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New York City

2022-12-17T16:39:22Z

Hammerclaw: /* Games */

'''New York City''', [[New York (state)|New York]], is a major city in the [[United States of America]] on [[Earth]]. Loved by [[Tracks (G1)|some]], repulsively filthy to [[Hound (G1)|others]], it has often served as the site of [[Transformer]] activity, battles, and even bases.
[[File:Nyc-skyline.jpg|upright=2.5|thumb|If you can have a giant space robot battle here, then you can have a giant space robot battle anywhere.]]
Real-life New York City landmarks featured in various incarnations of ''Transformers'' include:

*The [[Statue of Liberty]]—A huge statue on an island in New York Harbor. It's been spray-painted by the [[Battlecharger]]s, {{storylink|Decepticon Graffiti!}} coated with [[corrostop]], {{storylink|Cosmic Rust (episode)|Cosmic Rust}} and ventilated by [[Omega Supreme (G1)|Omega Supreme]]. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 12|All Hail Megatron #12}} It also sometimes [[Transformers: Shattered Glass (franchise)|holds a sword instead of a torch]], and has been blown up by the USA's own [[Global Orbiting Defense Satellite|defense satellite]]. {{storylink|Eye in the Sky}}
*The Brooklyn Bridge—A massive suspension bridge connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn. It was the scene of [[Starscream (G1)/Marvel Comics continuity|Starscream]]'s [[Underbase]]-fuelled attack on a large team of Transformers. {{storylink|Dark Star}} It also got blown to bits by the [[Seeker (body-type)|Seekers]]. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 2|All Hail Megatron #2}}
*The [[Empire State Building]]—The city's most iconic skyscraper. It was converted into a Cybertronian structure by [[Megatron (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Megatron]], then converted back to normal by the Autobots; {{storylink|City of Steel (episode)|City of Steel}} it was also climbed by [[Iguanus (G1)|Iguanus]] and the [[Sports Car Patrol]]. {{storylink|King Con!}}
*The [[Chrysler Building]]—A famous Art Deco skyscraper. It was set on fire by [[Megatron (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Megatron]]'s car drones; [[Inferno (G1)|Inferno]] put the fire out. {{storylink|Make Tracks}} It's also made an appearance on a comic book cover. {{storylink|G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II issue 2|G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II #2}}
*Battery Park—A park at the southern tip of Manhattan. [[Shockwave (G1)/Marvel Comics continuity|Shockwave]] and [[Scorponok (G1)/Marvel Comics continuity|Scorponok]] duked it out there. {{storylink|...All This and Civil War 2}}
*[[Central Park]]—A park at the center of Manhattan. {{storylink|City of Steel (episode)|City of Steel}} {{storylink|The Transformers: All Hail Megatron|All Hail Megatron}}
*The World Trade Center towers—C'mon, have you been living under a rock? The twin towers are commonly seen as identifying icons in skyline shots of the city in pre-[[September 11|9/11]] ''Transformers'' stories. {{storylink|City of Steel (episode)|City of Steel}} {{storylink|Dark Star}} {{storylink|...All This and Civil War 2}} In a dystopian future, [[Hot Rod (G1)/Marvel Comics continuity|Rodimus Prime]]'s corpse was strung up between their shattered stumps. {{storylink|Rhythms of Darkness!}} At another point, they were destroyed by [[Devastator (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Devastator]]. {{storylink|Enter the New Supreme Commander, Dai Atlas!}}
*The East River—separates Manhattan from Brooklyn. [[Seaspray (G1)|Seaspray]] found it full of garbage. {{storylink|Make Tracks}} The [[Seacon (G1)|Seacons]] took on [[Starscream (G1)/Marvel Comics continuity|Starscream]] there, and lost. {{storylink|Dark Star}} The time travelling consciousnesses of [[Megatron (G1)/Marvel Comics continuity|Megatron]] and [[Prowl (G1)/Marvel Comics continuity|Prowl]] also fought there. {{storylink|Flashback!}}

==Fiction==
===Generation 1 continuity family===
====Marvel ''The Transformers'' comics====
New York City was home to [[Marvel Comics]]. Their recently fired employee, writer [[Donny Finkleberg]], also lived there, in a run-down, six-story walk-up apartment on the upper west side of Manhattan.

New York was the final destination on the Acton family's vacation. As such, the [[Statue of Liberty]] became a target for the graffiti-spreading [[Battlecharger]]s. [[Rapid Anti-robot Assault Team|R.A.A.T.]] prepared for the Decepticons' arrival by closing down the statue, Liberty Island, and the surrounding harbor, and loading down the statue with its troops. [[Runabout (G1)|Runabout]] and [[Runamuck (G1)|Runamuck]], meanwhile, snuck aboard the Staten Island Ferry, eventually commandeering the vessel and forcing it close to the statue. They then took to the air, Runamuck distracting the R.A.A.T. troops while Runabout spray-painted the statue with an inspirational message to their appreciative audience ("HUMANZ ARE WIMPZ"). [[Circuit Breaker (G1)|Circuit Breaker]] finally defeated the pair using a [[Circuit Breaker's Autobot suit|jury-rigged collection of Autobot parts]], sending them crashing into the waters of New York's harbor.

Donny Finkleberg contributed $50,000 to help pay for cleaning the graffiti off of the statue (and, presumably, repairing battle damage). {{storylink|Decepticon Graffiti!}}

[[File:Nyc-brooklynbridge.jpg|upright=1.67|thumb|When you get caught between the Underbase and New York City, the best that you can do is fall and die.]]
When [[Starscream (G1)/Marvel Comics continuity|Starscream]] absorbed a portion of the [[Underbase]], New York was one of the three cities he chose to destroy. Naturally, he announced this out loud, so when he arrived, an army of [[Autobot]]s and [[Decepticon]]s led by [[Blaster (G1)|Blaster]] and [[Ratbat (G1)|Ratbat]] were waiting for him. Most of the battle took place on and above the Brooklyn Bridge, as well as in the "foul depths" of the East River below.

The following Transformers were taken out by Starscream:

*The [[Aerialbot (G1)|Aerialbots]] ([[Air Raid (G1)|Air Raid]], [[Fireflight (G1)|Fireflight]], [[Skydive (G1 Aerialbot)|Skydive]], [[Silverbolt (G1)|Silverbolt]], [[Slingshot (G1)|Slingshot]])
*[[Hound (G1)|Hound]], [[Bluestreak (G1)|Bluestreak]], [[Mirage (G1)/Marvel Comics continuity|Mirage]], [[Hoist (G1)|Hoist]], [[Brawn (G1)|Brawn]], [[Gears (G1)|Gears]], [[Bumblebee (G1)/Marvel Comics continuity|Goldbug]], [[Jazz (G1)/Marvel Comics continuity|Jazz]]
*The [[Seacon (G1)|Seacons]] ([[Snaptrap (G1)|Snaptrap]], [[Overbite (G1)|Overbite]], [[Nautilator]], [[Seawing (G1)|Seawing]], [[Skalor]], [[Tentakil (G1)|Tentakil]])
*[[Jetfire (G1)|Jetfire]]
*Blaster

''[[Prowl (G1)/Marvel Comics continuity|Prowl]] survived Starscream's initial attack, but was deactivated following Starscream's attack on the [[Seacon (G1)|Seacons]].'' {{storylink|Flashback!}}

Ratbat escaped, leaving Blaster to his doom. Starscream left for his second targeted city, [[Tokyo]]. {{storylink|Dark Star}}

Some months later, Decepticon commander [[Scorponok (G1)/Marvel Comics continuity|Scorponok]] moved his headquarters to a [[New Jersey base|base]] in the nearby swamps of northern [[New Jersey (Earth)|New Jersey]] as part of a plan to harvest energy. The Decepticons erected the [[Stormmaker Station]], creating a massive thunderstorm over the New York City area. An [[electrostator]] was to be placed atop the Empire State Building by [[Iguanus (G1)|Iguanus]], collecting the storm's energy in one massive lightning bolt which would then be harvested by Scorponok's crew. However, the interference of the Autobot [[Micromaster]]s under [[Roadhandler (G1)|Roadhandler]]'s command resulted in the lightning blasting the bolts out of Iguanus instead. {{storylink|King Con!}}

Roadhandler's crew made themselves at home in the city, going so far as to apprehend human thieves and make an appearance on a talk show based in New York. Roadhandler became a celebrity as a wrestler and gave self-defense lessons to local kids until a Decepticon run-in convinced him that anyone associated with him was in danger. {{storylink|The Interplanetary Wrestling Championship!}}

The Decepticons kept their base in New Jersey. This would have nearly disastrous consequences for New York when the so-called [[Decepticon Civil War]] erupted and a battle between Scorponok and [[Shockwave (G1)/Marvel Comics continuity|Shockwave]] spilled over into the area of Battery Park. {{storylink|...All This and Civil War 2}}

[[Optimus Prime (G1)/Marvel Comics continuity|Optimus Prime]] and [[Nightbeat (G1)|Nightbeat]] managed to contain the battle briefly, as did the [[Neo-Knights]]. After the hostilities ended, the assembled Transformers were suddenly teleported away, leaving only a very puzzled NYPD officer wondering how to write up the incident. {{storylink|Out of Time!}}

=====Rhythms of Darkness!=====
[[File:Nyc-alternate-future1.jpg|upright=1.67|thumb|Hell, I still love you though, New York.]]
In an offshoot version of the year [[2009]], [[Galvatron II|Galvatron]] and his forces had conquered the Americas. New York had been the site of the last stand by the dwindling Autobots and [[United States Army]], and as a result was reduced to a deserted wasteland where the remains of Autobot leader [[Hot Rod (G1)/Marvel Comics continuity|Rodimus Prime]] were strung up between the remaining stumps of the destroyed World Trade Center towers.

In 2009, the remaining rebels tried to lure Galvatron to New York's ruins as a diversion. He and the fed up [[Pretender Monster]]s trooped around, risking booby traps, before going home. {{storylink|Rhythms of Darkness!}}

{{note|WTC towers were each about 200' on a side. So according to the art on the right, [[Scale|Rodimus's body would fill a football field]].}}
{{-}}

====Generation 1 cartoon continuity====
=====''The Transformers'' cartoon=====
Humans visiting the Statue of Liberty were among those terrified world-wide as the sun started to go berserk as a result of [[Megatron (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Megatron]]'s [[Solar Needle]]. {{storylink|Changing Gears}}

[[File:BumblebeelovesNY.jpg|left|upright=1.1|thumb|The magic rat drove his sleek machine over the Jersey state line.]]
Megatron began efforts to convert New York City into his new base of "New Cybertron" by tunneling under the city and sinking the Empire State Building into the ground. The refashioned building was soon raised back into place, but with an all-new appearance. When the Autobots arrived to stop him, the [[Constructicon (G1)|Constructicons]] managed to capture [[Optimus Prime (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Optimus Prime]], and Megatron took his severed—but still functioning—head. The Autobots were forced to retreat temporarily or risk Prime's life. For a while, things went well for the Decepticons. (Even [[Starscream (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Starscream]] thought that Megatron was doing a good job, which is a sign of the apocalypse.) However, the Autobots went through the sewers (noting that they were more akin to "some messy swamp" than a substructure for North America's largest city) and managed to collect and reassemble Prime's body, save his right arm and [[ion blaster]]. Megatron had mounted it on his new citadel, the rebuilt Empire State Building, to serve as a defense mechanism. (Why Prime didn't just have [[Ratchet (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Ratchet]] build him a new arm is unspecified.) Eventually, Prime was able to recover his arm, and the Decepticons were driven away. [[Bumblebee (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Bumblebee]] gained an "I ♥ NY" bumper sticker from the ordeal. {{storylink|City of Steel (episode)|City of Steel}}

The Autobots later used a New York garage owned by [[Sparkplug Witwicky|Sparkplug]] as a temporary base in the city. While on patrol, [[Seaspray (G1)|Seaspray]] discovered that the humans tended to dump a lot of garbage in the East River, and [[Cosmos (G1)|Cosmos]] observed that a "little fender-bender" on the lower West Side could tie up traffic for blocks around. Meanwhile, the Decepticons had allied themselves with the [[Geddis brothers]], a pair of New York-based human gangsters, to collect stolen cars and convert them into drones at a secret base in the [[New Jersey (Earth)|New Jersey]] pine barrens. The drones were then sent back into New York to attack the city, but the Autobots thwarted this plan with the help of [[Tracks (G1)|Tracks]]'s new friend, [[Raoul]]. The landmark Chrysler Building was damaged in the battle, requiring [[Inferno (G1)|Inferno]] to climb its side and put out fires in the building and invoking Tracks' ire. {{storylink|Make Tracks}}

[[File:DancitronGang.jpg|upright=1.1|thumb|We got people dressed in plastic bags, directing traffic.]]
The Decepticons used a hip New York nightclub called [[Dancitron]] to brainwash humans into constructing a building for them, but the dynamic duo of Raoul and Tracks once again saved the day. Dancitron attracted an ''extremely'' trendy crowd of New Yorkers—so trendy they were out of style about five minutes later. The club's owners were also quite stringent about preventing the locals from breakdancing on the sidewalks in front of their establishment. {{storylink|Auto-Bop}}

Under [[Perceptor (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Perceptor]]'s guidance, the Autobots spray-coated the [[Statue of Liberty]] with [[corrostop]] to help preserve it. While this activity was underway, the Stunticons commandeered a harbor ferry boat and used it to capture Perceptor. Later, the Autobots returned to the statue when they needed to recover a sample of the chemical. They defended it from a Decepticon attack, preventing Menasor from destroying the statue with a giant lightning bug. The statue proved its ability to withstand a direct hit from Megatron's fusion cannon, which means it's a lot stronger than [[Ironhide (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Ironhide]]'s head. {{storylink|Cosmic Rust (episode)|Cosmic Rust}}

[[File:OnlyHuman New York opening cityscape.jpg|upright=1.1|left|thumb|To that tall skyline I come.]]
By [[2006]], New York had grown quite a bit, with lots of futuristic and utterly gigantic skyscrapers dominating its skyline. The city served as one of [[Victor Drath]]'s crime syndicate territories, and was subject to a series of terrorist bombings that served as cover for Drath's attempted theft of a [[newtronium]] shipment. The Autobots worked with [[Turan|the local chief of police]] to track down Drath. {{storylink|Only Human}}
{{-}}

=====''The Headmasters'' cartoon=====
In [[2011]], New York was one of the cities targeted by [[Sixshot (G1)|Sixshot]] for an energy-blackmailing, which involved him posing as six different villains using each of his six modes. The Autobot [[Headmaster (technology)|Headmasters]] staked out New York from a vantage point atop the Statue of Liberty (whose looks they compared to [[Arcee (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Arcee]]'s while they were at it), but when they were drawn away to investigate an attack on London, Sixshot attacked the city in his gun mode. {{storylink|Terror! The Six Shadows}}

=====''Super-God Masterforce'' cartoon=====
In his human guise, the Autobot [[Pretender]] [[Lander]] lived in New York, where he helped local police fend off an attack by [[Destroid]]s early on in the Decepticons' campaign against Earth. {{storylink|Terror! The Decepticons' Manhunt}} Much later, the city was the victim of a savage, sudden attack by [[Scorponok (G1)|BlackZarak]], and suffered massive damage before any of the Autobots could mobilize to stop him. {{storylink|BlackZarak - Destroyer from Space}}

=====''Zone'' cartoon=====
[[File:Zone New York.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1]]
When the Decepticons were searching Earth for the Zodiac, Devastator unhelpfully flew straight through the World Trade Center, destroying it. {{storylink|Enter the New Supreme Commander, Dai Atlas!}}
{{-}}

====2005 IDW continuity====
[[File:AHM1 NewYorkCityBuildings1.JPEG|upright=0.85|left|thumb|New York? That's where my accent used to live!]]
{{mainIDW|New York City}}
It was a bright and sunny day in New York, when these [[Constructicon (G1)|six green guys]] turned up to announce a desire for peace... then started shooting everyone. This was followed by an all-out Decepticon attack, levelling much of the city and drawing the attention of the U.S. Air Force. The Air Force did... badly. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 1|All Hail Megatron #1}} Soon the city was full of looting, carnage and panicked evacuations while the [[United States military|United States Armed Forces]] deployed in force to defeat the Decepticons. Before the military could do anything, the Decepticons took out the city's bridges and then began targeting the tunnels, all while broadcasting their effortless devastation to the world. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 2|All Hail Megatron #2}}

[[File:AHMIssue2 SeekersVsBrooklynBridge.JPEG|thumb|Crispy Fried Traffic]]
Within a few days, the city had been turned into a secure base for the Decepticons; the civilians were kept as hostages to prevent the military from carpet-bombing. [[Megatron (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Megatron]] stated he chose the city as it was an icon for humanity; [[Hook (G1)|Hook]] thinks it sucks. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 3|All Hail Megatron #3}} The military attempted to sneak a strike force into the city to assassinate Megatron, but only [[Spike Witwicky (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|one soldier]] made it across Hudson River alive. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 5|All Hail Megatron #5}} Meanwhile, world leaders in [[Europe]] opted for another solution: wiping New York City off the map with [[Nuclear weapon|nukes]], despite the hostages. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 6|All Hail Megatron #6}}

While Spike Witwicky located the experimental weapon required to kill Megatron, the human resistance managed to stir up [[Soundwave (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Soundwave]]'s emotions, which ended the radio blackout the Decepticon had caused the city. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 9|All Hail Megatron #9}} During their stay in New York, the Decepticons had constructed their first [[space bridge]] there, but never got to use it as European jets attacked them in an attempt to gather all the Decepticons in one place for the impending nuclear strike. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 10|All Hail Megatron #10}}

The poor city was further damaged in the battle between [[Devastator (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Devastator]] and the human jets, and it didn't get any better when the Autobots joined the fray and [[Omega Supreme (G1)|Omega Supreme]] slammed Devastator through a skyscraper. At least [[Optimus Prime (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Optimus Prime]] was nice enough to ask Omega to take the giants' duel elsewhere. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 11|All Hail Megatron #11}} So he took it to the [[Statue of Liberty]], which was promptly wrecked. Eventually, the Decepticons retreated from New York and the nuke was averted, but the city was still left in ruins. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 12|All Hail Megatron #12}}

New York was subsequently evacuated and its population was placed in refugee camps, except for the occasional straggler who didn't want to leave. The U.S. military also patrolled the city to find and exterminate any Transformers left behind. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 16|All Hail Megatron #16}} A [[G.I. Joe (team)|G.I. Joe]] presence led by [[Joe Colton]] helped with the relief efforts, though Colton was haunted by his inability to predict the catastrophic invasion. {{storylink|Ghost in the Machine (IDW)|Ghost in the Machine}}

After just a few years, humanity had restored large parts of New York City to a habitable condition, though many buildings remained damaged. {{storylink|Ride-Along}}

A series of increasingly improbable events culminated in [[Swerve (G1)|Swerve]] generating a life-size [[holomatter]] version of Earth. The minibot's love of Earthly sitcoms led New York being the only "inhabited" city on "[[Swearth]]" prompting the ''[[Lost Light]]'' crew to send their avatars to the city to find their friend. While there, [[Tailgate (G1)|Taligate]] described New York as being about half the size of the ''Lost Light''. {{storylink|The One Where They Go to Earth}}

[[Baron Karza]] set up his base of operations in New York City. {{storylink|Wrath of Karza issue 2|Wrath of Karza #2}}

====''Hearts of Steel''====
New York City was the location of a "great eklectrical power generator,"{{sic}} {{storylink|Hearts of Steel issue 2|Hearts of Steel #2}} which became the target of Decepticon attention. They built [[Astrotrain (G1)#Hearts of Steel|the Astrotrain]] to get to it, {{storylink|Hearts of Steel issue 3|Hearts of Steel #3}} but were stopped by [[Bumblebee (G1)|Bumblebee]] and [[John Henry]]. {{storylink|Hearts of Steel issue 4|Hearts of Steel #4}}

====Ask Vector Prime====
In [[Primax 185.0 Beta]], New York City was the powerbase of [[Galvatron (G1)|Galvatron]] and from where he successfully conquered Earth.
{{storylink|Ask Vector Prime#Facebook|Ask Vector Prime, 2015/06/04}}

====''Of Masters and Mayhem''====
[[Spike Witwicky (G1)|Spike Witwicky]] noted that in [[Of Masters and Mayhem|his new reality]], all cities on Earth were the same as in [[Primax 207.0 Epsilon|his old one]], including New York. {{storylink|Assembly (OMAM)|Assembly}}

====''Transformers/Ghostbusters''====
New York City was home to the [[Ghostbusters]], who helped contain the [[ghost]]s which frequently plagued the city. Prior to the quartet's meeting with the [[Transformer]]s, they had faced off against the malevolent [[Gozer]], exploding "his marshmallow butt over [[Central Park]] West", and used gallons of [[mood slime]] to animate the [[Statue of Liberty]]. {{storylink|Ghosts of Cybertron Part 4}} {{storylink|Ghosts of Cybertron Part 5}}

