BW Media Spotlight

In the previous installment I began setting up the next set of lore dumps for my take on pre-war Cybertron. Now we get into some specifics of each of the early grouping put together by Primus’ first 13 “Prime” Transformers: the military, or as I called them in the overview the “Cybertron Defense Force”.

One of the things I want to do with this series is utilize the toys and their gimmicks and play styles. I feel official media has not really taken advantage of anything beyond “they transform into things” when it comes to many of the toy characters. In this case it’s explaining why so many of the Decepticons are war machines and few “civilian” forms, while the Autobots are the opposite. It wasn’t some anti-military move on Hasbro and Marvel’s part; they already were collaborating on G.I. Joe’s story, and that was heavy into the military in the 1980s, battling a terrorist organization and using a discarded plan for Nick Fury and his old Howling Commandos. Instead, they wanted the Decepticons to be the warriors while the Autobots were civilians forced into war to protect their home.

In the comics, the first issue explains that Megatron grabbed a bunch of guys to conquer a planet he found too peaceful. In the cartoon it was eventually revealed he was the latest in the line of Decepticon leaders, “descendants” of the Quintessons’ war machines and so just wanted war because that was their nature. We’ve had other origins but this series is a long ways off from Megatron’s backstory and the forming of the Decepticons. However, this must be taken into consideration when discussing the backstory of the Cybertron military and their eventual fall. The focus here is on the military’s history, it’s ties to the liberation of Cybertron from the Quintessons, and how they factored into the early days of Autobot life. I think I’ll let our chronicler take over from here and explain the details.

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