to Cybertron, not without rendering it too barren to support the new life they aimed to create.

She told them not to worry. She had a solution and would sort the problem.

They called her too idealistic as she turned in private to her first creations.

They had been made by her and would obey her in this.

Would they not like mechanical subjects too, after all? Servants to help with tasks too dangerous for any organic to have to do.

Should they help her they will share in her power and rule alongside the Primes as was their right.

The deception was necessary.

While she may have created them, they were unruly.

They knew that as her progeny she had a soft spot for them, would not just wipe them out should they prove troublesome, and repeatedly they had tried to exploit that.

Should she let down her guard for even a moment they would gain the upper hand.

But again, she was a Prime and back then the idea of anyone gaining the upper-hand over her was preposterous.

So she had them set their best scientist into building the Seeds, away from the prying eyes of her people to help make her people. Then she sent of their best explorers to put them to use.

Not just any metal would do. She had a very specific ideal for how things should turn out.

Once her subjects had fulfilled their role and brought the desired metals to it, it was then a matter of making something of it.

A fraught process and also the specific point where they started unjustly turning against her.

Where did you get that metal Quintus?

That was none of any of their businesses. She didn't see any of them offering to help in retrieving it, so they had no right to ask of her now.

And besides, she hardly knew herself. Her subjects had been free to collect from wherever they saw fit. She didn't know the specifics and was as such hardly fit to answer whether any planets chosen were populated.

She was sure if there were, they'd recover eventually.

Life possessed a remarkable capacity to do just that.

But most of the Primes just weren't happy with that answer.

They still made use of the metal of course, worked away it and the Emberstone combined brought forth the first denizens of their new civilisation.

But they grumbled about it the whole time.

If we find evidence of something Quintus, you will suffer the consequences!

Hardly.

Liege stood to her defence. As did Megatronus.

Even Onyx took pity and advised against anything overtly harsh.

The rest knew they could not start something with her without causing a conflict.

A conflict they would not then risk having, for the results would surely be catastrophic.

And as far as they knew, this was then of it anyway.

They had their people, now it was time to govern.

Even then though, she would not risk being caught prepared, lest they change their minds.

She recruited her knights and in secret she also had her staff forged.

Knights to defend her, one for each prime, and the staff to stop everything she had built, everything that she had worked for and that she now deserved being ripped away.

Until it all was anyway.

Something she could scream and scream and scream about until that screaming caused her vocorder to shred.

If she just let herself, as would be so bitterly tempting were she weak.

It wasn't her fault, what she had banished for. It wasn't fair!

They may perhaps have been her subjects but she had not ordered the Quintessons to invade. She had not known they even planned to, or the devices they'd developed to turn her people into the drones she had once promised them.

They had been far, far cleverer than she had given them credit for.

She made them pay nonetheless. Used her staff and ripped away the world that she had once given them, using it to instead fuel and damage the wreckage that the Quintesson onslaught has wrought upon hers.

Quintessa for Cybertron.

And that, that act, had been the final straw.

It had been genocide, yes, there had been huge and indiscriminate casualties, yes, but the species were not all dead.

It had been but a warning.

A warning for the greater good.

A warning on exactly what would happen to those who tried to invade.

A warning against those who challenged a Prime's might.

A warning that she would issue as many times as it took until all enemies either learned or died.

For that, her own knights turned against her, taking her staff from her and running.

For that, before she'd been able to take any action against that treacherous waste of metal, her own family turned traitor on her for her alleged deceptions.

Her!

Banished her!

She refused to go down without a fight, but it was a fight that, in the end, she lost.

Was forced to leave the people and the home she loved so dearly for the crime of protecting it.

And later, when it was far, far too late she would find out the worse news she possibly could have.

Of how, in her absence...it fell.

First went down the Dynasty of Primes.

Betrayed much like she had been.

Those who had remained on Cybertron wiped out. Leaving only smatterings of offspring behind to carry forth their legacy.

A legacy which most of those smatterings did not even know what truly entailed.

And then...then it was the war.

The war which started and ended just about every other aspect of Cybertron that had survived the Dynasty's collapse.

From the civilisation to the very planet itself.

With it's last remnants still being thrown away over an over.

Thrown away, she would later find out, for Unicron.

She had finally found the location of the beast only to learn that Optimus Prime, progeny of Prima himself, was siding with saving him over Cybertron.

And so, for the first time in so many millennia after her banishment, she came home.

She came home, no longer baring the title Quintus Prime, but that of the planet which took it's name from it, before she left that place all but destroyed.

Baring it as a mark of both pride and a sign of what she was willing to do again.

