This thread is for fanfiction written as part of the universe shared by my two RPs, Transformers: Twilight of the Golden Age and its prequel, Transformers: Salvation.
This big ol’ wall of text is the general lore of the universe. Enjoy!
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The Beginning
The history of the autonomous mechanical beings known as the cybertronians- or, more colloquially, the “Transformers”- begins in a time long since passed, when the universe could still be considered new, upon the moon of a crimson gas giant adrift just outside our galaxy. The seas of this moon were rich in primordial, cosmic energies, and from one particular pool were born two beings, with bodies of metal and possessing unfathomable power over the fundamental aspects of the universe: Primus and Unicron. For eons, the two lived together peacefully on the moon, exploring the wide range of their abilities and observing the goings-on of the cosmos from the isolation of their home.
Eventually, however, Primus and Unicron began to drift apart as their opposing natures revealed themselves with the passage of time. Primus harbored a fascination for the myriad of forms that life took across the universe; he believed in its’ protection and promotion, and in the innate benevolence of all things. When Unicron looked out into the endless expanse, however, he saw only a harsh, unforgiving void populated by cruel and savage creatures, each eking out a futile, temporary scrap of an existence before succumbing to their sad fate. He eventually came to the belief that he had been created to dispense a twisted mercy upon these wretched beings: he would stamp out all traces of this foul thing called “life”, saving it from the cruelty of a short and meaningless existence.
Primus opposed Unicron, and dedicated himself to fighting against his brother’s mad campaign. Their ongoing battles carried them off of their moon and out into the cosmos, and the victor would determine the ultimate destiny of all creation. For ages innumerable, the two gods clashed, however neither one could gain the upper hand- at least not for long. While they opposed each other- with Primus as a force of creation, and Unicron one of destruction- the two cosmic deities were still equal in power; try as they might, neither was capable of defeating the other. Over time, Primus came to realize this truth, and so he withdrew, fleeing to a distant corner of the galaxy where he hoped Unicron would not find him again for some time.
The Thirteen Primes and the Battle with Unicron
It was there that the Creator set in motion a new scheme to defeat his brother. Unicron had to be destroyed, regrettably, or else he would pose a constant threat to all that lived. However, since he could not do so personally, Primus decided that he could, perhaps, create others to do the deed in his stead. To these warriors he would each bestow with a different aspect of his power; while they would not match Unicron in sheer might, Primus hoped that their more varied natures would enable them to do what he could not. It was thus that he shed his physical form, and, with the deepest reserves of his power, formed around his incorporeal life-force a mechanical world, which he named Cybertron.
From a massive pit in the new planet’s north pole sprang thirteen cybernetic beings- the warriors who would continue the battle against Unicron and succeed where Primus could not. Imbued with the knowledge of their purpose by the Creator, they quickly set to work on honing honing their abilities for the eventual confrontation with Unicron, the Chaos Bringer. These warriors were:
Prima, a noble warrior who devoted himself to standing against the forces of darkness.
Vector Prime, a stoic who held command over the very fabric of time and space, and later set himself to safeguarding reality from threats with similar capabilities.
Alpha Trion, a sagely repository of knowledge and wisdom, aided by the diminutive minicon Beta Maxx.
Solus Prime, a clever and inventive woman who inherited Primus’ ingenuity.
Micronus Prime, the forerunner to all smaller breeds of Cybertronian that would emerge thereafter.
Alchemist Prime, a spiritual sort whose abilities toed the line between the realms of advanced technology and outright mysticism.
Nexus Prime, a unique individual formed from the congregation of five smaller minds and bodies. From him are descended all manner of combining Cybertronians.
Onyx Prime, who possessed a deep, innate bond with the natural world and its creatures.
Amalgamous Prime, a trickster whose body was ever-changing in shape. The First Transformer.
Quintus Prime, an idealist who, like Primus before him, cherished all forms of life throughout the universe.
Liege Maximo, a silver-tongued master of words and toxins.
Megatronus, a warrior dedicating himself to the destruction of his enemies.
…And Optimus Prime, a humble voice of calm and unity amongst his comrades, chosen by Primus to bear a fragment of his life-force within a golden talisman, later named the Matrix of Leadership.
For centuries, these thirteen- the first Primes- trained to do battle with Unicron and slay the Chaos Bringer. More robot life emerged from Cybertron’s core over time: the first generation of cybertronians who would fight Unicron alongside the Primes. With their armies under their command, they set out into the galaxy to find and do battle with their foe, only to discover that Unicron had created servants of his own. The Chaos Bringer could not easily create life as his brother could, but his own life-force could corrupt Primus’s progeny, possessing their bodies after death and reanimating the lifeless shells as undead minions, called a terrorcon. As the Primes’ comrades were slain in battle, Unicron’s ranks grew, led by four generals who rivaled the Primes in power:
Megabolt, a walking arsenal of mighty weapons.
