Origin Story
It is unknown if there were any planetary civil wars among the Quintessons while they controlled Cybertron, although there was certainly crime and punishment. The first known war was the robot slave revolt 11 million years before present. The Quintessons had built Cybertron as a factory to produce two types of slave robots: military hardware and consumer goods. For a million years, the Quintesssons maintained control, but when the robots began to develop emotions, they turned on their cruel Quintesson masters.
The first revolt was carried out by, interestingly enough, a band of non-warrior robots (workers, scientists, and technicians). They were led by a slave called A-3, who somehow possessed a secret weapon called a Coda Remote. However, Quintessons from the year 2006 used a time machine to kidnap A-3 the night before the final assault. Just as that occurred, though, the future Quintesssons were attacked by a team of Autobots (Perceptor, Blurr, Wreck-Gar, Blaster, Rewind, and Ramhorn). The Autobots found themselves outnumbered and outclassed, so, in desperation, all of them except Perceptor jumped through the "time window" and into the past. They were rescued from the attacks of a Quintesson Dark Guardian robot by Beta, the acting leader of the revolutionaries, and accepted into the fold because they too wore the "slave brand" (the Autobot symbol). Beta decided to lead the attack on Hive City (a city that the Quintesssons had built with slave labor) with or without A-3, and the Autobots simply followed along. The attack went well at first, but the motley band of freedom fighters soon proved to be no match for the Quintesssons' many Dark Guardians. Suddenly, however, A-3 returned from the future and used his Coda Remote, which was activated when he removed his slave brand and turned its reverse side to the Dark Guardians. It emitted a wide beam of light that caused the giant robots to stop in their tracks and fall down. A-3 urged the Autobots to return to the future, which they did, and the Quintessson time machine was destroyed upon their arrival.
After the slaves drove the Quintessons away from Cybertron, peace reigned. However, the division between consumer-goods and military-hardware was becoming acute, as the two groups had even named themselves differently: the consumer-goods robots called themselves Autobots, and the military-hardware robots were known as Decepticons. While the Autobots preferred a peaceful existence, the Decepticons wanted conquest. For a time, the Decepticons got their way.
The Autobots could not match the brute strength of the Decepticons, so they turned to stealth, learning the art of transformation. Using this new technology, they defeated the Decepticons and ruled for many centuries in a "Golden Age." Peace was kept with the use of Guardian robots, sentinels that protected cities, quelled uprisings, and generally did the dirty work of war. However, the Decepticons eventually learned to transform and also developed some form of anti-gravity that allowed them to fly without the use of jets. They also built a powerful leader for themselves: Megatron.
Thus, 9 million years before present, the war began again. Megatron led his army from victory to victory, targeting mainly power centers to fuel his troops and build his forces. While the Guardian robots were powerful enough to strike fear in the Decepticons, even those giant robots were suffering at Megatron's hands. Even the safety of the Autobot Matrix of Leader was in question, so Alpha Trion (formerly known as A-3) kept it in hiding for many years. It was to this time of violent flux that the newly-created Aerialbots were sent from the year 1985. The future Megatron had lured the Aerialbots into a time machine, which he planned to use to send the young team back before the beginning of time, where they would be eternally trapped outside the timestream. However, the Autobots attacked Megatron and damaged the machine before the time-travel process had completed; thus, the Aerialbots were only sent nine million years into the past.
They soon met a young, energetic worker at an energy-shipment facility. This robot, Orion Pax, was in awe of the Decepticons, but his feelings changed when Megatron attacked his workplace and gravely wounded him, his girlfriend Ariel, and his friend Dion. The Aerialbots took Orion to Alpha Trion, who was devising new ways to combat the Decepticons. Alpha Trion rebuilt Orion into Optimus Prime, the first of a "new breed" capable of fighting Megatron. He also rebuilt Ariel into Elita-1, but it is unknown if Dion got similar treatment.
Prime inflicted serious damage on the Decepticon forces, but they were still powerful. Raiders were starting to loot a fuel transfer center that would supply Megatron with enough energon to win the war just as it was starting. The Aerialbots got inside the building and set explosives to stop them, but they found themselves trapped. Despite the danger to themselves, they set off the explosives; just as the building erupted, they were transported back to 1985, where they found that their comrades had repaired the time machine.
At some point, Prime was named leader of the Autobots, and Alpha Trion gave him the Autobot Matrix of Leadership. For the next five million years, the war raged on, draining Cybertron of its resources. Even the buildings and landscapes, which used to glow with radiant energy, had become dull and barren. In search of new energy sources, Optimus Prime led a team of Autobots on an interplanetary expedition that ended when Megatron attacked and boarded their ship. As the Autobots and Decepticons fought, the ship strayed too close to the nearby planet Earth, and it crashed.
For the next four million years, Shockwave commanded the Decepticons, who maintained the upper hand. When the Earth-bound Transformers were revived in 1984.
Pick a side to learn about:
