The Prime Colonies
Primogenitum
All of the Prime Colonies were cyberformed and developed with the aid of the Order of the Knights of Cybertron, holy warriors and explorers who were the premier scientists and peacekeepers of the Golden Age. History has no shortage of records and legends of dutiful and honor-bound Knights defending the weak and innocent. Beholden to the Thirteen, but loyal to Prima especially, the Knights of Cybertron came to the Warrior of Light when the other colonies had been sufficiently developed, and settled on the world which he had chosen to be his legacy. The named it Primogenitum.
Primogenitum has two large continents which take up much of the eastern and western hemispheres, and each one has similar environments to the other. Each plays host to vast mountain ranges covered in evergreen forests, great expanses of rolling, grassy hills, lakes, and white beaches along their coasts that give way to the ocean. Primogenitum’s climate is similar to Earth’s northern hemisphere, with four seasons also like Earth’s. The climate warms in the spring and summer, and cools in the fall and winter. Struck by the natural beauty of Primogenitum, Prima’s disciples decided against urbanizing the entire planet, and instead live in separated cities built around Wells of Sparks while leaving much of the natural world untamed. These cities are by no means isolated, however, as aircraft frequently fly between them.
Primogenitum’s capitol city is Machaera, built just beneath the north pole on the ocean between the two continents. Bridges extending from the coast of each landmass connect to Machaera, and it is from here that the Knights of Cybertron rule the planet. The order is led by a council of twelve, chosen from their ranks for years of exemplary service displaying courage, humility, and benevolence. A high percentage of Primogenitum’s population holds membership within the order, sworn to protect life and right injustice across the cosmos. With the reunification of the cybertronian worlds, the Knights are once again returning to their place as the New Imperium’s protectors, and their ornate, medieval visage is a common and welcome sight across cybertronian space.
Prima never ruled Primogenitum, instead living a life of seclusion upon his world while he left the Knights to shape its civilization. When he died, his body was interred within a mountain on the western continent. His sword, the Star Saber, was entrusted to his Conjux Endura, who hid it at the bottom of a lake on the eastern landmass. She is still alive today, and continues to watch over her departed lover’s weapon, only bestowing it to those who possess his pure heart and noble intentions.
Aevum
Aevum is a unique anomaly in the multiverse: a single point in space and time that somehow exists in multiple realities at once, shrouded within a strange energy field that warps the barriers between universes. Intrigued by this bizarre world, Vector Prime chose it to be his colony. Evidently, many Vector Primes across the multiverse made a similar decision: today, Aevum is a hub of sorts for travelers and immigrants from across dimensions, and a gateway from which a traveler could explore infinite realities beyond their own.
Much of Aevum’s surface is encrusted in cities made from blue and black metal, featuring great observatories in which scientists and historians watch history unfold throughout the multiverse. Travel between realities is largely unrestricted, though there are a few rules in place so as to protect the integrity of the fabric of reality. Time travel, for example, is largely prohibited- and while theoretically nigh-impossible, anything can happen in a multiverse of infinite possibilities. Outside of Aevum’s cities is a vast desert. Its geography is constantly changing, and its sands are littered with artifacts from various universes. Anything from old toys to entire starships can be found here, and unsavvy wanderers are in great danger of becoming lost in space and time, never to find their way out.
When the rules of multiversal conduct fail, there exists an organization dedicated to neutralizing threats to all of existence. The Temporal Guard was established by various Vector Primes to intervene in situations which could effect the flow of time and the stability of the multiverse. Navigating such threats is a difficult task- the Guard could just as easily exacerbate a problem they might be trying to fix. Therefore, they are rarely called into action. Aevum is also fiercely protected in all realities, for the damage one could inflict if they were to somehow disturb this multiversal nexus point is unfathomable.
Sophos
Sophos, cyberformed and colonized by Alpha Trion, is a repository of knowledge and cybertronian culture second only to the Vector Sigma supercomputer on Cybertron. The entire planet was rebuilt into a digital library, with immense databanks stored in great computers within its mantle, and tall data towers rising into the sky from within its cities. The native transformers of Sophos dedicate themselves to curating this immense archive, forever burying themselves in research and scouring the galaxy for lost cybertronian artifacts. Sophos has enjoyed a peaceful history throughout its existence, and its people do not keep much in the way of a standing military force. More than any other world in the New Imperium of Cybertron, they rely on the Knights of Cybertron for protection.