Infernocus, a towering behemoth of fire and metal, and a combiner formed from five cruel barbarians.
Ramjet, a reality-warping madman with no desire beyond inflicting pain and chaos.
…And Nemesis Prime, created in Primus’s image to mock the Creator, and tasked with destroying the other Primes.
The armies of Primus and Unicron clashed throughout the stars for centuries on end, the balance of power shifting between them more times than either side could count. For every legion of transformers that fell to Unicron’s heralds and became terrorcons, another would come climbing out of Cybertron’s core to fight after them, and vice versa. Eventually, though, the Primes cornered Unicron in a remote star system, and launched a final assault with all the ships and soldiers they could muster.
The ensuing battle was a spectacle unlike any the universe had seen before, and has yet to see again. Nemesis Prime held his own against the Thirteen single-handedly, as Ramjet, Megabolt, and Infernocus tore into their armies. Strikes from the Primes’ weapons flashed brighter than the most luminous of stars, and reality itself was torn asunder around Unicron as Vector Prime and Ramjet made full use of their powers. But the Prime’s troops began to dwindle, with the terrorcons growing in turn, and Nemesis Prime proved himself a deadly opponent to the Primes. As the battle endured, it began to seem as though the last hope of putting an end to the Chaos Bringer would die with them…
…Suddenly, in the darkest hour, there was light. In an act of desperation, Optimus Prime clawed at the golden artifact he had been gifted upon his creation, and the seal opened to allow the power of the Allspark to wash across the system. Unicron’s spark began to collapse in on itself, consuming his body from the inside out, and the Heralds of Unicron were whisked away along with it, into the Void outside reality. Once more, Vector Prime opened a portal, and the Thirteen escaped to Cybertron with what remained of their armies.
The Golden Age
In the forty-thousand years that followed, The Primes, together with the Knights of Cybertron, led the billions of Cybertronians that had begun to emerge from the Well of All Sparks into an era of unparalleled prosperity. The Knights, formed from an order of elite warriors who’d proven themselves in the battles with Unicron, became Cybertron’s dominant religious, scientific, and military power, creating such innovations as the space bridge and faster-than-light engines to facilitate interstellar travel, and developing the little-understood process of cyberforming, by which a planet was imbued with cosmic energies and transformed into an extension of the Allspark, making it more suitable for Cybertronian habitation. Through cyberforming, the Knights of Cybertron established the first seven Cybertronian colonies: Hecate, Gigantion, Caelum, Paradon, Chaar, Antilla, and Conventus.
The transformers also made contact with several alien races during this time period, known as the Age of Exploration, or more simply, the Golden Age. With some, like the peoples of Nebulos and Earth, they became close allies; with others, however, such as the Quintessons, they made fierce enemies. The Cybertronians became very active in the goings-on of the galaxy, and gradually assumed the role of caretakers and shepherds for less-advanced species.
The War of the Primes and the End of the Golden Age
These halcyon millennia were not to last, sadly, as Liege Maximo, spurned by growing resentment for his fellow Primes for their powers and accomplishments, plotted to do away with the rest of his fellowship to obtain abolsute power. With his silver tongue, Liege ignited a civil war among the Primes, and the rest of the cybertronian race were quick to choose sides. The conflict was brief by Cybertronian standards, lasting only about a few centuries, however in that time enough devastation was wrought upon the people and colonies of Cybertron to set their progress as a species back drastically. Many of the Cybertronian Knights’ advanced technologies, some of which bordered on the magical in many aspects, were lost. The Primes eventually found themselves in a heated battle atop the Hydrax Plateau, and in the fury of that battle, Solus Prime was slain as she defended Nexus Prime from a fatal shot from the Requiem Blaster. The battle ended shortly after, when the survivors finally realized that Liege Maximo had been pulling the strings all this time, and thus they all united against him. The Prime of Lies was defeated, and the War of the Primes came to an end shortly after, though not without terrible costs.
The remaining demigods came to the conclusion that the age of the Primes had to end with them, and that they would have to take their leave from the rest of the Cybertronian race, so that it could continue to evolve once again. Over the next thousand years, they sentenced Liege Maximo to an indefinite slumber in stasis, at least until the people had determined he had properly atoned for his heinous acts, and made arrangements in secret with the Knights of Cybertron to retreat into unknown space.