During one job in [[Brooklyn]], the Ghostbusters battled a tentacled ghost in [[Prospect Park]], defeating it at the cost of their car, the [[Ecto-1]]. While they were distracted, [[Ectotron|Ectronymous Diamatron]] took on the form of the Ecto-1 and nearly had a run-in with two NYPD officers before scaring them off. Following a brief encounter with the ghost of [[Starscream (G1)|Starscream]], Ectronymous introduced himself to the team. {{storylink|Ghosts of Cybertron Part 1}} Unaware of the supernatural, Ectronymous deactivated the [[ghost trap]] holding Starscream, thinking him but a [[hologram]], before he understood the truth. After Starscream told his story, a [[Kremzeek]] sprite landed in the park, the Seeker instructing the group on how to dissipate it before they retreated to the [[Ghostbusters firehouse]]. {{storylink|Ghosts of Cybertron Part 2}}

[[Peter Venkman]], suspecting that the Seeker had ulterior motives, locked him in another ghost trap while Ectronymous - now rebranded "Ectotron" - called in [[Optimus Prime (G1)|Optimus Prime]]. As they waited for the Prime, the group returned to Brooklyn to contain [[Killerwatt|a ghost that fed on electricity]]. When the returned to the firehouse, they found Prime waiting for them and Starscream's ghost freed from the trap. {{storylink|Ghosts of Cybertron Part 3}}

To accommodate their alien guests, the Ghostbusters relocated to their warehouse in [[Red Hook]] before heading to the [[Grosbeak Generating Station]] in [[Queens]] when they picked up Starscream's PKE signature. When the six arrived, they found Starscream and Kremzeek the Scavenger waiting for them, the latter proceeding to absorb Starscream before engaging Optimus in physical combat for the [[AllSpark]]'s location. Using the electrical ghost, the Ghostbusters managed to dissipate Kremzeek only to find that this act had freed the imprisoned ghosts of [[Decepticon High Command]]. {{storylink|Ghosts of Cybertron Part 4}} While Starscream managed to flee the planet, Shockwave, Soundwave, and Megatron were all contained. In the aftermath, the Autobots left Earth, Optimus taking the ghostly Decepticons with the hopes of one day rehabilitating and resurrecting them, while Ectotron opted to travel the galaxy to find more Cybertronian ghosts, becoming the first interstellar Ghostbuster. {{storylink|Ghosts of Cybertron Part 5}}

===2001 ''Robots in Disguise'' cartoon===
The first [[International Scientific Symposium]] was being held in New York when [[Megatron (RID)|Megatron]] turned up in order to kidnap leading scientist [[Kenneth Onishi|Doctor Onishi]]. [[Optimus Prime (RID)|Optimus Prime]] and the [[Autobot Brothers]] rushed to the doctor's aid, turning downtown New York into a war zone. The Autobots fought the [[Predacon (BW)|Predacon]]s at length but were unable to prevent Megatron from escaping with his prisoner. {{storylink|Battle Protocol!}}

===Live-action film series===
====''Revenge of the Fallen'' film====
[[File:ROTF New York City.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|The Big Blue Apple.]]
After being attacked by the Autobots for murdering [[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]], [[Megatron (Movie)|Megatron]] and [[Starscream (Movie)|Starscream]] flew to New York, where Megatron lectured Starscream for not being capable of tracking down one human. When Starscream countered that there were seven billion humans on Earth, Megatron decided to reveal the Transformers presence on Earth as a show of force to compel the humans to turn [[Sam Witwicky]] over to them. Starscream and [[Mixmaster (ROTF)|Mixmaster]] made open shows of defiance around New York City, while Megatron hijacked the Empire State Building's antenna to broadcast [[The Fallen]]'s message across the world.

A day later, Sam, [[Mikaela Banes]], and [[Leo Spitz]] traveled with [[Bumblebee (Movie)|Bumblebee]] and [[Skids (ROTF)|the]] [[Mudflap (ROTF)|Twins]] to New York to meet Leo's rival [[Robo-Warrior]]. {{storylink|Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (film)|Revenge of the Fallen}}

====''Dark of the Moon'' Annual====
[[NEST Satellite Orion]] detected Decepticons deploying [[Pillar]]s in New York. [[NEST]] wasn't quite sure why, as the city was rated of low resource importance. Diss! {{storylink|Transformers Dark of the Moon Annual 2012|Transformers Dark of the Moon Annual 2012}}

===''Prime'' cartoon===
[[File:Lower_Manhattan_Flying_Mind.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3]]
One of the artifacts from the [[Iacon (polity)|Iacon]] archives ended up under Manhattan. {{storylink|Flying Mind}} Both the Autobots and Decepticons sent teams to recover the relic. While [[Knock Out (Prime)|Knock Out]], an [[Insecticon (WFC)|Insecticon]] and some [[Decepticon Miner]]s found it first, [[Arcee (WFC)|Arcee]] and [[Bumblebee (WFC)|Bumblebee]] managed to recover it with the help of [[Jack Darby|Jack]], [[Miko Nakadai|Miko]] and a subway worker named [[Vogel]]. {{storylink|Tunnel Vision}}
{{--}}

==Games==
===''Transformers Legends''===
The [[Military Patrol]] was unleashed on New York as part of a general move by the Decepticons towards abandoning subtlety. [[Bombshock (G1)|Bombshock]] and his men caused chaos on a city-wide scale until a team of Autobots led by [[Jetfire (G1)|Jetfire]] drove them out. {{storylink|Full Assault}}

===''Transformers: Devastation''===
[[File:Devastation-NYC.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|Literally the only shot in the entire story where the city isn't in the process of being completely destroyed.]]
Millions of years past, the ''[[Proudstar]]'' crashed under what would become New York City. In the modern day, the Decepticons discovered the craft and managed to reactivate its systems, forcing the entire population to be evacuated. The city was nearly [[cyberforming|cyberformed]] as a result until the Autobots managed to shut the ship down. {{storylink|Transformers: Devastation}}

===''Transformers: Reactivate''===
New York City is bombarded by a force known as the Legion. {{storylink|Transformers: Reactivate}}
{{-}}

==External links==
*{{w|New York City}} at Wikipedia
*{{i|New York City}} at the IDW Hasbro Wiki
{{GBwiki|New York City}}

[[Category:Cities in the United States]]
[[Category:Classics locations]]
[[Category:Dark of the Moon cities]]
[[Category:Generation 1 cities]]
[[Category:IDW (2005) cities]]
[[Category:Real-world human settlements]]
[[Category:Revenge of the Fallen cities]]
[[Category:Robots in Disguise (2001) locations]]
[[Category:Super-God Masterforce locations]]
[[Category:The Headmasters locations]]
[[Category:United States of America]]

Chicago

2022-12-17T16:17:40Z

Hammerclaw: /* ‘’Transformers: Devastation */

[[File:Otfcc2003-cryotekvschicago.jpg|upright=1.66|thumb|The huge piles of ice are pretty much par for the course. The giant blue dragon, not so much.]]
'''Chicago''' is the biggest city in the American Midwest. It's full of gangsters, burning railways, corrupt politicians, and, on occasion, robots.

==Fiction==
===Generation 1 continuity family===
====''The Transformers'' cartoon====
When held captive on the planet [[Quintessa (planet)|Quintessa]] in the year 2005, [[Spike Witwicky (G1)|Spike Witwicky]] prepared [[Kup (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Kup]] and [[Ultra Magnus (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Ultra Magnus]] for an escape attempt by way of a coded message that involved recalling a [[Mecha-soccer#American_football|football]] match between the [[Lunar Colony]]'s team and "the Bears". Whether the game was held on Earth's moon, in Chicago, or elsewhere is unknown. {{storylink|Five Faces of Darkness, Part 2}}

====''G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers''====
When the [[Teletran 3]] supercomputer went berserk and blasted random Transformers into random points in Earth's timestream, teams of Cobras and G.I. Joe troops pursued them. One such group, consisting of the [[Baroness]], [[Percy]], [[Roadblock (G.I. Joe)|Roadblock]], and [[Beachhead]], materialized in a dingy, dirty, dark city, and narrowly avoided getting run over by two cars full of mugs shooting tommy guns at each other. They'd landed in Prohibition-era Chicago! {{storylink|G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II issue 1|G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II #1}}

The team soon attacked a group of gangsters who were using [[Optimus Prime (G1)|Optimus Prime]] as a truck. Freeing him, they next tracked down the gangsters' boss, the notorious [[Tommy Fingers]]. Fingers's favored watering hole was a jazz club that he owned; the next four Transformers were located in a garage out back.

Through the Baroness's efforts, the team learned that Fingers was planning a bank heist, using a dynamite-loaded truck which just happened to be the last of the missing Transformers. Unfortunately for the humans, one of the four garage-bound Transformers was [[Breakdown (G1)|Breakdown]], who was not at all mode-locked, and he quickly activated his [[Stunticon (G1)|Stunticon]] compatriots. Optimus Prime and the humans fled from the Stunticons in a running firefight through Chicago's streets; the humans blasted down a suspension bridge along the way.

Coming up on the last Transformer, the Baroness blasted the dynamite, activated the Transformer ([[Motormaster (G1)|Motormaster]]), and all the time-displaced combatants returned to their own time. {{storylink|G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II issue 2|G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II #2}}

====2005 IDW continuity====
A counter-[[Infiltration protocol|infiltration]] unit under Prowl's command parked their vessel, the ''[[Ark-19]]'', beneath [[Lake Michigan]], some ten miles northwest of Chicago.

===Panini ''Armada'' comic===
When [[Starscream (Armada)|Starscream]] wanted to draw out the [[Air Defense Mini-Con Team (Armada)|Air Defense Mini-Con Team]] for capture, he blasted a satellite out of orbit. The Mini-Con trio managed to stop the falling satellite from smashing into downtown Chicago's forest of skyscrapers a mere ten seconds before impact, then carried it away and dropped it into [[Lake Michigan]]. {{storylink|Panini Armada issue 5|Panini Armada issue 5}}

===Live-action film series===
====Movies====
{{note|The five movies are the primary component of the live-action movie continuity family. Their events should be taken as canon for all other pieces of fiction listed below, unless otherwise specified.}}
=====''Dark of the Moon'' film=====
[[File:DarkoftheMoon-Chicago.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.66|Bad Cryotek! Very bad Cryotek!]]
After taking [[Carly Spencer]] captive, [[Dylan Gould]] headed to Chicago. [[Sentinel Prime (ROTF)|Sentinel Prime]] also headed to Chicago to set up few of the space bridge pillars. Needing privacy to conduct their work, [[Megatron (Movie)|Megatron]] ordered a huge Decepticon invasion force take over Chicago. Several [[mothership]]s arrived to disgorge a large number of [[Orbital Assault Carrier]]s, while ground forces took to the streets. A huge portion of the city's population was slaughtered when the Decepticons sealed off the city.

[[Sam Witwicky]] headed there to rescue Carly with the help of the ex-[[NEST]] soldier [[Robert Epps]] and a few other ex-NEST comrades. After taking a look at the Decepticon-fortified Chicago, Robert Epps realized that they had no chance of surviving all that, but Sam pressed on. As Epps attempted to dissuade Sam from rescuing Carly, Sam asked what they should do, and Epps admitted that they had to give up. Soon afterward, an Orbital Assault Carrier attacked the group. Just after killing several civilians and nearly killing Sam and Epps, the fighter was shot down. Sam and Epps looks behind them to see their savior—[[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]], who gave his own answer to Sam's question: kill every last Decepticon. The Wreckers [[Leadfoot (DOTM)|Leadfoot]], [[Topspin (DOTM)|Topspin]], and [[Roadbuster (DOTM)|Roadbuster]] proceeded to execute the pilot by tearing it to pieces.

Optimus then explained why they had feigned departure; they needed to fool the world's leaders that they were gone, so they could see the truth behind the Decepticons. As the rest of the Autobots arrived on scene, Sam inquired as to how they survived, to which Roadbuster and Leadfoot explained that the Autobots hid in the boosters of their ship, the [[Xantium (DOTM)|Xantium]], which splashed in the Atlantic, and then they traveled to Chicago from there. Wheelie and Brains then reiterated that Autobots would never leave Earth, and Optimus announced that they needed an element of surprise, to which Sam said he knew where to look.

[[File:DOTM-SentinelandMegatron.jpg|thumb|upright=1.66|Sentinel and his new hobo friend.]]
Asking if Bumblebee could fly the downed Orbital Assault Carrier (which he replied with a hand shrug) Bumblebee and Sam departed for Dylan Gould's penthouse suite. Inside, Carly observed an argument between Sentinel and Megatron on the other building using a telescope. Sneaking in through the balcony, Sam confronted Gould, but [[Laserbeak (DOTM)|Laserbeak]] attacked Sam as Carly appeared, then threw him over the balcony. Bumblebee's captured Orbital Assault Carrier caught Sam, who urged Carly to jump. With the boy and his girl safely secured, Bumblebee opened fire on the human collaborators, but Laserbeak sent a mini-drone dispatched by the [[United States military]] into one of the Orbital Assault Carrier's thrusters, then attacked Sam. Pinning Laserbeak above the gun turret, Sam told Bumblebee to fire, killing the aerial Decepticon before they crash-landed onto the ground. As Dylan frantically ran about the streets shouting that the Autobots were alive, Megatron ordered the Decepticon to raise the bridges into the city and find the Autobots.

Reuniting with the Autobots and ex-NEST soldiers, the group was able to use the mini-drone to warn the powers that be about Sentinel and Megatron's plan to transport Cybertron to the Sol system. Colonel [[William Lennox]] mobilized NEST for a drop into a city using wing suits. Realizing that they had to destroy the [[pillar]]s, Epps team and the Autobots head into the city, but were attacked by [[Shockwave (Movie)|Shockwave]] and the [[Driller]], separating Prime from his trailer carrying his weapons. Optimus agreed to take the Autobots on a diversionary attack while Epps and his team made their way to a skyscraper with the necessary height and clear line of fire, but not before [[Wheeljack (Movie)|Que]] gave them some urban combat weapons, the boom-sticks and grapple gloves. In distracting Shockwave, Wheelie and Brains became separated from the Autobots.

[[File:830px-Dotm-shockwave&driller-film-chicago.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.4|Driller-bot is thirsty. What the hell?]]
Following this, Lennox and the NEST forces arrived in the city, but were forced to wing-suit in. As [[Starscream (Movie)|Starscream]] lead the aerial counter-attack, the NEST soldiers abandoned the plane, gliding away until they lost the Decepticons in a tilted building. Once Epps team made their way to the right floor for the shot, the Decepticon Orbital Assault Carriers began shooting the building, causing the portion above the line of fire to begin collapsing. A Decepticon scout jumped into the building, forcing Epps to throw a grenade to distract it long enough for the humans to slide down the windows, just barely falling into the floors below. One soldier was not so lucky, and the debris fell around Shockwave. Knowing that there were humans inside, Shockwave ordered the Driller to begin eating the building, causing it to collapse onto another nearby building. As the humans evacuated onto the fire-escape on the other building, Optimus Prime, having recovered his flight tech, managed to kill the Driller, saving the humans from pursuit. Furious with the death of his pet, Shockwave fired a cluster of missiles at Optimus, causing him to become tangled in some cables as the [[Wreckers]] came to his rescue.

[[File:Dotm Starscream BOOM.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|Like this is so unfamiliar to me.]]
At this point, Sentinel Prime gave the order to launch the pillars into orbit, at the same time as Wheelie and Brains discovered a downed Orbital Assault Carrier. While Epps and his team made their way through the streets, Sam and Carly continued on in another direction. To a position where Starscream spotted them. Relishing a chance to torment a long thorn in the Decepticons side, Starscream had some fun tormenting and threatening Sam. This allowed Sam a chance to use the grapple glove given to him by Que, hitting the [[Air Commander]]'s right [[sensor|optic]]. Starscream began flailing around in pain, tossing Sam through a window, which allowed him to arm a boom-stick. The commotion attracted the attention of Lennox and the NEST forces. Just as Lennox arrived, Sam managed to jump on Starscream's head and jam the boom-stick into his left eye. Now completely blind, Starscream lost whatever control he had left and began flailing about trying to get the boom-stick out. Lennox grabbed the rope Sam's glove was attached to, but was unable to cut it. they managed to hit the release mere seconds before the boom-stick went off, which killed Starscream, but nearly fell to their deaths, only just saved by Bumblebee. Once they were sure Starscream was dead, Bumblebee went ahead to the edge of the river.

[[File:Dotm-decepticoncarrier-film-city.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.4|''Chicago! Chicago! That explodin' town Chicago, Chicago! I will shoot it all down.'']]

By the time the two human teams reached the bridge, a SEAL team arrived, informing Lennox of inbound TOMAHAWK missiles, and the military had accessed local security cameras. What they found was not encouraging: most of the Autobots had been taken captive by Decepticons lead by [[Soundwave (ROTF)|Soundwave]]. Realizing that the humans needed to get across the river, [[Dutch (DOTM)|Dutch]] was able to hack the bridge controls and lower the bridge. Unfortunately, the orbiting pillars reached the necessary coordinates, and the ground based pillars began opening the space bridge. While this was going on, Wheelie and Brains managed to board a Decepticon cruiser and make their way to the control center. At the holding area, Dylan Gould was shocked that the Decepticons were taking prisoners, and encouraged them to kill the Autobots. [[File:DOTMQuegetsit.jpg|thumb|upright=1.95|''They have the end, the end of their life I saw a man, he got shot at and died In Chicago, my home town!'']]
Soundwave happily concurred, declaring "no prisoners, only trophies". Ordering Que to his feet, the Autobot scientist was gunned down by [[Barricade (Movie)|Barricade]] while begging for mercy. Sam tried to activate a boom-stick, but it was damaged. Just as Soundwave was about to execute Bumblebee, Orbital Assault Carriers from the hijacked cruiser began crashing to the ground. The Autobots and Decepticons scrambled for cover, and Bumblebee was able to kill Soundwave in the ensuring confusion, then escape with the others. However, the cruiser carrying Wheelie and Brains crashed into the river, presumably killing the duo.

[[File:DOTMScrapper.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.66|''On State Street, that late street, I just want to say They blow up things they don't blow up on Broadway'']]
Meeting up with some army troopers, Lennox and Epps's teams took positions for a strike on the Decepticons, who were investigating Soundwave's last stand. As Lennox's team parachuted in, Barricade was reprimanding the protoforms for allowing the Autobots to escape when snipers began firing at the Decepticons optics. Momentarily blinded, the several demolitions teams were able to attach explosives to the Decepticons feet, crippling Barricade and several protoforms enough for the humans to kill them. As the Decepticons returned fire, Lennox and his men parachuted onto Shockwave, with one trooper seriously damaging the large Decepticon, while Epps team opened fire on full auto, seriously disorienting Shockwave. With this, the Autobots arrived and attacked. Despite the promising opening, sheer firepower was on the Decepticons side, keeping the Autobots and NEST from reaching the pillars. Declaring that Earth was theirs, Sentinel Prime fully activated the space bridge, and Cybertron began appearing in orbit. Just then, Optimus Prime, freed from the cables, arrived and quite literally tore through every Decepticon standing between him and Sentinel. Finally reaching Shockwave, Optimus punched out half of his chest, then tore his eye out through his head. Firing Shockwave's cannon at the control pillar, Optimus brought down a small part of the building, interrupting the transport and leaving Cybertron in half.

[[File:Autobots vs Sentinel.jpg|thumb|upright=1.66|"Um, Sentinel? We're over here!" "You sure you want him to remember us? My ass feels pretty kicked."]]
Optimus then demanded that Sentinel confront him, and a furious Sentinel was only too willing to oblige. Using his [[Primax Blade]] to descend the building, Sentinel was dumbfounded that Optimus still sided with the humans, but Optimus countered that Sentinel was the one who taught him freedom was the right of all sentient beings. Drawing a [[Dual Energon Swords|sword]] and [[Energon-axe]], Optimus engaged Sentinel, who vowed to reactivate the pillar, while Sam went off to try and reach it first. With the tide turning, the Autobots, NEST, and the military pushed forward. When Optimus started to get the upper hand over Sentinel, the elder Prime called in the Orbital Assault Carriers to attack Optimus. ''All'' the Orbital Assault Carriers. NEST was able to make contact with the remote guided TOMAHAWK missiles, which were five minutes out. With the Orbital Assault Carriers attacking Optimus, the Wreckers attacking the incoming ground Decepticons, and the rest of the Autobots engaging Sentinel, no Decepticons were left to reactivate the pillar, which fell to a cowering Dylan Gould. With the Orbital Assault Carriers on the verge of overwhelming Optimus, NEST was able to guide the missiles to the fighters, downing them.

As Sam made his way to the pillar, he encountered Gould, who tried to stop him at gunpoint. Sam tried to reason with the human agent, but Gould said there only one future for him. As some papers obstructed his vision, Sam attacked, but Gould was still able to reactivate the pillar. Megatron, allowing his [[Lensmeter Decepticon]]s to repair him, rested easily as Carly approached the [[Lord High Protector]]. Carly then pointed out that while the Decepticons were conquering Earth, their leader would not be Megatron, but Sentinel Prime. Megatron was within a hair of killing her when he realized she was ''right''. Meanwhile, Sentinel, under fire from more or less ''everything'' at this point, realized that he was losing and fled with Optimus hot on his heels. At the same time, Gould overpowered Sam, knocking him out cold. Optimus caught up with Sentinel at a bridge and the two fought once again. However, when Sentinel severed Optimus's right arm and knocked him to the ground, it came apparent that Optimus was not stronger then his mentor. Lamenting over how the [[Dynasty of Primes]] had been gods on Cybertron, Sentinel declared that on Earth, there could only be one.