The people of Sophos were overjoyed to join the New Imperium in 12002916. Having been isolated from Cybertron and the core worlds for over a hundred million years, its historians now had eons of new history to catalogue and add to their repositories. Since then, the native sophans have been hard at work assimilating the history of the former Cybertronian Commonwealth into their own, comparing notes with other cybertronian historians, and compiling a more complete record of the storied history of the entire cybertronian race. Sophos’s museums are a sight to behold, and are visited by beings from across the galaxy.
Many assumed that Alpha Trion’s book, the original Covenant of Primus , would have been kept on Sophos. However, it is not. The sophans have always believed that it was left on Cyberton following the War of the Primes, and were surprised to learn that their distant neighbors have no idea as to its whereabout either. The current location of The Covenant of Primus is unknown, and many sophans have since left to search for it.
Astrum
Solus Prime was killed in the War of the Primes, leaping in front of a deadly attack meant for Nexus. It was her death that made the rest of the Thirteen come to their senses and lay down their weapons- how tragic that they did not see reason sooner. When the Thirteen and their acolytes left Cybertron, the Knights of Cybertron vowed to establish a colony world in her honor.
Astrum is the Prime Colony founded in memory of Solus Prime: an artificial world built around a neutron star imbued with the life-force of Primus. Primus’s divine energies shrank the star to a diameter of less than twelve miles, and the star now emits the Allspark’s life-giving essence. Astrum is made in the shape of Solus Prime’s crest: a thick ring of purple metal marbled with glowing blue conduits, with a rectangular protrusion extending from its outer side. The ring takes in the energies emanating from its star, using them to power its systems and create cybertronain life.
Astrum’s people live on the inner side of the ring, beneath the pale light of their star. Unique features in the technology managing Astrum’s atmosphere darken the sky at regular intervals to simulate a day-night cycle. The terrain atop the inner ring is mostly temperate, with high mountains, forests and grasslands separated by narrow seas. These environments are carefully maintained by mostly-automated processes within Astrum, allowing the native transformers to pursue creative and artistic endeavors. Astran culture takes after the spirit of Solus Prime, and its people are master artists and builders of advanced technology. The vast majority of the astran population is female- fitting for the world of the first female cybertronian, perhaps- though since the reunification of the cybertronian worlds, the gender ratio has started to even out somewhat.
Astrum’s capitol city is called Meridiem, home to the planet’s finest creators. The city itself is an artistic masterpiece, with beautiful architecture and numerous displays of fine works and impressive technology. Every city on Astrum is something like this, with much space dedicated to both displaying their artists’ masterworks and providing space for them to create new wonders. Perhaps the most sacred locale on the ring is the Astral Caminus, a facility deep within a wintry mountain range with uses energy from Astrum’s star to power itself and create almost anything its patrons can imagine. The Forge of Solus Prime rests in its central chamber.
Vergrandis
Each of the Thirteen was unique, but Micronus Prime was exceptional for his boundless energy and lighthearted demeanor. The first minicon never failed to lift his companions’ spirits, and his followers could best be described as the hardest partiers in universe. It took some time, but they eventually regained their merry fervor after the War of the Primes and founded the colony world of Vergrandis- for which they threw a grand celebration that is purported to have ended in a hypernova at the other end of the observable universe. Nobody was hurt, thankfully. Though Micronus was rendered blind for a good century or so afterward. Or so the story goes.
Vergrandis is not a planet for anyone who detests excessive noise- both auditory and otherwise. Its cities are a chaotic mish-mash of garish architectural styles, bright colors, and neon holograms. Its inhabitants are all minicons and other varieties thereof, taking after Micronus himself both in stature and talent for revelry. The capitol city is Parvos- or, as it’s known in some circles: “Party Central”. Shortly after the formation of the New Imperium of Cybertron, representatives from Vergrandis and Junkion met on an uninhabited planetoid to engage in a “dance-off” to determine who the best partiers in the universe truly were. The competition had to end in a draw twenty years later, after the planetoid was accidentally split in two from the proceedings and its star began to exhibit signs of stellar collapse.