A magnificent, private funeral was held to properly lay Solus Prime to rest, and shortly after, the twelve remaining Primes and Beta Maxx left Cybertron with the Knights aboard eleven colony ships. These events were conducted in utmost secrecy, and as such the rest of the cybertronian race knew not the true fate of the Thirteen; they believed that they had all died atop the Hydrax Plateau, and the Knights had even built a tomb into the side of the landmark in which they claimed the Primes had been interred. As far as the general public knew, the Primes were dead, the Knights of Cyberton had mysteriously vanished, and the Golden Age had come to an end, perhaps never to return.
While most of the Cybertronian Knights left to follow the Primes, others ventured elsewhere to hide powerful and significant artifacts. Two more colony ships were launched: one carried Liege Maximo’s stasis pod in a hidden chamber, and its’ crew founded the eighth Cybertronian colony, Clemency; the other held within it the Key to Vector Sigma (the all-knowing supercomputer would know of the Prime’s true whereabouts, and so it had to be sealed away, at least for now), and crashed on a distant world used by many races as a galactic landfill. The crash inadvertently triggered the ship’s cyberforming mechanisms, and thus was founded the ninth Cybertronian world, Junkion. Another band of Knights ventured into other uncharted regions of space, carrying with them the Omega Lock- a machine with unfathomable power, perhaps rivaling that of Primus himself, if lore was to be believed. A map to the Omega Lock was left inside a secret vault in Crystal City, and would go undiscovered until much later.
The Epoch of Stagnation
The next one hundred million years would become known as the Epoch of Stagnation by the people of Cybertron and the nine colonies (otherwise known as the Imperium of Cybertron), for little scientific or technological progress was made for most of it. Despite the surviving Thirteen’s intentions, the transformers continued to live under the rule of Primus’s chosen; Quintus Prime had not sympathized with his companions’ view, and discretely left the Matrix of Leadership on Cybertron so that it could choose new Primes. A long line of successive Matrix-bearers led the Transformers through the Epoch of Stagnation, and while they remained proud and active in the galaxy, they never regained their Golden Age prominence and majesty during this time.
Meanwhile, the surviving Thirteen had founded eleven new colonies in the unknown regions:
Prima and the Knights of Cybertron settled on Primogenitum;
Vector Prime kept watch over reality from Aevum;
Alpha Trion and Beta Maxx turned their world, Sophos, into a vast repository of knowledge;
the artificial ringworld Astrum was built in memory of Solus Prime;
Micronus’ colony, Vergrandis, was populated by the smaller breeds of cybertronian;
Alchemist Prime ruled over Elementum, its people devoting themselves to studying both the scientific and mystical aspects of the universe;
Concordia, Nexus Prime’s colony, played host to combining transformers;
Beast-mode Cybertronians lived close in-tune with the natural world on Onyx Prime’s domain, Eukaris;
Muto mimicked Amalgamous Prime’s fluid nature with its’ shifting surface;
Quintus Prime turned Spirabilis into a techno-organic Eden;
And the people of Megatronus’ colony, Bellator, fashioned themselves into formidable warriors. These eleven worlds lived in harmony with one another, and would have no contact with the Imperium of Cybertron until much, much later- its location had been hidden by the surviving Thirteen and the Knights.
Optimus Prime, meanwhile, had chosen to travel the cosmos alone, and his voyages took him beyond the galactic rim, where he discovered the moon upon which Primus and Unicron had been created. Granting the Thirteenth Prime an eternal spark, so long as he remained on the moon, Primus tasked Optimus with keeping its existence a secret, and protecting it from any who sought to use its power for ill deeds. Optimus first endeavored to remain in contact with the rest of his comrades, but as his life-force became more and more tied to the moon, he eventually retreated permanently into the unknown. Presumed dead by most, rumors circulated throughout the Prime colonies that Optimus had founded one of his own, named Trecedim, before his passing. Over the ages, many attempted bold expeditions to find Trecedim, yet almost none ever succeeded.
The Great War
For the Imperium of Cybertron, the Epoch of Stagnation came to an end as the reign of Sentinel Prime began to draw to a close. A xenophobic political faction of cybertronians, led by a gladiator named Megatron, called for the dissolution of all ties between the Cybertronian race and its organic allies, and the more radical of its’ members even called for the extermination of techno-organic and beast-mode transformers to “purify” the species. Sentinel Prime would not yield to their demands, labeling them as deplorable and deceitful. Megatron and his following were not deterred, and, adopting the moniker of “Decepticons”, went militant and seized the colony of Chaar.
And thus did the Great War begin between the Decepticons and the Autobots, a heroic faction rising from ashes of the crumbling Imperium to fight for the freedom of all sentient beings. For five hundred years, the Autobots and their allies battled valiantly against the Decepticon Empire’s campaigns of conquest and genocide. It was a long, brutal war, worse than the War of the Primes before it and perhaps one of the worst the galaxy had ever seen. Incalculable lives of every species were lost, and entire planets were rendered uninhabitable. The Matrix of Leadership went into a comatose state, losing faith in the Cybertronian race, and Sentinel Prime hid it away in the Tomb of the Primes. The tomb’s entrance was concealed, and eventually knowledge of its location was mysteriously lost to time. Sentinel Prime also vanished at the beginning of the war, and was never seen nor heard from again.