[[File:DOTM space bridge collapse.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.55]]
Just as Sentinel was about to deliver the killing blow, an infuriated Megatron came in firing—at Sentinel, letting loose several thousand years of parental issues out. Sam quickly reappeared, and promptly killed Gould with the pillar itself. The Autobots overwhelmed the last Decepticon, and Ratchet and Bumblebee destroyed the pillar. The effects were instantaneous: not only were the remaining Decepticon ships pulled out of Chicago and into the collapsing space bridge, but the space bridge's collapse destroyed Cybertron in the process. Seeing the plan had failed, Megatron slyly proposed a truce with Optimus, his only stipulation remaining [[Decepticon leader]]. Megatron was confident Optimus would accept; they had fought for so long, who was Optimus Prime without Megatron? Optimus declared that he would find out. Picking up his discarded axe, Optimus jammed the weapon into Megatron's head, then tore it off, killing Megatron. The badly wounded Sentinel pleaded for mercy, explaining that all he wanted was to save the Cybertronian race, which was why he betrayed his former pupil. Optimus claimed it was never about betraying Optimus; by allying with Megatron and planning to enslave humanity, Sentinel had betrayed himself. With bitter regret, Optimus Prime raised Megatron's fusion shotgun and executed Sentinel Prime.

[[File:DOTM Autobots NEST victorious.jpg|thumb|280px]]
With the battle over, Sam and Carly reunited, and with Cybertron lost, the Autobots accepted that Earth was now their home. {{storylink|Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Dark of the Moon}}

=====''Age of Extinction'' film=====
Chicago proved to be the final tipping point in an already strained relationship between humans and Cybertronians. The United States government officially terminated all joint Autobot-human operations, replacing them with [[Harold Attinger]]'s [[Cemetery Wind]], a [[CIA]] unit tasked with hunting down the surviving Decepticons, whilst the Autobots were granted asylum on Earth. In reality, and under the White House's nose, Cemetery Wind hunted Autobot and Decepticon alike, holding both factions responsible for the loss of life in Chicago, forcing the Autobots underground. During the subsequent cleanup and rebuilding effort, Chicago proved to be a lucrative opportunity to salvage discarded alien technology, and several world governments and independent corporations began reverse-engineering Cybertronian tech.

Five years after the battle, Chicago had returned to its former glory, with a refurbished skyline. Perhaps as a result of easy access to Cybertronian artifacts and [[Living metal|transformium]], [[Kinetic Solutions Incorporated]] built its American division in the city. They were eventually visited by [[Cade Yeager]] and the surviving Autobots, who had hijacked a KSI drone and traced it back to its company of origin. Optimus Prime, angered by the mutilation of his former comrades, ordered an assault on the company, but his team voluntarily fell back after a confrontation with [[Joshua Joyce]], and left the city.

After Prime was captured by [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]] the bounty hunter met up with [[James Savoy]] to hand over the [[Seed]]. Needless to say, the presence of a giant alien spaceship caused mass hysteria in the streets and the military scrambled fighters to intercept but were ensured that the ship was not there to cause any harm by Harold Attinger. The Autobots later infiltrated Lockdown's ship to rescue Prime and the following battle slightly spilled over into the city's airspace. The ship later left - but without a section which set off in another direction.
{{storylink|Transformers: Age of Extinction (film)|Age of Extinction}}
{{-}}

=====''The Last Knight'' film=====
[[Izabella]] was orphaned during the battle of Chicago, as her parents were killed by Decepticons while she was away from home. By the time Cemetery Wind was exposed and replaced by the [[Transformers Reaction Force]], much of Chicago was still uninhabitable.

Under more government-organised work, the TRF proved to be a liability in the fight against [[Quintessa (TLK)|Quintessa]]. When Cade talked some sense into them, revealing that the real reason humanity turned on the Autobots after Chicago was because they simply gave up on them, the TRF realigned themselves as allies of the Autobots. {{storylink|Transformers: The Last Knight (film)|The Last Knight}}

=====''Bumblebee'' film=====
Chicago makes a honorable cameo while Bumblebee in [[Charlie Watson]]’s garage is watching the movie The Breakfast Club. {{storylink|Bumblebee (film)|Bumblebee}}

====''Dark of the Moon'' Annual====
[[NEST Satellite Orion]] detected the highest [[energon]] reading in Chicago, suggesting that the Decepticons were using the tall buildings as an interstellar transmission site. {{storylink|Transformers Dark of the Moon Annual 2012}}

====Ask Vector Prime====
In [[Tyran 609.23-PX Kappa]], Megatron also seized Chicago with the aid of collaborationist humans to set up the space bridge technology to bring Cybertron into Earth orbit. {{storylink|Ask Vector Prime}}

====''Studio Series'' toy bios====
[[Thundercracker (Movie)|Thundercracker]] participated in an areal assault on the Autobots during the battle of Chicago.

==Video games==
===''Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark''===
Chicago is invaded by Lockdowns mercenaries in search of the Dark Spark throughout the beginning and ending of the game. {{storylink|Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark}}

===''Transformers: Devastation''===
Autobots Defensor and Superion arrive in Chicago by Optimus that the city remains safe from Decepticon Attacks. {{storylink|Transformers: Devastation}}

===''Transformers: Forged to Fight''===
[[File:ChicagosSteakhouse.jpg|right|thumb|200px]]
A demolished Chicago is used as an arena on [[New Quintessa]]. Keep an eye out for [[Chicagos Steakhouse]]! {{storylink|Transformers: Forged to Fight}}
{{-}}

==Notes==
* Out here in the real world, Chicago has twice played host to the official Transformers convention, as [[OTFCC 2003]] and [[OTFCC 2004]] both occurred there.
* Chicago also hosts the annual Wizard World Chicago convention, which frequently features a Hasbro Transformers display booth similar to what's seen at [[BotCon]].
* The package and bio for Thundercracker's ''[[Studio Series]]'' toy marks him as being from ''Dark of the Moon'', ostensibly as one of the numerous Decepticons who space-bridged in from the Moon and participated in the battle of Chicago.

===Chicago in ''Dark of the Moon''===
* Chicago filming for ''[[Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Dark of the Moon]]'' commenced July 10, 2010 and continued through August 19.
[[File:Dotm Protoform.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|Not such a Magnificent Mile for Que.]]
[[File:DOTM Autobots NEST victorious.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|Prime now gets a sign that reads ''Dunmurderin'''.]]
[[File:DOTM NEST HQ.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|The fictional universe of ''Transformers'' includes giant talking alien space robots and, far less credibly, a repeal of DC's building height restrictions.]]
* Many Chicago landmarks "appear as themselves" during ''Dark of the Moon''. Virtually every landmark on the downtown skyline is visible at some point. Buildings of significance in the film include:
** [[Trump Tower]]: the recently completed glass tower is where Dylan has his apartment.
** [[35 East Wacker]] (aka the Jewelers Building): the cupola'd building where Sentinel sets up the control pillar. It is directly across the Chicago River from the Trump Tower, accurately portrayed when Carly observes Megatron and Sentinel. Megatron is also shown sitting at its real-world base after (presumably) getting thrown off by Sentinel.
** McCormick Place Busway: the sunken street in Grant Park is where Sam and Epps enter the city amid the fleeing population.
** {{w|Navy Pier}}: prominently visible as the helicopters approach the city.
** {{w|Aon Center (Chicago)|Aon Center}}: the vertically-striped white building prominently visible during the [[wingsuit]]ers' descent.
** The {{w|Chicago River}}: much of the action centers around the river and its movable bridges; the carrier ship crashes there.
** {{w|Willis Tower}} (previously Sears Tower): used by Lennox's wingsuit team for cover.
** {{w|Tribune Tower}}: the Gothic-styled building whose crest is crumbled by the crashing troop carrier ship. Also used as a launch pad for Decepticons who attack the wingsuit team, and later as a base for Lennox's sniper team.
** {{w|Wrigley Building}}: visible in various shots; most notably, the prisoner sequence occurs on Michigan Avenue in front of it.
** {{w|La Salle Street Bridge|LaSalle Street Bridge}}: scene of Optimus and Sentinel's final fight.
[[File:DOTM-Mexicanstandoff.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|Silly robots! The {{w|Lower West Side, Chicago#Pilsen|Mexican neighborhoods}} are like 2 miles west.]]
* Several additional filming locations in Chicago were repurposed as other sites, mostly set in [[Washington, D.C.]]:
** The abandoned south side Rosenwald Apartment Building appears as part of [[Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant|Chernobyl]], as Optimus arrives and the soldiers disembark, and where [[Alexi Voskhod]] meets his end shortly afterwards.
** The {{w|Old Chicago Main Post Office|Old Main Post Office}} is repurposed as NEST Headquarters in Washington D.C., with a digitally added helipad and smokestacks. The building's east loading docks appears several times, most notably when Sentinel announces his betrayal.
** North Garland Court, an alleyway between Wabash and Michigan Avenues, is used as the Washington D.C. street where Sam and Carly live.
** A section of {{w|Indiana State Road 912|Highway 912}} (Cline Avenue, closed since 2009) near Gary in northwest Indiana fills in for the D.C. Parkway. A highway sign added by the filmmakers contains signage for exits to I-88 westbound (about twenty miles north and west) and Business Route 20/State Street (two hours west in Rockford, IL!)
** The Mexican standoff occurs on S. Indiana Avenue, in front of the McCormick Place Convention Center's westernmost building. A star-shaped auto parts store sign, digitally inserted in to the scene, is actually located a couple of blocks west on State Street.
[[File:Dotm-driller-film-hudsontower.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|Michael Bay decides that we are now in a post-post-9/11 world.]]
[[File:DOTM-Wreckers-Prime-Cables.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|Optimus Prime was captured by the Chinese.]]
* Various discontinuities occur within the landscape of downtown Chicago during ''Dark of the Moon''. While not errors per se—such geographic splicing is common within films, and they do not affect the internal storyline—they are still of note:
** Most significantly, the movie's most prominent set piece—the skyscraper that gets shot in half and partially collapsed by the Driller, with our heroes still inside it—is not an actual building in Chicago. In a couple of shots, it is shown to be sited near the Chicago River just north of the NBC Tower, but the actual location is a parking lot.
** Detroit's abandoned {{w|Packard plant}} is digitally spliced into Chicago's landscape, south of downtown, as the backdrop as Epps and Sam argue, come under attack, and are reunited with the Autobots.
** The wingsuit team launches from the Willis Tower, on the west end of downtown. Successive shots show them passing the Aon Center (a good mile or more east), then City Hall (in the ''center'' of downtown) heading south, then back to the Aon Center, then north and west to Michigan Avenue.
** The abandoned {{w|Michigan Central Station}} in [[Detroit]] makes its second live-action appearance, this time as a Chicago building, where Prime and company retreat after the Driller's attack on the driving Autobots.
** Carly states that the control pillar is in the southeast cupola; it's actually in the northeast cupola.
** [[Robert Epps|Epps]] can somehow see the Driller plowing through LaSalle Street from the fictional tower, through over a mile of cityscape.
** After escaping from the fictional tower (north of the river), Sam and company are in a Lower Wacker Drive alley south of the river. A whole segment will subsequently focus on how they are trapped north of the river.
** Epps and company then duck into an abandoned church: City Methodist, located in Gary, Indiana.
** Sam encounters and kills [[Starscream (Movie)|Starscream]] in a parking lot whose real-world location is, again, south of the river (Wabash at Lake). (The adjacent garage was demolished in 2012.)
** To attack [[Shockwave (Movie)|Shockwave]] and [[Barricade (Movie)|Barricade]], Lennox and his team run into the Tribune Tower, but then jump out of the Trump Tower.
** The under-construction building where Optimus Prime (using his jetpack) gets entangled in cables is the {{w|China Central Television Headquarters}} in [[Beijing]], [[China]]. Construction for the CCTV building was finished in 2008, long before ''Dark of the Moon'' was even ''conceived''.

===Chicago in ''Age of Extinction''===
* Many of the downtown Chicago landmarks seen in ''Dark of the Moon'' re-appear in the sequel. In particular, the Tribune Tower has its crest destroyed ''again'', while the Willis (née Sears) Tower is once again the focal point of some aerial acrobatics.
* The offices of KSI are portrayed by the main concourse of the McCormick Place Convention Center.
* Chicago's abandoned Damen Avenue grain elevators, located along the Sanitary & Ship Canal, are repurposed as an industrial site in Hong Kong during the film's climactic final battle.
* The near west side's St. Boniface Church—also abandoned—makes a brief appearance as the site of Yeager's lab.
* The Uptown Theater—also abandoned (detecting a trend here?)—was another filming location.
* The scene of the Autobots gathered near some steam locomotives to hear Brains' exposition about Megatron was filmed at the Illinois Railway Museum, in the small town of Union, IL at the outer edges of Chicagoland. Several other scenes were filmed in the surrounding countryside.
{{-}}
==External links==
*{{w|Chicago}} at Wikipedia
*[https://wgntv.com/news/when-its-this-cold-chicago-sets-its-train-tracks-on-fire/ WGNTV's cover on the topic] No seriously, that is a thing.

[[Category:Armada cities]]
[[Category:Age of Extinction cities]]
[[Category:Cities in the United States]]
[[Category:Dark of the Moon cities]]
[[Category:Generation 1 cities]]
[[Category:Real-world human settlements]]
[[Category:The Last Knight cities]]

Chicago

2022-12-17T16:17:13Z

Hammerclaw: /* Video games */

[[File:Otfcc2003-cryotekvschicago.jpg|upright=1.66|thumb|The huge piles of ice are pretty much par for the course. The giant blue dragon, not so much.]]
'''Chicago''' is the biggest city in the American Midwest. It's full of gangsters, burning railways, corrupt politicians, and, on occasion, robots.

==Fiction==
===Generation 1 continuity family===
====''The Transformers'' cartoon====
When held captive on the planet [[Quintessa (planet)|Quintessa]] in the year 2005, [[Spike Witwicky (G1)|Spike Witwicky]] prepared [[Kup (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Kup]] and [[Ultra Magnus (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Ultra Magnus]] for an escape attempt by way of a coded message that involved recalling a [[Mecha-soccer#American_football|football]] match between the [[Lunar Colony]]'s team and "the Bears". Whether the game was held on Earth's moon, in Chicago, or elsewhere is unknown. {{storylink|Five Faces of Darkness, Part 2}}

====''G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers''====
When the [[Teletran 3]] supercomputer went berserk and blasted random Transformers into random points in Earth's timestream, teams of Cobras and G.I. Joe troops pursued them. One such group, consisting of the [[Baroness]], [[Percy]], [[Roadblock (G.I. Joe)|Roadblock]], and [[Beachhead]], materialized in a dingy, dirty, dark city, and narrowly avoided getting run over by two cars full of mugs shooting tommy guns at each other. They'd landed in Prohibition-era Chicago! {{storylink|G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II issue 1|G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II #1}}

The team soon attacked a group of gangsters who were using [[Optimus Prime (G1)|Optimus Prime]] as a truck. Freeing him, they next tracked down the gangsters' boss, the notorious [[Tommy Fingers]]. Fingers's favored watering hole was a jazz club that he owned; the next four Transformers were located in a garage out back.

Through the Baroness's efforts, the team learned that Fingers was planning a bank heist, using a dynamite-loaded truck which just happened to be the last of the missing Transformers. Unfortunately for the humans, one of the four garage-bound Transformers was [[Breakdown (G1)|Breakdown]], who was not at all mode-locked, and he quickly activated his [[Stunticon (G1)|Stunticon]] compatriots. Optimus Prime and the humans fled from the Stunticons in a running firefight through Chicago's streets; the humans blasted down a suspension bridge along the way.

Coming up on the last Transformer, the Baroness blasted the dynamite, activated the Transformer ([[Motormaster (G1)|Motormaster]]), and all the time-displaced combatants returned to their own time. {{storylink|G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II issue 2|G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II #2}}

====2005 IDW continuity====
A counter-[[Infiltration protocol|infiltration]] unit under Prowl's command parked their vessel, the ''[[Ark-19]]'', beneath [[Lake Michigan]], some ten miles northwest of Chicago.

===Panini ''Armada'' comic===
When [[Starscream (Armada)|Starscream]] wanted to draw out the [[Air Defense Mini-Con Team (Armada)|Air Defense Mini-Con Team]] for capture, he blasted a satellite out of orbit. The Mini-Con trio managed to stop the falling satellite from smashing into downtown Chicago's forest of skyscrapers a mere ten seconds before impact, then carried it away and dropped it into [[Lake Michigan]]. {{storylink|Panini Armada issue 5|Panini Armada issue 5}}

===Live-action film series===
====Movies====
{{note|The five movies are the primary component of the live-action movie continuity family. Their events should be taken as canon for all other pieces of fiction listed below, unless otherwise specified.}}
=====''Dark of the Moon'' film=====
[[File:DarkoftheMoon-Chicago.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.66|Bad Cryotek! Very bad Cryotek!]]
After taking [[Carly Spencer]] captive, [[Dylan Gould]] headed to Chicago. [[Sentinel Prime (ROTF)|Sentinel Prime]] also headed to Chicago to set up few of the space bridge pillars. Needing privacy to conduct their work, [[Megatron (Movie)|Megatron]] ordered a huge Decepticon invasion force take over Chicago. Several [[mothership]]s arrived to disgorge a large number of [[Orbital Assault Carrier]]s, while ground forces took to the streets. A huge portion of the city's population was slaughtered when the Decepticons sealed off the city.

[[Sam Witwicky]] headed there to rescue Carly with the help of the ex-[[NEST]] soldier [[Robert Epps]] and a few other ex-NEST comrades. After taking a look at the Decepticon-fortified Chicago, Robert Epps realized that they had no chance of surviving all that, but Sam pressed on. As Epps attempted to dissuade Sam from rescuing Carly, Sam asked what they should do, and Epps admitted that they had to give up. Soon afterward, an Orbital Assault Carrier attacked the group. Just after killing several civilians and nearly killing Sam and Epps, the fighter was shot down. Sam and Epps looks behind them to see their savior—[[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]], who gave his own answer to Sam's question: kill every last Decepticon. The Wreckers [[Leadfoot (DOTM)|Leadfoot]], [[Topspin (DOTM)|Topspin]], and [[Roadbuster (DOTM)|Roadbuster]] proceeded to execute the pilot by tearing it to pieces.

Optimus then explained why they had feigned departure; they needed to fool the world's leaders that they were gone, so they could see the truth behind the Decepticons. As the rest of the Autobots arrived on scene, Sam inquired as to how they survived, to which Roadbuster and Leadfoot explained that the Autobots hid in the boosters of their ship, the [[Xantium (DOTM)|Xantium]], which splashed in the Atlantic, and then they traveled to Chicago from there. Wheelie and Brains then reiterated that Autobots would never leave Earth, and Optimus announced that they needed an element of surprise, to which Sam said he knew where to look.

[[File:DOTM-SentinelandMegatron.jpg|thumb|upright=1.66|Sentinel and his new hobo friend.]]
Asking if Bumblebee could fly the downed Orbital Assault Carrier (which he replied with a hand shrug) Bumblebee and Sam departed for Dylan Gould's penthouse suite. Inside, Carly observed an argument between Sentinel and Megatron on the other building using a telescope. Sneaking in through the balcony, Sam confronted Gould, but [[Laserbeak (DOTM)|Laserbeak]] attacked Sam as Carly appeared, then threw him over the balcony. Bumblebee's captured Orbital Assault Carrier caught Sam, who urged Carly to jump. With the boy and his girl safely secured, Bumblebee opened fire on the human collaborators, but Laserbeak sent a mini-drone dispatched by the [[United States military]] into one of the Orbital Assault Carrier's thrusters, then attacked Sam. Pinning Laserbeak above the gun turret, Sam told Bumblebee to fire, killing the aerial Decepticon before they crash-landed onto the ground. As Dylan frantically ran about the streets shouting that the Autobots were alive, Megatron ordered the Decepticon to raise the bridges into the city and find the Autobots.

Reuniting with the Autobots and ex-NEST soldiers, the group was able to use the mini-drone to warn the powers that be about Sentinel and Megatron's plan to transport Cybertron to the Sol system. Colonel [[William Lennox]] mobilized NEST for a drop into a city using wing suits. Realizing that they had to destroy the [[pillar]]s, Epps team and the Autobots head into the city, but were attacked by [[Shockwave (Movie)|Shockwave]] and the [[Driller]], separating Prime from his trailer carrying his weapons. Optimus agreed to take the Autobots on a diversionary attack while Epps and his team made their way to a skyscraper with the necessary height and clear line of fire, but not before [[Wheeljack (Movie)|Que]] gave them some urban combat weapons, the boom-sticks and grapple gloves. In distracting Shockwave, Wheelie and Brains became separated from the Autobots.