Elementum
In their endless pursuit of knowledge, the scientists and scholars of Cybertron’s First Golden Age eventually came to an inescapable conclusion: that, for all their intellect and unparalleled technological feats, there were aspects to the universe that science alone could not explain or manipulate. There were forces driving the underlying structure of creation separate from the observable physics that catalyzed its more obvious phenomena, and new disciplines had to be made to study and harness these metaphysical energies. Of this breed of devotees to the fantastic, none were more accomplished than Alchemist Prime, born from the Well of All Sparks with an innate affinity for these mystical forces. With the Lenses forged into his optics, he could observe the cyclical movements of these forces behind the veil of reality, see how their ebbs and flows translated into the effects of the physical world; and using the powers that Primus had given him, he could tap into these forces to reshape the world around him to his desires.
After Unicron’s first death, Alchemist threw himself into his studies, to both increase his power and to accrue knowledge to share with his people. He amassed a varied following of like-minded disciples- among them the bot who would become the fourteenth Prime, Aethus- and together they learned to blend the logical with the transcendental, using science and “magic” together to achieve far greater than either could on their own. The Disciples of Alchemist fought to keep their wisdom from falling into the hands of warmongers in the War of the Primes, and afterward they followed Alchemist to establish their own colony world in his honor.
Alchemist and the Disciples chose a cold world far removed from the other Prime Colonies, its surface coated in vast tundras and snowy evergreen forests. Through great cracks in the land, they could see glowing reservoirs of strange energies churning up from within the planet’s core, and their excitement was indescribable. The world was carefully cyberformed, its core transformed into a receptacle for the life-force of Primus, and it was named Elementum.
Alchemist Prime ruled over Elementum for many thousands of years, while his brightest pupils among the Disciples were granted leadership of its individual city-states. They created an academic culture prioritizing the cultivation of knowledge for knowledge’s sake, and the people plumbed the depths of their planet’s mysterious features while simultaneously looking out into the primordial forces of the cosmos. They deepened their understanding of the paranormal and expanded their preternatural abilities, some even venturing offworld to battle evil as their ruler had done millennia ago. But Alchemist eventually died, as most things do, and with his passing did the bonds of fellowship between the Disciples break. The heirs to the Prime’s legacy fought with one another for sole ownership of the inheritance, and each city-state began to horde their discoveries for themselves. Their armies made war against each other with their awesome powers, seeking to raid the archives of other cities to steal what secrets and treasures lied within them.
The fighting endured for an eon without a sign of stopping, and so the Knights of Cybertron came to Elementum from their own colony, Primogenitum, to enforce a peace while the Disciples were brought together for talks. At the base of the mountain where Alchemist Prime was interred, the Disciples signed a pact obligated them to share their research freely among themselves and their subjects, and to keep an everlasting peace between their cities. With this accord, the fighting stopped across Elementum, and the planet and its people have enjoyed unity since.
Elementum’s capitol city is Alchimia, nested within a valley between lines of tall, snowcapped peaks and girded by a white wall that shines like marble in the light of the moon. Tall white towers can be seen rising above the wall, housing laboratories and libraries for citizens, scholars and scientists to all use, and between the bases of these buildings run courtyards home to native plants and wildlife. The other cities of Elementum are similar in design to Alchimia, if smaller in size. The mountain housing Alchemist Prime’s tomb borders a dense deposit of energon, the exotic matter’s unique properties reacting with Elementum’s own energies to create astounding effects, such as brilliant auroras in the sky above, or stretches of rock and ice suspended in midair.
Concordia
Concordia is the colony world of Nexus Prime, the First Combiner. Like him, the planet’s inhabitants are capable of merging their minds and bodies to create stronger, wiser, and more powerful beings. They are led by an ancient being called Sum-of-Many, one of Nexus’s closest friends. Sum’s consciousness has been transferred from one team of combiners to the next, each host adding their memories and wisdom to the gestalt’s mind. The result is an entity that embodies Concordia’s history, and the spirit of its people.
Concordia is an ocean world, with nary a scrap of natural land to be found above its endless sea. The planet’s Wells of Sparks form within the ocean floor, and around them, immense artificial structures rise up from the depths to support large cities suspended above the water. Billions of concordians live in these cities, and also in the underwater constructs that support them. Across the planet, these settlements are linked by webs of bridges and railways. The capitol city is Simul, in which Sum-of-Many resides.