Transformers: Salvation
In the Great War’s final years, scientists on both sides discovered that the conflict had gravely injured the Allspark; were it not healed soon, Primus would die, and Autobots and Decepticons alike would be soon to follow. A truce was called as the two factions put aside their rivalry to discover a remedy to the Allspark’s plight, which led to the discovery of the map to the Omega Lock in what remained of Crystal City, now known as the Sea of Rust. The Decepticon Fleetcarrier Invincible was retrofitted with cutting-edge technology and rechristened the CFC Salvation , and its crew of Autobots, Decepticons, and nonaligned cybertronians left to follow the map to the Lock. After a perilous journey, the Salvation recovered the Omega Lock and returned it to Cybertron, where the machine tore itself apart restoring Primus to health.
War's End/The Cybertronian Commonwealth
There was little time to celebrate, however, for Megatron was quick cast aside the truce and resume his attacks upon the Autobots in the form of a siege on Iacon. The Autobots repelled the assault in a crushing victory, and chased what remained of the Decepticons to Earth, where Ultra Magnus, the Autobot leader, personally defeated Megatron in the Battle of Mission City. The Decepticon Empire surrendered to the Autobots shortly after, and the Great War came to a bittersweet end: though free from Decepticon tyranny, the war had left the galaxy in ruin, and the the whole of the cybertronian race was scorned by most other sentient species. The Autobots helped to repair what they could, before retreating to their corner of the galaxy in a self-imposed exile for their sins that would last for over twenty million years.
Both the Autobot and Decepticon factions were dissolved, and the transformers reorganized themselves into a new political body: the Cybertronian Commonwealth. The damage done to Cybertron was swiftly repaired, though many of the nine colonies, save Junkion, Hecate, and Gigantion, were abandoned and left desolate, and all contact with the rest of the galaxy ceased.
Despite the isolation, this postwar era heralded what many considered at the time to be a second Golden Age. A new method of FTL travel, the Transwarp drive, became available for virtually all space-faring vessels, and other significant medicinal and technological advancements were made. By extracting small portions of the Allspark from Cybertron’s core, a new colony, Velocitron, was founded, and those twenty million years passed peacefully.
Transformers: Twilight of the Golden Age
Upon the anniversary of the Decepticon’s defeat, however, the Tomb of the Primes was rediscovered, reawakening the Matrix of Leadership… and something else along with it. The Heralds of Unicron, using a dark counterpart to the Matrix formed from the remains of Unicron’s Antispark, freed themselves from the Void and assumed control of the Cybertronian Commonwealth, with the intent of using this “Dead Matrix” to drain the life-force of Primus and become gods themselves. An unlikely band of heroes, formed mostly by fate, reawakened Liege Maximo from stasis and uncovered the Key to Vector Sigma on Junkion, and from the supercomputer they learned of the existence of the Prime colonies.
These heroes embarked on a quest to visit all eleven of these worlds and obtain the powerful weapons of the Thirteen, to defeat the Heralds of Unicron before they could enact their diabolical plot. Over the course of the next three months, they earned powerful relics such as the Star Saber, the Requiem Blaster, and the Forge of Solus Prime through their many heroic deeds, and made the inhabitants of the Prime colonies aware of their plight. However, on the colony of Aevum, Nemesis Prime destroyed the Matrix of Leadership with one swing of the Dark Star Saber, and in that instant, all hope seemed lost…
…Until Primus himself revealed to the heroes the location of Trecedim, the moon which Optimus had been tasked with protecting for all these eons. It was there that the Matrix could be repaired, and so the heroes speedily journeyed to the moon, where the Thirteenth Prime assisted them in restoring the Matrix. In a climatic battle between the united forces of the Cybertronian Commonwealth and the Prime colonies, and the undead legions of the Heralds of Unicron, the reforged Matrix of Leadership chose one of the heroes, Axis of Eukaris, to be the next Prime, and she and her comrades destroyed the Heralds and the Dead Matrix. With the evil vanquished, Primus’ life was spared, and all of creation had been saved.
Under the just rule of Axis Prime, the Cybertronian Commonwealth merged with the Prime colonies to form the New Imperium of Cybertron, and a true new Golden Age dawned upon the Cybertronian race. The Prime colonies shared their advanced technologies and culture with their brethren, and the reunited race of Transformers cast aside their exile and rejoined the galaxy at large, as they continue to live in peace and prosperity to this day.