She came home and she waited and she acted.

It seemed that while the Autobots were determined with their disgustingly single-minded pursuit to sacrifice all for evil incarnate, the Decepticons were much more agreeable to her goals.

They would help her stop him from ever getting the chance to wake up.

Then came the fabled Prime, and once he was under her control, back in line, it was just a matter of being able to retrieve her staff.

Then she could fix everything.

But the Autobots still refused to understand.

Refused in their stubbornness to sacrifice one planet, one, for the sake of not only their home, but so many others!

Should Unicron get the chance to fully wake up, should this "Earth" not be destroyed, then entire star systems would die before they even have the chance to realise what was happening.

Chances are, that they would not be able to stop him again.

He would kill everything!

And while she herself was not a stranger to genocide, when she did it, it was for a purpose.

Unicron did it simply to sate his own hunger.

How could the Autobots, knowing all that, still think it was her that needed to be stopped? Try slay her and not the beast?

Had she not teleported, she would have been dead and the rise of the great devourer rendered inevitable.

She was on his surface now, masked with the appearance of a human woman.

Alive and once again waiting.

If there was one thing her banishment had improved about her it was her patience.

He might know she was there now, might vaguely recognise her in his state of mostly-slumber, but for now he was still powerless to do anything about that.

She had time.

She would still have her way.

She knew how to kill him, after all.

The Autobots would not stop her.

And when they inevitably tried to, she would reek a great and terrible revenge upon them for what they have done.

For she would not allow Unicron or anyone who took his side to outlast the civilisation she'd fought to have even created.

For she would not allow Unicron or anyone who took his side to outlast Cybertron.

For she would not allow Unicron or anyone who took his side to outlast her.

[dynespark]

Rather long post here. Decided to assemble my thoughts on the political situation in TAAO. If anyone has their own ideas or anything to add I would love to hear it.

So Starscream is in a real bind now. At some point the truth is going to come out. When it does it will effect not only his position but also all the alliances forged as Cybertron is the lynch pin between every colony.

I’m gonna list who I think will back Starscream and who I think won’t and then the reasons why. Caminus will back him. Devisun will back him. Velocitron will probably not back him. Carcer is of course already working against him. And lastly Eukaris will probably back him.

Sooner or later The Mistress of Flame will find out he sent Menasor to Caminus and Cybertron will find out Liege Maximo was released. He doesn’t have the majority support of the people and his own delegate is also working against him.

Caminus will support him. He did send Menasor to attack them, but this is after their own delegate, Chromia, almost committed a near genocide against the Cybertronian population. At this point he has no real cause to believe that Caminus will come to him with open arms, and the easiest way to make sure Caminus won’t attack again is to force them to rely on Cybertron to rebuild what was damaged and more importantly to stock their critically low reserves of Energon. I believe MoF has some idea of what he did, and while she may not forgive him, she will most likely work with him. By doing so, she could easily make her price be that Windblade is given more authority on Cybertron due to her hero status and a possible Combiner for the sole purpose of Camien defense. Also even though she reveres the Primes, she is part of Starscream's plan to kill Liege Maximo. Given Elita's role in hiding the instigator of. The First Cybertronian Civil War and the advice she's already given Starscream I doubt she'll back Elita at any point.

The Devisun delegates are brave for their size. They did not hesitate to ride into battle during the Titan crisis and seem to be practical in wanting not to disseminate the information about Liege Maximo. They are also interested in the Enigma of Combination, and I believe they will stay with Starscream as long as he holds it.

Velocitron needs nothing from Cybertron. While Moonracer is Conjunx Endura to the Cybertronian Sparkstalker, she is the assistant to the delegate. Knockout has already shown he is very willing to just leave.

Lastly, there's Eukaris. Like Caminus they are somewhat religious culturally. They've been taught to avoid vehicle formers, but they also trust Blackarachnia, who is Onyx's prophet. Blackarachnia has advised them to reintegrate with their Cybertronian cousins and all others there might be.

And then there's Starscream himself. He'll probably catch Elita in a lie of omission he can use, if not outright force her to lie. While it may not help him much it will be a small victory for him. And part of the other reason why I believe Caminus and Eukaris will back him is because he is the Chosen One. Metrotitan told him he would unite all the scattered colonies and lead them in conquest. The word of a Titan is a holy thing to some, and the words of conquest from Metrotitan imply to me that Starscream will be a general in the battles to come. Because unfortunately, according to Alpha Trion, only a Prime can kill a Prime. If this is true Chromia is doomed to fail without assistance from either Optimus or one of the missing Primes.