Concordia is also one of the few cybertronian worlds to have its moons cyberformed and populated as well. Concordia has five natural satellites, to be precise, each one with a unique climate and named after one of the components of Nexus Prime. Heatwave is volcanic, and its people hardy and resilient; Breakaway is barren and trapped in a harsh eternal winter; Topspin is oceanic, like Concordia, but is wracked with great electrical storms; Landquake is a desert moon with frequent seismic activity, as the name might suggest; and the mountainous moon of Skyfall is covered in lush jungles.
Eukaris
Onyx Prime’s colony world, Eukaris, is far from what many might expect of a cybertronian planet. The Lord of Beasts and his followers were always closer to the natural world than the rest of their kind- ironic, for a race of machines- and enjoyed the company of flesh-and-blood creatures. It was only natural that their world should follow suit. The surface of Eukaris is remarkably Earth-like, with eight continents supporting a vast array of unique biomes surrounded by deep blue seas. Onyx and his acolytes were adamant in preserving these environments and their great ecosystems even as they cyberformed the planet’s core, and integrated themselves into Eukaris’s pre-existing order as opposed to remaking the world to fit their own designs. Eukaris has none of the sprawling megacities of the other cybertronian worlds, with the people preferring to live in the wild with the planet’s creatures. There are a few small settlements built around Eukaris’s Wells of Sparks, with buildings made from wood and stone and featuring only what advanced technology is necessary.
Unlike the other cybertronian worlds, Eukaris does not have a single unified government. Instead, the eukarians live in separate nations which are usually divided by unique environmental adaptations and ideologies. These nations have quarreled in the past, with many having come and gone over millions of years, but today they coexist peacefully. Many eukarians are techo-organic, their bodies made from both cybertronian machinery and living tissue, which typically manifests as muscle and bone. These biological components are sustained by energon, like their mechanical counterparts; and while it’s never been known as to why or how these cyborgs are made, they’ve been a common occurrence throughout cybertronian history. Techno-organics feel especially at home on Eukaris, with their biological functions giving them a deeper connection to the natural order of their world.
Some of the larger and more influential nations of Eukaris include the Whispering Sands, who live in an arid desert on the sixth continent; the South Frost, dwelling in the frigid tundra at the planet’s southern pole; the Below, a hive of insecticons who dwell in a vast underground tunnel network; and the Deep-Dwellers, who claim much of the planet’s oceans and the costal areas. There are many more, each with their own customs, and they all find neutral ground within a long mountain range on the second continent. The Steel Shard Mountains, named for their rich deposits of ore, rise high into the sky, and their valleys are filled with ancient structures hewn from the mountainsides. The mountains are a gathering place for eukarians, where their ancestors cyberformed the planet eons ago. The largest of the mountains, Mount Axalon, was converted into a massive temple dedicated to Onyx Prime, and it is here that the Lord of Beasts rests in death, alongside his fabled Triptych Mask. Many eukarian transformers from every nation live in the Steel Shard Mountains, with many more making regular pilgrimages here for ceremonies and other special occasions. Onyx Prime is greatly revered by all eukarians, and Axis Prime- the current ruler of the New Imperium of Cybertron and herself a eukarian native- is also something of a celebrity.
Muto
Muto is the colony world founded by Amalgamous Prime, the First Transformer. As the planet was being cyberformed, Amalgamous has his Transformation Cog, which granted him his shape-shifting powers, removed and placed within Muto’s core. Amalgamous’s organ was fused with the planet in the cybeforming process, and through his sacrifice, the world became a wondrous machine unlike any other.
Like Amalgamous himself, Muto’s form is fluid and ever-changing. Continent-sized metal plates orbit around the planet’s core, their geographies shifting as they continuously merge and break apart at random. It is difficult to describe Muto’s surface and the layout of its cities, for such a description would be rendered obsolete within mere months. It’s similarly difficult for many to fathom how the transformers native to Muto manage to live in such a chaotic and ever-changing world, but the people here are as adaptable as their planet. Mutan transformers tend to have many alternate modes- some are even Shifters, like Amalgamous, who can alter their bodies unrestricted- and they effortlessly adapt to their world’s changes as they come. Mutans are easy-going but dependable allies who remain by their friends through even the worst of times.
Spirabilis
The War of the Primes was not only a societal disaster for cybertronian kind, but an ecological calamity as well- as close to one as a robotic race could come to, at least. Many species of transformers were driven to near, or total extinction in the civil war. Thus, when the Thirteen left to found their own colony worlds, Quintus Prime- the Prime of Life- chose to make his world a sanctuary for the endangered creatures his followers managed to gather during the war, and a home for all kinds of cybertronian life. The planet its people are themselves a monument: a celebration of the infinite diversity of Primus’s children.
Spirabilis is surrounded by a ring of energon crystals that glisten in the day and night, most visible at dusk and dawn. Its crust and mantle are composed of vast stretches of a white, marble-like substance formed around blocky metal superstructures the size of islands and continents. These structures vary in size and shape, and between them are deep chasms that go down for hundreds of miles, to luminescent blue-green seas of energon surrounding the planet’s core. The surface superstructures hold Wells of Sparks and Hot Spots where transformers are born, and support various different biomes and climates. There are forests and jungles of red biomechanical vegetation, deserts of crimson sand, plains of vermillion grassland, arctic tundras, oceans of water, and more.
The people of Spirabilis live on and within the planet’s superstructures in cities built into the natural geography of their location. Travel between these structures is possible via Ground Bridges, flight, or through bridges crossing Spirabilis’s chasms. All kinds of transformers live here, from the standard humanoid bots, to predacon dragons and massive leviathan-like machines swimming in the energon seas. The culture here is one of deep spiritual convictions and a simple reverence for living things, the natural world (“natural” having a something of a different definition to them than organic beings such as ourselves), and harmony. All life is sacred, and spirabilans live within the natural order as opposed to disrupting it with the widespread urbanization of the other cybertronian worlds.
Bellator
Exceedingly cold, barren, and almost entirely void of life, Bellator is a planet that even most cybertronians find rather unattractive. The energon that the species depends upon for life is held deep within the world’s frozen crust, and the extreme cold is hazardous even to them. But it was here that Megatronus chose to settle in the great exodus following the War of the Primes. In truth, the Dark Warrior had no intention of colonizing Bellator, unlike his fellow Primes and their own chosen worlds; he’d come to the planet to die in solitude, wracked with terrible guilt for killing Solus Prime in their battle atop the Hydrax Plateau. Despite his intentions, Megatronus’s legions of warriors followed him to Bellator and put down their metaphorical roots. While his followers developed a hardy civilization to endure the planet’s harsh conditions, Megatronus isolated himself. When he died, his remains were interred in a massive tomb built within the summit of a lone mountain in the northern hemisphere. Recently, the remains of Megatronus’s weapon, the Requiem Blaster, were placed within the tomb as well, following its destruction in 12002915 CE.
Bellator’s surface is largely flat and rocky, its vast plains broken up by long mountain ranges in which the people of the colony tend to live. The planet’s weather is similarly monotonous, with temperatures well below freezing and constant snowstorms. A perpetually-cloudy sky blocks much of the light coming from Bellator’s already dim star from reaching the surface, which does nothing to improve matters. Energon and other valuable minerals lie far beneath the snow and rock, and were not easily accessible even with Golden Age-era technology. Megatronus’s warriors saw these inhospitable conditions as worthy challenges to overcome, and overcome they have. They built their cities within the mountains, sheltering them from the worst of the frigid wind and blizzards, and bored deep into the ground for further protection and access to energon. A typical bellatoran city is like a great pit, usually at or in the base of a mountain, with layers of buildings and bridges running between its walls for at least a mile down. The inhabitants use heat lamps to keep themselves warm, and their dim yellow and red lights stand out for many miles around in the darkness that often shrouds the planet. A great rift is carved into Bellator’s moon- a scar left by a carless misfiring of the Requiem Blaster some time after Megatronus’s death. Debris from this event still linger in Bellator’s orbit; the people have converted the larger asteroids into orbital defense platforms and docking facilities for starships.
Megatronus’s Warriors Elite were fierce and disciplined fighters, and the society they built follows suit. Bellator’s is a militaristic culture, where every transformer is conscripted into service not long after their creation, and remains in active duty for their entire life. Bellatoran culture has no concept of “reserve forces”, or of a life outside of military service; to them, life is service, and death- whether in battle or after a long and storied career- is their reprieve. But bellatorans do not romanticize warfare- like most other civilized peoples, they consider it to be a gruesome business. But while other cultures would act to avoid conflict, bellatoran transformers consider it their grim, but necessary duty to devote themselves to battling evil throughout the universe. Every bellatoran soldier is trained in a broad arsenal of weapons, and their bodies are made to be weapons in and of themselves. Bellator’s unforgiving climate aids in hardening its people, who pride themselves in their toughness. In addition to weapons and tactical training, bellatorans are instilled with the usual devotion to duty, honor, and discipline common among other “warrior races” in the galaxy, and are also taught to show very little in the way of mercy to evil-doers. Those of good moral caliber have nothing to fear from Bellator; but the wicked will be met with a cold, howling fury like that of the planet’s terrible blizzards.
Bellator’s leaders are a small council of generals who have ascended their society’s ranks through millennia of exemplary service. One of these generals is selected to be a “praetor”, and given additional executive privileges as an arbitrator in the council’s sessions. The praetor is granted an additional vote to exercise as they see fit, and has the power to overrule decisions made by the other generals in extreme cases- and not without great consequence, as well. Bellator’s formidable military has seen much action over the course of many millions of years, in defense of the other Prime Colonies from alien aggressors and, more recently, in the battle over Cybertron in 12002915. Bellator’s people are friendly enough to their fellow transformers from Cybertron and the other colonies- in their own way, at least- and regard most other species in the Milky Way galaxy with respect. Most are inclined to remain in their good graces.
Trecedim
Trecedim is the name given to a mysterious moon orbiting a lonely red gas giant at the very edge of the Milky Way Galaxy. What keeps these two solitary worlds in place is unclear, as the planet has no star; it simply skirts the boundaries of the galaxy, hanging off the precipice of the empty vastness beyond and isolated from civilization. Trecedim’s origins are unclear, but what little is known of the moon makes it an important locale in cybertronian history, and indeed the history of the entire universe at large.
Trecedim is the birthplace of Primus and Unicron, the two gods of cybertronian lore. They lived together here for eons, until Unicron became evil, and Primus was forced to battle him. Their conflict drew them off the moon and out into the universe, and Trecedim was forgotten until Optimus Prime journeyed there many thousands of years later in 1972. Primus appointed Optimus to be Trecedim’s guardian, to protect it from evil-doers and to hide it from the rest of the universe. Optimus did exactly that, and for nearly a hundred twenty million years, virtually no-one knew of Trecedim’s existence. But in 12002915, Axis Prime and her allies journeyed to the moon on their quest to slay the Heralds of Unicron. Now, Trecedim’s existence is known to all, but Optimus Prime still stands guard upon its surface, and has served as an effective deterrent for those who seek to abuse its power.
Trecedim’s power lies in its vast oceans of a strange blue-white fluid. These seas glow ethereally in Trecedim’s eternal night, and contain primordial energies and paranormal forces. It is from these forces that Primus and Unicron were made, and the power within Trecedim is far greater than either of them. Sufficiently advanced technology could be used to harness Trecedim’s seas to perform terrible or miraculous feats, effectively making their wielders into gods. It is for this reason, though, that travel to Trecedim is severely limited, and why it is tended to by Optimus Prime. Optimus has been imbued with Trecedim’s energies, made immortal and possessing great powers to guard this wondrous place.
Trecedim’s landmasses are cool and rocky, made from blue-grey stone and elements not found anywhere else in the galaxy. Hewn from this rock are ancient structures, crumbling from age, where Primus and Unicron must have lived in their youth. Within these ruins, and closer to the coasts, are alluring alien plants that glow blue and purple beneath the starry sky. Trecedim’s landscapes are sometimes painted red by faint light coming from its planet, and gentle winds blow silently between the flora and rock formations. In the moon’s northern hemisphere is a place called the First Well: a sinkhole said to be the exact spot were Primus and Unicron were born. The walls of this pit are studded with beautiful crystal formations, and at the bottom is a pool of Trecedim’s mysterious liquid.