[[File:830px-Dotm-shockwave&driller-film-chicago.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.4|Driller-bot is thirsty. What the hell?]]
Following this, Lennox and the NEST forces arrived in the city, but were forced to wing-suit in. As [[Starscream (Movie)|Starscream]] lead the aerial counter-attack, the NEST soldiers abandoned the plane, gliding away until they lost the Decepticons in a tilted building. Once Epps team made their way to the right floor for the shot, the Decepticon Orbital Assault Carriers began shooting the building, causing the portion above the line of fire to begin collapsing. A Decepticon scout jumped into the building, forcing Epps to throw a grenade to distract it long enough for the humans to slide down the windows, just barely falling into the floors below. One soldier was not so lucky, and the debris fell around Shockwave. Knowing that there were humans inside, Shockwave ordered the Driller to begin eating the building, causing it to collapse onto another nearby building. As the humans evacuated onto the fire-escape on the other building, Optimus Prime, having recovered his flight tech, managed to kill the Driller, saving the humans from pursuit. Furious with the death of his pet, Shockwave fired a cluster of missiles at Optimus, causing him to become tangled in some cables as the [[Wreckers]] came to his rescue.

[[File:Dotm Starscream BOOM.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|Like this is so unfamiliar to me.]]
At this point, Sentinel Prime gave the order to launch the pillars into orbit, at the same time as Wheelie and Brains discovered a downed Orbital Assault Carrier. While Epps and his team made their way through the streets, Sam and Carly continued on in another direction. To a position where Starscream spotted them. Relishing a chance to torment a long thorn in the Decepticons side, Starscream had some fun tormenting and threatening Sam. This allowed Sam a chance to use the grapple glove given to him by Que, hitting the [[Air Commander]]'s right [[sensor|optic]]. Starscream began flailing around in pain, tossing Sam through a window, which allowed him to arm a boom-stick. The commotion attracted the attention of Lennox and the NEST forces. Just as Lennox arrived, Sam managed to jump on Starscream's head and jam the boom-stick into his left eye. Now completely blind, Starscream lost whatever control he had left and began flailing about trying to get the boom-stick out. Lennox grabbed the rope Sam's glove was attached to, but was unable to cut it. they managed to hit the release mere seconds before the boom-stick went off, which killed Starscream, but nearly fell to their deaths, only just saved by Bumblebee. Once they were sure Starscream was dead, Bumblebee went ahead to the edge of the river.

[[File:Dotm-decepticoncarrier-film-city.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.4|''Chicago! Chicago! That explodin' town Chicago, Chicago! I will shoot it all down.'']]

By the time the two human teams reached the bridge, a SEAL team arrived, informing Lennox of inbound TOMAHAWK missiles, and the military had accessed local security cameras. What they found was not encouraging: most of the Autobots had been taken captive by Decepticons lead by [[Soundwave (ROTF)|Soundwave]]. Realizing that the humans needed to get across the river, [[Dutch (DOTM)|Dutch]] was able to hack the bridge controls and lower the bridge. Unfortunately, the orbiting pillars reached the necessary coordinates, and the ground based pillars began opening the space bridge. While this was going on, Wheelie and Brains managed to board a Decepticon cruiser and make their way to the control center. At the holding area, Dylan Gould was shocked that the Decepticons were taking prisoners, and encouraged them to kill the Autobots. [[File:DOTMQuegetsit.jpg|thumb|upright=1.95|''They have the end, the end of their life I saw a man, he got shot at and died In Chicago, my home town!'']]
Soundwave happily concurred, declaring "no prisoners, only trophies". Ordering Que to his feet, the Autobot scientist was gunned down by [[Barricade (Movie)|Barricade]] while begging for mercy. Sam tried to activate a boom-stick, but it was damaged. Just as Soundwave was about to execute Bumblebee, Orbital Assault Carriers from the hijacked cruiser began crashing to the ground. The Autobots and Decepticons scrambled for cover, and Bumblebee was able to kill Soundwave in the ensuring confusion, then escape with the others. However, the cruiser carrying Wheelie and Brains crashed into the river, presumably killing the duo.

[[File:DOTMScrapper.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.66|''On State Street, that late street, I just want to say They blow up things they don't blow up on Broadway'']]
Meeting up with some army troopers, Lennox and Epps's teams took positions for a strike on the Decepticons, who were investigating Soundwave's last stand. As Lennox's team parachuted in, Barricade was reprimanding the protoforms for allowing the Autobots to escape when snipers began firing at the Decepticons optics. Momentarily blinded, the several demolitions teams were able to attach explosives to the Decepticons feet, crippling Barricade and several protoforms enough for the humans to kill them. As the Decepticons returned fire, Lennox and his men parachuted onto Shockwave, with one trooper seriously damaging the large Decepticon, while Epps team opened fire on full auto, seriously disorienting Shockwave. With this, the Autobots arrived and attacked. Despite the promising opening, sheer firepower was on the Decepticons side, keeping the Autobots and NEST from reaching the pillars. Declaring that Earth was theirs, Sentinel Prime fully activated the space bridge, and Cybertron began appearing in orbit. Just then, Optimus Prime, freed from the cables, arrived and quite literally tore through every Decepticon standing between him and Sentinel. Finally reaching Shockwave, Optimus punched out half of his chest, then tore his eye out through his head. Firing Shockwave's cannon at the control pillar, Optimus brought down a small part of the building, interrupting the transport and leaving Cybertron in half.

[[File:Autobots vs Sentinel.jpg|thumb|upright=1.66|"Um, Sentinel? We're over here!" "You sure you want him to remember us? My ass feels pretty kicked."]]
Optimus then demanded that Sentinel confront him, and a furious Sentinel was only too willing to oblige. Using his [[Primax Blade]] to descend the building, Sentinel was dumbfounded that Optimus still sided with the humans, but Optimus countered that Sentinel was the one who taught him freedom was the right of all sentient beings. Drawing a [[Dual Energon Swords|sword]] and [[Energon-axe]], Optimus engaged Sentinel, who vowed to reactivate the pillar, while Sam went off to try and reach it first. With the tide turning, the Autobots, NEST, and the military pushed forward. When Optimus started to get the upper hand over Sentinel, the elder Prime called in the Orbital Assault Carriers to attack Optimus. ''All'' the Orbital Assault Carriers. NEST was able to make contact with the remote guided TOMAHAWK missiles, which were five minutes out. With the Orbital Assault Carriers attacking Optimus, the Wreckers attacking the incoming ground Decepticons, and the rest of the Autobots engaging Sentinel, no Decepticons were left to reactivate the pillar, which fell to a cowering Dylan Gould. With the Orbital Assault Carriers on the verge of overwhelming Optimus, NEST was able to guide the missiles to the fighters, downing them.

As Sam made his way to the pillar, he encountered Gould, who tried to stop him at gunpoint. Sam tried to reason with the human agent, but Gould said there only one future for him. As some papers obstructed his vision, Sam attacked, but Gould was still able to reactivate the pillar. Megatron, allowing his [[Lensmeter Decepticon]]s to repair him, rested easily as Carly approached the [[Lord High Protector]]. Carly then pointed out that while the Decepticons were conquering Earth, their leader would not be Megatron, but Sentinel Prime. Megatron was within a hair of killing her when he realized she was ''right''. Meanwhile, Sentinel, under fire from more or less ''everything'' at this point, realized that he was losing and fled with Optimus hot on his heels. At the same time, Gould overpowered Sam, knocking him out cold. Optimus caught up with Sentinel at a bridge and the two fought once again. However, when Sentinel severed Optimus's right arm and knocked him to the ground, it came apparent that Optimus was not stronger then his mentor. Lamenting over how the [[Dynasty of Primes]] had been gods on Cybertron, Sentinel declared that on Earth, there could only be one.

[[File:DOTM space bridge collapse.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.55]]
Just as Sentinel was about to deliver the killing blow, an infuriated Megatron came in firing—at Sentinel, letting loose several thousand years of parental issues out. Sam quickly reappeared, and promptly killed Gould with the pillar itself. The Autobots overwhelmed the last Decepticon, and Ratchet and Bumblebee destroyed the pillar. The effects were instantaneous: not only were the remaining Decepticon ships pulled out of Chicago and into the collapsing space bridge, but the space bridge's collapse destroyed Cybertron in the process. Seeing the plan had failed, Megatron slyly proposed a truce with Optimus, his only stipulation remaining [[Decepticon leader]]. Megatron was confident Optimus would accept; they had fought for so long, who was Optimus Prime without Megatron? Optimus declared that he would find out. Picking up his discarded axe, Optimus jammed the weapon into Megatron's head, then tore it off, killing Megatron. The badly wounded Sentinel pleaded for mercy, explaining that all he wanted was to save the Cybertronian race, which was why he betrayed his former pupil. Optimus claimed it was never about betraying Optimus; by allying with Megatron and planning to enslave humanity, Sentinel had betrayed himself. With bitter regret, Optimus Prime raised Megatron's fusion shotgun and executed Sentinel Prime.

[[File:DOTM Autobots NEST victorious.jpg|thumb|280px]]
With the battle over, Sam and Carly reunited, and with Cybertron lost, the Autobots accepted that Earth was now their home. {{storylink|Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Dark of the Moon}}

=====''Age of Extinction'' film=====
Chicago proved to be the final tipping point in an already strained relationship between humans and Cybertronians. The United States government officially terminated all joint Autobot-human operations, replacing them with [[Harold Attinger]]'s [[Cemetery Wind]], a [[CIA]] unit tasked with hunting down the surviving Decepticons, whilst the Autobots were granted asylum on Earth. In reality, and under the White House's nose, Cemetery Wind hunted Autobot and Decepticon alike, holding both factions responsible for the loss of life in Chicago, forcing the Autobots underground. During the subsequent cleanup and rebuilding effort, Chicago proved to be a lucrative opportunity to salvage discarded alien technology, and several world governments and independent corporations began reverse-engineering Cybertronian tech.

Five years after the battle, Chicago had returned to its former glory, with a refurbished skyline. Perhaps as a result of easy access to Cybertronian artifacts and [[Living metal|transformium]], [[Kinetic Solutions Incorporated]] built its American division in the city. They were eventually visited by [[Cade Yeager]] and the surviving Autobots, who had hijacked a KSI drone and traced it back to its company of origin. Optimus Prime, angered by the mutilation of his former comrades, ordered an assault on the company, but his team voluntarily fell back after a confrontation with [[Joshua Joyce]], and left the city.

After Prime was captured by [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]] the bounty hunter met up with [[James Savoy]] to hand over the [[Seed]]. Needless to say, the presence of a giant alien spaceship caused mass hysteria in the streets and the military scrambled fighters to intercept but were ensured that the ship was not there to cause any harm by Harold Attinger. The Autobots later infiltrated Lockdown's ship to rescue Prime and the following battle slightly spilled over into the city's airspace. The ship later left - but without a section which set off in another direction.
{{storylink|Transformers: Age of Extinction (film)|Age of Extinction}}
{{-}}

=====''The Last Knight'' film=====
[[Izabella]] was orphaned during the battle of Chicago, as her parents were killed by Decepticons while she was away from home. By the time Cemetery Wind was exposed and replaced by the [[Transformers Reaction Force]], much of Chicago was still uninhabitable.

Under more government-organised work, the TRF proved to be a liability in the fight against [[Quintessa (TLK)|Quintessa]]. When Cade talked some sense into them, revealing that the real reason humanity turned on the Autobots after Chicago was because they simply gave up on them, the TRF realigned themselves as allies of the Autobots. {{storylink|Transformers: The Last Knight (film)|The Last Knight}}

=====''Bumblebee'' film=====
Chicago makes a honorable cameo while Bumblebee in [[Charlie Watson]]’s garage is watching the movie The Breakfast Club. {{storylink|Bumblebee (film)|Bumblebee}}

====''Dark of the Moon'' Annual====
[[NEST Satellite Orion]] detected the highest [[energon]] reading in Chicago, suggesting that the Decepticons were using the tall buildings as an interstellar transmission site. {{storylink|Transformers Dark of the Moon Annual 2012}}

====Ask Vector Prime====
In [[Tyran 609.23-PX Kappa]], Megatron also seized Chicago with the aid of collaborationist humans to set up the space bridge technology to bring Cybertron into Earth orbit. {{storylink|Ask Vector Prime}}

====''Studio Series'' toy bios====
[[Thundercracker (Movie)|Thundercracker]] participated in an areal assault on the Autobots during the battle of Chicago.

==Video games==
===''Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark''===
Chicago is invaded by Lockdowns mercenaries in search of the Dark Spark throughout the beginning and ending of the game. {{storylink|Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark}}

===‘’Transformers: Devastation''===
Autobots Defensor and Superion arrive in Chicago by Optimus that the city remains safe from Decepticon Attacks. {{storylink|Transformers: Devastation}}

===''Transformers: Forged to Fight''===
[[File:ChicagosSteakhouse.jpg|right|thumb|200px]]
A demolished Chicago is used as an arena on [[New Quintessa]]. Keep an eye out for [[Chicagos Steakhouse]]! {{storylink|Transformers: Forged to Fight}}
{{-}}

==Notes==
* Out here in the real world, Chicago has twice played host to the official Transformers convention, as [[OTFCC 2003]] and [[OTFCC 2004]] both occurred there.
* Chicago also hosts the annual Wizard World Chicago convention, which frequently features a Hasbro Transformers display booth similar to what's seen at [[BotCon]].
* The package and bio for Thundercracker's ''[[Studio Series]]'' toy marks him as being from ''Dark of the Moon'', ostensibly as one of the numerous Decepticons who space-bridged in from the Moon and participated in the battle of Chicago.

===Chicago in ''Dark of the Moon''===
* Chicago filming for ''[[Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Dark of the Moon]]'' commenced July 10, 2010 and continued through August 19.
[[File:Dotm Protoform.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|Not such a Magnificent Mile for Que.]]
[[File:DOTM Autobots NEST victorious.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|Prime now gets a sign that reads ''Dunmurderin'''.]]
[[File:DOTM NEST HQ.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|The fictional universe of ''Transformers'' includes giant talking alien space robots and, far less credibly, a repeal of DC's building height restrictions.]]
* Many Chicago landmarks "appear as themselves" during ''Dark of the Moon''. Virtually every landmark on the downtown skyline is visible at some point. Buildings of significance in the film include:
** [[Trump Tower]]: the recently completed glass tower is where Dylan has his apartment.
** [[35 East Wacker]] (aka the Jewelers Building): the cupola'd building where Sentinel sets up the control pillar. It is directly across the Chicago River from the Trump Tower, accurately portrayed when Carly observes Megatron and Sentinel. Megatron is also shown sitting at its real-world base after (presumably) getting thrown off by Sentinel.
** McCormick Place Busway: the sunken street in Grant Park is where Sam and Epps enter the city amid the fleeing population.
** {{w|Navy Pier}}: prominently visible as the helicopters approach the city.
** {{w|Aon Center (Chicago)|Aon Center}}: the vertically-striped white building prominently visible during the [[wingsuit]]ers' descent.
** The {{w|Chicago River}}: much of the action centers around the river and its movable bridges; the carrier ship crashes there.
** {{w|Willis Tower}} (previously Sears Tower): used by Lennox's wingsuit team for cover.
** {{w|Tribune Tower}}: the Gothic-styled building whose crest is crumbled by the crashing troop carrier ship. Also used as a launch pad for Decepticons who attack the wingsuit team, and later as a base for Lennox's sniper team.
** {{w|Wrigley Building}}: visible in various shots; most notably, the prisoner sequence occurs on Michigan Avenue in front of it.
** {{w|La Salle Street Bridge|LaSalle Street Bridge}}: scene of Optimus and Sentinel's final fight.
[[File:DOTM-Mexicanstandoff.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|Silly robots! The {{w|Lower West Side, Chicago#Pilsen|Mexican neighborhoods}} are like 2 miles west.]]
* Several additional filming locations in Chicago were repurposed as other sites, mostly set in [[Washington, D.C.]]:
** The abandoned south side Rosenwald Apartment Building appears as part of [[Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant|Chernobyl]], as Optimus arrives and the soldiers disembark, and where [[Alexi Voskhod]] meets his end shortly afterwards.
** The {{w|Old Chicago Main Post Office|Old Main Post Office}} is repurposed as NEST Headquarters in Washington D.C., with a digitally added helipad and smokestacks. The building's east loading docks appears several times, most notably when Sentinel announces his betrayal.
** North Garland Court, an alleyway between Wabash and Michigan Avenues, is used as the Washington D.C. street where Sam and Carly live.
** A section of {{w|Indiana State Road 912|Highway 912}} (Cline Avenue, closed since 2009) near Gary in northwest Indiana fills in for the D.C. Parkway. A highway sign added by the filmmakers contains signage for exits to I-88 westbound (about twenty miles north and west) and Business Route 20/State Street (two hours west in Rockford, IL!)
** The Mexican standoff occurs on S. Indiana Avenue, in front of the McCormick Place Convention Center's westernmost building. A star-shaped auto parts store sign, digitally inserted in to the scene, is actually located a couple of blocks west on State Street.
[[File:Dotm-driller-film-hudsontower.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|Michael Bay decides that we are now in a post-post-9/11 world.]]
[[File:DOTM-Wreckers-Prime-Cables.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|Optimus Prime was captured by the Chinese.]]
* Various discontinuities occur within the landscape of downtown Chicago during ''Dark of the Moon''. While not errors per se—such geographic splicing is common within films, and they do not affect the internal storyline—they are still of note:
** Most significantly, the movie's most prominent set piece—the skyscraper that gets shot in half and partially collapsed by the Driller, with our heroes still inside it—is not an actual building in Chicago. In a couple of shots, it is shown to be sited near the Chicago River just north of the NBC Tower, but the actual location is a parking lot.
** Detroit's abandoned {{w|Packard plant}} is digitally spliced into Chicago's landscape, south of downtown, as the backdrop as Epps and Sam argue, come under attack, and are reunited with the Autobots.
** The wingsuit team launches from the Willis Tower, on the west end of downtown. Successive shots show them passing the Aon Center (a good mile or more east), then City Hall (in the ''center'' of downtown) heading south, then back to the Aon Center, then north and west to Michigan Avenue.
** The abandoned {{w|Michigan Central Station}} in [[Detroit]] makes its second live-action appearance, this time as a Chicago building, where Prime and company retreat after the Driller's attack on the driving Autobots.
** Carly states that the control pillar is in the southeast cupola; it's actually in the northeast cupola.
** [[Robert Epps|Epps]] can somehow see the Driller plowing through LaSalle Street from the fictional tower, through over a mile of cityscape.
** After escaping from the fictional tower (north of the river), Sam and company are in a Lower Wacker Drive alley south of the river. A whole segment will subsequently focus on how they are trapped north of the river.
** Epps and company then duck into an abandoned church: City Methodist, located in Gary, Indiana.
** Sam encounters and kills [[Starscream (Movie)|Starscream]] in a parking lot whose real-world location is, again, south of the river (Wabash at Lake). (The adjacent garage was demolished in 2012.)
** To attack [[Shockwave (Movie)|Shockwave]] and [[Barricade (Movie)|Barricade]], Lennox and his team run into the Tribune Tower, but then jump out of the Trump Tower.
** The under-construction building where Optimus Prime (using his jetpack) gets entangled in cables is the {{w|China Central Television Headquarters}} in [[Beijing]], [[China]]. Construction for the CCTV building was finished in 2008, long before ''Dark of the Moon'' was even ''conceived''.

===Chicago in ''Age of Extinction''===
* Many of the downtown Chicago landmarks seen in ''Dark of the Moon'' re-appear in the sequel. In particular, the Tribune Tower has its crest destroyed ''again'', while the Willis (née Sears) Tower is once again the focal point of some aerial acrobatics.
* The offices of KSI are portrayed by the main concourse of the McCormick Place Convention Center.
* Chicago's abandoned Damen Avenue grain elevators, located along the Sanitary & Ship Canal, are repurposed as an industrial site in Hong Kong during the film's climactic final battle.
* The near west side's St. Boniface Church—also abandoned—makes a brief appearance as the site of Yeager's lab.
* The Uptown Theater—also abandoned (detecting a trend here?)—was another filming location.
* The scene of the Autobots gathered near some steam locomotives to hear Brains' exposition about Megatron was filmed at the Illinois Railway Museum, in the small town of Union, IL at the outer edges of Chicagoland. Several other scenes were filmed in the surrounding countryside.
{{-}}
==External links==
*{{w|Chicago}} at Wikipedia
*[https://wgntv.com/news/when-its-this-cold-chicago-sets-its-train-tracks-on-fire/ WGNTV's cover on the topic] No seriously, that is a thing.

[[Category:Armada cities]]
[[Category:Age of Extinction cities]]
[[Category:Cities in the United States]]
[[Category:Dark of the Moon cities]]
[[Category:Generation 1 cities]]
[[Category:Real-world human settlements]]
[[Category:The Last Knight cities]]

Chicago

2022-12-17T16:10:40Z

Hammerclaw: /* ‘’Bumblebee film */

[[File:Otfcc2003-cryotekvschicago.jpg|upright=1.66|thumb|The huge piles of ice are pretty much par for the course. The giant blue dragon, not so much.]]
'''Chicago''' is the biggest city in the American Midwest. It's full of gangsters, burning railways, corrupt politicians, and, on occasion, robots.

==Fiction==
===Generation 1 continuity family===
====''The Transformers'' cartoon====
When held captive on the planet [[Quintessa (planet)|Quintessa]] in the year 2005, [[Spike Witwicky (G1)|Spike Witwicky]] prepared [[Kup (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Kup]] and [[Ultra Magnus (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Ultra Magnus]] for an escape attempt by way of a coded message that involved recalling a [[Mecha-soccer#American_football|football]] match between the [[Lunar Colony]]'s team and "the Bears". Whether the game was held on Earth's moon, in Chicago, or elsewhere is unknown. {{storylink|Five Faces of Darkness, Part 2}}

====''G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers''====
When the [[Teletran 3]] supercomputer went berserk and blasted random Transformers into random points in Earth's timestream, teams of Cobras and G.I. Joe troops pursued them. One such group, consisting of the [[Baroness]], [[Percy]], [[Roadblock (G.I. Joe)|Roadblock]], and [[Beachhead]], materialized in a dingy, dirty, dark city, and narrowly avoided getting run over by two cars full of mugs shooting tommy guns at each other. They'd landed in Prohibition-era Chicago! {{storylink|G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II issue 1|G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II #1}}

The team soon attacked a group of gangsters who were using [[Optimus Prime (G1)|Optimus Prime]] as a truck. Freeing him, they next tracked down the gangsters' boss, the notorious [[Tommy Fingers]]. Fingers's favored watering hole was a jazz club that he owned; the next four Transformers were located in a garage out back.

Through the Baroness's efforts, the team learned that Fingers was planning a bank heist, using a dynamite-loaded truck which just happened to be the last of the missing Transformers. Unfortunately for the humans, one of the four garage-bound Transformers was [[Breakdown (G1)|Breakdown]], who was not at all mode-locked, and he quickly activated his [[Stunticon (G1)|Stunticon]] compatriots. Optimus Prime and the humans fled from the Stunticons in a running firefight through Chicago's streets; the humans blasted down a suspension bridge along the way.

Coming up on the last Transformer, the Baroness blasted the dynamite, activated the Transformer ([[Motormaster (G1)|Motormaster]]), and all the time-displaced combatants returned to their own time. {{storylink|G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II issue 2|G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II #2}}

====2005 IDW continuity====
A counter-[[Infiltration protocol|infiltration]] unit under Prowl's command parked their vessel, the ''[[Ark-19]]'', beneath [[Lake Michigan]], some ten miles northwest of Chicago.

===Panini ''Armada'' comic===
When [[Starscream (Armada)|Starscream]] wanted to draw out the [[Air Defense Mini-Con Team (Armada)|Air Defense Mini-Con Team]] for capture, he blasted a satellite out of orbit. The Mini-Con trio managed to stop the falling satellite from smashing into downtown Chicago's forest of skyscrapers a mere ten seconds before impact, then carried it away and dropped it into [[Lake Michigan]]. {{storylink|Panini Armada issue 5|Panini Armada issue 5}}

===Live-action film series===
====Movies====
{{note|The five movies are the primary component of the live-action movie continuity family. Their events should be taken as canon for all other pieces of fiction listed below, unless otherwise specified.}}
=====''Dark of the Moon'' film=====
[[File:DarkoftheMoon-Chicago.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.66|Bad Cryotek! Very bad Cryotek!]]
After taking [[Carly Spencer]] captive, [[Dylan Gould]] headed to Chicago. [[Sentinel Prime (ROTF)|Sentinel Prime]] also headed to Chicago to set up few of the space bridge pillars. Needing privacy to conduct their work, [[Megatron (Movie)|Megatron]] ordered a huge Decepticon invasion force take over Chicago. Several [[mothership]]s arrived to disgorge a large number of [[Orbital Assault Carrier]]s, while ground forces took to the streets. A huge portion of the city's population was slaughtered when the Decepticons sealed off the city.

[[Sam Witwicky]] headed there to rescue Carly with the help of the ex-[[NEST]] soldier [[Robert Epps]] and a few other ex-NEST comrades. After taking a look at the Decepticon-fortified Chicago, Robert Epps realized that they had no chance of surviving all that, but Sam pressed on. As Epps attempted to dissuade Sam from rescuing Carly, Sam asked what they should do, and Epps admitted that they had to give up. Soon afterward, an Orbital Assault Carrier attacked the group. Just after killing several civilians and nearly killing Sam and Epps, the fighter was shot down. Sam and Epps looks behind them to see their savior—[[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]], who gave his own answer to Sam's question: kill every last Decepticon. The Wreckers [[Leadfoot (DOTM)|Leadfoot]], [[Topspin (DOTM)|Topspin]], and [[Roadbuster (DOTM)|Roadbuster]] proceeded to execute the pilot by tearing it to pieces.

Optimus then explained why they had feigned departure; they needed to fool the world's leaders that they were gone, so they could see the truth behind the Decepticons. As the rest of the Autobots arrived on scene, Sam inquired as to how they survived, to which Roadbuster and Leadfoot explained that the Autobots hid in the boosters of their ship, the [[Xantium (DOTM)|Xantium]], which splashed in the Atlantic, and then they traveled to Chicago from there. Wheelie and Brains then reiterated that Autobots would never leave Earth, and Optimus announced that they needed an element of surprise, to which Sam said he knew where to look.

[[File:DOTM-SentinelandMegatron.jpg|thumb|upright=1.66|Sentinel and his new hobo friend.]]
Asking if Bumblebee could fly the downed Orbital Assault Carrier (which he replied with a hand shrug) Bumblebee and Sam departed for Dylan Gould's penthouse suite. Inside, Carly observed an argument between Sentinel and Megatron on the other building using a telescope. Sneaking in through the balcony, Sam confronted Gould, but [[Laserbeak (DOTM)|Laserbeak]] attacked Sam as Carly appeared, then threw him over the balcony. Bumblebee's captured Orbital Assault Carrier caught Sam, who urged Carly to jump. With the boy and his girl safely secured, Bumblebee opened fire on the human collaborators, but Laserbeak sent a mini-drone dispatched by the [[United States military]] into one of the Orbital Assault Carrier's thrusters, then attacked Sam. Pinning Laserbeak above the gun turret, Sam told Bumblebee to fire, killing the aerial Decepticon before they crash-landed onto the ground. As Dylan frantically ran about the streets shouting that the Autobots were alive, Megatron ordered the Decepticon to raise the bridges into the city and find the Autobots.

Reuniting with the Autobots and ex-NEST soldiers, the group was able to use the mini-drone to warn the powers that be about Sentinel and Megatron's plan to transport Cybertron to the Sol system. Colonel [[William Lennox]] mobilized NEST for a drop into a city using wing suits. Realizing that they had to destroy the [[pillar]]s, Epps team and the Autobots head into the city, but were attacked by [[Shockwave (Movie)|Shockwave]] and the [[Driller]], separating Prime from his trailer carrying his weapons. Optimus agreed to take the Autobots on a diversionary attack while Epps and his team made their way to a skyscraper with the necessary height and clear line of fire, but not before [[Wheeljack (Movie)|Que]] gave them some urban combat weapons, the boom-sticks and grapple gloves. In distracting Shockwave, Wheelie and Brains became separated from the Autobots.

[[File:830px-Dotm-shockwave&driller-film-chicago.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.4|Driller-bot is thirsty. What the hell?]]
Following this, Lennox and the NEST forces arrived in the city, but were forced to wing-suit in. As [[Starscream (Movie)|Starscream]] lead the aerial counter-attack, the NEST soldiers abandoned the plane, gliding away until they lost the Decepticons in a tilted building. Once Epps team made their way to the right floor for the shot, the Decepticon Orbital Assault Carriers began shooting the building, causing the portion above the line of fire to begin collapsing. A Decepticon scout jumped into the building, forcing Epps to throw a grenade to distract it long enough for the humans to slide down the windows, just barely falling into the floors below. One soldier was not so lucky, and the debris fell around Shockwave. Knowing that there were humans inside, Shockwave ordered the Driller to begin eating the building, causing it to collapse onto another nearby building. As the humans evacuated onto the fire-escape on the other building, Optimus Prime, having recovered his flight tech, managed to kill the Driller, saving the humans from pursuit. Furious with the death of his pet, Shockwave fired a cluster of missiles at Optimus, causing him to become tangled in some cables as the [[Wreckers]] came to his rescue.

[[File:Dotm Starscream BOOM.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|Like this is so unfamiliar to me.]]
At this point, Sentinel Prime gave the order to launch the pillars into orbit, at the same time as Wheelie and Brains discovered a downed Orbital Assault Carrier. While Epps and his team made their way through the streets, Sam and Carly continued on in another direction. To a position where Starscream spotted them. Relishing a chance to torment a long thorn in the Decepticons side, Starscream had some fun tormenting and threatening Sam. This allowed Sam a chance to use the grapple glove given to him by Que, hitting the [[Air Commander]]'s right [[sensor|optic]]. Starscream began flailing around in pain, tossing Sam through a window, which allowed him to arm a boom-stick. The commotion attracted the attention of Lennox and the NEST forces. Just as Lennox arrived, Sam managed to jump on Starscream's head and jam the boom-stick into his left eye. Now completely blind, Starscream lost whatever control he had left and began flailing about trying to get the boom-stick out. Lennox grabbed the rope Sam's glove was attached to, but was unable to cut it. they managed to hit the release mere seconds before the boom-stick went off, which killed Starscream, but nearly fell to their deaths, only just saved by Bumblebee. Once they were sure Starscream was dead, Bumblebee went ahead to the edge of the river.

[[File:Dotm-decepticoncarrier-film-city.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.4|''Chicago! Chicago! That explodin' town Chicago, Chicago! I will shoot it all down.'']]

By the time the two human teams reached the bridge, a SEAL team arrived, informing Lennox of inbound TOMAHAWK missiles, and the military had accessed local security cameras. What they found was not encouraging: most of the Autobots had been taken captive by Decepticons lead by [[Soundwave (ROTF)|Soundwave]]. Realizing that the humans needed to get across the river, [[Dutch (DOTM)|Dutch]] was able to hack the bridge controls and lower the bridge. Unfortunately, the orbiting pillars reached the necessary coordinates, and the ground based pillars began opening the space bridge. While this was going on, Wheelie and Brains managed to board a Decepticon cruiser and make their way to the control center. At the holding area, Dylan Gould was shocked that the Decepticons were taking prisoners, and encouraged them to kill the Autobots. [[File:DOTMQuegetsit.jpg|thumb|upright=1.95|''They have the end, the end of their life I saw a man, he got shot at and died In Chicago, my home town!'']]
Soundwave happily concurred, declaring "no prisoners, only trophies". Ordering Que to his feet, the Autobot scientist was gunned down by [[Barricade (Movie)|Barricade]] while begging for mercy. Sam tried to activate a boom-stick, but it was damaged. Just as Soundwave was about to execute Bumblebee, Orbital Assault Carriers from the hijacked cruiser began crashing to the ground. The Autobots and Decepticons scrambled for cover, and Bumblebee was able to kill Soundwave in the ensuring confusion, then escape with the others. However, the cruiser carrying Wheelie and Brains crashed into the river, presumably killing the duo.

[[File:DOTMScrapper.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.66|''On State Street, that late street, I just want to say They blow up things they don't blow up on Broadway'']]
Meeting up with some army troopers, Lennox and Epps's teams took positions for a strike on the Decepticons, who were investigating Soundwave's last stand. As Lennox's team parachuted in, Barricade was reprimanding the protoforms for allowing the Autobots to escape when snipers began firing at the Decepticons optics. Momentarily blinded, the several demolitions teams were able to attach explosives to the Decepticons feet, crippling Barricade and several protoforms enough for the humans to kill them. As the Decepticons returned fire, Lennox and his men parachuted onto Shockwave, with one trooper seriously damaging the large Decepticon, while Epps team opened fire on full auto, seriously disorienting Shockwave. With this, the Autobots arrived and attacked. Despite the promising opening, sheer firepower was on the Decepticons side, keeping the Autobots and NEST from reaching the pillars. Declaring that Earth was theirs, Sentinel Prime fully activated the space bridge, and Cybertron began appearing in orbit. Just then, Optimus Prime, freed from the cables, arrived and quite literally tore through every Decepticon standing between him and Sentinel. Finally reaching Shockwave, Optimus punched out half of his chest, then tore his eye out through his head. Firing Shockwave's cannon at the control pillar, Optimus brought down a small part of the building, interrupting the transport and leaving Cybertron in half.

[[File:Autobots vs Sentinel.jpg|thumb|upright=1.66|"Um, Sentinel? We're over here!" "You sure you want him to remember us? My ass feels pretty kicked."]]
Optimus then demanded that Sentinel confront him, and a furious Sentinel was only too willing to oblige. Using his [[Primax Blade]] to descend the building, Sentinel was dumbfounded that Optimus still sided with the humans, but Optimus countered that Sentinel was the one who taught him freedom was the right of all sentient beings. Drawing a [[Dual Energon Swords|sword]] and [[Energon-axe]], Optimus engaged Sentinel, who vowed to reactivate the pillar, while Sam went off to try and reach it first. With the tide turning, the Autobots, NEST, and the military pushed forward. When Optimus started to get the upper hand over Sentinel, the elder Prime called in the Orbital Assault Carriers to attack Optimus. ''All'' the Orbital Assault Carriers. NEST was able to make contact with the remote guided TOMAHAWK missiles, which were five minutes out. With the Orbital Assault Carriers attacking Optimus, the Wreckers attacking the incoming ground Decepticons, and the rest of the Autobots engaging Sentinel, no Decepticons were left to reactivate the pillar, which fell to a cowering Dylan Gould. With the Orbital Assault Carriers on the verge of overwhelming Optimus, NEST was able to guide the missiles to the fighters, downing them.

As Sam made his way to the pillar, he encountered Gould, who tried to stop him at gunpoint. Sam tried to reason with the human agent, but Gould said there only one future for him. As some papers obstructed his vision, Sam attacked, but Gould was still able to reactivate the pillar. Megatron, allowing his [[Lensmeter Decepticon]]s to repair him, rested easily as Carly approached the [[Lord High Protector]]. Carly then pointed out that while the Decepticons were conquering Earth, their leader would not be Megatron, but Sentinel Prime. Megatron was within a hair of killing her when he realized she was ''right''. Meanwhile, Sentinel, under fire from more or less ''everything'' at this point, realized that he was losing and fled with Optimus hot on his heels. At the same time, Gould overpowered Sam, knocking him out cold. Optimus caught up with Sentinel at a bridge and the two fought once again. However, when Sentinel severed Optimus's right arm and knocked him to the ground, it came apparent that Optimus was not stronger then his mentor. Lamenting over how the [[Dynasty of Primes]] had been gods on Cybertron, Sentinel declared that on Earth, there could only be one.

[[File:DOTM space bridge collapse.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.55]]
Just as Sentinel was about to deliver the killing blow, an infuriated Megatron came in firing—at Sentinel, letting loose several thousand years of parental issues out. Sam quickly reappeared, and promptly killed Gould with the pillar itself. The Autobots overwhelmed the last Decepticon, and Ratchet and Bumblebee destroyed the pillar. The effects were instantaneous: not only were the remaining Decepticon ships pulled out of Chicago and into the collapsing space bridge, but the space bridge's collapse destroyed Cybertron in the process. Seeing the plan had failed, Megatron slyly proposed a truce with Optimus, his only stipulation remaining [[Decepticon leader]]. Megatron was confident Optimus would accept; they had fought for so long, who was Optimus Prime without Megatron? Optimus declared that he would find out. Picking up his discarded axe, Optimus jammed the weapon into Megatron's head, then tore it off, killing Megatron. The badly wounded Sentinel pleaded for mercy, explaining that all he wanted was to save the Cybertronian race, which was why he betrayed his former pupil. Optimus claimed it was never about betraying Optimus; by allying with Megatron and planning to enslave humanity, Sentinel had betrayed himself. With bitter regret, Optimus Prime raised Megatron's fusion shotgun and executed Sentinel Prime.

[[File:DOTM Autobots NEST victorious.jpg|thumb|280px]]
With the battle over, Sam and Carly reunited, and with Cybertron lost, the Autobots accepted that Earth was now their home. {{storylink|Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Dark of the Moon}}

=====''Age of Extinction'' film=====
Chicago proved to be the final tipping point in an already strained relationship between humans and Cybertronians. The United States government officially terminated all joint Autobot-human operations, replacing them with [[Harold Attinger]]'s [[Cemetery Wind]], a [[CIA]] unit tasked with hunting down the surviving Decepticons, whilst the Autobots were granted asylum on Earth. In reality, and under the White House's nose, Cemetery Wind hunted Autobot and Decepticon alike, holding both factions responsible for the loss of life in Chicago, forcing the Autobots underground. During the subsequent cleanup and rebuilding effort, Chicago proved to be a lucrative opportunity to salvage discarded alien technology, and several world governments and independent corporations began reverse-engineering Cybertronian tech.

Five years after the battle, Chicago had returned to its former glory, with a refurbished skyline. Perhaps as a result of easy access to Cybertronian artifacts and [[Living metal|transformium]], [[Kinetic Solutions Incorporated]] built its American division in the city. They were eventually visited by [[Cade Yeager]] and the surviving Autobots, who had hijacked a KSI drone and traced it back to its company of origin. Optimus Prime, angered by the mutilation of his former comrades, ordered an assault on the company, but his team voluntarily fell back after a confrontation with [[Joshua Joyce]], and left the city.

After Prime was captured by [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]] the bounty hunter met up with [[James Savoy]] to hand over the [[Seed]]. Needless to say, the presence of a giant alien spaceship caused mass hysteria in the streets and the military scrambled fighters to intercept but were ensured that the ship was not there to cause any harm by Harold Attinger. The Autobots later infiltrated Lockdown's ship to rescue Prime and the following battle slightly spilled over into the city's airspace. The ship later left - but without a section which set off in another direction.
{{storylink|Transformers: Age of Extinction (film)|Age of Extinction}}
{{-}}

=====''The Last Knight'' film=====
[[Izabella]] was orphaned during the battle of Chicago, as her parents were killed by Decepticons while she was away from home. By the time Cemetery Wind was exposed and replaced by the [[Transformers Reaction Force]], much of Chicago was still uninhabitable.

Under more government-organised work, the TRF proved to be a liability in the fight against [[Quintessa (TLK)|Quintessa]]. When Cade talked some sense into them, revealing that the real reason humanity turned on the Autobots after Chicago was because they simply gave up on them, the TRF realigned themselves as allies of the Autobots. {{storylink|Transformers: The Last Knight (film)|The Last Knight}}

=====''Bumblebee'' film=====
Chicago makes a honorable cameo while Bumblebee in [[Charlie Watson]]’s garage is watching the movie The Breakfast Club. {{storylink|Bumblebee (film)|Bumblebee}}

====''Dark of the Moon'' Annual====
[[NEST Satellite Orion]] detected the highest [[energon]] reading in Chicago, suggesting that the Decepticons were using the tall buildings as an interstellar transmission site. {{storylink|Transformers Dark of the Moon Annual 2012}}

====Ask Vector Prime====
In [[Tyran 609.23-PX Kappa]], Megatron also seized Chicago with the aid of collaborationist humans to set up the space bridge technology to bring Cybertron into Earth orbit. {{storylink|Ask Vector Prime}}

====''Studio Series'' toy bios====
[[Thundercracker (Movie)|Thundercracker]] participated in an areal assault on the Autobots during the battle of Chicago.

==Video games==
===''Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark''===
Chicago is invaded by Lockdowns mercenaries in search of the Dark Spark throughout the beginning and ending of the game. {{storylink|Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark}}

===''Transformers: Forged to Fight''===
[[File:ChicagosSteakhouse.jpg|right|thumb|200px]]
A demolished Chicago is used as an arena on [[New Quintessa]]. Keep an eye out for [[Chicagos Steakhouse]]! {{storylink|Transformers: Forged to Fight}}
{{-}}

==Notes==
* Out here in the real world, Chicago has twice played host to the official Transformers convention, as [[OTFCC 2003]] and [[OTFCC 2004]] both occurred there.
* Chicago also hosts the annual Wizard World Chicago convention, which frequently features a Hasbro Transformers display booth similar to what's seen at [[BotCon]].
* The package and bio for Thundercracker's ''[[Studio Series]]'' toy marks him as being from ''Dark of the Moon'', ostensibly as one of the numerous Decepticons who space-bridged in from the Moon and participated in the battle of Chicago.

===Chicago in ''Dark of the Moon''===
* Chicago filming for ''[[Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Dark of the Moon]]'' commenced July 10, 2010 and continued through August 19.
[[File:Dotm Protoform.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|Not such a Magnificent Mile for Que.]]
[[File:DOTM Autobots NEST victorious.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|Prime now gets a sign that reads ''Dunmurderin'''.]]
[[File:DOTM NEST HQ.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|The fictional universe of ''Transformers'' includes giant talking alien space robots and, far less credibly, a repeal of DC's building height restrictions.]]
* Many Chicago landmarks "appear as themselves" during ''Dark of the Moon''. Virtually every landmark on the downtown skyline is visible at some point. Buildings of significance in the film include:
** [[Trump Tower]]: the recently completed glass tower is where Dylan has his apartment.
** [[35 East Wacker]] (aka the Jewelers Building): the cupola'd building where Sentinel sets up the control pillar. It is directly across the Chicago River from the Trump Tower, accurately portrayed when Carly observes Megatron and Sentinel. Megatron is also shown sitting at its real-world base after (presumably) getting thrown off by Sentinel.
** McCormick Place Busway: the sunken street in Grant Park is where Sam and Epps enter the city amid the fleeing population.
** {{w|Navy Pier}}: prominently visible as the helicopters approach the city.
** {{w|Aon Center (Chicago)|Aon Center}}: the vertically-striped white building prominently visible during the [[wingsuit]]ers' descent.
** The {{w|Chicago River}}: much of the action centers around the river and its movable bridges; the carrier ship crashes there.
** {{w|Willis Tower}} (previously Sears Tower): used by Lennox's wingsuit team for cover.
** {{w|Tribune Tower}}: the Gothic-styled building whose crest is crumbled by the crashing troop carrier ship. Also used as a launch pad for Decepticons who attack the wingsuit team, and later as a base for Lennox's sniper team.
** {{w|Wrigley Building}}: visible in various shots; most notably, the prisoner sequence occurs on Michigan Avenue in front of it.
** {{w|La Salle Street Bridge|LaSalle Street Bridge}}: scene of Optimus and Sentinel's final fight.
[[File:DOTM-Mexicanstandoff.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|Silly robots! The {{w|Lower West Side, Chicago#Pilsen|Mexican neighborhoods}} are like 2 miles west.]]
* Several additional filming locations in Chicago were repurposed as other sites, mostly set in [[Washington, D.C.]]:
** The abandoned south side Rosenwald Apartment Building appears as part of [[Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant|Chernobyl]], as Optimus arrives and the soldiers disembark, and where [[Alexi Voskhod]] meets his end shortly afterwards.
** The {{w|Old Chicago Main Post Office|Old Main Post Office}} is repurposed as NEST Headquarters in Washington D.C., with a digitally added helipad and smokestacks. The building's east loading docks appears several times, most notably when Sentinel announces his betrayal.
** North Garland Court, an alleyway between Wabash and Michigan Avenues, is used as the Washington D.C. street where Sam and Carly live.
** A section of {{w|Indiana State Road 912|Highway 912}} (Cline Avenue, closed since 2009) near Gary in northwest Indiana fills in for the D.C. Parkway. A highway sign added by the filmmakers contains signage for exits to I-88 westbound (about twenty miles north and west) and Business Route 20/State Street (two hours west in Rockford, IL!)
** The Mexican standoff occurs on S. Indiana Avenue, in front of the McCormick Place Convention Center's westernmost building. A star-shaped auto parts store sign, digitally inserted in to the scene, is actually located a couple of blocks west on State Street.
[[File:Dotm-driller-film-hudsontower.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|Michael Bay decides that we are now in a post-post-9/11 world.]]
[[File:DOTM-Wreckers-Prime-Cables.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|Optimus Prime was captured by the Chinese.]]
* Various discontinuities occur within the landscape of downtown Chicago during ''Dark of the Moon''. While not errors per se—such geographic splicing is common within films, and they do not affect the internal storyline—they are still of note:
** Most significantly, the movie's most prominent set piece—the skyscraper that gets shot in half and partially collapsed by the Driller, with our heroes still inside it—is not an actual building in Chicago. In a couple of shots, it is shown to be sited near the Chicago River just north of the NBC Tower, but the actual location is a parking lot.
** Detroit's abandoned {{w|Packard plant}} is digitally spliced into Chicago's landscape, south of downtown, as the backdrop as Epps and Sam argue, come under attack, and are reunited with the Autobots.
** The wingsuit team launches from the Willis Tower, on the west end of downtown. Successive shots show them passing the Aon Center (a good mile or more east), then City Hall (in the ''center'' of downtown) heading south, then back to the Aon Center, then north and west to Michigan Avenue.
** The abandoned {{w|Michigan Central Station}} in [[Detroit]] makes its second live-action appearance, this time as a Chicago building, where Prime and company retreat after the Driller's attack on the driving Autobots.
** Carly states that the control pillar is in the southeast cupola; it's actually in the northeast cupola.
** [[Robert Epps|Epps]] can somehow see the Driller plowing through LaSalle Street from the fictional tower, through over a mile of cityscape.
** After escaping from the fictional tower (north of the river), Sam and company are in a Lower Wacker Drive alley south of the river. A whole segment will subsequently focus on how they are trapped north of the river.
** Epps and company then duck into an abandoned church: City Methodist, located in Gary, Indiana.
** Sam encounters and kills [[Starscream (Movie)|Starscream]] in a parking lot whose real-world location is, again, south of the river (Wabash at Lake). (The adjacent garage was demolished in 2012.)
** To attack [[Shockwave (Movie)|Shockwave]] and [[Barricade (Movie)|Barricade]], Lennox and his team run into the Tribune Tower, but then jump out of the Trump Tower.
** The under-construction building where Optimus Prime (using his jetpack) gets entangled in cables is the {{w|China Central Television Headquarters}} in [[Beijing]], [[China]]. Construction for the CCTV building was finished in 2008, long before ''Dark of the Moon'' was even ''conceived''.

===Chicago in ''Age of Extinction''===
* Many of the downtown Chicago landmarks seen in ''Dark of the Moon'' re-appear in the sequel. In particular, the Tribune Tower has its crest destroyed ''again'', while the Willis (née Sears) Tower is once again the focal point of some aerial acrobatics.
* The offices of KSI are portrayed by the main concourse of the McCormick Place Convention Center.
* Chicago's abandoned Damen Avenue grain elevators, located along the Sanitary & Ship Canal, are repurposed as an industrial site in Hong Kong during the film's climactic final battle.
* The near west side's St. Boniface Church—also abandoned—makes a brief appearance as the site of Yeager's lab.
* The Uptown Theater—also abandoned (detecting a trend here?)—was another filming location.
* The scene of the Autobots gathered near some steam locomotives to hear Brains' exposition about Megatron was filmed at the Illinois Railway Museum, in the small town of Union, IL at the outer edges of Chicagoland. Several other scenes were filmed in the surrounding countryside.
{{-}}
==External links==
*{{w|Chicago}} at Wikipedia
*[https://wgntv.com/news/when-its-this-cold-chicago-sets-its-train-tracks-on-fire/ WGNTV's cover on the topic] No seriously, that is a thing.

[[Category:Armada cities]]
[[Category:Age of Extinction cities]]
[[Category:Cities in the United States]]
[[Category:Dark of the Moon cities]]
[[Category:Generation 1 cities]]
[[Category:Real-world human settlements]]
[[Category:The Last Knight cities]]

Chicago

2022-12-17T16:09:56Z

Hammerclaw: /* Movies */

[[File:Otfcc2003-cryotekvschicago.jpg|upright=1.66|thumb|The huge piles of ice are pretty much par for the course. The giant blue dragon, not so much.]]
'''Chicago''' is the biggest city in the American Midwest. It's full of gangsters, burning railways, corrupt politicians, and, on occasion, robots.

==Fiction==
===Generation 1 continuity family===
====''The Transformers'' cartoon====
When held captive on the planet [[Quintessa (planet)|Quintessa]] in the year 2005, [[Spike Witwicky (G1)|Spike Witwicky]] prepared [[Kup (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Kup]] and [[Ultra Magnus (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Ultra Magnus]] for an escape attempt by way of a coded message that involved recalling a [[Mecha-soccer#American_football|football]] match between the [[Lunar Colony]]'s team and "the Bears". Whether the game was held on Earth's moon, in Chicago, or elsewhere is unknown. {{storylink|Five Faces of Darkness, Part 2}}

====''G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers''====
When the [[Teletran 3]] supercomputer went berserk and blasted random Transformers into random points in Earth's timestream, teams of Cobras and G.I. Joe troops pursued them. One such group, consisting of the [[Baroness]], [[Percy]], [[Roadblock (G.I. Joe)|Roadblock]], and [[Beachhead]], materialized in a dingy, dirty, dark city, and narrowly avoided getting run over by two cars full of mugs shooting tommy guns at each other. They'd landed in Prohibition-era Chicago! {{storylink|G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II issue 1|G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II #1}}

The team soon attacked a group of gangsters who were using [[Optimus Prime (G1)|Optimus Prime]] as a truck. Freeing him, they next tracked down the gangsters' boss, the notorious [[Tommy Fingers]]. Fingers's favored watering hole was a jazz club that he owned; the next four Transformers were located in a garage out back.

Through the Baroness's efforts, the team learned that Fingers was planning a bank heist, using a dynamite-loaded truck which just happened to be the last of the missing Transformers. Unfortunately for the humans, one of the four garage-bound Transformers was [[Breakdown (G1)|Breakdown]], who was not at all mode-locked, and he quickly activated his [[Stunticon (G1)|Stunticon]] compatriots. Optimus Prime and the humans fled from the Stunticons in a running firefight through Chicago's streets; the humans blasted down a suspension bridge along the way.

Coming up on the last Transformer, the Baroness blasted the dynamite, activated the Transformer ([[Motormaster (G1)|Motormaster]]), and all the time-displaced combatants returned to their own time. {{storylink|G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II issue 2|G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II #2}}

====2005 IDW continuity====
A counter-[[Infiltration protocol|infiltration]] unit under Prowl's command parked their vessel, the ''[[Ark-19]]'', beneath [[Lake Michigan]], some ten miles northwest of Chicago.

===Panini ''Armada'' comic===
When [[Starscream (Armada)|Starscream]] wanted to draw out the [[Air Defense Mini-Con Team (Armada)|Air Defense Mini-Con Team]] for capture, he blasted a satellite out of orbit. The Mini-Con trio managed to stop the falling satellite from smashing into downtown Chicago's forest of skyscrapers a mere ten seconds before impact, then carried it away and dropped it into [[Lake Michigan]]. {{storylink|Panini Armada issue 5|Panini Armada issue 5}}

===Live-action film series===
====Movies====
{{note|The five movies are the primary component of the live-action movie continuity family. Their events should be taken as canon for all other pieces of fiction listed below, unless otherwise specified.}}
=====''Dark of the Moon'' film=====
[[File:DarkoftheMoon-Chicago.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.66|Bad Cryotek! Very bad Cryotek!]]
After taking [[Carly Spencer]] captive, [[Dylan Gould]] headed to Chicago. [[Sentinel Prime (ROTF)|Sentinel Prime]] also headed to Chicago to set up few of the space bridge pillars. Needing privacy to conduct their work, [[Megatron (Movie)|Megatron]] ordered a huge Decepticon invasion force take over Chicago. Several [[mothership]]s arrived to disgorge a large number of [[Orbital Assault Carrier]]s, while ground forces took to the streets. A huge portion of the city's population was slaughtered when the Decepticons sealed off the city.

[[Sam Witwicky]] headed there to rescue Carly with the help of the ex-[[NEST]] soldier [[Robert Epps]] and a few other ex-NEST comrades. After taking a look at the Decepticon-fortified Chicago, Robert Epps realized that they had no chance of surviving all that, but Sam pressed on. As Epps attempted to dissuade Sam from rescuing Carly, Sam asked what they should do, and Epps admitted that they had to give up. Soon afterward, an Orbital Assault Carrier attacked the group. Just after killing several civilians and nearly killing Sam and Epps, the fighter was shot down. Sam and Epps looks behind them to see their savior—[[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]], who gave his own answer to Sam's question: kill every last Decepticon. The Wreckers [[Leadfoot (DOTM)|Leadfoot]], [[Topspin (DOTM)|Topspin]], and [[Roadbuster (DOTM)|Roadbuster]] proceeded to execute the pilot by tearing it to pieces.

Optimus then explained why they had feigned departure; they needed to fool the world's leaders that they were gone, so they could see the truth behind the Decepticons. As the rest of the Autobots arrived on scene, Sam inquired as to how they survived, to which Roadbuster and Leadfoot explained that the Autobots hid in the boosters of their ship, the [[Xantium (DOTM)|Xantium]], which splashed in the Atlantic, and then they traveled to Chicago from there. Wheelie and Brains then reiterated that Autobots would never leave Earth, and Optimus announced that they needed an element of surprise, to which Sam said he knew where to look.

[[File:DOTM-SentinelandMegatron.jpg|thumb|upright=1.66|Sentinel and his new hobo friend.]]
Asking if Bumblebee could fly the downed Orbital Assault Carrier (which he replied with a hand shrug) Bumblebee and Sam departed for Dylan Gould's penthouse suite. Inside, Carly observed an argument between Sentinel and Megatron on the other building using a telescope. Sneaking in through the balcony, Sam confronted Gould, but [[Laserbeak (DOTM)|Laserbeak]] attacked Sam as Carly appeared, then threw him over the balcony. Bumblebee's captured Orbital Assault Carrier caught Sam, who urged Carly to jump. With the boy and his girl safely secured, Bumblebee opened fire on the human collaborators, but Laserbeak sent a mini-drone dispatched by the [[United States military]] into one of the Orbital Assault Carrier's thrusters, then attacked Sam. Pinning Laserbeak above the gun turret, Sam told Bumblebee to fire, killing the aerial Decepticon before they crash-landed onto the ground. As Dylan frantically ran about the streets shouting that the Autobots were alive, Megatron ordered the Decepticon to raise the bridges into the city and find the Autobots.

Reuniting with the Autobots and ex-NEST soldiers, the group was able to use the mini-drone to warn the powers that be about Sentinel and Megatron's plan to transport Cybertron to the Sol system. Colonel [[William Lennox]] mobilized NEST for a drop into a city using wing suits. Realizing that they had to destroy the [[pillar]]s, Epps team and the Autobots head into the city, but were attacked by [[Shockwave (Movie)|Shockwave]] and the [[Driller]], separating Prime from his trailer carrying his weapons. Optimus agreed to take the Autobots on a diversionary attack while Epps and his team made their way to a skyscraper with the necessary height and clear line of fire, but not before [[Wheeljack (Movie)|Que]] gave them some urban combat weapons, the boom-sticks and grapple gloves. In distracting Shockwave, Wheelie and Brains became separated from the Autobots.

[[File:830px-Dotm-shockwave&driller-film-chicago.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.4|Driller-bot is thirsty. What the hell?]]
Following this, Lennox and the NEST forces arrived in the city, but were forced to wing-suit in. As [[Starscream (Movie)|Starscream]] lead the aerial counter-attack, the NEST soldiers abandoned the plane, gliding away until they lost the Decepticons in a tilted building. Once Epps team made their way to the right floor for the shot, the Decepticon Orbital Assault Carriers began shooting the building, causing the portion above the line of fire to begin collapsing. A Decepticon scout jumped into the building, forcing Epps to throw a grenade to distract it long enough for the humans to slide down the windows, just barely falling into the floors below. One soldier was not so lucky, and the debris fell around Shockwave. Knowing that there were humans inside, Shockwave ordered the Driller to begin eating the building, causing it to collapse onto another nearby building. As the humans evacuated onto the fire-escape on the other building, Optimus Prime, having recovered his flight tech, managed to kill the Driller, saving the humans from pursuit. Furious with the death of his pet, Shockwave fired a cluster of missiles at Optimus, causing him to become tangled in some cables as the [[Wreckers]] came to his rescue.

[[File:Dotm Starscream BOOM.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|Like this is so unfamiliar to me.]]
At this point, Sentinel Prime gave the order to launch the pillars into orbit, at the same time as Wheelie and Brains discovered a downed Orbital Assault Carrier. While Epps and his team made their way through the streets, Sam and Carly continued on in another direction. To a position where Starscream spotted them. Relishing a chance to torment a long thorn in the Decepticons side, Starscream had some fun tormenting and threatening Sam. This allowed Sam a chance to use the grapple glove given to him by Que, hitting the [[Air Commander]]'s right [[sensor|optic]]. Starscream began flailing around in pain, tossing Sam through a window, which allowed him to arm a boom-stick. The commotion attracted the attention of Lennox and the NEST forces. Just as Lennox arrived, Sam managed to jump on Starscream's head and jam the boom-stick into his left eye. Now completely blind, Starscream lost whatever control he had left and began flailing about trying to get the boom-stick out. Lennox grabbed the rope Sam's glove was attached to, but was unable to cut it. they managed to hit the release mere seconds before the boom-stick went off, which killed Starscream, but nearly fell to their deaths, only just saved by Bumblebee. Once they were sure Starscream was dead, Bumblebee went ahead to the edge of the river.

[[File:Dotm-decepticoncarrier-film-city.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.4|''Chicago! Chicago! That explodin' town Chicago, Chicago! I will shoot it all down.'']]

By the time the two human teams reached the bridge, a SEAL team arrived, informing Lennox of inbound TOMAHAWK missiles, and the military had accessed local security cameras. What they found was not encouraging: most of the Autobots had been taken captive by Decepticons lead by [[Soundwave (ROTF)|Soundwave]]. Realizing that the humans needed to get across the river, [[Dutch (DOTM)|Dutch]] was able to hack the bridge controls and lower the bridge. Unfortunately, the orbiting pillars reached the necessary coordinates, and the ground based pillars began opening the space bridge. While this was going on, Wheelie and Brains managed to board a Decepticon cruiser and make their way to the control center. At the holding area, Dylan Gould was shocked that the Decepticons were taking prisoners, and encouraged them to kill the Autobots. [[File:DOTMQuegetsit.jpg|thumb|upright=1.95|''They have the end, the end of their life I saw a man, he got shot at and died In Chicago, my home town!'']]
Soundwave happily concurred, declaring "no prisoners, only trophies". Ordering Que to his feet, the Autobot scientist was gunned down by [[Barricade (Movie)|Barricade]] while begging for mercy. Sam tried to activate a boom-stick, but it was damaged. Just as Soundwave was about to execute Bumblebee, Orbital Assault Carriers from the hijacked cruiser began crashing to the ground. The Autobots and Decepticons scrambled for cover, and Bumblebee was able to kill Soundwave in the ensuring confusion, then escape with the others. However, the cruiser carrying Wheelie and Brains crashed into the river, presumably killing the duo.

[[File:DOTMScrapper.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.66|''On State Street, that late street, I just want to say They blow up things they don't blow up on Broadway'']]
Meeting up with some army troopers, Lennox and Epps's teams took positions for a strike on the Decepticons, who were investigating Soundwave's last stand. As Lennox's team parachuted in, Barricade was reprimanding the protoforms for allowing the Autobots to escape when snipers began firing at the Decepticons optics. Momentarily blinded, the several demolitions teams were able to attach explosives to the Decepticons feet, crippling Barricade and several protoforms enough for the humans to kill them. As the Decepticons returned fire, Lennox and his men parachuted onto Shockwave, with one trooper seriously damaging the large Decepticon, while Epps team opened fire on full auto, seriously disorienting Shockwave. With this, the Autobots arrived and attacked. Despite the promising opening, sheer firepower was on the Decepticons side, keeping the Autobots and NEST from reaching the pillars. Declaring that Earth was theirs, Sentinel Prime fully activated the space bridge, and Cybertron began appearing in orbit. Just then, Optimus Prime, freed from the cables, arrived and quite literally tore through every Decepticon standing between him and Sentinel. Finally reaching Shockwave, Optimus punched out half of his chest, then tore his eye out through his head. Firing Shockwave's cannon at the control pillar, Optimus brought down a small part of the building, interrupting the transport and leaving Cybertron in half.

[[File:Autobots vs Sentinel.jpg|thumb|upright=1.66|"Um, Sentinel? We're over here!" "You sure you want him to remember us? My ass feels pretty kicked."]]
Optimus then demanded that Sentinel confront him, and a furious Sentinel was only too willing to oblige. Using his [[Primax Blade]] to descend the building, Sentinel was dumbfounded that Optimus still sided with the humans, but Optimus countered that Sentinel was the one who taught him freedom was the right of all sentient beings. Drawing a [[Dual Energon Swords|sword]] and [[Energon-axe]], Optimus engaged Sentinel, who vowed to reactivate the pillar, while Sam went off to try and reach it first. With the tide turning, the Autobots, NEST, and the military pushed forward. When Optimus started to get the upper hand over Sentinel, the elder Prime called in the Orbital Assault Carriers to attack Optimus. ''All'' the Orbital Assault Carriers. NEST was able to make contact with the remote guided TOMAHAWK missiles, which were five minutes out. With the Orbital Assault Carriers attacking Optimus, the Wreckers attacking the incoming ground Decepticons, and the rest of the Autobots engaging Sentinel, no Decepticons were left to reactivate the pillar, which fell to a cowering Dylan Gould. With the Orbital Assault Carriers on the verge of overwhelming Optimus, NEST was able to guide the missiles to the fighters, downing them.

As Sam made his way to the pillar, he encountered Gould, who tried to stop him at gunpoint. Sam tried to reason with the human agent, but Gould said there only one future for him. As some papers obstructed his vision, Sam attacked, but Gould was still able to reactivate the pillar. Megatron, allowing his [[Lensmeter Decepticon]]s to repair him, rested easily as Carly approached the [[Lord High Protector]]. Carly then pointed out that while the Decepticons were conquering Earth, their leader would not be Megatron, but Sentinel Prime. Megatron was within a hair of killing her when he realized she was ''right''. Meanwhile, Sentinel, under fire from more or less ''everything'' at this point, realized that he was losing and fled with Optimus hot on his heels. At the same time, Gould overpowered Sam, knocking him out cold. Optimus caught up with Sentinel at a bridge and the two fought once again. However, when Sentinel severed Optimus's right arm and knocked him to the ground, it came apparent that Optimus was not stronger then his mentor. Lamenting over how the [[Dynasty of Primes]] had been gods on Cybertron, Sentinel declared that on Earth, there could only be one.

[[File:DOTM space bridge collapse.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.55]]
Just as Sentinel was about to deliver the killing blow, an infuriated Megatron came in firing—at Sentinel, letting loose several thousand years of parental issues out. Sam quickly reappeared, and promptly killed Gould with the pillar itself. The Autobots overwhelmed the last Decepticon, and Ratchet and Bumblebee destroyed the pillar. The effects were instantaneous: not only were the remaining Decepticon ships pulled out of Chicago and into the collapsing space bridge, but the space bridge's collapse destroyed Cybertron in the process. Seeing the plan had failed, Megatron slyly proposed a truce with Optimus, his only stipulation remaining [[Decepticon leader]]. Megatron was confident Optimus would accept; they had fought for so long, who was Optimus Prime without Megatron? Optimus declared that he would find out. Picking up his discarded axe, Optimus jammed the weapon into Megatron's head, then tore it off, killing Megatron. The badly wounded Sentinel pleaded for mercy, explaining that all he wanted was to save the Cybertronian race, which was why he betrayed his former pupil. Optimus claimed it was never about betraying Optimus; by allying with Megatron and planning to enslave humanity, Sentinel had betrayed himself. With bitter regret, Optimus Prime raised Megatron's fusion shotgun and executed Sentinel Prime.

[[File:DOTM Autobots NEST victorious.jpg|thumb|280px]]
With the battle over, Sam and Carly reunited, and with Cybertron lost, the Autobots accepted that Earth was now their home. {{storylink|Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Dark of the Moon}}

=====''Age of Extinction'' film=====
Chicago proved to be the final tipping point in an already strained relationship between humans and Cybertronians. The United States government officially terminated all joint Autobot-human operations, replacing them with [[Harold Attinger]]'s [[Cemetery Wind]], a [[CIA]] unit tasked with hunting down the surviving Decepticons, whilst the Autobots were granted asylum on Earth. In reality, and under the White House's nose, Cemetery Wind hunted Autobot and Decepticon alike, holding both factions responsible for the loss of life in Chicago, forcing the Autobots underground. During the subsequent cleanup and rebuilding effort, Chicago proved to be a lucrative opportunity to salvage discarded alien technology, and several world governments and independent corporations began reverse-engineering Cybertronian tech.

Five years after the battle, Chicago had returned to its former glory, with a refurbished skyline. Perhaps as a result of easy access to Cybertronian artifacts and [[Living metal|transformium]], [[Kinetic Solutions Incorporated]] built its American division in the city. They were eventually visited by [[Cade Yeager]] and the surviving Autobots, who had hijacked a KSI drone and traced it back to its company of origin. Optimus Prime, angered by the mutilation of his former comrades, ordered an assault on the company, but his team voluntarily fell back after a confrontation with [[Joshua Joyce]], and left the city.

After Prime was captured by [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]] the bounty hunter met up with [[James Savoy]] to hand over the [[Seed]]. Needless to say, the presence of a giant alien spaceship caused mass hysteria in the streets and the military scrambled fighters to intercept but were ensured that the ship was not there to cause any harm by Harold Attinger. The Autobots later infiltrated Lockdown's ship to rescue Prime and the following battle slightly spilled over into the city's airspace. The ship later left - but without a section which set off in another direction.
{{storylink|Transformers: Age of Extinction (film)|Age of Extinction}}
{{-}}

=====''The Last Knight'' film=====
[[Izabella]] was orphaned during the battle of Chicago, as her parents were killed by Decepticons while she was away from home. By the time Cemetery Wind was exposed and replaced by the [[Transformers Reaction Force]], much of Chicago was still uninhabitable.

Under more government-organised work, the TRF proved to be a liability in the fight against [[Quintessa (TLK)|Quintessa]]. When Cade talked some sense into them, revealing that the real reason humanity turned on the Autobots after Chicago was because they simply gave up on them, the TRF realigned themselves as allies of the Autobots. {{storylink|Transformers: The Last Knight (film)|The Last Knight}}

=====‘’Bumblebee'' film=====
Chicago makes a honorable cameo while Bumblebee in [[Charlie Watson]]’s garage is watching the movie The Breakfast Club. {{storylink|Bumblebee (film)|Bumblebee}}

====''Dark of the Moon'' Annual====
[[NEST Satellite Orion]] detected the highest [[energon]] reading in Chicago, suggesting that the Decepticons were using the tall buildings as an interstellar transmission site. {{storylink|Transformers Dark of the Moon Annual 2012}}

====Ask Vector Prime====
In [[Tyran 609.23-PX Kappa]], Megatron also seized Chicago with the aid of collaborationist humans to set up the space bridge technology to bring Cybertron into Earth orbit. {{storylink|Ask Vector Prime}}

====''Studio Series'' toy bios====
[[Thundercracker (Movie)|Thundercracker]] participated in an areal assault on the Autobots during the battle of Chicago.

==Video games==
===''Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark''===
Chicago is invaded by Lockdowns mercenaries in search of the Dark Spark throughout the beginning and ending of the game. {{storylink|Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark}}

===''Transformers: Forged to Fight''===
[[File:ChicagosSteakhouse.jpg|right|thumb|200px]]
A demolished Chicago is used as an arena on [[New Quintessa]]. Keep an eye out for [[Chicagos Steakhouse]]! {{storylink|Transformers: Forged to Fight}}
{{-}}

==Notes==
* Out here in the real world, Chicago has twice played host to the official Transformers convention, as [[OTFCC 2003]] and [[OTFCC 2004]] both occurred there.
* Chicago also hosts the annual Wizard World Chicago convention, which frequently features a Hasbro Transformers display booth similar to what's seen at [[BotCon]].
* The package and bio for Thundercracker's ''[[Studio Series]]'' toy marks him as being from ''Dark of the Moon'', ostensibly as one of the numerous Decepticons who space-bridged in from the Moon and participated in the battle of Chicago.

===Chicago in ''Dark of the Moon''===
* Chicago filming for ''[[Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Dark of the Moon]]'' commenced July 10, 2010 and continued through August 19.
[[File:Dotm Protoform.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|Not such a Magnificent Mile for Que.]]
[[File:DOTM Autobots NEST victorious.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|Prime now gets a sign that reads ''Dunmurderin'''.]]
[[File:DOTM NEST HQ.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|The fictional universe of ''Transformers'' includes giant talking alien space robots and, far less credibly, a repeal of DC's building height restrictions.]]
* Many Chicago landmarks "appear as themselves" during ''Dark of the Moon''. Virtually every landmark on the downtown skyline is visible at some point. Buildings of significance in the film include:
** [[Trump Tower]]: the recently completed glass tower is where Dylan has his apartment.
** [[35 East Wacker]] (aka the Jewelers Building): the cupola'd building where Sentinel sets up the control pillar. It is directly across the Chicago River from the Trump Tower, accurately portrayed when Carly observes Megatron and Sentinel. Megatron is also shown sitting at its real-world base after (presumably) getting thrown off by Sentinel.
** McCormick Place Busway: the sunken street in Grant Park is where Sam and Epps enter the city amid the fleeing population.
** {{w|Navy Pier}}: prominently visible as the helicopters approach the city.
** {{w|Aon Center (Chicago)|Aon Center}}: the vertically-striped white building prominently visible during the [[wingsuit]]ers' descent.
** The {{w|Chicago River}}: much of the action centers around the river and its movable bridges; the carrier ship crashes there.
** {{w|Willis Tower}} (previously Sears Tower): used by Lennox's wingsuit team for cover.
** {{w|Tribune Tower}}: the Gothic-styled building whose crest is crumbled by the crashing troop carrier ship. Also used as a launch pad for Decepticons who attack the wingsuit team, and later as a base for Lennox's sniper team.
** {{w|Wrigley Building}}: visible in various shots; most notably, the prisoner sequence occurs on Michigan Avenue in front of it.
** {{w|La Salle Street Bridge|LaSalle Street Bridge}}: scene of Optimus and Sentinel's final fight.
[[File:DOTM-Mexicanstandoff.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|Silly robots! The {{w|Lower West Side, Chicago#Pilsen|Mexican neighborhoods}} are like 2 miles west.]]
* Several additional filming locations in Chicago were repurposed as other sites, mostly set in [[Washington, D.C.]]:
** The abandoned south side Rosenwald Apartment Building appears as part of [[Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant|Chernobyl]], as Optimus arrives and the soldiers disembark, and where [[Alexi Voskhod]] meets his end shortly afterwards.
** The {{w|Old Chicago Main Post Office|Old Main Post Office}} is repurposed as NEST Headquarters in Washington D.C., with a digitally added helipad and smokestacks. The building's east loading docks appears several times, most notably when Sentinel announces his betrayal.
** North Garland Court, an alleyway between Wabash and Michigan Avenues, is used as the Washington D.C. street where Sam and Carly live.
** A section of {{w|Indiana State Road 912|Highway 912}} (Cline Avenue, closed since 2009) near Gary in northwest Indiana fills in for the D.C. Parkway. A highway sign added by the filmmakers contains signage for exits to I-88 westbound (about twenty miles north and west) and Business Route 20/State Street (two hours west in Rockford, IL!)
** The Mexican standoff occurs on S. Indiana Avenue, in front of the McCormick Place Convention Center's westernmost building. A star-shaped auto parts store sign, digitally inserted in to the scene, is actually located a couple of blocks west on State Street.
[[File:Dotm-driller-film-hudsontower.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|Michael Bay decides that we are now in a post-post-9/11 world.]]
[[File:DOTM-Wreckers-Prime-Cables.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|Optimus Prime was captured by the Chinese.]]
* Various discontinuities occur within the landscape of downtown Chicago during ''Dark of the Moon''. While not errors per se—such geographic splicing is common within films, and they do not affect the internal storyline—they are still of note:
** Most significantly, the movie's most prominent set piece—the skyscraper that gets shot in half and partially collapsed by the Driller, with our heroes still inside it—is not an actual building in Chicago. In a couple of shots, it is shown to be sited near the Chicago River just north of the NBC Tower, but the actual location is a parking lot.
** Detroit's abandoned {{w|Packard plant}} is digitally spliced into Chicago's landscape, south of downtown, as the backdrop as Epps and Sam argue, come under attack, and are reunited with the Autobots.
** The wingsuit team launches from the Willis Tower, on the west end of downtown. Successive shots show them passing the Aon Center (a good mile or more east), then City Hall (in the ''center'' of downtown) heading south, then back to the Aon Center, then north and west to Michigan Avenue.
** The abandoned {{w|Michigan Central Station}} in [[Detroit]] makes its second live-action appearance, this time as a Chicago building, where Prime and company retreat after the Driller's attack on the driving Autobots.
** Carly states that the control pillar is in the southeast cupola; it's actually in the northeast cupola.
** [[Robert Epps|Epps]] can somehow see the Driller plowing through LaSalle Street from the fictional tower, through over a mile of cityscape.
** After escaping from the fictional tower (north of the river), Sam and company are in a Lower Wacker Drive alley south of the river. A whole segment will subsequently focus on how they are trapped north of the river.
** Epps and company then duck into an abandoned church: City Methodist, located in Gary, Indiana.
** Sam encounters and kills [[Starscream (Movie)|Starscream]] in a parking lot whose real-world location is, again, south of the river (Wabash at Lake). (The adjacent garage was demolished in 2012.)
** To attack [[Shockwave (Movie)|Shockwave]] and [[Barricade (Movie)|Barricade]], Lennox and his team run into the Tribune Tower, but then jump out of the Trump Tower.
** The under-construction building where Optimus Prime (using his jetpack) gets entangled in cables is the {{w|China Central Television Headquarters}} in [[Beijing]], [[China]]. Construction for the CCTV building was finished in 2008, long before ''Dark of the Moon'' was even ''conceived''.

===Chicago in ''Age of Extinction''===
* Many of the downtown Chicago landmarks seen in ''Dark of the Moon'' re-appear in the sequel. In particular, the Tribune Tower has its crest destroyed ''again'', while the Willis (née Sears) Tower is once again the focal point of some aerial acrobatics.
* The offices of KSI are portrayed by the main concourse of the McCormick Place Convention Center.
* Chicago's abandoned Damen Avenue grain elevators, located along the Sanitary & Ship Canal, are repurposed as an industrial site in Hong Kong during the film's climactic final battle.
* The near west side's St. Boniface Church—also abandoned—makes a brief appearance as the site of Yeager's lab.
* The Uptown Theater—also abandoned (detecting a trend here?)—was another filming location.
* The scene of the Autobots gathered near some steam locomotives to hear Brains' exposition about Megatron was filmed at the Illinois Railway Museum, in the small town of Union, IL at the outer edges of Chicagoland. Several other scenes were filmed in the surrounding countryside.
{{-}}
==External links==
*{{w|Chicago}} at Wikipedia
*[https://wgntv.com/news/when-its-this-cold-chicago-sets-its-train-tracks-on-fire/ WGNTV's cover on the topic] No seriously, that is a thing.

[[Category:Armada cities]]
[[Category:Age of Extinction cities]]
[[Category:Cities in the United States]]
[[Category:Dark of the Moon cities]]
[[Category:Generation 1 cities]]
[[Category:Real-world human settlements]]
[[Category:The Last Knight cities]]

Chicago

2022-12-17T16:00:53Z

Hammerclaw: /* Video games */

[[File:Otfcc2003-cryotekvschicago.jpg|upright=1.66|thumb|The huge piles of ice are pretty much par for the course. The giant blue dragon, not so much.]]
'''Chicago''' is the biggest city in the American Midwest. It's full of gangsters, burning railways, corrupt politicians, and, on occasion, robots.

==Fiction==
===Generation 1 continuity family===
====''The Transformers'' cartoon====
When held captive on the planet [[Quintessa (planet)|Quintessa]] in the year 2005, [[Spike Witwicky (G1)|Spike Witwicky]] prepared [[Kup (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Kup]] and [[Ultra Magnus (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Ultra Magnus]] for an escape attempt by way of a coded message that involved recalling a [[Mecha-soccer#American_football|football]] match between the [[Lunar Colony]]'s team and "the Bears". Whether the game was held on Earth's moon, in Chicago, or elsewhere is unknown. {{storylink|Five Faces of Darkness, Part 2}}

====''G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers''====
When the [[Teletran 3]] supercomputer went berserk and blasted random Transformers into random points in Earth's timestream, teams of Cobras and G.I. Joe troops pursued them. One such group, consisting of the [[Baroness]], [[Percy]], [[Roadblock (G.I. Joe)|Roadblock]], and [[Beachhead]], materialized in a dingy, dirty, dark city, and narrowly avoided getting run over by two cars full of mugs shooting tommy guns at each other. They'd landed in Prohibition-era Chicago! {{storylink|G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II issue 1|G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II #1}}

The team soon attacked a group of gangsters who were using [[Optimus Prime (G1)|Optimus Prime]] as a truck. Freeing him, they next tracked down the gangsters' boss, the notorious [[Tommy Fingers]]. Fingers's favored watering hole was a jazz club that he owned; the next four Transformers were located in a garage out back.

Through the Baroness's efforts, the team learned that Fingers was planning a bank heist, using a dynamite-loaded truck which just happened to be the last of the missing Transformers. Unfortunately for the humans, one of the four garage-bound Transformers was [[Breakdown (G1)|Breakdown]], who was not at all mode-locked, and he quickly activated his [[Stunticon (G1)|Stunticon]] compatriots. Optimus Prime and the humans fled from the Stunticons in a running firefight through Chicago's streets; the humans blasted down a suspension bridge along the way.

Coming up on the last Transformer, the Baroness blasted the dynamite, activated the Transformer ([[Motormaster (G1)|Motormaster]]), and all the time-displaced combatants returned to their own time. {{storylink|G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II issue 2|G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II #2}}

====2005 IDW continuity====
A counter-[[Infiltration protocol|infiltration]] unit under Prowl's command parked their vessel, the ''[[Ark-19]]'', beneath [[Lake Michigan]], some ten miles northwest of Chicago.

===Panini ''Armada'' comic===
When [[Starscream (Armada)|Starscream]] wanted to draw out the [[Air Defense Mini-Con Team (Armada)|Air Defense Mini-Con Team]] for capture, he blasted a satellite out of orbit. The Mini-Con trio managed to stop the falling satellite from smashing into downtown Chicago's forest of skyscrapers a mere ten seconds before impact, then carried it away and dropped it into [[Lake Michigan]]. {{storylink|Panini Armada issue 5|Panini Armada issue 5}}

===Live-action film series===
====Movies====
{{note|The five movies are the primary component of the live-action movie continuity family. Their events should be taken as canon for all other pieces of fiction listed below, unless otherwise specified.}}
=====''Dark of the Moon'' film=====
[[File:DarkoftheMoon-Chicago.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.66|Bad Cryotek! Very bad Cryotek!]]
After taking [[Carly Spencer]] captive, [[Dylan Gould]] headed to Chicago. [[Sentinel Prime (ROTF)|Sentinel Prime]] also headed to Chicago to set up few of the space bridge pillars. Needing privacy to conduct their work, [[Megatron (Movie)|Megatron]] ordered a huge Decepticon invasion force take over Chicago. Several [[mothership]]s arrived to disgorge a large number of [[Orbital Assault Carrier]]s, while ground forces took to the streets. A huge portion of the city's population was slaughtered when the Decepticons sealed off the city.

[[Sam Witwicky]] headed there to rescue Carly with the help of the ex-[[NEST]] soldier [[Robert Epps]] and a few other ex-NEST comrades. After taking a look at the Decepticon-fortified Chicago, Robert Epps realized that they had no chance of surviving all that, but Sam pressed on. As Epps attempted to dissuade Sam from rescuing Carly, Sam asked what they should do, and Epps admitted that they had to give up. Soon afterward, an Orbital Assault Carrier attacked the group. Just after killing several civilians and nearly killing Sam and Epps, the fighter was shot down. Sam and Epps looks behind them to see their savior—[[Optimus Prime (Movie)|Optimus Prime]], who gave his own answer to Sam's question: kill every last Decepticon. The Wreckers [[Leadfoot (DOTM)|Leadfoot]], [[Topspin (DOTM)|Topspin]], and [[Roadbuster (DOTM)|Roadbuster]] proceeded to execute the pilot by tearing it to pieces.

Optimus then explained why they had feigned departure; they needed to fool the world's leaders that they were gone, so they could see the truth behind the Decepticons. As the rest of the Autobots arrived on scene, Sam inquired as to how they survived, to which Roadbuster and Leadfoot explained that the Autobots hid in the boosters of their ship, the [[Xantium (DOTM)|Xantium]], which splashed in the Atlantic, and then they traveled to Chicago from there. Wheelie and Brains then reiterated that Autobots would never leave Earth, and Optimus announced that they needed an element of surprise, to which Sam said he knew where to look.

[[File:DOTM-SentinelandMegatron.jpg|thumb|upright=1.66|Sentinel and his new hobo friend.]]
Asking if Bumblebee could fly the downed Orbital Assault Carrier (which he replied with a hand shrug) Bumblebee and Sam departed for Dylan Gould's penthouse suite. Inside, Carly observed an argument between Sentinel and Megatron on the other building using a telescope. Sneaking in through the balcony, Sam confronted Gould, but [[Laserbeak (DOTM)|Laserbeak]] attacked Sam as Carly appeared, then threw him over the balcony. Bumblebee's captured Orbital Assault Carrier caught Sam, who urged Carly to jump. With the boy and his girl safely secured, Bumblebee opened fire on the human collaborators, but Laserbeak sent a mini-drone dispatched by the [[United States military]] into one of the Orbital Assault Carrier's thrusters, then attacked Sam. Pinning Laserbeak above the gun turret, Sam told Bumblebee to fire, killing the aerial Decepticon before they crash-landed onto the ground. As Dylan frantically ran about the streets shouting that the Autobots were alive, Megatron ordered the Decepticon to raise the bridges into the city and find the Autobots.

Reuniting with the Autobots and ex-NEST soldiers, the group was able to use the mini-drone to warn the powers that be about Sentinel and Megatron's plan to transport Cybertron to the Sol system. Colonel [[William Lennox]] mobilized NEST for a drop into a city using wing suits. Realizing that they had to destroy the [[pillar]]s, Epps team and the Autobots head into the city, but were attacked by [[Shockwave (Movie)|Shockwave]] and the [[Driller]], separating Prime from his trailer carrying his weapons. Optimus agreed to take the Autobots on a diversionary attack while Epps and his team made their way to a skyscraper with the necessary height and clear line of fire, but not before [[Wheeljack (Movie)|Que]] gave them some urban combat weapons, the boom-sticks and grapple gloves. In distracting Shockwave, Wheelie and Brains became separated from the Autobots.

[[File:830px-Dotm-shockwave&driller-film-chicago.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.4|Driller-bot is thirsty. What the hell?]]
Following this, Lennox and the NEST forces arrived in the city, but were forced to wing-suit in. As [[Starscream (Movie)|Starscream]] lead the aerial counter-attack, the NEST soldiers abandoned the plane, gliding away until they lost the Decepticons in a tilted building. Once Epps team made their way to the right floor for the shot, the Decepticon Orbital Assault Carriers began shooting the building, causing the portion above the line of fire to begin collapsing. A Decepticon scout jumped into the building, forcing Epps to throw a grenade to distract it long enough for the humans to slide down the windows, just barely falling into the floors below. One soldier was not so lucky, and the debris fell around Shockwave. Knowing that there were humans inside, Shockwave ordered the Driller to begin eating the building, causing it to collapse onto another nearby building. As the humans evacuated onto the fire-escape on the other building, Optimus Prime, having recovered his flight tech, managed to kill the Driller, saving the humans from pursuit. Furious with the death of his pet, Shockwave fired a cluster of missiles at Optimus, causing him to become tangled in some cables as the [[Wreckers]] came to his rescue.

[[File:Dotm Starscream BOOM.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|Like this is so unfamiliar to me.]]
At this point, Sentinel Prime gave the order to launch the pillars into orbit, at the same time as Wheelie and Brains discovered a downed Orbital Assault Carrier. While Epps and his team made their way through the streets, Sam and Carly continued on in another direction. To a position where Starscream spotted them. Relishing a chance to torment a long thorn in the Decepticons side, Starscream had some fun tormenting and threatening Sam. This allowed Sam a chance to use the grapple glove given to him by Que, hitting the [[Air Commander]]'s right [[sensor|optic]]. Starscream began flailing around in pain, tossing Sam through a window, which allowed him to arm a boom-stick. The commotion attracted the attention of Lennox and the NEST forces. Just as Lennox arrived, Sam managed to jump on Starscream's head and jam the boom-stick into his left eye. Now completely blind, Starscream lost whatever control he had left and began flailing about trying to get the boom-stick out. Lennox grabbed the rope Sam's glove was attached to, but was unable to cut it. they managed to hit the release mere seconds before the boom-stick went off, which killed Starscream, but nearly fell to their deaths, only just saved by Bumblebee. Once they were sure Starscream was dead, Bumblebee went ahead to the edge of the river.

[[File:Dotm-decepticoncarrier-film-city.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.4|''Chicago! Chicago! That explodin' town Chicago, Chicago! I will shoot it all down.'']]

By the time the two human teams reached the bridge, a SEAL team arrived, informing Lennox of inbound TOMAHAWK missiles, and the military had accessed local security cameras. What they found was not encouraging: most of the Autobots had been taken captive by Decepticons lead by [[Soundwave (ROTF)|Soundwave]]. Realizing that the humans needed to get across the river, [[Dutch (DOTM)|Dutch]] was able to hack the bridge controls and lower the bridge. Unfortunately, the orbiting pillars reached the necessary coordinates, and the ground based pillars began opening the space bridge. While this was going on, Wheelie and Brains managed to board a Decepticon cruiser and make their way to the control center. At the holding area, Dylan Gould was shocked that the Decepticons were taking prisoners, and encouraged them to kill the Autobots. [[File:DOTMQuegetsit.jpg|thumb|upright=1.95|''They have the end, the end of their life I saw a man, he got shot at and died In Chicago, my home town!'']]
Soundwave happily concurred, declaring "no prisoners, only trophies". Ordering Que to his feet, the Autobot scientist was gunned down by [[Barricade (Movie)|Barricade]] while begging for mercy. Sam tried to activate a boom-stick, but it was damaged. Just as Soundwave was about to execute Bumblebee, Orbital Assault Carriers from the hijacked cruiser began crashing to the ground. The Autobots and Decepticons scrambled for cover, and Bumblebee was able to kill Soundwave in the ensuring confusion, then escape with the others. However, the cruiser carrying Wheelie and Brains crashed into the river, presumably killing the duo.

[[File:DOTMScrapper.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.66|''On State Street, that late street, I just want to say They blow up things they don't blow up on Broadway'']]
Meeting up with some army troopers, Lennox and Epps's teams took positions for a strike on the Decepticons, who were investigating Soundwave's last stand. As Lennox's team parachuted in, Barricade was reprimanding the protoforms for allowing the Autobots to escape when snipers began firing at the Decepticons optics. Momentarily blinded, the several demolitions teams were able to attach explosives to the Decepticons feet, crippling Barricade and several protoforms enough for the humans to kill them. As the Decepticons returned fire, Lennox and his men parachuted onto Shockwave, with one trooper seriously damaging the large Decepticon, while Epps team opened fire on full auto, seriously disorienting Shockwave. With this, the Autobots arrived and attacked. Despite the promising opening, sheer firepower was on the Decepticons side, keeping the Autobots and NEST from reaching the pillars. Declaring that Earth was theirs, Sentinel Prime fully activated the space bridge, and Cybertron began appearing in orbit. Just then, Optimus Prime, freed from the cables, arrived and quite literally tore through every Decepticon standing between him and Sentinel. Finally reaching Shockwave, Optimus punched out half of his chest, then tore his eye out through his head. Firing Shockwave's cannon at the control pillar, Optimus brought down a small part of the building, interrupting the transport and leaving Cybertron in half.

[[File:Autobots vs Sentinel.jpg|thumb|upright=1.66|"Um, Sentinel? We're over here!" "You sure you want him to remember us? My ass feels pretty kicked."]]
Optimus then demanded that Sentinel confront him, and a furious Sentinel was only too willing to oblige. Using his [[Primax Blade]] to descend the building, Sentinel was dumbfounded that Optimus still sided with the humans, but Optimus countered that Sentinel was the one who taught him freedom was the right of all sentient beings. Drawing a [[Dual Energon Swords|sword]] and [[Energon-axe]], Optimus engaged Sentinel, who vowed to reactivate the pillar, while Sam went off to try and reach it first. With the tide turning, the Autobots, NEST, and the military pushed forward. When Optimus started to get the upper hand over Sentinel, the elder Prime called in the Orbital Assault Carriers to attack Optimus. ''All'' the Orbital Assault Carriers. NEST was able to make contact with the remote guided TOMAHAWK missiles, which were five minutes out. With the Orbital Assault Carriers attacking Optimus, the Wreckers attacking the incoming ground Decepticons, and the rest of the Autobots engaging Sentinel, no Decepticons were left to reactivate the pillar, which fell to a cowering Dylan Gould. With the Orbital Assault Carriers on the verge of overwhelming Optimus, NEST was able to guide the missiles to the fighters, downing them.

As Sam made his way to the pillar, he encountered Gould, who tried to stop him at gunpoint. Sam tried to reason with the human agent, but Gould said there only one future for him. As some papers obstructed his vision, Sam attacked, but Gould was still able to reactivate the pillar. Megatron, allowing his [[Lensmeter Decepticon]]s to repair him, rested easily as Carly approached the [[Lord High Protector]]. Carly then pointed out that while the Decepticons were conquering Earth, their leader would not be Megatron, but Sentinel Prime. Megatron was within a hair of killing her when he realized she was ''right''. Meanwhile, Sentinel, under fire from more or less ''everything'' at this point, realized that he was losing and fled with Optimus hot on his heels. At the same time, Gould overpowered Sam, knocking him out cold. Optimus caught up with Sentinel at a bridge and the two fought once again. However, when Sentinel severed Optimus's right arm and knocked him to the ground, it came apparent that Optimus was not stronger then his mentor. Lamenting over how the [[Dynasty of Primes]] had been gods on Cybertron, Sentinel declared that on Earth, there could only be one.

[[File:DOTM space bridge collapse.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.55]]
Just as Sentinel was about to deliver the killing blow, an infuriated Megatron came in firing—at Sentinel, letting loose several thousand years of parental issues out. Sam quickly reappeared, and promptly killed Gould with the pillar itself. The Autobots overwhelmed the last Decepticon, and Ratchet and Bumblebee destroyed the pillar. The effects were instantaneous: not only were the remaining Decepticon ships pulled out of Chicago and into the collapsing space bridge, but the space bridge's collapse destroyed Cybertron in the process. Seeing the plan had failed, Megatron slyly proposed a truce with Optimus, his only stipulation remaining [[Decepticon leader]]. Megatron was confident Optimus would accept; they had fought for so long, who was Optimus Prime without Megatron? Optimus declared that he would find out. Picking up his discarded axe, Optimus jammed the weapon into Megatron's head, then tore it off, killing Megatron. The badly wounded Sentinel pleaded for mercy, explaining that all he wanted was to save the Cybertronian race, which was why he betrayed his former pupil. Optimus claimed it was never about betraying Optimus; by allying with Megatron and planning to enslave humanity, Sentinel had betrayed himself. With bitter regret, Optimus Prime raised Megatron's fusion shotgun and executed Sentinel Prime.

[[File:DOTM Autobots NEST victorious.jpg|thumb|280px]]
With the battle over, Sam and Carly reunited, and with Cybertron lost, the Autobots accepted that Earth was now their home. {{storylink|Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Dark of the Moon}}

=====''Age of Extinction'' film=====
Chicago proved to be the final tipping point in an already strained relationship between humans and Cybertronians. The United States government officially terminated all joint Autobot-human operations, replacing them with [[Harold Attinger]]'s [[Cemetery Wind]], a [[CIA]] unit tasked with hunting down the surviving Decepticons, whilst the Autobots were granted asylum on Earth. In reality, and under the White House's nose, Cemetery Wind hunted Autobot and Decepticon alike, holding both factions responsible for the loss of life in Chicago, forcing the Autobots underground. During the subsequent cleanup and rebuilding effort, Chicago proved to be a lucrative opportunity to salvage discarded alien technology, and several world governments and independent corporations began reverse-engineering Cybertronian tech.

Five years after the battle, Chicago had returned to its former glory, with a refurbished skyline. Perhaps as a result of easy access to Cybertronian artifacts and [[Living metal|transformium]], [[Kinetic Solutions Incorporated]] built its American division in the city. They were eventually visited by [[Cade Yeager]] and the surviving Autobots, who had hijacked a KSI drone and traced it back to its company of origin. Optimus Prime, angered by the mutilation of his former comrades, ordered an assault on the company, but his team voluntarily fell back after a confrontation with [[Joshua Joyce]], and left the city.

After Prime was captured by [[Lockdown (ROTF)|Lockdown]] the bounty hunter met up with [[James Savoy]] to hand over the [[Seed]]. Needless to say, the presence of a giant alien spaceship caused mass hysteria in the streets and the military scrambled fighters to intercept but were ensured that the ship was not there to cause any harm by Harold Attinger. The Autobots later infiltrated Lockdown's ship to rescue Prime and the following battle slightly spilled over into the city's airspace. The ship later left - but without a section which set off in another direction.
{{storylink|Transformers: Age of Extinction (film)|Age of Extinction}}
{{-}}

=====''The Last Knight'' film=====
[[Izabella]] was orphaned during the battle of Chicago, as her parents were killed by Decepticons while she was away from home. By the time Cemetery Wind was exposed and replaced by the [[Transformers Reaction Force]], much of Chicago was still uninhabitable.

Under more government-organised work, the TRF proved to be a liability in the fight against [[Quintessa (TLK)|Quintessa]]. When Cade talked some sense into them, revealing that the real reason humanity turned on the Autobots after Chicago was because they simply gave up on them, the TRF realigned themselves as allies of the Autobots. {{storylink|Transformers: The Last Knight (film)|The Last Knight}}

====''Dark of the Moon'' Annual====
[[NEST Satellite Orion]] detected the highest [[energon]] reading in Chicago, suggesting that the Decepticons were using the tall buildings as an interstellar transmission site. {{storylink|Transformers Dark of the Moon Annual 2012}}

====Ask Vector Prime====
In [[Tyran 609.23-PX Kappa]], Megatron also seized Chicago with the aid of collaborationist humans to set up the space bridge technology to bring Cybertron into Earth orbit. {{storylink|Ask Vector Prime}}

====''Studio Series'' toy bios====
[[Thundercracker (Movie)|Thundercracker]] participated in an areal assault on the Autobots during the battle of Chicago.

==Video games==
===''Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark''===
Chicago is invaded by Lockdowns mercenaries in search of the Dark Spark throughout the beginning and ending of the game. {{storylink|Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark}}

===''Transformers: Forged to Fight''===
[[File:ChicagosSteakhouse.jpg|right|thumb|200px]]
A demolished Chicago is used as an arena on [[New Quintessa]]. Keep an eye out for [[Chicagos Steakhouse]]! {{storylink|Transformers: Forged to Fight}}
{{-}}

==Notes==
* Out here in the real world, Chicago has twice played host to the official Transformers convention, as [[OTFCC 2003]] and [[OTFCC 2004]] both occurred there.
* Chicago also hosts the annual Wizard World Chicago convention, which frequently features a Hasbro Transformers display booth similar to what's seen at [[BotCon]].
* The package and bio for Thundercracker's ''[[Studio Series]]'' toy marks him as being from ''Dark of the Moon'', ostensibly as one of the numerous Decepticons who space-bridged in from the Moon and participated in the battle of Chicago.

===Chicago in ''Dark of the Moon''===
* Chicago filming for ''[[Transformers: Dark of the Moon (film)|Dark of the Moon]]'' commenced July 10, 2010 and continued through August 19.
[[File:Dotm Protoform.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|Not such a Magnificent Mile for Que.]]
[[File:DOTM Autobots NEST victorious.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|Prime now gets a sign that reads ''Dunmurderin'''.]]
[[File:DOTM NEST HQ.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|The fictional universe of ''Transformers'' includes giant talking alien space robots and, far less credibly, a repeal of DC's building height restrictions.]]
* Many Chicago landmarks "appear as themselves" during ''Dark of the Moon''. Virtually every landmark on the downtown skyline is visible at some point. Buildings of significance in the film include:
** [[Trump Tower]]: the recently completed glass tower is where Dylan has his apartment.
** [[35 East Wacker]] (aka the Jewelers Building): the cupola'd building where Sentinel sets up the control pillar. It is directly across the Chicago River from the Trump Tower, accurately portrayed when Carly observes Megatron and Sentinel. Megatron is also shown sitting at its real-world base after (presumably) getting thrown off by Sentinel.
** McCormick Place Busway: the sunken street in Grant Park is where Sam and Epps enter the city amid the fleeing population.
** {{w|Navy Pier}}: prominently visible as the helicopters approach the city.
** {{w|Aon Center (Chicago)|Aon Center}}: the vertically-striped white building prominently visible during the [[wingsuit]]ers' descent.
** The {{w|Chicago River}}: much of the action centers around the river and its movable bridges; the carrier ship crashes there.
** {{w|Willis Tower}} (previously Sears Tower): used by Lennox's wingsuit team for cover.
** {{w|Tribune Tower}}: the Gothic-styled building whose crest is crumbled by the crashing troop carrier ship. Also used as a launch pad for Decepticons who attack the wingsuit team, and later as a base for Lennox's sniper team.
** {{w|Wrigley Building}}: visible in various shots; most notably, the prisoner sequence occurs on Michigan Avenue in front of it.
** {{w|La Salle Street Bridge|LaSalle Street Bridge}}: scene of Optimus and Sentinel's final fight.
[[File:DOTM-Mexicanstandoff.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|Silly robots! The {{w|Lower West Side, Chicago#Pilsen|Mexican neighborhoods}} are like 2 miles west.]]
* Several additional filming locations in Chicago were repurposed as other sites, mostly set in [[Washington, D.C.]]:
** The abandoned south side Rosenwald Apartment Building appears as part of [[Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant|Chernobyl]], as Optimus arrives and the soldiers disembark, and where [[Alexi Voskhod]] meets his end shortly afterwards.
** The {{w|Old Chicago Main Post Office|Old Main Post Office}} is repurposed as NEST Headquarters in Washington D.C., with a digitally added helipad and smokestacks. The building's east loading docks appears several times, most notably when Sentinel announces his betrayal.
** North Garland Court, an alleyway between Wabash and Michigan Avenues, is used as the Washington D.C. street where Sam and Carly live.
** A section of {{w|Indiana State Road 912|Highway 912}} (Cline Avenue, closed since 2009) near Gary in northwest Indiana fills in for the D.C. Parkway. A highway sign added by the filmmakers contains signage for exits to I-88 westbound (about twenty miles north and west) and Business Route 20/State Street (two hours west in Rockford, IL!)
** The Mexican standoff occurs on S. Indiana Avenue, in front of the McCormick Place Convention Center's westernmost building. A star-shaped auto parts store sign, digitally inserted in to the scene, is actually located a couple of blocks west on State Street.
[[File:Dotm-driller-film-hudsontower.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|Michael Bay decides that we are now in a post-post-9/11 world.]]
[[File:DOTM-Wreckers-Prime-Cables.jpg|thumb|upright=2.2|Optimus Prime was captured by the Chinese.]]
* Various discontinuities occur within the landscape of downtown Chicago during ''Dark of the Moon''. While not errors per se—such geographic splicing is common within films, and they do not affect the internal storyline—they are still of note:
** Most significantly, the movie's most prominent set piece—the skyscraper that gets shot in half and partially collapsed by the Driller, with our heroes still inside it—is not an actual building in Chicago. In a couple of shots, it is shown to be sited near the Chicago River just north of the NBC Tower, but the actual location is a parking lot.
** Detroit's abandoned {{w|Packard plant}} is digitally spliced into Chicago's landscape, south of downtown, as the backdrop as Epps and Sam argue, come under attack, and are reunited with the Autobots.
** The wingsuit team launches from the Willis Tower, on the west end of downtown. Successive shots show them passing the Aon Center (a good mile or more east), then City Hall (in the ''center'' of downtown) heading south, then back to the Aon Center, then north and west to Michigan Avenue.
** The abandoned {{w|Michigan Central Station}} in [[Detroit]] makes its second live-action appearance, this time as a Chicago building, where Prime and company retreat after the Driller's attack on the driving Autobots.
** Carly states that the control pillar is in the southeast cupola; it's actually in the northeast cupola.
** [[Robert Epps|Epps]] can somehow see the Driller plowing through LaSalle Street from the fictional tower, through over a mile of cityscape.
** After escaping from the fictional tower (north of the river), Sam and company are in a Lower Wacker Drive alley south of the river. A whole segment will subsequently focus on how they are trapped north of the river.
** Epps and company then duck into an abandoned church: City Methodist, located in Gary, Indiana.
** Sam encounters and kills [[Starscream (Movie)|Starscream]] in a parking lot whose real-world location is, again, south of the river (Wabash at Lake). (The adjacent garage was demolished in 2012.)
** To attack [[Shockwave (Movie)|Shockwave]] and [[Barricade (Movie)|Barricade]], Lennox and his team run into the Tribune Tower, but then jump out of the Trump Tower.
** The under-construction building where Optimus Prime (using his jetpack) gets entangled in cables is the {{w|China Central Television Headquarters}} in [[Beijing]], [[China]]. Construction for the CCTV building was finished in 2008, long before ''Dark of the Moon'' was even ''conceived''.

===Chicago in ''Age of Extinction''===
* Many of the downtown Chicago landmarks seen in ''Dark of the Moon'' re-appear in the sequel. In particular, the Tribune Tower has its crest destroyed ''again'', while the Willis (née Sears) Tower is once again the focal point of some aerial acrobatics.
* The offices of KSI are portrayed by the main concourse of the McCormick Place Convention Center.
* Chicago's abandoned Damen Avenue grain elevators, located along the Sanitary & Ship Canal, are repurposed as an industrial site in Hong Kong during the film's climactic final battle.
* The near west side's St. Boniface Church—also abandoned—makes a brief appearance as the site of Yeager's lab.
* The Uptown Theater—also abandoned (detecting a trend here?)—was another filming location.
* The scene of the Autobots gathered near some steam locomotives to hear Brains' exposition about Megatron was filmed at the Illinois Railway Museum, in the small town of Union, IL at the outer edges of Chicagoland. Several other scenes were filmed in the surrounding countryside.
{{-}}
==External links==
*{{w|Chicago}} at Wikipedia
*[https://wgntv.com/news/when-its-this-cold-chicago-sets-its-train-tracks-on-fire/ WGNTV's cover on the topic] No seriously, that is a thing.

[[Category:Armada cities]]
[[Category:Age of Extinction cities]]
[[Category:Cities in the United States]]
[[Category:Dark of the Moon cities]]
[[Category:Generation 1 cities]]
[[Category:Real-world human settlements]]
[[Category:The Last Knight cities]]